The vice president of German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) has confirmed area studies, as an emerging field of research, could help China to better make detailed policies when dealing with each of its partners in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Patrick Koellner said area studies specifically meant research on topics, which are meaningful beyond a particular world region, and are relevant both in academia and policy-making.

"It is also a huge opportunity for specialists of the research field to make greater contributions to the country in its efforts of gaining global influence," he said.

"Especially, area studies of particular countries could help promote bilateral mutual understanding".

Koellner's comments were made at a joint academic workshop, held between the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) and GIGA, in Beijing on Saturday. The title of the workshop was Area Studies: From Academic Knowledge Production to Policy Relevance. It was sponsored by the university's Young Faculty Research Fund, and designed to promote discussions in the role area studies could play in policy-making and how it could help China to gain more global influence.

Koellner also added area studies meant studying each of the world's regions, namely its culture, history and characteristics of its people.

Wu Jiang, associate professor at the German Department of BFSU, who hosted the meeting, said the meaning of area studies for the Belt and Road Initiative could never be overestimated.

"We need a deeper understanding, not only of the world as a whole but also of the nations' we hope to co-work with," she said.

She was echoed by Jia Wenjian, vice president of BFSU, who added area studies helped to promote the mutual understanding of multiple cultures.

"Area studies are really important for promoting the mutual understanding of multiple cultures," he said at the workshop.

"That's why we take area studies as one of our top priorities in BFSU."

Zhou Hong, vice chair of the Institute of European Studies and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said area studies played a major role in China's reform and opening-up policy. Having retrospect in the 1980s, she added how Chinese scholars made thorough studies of European countries, one by one, when establishing diplomatic relationships with them.

Discussions about former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died on Friday, also rose at the workshop. Professor Wang Jianbin, head of the BFSU German Department, talked about how he acted as the translator for Kohl, and his wife, during their trip to China. He said he also supported Kohl's strong support for one-China policy during his term.

"His death is a huge loss, not only to Europe, but also to China," Wang said.

zhangzhouxiang@chinadaily.com.cn
CAIRO  A former Alexander County Housing Authority manager awarded a $108,000 settlement after he claimed he was discriminated against as an employee said he was shocked to later learn about what transpired at the agency where he worked from media reports.

Joe Williams, of Cairo, said he worked for the housing authority for 15 to 20 years through early 2014, the last six years of which he served as site manager of the Elmwood and McBride family developments.

In June 2013, Williams, who is black, filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights and U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for  as it is described in a release of claims documents  his failure to be hired as executive director.

In January 2014, Williams was terminated and the next month he received the $108,000 settlement, according to records obtained by The Southern in May in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The terms of the settlement, signed in February 2014, called for Williams to receive $1,500 a month for six years, with payments beginning the month prior. That means he is to receive payments through the end of 2019 under the terms of the agreement negotiated on his behalf by the Laborers Local 773, the union representing ACHA employees.

Williams, who spoke to the newspaper on Thursday by phone, said he couldnt discuss the particulars of the settlement.

Thats part of the clause they had in the agreement with the lawyers and stuff, he said, but added, It was discrimination, no doubt about it. In settling the discrimination claim, the ACHA did not admit fault.

The timeline of events involving the executive directors post from 2011 to 2015 resulted in a hefty payout for three people, according to the newspapers review of public records. In total, the local agency agreed to terms that materialized into payments of about $275,000 for Williams, and former executive directors James Wilson and Martha Franklin as the agency spiraled into insolvency.

This is the fourth in the newspaper's 'Nearly Bankrupt' series detailing what went wrong with the ACHA as 185 families are being forced to move from their subsidized apartments in Cairo.

Williams was not the only one to receive a settlement stemming from an EEOC discrimination claim, according to a HUD review, but his agreement was the only such record obtained by the newspaper in its public records request. In HUDs 2014 review, the federal agency cited the ACHA for improperly charging EEOC settlement costs to program funds. Presumably because of its size, Williams' settlement agreement also was the only one specifically noted in an April 2017 financial review of the ACHA discussing its troubled financial status.

In its 2014 review, HUD wrote that the ACHA "did not comply with regulations for proper payments of fines, penalties, damages and settlements from program funds, and that the housing authority did "not have a cash flow/budget for all of the retirement payouts and EEOC payments identifying how these will be paid and where they will be charged in the annual budget..."

Williams said he did not know anything about deals between Wilson and Franklin. Williams said he filed the discrimination claim after Franklin assumed the executive director post and he was not afforded an interview. Records back up the time frame he describes for having filed his discrimination claims.

He also said he didnt know about the alleged misspending by top managers on trips and fancy dinners and other excessive or unnecessary expenses. Williams said that he has been just as surprised as everyone else to read about it in The Southern Illinoisan.

Williams said he wasnt part of the inner circle. He said he knew Wilson only as a boss.

Wilson was the ACHA director from 1989 to 2013, and continued to collect payment from the local housing authority through various arrangements until early 2015.

Williams discrimination claim was discussed briefly in a 2014 report by Housing and Urban Developments Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, which stated that the local agency was in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits discrimination in programs receiving federal dollars.

On the subject of labor, the FHEO review revealed that the ACHA has a documented history of discriminating against African-American employees, the review stated. Furthermore, it is relevant that a number of EEOC complaints have recently been filed alleging racial discrimination, and that none of the supervisory employees are African-American."

Black workers made less than white workers despite more experience and tougher assignments, HUD review found CAIRO  Despite more experience and tougher assignments, black workers employed by the Alexa

The ACHA had an opportunity to affect diversity when the position of executive director became available yet it chose to promote the former executive directors assistant, Martha Franklin (who is white), over an African-American manager, Joe Williams.

In the footnotes, the report stated that the review did not assess Williams specific qualifications for the position. The report also noted that the position was not advertised to external candidates.

Asked about his employment history, Williams said it was difficult to keep it straight as to which jobs he held during which years. He has held a variety of jobs within the housing authority, Alexander County and city of Cairo.

At first, Williams said he worked at the housing authority for more than 20 years. If he left in 2014, that would mean he started about 1994. Asked if that time frame sounded correct, Williams clarified that it might have been 15 years that he was on the payroll of the ACHA. The other time I was just kind of there until a job opened or something. Asked to clarify what he meant, Williams said that in the five years prior to being hired on officially, he served as a volunteer at Elmwood and McBride and did some maintenance work and things like that and kinda worked my way up.

Williams, who said he is in his 50s, said he began his career in his early 20s as a deputy for the Alexander County Sheriffs Office. After that, he worked for the Cairo Police Department, he said. Williams said he couldnt recall those dates of service.

He also said he worked for a number of years at City Hall, as the public relations officer for the mayor. Williams said he did that for six or seven years, beginning in the 1990s. At this time, Wilson was serving in dual roles as director of the ACHA and mayor.

The website of Williams Funeral Home Inc. also lists Williams as a 30-year employee. His biography on the business' website also said Williams has served as deputy coroner of Alexander County and assistant mayor of Cairo.

Asked if his role at City Hall that he called "public relations" also could be characterized as assistant to the mayor, Williams responded, Basically, pretty much like that.

During the conversation about his work history, Williams clarified that as best he could recall, he went to work for the housing authority about 2001. He said it would have been a conflict of interest to hold both jobs at the same time, so he knows there was no overlap. He said that when he transitioned to the housing authority, a manger who was not Wilson but whose name he could not recall, interviewed him and then recommended him for the job.

For years, Williams has lived across the street from Wilson, on 27th Street in Cairo. He said that while hes known Wilson for a long time, he now feels like maybe he didnt really know him as well as he thought.

I dont know him very well at all, I guess, Williams said. I just knew him at face value, you know.

Williams said his primary complaint about the executive director position was that he was not even granted an interview for the position. He said he read in the newspaper that Wilson said that Franklins highest level of education is a GED. Williams said he has an associates and bachelors degree, from Shawnee Community College and Southern Illinois University, respectively. He said his associates degree is in public relations, public speaking and management.

Williams said his SIU degree is a Bachelor of Arts. Asked what program he graduated from, Williams said it was "another that was basically a management type of situation, management, because thats what I did a lot of. Asked to further clarify the field, he said, It was pretty much a business type of degree. Williams said he couldnt recall what year he graduated, but he said it would have been maybe early/late '80s, early '90s, maybe somewhere around there.

Williams said one of the things he was shocked to read about was all the travel to destination cities in the name of training that Wilson and other top managers and board members participated in. Williams said when he saw that in the paper he thought, good lord. Williams said he went on a couple of trips but that he didnt really want to go. He said he went because his boss told him he needed to.

If they tell you youre going on a trip, youre going on a trip, he said.

An organizational chart obtained by The Southern shows that Williams was a co-site manager of AMP 1, which refers to Elmwood and McBride, the two family housing developments from which federal officials are in the process of moving close to 400 people because they have become unsafe. Wilson is listed as co-site manager of AMP 1 with Williams, in addition to his role as executive director.

Williams said the trainings he did attend were helpful to his job, which included overseeing maintenance at Elmwood and McBride as well as lease enforcement and other duties. He said he could only remember one trip he went on as an ACHA employee. He said he couldnt remember where he went, but thought it might have been to South Carolina. Chuckling a little, Williams said, in jest, he wished he could have gone on some of the nice trips detailed in the newspapers stories about alleged misspending about the ACHA, because he said the trainings he went to destination cities and did not include any extras outside of the training.

Records obtained by the newspaper, both travel vouchers and an Excel file tracking which employees attended what trainings, show that Williams attended six trainings between 2009 and 2012 with Wilson and others. In 2009, he traveled to Nashville, Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon. In 2010, he attended trainings in Washington, D.C.; Decatur, Illinois; and Reno, Nevada. In 2012 he traveled with Wilson, Franklin and others to Las Vegas.

Asked if he resigned or was fired from the ACHA in 2014, Williams responded with both. Pressed further to explain, he said, It was just a vicious cycle. It was really a vicious cycle. Thats really one of the reasons I cant really talk about too much of that. It was a vicious cycle, you know. I tried to leave and they said, no, were going to fire you but whatever. It didnt matter.

Asked whether he continues to receive any payments related to other government positions hes held at the city or county, Williams said he couldnt talk about that either.

At the end of a nearly 20-minute interview, Williams said his heart goes out to the people suffering at Elmwood and McBride, the complexes he managed. He said the buildings are old and and therefore have long had problems, but he said they seem to have really gone downhill since he left his position as manager of Elmwood and McBride.

Williams said knowing what he does now about the situation, he sees a lot of blame to go around among top management, of which he said he was not a part.

Basically what I figured went wrong is they had, from my eye sight, they just had people there that didnt know what they were doing. And then they had friends and friends. I found out more about the housing after the investigation went on then I did then the whole time I was there.
Carbondale Police responded at 7:06 p.m. on Friday to the 400 block of E. Ashley for a report of shots fired. No injuries were reported.

The police believe the incident may be related to the previous shots fired call from the morning of June 10. Police have a person of interest in the shots fire call from Friday.

There is now a Jackson County arrest warrant for possession of a firearm by a felon, for Rahsaan D. Graham Jr. in connection to the shots fired call from June 10. Graham is to be considered armed and dangerous.

Anyone with information about either incident, or knows the whereabouts of Graham, is encouraged to contact the Police Department at (618) 457-3200 or Crime Stoppers at (618) 549-COPS (2677).

The Carbondale Police were assisted by the SIU Police Department and the Illinois State Police.

-- The Southern
Editor's note: Names are not used in this story to ensure the privacy of the individuals involved.

There was a comfortable familiarity about the place, the busyness of people speaking in a different language, men walking quickly pushing small, mobile luggage carts, checking to see if someone needed help. Even the large dolphin decorations arranged in a circular pattern in front of the airport were familiar, even though still not understood. For some reason, dolphins are a decorative theme here, but no one seems to know the answer why. Maybe because Afghanistan is landlocked, and some artist thought this was a refreshing reminder of water. Who knows?

This was my fourth visit to Afghanistan, this time serving as a mental health media advisor. My task was to help promote mental health awareness, via a television documentary, in this nation where depression and anxiety diagnoses abound, surely exacerbated by almost 40 years of war.

On a personal note, this was the first major media project I had worked on in years since leaving behind my broadcasting career and becoming a registered nurse. This opportunity would allow me to utilize skills from two diverse academic fields, psychiatric nursing and media. It was enough of a challenge to keep me awake.

The first step was research. Although data regarding Afghanistan is not readily available, the World Health Organization and the United Nations provided some of the most reliable recent information. How do you show a statistic estimating that 2,300 Afghan women and girls, between the ages of 15 and 40, commit suicide each year? Or, that 87 percent of women in Afghanistan have experienced at least one incidence of domestic abuse?

The best way, it seemed, was to show the people who were affected. We videotaped the following exchange between a psychiatrist and a depressed female patient, who admitted she wanted to commit suicide and had a plan.

Doctor: Why has this problem gotten worse?

Patient: Because I was alone and there is nothing.

Doctor: You said your sister passed away?

Patient: Yes.

Doctor: How did she pass away?

Patient: She burned herself.

Doctor: After your sister passed away, you became like this?

Patient: Yes.

Some causes of depression specifically involve young girls and women, according to Afghan psychiatrist M.H.

"Family violence will be in different types, including forced marriage, or underage marriage. It will be a root cause of depression. The first cause of forced marriage will be poverty. This kind of family cannot support their family with their income. They will force their daughters to marry, even underage. This underage marriage can cause depression," M.H. said.

Another cause of depression is that girls can be used as goods to mediate feuds between families, according to the psychiatrist.

"It will be negative for the girl. Then, that girl goes to that family, and they tell her, 'You are not important because your family didn't want you,'" MH said.

Family violence impacts every member of the family. Another Afghan psychiatrist, M.T., said, "I saw children who committed suicide. In one family, a 12-year-old girl shot herself with a gun due to their family problems. Their father was an addict and was violent to his children and their mother. Many of the family members became depressed. And in this house, there was a girl about 8 years old who also tried to commit suicide. If the family hadn't seen her, she would have."

There are many reasons why someone can be depressed. Childhood trauma can cause post-traumatic stress disorder in adults. One woman said that when she was a child, two brothers and an uncle set explosives on themselves and blew themselves up within two days. Then, injured people, missing hands and feet, were brought to their home, and she was given bloody bandages to give to the older women to wash.

If the mother has depression, this has a negative impact on the children.

"One of the issues is that the mothers of the children are not as strong. When there is violence in the family, the mother of the family becomes weak, and then she cannot support her children. Then, when she cannot support the children, the children will become depressed. The tolerance of the mother will become low, and she cannot tolerate the children. Then she will hit or maybe inflict violence on her children," M.H. said.

One of the patients diagnosed with depression said she is better able to care for her children now that she has had counseling.

"Before if the children were noisy, I was unhappy and I shouted at them. When, I shouted, it had a bad effect on me. Now, I am much better. I understand my children now, but before I didn't know. I thought they understood at my level and my age. I thought they knew everything. I thought they should know like the elders. Now, I understand they are children and they can understand only according to their age. Now, I think my behavior is better than at that time," she said.

Afghanistan does not have an insurance system, and medications are not prescribed for depression unless the diagnosis is severe. Patients are encouraged to participate in 15 sessions of counseling if their depression is diagnosed as mild or medium. Patients said counseling helped them to get well.

"I went to many doctors and one time I went to Pakistan because in Pakistan, my situation had become really serious  When I (returned to Afghanistan), I saw that the medication did not have an effect on me  When I came here (mental health clinic) and saw their work, I saw they did work in a professional way, and that encouraged me. I trusted them. And I thought that they could help me. After two or three sessions, I realized it was beneficial and I came to the right place," a male patient diagnosed with depression said.

A depressed female patient said, "In Afghanistan, we know that because of war, explosions, suicides, kidnappings, many people face mental health problems. They should change their vision toward the mental health hospital and come to solve their problems."

Afghans still need to overcome the stigma that mental illness is shameful and seek treatment. There is also a need for education as people have misunderstandings about mental health illnesses and medical knowledge in general.

For example, parents do not want to accept that there is no cure for mental retardation. When they are told this, families will then travel to Iran, Pakistan or India to seek treatment that does not exist. After much expense, and heartache, they are given the same information -- that there is no cure for mental retardation.

Another example is epilepsy, treatable with anti-seizure medication. Instead, people will visit self-proclaimed healers who ask for a sheep, goat, or $300, to heal their loved one. The healer informs the patient that he will pray for the amount of healing based on the amount of money that is spent. So, in order to obtain the best healing, a poor person will borrow money from family members to give to the healer.

Educating people to understand that medication can help control seizures is important to add security to an insecure nation such as Afghanistan. People who have epilepsy continue to drive not only personal vehicles, but in some cases, buses, as they have jobs as bus drivers.

In many healthcare environments, restraints are used when patients are psychotic, but there is something about seeing people restrained with thick metal chains at the ankles that is unsettling to the spirit. In Afghanistan, it is not an uncommon practice for schizophrenic or psychotic patients to be chained in this way. I noticed this to be a theme in the mental illness literature. Although brochures are written in Persian, drawings accompanying the psychosis sections featured people tied to a tree or chained by the ankles. When someone is psychotic, I was told it is standard practice for family members to chain or lock him up in a room. Again, education is vital to teach families that long-acting medications are available to help schizophrenic patients to function somewhat independently.

I visited a mental health facility for psychotic patients. During the planned visit, I saw patients sitting unnaturally in neat rows, lined up against the walls of the compound, a few chained to each other. This was better, I was told, than being shackled to a rusted metal pole, the other option. One patient had been a patient at the facility for 14 years.

I asked if I could take photos of their chains if I didn't take photos of their faces. I was told to take photos of their faces. The reason why, I began to understand, is that no one cares for these vulnerable and forgotten people. I was told that no one ever visits them, that their families leave a phone number and say to call if there is a problem. I was told that families never call, they never visit.

I greeted the patients. Some responded with a smile, one with a peace sign. But one patient stood out from the rest. Chained to another patient, he had a few small scratches on his face and a larger, fresh cut breaking the skin on the top of his nose.

I asked him if it was okay to take his picture, and he tried to stand. As I noticed a guard reaching out to pull him back to the ground, I told him it was okay, that he didn't need to stand. But, the patient insisted on standing as if he wanted me to know he is still a human being, a man, although he is chained.

Healthcare workers, government and school officials in Afghanistan are working together to help promote mental health awareness in a proactive, coordinated effort to improve the lives of the people. As one doctor said, "Prevention is cheaper than treatment."

I am grateful to have the privilege of serving in such a capacity to help promote mental health awareness through media in a nation where people suffer incredibly due to war. The young students I visited at a school all expressed hope of a different world with peace.

The seventh- and 12th-grade girls all wanted to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, economists and journalists. The seventh-grade students said all girls should be allowed to continue school beyond seventh grade, as some parents discontinue the girls' education at that time. A 12th-grade student asked that Afghans not leave their country, but stay and rebuild it.

Through various challenges, the TV documentary was completed on the last day of my month-long visit. We produced two versions, a Dari version to be broadcast on the Asia Television network and an English version. Both are scheduled to be uploaded to YouTube.
CLEMSON  If there is one word that defines the National FFA Organization, it is opportunity.

This is the one word that kept resurfacing during the annual South Carolina FFA Convention held at Clemson University June 7-9. The one word that kept coming up as leaders and others discussed the organization and what it has meant for them was opportunity. About 1,000 members attended the convention.

DeShawn Blanding, the first FFA national officer from South Carolina since 1967, appeared at the convention so that he could tell others about opportunities hes had since becoming an FFA member his freshman year in high school. Blanding is the FFA southern region vice president for 2016-2017.

Ive been in FFA since my freshman year of high school, said Blanding, from Manning, who is now in college. When I started participating in FFA, I was an overweight boy who didnt have confidence in himself and didnt like speaking in front of large groups. But I joined FFA and found a family of members who encouraged me to take advantage of every opportunity given to me to succeed. I did and now Im a national officer.

Blanding made history when he was elected as one of six college students to head the 2016-17 National FFA Officer Team; hes the first FFA member from Clarendon County to receive such a distinction.

His brother, Darius, was another reason Blanding joined FFA.

When he was growing up, Darius had a stuttering problem, Blanding said. He joined FFA where he was given an opportunity to practice and participate in public speaking. He overcame his stuttering and learned to speak in front of people. He is now at the University of South Carolina Medical School.

Since being elected to the FFA National Officer Team, Blanding has been traveling across the United States touting FFA and the vast amount of opportunities afforded youth who become members. Hes traveled to Japan and hes met with Betsy DeVos, U.S. Secretary of Education, as well as numerous chief executive officers and others.

FFA has been a blessing, Blanding said. It has taught me who I am and who I can be. I am very humbled to be a part of such a fine organization as FFA.

While Blanding is proud to be a member, FFA is proud he is a member. Steve Brown, National FFA advisor, said he is proud to have witnessed Blanding become the fine young man he is today.

DeShawn has evolved since he has been involved with FFA, Brown said. He grows and continues to grow. He exudes confidence and he is a fine example of youth involved in FFA.

Brown said belonging to FFA gives youth opportunities to be a part of something bigger and better.

FFA benefits students by helping them develop skills that will help them throughout life, he said. FFA members learn about leadership, personal growth, as well as how to succeed in careers. They learn how to be employable and earn a sustainable wage so that they can be productive members of society. I encourage all youth to belong to FFA where they will have opportunities to be the best they can be.

FFA is a progressive organization whose members learn to do and do to learn, Brown said. Knowledge FFA members learn today will benefit them in the future, he said.

FFA members have opportunities to develop skill sets that help them learn to live and live to serve, Brown said. We live in an ever-changing world. Agriculture is changing. Our environment is changing. Technology is constantly changing. FFA members have opportunities to develop knowledge and skills to help society learn to adapt to these changes.

Teaching agriculture is one of those skills, which is increasingly important as the number of ag teachers is on the decline. Mariah Swygert and Matthew Bonnette are two FFA members who are coming to Clemson University in the fall to begin their degree paths in agriculture education.

I live on a family farm, said Swygert, 18, of Leesville. I have always been involved in agriculture and I understand how important it is to our society. I love agriculture and I want to teach others to love it as much as I do.

She said she plans to earn her bachelors and masters degrees, then return to her hometown to teach. Her plans also include creating a program to teach agriculture to younger children.

Bonnette, 18, of Chapin also plans to attend Clemson University this fall.

I believe its important everyone understands where our food and fiber comes from so that they can appreciate it more, Bonnette said. I want to teach high school students the same skills I have learned so that they can become educated consumers of agriculture. We all like to eat and wear clothes, and I want to teach people about where their food and clothes come from.

George Askew, dean of the Clemson College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences, said FFA members are just what Americas agricultural industry needs.

I feel joy when I see blue jackets on the Clemson campus, said Askew, in reference to the blue jackets FFA members wear. I am happy because I know the future of agriculture is in good hands.

Clemson President Jim Clements agreed.

When Clemson Agricultural College opened its doors in 1893, there were just 446 students, Clements said. Today, we have almost 25,000 students and we are ranked among the top universities in the United States. Agriculture is strong here at Clemson, and we support all you do. FFA is a great organization that provides great opportunities for youth to succeed.

Also during the convention, state officers were elected for the 2017-2018 year. They are:

Philip Rhodes, state president, Calhoun Falls Charter School

Allison Harman, state secretary, Gilbert High School

Lauren Kirkley, state vice president, McBee High School

Matthew Bonnette, state vice president, Center for Advanced Technical Studies

Samantha Parker, state vice president, Pendleton High School

Christle Tindall, state vice president, Edisto High School

The mission of FFA is to make a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education, said Keith Cox, executive director of the South Carolina FFA Association. FFA chapters are located in middle and high schools, as well as colleges throughout South Carolina.

I encourage students in middle school, high school or college who have an interest in agriculture and leadership, as well as making a difference in their communities, to join their local FFA chapter, Cox said. Being a member of FFA is one of the best, most positive things a young person can do.
A state GOP official encouraged Orangeburg County Republicans to reach out to local students.

We really want to get into South Carolina State, get into Voorhees College, Orangeburg Tech and even the high schools here, said Leslie Lovett, third vice chair of the S.C. GOP.

We need to get into those schools to start a teenage Republican group, he said.

During Thursdays meeting with local Republicans, Lovett encouraged party members to go into areas of the community that they usually wouldnt visit.

A lot of Republicans, they dont go into the areas that they feel like are people who dont look like their selves, he said. Were just alienating people when we do that.

Lovett said they may share the same strong Christian values.

When blacks and white Democrats are more together, theyre much more liberal but when you separate those black Democrats, youll see that they hold more values that are with the Republican Party, he said.

Lovett is the first African American third vice chair of the South Carolina party.

Theres a lot of connotations to being a black Republican even inside the black community, he said. Im not an Uncle Tom. I try to bring in as many black people into it as I can. Im not here to bolster myself up and bring everybody else down.

Kendall McCarty, third vice chair of the Lexington County Republican Party, said voters need to be educated on the partys goals.

As Republicans, weve done a horrible job about educating voters about what we truly believe in, McCarty said. We need to educate voters and educate students that are young about what this party actually means.

Tyler Hughes, chairman of College Republicans of South Carolina, said the party has grown.

A lot of our country still sees the Republican Party as the old white man party but thats not what it is anymore, Hughes said. Were starting to branch out and thats what we need to do. We need to start focusing on other things.

He said the main priority should be focusing on the people.

Stop focusing on what the politicians want, Hughes said. Some people are so partisan on both sides that they cant really see it, but we need to start working together.

Hughes said the party will create plans to speak with younger audiences.

He encourages politicians to hold more town halls where there can be a forum for debates and starting conversations.

Lovett added, Demographics are changing but values arent.

Its time for a more focused message, he said.

Moving forward, Lovett said he wants to see a party with stronger convictions.

Conviction of free markets, conviction of low taxes and conviction of liberty, he said.
The establishment of a 24-hour, freestanding emergency department after the loss of the hospitals in Bamberg and Barnwell counties is being seen as a way to address the changes in rural health care while providing citizens with needed services.

The Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg has proposed building a $8.63 million, 20,500-square-foot emergency department to serve the two counties. Construction could begin as early as this summer on the project that was first announced during a special called meeting of Bamberg County Council on June 12.

Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, Sen. John Matthews, D-Bowman, and Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg, were among the government officials present for the announcement, along with Southern Carolina Alliance Executive Director Danny Black, RMC Board Chairman Melvin Seabrooks and Brenda Williams, vice president of strategy and compliance at RMC.

Columbia-based GMK Associates Inc. is the company handling the architectural design and construction of the facility. Bryant Brown, who serves as a vice president and health care planning consultant at GMK Associates, also attended Mondays meeting.

Health care in rural South Carolina is changing, has been changing and will continue to change. Weve been trying to come up with some ideas of what to do, Hutto said.

The Bamberg County Hospital Board voted to close its hospital's doors in April 2012. Southern Palmetto Hospital, formerly Barnwell County Hospital, announced its closure in January 2016.

The new 24/7 facility will be located on 10 acres of land adjacent to Highway 70 between the cities of Denmark and Barnwell. It will be funded by the state through a one-time, $3.6 million Transformation Fund Grant and additional funds resulting from the regions designation as a persistent poverty area. Other funding has been committed by local community stakeholders.

During the special meeting, Hutto said Southern Carolina Alliance, the economic development group that serves Bamberg and Barnwell counties, is set to close out its purchase of the 10-acre site on June 23, with construction to start shortly thereafter.

Hopefully, construction will start within three months. This time next year, itll be open for business," SCA's Black said.

Hutto said the project vision involves expansion to include mental health and alcohol and drug-treatment services and private physician practices.

We believe the future is bright. We see a positive coming out of this," said Hutto, who welcomed council's input in naming the facility.

The facility will offer 24-hour emergency care to include CT scanning, X-ray and ultrasound diagnostic imaging and lab and observation services.

Brown said the facility will have all the amenities needed for a standard emergency department, including 13 observation rooms, and will be equipped to handle ambulance and walk-in traffic.

Williams said three observation beds will be available to take care of patients overnight. Incoming patients will access not just emergency care, but diagnostic services and outpatient lab and X-ray services, she said.

The projection is five doctors providing services to patients in the emergency department, Williams said.

Hutto said RMCs affiliation with telehealth medical services through a partnership with the Medical University of South Carolina will be a big plus for the new emergency department.

He said individuals in emergency situations will no longer have to travel long distances, adding that the health care desert the region has become will be revitalized and "hopefully benefit everybody."

Bamberg Rescue Squad Operations Manager Martha Hammett said, Yes, we will utilize it. It is good news to us."

Councilman Trent Kinard asked how the facilitys operation would be affected by factors like individuals with no insurance.

Hutto said the state has adjusted the Medicaid reimbursement rate through which RMC receives those funds, with the increased revenue from that incentive serving to keep the operation afloat. Medicaid is the state-run insurance system for low-income residents.

Matthews later said the process of improving health care in the region started approximately 2-1/2 years ago. He said theres no question about the emergency departments sustainability because the state (South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services) has put the proper monetary incentives in place.

We changed RMCs classification from an urban hospital -- which it should have never been -- to a rural hospital, and that changed the reimbursement rate from 47 percent to 80 percent. So in doing that, they asked us to provide health care for the two proposed counties," Matthews said.

We had to build a facility and operate it. They will be operating at a net loss, but the new revenue will cover that. Something is better than nothing. I think its absolutely beneficial to Bamberg and Barnwell counties, and it will also be beneficial to the Regional Medical Center, he said.

Williams said, Were going to get a little enhanced reimbursement for this project. The state sees the need for services in Bamberg and Barnwell counties. The service itself will operate at a loss, but we think our enhanced reimbursements will help us to sustain or support the effort. With the anticipated growth in the area, we are hoping that the payer mix in that area will change over the future and that we will be able to grow the service."

I think its going to make a positive difference in some cases where time is a big factor," she said. "Those areas at this given time cant sustain a hospital. With a freestanding emergency room and a regional hub like the Regional Medical Center being able to take care of those that really need inpatient care and more specialized needs, I think that will certainly serve the community well.

RMC opened an urgent care center in Bamberg in 2013 after the Bamberg County Hospital closed. Hutto said that facility will close once the new emergency department is up and running. Williams said some staff members from the urgent care center will be transferred to the new facility.

Bamberg County Council Chairman Evert Comer Jr. said, Its certainly good news for this area." He noted that while there will be challenges, he is optimistic that even bigger things will stem from the emergency department.

Im sure the hospital wouldnt enter into a venture like that without having looked into every aspect of its viability," Comer said. "I know its going to be over a year before its a reality, but were on that path. So Im satisfied. A hospital would have been better, but it's good that we've got the emergency room coming."

I believe that in rural America, the days of every single county having its hospital have long sailed," Rep. Bamberg said. "Twenty-four-hour emergency departments are the future of emergency medicine in rural and less-privileged areas as far as economics and population size.

The legislator said he is not concerned about the facilitys financial future.

All business ventures have risks ... this is most certainly a risk worth taking. What I anticipate us seeing is that this venture is going to be successful and can serve as somewhat of an example for others to follow, Bamberg said, adding that the project is not about politics but meeting critical health care needs.

Rep. Lonnie Hosey, D-Allendale, said, If you dont have anything, you've got to take on what you can to help the situation. This could be a conduit to help us get to where we need to go in case we have an emergency. Im in agreement with the movement on this.

Everyone would want a hospital in their back door or front door, but thats not going to be possible. In the future, things are going to the regional concept. We werent quite sure what the model should be but after several studies, it looked like the emergency room was the best option.

Black said he appreciated RMC for its dedication, along with the legislative members who helped get project funding.

You always have people that are going to be negative about it, but in the end, its the right thing to do at the right time and with the right team," he said. "Were ready to go."
By Trend





President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has extended his condolences to Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Angela Merkel.

"I was deeply saddened by the news of the death of outstanding statesman, public and political figure, former Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Helmut Kohl," said President Aliyev in his letter.

"On the occasion of this heavy loss, on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my deepest condolences to you, family and relatives of the late former Chancellor and the people of Germany." he added.
Mastercard and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford have launched a report to provide bank executives with guidelines to successfully bring mobile biometrics to life.



Simply put, they need to focus on Performance, Usability, Interoperability, Security and Privacy, says the report entitled Mobile Biometrics in Financial Services: A Five Factor Framework.



Only 36 per cent of relevant banking executives feel they have adequate experience to deliver mobile biometrics, according to the report.



Some of these factors are more visible to the consumer, having a real impact on user experience, while others operate behind the scenes. But, long-term success for a bank requires that they address all factors equally to protect against threats. The framework can help financial service companies avoid the trap of focusing only on the ones their customers see.



Biometric authentication has a lot of potential, but it is important to address the objectives of each of the Five Factors when designing solutions. Working together with Mastercard enables us to provide solutions for realistic threats to the industry with the best technical and scientific ideas. Users will need consistency, quality and assured security for this technology to thrive, said Professor Ivan Martinovic, Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford.



Ajay Bhalla, president, Global Enterprise Risk & Security, Mastercard, commented on the research initiative in a blog published today, saying: Effective mobile biometrics melt into the broader experience of consumer-centric financial services, giving people the power to instantly access their financial information or make a payment. Theyre driving the trend toward a password-free future where digital identity is all about who we are, not what we remember.



Considering that global sales of smartphones are expected to reach $400 billion by next year, people everywhere will increasingly have access to the tool that makes mobile biometrics possible. Banks see that as an opportunity, and with initiatives like the collaboration with the University of Oxford and pioneering biometrics solutions like Mastercard Identity Check Mobile, Mastercard is a partner to deliver widespread and responsible adoption of mobile biometric solutions in financial services.



This framework is fundamental to accelerating the deployment of mobile biometrics for consumers and industry alike, but collaboration is key. We can only achieve this if industry, academia, governments and technology vendors understand and contribute to the evolution of the Five Factor Framework for mobile biometrics, Bhalla added.



Mastercard and Oxford have done important work in exposing some of the root causes for the inconsistent adoption of mobile biometrics in financial services, said Ravin Sanjith, program director: Intelligent Authentication, Opus Research.



We expect the Five Factor Framework to become an indispensable aide for industry professionals and decision makers to have better informed, strategic discussions that drive towards more efficient and successful high-scale implementations.



An Opus Research synopsis of the research contains a breakdown of the critical issues financial service companies need to address to successfully guide their businesses through the biometric journey, ensuring theyre making the right decisions every step of the way.  TradeArabia News Service
The Haramain Express Train, which will connect the Saudi cities of Makkah and Madinah via Jeddah's airport and King Abdullah Economic City in Rabigh, has been tested successfully and the project is now on track for completion by the year-end, said a report.

The high-speed rail ran a successful trip from King Abdullah City in Rabigh to Madinah at speeds of up to 300 km per hour, reported the Arab News, citing the acting head of the Saudi Railways Organization (SRO).

Rumaih bin Mohammed Al Rumaih, who is also the chairman of the Public Transport Authority, said the electric railway will be 450 km long.

Trains will run between Makkah and Madinah in two hours, and are projected to serve 60 million passengers annually, he added.
The biggest declines in lumber imports globally from 2015 to 2016 were seen in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, where demand fell in all the major markets, including Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, a report said.



Global softwood lumber prices trended upward in early 2017 with prices in North America hitting a 13-year high, Chinese import prices increasing 13 per cent in 18 months and Japanese prices moving modestly higher in the first quarter of 2017, added the Wood Resource Quarterly (WRI).



Globally traded softwood lumber reached an all-time high in 2016, said Wood Resources International in its quarterly report.



WRI estimates that 118 million cu m of lumber was traded last year, or 10 per cent more than in 2015. Imports to the US account for about one-third of globally traded lumber and have almost doubled in five years. China accounted for about 17 per cent of import volumes in 2016, followed by the UK, Japan and Germany.



Lumber markets  North America



Lumber production in North America in 2016 was up six per cent from the previous year, reaching its highest level since 2007. The biggest rises in production occurred in the US South and Eastern Canada, while the increases in western Canada and the western US were more modest.



Prices for lumber in the US have jumped during the first four months of the year to hit a 13-year high in April. Many of the commonly traded grades surged in price by more than 20 per cent from April of 2016.



Lumber markets  Northern Europe



Sweden exported 12.9 million cu m of softwood lumber in 2016, which was the highest volume exported since 2006. The increase from 2015 was a modest 1.5 per cent, with shipments to Denmark, Japan, China and France rising the most.



Domestic lumber prices in both Finland and Sweden continue to be close to their lowest levels in 10 years in US dollar terms, as reported in the Wood Resource Quarterly.



Lumber markets  China



Prices for imported softwood lumber to China have been in a steady upward trend during 2016 and 2017 with the average import price in March 2017 being 13 per cent higher than 18 months earlier. The biggest change in pricing over the past two year has been that prices for Russian lumber are no longer substantially cheaper than those for lumber from other supplying regions, but instead are rather close to the average import price.



Lumber market  Japan



Total housing starts were up 3.2 per cent in Japan in the 1Q/17 as compared to the same quarter in 2016, and the economic outlook for the coming year is slightly more optimistic than that for last year.



Prices for domestic and imported lumber have remained practically unchanged for almost a year in yen terms. With the yen strengthening against the US dollar during the first four months of 2017, lumber prices have increased so far this year in US dollar terms.



Lumber market  Russia



After a substantial decline in softwood lumber export prices during 2014 and 2015, Russian lumber prices have trended upward for most of 2016 and early 2017. Average export prices in March 2017 were 12 per cent higher than in the same month last year, and prices for wood going to China have gone up even faster over the same time-period.



Export volumes to China in the 1Q/17 were unchanged from the previous quarter, holding steady at the second highest level on record.



Global lumber, sawlog and pulpwood market reporting is included in the 52-page quarterly publication Wood Resource Quarterly (WRQ). The report, which was established in 1988 and has subscribers in over 30 countries, tracks sawlog, pulpwood, wood chip, lumber and pellet prices, trade and market developments in most key regions around the world.  TradeArabia News Service
Drake & Scull International (DSI), a regional engineering and services leader, has announced that UAE-based Tabarak Investment, a private company operating within the diversified financials sector, has acquired the majority shares from the Dubai contractor's former chief executive Khaldoun Tabari.



The transaction reaffirms the commitment of Tabarak Investment to the DSI brand and the promising outlook of the company upon completion of the capital restructuring program which was approved by the shareholders at the Annual General Assembly Meeting held last month, said the statement from the company.



DSI continues to review and optimise its organisational structure by merging and integrating core functions across operating segments to reduce overheads, streamline costs and to improve the bottom line performance.



It concluded a series of key management appointments at both corporate and subsidiary levels and the new management team has been recently complemented with the appointment of Feras Kalthoum as acting chief financial officer of the group.



The company advanced with the capital restructuring program and received today from the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) further instructions to proceed with the final regulatory preparations in order to fulfil the approval requirements and to initiate the 75 per cent capital reduction.



Phase One of the capital restructuring programme (capital reduction) is expected to be completed within six to seven weeks, said the statement from DSI.



Upon completion of first phase, the company will instigate the execution of Phase Two (capital increase) of the programme which includes the Dh500 million capital increase to accelerate the entry of Tabarak Investment as a major strategic investor in the company.



The initial projected timeline of the capital restructuring program has been deferred by a period of one month and the company now expects to complete the program by the end of the third quarter.



Wael Allan, the chief executive of DSI, said: "We are pleased to see Tabarak Investment reaffirm their unwavering commitment to the company. With their unyielding support, we will aggressively continue to execute our turnaround strategy and undertake key business transformations and strategic initiatives in collaboration with all our stakeholders."



He said the new management team is fully dedicated and geared up for a new phase of financial and operational recovery.



Despite the short-term challenges, the company is well positioned to benefit from its leadership position in the MEP sector and to secure profitable projects in the UAE market in the near future, he added.

Ahmed Kilani, the CEO of Tabarak Investment, said the acquisition of Tabaris shares was a voice of confidence in the DSI brand and the longstanding track record of the company particularly in the MEP sector in the UAE.

"The strategic synergies between DSI and Tabarak will be pivotal to the success of the turnaround strategy set forth by the Company earlier this year," he noted.

We are optimistic about the prospects of the Company in the long term and we are keen on the completion of the Capital restructuring program to assist the Company during this challenging time, yet promising outlook, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Dubai-based Aster DM Healthcare, a leading healthcare enterprise in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, has announced the launch of the Aster Volunteers programme as part of the milestone Aster @30 campaign marking its 30th anniversary.



In line with the declaration of 2017 as the Year of Giving by UAE President HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the programme reinforces the comhpanys commitment to supporting the communities it serves and recognises volunteerism as a key pillar of giving.



The multi-layered initiative targets communities in the Middle East, Africa, India and Philippines, and aims to address key challenges that will help make a positive difference in society, said a statement from Aster DM Healthcare.



The programme seeks to bridge the gap between people who would like to help with those in need, across the nine markets that the company operates in through a web portal platform, it added.



Speaking at the launch, Dr Azad Moopen, founder chairman and managing director, said: "We want to renew our commitment of giving back to society and support the growth of communities. The initiative and the programme are testimony to our effort to empower individuals who want to make a positive difference in the society and extend a helping hand to the less fortunate."



During the holy month, we call-upon everyone to join us on this global journey of providing a healing touch to those in need by enrolling on online, he added.



Aster DM Healthcare also announced signing an agreement with the Government of Dubais Awqaf and Minors Affairs Foundation (AMAF) to offer humanitarian aid to those affected by drought and famine in Somalia.



It will also provide medical support to the Syrian refugees settled in Al Zaatari, Al Azraq and Erbid refugee camps in Jordan through the deployment of its volunteers as per the guidelines of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).



All [email protected] activities will run simultaneously throughout the year across the Middle East, Africa and India, driving participation from local volunteers in each market where Aster has a presence- UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, India and Philippines, it added.  TradeArabia News Service
US-based Zaloni, a leading software and services company, has announced a strategic value added reseller partnership with leading UAE digital services company, ixtel.



Ixtel's consulting services focus on supporting the digital transformation of Middle Eastern companies in industries including telecommunications, financial services and healthcare and helping them remain competitive, said a statement from the company.



Zaloni, the data lake company - providing enterprise data lake management solutions, established its regional base of operations in Dubai, UAE in 2016, it said.



With Zaloni, ixtel can deliver top-tier big data intelligence solutions more efficiently and cost-effectively than competitors in the region  enabling more companies to transform the massive amounts of structured and unstructured data they've collected into meaningful business insights, it added.



Zaloni's data lake management, governance and self-service platform enables data consumers to leverage data for business-critical use cases such as customer 360, product/services development, fraud detection, and regulatory compliance. The platform ensures control throughout the data pipeline from data source to data consumer.



Zaloni can deliver an analytics-ready data environment in weeks instead of months and significantly increase return on investment through faster time to insight, lower staffing costs and reduced maintenance.



Ben Sharma, chief executive officer, Zaloni, said: Our partnership with ixtel will help companies in the Middle East region derive maximum value from their growing data assets with a next-generation data architecture.



Our data lake management platform will provide ixtel customers with enterprise data management, governance and self-service data solutions to support a wide variety of business use cases, he said.



Mehdi Quraishi, chief executive officer, ixtel, said: With its ability to analyse and report on large and complex data, Zaloni is a perfect complement to our big data and analytics service offerings, providing strategic benefits to both our companies and customers.



With Zaloni, users always have access to the real-time data they need to make more informed business decisions, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
the maritime market, including shipping, ports, finance and banking and law will attend the Maritime Standard Ship Finance and Trade Conference, to be held later this year in Abu Dhabi, UAE.



The event will takes place at the Sheraton Abu Dhabi Hotel and Resort on November 8, said the organisers.



A high-level group of expert speakers and panellists is being assembled by The Maritime Standard for the conference.



It will include representatives from leading ship owners and managers, port operators, trade organisations, brokers and analysts, law firms and financiers, they stated.



During the summit, the experts will give a series of speeches giving details about recent case studies, illustrating how the financial sector can help release the full potential of regional shipping and ports operators to the benefit of trade and economic growth.



Trevor Pereira, managing director of The Maritime Standard, said: This the third time we are returning to Abu Dhabi to hold this event, and this reflects not just the success of the first two, but the growing importance of the emirate as a regional trade, shipping and finance hub.



We will have some important names from the industry speaking and a high quality audience of decision makers, he said.



These are still difficult times for the industry, but we aim to make sure this event will add real value and assist companies in charting a course towards success when the recovery gathers momentum, he added.



Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, chief executive of Abu Dhabi Ports, said: We are delighted to be hosting the event, an important event for Abu Dhabis Maritime sector as well as the UAE.



Abu Dhabi is fast becoming a regional hub for both finance and trade so it makes perfect sense to hold this event here, to underline the emirate's growth in trade and transport both regionally and globally, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corp (Empower), a major district cooling services provider, has started delivering district cooling solutions to the Jumeirah Village Triangle (JVT) and Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC) projects in Dubai, UAE.



Empower will provide residential, retail and commercial real estate developments in these areas with up to 11,000 refrigeration tons (RT) of cooling services.



We are very pleased to deliver the first phase of district cooling solutions to JVC and JVT. The project has been supervised and managed with a high level of efficiency. At Empower, it is our mission to provide landmark projects of Dubai with world-class cooling solutions with district cooling services to drive the country towards its sustainable vision. The best technology has been deployed to construct the network in JVC and JVT, which will ensure highest performance and quality, said Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO of Empower.



The project is divided into several phases and Empower will produce 30,000 RT by the end of this year.



Empower had signed last year a contract with Nakheel to provide district cooling services to Jumeirah Village Circle and Jumeirah Village Triangle. Empower will invest Dh1.8 billion ($490 million) in five years for this project, and will build six cooling plants in the two locations, to provide 260,000 RT for the 440 buildings.



Developers are becoming increasingly aware of the advantages of reliability of district cooling service. The strong local and international reputation of Empower has made it the first choice for cooling services, thus helping us acquire larger segment of the district cooling market in Dubai, added Bin Shafar.



It is a pleasure to witness more and more real estate developers adopting district cooling services in their developments as they realise its advantages. As we expand in Dubai and the other emirates, we adopt the best and international cooling standards. This not only demonstrates our quality and efficiency, but also reinforces our presence in the region, concluded Bin Shafar.  TradeArabia News Service
GE has signed an agreement worth $575 million with Egyptian authorities to supply 100 locomotives that can be used for passengers or freight rail, as well as a 15-year contract for parts and technical support for GE locomotives.



The Letter of Intent for the supply of GE ES30ACi Light Evolution Series as well as the service contract was signed with the Ministry of Transportation (MoT) and Egyptian National Railways (ENR).



The agreement, which is the largest ever between the parties, also includes technical training aimed at improving local capabilities and technical skills for more than 275 ENR engineers and employees in region.



To signing was attended by dignitaries such as Egypts Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Dr Sahar Nasr, Minister of Investment & International Cooperation in Egypt, Dr Hesham Arafat, Minister of Transportation in Egypt, Medhat Shousha, chairman of ENR, US Ambassador Robert Beecroft, US Ambassador in Egypt; and John Rice, vice chairman of GE and President and CEO of GEs Global Growth Organization.



A common thread amongst national strategies across the globe is the provision of sustainable and advanced infrastructure, with transportation a particularly crucial component, said John Rice.



What is exciting about this partnership is its truly holistic nature. We are working with the MoT and ENR on the entire process  from ensuring a competitive financing solution with partners to the manufacture and technical support for the locomotives, and the training and development of engineers. This is what it takes to be a true partner, engaging at all levels to offer comprehensive end-to-end solutions."



This strategic agreement reflects GE Transportations efforts to deepen and transform its global presence, meet international customers needs, and capitalize on the strong opportunity for international growth thats critical to continued success.



This marks a major milestone for Egypt and reflects a long-standing relationship with the Ministry of Transportation and ENR, added Jamie Miller, GE Transportation chief executive officer. Today, ENRs fleet includes roughly 80 GE Evolution Series locomotives to move people and goods critical to Egypts economy. With this agreement, we will help the region improve its rail infrastructure and bring products to market faster and more efficiently.



Medhat Shousha said: We are looking forward to bringing the latest technologies to improve rail infrastructure in Egypt. Together with GE, we will work on enhancing the efficiency of rail transportation for both freight and passengers. Additionally, the parts and technical support agreement will ensure that the performance of our fleet is maintained over the years.



GE ES30ACi Light Passenger Evolution Series Locomotives are equipped with a 12-cylinder, 3,200 horsepower GE Evolution Series engine. The locomotive delivers high power output to enable enhanced productivity and flexibility in heavy haul operations, as well as enhanced reliability. The locomotives can be used to transport passengers or freight.



GE has been a committed partner to Egypt for over 40 years. With more than 700 employees in country, GE works with its partners in the public and private sector to bring its latest technologies and solutions to serve the transportation, aviation, oil & gas, power and healthcare sectors. This agreement builds on our longstanding partnership with the Ministry of Transportation and ENR.  TradeArabia News Service
Equinix, a top global interconnection and data center company, has partnered with Alibaba Cloud to provide enterprises with direct, scalable access to Alibaba Cloud via the Equinix Cloud Exchange.



The access will be provided in the companys Hong Kong, Silicon Valley, Sydney, and Washington, D.C., International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers, with the addition of Frankfurt and London available soon.



The cloud computing market continues to grow rapidly in Asia, and specifically China. According to the US International Trade Administration, the Chinese cloud market is expected to grow at 40 per cent per year through 2020, reaching $20 billion.



Access to Alibaba Cloud is critical for multinational customers looking to expand their cloud-based applications into this growing region in a secure and high-performing manner. By providing multi-national enterprise customers with secure and direct access to Alibaba Cloud, Equinix delivers connectivity to the full suite of Alibaba cloud services to enterprises. Furthermore, Alibaba Cloud Express Connectenables companies to leverage the extensive Alibaba Cloud network in mainland China.



With the addition of direct access to Alibaba Cloud on Cloud Exchange in these new markets across Asia Pacific, EMEA and the Americas, Equinix now offers private access to Alibaba Cloud in five markets. The company previously offered access in its Singapore IBX. Equinix also recently announced Alibaba Cloud is a colocation customer in Sydney and Dubai with Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du).



Greg Adgate, vice president of global technology partners and alliances, Equinix said: As one of the worlds leading and fastest growing cloud computing companies, Alibaba Cloud represents a significant partnership for Equinix as we continue to empower businesses around the globe to build secure, private clouds, without compromising network and application performance. We are thrilled to offer direct access in markets across the US, Asia and Europe, and look forward to bringing additional markets online in the near future.



The global reach of Equinix Cloud Exchange makes it simple for Alibaba Cloud to access new markets. We are pleased to provide greater value and bring our services closer to enterprises by leveraging Equinixs powerful, on-demand cloud connectivity, and in particular to provide greater connectivity to the Chinese market, said Yeming Wang, deputy general manager of Alibaba Cloud Global.  TradeArabia News Service
Citizen has announced the launch of two new models from Citizen L which will make for perfect gifts for the special woman this Eid Al Fitr.



The first model is from the Ambiluna collection  in its second year, the new Ambiluna features a limited colour to the lacquer-made Urushi-drop and comes with a special bangle. The second model is a playful yet elegant design with large diamonds.



The architect Sou Fujimoto, recognized for his novel approach to architecture embodied in various global projects, continues to oversee the brand as its advisor.



Design theme of Ambiluna, moon-glazed sapphire crystal, expressing the absolute light



Absolute light, - a concept proposed by Fujimoto. It is a new design-led approach to watches that tells the concept of ambiguous time with the transience of light. The key feature is the moon-glazed sapphire crystal that takes its image from a soft and misty moon light. The rich expression of the gradual shift in the light is created by frosting a highly-translucent sapphire crystal. It is an entirely new concept in watches where it is not a tool to check time but to put on light itself. This moon-glazed sapphire crystal is featured in all Ambiluna models.



Limited Edition: the presence of shadow that accentuates light



The distinctive motif at the 11 oclock position is Urushi drops, a modern rendition of Japanese tradition of lacquer art of Urushi which is carefully crafted by time honored Urushi Sakamoto. The exquisite gradation of silver to black that extends inwards gives it a chic yet deep radiance in the light, like Starry clouds. By applying black colour to the design, we want to highlight the presence of shadow that in fact accentuates light, hence the design concept absolute light is more highlighted. A single diamond is set between the case and Urushi drop, giving a beautiful tension in the design while functioning as an index to show 12 oclock.



Special bangle: Ring of Light



This special bangle is designed for Citizen L by the artist duo, Monocircus. Inspired from the theme, absolute light, the design aimed to give shape to rings of light. The 3D printer-based design allowed the freedom for a complex geometric shape, giving the bangle a unique appeal.



Citizen L is a ladies watch brand from Citizen which launched in Europe and North America in 2012 and now available in nearly 50 countries globally. Citizen proposes a new style of luxury watch for women who embrace their lives in the 21st century with beauty and power, having Yoshiko Ikoma as the brand advisor since 2016.



The brand has an attractive jewellery-like design and features light-powered Eco-Drive, which is Citizens proprietary technology that powers watches using any natural or artificial light source, eliminating the need to replace batteries. - TradeArabia News Service
Rehlat, one of the top online travel companies in the Middle East, has partnered up with UAE-based express, mail delivery and logistics services company Fetchr to bring exclusive offers for its valued customers.



Through this partnership Rehlat customer can now get one Free Fetchr delivery, which they can use to send any package on both the Fetchr app and web. Rehlat and Fetchr have immense synergies to cater to Middle East audience. This partnership will be beneficial for both the brands by driving the top lines further.



Bader Al-Roudan, assistant vice president-Head, Business Development & Alliances at Rehlat, said: It is great to be associated with Fetchr which has customers comfort at its forefront just like us. Fetchr boasts of a wide base of well connected on the go customer who transacts online often. We can already see the positive effects of this, as this alliance has already started contributing significantly to our daily sales within just days of being live on website.



We are super excited to have partnered up with a company like Rehlat as we are both determined to provide customers with top of the line service said Joy Ajlouny, Fetchrs co-founder and creative director. - TradeArabia News Service


Sheraton Grand Hotel, Dubai celebrated its third annual Iftar for Cabs initiative as part of its ongoing commitment to the holy month of Ramadan.



During the hour of Iftar on June 14th, cab drivers who drove through the main entrance of the Sheraton Grand Hotel, Dubai received complimentary Iftar packs to break their fast.



Catering teams at more than 70 participating Marriott hotels in the Middle East, including 38 in UAE prepared Iftar packs which included a diverse selection of food and beverage items. Associates from across various departments within the hotels, including Catering, Administration and Guest Services joined forces to bring the Iftar for Cabs initiative to life.



We thank the cab drivers who support our hotels and provide our guests with transportation services throughout the year, said Alex Kyriakidis, president and managing director, Middle East and Africa, Marriott International. Iftar for Cabs embodies the spirit of Ramadan and we are extremely proud of our hotel teams as they unite to give back and recognize important members of our community.



Launched in 2010, the Iftar for Cabs initiative has turned into an annual tradition for many cab drivers throughout the region. The initiative has been widely appreciated by hotel owners, local communities and transport authorities. - TradeArabia News Service


UAE's Etihad Airways and one of the main sponsors of the Taste of London Festival, have crowned Dean Parker from The Manor restaurant in London as the winner of its Taste the World competition, which took place on June 15.



The Taste the World Award is presented to one chef who best epitomises Etihad Airways food philosophy, a highly-acclaimed culinary offering which constantly pushes the boundaries to provide a superior guest experience. Each chef was independently judged by a panel consisting of an Etihad Airways inflight chef, a culinary expert and a renowned food influencer. The winner earns a trip to the global final to represent London and The Manor at Taste of Abu Dhabi, in November. Parker will compete against 11 other world class chefs selected at local Taste Festivals held throughout 2017.



Parker said: Im extremely honoured and excited to have won this prestigious award. To be recognised alongside some of Londons finest chefs is a true honour, but representing The Manor and our team feels incredible. Im absolutely speechless that this dish, which represents The Manors core ethos of seasonality and sustainability, has impressed the judges so much. Now to prepare for Abu Dhabi.



The winning dish at Taste of London was a smoked Swaledale lamb shoulder, accompanied by courgettes, olives and basil.



Parker is head chef of The Manor, Clapham, an independent bistro crafting contemporary British dishes from seasonal, responsibly sourced produce. Since joining, Parker was able to take autonomy of the menu from day one and has been wowing diners with his culinary creations.



Patrick Pierce, vice president marketing partnerships at Etihad Airways, said: Etihad Airways draws inspiration from the worlds best restaurants and emerging chefs from global culinary capitals. We serve our cuisine both on the ground and in the air with style and sophistication that has become synonymous with the Etihad Airways brand.



Thus were delighted to see Dean win our Taste the World Award  he demonstrated innovative cooking techniques and use of ingredients to create a truly remarkable dish, his signature smoked Swaledale lamb shoulder. We look forward to welcoming Dean to our home at Taste of Abu Dhabi in November to compete in the finale.



Justin Clarke, director of Taste Festivals, said: We are thrilled to be in partnership with Etihad Airways. Their commitment to being the worlds leading culinary airline is both exciting and a testament to the logical brand fit between the airline and Taste Festivals.



Enrico Nanchioli, Etihad Airways inflight chef, said: I am looking forward to watching Dean competing at the finals in our home, Abu Dhabi, later this year. Dean has shown incredible originality in his demonstration today and I commend him for his passion for cooking. So far, the level of originality showcased by all competing chefs for Taste the World is definitely something to be celebrated.



The three-year partnership between Etihad Airways and Taste Festivals, which began in March 2016, is a core element of the airlines sponsorship strategy as it establishes itself as an aspirational lifestyle brand. As part of the global partnership, Etihad Airways sponsors 15 Taste Festivals around the world at important Etihad Airways destinations such as Amsterdam, Milan, Paris, Sydney, Moscow, Paris and Hong Kong.



Etihad Airways flies three times daily from Heathrow, twice daily from Manchester and five times a week from Edinburgh to Abu Dhabi, where passengers can connect to over 100 destinations worldwide. - TradeArabia News Service


Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) has released its summer plan, outlining the preeminent operational aspects during the upcoming peak season starting from June 24 to September 16.



The plan shows a record increase in the number of flights and seating capacity both internationally and domestically, to prepare for the dramatic increase in the demand for air travel in the summer period.



During the upcoming summer holidays, 48,144 flights with seating capacity of up to 10.3m passengers will be operated (up 20 per cent compared to last summer).



The plan includes operating 29,900 flights domestically with seating capacity of up to 5.37 million guests, in addition to more than 18,000 international flights taking the capacity up to 4.95 million. Thus, 860,000 guests will be welcomed onboard 4,012 flights weekly; 448,000 of them on 2,500 domestic flights.



Director general of Saudi Arabian Airlines, Engineer Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser said: The summer months are a peak travel period and Saudia is ready to provide our guests with increased capacity and exceptional service onboard.



Our summer operations plan this year is the highest in Saudias history, reflecting the forward-thinking initiatives of SV2020 (the airlines Transformation Plan)," he said.



As the national carrier of the Kingdom, Saudia continues to strengthen its domestic and international network with the launch of new destinations as well as the addition of flights and capacity on existing routes, requiring close cooperation with the relevant governmental bodies

and support of airport authorities to ensure seamless operational execution. We are dedicated to providing world-class inflight service to the growing number of guests traveling with Saudia, while maintaining the on-time performance of flights.



The daily average of Saudia flights during the summer season will range from 550 to 600 flights with a capacity of 123,000 seats, of which 400 flights are domestic, providing additional capacity for 64,000 guests.



Al-Jasser continued: Since the start of 2017, Saudia continued to make significant enhancements by taking the delivery of a record 16 aircraft comprising of 12 widebodies and four narrowbodies (B777-300ER, B787-9 Dreamliner, A330-300R and A320).



The ongoing fleet investment will bring the airlines average fleet age to 3.75 years by the end of this year, which is a key element of Saudias targeted strategy to operate one of the youngest fleet in the skies. - TradeArabia News Service
Toastmasters every Monday

Toasmasters, Morning Tour, meets every Monday from 6:30 to 7:45 a.m. at the Parkway Plaza. Polish your public speaking skills. Get the confidence needed for job interviews and more. Join Toastmasters and be part of a fun and supportive group. For more information, call Brenda at 251-4357 or email blingwy@gmail.com.

Corvette Cruise and Dine every Tuesday

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.

Needle Guild meets June 20

The Casper Needle Guild will have a special stitch-in and potluck to celebrate the Summer Solstice starting at noon on Tuesday, June 20, at the Senior Center, 1831 E. 4th St. More daylight hours to stitch! Please contact Ann Hudson at 265-5510 or CasperNeedleGuildEGA@gmail.com for more information.

Barbershoppers welcome members

The Oil City Slickers barbershop a capella singing group holds weekly, year-round rehearsals Wednesdays 7 p.m. at St. Marks Church and does various performances upon request. The group sings for funerals as well as services at multiple churches in town and other venues.

The director is Roy Hayford, and phone contacts for people wishing to join or inquire are 472-4722 and 267-2673.

Womens networking meets

The Heart Link Network is a womens networking event held monthly, every second Tuesday (July 11) from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ramada Plaza, 300 W. F St. Pre-registration is a must. The cost is $20 per person and the meal is included. For more information and to register, please call Amy Lund at 262-7475 or visit www.82601.theheartlinknetwork.com.

Central Wyoming Corvettes meets monthly

Central Wyoming Corvettes (a nonprofit organization) meets the second Thursday of every month (July 13, Aug. 10) at the Holiday Inn East restaurant with dinner at 6 p.m. and the meeting at 7 p.m. This is a group of people who over the years have donated thousands back to the community by sponsoring fun car events. Guests or potential new members are always welcome. See us on Facebook or visit our website.

PEO garage sale June 24

PEO 25+ families garage sale from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on June 24 at 1071 Cornwall. Amazing deals with proceeds to benefit PEO Chapter AT, supporting womens education and offering scholarships to deserving women.

PEO awards scholarships

Chapter BD, P.E.O. is pleased to announce that scholarships have been awarded to two Wyoming women recommended by the chapter. Dana Theriot of Casper is the recipient of the Glen Ella Jones Scholarship for the academic year of 2017-2018. Dana is studying business at Casper College. Ramsey Sinn of Worland is the recipient of the Carol W. and William R. Daley Scholarship for the academic year of 2017-2018. Ramsey is studying pharmacy at the University of Wyoming. Both of these scholarships are Wyoming P.E.O. college scholarships. P.E.O. is an organization focused on womens education. Congratulations to both of these deserving Wyoming women.

Stammtisch plans for summer

The German-speaking group Casper Stammtisch Sommer im Park mit Musik, informal potluck picnics, are planned at 6:30 p.m. at Washington Park near the lower playground on the following dates: June 15, 22, 29 and July 13, 20, 27 (no meeting July 6).

This is an opportunity to share food, recipes and conversation, even if you dont bring a dish to share. The event will be canceled if it rains.

The group will again pause in the month of August.

Casper Posse of Westerners meets

The June meeting of the Casper Posse of Westerners at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 21, will be held at the Wyoming Veterans Museum at the Casper/Natrona County International Airport. It will feature Platte County Historical Society member Barbara Costopoulos, who will be speaking on her new book, The Legend of John Posey Ryan. A Civil War veteran, Posey Ryan was one of the earliest settlers of the Wyoming Territory. Costopoulos will have copies of her book for sale at $15, and she will be doing a book signing after her lecture. For more information, call Doug Cubbison, sheriff of the posse, 315-486-3034 (cell phone); 472-1857 (museum); douglas.cubbison@wyo.gov.

Elks fishing derby

Elks Fishing Derby is June 23 to 25 at Alcova Lake first shelter past the Marina. Tickets are $20, starts at noon on Friday, June 23, and ends at noon on June 25. Tickets must be purchased by noon on Saturday, June 24, to participate in the Derby. Friday night dinner is bacon-wrapped pork loin, cost is $10. Saturday night catfish dinner is in the derby ticket. Also, there will be bacon-wrapped jalapenos and pickled eggs for sale. Please bring a covered dish to share. Kids are $5, which includes hot dogs. Dance to GTO on Saturday night. Rules and more information will be at the Casper Elks Lodge and in the Summer Corral. Members and guests only, please. For more information, call 234-4839.

Whites All Chevy Car Show, AutoCross

Central Wyoming Corvettes (a nonprofit organization) is hosting The Whites all-Chevy Car Show at Whites Chevrolet on June 24. The car show will be open to all Chevys. Registration starts at 9 a.m., and the car show runs from 10 a.m. to noon. All proceeds go to local charities. The Shriners will be providing food and there will be door prizes. Guests or new members are always welcome.

On June 25, a Low Speed AutoCross will be held. This event will be open to Corvettes and the first eight non-Corvettes. The entry fee is $30 for each set of three races or $75 for the day. Registration starts at 8 a.m. with the first car out at 9 a.m. Helmets and closed-toe shoes are required, and all cars must pass technical inspection. See us on Facebook or visit our website.

NARFE social June 27

Casper Chapter #358 of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) will have a no-host Social Meeting at noon on June 27, 2017. The meeting will be held in the meeting room at the Casper Senior Center, 1831 East 4th Street.

What is PFLAG?

Founded in 1972 with the simple act of a mother publicly supporting her gay son, PFLAG is the nations largest family and ally organization. Uniting people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) with families, friends, and allies, PFLAG is committed to advancing equality through its mission of support, education, and advocacy.

The Casper PFLAG chapter has been helping families and providing a safe place for LGBTQ youth and adults for over 20 years. If you are a parent, youth, or adult looking for information or support, please call Ruth Ann Leonard at 265-5449.

Civil Air Patrol meets

Civil Air Patrol meets from 7 to 9 p.m. the first Tuesday of the month at Casper National Guard Armory, 5905 CY Ave. For more information, call 259-0855.
As early as she can remember, Sierra Spratt has been practicing her barrel pattern.

Right turn. Left turn. Left turn, then straight home as fast as possible.

When Sierra was 3, her mom arranged soup cans on the living room floor in the triangle that would become so familiar to her. Her sister, 3 years older, placed Tootsie Rolls on the sides of the cans where she was supposed to turn.

First she walked, then jogged the cloverleaf pattern. Before she rode it on a living, breathing horse, she rode it on her stick horse.

And now, 17 years later, as Sierra competed in her first College National Finals Rodeo over the past week, both her sister and her mom were there to watch her turn barrels  the little girl who used to ride a stick horse around soup cans now competing in the college sports top competition.

For those unacquainted with rodeo, the event itself may seem glitzy and theatrical. The announcers voices boom, the jeans sparkle and the chaps are brightly colored. There are clowns and music and a dramatic opening to every evenings performance.

But the long road to compete is anything but glamorous. For months, the college students have woken early to feed horses. Theyve painstakingly rehabilitated their mounts from injuries and saved up for equipment. Theyve broken bones, washed dirty jeans and worn holes in boots.

Many of them didnt do it alone, however. For many, a love of rodeo was born of family tradition. Parents accompanied them on the hundreds of miles of road between competitions. There are dads who have helped rouse the sleepy calf roper at 3 a.m. to load the horses. There are moms who have held a barrel horse while its rider uses the bathroom and sisters who have waited anxiously for their brother to get up after a nasty fall.

Or as Sierra Spratt put it: Rodeos a lifestyle.

Her sister, K.L., also competed at CNFR this year, her third time qualifying. Both women credit their mom  a former CNFR rider herself  for their success. She was the one who taught them how to ride and continues to train some of their horses.

Shes been our everything, Sierra Spratt said. Shes the first person we have to talk to after a run.

Its pretty cool following in her footsteps, K.L. Spratt said.

For some, unsuspecting parents were suddenly drawn into rodeo life by a childs sudden interest in the sport. For others, like the Spratt sisters, rodeo is in their blood.

Either way, it takes a team to get a competitor to CNFR. Here are some of those familys stories.

I wouldnt be here without them





Steer wrestler Chet Boren is soft-spoken, but when he talks about his parents he becomes more animated.

It means everything to me to have his parents at CNFR to watch him ride, he said. Theyve been my support system my whole life. I wouldnt be here without them

Chet, like his three siblings, started competing in rodeos when he was 8. Together, the family of five has traveled to countless competitions across the region.

And through all those long days and countless miles, Borens dad, Kent, specifically remembers one of his sons rides.

While competing in goat tying at a junior rodeo, Chet fell while running toward the goat and twisted his knee. But the boy didnt stop. Instead, he crawled on his arms and one leg to the goat and finished the ride.

He was a tough little fart, Kent said Wednesday. Theres no stopping him.

Chets parents have watched him compete hundreds of times, and yet watching their son compete still thrills them  in fact its become even more so as hes gotten older, they said. The excitement is so much that almost every video his mom shoots is shaky.

They say I hyperventilate, she said, laughing.

The pony girls all grown up





While Chets parents were old hands when they started rodeo, Madison Crows parents were thrust into the sport and its unique culture when their twin daughters attended Rodeo Houston and decided they wanted to be barrel riders.

The twins  known as the pony girls when they were young  have since competed all over the country. While the girls were in college over the past four years, their parents attended all 40 of their major competitions.

Now that the girls are grown, theres less for their parents to do. Their mom, Patty, no longer holds their belts while they get ready or helps them saddle their mounts. The young women now feed their own horses and haul them to appointments.

But their dad, Roger, still likes to drive the twins and their horses to competitions. He doesnt mind the long hours. It gives his daughters time to rest and study.

Plus, he said, its a way he can spend weekends with his two daughters who, like most kids, have grown up too fast.

A season of empty seats





But for one goat tier, its an empty pair of seats where her parents should be sitting that reminds her of her roots.

Like her mother and father before her, Tawny Berry has competed in rodeos her entire life. She was so young when her parents taught her to ride on their cattle ranch in Carter, South Dakota, that her memories of the experience are fuzzy.

She does remember her mom teaching her how to tie goats and cheering her on at many rodeos in her youth. But cancer has largely kept Tawnys mom from watching her daughter compete during her final college years.

Nine years ago, doctors diagnosed Tawnys mom with breast cancer. Although she beat it the first time, it returned two years ago and spread quickly to her liver and lung cavity.

The constant regimen of chemotherapy, surgery and other treatments has kept her mom from watching Tawny compete all of this past season. At times, the recent graduate of Eastern New Mexico University has wanted to give up on competing and school and just return home.

But her mom made her promise she would graduate. And her mom made a promise as well  she would drive the six hours to watch Tawny ride if she made it to the Saturday finals. Her parents already came out to watch her ride on Wednesday  the first time they saw her compete all season  but had to return home.

The chance to have her mom watch her ride as a college rodeo athlete one more time has pushed Tawny to qualify for Saturdays performance.

I know that my moms proud of me no matter what, she said through tears on Thursday. But shes been my biggest drive to get to Saturday.

The 21-year-old draws strength from her mom. A number of times, doctors told her she had only a few months to live. Despite the prognosis, her mom kept fighting. Its been faith and grit that has kept her mom alive, Tawny said. She only hopes to emulate that strength.

She hates to lose. And Im not a very good loser, either, she said. I guess the apple doesnt fall far from the tree.
Principals from Caspers three high schools and the newly appointed leader of the Pathways Innovation Center have presented their plan to boost the facilitys dragging enrollment.

The officials, who form the districts high school leadership team, will all play a part in leading Pathways forward as it attempts to fill its 1,000-capacity building. Currently, officials said, 227 students are enrolled to attend the school in the mornings, and the district is employing a new leadership structure that brings other high school officials into direct roles overseeing PIC.

That itself is a change, Roosevelt Principal Shawna Trujillo said. In the school year that just ended, which was Pathways first, the facilitys four academies were offered all day. Starting next year, though, the academies will be offered in the mornings and individual classes, rather than courses packaged together as they currently are, will be available to students in the afternoon.

That will allow Kelly Walsh, Natrona County and Roosevelt high school students to attend one class, like welding, at PIC in the afternoon and spend the rest of the day at his or her home school of Kelly Walsh or Natrona County high.

Were going to create some opportunities to get kids on that campus who might be interested in academies and will be interested once they get in there, experiencing some of the school stuff we have to offer, Trujillo explained to the board.

The four officials  Trujillo, KWs Brad Diller, NCs Shannon Harris and PICs new leader, Ron Estes  had been meeting to discuss the future of the facility, which opened this year with the goal of offering academy-based learning to high school students. Theyd spend half their time at PIC, learning skills such as welding or TV broadcasting, and the other half back at their home school.

The district announced last week that Estes would replace former PIC Principal Chad Sharpe, who stepped down last month for personal reasons. Estes will act as the lead official on site at the school but will run it in conjunction with Harris and Diller.

The Star Lane Center, which also operates on a half-day system for ninth-, 10th- and 11th-graders, will be moved to the Pathways campus next year, which will add more than 100 students to the buildings population.

Trujillo said the model of the academy structure at Pathways was such that students in one of the main academies, which included welding, couldnt get certified in their chosen areas. The integrated learning approach brought those fields into conjunction with English and math classes. That method made it more difficult for students to get the level of learning in their specialized skill to ultimately get certified.

That problem will be smoothed over next year, she said.

The staff is married to certification and high-skills, future-careers type of learning, she said.

The other three academies, meanwhile, will continue their integrated approach of specialized skills with those core classes.

Board trustee Dave Applegate asked if that was because the staff of those academies were determined to stick with the integrated approach or if it was because the academies truly should stick with the integrated approach.

I dont think weve given them enough time, Trujillo replied, adding that the other academies are mapping out their plans and finding their footing.

She said she was pleased with the rubric that the instructors at Pathways has put forward to the leadership team. She said the integrated approach may not be the ultimate plan for Pathways, but she was confident with where the staff was going.

Harris said the purpose of Pathways is to serve students. And if students show they dont want to pursue the integrated academy approach, then the school will adapt to meet their needs and desires.

Its about what kids want, not what adults want, the NC principal said.

Diller said he knew there were some people at Pathways who werent happy with the proposed changes but echoed Harris: Its about the students.

Applegate replied that theres concern among the trustees that the state-of-the-art, brand-new facilities at Pathways, like the welding shops and the broadcast television studio, werent getting full use. Harris said one solution is that every academy teacher will offer a singleton, or stand-alone, class in the afternoon.

The agriculture teacher from NC will also work at Pathways in the afternoon, she said, to make use of that space.

We think its a workable plan, Diller said. The kids didnt flock to the integrated approach, but I think they will go for opportunities to take a class, an elective, a solid or core class. We think we can get a bunch of kids there.

Associate Superintendent Walt Wilcox said they will pursue this plan, the mix of academies and integrated in the morning and single classes in the afternoon, for this next year. After that, they can adapt further. But he stressed that the district didnt want to pull the rug out from under Pathways. Trustee Rita Walsh reiterated her support for the program and said she believes it needs time to grow.

But ultimately, officials said, Pathways will have to begin serving its designed purpose to a greater degree.

We want to see that building full, Trujillo said.
Wyoming legislators must take the states school funding crisis seriously.

By next July, the state is expected to be facing a shortfall of about $530 million for education. Thats in addition to a $200 million hole for the school construction fund.

Members of the legislative committees that are supposed to be addressing these critical shortfalls have only talked about the problem. These lawmakers show little appetite for creating new revenue streams to fund our schools or increasing existing ones to fill the gaping holes.

But this is important. Its not an overstatement to say that the future of our state hinges on these legislators ability to solve this problem. Our schools are educating the next generation of Wyoming leaders, ranchers, entrepreneurs, energy industry workers and more. Those future leaders are relying on our current leaders to fix the school funding gap.

Plus, a quality education system does more than educate the students who are here today. It also serves as a draw to the area, a reason to move here and call Wyoming home. Without a school system that serves its children well, Wyomings goals of attracting and retaining skilled workers and their families as part of its plan to support long-term economic diversity in the state wont get off the ground.

Raising taxes isnt easy, and nowhere is that more true than in Wyoming. People here are wary of paying more to government. Some of the options on the table are increasing the sales and use tax, increasing the lodging tax and increasing the mineral severance tax. Lawmakers are eager to talk about the downsides of those, but they do so at the expense of children and their constituents.

Thats because Wyomingites also want strong schools and well-educated children. So legislators must do the hard work of explaining to their constituents why the current system wont work. These are drastic times, characterized by huge shortfalls, and they call for drastic measures. Kicking the can down the road often looks tempting, but Wyoming has very nearly reached the end of that road. And with every month that goes by, the cliff looms nearer, and the options for how to address the problem become narrower.

Between tackling the education crisis and explaining their decisions to their constituents, it would seem, state legislators have plenty of important work to do. So its troubling that instead of substantive issues, one of their most common refrains is about re-election.

Just listen to Sen. Ray Peterson, R-Cowley, who characterized the situation like this: Im Senator Peterson, Im raising your taxes, and Im cutting your wages. Vote for me.

Peterson went on to say that he was considering all options for funding schools. But lawmakers must remember that this problem is not about them or their re-election prospects. They need to muster the political courage necessary to make Wyoming a place people want to live in the long term.

What if lawmakers pitched it like this? Im your senator and Im defending Wyomings public schools, because its incredibly important that the states young minds are prepared to lead our beloved state far into the future. Vote for me.

Wyomingites appreciate the value of education, and they appreciate statesmanship  the willingness to solve long-term problems at the expense of short-term popularity. Lawmakers must rise to the challenge and remember that the important thing is not whether they win re-election. The important thing is whether they can look back on their legislative service and be proud of what they accomplished for our states children and its future.
Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems will highlight its weapons for the F-35 stealth fighter jet and tout its missile-defense systems for Europe next week at the 52nd Paris Air Show.

Raytheon, a top supplier of missiles to the U.S. and its allies, is a regular exhibitor at numerous military trade shows as well as broader aerospace events that include defense, like the biannual Paris show.

For our executives and business-development teams, its a uniquely efficient way to meet our customers and suppliers, Raytheon Missile Systems spokesman John Patterson said.

Raytheon will focus on the star of the defense side of the Paris show, the F-35 Lightning II, during a press briefing on air dominance on Monday, the first day of the weeklong show. It will mark the first time the F-35 Lightning II will fly at the show.

Though France isnt among the allied nations buying the F-35, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Turkey are partnering on production and expected to order the fifth-generation fighter.

Belgium and Finland are evaluating the F-35, according to maker Lockheed Martin, and Germany reportedly has asked for more information on the new fighter.

Raytheon  Southern Arizonas largest private employer with about 10,000 local workers  will be touting the weapons it is readying for the F-35, including the Joint Standoff Weapon glide bomb, the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, Paveway bomb-guidance kits and the Small Diameter Bomb II (SDBII)  an all-weather glide bomb with multiple seeker modes.

On Monday, Raytheon plans to announce the recent completion of high-speed wind tunnel testing of a scale model of an F-35 with SDBIIs in its internal bays, which moves the weapon closer to operational testing and on track for F-35 deployment in 2022.

The company also will discuss integration of its latest air-dominance weapon systems on so called fourth-generation fighter jets such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-18 Hornet, which are expected to be in use by allied air forces for years to come, Patterson said.

When the F-35 finally becomes operational, these other fighters wont go away, he said.

NATO missile defense

On Tuesday, Raytheon plans to brief the international press on its vision for collective missile defense among NATO members.

Raytheons Standard Missile-3 has been aboard U.S. ships since 2011 as part of the sea-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system that anchors the phased adaptive approach to missile defense of Europe.

A land-based Aegis system with Standard Missile-3s went operational in Romania in 2016 and another is planned to go online in Poland in 2018.

Theres a lot of interest in SM-3 because it can be land-based or ship-based, Patterson said.

In a preview of the missile-defense briefing on Raytheons website, the company promoted its vision for an integrated NATO missile-defense network and discussed the challenges of integrating each of the allies defense systems to create a sustainable, layered defense.

Raytheon also answered recent criticism that the rollout of advanced missile-defense systems is destabilizing and aggressive.

What is truly destabilizing is the testing or deployment  in violation of international agreements  of medium-range and short-range systems capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, said Chris Lombardi, vice president for Raytheon International in Belgium.

The missile defense systems we are talking about are necessary to protect against those sorts of destabilizing threats.

Future battlespace

On Wednesday, Raytheon officials plan to brief reporters on the future battlespace, including advances in networked weapon systems, laser and other directed-energy weapons, hypersonic missiles, robotics and multi-mission missiles.

Missile Systems part of that presentation will include updates on the companys Coyote small unmanned aircraft, which is being developed to operate in swarms with built-in intelligence and semiautonomy to react to battlefield conditions.
Arizonas top schools administrator, Diane Douglas, campaigned on repealing Common Core standards and took office in 2015.

She says her focus has been on developing Arizona standards for Arizona students, higher level math standards and effectively running the state education department.

The Star met with Douglas last week while she was in Tucson to participate in an education conference and host public forums. We asked her about some key education issues. Her responses were edited for clarity and length:

Q: Prop. 301, a statewide tax levy that boosts pay for teachers, is expiring in 2021. You had previously said you want to extend and expand it. What is your reason, and how will you justify a tax increase to the people who voted you in?

A: I dont think everyone who voted me in is opposed to a tax increase. The people want their teachers paid better and I think they understand that the money has to come from some place. So my proposal is to increase it to a full cent from one-sixth of a cent. Im no fan of a sales tax. In my opinion, it hurts the people we most want to help: our low-income families. This is a proposition and it goes to the voters. They either say yes or no. If its a reasonable request, I hope they will seriously consider it and take a look. I will work with the Legislature to make sure there is non-supplanting language that ensures the money goes to teachers.

Q: How would you secure more funding from the state government outside of seeking other options?

A: We definitely need some new funding sources if we want to compensate our teachers accordingly. People hear that our state budget is $9 billion and it seems like a lot of money, but most of its already spoken for to fund voter initiatives and state agencies. Theres not much new money. To get state aid, its challenging. We need to look at how to find new money. For example, other states have toll roads or own lots of land that generates revenue, not that Im advocating for that. Thats just some of the things you could look at.

Q: How do you see the recent expansion of the Empowerment Scholarship Account, or school vouchers that give public funding for students to attend private schools, playing out for Arizona education?

A: Im an advocate for school choice. I believe that God gives the children to parents and not government bureaucracy. Parents have to make the decisions about their childrens education. The political debate is for the Legislature. We at the education department are tasked with oversight of the money. There have been pushes to privatize that oversight. Im vehemently opposed to that. Its public money and the public has a right to know. We look at those voucher expense reports and make sure that the expenses are viable.

Q: What are your thoughts on the new law that creates alternative teaching credentials, which would allow those with no formal teacher training to become teachers, and its potential impacts on the teacher workforce in Arizona?

A: Its no secret that I was not a fan of that piece of legislation. We had alternative pathways into the classrooms already. One of the problems is that for many years the prevailing philosophy was that if you knew how to teach, understood classroom management and pedagogy, you didnt necessarily need to be an expert. Now were taking this swing where as long as you know your content, you can teach anyone. The truth is in the middle: you need to have a strong skill set and you have to have a passion, but you also have to be able to manage a classroom and develop a lesson plan. In the long run, I think it would hurt teacher retention and recruitment.

Q: In recent years, Arizona has been at or near the bottom of the list in terms of academic achievement levels. What is your plan to boost academic achievement across the state?

A: One of the things we want to do is to make AzMERIT a formative test rather than summative. The intent of that test should be to help students become more successful. Its not about teacher, school or district evaluations. Im not convinced that standardized testing is the most accurate measure of achievement. We should make that test more formative and make sure students are getting the help they need.

Q: What are your thoughts on the new mechanism for rating the states schools and districts?

A: Im not a big fan of the A to F system either. Its based primarily on a test thats not been proven valid to measure a school or a district. They have made a split between growth and proficiency and added college and career readiness indicators, including career and technical education programming. But there needs to be more. I wanted extra funding to expand that system to give parents a much better overview. To some parents, its important that there is a full-time nurse. There are a whole lot of reasons. We want to continue working on the report cards.
Permit-fee breaks for better insulation in new homes.

One hundred percent solar-powered drinking water.

A new eco-project in the fashion of the pioneering southeast-side Civano development.

Long-term loans to help city and county governments and the University of Arizona go green.

And, in the future, more public investment in the bus system and other alternative forms of transportation.

These and other ideas are on the minds of Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild and other city officials. Theyre contemplating action on climate change in light of President Trumps recent decision to exit the Paris Climate Accord of 2015.

On Tuesday, the Tucson City Council will take up this potentially touchy issue in a study session aimed at generating ideas and discussion on what to do next.

Some ideas could cost the city money, but others could be done with little to no upfront cost, the mayor said.

Outside the council meeting, potentially record-setting heat will serve as a backdrop, with temperatures forecast to reach 115 degrees Tuesday and Wednesday. While these temperatures arent specifically linked to climate change, numerous studies have shown that the Southwests temperatures have risen significantly over the past few decades, at rates faster than temperature increases across the entire United States.

The council discussion will come a little more than two weeks after Trump announced the United States would withdraw from the Paris accord. Most nations around the world signed it in December 2015 to set a goal of holding down future global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

The president called the agreement a bad deal for this country, one that would impose unfair environmental standards on U.S. companies and workers. He also called it an attack on American sovereignty.

The U.S. had agreed under former President Barack Obama to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent of 2005 levels by 2025  about 1.6 billion tons, according to The Associated Press.

This act of withdrawing from the world agreement has spurred all of us on the local level who care about the Earth, biodiversity and quality of life to take another look at what we can do locally, said Rothschild, one of more than 300 U.S. mayors to sign a letter pledging to uphold the Paris accords goals.

I dont think anyone in Tucson wants to see summers get hotter, said the mayor. Were focusing on taking a more aggressive approach.

Trump can do what he wants, but that doesnt prevent Tucson from acting locally, added Councilman Steve Kozachik, who called for Tuesdays study session.

The global issue, as we know, has very local impacts. We want to empower people so they can step up and fill the void.

urgency is needed

On its face, the tasks ahead to reach the Paris accords goals seem staggering.

Diana Liverman, former co-director of the University of Arizonas Institute for the Environment, said shes working on a special report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on how to hold temperature increases to the 2.7 degree Fahrenheit goal.

From her work so far, its already clear that to get to it requires not only steep emission reductions but actually removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, said Liverman, now a professor of geography and development.

For the United States to do its fair share of the task to hold temperature increases just to 2 degrees C, or 3.6 degrees F, will require this country to reduce its total greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2020 from 2000 levels. It will also require getting to zero emissions by 2030 with some carbon dioxide actually being removed from the atmosphere by then, Liverman said.

With Arizona generating about 1.5 percent of the annual U.S. total of CO2 emissions, it would need to cut its current emissions total of 105 million metric tons by 73 percent by 2020. Pima Countys current emission level of 14 million metric tons would have to be cut to about 4.2 million by then, Liverman said.

In Pima County we need to get transportation emissions down and get our electricity out of fossil fuels, she said.

Anything short of transformative change is insufficient to address the challenge of meeting global climate goals, said Benjamin Champion, director of the UAs Sustainability Office. That can happen over time, but tackling this problem incrementally is fine only if we use small-scale change to build support and plan much much larger-scale change, Champion said.

Such a change will require mobilizing multiple sectors of the community, he said. They include residential and commercial building energy use, industrial energy and materials use, transportation, waste, food systems and materials/product supply chains. A supply chain is a distribution channel of goods and components, starting with their suppliers and extending through manufacturers, distributors, retailers and ultimately to consumers.

In Tucson, there are grass-roots movements afoot in each of these areas, that all need support and growth, with help from various networks of people and institutions across the community, Champion said.

Specific proposals

Specifically, Rothschild listed these potential solutions:

Going into partnership with Tucson Electric Power to lease city land to install a large, utility scale solar energy plant in the Avra Valley to make the citys Central Arizona Project pumping facilities there 100 percent solar. The city gets most of its drinking water from a series of basins where CAP water is recharged into the aquifer and later pumped out.

Giving developers and homebuilders breaks on permit or impact fees for building eco-friendlier homes and office and commercial buildings.

Builders who install solar panels on homes already are eligible for incentives. Rothschild said incentives could be added for installation of energy-efficient windows and insulation systems.

Incentives could be given to homeowners who retrofit their houses with solar or energy-efficient equipment when they need city permits to do the work, he said. City support can also be given to organizations such as the Tucson Urban League and Community Home Repair Projects of Arizona, which provide weatherization, among many other home-repair projects, for low-income families, the mayor said.

Using performance contracts to obtain loans to include solar power and other energy-saving devices  first in infrastructure such as new buildings, and eventually across city government. With performance contracts, the city arranges for an investor or bank to finance projects, with the city repaying the loan over time using proceeds from savings from reduced energy use.

Similar contracts could be arranged for infrastructure in Pima County, probably the university and potentially Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Rothschild said.

This idea has already been used to borrow $15 million to install LED lighting in city streetlights and parking garages. So far, 19,487 such lights have been installed  92 percent of the total planned  and theyll use 70 percent less electricity than conventional lighting, said Jason Laros, the citys energy and waste diversion programs manager.

Encouraging formation of whats known as 2030 districts, in which building owners and other property owners within specified geographic boundaries commit to reducing their energy and water use 50 percent by 2030. Such a district was recently created for the downtown area. The city could let the district use a city logo on its materials and list the city as a partner, the mayor said.

Creating another of what Rothschild called an eco-district, like Civano, which was developed in the 1990s on the southeast side near Irvington and Houghton roads. Again, the city would give developers incentives to encourage greener construction techniques and low-water-use equipment and facilities.

Saving energy in transportation by more rapidly switching the citys bus fleets and other vehicle fleets to compressed natural gas and other more energy-efficient fuels. Future spending on alternative transportation methods such as transit could also be on the table. The Pima Association of Governments is starting to plan for the re-authorization of the Regional Transportation Authority half-cent sales tax and this topic is on the forefront, Rothschild said.

For now, the mayor isnt talking about imposing new regulations on businesses or homeowners to force them to use less or greener energy. A 2006 statewide proposition put the damper on many such efforts by requiring local governments to compensate property owners for any land-use changes that reduce property values.

Two years ago, the Arizona Legislature went a step further, enacting a law forbidding local governments from even conducting climate audits of privately owned buildings to try to spur reduced energy use, Rothschild said. That law passed after the city of Phoenix sought to conduct such audits.

Kozachik said he doesnt want to cram anything down anyones throat, but wants to work with builders and other sectors of the business community to see if theres more they can do to save energy. Another idea is to dust off a series of voluntary climate-change mitigation measures that the city approved six years ago to see if they can be employed, he said.

Officials from the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association said they cant comment on possible climate-change mitigation strategies at this point.

SAHBA President David Godlewski noted that upgrades to the citys building codes in the past decade have made the codes 30 percent more energy efficient than they were in 2006. Chamber CEO Mike Varney said the chambers board hasnt discussed this subject.

Already, there are many builders who exceed energy-efficiency requirements, Godlewski said. Insulation is better. Windows are more energy-efficient. Weve adjusted the sizing of heating and cooling equipment to be better equipped, based on what the consumer is asking for.

Weve seen consumers by choice buying more and wanting more energy-efficient homes. Builders are building them, he said.

UA sustainability official Champion praised Rothschilds strategies for reducing city energy use. But transportation is absolutely key for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, he added.

A recent Pima Association of Governments report said transportation accounts for 30 percent of emissions in eastern Pima County. Nationally, experts say transportation recently surpassed buildings as the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

While light rail is sexy and cool, finding a way to fund the citys bicycle master plan and a much more comprehensive and reliable bus system throughout the region would come first in my opinion, and should be more cost-effective, Champion said.

But thats how transformative change works. You do the bicycle and bus network upgrades, and all the while start planning the bigger-ticket items that happen in a decade or two, he said.
Youve heard of writers block, right? Im sure you have. Most, if not all, people who write  and thats most of us, in some form or another  get stuck. The brain idles. Words that flow in your mind dont seem to make it out in the written form.

I certainly crash up against writers block. Frequently. But, relying on trade tricks or methods of motivation  deadline being one of the most powerful  I manage to transfer my thoughts into words.

Still, writing is difficult for a lot of people. For different reasons, writing is daunting, intimidating, humbling and even threatening.

But if youve ever wanted to write, whether it be a story, a book, poems, and you are unsure how to, may I suggest you talk to Marge Pellegrino.

Pellegrino, author and teacher, is this summers Pima County Public Librarys Writer-in-Residence. Pellegrino will meet with you at Woods Memorial Library, 3455 N. First Ave., on Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to noon and Nanini Library, 7300 N. Shannon Road, on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Writing is so accessible, Pellegrino said. The basic tools are pen and paper or, if you are more comfortable, a computer. Anyone and everyone can write, said Pellegrino, who works with refugee children who are learning English through the Owl & Panther Project.

Pellegrino is the librarys fourth writer-in-residence in a program, now in its second year, in part funded by the Arizona State Library of the Secretary of States Office and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The program runs through Aug. 31 and is free.

Whether you dont consider yourself a writer or you have a manuscript ready to send to the publishing world, Pellegrino has tips, ideas, suggestions or words of encouragement.

Everybody comes in needing something different, said Pellegrino, author of My Grandmas the Mayor and Too Nice, both childrens books, and the award-winning novel Journey of Dreams. She has also published nonfiction and poetry.

Pellegrino counsels writers not to be judgmental about their writing. Dont worry what others will think or even what the writer thinks about their work.

Its about the process. Its not about the product, she said.

But even the process can be a barrier.

In some writing workshops that she has coordinated, Pellegrino has a teaching tool that helps overcome that gnawing, growling self-doubt: she has the students write on paper, then tear it up without reading what they wrote.

Its not as crazy as you might think. That small act can go a long way.

Its liberating, Pellegrino said.

By avoiding what was written, it relieves the pressure, the fear of self-criticism which can be powerful and, at times, destructive for a writer. It encourages the writer, next time, to focus on writing and not the doubts.

Pellegrino began writing when a brother died, leaving two young daughters. As a way to cope with her loss, she took a workshop in journal writing. In her words, she dealt with her pain and grief, in ways she couldnt do through talking.

On the page I would lay it all out. I didnt have to hold it, she said.

Through this practice she found her voice, she found clarity, she found purpose.

Writing has that power, regardless of the level of writing. Were not talking Toni Morrison or Gabriel Garcia Marquez here. Everyone is a writer. Everyone has words, a story to tell about their childhood, a crazy uncle, a first kiss or the last kiss, a trip, a dream, a story about monsters, about diving into the sea or soaring through space, or a secret.

And everyone has inner questions about themselves and the world around them, which writing can help answer, Pellegrino said.

You can find your own wisdom, she said. Writing helps you discover your own answers.

So go find your answers. Talk to Marge. Then let your words talk to you because they will and when you hear them, youll write more. Just for yourself. You and your words.
47th Annual Juneteenth Festival

Charles Young, far right, of the Territory of Arizona Buffalo Soldiers, has a captive audience as he explains how the Buffalo Soldiers got their name to Terry Lim, far left, Khloe Bell-Harry, 7, second from left, Gabriella Bell, 10, third from right, and Lucy Lim during the 47th Annual Juneteenth Festival on Saturday June 17, 2017.
A group of SaddleBrooke residents is holding a campaign to help pay off some of the debt of Tucson animal rescue groups that racked up more than $360,000 in veterinary bills last year.

The SaddleBrooke Pet Rescue Network was formed six years ago by five women who wanted to help rehabilitate and find homes for unwanted pets.

Our primary mission is to help local rescues and (Pima Animal Care Center) rehabilitate their pets and the way that we do that is primarily through fundraising to aid local rescues and volunteering at PACC, said Leslie Rocco, one of the groups founders.

The network has found homes for more than 800 animals, donated $87,000 to the Pima Animal Care Center and local pet rescue groups and volunteered more than 23,000 hours of members time.

In early 2016, after raising $10,000 for local groups, board members decided they wanted the money to make the biggest impact possible. In talking to a veterinarian and researching the situation, they learned that 14 rescue groups had accumulated $240,000 in vet bills in 2015.

They launched the payoff vet debt campaign  Tucsons only multi-group fundraising effort  last summer and asked Tucson residents to match the $10,000 in donations. At the end of the 30-day fundraiser, SaddleBrooke Pet Rescue Network was able to donate $22,500 to rescue groups in Pima County, Rocco said.

This year, the network is asking Tucsonans to match $15,000 in donations by July 15.

Were saying to Tucson, if SaddleBrooke can come up with $15,000, surely Tucson can come up with the same, Rocco said.

In 2016, local rescue groups accumulated roughly $360,000 in vet expenses to save 2,200 pets. While that figure sounds high, it works out to about $163 per animal, which is typically the cost for a spay or neuter surgery and vaccinations, said Jan Pede, a network co-founder.

As a consequence of becoming a no-kill county, youre saving dogs that have medical problems and behavior problems that would not have ever been considered to be saved, Pede said.

Sheltering is not the ideal situation for dogs with serious medical problems, so rescue groups have been pulling the dogs from the shelters and taking on their care, Pede said.

Its just a different scenario than five years ago where rescues were pulling dogs that were highly adaptable just to save them because of time and space, Pede said. Time and space are no longer the huge issue.

SaddleBrooke Pet Rescue Network will be donating money from the campaign evenly among 11 local rescue groups, and the funds will be paid directly to their vet accounts.

The network is donating administrative costs for the campaign so 100 percent of the donations will go to paying off debts.

Were excited about it working last year, and it definitely had an impact on the groups, Rocco said. It was an eye-opener to us to see how much financial outlay there is. When they rescue a pet, they have no idea what theyre getting into, so it makes you admire them even more.

As a requirement to participate in the fundraiser, the rescue groups had to have accumulated at least $10,000 in vet bills in 2016, although many groups had bills that far surpassed that number, including Lil Bit of Love group, which told Rocco it spent $100,000 in vet bills last year.

We view it as a community problem and issue, and if were going to be a no-kill community, we need to support these people who are doing good work, Pede said.

The network wants to reach a large audience on social media and are asking people to like or share their Facebook page to get the word out.
The Trump administration is under pressure to explain its extensive early feedback on state plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act , and it appears to be responding.

Chris Minnich, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in a statement Friday that the feedback letters raised some concerns among his members . And Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., an ESSA architect and an ally of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, said last week hed be taking a close look at the feedback .

The U.S. Department of Education responded to these concerns at the end of last week , publishing a list of Frequently Asked Questions that seeks to explain exactly what its letters to three statesthe first feedback states have gotten from the Trump team on ESSAactually meant when it comes to DeVos approach to the law.

The document may not clear up every question states and others may have, however. More on that below.

First, one key point: The FAQ is clear that states dont have to make changes to their proposals in response to feedback from the department and peer reviewers who read the plans. They can submit them as is, and see if they get approved, or not.

This initial feedback is not an approval or denial of a State plan; however, a State is still required to submit a plan that complies with all statutory requirements. Each State then has the opportunity to revise, further describe, add information and/or make changes and resubmit its plan; however, no State is required to do so, the FAQ says.

The new FAQ also notes that it will be up to states to come up with their own definitions of technical, but important, terms that arent explained in the law. These include what it means for academic goals to be ambitious or for certain indicators to carry substantial weight.

But it says the the Secretary is obligated to make a determination as to whether a States proposed definition, on its face, is reasonable.

That clarification matters, especially when it comes to ambitious goals. Thats because Minnich and others in Washington were particularly miffed that the departments feedback letter to Delaware , in particular, questioned whether the states student achievement goals were sufficiently ambitious. Thats despite language in ESSA clearly prohibiting the secretary from telling states what their goals can or cant be.

Minnichs statement also questioned the departments interpretation of two other parts of Delawares plan, dealing with restrictions on the use of science and social studies tests as academic indicators, and whether states can use Advanced Placement tests to determine if students are ready for college or career.

Its also matters that Alexander said he was reviewing DeVos feedback letters, which so far have been sent to Delaware, New Mexico, and Nevada. The Senate education committee chairman helped DeVos narrowly win Senate approval after a rocky confirmation hearing, and his staff has been lending the department a hand with ESSA implementation .

When ESSA was under development, Alexander was the biggest champion of limiting the departments power to tell states how to hold their schools accountable. And he said earlier this year that he expected DeVos would greenlight every states plan.

So what exactly does the new FAQ mean for states?

Its tough to say for sure. The language on goals could suggest that Delaware and other states may just have to provide the feds with documentation explaining why they think their goals are ambitious. But they can still use whatever goals they think make sense.

The FAQ document doesnt directly address some other big questions raised by Delawares letter, however. Its still unclear whether DeVos and Companywho have sole discretion on whether to give a thumbs up or down on a states planwill allow Delaware, or any other state, to include social studies and science as academic indicators, in the same way as reading and math.

And its unclear whether Delaware, or any other state, can give districts a range of choices to demonstrate college- and career-readiness.

Delaware had wanted to give its districts a variety of options for proving their students are ready for the challenges of postsecondary education. Under Delawares proposal, districts could use scores on Advanced Placement tests, scores on International Baccalaureate tests, the SAT, or dual-enrollment course grades to meet that requirement. The department, though, indicated to Delaware in its feedback letter that the proposal may not pass muster, because not all schools offer AP or IB classes, and its unclear whether a significant percentage of kids take the tests.

The issue doesnt only apply to Delaware. At least a dozen states have written AP or IB tests into their plans.

But from reading the FAQ, its difficult to tell whether DeVos would reject Delawareand other statesfor trying to use a range of indicators to demonstrate college-and-career readiness. Its possible states simply need to provide the department with more information to show that the different indicators can be compared to one another.

In fact, some former Obama administration officials were scratching their heads over the FAQ. They say the department needs to be much more specific.

ED is trying, but comms is Achilles heel. FAQs need to be super clear; not there yet @politicsk12 https://t.co/YXICE52iZP via @educationweek  Joanne Weiss (@JoanneSWeiss) June 19, 2017

Correct - clarity, clarity, clarity!! Whats reqd, why, how to meet it? Whats suggested, why? Tell us how youll make decisions, ED!  Joanne Weiss (@JoanneSWeiss) June 19, 2017

Want more on ESSA? Weve got you covered:

Video: ESSA Explained in 3 Minutes
Help India!

By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter

Kannur: Kannur Town police on Saturday registered a case against BJP firebrand leader K Surendran for threatening two DySPs in connection with the Fazal murder case. Through a Facebook post, Surendran had threatened DySPs Sadanandan and Prince Abraham.

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The duo had taken the statement of RSS worker Subeesh in connection with murder of PFI activist Fazal, who was killed on October 22, 2006 at Thalassery in Kannur district.

Putting BJP-RSS leadership in trouble, the telephonic conversation and video footage of Subeesh shows him confessing to the role of RSS activists in the murder had come out. The video was later submitted in Kerala High Court by CPIM leader Karayi Rajan. Following the leakage, Surendran lost his temper and threatened the police officers in a public post.

He alleged the police officers were CPIM party men and dared to resign from the post and go for party activities. Surendran also alleged that the two DySPs were making bids to save Karayi Rajan and Karayi Chandrasekharan, who are accused in the murder case.

If you do such dirty things, we are not dumb not to understand it. Once your service term is over, you and we are just ordinary citizensMind it, the post threatened the officers.
Help India!

By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter

Kasargod: Following agitations and state-wide demands, Kerala Government has appointed M Ashokan as the special public prosecutor in Riyas Moulavi murder case. The committee of Muhyudheen Juma Masjid in Choori received an order to this effect. Riyas was hacked to death allegedly by RSS workers when he was sleeping in his room on March 22 night. Mosque committee functionaries told media persons the order was signed by the Chief Minister.

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Led by local political leaders, the committee had given a petition to the Chief Minister urging steps to appoint a special prosecutor in the case soon after the incident. A renowned barrister, Ashokan was the defence lawyer in the T P Chandrasekharan murder case, in which 12 persons, including three CPM leaders, were convicted.

Mosque committee believe the appointment will help the accused get due punishment. Kasargod police have so far arrested three RSS-BJP workers: Ajesh,20, Nithin,19, and Akhilesh alias Akhil,25. The State Government sanctioned the prosecution of the accused under Section 153A in the Indian Penal Code, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion.

Kannur Crime Branch SP A Srinivas, who headed the investigation, had said the killing was motivated by hate for the community.

Soon after his appointment, Ashokan held discussions with the special investigation team and the mosque committee members at the Crime Branch office in Kannur.
Help India!

By Mirza Mosaraf Hossain, TwoCircles.net

The period of Ramadan is a time of fasting for Muslims across the world. But it is also important to point that the act of fasting from dusk to dawn, every day, for a month is not always an option for many Muslims, especially for people who are the breadwinners of their family. When you have a family to take care and a job that requires an intense amount of physical activity, fasting might even feel like a luxury. Ask Akhtar Khan, a 54-year-old resident of Kolkata. Khan rides a rickshaw, and in his own words, I cannot do fasting in this weather as I have to ride more than 50-60 km every day. The fasting of six members at my home depends on my daily earnings and if I also fast, they will not be able to afford a single meal.

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Of course, this is not to say that Roza is not on the minds of Khan as he works during the day. In fact, it was because of a great loss that Khan had to skip Roza. I have been fasting since my childhood and could keep fasts even when I joined to work in a leather company in Topsia. I had my own business there, but when it had to be shut down I had no option but to ride a rickshaw to take care of my family, he adds.

And it is also important to point out that there are several factors which have led to Khan not observing Roza. Take the rickshaw that he rides. If it was his, he would have been able to at least consider renting it out to someone else and survive on that money. But he doesnt own the rickshaw. I have to pay 70 rupees per day for this rickshaw. I earn between Rs 150 and 300 average per day, and I have to work every day; even if I am suffering from any disease, Khan, who works in the areas of Chittaranjan Hospital, Topsia, Ripan Street, Phoolbagan, Loantala etc.

Khan knows that in an ideal world, he would have kept Roza like every other practising Muslim, and often thinks about the consequences of not doing so. Allah might be upset at me since I am not fasting, but at the same He must be happy; due to me other six persons are able fast, he says with a smile.

Originally from Bihar, Khan now lives a village near Baruipur, which is about 32 kms from Kolkata. He has three daughters and a son. Every day, he wakes up early in the morning; catches a train to reach Sealdah and from there he takes a bus to arrive in the area where his rickshaw is kept. My daughters, son, daughter-in-law and my wife all are fasting. I wake them up at Sehari and after offering namaz I set out from home. My eyes fill with tears when I see that my child-like daughters are fasting and I am not, Khan says.

The case of Yusuf Mollah and Ramzan Mollah is similar to Khan. Yusuf Mollah is a 60-year-old hawker who recycles plastics, damaged iron, tin, broken glasses from Panapukur village of Rajarhat block, North 24 Parganas. He has to take care of his family of eleven members. I did fast for seven days, but I had to leave it because I have to ride my cycle over 80 kms everyday under the scorching sun and it is not possible to do so without eating for someone of my age Mollah says with regret.

Ramzan Mollah, a 68 years old hawker like Yusuf Mollah has to manage his family of seven members. He was forced to stop fasting after six days due to the excessive heat. I kept my fast every year since I have been an adult, but this year I had to leave it as I travel on my cycle to far off under the scorching sun, Ramzan said. He added that his three daughters, two sons and his wife are keeping fasting.

Adversity brings out the best in a human being. In the case of Ramzan Mollah, Yusuf Mollah and Akhtar Khan, the decision to not observe Roza is simply to ensure that their families have something to eat when they break their fasts.

For Ajida Bibi, a 59-year-old widow working as a domestic help, fasting is an integral part of her life and hence, despite working from morning to evening in five homes, she continues to fast. These days, her day begins with offering Namaz and then having Seheri followed by working in all the homes before afternoon. In evening, she has her meal (Iftar) and then again goes back to the four homes to prepare meals. By the time she comes back, it is usually late at night. I fast even after such toilsome routine of my life as it is part and parcel of the faith that I believe, she says.

The case of 15-year-old Kerima Khatun is similar. Khatun, from Shankbaha village of Nanoor block, Birbhum, starts her daily journey after sehari and namaz at dawn. She attends her tuitions in a village which is about 3 kms away, returns home and then goes to school in another village which is about 2.5 kms away. After iftar, she attends another tuition in her village. But despite her schedule, she manages to observe her fasts. From my childhood, I have witnessed my parents and uncles fast regularly and punctually. How can I avoid that? Khatun says.
Transport for London (TfL) has suspended travel on parts of the Circle Line  one of the busiest tube lines - due to safety concerns that debris could fall from the charred remains of Grenfell Tower.

TfL has partly suspended the Circle Line service between Aldgate and Edgware Road because of planned engineering works and the recent fire in the Latimer Road area, as outlined in TfLs official status announcement.

A sign at Ladbroke Grove station said that the service had been halted ..owing to the safety of the Tower.

Ladbroke Grove is the nearest Tube station to Grenfell Tower  the 27-storey block of flats which was destroyed early on Wednesday morning in a devastating blaze.

The Hammersmith and City Line has also been temporarily closed between Edgware Road and Hammersmith as a result of the fire.

Decision taken at request of London Fire Brigade

The decision to close the lines was taken by TfL "at the request of the London Fire Brigade".

A spokesperson for TfL told MailOnline that the transport service had not received such a request in living memory.

The stations closed at 11.20 am and it is unclear when they will re-open.

It took more than 250 fire fighters and 40 engines more than two days, to bring the fire at the housing block under control.

58 people are presumed dead following fire

Police revealed today that more than 70 people remain missing after the fire and 30 have been confirmed dead. Police announced on Saturday afternoon that 58 people are presumed dead.

Commander Stuart Cundy made an announcement to the media, stating: "Sadly, at this time there are 58 people who we have been told were in the Grenfell Tower on the night that are missing, and therefore sadly, I have to assume that they are dead.

That number 58 may change. I really hope it won't, but it may increase."

Two protests have been held in London today, at which protesters shouted Justice for Grenfell!.

Prime Minister Theresa May has announced a 5m package dedicated to providing housing and support to the victims of the fire.

The rapid spread of the fire, which tore through the building in minutes, has been blamed on the use of combustible cladding material used in the construction of high-rise buildings.

The North Kensington Tower Block was managed by Kensington and Chelsea Council, providing affordable social housing to local residents.

A criminal investigation has been launched over the fire, but it has been confirmed that the full findings will not be released until after inquests of victims are delivered. It is expected that the enquiry may take several years.
Robotic v natural

During the general election campaign which resulted in a hung parliament, we all saw the different approaches used by Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn on the campaign trail.

Theresa May came over as aloof, cold and robotic and appeared to lack any empathy with the people she was addressing. Also, a lot of the people she addressed seemed to be chosen at random with screened questions as opposed to Jeremy Corbyn who met ordinary people and spoke with them naturally.

Her mantra of 'Strong and stable' did not do her any favours either, as she proved to be anything but.

Wherever Corbyn went he was met with chants of "Jeremy Corbyn!" and his mantra for "For the many, not the few" seemed more real.

Of course, the Conservatives did win the election but not enough to get the overall majority, hence the talks with the DUP. Labour did not win either, but they did enough thanks to Corbyn to get a respectable result and stand ready to become the government should May's government fall.

Weak and wobbly May with strong and stable Corbyn

The wooden appearance of Theresa May made itself known again as she visited Kensington in the aftermath of the Grenfell disaster. She appeared surrounded by police officers screening her lest a member of the public should get near her. She later visited a hospital to speak with the victims, and how she came over to the victims would be interesting to see if she showed any empathy or not.

As she left the hospital and climbed into her car there were shouts of "Coward!" as her motorcade sped away, presumably back to No 10.

The difference when Jeremy Corbyn arrived in Kensington as opposed to Theresa May's appearance, again it was noticeable. Right away Corbyn engaged with people and spoke with them about the disaster, and even hugged people as they described the horrors of Grenfell Tower.

Perhaps it is unfair to attack May's demeanour in public places, and obviously, she does care, but if she cannot express empathy as Corbyn does this does her no favours. Corbyn's years of public speaking and mixing with crowds over his 30 years as an MP has obviously stood him in good stead when he attends disasters like Grenfell.

Queen attends Grenfell along with Prince William

The reason given why Theresa May did not meet the public as Corbyn did was because of security concerns, but Corbyn was not surrounded by a police cordon so this makes this statement seem a little hollow.

The Queen along with Prince William visited the area and spoke with victims of the fire but there were no obvious uniformed security people as with May. As the Queen was about to climb into her car there were shouts of various kinds from the public to which Prince William responded favourably as his mother would have done.
Before proceeding to develop this report aclararte wanted a concept that brings many people into error. If at some point you have come to pledge, secure or phrases to emphasize the same or similar to these "build your business for free" zero investment, big profits "" earn extra money without paying anything, "I can assure you, you will lying. No Free Business may be made with more or less investment but all require an amount to start, and if not so, beware, it may be an illegal business or investment will ask you later when you have achieved your trust or will be these wonderful inventions to send spam to anyone who approaches their networks into believing they will be rich overnight. More info: Lakshman Achuthan. These concepts may be the wrong idea by some people who believe that everything online is free and when they find something valuable, something they love or what they are really looking for and ask for a price they feel offended and raise their voices saying it is a scam. Did you look at a window, you see some shoes that you love, you go and tell the clerk to give you those shoes so wonderful? But free, thank you very much! No one would happen to us over the head to do so, right? Well traslademoslo Internet. Why a service or an asset that is of quality or fill out our expectations we will have to be free? Now I moved to have her own business on the Internet. I do not know anyone who has a business, be it traditional, is the internet that has cost him nothing, there could be higher or lower investment, but something has had to invest in the economic section. I have met many people who when they have been informed that he had to invest in the business have provided me as loving phrases like "these crazy if I pay for work" or "you are a dreamer if you'll pay for a job." Sometimes I answer and sometimes not even bother me and now I'll explain that: 1.



Do not tell them because they have not understood anything and I doubt they come to understand. 2. I do not think I have explained well and I think a lot of laps where I could put that I am offering a job. I do not offer a job, I offer a business. 3. I explain this and also stress, it is not, but when the case you're being offered a job, have you invested heavily in studying and I formed to have a degree?, Have you invested in buying newspapers and watching commercials job opportunities?, have not you bought a particular clothing to attend job interviews?, have you done that course you think you are going to provide more opportunities for the post you want to achieve?, do not spend money in public and private transport, etc?. So yes, we need investment, which is very important to know if you are willing to do it, if you can make, if you're going to be constant so that this investment is insignificant when you see the results you have obtained in one year, and if ultimately you have chosen well before doing it and you've made the right decision with the type of business, sector, company, your sponsor, if you've studied and read the fine print and then not going to ask for more investment to achieve certain levels as well as your hard work.
Theres far too much furore over the release of the documentary The Red Pill in Australia. Made in 2016 Cassie Jaye, an American feminist documentary maker spent a year filming the leaders and followers of the mens rights movement.

The Red Pill Facebook page describes the documentary: Jaye delves head-first into the most polarising of men's rights groups, A Voice For Men (AVFM). AVFM is the largest and fastest growing online community of men's rights activists who believe men are discriminated against and that feminists have it all wrong. AVFM has been characterised as a "hate group" by the media, but men's rights activists (a.k.a.

"MRAs") believe they are simply misunderstood. The film follows Jaye meeting the most prominent men's rights leaders such as Paul Elam (Founder of A Voice For Men), Dr Warren Farrell (author of the best-selling novel "The Myth of Male Power"), and Harry Crouch (President of the National Coalition for Men), among many others. The Red Pill explores todays gender war and what needs to be done in order to achieve true gender equality.

Rising hysteria

While promoting her film in Australia last week Cassie explained she wanted to explore,  Feminists and mens' rights to find some middle ground. Unfortunately, the hysteria that has arisen over the documentary by feminists and the media, it is unlikely to show in many cinemas, although a quick internet search it can be found online.

Wrote Joe Hildebrand news.com.au on Friday; The question at the heart of this debate has nothing to do with whether you agree with what The Red Pill is saying. Its whether you believe that just because you disagree with something it should be banned. And if your values are so weak and baseless as to be threatened by every countervailing wind or opposing views then those values are hardly worth having at all.

Hes right, the more we try to suppress another persons opinion the more dangerous are our prejudices.

A powerless position

A couple of years ago I interviewed a man, Bob 43 (not his real name), who had been accused of rape by his ex.

My ex-wife and I had been together for 17 years, married for 15. We shared looking after our children.

Although we divorced over two years before we had a good relationship, in fact, we still slept together every now and again. I guess you could say we were exs with benefits, he says.

After a while, he met someone new and he explained one night to his ex he didnt want to carry on their amorous liaisons.

The woman was hurt and decided to get her own back by reporting Bob to the local police for rape. The police told me they were charging me with two counts of rape and four counts of sexual violation. I was disgusted, the word, the act, is abhorrent. How could they think Id do such a thing? I felt sick to my stomach he says.

For Bob it was his word against hers, her medical examination showed theyd had sex hours before so he couldnt deny hed been with her, but the fact she had said he raped her put him in a powerless position.

Just imagine you are hearing this story for the first time, who are you going to believe? Of course, the statistics point towards it was probably Bob that committed the crime. But this is like saying all Muslims are terrorists. Some are, most arent.

Luckily, in Bobs case the NZ justice system believed him and after his ex-wife admitted shed made it all up he was acquitted and sent home.

Ive been to hell and back and one day her cruel accusation will fade away into time. In the meantime, I just get on with my life the best I can. Its a terrible thing to happen, it can happen to anybody and it happened to me, he says.

Said Cassie Jaye to Martin Daubney of the UK Telegraph in 2015 Above all, the Red Pill is not about attacking women: it is about supporting men.

And that can only be a good thing.

Bob went through hell when the rape charges were laid, he lost his friends, his job and even some of his family refused to talk to him. He was male, so he must be guilty, only he wasnt.

This documentary must not be ignored.

https://uk.blastingnews.com/world/2017/03/international-women-s-day-without-us-life-stops-say-protestors-001534177.html

https://us.blastingnews.com/opinion/2017/03/should-everyone-be-a-feminist-001575307.html
Almost a week on from the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, London. The affects are being felt across the community and within communities like them. But what do we know so far? The authoritys movements within the building are going to be limited because the damage will have weakened the structure, meaning there are safety concerns that the building could collapse.

Transport for London have kept services between Wood Lane and Edgware Road suspended until 14.00 today. This is over concerns to the structural integrity of Grenfell Tower; further announcements will be made over the course of the investigation.

An inquiry and protests begin

Theresa May has called for a public inquiry but this is not good enough for because what is needed is a full-blown public inquest. A public inquiry is run by the Government and the government oversees the results, with May stating that she is the person who is overseeing this inquiry. Except this wont inspire confidence and with the public already angry, full transparency is necessary and if it is like the expenses investigation, which the Conservatives hindered wherever they could, it would destroy the publics confidence in the government even more. However, if it was an inquest, this would be fully independent from the government and headed by the correct authorities.

The results of the inquiry may not be seen for years.

Protests have already broken out in Kensington with the council being the target for those protests, more are expected Monday. This fire represents failures in austerity and highlight what cutting corners and local authoritys budgets can do. According to the Emergency and Disaster Information Service, the fire has affected 650 people living in the building, with 65 rescued, 30 injured and 58 deaths.

But what of the unaccounted 497 people? This raises concerns over overcrowding in a building that wasnt designed for that amount of people and how many people has this killed that have yet to be confirmed or even found? Will some people ever be found?

Lessons not learned

In 2009, Lakanal House tower block caught fire and killed 6 people.

The coroners report made recommendations on how to improve fire safety, the government responded in 2013 with a letter from Eric Pickles stating they would review certain procedures. With Gavin Barwell, then Housing Minister, reiterating last year that they plan to do something but nothing materialised. Also in the reply from Mr Pickles he said residential high-rise buildings be required to provide relevant information for operational purposes in premises information boxes. However, on balance we consider that a regulatory requirement is unnecessary and disproportionate. Furthermore, in February this year Southwark council pleaded guilty to breaking fire regulations.

Plus, residents complained to the Conservative run council run council that there were significant flaws with regards to fire safety but were repeatedly ignored and told that they were wrong.

That 8.6 million external refurbishment, was largely spent on aluminium cladding, that has been attributed to exacerbating fires on buildings in the UAE, France and Australia. It is also banned in the US and Germany. It was Boris Johnson as Mayor of London who oversaw the development and who significantly cut the London Fire Brigade. The police have now opened a criminal investigation over the fire, with regards to that cladding.

312 Tory MPs voted down a bill that forces landlords to make rental properties habitual for humans. That's the state we are in, laws must be made (or attempted) so that people make a living space habitual for other humans, they don't do it out of choice. That's the systemic issue, government isn't a business but the lives of people.

To summarise, they have had since Lakanal House tower fire in 2009, the report crossed over to the ConDem government in 2010. Enough time to do something, there has been enough enquiries into fires like these in the past but there has been significant inaction from them.
There is trouble in Israel as Jerusalem is the centre of another terror attack. An Israeli woman police officer was stabbed to death in the city. The attack appears to have been a coordinated effort by Palestine Arabs at two different locations in the city for maximum effect. Both the incidents took place almost simultaneously.

In the first incident, a Palestine attacker attacked a group of Israeli police with a knife but was gunned down. In the second incident, a Palestine Arab attacked a woman Police Officer with a knife while his accomplice trained a homemade machine gun called a "Carlos" at the officer.

The gun jammed and the Arab with the knife stabbed the woman officer. She has been identified as 23-year-old Hadas Malka who was a Staff Seargent in the border police. The girl died instantaneously and the attackers were shot dead by the police.This sad news was reported by Al Jazeera news channel.

Animosity between Arabs and Jews

The attack brings out the deep animosity between Arabs and Jews. To complicate matters the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the stabbing. They were contradicted by Hamas the militant wing of the Palestine Arabs who claimed the three men were members of their organisation. Irrespective of who claims the attacks the result is the same and Israel has to be vigilant.

The attackers

The attack on the woman police officer was vicious. The attackers do not distinguish between women and men. The police have claimed that four other people were wounded but they did not suffer life-threatening injuries. The three attackers killed were all in the 18-19 age group and have been identified. This is cause for concern and shows the younger group of Palestine Arabs are getting increasingly radicalised.

They had entered Jerusalem from the West Bank.

Attacks by Arabs

The Israelis are facing the brunt of savage attacks by Arabs and since September 2015, nearly 42 people have been killed in terrorist violence. In retaliation, the Israelis have killed over 250 Palestine Arabs. Both the communities are in a state of daggers drawn and peace is not on the horizon.

The biggest bone of contention is Jerusalem which is declared to be the capital of Israel. The Palestine Arabs also claim it. Prospects of peace in the region are dim as Israel will never relinquish its claim to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. The Palestine Arabs cannot reconcile to this and are demanding an independent state. A visit by the U.S. president to Israel has not yielded any results.

Last word

The Arabs and the Israeli state have fought four wars since 1948 and in all of them, they have been defeated.
Malawian journalists and their Zambian counterparts have signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance partnership in improving media coverage of childrens issues in the two countries.

Malawis Media Advocates for the Advancement of Child Rights (MAACR) and Zambian based Media Network on Child Rights and Development (MNCRD) have pledged to work together in areas such as media training, children news agencies, and research.

Improving the situation of children

MAACR President Mallick Mnela has hailed the signing of the MoU as a launch pad to the successful implementation of child-friendly media in Malawi and the region at large.

MNCRD Executive Director Henry Kabwe has been instrumental in the formation of the MAACR. We believe from him, we will tap a lot of wisdom to improve childrens situation in the country, Mnela said.

In his remarks, Kabwe said children in the SADC region face similar challenges and the signing of the deal will help reduce the challenges. We have similar challenges. We can only win if we consolidate our resolve as a united front, Kabwe said.

Save the Children Malawi, financiers of the training program, championed the signing of the MoU

Meanwhile,tthe Media Advocates for the Advancement of Child Rights (MAACR) has appealed to media practitioners to ensure that children arrested in the recent riots by primary school pupils should be treated according to the law.

In a statement released on Friday, MAACR President Mallick Mnela said it was unfortunate that children were subjected to tear gassing. Its unfortunate that children had to experience this kind of treatment, said Mnela.

Malawian primary schools normally have children aged between 7 and 15. In the statement, Mnela also observed that the children should be treated in the spirit of the Child (Care, Protection and Justice) Act (2010) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

Commemoration of Soweto incident in South Africa

The DAC is commemorated every year on 16th June in memory of the 16th June 1976 student uprising in Soweto, South Africa, during which students who marched in protest against the poor quality of Education were massacred by the then apartheid regime in place in South Africa.

In Malawi, the events leading to the introduction of the day resonated with events that took place earlier this week in Balaka, Blantyre and Ntcheu.

Some primary school pupils in these areas were engaged in protests against the suspension of classes due to the on-going teachers strike. In some instances, the pupils riots turned violent. There is also information that some third-parties were involved in the protests.

MAACR President says his organisation categorically condemns all acts of violence, lawlessness and immoral conduct. Based on media reports, nine pupils and over 20 third-party elements have been arrested and are scheduled to appear before the court.

"We at the Media Advocates for the Advancement of Child Rights (MAACR) wish to appeal to all parties involved in the investigation, prosecution and publicity of such activities to exercise caution against violating childrens rights," Mnela said.

Mnela urged journalists in Malawi to probe to determine if the children said to have been in conflict with the law were subjected to a preliminary inquiry which determines whether the offence they committed should be dealt with by the criminal justice system or not.

Mnela said, "The MAACR wishes members of the media to establish if the relevant authorities ascertained the ages of the children to determine whether they can be held criminally responsible for their actions (the age of criminal responsibility in Malawi is 10 years)."
With the bill on the desk of the Governor, many people whose lives have been impacted by someone suffering from a debilitating disease are looking for ways to get into the medical Marijuana industry that will hit Florida after July.

Cannabis education

Pete Sessa from the Florida Cannabis Coalition has heard many stories about wanting to get into the business of cannabis because friends and family of people she meets are often conflicted with astounding co-pays for prescription pain killers and drugs. Not only are the co-pays for the drugs a problem for them, but seeing videos shared on social media how cannabis can help patients with disabilities are giving them a chance to consider alternatives to costly medication.

The goal Sessa wants is to connect entrepreneurs to advocates and businesses within the medical marijuana industry. They also provide educational and networking events across the country and attend national conferences on a regular basis. Common Brand Collaborative is the sister company of Florida Cannabis Coalition, offers business consultations and business development services.

Currently, Sessas business is educating those interested in getting a hand in the cannabis industry. Because rules can change overnight, education is critical, she says to Tampa Bay Times.

Company agreements

Overall, medical marijuana could bring billions of revenue to the state. This could help with funding projects for transportation or education.

But as of right now, only seven companies can sell and distribute cannabis. The state hopes to add ten more to the seven already registered in the state thanks to the help of Charlottes Web for epileptic patients. People that have joined the Florida Cannabis Coalition company are a research firm called Technical 420 that also monitors stock of cannabis company shares, a supplement company called House of Jane, a vaper device company called VapeXhale, and retailer for cannabis stores called The Gluu.

Sessa says to Tampa Bay Times that three years ago there was a lot of friction between cannabis companies and those with interest in getting into the business. But yet as the medical marijuana industry proves to be more popular throughout the United States to campaign against big pharmaceutical companies, more and more people want to share their knowledge of the experience and help others get into the business, even if it is just an idea.

We like to call it compassionate capitalism because everyone knows somebody who could have benefited from taking something else other than a pill, Sessa said.
Wisconsin is going all out to rope in Foxconn, a Taiwanese company, to set up facilities for assembly of Electronic Products that would include Apple iPhones. It is understood that talks are on between both the sides and if the project does materialize, it is expected to generate nearly 50,000 new jobs. That would be boon for the unemployed and would also boost the popularity ratings of Governor Scott Walker as he plans to run for re-election.

What is Foxconn?

Daily Mail UK reports that Foxconn was established in 1974 and purchased in 2016 by Japan's Sharp Corp.

It has already announced that it had plans to invest nearly $7 billion in one of the U.S. factories and would produce display panels that would create as many as 50,000 jobs. The company assembles electronic devices like smartphones for different brands and most of the work is in China where it employs about one million people.

In the course of a recent visit to Milwaukee, President Donald Trump referred to the ongoing negotiations with an unspecified company and hinted that Wisconsin could soon get some good news. He did not elaborate further but indicated that foreign companies are heading to the United States and negotiations are in progress with a manufacturer of phones and other electronic products.

Reactions of the industry

In the opinion of Tom Still, President of the Wisconsin Technology Council, the state of Wisconsin has experience in the manufacture of similar electronic products. That would prove to be beneficial to Foxconn because they can make use of a readily available workforce.

Both Scott Walker and Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder had made short-term unannounced visits to Japan and the objective is believed to have been to follow up possible opportunities for economic development.

Snyder wants to bring Foxconn to his state and therefore, wants his lawmakers to approve tax incentives that would attract large-scale business to the state.

Foxconn CEO Terry Gou has indicated that there are several factors to be sorted out before a final decision can be taken on where to locate the facility. Some of these issues are the availability of low-cost land or power.

He has also added that Pennsylvania has also shown interest and Foxconn is having dialogues with other states also to get the best possible deal.

Obviously, it is now a tussle between Wisconsin and Michigan to land the deal with Foxconn, since employment opportunities will improve. That will be a blessing for whoever wins because unemployment is a curse that leads to unrest, especially among the youth which is bad for society.
If there's one constant theme surrounding Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for president is that his number one form of communication is Twitter. After Trump's latest tweet, social media users were quick to fire back with thoughts of their own.

Trump on Twitter

When Donald Trump kicked off his campaign for president almost two years ago, he quickly found out that he was not going to see eye to eye with the mainstream media. In an attempt to bypass the more traditional media, the former host of "The Apprentice" decided that Twitter would be the more effective way to promote his message and reach potential voters.

Taking to Twitter on an almost daily basis, Trump was able to rally angry and frustrated Americans who helped lead him to the Republican nomination and ultimately a victory over Hillary Clinton last November. One topic that Trump spoke about ad nauseam on the campaign trail was his support for local law enforcement, which including the controversial political topics dealing with police brutality, typically in relation to the African-American community and the Black Lives Matter movement. On May 18, Trump returned to Twitter to announce "Police Week," which didn't go over well with many on social media.

In the most recent message posted to the president's Twitter feed, Donald Trump attached a video clip of himself praising police officers while also adding a tweet in the process.

"President Donald J. Trump Proclaims 5/14/2017 through 5/20/2017 as #PoliceWeek," the tweet read. While supporters of the president were thrilled with Trump's message, not everyone was happy.

Twitter reaction

In response to Donald Trump declaring the current week as "Police Week," many of his critical followers didn't hold back their opinions.

"Really because the news has declared it 'Trump's crash and burn' week," comedian Samantha Ruddy tweeted out.

@realDonaldTrump really because the news has declared it "trump's crash and burn" week  samantha ruddy (@samlymatters) May 19, 2017

@realDonaldTrump You can give them all 52 weeks but they're still going to arrest you.  Will Noonan (@willnoonan) May 19, 2017

@realDonaldTrump Also, #PoliceWeek seems a little concerning tbh what's next, turning us into a police state?  Trump is a Witch (@williamlegate) May 19, 2017

"You can give them all 52 weeks but they're still going to arrest you," podcast host Will Noonan wrote on Twitter.

"I proclaim you are an a**hole," Brandon Neely tweeted out. "Other possible names for this week include: 1. The Sandal-Riddled Dumpster Fire 2. The Beginning of the End 3. Trump Hearts Russia Week," author Matthew Dicks added.

@BrandonTXNeely @realDonaldTrump I am with Brandon on this one ^^^^^  Kerri Mickelsen (@KerriMickelsen) May 19, 2017

@realDonaldTrump Other possible names for this week include:



1. The Sandal-Riddled Dumpster Fire

2. The Beginning of the End

3. Trump Hearts Russia Week  MatthewDicks (@MatthewDicks) May 19, 2017

@realDonaldTrump Good name for it since you're going to jail  Grant Pardee (@grantpa) May 19, 2017

"You just fired the nation's top law enforcement officer. For doing his job," another Twitter user wrote. The backlash continued on Donald Trump's Twitter feed as it was apparent that many Americans were still opposed to the commander in chief.
In this day and age, it's amazing to think that there was once a time where the word "franchise" was really only described by people starting a McDonald's restaurant. The idea of a sequel isn't anything new but shared universes or the idea of a sprawling multi-film series was relatively unheard of. That's what makes the legacy of Peter Sellers hilarious turn as the bumbling confident yet dimwitted French detective Jacques Clouseau and The Pink Panther Film Collection so endearing. Through fourteen years and five films - and a sixth cobbled together from cut footage - Peter Sellers embodied physical comedy and deadpan genius as the famed Inspector Clouseau under the watch of legendary writer/director Blake Edwards. While each film varies in terms of comedic success, Sellers and Edwards crafted some of the best comedies that several other stars and directors have tried and failed to replicate.

The whole show started in 1964 with The Pink Panther, the first of six film collaborations between Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards. While people were eagerly plowing through Agatha Christie novels each year, they were also burning through detective yarns in theaters making the timing for this comedic farce picture perfect. Sellers Brought a natural comedic timing to the character of a detective who believes he's the smartest, cleverest man in the room - but is, in fact, a complete imbecile. His blend of physical comedic timing with deadpan delivery made Inspector Clouseau an instant sensation. Even with David Niven getting top billing along side Robert Wagner and Capucine, Peter Sellers was the stand out star of the moment. As fans enjoyed Clouseau's hijinks, they called for more from the bumbling detective and Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards were all too happy to oblige.

1965's A Shot In The Dark saw the return of Jacques Clouseau to cinema screens. With Blake Edwards returning to direct and co-write alongside The Exorcist writer William Peter Blatty, A Shot in the Dark would quickly become the perfect spoof for the classic "who done it?" murder mystery. Playing every single angle of a traditional Christie murder mystery, Clouseau is played with the confidence of Hercule Poirot with only a fraction of the natural intellect. Clouseau may be right about the case but for all the wrong reasons and how he goes about gathering evidence is particularly unorthodox - yet intensely hilarious. This film also introduced franchise side characters the permanently stressed out Chief Inspector Dreyfus played by Herbert Lom as well as Clouseau's man servant and Karate sparring partner Kato played by Burt Kwouk. As Sellers and Edwards were more interested in other comedic endeavors, Clouseau fans would have to wait over a decade for a good and proper sequel.

From 1975 to 1978, fans were given heaping heavy doses of Clouseau hilarity with Return of the Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, and Revenge of the Pink Panther. While 11 years is a long wait, Return of the Pink Panther proved that neither Edwards or his star collaborator Peter Sellers had lost a step. The screwball buffoonery may have been dialed up several notches making Clouseau an even bigger bumbling fool, but the comedic timing and deadpan wit remained razor sharp. It's been said that Sellers and Edwards were never close friends and often had a contentious frustrating relationship, but they had a pitch-perfect sense of comedy making them the best of collaborators. While the sequels gradually became more and more silly, the wit and skill of Edwards and Sellers made these films some of the best comedies ever produced.

Sadly, this amazing collaboration was tragically cut short with the sudden death of Sellers in 1980. From there, the Pink Panther franchise would limp onward under Blake Edwards' watch with the humorous but misguided Trail of the Pink Panther, the uninspired Curse of the Pink Panther, and the unnecessary Son of the Pink Panther. Without Sellers as an active participant, key comedic elements were lost and simply could not be replicated no matter who stood in front of the camera or how much archival cut footage was used.

Without over stating things, I was born into a Pink Panther house. My family loved these movies. From VHS to DVD, we proudly purchased each of the original five Peter Sellers Panther films. Whenever we were stuck trying to find the right movie for an evening's entertainment, we could always rely on one of these terrific films to get us laughing. It didn't matter how many times we've seen them, the jokes would always land time and time again. While each film has its charms and there is something to love and appreciate about them, my two standout favorites are A Shot in the Dark and the looney The Pink Panther Strikes Again.

I put A Shot in the Dark above all others simply because it spoofs one of my favorite genres, the "who done it?" with perfect precision. With a great supporting cast featuring George Sanders and Elke Summer alongside the previously mentioned Burt Kwouk and Herbert Lom, all of the best elements that would be indicative of the franchise coalesced in A Shot in the Dark. After a successful reintroduction of the character with Return of the Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again simply picked up all of those great pieces established in A Shot in the Dark and ran with them to comedic glory. While I do greatly enjoy Revenge of the Pink Panther as a terrific spoof on 70s gangster and exploitation flicks, the franchise was starting to show its age. And with the death of Sellers, everything should have stopped there. I don't begrudge Edwards wanting to pay tribute to Sellers with Trail of the Pink Panther, the film itself just doesn't work as a true movie, but more as a compilation of deleted scenes making it the cinematic equivalent of a home video bonus feature. It's got funny moments, but it isn't really much of a movie to speak of.

I'm glad to be able to say that for over 30 years I've still found these movie entertaining. There isn't a strong vibe of nostalgia pulling me back to them, it's a genuine appreciation of the comedic talents that brought these films to life that I love seeing. As one can see with the Panther films absent Peter Sellers or Blake Edwards, they just don't work without them. These films couldn't have worked without the two men collaborating together. The Pink Panther Film Collection brings the best of the films together in a nice and neat little package that celebrates the combined comedic genius that Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers brought to the screen.

The Pink Panther - 3/5

A Shot in the Dark - 5/5

Return of the Pink Panther - 3.5/5

The Pink Panther Strikes Again - 4/5

Revenge of the Pink Panther - 4/5

Trail of the Pink Panther - 2/5

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray

The Pink Panther Film Collection arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory via their Shout Select label as a six-disc Blu-ray set. Each film is given its own Region A BD-50 disc, and all discs are housed in a six-disc Blu-ray case with slip case. Also included is a ten-page essay booklet that contains stills and promotional materials throughout the series. Each disc loads directly to a static image main menu with traditional navigation options.
Donald Trump is on his way to start his first foreign trip as commander in chief, but two stories linking the president back to Russia have broke at the same time. While Trump continues to deny any link to the Kremlin, new information continues to keep the story alive.

Trump and Russia

For a year and a half on the campaign trail, Donald Trump was forced to push back at the allegations that he was in cahoots with Russia. Despite his denial, Trump raised speculation by refusing to release his tax returns, praising Russian President Vladimir Putin, and by dealing with several advisers and associates, past and present, getting caught communicating with officials from Russia.

Trump was able to weather the storm of criticism and controversy during the 2016 election by defeating Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in an upset victory, but the pressure surrounding the scandal has only increased since his inauguration. Over the last week, multiple reports have caused chaos in the White House, as Trump was revealed to have shared classified information with Russia, in addition to the controversy surrounding his firing of James Comey. According reports in both the New York Times and the Washington Post on May 19, Trump's headache over the Kremlin just got worse.

What President Trump told Russian officials about firing James Comey https://t.co/dp3XNec5sq pic.twitter.com/it8kjzNhNU  The New York Times (@nytimes) May 19, 2017

According to the report in the New York Times on Friday, Donald Trump bad mouthed James Comey while speaking to the Russians earlier this month.

"I just fired the head of the F.B.I.," Trump told two high-ranking Kremlin officials, before adding, "He was crazy, a real nut job." "I faced great pressure because of Russia. Thats taken off," Trump was quoted as saying in a document provided to the New York Times, while insisting that he was "not under investigation."

Friday: A White House official close to President Trump is now a person of interest in Russia probe https://t.co/QkPrcGnql3  Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 19, 2017

In an additional report released by the Washington Post, the probe into Russia's election interference just took another turn.

The paper notes that a "senior White House adviser" who is "close to the president" is now being considered a "significant Person Of Interest" in regards to the current Russian investigation. The news comes just days after it was announced that former FBI Director Robert Mueller would oversee the investigation as a special counsel.

Moving forward

Though news continues to break on an almost daily basis dealing with issue at hand, Donald Trump has been defiant in his stance that he has never worked with Russia, and that it is all a "witch hunt" by his political opponents and the media. It's unknown how the investigation will end up, but Trump's current approval rating of under 40 percent doesn't have the president in good standing with the American people.
Over the last week, one of the biggest news stories to break has been in regards to Donald Trump being under investigation for potential Obstruction Of Justice. Despite the president confirming he's under investigation, his lawyer doesn't seem too sure.

Fox News on Trump

For over two years, Donald Trump has been the talk of the town when it comes to politics. From the early days of his presidential campaign during the 2016 election, through his upset wins in the GOP primary and general election, the former host of "The Apprentice" has created a constant stream of controversy that he was some how able to overcome before finding himself in the White House.

While Trump was successful and able to become the new commander in chief, the controversy and scandals have only increased over the last six months. The latest issue to plague the administration has been in the aftermath of Trump's decision to fire James Comey as the head of the FBI. Comey was leading the investigation at the time of his termination, and since then, fellow former FBI Director Robert Mueller was brought on board to serve as special counsel. Last week it was revealed that Mueller was now investigating the president for possible obstruction of justice, which Trump later confirmed during a recent tweet. During the June 18 edition of "Fox News Sunday," Trump's lawyer appeared on the program but seemed confused over the current status of the investigation.

As first reported by the Washington Post earlier this week, Robert Mueller has opened up an investigation into whether or not Donald Trump should be charged with obstruction. In a tweet on Friday, Trump posted, "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt."

Jay Sekulow, a member of President Trumps legal team, comments on whether President Trump is under... https://t.co/OP7fdoG0Pk  FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) June 18, 2017

Despite this, Jay Sekulow who is currently one of Donald Trump's lawyers, spoke with Fox News host Chris Wallace about the issue at hand.

"He takes the action that (AG) recommended and now he's being investigated by the Department of Justice," Sekulow said. Doubling down, Sekulow repeated that the president was "being investigated."

Chris Wallace Battles Jay Sekulow Over Trump Investigation Inconsistencies: Oh Boy, This Is Weird https://t.co/hQEdOHSSLy (VIDEO) pic.twitter.com/4U1TqBSWJt  Mediaite (@Mediaite) June 18, 2017

Trump confusion

Chris Wallace quickly fired back, due to Jay Sekulow initially claiming the president wasn't under investigation.

"No, hes not being investigated!" Sekulow replied. "You just said hes being investigated," Wallace reminded him. "You just said two times that hes being investigated," the Fox News host continued. Sekulow accused Wallace of "putting words in (his) mouth," to which the host simply answered, "Im trying to get a straight answer out of you." At the conclusion of the interview, it was clear that the White House and their legal team are not on the same page.
Kris Kobach was picked by Republican Governor Sam Brownback to be KS Secretary of State in 2011 and now with the governor serving the last year of his second term, Kobach has declared that he will seek the Republican nomination for Governor in 2018. The declaration was made soon after a majority of Republicans and Democrats in the KS House and Senate finally succeeded in overturning the governor's extreme economic policies, a decision the Secretary of State didn't agree with.

Kobach has made it clear he would run the state just like Brownback has.

Although many Kansans don't like him and those in other states fear him, Evangelical Christians and Tea Party Patriots have thrown their full support behind Kobach since before 2011, seeing him as one of their own after he began talking about some kind of Muslim ban following 9/11 to then-President George W. Bush.

Kobach has ties to Donald Trump and Republican leaders across the U.S.

Donald Trump tapped Kobach during the presidential campaign for ideas on how to sell the idea of a Muslim ban, stricter Immigration policies, and voter fraud to the public. The former law professor and Harvard graduate was a member of Trump's transition team on immigration, and used his position on the 2016 Republican platform committee, to get Trump's Mexico wall included in the party's platform.

Kobach had been touting the idea of a Muslim ban back when Republican George W. Bush was president. Thre was little surprise whenTrump picked Secretary of State Kobach to lead his advisory committee on voter fraud during the 2016 presidential election with VP Pence, considering that Kobach has staunchly supported Trump's allegations.

Kobach was offered a job in Trump's administration but turned it down because he wanted to stay in Kansas with his family.

Kris Kobach was once a lawyer with the Federation for American Immigration Reform

The Southern Poverty Law Center classified F.A.I.R. as a hate group with ties to white supremacists in 2007. That Kobach could have ties to hate groups is not such a stretch considering the fact that during a broadcast of his radio show in March 2015, Kobach was quoted as telling a caller it would not be too farfetched to think that President Obama would weaken laws prosecuting African-Americans.

Although Kobach never said that he agreed with the man personally, the implication was there by his not repudiating the man's claims. And back on Oct. 25, 2015, the Kansas Secretary of State was a featured speaker at a workshop held by The Social Contract Press, a Michigan-based White Nationalist publishing company. Kobach is a national figure through his role as co-author of Arizona's SB 1070 illegal immigration law. Kobach assisted Arizona in drafting and later, in defending the law, has since provided similar assistance to other states and cities across the U.S. Also recognized nationally as an immigration litigator, the Secretary of State is currently helping Hazleton Pennsylvania sue employers harboring undocumented immigrants in apartments.

Changes Kobach wrote into the Kansas Voting and Immigration Laws

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed the Kansas Secure and Fair Elections Act written by the Secretary of State into law on April 18th, 2011. Kobach named it S.A.F.E., touting that the law would protect Kansans from terrorists, persons living in Kansas illegally, etc. And in January 2012, new restrictions were added forcing Kansans to show photographic identification when both registering and casting a vote in person; get their signature verified and provide a full Kansas driver's license or nondriver state ID number when voting by mail, and beginning in 2013 immigrants also had to show proof of citizenship or that they had legal status.

'All Kansans', regardless of their race or age now have to show a Kansas Driver's License or Kansas issued photo ID, U.S. Passport, Government Employee picture ID, U.S. Military ID, College ID, Government Public Assistance ID or a Native American Tribal ID at the polls.

Governor Sam Brownback says Kris Kobach would continue to support his Conservative policies

According to his website, the primary reason Kobach is running for governor is to create a better Kansas for his daughters. As an extreme right wing Conservative, the Secretary of State is a staunch supporter of gun rights and passing stricter abortion laws in the state. Koback was one of the national leaders in the fight to stop funding Planned Parenthood.

And, as cited on his campaign website, the legislature just passed a disastrous $1.2 billion tax increase by voting to overturn Brownback's veto. Quoting the governor Kobach went on to say that KS never had a revenue problem, only a spending problem. Kobach forgot to say that those tax cuts exempted over 300,000 KS businesses and LLC's from paying KS income taxes since 2012 and resulted in spending cuts across the board for all state agencies three times, money was taken from KDOT three times, the state and teacher's retirement payments were held back four times, raising the state sales and property tax, and the children's health care initiative funded by tobacco money was raided in an attempt to try and shore up the government.
A recent law that passed the Senate in the United States has raised fierce calls of anger and resentment from Germany and Austria. While the law was designed to target Russia with fresh sanctions, it puts a huge European energy infrastructure project in jeopardy.

The bill would allow the US Government to impose fines on European companies that do business with Russia, and in the world of European energy, that would cause some very difficult decisions to be put on the table.

As it stands today Central and Western Europe import around one-third of their gas from Russia, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline would boost that amount significantly.

The reason for the new sanctions isn't well understood, but Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election is being cited.

Unhappy allies

Until recently, Germany and Austria were staunch supporters of the United States. Unfortunately for them, it would appear that they are no longer be able to choose the most economic supplier for natural gas.

While this bill still has to pass the House of Representatives, and be signed into law by the President, the sanctions that it would create would cause a major rift to develop between the US and Europe. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a major investment, and if scrapped, would leave some very tense feelings lingering between the three-plus parties involved.

The construction cost for the project is north of $10 billion, but the real pain would be felt by the European nations that would have to look elsewhere for more expensive natural gas.

Pipelines like the Nord Stream 2 create significant cost savings at a regional level over decades, so if it is abandoned the nations aren't likely to forget quickly.

Economic interests

The major issue is that large European firms would be forced into a position where to continue to do business within the US financial system, they would be forced to pay heavy fines, or walk away from Nord Stream 2.

On the European side, companies like BASF, Wintershall, Austria's OMV, Voestalpine, and Royal Dutch Shell are working to make this infrastructure project a reality.

In fact, German ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroder is chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG.

This is a subsidiary of Gazprom which was set up to manage the project, and with heavy hitters like Mr. Schroder on the team, the political fallout in Europe isn't likely to be brief, nor slight.

On the Russian side, Gazprom, and thus the Russian state would lose out on decades of revenue from gas sales. It would also create major headwinds for any sort of European-Russian economic cooperation going forward, and the Kremlin isn't likely to take that sort of tampering in-stride.

A spokesperson for Current German Chancellor Angela Merkel has threatened the US with retaliation if this bill becomes law, and German firms are penalized.
The Bahrain government announced early Sunday that all Qatari soldiers in the country should leave within 48 hours. This is after Saudi Arabia cut-off ties with Qatar due to its alleged support of terrorist groups and its close relationship with Iran.

Why is there Qatari troops in Bahrain?

The Qatari troops are part of the U.S. led coalition against ISIS. However, due to Saudi cutting off ties with Qatar, the Bahrain government had no choice but to side with Riyadh and also cut ties with the oil-rich nation. As of the moment, the entire Middle East except Iran and Syria had severed diplomatic relationship with Qatar.

Due to the massive military boost provided by the United States, Saudi Arabia is now the most powerful Muslim nation in the Middle East. This forces countries like Bahrain, UAE and Egypt to immediately support Riyadh's decision to cut ties with Qatar and force the country to flush all traces of terrorist support.

The decision came after numerous intelligence reports showed Qatari support of terrorists groups namely the Taliban, Muslim brotherhood and the Houthis, which is now gaining power in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, which shares a solitary land route to Qatar is not comfortable allowing a country that is supporting known terrorist groups to have free access to Saudi lands. Though diplomatic ties have been cut, economic trade with Qatar is not yet affected, yet many fear that in the near future, Saudi will also close trade with the small nation.

What is the reaction of the United States?

U.S. President Donald Trump showed his support on Saudi's decision to sever diplomatic relationship with Qatar. After Trump spearheaded the creation of an Arab coalition that will fight ISIS and Iran, Saudi Arabia wasted no time into fulfilling such a task. However, despite Saudi's "embargo" the United States still concluded its deal with Qatar for the sales of arms and jet fighters.

Though the Pentagon reiterated that the sale will not go against Saudi's policy towards Qatar.

Aside from eliminating the ISIS threat, the United States is also furiously working on limiting the influence of Iran in the Middle East. This is the main reason why the Pentagon is "peddling" arms to Muslim countries opposed to Iran. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said that in order for the United States to convince any country in the Middle East to go against Iran, incentives must be set in place.
On Friday, Russias Ministry of Defense said it was cross-examining information to confirm if an airstrike by Russian forces may have killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi near Raqqa in Syria late May.

In a statement posted on Facebook by the Ministry, Russian forces in Syria carried out an airstrike following intelligence information that an Islamic State leaders meeting is being scheduled.

The Russian strike

Reuters reported that the drones were used on May 28 to confirm the intelligence report on the venue and the time of the meeting with the Islamic State leaders.

The air strike was launched early in the morning by Russian forces on the exact location where the ISIS leaders were meeting, the statement read.

A statement by the ministry said the information is being checked to verify the claims. The leader of the Islamic sect Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed following the strike, was also at the meeting, the ministry said.

Coalition forces led by the US stated that it could not verify the Russian claim that Abu Baghdadi may have been eliminated.

The airstrike is said to have killed more than 30 field commanders and about 300 guards. Several other top leaders of the group are also believed to have been killed, the report said.

Islamic State leader's meeting

The statement added that ISIS leaders had assembled at their command base, in Raqqa, to discuss strategies and possible routes for the terrorists to re-strategize from the city.

The Russian military said the US was informed about the venue and the time of the strike in due time.

ISIS militants have almost been defeated in the two acclaimed territorial capitals of the group in Syria and Iraq.

The forces fighting ISIS

Russian forces backed the Assad regime which is fighting ISIS mainly from the western part, while the US-led coalition forces back Iraqi forces which are tackling Islamic State from the east.

Baghdadis last public video footage was in 2014 when he dressed in black robes and declared his caliphate from the podium of Mosuls ancient mosque.

An Iraqi, Baghdadi, 46, broke out from al Qaeda in 2013 after the group leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces.

Head of the Syrian agency for human rights, Rami Abdulrahman expressed doubt over the purported report that Baghdadi may have died in an airstrike. He said Baghdadi was in another remote area in Syria in May.

However, the Russian military says it was still checking facts to confirm Baghdadi's death.
Special counsel Robert Mueller has added 13 lawyers to his panel to undertake the Russia probe. A spokesman, Peter Carr said there are plans to hire more.

CNN reported that Mueller has brought in a team of professional investigators and top experts which include seasoned attorneys, who have distinguished themselves in their career and, have represented American companies in court and have also been involved on several cases like that of Enron Fraud scandal and Watergate.

The seasoned lawyers

Jeannie Rhee and James Quarles are among the 13 and have worked with Mueller in his old firm, WilmerHale.

He has also brought Andrew Weissmann, who headed the Enron probe, the report said.

Kenneth Starr, former independent counsel, expressed confidence that the caliber of lawyers in Muellers team would do a thorough job. Starr investigated former President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s.

Though only five attorneys have been named so far, there are concerns over the political inclinations of James Quarles, Weissmann and Rhee. An analysis carried out by CNN on Federal Election Commission record shows that the three lawyers have donated a total of about $53,000 since 1998 to Democrats.

Mueller's panel

The special council panel of investigators is examining allege Russian interference in the 2016 US election, and aim to discuss with top intelligence officials, CNN reported.

The Mueller panel is also investigating the alleged obstruction of justice by President Trump, as reported by the Washington Post.

In the report by the Washington Post, the investigation is being expanded to consider whether President Trump obstructed justice by asking former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey to end the probe into former national security Adviser, Michael Flynn, over his ties with Russia, and the firing of the former FBI boss.

The team has commenced investigation

Muellers team has requested for information and will discuss with National Intelligence Director Dan Coates and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers. A source said the investigators have also interviewed Coats, former deputy director of NSA Richard Ledgett and Rogers, who testified that they were not pressurized by the Trump Administration officials.

The interviews are the first official functions of the special counsels new team of investigators.

Definitely, it is the prerogative powers of Mueller to determine if there is ample evidence to recommend pressing charges on any part of the probe.

A special council is gathering necessary information and considering if there is enough evidence to commence an obstruction full-scale probe, a law enforcement source told CNN.
A pro-Assad fighter jet was shot down by syrian democratic forces (SDF) near the besieged city of Raqqa. The Syrian government stated that the fighter had just completed an attack against ISIS fighters when U.S. backed forces shot it down.

What is the Syrian government's reaction?

Immediately after the incident, the Syrian Military issued a statement condemning the downing of a government plane after conducting anti-terrorism attacks near Raqqa. The government said that the fighter jet was shot down south of Raqqa near the town of Resafa on Sunday afternoon.

This is a major blunder for the SDF army as U.S. personnel in the area are not authorized to attack Syrian government forces that have not entered the deconfliction zone near Al-Tanf.

The Syrian army added that the U.S. led coalition in Syria is envious of the government's progress against ISIS. They continued that the SDF are worried that government success against the war on terror will be detrimental for their ambition of toppling the Assad government. This incident will deepen the fissure between the Kurds and Assad's regime, a problem that will surely grow after the war against ISIS is won.

What is the reaction of the United States on this?

As of the moment, neither the White House or the Pentagon has issued any statement on the matter.

However, according to latest reports, the SDF slowly winning in Raqqa, though most of the Kurdish army grounded to a halt due to the slowing pace of U.S. airstrikes in the area. According to SDF officials, the U.S. air force is lacking intensity on conducting air strikes to dislodge ISIS fighters from major defensive positions in and around Raqqa.

The major progress of the American-led coalition is the slow yet sustained offensive against the two major ISIS stronghold, Raqqa, and Mosul. The Iraq army is now on the final leg of its Mosul offensive and is optimistic that they will have the city under their control. However, this is not the case with Raqqa, as the constraints on American movement inside the country hampers the advance of SDF troops.

The Assad government is virtually protected by the Russian army and any formal declaration of war against the regime may force Moscow's hand. This is an event that America doesn't want to occur, which is why U.S. troops in Syria are not authorized to conduct targeted strikes on pro-Assad forces outside of the designated de-confliction zone.
afghanistan is in a state of ferment. Casualties for the U.S. and their allies are mounting and the U.S. Central Command will be wondering how to tackle this problem. One of the problems American forces face is death at the hands of 'friendly' troops.

The enemy resides within and effectively means that the campaign against the Taliban and ISIS is stalled. Yesterday at the northern base at Camp Shaheen close to Mazar-e-Sharif, an insider shot and injured seven soldiers.

This comes close on the heels of the death of three soldiers at the hands of another Afghan soldier in the BoraBora mountains.

The Taliban claimed the attack was engineered by them. The situation is serious and undermines the American war on terror groups. General Jim Mattis the Secretary of Defense will have to think of a way out of this scenario where insiders attack American soldiers.

Battle in Afghanistan

The US invaded Afghanistan in 2002 and quickly defeated the Taliban. The Americans did not pursue their victory though, as George Bush shifted the focus to Iraq. Afghanistan became a secondary theater as George Bush decided Saddam was the bigger enemy. This was a disaster as remnants of the Taliban got a chance to regroup.

Supported by Pakistan who gave sanctuary to terrorists like Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar, theTaliban regrouped.

Matters were compounded by the decision of President Obama to withdraw the bulk of the U.S. forces from Afghanistan and retain only a handful of troops as advisors. This was a godsend for the Taliban who re-established their control over large areas of the landlocked country.

General Mattis

President Trump has inherited a worsening situation.

He has given Gen Mattis a free hand to tackle the Taliban. The U.S. army has now been in Afghanistan for 15 years and the results are pretty poor. To a military analyst, it is clear that part of the problem lies in the lack of clarity about the role of the Taliban. The U.S. administration still nurses the hope that a negotiated peace can be worked out with them.

The Americans have a long association with the Taliban which was created by the CIA. This was during the Russian invasion of the country. A movie "Rocky" with Sylvester Stallone even had a line dedicating it to "our friends the mujahedin".

Mattis and Trump

Much water has flown down the river since then. The Taliban is back and it will require all the skills of General Mattis to win this battle. Luckily he has a commander in chief in Donald Trump who has clear priorities. He has decentralized decision making and Mattis has a free hand. The elusive victory may still come.
Let's cut to the chase on the issues of choice, abortion, and the right to life. They are all the same issue. They all tell us the same thing. If we want to choose who gets to come into the world we must then admit that we control and must choose to be consistent about it. What's the point of saying Charlie can get born if we routinely pay taxes to create armies that will have Charlie leaving in a box when he is 33?

Complexity

What is complex is not the choice but why it is a problem. The minute we admit we are in fact the stewards of life itself, we become the boss.

Do we thus leave God out? That is the right to life argument. But what if God is not on the side of human beings who deny our control over things. What if God is on the side of those who are willing to say who has the right to life from start to finish -- just like God would do if he wanted to withdraw choice from us.

We will not convince those who are comfortable with the right to life and massive military force, even though in this situation consistency really is bliss. The only rational and ultimately acceptable position is to respect life in every way.

Reverence

Albert Schweitzer is the model for cogent thinking on this matter. The smartest Biblical mind in the 19th century retired to a simple medical career in Gabon to free himself from the toxic debate which is still painfully with us.

I know women intimately whose opinion about right to life would be lethal if impulse could kill. We have evidence in continued attacks on abortion clinics and Trump bile against choice that the armies on both sides are loaded for bear. Big deal. It is boring, mindless, illogical and ultimately a lost cause.

One way only

We are the triage masters.

We always have been and always will be. That is why we need to evolve and are in fact building, a world based on mutual responsibility, acknowledged fallibility and the slow progress of continuity. We decide if pregnancy proceeds. Nature already zaps a zillion little indices of life as the deed is completed. We decide if thousands will die in a war.

We decide if we will open the world, Trumplike, to the depredations of airborne diseases. What we call acts of God are most often sins of omission.

California to Give Health Clinics $20 Million to Counter Possible Trump Cuts https://t.co/uuw8zRNO32  Stephen C. Rose (@stephencrose) June 17, 2017

This argument will not be won with these words. If words could do it, a few classic texts show us that what hobbles us is not our essential nature but the hypocrisies we create. Hypocrisies and double binds (Bateson) enable our lesser angels to prevail. The beat goes on. Making the world beatific is what life is all about.
Some franchises have a specific cook time. End things too soon and the series feels incomplete leaving the audience hanging. Leave it in too long and the material becomes dry and stale. 1983's Curse of the Pink Panther is part of a franchise that dried up long ago. Part of the one-two Pink Panther punch with 1982's Trail of the Pink Panther that saw writer/director Blake Edwards attempt to pay tribute to his longtime creative partner Peter Sellers by putting the comedic value of the franchise in a chokehold with Ted Wass as a dimwit American detective who has been tasked with locating the missing Inspector Clouseau.

Ever since Clouseau disappeared, the criminal underworld is allowed to act unchecked - including making off with the famed Pink Panther diamond (yet again). To avoid any further embarrassment, the French President has ordered Clouseau to be found - at any cost. The unfortunate task of locating the world's most successful detective in order to find the world's most bumbling detective has fallen upon his nemesis Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom). Ever since Clouseau disappeared, Dreyfus has enjoyed a measure of sanity - so the idea of having the man found is less than appealing. In order for Clouseau to remain missing, Dreyfus concocts a plan to locate the world's worst detective - New York's very own Sergeant Clifton Sleigh (Ted Wass). After all, who could possibly be worse than Clouseau?

Much like Trail of the Pink Panther, Curse of the Pink Panther sees a franchise that was already on life support without its lead star Peter Sellers grasp for comedic breath. The biggest issue facing this outing under the direction of Edwards is the overwhelming sense of exhaustion. As Edwards and Sellers were working on the unfilmed "Romance of the Pink Panther" before Seller's sudden death, Curse of the Pink Panther feels like a collection of gags and scenarios thought up for a better film. Here, they just feel recycled - broken down, torn apart, and put back together again for an actor who wasn't up to the task of the material. Even with the appearance of David Niven, Robert Wagner, Capucine, Burt Kwouk, and a funny turn from Roger Moore, Curse of the Pink Panther struggles to find a comedic pace and define its purpose.

I'll tip my hat to Ted Wass for taking up the thankless role of Sgt. Clifton Sleigh. He does what he can as he is obviously filling the big shoes left by Peter Sellers' absence. Aside from a slightly rejiggered plot, it's easy to see that this film was more or less always intended for Sellers putting Wass in the position of having to fulfill the comedic hijinks intended for a master of the genre. While some of the bits are funny, many of the gags fail to land because as an audience member, you can't help but imagine how Sellers would have played things. While Alan Arkin had similar troubles during Inspector Clouseau, Arkin at least had a fresh film to work with and wasn't saddled with the extra pressure of playing up Seller's own gags. He at least got to put his own spin on the character. Wass doesn't enjoy that luxury as he appears to be going through the motions because that's what was written. Even if Wass wasn't cast in the part, any actor would have endured the same fate as much of this film's plot and gags wasn't intended for anyone but Peter Sellers.

To be fair, there are some funny moments found throughout Curse of the Pink Panther as Herbert Lom steps in to fill the comedic void. Some of the funniest moments throughout the entire Pink Panther franchise occurs whenever Lom's Dreyfus endures some sort of physical injury unintentionally caused by Clouseau. The same can be said for this film with Clifton Sleigh. Dreyfus falling out of his own office window and breaking his leg is hilarious, but again, one can easily tell it was a gag concocted for Sellers to execute and isn't quite as funny as it could have been.

Of all the Pink Panther films without Peter Sellers Curse of the Pink Panther is probably the lowest point of the franchise (excluding the needless remakes). Trail of the Pink Panther benefitted by having an abundance of deleted material featuring Sellers in some truly hilarious moments. Son of the Pink Panther may have been unnecessary but Benigni's manic energy manages to salvage that film. I get what Edwards was trying to do here by keeping Seller's beloved character alive - at least in spirit - but the results feel more like an unfortunate attempt to cash-in on a deceased man's legacy.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray

Curse of the Pink Panther arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber and their Studio Classics label. Pressed onto a Region A BD-25 disc, the disc is housed in a standard sturdy Blu-ray case and comes with a booklet containing cover artwork for Kino Lorber Studio Classics releases. The disc loads directly to a static image main menu featuring traditional navigation options.
Delaware kicked off one of the busiest pageant competition weekends of the year on Friday by crowning Chelsea Bruce the new Miss Delaware. Bruce will represent the state this September at the Miss America 2018 pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Atlantic City is familiar territory for Bruce. She grew up in New Jersey before relocating to Delaware to attend the University Of Delaware, where she studies economics and political science.

Her ambition is to enter law school and become an attorney. When not studying, Bruce is a ballet dance instructor to children.

She will promote her platform, Destigmatizing Mental Illness, during her reign as Miss Delaware. She entered the state pageant as Miss Newark. When she travels to the Miss America pageant, she will perform a contemporary dance number in the talent competition.

Delaware at Miss America

If she is crowned Miss America, Bruce will become the first contestant from Delaware to reign as the top miss. Six Delaware participants have finished as semi-finalists at the national pageant since the state began participating in the 1920s.

The state did not begin fielding a contestant at the national level every year until the 1950s. Among noteworthy former title holder is Miss Delaware 1976 Debora Rica Lipford, She was the first Mexican-American named to the top 10 at a Miss America pageant.

In recent years, she has been a leader in pro-life causes.

Congratulations to Chelsea Bruce, your Miss Delaware 2017! Her platform is, "Destigmatizing Mental Illness" #MissDelaware2017 pic.twitter.com/TNcxRPKMl4  Miss America Org (@MissAmericaOrg) June 17, 2017

Teen contestants

The Miss Delaware Scholarship Organization also sponsors the Miss Delawares Outstanding Teen competition.

The pageant is for girls ages 12-17 years. They compete for scholarships in many of the same categories as older contestants, with one exception being the swimsuit competition.

The teen pageant hosts an active wear category instead. Nicole Hannah is this years state titleholder in the teen category. She travels to Orlando, Florida later this summer to compete in the Miss Americas Outstanding Teen pageant.

Last years teen miss, Ashley Swanson, earned the Outstanding Achievement in Academic Life Award at the national pageant.

Several teen contestants from Delaware have earned academic and talent awards at the national pageant since it began participating in the program in 2005.

Miss America on ABC

The Miss America pageant is scheduled, to begin with, preliminary competitions on Sept. 6. Following three days of preliminaries, the contestants will participate in the Sept. 9 'Show Us Your Shoes Parade' in Atlantic City. A new Miss America will be chosen on Sept. 10. The final night of pageantry and the crowning of the new miss will be televised live over the ABC television network.
Despite a recent string of deadly terrorist attacks across Europe, Western European leaders are launching infringement proceedings against three Eastern European states in hopes of forcing them to accept tens of thousands of Muslim migrants. Eastern states Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic have refused to risk the entry of terrorists who may be embedded in hoards of poorly vetted immigrants.

Brussels efforts thwarted by renewed terrorism

For its part, Western governments, despite recent bloody assaults by Muslim terrorists against France and Britain, are trying to find homes in Europe for 160,000 migrants fleeing Syria and other Middle Eastern hot spots.

The announced litigation against the three Eastern European countries highlights the widening rift between East and West factions when it comes to the forced settlement of Muslims within the EU. At the same time, leaders of Western European governments are having great difficulty convincing their own people that the resettlement of Muslims in their countries is a good idea.

No-go zones becoming the norm in Europe

No-go zones that even police fear to patrol have developed in France, Germany, Greece and inside the borders of many other EU countries. Meanwhile, terrorists have taken to mowing down Europeans with trucks and vehicles, conducting public stabbings and by detonating suicide vests in crowded venues.

Unlike sovereign states, countries that belong to the EU are subject to fines and other sanctions levied by Brussels when they ignore orders from the European Commission. Currently, people are permitted to travel within the European Union without the need for passports and other forms of identification. However, the once popular unification of European states has fallen out of favor as struggling economies must be bailed out by wealthier nations and because the potential for a terrorist attack has grown significantly in recent years.

Tensions high in migrant camps

The EU has only managed to relocate about 21,000 migrants of the 160,000 targeted; many live in makeshift migrant camps where tensions run high and protests are often violent. Disagreements between EU members over what to do about the massive influx of migrants fleeing the bloody siege in Syria and elsewhere are likely to increase as the Middle East is rocked by mini wars and fighting factions.

For his part, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said he would not give in to blackmail from Brussels.

The migrant issue, as well as a succession of bailouts for struggling EU nations, is to blame for the BREXIT movement which saw Great Britain leave the EU last year. Currently, Orbans government is leading the Eastern resistance and continues to publicly assail Brussels for imposing its policies and ideals on EU states. Meanwhile, Western EU governments fear that another spate of terrorist attacks or the need for another financial bailout could see the BREXIT movement spill over.
Morocco is the official northern gateway to Africa, beckoning visitors to step into a land steeped in history and culture where mountains meet deserts and the captivating smell of the spice souks is never far away. History and architecture enthusiasts can spend hours losing themselves in a myriad of cobbled passageways that wind through ancient medinas lined with mosaic-covered buildings, cool courtyards, and tinkling fountains.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. Agdal Gardens  Courtesy of Robert Ulph - Fotolia.com

The Agdal Gardens in Marrakech date back to the 12th century and are a must-see attraction in the city. Here you can stroll along serene olive-lined paths to admire the ingenuity of the ancient Almoravids, who channeled water to the orchard gardens from the Ourika Valley by means of an underground network of channels and ditches. The gardens you can explore today consist of several inter-linked walled squares of orchards, olive groves, and plantations surrounding a pool called the Sahraj el-Hana or Tank of Health. The gardens (which cover over 400 hectares) form part of the royal palace and are only open to the public twice a week (Fridays and Sundays) when the king is not in residence. Agdal Gardens, Marrakech, Kingdom of Morocco, Phone: +212 771-297688

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2. Bahia Palace  Courtesy of Pictures news - Fotolia.com

The lovely Bahia Palace is a highlight of any Marrakech tour and is one of the most-visited attractions in Morocco. Art and architecture enthusiasts can study the unique fusion of Islamic and Moroccan architectural styles as they stroll through the impressive palace, which was built around 1859 and is sumptuously decorated from floor to ceiling with mosaics, stuccos, gilded finishes, and inlaid wooden ceilings. Highlights of the palace include the grand marble-paved courtyard, idyllic walled gardens (riads) fragrant with the scent of oranges and jasmine, and the beautiful painted and tiled interiors. Today the palace is used to entertain visiting dignitaries and part of it is home to the Moroccan Ministry of Cultural Affairs. Bahia Palace, 5 Rue Zitoun el Jdid, Marrakech 40000, Kingdom of Morocco, Phone: +21-25-24-38-95-11

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3. Things to Do in Morocco: Menara Gardens  Courtesy of Jose Ignacio Soto - Fotolia.com

Marrakechs extensive Menara Gardens date back to the 12th century, when the gardens were established to allow city dwellers to grow crops. Today the gardens offer locals and visitors a serene respite from the heat and bustle of the city amongst groves of olives, palms, and fruit trees. At the heart of the orchards you will find a large artificial lake overlooked by an elegant Saadian pavilion, from which you can sometimes see the snow-capped Atlas Mountains. What really makes these gardens special is that underground channels were built to bring water to the site from the Atlas Mountains over 30km away. The gardens can be easily accessed on foot or by taxi and are open daily  entrance is free. Menara Gardens, Marrakesh 40160, Kingdom of Morocco, Phone: +21-26-15-53-72-66



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4. Casablanca Cathedral  Courtesy of kessudap - Fotolia.com



Surrounded by predominantly Muslim architecture, the Cathedrale Sacre Coeur strikes a somewhat discordant note in the architectural landscape of Casablanca. Now sadly neglected and disused, the once elegant and impressive church dates back to 1930, when Morocco was still under the rule of Catholic France. After Morocco gained independence in 1956, the church was used as a school and later as a cultural center. However, the neo-Gothic style architecture, with clear art deco and Moroccan Muslim influences, is noteworthy and anyone interested in architecture should make a point to visit. You can walk up to the top of the two towers (which bear a marked resemblance to Muslim minarets) to enjoy sweeping views of the city and to get a closer look at the unusual external square buttresses. Casablanca Cathedral, Casablanca 21250, Kingdom of Morocco, Phone: +21-26-61-36-59-54

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5. What to Do in Morocco: Chefchaouen  Courtesy of PeekCC - Fotolia.com



Visitors to Morocco who would like to delve a little deeper into the history and culture of the country will find the small city of Chefchaouen, located in the northern hills of the country, a fascinating add-on to their Morocco itinerary. The town remains largely unchanged since the Middle Ages and offers you the chance to really step back in time and observe and admire traditional Moroccan culture. In the medina you can walk through winding passages surrounded by vibrant blue walls that are testimony to the towns Spanish and Jewish origins. The town has modern accommodation options, where you can spend the night and take time to sample traditional foods, shop for unique arts and crafts, or simply relax by the pool or take a walk in the mountains.

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6. Things to Do in Morocco: The Chellah  Courtesy of saiko3p - Fotolia.com



The Chellah (aka Sala or Chella) is a fascinating walled archaeological site incorporating Roman ruins and an Islamic burial mausoleum located just outside the city of Rabat. Although it is now mostly in ruins, the site was once home to a prosperous ancient Roman settlement overlooking a fertile plain close to the Moroccan coastline. As you walk through the serene site you will see a sturdy Roman road, a triumphal arch, a forum, and several assorted buildings in various stages of ruin. There are also remnants of ancient Roman subterranean plumbing, columns, and marble statues. The Islamic ruins, which date from the 14th century, are far better preserved and are these days curiously home to dozens of nesting storks. You can stroll around on your own or hire a guide at the entrance. The Chellah, Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco, Phone: +21-26-42-46-00-78

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7. El Badi Palace  Courtesy of Brigida Soriano - Fotolia.com

El Badi Palace was constructed over a period of 25 years for the Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur during the Saadi dynasty; when it was completed in 1593, it was indeed incomparable (which is the translation of el badi). Although large portions of the palace have essentially been reduced to ruins (subsequent dynasties stripped the palace of its former grandeur and used the plundered materials to build their own palaces), the site is still remarkably impressive and is a must-see for all visitors to Marrakesh. The original building is thought to have included over 350 sumptuously decorated rooms, a grand hall, and a central pool that was almost twice Olympic size. Today you can explore subterranean passages and sunken gardens as well as several pavilions/summer houses, stables, and dungeons. El Badi Palace, Ksibat Nhass, Marrakesh, Kingdom of Morocco, Phone: +21-25-24-37-81-63



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8. Hassan II Mosque  Courtesy of Nataly-Nete - Fotolia.com

The Hassan II Mosque is one of the foremost landmarks in Casablanca and is essential viewing for all visitors interested in art and architecture. The structure occupies a remarkable location on a platform that extends over the Atlantic Ocean and contains a unique section with a glass floor (off-limits to visitors) so that the faithful can kneel down to pray directly over the ocean. In addition, part of the roof can be retracted so that worshippers can simultaneously contemplate the splendor of Gods sky and ocean, in accordance with Hassans wishes. The design and decor of the mosque show strong Moorish influences and no expense was spared in the construction. Although the mosque is open to worshippers all day, non-Muslim visitors can only view the inside of the structure by joining a guided tour. Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca 20000, Kingdom of Morocco, Phone: +21-25-22-47-26-20



9. Hassan Tower  Courtesy of WitR - Fotolia.com

Dominating the skyline of Rabat, the unfinished Hassan Tower bears witness to the larger-than-life ambitions of Sultan Yacoub al Mansour who originally intended the tower to be double its current height. Although much of the Hassan Tower site is in ruins, you should not miss the chance to visit the site and stand in awe of the skill of the artisans who constructed this amazing structure back in 1195. Sultan al Mansour intended the tower to be the minaret of an enormous mosque that would accommodate over 20,000 worshippers, but when he died in 1199 the project was abandoned. Today you can see the unfinished 44m tower and some of the 200 columns, which indicate the impressive scale of the planned mosque. Hassan Tower (aka Tour Hassan), Boulevard Mohamed Lyazidi, Rabat, Morocco, Phone: +21-26-43-41-93-76

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10. Things to Do in Morocco: Ifrane National Park  Courtesy of Julian Schaldach - Fotolia.com

Ifrane National Park is not exactly what one expects to find in bustling Morocco, and is definitely worth a visit for anyone interested in nature observation, hiking, camping, or fishing. The park is situated in the Middle Atlas Mountains south of Fez and protects and showcases one of the largest cedar forests in the world as well as a wide variety of over 200 species of birds, reptiles, sheep, and the endangered Barbary macaque. The monkeys have become very tame and you can buy nuts to feed them. There is a network of hiking trails that will lead you past waterfalls, a volcanic plateau, lakes, forests, and mountains. Berber villages inside the park offer camping and dormitory-style accommodation and there is a hotel in the town of Ifrane. Ifrane National Park, Middle Atlas Mountains, El Hajeb, Morocco, Phone: +21-26-77-25-43-81



11. Jemaa el Fna  Courtesy of majonit - Fotolia.com

Jemaa el Fna is an enormous city square and market place which has been a symbol of Marrakesh since it was established sometime between the 11th and 14th centuries. Today the square enjoys UNESCO World Heritage Site recognition and you can step back in time and imbibe the age-old cultural traditions of Morocco as practiced by storytellers, musicians, and performers. You can admire the beautiful minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque, which towers over the square, watch a snake charmer, enjoy mint tea at one of the many garden terraces that surround the square, or lose yourself in the Marrakesh souk or the myriad cobbled streets that wander through the medina (old town). As the sun sets the square is filled with food vendors offering an authentic taste of Morocco. Jemaa el Fna, Derb Chtouka, Marrakesh 40008, Morocco, Phone: +21-26-48-28-44-65

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12. Kasbah of the Udayas  Courtesy of Alvaro German Vilela - Fotolia.com

The imposing Kasbah of the Udayas has been standing guard over the city of Rabat for hundreds of years and beckons visitors to step inside and learn about centuries of Moroccan culture and history. The kasbah is surrounded by intimidating walls that are over 8 meters in height and between 2 and 3 meters thick and boasts a massive gateway that incorporates two richly decorated towers. If the walls could speak, they would tell fascinating tales of war and piracy spanning several centuries. Today you can step through the imposing doorway to explore narrow winding streets lined with shops, courtyards, and gardens, see Rabats oldest mosque and the Museum of Traditional Arts, or admire the wonderful views as you enjoy a cup of sweet mint tea. Kasbah of the Udayas, Rabat, Morocco, Phone: +21-26-41-29-66-84



13. Koutoubia Mosque  Courtesy of WitR - Fotolia.com

The Koutoubia Mosque or, to be more specific, the magnificent minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque dominates the skyline of Marrakesh and is a popular attraction in the city. Unfortunately, the interior of the mosque is off-limits to non-Muslims, but everyone is welcome to admire the exterior of Marrakeshs largest mosque and the elaborate architecture of the minaret, which dates back to 1150 and is the oldest remaining Almohad minaret in the world. The imposing structure stands over 70 meters tall and the decorative design incorporates a band of ceramic tiles, pointed battlements, and other typical Moroccan decorative motifs. After viewing the mosque, you can explore the many attractions of the adjoining Jemaa el Fna, the citys famous market place. Koutoubia Mosque, Avenue Mohammed V, Marrakech 40020, Morocco



14. Things to Do in Morocco: Majorelle Garden  Courtesy of francoise bro - Fotolia.com

Your visit to Marrakech would be incomplete without spending an hour or two enjoying the beauty and serenity of the Majorelle Gardens, which were established over a period of 40 years by the acclaimed French artist Jacque Majorelle. After the artists death, the gardens fell into disrepair until they were bought and restored to their former glory by French designer Yves Saint Laurent. Today the gardens include shady lanes of exotic trees, colorful flowers, cascading streams, and quiet reflective pools that provide locals and visitors (including hundreds of birds) with an oasis of tranquility close to the heart of the city. Besides enjoying the gardens, you can also learn all about the fascinating culture of Moroccos Berber population at the Berber Museum and visit the gift shop. Majorelle Gardens, Rue Yves Saint Laurent, Marrakech, Morocco, Phone: +21-25-24-31-30-47



15. Rabat Archaeology Museum  Courtesy of EvrenKalinbacak - Fotolia.com



The Archaeology Museum in Rabat was founded in 1934 and is proudly home to a valuable collection of statuary, relics and artifacts spanning hundreds of years, and is a must-see attraction for anyone interested in ancient history and the progression of mankind. As you make your way through the prehistoric section of the museum you will be able to see human remains dating back to the Paleolithic and Neolithic (4000BC) periods. These exhibits are followed by the Islamic section of the museum which showcases religious treasures excavated in XIII and IX century archaeological sites. However, the Roman and Pre-Roman collection is perhaps the most interesting and includes some excellent bronzes and marble busts. Archaeological Museum, 23 Rue al-Brihi, Rabat, Morocco, Phone: +21-29-19-70-22-24

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16. Saadian Tombs  Courtesy of robypangy - Fotolia.com



Sealed up and hidden from sight for several centuries, the magnificent Saadian Tombs have retained much of their original splendor and are a must-see attraction in Marrakech. The earliest tomb in the complex dates back to 1557 and the buildings were constructed between 1578 and 1603. After the tombs were sealed up around 1672 they lay undisturbed until 1917 when they were rediscovered and fully restored. Today you can see over 66 tombs laid out in the main two mausoleums and a further 100 brilliantly tiled tombs in the gardens. Built to be the final resting place of the Saadian royalty, the mausoleums are richly decorated with fine carving and beautiful zellij tiles, reminiscent of the decor found in the Alhambra in Granada, which was built 200 years earlier. Saadian Tombs, Marrakech, off Rue de la Kasbah, Morocco, Phone: +21-26-54-57-22-05



17. Cafe Clock  Cafe Clock



Cafe Clock is a unique culinary instruction program founded in 2006 by Mike Richardson, following an inspirational visit to Fez. The trendy program offers culinary courses that blend Moroccan and Western cooking traditions and flavors, including courses that focus on bread baking and patisserie skills. A regular Clock Culture instructional series offers a variety of cultural courses, ranging from calligraphy courses to traditional Moroccan storytelling events. Each Sunday, sunset concerts and film showings attract a healthy mix of local residents and Fez-area tourists. The location is also open to the public as a cafe and creative hub throughout the day, serving up delicious fusion fare at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, including selections like lamb beldi burgers with mint and cucumber salsa, caramelized banana pancakes, and ras el hanout-spiced potato wedges. Reservations are highly recommended for evening dining. 7 Derb el Magana? Rue Talaa Kebira, Fes, Morocco, Phone: +212 5356-37855

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18. Marrakech Food Tours  Marrakech Food Tours



One of the best ways to immerse yourself in a foreign culture is to experience the tastes and aromas at first hand. However, many visitors never get to taste authentic Moroccan cuisine because they are unsure of what to order or only visit the inevitable tourist-trap eateries that dominate the popular tourist areas. Marrakech Food Tours is determined to give visitors an insight into authentic Moroccan family-style food and has carefully sourced restaurants that offer the real thing. Your guided 3-hour walk will take you through the streets and souks of Marrakech, learning about culture, history, and traditional Moroccan cooking methods and tasting a variety of authentic dishes including salads, tagine, couscous, slow-roasted lamb, sweet pastries, and more. Tour options include breakfast tours, evening tours, and gourmet tours. Marrakech Food Tours, Jamaa el Fna, Marrakech, Morocco, Phone: +212 611-814781



19. Marrakech Guided Tours  Marrakech Guided Tours



Ancient, exotic, and magical, the Moroccan city of Marrakech welcomes visitors to come and discover its history, architecture, culture, and traditions. Although it is perfectly possible to explore the city on your own, you will definitely get a more in-depth understanding of the city and its people on a Marrakech Guided Tour. The company goes the extra mile by offering personalized private tours and day trips that are thoughtfully compiled to suit your interests. Whether you love history and architecture, culture or shopping, Marrakech Guided Tours will put together the perfect half or full-day itinerary to suit you. Options include exploring all the cultural and historical sites of the city or venturing further afield to see the snow-covered Atlas Mountains or the fishing town of Essaouira on the coast. Marrakech Guided Tours, Marrakech 40070, Morocco, Phone: +21-26-13-15-36-37

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20. Marrakech Urban Adventures, Morocco  Marrakech Urban Adventures



If you are the kind of visitor who prefers to explore off the beaten track and get a more intimate glimpse of your destination, Marrakech Urban Adventures is probably just what you are looking for. The company offers tours of Marrakech led by enthusiastic and knowledgeable local tour guides who know all the little nooks and crannies of the city. They know the best places to eat, the best souks to find a bargain, and the friendliest locals, and are passionate about sharing their knowledge with visitors. Some of the tours on offer include the Medina, Palaces, and Tombs Tour (for history lovers), the Taste of Marrakech Tour (for first-time visitors), and the Shopping Secrets of the Medina Tour (for ardent bargain hunters). You can also opt to join the Tagine Cookery Tour to learn how to make Moroccos national dish. Marrakech Urban Adventures, Avenue Abdelkarim El Kattabi, Marrakech, Morocco, Phone: +21-26-61-92-27-89



21. Morocco Planet  Morocco Planet



Based in exotic Marrakech, Morocco Planet is a tour company offering personalized private and group tours all around the country. Whether you yearn for the solitude of the desert or love the bustle of the souks, Morocco Planet can put together the ideal itinerary based on your personal preferences. You can go on a private day trip around the vibrant cities or opt for an extended grand tour of the country, which can include diverse outdoor activities. You can try camel trekking, golf, hiking the Atlas Mountains, desert mountain biking, or even desert yoga. In addition, you can learn how to cook traditional Moroccan cuisine or even arrange to have a Berber-style wedding. Extended tours range from a few days to 17-day extravaganzas. Morocco Planet, Rue Abou Ishak Al Marouni, 20330 Grand Casablanca, Morocco, Phone: +21-26-77-36-39-61



22. 4x4 Camel Tours, Morocco  Courtesy of twixx - Fotolia.com



One of the best ways to learn all about the life and culture of Morocco is to join a guided tour, and 4X4 Camel offers you various Morocco Discovery Tours out of Marrakech in an air-conditioned 4X4 Land Cruiser. The Berber Villages Tour will give you an excellent overview of the rugged lifestyle of the original Berber settlers and includes lunch in an authentic Berber village. You will also have the chance to visit an Argon Oil factory to learn about the health benefits of this uniquely Moroccan nut. You could also head off to the Atlas Mountains or out of the desert to visit the coastal town of Essaouira, which has a distinctly Portuguese atmosphere as well as cool sea breezes. 4X4 Camel, Marrakech, Kingdom of Morocco, Phone: +21-26-61-22-66-63

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23. Berber Rafting Adventures  Berber Rafting Adventures Who would imagine that along with camel trains crossing the desert, bustling market places, and spicy exotic food, Morocco also offers adventurous visitors the chance to go rafting in the High Atlas Mountains. Berber Rafting Adventures specialize in a variety of rafting adventures suitable for both families and adrenalin junkies. You can choose from a half-day gentle family float along the Ahansal River, passing through some spectacular canyon scenery, or opt for the more vigorous Red Canyon Day Trip along a 20-mile stretch of Moroccan wilderness. For the really adventurous visitor, Berber Rafting also arranges multi-day whitewater rafting experiences on the Morocco Grand Canyon Tour, which includes overnight accommodation in a genuine Bedouin tent. Berber Rafting Adventures, Chef Lieu, 74440 Verchaix, Haute Savoie, France, Phone: +3-36-37-43-81-17



24. Blue Door Cuisine  Blue Door Cuisine Blue Door Cuisine offers you the chance to take home something truly unique to remind yourself of your visit to Morocco. Most travelers will agree that sampling the exotic local flavors of your destination is an important feature of your vacation and Blue Door Cuisine offers a wide variety of cookery classes that will give you all the knowledge you need to amaze your friends and family when you return home. You can choose from a simple lesson on how to make iconic mint tea or take things a few steps further as you learn how to roll couscous, bake Moroccan bread, and make an authentic Moroccan tagine. Some of the classes include a guided visit to the local market and a traditional couscous dinner. Blue Door Cuisine, 38A Al Mabarra, Medina, Tangier, Kingdom of Morocco, Phone: +212 612-020210



25. Marrakech By Air  Courtesy of VanderWolf Images - Fotolia.com If your Moroccan holiday includes a visit to Marrakech, you can seize the opportunity to make life-long memories on a unique hot-air balloon/camel riding adventure against the backdrop of the Atlas Mountains. Your 5-hour adventure begins at dawn (5:00am) when you will arrive at the balloon launch site, see how a hot-air balloon is prepared for take-off, and learn all about the safely aspects. Once airborne you will drift silently over the awakening landscape for about an hour, at the whim of the breeze. Back on terra firma, you will be treated to a traditional breakfast in a Bedouin tent overlooking the Atlas Mountains and then go on a camel ride through a genuine palm oasis. Finally, you will be returned to your lodgings by Land Rover. Marrakech By Air, 185 Lalla Haya Targa, 40000 Marrakech, Morocco, Phone: +21-25-24-49-07-99



25 Best Things to Do in Morocco & Places to Visit

More Ideas: Palais Amani

While Marrakesh was once the ultimate destination in the nation of Morocco, the historic imperial city of Fez has grown in popularity in recent years and is now regarded as perhaps the number one place to go in this North West African nation.

Home to an innovative culinary scene, a truly unique personality, hundreds of years of astonishing history, and so much more, Fez has a plethora of exciting experiences just waiting to be discovered.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest hidden gems of Africa and most overlooked locations for travelers in search of something beautiful and different, Fez is a must-visit city and one of the very best places to stay in Fez is the Palais Amani.

Palais Amani - Luxury Riad Accommodation in Fez

All around the city of Fez, many riads - traditional Moroccan homes and palaces - have been lovingly restored and renovated into deluxe accommodation locations for visitors from all over the world. The Palais Amani is among the very best riads in Fez, offering spacious accommodation, unique travel experiences, a world class spa, fine dining opportunities, and more.

- The Palais Amani - A stay at the Palais Amani is a wonderful way to connect with the heart and soul of the city of Fez. A historic building with so many stories to tell, the stunning palace setting of the Palais Amani provides unparalleled glimpses into the past, fused with the luxuries of the present. The Palais Amani is home to eighteen spacious rooms and suites, a spa, a restaurant, multiple bars, and even a cooking school. One of the best accommodation options in all of Fez, the Palais Amani can make your Morocco vacation a real dream come true.

- The Rooms - The rooms and suites at the Palais Amani are divided into the following categories: Classic Rooms, Luxury Rooms, Junior Suites, Senior Suites, and the Grand Suite. The sizes and features of each room will vary, with the Classic Rooms being the most affordable option and the Grand Suite the most luxurious, but each and every room and suite offer wonderful design and traditional Moroccan decoration, with many unique original features like stained glass windows and tiled floors. A lot of love and care has gone into the preparation of all of these rooms and suites, with each one guaranteed to become your dream 'home away from home' for the duration of your stay.

- Dining at Palais Amani - Riad dining in Fez is a must-do activity for every single visitor to the city. The local cuisine is one of the main appeals of Fez and actually being able to dine inside a historic riad on regional dishes with local ingredients is a truly blissful experience. The Eden restaurant at the Palais Amani is the perfect place to enjoy high quality Moroccan cooking. Ranked as one of the best restaurants in Fez, Eden is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, serving up both an 'a la carte' and bistro menu with seasonal dishes from highly acclaimed chefs.

- Wellness at Palais Amani - Another big reason so many people choose to stay at the Palais Amani is the incredible spa. 'Les Bains Amani' provides a plethora of soothing, relaxing, invigorating spa treatments and services, being equipped with its own hammam and manned by trained, experienced therapists. The friendly staff can help you slip into a state of total relaxation, with the luxurious, elegant setting of the hammam providing all you need to unwind. Sessions ranging from 30 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes can be reserved, with various additional services like body scrubs, masks, and massages also being available.

- Free Cooking School in Fez - Fez is a real culinary hub for Morocco. Food is a big part of the culture here, as evidenced by the many market stalls and shops selling spices, fruits, veggies, meats, and more, all along the city streets. For a unique way to engage with the culinary culture of Fez, guests at Palais Amani can enjoy cookery classes at the on-site cooking school. One of the best cooking schools in Fez, the Palais Amani offers a three two-hour workshop for all guests who stay a minimum of three nights. Guests can also book a range of additional classes to learn how to bake traditional Moroccan breads or tour the local vendors of the medina.

- Events and Weddings - The Palais Amani is perfectly suited for all kinds of events, including special social celebrations, corporate occasions, and weddings. Weddings in Morocco are particularly popular due to the rich culture and heritage of this incredible nation, and Fez is one of the best cities in Morocco to host your big day, with the Palais Amani offering the sort of fairy tale setting every bride and groom dreams of all their lives.

The Palais Amani is quite simply a dream location for trips to Fez. It's one of the best luxury hotels in Morocco, offering the sort of comfort, charm, and elegance you simply cannot find elsewhere. With unparalleled service and unique extras like the cooking school and hammam, the Palais Amani really lets you and your fellow travelers engage with Moroccan culture and head home feeling enriched and fulfilled, with plenty of magical memories you'll never forget.

12 Derb El Miter, Fes 30000, Morocco, Phone: +212 5356-33209

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The lemurs of Madagascar, the penguins of Antarctica, and the breathtaking summit of Mount Everest await, because this world is a big one, and the possibility for adventure is endless. Whether you plan to look for the Loch Ness Monster in the Scottish Highlands or stand on the Salar de Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia, the world is full of exotic destinations, each one more exciting than the last.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. Cook Islands  Courtesy of emperorcosar - Fotolia.com

The island nation of the Cook Islands is located in the South Pacific Ocean, and as a vacation destination it is often compared to the Hawaii of 50 years ago, before it was discovered by the masses of tourists who frequent it today. The 15 islands of this nation are largely untouched, with impossibly blue lagoons, stunning green tropical mountain ranges, and white sandy beaches. Visitors to the Cook Islands can stay at a resort on the island of Rarotonga and spend their days exploring the forests and landscapes of the islands or discovering just why the Cook Islands are a world-renowned spot for snorkeling and diving.



2. Fiji  Courtesy of Martin Valigursky - Fotolia.com

Imagine climbing down into a cave and diving into the clear blue water at the bottom or cooling off in the spray of a jungle waterfall after a long hike. Fiji, an island nation comprising over 300 islands in the South Pacific Ocean, has all of this and more. It's a country personified by the swaying palms on its white sand beaches, the colorful coral reefs just off the coast from its blue lagoons, and the rugged landscape of jungles, mountains, and more which dominate the islands. National parks, resorts, spas, watersports, and more await visitors to Fiji. Things to Do in Fiji

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3. French Polynesia  Courtesy of 18042011 - Fotolia.com

The South Pacific country of French Polynesia includes over 100 islands in five distinct archipelagos, only about half of which are actually inhabited. French Polynesia is a popular tourist destination, with islands like Tahiti and Bora Bora taking the lead when it comes to popularity due to the all-inclusive resorts, sandy beaches, and wide variety of activities these islands have to offer. But there's so much more to French Polynesia, and its many islands are full of green mountain peaks, sparkling turquoise waters, and a beautiful jungle landscape that is simply begging to be explored.



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4. Seychelles  Courtesy of lucky-photo - Fotolia.com



The Seychelles is located off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, and it is an archipelago of over 100 islands. These stunning islands are home to beaches and resorts where visitors can go snorkeling and diving amongst the coral reefs, and perhaps even see a native giant Aldabra tortoise. On land, the Seychelles offers lovely nature reserves filled with tropical forests, waterfalls, and rugged green mountains as well as the mountainous rainforest of Morne Seychellois National Park, where visitors can explore on their own or take a tour through the wilderness.

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5. Antarctica  Courtesy of bummi100 - Fotolia.com



The word exotic usually evokes images of sandy beaches and palm trees, but when looking for a truly unique destination for a trip, Antarctica is truly about as exotic as it gets. The southernmost continent on the planet, which is pretty much entirely uninhabited, is a beautiful - albeit very, very cold - landscape of snow and ice. Visitors can reach Antarctica via plane or on a cruise from Ushuaia, Argentina, which will take them onto the continent's fringes, but for a more intense Antarctica experience, travelers may need to devote weeks, and sometimes over a month, of their time to visit the southernmost reaches of the world via chartered ship or on skis.

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6. Borneo  Courtesy of boule1301 - Fotolia.com



The island of Borneo, in the Southeast Asian Malay Archipelago, belongs to three countries: Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. The island is rimmed with gorgeous tropical beaches perfect for diving, boating, or a day spent sunbathing in the sand. Inland, Borneo is famous for the stunning green rainforests that sprawl over the land, teeming with diverse wildlife such as clouded leopards and orangutans. Visitors to Borneo can see these rainforests and even more of the beautiful nature that the island of Borneo has to offer, including caves, cliffs, and breathtaking rock formations, or dive offshore to see some diverse marine life beneath the waves.

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7. Corn Islands  Courtesy of LMspencer - Fotolia.com

The Corn Islands are a pair of islands located just off the coast of Nicaragua, in the Caribbean Sea. Visitors to the Corn Islands can stay in Nicaragua and take a boat ride to the islands for a day trip or choose to stay on the islands in a beachside cabana. Largely free from the swarms of tourists that dwell elsewhere in the Caribbean, the Corn Islands are very rustic, with few cars or roads on the islands, and a shoes-optional policy that many of the locals seem to permanently abide by. Fresh-caught seafood, untouched natural beaches, and some of the friendliest locals to be found anywhere in the Caribbean are just some of the other draws to the Corn Islands.



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8. Ecuador  Courtesy of jkraft5 - Fotolia.com

The South American country of Ecuador, named for its geographic position straddling the equator, is a warm and lovely place. The country boasts a diverse landscape, including the South Pacific Coast, the highlands of the Andes mountain range, the breathtaking beauty of the Amazon jungle and, offshore, the tropical paradise that is the Galapagos Islands. At Galapagos National Park, visitors can see Galapagos green turtles, while on the island of Fernandina the volcanic landscapes are absolutely stunning. Local Ecuadorian food varies throughout the country but includes lots of seafood dishes like ceviche and encocado.



9. Greenland  Courtesy of Elizabeth - Fotolia.com

The country of Greenland comprises a massive island (the world's largest, in fact!) in the Northern Atlantic Ocean where it meets the Arctic Ocean. Most of Greenland is covered in a thick permanent layer of ice, and its small population is concentrated along the rocky fjords of the coast. Visitors to Greenland can learn about Inuit culture and history at any of the country's fascinating museums, and they can also look for a massive array of wildlife there, including whales, polar bears, walruses, and reindeer. These animals, as well as many more natural sights, can be seen on boat tours or while diving, skiing, snowshoeing, or mountaineering through Greenland's rugged landscapes.

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10. Madagascar  Courtesy of Duleyrie - Fotolia.com

Madagascar is an island nation located just off the eastern coast of Africa. The island was isolated for almost 90 million years of its history, and so its landscape and wildlife are incredibly unique from the rest of the world. Roughly 90% of the plants and animals found in Madagascar are endemic and cannot be found naturally in any other part of the world. Animals such as the lemur, which can often be seen leaping through the trees of Madagascar's jungle, are iconic of the country, and visitors will love exploring the exotic nature that is truly one of a kind.



11. Mongolia  Courtesy of flocu - Fotolia.com

Historically, the Mongolian people have held fast to their nomadic culture, moving across the rugged landscapes of their region with their livestock, their families, and all their belongings strapped to their carts and their backs. Today, Mongolia is just as ruggedly beautiful, with stunning, empty expanses of mountains, plains, and desert that are wonderful for exploring, but the country also features many large and modern cities. In Ulaanbaatar, the country's capital, visitors can learn a lot about Mongolia's most famous icon: Genghis Khan, who is featured in a number of museums and monuments.

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13. Nepal  Courtesy of Ingo Bartussek - Fotolia.com

The Asian country of Nepal is much smaller than its Chinese neighbor to the north and its Indian neighbor to the south, but this little country still packs a major punch. The mountainous nation is a hiker's paradise, set into the Himalayas, and is home to the southern slopes of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. In the country's capital of Kathmandu, visitors can explore ancient temples and stupas, while out in the Nepalese wilderness, there are mountains to be climbed and explored via zipline, horseback, sky diving, or on foot.



14. New Zealand  Courtesy of Stephane Pothin - Fotolia.com

There's little on this earth that can be considered more exotic than a land that was chosen to depict one of the most iconic fantasy worlds of all time: Middle Earth from the Lord of the Rings series. New Zealand's massive spectrum of landscapes include snow-capped mountains, icy glaciers, flat, grassy plains, fjords, rainforests, volcanoes, caves, and sandy beaches, making it a veritable wonderland for outdoor enthusiasts looking to go hiking, camping, kayaking, climbing, and so much more. Trips to the outlying islands, traditional Maori seafood dishes, and even more adventure awaits in New Zealand.



15. North Pole  Courtesy of MrPhotoMania - Fotolia.com



The Terrestrial North Pole is the geographic point where the Earth's rotational axis meets its surface. Technically, it's just a bit of frozen ocean, but this spot has inspired the imagination of humans for centuries, from the race to find the Northwest Passage through the Arctic to the letters sent each year to Santa Claus by millions of kids. Aboard an icebreaker ship like the 50 Years of Victory, travelers can take a 2-week journey from Murmansk, Russia, to the very top of the world, where they can hop in a helicopter or a hot air balloon to see it from above, and perhaps spot a polar bear, walrus, or other form of Arctic life.

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16. Petra  Courtesy of bgspix - Fotolia.com



The ancient city of Petra, located in Jordan, was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2000, and it's easy to see why. This beautiful city, carved into the red sandstone of the cliffs behind it, is often called the Rose City, and was once the capital of the Nabatean Kingdom. It dates back to around 300 BC and contains a number of tombs and temples, which are available for exploration by visitors. The Siq, a narrow canyon pathway, will lead travelers to the ancient city, where they will find impressive structures such as The Treasury, a 130-foot-tall temple with an intricate facade.



17. Rwanda  Courtesy of simoneemanphoto - Fotolia.com



The country of Rwanda is most renowned for its beautiful African rainforests, and in Nyungwe National Park travelers to Rwanda can explore the jungle to find primates such as chimpanzees in their natural habitat. Inside the forested Volcanoes National Park, visitors may see five beautiful volcanic peaks, including massive Mount Karisimbi, whose summit reaches well over 14,000 feet in elevation. Volcanoes National Park is also home to many species of animals, including golden monkeys and the critically endangered mountain gorillas. In Akagera National Park, which has more of a savannah landscape, there are hippos, giraffes, and African elephants.

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18. Salar de Uyuni  Courtesy of Kseniya Ragozina - Fotolia.com



In Bolivia, amid the Andes mountains, is a massive stretch of flat land where a peculiar phenomenon occurs. A thick crust of salt in conjunction a thin layer of water on the ground turn Salar de Uyuni into a breathtakingly unique mirror, one which reflects the sky in such detail and accuracy that to stand in it is to feel like you're floating in midair. The salt flat of Salar de Uyuni was formed millions of years ago when a prehistoric lake dried up and left a desert-like plain of crusted salt and rock. Salar de Uyuni is only reflective at certain times of year, after the flooding of nearby lakes leaves a layer of water on the ground of the flats, so careful planning for this trip is a must.



19. Scottish Highlands  Courtesy of Franco Bissoni - Fotolia.com



The mountainous northern region of Scotland is one that will always maintain an aura of romance and fantasy. From Celtic legends of fairies and magic in the area to the real-life history of the Highland clans who once dominated the region, the Scottish Highlands are a land filled with history and beauty at every turn. Visitors can hike, bike, or ride on horseback through the green, rocky, mossy landscapes, under a stunningly big sky, or visit old castles that once belonged to prominent clans. For more of an air of mystery, there's Loch Ness and its legendary monster or the ancient stone circles of the Celtic druids.

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20. Tibet  Courtesy of Fotoimp - Fotolia.com



Tibet, an autonomous Chinese region in the Himalayas, is often referred to as the Roof of the World for the tall, imposing mountains in the region, including Mount Everest, which it shares with Nepal. There is no independent travel allowed in Tibet, so any visitors to the region must arrange their travel through an agency at least 6 weeks ahead of time, and they must have a tour guide for the entirety of their stay in Tibet, who will be with travelers for around 3 to 5 hours each day. Once in the region, visitors to Tibet can explore temples, monuments, and parks, as well as some of the stunning nature in the region like the Himalayas.



21. Turkey  Courtesy of seqoya - Fotolia.com



Geographically, Turkey is unique in that it has land on both the European and Asian continents. This Middle Eastern country is home to some of the oldest parts of human history and also boasts some beautiful scenery. In the city of Istanbul, visitors can see the beautiful Hagia Sofia, which was a built in the 5th century AD and has been used as a basilica, a mosque, and now a museum. In the Central Anatolia Region, often referred to as the Cradle of Civilization, there are the remnants of many of the empires and civilizations that have called Turkey home over the millennia, including the Greek, Persian, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires.



22. Turkmenistan  Courtesy of michalknitl - Fotolia.com



Turkmenistan is a Central Asian country located on the coast of the Caspian Sea. Historically, Turkmenistan was a major part of the ancient trade network known as the Silk Road. The capital city of Ashgabat has a record-breaking number of white marble buildings and a massive number of fascinating historical museums and monuments. The country is also home to many other archaeological ruins as well as some truly lovely nature such as underground lakes and the Door to Hell - a continuously burning crater filled with natural gas. Visitors to Turkmenistan will require a visa and a letter of invitation in order to enter the country, which can be obtained 4 to 6 weeks before their visit from a licensed travel agency.

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23. Vietnam  Courtesy of gnomeandi - Fotolia.com The Southeast Asian country of Vietnam is located on the South China Sea, and its massively long coastline is home to many beautiful beaches. The country's rivers, dotted with rocky limestone islands and lined with impossibly green jungles, are gorgeous to say the very least, and Vietnam's cities, like the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are filled with historic temples, Buddhist pagodas, and some delicious local food opportunities. Exploring nature in Vietnam is fantastic: In Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park there are some of the most beautiful and expansive cave systems in the world, while on the Hai Van Pass visitors can rent a motorbike and drive up the mountainous roads for a spectacular view.



24. Abu Dhabi  Courtesy of Alexmar - Fotolia.com Abu Dhabi's name means "Land of the Gazelle," and according to legend, comes from an antelope that brought a thirsty tribe to fresh water at the site that has now grown into the capital of the United Arab Emirates. This cosmopolitan high-rise city now bustles with activity, and visitors can explore the streets of Abu Dhabi for shopping, food, and sightseeing, such as the 82 domes of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, one of Abu Dhabi's most recognizable and impressive buildings. For a taste of the seaside, there are the beaches, paths, and cafes along the Corniche, the waterfront road that runs parallel to the coast of the Persian Gulf.



25. Travelmate Robotics - An Entirely Autonomous Robotic Suitcase  Travelmate Robotics Able to actually move around on its own, the Travelmate doesn't need to be picked up or carried, and it comes with all kinds of unique features and functionality that help to make it a real joy to own and use. It can completely change the way you travel. The Travelmate is equipped with a built-in lock which adheres to TSA standards and can only be opened by the suitcase owner through Bluetooth. One of the most frustrating aspects of having to pack a suitcase is making sure the weight is just right to meet the rules and restrictions of your airline. The Travelmate actually comes with a state of the art built-in scale to accurately measure its own weight, giving you total peace of mind. As a robotic device, the Travelmate is powered by a rechargeable battery which can be charged back up through a simple USB 3.0 connection, just like many other devices you use on a daily basis. Not only that, but you can actually use the Travelmate as a power bank to charge up your other devices. The Travelmate can follow you around airports and other locations either flat on its back or upright in a vertical, standing position. It has super smart GPS technology and clever features like obstacle avoidance and 'Follow Me' which allow it to keep up with its owner. The smallest Travelmate measures up at 21.7 x 7.9 x 15.7 inches, while the largest variant is 29.5 x 12.2 x 20.5 in size. travelmaterobotics.com



25 Best Places to Visit in the World

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Algeria

The North African country of Algeria certainly fits the bill when it comes to exotic. The country, which is the largest in Africa, has a northern border that forms part of the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, with a mountainous terrain that is often capped with snow. Further inland, visitors will find the hot, sandy expanse of the Sahara Desert, where travelers can take a tour and ride a camel across the massive dunes of the world's largest non-polar desert. In Algeria, history buffs will find ruins from the Roman Empire in Tipaza as well as Ottoman buildings in the country's capital city of Algiers.

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The manchineel, or beach apple, is a flowering tree found throughout Florida, the Caribbean, the Bahamas, Mexico, and parts of Central and South America. The tree mainly grows in brackish waters of mangroves and swamps along the coast. The manchineel tree is instrumental in preventing erosion by stabilizing the sand with its roots and offering a natural windbreak. However, should you come across a manchineel tree on the beach  stay far away. It is among the worlds most poisonous trees. The sap from the tree is highly toxic and can seep from the stem, branches, leaves and fruits. Although the manchineel gets its name from the Spanish little apple, for the apple-like fruits that it bears, it is absolutely not edible. In fact, in Spain, its colloquially referred to as manzanilla de la muerte, or little apple of death. Rumor has it that the manchineel tree is what killed the explorer Juan Ponce de Leon in 1521 on his second trip to Florida. He was allegedly struck by an arrow that had been dipped into the poisonous sap, dying shortly thereafter.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. The Manchineel Tree  Stephen Orsillo

Manchineels may grow up to 50 feet tall. The trees have a red-grey bark, 2 to 4-inch green shiny leaves, and bear little green flowers that give way to a fruit that looks similar to a small green apple. The milky white sap, or latex, is the most toxic part of the tree and is found in every part. It is said that even standing close to the tree puts one in danger, as the sap may drip from the leaves or branches. Of course, touching the tree, eating the fruit, or coming into contact with the bark is extremely dangerous. Those who are exposed to the toxins may experience burning, itching, and allergic reactions including swelling of the throat, eyes, and mouth, as well as blistering. Blistering of the skin has been reported by those were touched by just a small drop of sap from a nearby tree. Ocular injuries have been reported in areas where smoke from burning trees was present. Those who have mistakenly eaten the fruit and lived to tell the tale describe the manchineel as pleasantly sweet at first, followed by a peppery, burning sensation and tightening of the throat.

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2. Toxicity  dbvirago/stock.adobe.com

Scientists are unclear on the exact makeup of the trees toxins, although it does contain phorbol, which is a highly water-soluble skin irritant. This explains the increased risk of exposure due to rain, as phorbol components dissolve easily into raindrops and can be spread to anything nearby. Even cars parked under the tree are at risk of being corroded by the dangerously strong toxic sap. In many parts of the world, the trees are identified with warning signs. Some are marked with a red X or a red band, while others have more specific signage posted. On the island of Bonaire, the trees are unmarked, so visitors must be vigilant. Although the plant is extremely toxic, it is nonetheless used for timber in the Caribbean. The sap is removed by drying cut branches in the sun. It is also reported that gum made from the tree bark can be used as a treatment for edema, an abnormal retention of fluid under the skin. Dried fruits of the tree have also been used as a diuretic. The tree is as toxic to most animals as it is to humans, but there is one species of iguana, the black spine iguana, which is known to live among the branches of the tree and even eat the fruit.

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3. History  dbvirago/stock.adobe.com

Most stories of run-ins with the manchineel come from literature and novels, which tell tales of exploration, pirates, being shipwrecked, and washed ashore on a secluded island, only to find the manchineel as the sole source of fruit. The manchineel and its toxic effects make for a dramatic story. Almost immediately after its discovery, the manchineel was appearing in opera, novels, and dramas. In the 1865 German opera LAfricane, the heroine commits suicide by lying under a manchineel and inhaling the fumes of the tree. Both the Calusa, native peoples of the southwest coast of Florida, and the Caribs were known to use the sap of the manchineel tree in warfare. The latter group used the leaves to poison the water supply of their enemies. The manchineel is currently on the endangered species list in Florida. For visitors who are looking for one, it is most common in the coastal mangrove forests of Flamingo in the Everglades National Park, and can be found in clusters on some of the smaller key islands, such as Key Largo and Elliot Key.



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Manchineel Tree

The Manchineel Tree, Photo: Stephen Orsillo

Toxicity, Photo: dbvirago/stock.adobe.com

History, Photo: dbvirago/stock.adobe.com

Cover Photo: Courtesy of Shakzu - Fotolia.com

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Each of the parks in Oregon offers a unique place where both Oregon residents and visitors can relax, hike, camp, picnic, play, and more in the great outdoors. From the Cascades to the coast and from fertile valley to arid desert, every corner of the state features sprawling areas of day-use, well-maintained campgrounds, and extensive trail networks.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. Beverly Beach State Park  Wasim/stock.adobe.com

The Beverly Beach State Park is a popular park in the state of Oregon. A walkway travels beneath a highway and the emerges onto an expansive stretch of sandy beach that extends from Yaquina head all the way to the Otter Rock headlands. Kites can be seen flying in the wind when the weather is good. Surfing is popular at the north beach. The Beverly Beach State Park includes a picnic area, playground for children, a forest-sheltered campground, and a sandy beach. The Visitors Information Center provides information about the area, as well as sells some souvenirs and firewood. 198 NE 123rd St, Newport, OR 97365, Phone: 541-265-9278

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2. Bullards Beach State Park  Randy King/stock.adobe.com

The Bullards Beach State Park is a family-oriented, large state park located about two miles from Bandon, Oregon. Its campground is situated within shore pines protected from the strong breezes coming off the ocean. The park features campsites on three different loops, each of which contain at least electrical and water hook-ups. There are also thirteen Yurts available in Bullards Beach State Park, with six of them being pet-friendly. The parks horse camp includes access to the dunes and the beach for equestrian campers. In addition to camping, the park offers opportunities for crabbing, fishing, biking, and hiking. Bandon, OR 97411, Phone: 541-347-22090

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3. Cape Lookout State Park  tusharkoley/stock.adobe.com

The Cape Lookout State Park is located around an hour and thirty minutes to the west from the city of Portland, Oregon. Visitors headed to the park will find great fishing, scenic views, and waterfalls along the Wilson River pass. Cape Lookout, a popular day-use area and campground, is situated between the Pacific Ocean and Netarts Bay on a sand spit, offering spectacular ocean views and beach access. One of the most popular activities at Cape Lookout State Park is beachcombing. Over eight miles of walking and hiking trails meander through the parks old-growth forest. 13000 Whiskey Creek Rd, Tillamook, OR 97141, Phone: 503-842-4981



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4. Champoeg State Park  Will/stock.adobe.com



The Champoeg State Park boasts a unique collection of recreation, nature, and history and is the spot where the first provisional government of Oregon was created in the year 1843 by a historical vote. Visitors can tour the Pioneer Mothers Log Cabin museum as a way to see what pioneer life was like at Champoeg, as well as explore the Newell House and visitor center. Behind the parks visitor center is an 1860s style garden. Located on the Willamette River, the Champoeg State Park features a scenic setting with acres of wetlands, fields, and forest recreating a bygone eras landscape. 8239 Champoeg Rd NE, St Paul, OR 97137, Phone: 503-678-1251

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5. Cottonwood Canyon State Park  Em/stock.adobe.com



The more than 8,000-acre Cottonwood Canyon State Park is a vast and rugged park, from rocky, arid grasslands and deep-side canyons extending in all directions for miles to the vertical cliffs carved out by the areas John Day River. Activities possible in the park include hiking, fishing, boating, camping, and horseback riding. The Lost Corral trail and the Pinnacles Trail are both 4.3 miles and travel downstream along either side of the scenic John Day River. The Pinnacles Trail starts at the campground, while the Lost Corral Trail starts at JS Burres. The Hard Stone Trail is 1.5 miles. 99989 OR-206, Wasco, OR 97065, Phone: 541-394-0002

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6. Crater Lake  Francois/stock.adobe.com



Crater Lake National Park is a park that inspires awe in many people who visit. Native American saw the formation of the lake more than 7,700 years ago with a tall peak collapsed as a result of a violent eruption. Scientists often marvel at the purity of Crater Lake, fed by snow and rain. This lake is considered to possibly be the worlds most pristine lake, as well as one of the most beautiful, and is also the countrys deepest lake at approximately 1,943 feet deep. Cliffs surround Crater Lake, set atop the scenic Cascade Mountain Range. Phone: 541-594-3000

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7. Fort Stevens State Park  DCrane Photography/stock.adobe.com

The Fort Stevens State Park at one time was the Harbor Defense Systems primary military defense site, located at mouth of the regions Columbia River. Fort Stevens is now a state park encompassing around 4,300 acres, offering recreational activities, nature exploration, and history. The history military fort, historic shipwreck, wildlife viewing, hiking and biking trails, a freshwater lake for swimming, beachcombing, and camping all make Fort Stevens State Park a diverse park in Oregon. Coffenbury Lake offers a boat ramp, picnic area, two swimming areas, and restrooms, while two smaller lakes provide opportunities for canoeing and fishing. 100 Peter Iredale Rd, Hammond, OR 97121, Phone: 503-861-3170



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8. Fort Vancouver  Zack Frank/stock.adobe.com

Fort Vancouver is situated along the Columbia Rivers northern bank, within sight of a dynamic urban landscape and the nearby snowy mountain peaks, and boasting a rich history of culture, home to stories of community, conflict, settlement, and transition. The Fort Vancouver National Historic Site is made up of four different sites that visitors are able to explore: The McLoughlin House, the Pearson Air Museum, the Vancouver Barracks of the United States Army, and the reconstruction of Fort Vancouver of the Hudsons Bay Company. The Visitor Center houses hands-on, creative exhibits that bring the stories and sites together. 612 E Reserve St, Vancouver , WA 98661, Phone: 360-816-6230



9. Harris Beach State Park  Chris/stock.adobe.com

The Harris Beach State Park is named after George Harris, a Scottish pioneer who settled in the area during the latter part of the 1880s to raise cattle and sheep. This park is home to Oregon coasts largest island: Bird Island, or also known as Goat Island. The island is a breeding site for rare species of birds, including the tufted puffin, and is an established National Wildlife Sanctuary. Harris Beach State Park also includes sandy beaches with occasional rock outcroppings that harbor tide pools with a broad array of life, while sea stacks can be seen dotting the ocean offshore. US 101, Brookings, OR 97415, Phone: 541-469-2021

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10. Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park  csfotoimages/stock.adobe.com

The Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park is a beautiful and versatile state park on the coast of Oregon, around three miles from Florence, Oregon. The park is home to the second largest campground of Oregons state parks, providing over 350 campsites. Honeyman Memorial State Park also includes sand dunes, trails for hiking, and two freshwater natural lakes. Woahink Lake offers a boat ramp for the public, while Cleawox is a good lake for swimming. Visitors can rent canoes to explore the lakes more. Many family reunions take place in the summer, while blackberries and huckleberries are ripe for picking during the fall. 84505 Highway 101, Florence, OR 97439, Phone: 541-997-3851



11. John Day Fossil Beds  Zack Frank/stock.adobe.com

The John Day Fossil Beds are home to a variety of colorful rock formations, preserving a world-class record number of animal and plant evolution, past ecosystems, and changes in climate that span across more than forty million years. A working lab and exhibits at the parks Thomas Condon Paleontology and Visitor Center, along with the scenic hikes and drives at each of the parks three units let guests view science in action and explore the state of Oregons prehistoric past. The John Day Fossil Beds consists of the Sheep Rock Unit, the Painted Hills Unit, and the Clarno Unit.

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12. L.L. Stub Stewart State Park  Laurens/stock.adobe.com

The L.L. Stub Stewart State Park is located only thirty-four miles away from the city of Portland, Oregon, offering an amazing backyard of adventure. Equestrians, cyclists, hikers, and campers can spend days exploring the 1,800 acres of the state parks wildflowers, gleaming streams, forest glades, and rolling hills, all of which are criss-crossed by the more than 25-mile trail network. The parks multi-use trails, along with six miles of free-ride mountain biking and cross-country trails, vary from easy to challenging, and allow visitors to immerse themselves in the great scenery, along with chances to view various wildlife. 30380 Oregon 47, Buxton, OR 97109, Phone: 503-324-0606



13. LaPine State Park  Rob Mutch Photo/stock.adobe.com

The LaPine State Park lets visitors immerse themselves within a subalpine forest with high-Cascade crisp air. The park features a quiet and clean campground situated along the winding Upper Deschutes River, which is full of trout and features a legendary spot for fly fishing nearby. During the summer, popular recreational activities in the LaPine State Park include floating, fishing, mountain biking, and hiking. Miles of wilderness can be explored throughout the park, as well as dozens of lakes high in the mountains. Ten cabins are also available for rent, five of which have private bathrooms. 15800 State Recreation Rd, La Pine, OR 97739, Phone: 541-536-2428



14. Lewis and Clark  Zack Frank/stock.adobe.com

The Lewis and Clark National Historical Park provides an opportunity to explore grand coastal vistas and timeless rainforests, in addition to discover the rich heritage of the regions native people. The historical park shares the dramatic and interesting stories of two of the most famous explorers in America, encompassing sites along the Pacific Coast and the Columbia River. The park includes about fourteen and a half miles of trails. These trails follow similar routes as the ones taken in the past by the Corps of Discovery. A Fort Clatsop replica can be seen at the visitor center. 92343 Fort Clatsop Rd, Astoria, OR 97103, Phone: 503-861-2471



15. Milo McIver State Park  RG/stock.adobe.com



The Milo McIver State Park is located on the banks of the Clackamas River and just forty-five minutes away from the city of Portland. The park offers an array of recreational activities, with the possibility of spending a day or many days exploring one of the states lesser known gems. Those who love time on the Clackamas River on kayaks, canoes, or rafts. Anglers can use the fishing dock or boat ramp at Estacada Lake for some fishing, or the Chinook and Steelhead runs on the river. Visitors can also take a self-guided tours of the Clackamas Fish Hatchery. 24101 S. Entrance Rd, Estacada, OR 97023, Phone: 503-630-7150

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16. Nehalem Bay State Park  tusharkoley/stock.adobe.com



The Nehalem Bay State Park is set between the bay and the Pacific Ocean on a sand spit measuring four miles in length, featuring two day-use area that are great for entire families and a campground. A 1.8-mile forested bike path offers spectacular views out over the water. The campground borders the rolling dunes by the beach and is located among shore pines. Visitors can relax with the ocean sounds, fly kites, and build sand castles on the beach, while beachcombing for glass floats, shells, and agates is a popular activities at Nehalem Bay State Park as well. 34600 Gary St, Nehalem, OR 97131, Phone: 503-368-5154



17. Nez Perce  oscity/stock.adobe.com



The Nez Perce National Historical Park preserves the plateaus, mountains, prairies, and valleys that for thousand of year have been the home of the Nez Perce people. An extremely resilient people, they have adapted to the settling of the country, and this park gives visitors a chance to learn their stories and explore the places they have called home. The park is made up of thirty-eight different sites, spread out over a large portion of the Nez Perces traditional homeland in what is now Oregon, Montana, Washington, and Idaho. The main visitor center is located in Spalding, Idaho.

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18. Oregon Caves  jamesdcawley/stock.adobe.com



The Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve is home to twisting, dark passages awaiting discovery deep within the areas Siskiyou Mountains. There are a variety of tours offered at the park for visitors of all ages, providing an opportunity to explore the mountain, get an idea of what caving is about, and discover fascinating sites. The Discover Cave Tour takes guests on a ranger-guided exploration of glistening flowstones, a marble passageway labyrinth, and a massive room located 220 feet below the earths surface. There is also a cave tour specifically designed for children and families. Both last around ninety minutes. 19000 Caves Hwy, Cave Junction, OR 97523, Phone: 541-592-2100



19. Oregon State Capitol State Park  jpldesigns/stock.adobe.com



The Oregon State Capitol State Park features cherry plants and other types of plants favored by the residents of Oregon, but also shares a bit of the states history. Stone plaques have been placed in the sidewalks of the mall, listing the establishment date and county seat for each of the counties in the state of Oregon. The grounds of the park include three different fountains: the Capitol Fountain at the Capitol Malls north end, the Wall of Water across from the main entrance of the capitol, and the Waite Fountain in Willson Park to the capitol buildings west. 155 Waverly St NE, Salem, OR 97310, Phone: 800-551-6949

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20. Shore Acres State Park  larson755/stock.adobe.com



The Shore Acres State Park is an unexpected and exciting combination of beautiful constructed and natural features, perched atop sandstone cliffs towering above the Pacific Ocean. Formerly the estate of Louis Simpson, a pioneer timber baron, Shore Acres State Park boasts lushly planted gardens that include flowers and other plants from throughout the world. The gardens feature something in bloom nearly every day during the entire year. Visitors can find a formal garden, two rose gardens, and a Japanese-style garden featuring a lily pond in the landscaped area of the park. Colored lights take over the gardens during the holiday season. 89428 Cape Arago Hwy, Coos Bay, OR 97420, Phone: 541-888-3732



21. Silver Falls State Park  paulacobleigh/stock.adobe.com



The Silver Falls State Park is sometimes referred to as the crown jewel of the state parks system of Oregon. Its a bit of a standout among scenic treasures with historic presence, boundless recreational opportunities, and natural beauty. Nestled within the Cascade Mountains foothills, not even an hour away from the state capital, the 9,200-acre park is the largest of Oregons state park and one of its most popular. The Trail of Ten Falls, a nationally recognized and spectacularly scenic hiking trail, meanders through dense forests, passing by a number of stunning waterfalls. There are several picnic areas as well. 20024 Silver Falls Hwy SE, Sublimity, OR 97385, Phone: 503-873-8681



22. South Beach State Park  Krzysztof Wiktor/stock.adobe.com



The South Beach State Park starts in Newport near the Yaquina Bay Bridge, then stretches many miles down the coast of Oregon. The historic park provides an array of opportunities for recreation, including an ideal place to ride a bike or jog on the jetty trail. Visitors can rent bikes at from the Hospitality Center during summer. The equestrian trail leading to the beach starts at the South Jetty trailhead. The South Beach State Park also contains a nine-hole disc golf course, horseshoe pits, and a childrens playground area. Junior Ranger activities, guided hikes, and interpretive programs are offered as well in the summer. 5580 SW Coast Hwy, Newport, OR 97366, Phone: 541-867-4715

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23. The Cove Palisades State Park  Zack Frank/stock.adobe.com The Cove Palisades State Park is considered to be an ideal recreational destination for the whole family. The park is nestled among towering cliffs surrounding the scenic Lake Billy Chinook and includes a variety of recreational water activities, fishing, The Cove Palisades Resort and Marina, rental services, a restaurant, a store, and a full-service campground. Deluxe cabins are also available on the lakeshore. The Cove Palisades State Park also boasts almost ten miles of trails for hiking that provide access to areas with splendid scenery and wildlife viewing. Kayak tours are also offered at The Cove Palisades State Park. 7300 SW Jordan Rd, Culver, OR 97734, Phone: 541-546-3412



24. Tryon Creek State Natural Area  Tada Images/stock.adobe.com The Tryon Creek State Natural Area is an oasis within the bustling city of Portland, Oregon and is the only state park in Oregon located inside of a major metropolitan area. The park includes eight miles of trails for hiking, three and a half miles of equestrian trails, a paved three-mile bicycle trail, a wetland boardwalk, eight bridges, the Glenn Jackson Shelter, and a Nature Center with a store and interpretive exhibits. Special events, school field trips, a Junior Ranger program, summer day camp, and guided hikes are offered at various time throughout the year as well. 11321 SW Terwilliger Blvd, Portland, OR 97219



25. Wallowa Lake State Park  egiadone/stock.adobe.com The Wallowa Lake State Park offers visitors with a variety of activities for the entire family to enjoy. The campground in the park is surrounded by snow-capped mountains on three sides, as well as a large picturesque lake. Just outside of the park area are the Wallowa Lake trailhead, miniature golf, canoeing, go-karts, horseback riding, and a tramway that takes passengers to the summit of Mount Howard. Wallowa Lake also acts as a gateway to the continents deepest gorge, Hells Canyon. An artist community and gift shops can also be found near the Wallowa Lake State Park. Joseph, OR 97846, Phone: 541-432-4185



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Genres : Action, Crime

Starring : Shin'ichi Chiba, Janet Hatta, Eiko Matsuda

Director : Kinji Fukasaku

Plot Synopsis

Released just as the popularity of yakuza movies was waning in Japan, and as the country's film industry was undergoing some fundamental shifts, Doberman Cop is a unique entry in the career of director Kinji Fukasaku (Battles Without Honor and Humanity, Cops vs Thugs), and reunited him with star Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba (The Street Fighter, Wolf Guy) in an American-style crime movie that mixes gunplay and pulp fiction with martial arts and lowbrow comedy to create one of their most entertaining films.



Based on a popular manga by "Buronson" (creator of Fist of the North Star), Doberman Cop follows the fish-out-of-water adventures of Joji Kano (Chiba), a tough-as-nails police officer from Okinawa who arrives in Tokyo's Kabuki-cho nightlife district to investigate the savage murder and mutilation of an island girl who had been working as a prostitute. Initially dismissed as a country bumpkin (complete with straw hat and live pig in tow!), Kano soon proves himself a more savvy detective than the local cops, and a tougher customer than anyone expected. As he probes deeper into the sleazy world of flesh-peddling, talent agency corruption and mob influence, Kano uncovers the shocking truth about the girl, her connection to a yakuza-turned-music manager (Hiroki Matsukata), and a savage serial killer who is burning women alive.



Made to appeal both to the youth market with its biker gangs and popular music, as well as to old-time yakuza movie fans, Doberman Cop is an surprising oddity in Fukasaku's career, his sole film adapted directly from a manga and never before released on video outside of Japan. Featuring Chiba at his charismatic best  channeling a Japanese Dirty Harry while doing all his own stunts  and Fukasaku at his most fun, deftly showcasing the combined talents of his "Piranha Army" stock company of actors and other regular players  Doberman Cop is a classic action comedy and a missing link in 1970's Japanese cinema deserving of rediscovery.
A NANG  Two Loving Stars, a musical that combines K-Pop and Opera, will be staged for the first time in the central city on June 22-24.

The event will be part of the activities marking the 25th anniversary of Viet Nam-South Korea diplomatic ties.

Acting Director of the citys Trung Vuong Theatre, Quang Hao told Viet Nam News that it was the first time that this musical was being staged in Viet Nam.

He said residents would be able to see several pop idols from South Korea, including Lee Ji Suk, Han Yungyeon, Louis Choi, Yoo Myunghun, Beom Sang Gil and Kim Minkyu, perform live in the city.

Jointly organised by the Trung Vuong Theatre and Koreas Uijeongbu Arts Centre, the show is directed by Kim Kyujong and choreographed by Kang Ok Soon.

Kang Ok Soon will direct the opening and closing ceremony of the upcoming Winter Olympic Games  Pyeongchang 2018.

Two Loving Stars will also feature vocalist Louis Choi and actors Lee Ji Suk, Han Jungyeon and Kim Minkyu.

The South Korean artists will present both contemporary and traditional dancing skills, martial arts and magic on a 3-D stage. VNS
by George Burchett

In April 2015, I was invited by the Cercle des Francophones (Francophone Association) of Ha Noi to present the film Loin du Vietnam (Far from Viet Nam) at the Ha Noi Cinematheque. The film was made collectively in 1967 by some of the great names of new French cinema: Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Agnes Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, in support of Viet Nams resistance to US aggression.

I was familiar with the film, but decided to do some extra research for the occasion.

Quite by chance, I stumbled upon the website of a film festival at Casa de Cinema at the Villa Borghese in Rome titled, Il vietnam e il cinema francese  Viet Nam and French Cinema. One of the presented films was Wilfred Burchett in Viet Nam, France/Viet Nam, 1963, 44min.

Wilfred Burchett is my father, the Australian journalist, the first to visit the liberated zones of South Viet Nam (Viet Cong controlled) in late 1963, early 1965.

I knew a film had been made of his visit but had never seen it and had never been able to track it down. And there it was, on the program of a film festival in Rome.

I e-mailed the organisers at Casa de Cinema, who put me in touch with the AAMOD (Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico) film archive in Rome. I contacted them and they kindly made the film available to me.

So I finally watched it for the first time in my life at home in Ha Noi. It was a highly emotional experience to watch the almost half-century-old black and white footage, first downloaded on my laptop, then on my TV screen.

Eight minutes into the film, a VC postman delivers my father his mail. The commentary says:

"From Europe, your son sends drawings of the jungle and wild animals. He is a little afraid for you, but he doesnt yet know that here the most dangerous animals are American imperialists."

Well, that son is me, artist George Burchett. Yes, these were my drawings "of the jungle and wild animals", inspired by the letters my father sent my brother, sister and me  then living in Moscow  in which he explained why he was away for so long. To make it more interesting for us, he told stories of tigers, elephants, monkeys and other exotic creatures from the jungles of South Viet Nam.

Jungle stories: Mail delivery somewhere in the jungles of South Vietnam. Still photo of journalist Wilfred Burchett on a visit to the liberated zones of South Viet Nam,1963-64. Photo courtesy of George Burchett

Motorised cavalry

Sixteen minutes into the film, my father crosses a river on horseback  very heroic-looking, like Indiana Jones  and suddenly this extraordinary panorama fills the screen. The narration says:

"After an arduous journey you are now in the Central Highlands.

Have you ever seen so many elephants?

Did you know they are the heavy motorised cavalry of the local guerillas?"

Extraordinary. Like some lost world suddenly re-discovered. When this scene was filmed, thousands of elephants, tigers, panthers and other wild animals roamed the jungles of South Viet Nam. Elephants played a special role.

From my fathers letters from the jungles of South Viet Nam:

"There are lots of tigers and elephants; lots of deer and wild pigs around where I am. I found out lots of interesting things about elephants and the more I hear about these animals, the more I like them. They are very, very intelligent and very sensitive. They worry about things just like human beings. I heard of one the other day who loved his master very much. They had worked together in the forest for many years together, the elephant pulling the trees away from the land being cleared for cultivation and afterwards, carrying the grain and master together back to the village. The master got quite old and died and the elephant wept and was very unhappy. For a whole week he would not eat and then he died.

The elephant becomes very affectionate towards everyone in the family with whom he works. If there are some big rows, between Mummy and Daddy for instance, or between Annichka and George, the elephant simply cannot stand it. He stalks off, deep into the forest and someone must go after him, blowing a certain note on a buffalo horn, and then talk to him nicely and explain that there will be no more quarrelling. Then he agrees to come back."

My fathers words merged with the scene of elephants in the shimmering water. It took a long time for this image to reach me, and it reached me in a strange, round-about way. So I invite you, who read this, to look at it very carefully. Ive counted about 60 elephants, each with a man riding it.

Verge of extinction

There are about 60 wild elephants left in Viet Nam today. Not in one big group like in the image I am sharing with you, but scattered around the few remaining wilderness areas of Viet Nam. Another 100 or so lead a miserable existence carrying tourists, mostly in ak Lak Province in the Central Highlands. These figures are provided by Vietnams Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. And they are dire. The number of wild elephants in Viet Nam is unsustainable and the elephants are on the verge of extinction. Yes, extinction.

What bombs and defoliants could not accomplish, modern man is on the verge of achieving: the total elimination of elephants in Viet Nam. The main causes are deforestation and loss of habitat, man-elephant conflict, poaching. Elephants do not reproduce in captivity. Those who die from exhaustion, malnutrition or disease cannot be replaced. So domestic elephants are also doomed.

Elephants have played an important role in Viet Nams long history of resisting invaders. Elephants carried the Trung Sisters into battle against the Chinese invaders. The virgin lady warrior Ba Trieu also rode an elephant into battle. As did many other great Vietnamese heroes. And elephants were the "heavy motorised cavalry" at the Battle of ien Bien Phu during the war of resistance against French colonialism and in the jungles of Central and South Viet Nam during the war of resistance against US imperialism. They should be treated like national heroes, with the respect due to war veterans.

Saving the elephants of Viet Nam should be a national duty and a matter of national pride. Elephants, tigers, rhinos and many other species are being hunted and exterminated to satisfy mans vanity.

Yes, there are economic and social realities that mean that wilderness areas are shrinking to make way for crops and other forms of land exploitation. Everybody understands that. But everybody should also understand that unless we embrace models of sustainable development, not only the elephants of Viet Nam will be doomed, our whole planet will be doomed.

The jungle and its animals were Viet Nams allies in the wars against invaders, colonisers and imperialists. They are now crying for help. But are we listening? VNS
Painter Pham Binh Chuong is among few contemporary artists painting the streets of Ha Noi in a realist style. His work evokes memories of the city as it was years ago. Le Huong finds out what inspires him.

A quiet corner with brown, mossy tiled houses; the red leaves of tropical almond trees casting fluttering shadows on a faded yellow wall in the early morning light; a deserted lane with rough bricks and old-style wooden windows.

The typical motifs found in Pham Binh Chuongs oil-on-canvas paintings may stir memories of Ha Noi in the early 20th century for older people, but for youngsters, it is an unfamiliar perspective of very familiar street corners that they pass every day.

A quiet, peaceful and elegant Ha Noi is a memory from my childhood, Chuong tells Viet Nam News. I like images of rusty bicycles and staircases, both recurrent themes in his paintings.

"I think, a few decades ago, no one could ever forget the joy of possessing his or her own bicycle  its a happier feeling than owning a car today," the painter says.

The staircase leading to his grandparents house, on the second floor of a French-style house on Hai Ba Trung Street, has left quite an impression on the artist.

I loved visiting my grandparents house. I clearly remember the wooden staircase with its well-polished banister; every single step on the old wooden staircase would have an interesting sound, he recalls. My mind sees the resting place on the staircase that looked over a series of old up-and-down roofs running like those in a painting.

Street scene: "A Morning during Tet Holiday", oil on canvas.

Early on, Chuong chose realism as his style of expression, but his is "realism with a twist", says the artist.

Unlike dozens of years ago, when painters had only realism to follow, when I graduated from university 20 years ago, there were various styles of painting, and I tried my hand at realism and expressionism. Though I had some success, and was even awarded a prize by the Fine Arts Association in 1997, I found no difference between my works and those of other successful painters. Then, I decided to make realism a little more special.

His style is quite hard to achieve, and requires patience. Oil on canvas is the most perfect medium for his style.

One of the most recurrent elements in his paintings of Hanoian streets is bang (Terminalia catappa or tropical almond) trees.

I find it the most interesting tree. Just looking at the tree, people can guess what month it is, let alone what season.

The tree has beautiful spread-out branches, but its most amazing feature is its leaves. They are a cool green in summer and offer broad shade; they fall in winter, making the tree look lonely at street corners; in spring, young leaves sprout, bringing hope for the rest of the year.

But I like the tree the most in between seasons, when the leaves have various colours. The leaves turn yellow and red when it approaches autumn, and red mixed with purple in early winter. Those are the most romantic and beautiful seasons, he said.

Besides, the tree is of the same height as many old structures, which allows Chuong to draw the entire tree in his paintings.

The tree combines with old houses to create a special atmosphere of ancient streets, he said. But drawing bang tree is a real challenge as each leave has to be drawn carefully, otherwise it will look like another tree.

Look of home: "An Old Street Corner", oil on canvas.

Chuong enjoys drawing the capital city when it is quiet, as he finds its real beauty in tranquillity.

Life gets faster and faster, people rush more and more. Their minds are always moving, even when they sit down to enjoy coffee, the painter said.

I want people to feel calm and relaxed when they look at my paintings. Nothing is more precious than that feeling of peace. So I dont draw Ha Noi to make people love the city more. I want them to calm down for a while and return to their natures: to innocence and honesty. Or simply invoke their childhood memories.

Chuong has also tried his hand at still life and portraits. Some of his paintings have no people, but give the viewer the sense that someone has just left the space  many objects are not in their proper places, for example, someone has left a shirt out for drying under the sun, or moved a chair to a corner of a room temporarily.

I dont intend to draw perfect beauty, but the beauty of real life hidden behind the tranquillity, he said.

Chuong said the domestic audience seems interested in his works now. Im happier now as more young people buy my works.

Earlier, his paintings would be bought only by foreigners, but now he is selling his paintings mostly to Vietnamese people.

Sometimes people on the streets recognise me as they follow me on Facebook, he said. A few days ago, a beautiful girl greeted me at a photo studio on Ba Trieu Street. She said she liked to look at my paintings when shes free. Some of my customers have become my friends. What more can I expect?

Chuong often jokes to his friends that the more slowly he draws, the quicker his paintings sell. Drawing slowly means drawing carefully, and paintings done with more care sell better, said the artist, who is one among the 10 noted painters in Ha Noi who follow realism. He is planning a solo exhibition in the next two years.

Art critic Nguyen uc Binh is highly appreciative of Chuongs paintings of Ha Nois landscapes.

Growing up during the busiest period of Viet Nams fine arts, realistic paintings of Ha Noi brought Chuong to a peaceful place during the time of integration, Binh said. And now we have created a painting genre of Ha Nois street in the style of Chuong, just as we have a style of painting of Ha Noi streets by late artist Bui Xuan Phai.  VNS
Nestled in the dense greenery of Cuc Phuong National Park, a team of volunteers and staff work tirelessly to look after around 1,000 rare and endangered turtles. Le Huong & Hong Van report.

Taking trays containing freshly ground paste of vegetables and fruit, Lina V. Wedel and Simon Brauburger head for nearby enclosures to feed the turtles, one of the important tasks they perform every morning.

They chat while putting the trays in the feeding areas, without forgetting to take a quick look at the turtles swimming in the small ponds or crawling on the banks.

The Cuc Phuong Turtle Conservation Centre (TCC) in Cuc Phuong National Park is home to some 1,000 turtles of 30 domestic and foreign species. The park is in the northern province of Ninh Binh, some 120km east of Ha Noi.

Wedel takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with the moist air of the forest in the early morning.

She and Brauburger have been working at the centre as volunteers for nine months so far. Every single day, they learn new and interesting things.

Today they find two new eggs on the ground in the enclosure of a black-breasted leaf turtle, the smallest turtle species in Viet Nam.

Wedel gently places the eggs in a box filled with vermiculite (a kind of soft material facilitating incubation) to bring them to a room for measurement while Brauburger takes photos. The eggs are then carefully marked with a pencil before being put in the incubation room.

Its not the first time that Ive gathered turtle eggs, she tells Viet Nam News, But I still get really excited when there are new ones. This means that the turtles are doing well and that well probably have some more individuals of turtle species that are almost extinct in the wild.

They continue their busy morning checking the hatchling records, checking the incubators temperature and humidity and transferring newly-hatched turtles to a special room.

Some groups of tourists may drop by, breaking the centres tranquil atmosphere. The sounds of cicadas are joined by gasps and choruses of wow as the visitors admire the animals and the careful work done by the volunteers. Some tourists wander off to buy souvenirs in the exhibition room.

I really like working here because I have so many different tasks and theres always something to do, says Brauburger, The tasks can be exhausting sometimes, but I feel happy using my time and energy for this project.

Delicate job: The eggs are carefully looked after and stored at the proper temperature. VNS Photo Le Huong

Wedel says her work at the centre is a good combination, because she can support the vital work while learning lots of different things for herself.

Both volunteers are taking a gap year before entering university.

While Wedel is now sure of wanting to pursue veterinary medicine after working at the centre, Brauburger will continue with physics.

I chose to go to Viet Nam because it has unique wildlife, wonderful nature and loads of breathtaking landscapes that are still largely untouched, Wedel says, Thus it seems to be our last chance to take action to save nature and the animals.

She says its great to see how many Vietnamese people, even whole school classes, come to the centre to educate themselves about endangered species.

But in contrast, their indifference about nature is shocking, she says, Its hard for me to understand why people throw rubbish right on the grass or street when they could just keep it for five minutes to throw it in a bin later.

Mathew Armes, a Masters student from Germany has been doing research on the Vietnamese Pond Turtle at the centre for seven weeks. He comments that Viet Nams environment and landscape is beautiful and attractive to tourists but he worries that the natural beauty will be lost because of increased urbanisation and other factors.

I look through data collected about the turtle species and use it to predict captive population growth rates, he says, I also look at hatchling growth rates and catch turtles to look at their internal parasites using a microscope. What I can say is that hatchling turtles bred at the TCC show consistent growth and gain weight every month.

Everyone at the TCC works hard to care for the turtles and keep the TCC running as smoothly as they can from caring turtles to visitors. TCC do a good job, he adds.

New arrivals: (from left) Nguyen Thu Thuy, Lina V. Wedel and Simon Brauburger take photos of the newly found eggs at an enclosure before taking them to a safer room for incubation. VNS Photo Le Huong

A long struggle

The TCC is among the oldest conservation centres in the country, and has been running for nearly 20 years.

The centre receives turtles that have been seized from illegal trades and donated by individuals and agencies.

The endangered species at the centre take a long time and great care to produce a new generation, says o Thanh Hao, manager at the TCC, Some species give birth to only one egg a year or even produce no eggs at all. Then it takes 3-5 months for the eggs to hatch. A small hatchling will live in a special-care enclosure for five years to get mature enough to be transferred to normal care enclosures.

The TCC takes great care over the food, humidity and sunlight for forming stable shells and the population of turtles in one enclosure, says Nguyen Thu Thuy, Viet Nam Turtle Programme Co-odinator of Indo-Myanmar Conservations Asian Turtle Program, which has been co-ordinating with the TCC.

Around 60 hatchlings have been born at the centre since the end of 2016, she says.

Our ultimate aim is releasing the turtles back into nature, Hao says.

Asia hosts one-third of the worlds turtles.

Since the 1980s, scientists have highlighted a serious decrease in Asian turtles due to hunting and trading activities.

On average, more than 10,000 tonnes of turtles are smuggled every year.

Viet Nam used to be part of the illegal smuggling route, but now the country is also a market for the sale of turtles, Hao said.

People like to keep turtles at home as a holy pet, they also consider turtles nutritious food and a good material for eastern medicine, he said.

Though the TCC is not a national conservation centre, with its long history, the centre has been active in sharing conservation experiences with newly-established centres.

The conservation tasks of the TCC have been made easier over the last few years thanks to better awareness among the public.

The centre has offered various training courses to forest rangers, students and researchers.

Though funded through the State budget, the centre has received various sponsorships for incubation facilities and materials as well as uniforms for staff, Hao says.

We receive two volunteers from Germany every year and regular researchers, who make considerable contributions to the centres ongoing work, he says.  VNS
Michael Bates, Director of Development, American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS), said he was confident all of the AOFAS surgeons attending a recent medical seminar in Ha Noi will return to Viet Nam on another humanitarian mission. Ha Nguyen spoke with one of the doctors, Mike Strauss, who has joined eight others from the US, Netherlands, Australia and Turkey as well as 170 Vietnamese surgeons to perform surgeries on 100 disadvantaged patients suffering foot and ankle deformities Dr Mike Strauss in seven northern localities.

Inner Sanctum: What is your impression of your first visit to Viet Nam?

I first visited Viet Nam 47 years ago with US Navy salvage divers. At that time I had almost no contact with the Vietnamese people themselves. Subsequently, living in southern California, I have had innumerable contacts with Vietnamese doctors, nurses and others involved in medicine. My impressions are that these contacts and associations have been extremely positive. In particular, the high intelligence, motivation and desire to serve are among the characteristics I have observed.

Now that I have returned to Viet Nam and have the opportunity to visit Ha Noi, I am impressed by the contrasts. On the one hand, when we were driven through the "old" city, I saw vendors, large numbers of motorbikes, and buildings that reminded me of the country 47 years ago. But we also saw modern buildings, ultra-deluxe hotels, multi-lane freeways and beautiful parks. When landing in Ha Noi, I appreciated the well maintained green fields and the utilisation of the land to its fullest.

Everyone - from doctors, other medical personnel, Vietnamese in the hospitality trade have been extremely gracious. They seem very sincere in wanting to learn and help make my experiences during this visit memorable.

Inner Sanctum: What do you think about the seminar on Foot and Ankle Operations jointly held in Ha Noi by AOFAS, the Mobility Outreach International (MOI) and Viet uc Hospital ?

The seminar was very good. I was pleased to see how large the attendance was and the attentiveness and respect shown to the speakers. The subjects were very focused on foot and ankle surgeries. I was pleased to have the opportunity to share my personal experiences on the chronic exertional compartment syndrome and on minimal invasive surgeries for foot and ankle. My one disappointment was that the power point slides I prepared for my talks were not reproduced for the programme handout, nor were my slides translated into Vietnamese due to technical details. Hopefully, this can be rectified. The information I generated will be e-mailed to all the conference attendees and perhaps published in Vietnamese medical literature.

Inner Sanctum: What is your impression of operating on patients with foot and ankle deformities at the Ba Vi Orthopaedics Rehabilitation Center in Son Tay Town ?

I was very nervous about the orthopaedic challenges that might face me at the Ba Vi Orthopaedics Rehabilitation Center (BVORC). Fortunately, I have had extensive experience managing analogous foot and ankle challenges in adult diabetic patients. I brought special external fixator equipment with me so I had the opportunity to operate on severe deformities.

At BVORC I observed even more severe deformities in children with club feet. Fortunately, I employed similar techniques including external fixators that I use for my American patients with truly remarkable surgical corrections. Equally, important is the post-operative care. I left detailed post-operative care instructions with the BVORC orthopaedic director, Dr Cao Manh Hung, and plan to communicate with him via e-mail on a weekly basis to ensure that the outcomes continue to be as good as they were when we completed the corrective surgeries. In addition, our communications will be a way to offer recommendations should he have questions.

I was truly pleased that Dr Hung spent every minute with me during these surgeries so that he will be able to continue this type of work. We used the external fixator equipment on five patients and left the remaining equipment with Dr Hung.

An additional comment about BVORC was that I was truly amazed how efficiently the patients were managed by the operating room personnel. Thanks to their efficiency and the expertise of the anesthesiologists we were able to do eight operations in one eight-hour day. I think we Americans could learn something about efficient use of operating room time from my experiences at BVORC.

Inner Sanctum: How was the operation and how was the collaboration between the US and Viet uc surgeons.

I was very impressed with the skills of the orthopaedic surgeons with whom I worked last Friday. I think I learned as much from them as they hopefully learned from me. For most of the surgeries I provided advice as an observer. I believe that I and the other visiting orthopaedic surgeons major contributions to the Viet uc orthopaedic programme was our pre-operative evaluations and the recommendations we made for surgeries. The Viet uc orthopaedic surgeons seemed more than adept at doing the surgeries based on our pre-operative recommendations.

Inner Sanctum: Could you tell us in detail about difficult cases that you and Vietnamese surgeons have faced while operating on poor patients with foot and ankle deformities in the BVORC and Viet uc Hospital ?

I have only had the opportunity to see patients in a pre-operative evaluation clinic at the Viet uc Hospital. Problems ranged from mild, where only advice was needed, to very severe where we recommended amputations. I was impressed by how dedicated the family members were. The Vietnamese doctors at the clinic were knowledgeable and able to provide concisely the patients histories and their imaging studies. It was particularly satisfying to me to be able to collaborate with the Vietnamese orthopaedic surgeons at the clinic.

At the BVORC I saw some of the most severe residuals of club feet that I have ever witnessed in over 45 years of medical experiences.

Inner Sanctum: How did you share techniques and skills with your Vietnamese colleagues?

Of particular satisfaction to me was the opportunity to share and implement the information I presented on minimally invasive foot and ankle surgeries from the orthopaedic conference with Drs Hung and Tuan at the BVORC.

The highlight of this sharing was the opportunity to correct extremely severe club foot disorders with minimally invasive surgeries and temporary applications of external fixators to maintain corrections.

Inner Sanctum: What are the impressions you have gathered during your brief stay in Viet Nam ?

Positive on all accounts. They reinforced my impressions of the motivation and dedication of the Vietnamese medical personnel with whom I have worked in the USA. In addition, I want to maintain close communications with the doctors I have worked with in Vietnam in order to obtain follow-up on the patients for whom I helped care. Finally, I would be pleased to return to Viet Nam, directly observe follow-ups of the patients on whom I operated and help Vietnamese orthopaedic surgeons with additional surgeries.  VNS
Like most of you, I'm guessing, I gave CHIPS a pass when it hit theaters this past spring. A flurry of bad buzz and horrible reviews led me to believe this might be one of the worst movies of the year, and going into reviewing this home video release, I very much felt like this was the movie reviewer equivalent of "taking one for the team". Well, the good news is that CHIPS isn't as awful as you've heard. Don't get me wrong  it's still not a very good movie, but it has sparks of charm here and there. It's a disappointment, to be sure, but not totally dismissible.

Based, of course, on the 1977 series of the same name  even though there's little resemblance to the original -- Dax Shepard stars as Jon Baker, a former motocross legend whose multiple injuries led him to a new career as the oldest rookie patrolman in LAPD history. Michael Pena co-stars as Frank Poncherello  except that he really doesn't. He's actually an FBI agent named Castillo who is sent undercover into the California Highway Patrol to try and find and stop a group of corrupt cops. No bonus points for guessing who he is given as a partner. Of course, Poncherello is supposed to be an Italian name and Pena is clearly not of Italian descent, so perhaps this was the best way the movie could keep both the actor and the name. There's a few jokes over it during the storyline, and despite the big change from the original series, the FBI angle is one of the few parts of the plot that works well.

When you see the name Vincent D'Onofrio in the cast list, it's not hard to figure out who the main villain of this movie is. What's harder to figure out is what Vincent  who is a very good actor  is doing in this rather B-list action-comedy. He plays Ray Kurtz, a cop who is doing what he is doing (primarily holding up armored cars to get their cash) in the hopes of helping his drug-addicted son. Maybe D'Onofrio thought there was more shades of gray to his character (and perhaps there was in the original script), but he's more or less your typical bad guy here.

The biggest problem with CHIPS (aside from the fact that it's not very funny) is that it can't seem to decide what type of movie it wants to be: a standard action movie, a standard comedy, a wild action movie, or a raunchy comedy. There's a little of all four of those in the presentation, causing the tone to shift (often awkwardly) from scene to scene. As for me, I liked the milder stuff in CHIPS a lot more than when the movie goes off the rails  there's an obvious chemistry between the two male leads that is never really explored (the best scene between the two is when Ponch reveals to Jon that he's really with the FBI), so it's a shame he didn't pursue a more character-driven piece.

But even with all its problems, CHIPS isn't a disaster  there's still moments to enjoy here, and the cinematography is quite good (the fact that Shepard chose to use real bikes and cars in the stunts instead of relying on CGI work is a big visual plus). It's by no means something anyone would want to add to their home library without checking it out first (nor is it something I think most will want to view more than once), but I have no problem suggesting a rental here.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray

CHIPS gets booked onto home video in this Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD combo pack. The 50GB Blu-ray and dual-layer DVD come housed inside an eco-friendly Elite keepcase along with an insert containing a code for a digital copy of the movie. A slipcover with artwork matching that of the keepcase's slick slides overtop. Both the Blu-ray and the DVD are front-loaded with trailers for The House, Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, the Lord of the Rings videogame "Middle Earth: Shadow of War", Going in Style, and the DC Universe videogame "Injustice 2". The Blu-ray's main menu is a still image of Dax Shepard and Michael Pena on their motorcyles fist bumping each other, with menu selections across the bottom of screen, some of which open up to horizontal levels above them, as applicable (in other words, the typical Warners' menu design).

The Blu-ray in this release is region-free.
LITTLETON  Authorities have called off an almost three-week search for a missing Waterloo woman after finding a body in the Wapsipinicon River on Thursday night.

Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson said positive identification of the female body through autopsy will take several days, but the location of the remains, tattoos and other circumstances are consistent with the description of 47-year-old Rhonda Apfel.

Apfel was reported missing May 29, and her motorcycle and other belongings were found at Bruggeman Wildlife Area near the river. Friends and family said Apfel was known to travel to the area, just outside of Dunkerton, to reflect around Memorial Day because her fathers ashes had been scattered nearby.

A fisherman discovered the body around 7:40 p.m. Thursday about 100 yards north of the bridge at the Cutshall Access west of Littleton, Thompson said.

Thompson estimated the location was about seven to 10 miles downstream from where the motorcycle was discovered.

Deputies and emergency workers remained on the scene until around 2 a.m. working to free the body, Thompson said.

Authorities had been searching the river daily since Apfels disappearance, and friends and family combed the adjacent land. The river winds through the countryside with numerous backwaters and countless snags, Thompson said. Boat crews were often tasked with disassembling log jams in the heat and humidity as part of the search.

Youre battling nature, and its frustrating because the family is passionate, and the friends are passionate, and we get passionate, Thompson said.

In addition to the Black Hawk County Sheriffs Office, agencies helping with the search and recovery included Dunkerton fire and police, Black Hawk County Conservation, Jesup Fire, Task Force 1, Iowa National Guard, Buchanan County Sheriffs Office and Medical Examiner, Cedar Valley Paddlers and Cedar Valley Underwater Search and Recovery.

Deputies continue to investigate Apfels death, Thompson said.

Defense: Soules tests negative for alcohol

INDEPENDENCE  Reality TV star Christopher Soules blood and urine tested negative for drugs and alcohol following the April crash that killed an Aurora farmer, according to a motion filed by his attorneys Friday.

Soules, 35, of rural Arlington, is charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the collision that killed 66-year-old Kenneth Mosher. His attorneys have asked to delay the trial, which had been set for July.

In a motion filed Friday, defense attorney Brandon Brown asked the court to preclude prosecutors from presenting any evidence Soules purchased or consumed alcohol, had driven while impaired or had beer cans in or around his vehicle.

The motion states according to the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations Criminalistics Laboratory, Soules urine and blood specimens were negative for drugs and alcohol.

Prosecutors say Soules was driving a pickup truck that rear-ended Moshers tractor and then left before law enforcement arrived. Soules was later found at his home, but declined to leave until after authorities had obtained a search warrant, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors earlier claimed in court filings Soules had tried to hide information he was seen buying alcohol at a convenience store shortly before the crash.

The defense argues Soules stopped, called 911 and identified himself to dispatchers and had attempted to assist Mosher.

Browns Friday motion also seeks to keep prosecutors from referring to Mosher as the victim when the case goes to trial and from introducing any reference to field sobriety tests, preliminary breath tests and Datamaster testing, which is also a breath test, as well as information about the search warrant and the circumstances of his arrest.

Hawkeye meth case brings second arrest

HAWKEYE  Fayette County sheriffs deputies have arrested a second person in connection with a meth lab investigation in Hawkeye, and they are searching for one more.

Jeremy Michael Quario, 34, of Oelwein, was arrested Thursday for aiding and abetting the manufacturing of methamphetamine. He was taken to the Fayette County Jail, and bond was set at $25,000.

The arrest stems from the June 1 search at a Hawkeye home where Brian Sunnes was arrested for manufacturing meth.

Authorities are also searching for Norma Rae Quario, 30, of Oelwein, in connection with the case.

Anyone with information on Noram Quarios whereabouts is asked to call local law enforcement agency or call the Fayette County Sheriffs office at (563) 422-6067 Ext 0.

Man arrested after scuffle with police

IOWA FALLS  An Iowa Falls man allegedly attempted to grab a police officers handgun from its holster during a scuffle with authorities that included head butting, kicking and death threats.

According to court records, 29-year-old Jacob Calvin Sauer was being detained during a domestic assault investigation at a mobile home park at 23102 County Road D15 around 11:50 p.m. June 11 when he punched Hardin County sheriffs deputy in the face and chest.

A struggle followed, and Sauer struck an Iowa Falls police officer in her leg. He was cuffed and taken toward a squad car, and he allegedly started fighting again and was taken to the ground. He head butted another officer in the side of the face and grabbed at his holster, moving a flap that holds the weapon in place before authorities brought him under control, according to court records.

Sauer allegedly told a deputy he would use the internet to find out where he lives and kill him, court records state. He also threatened to kill the police officers and family members, according to court records.

Sauer was arrested for disarming a peace officer, assault on a peace officer causing bodily injury and first-degree harassment. He was also arrested for misdemeanor domestic assault.

Waterloo man

critical after crash

WATERLOO  The condition of a Waterloo man seriously injured in a vehicle-motorcycle crash June 10 in downtown Waterloo has worsened, family members said.

Randy Lee Mohl, 37, remains in critical condition at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Intensive Care Unit. He reportedly suffered a stroke two days after the crash and underwent emergency brain surgery Monday.

He still hasnt woken up. Its just going to be a long road of recovery, said Mohls sister, Amanda Hayner.

Mohl was on his motorcycle when he collided with a sport utility vehicle at the intersection of West Third and Jefferson streets around 10:10 p.m. Lorie Davis, 57, of Waterloo, was driving the SUV and told police she was unable to see the motorcycle because of vehicles parked along the road and heavy pedestrian traffic from My Waterloo Days, according to the accident report.

Mohl suffered multiple fractures to his right leg and multiple internal injuries, including a lacerated liver, fractured rib, bruised spleen, bruised kidney, bruised heart and bruised lung, according to Hayner.

The report states he was conscious and alert at the scene.

Randy has a significant other, Tracey, and four children  Kalista, 13; Phoenix, 11; Nevaeh, 9; and Harley, 1. Hayner said they and other family members have been by his side since the accident.

The family has created a GoFundMe page to assist with expenses: https://www.gofundme.com/randy-lee-mohl-medical-fund.

One man arrested

in Friday shooting

WATERLOO  A 22-year-old man was arrested following a shooting that injured one person near a neighborhood park Friday afternoon.

Chavontae Charvez Boyd, of 820 W. Second St., Apt. 1, was charged with intent to cause bodily injury and intimidation with a weapon.

The identity and condition of the victim werent immediately available, but Waterloo Police said he suffered a gunshot wound to the leg and is expected to survive.

A neighbor called 911 shortly after 3 p.m. Friday upon hearing gunfire in the area of West Mullan Avenue and Wellington Street. Officers were unable to find any trace of the shooting when they initially arrived.

About 20 minutes later, the victim arrived at Covenant Medical Center by private vehicle, and police were able to narrow down the location to the 400 block of West Wellington Street. It wasnt clear how the shooting happened, but officers found two spent shell casings on the sidewalk across the street from Elks Memorial Park.
Cedar Falls firm is pitch finalist

CEDAR FALLS  HowFactory in Cedar Falls has been selected as a pitch finalist at a national conference in Lincoln, Neb.

This week, the first Inside/Outside Innovation Summit will be held at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln. Hosted by Econic and the Inside/Outside Innovation podcast team, the three-day national conference brings the best high-growth startups and corporate entrepreneurs together.

The summit is the first of its kind in the region to bring global leaders in the world of startup-driven innovation, corporate innovators, leading-edge startups and community supporters.

More than 60 startups will be included in the summits Startup Showcase and matched with corporate innovators and fellow startup founders. See all Startup Showcase companies at https://www.theiosummit.com/startup-showcase.

From those startups, six, including HowFactory, have been chosen to compete in an investment pitch competition for a $100,000 investment and incentives sponsored by Nelnet.

HowFactory develops online apps for businesses to create, update and collaborate on visual training, work instructions and standard operating procedures

For more information or to register, go to https://www.theiosummit.com.

Workshop slated

for advisers CEDAR FALLS  On Aug. 10, Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa will host a free event for professional advisers to learn successful exit planning for family farms and small businesses.

The seminar begins at 11:30 a.m. and will be held at the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa building, 3117 Greenhill Circle. All attendees will be provided with a complimentary lunch and one-hour continuing education credit for CLEs and CFPs.

The case study, presented by William Gustoff from Thompson and Associates and Michael Moffitt from Cornerstone Financial Group in Des Moines, will follow a typical farm or small business couple through decisions as their retirement years approach. The session will look at a mix of charitable and non-charitable strategies and financial impacts of each.

To register, email events@cfneia.org or call Gretchen Woodrick at 243-1363. Limited space is available, the registration deadline is Aug. 4.
CEDAR FALLS  There are a lot of things that set the downtown Cedar Falls Maid-Rite apart from other restaurants.

First, the front doors might throw you off. Yes, there are two of them. Both wooden with screen doors, as if you are walking into someones home.

Then theres the long counter with red stools  the only available indoor seating.

And, of course, there are the Maid-Rites themselves, those tasty loose-meat sandwiches that take most Cedar Valley natives directly back to their childhoods.

Current owners Penne and Allen Koeppel purchased the diner from Pennes mother, Ramona Moe Schatzer, who bought the business herself in 1974. But there were many who preceded them. The downtown icon at 116 E. Fourth St., which first opened in 1947, is celebrating its 70th year.

The restaurants regular customers are quick to fill in newcomers on the ins and outs of the business.

You have to come early to get the strawberry pie, said customer Janine Altema, who lives in Waterloo but grew up in Cedar Falls. And they serve Folgers coffee. Its the best.

The service is great, said Mary Martin Lane, also of Waterloo and Altemas neighbor at the long counter. The service is a draw. They know their regulars by name.

And shes a fixture, Lane said, pointing to Penne Koeppel.

My brother used to visit from Denver, Colo., and he had to eat Maid-Rites, Lane said. Weve been eating Maid-Rites since the 40s.

Both Altema and Lane pointed out the people you meet and the conversations that take place at the counter.

We were strangers when we sat down, Lane said.

Weve been talking about stain removal, Altema joked, pointing to her shirt. I had the taco salad.

Oh, and did they tell you about the punch cards? Lane asked.

And theres always the homemade ketchup prank, a favorite of Penne Koeppels that never fails to have her in stitches.

Husband and wife Roy and Rita Justis of Cedar Falls sit at the counter with friend and former classmate Sam Coleman, who is visiting from Reno, Nev. They graduated from Cedar Falls High School together in 1960.

Anytime I get into town, we come to Maid-Rite, Coleman said. Its tradition.

The building seems the same, Rita Justis said. Its like an old-time diner.

All three were quick to answer when asked what their favorite item on the menu is.

The Maid-Rites, they said in unison.

Thats all we remember, Ray Justis said. There are none quite like this.

Penne Koeppel has even catered the class high school reunion, serving up Maid-Rites, Rita Justis said.

She even made a special trip back to the diner for the homemade ketchup, she said, laughing.

That is just one example of how much a part of the community the diner is. Others include the Koeppels serving sandwiches at a favorite summer community activity, Movies Under the Moon at Overman Park, and setting up a tent and filling the parking lot with tables to serve Viking Pump employees when that company marked its 100th anniversary.

And we are always bombarded after the Sturgis Falls parade, Penne Koeppel said.

Perhaps the business greatest asset is the Koeppel family itself.

Penne Koeppel, 62, grew up in Dewar and got her start in food service cooking steaks at the Dewar Tap. After a brief stint at Osco Drug (now CVS) at Crossroads, she and her husband bought the diner when her mother was ready to retire.

My kids grew up at Maid-Rite, Penne said, referring to her two sons, Chris and Chad, and daughter, Angela.

In fact, 12 years ago, Chad Koeppel opened Waffle Stop in Cedar Falls.

People are always asking for the recipe for her famous sandwiches, Penne Koeppel said.

Some of them think they have the recipe, she said, shaking her head. They say something about chicken gumbo soup in there. That isnt it.

There actually are things on the menu other than the Maid-Rite loose-meat sandwiches.

We have homemade pies and soups, Penne said. Our hot roast beef sandwiches (Fridays special) are popular. We mash our own potatoes and cut our own roast. Also the hand-breaded tenderloins (Thursdays special) are really good.

While many customers will swear the diner, which is open from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday, hasnt changed since they came there as children, there have been updates. Pennes mother, Moe, bought the bakery next door from the diner and in 1978 expanded her business, doubling its size. She also opened Maid-Rite shops on College Hill and Thunder Ridge for a time. In 2014, the Koeppels remodeled, including relocating and reconfiguring the cooking area and installing a new counter and flooring.

One way the Koeppels will be marking the diners 70 years in business will be with a float in Saturdays Sturgis Falls parade.

Im trying to make a giant Maid-Rite, Penne said. Well see how it turns out.

She also intends to honor the previous owners of the diner with a layered cake bearing their names.

Allen Koeppel, who works at Viking Pump, will be retiring next year. Penne isnt sure she will be ready to do the same by then.

Ive enjoyed serving all the customers through the years, Penne said. Theyre kind of like family.

The couple will celebrate their own anniversary, 40 years of marriage, today and will take a family fishing trip in August to mark the event.

Well be shutting down the diner for a week, Penne Koeppel said. But dont worry, well be back.
WATERLOO  Downtowns newest restaurant is serving up heart and soul.

Rodneys Kitchen & Catering, which moved into a former Thai restaurant at 624 Sycamore St. last month, is winning repeat customers with a mix of American grill, soul food and Mediterranean dishes.

Chef and owner Rodney Lewis is winning fans by giving away free lunches to children who dont always have access to midday meals.

The restaurants eclectic menu is a nod to Lewiss upbringing on Nantucket Island off the coast of Massachusetts, which draws a variety of top chefs to work during tourist season.

I started around the age of 14, 15 years old dish washing like everybody else, Lewis said. The next year I eased my way into the prep area.

I was working around chefs that came to the island every summer, and I met guys from all over the country, he added. I learned a lot from them and my mom  shes a cook also  and just fell in love with it.

Lewis studied culinary arts at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., and was working in Texas when friends and family members in 2010 convinced him to move to Waterloo. His grandfather, James Quinn, had worked as a custodian in City Hall.

He found himself homeless here at first, working three jobs just to have a place to be, but eventually began preparing food sold from steam tables on a sidewalk along West Fourth Street.

Lewis started Rodneys Kitchen from a small counter-service window at 437 Sullivan Ave. in 2015 but was nudged by state Rep. Timi Brown-Powers to check out the downtown location. He began renovations in April before opening in May.

Brown-Powers met Lewis through work in her legislative district and, as a member of Main Street Waterloo, encouraged him to consider expanding downtown.

Were getting these young business owners downtown who are involved in the community  so Im just so excited for him, Brown-Powers said. He does so much for the community too, helping with nonprofit organizations and serving as a role model.

We need to promote that in the community, she added. And his food is fantastic.

Lewis specialties include a hamburger topped with smoked brisket; Philly chicken and beef cheese steaks; fried chicken and catfish; fettuccine alfredo with chicken and shrimp; and dinners featuring barbecue and soul food.

Lewis won best dish at a recent Cedar Valley Friends of the Family fundraising event with New Orleans-style seafood gumbo.

This week, hes planning dishes with fresh clams being delivered from Nantucket.

Meanwhile, hes planning to start a program Tuesday offering free bag lunches Tuesday through Thursday for kids in need. At least one organization with 40 kids has already signaled interest.

He previously offered the free lunches over spring break this year after kids came to his Sullivan Avenue site looking for work.

I figured their parents werent around during the day because they were probably out working, single parent homes, Lewis said. At one point I was that kid. I never grew up with my father being around.

Im heavy into the community, he added. If I could, I would help out every family possible.

Rodneys Kitchen is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and serves only a soul food meal from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Its closed on Mondays.
WATERLOO -- Schematic designs for an expanded career center will be considered for approval Monday by the Board of Education.

The board meets at 5 p.m. in the Education Service Center, 1516 Washington St.

InVision Architects was hired in April to create plans for eventually housing 15 career and technical education programs in the facility at Central Middle School.

The Waterloo Career Center opened last fall, offering classes in two programs for high school students. Plans are underway to add three more programs next fall, with remodeling summer.

Officials say the excess space at Central, originally built as a 1,200-student capacity high school, can accommodate about 15 programs. Architects are expected to lay out information on renovations, costs and a timeline for the future programs.

In other business, the board will consider:

Approving a $1.1 million premium to continue participating in the Iowa Association of School Boards comprehensive insurance program, a 0.78 percent increase. Provided by EMC Insurance of Des Moines, it covers property and casualty, errors and omissions, automobile, worker's compensation, general liability, commercial liability and other insurance services.

Purchasing nine 70-inch Promethean activPanels at a cost of $32,396 from CDW-G of Vernon Hills, Ill., to replace 9-year-old ActivBoards in Central classrooms that are being remodeled.

Transferring $16,655 from the general fund to the activity fund for purchase of equipment required for athletic teams during the past year.

Discontinuing student fees for registration and pay-basis busing.

Approving 10 district schools to provide free meals to all students under the federal Community Eligibility Provision due to poverty levels.

Increasing breakfast and lunch prices for students and adults by 10 cents.

Approving Comfort Akwaji as director of curriculum with a $95,000 salary.

Approving the school nursing agreement with the Black Hawk County Health Department.
When stationed in Vietnam in 1970-1971, occasionally I would listen to Hanoi Hannah, Trnh Th Ng, on the radio. Hannah broadcasted from North Vietnam. She played American pop songs with a huge dose of negative propaganda aimed at American soldiers. Hannah died at the age of 87 in October, a few months short of seeing her propaganda become astoundingly true.

She told American soldiers to lay down their weapons because leaders in Washington were dishonest, lying, greedy and imperialistic pigs. As an idealistic 19-year-old, I found these broadcasts very offensive. My upbringing told me dishonesty was wrong. During high school U.S. government class, I paid special attention to the subject of checks and balances.

I learned our political systems checks and balances would never tolerate government personnel from the congressional, executive, or judicial branches to partake in graft and open and repeated dishonesty. Checks and balances were designed to eliminate unscrupulous acts from people within the government.

In the early 1970s, Americans still demanded our government leaders to be honest and scrupulous  most of all our president. Because of these national expectations, President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974. The presidency required a person to be a positive role model throughout the world and have unparalleled morals. Americans are discovering with Donald Trump, the presidency is an extremely powerful position in which great abuse can occur unless constitutional checks and balances are implemented.

Since the November election, Hanoi Hannahs message has rung true. I am frightened for our countrys welfare considering its direction of late. America is doing a balancing act on a very dangerous cliff. Lying and dishonesty are becoming commonplace, everyday accepted things starting from the top down. Trump, his family and their cronies have set the honesty bar so low, I fear we may never see the American value of trustworthiness as a vital requirement again.

I recently watched as a network news bureau interviewed a group of people who support Trump. These people listened to the genuinely delivered testimony of former FBI Director James Comey when he spoke in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 8. During his testimony, facts were presented that could lead investigators to determine Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice. The interviewees were asked if they were concerned Trump obstructed justice and if they still supported him. Every participant said they were not bothered by him obstructing justice and still supported him. After watching these Trump supporters along with ones I have known, I question the values these Americans hold.

Most Republican lawmakers and a substantial portion of the American public, Trumps base, are selling their souls to create or support an agenda that will harm and jeopardize millions of American citizens and our nation. So much so, peoples health and American lives are at stake. Trump supporters and lawmakers are consciously turning their heads to unprecedented graft and dishonest unlawful behavior from our commander-in-chief.

When growing up I was taught to be honest. The times I lied and got caught produced dramatic consequences determined by my parents. As a result I grew up believing in the well-known idiom honesty is the best policy. The consequences provided by our Constitutions oversight system of checks and balances must be implemented in Washington. Lawmakers need to drop their partisan affiliations and do their sworn duty. It is imperative these consequences happen, or just like a willful child, our government and country will proceed on a course unchecked heading toward self-destruction.

The real crime here is the erosion of the moral code and fiber that holds democracy and these United States of America together. Eventually we will not be able to put our trust in any part of the American political process. However, not all the blame can be heaped on Donald J. Trump, because there is a hierarchy of deceit spiraling downward with the people who elected such an immoral person and who continue to support this man and his values. Until citizens and lawmakers see the error of their ways, there will not be resolution for this national dilemma.
Plot Synopsis

Immediately after the attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States government initiated a secret war against Afghanistan, deploying fewer than one hundred Special Forces troops to fight back. Building a coalition with the rebels of the Northern Alliance, the US troops faced off against the Taliban and the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. They succeeded in driving both out of power by the end of 2001 with minimal casualties and without conventional, large-scale military operations. Despite this victory, the U.S. and its allies soon became mired in a seemingly never-ending war. This untold story features unprecedented access to the Green Berets who played pivotal roles in these covert missions. Reflecting on their experiences and on the brothers-in-arms they lost, these elite soldiers offer a riveting celebration of valor and a sobering, cautionary tale. LEGION OF BROTHERS is produced by CNN films and directed by Greg Barker (Manhunt).
In response to the June 11 column by Stan Smith: Stan, I hope you dont mind that I address you so familiarly even though you are several years my elder. At my age of 81, I figure its OK to take a few liberties.

I want to comment on your column. Not on that part of it dealing with the rigors of the mayors job, but rather with the paragraph in which you disparage those of us living in homes for the aged.

You described as this way:

One third simply shows up to have something to do to break their dull, dreary daily existence, and half of them cant hear anyway. Another third have mental deterioration and only are there because some attendant steered them there, and the final third fall asleep as soon as they sit down.

My wife and I live in one of the villas in the Western Home Communities for the aged, i.e., those of us who are 50 (or 55) years or older. We moved out here five or six years ago and the only mistake we made in doing so was waiting so long to make the move to this truly marvelous retirement community.

Since we live out here with the aged, I must wonder which of those three categories of aged I would fall into, should I ever have the (dubious) honor to hear you speak?

When I retired, at the age of 74, I had worked full-time at one university or another for 49 years. About 15 of those years were spent on a major, world-class research team in Sweden. I have spoken, by invitation, in 10 or 12 countries from Mexico to Finland. I was awarded a fellowship for the quality of my research by the Acoustical Society of America (six or eight folks a year from around the world achieve this honor) and by the American Speech Language and Council and a Special Fellow of the National Institutes of Health. I have published 80 or 90 refereed articles, book chapters or edited books and presented papers at countless professional meetings. Ive taught a wide array of experimental phonetics and speech-language pathology. I maintain an active correspondence with scholars and friends around the world. A couple of years ago, I was brought back to Stockholm to be one of 10 speakers at a memorial event for a Swedish linguist sponsored by the Royal Academy of History and Antiquities. As well I served as an academic administrator at the University of Vermont and here, at the University of Northern Iowa. Thats a thumbnail sketch.

So tell me, Stan: Which of those three groups of the aged do you think I should be assigned to?

For that matter, Stan, which of those groups should the former businessmen and women who live out here in this home for the aged be assigned? Or the many retired academic folks? There are so many people living here and in other homes for the aged who could put my own thumbnail sketch to shame. Where do they fit in your scheme of the aged? Or, which of those three groups fits you, Stan?

I should be clear I probably could not have been placed in any of the three groups if it were a political speech since I would not have been present. I usually find such speeches to be vacuous, boring and self-serving. Or, perhaps because I just cant focus on such complex presentations, given my advanced age?

But why, Stan, did you feel the need to be so mean-spirited and needlessly insulting to your fellow members of the elder group? What in gods name did that truly ugly and hurtful paragraph about people living in retirement communities really have to do with your argument for maintaining the position of mayor of Cedar Falls as a full-time position? Is old age getting to you, Stan? Well, if so, thats OK, dont worry over much about it. It happens to all of us. No big deal.

But you might try to lighten up a tad, Stan. And when you want to make an argument for or against something, stay on target and avoid rants on things that have little relationship to your argument or to reality. We get enough of that from politicians already.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 17, 2017 | 09:57 AM | LEXINGTON, KY





A former Democratic political consultant has been sentenced to more than 5 years in prison for his part of a kickback scheme devised by a high level government official.Sam McIntosh was ordered to begin serving his sentence on Aug. 15. U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell said it was OK for McIntosh to remain free on bond until his report date.McIntosh pleaded guilty for his part of a scheme devised by former Kentucky Personnel Cabinet Secretary Tim Longmeyer. Prosecutors said Longmeyer used his position of authority to convince Humana to hire McIntosh as a consultant. McIntosh would then pay a portion of his fee to Longmeyer and Lawrence O'Bryan as a kickback.Longmeyer was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison. O'Bryan was sentenced to five years. McIntosh was sentenced to five years and five months and ordered to pay more than $200,000 in restitution.
Hello,



Russia: President Medvedev has gone to a meeting..

The leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will discuss the situation in Georgias breakaway South Ossetia at a two-day summit which opens on Wednesday in Tajikistans capital Dushanbe.

The post-Soviet regional bloc, that is widely seen as a counterweight to NATOs influence in Eurasia, comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The group primarily addresses security issues, but has recently moved to embrace economic and energy projects.

What is the SCO?

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation creation of which was proclaimed on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai (China) by the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Peoples Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan. Its prototype is the Shanghai Five mechanism.

The main goals of the SCO are strengthening mutual confidence and good-neighbourly relations among the member countries; promoting their effective cooperation in politics, trade and economy, science and technology, culture as well as education, energy, transportation, tourism, environmental protection and other fields; making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region, to move towards the establishment of a new, democratic, just and rational political and economic international order.

Proceeding from the Spirit of Shanghai the SCO pursues its internal policy based on the principles of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equal rights, consultations, respect for the diversity of cultures and aspiration towards common development, its external policy is conducted in accordance with the principles of non-alignment, non-targeting anyone and openness.

The Heads of State Council (HSC) is the highest decision-making body in the SCO. It meets once every year to take decisions and give instructions on all important issues of SCO activity. The Heads of Government Council (HGC) meets once every year to discuss a strategy for multilateral cooperation and priority directions within the Organisations framework, to solve some important and pressing issues of cooperation in economic and other areas as well as to adopt the Organisations annual budget. Besides sessions of the HSC and the HGC there are also mechanisms of meetings on the level of Speakers of Parliament, Secretaries of Security Councils, Foreign Ministers, Ministers of Defence, Emergency Relief, Economy, Transportation, Culture, Education, Healthcare, Heads of Law Enforcement Agencies, Supreme Courts and Courts of Arbitration, Prosecutors General. The Council of National Coordinators of SCO Member States (CNC) is in charge of coordinating interaction within the SCO framework. The Organisation has two permanent bodies  the Secretariat in Beijing and the Regional Antiterrorist Structure in Tashkent. Secretary-General and Executive Committee Director are appointed by the HSC for a period of three years. From 01 January 2007 these posts are held by Bolat K.Nurgaliev (Kazakhstan) and Myrzakan U.Subanov (Kyrgyzstan) respectively.

The SCO member states occupy a territory of around 30 million 189 thousand square kilometers, which makes up three fifths of the Eurasian continent, and have a population of 1.5 billion, which makes up a quarter of the planets population.

History of The SCO!

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is an international organisation composed of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People of Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan.

The SCO was created on the basis of the Shanghai Five, which came into being after signing in 1996-97 the agreements among Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Russia and Tajikistan on building military confidence and mutual reduction of military forces in border areas.

In January 2001 Uzbekistan requested to join the Shanghai Five as a full member. The Fives transformation into the SCO happened at a summit in Shanghai on 15 June 2001 when the heads of six countries signed the Declaration on SCO establishment and the Shanghai Convention on combating terrorism, separatism and extremism. The newborn Organisation proclaimed strengthening mutual trust, friendship and good-neighbourly relations among the member countries; promoting their effective cooperation in politics, trade and economy, science and technology, culture, education, energy, transportation, ecology and other fields; making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region, to establish a new, democratic, just and rational political and economic international order as its goals. The Council of National Coordinators was founded with the aim of establishing interaction among relevant ministries and departments of SCO member states.

On 14 September 2001 Almaty hosted the first meeting of heads of governments of SCO member states, who signed the Memorandum among the Governments of SCO Member States on Main Objectives and Directions of Regional Economic Cooperation. The prime ministers also announced the creation of a mechanism of regular meetings of heads of government within the SCO framework.

At a summit in Saint Petersburg on 07 July 2002 the heads of member states adopted the SCO Charter enshrining the goals, principles and main directions of cooperation within the Organisation. Besides the Charter the summit also signed the Agreement among SCO Member States on the Regional Antiterrorist Structure.

On 23 September 2003 Beijing hosted a meeting of heads of governments of SCO member states. They approved the Programme of Multilateral Trade and Economic Cooperation among SCO Member States as well as adopted the Organisations first budget for 2004. The Programme clearly determined the main objectives and tasks of economic cooperation within the SCO framework, and set a direction for the free movement of goods, capital, services and technology inside the region during the next twenty-year period.

Besides the Heads of State Council and the Heads of Government Council the SCO also set up mechanisms of regular meetings on the level of speakers of parliament, national security councils, ministries of foreign affairs (MFA Council), ministers of defence, law enforcement agencies, ministers of economy, transportation, emergency relief, culture, education and healthcare, heads of border agencies, prosecutors general, supreme courts and courts of arbitration, national coordinators (CNC).

The headquarters of SCO Secretariat in Beijing and SCO Regional Antiterrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent opened in January 2004.

At a session in Tashkent in 2004 the Heads of State Council approved the Regulations on Observer Status at the SCO and granted such status to Mongolia. A summit of SCO leaders in Astana in 2005 admitted India, Pakistan and Iran as its new observers.

The launch of the SCOs permanent bodies was followed by the creation of a mechanism of permanent representatives of SCO member states to the Secretariat. At a summit in Astana in 2005 the heads of member states took a decision to establish a mechanism of permanent representatives of SCO member states to the RATS.

A summit in Shanghai in 2006 appointed Bolat K.Nurgaliev to the post of SCO Secretary-General and Myrzakan U.Subanov to the post SCO RATS Executive Committee Director. They assumed responsibilities on 01 January 2007. (Link)

I learn something new everyday and this is it.

The East will grow as the West will stagnate! Moscow pulls ever father from the European roots! & encompasses the Asian roots: Seems to me that Europe has forgotten its Eastern roots and has embraced the Western Military Monolith!

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.
Hello,



One thing I see as Oil the King falls shorter in supply, as we run out, the usage of its little brother Gas is becoming the Prince of the energy industry.



Israeli Minister of National Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has proposed to Gazprom that it supply natural gas to the Israeli market. By 2010, the Israeli government estimates, consumption of natural gas will rise to 8 billion cu. m. from 800 million cu. m. last year. The contract could help Gazprom fill the Blue Stream pipeline, but infrastructure would have to be extended from Turkey to Israel. Kommersant



Russia has lots & lots & lots & lots of Gas!

Kyle & Svet
Staying out of debt is easier said than done, I know. However, its something you can do, and its something you should be practicing everyday. As Christians, we are in this world, but we are
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US judge blocks President Biden's student debt forgiveness plan

The injunction is the second to block the president's signature program, which could cut or eliminate student loan debt for up to 40 million people.
News / Africa

by City Press

ANC presidential candidate Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma used an invitation by the ANC Youth League in Limpopo to finally accept nomination to be president.Dlamini-Zuma was well received in Polokwane despite the notable absence of the Limpopo ANC chairperson and premier, Stan Mathabatha, who is believed to support Cyril Ramaphosa to be president.Dlamini-Zuma visited Mopani, Tzaneen and Vuwani, before going to Polokwane.She accepted nomination publicly for the first time while speaking at the Jack Botes Hall in Polokwane.She said: "There's no way I can refuse the responsibility given by the ANC. I accept the nomination."She paid homage to former ANC Youth League (ANCYL) president Peter Mokaba and urged the youth to emulate Mokaba, who was "fearless" and "disciplined"."I'm not going to ask you to be like him but we must all try to be like him."Youth at the forefrontDlamini-Zuma urged the youth to be at the forefront to ensure that it advances radical socioeconomic transformation.She also urged the youth to come up with ideas to advance solutions with the issues of land, the education system, manufacturing and production."The youth league must find it unacceptable that women, children are abused and killed We cannot continue like this when women are raped and killed," Dlamini-Zuma said.The Limpopo ANCYL didn't hide their discontent with the absence of Mathabatha and his allies, accusing them of "sabotaging" their youth programmes.Dlamini Zuma's Limpopo backers included ANC provincial secretary Nocks Seabi, Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi, International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Limpopo Legislature Deputy Speaker Lehlogonolo Masoga and ANC Women's League secretary-general Meogo Matuba.Also present were ANCYL president Collen Maine and youth league provincial chairperson Vincent Shoba,Without mentioning names, Shoba took a swipe at Mathabatha and his supporters."We don't understand why they aren't present here."The youth league is going to work hard to ensure that comrade Nkosazana will emerge as the president of the ANC."Those who said she [Dlamini-Zuma] will not come to the Limpopo province, claiming that she is unwanted, ate humble pie."Maine expressed unhappiness with a tweet by Fikile Mbalula. Mbalula had expressed his disapproval of the nomination of Free State Premier Ace Magashule as ANC secretary-general.Maine said: "I'm unhappy with his tweet and will engage Mbalula about the matter."
Sena asks BJP to choose either Mohan Bhagwat or MS Swaminathan else nominate a candidate of their choice for the presidents post whereas Amit Shah says that his party is ready for mid-term polls.

No breakthrough was made in the meeting held between BJP president Amit Shah and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray for seeking the latters support for presidential poll candidate. The tug of war between both the parties continued as Sena asked BJP to choose either RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat and Agriculture Expert MS Swaminathan or nominate a candidate of their choose for the presidents post. Later Sena will decide whether to offer support to the candidate. The meeting which was held at Matoshree was also attended by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and BJP state unit president Raosaheb Danve and Yuva Sena president Aditya Thackeray. The meeting lasted for more than an hour.

The Shiv Sena had earlier said it may choose an independent path in the election to the highest constitutional office. It had backed Congress nominees  Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee  in the last two presidential elections.

On the other hand, Amit Shah said that BJP is ready for mid-term polls and urged activists to strengthen the party base in Maharashtra. After winning the Lok Sabha, assembly and local body polls the confidence of BJP is high as it is preparing for the 2019 general election.

All the party workers must start working actively for expanding the partys base in Maharashtra. I am confident that our government under the leadership of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is doing a good job and it will complete its full term in the state. Even Fadnavis himself had mentioned that BJP is ready for mid-term polls. If polls are held then I am confident that we will emerge victorious. The alliance with Sena is not a compulsion for us and we are not tolerating them, said Shah.

According to sources, Amit Shah informed Uddhav Thackeray that almost all allies of NDA have assigned powers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to finalise the name of candidate for presidential polls. Shah urged Sena to offer support to presidential candidate.

On the recent farm loan waiver announced by the Maharashtra government, Mr. Shah had said through it the state was offering relief to the farmers. The burden of loan waiver will be on the government and not banks, he had said.

The BJP chief said the NDA government had taken up the cause of the downtrodden, women, tribals, farmers and weaker sections of society and did not have a single allegation of corruption against it.
Errors of text books feature, yet again. This time, the mistake is about Indian professional badminton star, P.V. Sindhu. In the Kannada medium text book, it correctly says the star secured a silver medal, while the English textbook says it is bronze. A page from one of the revised (Karnataka) State syllabus textbooks says: She has wone one bronze and one gold medal in common wealth games, the spelling error inclusive. Factual and spelling errors aside, several printing and binding errors resulted in pages being printed upside down, blank pages and so on.

This is not the first time. Recall the earlier one. Take two wooden boxes. Make holes on lid of one box. Put a small kitten in each box. Close the boxes. After some time, open the boxes. What do you see? The kitten inside the box without the holes has died. This excerpt, featuring in Class IV book Our Green World: Environment studies went viral on social media, apart from attracting the ire of animal activists and education experts.

In another incident in Pune, a class XII Sociology book mentioned ugliness and physical disability of a girl as a reason behind the dowry issue prevalent in the country. The official decision to conduct periodic review of the textbooks of private publishers prescribed in our affiliated schools comes only after the above controversies sparked a wrangle on the poor scrutiny of academic curriculum.

Errors galore

A couple of years ago, in Gujarat text books, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on October 30, 1948; Japan launched a nuclear attack on the United States during World War II; A new country named Islamic Islamabad was constituted after the Partition with its capital Khyber Ghat in the Hindukush mountains; All South Indians are Madrasis. We have seen Gandhi listed as Gandi.

If Gandhi was assassinated on October 30, 1948, arent we murdering him again? Islamic Islamabad is like telling I and my brother are brothers. If all South Indians are Madrasis, then are all North Indians Gujratis? Suez Canal referred as a sewage area and Burma as Bhramadesh.

Earlier Maharashtra State Board of Secondary Higher Secondary Education was riddled with about 80 mistakes including incorrect definitions in the textbooks. Also observed that Ajanta is located 60 km from Jangaon, instead of Jalgaon. Jangaon is not in Maharashtra, but in AP. A certain amount of history is always open to differing accounts, as it depends upon the viewpoint of the historian. However, when facts are easily checked and corroborated by uninvolved third parties, there is no excuse for errors to appear in a text book. Vetting of text books is a serious matter and there should be a high-power panel of historians and scholars. The new definition of rewriting history makes one hysterical.

(This is the first part of the article and the remaining portion will continue tomorrow)

(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
Dozens of people were killed when as many as five suicide bombers attacked a police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said.

The attack, claimed by the Taliban, began around 6:30 a.m. (0200 GMT) when one bomber detonated a car packed with explosives at the gate of the police headquarters in Gardez city, capital of Paktia province, said Najib Danish, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

Four more attackers stormed the gate after the blast, with at least two quickly killed by police. The others held out against Afghan special forces that had responded to the attack, he said.

Danish put the toll at two police killed and five wounded.

However, doctors at the city hospital said they had received the bodies of at least five police, as well as at least 30 wounded people, including 20 civilians.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid reporting more than 100 police were killed and wounded. The Islamist group often exaggerates casualty numbers in attacks against government targets and security forces.

Insurgent groups like the Taliban and Islamic State have launched a string of attacks across Afghanistan in recent weeks.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a mosque in Kabul on Thursday.

A massive truck bombing and later suicide attacks left hundreds dead and wounded at the end of May and beginning of June, raising political tensions for the Afghan government, which is struggling to combat rising violence and corruption.

Thousands of international troops remain in the country to train and assist Afghan security forces as well as carry out counterterrorism missions.

American defence officials say in coming weeks they will decide whether to send between 3,000 to 5,000 more troops as requested by military commanders.
Child marriages and death of young brides is very common in Yemen. Earlier, there was no news about it but in the present time human right organizations across the globe is making noise to stop such practices. Recently, an eight year old child bride, pretty small girl, died on her wedding night from internal haemorrhaging. A man almost five times her age was married to her. Its a very common practice in Yemen to marry child brides to older men. In 2010, a 12 year old girl died suffering in the labour room trying to give birth to a baby. There have been many more incidents of these types recorded so far as almost a quarter of the female population are married before the age of 15 in Yemen. Groups worldwide are working to stop this archaic and lame practice which is completely disgusting, but having difficulties doing it and facing many challenges. The country has almost 80% of population below poverty line and that grips the people for practice of selling their daughters to be married in their childhood itself as it gets them good remuneration for their children and thats why they dont refuse it.

Yemens human rights minister wants child marriage outlawed after an 8-year-old girl died of internal injuries that she suffered on her wedding night. When reports emerged last week that a girl named Rawan, from the northern Yemeni town of Haradh, died a few days after being married off to a 40-year-old man, Yemenis were horrified. International outrage quickly grew, as the incident highlighted once again the extremely controversial issue of child marriage in Yemen  a country where the practice is still legal. Rawans cause of death was internal bleeding, believed to be the result of sexual intercourse that tore her uterus and other organs.

Many Yemenis say, they are forced to sell off their girls to older, wealthier men. In Yemen, deeply tribal and conservative, the issue of child marriage is an extremely complicated one. According to rights group Human Rights Watch , more than half of all young girls are married before the age of 18. About 14% of girls in Yemen are married before age 15.

In 2009, Yemens parliament passed legislation rising the minimum age of marriage to 17. However, conservative parliamentarians argued the bill violated Islamic law, which does not stipulate a minimum age of marriage, and the bill was never signed. Activist groups and politicians are still trying change the law, but more than 100 leading religious clerics have said restricting the age of marriage is un-Islamic. Over the last few years, several Yemeni child bride cases have emerged that have shocked the world, but conservative Mullas are yet adamant on religious practices.

In 2008, 10-year-old Nujood Ali became a heroine to Yemeni girls and an international sensation when she went to a court in Sanaa and asked a judge for a divorce. After a highly publicized trial, she was granted one. Over the summer, an 11-year-old Yemeni girl named Nada Al-Ahdal became an internet sensation when a video of her accusing her parents of trying to marry her off in exchange for money was uploaded in YouTube and quickly went viral. While her parents denied Nadas story, and child rights activists questioned the veracity of her claims, the video was still viewed by millions of people.

Child marriage is defined by global organizations as a formal marriage or informal union entered into by an individual before reaching the age of 18. The legally prescribed marriageable age in some jurisdictions is below 18 years, especially in the case of girls; and even when the age is set at 18 years, many jurisdictions permit earlier marriage with parental consent or in special circumstances, such as teenage pregnancy. In certain countries, even when the legal marriage age is 18, cultural traditions take priority over legislative law.

Child marriages were common throughout history for a variety of reasons, including poverty, insecurity, as well as for political and financial reasons. Today, child marriage is still fairly widespread in developing countries, such as parts of Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia, Latin America and Oceania. The incidence of child marriage has been falling in most parts of the world. The countries with the highest observed rates of child marriages below the age of 18 are Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea and the Central African Republic, with a rate above 60.

According to UNICEFs State of the Worlds Children-2009 report, 47% of Indias women aged 2024 were married before the legal age of 18, with 56% marrying before age 18 in rural areas. The report also showed that 40% of the worlds child marriages occur in India. The latest available UNICEF report for India uses 2004-2005 household survey data, on a small sample, and other scholars report lower incidence rates for India. According to 2011 nationwide census of India, the average age of marriage for women in India is 21. The child marriage rates in India, according to a 2009 representative survey, dropped to 7%. In its 2001 demographic report, the Census of India stated zero married girls below age 10, 1.4 million married girls out of 59.2 million girls in the age 10-14, and 11.3 million married girls out of 46.3 million girls in the age 15-19 (which includes 18-19 age group).

The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 was passed during the tenure of British rule on Colonial India. It forbade the marriage of a male younger than 21 or a female younger than 18 for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and most people of India. However, this law did not and currently does not apply to Indias 165 million Muslim population, and only applies to Indias Hindu, Christian, Jain, Sikh and other religious minorities. The age at which Indias Muslim girls can legally marry, according to the Muslim Personal Law, is 9, and can be lower if her guardian (wali) decides she is sexually mature. Over the last 25 years, All India Muslim Personal Law Board and other Muslim civil organizations have actively opposed India-wide laws and enforcement action against child marriages; they have argued that Indian Muslim families have a religious right to marry a girl aged 15 or even 12. Several states of India claim especially high child marriage rates in their Muslim and tribal communities. India, with a population of over 1.2 billion, has the worlds highest total number of child marriages. It is a significant social issue. As of 2016, the situation has been legally rectified by The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
News / National

by Staff reporter

ACUTE lack of resources has crippled police's capacity to curb rampant and highly organised smuggling syndicates along the porous border with Mozambique - where the force is only able to deploy at 34 of the 60 smuggling routes.The highly dangerous syndicates work in cahoots with their Mozambicans counterparts to smuggle banned bales of second hand clothes, drinks, alcohol, whiskeys and drugs to the country's black market.Testifying before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence, Security and Home Affairs Services, which is chaired by Zanu-PF Buhera Central Member of National Assembly, Ronald Muderedzwa that was in Manicaland on Tuesday, Officer Commanding Manicaland Police, Senior Assistant Commissioner Isaac Tayengwa, said the force was poorly resourced and hence incapable of prevailing over the highly organised smuggling syndicates operating along the porous border with Mozambique.Manicaland records about 2 100 crimes per month. Cases of rape involving children between two and 10 years and murder were cited as the most prevalent, while the province records an average of 146 accidents per month. "The whole of the eastern side, which is about 720 kilometres, we share the boundary with Mozambique. The border is very porous, it has 60 illegal points and as police and our colleagues, the army, we are only able to deploy at 34 of those illegal points due to lack of resources."The major resource that we require is transport. We are dealing with organised smuggling syndicates, and what we have seen is that they are well resourced and are collaborating with their counterparts in Mozambique. They have high powered vehicles and where we have a very big problem is with those few vehicles that we have, we are not able to track and arrest these smugglers."They use highly powered and serviced lorries. They are very dangerous when you stop them at roadblocks. They just drive through roadblocks and the vehicles that we have are very few. We are compromised. We don't have resources to prevail over them," he said."We have also seen that if they want to smuggle goods, they deploy a convoy of say six vehicles along the road for surveillance in front and back, informing those carrying contrabands of police roadblocks so that they can divert to various routes in the province."It is a challenge that requires your support so that we are able to police the border and ensure that Government collect all the revenue it should," said Snr Asst Comm Tayengwa.On the political disturbances caused by RENAMO bandits in Mozambique, Snr Asst Comm Tayengwa assured the legislators that they will not spill into Zimbabwe as the situation was under control.Muderedzwa said the committee would tour all the provinces before engaging the force's top brass at Police General Headquarters in Harare  after which they will consolidate their report indicating areas that requires support.
June 15, 2017

CAIRO  Egyptian authorities hope Britain will change its position on movements embracing political Islam following the Manchester bombing May 22 and the London Bridge attacks June 3.

After the spate of devastating terrorist attacks in Britain, Cairo officials are hoping London will agree to extradite wanted Muslim Brotherhood leaders who sought refuge in the United Kingdom after Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was ousted in 2013. Egypt has outlawed the group as a terrorist organization.

Egyptian politicians and parliamentarians, who have always pointed to the dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood's presence in the United Kingdom, are reiterating their calls for cooperation. The day after the Manchester bombing, the Egyptian parliament's Arab Affairs Committee issued a statement that read, "It is time for the British government to be aware that embracing extremists will not ward off threats of terrorism." Most likely, the committee was referring to the Muslim Brotherhood by using the term "extremists."

Parliament member Tariq al-Kholi, secretary of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said June 4 of the London Bridge attacks on Facebook, "If only they had listened to reason! It is the innocent British people who are paying the price."

In his post, Kholi recounted what had happened when he met Crispin Blunt, head of the British Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, during an Egyptian parliamentary delegation's visit to Britain in November. During the visit, Kholi said he warned Blunt against what he called "Britain's support for the Brotherhood."

"We came here to warn you against betting on the Muslim Brotherhood; this is tantamount to playing with fire. This is dangerous to Britain and not to Egypt, which overcame its danger," Kholi told Blunt.

However, Kamal al-Halbawi, a dissident member of the Muslim Brotherhood's international organization, told Al-Monitor, "Britain will not change its laws and regulations to support or repress the Muslim Brotherhood. The UK is not bound by any extradition agreement with Egypt, and the refusal to extradite criminals has nothing to do with a special influence the Muslim Brotherhood [allegedly enjoys] in Britain. Numerous Egyptian outlaws who are not Muslim Brotherhood members or wanted on terrorism charges find refuge in Britain."

In the absence of an Egyptian-British extradition agreement, many Egyptian civil servants in former President Hosni Mubarak's regime who were convicted of corruption fled to the UK after the January 25 Revolution in 2011, including former Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali and Magdi Rasekh, a member of the dissolved National Democratic Party. Moreover, a large number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and members also fled to Britain after the June 30 Revolution in 2013 and Morsi's ouster days later.

Asked why the Muslim Brotherhood is not banned in Britain and why it has yet to be classified as a terrorist group, Halbawi said, "This may be the result of the group's influence over the significant Muslim population in the UK. The Muslim Brotherhood has chosen Britain as the headquarters of its international organization since the 1970s, given the global spread of the English language compared to other European languages, making it easier for it to connect with the large Muslim population in the UK, [which is] estimated at more than 2 million people."

He added, "In London, Muslim Brotherhood members were able to excel in the fields of investment and academic education. Britain gives its citizens a large margin of freedom and does not prohibit the adoption of political Islam; the state instead imposes targeted sanctions against individuals in cases of violence."

The UK also has not classified Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups, only their military wings.

Saeed al-Lawandi, an expert in international relations at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Al-Monitor, "Britain gives the Brotherhood members political asylum. I do not think that Muslim Brotherhood members benefited from the absence of extradition agreements between Egypt and Britain out of coincidence. By not classifying the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, failing to sign an extradition agreement with Egypt and some other states, and giving the groups members political asylum, the UK would be systematically supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations."

"This is despite the fact that the Brotherhood has an armed wing like Hamas and Hezbollah do, as was apparent in Brotherhood demonstrations following June 30, 2013  something documented in audio and video recordings," Lawandi added, arguing that Britain is "using these [asylum seekers] as a tool to press for its interests in certain countries."

In August, the British Home Office, the ministry that handles immigration and security, issued a new guidance on applications for political asylum. According to the directive, Brotherhood members "with a high profile  or who have been politically active, particularly in demonstrations," as well as "high-profile supporters or those perceived to support the Muslim Brotherhood" may be granted asylum if they can show they are at risk of persecution.

Britain has extradition agreements with 144 countries, including European Union states, while it has no extradition agreements with dozens of others. The latter group includes several countries in which the Muslim Brotherhood or political Islam is present  Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan  and two countries with which the UK has strained relations, China and Iran. The UK has hosted members of a number of opposition groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, opposed to the Iranian regime, in addition to Russian dissidents such as journalist Yelena Tregubova and former Russian intelligence operative Alexander Litvinenko.

Al-Monitor repeatedly tried, to no avail, to contact Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid to learn about the ministry's efforts to persuade British officials to ban the Muslim Brotherhood and hand over its wanted leaders and supporters.

A former Egyptian diplomatic source in Britain close to the ministry's decision-making circles told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, "Egypt has been patient in trying to convince the British government to ban the Muslim Brotherhood and hand over its wanted members, but we do not expect quick results. Any serious moves in this regard will not be announced, because that would tip off these fugitives to leave Britain before being handed over."

Currently, the presence of Brotherhood members is justified under British laws, the absence of extradition agreements and a wide scope of freedom of thought, including political Islam. Those circumstances might very well change as the UK's interests change. The British political and cultural community is pressuring the British government and the House of Commons to ban the Brotherhood and expel its members. According to some Arabic media outlets, investigations into the Manchester bombing found that one of the perpetrators has links with the Muslim Brotherhood; however, the Brotherhood condemned the attack.

British journalist Roger Boyes published an opinion piece June 7 in The Times newspaper titled "Banning the Brotherhood will make us safer." On the same day, Paul Nuttall, then the leader of the rightist UK Independence Party, called in a press statement for classifying the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.


News / National

by Staff reporter

THE University of Witwatersrand in South Africa is today hosting the inaugural Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Centenary Memorial Lecture at its Johannesburg campus to honour the late Zimbabwean nationalist who was well respected across the region and internationally.If the late former Vice-President was still alive, he would have clocked 100 years this month.The Johannesburg event is being done in partnership with the Humanities Graduate Centre, Joshua Nkomo Cultural Movement, Tapela Incorporated Development Practitioners and Cradles of Influence Communications and is being sponsored by Bigtime Strategic Group.In a statement, the university said the late Father Zimbabwe was an indisputable luminary and giant in Zimbabwe's modern history.Wits University said the 2017 inaugural Joshua Nkomo Memorial Lecture Series was being held at three academic institutions  Wits University Johannesburg, Joshua Mqabuko Polytechnic in Gwanda, Zimbabwe, and the Oxford University in London, the United Kingdom."The purposes of this series is to honour . . . the rich legacy of leadership, personal sacrifice and patriotism and national reconstruction that have been bequeathed to Zimbabwe by this great champion of Zimbabwe's Nationalist Movement that culminated in independence in 1980," the statement said.Wits University said the lecture would also seek to recall and uphold the constructive spirit of national reconciliation that informed some Nkomo's "most selfless decisions".It said the lecture would also celebrate the profound capacity of the man to "subordinate and sacrifice narrow sectional interests under the imperatives of the broader and more compelling interests of national unity".The theme of the lecture is Joshua Nkomo@100: A Reflection on Ethical Leadership."The power of his voice, which still speaks to us today, and the wisdom in his words helped to mobilise many Zimbabweans, Africans and non-Africans, to be part of the great movement against colonialism and other forms of discrimination," the statement read.Speakers lined up include Zimbabwe's Ambassador in South Africa, Isaac Moyo, Bulawayo Provincial Affairs minister Eunice Sandi Moyo, Wits University lecturer Professor Mucha Musemwa, Mmillili Tapela, a development partner, Kwanele Hlabangana and Mehluli Moyo, trustees and officials with the Joshua Nkomo Cultural Movement Trust.Veteran journalist Soul Gwakuba Ndlovu will present Nomo's biography and history, Zapu leader Dumiso Dabengwa will reflect on his comrade leader, while Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association chairman Christopher Mutsvangwa will present on the role of former African liberation movements.Self-exiled business mogul James Makamba will present on opportunities and integration in Africa development.
June 18, 2017

Iran wins as GCC unity collapses

Hassan Ahmadian explains that Irans call for dialogue in reaction to the Qatar dispute is already paying dividends. Tehrans tack has been to back Doha while calling for diplomacy, seizing the high ground amid what most parties would probably agree has been an excessive and calamitous turn of events for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) unity. The US-Saudi-Islamic summit, which sought to rally Sunni states along a sectarian fault line against Iran, can now safely be put in the farce or flop columns.

No doubt the bravado of Irans leaders following US President Donald Trumps visit to Riyadh last month masked at least some anxiety about a deepening US-Saudi relationship, as well as grudging acknowledgment of the kingdoms impressive display of diplomatic convening power. But the Qatar dispute has been a windfall for Irans regional posture. A rift among the pro- and anti-Brotherhood camps in the region is strategically in Irans favor, Ahmadian writes. Saudi Arabia tried to avoid such a split by prioritizing Iran as the main threat. Yet having Qatar and Turkey versus the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and Egypt in the same boat turned out to be overly problematic for Riyadh. In that sense, the Saudi move against Qatar is thoroughly counterproductive for its anti-Iran campaign in the region, and Iran should not help Riyadh correct its mistakes."

Iran is also leveraging the Gulf dispute to its advantage in Syria. Ahmadian explains that standing with Qatar can help strengthen Tehrans ties with Doha, Ankara and their Brotherhood allies, who  possibly moving toward a regional understanding of sorts with Iran and its allies  can play constructive roles in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere in the region. Additionally, it can hinder Saudi Arabias capacity to assemble coalitions aimed against Iran, Qatar and other nations in the future as well.

Bruce Riedel assesses the fallout of the dispute for US-Saudi ties. Riedel observes that Saudi King Salman and his son, Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman, are much more belligerent and willing to take risks. The signature policy of their two and a half years in power is the war in Yemen, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today, according to the United Nations. Operation Decisive Storm is a quagmire wrapped around a stalemate. Iran is the only winner. If Yemen is a harbinger for Qatar, expect a long, drawn-out and messy process.

In dealing with Saudi Arabia, the United States should avoid the all-in approach that has characterized the Trump administrations approach to date. A nuanced approach to this very important American alliance is crucial, Riedel writes. Saudi Arabia is America's oldest ally in the Middle East.  Together, they have confronted many challenges, from Soviet imperialism to Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda. It's a partnership that needs a sure touch, not a blind eye.

Riedel concludes that the Qatar affair combines American incompetence, Saudi bullying and Qatari game-playing with Iranian meddling and subversion. Too many outside players are getting involved muddying the waters. What began as farce may end as much worse.

Rethinking the Aleppo "narrative"

Back in January 2016, we wrote that if the Syrian army, backed by its Iranian and Russian allies, retakes Aleppo, the citys liberation will come by directly defeating terrorists and armed groups that are already deserting the battlefield. A government victory would be of a different order and have a different impact than the negotiated departures of besieged armed opposition forces in Homs and around Damascus. The people of Aleppo would experience a flat-out victory by the government and a defeat, and exodus, by the armed groups. A good question is whether the Syrian army would be received as liberators by those Syrians, including Sunnis, freed from the reign of Islamic law and armed gangs. The answer might surprise those who would prefer to engage with the likes of Zahran Alloush and the Army of Islam.

Picking up those themes from our column almost 18 months ago, we wanted to acknowledge the superb reporting by Robert Worth in The New York Times Magazine in May. Contrasting the perspectives of expatriate Syrians with those of Aleppos residents, Worth captures the complexity lost in so much Western media coverage of the war until now: For these exiled Syrians, he said, the specter of [President Bashar al-] Assads crimes looms so large that they cannot see anything else. They refuse to acknowledge the realities of a rebellion that is corrupt, brutal and compromised by foreign sponsors. This is true. Eastern Aleppo may not have been Raqqa, where ISIS [Islamic State] advertised its rigid Islamist dystopia and its mass beheadings. But as a symbol of Syrias future, it was almost as bad: a chaotic wasteland full of feuding militias  some of them radical Islamists  who hoarded food and weapons while the people starved.

Worth rejects that sectarianism was key to the Syria war and observes that many ordinary people now see Assad as their only hedge against a far more toxic kind of chaos. His comment on the role of Russia is especially telling: These facts translate into a genuine gratitude  in regime-controlled areas  toward Russia, whose military intervention in late 2015 may have forestalled a total collapse. Many Syrians say they feel reassured by the sight of Russian soldiers, because they (unlike the army and its allied militias) are not likely to loot or steal. Some of my contacts in regime-controlled areas are even learning Russian. In Latakia, some people told me that their city might have been destroyed if not for the Russians.

Al-Monitor has often been a lonely voice in our consistent focus on the jihadi armed gangs, including Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaedas affiliate in Syria, which has terrorized the people of eastern Aleppo and co-opted other jihadi forces. For example, from 2013-2015 we featured columns by Aleppo resident Edward Dark (a pseudonym), whose on-the-ground reports of life there often contrasted with mainstream media accounts of the rebels; cited the groundbreaking report by Amnesty International on the tyranny and brutality of Syrians living under jihadi bands in Idlib and Aleppo; gave headline to UN Syria envoy Staffan de Misturas apt characterization that 1,000 Jabhat al-Nusra fighters were holding Aleppo hostage in fall 2016, and were therefore culpable in the siege of the city; and all the while calling out Syrian and Russian forces for indiscriminate and criminal bombings of civilians and hospitals.

In January, five months before Worths article, Fehim Tastekin, in his groundbreaking reporting from Syria, wrote, Contrary to persistent popular analysis from abroad, the country is not divided. Despite sectarian campaigns and clashes by jihadis financed with money they received from the Gulf, Syrians did not split along sectarian lines. There was no sectarian divide between the Syrian army and the people, as some said. When you carefully observe the internal dynamics, you can see it was not a war between Alawites and Sunnis or Christians and Muslims.  Aleppo is the best example that this was not a sectarian war. At least six Sunni religious notables were killed in Aleppo because they rejected an armed uprising. Sunni religious figures were constantly under threat for not joining the war. The most annoying question you can ask soldiers on the Aleppo front is whether they are Sunni or Alawite. Nothing angers Syrians as much as this question. As far as I could see, Assad is more popular today than before.

This month Mohammed al-Khatieb writes from Aleppo that Syrian government and allied forces have continued to press their advantage in the Aleppo countryside, driving out pockets of Islamic State fighters. The Syrian regime advance in Aleppos eastern countryside in the past few days has given it many benefits. For one, it has solved the water problem of Aleppo and regained June 4 two pumping and water purification stations in the west of Maskanah, which are the only sources of water for Aleppo, apart from al-Khafsah station. Moreover, the regime control of wide stretches of fertile land constitutes a good source of income from crops, Khatieb reports.

We thought it fitting to end our column this week with our conclusion from January 2016: A Syrian government victory in Aleppo could be the beginning of the end of the sectarian mindset that would have been alien to the city prior to 2011. There is no more appropriate city to begin Syrias healing.
June 15, 2017

Iraq, together with UNESCO, has concluded a comprehensive aerial survey of Iraqi heritage destroyed by the Islamic State (IS), paving the way for further cooperation to restore various Iraqi sites, particularly at the 13th-century Assyrian capital of Nimrod.

In mid-May, Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini handed over to his Iraqi counterpart, Friad Rwandzi, a 500-page report prepared in coordination with UNESCO that includes the survey data. The report, which focuses on northern Iraq, documents affected archaeological sites before and after their destruction, assessment of the damage and an action plan for their restoration.

Iraq and UNESCO have worked together since 2014 to restore the archaeological sites that have been in IS grip, including Hatra, Nimrod and the Mosul Museum. UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said in November 2016, after the liberation of Nimrod, that her agency was determined to support Iraq in assessing the damage and protecting the remains from further looting and destruction.

UNESCO has indeed been vocal about the need to restore Nimrod, which is located in Ninevah province. In 2010, Nimrod was submitted to the UN body's tentative list of World Heritage sites. Also known as Kalhu, Nimrod is one of the main archaeological sites from the Assyrian period. Established in the 13th century BC, it later became the second capital of the Assyrian Empire. Its murals and monuments are referenced in literature and scripture, and its clay tablets with cuneiform writing are known worldwide.

Faleh al-Shammari, director of antiquities in Ninevah, told Al-Monitor that the next step will be to form a joint technical committee of Iraqis and UNESCO representatives. Experts from both sides will oversee a strategic project for the restoration of historical places in Ninevah, based on the aerial survey database, Shammari said.

The report contains data gathered from satellite images and unmanned reconnaissance flights between 2015 and April 2017," he said. "It also contains several old photos from archaeological expeditions since the 1930s, reinforced by field information gathered from the inhabitants of the archaeological sites. Prepared under the supervision of archaeology experts, [the report provides] accurate details of what was destroyed in Ninevah. It also contains expert analysis on the extent of the damage and proposed methods of restoration.

Shammari explained that to further compare the state of the site before and after the destruction, they will use an image analysis method involving a laser device to determine exactly which parts are missing or damaged.

He added, According to the agreement with the Italian side and UNESCO, the first step would be to implement an emergency plan to rehabilitate the destroyed archaeological sites and to provide security protection. We will also begin urgent repair operations, make an itinerary of destroyed and lost items and try to track looted pieces. This will be done in cooperation with INTERPOL, governments and international archaeologists.

Shammari said that in May, the independent archaeologist Mary Shepperson had begun a British Council-run program in London to provide eight weeks of training to Iraqi archaeologists in modern archaeological practices. The program is funded by the council's Cultural Protection Fund.

Iyad al-Shammari, rapporteur of the parliamentary archaeological committee, told Al-Monitor that the aerial survey has two stages. The first, already completed, dealt with Ninevah. The second stage, to take place later this year, also under UNESCO supervision, will cover archaeological sites in the center and south of the country.

Both the parliamentarian Shammari and Undersecretary of Tourism and Antiquities Qais Hussein Rashid voiced their expectation that the second stage will include additional research methods, among them space satellite technology, which has been used in Egypt to detect lost underground sites. This would save Iraq money, effort and time and would curb useless, random excavation. It will also facilitate the detection of buried archaeological gems, he said.

Rashid told Al-Monitor, The most important aspect of the project [with UNESCO] is that it provides images and documented information about the sites. This will enable us to remove antiquities safely from areas where full security is not yet restored. Clay tablets and small Assyrian objects would be characteristic of items needing to be removed.

Rashid said the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities was also working on creating reproductions of the archaeological monuments to preserve them in the libraries of museums and increase international interest. He said that this will also show to the world the magnitude of the damage IS has done to Iraqi heritage sites.

Like Shammari, Rashid also advocates the further use of aerial survey techniques and space satellite technology on Ninevah. It is high time aerial survey techniques were used in archaeological sites because they can scan large stretches of land and detect the buried sites, whereas old methods of excavation require time and effort, but can be inaccurate, he said.
June 15, 2017

A senior Palestinian minister close to President Mahmoud Abbas told Al-Monitor that the Palestinian leadership is ready to seriously engage with the Trump administration on moving ahead with plans for a regional deal for Palestinian-Israeli peace. The senior PLO official said on condition of anonymity, "We are showing great flexibility, as directed by President Abbas, on the phrasing of the condition to freeze settlement construction  restraining it to the existing built areas of settlements."

He added, "We are not rigid on the outlines for opening a regional peace conference. Abbas is ready to start serious permanent status negotiations with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his team, beginning with borders and security  where both sides will have to show their respective maps  and with a parallel process of normalizing Arab states relations with Israel.

The minister acknowledged that it is the Palestinian leaderships decision to give President Donald Trump, as the leader of the free world, the chance to seriously intervene with his strong negotiation skills in favor of a two-state solution. As part of this strategy, Abbas is fully coordinating with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Jordanian King Abdullah II and Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. According to Palestinian sources, a special Abbas envoy visited Riyadh last week, in the midst of the crisis with Qatar, to coordinate positions and the insertion of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative into the negotiation process. Our proactive strategy is producing positive dividends in terms of Trumps advisers more positive attitude to Ramallah, and in terms of Netanyahu's being increasingly on the defensive, the minister said.

The minister believes there are chances for a renewal of the peace process under the auspices of Trump. Yet, given Trumps domestic troubles and Netanyahus positions, he believes Ramallah must have a fallback position in the diplomatic realm. Unlike many others in the international community, the Palestinian president has not given up on Donald Trump," he said. "But should Trump disappoint, like others in the international community, we have decided to opt for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in conjunction with French President Emmanuel Macron, to take the lead in preventing a deadlock in the peace process." He grinned when he said, As in Leonard Cohens famous song: First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.'"

The minister said Ramallah is in close contact with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel regarding Berlin's taking more of a lead role on a two-state solution. A senior official in the German Foreign Office told Al-Monitor that Merkel is now ready to play a more active and independent role on Middle East policy. The source said German goals in the region are to be part of a Western-Arab coalition against terrorism, to uphold the Iran deal and to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process based on a two-state solution.

Germany has traditionally been reluctant to play a role in the Israeli-Palestinian issue given the country's special relations with Israel. Yet Merkel is concerned that the US administration will not produce a viable diplomatic process, and that Trumps aims in the region are mainly related to American business interests in the Gulf and to an anti-terror perception.

The German source emphasized that Germany does not want in any way to predetermine permanent status issues. It is strongly opposed to Israeli settlement policy and wants to strengthen Abbas posture. According to the official with direct access to Merkel, the chancellor is ready to create a regional economic framework in favor of a two-state solution. The idea raised in German policy planning circles is to propose an EU Marshall Plan for Israel and the Palestinian Authority in close cooperation with the Arab League.

Such a plan would offer several incentives for a two-state solution. For instance, it could offer upgrading nonmember status within the EU on trade and scientific cooperation. It could also propose EU economic assistance such as institution-building to the Palestinian state in the making, and German security assistance to Israel. Additional incentives could be normalization programs between the Arab states and Israel; a greater role for NATO in the anti-terror struggle and the monitoring of the security arrangements for the two-state solution; and the establishment of a regional development bank for the sake of achieving regional economic cooperation.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States, headed by former White House official Karen Donfried, is also engaged in these plans. A senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that Israel will categorically oppose any European or German role in the peace process. The Israeli official said, We will work only with the Trump administration, and we have the US presidents commitment to prevent any European, French or German initiatives on the regional peace process.
June 15, 2017

RAMALLAH, West Bank  Iman Basel, 25, is waiting for Ramadan to be over so she can file for divorce at an Islamic court in Nablus. Basel, who requested that Al-Monitor not use her real name, has not been able to file for divorce since a Palestinian judge banned such proceedings from taking place during Ramadan.

On May 28, the head of Palestinian Islamic courts, Mahmoud al-Habash, told judges in the West Bank not to grant divorces over Ramadan unless necessary. The order did not apply to judges in the Gaza Strip due to the divided state of the Palestinian government.

In urgent cases, Habash asked judges to base their decisions on the reports of the Department of Family Counseling and Reform.

Habash based his order on experiences from previous years, during which he said the divorce rate increased over Ramadan due to hasty decisions made by individuals who were fasting and not thinking clearly. No official statistics of divorce rates in Palestine during Ramadan exist.

Basel's family in Nablus had hoped that the month of Ramadan would provide a sufficient amount of time for the couple to reconsider their decision to divorce.

Basels mother, Um Amir, told Al-Monitor, We went to the court because we had no clue about the order. It was like a sign from heaven that we should not make such a decision hastily and that the two should think well before making up their mind regarding divorce, which we all oppose.

Dozens of other families in the West Bank were surprised to find out that they couldn't file for divorce during Ramadan. Mohannad Abu Rumi, a judge in a Hebron court, told Al-Monitor that several married couples have been given second chances to assess their decisions and protect their families from disintegration.

According to Abu Rumi, Muslims undergo harsh psychological and physical conditions during the month of Ramadan. They fast for long periods, sleep fewer hours, and this can increase marital disputes, possibly prompting many to rashly opt for a divorce. In Islamic courts, we believe that families should be maintained and protected from the hastiness of fasting people, Abu Rumi said.

Abu Rumi said there is a difference between requesting and registering a divorce. A divorce is registered once a couple has signed the divorce papers, which is permitted during Ramadan. Yet if a couple goes to the court to inform it of an intention to divorce, the court refuses the request and postpones it until the end of Ramadan.

Abu Rumi said divorce rates in Hebron's Islamic courts, where the order is in place, have decreased over the past years. Six to seven cases of divorce were registered on a daily basis, but during Ramadan, no more than two cases of divorce were registered per day, he said.

Habash has taken clear measures to limit the divorce rate, Abu Rumi said, and this has helped Palestinians maintain the lowest divorce rate in the region.

Worood Yassin, a specialist on family counseling at the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, said the order is important for the role it has played in reducing instances of divorce over Ramadan. In several cases, this gives couples a chance to reconsider their decisions and change their mind, she said, noting that the details of the order still lack clarity. Does it mean that divorce is prohibited altogether, or only its registration? What are the exceptions?

Yassin said there was no clear motive behind the order, which cited the psychological conditions of those fasting. She said we have to look for permanent solutions, instead of just deferring the issue. She believes the order should not be limited to the month of Ramadan, and that divorce registrations should be continuously deferred so couples can reconsider their decision and seek counseling.

Yassin has worked in the field of marriage counseling for eight years. She believes it is paramount for couples to consider their decision to divorce when they are not anxious. In her experience, many couples change their mind about divorce.

Habash is considering extending the order past Ramadan. Abu Rumi said the order will be applicable in the months preceding Ramadan. This decision will pave the way for other decisions aimed at further reducing the divorce rate, he said.
June 16, 2017

ALEPPO, Syria  Dozens of vehicles carrying displaced citizens from Raqqa province arrive in Aleppos northern countryside daily. Raqqa has witnessed violent battles between the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Islamic State (IS) since June 6, when the SDF launched military operations in the province to expel IS.

The SDF took control of Raqqa city, which is located in northeast Syria, in March 2013, but IS fought the armed opposition factions in the city and took complete control of the city in early 2014. Because the fighting in Raqqa had calmed down, it soon turned into a destination for Syrian refugees from cities and villages where violent battles with the Syrian regime forces were raging.

When the US-led international coalition declared war on IS in cooperation with the SDF on the ground, and with Turkey also fighting IS through supporting the Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions, IS lost many strategic locations in Syria, mainly al-Bab and Manbij in the northeast of Aleppo and on the border with Turkey. Consequently, the forces fighting IS in Syria became readier than ever to combat the organization in one of its strongholds in Syria  Raqqa. But the battle that the SDF launched in Raqqa June 6 forced thousands of civilians to escape the war and seek safer regions.

Doctors Without Borders stated June 1 that around 10,000 civilians from Raqqa escaped toward a camp in the north of the city.

Media activist Abu Jaafar al-Halabi told Al-Monitor, We are in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo where dozens of vehicles carrying civilians from Raqqa arrive in masses. Their situation is terrible, and they are transported to refugee camps in Jarablus in the northeast of Aleppo, and to refugee camps on the Syrian-Turkish border in Azaz in north Aleppo. Raqqa was crowded with refugees from different Syrian cities and villages, in addition to its original citizens. The number of displaced people from Raqqa to Aleppos northeastern countryside is expected to rise in the coming days.

The journey from Raqqa is filled with danger. IS planted many mines, and some displaced people had to cross long distances reaching 15 kilometers (9 miles) on foot to avoid the mines as well as the international alliance aircrafts. In addition, taking a vehicle necessitates crossing IS military checkpoints that are everywhere in the city and on its outskirts. These checkpoints are IS way of keeping people from leaving.

Abu Abdullah (a pseudonym), a displaced person from Raqqa who arrived in Aleppos northeastern countryside, told Al-Monitor, Death was all around us. The shelling a few days ago on Raqqa did not stop. The military aircraft was shelling Raqqa heavily. I left with my family, but we did not know if we would make it alive. We had no choice. We would have died if we had stayed in the city, which I think will turn into rubble with the violent battles.

He added, There are still many citizens in Raqqa. Some cannot leave due to their financial situation, while others are waiting for the right opportunity to leave with their families the soonest. I do not think anybody will stay in Raqqa, except for those who never want to leave. I cannot even start to describe the hell civilians are living there. People who left paid up to $500 at SDF or IS checkpoints.

The displaced citizens from Raqqa who arrive in Aleppos northeastern countryside have trouble finding shelter. The camps there are already overcrowded. The border cities that are relatively secure due to their distance from the battles are also packed with displaced people. It is not easy to find a place to live, and prices are quite high. An apartment in Azaz, for instance, is $300 per month, which is expensive, especially given the tough economic situation and the rare job opportunities due to the war.

Mohammad al-Raqqawi, a displaced person from Raqqa, told Al-Monitor, I just arrived in Aleppos eastern countryside with my family, and we will head to a camp on the Turkish border in the hope of finding a place to live. I cannot afford to rent a house because I do not have enough money. We heard about camps in slums on the borders. If I dont find a place in the big camps that offer some services, I will have to head there with my family. I just need to set up a tent and live like others are living. The camps in slums are unofficial and different than the organized camps.

The military operations in Raqqa are worrying, and a humanitarian disaster similar to the one in Aleppo after the regime took control of it Dec. 21 might be imminent. Civilians who left said that crowded regions are facing air raids and shelling.

Raqqa once sheltered displaced people from various Syrian cities, but it has now joined the list of afflicted regions whose citizens are seeking safety elsewhere. Amid the raging war in Syria, people seem to be worried about which cities will remain safe and capable of welcoming the displaced people escaping the woes of war.
The state of Alabama's top paid tourist attraction has a new leader.

Joe Vallely, former director of government relations at Lockheed Martin, is the new vice president of external affairs at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville. He previously served as the assistant vice president of corporate relations at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and director of economic development for the City of Huntsville.

Joe Vallely. (Courtesy)

"We are honored to have such a prestigious and credible addition to our team," Rocket Center CEO and Executive Director Deborah Barnhart said in a statement. "Joe and his wife, Lynne, are pillars of our community, and we welcome them to the Rocket Center family."

Vallely will work with corporate, government and community stakeholders to implement new projects at the Rocket Center, which is home to Space Camp and Aviation Challenge and is the official visitor center for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

The Rocket Center said it is partnering with the U.S. Army to develop Exploration Park from land adjacent to the Center's property to provide recreational space for the community.

"I am excited to join this team," Vallely said. "Its mission to advocate for science and space exploration and help inspire the next generation is something I am excited to be a part of. I am looking forward to helping the Center continue to shine as a vibrant part of this city, the aerospace community and the state."

More than 657,000 people visited the U.S. Space & Rocket Center last year, ranking it first among state attractions that charge admission. The Birmingham Zoo ranked second with 644,667 and the McWane Science Center in Birmingham was third with 388,551, according to the Alabama Tourism Department.
McDonald's will kick off a hiring initiative this week at its restaurants in North Alabama.

The fast food chain is looking to fill new part-time, full-time and seasonal crew and management positions at locations in the North Alabama area. Hiring managers will be on hand Tuesday at each restaurant for on-the-spot hiring.

Local McDonald's Owner Operator Debbie Martin said the company offers many benefits, including tuition assistance, professional leadership training and more.

"We hope this Hiring Day will expand our McDonald's family and encourage people to come see what we're about," she said.

The one-day hiring event is part of a nationwide McDonald's initiative to hire up to 250,000 new workers this summer in the U.S.

Job seekers can visit McDonalds.com/careers to learn more and apply.
Michelle Matthews | mmatthews@al.com

WAY TO GLOW

Held just twice a year, Olivia Garretts Hip-Hop Blacklight Summer Bash is a much-anticipated dance class under the blacklights  so wear your best and brightest outfits. No experience necessary.

Hip-Hop Blacklight Party, June 22 from 6 to 7 p.m., Dreamland Skate Center, 5672 Three Notch Road, $5, www.facebook.com/events/819441661548110.

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Michelle Matthews | mmatthews@al.com

MONUMENTAL TOUR

Mobile historian Tom McGehee will lead guests on a fascinating one-hour walking tour of Magnolia Cemetery. Learn about the cemeterys beautiful funerary art and about some of its most famous and infamous permanent residents. Meet at the main gate on South Ann Street.

Magnolia Cemetery Tour, June 21 from 10:30-11:30 a.m., Magnolia Cemetery, $13 (free for members), (251) 459-8864.

(File photo)

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Michelle Matthews | mmatthews@al.com

THE ART OF BASQUIAT

On Thursday afternoons throughout the summer, the Mobile Museum of Art is screening artist biopics and documentaries, with pay-what-you-can admission, free popcorn and beer and wine by donation. Basquiat tells the story of the meteoric rise of youthful artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Starting out as a street artist living in a cardboard box, he is discovered by Andy Warhols art world and becomes a star. But success has a high price, and Basquiat pays with friendship, love and, eventually, his life.

"Basquiat," June 22 from 3 to 5 p.m., Mobile Museum of Art, 4850 Museum Dr., free, www.mobilemuseumofart.com.

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Michelle Matthews | mmatthews@al.com

REALLY BIG DEAL

New Orleans-based Big Deal Burlesque returns to The Merry Widow for a show featuring burlesque, comedy and drag performances by Nicole Lyn Foxx, Corey Mack, Eureka Starfish, Lady Shanime and leading lady Roxie Le Rouge.

Big Deal Burlesque Featuring Roxie Le Rouge, June 24 at 10 p.m., The Merry Widow, 51 S. Conception St., $10 advance, $12 day of show, www.ticketfly.com/event/1487041.

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Michelle Matthews | mmatthews@al.com

ALL ABOARD!

The USS Alabama living history crew, made up of historical re-enactors, will demonstrate life aboard the Battleship USS Alabama during World War II. Guests will witness a general quarters rush to battle stations as enemy aircraft simulate an air attack at 1 p.m. by vintage airplanes, weather permitting. Sailors will man the guns and repel the assault. Among the weapons demonstrated will be the firing of the newly restored twin 40MM Bofor pompom guns mounted on the rear of the ship and the 20mm guns on the main deck. Damage control teams will perform a fire suppression drill as corpsmen evacuate wounded sailors. There will also be displays of memorabilia from WWII and antique military vehicles aboard ship.

USS Alabama Living History Crew Drill, June 24-25 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Battleship Memorial Park, 2703 Battleship Memorial Parkway, $15 adults, $6 ages 6-11, free for children under 5 and active military, www.facebook.com/events/558995150964395.

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A 27-year-old bicyclist was struck and killed Friday night in Talladega County.

Chilton Russell Wesley, 27, was struck by a 2009 Nissan Altima while riding his bicycle in the left eastbound lane of U.S. 280, according to Alabama state troopers. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The crash occurred at around 9:30 p.m. near Merkel Mountain community, troopers said. The driver of Nissan remains at the scene.

Troopers continue to investigate the crash.
An investigation is underway after a man was shot while driving along Morgan Road in Bessemer Saturday night.

The shooting happened about 10 p.m. near Interstate 459, said Bessemer Lt. Christian Clemons. The victim, an adult white male, crashed into at least one car sending a woman to the hospital, according to witnesses. The wreck happened in the 400 block of Morgan Road.

After striking that vehicle, he came to a stop. Witnesses said the suspect or suspects turned around, came back and fired at the man. They said they heard two or three more shots and the shooter fled.

Bystanders went to help the shooting victim who was wounded in the upper body.

Clemons said he was responsive when he left the scene. The shooting is under investigation by Bessemer police, and subsequent wreck is being handled by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.
News / National

by Staff reporter

VICE-PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa will this week lead a high- powered business delegation to South Africa to meet the Zimbabwe business community based in the neighbouring country.Macro Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Minister Dr Obert Mpofu said the meeting was part of the Government's efforts aimed at ensuring that the diasporan community participates in the turnaround of the country's economy through investing in various sectors.He said the delegation that would travel for the four-day meeting which begins on Saturday also includes five Ministers, Government officials and captains of industry."This is going to be a very interactive meeting. We are going to listen to what the investors need to invest in the country. This is a very important mission that can boost the economy of the country. We are also working with the Minister of Finance (and Economic Development) Patrick Chinamasa to create an environment that will attract investors to invest back in the country," said Dr Mpofu.Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Zimbabwe has been low over the years. FDI into the country stood at approximately $300 million in 2016. In an effort to help attract the much needed foreign investment the Government is in the process of establishing the Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Apart from establishing SEZs, Zimbabwe is also in the process of amending various laws that have hindered ease of doing business.Some of the laws being amended include the Companies Act, Shop Licensing Act and the Procurement Act. The Government is also aiming to reduce the days it takes to register a business from 30 days to between 10 and 15. Dr Mpofu said theGovernment would consider luring more potential investors to invest into the country's manufacturing sector."The Government will consider availing space in the manufacturing industry especially in Bulawayo where most industries are non-functional. These are part of those grey areas we will look at," he said.
The prospect of Ankara maintaining close ties with Saudi Arabia and Qatar simultaneously is becoming more complicated.

The unfolding Gulf diplomatic crisis earlier this month has managed to put old alliances and partnerships to the test, while also revealing new ones.

Shortly after Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates severed diplomatic relations with Qatar and closed their airspace to commercial flights, Turkey condemned the blockade against Qatar, sent food stocks to stave off possible shortages in the country, and fast-tracked legislation through parliament to deploy Turkish troops on Qatari soil.

On June 7, Turkeys parliament ratified two bills; one allowing the deployment of Turkish troops in Qatar and another approving an accord between the two countries on military training cooperation.

A very grave mistake is being made in Qatar, isolating a nation in all areas is inhumane and against Islamic values. Its as if a death penalty decision has been taken for Qatar, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara last week.

Both agreements were drawn up before the spat between Qatar and its neighbours erupted and were brought to parliament by AKP MPs in an extraordinary session.

READ MORE: Why is Turkey deploying troops to Qatar?

A key ally of Qatar, Turkey is setting up a military base in the country  the first Turkish overseas military installation in the Middle East. Qatar also hosts the largest US airbase in the Middle East, Al-Udeid, where around 10,000 military personnel are stationed.

The defence cooperation between Doha and Istanbul dates back to 2014, when the two nations signed an agreement aimed at helping them confront common enemies.

Both nations have provided support for the Egyptian uprising and condemned the military coup that brought the countrys current leader, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to power.

They have both also refused to classify the Muslim Brotherhood movement and Hamas as terrorist organisations and backed rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Besides allowing for a Turkish military base in Qatar, which would primarily serve as a venue for joint training exercises, the deal also gave Qatar the option of setting up a similar facility in Turkey.





In an interview with Reuters in late 2015, Ahmet Demirok, Turkeys ambassador to Qatar at the time said 3,000 Turkish ground troops would be eventually stationed at the base, as well as air and naval units, military trainers and special operations forces.

In 2016, then Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited the base where 150 troops were already stationed, according to the Turkish daily, Hurriyet.

It is reported that 200 Turkish troops are currently deployed in the base, which has the capacity to accommodate up to 5,000 troops, but it remains unclear when the base would be completed.

The defence partnership agreement came at a time of increased regional instability in the face of a perceived waning of US interest in the region.

But Turkeys involvement in the recent spat between Qatar and its neighbours marks the latest demonstration of the countrys departure from its traditional soft power policy approach towards regional affairs, reflecting an increased desire by the AKP to expand Turkeys influence as a powerful player in the regional and global arena.

Furthermore, Turkeys disputes with several of its fellow NATO partners have prompted Ankara to seek new partnerships and diversify its alliances to counterbalance the countrys dependence on its traditional Western allies.

Turkey already has a presence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo whether through peacekeeping, humanitarian or other missions. In addition, Turkey is also reportedly setting up a military training camp  said to be its largest overseas facility  this year in Mogadishu, Somalia. The camp will be used to train Somali soldiers in the fight against the al-Shabab group.

READ MORE: Whats next for Turkey in Syria?

This is in addition to Turkeys military adventures in northern Syria where it has been shelling both the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, known as ISIS) fighters and Kurdish rebels of the Popular Protection Units (YPG). The country is also involved militarily in northern Iraq and in the battle for Mosul against ISIL.

More recently, it emerged that Turkey also offered to build a military base in Saudi Arabia shortly after work began on its facility in Qatar in 2014  a demand which Saudi Arabia rejected.

As Ankara looks to stretch its military presence across Arab and African soil, a deepening strategic alliance with Qatar  one of the worlds largest exporters of natural gas  fits the countrys foreign policy aspirations and boosts its $857bn economy.

The military base in Qatar is an important power projection asset for Turkey, Can Kasapoglu, a defence analyst from Turkeys EDAM, told Al Jazeera in an earlier interview.

This indeed suggests that Turkey sees its defence ties with Qatar as an indispensable pillar of its strategic posture in the region, said Kasapoglu. It also shows that Ankara would not drastically alter its long-term vision for regional fluctuations.

For Qatar, defence cooperation with Turkey would reduce the nations complete dependency on US, especially with the current US administration, whose policy on the Middle East remains ambiguous.

The defence agreement defines the objective of the mission as developing Qatars defensive ability to carry out joint training and exercises, as well as missions the two countries agree on.

Nevertheless, the GCC crisis has put Turkey in a delicate position, as the country has long maintained good relations with the other Gulf states and has sought to solidify military links with several of them.

As Turkey tried to defuse the diplomatic dispute and position itself as a mediator, the country defended Doha from the beginning and called out Gulf leaders to end the blockade while falling short of appearing to take an anti-Saudi stance.

But as the crisis enters its third week, the prospects of Ankara maintaining close ties with Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the same time are becoming more complicated.
Displaced Syrians in Idlib are experiencing a harsh Ramadan after being evacuated from their hometowns.

Hundreds of Syrian families continue to languish in refugee camps, facing poverty and difficult conditions after being displaced from their homes and towns.

Since 2014, both the Syrian government and armed opposition groups have reached a series of agreements in a number of besieged areas, mainly aimed at allowing armed opposition fighters to leave government-besieged cities and towns to opposition-held areas in northern Syria, near the borders with Turkey.

Under such evacuation deals, thousands of rebels, along with their families, have been forced to surrender as a result of intense government shelling and sieges across a number of opposition-held towns around the capital Damascus, as well as in Aleppo and Homs.

While the government views such agreements as an opportunity for civilians to flee to safer areas, opposition groups, activists, and some civilians view the deals as a form of forced displacement.

In December 2016, the Syrian government recaptured Aleppo from rebels and the subsequent evacuation deal gave the Syrian army and its allies full control of the city after years of fighting. The United Nations said the forced displacement of eastern Aleppo amounted to a war crime.

Most have been transferred to the northern suburbs of Aleppo, and Idlib, which now hosts over 900,000 displaced Syrians, placing a significant strain on local communities and resources.

Al Jazeera spoke to two families who were relocated from Aleppo and the Damascus suburbs to camps in Idlibs suburbs.





From Aleppo to Idlib

Ali Haj Khaled is a 41-year-old father of three children. His family used to live in al-Myasaar neighbourhood in Aleppo, where he was born. His family now lives in the town of Salqin in the northern Idlib suburbs.

For my family and I, and for many other people who have been and are still being displaced from their homes all around Syria, I believe being back at home is way more comfortable for us than living in camps.

Despite the siege, we lived under and the hunger we were facing, we were happier then than we are now. We are living in tents now. Is this seen as a better life in the eyes of those who wanted us to leave? Do they think we live in better conditions now?

They should have left us back at home to die under the rubble or from starvation, at least we would have died with dignity in our own homes.

They gave us no choice but to leave and here we are, barely finding money to buy basic necessities which are already so expensive.

READ MORE: Syrias civil war explained from the beginning

From the Damascus suburbs to Idlib

Hundreds of armed opposition fighters and their families left the Damascus suburb of Moadamiyah on October 19, 2016, towards Idlib, in northern Syria.

Jamela is a 35-year-old mother of two young girls who now lives with her family in a camp outside Idlib. Her family used to live in Moadamiyah just outside of Damascus.

We lived under a siege in Moadamiyah for nearly three years. We lived under air strikes, in hunger and with a shortage of basic supplies.

Last Ramadan was like every Ramadan weve had since 2012  bombs and clashes day and night, but life went on for us. We continued to go out to buy our resources, men were still going to work, just like many other families living in rebel-held areas.

My husband, Basem, used to work as a teacher in one of the schools in the neighbourhood. Basems job was the only source of income helping us survive. We managed to keep our strength despite the price hikes caused by the siege. We survived until the very last moment.

We did not want to go to a government-controlled area, our home is here. We had nowhere else to go and we could not afford to rent a house in Damascus.

Our lives and memories are all buried under the rubble of Moadamiyahs streets and destroyed buildings, we lived there knowing we had to face death every step of the way during this war.

READ MORE: Displaced Syrians stuck in limbo at Idlibs Taiba camp

But now we are struggling to buy resources even more, to pay rent for a small room, and to find clean water. My husband and I run around day and night to maintain a decent home, a place for our two children to sleep every night.

We do not want to ask anyone for help, it has become very frustrating to ask people for help.

No one has helped us with aid or anything, back home or here at the camps. We even registered our names at the local council here, but we have received nothing. We have been here for over five months.

The things I miss the most about my home during Ramadan was when I used to prepare the iftar meal every day, and how we were together with the rest of our family, friends and neighbours. Despite being bombed and shelled, even during iftar time, we still felt some sort of joy. Were nostalgic every day this Ramadan.

READ MORE: Khan Sheikhoun attack survivors recall horror

We miss our home and the smell of our food. Everything is different now, we do not belong here. We are still in Syria, I know, but I do not feel at home. There is no place like home, even if I were to live in a palace I will not be happy, because I am living away from my roots.

I miss the sound of the call to prayer from the nearby mosque, sounds of mosaharate (the name given to a person who walks and beats a drum in residential areas) waking people up for suhur.

To be honest, I sometimes miss the sound of warplanes and the bombs, because it reminds me of home.

Everything has changed in our lives. We do not know when we are going back home. Maybe one day we will be able to go back home. I hope so, Im praying for that.
The first Muslims to observe Ramadan in America were slaves who snuck off into the fields to pray, Qasim Rashad explains from his office at the United Muslim Masjid in Philadelphia, where he serves as the Amir.

Professor Sulayman Nyang of Howard University is an expert on Islam in the United States and says that 10 percent of the African slaves brought to the US came from Muslim backgrounds. Other sources say it was as many as 30 percent.

Today, African Americans make up a large portion of the countrys Muslim community.

A 2011 report by the Pew Research Center found that 40 percent of native-born US Muslims are African American. Many of these converted to Islam during the 1960s and 1970s due, in part, to the influence of the Nation of Islam. In the 1970s, Warith Deen Mohammed led the majority of the Nations followers towards traditional Sunni Islam.

In Philadelphias African American Muslim community, Ramadan is observed as it is anywhere else. Families wake up early for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal, and fast for the 16 daylight hours typical of a North American summer. Many local Masjids offer community iftars (fast-breaking meals), as well as educational events and classes throughout the month. Iesha Prime, a well-known figure in the Muslim community in the US, addressed a crowd of hundreds at Philadelphia Masjid during one of these events, saying: It may look like were down and out. It may look like as a community, were behind. But in reality  when God created you, specifically  God created your language and your colours for a reason.

Halal markets, Islamic bookstores, and Muslim fashion are ubiquitous in Philadelphia, and it would be hard to venture into any neighbourhood in the city and not find at least some Muslim presence.
President Donald Trump has proved again how beholden our politics are to the interests of the super-rich elite. The conniving, rich oilmen that were so desperate to prevent and frustrate the Paris Agreement found cheerleaders in Mr Trump and his party. They choose to protect their profits from a flailing fossil fuel industry over human lives and a clean, inclusive future for us all.





The Paris climate agreement threw people of the world a lifeline, and the United States played a vital role in getting us there, not least by working closely with China to clear the decks to a global deal. The world agreed on what needed to be done. One hundred ninety-five nations pledged to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius and to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century.

Now, we remember how frayed that lifeline is, mostly for people in the global South. The emission cuts pledged still put the world on track for three degrees of warming. If youre living in a low-island state? Thats too high for the prospect of a future. For the 13 million people in the Horn of Africa going hungry today, the Agreement is already too late. Climate change has worsened their suffering. They pay for a crisis they did not cause.

At times like this, I remember my uncle, a farmer in rural Uganda. It would take him 180 years to register the same emissions as the average American would in a year (pdf)! Why must he and his family suffer because of the excesses of others?

Whats most painful is that the Paris Agreement was already compromised with concessions to the US. Despite being the worlds largest historic emitter, the US put forward only a fifth of their fair share to cut emissions.

READ MORE: Paris climate agreement  What you need to know

Contrast this to what developing countries have put forward: 125 percent of their fair share. This is where the good news starts. With every move, the pendulum of climate leadership swings further and more decisively towards the global South.

The spirit of Paris charges on, even without the US government, and with it the palpable hope of a better world. by

Recent forecasts show that China and India are on track to beat their emissions reduction targets. At the most recent global climate talks last November, 48 developing countries vulnerable to the impacts of climate change committed to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.

Thats not all. A transformation is taking hold in global energy markets. The cost of wind and solar has dropped by up to 80 percent in the last six years and unsubsidized solar is beginning to out-compete coal and natural gas on a larger scale.

In the US, the solar industry is growing, creating jobs, jobs, jobs over 15 times faster than the economy norm. At home in Africa, Im energised by the growth of off-grid solar at such a pace that it could soon outstrip the rate at which people are being connected to the grid. These solutions are connecting people to power and giving them control over their energy resources.

Far from putting America first, President Trumps move puts the US last in the race to build a more sustainable economy.

OPINION: In defence of science  Making facts great again

Developing nations are joined by mayors of cities around the world, and businesses that finally stepped up in Paris to challenge vested interests in the fossil fuel industry. More companies than ever before are racing to commit to renewable power, 100 percent. Businesses, investors, mayors and academics, together representing $6.2 trillion of the US economy recently signed a pact to continue fighting climate change. They know that pulling out of Paris puts American workers at an economic disadvantage.





I trust that people in the US will not let their government get away with this. People fighting climate change around the world are in solidarity with our friends in the US as they organise nationwide marches and rally to block coal plants and pipelines from being built.

The climate movement is re-energised. The move to a zero-carbon future is unstoppable. Despite the injustice of Mr Trumps decision, our only response must be to redouble efforts everywhere else and strengthen the lifeline that Paris offered.

Nor can our world rely any longer on this outdated global governance which privileges richest nations at the expense of developing nations. Southern governments have taken on more responsibility for our world: this should be reflected in their power and position in the institutions of global governance.

The oilmen who fuelled this crisis are still there  doing their dirty business as usual  because the system perpetuates their wealth and power. The richest one percent today own more than the 99 percent combined; eight men own as much as the bottom 3.6 billion. Political institutions march to the tune of powerful corporations and the super-rich. Tackling the extreme gap between rich and poor and tackling climate change is part of the same struggle.

The spirit of Paris charges on, even without the US government, and with it the palpable hope of a better world.

Winnie Byanyima is a grassroots activist, human rights advocate, senior international public servant, world-recognised expert on womens rights, and currently the executive director of Oxfam International.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Chiwundura constituency is reported to be characterized by politically motivated violence largely targeted at opposition supporters. In 2004 and 2005, Albert Chidhakwa the current Zanu PF District Chairman for ward 10 intimidated and tortured MDC polling agents in the then Gweru Rural constituency.A national assembly by-election is set to be conducted in Chiwundura Constituency, Midlands Province on the 15th of July 2017."Ngonidzashe Sokisi (now late) who was an MDC District Youth Chairman was assaulted and tortured by Albert Chidhakwa. He was later rescued by other MDC youths. On 21 April 2005, a headman, Shadreck Sikombingo was abducted by a group of 27 suspected war veterans and ZANU PF youth. The abduction came after he was suspected of supporting Gasela," reads a report sent to this reporter."According to the headman's family members, Sikombingo had been warned by Zanu PF officials the week before the abduction that he would be "dealt with"3.In 2006, John Jangarasi, the then Zanu PF ward chairman, deployed youths to assault and torture Norman Chinosiya and Edwin Chitando for supporting the MDC party at Gambizapreschool. Jangarasi assaulted the duo on the pretext of disciplining them for supporting an opposition party. Jangano was later expelled from Zanu PF and later joined the Zimbabwe People First."The report states towards the run up to the 2008 elections, Zanu PF leadership that include the then Political Commissar, Elliot Manyika and Kizito Chivamba (both late) led terror youth groups, terrorising opposition supporters."Eliot Manyika in the company of Zanu PF youths (Border Gezi graduates), harassed and assaulted opposition supporters in ward 14 and ward 10. Manyika was also known for deploying Border Gezi graduates to unleash violence on opposition supporters across the country. Manyika later died in a car accident in December that year," reports the report."In 2008, Chidhakwa established and led a youth base (youths from Border Gezi) which was used to intimidate and torture opposition supporters at Muchakata Business centre at the council offices. The base was manned by Border Gezi graduates who were deployed to intimidate, harass and torture all known opposition supporters and community members. Albert Chidhakwa is also known for commanding village heads to force-march community members to vote for Zanu PF in the 2008 elections. The most recent human rights violations involving Chidhakwa include partisan distribution of food aid from the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare which he distributed to Zanu PF supportersonly in March 2017."The report states that in 2013, village head Gideon Muputa who was the then Zanu PF District Chairman deployed war veterans in the resettlement areas in ward 14 to intimidate known opposition supporters."The war veterans were led by their leader only identified as Hundivenga in village 2. Cases of intra party violence were also recorded in the constituency. In 2013, MDC T aspiring candidate Livingstone Chiminya violently disrupted a meeting organised by Timothy Mkhahlera at city night spot bar which is owned by the Mkhahlera family. Timothy Mkhahlera, who was the first MDC-T MP for Gweru urban, was vying for the Chiwundura parliamentary constituency.4 Efforts to get hold of the alleged perpetrators to get their side of the story on these past violations were fruitless," reads the report.
At least 20 hurt, four seriously, on board China Eastern Airlines flight from Paris as it landed at Kunming airport.

At least 20 people have been injured, four of them seriously, after an international China Eastern Airlines flight from Paris hit turbulence over southwest China, according to state news media.

The incident happened on Sunday when Flight MU744 from Charles de Gaulle Airport was descending to land at Kunming Changshui International Airport in Kunming in Yunnan province, Xinhua news agency reported.

Passengers suffered bone fractures, scalp lacerations and soft tissue injuries caused by falling baggage or collisions with overhead lockers, it cited local hospitals as saying.

The plane landed safely an hour later and those who needed medical help were taken to hospital, Xinhua said. None of the injured were in critical condition.

READ MORE: Soaring demand for Chinas low-cost airlines

China Eastern Airlines said on its official microblog account: (We) remind all passengers, for your safety, please fasten safety belts.

The plane landed about 9am local time (01:00 GMT) on Sunday, an hour later than scheduled, according to Xinhua.

The incident came a week after another China Eastern Airlines flight bound for Shanghai was forced to turn back to Sydney when one of its engines sustained severe damage shortly after takeoff.
President orders inquiry into incident in commercial centre in Bogota where security has improved over the past decade.

At least three women were killed and nine wounded after an explosive device went off in a toilet in a busy shopping centre in Colombias capital, Bogota, officials say.

The Andino shopping centre in an exclusive area of Bogota was evacuated after the blast, which occurred around 5pm local time (22:00 GMT) on Saturday in the womens toilet.

The commercial centre was packed with people buying gifts in advance of Fathers Day celebrations on Sunday.





Police said the device was placed in a toilet bowl in the second-floor restroom.

Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa denounced the attack.

We regret dearly this cowardly terrorist bombing and we are pained by the victims, he said.

One of the victims was a 23-year-old French woman who had been volunteering in a poor area of the city, Penalosa said.

Streets surrounding the shopping centre were closed and buildings evacuated by police as ambulances raced to the scene and security officials tried to establish who was responsible for the blast.

I was taking care of a customer when I heard the explosion, said one shopping centre employee.

They told everyone to evacuate and then we found out that a person had been killed and several others injured.

Bomb squad specialists combed the area in a search for additional devices.

READ MORE: Colombia law gives former FARC rebels role in politics

Photographs on social media showed a woman slumped against the wall with a pool of blood around her and what appeared to be a large shard of metal piercing her back.

Another image showed the destroyed toilet cubicle with a blood-splattered handrail and debris strewn all over the floor.

President Juan Manuel Santos has ordered an investigation into the incident.

We wont let terrorism frighten us, Santos said from inside the shopping centre.

Bogotanos should feel safe and protected. We wont let our guard down but we must not panic. Thats what terrorists want.

Security situation

Security has improved in Bogota over the past decade as police and military increased surveillance and put more armed officials on the streets.

At one time, all bags were checked at the entrance to shopping centres, but that has been vastly scaled back in recent years.

Sniffer dogs still check cars at parking facilities in Bogota.

A peace accord signed last year with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the countrys largest guerrilla group, raised confidence that bomb attacks might cease.

The countrys second-largest armed group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, detonated a device in Bogota that injured dozens of police in February.

The ELN, a Marxist group currently negotiating peace with the government, denied any involvement in a tweet and condemned the attack against civilians.

Authorities said there have been threats of attacks in Bogota by the so-called Gulf Clan, a group of former right-wing paramilitary fighters who traffic drugs.
Benghazi police destroy literature they say promotes violence and ideas linked to the Muslim brotherhood and ISIL.

Forces loyal to renegade Libyan general Khalifa Haftar have been accused of burning more than 6,000 books, including works on religion, politics, poetry and philosophy.

According to a video posted on Facebook by Al Manara, a Libyan media platform, more than 6,000 books  including reported biographies of the Prophet Muhammad  were destroyed by a police force in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday.

The video showed a police officer claiming that the seized literature was promoting the ideas of Daesh (the Arabic term for Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, known as ISIL or ISIS), as he sat behind a desk covered with books, including classical Islamic works.

The officer said the books promoted violence and the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned by UAE and Egypt.

In January, more than 100 Libyan writers and intellectuals, including renowned Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho, condemned a seizure of books deemed erotic or anti-Islamic by authorities in eastern Libya.

Books by Egyptian Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz and Arabic translations of books by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche were allegedly among dozens seized from a truck heading from Tobruk to Benghazi.

A video of the book seizure was posted online where security officials denounced the cultural invasion, claiming the works promoted sorcery, as well as erotic materials.

In an open letter, more than 100 novelists denounced the confiscation, calling it intellectual terrorism.

Libya descended into a civil war after a popular uprising toppled long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The country has splintered into rival political and armed groups, with the factions backing opposing governments and parliaments in the east and the west.

Haftar, who has the backing of Egypt and the UAE, controls large parts of eastern Libya and is aligned with the Tokruk-based government. He has staged several bloody attacks against other Libyan militias and designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.
Pressure grows on local council and PM Theresa May to hold those responsible for perceived safety failings to account.

London, UK  A member of Al Manaar mosque in west London opens up the doors to its prayer area in a vain attempt to cool the community hall where hundreds of people, including survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire, have gathered.

The temperature is 30C outside, and the inside of the hall offers little relief to those dabbing away sweat and trying to fan themselves cool with leaflets.

Nevertheless, an unrelenting stream of locals, Muslim and not, continues to flow through the mosques entrance further cramming the room.

They have come to listen to a group of local lawyers and social housing experts who have taken it upon themselves to advise those who have lost their homes on the best course of action.

Those addressing the crowd urge a united front and call for support in their attempts to bring to account those responsible for the failures that led to Wednesdays fire that killed dozens of people.

The crowd listens attentively and calmly with sporadic interruption until the floor is opened up to the survivors, many of whom have lost family members and friends.

What follows is anguish and raw anger.

Im ashamed, shouts one man. I work for this borough, but Im ashamed.

Another directs his frustration at the councils chief executive for failing to meet survivors, and a woman breaks down into tears as she describes the horrors she witnessed while trying to escape.

The local council  The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea  has faced intense criticism for its conduct after the blaze and its purported failings leading to the tragedy.

Survivors complain that it has failed to provide them with adequate information on what happened in the building, and on where and when they will be rehoused.

The council has also been accused of negligence by using a cheaper and more combustive cladding on the building during its refurbishment in 2015.

Tensions culminated on Friday, when locals descended on Kensington Town Hall, briefly entering the building to confront officials before being forced back.

Closure

At the ashen shell of Grenfell Tower about a mile away, where during the day crowds of locals gather to mourn and vent their frustration, the councils responsibility for the disaster is spoken about in terms of a certainty lacking only in the names of those responsible.

They shouldnt have put flammable cladding there in the first place, a local, who only gives his nickname, Dub, tells Al Jazeera.

Who were the people who ordered the material? Who were the people who put it there?

The person who ordered the material should be facing criminal charges.

His friend, Abdel Aziz, nods in agreement, then points to the time it has taken to identify the bodies that have been recovered so far.

The underlying issue for me is that the families dont have any closure. Nobody is telling them what happened to their loved ones, he says, adding: Those families need to know what happened to their loved ones.

How are they supposed to sleep? How do they get on with their lives?

Pressure on PM

The issue of blame is far from limited to just the local borough council. Theresa May, Britains prime minister, is also the focus of anger.

After meeting survivors on Friday, she was heckled by angry locals and rushed to her car surrounded by a ring of police officers.

A week that began with a lost majority in parliament as Mays biggest problem ended with calls for her to resign over her partys record of fiscal austerity, which many of her critics on the left are blaming for what happened in west London.

Members of parliament of the ruling Conservative party, both past and present, are being blamed for ignoring or failing to act on reports that warned of risks to tower blocks. Among those included is the prime ministers recently appointed chief of staff, and former housing minister, Gavin Barwell.

May has pledged an immediate release of funds totalling $6.8m to help those affected and has committed to rehousing those displaced within three weeks.

In a statement, she said: everyone affected by this tragedy needs reassurance that the government is there for them at this terrible time and that is what I am determined to provide.

However, that has not stopped the barrage of criticism.

Anti-austerity protests

In front of her official residence on 10 Downing Street, crowds gathered on Saturday for a demonstration ostensibly against her parliamentary partnership talks with members of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which has earned notoriety in the UK for its ties to loyalist factions and socially conservative views.

A majority of the chants and placards, however, demanded Justice for Grenfell.

Grenfell symbolised pretty much everything wrong with a capitalist society, where profit is put above everything else, including peoples lives, said Rod, one of the thousands protesting.

The fact is they looked at profit above safety and that says it all.

At Al Manaar mosque, frustrations are less rooted in political ideology, but the scale of the disaster and early indications that it was preventable mean it is likely to remain an important fixture of British politics in the future.

The one variable; whether May and the Conservatives remain in power.
Iranian Revolutionary Guard says it targeted ISIL bases in Deir Az Zor in retaliation for the June 7 attacks in Tehran.

Irans Revolutionary Guard says it has fired several missiles at ISIL positions in Syrias Deir Az Zor province in retaliation for two deadly attacks in Tehran earlier this month that were claimed by the armed group.

Medium-range missiles were fired from the [western] provinces of Kermanshah and Kurdestan, and a large number of terrorists were killed and weapons destroyed, the Guard said in a statement published on its Sepahnews website on Sunday.





It said the attack targeted a command base .. of the terrorists in Deir Ezzor, using a different version of the name for the province in eastern Syria.

The spilling of any pure blood will not go unanswered, it added.

Iranian television showed footage of the missiles being launched into the night sky.

The firing of the missiles, the first in 30 years outside Irans own territory, came hours after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a statement on his website, vowed Iran would slap its enemies in honour of the victims families, including those killed in Syria and Iraq.

Deir Az Zor is an oil-rich province that links ISILs de facto capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa, with territory controlled by the group in neighbouring Iraq.

Al Jazeeras Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Gaziantep, near the Syria-Turkey border, called the firing of the missiles a hugely significant and major development.

We need to see this in two folds  one in the context of the war in Syria: Iran has been providing advisers, fighters, volunteers, militias, weapons and money, but it has never targeted the country with this kind of strike, she said.

And, of course, we need to see this in the wider geopolitical context: it will be very interesting what the reaction is going to be from countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel, because Iran is saying it can retaliate, and it will.

Symbolic attacks

ISIL, which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and is also known as ISIS, claimed responsibility for the June 7 attacks on Irans parliament and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini that left 17 people dead.

The attack on Khomeinis shrine was symbolically stunning. As Irans first supreme leader, Khomeini is a towering figure in the country and was its revolutionary leader in the 1979 removal of the shah.

Senior Iranian officials had also put the blame for the Tehran attacks on Riyadh, saying Saudi Arabia was promoting terrorist groups in Iran.

Iran is a key ally of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, alongside Russia and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement of Lebanon.

In March, an official was quoted by Irans IRNA news agency as saying that about 2,100 combatants sent by Iran have been killed in Syria and Iraq.
Sea and air search ends at site of collision off Japans coast between USS Fitzgerald and a merchant ship on Saturday.

The bodies of several US sailors, who were missing after a US navy ship collided with a container vessel in the busy sea off the coast of Japan, have been found inside the damaged ship, according to the US Navy.

The collision happened early on Saturday when most of the 200 crew on board the USS Fitzgerald were asleep.

Seven US crew members were reported missing following the incident, which occurred south of Tokyo Bay.





Yoko Kato, a spokeswoman for the US Navy, said divers had gained access to spaces that were damaged during the collision and found a number of bodies.

Joseph Aucoin, commander of the US Seventh Fleet, said on Sunday the navy had ended its search and rescue efforts for the missing sailors.

He would not say how many bodies had been found, pending notification of the sailors family members.

The Japanese coastguard said none of the 20 crew members on board the ACX Crystal, a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel that collided with the Fitzgerald, were wounded.

The Navy said that the families of those who were found were being notified and provided the support they need during this difficult time.

The names of the sailors will be released after all notifications are made.

At least three other crew members, including the captain, were injured in the crash, which damaged two berthing spaces, a machinery room and the radio room and exposed a mangled mid-right side of the ship.

It was not clear how extensive the damage was below the water line.

This has been a difficult day, Aucoin said before the announcement that the bodies had been found.

I am humbled by the bravery and tenacity of the Fitzgerald crew. Now that the ship is in Yokosuka, I ask that you help the families by maintaining their privacy as we continue the search for our shipmates.

Very bizarre

It was unclear how the collision happened. Once an investigation is complete, then any legal issues can be addressed, the US Navy said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Tokyo on Saturday, Michael Penn, a journalist with the Shingetsu news agency said it was very bizarre that such an incident had happened.

The US navy ship is an Aegis destroyer, which has one of the most sophisticated radars in existence. So how such a ship was taken unaware and rammed by a merchant ship is very bizarre, Penn said.

The waterways approaching Tokyo Bay are busy with commercial vessels sailing to and from Japans two biggest container ports in Tokyo and Yokohama.

Japans public broadcaster NHK showed aerial footage of the destroyer, which had a large dent in its right, or starboard, side. Images broadcast by NHK showed it had been struck next to its Aegis radar arrays behind its vertical missile launch tubes.

In May, the US Navys USS Lake Champlain collided with a South Korean fishing vessel, but both ships were able to operate under their own power.
Prosecutors pledge to retry celebrity, known as Americas Dad, over charges he drugged and molested a woman in 2004.

A US judge has declared a mistrial in the sexual assault case of comedian and celebrity Bill Cosby after a jury said it was deadlocked following more than 52 hours of deliberations.

Cosby had been charged with three counts of sexual assault over allegations he drugged and molested Andrea Constand in 2004 at his home in Pennsylvania.

Prosecutors pledged to put Cosby on trial for a second time, saying Constand was entitled to a verdict.

Andrew Wyatt, Cosbys spokesperson, said that the trials outcome had restored his clients legacy.

READ MORE: US TV networks drop Bill Cosby programmes

But the reputation of Cosby, known as Americas Dad for his role on the television series, The Cosby Show, remains in tatters after a slew of sexual assault allegations from about 60 women.

Several of those women attended the trial and wore buttons that read We Stand in Truth.

Victoria Valentino, a former model who has accused Cosby of drugging and raping her decades ago, had a message for the celebrity.

Youre not off the hook, buddy, she said outside the courtroom.

Cosby has denied all of the womens claims, saying that any sexual encounters were consensual.

The case involving Constand followed a long path to prosecution.

In 2005, prosecutors declined to charge Cosby based on Constands account that the celebrity offered her unidentified pills that left her unable to stop his advances.

She filed a lawsuit that Cosby settled for an undisclosed sum.

Cosbys depositions in that case, however, were unsealed by a federal judge in 2015, revealing his admissions that he had given sedatives to young women in the 1970s.

This prompted prosecutors to reopen the case.

Cosby was eventually charged in December 2015, just days before the statute of limitations was set to expire.

He still faces several civil lawsuits from at least 10 accusers across the United States.
The two officials were travelling to their home country from Jalalabad in Nangarhar when they disappeared.

Two Pakistani diplomats based in a consulate office in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad have been missing since June 16, when they set off by road back to their homeland, according to Pakistans foreign office.

The officials disappeared while travelling between the Torkham border crossing and Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar province.

The matter has been raised with the relevant Afghan authorities for their safety and recovery, at the earliest, Pakistans foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.





In response, Afghan authorities have sent three investigation groups to ensure the officials safe return, the statement said.

Pakistan has requested the Afghan government that all efforts may be made to ensure early recovery of our officials and bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.

Attaullah Khugyani, a spokesman for Nangarhars governor, told DPA news agency the provincial governor has started efforts to search for and recover the Pakistani consulate workers with the full cooperation of the Pakistani consulate here.

Pakistan did not speculate who may be behind the disappearances but various Afghanistan-based groups have attacked diplomats in the past.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been tense in recent years, with both countries accusing each other of not doing enough to tackle Pakistani and Afghan Taliban fighters.

READ MORE: Pakistan-Afghanistan cricket ties hit after Kabul blast

Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of turning a blind eye to Afghan Taliban commanders based within its borders and of supporting the group, something Pakistan denies.

Pakistan has claimed that Afghanistan is not doing enough to tackle Pakistan Taliban fighters who have been driven out of Pakistan, but who still carry out attacks across the border.

Jalalabad is a busy trading hub about 70km from the main border crossing with Pakistan, from which landlocked Afghanistan imports much of its goods.

The province is home to various armed groups, including the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban.
Truce allows government troops to focus on quelling a month-long siege by ISIL-linked fighters in Mindanao province.

The Philippine government has announced it will suspend offensives against communist fighters, allowing troops to focus on quelling a bloody siege by ISIL-linked fighters in the countrys south.

Silvestre Bello III, chief government negotiator, said on Sunday that the government move is in response to a similar plan by the communist New Peoples Army rebels.

He did not specify when such a suspension of government offensives would take effect and under what terms.

READ MORE: Peace is still possible in Dutertes Philippines

In the past year the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte has been engaged in an on-and-off truce with the communist rebels.

Despite the latest peace overtures, Philippine troops killed five communist fighters in separate clashes in the south, while the rebels stormed a police station in the central Philippine island of Leyte and seized a dozen assault rifles and pistols over the weekend, officials said.

Three communist fighters were killed in Davao Oriental province and two others died in Compostela Valley in separate clashes with army troops on Saturday, military officials said.

While in Leyte, about 50 communist rebels stormed a police station and seized 12 rifles and pistols, and other equipment, according to the police.

The rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement that they waged the assault to punish police officers, whom they accused of being involved in extortion, gambling and distribution of illegal drugs.

Fighting two fronts in Mindanao

While Duterte has pursued talks with the communist rebels, he has expressed outrage over continuing attacks.

The rebels have also protested about what they said were continuing military assaults on their rural strongholds.

The accusations and other differences have hampered negotiations being brokered by Norway, causing a scheduled round of talks to be cancelled in May.

The communist rebels have been waging one of Asias longest-running armed rebellions, which has left tens of thousands dead.





Separately, the government is also fighting Muslim armed fighters in the southern island of Mindanao.

Thousands of troops and police have been deployed to end a 27-day siege by fighters aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in the southern city of Marawi.

The siege in Marawi has forced Duterte to declare martial law in the southern island.

The intense fighting has left at least 242 fighters, 56 soldiers and policemen and 26 civilians dead. It has turned the heartland of the Muslim-majority city into a battlefield, and displaced 300,000 people.

The US military has deployed a spy plane and drones to help troops to end the insurrection, which was started by an estimated 500 ISIL fighters, including foreign operatives.

The military said more than 100 fighters are holed up in the city, holding an unspecified number of civilian hostages.
Amid diplomatic rift, foreign minister says Qatar has not received list of demands from Saudi Arabia and its allies.

Qatar has yet to see any demands from Saudi Arabia and its allies as they continue an embargo on the country, according to Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatars foreign minister.

Kuwait is working to mediate the dispute between Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states that began nearly two weeks ago.

So far Kuwait hasnt received any demands from any GCC nations or even a list of the so-called accusations, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said on Saturday in an interview with Qatar TV.

Were just confused about what these demands could be.





The fact that they dont even have clear demands ready shows that all of their accusations are baseless.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, along with Egypt, cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing the country of supporting extremism and their regional ally, Iran  charges that Qatar has repeatedly denied.

The three Arab Gulf countries also ordered Qatari nationals to leave within 14 days, while Saudi, UAE and Bahraini citizens were also given the same timeframe to leave Qatar.

They later issued a list of 59 people and 12 groups with links to Qatar, alleging that they have ties to terrorism.

The list included several prominent Qatari charities that carry out life-saving work across the Middle East and elsewhere, including in Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Palestine.

Speaking in London on Friday, Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabias foreign minister, said his country was drawing up a list of grievances involving Qatar.

READ MORE: Qatar-Gulf crisis  All the latest updates

I would not call them demands. I would say it is a list of grievances that need to be addressed and that the Qataris need to fix, he said.

Jubeir did not detail what complaints could be made, but added that they will be presented very soon.

The blockade has disrupted imports of food and other materials into Qatar and caused many foreign banks to scale back their business with the country.

Amnesty International, the rights group, has criticised the move, accusing the Gulf Arab states of toying with the lives of thousands of people in their dispute with their neighbour.
News / National

by Clever Mpande

Mthwakazi Republic Party President Mr Mqondisi Moyo has today revealed the truth about Zimbabwe's two separate states.According to Moyo, Zimbabwe houses two nations that were illegally joined together by the British in 1923.Moyo today gave the evidence of a medal to the media that proves that Mthwakazi was a separate state from Zimbabwe and warned the Zimbabwean government for delaying her independence.The medal was designed in 1933 as the British imperialist were celebrating forty years of Matabeleland occupation."Those who are still in denial after having seen this medal that evidence Mthwakazi was a separate state from Zimbabwe and that we were illegally joined together by the British in 1923 needs psychiatric examination. We can not have our independence delayed by some people who are greedy and selfish and want to continue exploiting our resources," Moyo saidMthwakazi Republic Party is a Matabeleland based party that is advocating for a separate state from Zimbabwe. In the past months they have been making inroads in Matabeleland and recently Matobo were they addressed to hundreds of people.Contact to comment on the medal one ZANU PF member based in Midlands Province who declined to be named on media said it is the right of Matabeleland people to demand self determination if they feel their Rights are infringed.
Saad al-Kaabi says despite the blockade against Qatar, Doha will not shut its gas pipeline to its brothers.

Qatar will not cut gas supplies to the United Arab Emirates despite a diplomatic dispute between the two nations, the chief executive of state-run Qatar Petroleum has told Al Jazeera.

Saad Sherida al-Kaabi told Al Jazeera Arabics Liqa al-Yaum (Todays Meeting show) on Sunday that although there was a force majeure clause in the Dolphin gas pipeline agreement  which pumps around 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day to the UAE  Qatar would not stop supplies to its brothers.





The siege we have today is a force majeure and we could close the gas pipeline to the UAE, he said.

But if we cut the gas, it does great harm to the UAE and the people of the UAE, who are considered like brothers  we decided not to cut the gas now.

According to analysts and industry sources, a shutdown of the 364km Dolphin pipeline, which links Qatars giant North Field with the UAE and Oman, would cause major disruptions to the UAEs energy needs.

Earlier on Sunday, the chief executive of Sharjah National Oil Corp said he did not expect flows of natural gas from Qatar to the UAE to be interrupted by the diplomatic dispute in the region.

Qatar-Gulf crisis: All the latest updates

Four Arab states  Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt  severed diplomatic and trade relations with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of supporting extremism and aligning with their regional rival Iran  charges that Qatar has repeatedly denied.

The Saudi-led bloc of nations cut off sea and air links with Qatar and ordered Qatari nationals to leave their countries within 14 days.

Qatar Airways, one of the biggest regional carriers, was forced to take long detours after it was barred from using Saudi, UAE and Egyptian airspace.

The air, sea and land restrictions imposed by its three Gulf neighbours have not so far affected maritime routes for Qatari LNG vessels, which can pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Most of Qatars almost 80 million tonnes of annual LNG supplies are shipped in tankers, mainly to Japan, South Korea and India, as well as to several European countries.

Any disruption to Qatars LNG exports could anger the European Union as the UK, Spain and Poland rely on Qatari LNG.
At least 25 killed after two air raids hit al-Mashnaq market in Shada district in northwestern Yemen, an official says.

At least 25 Yemeni civilians have been killed by Saudi-led coalitions aerial bombardment of a market in the northern Saada province, according to a local health official.

The director of the Houthi-run health department office in Saada said the aircraft conducted two raids on al-Mashnaq market in Shada district close to the Saudi border on Saturday.





Rescue teams were unable to reach the area for some time for fear of being hit by artillery shelling of the area, the official, Dr Abdelilah al-Azzi, told Reuters news agency by telephone on Sunday.

Several Yemeni online news outlets carried similar reports of the bombing in Saada, which sits directly along the Saudi border.

Officials from the Saudi-led coalition could not immediately be reached for a comment on the report.

A Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out air raids in the impoverished country for more than two years against Houthi rebels, who control vast swaths of the country.

The country has since been plunged into a civil war in which the exiled government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, is trying to roll back gains made by the Iran-aligned Houthi group that controls most of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.

In March, a Saudi-led coalition air raid killed 22 people and wounded dozens when it struck a market in western Yemen near the Red Sea fishing town of Khoukha.

Khoukha and the nearby city of Hodeidah are controlled by the Houthis who took control of Sanaa in 2014 and moved south to Aden in 2015 forcing Hadi and his administration to flee into exile. Saudi-led coalition wrested back the control of Aden last year.

The Yemen war has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced more than three million and ruined much of the impoverished countrys infrastructure.

READ MORE: Who benefits from a weak and divided Yemen?

The Saudi-led coalition was formed in 2015 to fight the Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

In December, the coalition acknowledged it had made limited use of British-made cluster bombs, but said it had stopped using them.

In March, the UN World Food Programme said that nearly half of Yemens 22 provinces were on the verge of famine.
Officials say five attackers were also killed after they stormed a police building in the eastern city of Gardez.

At least five police officers have been killed after the Taliban stormed a police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan, the interior ministry has said.

Sardar Wali Tabasim, a spokesman for the Paktia province police chief, said another nine officers and 13 civilians were wounded in Sundays attack in Gardez.

Tabasim added that all seven of the attackers were killed at the compound, which also houses the regional command for Afghanistans eastern provinces.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that the group was responsible for the attack.

Al Jazeeras Rob McBride, reporting from Kabul, said the attack hit a big target.

This is a big police headquarters. It is a big target and the attack seems to have followed a fairly familiar pattern, he said.

It seems there was a car bomb at the main gate, which opened a breach into the complex. Four or five attackers managed to then get inside and conduct this attack.

#Taliban insurgents blew open the gate to the #Paktia police headquarters compound in Gardez city early Sunday. Clashes are still ongoing. pic.twitter.com/fovj9o9wAL  TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) June 18, 2017

READ MORE: Kunduz residents recall ordeal after Taliban attack

Since the beginning of their spring offensive in late April, Taliban fighters have carried out a number of deadly attacks on the positions of the Afghan army and police.

Foreign forces assisting the Afghans have also been attacked.

Seven US soldiers were wounded on Saturday in an insider attack at a military base by an Afghan soldier described as a patriot by the Taliban.

In May, at least 15 Afghan soldiers were killed when Taliban fighters raided a military base in Kandahar province.
At least two people killed and dozens of guests rescued after attack by armed men on luxury complex on citys outskirts.

At least two people have been killed after an attack on a popular tourist resort on the outskirts of Malis capital, Bamako, according to officials, but dozens of guests were rescued.

Armed men stormed the luxury Le Campement Kangaba complex near Dougourakoro on Sunday, attacking a resort frequented by top officials and foreign residents, especially during the weekend.

Malian troops and soldiers from Frances Bakhane counterterrorist force headed to the scene. Local residents reported hearing shots fired while smoke billowed into the air.

Malis Security Minister Salif Traore said late on Sunday that at least four attackers were killed by security forces.

We have recovered the bodies of two attackers who were killed, Traore told journalists, adding that they were searching for the bodies of two others, without specifying if any more were on the run.

At first we thought they were armed bandits but we know how armed bandits operate. They dont hold territory, so now we think it is a terrorist attack, Traore had earlier told reporters outside the entrance to the resort, part of which was on fire.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Officials said two people had been killed, including a French-Gabonese citizen and another whose nationality was not yet known.

Two others had been wounded, one civilian and a policeman, Baba Cisse, spokesman for the security ministry, told the Reuters news agency. An attacker had also been wounded and fled, leaving a sub-machine-gun and six bottles of explosives behind, he said.

Malian state TV reported that 36 guests had so far been rescued. At least 14 people, both Malians and foreigners, were wounded, according to the security ministry.

A witness told local television ORTM he saw a man arrive on a motorcycle who started shooting at the crowd followed by two or three people who came in another vehicle.

Witness Boubacar Sangare was just outside the compound during the attack. Westerners were fleeing the encampment while two plainclothes police exchanged fire with the assailants, he told Reuters.

READ MORE: Malis Keita vows to keep fighting terrorist groups

A security ministry official said government troops have sealed off the area and are in the process of organising operations against the attackers.

French President Emmanuel Macron pledged full support to Malis leader in a phone call after the attack, Macrons office said on Monday.





Andrea de Georgio, a freelance journalist in Bamako, said the resort is about 10km outside the capital.

He told Al Jazeera that the attack seemed to be well-organised.

The attackers are hidden inside the camp, and the camp is very big so there are a lot of places where they can hide, de Georgio said.

Al Jazeeras Nicolas Haque, reporting from neighbouring Senegal, quoted sources as saying that security forces have be going door-to-door inside the resort, making sure that the fighters are apprehended or driven out.

Security threats

The west African country has been battling armed rebellion for several years, with fighters roaming the north and centre of Mali.

The US embassy in Bamako had warned earlier this month of a possible increased threat of attacks against Western diplomatic missions, places of worship, and other locations in Bamako where Westerners frequent.

In November 2015, gunmen took guests and staff hostage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in a siege that left at least 20 people dead, including 14 foreigners.

That attack was claimed by al-Qaedas North African affiliate, the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group.

A state of emergency has been renewed several times since the Radisson Blu attack, most recently in April when it was extended for six months.

The United Nations has a 12,000-strong force in Mali known as MINUSMA, which began operations in 2013.

It has been targeted constantly by armed fighters, with dozens of peacekeepers killed, including five on Saturday.
Qatars government announces the arrival of the first group of Turkish soldiers to participate in joint drills.

The Qatari defence ministry has announced the arrival of the first group of Turkish soldiers in the capital, Doha, to take part in joint military exercises.

The forces conducted their first training at Tariq bin Ziyad military base on Sunday, the ministry said.

The exercises, which had been long planned, are part of a mutual agreement aimed at strengthening the defence capabilities of both countries, as well as boosting efforts to combat armed groups and maintaining stability in the region.

READ MORE: Qatar-Gulf crisis  All the latest updates

The drills come as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Egypt and a number of other countries severed relations with Qatar last week, accusing it of supporting terrorism and Iran. Qatar rejects the accusations.

Earlier this month, Turkeys parliament fast-tracked the approval of a separate agreement with Qatar that allowed troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in the Gulf state.

That agreement was signed in April 2016.

Turkey has been the foremost supporter of Qatar since the Gulf dispute began on June 5.

Ankara has also been trying to mediate between the sides to find a solution to the crisis.
Frances fishermen say they will be forced to use whatever tactics they can to battle for their survival.
The case against Assange is as political as it is legal; where does it go from here? Plus, Kenyas election influencers.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Attention in Zanu-PF will shift to the forthcoming politburo meeting after the supreme decision-making organ of the ruling party failed to conclusively deal with a report on its national political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, at its meeting last week.Indications are that the meeting that was meant to be convened on Wednesday could be deferred to a later date in the wake of the passing on of legendary war veteran, Dickson Chingaira on Friday.Popularly known as Cde Chinx, Chingaira died in Harare on Friday at the age of 61 and is likely to be declared a national hero.Early this year, Zanu-PF structures across the country demonstrated against Kasukuwere, accusing him of clandestinely trying to remove President Robert Mugabe from power through unconstitutional means.The Local Government minister faces a total of 11 charges, with the major one being that of setting up parallel structures in the provinces to upstage his boss. Kasukuwere flatly denies the allegations.Instead, he accuses his political foes of attempting to remove him from his position because he has become a stumbling block to their factional agendas.With Wednesday's stormy politburo meeting ending late into the night without exhaustively dealing with the matter, the national political commissar will only know his fate at the next meeting.A team set up by Mugabe to look into his case has produced a damning report that seems to nail Kasukuwere on some of the charges.Parts of the report gleaned by this newspaper, confirm the existence of parallel structures in Mashonaland Central, where Kasukuwere hails from.It also confirms the existence of two contending groups in Kasukuwere's home province epitomised by the creation of shadow Members of Parliament and a sitting Senator.Led by politburo member and Speaker of the National Assembly, Jacob Mudenda, the committee said this "may of necessity create divisions and factions in the province".The report further alleges that the structures in Mashonaland Central - a Zanu-PF stronghold - were in shambles, and that despite being a member of the national leadership of the party, Kasukuwere was a signatory to the provincial party account.It recommended therefore that he "should stop forthwith from being a signatory to the provincial party account" and that "the politburo finds ways and means to take corrective measures to revamp the Zanu-PF structures in the provinces".Another of its recommendations was that an audit be carried out through the national secretary for finance to investigate unaccounted funds that should have been banked in the party's national bank account in order to ensure financial prudence in the handling of party funds in the province.Fundamentally, the committee makes the point that it lacks the capacity to prove allegations that Kasukuwere had hatched a plan to elbow Mugabe from power. The committee washes its hands by recommending that the issue be dealt with by the intelligence services, which fall under the Office of the President and Cabinet."It is the finding of the committee that the petition expresses loss of confidence in the leadership of the three accused persons by bringing the name of the party into disrepute, but importantly, that the underlying reference to the parallel structures and fanning of factionalism were intended to topple the elected President."The committee noted that while the allegations emanating from the petition and the subsequent responses from members of the Provincial Coordinating Committee during the probe and the information submitted through the dossier, acknowledge, among other things, the existence of parallel structures the committee found it difficult to establish the nexus between the allegation of the formation of parallel structures and the removal of the President."This position is compounded by the fact that the national political commissar has approached the High Court to prove his innocence. In any case, the party policy directs that such issues be resolved internally," reads part of the report."It is therefore recommended that the State security apparatus and other intelligence arms of government may be in a better position to make further investigations on the matter."According to the report, the trio of Kasukuwere, his half brother Dickson Mafios, who is Mashonaland Central province's acting chairperson and the provincial secretary for administration Wonder Mashinge - abused their roles by selling party properties, including a vehicle, and also ran the province like their own.It was alleged in the report that Kasukuwere administered the financial accounts of the province even though he is a national member.This, the report said, required urgent redress to inspire confidence in the party."Kasukuwere was ostensibly the principal signatory to the provincial party account at the exclusion of the provincial secretary of finance, which is a gross abuse of authority by a national political leader," reads the report in part.The report also established the existence of competing mining interests in Mashonaland Central as exemplified in Mukaradzi and Kitsiyatota mining claims, which led to the victimisation of some Zanu-PF women's league members.
Author of 18 books and numerous articles, clergyman, preacher, winner of the American Book Award, ubiquitous television and radio personality, regular college lecturer, Georgetown sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson is a go-to man on race issues.

Dysons new book, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, is cheered by Toni Morrison for its profound cultural analysis, and its guidance for moral redemption. With literary grace applied to a story of American racism that itself can reduce a person to tears, Dyson calls upon white America to accept blame for the condition of black America. Beyond that, he asks white America to draw black Americans into its bosom. How will white America respond?

An answer, I suggest, involves an issue that Dyson fails to face squarely: crime and especially black crime, and this failure, paradoxically, impedes rather than helps racial reconciliation.

Why do many Americans with resources and choices live in gated communities? Is it because they fear black crime? By raising this crime issue himself, Dyson allows for the possibility.

For Dyson, to be sure, the fear is morally wrongheaded. Black people, he begins, have no agency; crime is the product of racism and racism alone. Dyson is not altogether wrong; psychological and economic pressures cannot help but encourage socially destructive lifestyles.

Dyson, however, knows that, in the end, his or other accounts of the wretchedness of slavery, Jim Crow, educational and job discrimination, and residential segregation will not persuade white readers (or others) to ignore crime. Like almost everyone else, they are primed by nature for self-preservation and freedom from fear; undoing the products of slavery, by contrast, is a long-term proposition.

Dyson thereupon tries another tack: whites are mistaken to fear blacks. Without citing sources, he provides four principal data points:

1) 93% of black homicide victims are killed by other blacks.

2) 84% of white victims are killed by other whites.

3) Whites are 6 times more likely to be murdered by a white person as by a black person.

4) Blacks commit 36% of violent crimes, compared to 42% by whites.

Dysons point is that black crime should not concern whites. Since blacks are not targeting them, whites should not be fearful. What whites should fear is other whites, the never-mentioned white crime rate, in other words, white-on-white crime. Racial segregation in this view, as suggested, is entirely a function of racism.

It does not take a wizard to see the analytical deficiencies here. Blacks make up about 13% of the population, whites 65%, and others 22%. There are five times as many whites as blacks. In addition, a crime data point of my own: blacks make up 45% of homicide perpetrators, whites 40%. This demographic difference cannot be ignored.

In a world of equal rates of black/white victimizers, blacks would be responsible for 1/5 of 42%, or 8.5% of the violent crimes, not 36%. (For ease of presentation I assume that overall violent crime numbers stay constant because others make up the difference produced by the hypothetical lower black rate.) The disparity shows up more starkly where homicide is concerned. If black/white victimizer rates were equal, blacks would be responsible for 1/5 of the 40% of homicides perpetrated by whites, or 8%. A tragedy of our times is that the black offender rate for homicide is 5 times higher (45%/8%) than that of whites. Can this not have a profound social impact? Recall in this connection Jesse Jacksons classic confession of humiliation when walking down the street, hearing footsteps, turning around to see a white man, and feeling relief.

The demographic connection between perpetrators and victims further explains Jacksons reaction. Since 93% of black homicide victims are killed by other blacks, Jackson was expressing sound understanding of the odds. But what about whites? If whites are six times more likely to be murdered by whites than by blacks and there are five times as many whites as blacks, it follows that a white individual is still slightly more likely to be killed by a white person than by a black person, even though not six times as likely. This of course supports Dysons view that whites present a greater risk of death to whites as a group than blacks do.

The real import of the analysis here, however, lies elsewhere. What Dyson does not say is that a reason for the intra-racial dominance of homicide is the very segregation that he rails against: people kill those who are physically closest to them. And precisely because this is the case, common awareness of the disproportionate victimizer rate has to affect peoples thinking. Thus, however poor the treatment of blacks by whites, integration will remain only a dream.

This is no brief for residential segregation, Quite apart from the fact that the public has exaggerated the risk of homicide, there is much good news to report on a variety of fronts. In some places, crime rates have plummeted. The murder rate in New York City is only a little more than 1/6th of what it was in 1993. The effect on living patterns in some areas has been profound.

Let me speak from personal experience here. Between 1990 and 2007, I regularly traveled from New York to Providence. The Greyhound bus has to travel through Harlem to get from and to the Port Authority in midtown. It was impossible to avoid demographic considerations. Many were the times that on a three-mile stretch I did not see a single white person north of 96th street on Third Avenue. How remarkable that an appreciable part of Harlem is now integrated to the point where fear of crime seems, ironically, to have been replaced by fear of gentrification.

New York, to be sure, is now the major American big city with the lowest crime rates, so we should not make too much of the Harlem story; New York is not Chicago. The principal objective here is to show a logic for social distancing in general. The idea is not really new. Rational discrimination is a term coined at least twenty years ago. The author, black law professor Jody Armour, went on to say that whites should not give into it.

I will concede this last point to get to another, more general one. Dyson, notably, does not discuss any of the demographic subtleties. Failing to mention the enormous black/white population and homicide disparities cannot simply be explained as an oversight on his part. Dyson is a Ph.D whose training must extend far beyond the shallowness of his analysis. What this failure evidences is a belief that whites can be readily manipulated.

Dyson wants whites to feel even worse than they should and blacks to feel free of the burden of remediation. In the respects discussed here, Tears undermines Dysons project, thereby becoming a sad example of what black author Stanley Crouch had in mind in The All-American Skin Game, or the Decoy of Race and Richard Thompson Ford in The Race Card. Blacks are not the only ones to see speciousness in race talk. I highlighted it in my own book, Toxic Diversity: Race, Gender, and Law Talk in America.

As James Baldwin noted, nothing can be changed until it is faced. Disparate victimizer rates are a central problem. The racial crime gap must be narrowed if we are to live together harmoniously. If people like Dyson continue to place the entire burden of remediating racial distancing on whites, that remediation will not take place.

You have to be a veritable racist to agree with Dyson that crime is outside the control of the black community. Would Dyson agree that social and economic conditions for blacks have improved by 500% in New York City since 1993? He certainly doesnt say so. Social development requires trust; and while black populations have good reason to not trust whites, books such as Dysons show that the reciprocal is also true, with all the consequences that that entails.
This was not how it was supposed to be. The most hated man in American media has dealt a serious and potentially knockout blow to the career of the woman who thought she was all set to take him on and proceed unimpeded on the fast track to maybe becoming the next Oprah.

The battle pitting the two well-known personalities commenced two weeks ago when Megyn Kelly, the golden girl of 21st century TV infotainment, started pursuing controversial talk show host and Infowars founder Alex Jones as the next big interview get for her new prime time NBC television network news magazine show, Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly.

Over the past two decades, Jones, 43, starting out as the host of an obscure program on a public access TV channel in Austin, Texas, rose to prominence as an anti-globalist libertarian commentator and activist with a daily nationally-syndicated terrestrial radio show, currently carried by around 90 AM and FM stations, a simulcasted Internet program, a variety of documentary films, and two popular Web sites devoted to politically incorrect reporting. In many ways, with his expanding audience, Jones became a magnet for a constituency of angry, disenfranchised Americans, much like the Donald Trump Presidential campaign.

Alex Jones

Along the way, however, Jones made himself a red hot target for the mainstream media by embracing unpopular third-rail issues like 9/11 Trutherism and questioning the validity of some of the mainstream reporting on the December 14, 2012 massacre of students and teachers at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn. Twenty-eight people  children and adults  were killed that day. Jones subsequently moderated his original positions on both of these issues while he grew his media operation, drastically scaled up the technical sophistication of his presentations, and greatly expanded his audience.

For her part, Megyn Kelly, 46, had a successful five-day-a-week prime time program on the Fox News Channel from 2013 until January 2017 when she left for a high profile position at NBC News. Her deal with NBC guaranteed her a co-anchoring role during the networks coverage of major events and breaking news, solo hosting duties on the third hour of the Today Show, and a weekly prime time Sunday news magazine intended to challenge CBSs 60 Minutes

Kelly burned her bridges with the Fox News Channel and much of its conservative audience when she appeared to transition from a smart, no-nonsense reporter-host with girl next door appeal to a self-serving, glamour-chasing narcissist with her eyes set on rising to the top of the mainstream media landscape. The erosion of her popularity began when she threw down a gauntlet with a series of hostile personal questions to Donald Trump in the first Republican candidatess debate on August 6, 2015. She made news that for a time made her an enemy of Trumps and of many of his supporters. Later on she revealed, at the time of the publication of her first book Settle for More in late 2016, that she had shared damaging information that contributed to the demise of Fox News founder Roger Ailess career at FNC when he was being subjected to an internal company investigation following allegations of sexual harassment that had been levied against him.

Megyn Kelly

In the initial outing of Kellys new hour long NBC show on June 4, 2017, her much-hyped first interview was with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the view of many critics and viewers, the ten-minute long segment featuring Putin was unmemorable, unrevealing, and much ado about nothing. The second airing of the show lost one half of the total number of viewers who had tuned in for the premiere one week earlier. Right after the Putin interview aired, NBC announced, and Alex Jones confirmed, that the Infowars host would be featured on Kellys June 18 program.

It seemed like a bold move guaranteed to grab a large audience. Jones, well-known for being outwardly skeptical and suspicious of the mainstream media, but a commanding presence with a certain degree of charisma, agreed to the Kelly interview, no doubt because of the extremely high profile it would represent. Kelly and her crew traveled to Austin and on June 6 spent hours conducting one-on-one interviews with Jones and recording him in action as he hosted his daily program. When a promo for the upcoming show including brief interview clips started to air on NBC a week later, Jones started to smell a rat, he said in effect, and began plotting a strategy of his own.

Before Jones could take any actions, a number of parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook shooting began to protest NBC giving air time to Jones, whom they detested, and talked about sponsor boycotts and filing lawsuits against the network. The mainstream media reported these efforts widely.

Another slap at Kelly was reported on June 13 when she was uninvited from hosting the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation annual gala on June 15 in Washington, D.C. because of opposition to her having Alex Jones on her show.

Sandy Hook Promise cannot support the decision by Megyn or NBC to give any form of voice or platform to Alex Jones and have asked Megyn Kelly to step down as our Promise Champion Gala host, said Nicole Hockley, co-Founder and Managing Director. It is our hope that Megyn and NBC reconsider and not broadcast this interview.

In response, Kelly defended the interview with Jones and said the show will go on. Kelly also issued a statement and posted it to her Twitter account as a Twitter.pic photo file (below).

Meanwhile, prior to the show with Jones, at least one advertiser, JPMorgan Chase & Co., is asking NBC to remove local TV ads and digital spots from Megyn Kellys NBC newsmagazine until after her interview with Infowars founder Alex Jones airs.

On Thursday, June 15, three days ahead of the scheduled broadcast, Jones dropped an unexpected bombshell: He announced that he had secretly recorded Kellys initial sweet-talking phone calls to him seeking his participation in the broadcast and he had also surreptitiously recorded all of Kellys on-camera interviews with him. (These types of recordings are legal under Texas law, which requires the knowledge of only one party of a conversation, in this case Jones himself.) In order to expose what Jones described as Kellys nefarious purpose, Jones promised to release all of these recordings before June 18. Initially, on June 15, he released audio selections from Kellys phone calls as YouTube videos and posted them here and here.

Ive never done this in 22 years, Ive never recorded another journalist, Jones explained in a Twitter video on Thursday, June 15. Ive never done this, but I knew that it was a fraud, that it was a lie.

On top of the controversy already created by the mounting opposition to the June 18 NBC show because of the lingering memory of Sandy Hook and the objections of some of the parents, the Jones secret tapes story quickly exploded in the mainstream media. When the content of some of the recordings became public, much of the ire of the media refocused from Jones to Kelly.

In an article in Fortune titled Alex Jones Has Badly Damaged NBCs Plans For Megyn Kelly, Mark Joyella, typical of most other reporters and commentators assessing the developments, wrote:

Most journalists would agree that if youre going to give an overflowing dumpster of rotting food like Alex Jones a platform on the NBC Television Network, it better be for a good reason. Examples would be exposing him for the vermin he is, and demanding that he justify his outrageous lies  first and foremost that the mass shooting of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook was a hoax. Thats what a journalist [emphasis original] would do. We learned last night Megyn Kelly is no journalist.

Joyella and other members of the commentariat were responding to revelations like this one from Joness recording in which Kelly obsequiously promised Jones a fair and balanced interview: Its not going to be a contentious, sort of gotcha exchange. I just want to talk about you.

You'll be fine with it, Kelly assured Jones, according to the recordings. Im not looking to portray you as a bogeyman...the craziest thing of all would be if some of the people who have this insane version of you in their head walk away saying, You know, I see the dad in him. I see the guy who loves those kids and is more complex than Ive been led to believe. I saw a different side of you, Kelly told Jones. You became really fascinating to meYoure just like anybody. Youre a dad.

Like other members of the journalistic elite, Joyella was troubled by Kellys hypocrisy:

Kelly went so far as to dismiss criticism of Jones as this insane version of you in [peoples] heads. That's puzzling, since earlier this week Kelly said in a statement, I find Alex Joness suggestion that Sandy Hook was a hoax as personally revolting as every other rational person does.

Opponents and critics of Alex Jones among reporters and commentators in the media vastly outnumber any supporters by a factor of at least 100 to one. And yet, Joness reach -- via his daily program on terrestrial radio, which is also available courtesy of free live audio and video streams on the Internet, and via audio and video podcasts on various platforms -- continues to grow. As of April 2017, Joness daily show is listed as the eighth most popular talk program streaming on the Internet. On June 17, 2017, Alexa.com ranked Joness Infowars.com as the 836th most popular U.S. Web site. Views of his videos on the Alex Jones YouTube channel are reported to be in excess of 1.3 billion, with over 32 million views in the last 30 days. Guests on Joness program in the past year have included more mainstream individuals than in previous times including Tucker Carlson, Dinesh DSouza, Jerome Corsi, Michael Savage, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and Donald Trump. In a December 2015 live interview on Joness program, then-candidate Donald Trump said to his host Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.

Alex Jones and Megyn Kelly, Austin Texas June 6, 2017

People following this story  fans of Alex Jones and Infowars, media critics, journalists, network executives, and followers of Megyn Kelly (her Twitter account has 2.34 million followers)  are eagerly awaiting the broadcast of Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly at 7 PM/6 PM CDT on the evening of June 18. As the New York Post and other media reported on June 15, Kelly has completely overhauled her Sunday night show featuring Alex Jones, inviting Sandy Hook families on the program and editing her interview with Jones to be tougher on him, following all the backlash this week.

The New York Post article continued:

A source told us, NBC was scrambling to find a way out of this mess without having to back down and cancel Sundays episode of Megyns show. Megyn and her producers made numerous calls to the Sandy Hook families this week to ask them to appear on the show. Some refused because they didnt think appearing on her show would do enough to counter Alex Jones venom.

Ratings for the program will be available on Monday afternoon, as will criticss reviews and untold numbers of responses pro and con expected to be posted online by the viewing public immediately after the broadcast.

It promises to be interesting Stay tuned for further developments.

Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran journalist who writes about national politics, media, popular culture, and health care. His bio with links to many of his writings can be accessed here.
This week, we learned that former FBI Director James Comey will probably be a witness in any proceeding brought by his close friend Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Rod Rosenstein, a former Mueller staffer, appointed Mueller because Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who handed the oversight of this matter to his Deputy Rosenstein, had recused himself and that recusal was based on a misreading of the law by career Department of Justice attorneys. Sessionss recusal, moreover, was engendered by illegal leaks. And the investigation by Mueller is being fanned by more of them.

James Comey

At the center of the narrative is James Comey, who, in a girlish recital, testified about a brief conversation he had with the President in which he was told General Flynn was a good guy and that the President hoped the FBI investigation would let this go.

Comey has a long history of prosecuting questionable obstruction cases. Among other overreaches, it was Comey, who with almost certain knowledge (as I have explained previously) that there was no leak of a covert CIA agent by Dick Cheney or any of his staff, sicced former colleague, Southern District of New York (SDNY) prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald on Lewis Libby and got a conviction on a dubious process crime.

He also confessed to having leaked through a third-party friend, Columbia University Law Professor Daniel C. Richman, his version of the discussion with the President.

His explanation was self-serving and inconsistent. Linda Shelley writes:

Comey wanted to prevent the appointment of a special counsel for Hillary Clinton, who was the subject of an FBI investigation, but he wanted to prompt the appointment of a special counsel for President Trump, who was not the subject of an FBI investigation. He understood that the appointment of a special counsel would send the message, Uh-huh, theres something here and that it would be many months later or a year later before the special counsel would announce that, in fact, there was no case there. Any questions? Heres one: Is President Trump alleged to have done anything illegal or is this investigation just war, by any means necessary, against someone who has put a lot of swamp creatures out of power and out of work? Comey testified that while he was FBI director, Trump was not under investigation by the FBI -- not in a criminal investigation, and not in a counter-intelligence investigation, which, in Comeys words, tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents or covertly acting as an agent of a hostile foreign nation, or targeted for recruitment. In the FBIs judgment, Trump was none of those. Comey revealed to Congress in March that the bureau was investigating possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, yet he flatly refused to tell the public, until his testimony on Thursday, that Trump wasnt under investigation. Comey testified that after he was fired, he orchestrated a selective leak in order to prompt a lengthy special counsel investigation of the president, knowing full well that the FBI had found no reason to place the president under investigation. That is genuinely deplorable.

Sessions' Recusal Was Based on an Erroneous Reading of the Law

Sessions was misled by the Department of Justice lawyers upon whom he relied into recusing himself from any matter involving Russian interference with the election.

Sessions had no conflict warranting his recusal.

Andrew McCarthy, also a former attorney with the SDNY U.S. Attorneys Office explains:

Sessions says that he recused himself, on the advice of career ethics experts at the Justice Department, because he thought this was required by the federal regulation controlling Disqualification arising from personal or political relationship (28 CFR Sec. 45.2). But judging from the public testimony that former FBI director James Comey has given about the investigation into Russias election-meddling, the regulation did not mandate recusal. Section 45.2 states that an official is disqualified from a criminal investigation or prosecution if he has a personal or political relationship with a subject of the investigation or prosecution, or with a person or organization whose interests would be affected by the outcome of the investigation or prosecution.  The probe of Russias interference in the 2016 presidential campaign is not a criminal investigation or prosecution. Moreover, when the reg[ulation] speaks of the subject of the investigation or prosecution, it is using subject as a criminal-law term of art. A subject is a person or entity whose actions are being examined by a grand jury with an eye toward a possible indictment. There are no subjects in that sense in a counterintelligence investigation because the objective is not to build a criminal case and there is no grand jury.

Russian Collusion: Not a Crime in any Event

In the first place, the "Russian collusion" accusation is utterly pretextual, concocted by the media and the Democrats, and it began when President Obama ordered the intelligence chiefs to compose a report on Russian Interference. The Obama administration then spread the flimsy report, hastily put together across the intelligence community, through a supine if not complicit media.

According to the pertinent federal regulation, a special counsel should only be appointed when the Justice Departments leadership determines that criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted, and that investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by the Justice Department would present a conflict of interest or other extraordinary circumstances. (Emphasis added.) So, what is the crime based on which Trumps deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, authorized the appointment of a special counsel? There isnt one. When Rosenstein named Mueller special counsel on May 17, he cited as grounds for the appointment Comeys testimony at a March 20 House hearing. Here is the pertinent testimony: the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian governments efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russias efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. Again, a counterintelligence investigation is not a criminal investigation. And the regulations do not authorize the appointment of a special counsel to perform an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. There is supposed to be evidence showing the need for a criminal investigation before a special counsel is appointed. Prior to this March 20 testimony, Comey had assured Trump that he was not under investigation. These assurances continued after this testimony, even though the testimony happened more than a month after the February 14 meeting in which Trump had lobbied Comey on Flynns behalf -- you know, the Obstruction! Moreover, in closed session in connection with his testimony, Comey told members of Congress that Trump was not under investigationa detail omitted from the directors public testimony. Thus, what Comey informed Congress about was a counterintelligence investigation, which had generated no evidence of Kremlin coordination with the Trump campaign, and no suspicion of wrongdoing by Trump. Based on that, Rosenstein appointed a special counsel.

McCarthy elaborates on why a counterintelligence investigation (not a legal basis for a special counsel appointment) is not a criminal investigation:

This is a huge problem with defining Muellers jurisdiction in terms of the counterintelligence investigation, as deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein did, in violation of the governing regulation. A counterintelligence investigation is not a criminal investigation. The latter focuses on specified factual transactions in which there is reasonable suspicion that a specified crime has been committed. A counterintelligence investigation, in stark contrast, is an information-gathering exercise. There are no limiting parameters to an information-gathering exercise -- intelligence agents always want to know more. Unlike criminal investigations, in which investigators need to prove exactly what happened under rules that limit the kinds of evidence that may be considered, intelligence is all about probabilities. It is a predictive discipline in which all manner of information is gathered since you never know what morsel of triple-hearsay (that would never be admissible in a criminal trial) may help you figure something out down the road. The counsel called for him to determine that a criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted. He did not do that. As a rationale for appointing a special counsel, he cited the investigation then-FBI director James Comey had described in his March 20 congressional testimony. Comey said the investigation was a counterintelligence probe -- not a criminal investigation. He described it as a counterintelligence investigation focused on Russias interference in the 2016 election, including any ties between Trump associates and Putins regime, as well as any coordination between the Trump campaign and Russias interference efforts. None of what Comey described -- other than the hacking that has been attributed to the Russian efforts -- is necessarily, or even probably, criminal. Having ties to Russians is not a crime, and coordination with Russians is not a crime unless it rises to the level of a criminal conspiracy to violate a federal criminal statute. In sum, Rosenstein has failed to describe, in a specific factual statement, the basis for the criminal investigation that purportedly triggered the need to appoint a special counsel -- as the regulations require him to do. That description is supposed to state the parameters of the special counsels jurisdiction so that we dont end up with a fishing expedition.

There are some who argue that Mueller is, in fact, going after the illegal leaking and unmasking that formed the basis of the Russian collusion story, notably Sundance at Conservative Treehouse. But given Muellers prior history with respect to the raid on Congressman William Jeffersons office, in which he -- like Comey -- showed insufficient respect for constitutional prosecutorial limits, I have my doubts.

The Unending Leaks About the Investigation from Anonymous Sources

From Bloomberg:

Leakers are essentially liars. They want the benefit of being trusted with confidences without suffering the cost of keeping what they know to themselves. They sit in meetings and review documents and implicitly promise to keep the secrets, but their actual plan is to decide for themselves which juicy nugget to share with others. In philosophical terms, the leaker always does a moral wrong to the person who entrusted him with the secret. But like most moral wrongs, the leak can be excused if the cause is sufficiently vital. Consider the corporate whistle-blower who brings to the authorities details of horrific misfeasance by his employer. I argued last time that one might plausibly excuse, for example, the leaks by former FBI Director James Comey, who explained his conduct as an effort to force the appointment of a special counsel to look into links between Russia and the Trump campaign. 1 Perhaps others in the rash of leakers in recent months had the same motive. You can decide for yourself whether the motive is sufficient to justify the underlying lie. In any case, now that special counsel Robert Mueller III has begun his investigation, that rationale no longer exists. The individual who leaks whats going on inside the investigation has no excuse. To share the special counsels secrets with a reporter is self-indulgence. To go to work the next day is to intensify the underlying wrong. One might object that the public has the right to know what the prosecutor is doing, but this seems to me mistaken, at least in the short run. The reason to have an investigation is to take the time to work out whats happened. Leaks from within make the job of finding the truth that much harder. In other contexts, prosecutors have rightly been sanctioned by judges for leaking to the press details of their investigations. Here, the identity of the leaker makes little difference. Once we know that the special counsels office -- or perhaps the Federal Bureau of Investigation -- lacks the capacity to keep its secrets, the cost to the witness of cooperating goes up. Now anyone the prosecutors want to interview must weigh the possibility that what he or she says will wind up on the front page of tomorrows paper. 2 It is for just this reason that I argued before that editors are wrong when they insist that their reporters explain to readers why the leaker insists on anonymity. Those explanations (which usually amount to because he was not authorized to comment publicly) are essentially meaningless. What would be enormously helpful to the news-consuming public would be if reporters would disclose instead the leakers motivation.

If these leaks are investigated and come from Muellers shop, the leakers should be prosecuted. But they could come from many sources -- congressmen and senators on the relevant committees, their many staffers (most of whom supported Hillary) their colleagues in the Department of Justice, the FBI and Intelligence Agencies -- in other words, the Deep State. They may think they are only harming the President, but to my eye they are harming their ally, Mueller as well.

Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein warned this week about relying on stories attributed to anonymous officials. But I am certain given the partisan interests of the press and the leakers, they will continue.

In the meantime, Comey, who leaked at least one or more of his self-serving memos -- memos he surely wrote in anticipation of buttressing his testimony in any criminal trial as recollection recorded, an exception to the hearsay rule -- turned them over to the FBI. That agency has refused a FOIA request to hand them over on the grounds that releasing them could reasonably interfere with enforcement proceedings because they are part of a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding.

Presidents Trumps one great advantage in all of this is that he has done nothing wrong, notes Spengler. Lets hope that advantage outweighs all the dishonest maneuvering by the Deep State.
In his February New York Times column titled The Enlightenment Project, David Brooks examined the legacy of the Western Enlightenment and excoriated the supposed anti-Enlightenment threats which, he believes, are arrayed against that legacy today. Part-paean to the ideas of Kant and Locke, part-lament for the supposed rejection of these ideas by the likes of Trump, Putin, and China (who, in Brooks view, are all part of the same anti-Enlightenment trend), his article, if nothing else, displays the deep worry of its author. In a grim, overwrought tone, Brooks declares that we have entered a period of surging anti-Enlightenment sentiment, and are in dire need of an Enlightenment herosuch as Abraham Lincoln, whom he describes as a classic Enlightenment man--to vindicate faith in democracy and the entire Enlightenment cause. Todays racial separatists andpopulist ethnic nationalist movements, he says, are quintessentially anti-Enlightenment, preferring direct rule by one strongman to democracy, and hostile to the rules-based systems, multilateral organizations[and] messy compromises of democratic politics that characterize, in his view, Enlightenment-style government.

Yet, while Brooks article succeeds in showcasing the standard liberal (specifically, socially liberal) beliefs on the topic--lionizing the Enlightenment as forerunner of modern secularism, democracy, and human rights--it hopelessly mischaracterizes the historical reality. The Enlightenment was, in fact, far more varied and rough-edged than many of its modern liberal/moderate admirers care to admit. Brooks and similar commentators have, in recent years, tended to adopt a narrow, sanitized view of the Enlightenment that allows them to claim for themselves what many see as a grand historical tradition while ignoring the more uncomfortable aspects of that tradition. For them, the Enlightenment is the pure source from which the glories of contemporary secular democratic society flow; it is the prototype of their own ideals, which by its arrival on the benighted historical scene brought sunlight into the dark corridors of Western philosophy. In their mythos, the Enlightenment era exchanged gothic superstition for neoclassical rationalism, and began the arduous march to the modern, liberal, secular ideology that they supposedly exemplify. In this narrative, modern social liberalism is the sole inheritor of Kant, Rousseau, Washington, Lincoln, et al. (whom Brooks seems to blend into a composite intellectual whole), and is the defender of authentic Enlightenment ideology--the very wellspring of modernity and democracy itself--which the likes of todays social conservatives (or even worse, Trumpians), can only pretend to represent. Yet, notwithstanding its popularity, this view is easy enough to dispel.

Brookss first error lies in painting with a broad brush. While amidst praise of the Enlightenment project he acknowledges several of its shortcomings--its tendency to write off religion and race, to reduce people to rational egoists, and to install what he describes as soulless technocrats in power--these acknowledgments only assess discrete parts of the wider, and sometimes much darker, Enlightenment project.

It is undeniable that religion and race were prominent in the worldview of several of the Enlightenments foremost thinkers. For some Enlightenment thinkers, their problem was not, as Brooks says, writing off race and religion, but just the opposite. To prove my point, I need only reference Thomas Jefferson, who is, perhaps more than any other man, the representative of Enlightenment thought in American history. Jeffersons belief in the importance of race in human affairs is well known, and not only from his slaveholding. During his life, he authored several intellectual writings on race, including his famous Notes on the State of Virginia (1781), his only book, written five years after the Declaration of Independence. In Notes, Jefferson lays out a thoroughly Enlightenment view on race, utilizing contemporary science and philosophy to argue that the black race is inferior to the white race. Jeffersons influence on this topic, in the words of historian Edward L. Ayers and writer Bradley C. Mittendorf, would be immense. Written as a response to several French officials with whom Jefferson shared Enlightenment views, the book justifies slavery by arguing that, in terms of reason, blacks are much inferior to whites, and possess a dull intellect that renders them unfit for the freedom guaranteed to whites in the new nation. In its use of reason and late eighteenth century ideals, Jeffersons work is a thorough product of the Enlightenment.

Notwithstanding his often unorthodox views on the subjects of religion, Jefferson also referred to Christianity as the purest system of morals ever before preached to man and encouraged the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus in his oft-quoted January 19, 1810 letter to William Baldwin (the main thrust of this letter was to criticize certain American Quakers who Jefferson felt were exhibiting more loyalty to Quaker leaders in England than to the policies of the United States government). In his optimistic February 27, 1821 letter to Timothy Pickering he also wrote: I have little doubt that the whole of our country will soon be rallied to the unity of the Creator, and, I hope, to the pure doctrines of Jesus also. While Jeffersons Unitarian faith was certainly unorthodox, perhaps even radical in some respects, these are hardly the words of a man with a tendency to write off religion.

As an aside, in this article I will refrain from making any reference to Enlightenment thinking as if it had an existence outside the minds of its proponents; it never was, and never can be, anything but what its philosophes wrote and published. It has no existence of its own, and can never become the substitute divinity, the secular replacement for Judeo-Christianity, that some individuals have supposed it can be. In Marxist parlance, the process of Reification is that by which purely human creations are misconstrued as "facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of divine will." I believe that Marxism itself, among other ideologies, is guilty of this in the extreme, and will therefore refrain from falling into the reifying trap.

To return to the main topic, Jeffersons views are echoed by thinkers like Benjamin Franklin and John Locke. Franklin argued in his 1751 treatise Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc., for the multiplication of the purely white race in America--namely, the Anglo-Saxon race--and the exclusion of the swarthy and tawny peoples of southern Germany, southern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Locke, for his part, famously asserted that slaves could justifiably be taken and held under Enlightenment doctrine, and composed the 1669 Carolina Constitution--a document recognized by many historians as an exemplar of Enlightenment thought--with the provision that, Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever.

As Yale history professor David W. Blight explained in a 2008 lecture, White Southern defenders of slavery were--to some extent--like other Americans--products of the Enlightenment Conservativism--deep organic forms of Conservativism--[are] not antithetical to the Enlightenment, at least not entirely. Yet at the same time, as Blight said, many antebellum defenders of slavery went so far as to revile that most conservative of concepts: natural law. If they did not outright reject natural law, they certainly, in Blights words, reviled it insofar as it can be applied to the possibilities of man, meaning his possibilities for personal advancement. We are thus left with an interesting contrast; namely, that while Enlightenment thinkers often adopted ideas, like slavery, that are usually considered extremely retrograde, they did so while rejecting the even more ancient philosophical tradition of natural law. Unlike Enlightenment thought alone, natural law would have, in principle, protected slaves from the most degrading aspects of chattel slavery as practiced in the Americas; it would have, in the tradition of Aquinas philosophical school, defended their inherent humanity.

But there is a further point to make. Both Northerners and Southerners, in Blights phraseology, breathed in the legacy of republicanism from the American Revolution. In this sense, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, and Alexander Stephens, its vice president, can be categorically described as proponents of the Enlightenment. Like Thomas Jefferson, these men believed in Enlightenment ideals of self-government, respected the American founding documents, and argued that negroes were fated for subservience to the white man. In supporting the Confederate Constitution, which shared the bulk of its governmental philosophy with the U.S. Constitution while differing in several key aspects, Davis and Stephens perpetuated the Enlightenment principles of the eighteenth century. Even in his famous 1861 Cornerstone Speech, in which he expounded the foundations of Confederate nationhood, Stephens argued that modern science had disproven the line All men are created equal from the Declaration of Independence, and that slavery was therefore philosophically justified. That the single most significant expression of Confederate political philosophy employs not conservative principles (as the contemporary narrative would have one think) but modern science to justify slavery probably ranks as one of the great ironies of American history.

David Brooks assertion that the Enlightenment is innately bound to democratic ideals also falls flat. In eighteenth-century Europe, the Enlightenments foremost political exponents--King Frederick the Great of Prussia, Emperor Joseph II of Austria, and Empress Catherine the Great of Russia--were all absolute monarchs, immortalized in Western history as the enlightened despots (a moniker also bestowed on rulers like Gustav III of Sweden and Maria Theresa of Austria). The Enlightenment Project, in and of itself, was evidently not enough to spread the democratic ideals that Brooks so extols to the Russian empire. Each of these rulers, while endorsing Liberty, the soul of all things! (Empress Catherines words), respecting a degree of religious freedom (while legally upholding the state church, as Emperor Joseph did), and sponsoring modern philosophers (such as Frederick the Great, who sponsored and corresponded with Voltaire), retained strongman-type dictatorial powers that would probably make the likes of Vladimir Putin blush. Emperor Josephs overweening church policies were enough to spark the first Belgian Revolution in 1789, while Catherine the Great banished thousands of unruly serfs to Siberia without compunction; King Fredericks policy of constant war and military impressment is also a matter of historical record. The few relatively free regimes in Europe, such as the Polish Commonwealth and Great Britain, were free because of their pre-Enlightenment traditions of representational government--the Sejm, the Magna Carta, the British houses of Parliament--not because of the Enlightened despotism practiced by Empress Catherine and defended by Voltaire (who also defended the proposition that blacks were less human than whites). Modern nationalism, too--of which Putin and China are certainly strong proponents--was born in the 1789 French Revolution, the very crucible of the Enlightenment. Furthermore, a number of historians argue that the fundamental impetus for the American Revolution lay not in the eighteenth century Enlightenment movement but, on the contrary, in the older values of Anglo-Saxon parliamentarianism and individual liberty that numerous leading patriots felt were being violated by the British government in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. One need only examine the colonial rhetoric surrounding the inalienable rights of Englishmen during this period, or study John Adams positive views on the tradition of English representative government, for evidence of this argument.

Even in contemporary times, then, the Enlightenment has a mixed ideological impact. As more than one thinker has noticed, Nazism was born in Germany, the very heartland of the Enlightenment. Jean-Jacques Rousseaus view that the state itself represents the will of the people, likewise, prefigures modern totalitarianism, and the nationalism of modern China.

Where does this leave us with respect to Brooks article? Is the real, historical Enlightenment, with all its shortcomings and contradictions, even something that one ought to emulate? Was Abraham Lincoln great because he was a champion of Enlightenment, or for some deeper reason? President Lincoln certainly did not perpetually tell [himself] that religion is dead, as Brooks says Enlightenment figures often do. On the contrary, in his 1861 Inaugural Address, Lincoln declared verbatim that, Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty. And in his 1865 Inaugural Address, he called upon his fellow citizens to have, firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right. When Brooks points to Lincolns faith in Providence and ultimate justice as the factor that let him prevail, he is onto the whole truth, but fails to bring the point to its conclusion. Some aspects of the Enlightenment certainly bequeathed succeeding generations with solid lessons (the philosophy of the American founders being perhaps the prime example), yet the Enlightenment project, even in its sanitized mythic form, can never be the end-all-be-all of our worldview.

The conclusion must be, that while Brooks is free to claim the Enlightenment mantle, he must, by the same token, allow Putin, the Russian tsars, and the old Southern slaveholders to share that mantle. Whether one admires the old Confederacy, adheres to Voltaires views on race, or is a David Brooks-style progressive, one must accept this. But if one wants to find the true grounding for a just, human existence, he should place the lessons and varied principles of the Enlightenment, as President Lincoln did, second to a convinced faith in Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land. This Judeo-Christian ethos--belief in truth beyond amoral utilitarianism--is what truly sets great rulers and societies above the fray; it still is competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.

Jack H. Burke is a member of the Fordham University Class of 2017
There is a tide in academic and political matters that may lead to tolerance and respect for civilized behavior. That surge, if not a torrent, may occur as the result of a decision on June 14, 2017 by members of the Modern Language Association. For some time, members of U.S. academic institutions, succumbing to the pressure of Palestinian groups and their academic fellow travelers, have devoted a considerable amount of time in university gatherings to call for boycotts of Israeli academic institutions and personnel, and in endorsing the Palestinian call for BDS  boycott, divestment, and sanctions  against the State of Israel.

All these misguided activities are in essence attempts to subvert the free flow of ideas and the true nature of university behavior while displaying anger, provocation, invective, sanctimony, and false propaganda, even if not intimating a case for assassination as in the recent New York production of "Julius Caesar." Like the plotters of Caesar's assassination, whose actions led not to a just society, but instead to civil war and the end of the Roman Republic, the rhetoric and the biased and bigoted anti-Israeli resolutions do not lead to any advantage for Palestinians. Rather, they lead to the violation of the nature of higher education and undermining the principles of free speech and academic freedom.

The would-be boycotters and card-carrying members of the BDS movement, like the assassins of Caesar, are haters, obsessed with the supposed villain, in their case one particular country rather than one individual. Happily, some academic bodies are challenging that hatred.

The initial problem is whether academics should respond to political issues outside their supposed professional expertise. Perhaps the vote of the American History Association in 2007 to condemn U.S. participation in the war in Iraq can be considered marginal. But almost all attempts at condemnation of particular political activities concern Israel. Rationally, one would think most members at professional meetings of their academic bodies would be attending sessions concerning their subject, whether anthropology, cultural studies, or psychology, rather than controversial political debates on one particular country.

Does the American Studies Association have a foreign policy? The ASA has a small membership, but the purported teachers of American studies appear to spend time on issues of imperialism and settler colonialism. On December 4, 2013, the ASA voted by 66% of its members to boycott Israeli universities and some Israeli cultural institutions.

The ASA boycott was condemned by a number of heads of universities. Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust on December 20, 2013 said, "The recent resolution of the ASA proposing to boycott Israeli universities represents a direct threat to those ideals which universities and scholarly associations should be dedicated to defend."

In December 2015, the National Women's Studies Association voted, by 88%, for a boycott and endorsed the Palestinian call for BDS. Curiously, it declared that it was "expressing feminist solidarity," though Israel is the only place in the Middle East where such solidarity exists.

But the tide is coming in. The American Historical Association (AHA) in January 2015 reversed its previous position and voted 144-55 against a resolution endorsing BDS. In January 2016, the AHA, by a vote of 111-51, rejected a resolution to sanction Israel over alleged violations of Palestinian academic freedom. The resolution did not call for BDS but was supported by a group of "historians against the war" that had called for BDS in 2005, when two anti-Israeli resolutions were passed.

The American Anthropological Association on June 7, 2016 defeated, though very narrowly, 2,423-2,384, with a vote of 51% of its eligible members, a call for economic boycott of Israel.

The MLA has struck a blow for sanity. In January 2014, its delegates voted, 59-41, for a resolution supporting the Palestinian struggle against racism. In January 2017, at its annual convention in Philadelphia, the Delegate Assembly rejected by 113-79 a BDS resolution but adopted by 101-93 a resolution initiated by the "Members for Justice in Palestine" to condemn Israel. The MLA rules require that measures adopted by the Delegate Assembly be sent to the full membership for approval. Another rule is that 10% of MLA members must vote in favor of a resolution for it to become policy.

In June 2017, there were 18,279 eligible voters, requiring 1,828 votes for ratification. The resolution to refrain from boycotting passed by 1,954 to 885 and thus is policy. The resolution clearly stated that endorsing the Palestinian campaign for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel contradicts the MLA's purpose to promote teaching and research on language and literature. It blocks possible dialogue and general scholarly exchange with Israel.

There is now increasing recognition that BDS is harmful in a number of ways. It prevents, not encourages international cooperation. It does nothing to help the Palestinians, economically or politically. It ignored the reality that Israeli universities are continually increasing the number of Arab students. Today, 15% of bachelor's degree students are Arabs, 10% of master's degree students are Arabs, and 6% of doctoral students are Arabs.

The real meaning and implications of BDS are now clear in three ways. As Lawrence Summers said, boycotts are anti-Semitic in their effect, if not necessarily in their intent. They certainly aim at denying the rights of eight million Israelis. Secondly, many if not most BDS advocates are not really concerned about any particular aspect of Israeli affairs or policies, but are interested in the elimination of the State of Israel. The BDS advocates, like many of the organs of the United Nations, characterize Israel as the only country in the world guilty of abuses, while there is silence on or ignorance of all other countries. The decision of the MLA on June 14, 2017 should start the tide surging in the right direction.
Oh, sweet irony. Dozens of farm workers marched from the state capital of Montpelier, Vermont to a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream factory outside of Waterbury demanding that the left wing "values-led business" negotiate for better wages and participation in the "Milk with Dignity" program.

The founders and original owners of the company, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, sold the company in 2000 to Unilever and are no longer involved in the day to day management of the business. But the multi-national corporation promised to carry on the tradition of socially conscious policies - a promise they have had a hard time keeping in a world where what's necessarily good for the business isn't good for the consumer or workers.

Associated Press:

"We can't wait any more. We are going to pressure them and see what happens," said Victor Diaz, a Mexican immigrant now working on a farm in Vergennes. Ben & Jerry's spokesman Sean Greenwood said before Saturday's march from the Statehouse to the Waterbury factory that the company was eager to reach an agreement and negotiations were underway. "We are a values-led business. We frame ourselves as an aspiring social justice company," said Greenwood. "We try to do good with everything we can with our business. Dairy has definitely been one of those issues we have done a ton of work on for decades." Ben & Jerry's touts its social activism as much as its quirky ice-cream flavors such as Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey and Phish Food. Many of its raw materials, like sugar, cocoa, vanilla, bananas and coffee come from producers across the world that subscribe to the Fairtrade program, which promotes higher prices and better working conditions for farmers. About 85 percent of the milk Ben & Jerry's uses in its ice cream made in North America comes from about 80 Vermont dairy farms. Its Caring Dairy program promotes sustainable farming by offering farmers cash incentives for keeping up with best management practices. The Milk with Dignity program was developed in 2014 by farm workers and the Vermont group Migrant Justice to ensure that farms provide them fair wages and working conditions and decent housing. In 2015, Ben & Jerry's agreed to join the program. Since then, the two sides have been negotiating over the details. "We've been negotiating in good faith," said Will Lambek of Migrant Justice. "It's an unacceptable delay." Greenwood said Ben & Jerry's didn't get the first details from the workers until a year ago and the two sides have been working since then to reach an agreement. "It has to work for the farmers, the farm owners, and it has to work for the businesses involved and that's the complex piece," Greenwood said. "How do you make sure that it will be operationalized so it's a win-win across the board and that's what we've been working on for well over a year now."

Ben and Jerry's can carry on all the social experimentation they wish. As long as they make money for Unilever and their shareholders, there shouldn't be any complaints from free market supporters.

Indeed, the company has almost always made money They sell their products at a premium price and have been building their unique brand since their founding in 1978. But they have always had a "holier than thou" business personae that grates. While claiming to be consumer-conscious, their pricey confections have become a symbol of left wing elitism. So this demonstration by humble farm workers sort of takes the sheen off their socially conscious reputation.

And that's a good thing. A business that pretends to be more than what it is - a vehicle to bring a desired product to the consumer - is an invitation to being charged with hypocrisy when they are exposed as not quite the knight in shining armor they purport to be.
Less than 48 hours before the polls open in Georgia's 6th congressional district for a special election to replace Rep. Tom Price who took a job as President Trump's HHS secretary, and the latest polls show a nearly dead even race.

The most expensive US House race in history, with about $40 million total spent by both candidates, is probably headed for a nail biting finish. The latest poll has Democrat John Ossoff leading Republican Karen Handel by 49.7% to 48% with 2.3% undecided.

A massive number of early voters points to a turnout on election day far exceeding the original guess of about 25%. And with some analysts seeing a surge of GOP voters in early ballots, the bigger turnout in this historic Republican district could favor Handel.

More people voted early in Georgias 6th congressional district for the House seat special election than the amount that did for the 2014 general election. The unprecedented figures were tallied by Georgias Secretary of State, and they showed that 140,000 voters either submitted a ballot in-person or via mail prior to the June 16 cutoff. A few more more paper ballots may be returned before Tuesdays election. The data found that a majority of the 140,309 submitted ballots for the June 20 runoff between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel came from those 50-years and older, and most of the accepted ballots were submitted by voters who didnt identify with a political party in the last primary they voted in. Those are massive numbers for a special congressional election, and high voter turnout for Election Day on June 20 is expected. Michael McDonald, who works for the U.S. Elections Project and is an associate professor at the University of Florida, has been charting the data in the district every day since early voting started May 30. McDonalds charts showed that early voters got out to a hot start, but slowly tapered off as the weeks continued. Initially, the district was on pace to outnumber those that voted early in the 2016 general election. But, as expected, it slowed down a bit. In comparison, there were just 56,459 early voters for the first round of voting in the special election that took place April 18. Those are big numbers in the district, and McDonald predictedthat when tallied June 20, early vote returns will be less pro-Ossoff than the first round of voting.

There will be predictable responses from both sides, regardless of who wins or loses. The winner will claim that the election was a referendum on President Trump while the loser will say that local factors were more important. Ossoff voters appear to be more passionate, with 91% of Democarts having an unfavorable opinion of the president and 78% of Republicans viewing Trump favorably. But there are a lot more Republicans in the district than Democrats and in the end, it will come down to which side has the better Get Out the Vote organization.

The safe money is on Handel. Rep. Price routinely ran up 20+ point victories in his races when he served in the House, although Donald Trump won the district by about 2%.

And Ossoff is hardly running as a "progressive" Democrat even though that's how he's presenting himself to Hollywood leftists and other progressives when fundraising. He stresses his Trump hatred to the base, while his positions on other issues appeal to more moderate voters in the district. Handel, on the other hand, is running as a traditional southern conservative.

Neither candidate excites voters on the stump. But at least Handel can claim the 6th as her home district. Ossoff will be ineligible to vote for himself due to his failure to meet the residency requirement. His carpetbagging status doesn't appear to have hurt him with Democrats, but the issue is there if Republicans want to use it as an excuse to vote against him.

Is this a case of "hidden" support for Trump that the pollsters have failed to catch? I wouldn't bet against that, although I think Handel will win in the end anyway.
On May 31, the Illinois legislature adjourned for their summer break without passing a state budget. There is nothing unusual about this. The state House and Senate are solidly in Democratic control while the Republicans control the state house with Governor, Bruce Rauner and for three long years, the politicians in Springfieild have been unable to agree on a budget. This has led to a fiscal mess that the state comptroller, Susana Mendoza is now referring to as a "massive crisis."

Comptroller Susana Mendoza must prioritize what gets paid as Illinois nears its third year without a state budget. A mix of state law, court orders and pressure from credit rating agencies requires some items be paid first. Those include debt and pension payments, state worker paychecks and some school funding. Mendoza says a recent court order regarding money owed for Medicaid bills means mandated payments will eat up 100 percent of Illinois' monthly revenue. There would be no money left for so-called "discretionary" spending - a category that in Illinois includes school buses, domestic violence shelters and some ambulance services.

Illinois is in a fiscal death spiral. Their bond rating is one step above junk status. And the list of consequences for the state's failure to pass a budget is a tale of woe that no state or territory - not even Puerto Rico's current bankruptcy - can match.

If there is no state budget by June 30, 2017, the Illinois Department of Transportation announced that they would be forced to halt all state projects that could cost 30,000 jobs.

The Illinois Lottery faces threats of removal from the Powerball and Mega Millions if there is no budget by June 30, 2017.

Illinois owes school districts more than $1.1 billion in categorical payments for special education, transportation, bilingual and early childhood services.

Illinois backlog of unpaid bills stood at record $14.5 billion as of May 31, according to Comptroller Susana Mendoza.

The states Medicaid managed care organizations are owed $2 billion.

Centerstone, a non-profit behavioral health organization that helps 16,000 clients in southern Illinois and the metro-east region, has shuttered offices and cut services amid the budget impasse, affecting 700 clients and 39 staff members throughout the state.

The Wells Center, a drug treatment facility in downstate Jacksonville that has been operating for 50 years, was forced to shut down operations because of the budget impasse.

Illinois unpaid bill backlog could hit $25 billion by FY 2019 if the state continues without a budget.

Students and parents are looking to out-of-state colleges due to the unstable climate within Illinois higher education system.

More than 1,500 employees have been laid off at public universities and community colleges throughout the state.

There is much, much more. Editor Lifson wrote today of two scandals at Illinois schools that reveal a culture of mismanagement. You pile the huge shortfall in funds that Illinois colleges are facing after June 30 if no budget is passed and you have the possibility that some schools will have to furlough students and lay off faculty.

How much longer can this intolerable situation continue? The two sides are blaming each other for the budget impasse but it's hard to see how both Democrats and Republicans aren't both to blame. Rauner's austerity budget - which includes property tax relief - is a political toxic waste dump that even many Republicans can't stomach. Meanwhile, the Democrats have proposed a fantasy budget. The numbers being used by Dems are divorced from reality and would result in an even more destructive fiscal situation.

I think both sides are secretly hoping Washington will be forced to intervene and bail them out, although Dems and Republicans claim they desire no such thing. But if the fiscal crisis tips to catastrophe and the poor, the elderly, and other marginal residents begin to suffer the consequences of gridlock, the calls for help from Washington may be hard to ignore.
- T. S. Eliot

Thoughts After Lambeth

"The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide."
President Trump threw one particularly dramatic gauntlet down with his rollback of the Obama goody train to communist Cuba: Demanding the return of U.S. fugitives who have committed violent crimes and then made their way to Cuba to be reborn as 'political prisoners.'

Trump zeroed in on probably the worst case, that of Joanne Chesimard, a brazen cop killer who in 1984 escaped prison and made her way down to Cuba, where she has lived in the lap of Castroite luxury available only to Cuba's communist party elite.

As a crowd of Cuban-Americans in Miami roared its approval, Mr. Trump called on Cuban President Raul Castro to return the fugitives from American justice, including the return of the cop-killer Joanne Chesimard.

It's a paradigm shift, because up until now, if you could brand yourself as leftwing, any crime was considered o.k., given all the supposed 'oppression' of society, that very society millions of Cubans would give their eye-teeth to live in, legally or illegally. Kill a cop? No problem. Just rebrand yourself as a 'freedom fighter' or 'Black Panther' or whatever, put on some ethnic clothes and hairstyles, change your name to something from one of the liberation movements and you are free and clear of any claim to murder. All of that dressing supposedly supercedes the actual conviction in a court of law that the U.S. system provides for without fear or favor. Small wonder some 70 fugitives are hiding out from U.S. justice on this Castroite justice 'alternative' and now clowns like Ed Snowden have fashioned themselves as Wikileaks activists instead of straight-bone traitors. If you can cloak yourself in the fantasy causes of the left, all of your actual crimes will be unimportant.

That would explain why President Obama never gave a rat's keister for the outrageous insult to justice that the Chesimard case represents. Mealy mouthed Obama officials claimed that they brought up the matter privately with the Castroites - but somehow achieved absolutely nothing. They were too busy praising themselves for raising America's "standing" in the world by offering Castro a no-concessions-necesssary roundheels deal on diplomatic and trade relations..

It's disgusting when you think about it.

The left has already demonstrated with its recent stunts against President Trump and the assassination attempt against a congressman that it thinks it has a right to violence provided the target is a political opponent. Now the Castroite paradigm is that U.S. justice is worthless and no one should ever be held to account, provided he or she is leftwing.

The two seem to be related. Trump's signal in Miami is that that double standard is about to come to an end - perhaps across a broader, wider culture than just the Cuban farce would indicate.
Berkeley or Trollhatten, Sweden? You cant tell the players without a program. Breitbart reports that Antifa tactics are popping up among jihadi youth in Sweden.

Swedish police in the city of Trollhattan were attacked by up to a hundred masked migrant youths armed with sticks and bats during a riot in the Kronogarden suburb on Thursday. The masked migrant youths attacked the officers during the second night of rioting in the area. They also attacked the officers vehicles, slashing the tyres of two police cars. Only one man was arrested in connection with the riots, Swedish paper Aftonbladet reports. The riot is said to have dramatically escalated after several youths attempted to set a tyre on fire in the street and a security guard intervened to put out the fire. The guard was then attacked by the youths who threw stones at him. Peter Asp, the communications officer for the City of Trollhattan, said the riots were power struggle for territory in the district among rival gangs.

The struggle seems to be over which gang will control the no go zones. Wait until Antifa hears about no-go zones and tries to implement them here!

The seeming harmonic convergence between the global radical left and the global jihad is popping up all over the world. Both groups seek destruction of the modern world order built upon striving for material gain, and in the process generating wealth for society. Both groups seek a totalistic utopian state that would dictate the proper way to love for all to obey. The details of that utopia can be worked out later between the jihadis, who want a seventh century theocracy, and the progressives, who want well, the details are a little fuzzy, but they are sure it will be better with them in charge.
The outcome of a trial in Albany, New York this week is an omen of more fake hate crime hoaxes to come. Two black students that were convicted of a fake report of a racial hate crime to police  to cover up their own misbehavior -- and will get off with no jail time. Hardly a disincentive for future racialism hoaxers. The Albany Times-Union reports (hat tip: Gateway Pundit):

An Albany County jury on Wednesday found two former University at Albany students guilty of falsely reporting a hate crime on a bus full of drunk college students last January, but cleared them of assault and other charges. (snip)  the jury found them guilty of some but not all of the counts of false reporting that they faced  namely, the counts alleging they falsely reported an incident when they called 911 and posted on social media that they had just been the victims of a hate crime. On the 911 calls, Agudio can be heard saying "I beat up a boy" and "I had three bitches down" before an operator picked up the call. Both women told operators that they had just been jumped on a bus by a group of white people because they were black. Not long after, they took to Twitter to lament the alleged attack. They were cleared of two false reporting counts, however, that pertained to reports they gave to Albany Police Officer Tracy Sandoval and Police Sgt. Louis Aiossa.

The case was anything but low profile, when the girls made their accusations:

The case was steeped in controversy from the moment it was reported. Agudio and Burwell called police immediately after leaving the bus on Jan. 30, 2016, to report they had just been jumped by a group of white men and women because of their skin color. The bus driver didn't do anything, they said, and neither did the passengers on the bus, who just watched or recorded the assault on their phones. But public outrage and sympathy soon turned to anger when video surveillance from the bus was released and appeared to show the opposite: the alleged victims attacking white passengers on the bus. Agudio and Burwell were expelled. A friend of theirs who was on the bus that night and also reported the alleged crime, Alexis Briggs, was suspended after authorities deemed she played a lesser role in the brawl. She accepted a plea deal in court last summer, and told a judge she "should have done more to correct the narrative and truthfully explain what happened on the bus."

Here is the video:

In this age of hypersensitivity to even the most microscopic of racial offenses, phony hate crime accusations are inevitable. Claiming racism automatically confers presumptive victimhood upon members of a protected class when disputing something with the unprotected classes. The Fakehatecrimes.org database reveals the extent of the plague, yet the mainstream media are loath to consider the extent of the problem.

The convicted girls knew that they were playing a trump card, and did so to hide their own culpability as aggressors. These fake hate crime reports are a cancer on race relations, alienating people from one another, leading to spiraling hatred. The only way it canbe fought is to pass laws making a false report of a bias crime subject to the same punishment as the purported crime itself.
See also: More fishiness in the ramming of USS Fitzgerald

Under no circumstances should a U.S. Navy vessel possibly be damaged by a container ship at sea. Multiple systems exist to prevent this. Even CNN is noticing how little we know about the catastrophe that took the lives of seven sailors and almost caused a powerful warship to founder.

The USS Fitzgerald, an anti-ballistic missile destroyer that was part of the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group, will no longer be ready to defend the carrier and other ships from missile attacks launched from North Korea, should push come to shove in the current confrontation with the rogue regime on the threshold of the capability to attack New York, Los Angeles, and our power grid with nuclear missiles. This is an incident that could affect the outcome of a nuclear confrontation of historic moment.

Brian Joondeph yesterday noted how the media have distorted what really happened by reporting a "collision," as if the ships randomly bumped each other in the fog or something. The truth is that the ACX Crystal, a ship with somewhat murky provenance, rammed into the Fitzgerald with calamitous results:

[Vice Adm. Joseph P. Aucoin of the 7th fleet] described the damage as "extensive," adding that there was a big puncture and gash below the waterline on one side of the ship. He also said three compartments were severely damaged. "The ship is salvageable ... [it] will require some significant repair," Aucoin said. "You will see the USS Fitzgerald back ... It will take months, hopefully under a year."

Retired rear admiral John Kirby describes for CNN the extent of the chaos unleashed:

First, we know the crew fought heroically to save their ship and the lives of their shipmates. We know that from early reports by Navy officials but also from the images that flashed across our screens, our tablets and our phones after the incident happened early Saturday. One look at the crushed, twisted starboard side, the hoses flaked about, the water being discharged, the frantic work being done tells you all you need to know about the stuff you can't see in those same images: a fiercely brave crew working together to staunch the flooding, to rescue their shipmates and to save their ship. You can be certain they ended up drenched, exhausted, scraped and bruised -- but not broken. They kept that ship from foundering for 16 brutal hours. And they brought her back into port.

We received an email from a Navy mother that raises serious questions. We will redact her name, while the rumors (and that's how they must be categorized for now) reported by her son aboard the Fitzgerald are checked out. Here is what she wrote to us:

My son is assigned to the USS Fitzgerald. I am unable to share his rate with you.

The information is short and not so sweet. The implications are disturbing.

The ship is registered in the Philippines. We do not know who the owner is. The container ship neither had its running lights or transponder on. That is an action taken willfully. Furthermore, for the container ship to strike with such accuracy is troublesome. Given what some have done with cars in Europe, what a feather in the cap it would be to sink a U.S. Navy warship. Think on that.

My son missed being washed out to sea by the blink of an eye. He was on his way to one of the berthing areas that was rammed.

Yes, language is important. "Rammed" is the perfect word.

Loving and Concerned Navy Mother

If there is any substance to this  that the ACX Crystal disabled protective systems and rammed the Fitzgerald at high speed aimed at critical facilities (evident from the damage)...

...we have to consider the possibility of an asymmetric warfare attack designed to disable the missile defense of a carrier strike group, as North Korea demonstrates the ability to make exactly such attacks on a multibillion-dollar warship carrying thousands of sailors.
There is a very good reason behind the growing divide between conservatives and liberals, and it has nothing to do with rhetoric, parties, over-sensitivity, or generally uncivil thinking.

It involves shared principles of government and the sad reality that we no longer share many (if any) with the political left in America.

For much of our nation's existence, parties argued over the wisest means to the same end. Under that paradigm, compromise is possible.

But what happens when one party decides to head to an entirely different destination?

The Democratic Party of today stands as a thing apart from the nation as founded. The platform of the Democratic Party declares an agenda largely incompatible with individual liberty and requires the abrogation of constitutional government to achieve.

There is no possible compromise between those who respect and wish to preserve (and restore) constitutionally limited government and those who want to scrap it in favor of some form of government-centric collectivism.

Therefore, there exists an ever widening chasm between men like myself and men like Hodgkinson, the Alexandria shooter.

Now, the most important takeaways from this terrible and avoidable incident is the recognition of that chasm, acceptance of its necessity and hopefully, the realization among those on the left that it is they who have created it by abandoning our founding values in favor of the failed and corrosive ones we have already fought multiple wars to defeat.

Dismiss the calls to "meet in the middle" on "common ground." Meeting someone halfway who is already over the cliff simply takes you both to your deaths.

Wild-eyed, over-the-top rhetoric has, like the poor, always been with us and always will. The solution to our present issue lies not in restricting speech, or in attempting to regulate what is and isn't an acceptable form of advocacy, but instead to honestly examine the root of the divergence of opinion.

Overheated rhetoric is a trigger to men like Hodgkinson, but it did not create him. The effort to supplant our constitutional republican form of government with collectivism of some form or another deserves the blame for that. It is that parting of the ways that has created the chasm between us, and there can be no compromise with an attempt to overturn our form of government. Elections permit the transfer of power in our system to occur based on the wishes of the governed, expressing their will by supporting a candidate.

Winning an election grants the power to determine the policies and direction our government will pursue during the winner's term of office. It does not grant the winner the power to change the form of government itself.

Another nation waging war against us does so to gain control over our people, our resources, and our land by defeating our government and replacing it with its own.

When one political ideology advocates doing precisely the same thing, its place of residence is irrelevant. An enemy is an enemy (from within or without) and is accorded that status not by location, but by intent.

Were conservatives to meet liberals halfway in this instance, we would have to participate in treason to do so.

It is the left that needs to return to supporting and defending constitutional government. Conservatives never stopped.
Thanks solely to Gods Grace, America narrowly avoided a mass political assassination. One can argue about the degree of culpability, but it is undisputable that the Democrat Resistance, and its ongoing campaign of political intimidation and violence, was the major contributing factor behind the attack. For nearly a year, the Trump administration has been under investigation for a myriad of ever-evolving accusations; to date not one scintilla of evidence has been discovered of any crime committed by the President. Yet the cries of Traitor Trump! and Impeach 45! and Blood in the Streets! continue unabated from the Democrats while their campaign volunteers morph into black-masked thugs assaulting peaceful assemblies of citizens and mutate into political assassins targeting the opposition party.

Finally, the near entirety of our elected officials and political class have spoken out against the latest violence, albeit with varying degrees of conviction. After all, it did take an attempted assassination of members of Congress to get them to speak out at all; mere citizens being beaten with bike locks for exercising their constitutional rights of speech and assemblymeh. Yet even after a mass assassination attempt, there are two politicians who remain conspicuously silent  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. These two leaders of the Resistance could easily defuse the current situation. They could publicly accept the results of the election and acknowledge the Russia investigation is a fabricated dead-end  Donald Trump is the duly elected President and there is no there there. A joint Obama-Clinton televised statement accepting the election as valid and acknowledging the investigation as a political witch hunt would immediately remove the heat from the boil that America has become.

Yet Obama and Clinton both remain silent. No statement condemning the worsening political violence of the Resistance despite not one shred of evidence that its founding principle -- that Trump is a Russian stooge who stole Hillarys election with Putins help -- is comprised of anything more than bong smoke. It is clear to all but the most extreme fringe that there is no act, no conduct, no crime committed by Trump that will overturn the election and hand the Presidency to the Democrats. One would also hope that neither Obama nor Clinton so hate and despise this country that they want it destroyed out of spite for their loss. So why no statement from Clinton or Obama condemning their Resistance as it has so completely spun out of control into insanity?

While nearly a year of FBI, Senate, and House investigations have uncovered exactly zero, zilch, nada evidence of any conduct by Trump that is even remotely illegal, some evidence has been discovered. Evidence that the Obama administration may have abused its power and used the national security apparatus to spy on the Trump campaign. Evidence that the Obama Justice Department likely put its thumb on the scale to end the Clinton email investigation. Evidence of preferential treatment by Secretary of State Clinton to Clinton Foundation donors. Evidence that Clinton likely benefitted financially from Russian entities in exchange for favorable treatment by the U.S. government while she was Secretary of State.

Indeed, mounting evidence of collusion, corruption, obstruction, and abuse of power is slowly being discovered, yet Trump is not the culprit. Obama and Clinton are. Evidence now points directly at Obama, Clinton, and the leadership of the Democrat Party as the guilty ones. Guilty of colluding with the Russian government for financial gain to the detriment of Americas security; Clinton approved the sale of 20% of our uranium reserves to the Russians in exchange for millions in donations to the Clinton Foundation. Guilty of corruption for selling access to the Secretary of State to Clinton Foundation donors; anyone who would not pay to play for an audience went to the back of a very long and very slow line. Guilty of obstructing justice to stop the Clinton email matter in its tracks; it is hard to win an election when your partys candidate for President is under indictment for intentionally exposing Americas secrets and threatening its security. Guilty of abusing the power of the Office of President to spy on political opposition; after all, Clinton was a shoe-in to win so who would ever know Obama committed an act of domestic spying that makes Watergate look like a bad fourth-grade class play.

So why are Clinton and Obama silent? Why have they not openly accepted the results of the election and called for a halt to the endless investigations of nothing? Why have they not called off the Resistance to spare our nation and its citizens from its baseless and senseless violence? Why not? Because Obama and Clinton are the ones who are guilty of collusion, corruption, obstruction, and abuse of power. Because Obama and Clinton are the ones who are traitors to their country, engaged in open and violent acts of sedition. Because Obama and Clinton, when they no longer control an army of brown-shirts, goons, and assassins that constitute a credible threat of violence, will be the ones arrested and prosecuted for their crimes to the full extent of the law. And that is why Obama and Clinton stay silent and let the Resistance march onwards to its horrible and grotesque conclusion.
Time for America to Support Indian Claims on Jammu and Kashmir

The dispute between India and Pakistan over the territory of Jammu and Kashmir has gone on for many years. With a government in India that is more open to close relations with the United States, as well as continuing problems with the United States-Pakistan relationship, now is an excellent opportunity for recognition of Indian claims over Jammu and Kashmir by the United States, which has the potential to help strengthen the United States-India relationship. The history of the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir dates back to the partition of India in 1947. Initially, the maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir had considered declaring independence. That option was scrapped after attacks by Pakistani raiders and the maharaja was granted armed assistance from the Indian government. The maharaja decided Jammu and Kashmir should be part of India and ceded authority over defense, communications, and foreign affairs to the Indian government.1

The war between India and Pakistan ended on January 1, 1949, when the United Nations arranged a ceasefire. An armistice line formed where the fighting had stopped and that line has largely marked the zone of control since.2 In addition to the general dispute, there have been several hot conflicts in the region since the ceasefire was signed in 1949. This includes the Kargil War, which resulted from Pakistan's view that it could probe and eventually dominate India through small scale operations under a nuclear umbrella.3 Historically, there have been issues with the relationship between the United States and India. During the Cold War, India had close ties with the Soviet Union. President Richard Nixons support for Pakistan during their conflict with India in 1971 harmed relations with India. While President Ronald Reagan sought to mend relations with India in the 1980s, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had hostile views towards the United States and these efforts did not lead to many results.4 After the Cold War, there were attempts to strengthen ties between the United States and India during the administration of President Bill Clinton. These attempts had several setbacks. One setback was the Clinton administration's policy of nuclear nonproliferation, which sought to eliminate nuclear weapons globally, including in India. Another setback was when Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robin Raphel questioned the legitimacy of Jammu and Kashmir's accession to India in 1947 in response to a question from an Indian reporter at the National Press club in Washington, DC.5 Relations with India improved somewhat under the administration of President George W. Bush because he shifted the non-proliferation strategy towards India since India's nuclear capability did not threaten the interests of the United States and acted as a counterweight to China's nuclear weapons program.6 Since the election of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister of India in 2014, United States-India relations have improved substantially. Examples of areas where relations have improved include civil nuclear energy cooperation, upgrading defense cooperation, and arriving at a common understanding of various international issues. The overall increasing ties between India and the United States present an opportunity to increase those ties further. In contrast to India becoming more open to close relations with the United States, America's relations with Pakistan have been strained. Pakistans military hiding Osama bin Laden has been a source of strain with the United States-Pakistan relationship and is a sign that it would be in United States interests to shift towards a more pro-India position. Pakistan's assistance towards the covert nuclear weapons of nations such as Libya, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea has also caused tensions with the United States. Pakistan has also been forging a closer relationship with China. The $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which is being built as part of China's 'One-Belt, One-Road' initiative, would give China direct access to the Indian Ocean via the Pakistani port of Gwadar. India has expressed concern about this since the road goes through the Pakistani occupied portion of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan's growing ties with China present another common threat that both India and the United States share concerns about. India also has the stronger claim under international law. Under the principle of uti possidetis iuris, emerging states presumptively inherit their pre-independence administrative boundaries. As a result the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir's decision to integrate into India, this means that the full territory of Jammu and Kashmir belongs to India, even though Pakistan may be occupying a large portion of it. Recognizing Indian sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir would be a component of soft power. Soft power is a form of power projection that convinces others to do what you want without the use of resources by using attraction, unlike hard power which uses resources to engage in methods such as coercion or payments. Doing this would mean that there is a higher likelihood that India would support some of our foreign policy goals than they otherwise would. Relations between India and the United States have been improving in recent years, but there is still room for further improvement. American recognition of Indian sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir is one step that can further strengthen that relationship. Footnotes Cohen, Stephen P. Shooting for a Century: The India-Pakistan Conundrum. The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC: 2013, 7. Ibid, 7-8. Ibid, 130. Ganguly, Sumit and Mukherji, Rahul. India Since 1980. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY: 2011, 42. Ibid, 43-44. Ibid, 47. Zachary Leshin is a former congressional staffer who has worked extensively in foreign policy.
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blog spot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

.

..Carolineglick.com..17 June '17..It may very well be that this week was the week that Israel and the US put to rest former president Barack Obamas policies and positions on Israel and the Palestinians.If so, the move was made despite the best efforts of Obamas team to convince the Trump administration to maintain them.The details of Obamas policies and positions have been revealed in recent weeks in a series of articles published inregarding Obamas secretary of state John Kerrys failed peacemaking efforts, which ended in 2014.The articles reported segments of two drafts of a US framework for a final peace treaty between the PLO and Israel. The drafts were created in February and March 2014.The article series is predicated on the assumption that Kerry and his team were on the precipice of a historic breakthrough between PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. But a close reading of the documents shows that the opposite was the case.There are two reasons that Kerry had no prospects for reaching a deal.First, he, Obama and their advisers were too hostile to Israel and its citizens to ever convince Netanyahu that Israels interests would be secured.A February 2014 draft framework agreement, which was based on conversations Kerry and his team held with Netanyahu and his advisers, makes this clear. The draft includes Netanyahus demand that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria not annexed to Israel would remain in place after the implementation of a peace deal, and presumably, become towns in the future Palestinian state.In other words, Netanyahu demanded that the Israelis in Judea and Samaria whose towns would be located in the territory of Palestine would enjoy the same rights and protections as Israels Arab citizens enjoy.Kerry and his team would have none of it. The February draft agreement notes, [US] negotiators need to check with PM [Netanyahu] on whether he wants to [maintain this position] They believe that if so, he will push strongly for in place. In place is inconsistent with US policy and therefore unacceptable to us as well as the Palestinians.In other words, the position of the Obama administration was that all Israelis living in areas that would become part of the Palestinian state must be forcibly removed from their homes and communities.reporters Barak Ravid and Amir Tibon recalled that in previous rounds of negotiations, the Palestinians  unlike the Obama administration  had not rejected this Israeli position out of hand. That is, in demanding the mass expulsion of Israeli Jews from their homes, the administration adopted a policy more extreme than the PLO.Then there is the problem with the PLO.Abbas rejected Kerrys February 2014 draft framework agreement, which was based on conversations with Netanyahu and his advisors. But he also rejected Kerrys March 2014 agreement, which was based on the USs conversation with him and his advisors.The March 2014 draft was presented to Abbas by Obama himself during a meeting between the two in the White House. Not only did Abbas not accept Obamas offer, he refused to respond to it.This should have surprised no one. Abbas did the same thing in 2008 after then-prime minister Ehud Olmert presented Abbas with his peace proposal. Abbass predecessor, Yasser Arafat, responded in the same way in July 2000 to then-prime minister Ehud Baraks peace offer, and in December 2000, to then-president Bill Clintons peace offer.Given the consistent track record, it is beyond foolish to believe that anyone  even Trump  will fare differently from his American and Israeli predecessors.Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Haaretz series is what they tell us about Netanyahu.Like him or hate him, the Netanyahu revealed in the articles is a brilliant statesman. In difficult diplomatic conditions, with the US openly siding with the PLO against him, Netanyahu managed to parry and duck. Although Haaretz tries to present Netanyahu as weak and compliant, the text shows that the opposite was the case.In the face of massive pressure from Obama, Netanyahu refused to commit to anything. His only recorded position was that all Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria remain in place in perpetuity.Rather than confront Kerry directly, Netanyahu stood aside and watched as the Americans drafted their anti-Israel proposals. He nodded. He smiled. He refused to commit to anything.And he waited patiently for Abbas to walk away from the table.Until this week, much to the dismay of many of his supporters, Netanyahu appeared unwilling to move beyond the defensive position he maintained throughout the Obama presidency. This week he took three great big steps forward.First, Netanyahu announced that he supports amending Israels NGO law to ban foreign governments from funding political nonprofits registered in Israel.For the past 20 years, Israel has been subjected to ever-escalating subversive campaigns funded and often directed by foreign governments and carried out by Israeli-registered NGOs. The purpose of these campaigns is to legitimize political and economic warfare against the Jewish state by European and other Western governments. The campaigns legitimize political and economic warfare against Israel by demonizing the Jewish state, its citizens and its soldiers.In recent years, lawmakers have tried repeatedly to block the funding. But due to US pressure, Netanyahu scuttled all their attempts. Proposed reform bills were watered down until they were limited to instituting weak reporting requirements. Foreign government funds continue streaming into the coffers of NGOs whose positions are supported by no significant domestic constituencies.By announcing that he now supports passing legislation that will bar foreign government funding of nonprofits, Netanyahu is striking a strategic blow at the political and economic war being waged against Israel by the EU and by the international Left.This war, waged in the name of the Palestinians, has harmed Israels relations with the Palestinians by discouraging them from living peacefully with their Israeli neighbors.Then there is UNRWA. The UNs refugee agency dedicated to the Palestinians is arguably one of the central reasons for the perpetuation of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Indeed, UNRWA was formed by the Arab governments to specifically block all prospect of peace between Israel and its neighbors.UNRWA prevents the permanent resettlement of the Arabs who left Israel in 1948 and 1949 as well as their descendants. It has doomed five generations of refugees to live in the squalor of its camps, blocked from receiving citizenship in the countries of their birth and prevented from being resettled in other countries.After Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni decided that the best way to respond to the move was by massively increasing UNRWAs budget. They were unmoved by the fact that UNRWA employs Hamas terrorists. They ignored the fact that UNRWA schools in Gaza and elsewhere indoctrinate their students to embrace jihad and the cause of Israels annihilation.Under Obama, the US increased its payments to UNRWA even as UNRWA schools, clinics and other facilities have been used as missile launching pads and storage depots in Hamass war against Israel.This week, Netanyahu finally put to rest the dangerous folly that UNRWA is a foil to Hamas and a positive force in the region. He called for UNRWA to be dismantled and for the Palestinians and their descendants to be treated like every other refugee group in the world and be resettled by the UNs high commissioner for refugees.If Netanyahus move against UNRWA is translated into actual Israeli and US policy, it will mark the beginning of the end of one of the primary causes of the Palestinian conflict with Israel.Finally, there is incitement. Palestinian terrorism would vastly diminish were it not for constant incitement that encourages terrorism and rewards and celebrates terrorists.Since it was established by the Qatari regime in 1996, Al Jazeera has been a central engine of antisemitic and jihadist indoctrination of the Palestinians. And yet, Israel has never moved to close Al Jazeeras bureau in Israel.Israel has given the terrorist network a pass largely because it hasnt wanted to deal with the Western outcry that such a move would provoke.This week, for the first time, Netanyahu, along with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, announced they support Al Jazeeras closure and have directed their staff to consider the best way to do so.In so doing, Netanyahu and Liberman are making the most of the opportunity afforded Israel by the Arab states open cleavage with Qatar. Last week, Saudi Arabia and Jordan closed Al Jazeeras bureaus in Riyadh and Amman. Egypt, which closed Al Jazeeras offices in 2013, blocked its website.Taken both separately and together, Netanyahus moves this week strike strategic blows at three central components of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Incitement, political warfare and the eternalization of Palestinian refugee status all render the conflict intractable and prevent peaceful Palestinian leaders from emerging.Notably, whereas the Obama administration would have subjected Israel to hysterical condemnations if Netanyahu had dared to take the steps he took this week, the Trump administration has taken no position on Netanyahus announcements.The real reason that Trump appears to be burying Obamas legacy is that unlike the ideologically- driven Obama, Trump is willing to consider evidence and facts when determining his opinions.In May, Abbas came to the White House and told Trump that he abjured terrorism. Israel then presented Trump with evidence that Abbas publicly incites terrorism and uses the Palestinian Authority budget to support terrorists and their families.Trump took in the information and upbraided Abbas for lying to him.True, this week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson falsely told Congress that Abbas had cut off the payments. And true, Tillerson doubled down on his assertion after both the Palestinians and Israel said the payments have not been cut off.True as well that Trump continues to believe that he can make the deal that his predecessors failed to secure.But the fact is that Trump has given Netanyahu support as he has walked away from the failed policy paradigm of the Obama years.In other words, Netanyahus moves this week, and the fact that the Trump administration has left him alone to make them without being second-guessed or condemned by Washington, indicates that we have finally moved past Obamas legacy.Where we are going is still unknown. But what is certain is that by going after the sources of the continued malignancy of the conflict and pushing back against the lies that informed Obamas policies, both Israel and the US have abandoned them.
Extremists demands for collective guilt unite Grenfell, Manchester and London

Grenfell Tower: Get angry, stay angry. Overthrow the Government. Blood, blood, blood on your hands.

Manchester and London: Dont get angry. Lets love one another.

Horrific events have claimed many lives in London and Manchester. But the message being delivered to the masses is different. After the horror of fire at Grenfell Tower, the message is, as one Labour MP demands, to get angry, stay angry. Burn neoliberalism, not people, says another Labour MP. Others on the Left want to marshall the dead to overthrow the Government. Blood, blood, blood on your hands, comes the chant. May must go. There will be a march on Number 10, the protesters demanding change and promoting the narrative that only a socialist government prevents such horrors; that only the Left does compassion.

As one commentator puts it: The protesters outside No10 seem to be using the template of the Mark Duggan affair, which preceded the 2011 London riots: no justice, no peace.'

Justice delayed is justice denied. We want to know what happened whilst the matter is high on the news cycle and all parties involved are compos mentis. After Hillsborough, we fear that the long march towards justice will be a limp towards no-one being to blame. The dreaded lessons must be learnt must not be the end game. That must not happen.

But this protest and demand for justice is being shaped by party politics. The horror at Grenfell Tower is rooted in so much bad planning, greed and neglect perpetuated by successive Governments for decades. If you blame the Tories, then surely you must blame Labour, too, and the coalition which oversaw social housing.

As the far Left clambers over the ruins and co-opts the dead into campaigning for a Labour win at the next General Election, we should recall how different things were after Islamists attacked London and Manchester. Then it was all about love. Only the Far Right were using the dead to promote their own monocular agenda and bigotry, demanding collective blame for all Muslims. Love not anger was the watchword. Be unified. Feel love. Dont give in to hate, ran the mantra delivered by media and politicians. There was no circumspection and sensible, rational debate about an ideology that kills children at a pop concert. No-one sane wants to be branded a racist or Islamophobe. But to talk openly about such things is to foment civil unrest and unleash the impressionable masses  those race-rioters-in-waiting. Better to hold up the light on your mobile phone and sway in unity.

In Manchester, officialdom and the medias fear of public opinion drowned out a quest for the truth, the central responsibility of journalism. After Grenfell, public opinion is sacrosanct. Both responses are founded on the same matters: fear of the masses and a profound lack of leadership, somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better things than we can get ourselves to do on our own. Corbyn is slippery and nuanced. May is stark and spent. Wheres the leadership?

The Truth.

I dont agree with politicising the Grenfell Tower horror. Politics matters, but to divide the response along party lines limits us. The horror was eminently preventable. Political policies is at least partly to blame. But to make it all about the Tories is wrong, just as it is wrong to blame the actions of deranged mass murderers on to much freedom of speech, radicalising preachers, religion or a response to our behaviour.

Narrowing the debate applies blinkers to any inquiry and stymies a clear quest for truth. Thats not to invalidate the activism and the anger. We feel the passion, the sense of outage and hurt. Not just hashtags and candle-lit vigils for Grenfell. Fury. Protest. Noise. The people will be heard. Good.

But it wasnt so after Manchester and the attack on Borough Market and London Bridge. When children and families were murdered at a pop concert, we were told to behave, to embrace one another and to remain passive. As another voice notes: If the massacre of children and their parents on a fun night out doesnt make you feel rage, nothing will. The terrorist has defeated you. You are dead already.

We need openness to discern right from wrong. We need gritty, unflinching commitment to say what we believe in, not to have our views dampened by official decree. Making a statement is not a simple state of being. We work hard at what we want in a disciplined way. We crave integrity. But without clarity, and objectivity, our demands are shrill, bigoted and shallow.

Anorak

Posted: 18th, June 2017 | In: Key Posts, News, Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink


The study includes aerodynamic improvements in particular new, large winglets and other wing refinements that allow for up to 4% fuel burn savings. Added to an optimised A380 maintenance programme and the enhanced cabin features first shown at Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) in April, the overall benefit is a 13% cost per seat reduction versus todays A380, the European manufacturer said..

John Leahy, Airbus COO Customers, explains: The A380plus is an efficient way to offer even better economics and improved operational performance at the same time. John adds: It is a new step for our iconic aircraft to best serve worldwide fast-growing traffic and the evolving needs of the A380 customers. The A380 is well-proven as the solution to increasing congestion at large airports, and in offering a unique, passenger-preferred experience.

The new winglets measure approximately 4,7 metres in height (an uplet of 3.5m, and a downlet of 1.2m). It is designed to improve aerodynamics and reduce drag.

The optimised cabin layout based on the cabin enablers presented at Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX), allows up to 80 additional seats to 575 seats with no compromise on comfort: redesigned stairs, a combined crew-rest compartment, sidewall stowage removal, a new 9-abreast seat configuration in premium economy and 11-abreast in economy.

The A380plus will have an increased maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of 578 tonnes providing the flexibility of carrying up to 80 more passengers over todays range (8,200nm), or flying 300nm further.

The A380plus also features longer maintenance check intervals, a reduced six-year check downtime, and systems improvements, which will reduce maintenance costs and increase aircraft availability.


Where are they? Where are the posts by those who almost daily blast President Trump calling him an illegitimate president and a traitor? Where are their posts denouncing this recent attack on a member of Congress? Where is their rejection of a "play" in Central Park depicting a character representing President Trump being stabbed to death in a parody of the death of Julius Caesar?



Where is the man obsessed by the Tea Party who boasts that he is "a real American" or the man "who fears for America" presumably because Trump won? Where are their denunciations of this bloody attack, the reprehensible rhetoric, the Portland anarchist riots, the stabbing parody or Kathy Griffin's deranged photo?



Do they not see the Left is just normalizing violence by people against government officials they don't like or even despise? I can't imagine their outrage if this hate was directed toward Mrs. Clinton. I remember their posts attacking unidentified Tea Party members for supposedly spitting or taunting. And they were quick to assign motives. But where are they now?



CNN posted some very nasty rants against "Mr Trump & Company" on this Bernie Sanders campaign worker's Facebook page and now CNN reports he had a hit list of Republicans. Actually it was a kill list. So when are the people who call Republicans and conservatives witless, racists and bigots going to see they might be contributing to an atmosphere of violence?



When one finally does get around to making a comment it will most likely be a lecture on the need for gun control or how disturbed this man was.



Ralph Miller

* * *

"There is no difference between these two groups - ISIS and Liberals."







Courtesy of Chattanooga Tea Party Facebook Page. Posted June 16, 2017.

Melissa Cantrell

Signal Mountain

* * *

Thank you, Mr. Miller, for your post. Hopefully they are in classes learning respect and how to become gracious in defeat. They, along with main street media, have stooped to all time lows and doubtfully will they ever gain respect in their reporting or talk. They are destroying this country from within and are doing more damage to their party then they can begin to realize. If they continue on this same path I fear the day will come when the right decides they have had enough and take control of the situation just as these 63 million people put our great President Trump in office.

For the most part the right is an extremely patient and non violent bunch. However if you continue to back a dog up in the corner sooner or later he is going to come out fighting.

Never was I a fan of Obama but he was our president and he garnered respect and support from the majority of the right for eight years. I didnt block streets in protest, hold a head depicting decapitation, staged a play killing him, etc., etc. I didnt like him but at least I had enough respect for our country to avoid violent protesting with hate filled passion.

Time for the right to take control of their violent people and put them in place. Then maybe they can gain my respect someday as a party of intelligent people with different views then mine. I can respect them for their views even though I disagree and can do this with class, not violence. I was raised a hard core Democrat in the 60s and 70s and we never acted like they do now. Eventually I became independent and voted for those I liked the best because of their views. Now Im pretty much a solid Republican and support their agenda 99 percent.

Keep on draining the swamp, President Trump.

Michael Mansfield
What did the legendary Russian experimental theater director Yevgeny Vakhtangov (1883-1922) have in common with Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma!, and Carousel? The immigrant director of these landmark Broadway productions, Rouben Mamoulian, was to some degree a Vakhtangov disciple.

Mamoulian took Broadway by storm in 1927 with his staging of Dubose Heywards novel Porgy. At the age of 30, he was an overnight star, an apostle of radically integrated musical theater imposed by a singular directorial vision. Mamoulians fame drove him to Hollywood, where he hired Richard Rodgers to through-compose music for Love Me Tonight (1932)  a supreme musical film that subverts and surpasses Ernsts Lubitschs film musicals. It may be plausibly inferred that Mamoulian introduced Rodgers to the strategies and ideals that would make Oklahoma! and Carousel Broadway break-throughs. In short: Mamoulian is a forgotten hero of American musical theater  and the influence of Russian experimental theater on mainstream Broadway is a story even more forgotten.

I became aware of the magnitude of Mamoulian when writing Artists in Exile: How Refugees from European War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts (2008). Subsequently, I plundered the Mamoulian Archive at the Library of Congress and discovered that Mamoulians impact on Porgy and Bess was more fundamental than anyone had imagined. He single-handedly turned Heywards novel into a musical redemption drama (Porgy the play was already full of singing) eschewing Heywards efforts to authentically represent the African-American Gullahs of Charlestons Catfish Row. (I reported these findings in On My Way  The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and Porgy and Bess.)

How indebted was Mamoulian to Vakhtangov? Its an elusive topic because Mamoulian preferred to present himself to Americans as a self-created genius. And yet descriptions of the Vakhtangov studio  of which Mamoulian was part sometime during his Moscow years 1915-1918  fit the Mamoulian mold. Vakhtangov was a Stanislavski disciple who rejected Stanislavskis verisimilitude. Rather, he espoused fantastic realism wedded to total theater. Like Stanislavski, he cultivated an aesthetically bonded community of actors. Unlike Stanislavski, he was obsessed with choreographing sound and music  with rhythm and tempo. His detractors complained of a surfeit of detail, of elaborate artifice and a failure to project interior feeling. All of this fits Mamoulian  especially his hyper-ambitious Porgy and Porgy and Bess productions, preceding a long and erratic decline accelerated by the influence of Hollywood and a bad marriage.

A century later, Moscows Vakhtangov Theater endures. Rimas Tuminas, its Lithuanian artistic director since 2007, is today a reckonable force in Russian theater. His award-winning Vakhtangov production of Chekhovs Uncle Vanya, first given in Moscow in 2009, is currently enjoying a short run at New Yorks City Center. To what degree Tuminass Vakhtangov Theatre retains the imprint of Yevgeny Vakhtangov I have no idea. But this Vanya seems to fit the bill. It rejects verisimilitude. It embraces total theater and a consuming directorial vision (what we today call Regietheatre). And, most strikingly, it integrates music more pervasively than any production I have ever encountered of a classic play.

In fact, a musical score composed by Fautus Latenas is a constant ingredient. Latenas has supplied a series of minimalist mood vignettes, each a short refrain incessantly repeated. The volume is usually low, but there are also crescendos and climaxes aligned with Chekhovs text. This could be a recipe for kitsch if the score were deployed to underpin the mood on stage. But that mood is polyvalent, and more often than not the musical component is ironic. Sonias excrutiating scene with Dr. Astrov, for instance, is played to a tart waltz.

In a useful interview in the City Center program book, Tuminas says:

Chekhov looked at peoples desire to be happy and thought, My god, you are so funny! You daydream and expect happiness, knowing full well that its impossible! He sees all these poor, holy crearures who want something and are reaching for something even though theres nothing up ahead, and it makes him smile a kind, forgiving smile. Thats probably why theres so much humor in his plays. Its deeply hidden, but if we can grasp it, perhaps well understand something important about our own lives.

I would not call the humor in Tuminass Uncle Vanya deeply hidden. Sergey Makovetskiy, who plays Vanya (in the photo above), is virtuoso mime. Limping and disheveled, ill-attuned to lifes requirements, he projects the pathos of a W. C. Fields or Buster Keaton. A reading more distant from Michael Redgraves famous English-language Vanya is scarcely imaginable. At the plays beginning, the news of the Professors arrival animates Vanya hilariously. The pompous formality of the entrance itself, accompanied by a fawning retinue, equally invites laughter. But this tone is not sustained. The contradictory vectors dialectically at play  humor vs. pathos, music vs. action, attraction vs. repulsion among the variegated dramatis personae of the Serebryakov estate  are at all times exquisitely unpredictable.

The Professor himself is cast against type. Vladimir Siminov is a big, robust actor whose credits include Othello and Pushkins Boris Godunov. His Aleksandr Vladimirovich is surprisingly libidinous but sufficiently preposterous. Sonya, Maria Berdinskikh, is a gamin. Neither she nor Makovetskiys Vanya could credibly run a rural Russian estate.

The elusive affect of this production is not the concentrated bittersweet aura we know as Chekhov  and whose aching vacancy is supported by silence, not music. I thought the use of the Hebrew prayer Kol nidre (played by a solo trumpet) as a type of theme-song was a miscalculation  it does not invite submissive repetition under the dialogue. Otherwise, I found the production engaging at one or another level at every unforeseen twist and turn.

In Rouben Mamoulians 1935 Porgy and Bess, I got plenty o nuttin was accompanied by a set of empty rocking chairs moving to and fro in time with Porgys song, as were the needles of women sewing. In Tuminass Uncle Vanya, pre-recorded musical cues precisely dictate the timing of a spoken phrase. What any of this may have to do with the legacy of Yevgeny Vakhtangov remains a tantalizing question.
These stars may have made their names in the Hindi film industry, but its not what they would choose for their kids.

While on the one hand Bollywood is known to be the land of glitz and glamour, where all ambitions can find wings, the other side of the industry sees a lot of careers fizzle out, without as much as a whimper. And that is probably what seems to have scared Saif Ali Khan.

The actor, whose career has seen an upswing in the past decade, is currently waiting for his daughter, Sara Ali Khan, to enter the film industry. The star kid, Saif and Amrita Singhs daughter, is all set to make her debut, purportedly opposite Sushant Singh Rajput in Abhishek Kapoors Kedarnath.

But Saif, like any parent, is apprehensive about her future prospects. In an interview to a publication, the actor expressed his dismay at her wanting to join Bollywood. Look at where she studied. After having done that, why wouldnt she want to live and work in New York, rather than do this? he asked, adding that while he did not look down on acting, it wasnt the most stable profession, and he wanted the best for his child.

Trishala Dutt

Saif isnt the only superstar who hoped his child would choose another profession. Sanjay Dutt jokingly mentioned earlier this year that he would have broken her legs had his daughter Trishala chosen to act. He added that he considered acting a tough job, and had invested time and effort to put her through college and get her a safe job.

In terms of a career, reveals film historian S.M.M. Ausaja, The industry is highly unpredictable. One needs to have a good mix of talent, and luck to sustain in this industry.

The film historian says that the fears star parents have are valid, citing the example of Sunil Anand, the son of Dev Anand, who himself was a larger-than- life figure. Even Yash Chopras son (Uday Chopra) for that matter. The only advantage a star kid gets is a decent launch. As guardians, no one would like to see their progeny suffer.

An industry insider, on the condition of anonymity, informs us, Somewhere, theres also a belief that movies arent a real occupation. Knowing how fickle the industry and the associated fame can be, some of these stars would rather their kids do well in a regular job, says the source. The pressure of being here is also intense. Being able to handle the fame and constant media scrutiny is a difficult job, and the actors know all about it.

The legend of the illustrious Kapoor familys daughters not being allowed to get into the industry till Karisma broke the taboo is a well-known one. And its not just Saifs daughter. His sister, Soha Ali Khan, too claimed that she entered the film industry against the wishes of her family. I went against my parents will and my brother was terrified, said Soha, who holds a Masters degree from the London School of Economics. Saif said that our parents would blame him because I left my job in a bank and lived with him in Mumbai and that this is all his influence.

Then theres also the ugly side of the industry that the actors are familiar with, and undoubtedly would want to shield their children from. Theyve seen the darker aspects of the film industry, and hence want to keep their children away from all of this, especially the girls, the insider source adds.

The resistance is natural because of the culture clash, explains Ausaja. Actresses especially are supposed to shed a lot of inhibition. Naturally, being a conservative society, the resistance makes sense.

However, filmmaker Karan Anshuman rubbishes the apprehensions, and says that the film industry is a far cry now from what it used to be. In fact, the industry has become a lot more professional than ever before. Its a proper job that falls under the gamut of performing arts, and it should be treated as such. Also with the constant scrutiny that the film industry faces, theres more reason to realise that its alright to be here. Kids should be allowed to make their profession in their chosen field. After all with Bollywood stars, its what theyve grown up seeing their parents do, he concludes sagely.

 With inputs from Somudra Banerjee
A senior police official said that no one has been given permission to hold such a rally in the hills.

Security personnel trying to stop Gorkha Janamukti Morcha supporters who were staging a rally in Kurseong during their Darjeeling bandh on Friday. (Photo: PTI)

Kolkata: Darjeeling is bracing for another shutdown as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leadership has decided to hold a protest rally with the bodies of two persons allegedly killed during Saturdays clashes.

The GJM claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari. Police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.

A senior GJM leader said on Sunday, We will conduct the rally at Chowbazar with the bodies.

Police declined the permission to hold such a rally. A senior police official said, No one has been given permission to hold a rally in the hills.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said the ongoing agitation in Darjeeling hills was a deep-rooted conspiracy supported by insurgent groups of the northeast and some foreign countries.

The GJM rubbished the allegation, saying Banerjee was trying to malign the Gorkhas fighting for their identity.

Police, who have been on high alert after Saturdays violence and arson, conducted route marches with the army in several parts of the hills.

Police pickets and barricades were placed in front of the government and GTA offices, and various entry-exit points of the hills. Several woman police personnel have also been deployed.

Except for medicine stores, all others shops and hotels remained closed in Darjeeling.
The situation remains tense as the indefinite bandh called by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has entered its seventh day on Sunday.

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has spoken to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the law and order situation in Darjeeling where the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) has been leading a violent protest for seven days now.

Rajnath on Sunday took to Twitter and informed Mamata Banerjee had apprised him of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling.

"Spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Sushri Mamata Banerjee on Sunday morning. She has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling," he tweeted.

Spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Sushri Mamata Banerjee this morning. She has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) June 18, 2017

He further appealed to the people to help maintain peace in the conflict-hit region.

"I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence," he added.

The situation remains tense as the indefinite bandh called by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) has entered the seventh day on Sunday.

As many as 36 policemen were injured on Saturday in clashes with the GJM supporters.

The GJM announced an indefinite strike from Monday encompassing Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts and the Dooars protesting against Mamata Banerjee's decision to make Bengali language compulsory in state-run schools.

The strike was called even after the Chief Minister assured that the new rule would not be imposed in the hill districts.

The protestors are also asking for a separate Gorkhaland, a long pending demand of the people of the hills.
Bradley County Commission Vice Chairman Jeff Yarber is proposing that there be separate elections for the two seats in each commission district.

There are seven districts with two seats each.

Currently, the top two vote-getters are elected to the district's two seats.

Under his plan, each district would have a Seat A and a Seat B. Candidates would announce which seat they are vying for.

No candidate could run for more than one seat.

A resolution making the change will be before the commission on Monday.
Tamang's comment comes in the backdrop Banerjee's claim of 'deep-rooted conspiracy' in Darjeeling Hills.

Darjeeling (WB): The GJM on Saturday ruled out any discussion with West Bengal government but said it is "comfortable" in holding talks with the BJP-led government at the Centre.

The BJP is an ally of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) and party MP S S Ahluwalia had won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Darjeeling with its help.

"We are not ready for talks with West Bengal government. Mamata Banerjee has insulted us, she has called us terrorists," GJM leader Binay Tamang said.

"We are fighting for our right and freedom. We will talk only with the central government. We are not interested in talks with Mamata Banerjee and her TMC government," he said.

Tamang's comment comes in the backdrop Banerjee's claim of "deep-rooted conspiracy" in Darjeeling Hills supported by insurgent groups of the NE for helping the GJM in its demand for a separate Gorkhaland.

Banerjee said she is ready for talks but not under the current situation.

GJM supremo Bimal Gurung has accused the state police of letting lose atrocities on the people of the hills and said the time has come for an all out fight for Gorkhaland.
Farmers who are financially better off and professionals and government employees also into farming will be left out of the scheme.

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government will ensure with the help of a digital platform that only needy farmers benefit from its loan waiver scheme, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has said.

Fadnavis said his dispensation took the decision in view of the big scam which occurred in Maharashtra after the then UPA government at the Centre wrote off debts in 2008, which, he said, deprived distressed peasants of the benefits intended for them.

The Maharashtra CM said the state government had formed a joint committee which would work out within a week, the conditions to ensure who should benefit from the waiver.

He suggested that farmers who were financially better off and professionals and government employees also into farming be left out of the scheme.

Fadnavis observed the waiver -- announced on June 11 after a widespread farmers' agitation -- would further stress the debt-ridden state, as his government would require to raise Rs 25,000 crore or more for this.

"But it can be managed," he said at a recent interaction organised by BJP's 'Good Governance' department in Mumbai.

He said implementing the relief measure would "take some time" and added the government might create "some financing instrument" to tackle the situation after the waiver.

Fadnavis also said decisions by Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh to waive farmers' loans in their states led Maharashtra peasants to demand similar relief, which prompted his dispensation to announce the waiver.

He ruled out speculation that the move would cause prices to rise in the state and elsewhere.

"There was a big scam when loans were waived in 2008 in Maharashtra. The CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) gave a very critical report on it, noting small farmers had not benefited, while the big ones looted money. So our biggest challenge now is to avoid such cases," he said.

Only farmers who needed the relief should benefit from it, he stressed. Fadnavis praised his Andhra Pradesh counterpart, N Chandrababu Naidu, for doing a good job in using a digital platform to eliminate duplication of bank accounts after the AP government wrote off farmers' debts in the southern state.

"We are thinking of adopting such a model. A decision will be taken at a cabinet meeting this month," he added.

Fadnavis, however, stressed that loan waiver was "not the ultimate solution" to end the miseries of farmers. Capital investment in the agriculture sector was a challenge before his government. The government was constructing one lakh farm ponds, digging as many wells and had embraced drip irrigation as part of such investments, he said, adding that the state government had invested Rs 25,000 crore in the agriculture sector.

"The challenge will be to keep doing this on a sustained level notwithstanding the loan waiver," he said.

To a question, Fadnavis said "some" political parties tried to spread violence from behind the scene when the farmers' stir was on. "If you look at the FIRs filed in places where violence was reported (during the stir), it is not the farmers, but political leaders who have been named," he said.
The arrest of a senior Army officer attached to the Eastern Command from the city causes embarrassment to the army top brass.

Kolkata: Blowing the lead of corruption in defence procurement within the Indian Army, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested a serving Colonel and three officials of a Pune-based private company in a bribery deal of Rs 1.80 lakhs. The accused, Colonel Shaibal Kumar of planning & engineering branch of the Indian Army, is posted at the Eastern Command headquarters: Fort William in Kolkata.

The three others are Sharat Nath, managing director; Vijay Naidu, director of M/s Xtech Equipments Pvt Ltd and Amit Roy, the Kolkata representative of the private firm. The arrest of a senior Army officer attached to the Eastern Command from the city is rare. It is bound to cause embarrassment to the army top brass.

Sources revealed that three among the four accused, including the Colonel, were arrested from the city on Saturday evening. They were produced at the court which remanded them in CBI custody till June 22. Mr Nath who was arrested by the CBI in Pune is now being brought to Kolkata on a transit remand, sources added.

The CBI's anti corruption branch registered a case on June 17 against the Colonel and the three senior officials of the private firm under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and section 7, 12 and 13(2) and 13(1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act.

According to a CBI statement, the Colonel had demanded a bribe of Rs. 1.80 lakhs from Mr Nath of the private company in connection with the supply of Power Pack Rock Splitters which are used by various field formations of the Army. It elaborated, "The Colonel was alleged to have already demanded and accepted a bribe of Rs 50,000 during February in 2017 and as part of the second installment of the bribe, the Colonel has now accepted Rs 50,000 from the accused company."

The CBI said it tracked the director of the private firm "who had come from Pune to deliver the bribe to the Colonel and nabbed him after the payment of bribe to the Colonel. CBI caught the Colonel and recovered the bribe from his residence."

CBI spokesperson R K Gaur said, "Searches have been conducted in four premises at Pune and two premises at Kolkata. Further investigation is continuing."
Ayush Ministrys booklet that advises pregnant women to abstain from sexual intercourse and non-vegetarian food has stirred up a debate.

With the suggestions stirring up a debate, we ask experts if non-vegetarian food and sexual intercourse during pregnancy can cause harm to women.

Of the many beliefs and myths revolving around what pregnant women should and should not do, abstaining from non-vegetarian food and intercourse are the latest to go under the scanner. The Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (Ayush Ministry) recently advised pregnant ladies to eat no meat, have no sex, and think spiritual thoughts in its booklet, Mother and Child Care, which was distributed at an event to mark the run-up to Yoga Day.

With the suggestions stirring up a debate, we ask experts if non-vegetarian food and sexual intercourse during pregnancy can cause harm to women.

Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, author of Sanjeev Kapoors Cooking for Pregnant Women, says that most of the nutrition requirement during pregnancy can be fulfilled with vegetarian food as well. Vegetarian food covers all the nutrient requirements that non-vegetarian food does. Vegetarian food is also easily digested. So, theres no harm in opting for vegetarian food during pregnancy. Generally in India, chicken has a lot of antibiotics, the content of mercury and lead in seafood is also quite a lot, and when it comes to meat, there are issues related to its slaughter. So, maybe because of these issues, there have been suggestions of avoiding non-vegetarian food so as to avoid unnecessary hormonal or nutritional changes in the body, he says.

However, he agrees that in his many years of experience, he hasnt heard of any harmful effects of non-vegetarian food, but says its a matter of personal choice.

Any food that you eat will give your body signals if its suitable for you or not. I suggest one takes ones own test, and you would know what works the best for you, he adds.

Agrees actor Tara Sharma, host of The Tara Sharma Show on parenting and maternal childcare. She feels one cannot generalise when it comes to making food choices. While I havent ever heard of anything like this, I would still say to each their own. You should follow what works for you and consult your own doctors because everyones body and pregnancy issues can be different. Personally, I dont think one can generalise at all, she says.

Dr Vinita Salvi, author of The Pregnancy Handbook for Moms. terms the suggestion complete nonsense. She says, Non-vegetarian food is an excellent source of protein and red meat is a rich source of iron. We should make sure that the food is hygienically prepared and properly cooked, be it vegetarian or non-vegetarian.

About abstaining from sexual intercourse during pregnancy, she says, Its all a question of a persons comfort level. If there are instances of risks such as preterm labour, then I would advise abstaining from sex. If there are no high-risk factors, then there is no problem in having sex during pregnancy, says Dr Vinita.
Police said, the incident came to light after a 44-year-old woman filed a police complaint against the Rohini resident.

Police said the incident happened on Saturday on an Indigo flight from Hyderabad to Delhi. (Photo: File/Representational)

New Delhi: Police have arrested a 56-year-old man at Indira Gandhi Airport in New Delhi for allegedly masturbating on-broad an aircraft from Hyderabad.

Police said the incident happened on Saturday on an Indigo flight from Hyderabad to Delhi.

It came to light after a 44-year-old woman filed a police complaint against the Rohini resident, the police said.

In her complaint, she said she allegedly saw the man, who was seated next to her in the flight, unzipping his pants and masturbating.

She brought it to the notice of the flight attendants who then allotted her another seat, police said.

After the aircraft landed, the man was arrested.
Two of the three accused was arrested on Friday and the juvenile accused was apprehended.

The juvenile was nursing a grudge against Gulfam and had even gone to the latter's house to threaten him. (Photo: Representational/ File)

New Delhi: Two men have been arrested and a juvenile apprehended for allegedly killing an 18-year-old boy after he refused to lend his scooter to one of the accused in northeast Delhi's Nand Nagri area, police said today.

On June 15, Gulfam was stabbed and beaten by the three accused in a park after he was forcibly taken there from his house, the police said.

Gulfam was shifted to a hospital where he was declared brought dead, Devender Arya, additional deputy commissioner of police (Northeast).

His sister told police that Karan, Sunny and the juvenile took her brother to a park. Karan and Sunny caught hold of Gulfam while the juvenile attacked him with a knife, said the police officer.

Karan and Sunny were arrested on Friday and later the juvenile was also apprehended.

During interrogation, Karan and Sunny told police that Gulfam and Sunny were friends. Few months ago, the juvenile had asked Gulfam for his scooter. However, Gulfam denied and slapped the juvenile, said the officer.

The juvenile was nursing a grudge against Gulfam and had even gone to the latter's house to threaten him of dire consequences, he said.

Karam and Sunny decided to help the juvenile since they were friends with him. On June 15, they hatched a plan to kill Gulfam.
The gunmen killed Shahjahan near his house at Ghoraberia and his brother Saleem at Mundeswari river ferry ghat almost at the same time on Friday.

Two persons, including a woman, were also injured when the assailants fired on Sheikh Saleem. (Representational Image)

Howrah: Two local leaders of the Trinamul Congress (TMC), who were also brothers, were shot dead separately in Howrah district, the police said on Saturday.

The gunmen killed Shahjahan near his house at Ghoraberia and his brother Sheikh Saleem at Mundeswari river ferry ghat almost at the same time on Friday. Two persons, including a woman, were also injured when the assailants fired on Sheikh Saleem. They have been admitted to a hospital, the police said.

Altogether 16 persons have been arrested in connection with the double murder since Friday and arms and ammunition were seized from their possession.

Senior TMC leaders Firhad Hakim, Mukul Roy and Sultan Ahmed on Saturday visited the house the brothers.
The CM alleged the GJM has violated the national code of conduct.

Kolkata: Describing the violent movement of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) has a "terrorist" connection, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said she would request the Centre not to encourage them (morchas).

"We formed the Gorkhaland Territorial Association (GTA) five years back with the involvement of the Centre. You have enjoyed your power for five years. Now with the elections ensuing, you are unleashing violence as you have lost credentials in the Hills. From where are they getting this strength? I will request the Centre not to encourage them. If anything happens to foreigners, the blame will not be only upon Bengal but the whole country," Mamata said at a press conference in the state secretariat Nabanna.

She alleged the GJM was receiving foreign funding to foment trouble in the Hills. From where are they getting illegal money and arms? There is deep-rooted conspiracy and foreign links are very much visible. The Centre must extend full cooperation to us to restore normalcy and peace in the Hills, the chief minister said.

Her statement assumes significance as the Centre recently turned down the states proposal of sending additional Central forces in Darjeeling, claiming the state should first send a report regarding the overall situation in the Hills.

Mamata, whose outburst came following an IRB commandant, Kiran Tamang, sustained critical injuries, said she has information that the GJM is maintaining contact with a northeastern terror outfit. This is not a political agitation. This is terrorism. They have connections with northeastern underground insurgency group. They are working with a terrorist brain. she said.

The CM alleged the GJM has violated the national code of conduct. They were hurling bombs with national flags in their hand. Who does that? In spite of the high court declaring the bandh illegal, they are not abiding by the order, she said.

When asked whether she is ready to hold talks with the morcha for the sake of peace, the CM said, I am ready to hold talks if they withdraw their violent movement and illegal bandh. Talks cant be an option when the Hills are burning. They have to come for talks in a democratic way. I am always ready to talk for the sake of peace. The Hills do not want Bimal (Bimal Gurung), they want peace, she added.

Top officials of the 15 Hill Boards in Darjeeling met the CM at Nabanna on Saturday. A committee under Lyangsong Tamsang was formed, which declared they would advocate for the restoration of peace in the Hills. The CM directed home secretary Moloy De to hold an all-party meeting in Siliguri on June 22.

GJM spokesperson Binay Tamang, however, ruled out any possibility of talks with the state and said they will hold talks only with the Centre. We will press for our demand of Gorkhaland.
Amit Shah, who was on a three-day tour to Mumbai, released the biography on the Hindutva icon V.D. Savarkar.

Mumbai: After the recent Rajasthan textbook controversy, a fresh debate has erupted in Maharashtra over the demand to introduce controversial Hindutva icon Vinayak Damodar Savarkars biography in schools and colleges. Former Shiv Sena MP Bharatkumar Raut made the demand before BJP president Amit Shah on Sunday. However, scholars and academicians have slammed the demand, terming it as an attempt to saffronise textbooks.

Amit Shah, who was on a three-day tour to Mumbai, released the biography on the Hindutva icon V.D. Savarkar at Savarkar Smarak on Sunday. Shiv Sena MP Bharatkumar Raut, who was present at the event, said that the government should make efforts to introduce Savarkars biography in schools and colleges.

Objecting to the demand, Satyashodhak Communist Party leader, Professor Pratima Pardeshi said that it would lead to the glorification of the Hindutva icon. Savarkars views were anti-Muslim and anti-women. He supported the two-nation theory. Books have been written about the negative side of his character. But here, they are talking about his glorification through the biography. It is nothing but Brahmnisation of history. There is no need for students in the modern age to learn it because it will make their views myopic and narrow their thought process, Mr Pardeshi said.

Gandhian activist Dr Vivek Korde ridiculed the demand, highlighting that Savarkar had sought a concession from the British government. There were many freedom fighters in Andaman jail whose contributions were more significant for the freedom movement. They did not even seek any concessions from the British government like Savarkar. After going to the jail, Savarkar changed drastically and remained away from the freedom movement between 1934 and 1947. Will the syllabus makers tell this real history to the students, Mr Korde said.

Ram Puniyani, a writer and activist, said that the believers of Hindu nationalism, who are in power, are trying to change the content of the textbooks to match their political ideology of Hindutva. The RSS and the Shiv Sena do not have any icon who was part of the freedom movement. Partly, they can stretch and make Savarkar as a freedom fighter to take away attention from Nehru and Gandhi, Puniyani added.

However, professor Surendra Jondhale from Department of Politics in the University of Mumbai said an unbiased version should be introduced. I feel that authentic biography should be taught and Savarakars ideas should be critically discussed, he said.
The RSS-BJP has never come this close to occupying the Presidents office, why should they leave this opportunity.

K.C. Tyagi, in the thick of things as far as forming a united Opposition against the Narendra Modi-led BJP government is concerned, spoke with Sreeparna Chakrabarty about presidential elections and farmers unrest

He is in the thick of things as far as forming a united Opposition against the Narendra Modi-led BJP government is concerned. A close aide of Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar, K.C. Tyagi has made use of his political contacts to bring together 17 Opposition on a common platform. The former Rajya Sabha member says that the coming presidential polls would be a test case for Opposition unity and might pave the way for a bigger consolidation ahead of the 2019 general elections.

What is the road ahead as far as a united Opposition is concerned?

Since the first joint meeting of Opposition parties called by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on May 26, the chances of Opposition unity have become brighter. The presidential polls are a test case as far as Opposition unity is concerned. From here we might go ahead and form a large anti-Modi force to counter the ascendance of rightwing forces. Everybody agrees that we need to be together to stop the communal forces.

But there are already doubts over a joint Opposition presidential candidate, with many parties saying that they will have to rethink if the ruling partys candidate fulfils their regional criteria.

There is nothing like that. All this talk about a consensus candidate is an attempt by the BJP to try and break the Opposition ranks. The RSS-BJP has never come this close to occupying the Presidents office, why should they leave this opportunity. Look at the way they are talking to all parties individually. They are trying to divide us. If we are looking for a candidate together, then they should speak to us in the same voice. The fact that they are not serious is evident by how the ministers came over to meet without any names. This is non-serious action on the part of the government.

Has anybody spoken with your party from the government side?

No. Not yet. We are waiting. But our stand is that any candidate proposed by the ruling side needs to be secular. He or she has to be qualified enough to occupy the high constitutional position. Only impeccable secular credentials would satisfy us that the person concerned can be the President.

So already there is a rethink on the Opposition being together?

You have to understand that whatever happens, the coming together of all 17 parties has put pressure on the government. The recent incidents in Mandsaur the way the farmers have come together is all due to this momentum of the presidential polls. And it is due to these massive farmers protests that the government is now trying to break Opposition ranks. They are under pressure. Farmers are out on the streets everywhere. In fact, I just wish that the NDA does come out with a hardcore RSS presidential candidate, then the Opposition will unite further.

Are any back-channel talks on as far as presidential polls are concerned?

There are no talks at all. It is a non-serious attempt at building consensus. If they dont have names, then what are they going around meeting people for? They have instead asked for names from the Opposition, I heard.

Who are the Oppositions candidates?

Many names have been written about. Our sole criteria is that the person should be secular enough and have the respect and authority to occupy the high constitutional position.

Do you have any plans of scaling up the farmers agitation?

Of course. We are already working on that. This government has failed the agriculture sector miserably. They have not fulfilled the promises made in their election manifesto of 2014 of providing MSP plus 50 per cent cost of production. Instead, they have been shifting goalposts by saying they will double farm incomes by 2019. However, in this agitation, it is the farmers organisations which have to take the lead.
Last Thursday night a call came in at the 911 center in Fort Worth, Texas, from an elderly man who said in a weak voice that his air conditioner had conked. He was suffering. Being a low-priority call, it took officers William Margolis and Christopher Weir a long few minutes to get there  it was that hot. After all, as Margolis would say later, We arent AC techs.

Nope, turns out the two officers are far more. In Texas it gets hot, really hot, and in Tarrant County the summer sun can be brutal.When they arrived at Julius Hatleys place, the temperature inside the house was somewhere between 85 and 90 degrees so the policemen got the old gentleman out on the porch where it wasnt quite as bad. Julius, a kind 95-year-old black man, said he sure was thankful. The police got some cold water in him and wiped his face with a wet towel.

Before the officers left, Margolis told the World War II combat veteran hed see what he could do and not to worry, that hed be back. As they drove away, I imagine the conversation went something like this: You know, Chris, that old man is there by himself and this heatll kill him This aint right. Hes a veteran. Deserves better than this.

Yeah  what would you think if we took our dinner break over at Home Depot?

Without another word said, Margolis cut a path to the Depot and, once there, the two policemen went to the air conditioner counter. They explained they were hunting a deal, maybe a window unit that had been returned and didnt have a box, or a marked-down model. They told the two Home Depot clerks the story and not only did they find a good unit for a good price, the two officers discovered the Home Depot folks were much of the same mind they were.

While they were buying the unit, they got another $150 off after the store employees passed the hat faster than a rabbit could run. They radioed their supervisor, explaining they were going to install a window unit for Mr. Hatley, and by the time they got there a couple of other Fort Worth police cruisers were at the curb, carrying screw drivers, hammers and enough strong arms to set the unit with ease.

As with murders, robberies and fatal car accidents, word about the air conditioner got around the squad room at the precinct house. Thats where a bunch of cops  knowing none of them had the pocket change to buy an air conditioner on the spot  lessened the load Margolis and Weir had accepted when they paid the bulk of the units cost. Everybody chipped in what they could.

Soon a TV station caught wind of the kindness and the media got in on the thing. News reports revealed the central air in Hatleys house had given out a few years before. Pictures and news tape of Mr. Hatley grinning with his two Samaritans showed Julius well-kept but humble house in the background, especially brought into focus when Mr. Hatley explained he could still keep up with yard work despite the heat.

Well sir, shortly the telephone rang at the precinct house. Fellow said in a deep Texas drawl that he was a veteran, too, and needed directions to the Hatley house. Said hed been blessed and owned a right good-sized air-conditioning company. Wanted to eye that busted central-air unit. Said he had two crews ready to go right then. And it will not cost the gentleman one dime. Ever. Service contract included.

Phone rang again. Man needed to know how to get to the Hatley house. Said he had one of the biggest construction firms in Fort Worth. Believed if he could replace all the windows and repair the frames, it would really help. Said he had a supervisor, a foreman and a couple of carpenters saddled up and ready to ride out, if you know what I mean?

Phone rang again. The vice president of a huge commercial painting company needed to know how to get to the Hatley place. Said he had an eight-man crew standing on the back dock and figured now would be as good a time as any to start sanding, caulking and get down some primer. Miss Vivian has her swatch book in the car and shell maybe make a suggestion or two but Mr. Hatley will pick the colors. No sir, no sir, no sir  Aint gonna be no bill. That was paid-in-full round 60 or 70 years ago, believe you me.

Phone rang again. Hey, you reckon the roofs good on that Hatley House? I got a bunch of squares of good shingles  dont know how many it may need but Ill guarantee I got more n itll take. A bill? Me n the Lord already worked all that out. All that war veteran is gonna get from here is a 30-year guarantee and  hey  if hell outlast that, the next roof gonna be free too!

Phone rang again. I apologize if I am not talking to the right person. I would be most appreciative if you could direct me properly. My husband and I were very touched by the officers who were so wonderful to help the elderly World War II veteran. We would like to send our representative to see him and arrange to buy his groceries every week. We want to remain anonymous but we would like to do this  well, I guess you could say for the rest of his life. Whatever he wants to buy, wherever he wants to buy it, as much as he wants to get  We would like to start as soon as we can  and, um, do you know of anything else he might need, like a good refrigerator or anything like that 

There aint no telling when that phone is gonna ring again. But dont fret  you just let it. Look-a-here, its just been over a week since the window unit conked! Officers Argolis and Weir now loop by the Hatley place once or twice a day and seems like there sure are a lot of construction vans lining up and down the street.

Now it turns out somebody  no one knows who because they paid in cash ... went by all the utility companies in Fort Worth and the cable bill has just been prepaid ahead for over a year. Its the darndest thing you ever saw. Proves one thing beyond a shade of doubt  you dont mess with Texas.

Hey, you too can get in on the act. When you thank the Lord for his blessings, remember Fort Worth police officer William Margolis and Christopher Weir, and for the undeniable phenomena that from the small ripple of kindness a mighty wave of love can grow.
The blast occurred in a second-floor women's restroom at the upscale Centro Andino in the heart of Bogota's tourist district.

Bogota (Colombia): A bomb rocked one of the busiest shopping centres in Colombia's capital on Saturday, killing three people, including a 23-year-old French woman, and injuring nine others.

Witnesses told of being evacuated from movie theatres and stores after the blast in a second-floor women's restroom at the upscale Centro Andino in the heart of Bogota's tourist district. Ambulances and firetrucks rushed to the scene and the injured were taken to a hospital, where two later died.

Police said a bomb from an undetermined explosive had caused the destruction.

Mayor Enrique Penalosa called it a "cowardly terrorist bombing," and attention immediately focused on the National Liberation Army, which is the last rebel movement still active in Colombia.

Read: Baghdad: 27 killed, over 100 wounded in 2 bombings; ISIS claims first attack

The group, known as the ELN, carried out a spate of recent attacks in Bogota, but leaders denied involvement in the latest bombing.

Penalosa said the French victim, identified as Julie Huynh, had been in Bogota the past six months volunteering at a school in a poor neighbourhood. He said she was preparing to return to France in the coming days in the company of her mother, who was with her in Bogota.

Hunyh worked with a French-backed charity, Proyectar Sin Fronteras, helping people displaced by Colombia's long conflict gain the skills and expertise needed to rebuild. A member of the group declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press, but the group posted on its web page a black ribbon in memory of Huynh.

Read: ISIS claims deadly Manchester bombing that killed 22 people

The ELN, which is engaged in long-running peace talks with the government, rejected accusations it was behind the attack.

"We ask for seriousness from people making unfounded and reckless accusations," ELN negotiators at peace talks taking place in neighbouring Ecuador said on Twitter.

"This is the way people are trying to tear up the peace process." The ELN in February claimed responsibility for a bombing near Bogota's bullring that killed one police officer and injured 20 other people. But the group said it doesn't target civilians.

Penalosa urged residents of Bogota's wealthier districts to be on high alert but cautioned that there was no hint of other attacks being planned. Authorities said the device appeared to have been potent and was possibly made of ammonal, a highly explosive base made up of ammonium nitrate.

The government last year reached a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which was much bigger than the ELN. Some analysts attribute an uptick in violence in Colombian cities to the ELN's desire to wrest concessions from the government at the negotiating table.

Bogota has seen dramatic improvement in security over the past decade as the country's long-running conflict has wound down. But the capital remains vulnerable to attacks as residents have let down their guard.

Still, the Andino shopping center would seem a difficult target. All vehicles entering the parking garage are screened by bomb-sniffing dogs and security guards are present throughout the mall.

President Juan Manuel Santos made a late-night visit to the shopping mall, where he strongly condemned the attack but declined to speculate on who was behind it.

"The best answer to cowardly terrorism is to not let it unnerve us," he said.
Dinesh Chawla describes himself as a Republican on economic matters and a Democrat on social questions.

Cleveland (US): Dinesh Chawla is a key part of the latest venture for the Trump hospitality brand. The American of Indian descent plans to use the family business to help launch a new chain of budget hotels dubbed "American Idea" and inspired by Donald Trump's victorious presidential campaign.

On a sunny day in June, the medium-built, short-haired Chawla appeared weary and was fighting a stubborn cough, having returned to this small suburban town only three days earlier from New York, where he had joined Donald Trump Jr. in announcing the partnership.

"I feel like Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood when they won 'American Idol,'" the 52-year-old said at the offices of Chawla Inc., the company created by his late father that he now runs with his brother Suresh.

But as an immigrant, he can tell you about being shoved around and suffering racist taunts.

And in interview after interview, one question keeps coming up: How could he go into business with the Trump Organisation, when its founder is pushing a highly controversial ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries?

His answer seems readymade: "We're not investing in his presidency, his policies on refugees and all that stuff," he said.

"We are investing in technology, expertise, intelligent administration."

President Trump was not involved in the deal, Chawla continued, adding that his brother had briefly met Trump once during the political campaign, when the idea for the hotel chain was born, but that they were barred from seeing him for several years for ethics reasons.

Still, the Chawlas and the Trumps have a history: years ago, the future president had offered their father advice on securing financing for his first hotel.

"People would always question motives," said Chawla. "I realize there is some concern. Our decisions were strictly business."

He pauses.

"If they are using us, people might have to consider that we are using them a little bit too," said Chawla, citing the larger scale of the Trump Organization's operations.

Chawla describes himself as a Republican on economic matters and a Democrat on social questions. He favours adoption by gay parents and promotes gender equality in his business.

Fully half of management at Chawla Inc., which employs 400 people, is African American.

"I liked some of the things Trump was saying for business," said Chawla. "I respected Hillary Clinton's competence."

"If I had a daughter, I would tell her, that's your role model there," he said, adding that he voted for Barack Obama in 2008 but did not vote in 2016.

Since the announcement of the Trump partnership, Dinesh, who arrived in the United States from Canada in 1977 at age 12, has had anonymous calls and threats.

"All the conservative people are really for it," said Chris, who tends bar in town at Hey Joe's on Cotton Row, the town's main thoroughfare. "But the liberal-like college-educated people around here...are all really unhappy."

Judson Thigpen, head of the local chamber of commerce, hopes the new American Idea hotel will help draw tourists and spur growth in a town already home to Delta State University, which specializes in the arts and recently added the only Grammy Museum outside Los Angeles.

"It could help," he said. "But there is a huge stigma about who is behind it."

In January 2018, the local Comfort Inn will be transformed into an "American Idea" hotel. On the edge of Route 61, which links Tennessee and Louisiana, it is an ordinary hotel.

In the lobby, the reception desk sits opposite a simply furnished dining room. The chequered carpeting is worn, electrical wires hang from the ceiling and the elevator is unreliable. The rooms are spacious and clean, however, and equipped with wi-fi.

Down the street are the local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a Walmart, which sits before a gigantic parking lot opposite a Wendy's fast food restaurant.

The coming "American Idea" franchise, however, will have a "nostalgic feel," said Chawla.

While the rooms will have some contemporary touches like wi-fi and flat-panel TVs, they will mainly reflect "local flavours."

The inn will serve local breakfast dishes and common spaces will be decorated with 50s and 60s memorabilia like old cans and Coca-Cola signs, black-and-white photos of public places such as schools, post offices and churches.

Chawla said the decoration reflects the fact that many people pine for the 50s and 60s, "when we were a pre-eminent power in the world."
The bomb targeted a police vehicle that was carrying a group of police officers and conscripts on the Autostrad road near el-Maadi district.

Egypt has witnessed several attacks since the January 2011 revolution that toppled ex-president Hosni Mubarak. (Photo: Representational/AFP)

Cairo: A roadside bomb went off in the early hours on Sunday, killing an officer and injuring four others, the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior said in a statement.

The bomb targeted a police vehicle that was carrying a group of police officers and conscripts on the Autostrad road near el-Maadi district, the statement said.

The four injured include an officer and three conscripts who were transferred to the hospital for treatment. Egypt has witnessed several attacks since the January 2011 revolution that toppled ex-president Hosni Mubarak.

The attacks, mainly targeting the police and the military, increased after the ouster of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 by the military following massive protests against his rule.

Hundreds of police and army personnel have been killed since then.
The last expedition of similar scale in Tibet, regarded as roof of the world was conducted in the 1970s.

This time, the expedition will last five to 10 years and the first stop will be Serling Tso, a 2,391-square-km lake that was confirmed to have replaced the Buddhist holy lake Namtso as Tibets largest in 2014. (Photo: AP/Representational)

Beijing: China has launched a scientific expedition to the 4,000-metre-high Qinghai-Tibet plateau, which will also include a visit to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, to study changes in climate, biodiversity and environment over the past decades in region.

The expedition will also take scientists to a pass linking to south Asia, state run Xinhua news agency reported. The USD 50 billion CPEC passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK), over which India has conveyed its protests to China. The area covers Karakoram mountain ranges including Siachen glacier.

The last expedition of similar scale in Tibet, regarded as roof of the world was conducted in the 1970s.

This time, the expedition will last five to 10 years and the first stop will be Serling Tso, a 2,391-square-km lake that was confirmed to have replaced the Buddhist holy lake Namtso as Tibets largest in 2014.

In the coming months, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) will take more than 100 scientists to the lake area and the origin of the Yangtze, Chinas longest river.

They will be divided into four groups and make a comprehensive survey of the plateau glaciers, climate change, biodiversity and ecological changes, said Yao Tandong, an academician with the CAS, state run Xinhua news agency reported.

Great changes have taken place in the plateaus resources and environment since the first scientific expedition, said Yao, director of the CAS Institute of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Research. We need further research to find out ways to cope with these changes.

Chinas first comprehensive scientific expedition to the Tibet plateau began in the 1970s and covered more than 50 disciplines including geologic structure, prehistoric life, geophysics, climate, zoology and botany.

The scientists reported major discoveries and filled many gaps in plateau research, Yao said. The new round of research, he said, will focus on changes.

Zhu Liping, a CAS researcher leading the lake observation team, said the surface of Serling Tso Lake, for example, had expanded 40 percent between 1976 and 2009. Since 1990, water in the plateaus 1,000 lakes has increased by 100 billion cubic meters.

The volume is equal to three times the water in Three Gorges Dam, Zhu said. The study will measure the impact on the ecology and its potential link to flooding and drought in the low-lying eastern monsoon region. Zhu said data will be collected by scientists using automatic boats for the first time and a topographic map will be drawn.

The plateau climate is becoming warmer and more humid, said Xu Baiqing, who is leading another team to the glaciers. The team will drill ice cores at three major plateau glacier groups. Buried in the cold interiors of glaciers, ice cores contain well-preserved and detailed records of climate change in a century.

The impact of climatic changes would be assessed and proposals for conservation and rational development of resources formulated. On the archaeological front, scientists will look for evidence that can prove an earlier archaeological discovery of Palaeolithic ruins in the Serling Tso suggesting that humans might have been lived on this part of the world since some 30,000 years ago.

Archaeologists will try to answer why humans came to this plateau, where did they come from, and how did they adapt to high altitude living, according to team leader Deng Tao, deputy director of Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Paleoanthropology, under CAS.

A fourth team will research the biological diversity on the plateau and draw up a habitat map for preservation and tourism purposes. A national park might be set up in Serling Tso, the report said.
Chinese government officials have confirmed the incident and said they are investigating it with the local police.

Beijing: A nursery school girl was suffocated to death by her teacher, who taped her mouth shut for being too talkative.

According to a report by the Daily Mirror, the victim Guo Jintong was talking too much while the class did aerobic exercises in the morning. A witness said that the teacher stuck tape on the childs mouth when she got too chatty and also used glue to secure the tape. In a matter of minutes, the little girl was smothered to death.

The incident took place at Huadian Experimental Kindergarten in north-eastern Chinas Jilin Province.

The teacher realised that the girl appeared abnormal and called the school nurse who then called an ambulance. Paramedics reached the school around 30 minutes after Jintong was reported unconscious and pronounced her dead. She was also taken to the hospital but doctors failed to revive her.

Chinese government officials have confirmed the incident and said they are investigating it with the local police.
Six militants storm police headquarters in eastern part of the country; 21 civilians injured.

Afghan policemen at the site of a suicide bombing attack on the police headquarters in Gardez, capital of Paktia province. (Photo: AFP)

Gardez, Afghanistan: At least six police were killed and dozens of people wounded when as many as six gunmen and a suicide bomber attacked a police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday morning, officials said.

It took Afghan security forces most of the day to kill the last gunmen, who had barricaded themselves in a kitchen in the compound, according to the police.

The attack, claimed by the Taliban, began around 6:30am when one bomber detonated a car packed with explosives at the gate of the police headquarters in Gardez city, capital of Paktia province, said Najib Danish, a spokesman for the interior ministry.

Around six attackers stormed the gate after the blast, with at least two quickly killed by the police. The others held out against Afghan special forces that had responded to the attack, he said.

Paktia police chief Toryalai Abdani put the toll as six police killed and 12 wounded.

Doctors at the city hospital said they had received the bodies of at least five police, as well as at least 30 wounded people, including 21 civilians.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid reporting more than 100 police were killed and wounded. The Islamist group often exaggerates casualty numbers in attacks against government targets and security forces. Insurgent groups like the Taliban and Islamic State have launched a string of attacks across Afghanis-tan in recent weeks.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a mosque in Kabul on Thursday.

A massive truck bombing and later suicide attacks left hundreds dead and wounded at the end of May and beginning of June, raising political tensions for the Afghan government, which is struggling to combat rising violence and corruption.

Many foreign troops are in the country to train Afghan security forces and carry out counter-terrorism missions.
During the Angelus, Pope Francis mentioned World Refugee Day, on 20 June, whose theme is "With Refugees. Now more than ever we need to stand with Refugees. [M]eeting refugees in person dissipates distorted fears and ideologies, and becomes a factor of growth in humanity. The pontiff will go on pilgrimage to Bozzolo (Mantova) and Barbiana (Florence) to honour the memory of Don Primo Mazzolari and Don Lorenzo Milani, whose testimony "the world still needs today". Tonight, the pontiff will lead the Corpus Domini Mass in St John in Lateran, and the Eucharistic procession to Saint Mary Major.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  As he did with the disciples of Emmaus, in the Eucharist Jesus helps us, pilgrims in history, to nurture us in faith, hope and charity, to comfort us in our trials, to support us in the work for justice and peace, said Pope Francis in his reflection to the faithful in St Peters Square before the Angelus.

The Holy Father emphasised the Eucharist because Corpus Christi is celebrated today in Italy and in many countries (traditionally it is celebrated on the second Thursday after Pentecost). This feast, said Francis, expresses "fully our worship of Christ who gives himself as food and drink of salvation."

"Jesus gave his body and shed his blood on the cross. The Son of the Crucified Man is the true Paschal Lamb, who brings out of the slavery of sin and supports us on the path to the promised land. The Eucharist is the sacrament of his flesh given to make the world live; whomever feeds on this food remains in Jesus and lives for Him. To assimilate Jesus means being in Him, becoming children in the Son . . . The supportive presence of the Son of God is everywhere: in the cities and in the countryside, in the North and in the South of the world, in countries of Christian tradition and in those of nascent evangelisation."

"In the Eucharist," Francis went on to say, "He offers himself as a spiritual force to help us put into practice his commandment, to love ourselves as He loved us, and to build communities friendly and open to the needs of everyone, especially the most fragile people, the poor and needy.

Feeding on Jesus the Eucharist also means abandoning ourselves with confidence to Him and allowing ourselves to be led by Him. It is about welcoming Jesus instead of our ego. This way, the free love received from Christ in the Eucharistic Communion, with the work of the Holy Spirit, nourishes our love for God and for the brothers and sisters we meet on the path of every day. Nourished by the Body of Christ, we become more and more intimately and concretely the mystical Body of Christ. As the Apostle Paul reminds us: "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf" (1 Cor, 10: 16-17)."

After the Marian prayer, the Pontiff mentioned that in two-days time, 20 June, it will be World Refugee Day sponsored by the United Nations, whose theme this year is With Refugees. Now more than ever we need to stand with Refugees.

"Concrete attention goes to women, men, and children fleeing conflicts, violence and persecution, the pope said. Let us also remember in our prayers all those who lost their lives in the sea or in exhausting journeys over land. May their stories of pain and hope become opportunities for brotherly meetings and true mutual knowledge. Indeed, meeting refugees in person dissipates distorted fears and ideologies, and becomes a factor of growth in humanity, able to make room for feelings of openness and bridge building."

Before he concluded his address, Francis mentioned two items on the coming weeks agenda: the first is on 20 June when he will go on pilgrimage to Bozzolo (Mantova) and Barbiana (Florence) "to pay tribute to Don Primo Mazzolari and Don Lorenzo Milani", whose testimony "the world still needs today", he said.

Don Primo Mazzolari (1890-1959) was a pastor, writer, partisan, defender of the weak above all rightwing or leftwing ideologies. Often forced into silence by the Church itself, he was valued in the final years of his life by Paul VI, then Cardinal of Milan, and John XXIII.

Don Lorenzo Milani (1923-1967) was a pastor, writer, and educator. He is remembered for his social and educational outreach towards adults and farmers. His book Letter to a Teacher was the basis for reform in education and inspired the student movements of the 1960s. He too had several run-ins with the powers-that-be.

Finally, Pope Francis noted that tonight at 7 pm, on the parvis of the St John in Lateran Church, he will celebrate the Mass of Corpus Domini, followed by the procession with the Blessed Sacrament to the basilica of Saint Mary Major. "I invite everyone to participate," said the pope, "spiritually as well. I think in particular of the enclosed communities, the sick and prison inmates. Radio and television can help in this regard."
Pope Francis celebrated the Corpus Domini Mass this Sunday following the Italian, not the Vatican liturgical calendar. Today, if we leave our memories behind [. . .] living only for the moment, we risk remaining ever on the surface of things. The Eucharist is a living remembrance that comforts us with Gods love. It is not a sacrament for me; it is the sacrament of the many, who form one body. The procession made its way from St John Lateran to Saint Mary Major. The canopy with the ostensory was followed by the "holy faithful people of God".

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  The Eucharist is the sacrament of memory, reminding us, in a real and tangible way, of the story of Gods love for us. [. . .] In the Bread of Life, the Lord comes to us, making himself a humble meal that lovingly heals our memory, wounded by lifes frantic pace of life, said Pope Francis today as he celebrated Mass at the Roman Basilica of St John Lateran on the Solemnity of the Corpus Domini (the holy body and blood of Christ).

Traditionally, the Solemnity is celebrated on the second Thursday after Pentecost. However, in Italy and in other countries where it is not a statutory holiday, it is celebrated the Sunday that follows. Hundreds of children who received their First Communion this year took part in the Mass.

The Holy Father cited the theme of remembrance several times in his homily. [R]emembering all that the Lord has done for us is the foundation of our own personal history of salvation. Remembrance is essential for faith, as water is for a plant. A plant without water cannot stay alive and bear fruit. Nor can faith, unless it drinks deeply of the memory of all that the Lord has done for us.

Yet nowadays, this singular ability that the Lord has given us is considerably weakened. Amid so much frantic activity, many people and events seem to pass in a whirl. We quickly turn the page, looking for novelty while unable to retain memories. Leaving our memories behind and living only for the moment, we risk remaining ever on the surface of things, constantly in flux, without going deeper, without the broader vision that reminds us who we are and where we are going. In this way, our life grows fragmented, and dulled within.

Yet todays Solemnity reminds us that in our fragmented lives, the Lord comes to meet us with a loving fragility, which is the Eucharist. In the Bread of Life, the Lord comes to us, making himself a humble meal that lovingly heals our memory, wounded by lifes frantic pace of life. The Eucharist is the memorial of Gods love. There, [Christs] sufferings are remembered (II Vespers, antiphon for the Magnificat) and we recall Gods love for us, which gives us strength and support on our journey.

This is why the Eucharistic commemoration does us so much good: it is not an abstract, cold and superficial memory, but a living remembrance that comforts us with Gods love. Anamnestic and mimetic memory. The Eucharist is flavoured with Jesus words and deeds, the taste of his Passion, the fragrance of his Spirit. When we receive it, our hearts are overcome with the certainty of Jesus love. In saying this, I think in particular of you boys and girls, who recently received First Holy Communion, and are here today in great numbers.

The Eucharist gives us a grateful memory, because it makes us see that we are the Fathers children, whom he loves and nourishes. It gives us a free memory, because Jesus love and forgiveness heal the wounds of the past, soothe our remembrance of wrongs experienced and inflicted. It gives us a patient memory, because amid all our troubles we know that the Spirit of Jesus remains in us. The Eucharist encourages us: even on the roughest road, we are not alone; the Lord does not forget us and whenever we turn to him, he restores us with his love. 

Finally, The Eucharist also reminds us that we are not isolated individuals, but one body. As the people in the desert gathered the manna that fell from heaven and shared it in their families (cf. Ex 16), so Jesus, the Bread come down from Heaven, calls us together to receive him and to share him with one another. The Eucharist is not a sacrament for me; it is the sacrament of the many, who form one body. Saint Paul reminded us of this: Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread (1 Cor 10:17). The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity. Whoever receives it cannot fail to be a builder of unity, because building unity has become part of his or her spiritual DNA.

May this Bread of unity heal our ambition to lord it over others, to greedily hoard things for ourselves, to foment discord and criticism. May it awaken in us the joy of living in love, without rivalry, jealousy or mean-spirited gossip.

After the final prayer of the Mass, a long procession made its way to Saint Mary Major. Representatives of the Roman confraternities led the way carrying coloured banners, followed by the members of the clergy and seminarians, canons and cardinals, then the canopy with the ostensory placed on a golden aedicule surrounded by flowers, carried by eight gentlemen. The pope referred to the faithful who followed as "the holy people of God." Along the path people chanted traditional songs and some guides read passages from the gospel or from saints devoted of the Eucharist.

When the procession with the canopy reached the parvis of Saint Mary Major, Pope Francis  who did not take part in the procession but was driven because of mobility problems  blessed all those present with the ostensory in three different directions.

At the end, in front of the icon of Maria Salus Populi Romani, everyone sang Salve Regina.
by Weena Kowitwanij

On 21 May, Pope Francis announced his nomination, a surprise for Laoss 50,000- strong Catholic community. It is a baby Church that experiences the first proclamation and is turned towards Tribals and animists. "Some of the most serious problems are the shortage of personnel and the quality of education, the prelate said. "Some people think that being a cardinal is an honour, but for Mgr Mangkhanekhoun it means advising the pope on how to solve problems.

Bangkok (AsiaNews)  The energy and the strength of the Church is within the small churches who are persecuted, oppressed, and tortured. They are the energy of the Church, the painful heart and backbone of the Church, said Mgr Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, citing Pope Francis when he spoke at ad limina visit of the bishops of Laos on 26 January in the Vatican.

The apostolic administrator of Vientiane is one of five cardinals Pope Francis will create in the consistory of 28 June, eve of the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, which the pontiff announced on 21 May, at the end of the Regina Caeli. Mgr Mangkhanekhoun will be the first Laotian cardinal in history.

Mgr Mangkhanekhoun spoke for the first time as cardinal designate with the Thailands Udomsan Weekly, in which he describes his vision and experience in the Universal Church.

The Catholic community in Laos consists of about 50,000 people in four apostolic vicariates: Luang Prabang, Pakse, Savannakhet, and Vientiane.

In an interview with AsiaNews in 2015, the prelate, who was then the apostolic vicar of Pakse in the countrys extreme south, defined the Church as a baby Church that experiences the first proclamation and is turned towards Tribals and animists. It is a Church that experiences persecution and bears witness to its faith amid adversities.

"Some of the most serious problems are the shortage of personnel and the quality of education, he told Udomsan Weekly. At present, there are no diocesan priest in Vientiane and it will take at least ten years to train some. Thus, I would like to stress the importance of training priests and lay people. Since we need qualified personnel, my focus is on improving the major seminary."

The Catholic Church plays a key role in Laos in terms of societys welfare and development. It is involved in activities like school construction, health facilities in villages as well as support for the disabled, which it undertakes in cooperation with the government to improve living standards of the population.

"Some people think that being a cardinal is an honour, Mgr Mangkhanekhoun said. I am an ordinary person. I think this position is one of advisor to the pope to solve problems together.

I was born in the mountains. My father died when I was 10 months old. I lived with my mother, and we were poor. I had to walk six kilometres to go to school, an hour walk. My vocation was just like that of any other person.

After finishing school in Paksan and Vientiane with a certificate, I visited the bishop, who asked me what I wanted to do. Why not become a priest?' he told me. That had never crossed my mins. It was too big for me. The bishop then gave me the opportunity to try and sent me to Canada to continue my studies."

Born on 8 April 1944, Mgr Mangkhanekhoun entered the seminary in Paksan before attending a major seminary in the North American nation.

He was ordained priest by the apostolic vicariate of Vientiane on 5 November 1972, in Sacred Heart of Jesus cathedral, and in 1975, he was appointed pastor and pro-vicar of Vientiane.

On 30 October 2000, he was appointed apostolic vicar of Pakse. This was followed on 22 April 2001 by his consecration as bishop. On 2 February 2017, he was appointed apostolic administrator of Vientiane.

"The motto I chose is [E]verything of mine is yours (Jn 17: 10) because I realise that for the rest of my life I have been instructed to do God's will."
The bishop is recognised by the Holy See but not by the government. He was held for 27 days during which he attended a religious seminar" to convince him to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and force the Vatican to appoint right away a coadjutor bishop from the official community.

Wenzhou (AsiaNews) - Mgr Peter Shao Zhumin, bishop of Wenzhou, returned to Wenzhou two days ago. He went missing into police hands on 18 May, kept in a secret place for 27 days. His disappearance came after he was summoned for a "conversation" with the citys Religious Affairs Bureau.

He is not free in the ordinary sense of the word because he came back to Wenzhou with a police escort. Mgr Shao is under control because he belongs to the underground community, whose actions (Masses, meetings, and catechesis in unregistered places) are deemed "criminal".

Although a member of the unofficial community, Mgr Shao is bishop of Wenzhou and has been recognised by the Holy See, a fact that the Religious Affairs Ministry does not accept.

According to some Catholics in Wenzhou, during the 27 days of forced absence, Mgr Shao took part in a "religious seminar" that had two purposes.

The first one was to get him to ask the Vatican to appoint right away a co-adjutor bishop from the official community, with membership in the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA). The faithful explain that although the CPCA wants to impose the method of "autonomy" and self-ordination, the approval of the Holy See is necessary for the new bishop to be accepted by the community.

The second reason for the "religious seminary" was to convince Mgr Shao to join the CPCA and participate in the Council of Bishops. The CPCA wants to build a Chinese Church independent of the Holy See and the Council of Bishops embraces all official bishops, including those not nominated by the Vatican and in a position of excommunication. It excludes unofficial bishops. A Letter from Benedict XVI to Chinese Catholics  which Pope Francis often praises  states that the principles on which the two bodies are founded are "incompatible with Catholic doctrine".

Mgr Shao had also been abducted by police in April, a few days before Easter. His diocese of Wenzhou has been deeply divided between the official and underground Christian communities. It is estimated that it has some 120,000 members, more than 80,000 in the underground group. Its 50 or so priests are evenly divided between the two branches.

In the recent past, the Holy See has sought to reconcile the communities by nominating Mgr Zhu Weifang (now deceased) as ordinary bishop and Mgr Shao as bishop with right of succession. According to the faithful, who love and respect Mgr Shao, "the local government does everything to keep us divided".
Here is the latest jail booking report from Hamilton County:

AINSWORTH, JOHN ZACHARY

2620 BOYCE ST CHATTANOOGA, 37416

Age at Arrest: 26 years old

Arresting Agency: East Ridge

THEFT OF PROPERTY (+10,000)

---

BALLARD, TINIKA NICOLE

5255 CENTER AVE CHATTANOOGA, 37410

Age at Arrest: 42 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga

THEFT OF PROPERTY

---

BAUMGARTNER, KRISTIE GAIL

6353 FISK AVE CHATTANOOGA, 37421

Age at Arrest: 38 years old

Arresting Agency: Soddy Daisy

FAILURE TO APPEAR

---

BEAVERS, JOHN COLTON

179 LOWER BUNKER HILL ROAD BIRCHWOOD, 37308

Age at Arrest: 26 years old

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

---

BENTLEY, DEVIN MIKHAIL

4912 WOODLAND VIEW CHATTANOOGA, 37410

Age at Arrest: 23 years old

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

---

BOWER, KRISTIN MARIE

202 BLAZER LANE DAYTON, 37321

Age at Arrest: 29 years old

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

CRIMINAL IMPERSONATION

---

BRATCHER, MICHAEL TODD

920 ROSSVILLE ROAD ROSSVILLE, 30741

Age at Arrest: 50 years old

Arresting Agency: East Ridge

THEFT UNDER $500

---

BYAS, TINA MARIE

10720 LONDON APISON, 37302

Age at Arrest: 57 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga

FRAUDULENT USE OF CREDIT OR DEBIT CARD

THEFT OF PROPERTY

---

CLARK, WHITNEY RAVEN

601 JAMES STREET ROSVILLE, 37415

Age at Arrest: 22 years old

Arresting Agency:

AGGRAVATED ASSAULT

---

COFFMAN, JOSHUA AARON

4616 SUNFLOWER LANE CHATTANOOGA, 37416

Age at Arrest: 25 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga

DOMESTIC ASSAULT

---

CROCKETT, NATHAN P

20 MASON DRIVE APT 704 CHATTANOOGA, 37415

Age at Arrest: 39 years old

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County

REGISTRATION, EXPIRED

CONTRABAND IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE

---

GANN, CHASITY MICHELLE

900 MOUNTAIN CREEK ROAD APT S368 CHATTANOOGA, 37405

Age at Arrest: 32 years old

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County

VIOLATION OF PROBATION (THEFT OF PROPERTY)

---

GROSS, JERRY BENNIE

26103.

JAMES STREET ROSSVILLE, 30741Age at Arrest: 65 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaCRIMINAL TRESPASSINGPUBLIC INTOXICATIONAGRESSIVE PANDHANDLING---HARRIS, CARLA LATRECE2524 6TH AVE CHATTANOOGA, 37407Age at Arrest: 47 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaPROSTITUTIONOBSTRUCTING HIGHWAY OR OTHER PASSAGEWAY---HOBBS, TRACY MICHELE210 HENDRICKS BLV CHATTANOOGA, 37405Age at Arrest: 40 years oldArresting Agency: Red BankDOMESTIC ASSAULT---HOWARD, ANDREW MAX849 NEW BETHEL RD DAYTON, 37321Age at Arrest: 20 years oldArresting Agency: Red BankDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE---HUSKINS, MELVIN KEITH7912 LONG DR CHATTANOOGA, 37421Age at Arrest: 58 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaDOMESTIC ASSAULT---JOHNSON, ANTHONY SCOTT226 COUNTY 725 RICEVILLE, 37370Age at Arrest: 31 years oldArresting Agency: CollegedaleBooked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)---KARCHAK, IVAN IVANOVICH1009 S LEE HWY CLEVELAND, 373115858Age at Arrest: 32 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaFAILURE TO APPEAR---KYLE, ASHLEY TRENNE137 2ND STREET SIPSEY, 37402Age at Arrest: 30 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaCRIMINAL CONSPIRACYTHEFT OF PROPERTY (CONDUCT INVOLV.MERCHANDISE)TAMPERING WITH OR FABRICATING EVIDENCETHEFT OF PROPERTY---LITTLE, COREY JAMAHL3813 ROLLINGWOOD DRIVE CHATTANOOGA, 37406Age at Arrest: 19 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyPOSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCEPOSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA---LOLLIS, KETWAIN JAJUAN828 N GERMANTOWN ROAD CHATTANOOGA, 37411Age at Arrest: 20 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaPOSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCEPOSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCEBLOCKING OR IMPEDING THE FLOW OF TRAFFICSAFETY EQUIPMENT VIOLATIONDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCEDRIVING WITHOUT DRIVERS LICENSE / EXPIRED LICENSE---LYLES, CHRISTOPHER MARCUS727 EAST 11TH STREET CHATTANOOGA, 37402Age at Arrest: 30 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyFUGITIVE FROM CATOOSA COUNTY GA---MARQUESS, DAVID MICHEL116 PEBBLE DR ALABASTER, 35007Age at Arrest: 35 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaDOMESTIC ASSAULT---MARSHALL, ULYSSES STEVESON727 EAST 11TH STREET CHATTANOOGA, 37401Age at Arrest: 52 years oldArresting Agency: TVAPOSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA---MOISES, VASQUEZ CANSECOHOMELESS CHATTANOOGA, 37343Age at Arrest: 38 years oldArresting Agency: Tenn Highway PatrolDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE---MOON, MICHAEL R13235 EMERALD BAY DRIVE SODDY DAISY, 37379Age at Arrest: 55 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE---RAMIREZ-MORENO, JOSE MERCEDES251 S MOSS AVE CHATTANOOGA, 37419Age at Arrest: 30 years oldArresting Agency: Signal MountainFAILURE TO MAINTAIN LANE---REED, DEANDRE LEBROWN4803 EDINGBURG DRIVE CHATTANOOGA, 37410Age at Arrest: 19 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaUNL. CARRYING OR POSSESSING WEAPON---RUNYONS, TIESHA NASHEA1895 CHERRY STREET APT 4 CLEVELAND, 37311Age at Arrest: 26 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaFAILURE TO APPEAR---SANDEFUR, BRANDON DEVON3808 BRIAR CLIFF WAY CHATTANOOGA, 374406000Age at Arrest: 32 years oldArresting Agency: East RidgeDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE---SHADDEN, CHAD LEBRON259 SCHOOL ROAD DECATUR, 37341Age at Arrest: 26 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyDRIVING ON REVOKED LICENSEOPEN CONTAINER LAW---SIMMONS, DENISHA ANN1418 CAROUSEL RD CHATTANOOGA, 37411Age at Arrest: 34 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaTHEFT OF PROPERTYCRIMINAL CONSPIRACYTHEFT OF PROPERTY (CONDUCT INVOLV.MERCHANDISE)TAMPERING WITH OR FABRICATING EVIDENCE---SMITH, CHRISTOPHER SHAWN6919 MOOREVIEW CHATTANOOGA, 37412Age at Arrest: 38 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyFUGITIVE FROM CATOOSA COUNTY GA---SMITH, SAMUEL LABRON959 GATEWAY AVE CHATTANOOGA, 37402Age at Arrest: 62 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaDRIVING LEFT OF CENTER LINEDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE---SMITH, SHONIQUE NECHELLE1418 CAROUSEL RD CHATTANOOGA, 37411Age at Arrest: 26 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaTAMPERING WITH OR FABRICATING EVIDENCETHEFT OF PROPERTY (CONDUCT INVOLV.MERCHANDISE)CRIMINAL CONSPIRACYTHEFT OF PROPERTY---SUTTON, JAMEL DHOMELESS CHATTANOOGA, 37402Age at Arrest: 20 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaRECKLESS ENDANGERMENT---SUTTON, KARTON LEDALE1640 THRASHER PIKE HIXSON, 37343Age at Arrest: 38 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE---VARNELL, HALBERT2802 12TH AVE CHATTANOOGA, 37407Age at Arrest: 64 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaDOMESTIC ASSAULT---VAUGHN, THOMAS CHRISTOPHER6934 ANNAVIEW LANE HARRISON, 37341Age at Arrest: 45 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyDOMESTIC ASSAULT---VAZQUEZ-BRAVO, IRVIN2007 CASE AVE TRENTON, 35725Age at Arrest: 24 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaDISORDERLY CONDUCTPUBLIC INTOXICATION---WEBB, JUSTIN DEWAYNE309 RETRO HUGHES RD SALE CREEK, 37373Age at Arrest: 19 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyAGGRAVATED ASSAULT---WILLIAMS, JOSHUA HARRISON8020 PLAXCO DR CHATTANOOGA, 37421Age at Arrest: 26 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE---WILLIAMS, LABRANDIT KENITEZ1906 IVY ST CHATTANOOGA, 37404Age at Arrest: 32 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaREGISTRATION, EXPIREDLIGHT LAW VIOLATIONDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCEFINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITYDRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSEDRIVING ON ROADWAYS LANED FOR TRAFFIC, VIOLATION---WYNN, AMANDA DESHAY1422 CYPRESS STREET COURTS #70 CHATTANOOGA, 37402Age at Arrest: 28 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyVIOLATION OF PROBATION (DRIVING UNDER INFLUENCE 3RCRIMINAL IMPERSONATION

Here are the mug shots:

AINSWORTH, JOHN ZACHARY

Age at Arrest: 26

Date of Birth: 06/15/1990

Arresting Agency: East Ridge



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

THEFT OF PROPERTY (+10,000) BALLARD, TINIKA NICOLE

Age at Arrest: 42

Date of Birth: 09/07/1974

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

THEFT OF PROPERTY BAUMGARTNER, KRISTIE GAIL

Age at Arrest: 38

Date of Birth: 07/27/1978

Arresting Agency: Soddy Daisy



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

FAILURE TO APPEAR BENTLEY, DEVIN MIKHAIL

Age at Arrest: 23

Date of Birth: 04/30/1994

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE BRATCHER, MICHAEL TODD

Age at Arrest: 50

Date of Birth: 04/12/1967

Arresting Agency: East Ridge



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

THEFT UNDER $500 CLARK, WHITNEY RAVEN

Age at Arrest: 22

Date of Birth: 09/25/1994

Arresting Agency:



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

AGGRAVATED ASSAULT COFFMAN, JOSHUA AARON

Age at Arrest: 25

Date of Birth: 02/03/1992

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

DOMESTIC ASSAULT CROCKETT, NATHAN P

Age at Arrest: 39

Date of Birth: 11/05/1977

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

REGISTRATION, EXPIRED

CONTRABAND IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE GANN, CHASITY MICHELLE

Age at Arrest: 32

Date of Birth: 09/05/1984

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

VIOLATION OF PROBATION (THEFT OF PROPERTY) GROSS, JERRY BENNIE

Age at Arrest: 65

Date of Birth: 08/08/1951

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING

PUBLIC INTOXICATION

AGRESSIVE PANDHANDLING

HARRIS, CARLA LATRECE

Age at Arrest: 47

Date of Birth: 02/04/1970

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

PROSTITUTION

OBSTRUCTING HIGHWAY OR OTHER PASSAGEWAY HOWARD, ANDREW MAX

Age at Arrest: 20

Date of Birth: 08/22/1996

Arresting Agency: Red Bank



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE HUSKINS, MELVIN KEITH

Age at Arrest: 58

Date of Birth: 09/11/1958

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

DOMESTIC ASSAULT JOHNSON, ANTHONY SCOTT

Age at Arrest: 31

Date of Birth: 02/17/1986

Arresting Agency: Collegedale



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

JOHNSON, DARRIE MELVIN

Age at Arrest: 33

Date of Birth: 06/16/1983

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

FUGITIVE (ARREST FOR CRIME IN ANOTHER STATE) KARCHAK, IVAN IVANOVICH

Age at Arrest: 32

Date of Birth: 01/27/1985

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

FAILURE TO APPEAR LITTLE, COREY JAMAHL

Age at Arrest: 19

Date of Birth: 09/11/1997

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA LOLLIS, KETWAIN JAJUAN

Age at Arrest: 20

Date of Birth: 04/07/1997

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

BLOCKING OR IMPEDING THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC

SAFETY EQUIPMENT VIOLATION

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE

DRIVING WITHOUT DRIVERS LICENSE / EXPIRED LICENSE LYLES, CHRISTOPHER MARCUS

Age at Arrest: 30

Date of Birth: 07/09/1986

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

FUGITIVE FROM CATOOSA COUNTY GA MARQUESS, DAVID MICHEL

Age at Arrest: 35

Date of Birth: 10/10/1981

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

DOMESTIC ASSAULT

MARSHALL, ULYSSES STEVESON

Age at Arrest: 52

Date of Birth: 05/09/1965

Arresting Agency: TVA



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA MOISES, VASQUEZ CANSECO

Age at Arrest: 38

Date of Birth: 04/01/1979

Arresting Agency: Tenn Highway Patrol



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE MOON, MICHAEL R

Age at Arrest: 55

Date of Birth: 04/20/1962

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE RAMIREZ-MORENO, JOSE MERCEDES

Age at Arrest: 30

Date of Birth: 11/24/1986

Arresting Agency: Signal Mountain



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

FAILURE TO MAINTAIN LANE REED, DEANDRE LEBROWN

Age at Arrest: 19

Date of Birth: 02/11/1998

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

UNL. CARRYING OR POSSESSING WEAPON RUNYONS, TIESHA NASHEA

Age at Arrest: 26

Date of Birth: 06/16/1991

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

FAILURE TO APPEAR SANDEFUR, BRANDON DEVON

Age at Arrest: 32

Date of Birth: 04/23/1985

Arresting Agency: East Ridge



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE SHADDEN, CHAD LEBRON

Age at Arrest: 26

Date of Birth: 11/24/1990

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

DRIVING ON REVOKED LICENSE

OPEN CONTAINER LAW SIMMONS, DENISHA ANN

Age at Arrest: 34

Date of Birth: 12/17/1982

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

THEFT OF PROPERTY

CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY

THEFT OF PROPERTY (CONDUCT INVOLV.MERCHANDISE)

TAMPERING WITH OR FABRICATING EVIDENCE SMITH, CHRISTOPHER SHAWN

Age at Arrest: 38

Date of Birth: 11/08/1978

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 06/17/2017

Charge(s):

FUGITIVE FROM CATOOSA COUNTY GA
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On June 19th , 1865, Union General Gordon Granger would arrive in Galveston, Texas and issue the following order which proclaimed, The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them became that between employer and free laborer. Remarkably, many of the citizens of Texas and the more than 200,000 slaves that inhabited the state had failed to hear of the Emancipation Proclamation, which had went into effect January 1st, 1863.

Texas would make it a state holiday in 1980, and today most states have an official day of observance to recognize this last recorded freeing of the slaves as parades, picnics, prayer services, and proclamation recitations are all standard ways that have come to represent many of the nation's official Juneteenth commemorations that now enter their 152year.

Chattanooga has several interesting links to this national commemoration. After the Confederates had swept over half the Union Army off the Chickamauga Battlefield (September 20th, 1863), it was General Gordon Granger who would, without orders, rush to shore up the weakening line which had been constructed by the Rock of Chickamauga George H. Thomas and save the Union Army during that epic battle. After the Civil War concluded, many of the former slaves would turn to the Freeman's Bureau for aide, guidance, and support. It was General Oliver O. Howard who headed this agency, and our very own Howard School is named in his honor. According to a February 2000 Chattanooga Times Free Press article a, Mary Walker was America's last living slave and lived to see an age of 121 (1848-1969). Born a slave in Union Springs, Alabama, Mary Walker arrived in Chattanooga circa... 1917 and remained here until her death. At the age of 116 she enrolled in the Chattanooga Area Literacy Movement class and learned to read, write, and perform basic mathematics, and for this she was declared "oldest" student in the nation by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In a life that spanned from Presidents James K. Polk to Richard Nixon, she would be alive during the signing and ratification of both the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, and would go on to receive multiple Chattanooga Ambassador of Goodwill awards. The late Rev. John L. Edwards Jr. formed the Mary Walker Historical and Education Foundation in part to honor her, and in addition to promoting African-American historical preservation and literacy, the foundation helped to organize the first of Chattanooga's Juneteenth celebrations.

On this the 152nd anniversary of Juneteenth, as a community we should be resolved to reflect and remember the lessons of our past in order to build a more perfect Union and better America. First, we must do as Lincoln urged us to and, "lean to the better angels of our nature" as citizens, students and families. Secondly, 151 years after the signing and ratification of the 13th Amendment, we should make the affirming crust of that document, "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" very plain and very real. There are currently over 20 million enslaved people in the world, and we should support organizations who oppose this societal scourge like Second Life Chattanooga because human trafficking and slavery is a menace that must be permanently eradicated from our world.

Thirdly, we should prescribe to the notion that calls for universal human rights. Each December 10th the United Nations celebrates International Human Rights Day, and on this December the world commemorated this year's theme: Stand Up for Someones Rights Today, and reaffirmed the United Nations's two International Covenants on Human Rights: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Along with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this Triumvirate of Tranquility forms the context and foundation for the world's International Bill of Human Rights by striving to promote, "the inherent dignity of and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family." In addition to basic human principles, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that we all are endowed with the ability to enjoy four fundamental human freedoms, which are: (1) Freedom of Speech; (2) Freedom of Religion; (3) Freedom from Want; and (4) Freedom from Fear.

Lastly, we should disavow and divest ourselves of all forms of bigotry, indifference, intolerance and violence. On this year, the Southern Poverty Law Center is tracking more than 1,600 extremist groups, reports that over 890 hate groups are currently operating in the U.S., and states that there have been 1,372 reported bias incidents since the November 2016 Presidential election. The Equal Justice Initiative is another organization that is striving to teach us to atone for the sins of our past. In their 2015 Lynching In America report, the EJI details that there were more lynchings than was previously thought that occurred between the late 1800's to mid 1900's, 4,075. The EJI has recently broken ground on a national memorial to remember this painful aspect of the past, and with the help of Google announced on June 13th the creation of an online platform so that the public may be able to digitally learn and explore this important yet unfortunate chapter of history (https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org). We should remember that anger gives rise to anger, violence only begets violence, hatred fosters further hatred, and evil enhances habitual evil, but love is the strongest of these and conquers them all, and this we must affirm as we strive to be one nation, many believe under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice not just for the one, but liberty and justice for us all.

For more information on Juneteenth you may visit the Juneteenth National Registry at: http://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm .

Eric A. Atkins






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Top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng has stressed adherence to the 1992 Consensus and opposing "Taiwan independence" as the key to ensuring the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.

Yu Zhengsheng (R), chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, shakes hands with Hung Hsiu-chu, chairperson of the Taiwan-based Kuomintang (KMT) party at the ongoing 9th Straits Forum in Xiamen of southeast China's Fujian Province, June 17, 2017. (Xinhua/Ma Zhancheng)

Yu, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks Saturday while meeting representatives of the attendees at the ongoing 9th Straits Forum.

The core of the 1992 Consensus is the one-China policy, which states that both the mainland and Taiwan belong to one and the same China. It explicitly sets out that the fundamental nature of relations across the Taiwan Strait are not state-to-state relations.

After clarifying this, many issues between the two sides could be solved through consultation, said Yu.

By refusing to endorse the 1992 Consensus, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration has undermined the political foundation of the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, said Yu.

Yu called on the DPP to clarify the nature of cross-strait relations and implement it through action. "It is an issue that cannot be avoided," said Yu.
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Meteorological authorities on Saturday warned of possible geological disasters in southern China as heavy rain is expected in the region.

The National Meteorological Center (NMC) and the Ministry of Land and Resources warned of high risks of geological disasters including flash floods in parts of Fujian, Guangdong, Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces from Saturday to Sunday evening.

The NMC revoked a blue alert for a rainstorm on Saturday afternoon, but the forecast of heavy rain in Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan and Yunnan will continue.

People affected by the rain should take precautions against possible mountain torrents, mud-rock flows and landslides, the NMC warned.

China has a four-tier color-coded warning system for severe weather, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

Over the past years, China has suffered some large-scale natural disasters, from extreme weather to geological events, causing huge losses of life and property.
More than a century-old African-American cemetery that has been neglected for years is finally getting much-needed care due to a local group working to preserve its place in history.

Safety Harbor African-American cemetery receiving help



Jacqueline Hayes and Lou Claudio work together to preserve cemetery

Non-profit to be created to help with maintenance and preservation

Paying respect at her grandmother's grave, Jacqueline Hayes reflects on the roots that connect her to Safety Harbor and this cemetery.

"My grandfather was the first African-American in Safety Harbor to work downtown. He helped build the Main Street road and St. Joseph's Hotel," Hayes said.



Hayess grandparents, Charlie and Amanda Smith, are both buried at the small cemetery in the middle of a subdivision. Some of the stones date back to the 1890's.

Jacqueline recently met Lou Claudio, who had tried restoring the overgrown and neglected space 20 years ago. His records show her grandfathers name was on one of the first deeds.



"I'd learned that a lot of cemeteries, particularly African-American Cemeteries, are either up rooted or paved over. There's a sad history to that," said Claudio.



With help from the community, Hayes and Claudio started re-writing that history. They've formed the Safety Harbor African-American cemetery restoration project to preserve and protect those whove been laid to rest.



"Out of hundreds of possible grave sites, only a few of them are marked. Many have yet to be discovered," Hayes said.



"When someone died, they would put a tin marker and a piece of paper with their name on it. Then with the wind and weather it would just blow away," Claudio added.

"It's just important. It's an important part of our history," he said.

Though the cemetery was once forgotten, these newly-formed friends are making sure its legacy will last forever. The group is working to establish a non-profit for the cemetery to keep up with regular maintenance and historical preservation. They've made it their mission to shine new light on the stories behind the headstones.
When they're not at work, you'll find Dulcinea and Bill Kimrey in their Tampa kitchen baking.

Sometimes it's more than 100 cookies a week -- all homemade and all beautifully decorated by hand. The cookies are for celebrations: birthdays, weddings and baby showers.

Dulcinea and Bill Kimrey find love of baking through grief

Their son was still born in 2013

They founded Silly Monkey Cookie Company

Visit Silly Monkey Cookie Company's page on Facebook



Through bringing others joy, the Kimrey's have learned to cope with grief.

On June 30, 2013, Dulcinea, 39 and a half weeks pregnant, said she couldn't feel her son moving. She rushed to the hospital.

"When the triage doctor told us that our son didn't have a heartbeat, it was like the world just crashed on us," Dulcinea Kimrey said.

Wilson Monroe Kimrey IV was stillborn on July 1.

Six months later, the Kimrey's suffered another loss. Dulcinea's father passed away after battling cancer. An avid baker, he left his daughter a special gift.

"Dad gave us his mixer, his KitchenAid, his 1976 KitchenAid," Dulcinea said.

The following Christmas, desperate for an outlet for their grief, the Kimrey's pulled out the mixer.

"We just decided we were going to bake and we were going to bake and we were going to bake. And bake as much as we could and grab as much as we could, and maybe the holidays wouldn't come, Duclinea said.

The holidays did come, but so did a love for baking the couple never knew they had.



Bill and Dulcinea have perfected their recipe, studied baking techniques and taught themselves new ways to decorate.

"It was something for us that was positive and a way to channel all that negativity and energy into something that was positive and people enjoy," Bill Kimrey said. "Everyone loves cookies."

Friends loved the cookies so much they encouraged Bill and Dulcinea to start selling them. Soon, Silly Monkey Cookie Company was born.

The company was named for Wilson's stuffed monkey, which traveled the world with the Kimrey's after their sons death.

"We took it to Italy, we took it to Washington D.C., we took it to London and to Disney. And we created this book and it was Wilsons adventures via monkey," Dulcinea said.

The Kimrey's said they chose the name because it was a happy name, but also provided an opportunity to talk about child loss and share Wilson's story.

"I think it's a way we honor him," Bill said. "Every business card has his name on it. It's just a way to remember him and honor him."

Every batch of cookies is still made in the Kimrey's kitchen using Dulcinea's dad's mixer. The couple, who both have other full time jobs, works on weekends and throughout the night to fill orders.

Each order is customized; no design is impossible. The Kimrey's have hundreds of cookie cutters, many of them handmade by Bill out of aluminum.

Bill and Dulcinea have perfected their recipe, studied baking techniques and taught themselves new ways to decorate. But they have also learned the most important lesson of all: that you can find love after grief.

"It's something that brings others joy and we feel that by bring people together, feeling other people's joy, that Wilson lives on," Dulcinea said.


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Police say a man's jaw was broken when three men assaulted him at a house in Benburb Street, Belfast.

Police are investigating reports that three men broke a man's jaw at a house in Belfast in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Det Constable McPhillips said police: "received reports just after 6.50 am today that a man is his 30s had been assaulted by three males at a house in Benburb Street.

"The man received a broken jaw as a result of this attack."

Anyone with information is asked to contact detectives at Musgrave on 101, quoting reference number 453 18/06/17.

Information can also be given anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Up to 100 million people worldwide sing Keith Getty's hymns in church services each year - and today that extraordinary accomplishment is recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

The world-renowned Lisburn-born composer has been awarded an OBE for his services and contribution to music and modern hymn writing, which includes In Christ Alone, the most frequently sung hymn in UK churches for a record-setting nine consecutive years.

"I'm so grateful to my wife Kristyn - we're celebrating 13 years of marriage today and have lived every moment of this journey together," he said.

"When I first received the call about the OBE, I was pretty surprised. It's a real honour for our family and for the field of hymn writing, which has been on the decline in recent years.

"I am very grateful to her Majesty the Queen for this honour. I've never met any of the royal family before, my wife wants to discuss fashion with Kate Middleton."

The honour arrives ahead of the Getty Music-led Global Hymn Sing event next Sunday, June 25, when more than one million congregants in more than 5,400 churches, in 100 countries, will join to sing Keith's hymn For the Cause, a call to Christian evangelism.

Along with Kristyn, who is from Glengormley, Keith has spent the last decade as a tireless ambassador for hymn singing, re-popularising and energising the genre around the world, and leading the world-wide revival of congregational singing.

They have performed concerts in venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Centre in Washington, DC, and London's Royal Albert Hall, and for world leaders like former US President George W Bush and former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

Known worldwide for modernising the classic hymn genre, Keith's famous In Christ Alone was the UK's second best-loved hymn of all time in a BBC Songs of Praise survey and among the top five hymns of all time by the UK Hymns Society.

Not bad for someone who started off as a teenager running the evangelical New Irish Arts club in his parents' living room.

"My parents are both musicians and I was raised going to Elmwood Church in Lisburn where I was afforded many opportunities," Keith recalls. "Friends School and good friends really were key in helping both flourish. Mum (a piano teacher) and dad (former civil servant) have always both been massive supporters of the songs and allowed our house to be an open house for all our friends and the crazy stuff we got up to from earliest teenage years."

The Getty family friends include Ian Paisley MP, who paid tribute to Keith. "Keith and his wife Kristyn have revolutionised the modern-day hymn and have made people the world over fall in love with hymn singing once again," he said.

Keith and Kristyn have settled in Nashville with their three young daughters.

"Kristyn and I met through her uncle and we haven't had a night apart since we got married 13 years ago. It's been an incredible journey together," he added.
North Belfast and Newtownabbey Ulster Unionist representatives have condemned the actions of vandals who set fire to the site of the former Newtownabbey Community High School in Rathcoole.

Police and the Fire Service attended the fire which broke out at the old school on Rathcoole Drive shortly after 4pm on Saturday.

Extensive damage was caused to some of the mobile units and some building equipment was stolen, Sergeant Adrian Keon said on Sunday.

Responding to the news, Newtownabbey Councillor John Scott said: I was greatly saddened and angry to learn that the old Newtownabbey Community High School site was badly damaged in an arson attack on Saturday.

"Those responsible have attacked their own community and denied their own people access to a community asset. Local people will share my anger and frustration at this senseless act."

North Belfast spokesperson Robert Foster added: "For some time now the Ulster Unionist Party has been pressing the Education Authority to allow the local Rathcoole community to make use of the premises until the Education Authority decides what the site should be used for in the longer term.

Had this course of action been followed, we might have avoided the current scenario whereby anti-social elements have managed to destroy the facility. My feeling is one of absolute frustration at the senselessness of this act.

Police are asking anyone with information to ring Newtownabbey station on 101, quoting reference 1003 17/06/17, or, to make an anonymous report, Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
The bookies favourite in the race to succeed Tim Farron as the Liberal Democrat leader has ruled herself out of the top job.

Former business minister Jo Swinson announced she will fight for the deputy leadership instead, saying it is the right role for me now.

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The party is facing its second hunt for a new leader in two years following the dramatic resignation of Mr Farron over the conflict between his faith and political career.

Ms Swinson said that while most men in her position would run for leader like a shot, it did not make such a move the right thing to do.

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The East Dunbartonshire MP said: I have been overwhelmed by so many lovely messages from people I know, and from many members I have not yet met, encouraging me to stand for leader. I am touched and flattered that you look to me and I am determined to play a key role in our partys leadership.

Being the leader of a political party is a unique and all-encompassing job, even more than the roles of MP and minister that I have undertaken before. It should not be done simply to achieve status, to make a point, or to please others.

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Feminist that I am, I have of course wondered what a bloke in my position would do. Its obvious. Most blokes in my shoes would run for leader like a shot. Its true that my many years of encouraging women to have the confidence to go for that exciting new role have taught me that women often dont go for things when they should.

But just as often I have observed men going for the promotion when they shouldnt. Just because a man would do it, doesnt make it the right thing to do. I have consistently fought against stereotypes and structures that impose a choice on someone, rather than allowing them to make up their own mind.

Mr Farron, a committed Christian who was repeatedly questioned during the election campaign as to whether he believed gay sex was a sin, said his religion had made him a subject of suspicion.
 Flash

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday sent messages to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Angela Merkel, respectively, expressing his condolences over the death of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

On behalf of the Chinese government and people and in his own name, Xi voiced deep condolences over Kohl's death and sincere sympathy for the former chancellor's family.

As an outstanding politician, Xi said, Kohl has made great contributions to German reunification and European integration, and his historic legacies will be remembered by all.

Xi said the Chinese people will never forget their old friend for his consistent commitment to promoting China-Germany and China-Europe dialogues and cooperation, his positive contributions to the development of China-Germany relations, as well as his understanding and support for the Chinese people to realize complete national reunification.

The Chinese government and people always treasure the friendship between the Chinese and German people, and are willing to work with the German side to create a better future for the China-Germany relations.

Kohl died, at the age of 87, Friday at his home in Ludwigshafen in Germany's western state of Rhineland-Platinate. He led Germany for a record 16 years -- first as chancellor of West Germany from 1982 to 1990 and then as chancellor of the reunited Germany until 1998.

The second longest serving chancellor in German history after Otto von Bismarck, Kohl was not only the architect of German reunification, but also an avid advocate of European unity, pushing for the creation of the continent's single currency the euro in 2002.
Jeremy Corbyn has renewed calls for empty homes to be taken over by the Government to house victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The Labour leader also criticised the official response to the tragedy, saying people should have been offered immediate accommodation similar to travellers who are offered hotels when their planes are delayed.

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He urged the Government to consider requisitioning or using compulsory purchase orders for flats that are deliberately kept vacant, in a process known as land-banking.

Mr Corbyn told ITVs Peston on Sunday: Occupy it, compulsory purchase it, requisition it  theres a lot of things you can do.

But cant we as a society just think, all of us, its all very well putting our arms around people during the crisis but homelessness is rising, the housing crisis is getting worse and my point was quite a simple one.

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In an emergency, you have to bring all assets to the table in order to deal with that crisis and thats what I think we should be doing in this case.

He questioned why people had been left stranded when airlines are able to find accommodation for delayed travellers.

Mr Corbyn said: 400 or so people, still most of them have not got somewhere decent, safe or secure to stay in. Somehow or other, it seems to be beyond the wit of the public services to deal with the crisis facing a relatively small number of people in a country of 65 million.

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Mr Corbyn also defended Theresa May, who has come under criticism for her response to the tragedy, saying: I think everybody cares to an extent, some to a deeper extent and some show empathy in a different way to others.

But the real issue is not about what we as individuals feel, Theresa May, me, anybody else, its what those people are going through.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell backed calls for requisitioning, saying he would have done whatever necessary to house families displaced by the fire.

Speaking to Sky News Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Mr McDonnell said: People would not be living in high-rise blocks, unsafe conditions and some of them very poor quality, if we didnt have the housing crisis and part of that housing crisis is as a result of allowing housing particularly in London for use for speculative gain rather than for housing need.

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Now what Jeremy said is if weve got a crisis like that, we need urgent measures and if there are empty properties nearby, they should be used and councils have the power to do that already.

Shadow communities secretary Andrew Gwynne denied suggestions that Labour is stirring up emotions.

He told BBC Ones Sunday Politics: I dont think that we are stirring it up. I would hope that we have been fully responsible in reflecting the concerns, the anxieties, the hurt and the worry or those residents in Kensington.
Pamela Anderson has penned an online love letter to Julian Assange, branding Theresa May the worst Prime Minister in living memory and calling for the WikiLeaks founders release.

The former Baywatch star also calls on world leaders, and China, to intervene and help free Mr Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for almost five years.

She said there is no longer any reason to keep Mr Assange trapped in a small room now Sweden has dropped its case against him.

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Anderson continues: But Theresa May  who kept him imprisoned in the embassy for 5 years  refuses to allow him to leave. Theresa May, who is on her last legs. Theresa May of the pyhrric victory (sic).

Theresa May, who wont shake the hand of the victims of the Grenfell fire. Who doesnt care about poor people. Who doesnt care about justice or peace. Who doesnt care about Julian. The worst Prime Minister in living memory.

Anderson also invites French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte to the July opening of her new restaurant in France, and asks him to grant Mr Assange asylum.

Expand Close Pamela Anderson outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London (Jonathan Brady/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Anderson uses the letter to address Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and highlights their mutual compassion for animals, while stating Mr Assange should be given compensation.

To Mr Corbyn, she said: I have watched the recent UK election with great interest. I have cheered the turn in your partys fortunes! You are clearly a decent and fair man.

Anderson describes the US government as the ultimate bully, a superpower, with 1,200 military bases all around the world.

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In the letter posted on pamelaandersonfoundation.org, the ex-playboy model gushes over how his bravery and courage make Mr Assange sexy.

She signs it: I love you, Pamela.

Anderson was spotted delivering lunch to Mr Assange at the embassy in October last year and then again in February this year, saying she was concerned about his health and his family.

She later wrote about him on her blog in a long message which was accompanied by a photo of him, saying: My relationship with Julian  its no secret. He is one of my favourite people and he might be the most famous, most politicised refugee of our time.
Mohammad Alhajali was the first victim to be formally identified (Metropolitan Police/PA)

The Home Office has assisted the family of Grenfell Tower victim Mohammad Alhajali in making arrangements for their travel to the UK.

The 23-year-old Syrian refugee was the first fatality of the disaster to be formally identified by police.

More than 85,000 people have signed a petition calling for his parents to be granted visas for the UK so they can attend his funeral.

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A Home Office spokesman said on Saturday: We made contact with Mr Alhajalis family yesterday and assisted them in making arrangements for their travel to the UK in these terribly sad circumstances.

The petition was set up by family friend Mirna Suleiman, 26, who had been ringing around numerous hospitals, rest centres and the casualty helpline for news of his fate before discovering he had not made it out alive.

She chose to launch the campaign because as someone with Syrian family herself, she knows how difficult it is to obtain a visa for visits.

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The Syria Solidarity Campaign posted on Facebook: Were very pleased to announce that the family of Mohammad Alhajali received visas to come to the UK for Mohammads funeral.

Its not the kind of reunion anyone would have wanted, but we know it will be comforting for the family as they grieve for the loss of Mohammad together.

Mr Alhajalis family said in a statement: Mohammad was a very amazing and kind person. He gave love to everyone. He came to the UK because he had ambitions and aims for his life and for his family.

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Our whole family will miss Mohammad dearly and he will never be forgotten. To God we belong and to him we return.

Mr Alhajalis older brother Omar  who was with him in the flat  survived the fire after they were separated on the way out.

The percentage of rejected visa applications for visits from Syria has soared after the countrys devastating civil war began in 2011.

But the Home Office has established processes which allow it to consider visa applications outside the Immigration Rules on compassionate grounds.
Prosecutors have vowed to try Bill Cosby again, declaring the woman who accuses the comedian of drugging and molesting her at his home in Philadelphia in 2004 is "entitled to a verdict."

Here are the charges against him, which remain active despite the mis-trial that was declared after the jury reached a deadlock:

:: What is Cosby accused of?

Drugging and sexually violating a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. Andrea Constand says Cosby gave her pills that made her paralysed and unable to fight him off as he groped her breast and genitals. His lawyers said they were in a romantic relationship and what happened was consensual.

:: What is he charged with?

Three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault, each covering a different aspect of the alleged crime. Count 1 alleges that Cosby did not have consent when he penetrated Constand's genitals with his fingers. Count 2 alleges she was unconscious or semi-conscious at the time and could not give consent. Count 3 alleges all this happened after he gave her an intoxicant that substantially impaired her and stopped her from resisting.

:: How much time could he have faced?

Each of the three counts carries a standard sentence range of five to 10 years in prison. But experts say that if he had been convicted, it is likely Cosby's attorneys would have been able to successfully argue the charges be combined for sentencing purposes, since they cover the same encounter and conduct. Under state sentencing guidelines, a conviction would have put Cosby, 79, in prison at least until he was 84.

:: What was the worst-cast scenario for Cosby?

Pennsylvania law allows sentencing judges to consider uncharged conduct. In Cosby's case, that could have involved the more than 60 other women who have accused him of assaults dating to the 1960s. Duquesne University law professor Wes Oliver said if Cosby had been convicted, those allegations could have compelled Judge Steven O'Neill to sentence him closer to 10 years.

:: Would he have had to register as a sex offender?

Yes. If he had been convicted, prosecutors say Cosby would have had to register as a sex offender and face an assessment to determine whether he was a sexually violent predator.

AP
People rush out of damaged buildings after air strikes in the western part of the southern Daraa province of Syria (Syrian Civil Defence White Helmets via AP)

Russia has proposed that a two-day round of Syrian peace talks should start on July 4.

The news follows the Syrian military's announcement of the cessation of all combat operations in the southern city of Daraa for 48 hours in support of national reconciliation.

The July negotiations, to be held in Kazakhstan's capital Astana, are expected to finalise details of so-called safe zones to be set up in Syria.

Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov said the dates suggested for the talks seem to have been welcomed by everyone.

Russia also expects progress on Syria at a July 7 G20 summit in Germany, said Mr Bogdanov.

Russia, Turkey and Iran, who back opposing sides in Syria's brutal civil war, have brokered several rounds of peace talks in Astana this year, bringing together the Syrian government and rebel forces.

The United Nations' special envoy for Syria earlier said he plans a new round of peace talks in Geneva next month.

Staffan de Mistura's office said the aim was for delegates to arrive in the Swiss city on July 9 and for talks to start the next day, although it did not say how long the round is expected to last.

It also said Mr de Mistura plans to convene further rounds of talks in August and September.

The UN-hosted Geneva talks between parties to the conflict in Syria are the main political forum for efforts to end the six-year conflict.

Daraa saw some of the worst fighting in months amid fears by opposition activists that the government will try to take the contested city, where the country's civil war began in 2011.

But the army said all combat operations will stop for 48 hours as of 12pm on Saturday (0900 GMT).

A "de-escalation agreement" brokered by Iran, Russia and Turkey in May has not brought any relief to the city, activists said. The agreement covers four zones in Syria where the rebels are fighting pro-government forces.

The Iraqi military has said it captured the al-Waleed border crossing with Syria from Islamic State with t ribal forces and border police, supported by Iraqi and US-led coalition aircraft.

Al-Waleed, in the far west of Iraq, fell to IS in 2015, giving the militants full control of the Iraq-Syria border, which they vowed to erase as part of their ambition to build a caliphate.

The militants have come under increasing pressure from government forces in recent months in the country's western deserts.

AP
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Jem's Birding & Ringing Exploits in the Eastern Province and elsewhere in Saudi Arabia
PARIS  Will millennials save the West?

Many commentators seem confident that the answer is yes  that young peoples left-leaning values will be a moderating influence on their insular, xenophobic, right-wing parents. But this complacency may be misplaced.

Young people  or at least a large swath of them  do appear to be growing more left-wing. On several key metrics, though, they also appear to be growing more illiberal, and more radical.

In Britain, young voters showed up en masse last week to help crack the Conservative Partys comfortable majority in Parliament. Newspapers hailed the youthquake, in which they exacted revenge upon the fusty, nationalistic elders whod had chosen to bolt the European Union.

About six in 10 voters under 35 reported voting for the leftist Labour Party, which opposed Brexit last year and had more recently wooed young people with promises of free college, higher taxes on the wealthy and greater spending on health care. Just a quarter of this age bracket voted Tory.

The numbers were roughly the reverse for voters over 65.

An election day poll found other huge gaps between older and younger voters on a range of questions signaling left-wing values and progressivism (such as attitudes toward feminism, environmentalism and the internet), as political scientist Pippa Norris noted recently.

These trends have been compared with those in the United States, where millennials are also supposed to be the last bulwark against undemocratic Trumpian values.

After all, we came of age during the Great Recession and its aftermath. This has shaped our worldview and made us more skeptical of unfettered capitalism and the establishment. Hence the Bernie bromance, which also came with promises of free college, higher taxes on the wealthy and more generous government health care.

Here in France, many of the already traditionally leftist young have recently drifted further leftward, too. In the first-round presidential elections in the spring, a plurality of the youngest voters chose far-left, Communist-allied Jean-Luc Melenchon.

In second, however, was the far-right candidate: Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigrant, anti-Europe National Front party, who champions law and order and economic patriotism. In fact, Le Pen has stronger support among the very young than the very old. (In the subsequent runoff election, Le Pen did about as well among the young as she did among voters overall.)

In the 1990s, the voters of the National Front were first of all elderly, says Stephane Wahnich, a political science professor at Universite Paris-Est Creteil. Today, he says, the most enthusiastic National Front members are far and away those under 30.

French youths have been increasingly drawn to extremes, he says, because they have little economic mobility and few job opportunities. Additionally, the bogeymen of generations past  Nazism, communism  seem less alarming to a cohort so far removed from World War II and the Cold War.

Therefore to vote for political parties that are ideologically close to these sensibilities poses fewer and fewer problems because many do not make the link, he says.

The French case has parallels with other Western democracies.

As I have written before, research by Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk based on the World Values Survey has found that both Americans and Europeans have become more distrusting of their political institutions, more cynical about the worth of democracy and liberal democratic values, and more politically extreme.

This is especially true of millennials.

In fact, millennials are the most politically radical generation ever recorded by the World Values Survey, as measured by whether respondents place themselves as either a 1 or a 10 on a left-right scale.

In economic extremis for years, we have now gone to extremes.

Perhaps what many have been mistaking for growing progressivism among millennials in Britain and the United States is merely the lefty flavor of the populism to which they are increasingly drawn.

Arguably, the most salient characteristic of the lefty candidates whom millennials idolize is not so much their leftiness, but their anti-establishment, at times barn-burning populism. During the U.S. presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders railed against globalization nearly as much as Donald Trump did. Sanders

millennial-beloved British analogue, Labours Jeremy Corbyn, espouses far nuttier and more troubling beliefs (including past praise of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Moammar Gaddafi).

As Mounk has suggested, the proper way we should perhaps think about political divides going forward is not so much left vs. right or liberal vs. conservative. Rather, its something more akin to belief in a closed society vs. an open one, nationalism vs. internationalism.

The jury is out on where my generations views will land, but defenders of the West might want to start working on Plan B.
MADISON  The speculation began within minutes of when President Trump, speaking in Waukesha and alluding to negotiations with an unspecified company, told Gov. Scott Walker he might get a very happy surprise very soon.

That surprise may well be Foxconn, a Taiwanese giant that assembles Apples iPhones and other electronics. No one will say for sure, but The Associated Press reported Thursday it had off-the-record confirmation that Foxconn is talking with Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. never comments on pending or potential opportunities  which is appropriate given how fragile and competitive such talks can be  so the potential surprise is still tightly wrapped inside a box awaiting a party that may never come.

This much is known, however. Foxconn is best known as one of Apples iPhone and iPad manufacturing partners. The company is likely to build a plant in the United States that would be used to build displays for everything from Internet of Things products to Apple devices.

As DigiTimes reported earlier this year, Foxconn would use a U.S. facility to manufacture small to medium displays for IoT applications, including automotive, medical care and mobile terminal displays. It could also be used to develop new screens for existing Apple products and televisions.

Foxconn CEO and Chairman Terry Gou said in January the company was planning to invest $7 billion in a U.S. facility, and company executive visited the White House a month or so ago.

Why would a company so large that entire cities have sprung up around its global factories have an interest in the United States and Wisconsin?

For starters, building a huge screen plant in the United States would fit well with Trumps push to create more domestic jobs. Trump has criticized foreign and domestic companies alike for not creating or keeping American manufacturing jobs, and he has threatened to increase tariffs on imports from countries that dont take heed.

The interest goes beyond politics, however. Foxconn would like to secure a larger share of American markets, particularly for products such as Sharp, a recently acquired subsidiary. Localizing screen production could help the company save on transport costs. The resulting publicity could also help sell more high-end Sharp-branded sets in the United States, the worlds second-biggest television market.

Those factors apply anywhere in the United States where Foxconn chooses to build. So, why Wisconsin?

The state has a manufacturing tradition that extends to electronic devices, equipment and components. In fact, electrical machinery of all types accounted for 9.4 percent of Wisconsin exports in the most recent year  about $2 billion in total. Power electronics and controls has been a Wisconsin specialty for a century or more.

Wisconsin is a state plugged into the Internet of Things through major companies such as GE Healthcare, Johnson Controls, Rockwell Automation and more. The Internet of Things is a term that describes using the internet to connect computing devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receive data via WiFi, cellular connections or other networks. It includes anything from your Fitbit wristband to coffeemakers and garage openers you can control through a smartphone, to smart buildings, connected cars and much more. Wisconsin companies large and small have been increasingly good at figuring it out.

The state has the foundation to produce skilled workers through the Wisconsin Technical College System and the UW System. The Department of Computer Sciences at the UW-Madison is one of the leading academic departments in the country, usually ranking in the top 12. There are strong engineering colleges in Madison, Milwaukee, Menomonie and Platteville.

There are logical plant sites available and an infrastructure in place that would enable a company the size of Foxconn to deliver its products to market.

Other states are reportedly in the hunt, most notably Michigan, which has a similar footprint to Wisconsin. Some states may be able to dig deeper into their own pockets to provide cash incentives. That means the presidents surprise could fizzle like a candle on a birthday cake.

At the same time, there is reason to believe Wisconsin has what it takes to compete, if not for Foxconn the next major company.
DURAND  In the driveway of a two-story house on a dairy farm in western Wisconsin, five men focus on a unique construction project. Using a drill, hammer and nails, plywood and rope, they work together in the afternoon sun to erect a structure that resembles a makeshift corral in the bed of a Honda pickup.

Every so often, Luisa Tepole, 25, carries a suitcase or packaged appliance out of the house, handing it to her husband, Miguel Hernandez, 36.

By the end of the night, the back of the truck is piled high with bags of clothes and shoes, TV sets in boxes and a bucket of childrens toys, ready for the 2,300-mile drive to Veracruz, Mexico.

Farm owners Doug and Toni Knoepke watch Hernandez and the other workers from a few feet away as they load their two-truck caravan. It looks like a scene from The Grapes of Wrath, Doug Knoepke remarks, referring to the movie about the mass migration from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California in the 1930s.

Only this time, it is in reverse: The migrants are leaving a land abundant with economic opportunity for an uncertain future in their homeland.

Hernandez has been working on the Knoepkes farm in Pepin County for 16 years. He shares this home with his wife and two young sons, Thomas, 5, and Liam, 4.

Earlier in the day, at Thomas last day at Noahs Ark Preschool in Durand, he cries as he tells his classmates that he will not be starting kindergarten with them in the fall. He has never been to Mexico.

On June 1, Hernandez and four other men, who for years have milked and cared for cows on dairy farms among the hills of western Wisconsin, drive away in the direction of their mountainous hometown of Texhuacan. A few days later, Tepole and the children fly out of Chicago.

The Hernandez family is leaving, in part, because of the threat of deportation  which could ban them from returning to the United States for 10 years  and what they describe as increasingly harsh rhetoric by President Donald Trump and others toward immigrants, especially those here illegally.

They moved here to Americas Dairyland, the nations top cheese state and No. 2 milk producer, attracted by a dairy industry dependent on undocumented immigrant labor to keep cows milked three times a day, year-round. They have raised their children in communities where American workers stopped answering help wanted ads for cow milkers long ago.

And now, they are going home.

Miguel has been our right hand, Knoepke says. He treated (the farm) like he owned it. Were really saddened, scared. I dont know. Its sad.

In the first 100 days of the Trump administration, arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Midwestern region increased over the previous two years.

In Wisconsin, farmers like Knoepke depend heavily on workers like Hernandez. Seeing him and the other workers leave worries this first generation farmer with 650 cows.

I dont know where the industry would be without (immigrant labor) right now, Knoepke says.

There are temporary visas for seasonal agricultural workers, but year-round workers who make up the vast majority of the labor force on Wisconsins large dairies have no special protections, and many are in the country illegally. Knoepke says Congress better do something  because (workers) are leaving. You see it right here. Theyre packin up.

Hernandezs brother, Damaso, who also works at a western Wisconsin dairy farm, says many workers he knows plan to leave because, Theyre scared of the government.

He adds, Its strange, its difficult because all the Hispanic people knew the Americans here in Wisconsin were supporting Donald Trump. I think they made a mistake, because a lot of people are fleeing for precisely that reason.

Arrests up in the Midwest

ICE figures show arrests in the six-state Midwestern region including Wisconsin are rising since Trump took office, Wisconsin Public Radio has learned.

The agency reports that arrests in the Chicago region rose to 2,599 between Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, through April 29, the first 100 days of the Trump administration. That figure exceeds arrest totals from the same time period in the previous two years under President Barack Obama. However, it is lower than the same time period in 2014, when there were 3,033 arrests.

Nationwide, ICE arrests totaled 41,898, about 35 percent higher than last year but lower than the 2014 figure of 54,584.

Randy Capps, director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan group that analyzes the movement of people worldwide, says there can be a pretty substantial lag between arrest and deportation. Factors include whether the person contests the deportation.

And that lag can be anywhere from a few days  if they have a prior removal order thats simply reinstated  to several years, if they decide to contest their deportation and theyre let out of detention on bond, Capps says.

Implementation memos issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security earlier this year expanded ICEs target from individuals convicted of serious crimes to those charged with even low-level offenses. The memos also direct that no one in the country illegally is exempt from deportation.

Nationwide, the number of non-criminals arrested by ICE in Trumps first 100 days more than doubled from the same period last year, to 10,934 from 4,372. In the Chicago region, for example, 778 of the 2,599 people arrested by ICE were not convicted criminals; last year, 500 non-criminals were arrested during the same time frame.

A farmer in Wisconsins Trempealeau County, who asked not to be named because he fears reprisals from immigration authorities, says ICE agents who visited his farm this spring looking for a particular person warned him they knew the rest of his employees were also undocumented and that they would be back. A worker who spoke to Wisconsin Public Radio at another farm in Pepin County shared a similar report.

Experts say, however, there is no evidence of the type of sweeping raids carried out near the end of the George W. Bush administration.

ICE may be under pressure from businesses not to run intensive operations in fields or factories where many undocumented immigrants work, Capps says.

If they were to take a bunch of agricultural workers, or even if they were to scare a large number of agricultural workers away, that could have a bad impact on the local economy, he says.

Theyre coming after us

As rumors circulated that ICE had visited Durand, four other dairy workers decided to join Hernandez, whose reasons for leaving include returning to see his ill father. He and his friends determined it was best to go now  organized, relaxed and with a plan.

Its better to go back home because of the laws  theyre coming after us, says Luis Mendez, 32, who milks cows and helps out as a mechanic at the Knoepke farm.

If you are deported, he says, You take the clothes youre wearing  and thats it. But with a planned departure, Mendez says, immigrants can keep their belongings and money.

Still others, like Hernandezs brother Damaso  who has lived in the United States for 17 years  are staying, but the situation could change at any moment. He thinks about the effect of leaving on his four children, who were raised in Wisconsin.

My kids are very accustomed to life here, Damaso Hernandez says. The truth is, I dont know what type of life they would have over there.

Working until the last day

It is 7:15 in the morning on May 31. As the sun peeks over the hills to the east, workers are in action. One drives a tractor through the fields while another steers a feed truck between two rows of cows. All the while, men in the milking parlor never stop moving. Some have been working since 11 p.m. and are just finishing their shifts.

At this hour, everyone on the farm is an immigrant from Mexico.

For Hernandez, today is just like any other workday over the past 16 years, except that it is his last. He does not want to work today, but his bosses say they really need the help. He opens and closes metal gates, shoo-ing cows in and out of the milking parlor, and sweeps piles of manure and feed off the floor of the barn.

Tepole is excited. She has not been back home in the 11 years since she first came to the United States. Her parents have never met their grandchildren, and her mother is happy they are coming home.

Hernandez knows his decision to raise his children in Mexico will affect their future. Its a huge difference in school here compared to the school in Mexico. I think we are a lot behind in Mexico, but  it is what it is, Hernandez says, shrugging his shoulders.

Four or five people have applied for Hernandezs job, but none has worked out, according to herd manager Henry Yoder. Knoepke says he probably will need to promote from within.

Hernandez says the farm owners want him to come back legally if that ever becomes possible.

They are waiting for the government to do something  so they can bring people with papers or with visa, but they are just waiting, he says.
Philip Hammond has warned failing to secure a Brexit deal would be "very, very bad" for Britain ahead of the start of exit talks in Brussels on Monday.

The British Chancellor insisted there must be transitional arrangements to avoid a "cliff edge", and he indicated temporary measures could be in place for a couple of years before a final deal is sealed.

Brexit Secretary David Davis is heading to Brussels for a one-day meeting with its chief negotiator Michel Barnier to start formal negotiations.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly insisted the British Government is prepared to walk away from the talks, claiming no deal is better than a bad deal.

Mr Hammond's warnings over Brexit were seized on by critics, with shadow chancellor John McDonnell claiming the Government is in "disarray".

The Chancellor told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "What we put in place may not be a single arrangement that endures forever, it may be an arrangement which lasts for a couple of years as a temporary measure before we get to the long-term agreed status quo.

"We're leaving the EU and because we are leaving the EU, we will be leaving the single market and by the way, we will be leaving the customs union.

"The question is not whether we are leaving the customs union. The question is what do we put in its place in order to deliver the objectives the Prime Minister set out in her Lancaster House speech of having no hard land border in Ireland and enabling British goods to flow freely backwards and forwards across the border with the European Union?

"It's a statement of common sense that if we are going to radically change the way we work together, we need to get there via a slope, not a cliff edge."

Mr Hammond said he would not agree to a deal that would "destroy" Britain.

"No deal would be a very, very bad outcome for Britain, but there is a possible worse outcome and that is a deal that is deliberately structured to suck the lifeblood out of our economy over a period of time."

Commons leader Andrea Leadsom, a leading Brexit supporter, said she believes the two-year timetable can be met.

She told BBC One's Sunday Politics: "Where you have politicians right across the EU and the United Kingdom who share the desire for a successful outcome, with low tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, free trade between ourselves, co-operation on security and so on, it should be perfectly possible to meet the time frame."

Asked if that meant no transitional arrangements, she replied: "Well, I'm extremely optimistic that we will find there is a lot we can agree on."

Mr McDonnell told Sophy Ridge on Sunday: "Well I'm afraid the problem with the Brexit talks is that we have a Government in disarray.

"I do not know which particular line of approach is being made by the Government because they are in complete division, so I think actually removing this Government and allowing a Labour government, if necessary a minority government, to come into place would give us clear direction on all of this."

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: "The Chancellor stated that British exporters need arrangements as close as possible to the ones they currently enjoy. And he is right.

"As David Davis boards the plane to negotiate Brexit on behalf of the Government, it is unclear what the Government's position actually is.

"There is a growing consensus across the parties, in business and amongst the public, that an extreme 'hard' Brexit of the kind put forward by Theresa May at Lancaster House is no longer politically viable and would be economically disastrous.

"The Chancellor's position would be untenable if his economic advice is not listened to by the rest of the Cabinet."
by David Raleigh

Firefighters in Limerick have prevented a fire spreading through Roches Feeds, one of Ireland's largest manufacturer of animal feeds.

The fire broke out shortly after midnight last night, in a storage tank at the company's 3m manufacturing plant, on the Dock Road.

Three units attached to Limerick City and County Fire & Rescue Service, supported by one unit from Shannon Fire Service, responded to the scene.

Fire crews spent five hours dealing with the fire.

"A storage tank caught fire. Luckily it was away from the main mill. It had the potential to spread. Firefighters were there for five hours," said a reliable source.

While the cause of the blaze is "unknown", it's being treated as accidental.

Firefighters "had to make sure that it hadn't spread before declaring it safe at 5am", the source added.

The company, which delivers feed to 7,000 customers, is owned and run by fourth generation of the Roche family specialising in the manufacture of animal feed for the Irish market.

One of the last family owned feed mills in the country, it started out producing 21,000 tonnes per annum in 1994 and employing 18 staff, to employing 40 staff and manufacturing in excess of 150,000 tonnes per annum.
There has been fresh calls today for the new Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy, to publish a fire safety report on boom era houses that has still not been published 15 months after it was completed.

Speaking as the death toll in the tragic Grenfell Tower blaze in London continued to rise Dublin Bay North Social Democrats Cllr Cian OCallaghan suggested the current head in the sand attitude to fire risks in Irish housing developments cannot continue.

Cllr OCallaghan aid he believed there are accidents waiting to happen in hundreds of housing developments up and down the country which have serious fire safety defects.

In a statement today Cllr Cian OCallaghan suggested the new Minister had to take the issue in hand.

"As a first step, Minister Eoghan Murphy should publish the review that was commissioned by his department following a rapid spread fire that devastated a row of timber-framed houses in the new-build Millford Manor housing estate in March 2015.

That review was supposed to lead to the development of a national framework to prevent similar accidents in the future in residential developments where concerns had been raised about fire safety. But the department ... has refused repeated requests for it to be published."

Cllr OCallaghan went on to say that it was vital the departments review is published so that remedial work can be carried out and new controls put in place.

"In the future, we need to do away with self-regulation and put in place independent building control inspection.

In the housing estate fire in Millfield Manor in 2015, no residents were harmed because the fire broke out during daytime hours. The next time people may not be so lucky.
A search and rescue mission to find seven US sailors missing after an American destroyer collided with a merchant ship in waters off Japan has ended after bodies were found.

Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, commander of the US Navy's 7th Fleet, told reporters at a base in Yokosuka, Japan, that a number of bodies had been recovered, though he would not say how many.

The USS Fitzgerald sustained significant damage in the collision with Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal on Saturday at around 2.20am local time.

The bodies were found in flooded compartments on Sunday after the Fitzgerald returned to the base in Yokosuka with the help of tug boats.

Searchers gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision and brought the remains to the Naval Hospital Yokosuka, where they will be identified.

The navy said families are being notified and provided with support during "this difficult time".

The container ship has berthed at Tokyo's Oi wharf, where officials have begun questioning crew members about the cause of the crash.

Mr Aucoin said 116 crew members on the Fitzgerald were in two berthing rooms, most of them resting at the time of the collision.

The captain, Commander Bryce Benson, suffered a head injury and was airlifted to shore, and Mr Aucoin said he is lucky to have survived.

Two other crew members were injured in the crash, which damaged two berthing spaces, a machinery room and the radio room and exposed a mangled mid-right side of the ship.

On Twitter, US President Donald Trump said: "Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families.

"Thank-you to our Japanese allies for their assistance."

The ACX Crystal weighs 29,060 tons and is 730ft, the coastguard said, much larger than the 8,315-ton destroyer.

The container ship's left bow was dented and scraped, but it did not appear to have sustained any major structural damage.

All crew members on board the ACX Crystal were unharmed.

Conditions were clear at the time of the collision, though the Japanese coastguard said the area was particularly busy with sea traffic.
US President Donald Trump has defended his record in a series of tweets which also lash out at the investigation into Russian interference in the election.

In a two-part tweet posted before 7am local time on Sunday, he wrote: "The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt."
home US Kentucky pastor says he will not comply with law banning pro-life protests outside abortion clinics

A pastor in Louisville, Kentucky has expressed his opposition to a proposed regulation that would prohibit protesters from gathering outside abortion clinics.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky has recently advised the Metro Council to create an eight-foot-wide buffer zone outside the entrance of EMW Women's Clinic in Louisville to ensure that women have "unimpeded access" to the last open abortion facility in the state.

On Wednesday, the council held a meeting to hear the concerns of abortion activists and pro-life advocates regarding the proposed buffer zone.

At the meeting, local pastor Joseph Spurgeon insisted that he will not comply with the buffer zone, if enacted.

"Respect the unborn children. Respect our free speech. We will not obey buffer zone laws!" the pastor shouted.

WDRB reported that Spurgeon blamed violence in the west end on legal abortion. He was then escorted out by the police after council members repeatedly called for order as the pastor continued to shout.

Abortion advocate Kate Cunningham called on the council members to enact a 20-foot "safety zone" at the entrance of the clinic, saying it will not obstruct free speech but will protect the clinic's patients from "hostile protesters."

"Protesters may gather 20 feet from the entrance and continue to yell loudly, harass women and hold up 2x4-foot signs depicting bloody fetuses," she said.

LMPD Maj. Eric Johnson, who currently assigns police officers to the clinic each Saturday, claimed that the protests were becoming more "aggressive."

Last month, the police arrested about a dozen protesters, who were locked arm-in-arm to block the entrance to the clinic. The protests were organized by the group Operation Save America in an effort to block the clinic entrance and risk arrest to "rescue their preborn neighbor."

Lousiville police said that the protesters were arrested and charged with criminal trespassing after they refused to leave the premises.

Life News noted that Blocking abortion clinics has been considered as a controversial tactic among pro-life groups because it is illegal.

Buffer zones have also been seen as a controversial measure, and several proposals have been struck down in courts in the U.S. In 2014, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against a buffer zone law in Massachusetts, saying it restricted the freedom of speech of pro-life advocates. In May, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of pro-life activists, who argued that the buffer zone ordinance in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania violated their right to free speech.
British Chancellor Philip Hammond has been urged to publish the costs of any deals made with the DUP to prop up a Tory government in the UK.

Talks are under way between the Tories and the DUP over a potential alliance as Theresa May needs their 10 MPs to govern after her majority was wiped out in the General Election.

However Labours shadow chancellor John McDonnell has raised concerns over reports the DUP want to end airport tax on visitors to Northern Ireland, which generated around 90m in 2015/16, according to HMRC estimates.

Abolishing Air Passenger Duty (APD) is one of the DUPs key demands as it pits the North unfavourably against the Republic of Ireland, where the duty has been abolished.

In a letter to the Chancellor, Mr McDonnell said: "I am writing to ask whether the Government has been asked for this measure by the DUP, has agreed to it or is considering it.

"In the interest of basic openness and transparency in government I am writing to ask that you publish any financial measures that have been discussed with the DUP and set out the financial implications of any measures agreed with this party.

"I look forward to a prompt response given the considerable public interest in this matter and its consequences for our public finances."

The British Prime Minister has said she is confident of getting the Queen of Englands speech through the Commons, regardless of whether a deal is reached with the DUP by the time of the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday.

A Number 10 spokesman would not comment on the ongoing talks, which are understood to focus on support for key Commons votes rather than a full coalition between the parties.
UPDATE 12.15pm: Raging forest fires in central Portugal have killed at least 57 people, many of them trapped in their cars as flames swept over a road.

Nearly 60 other people have been injured, including four firefighters, in what Prime Minister Antonio Costa described as "the biggest tragedy of human life that we have known in years".

A lightning strike is believed to have sparked the blaze in the Pedrogao Grande area after investigators found a tree that was hit during a "dry thunderstorm", the head of the national judicial police said.

Dry thunderstorms are frequent when falling water evaporates before reaching the ground because of high temperatures.

Authorities had previously said that temperatures which have soared to 40C in recent days might have played a part in the inferno, centred about 95 miles north-east of the capital Lisbon.

UPDATE 11.25am: Raging forest fires in central Portugal have killed at least 60 people, many of them trapped in their cars as flames swept over a road.

Nearly 60 other people have been injured, including four firefighters, in an incident Prime Minister Antonio Costa has described as "the biggest tragedy of human life that we have known in years".

The fatalities occurred in the Pedrogao Grande area, about 95 miles north-east of the capital Lisbon, where about 700 firefighters have been trying to put out the fires since Saturday.

Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes said at least 16 people were killed when their vehicles were engulfed by flames on a road between the towns of Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera, and three others died from smoke inhalation in Figueiro dos Vinhos.

No information has yet been given on how the others were killed.

Mr Costa said firefighting crews are having difficulties in approaching the area because the flames are "very intense".

UPDATE 8.50am: Almost 40 people have been killed in forest fires raging through central Portugal, many of them trapped in their cars as flames swept over a road.

About 600 firefighters are fighting blazes in the Pedrogao Grande area about 95 miles north-east of the capital Lisbon.

Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes said 16 people died in their cars on a road between the towns of Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera, while 23 others have been killed elsewhere.

A number of firefighters have been injured while tackling the flames.

Televised images showed a huge wall of flames leaping over the top of trees in the wooded region.

The fires come amid a heatwave in Portugal which has seen temperatures soar to 40C in recent days.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa has described the situation as a "tragedy of a big dimension".

He said authorities are working to identify the victims, and Spanish rescuers are to help efforts to put out the fires.

EARLIER: More than 20 people have been killed in forest fires in central Portugal, many of them trapped in their cars as flames swept over a road.

Portuguese radio station TSF, citing the Interior Ministry, said 25 people had been killed in blazes in the Pedrogao Grande area, about 93 miles north east of Lisbon.

Around 600 firefighters were trying to put out the blazes, which started on Saturday.

Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes said 16 people died in their cars on a road between the towns of Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera and three died from smoke inhalation in Figueiro dos Vinhos.

Public broadcaster RTP said there were about 20 injured, including six firefighters. Fourteen of the injured were in a serious condition.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa called it a "tragedy of a big dimension".

He said authorities were working on identifying the victims and Spanish rescuers would help efforts to put out the fires.

Televised images showed a huge wall of flames leaping over the top of trees in the wooded region.

Portugal has suffered high temperatures that have reached 40C (104F) in recent days.

It is prone to forest fires in the dry summer months.
UPDATE 9.11pm: The investigations at Grenfell Tower have led police to believe the "number of people missing, but as yet unaccounted for" has risen from 58, the Metropolitan Police said.

Releasing the first images from inside the burnt-out building, Commander Stuart Cundy said some of the victims may never be identified.

He said: "The conditions due to the fire damage verge on indescribable, which is why this will be such a lengthy operation taking weeks to complete.

"We must also prepare people for the terrible reality that some people may not be identified due to the intensity of the fire."

Mr Cundy added: "Sadly that work leads me to believe that the number of people missing, but as yet unaccounted for has risen from yesterday's figure of 58."

Releasing a tranche of footage showing the aftermath of the blaze, Mr Cundy said: "Today, police teams continue their support to families, and make enquiries to cross check the number of those missing.

"I have always said I will be accurate about what I know, so the next figure of those presumed dead and missing will be released tomorrow, Monday 19 June. The figure will be higher but I do not wish to speculate on that number today."

UPDATE 6.29pm: Residents who met the British Prime Minister in Downing Street following the Grenfell Tower fire have criticised estate managers of the building as having been "invisible in the aftermath of the tragedy".

The group, made up of victims, residents, community leaders and volunteers, said they were grateful to Theresa May for listening to their concerns but demanded "real action and immediate results" moving forward.

In a statement they criticised Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation for its reaction to the disaster.

The group said: "In our meeting at Downing Street, we explained to the Prime Minister the anger of all residents towards the management of the estate over a long period of time, paving the way to this tragedy.

"With the exception of very few junior officers, the estate managers have been invisible in the aftermath of the tragedy."

The group, which spent two-and-a-half hours with Mrs May on Friday and Saturday, hit out at the "longstanding neglect" of council buildings in the area.

It said: "We are devastated by this tragedy. We are angry about the inadequacy of the response and the longstanding neglect of our buildings by the council and building management.

"We are grateful to the Prime Minister for listening to us and for the assurances she has given us but now we need to see real action and immediate results with centralised coordination of the relief effort with residents closely involved.

"The Government must also take a serious look at the neglect and chronic underfunding of social housing over decades."

They added that local residents should be "consulted at all stages and that we should be listened to" in dealing with the fallout from the tragedy.

Theresa May has announced that victims who have been left homeless will be given at least 5,500 from an emergency fund.

Residents will be given 500 in cash followed by a bank payment for the rest from Monday.

The Prime Minister insisted the Government was doing everything possible to help those caught up in the tragedy.

The money will come from the 5m fund announced by Mrs May on Friday.

No 10 said the 500 cash payment is already being handed out and further payments will be available from the Westway Centre and the nearby post office in Portobello Road.

Help will be given to residents who do not have bank accounts.

Mrs May said: "As we continue to respond to the needs of the community, our focus is on ensuring that all of those affected by this unimaginable tragedy get the right support as quickly as possible.

"My government will continue to do absolutely everything possible to help all of those affected through the difficult days, weeks, months and years ahead."

UPDATE 3.43pm: Anger in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire comes after "years of neglect" by council and Government, London's mayor said, adding that stories of grief and heroism from the blaze will stay with him forever.

Sadiq Khan spent more than two hours at St Clement's Church in west London on Sunday, as a service remembered victims of the disaster.

He said it was "humbling" to attend before meeting with many members of the congregation as well as other people who turned up to speak to him.

Vowing to be the "champion of the people", he said lessons must be learned from the tragedy, which is feared to have claimed the lives of at least 58 people.

Speaking outside after the service, which he attended with his wife Saadiya, he said people are "angry not simply at the poor response in the days afterwards from the council and the Government, but the years of neglect from the council and successive governments".

A shrine close to Grenfell Tower in west London.

He described a feeling among people that they have been treated badly and not understood by the council because some of them are "poor, some may come from deprived backgrounds, some may be asylum seekers and refugees".

Families who have lost their homes must be supported, grieving people must be helped and it must not be "so hard" for those who need help to find it, he said.

He added: "As the mayor of London, I will do my bit to be the advocate, to be the fighter, and to be the champion of these people."

Criticising those who may think there are too many rules and regulations, he called on them to "remember those who have lost their lives in a preventable accident that didn't need to happen, and the tragedy we're seeing is because of the consequences of mistakes and neglect from politicians from the council and from the Government."

UPDATE 2pm: Sadiq Khan has joined a congregation at a church service near Grenfell Tower.

The mayor of London arrived at St Clement's Church in the west of the city on Sunday morning as worshippers remember those who lost their lives and those who remain missing after the devastating fire.

Flowers and missing persons posters are taped to the gates of the church, while bags of donations are piled outside the door.

Mr Khan arrived with his wife Saadiya and walked silently into the church, which has been used as a relief centre in the wake of the blaze.

It is the same church where the Prime Minister met a group of victims, residents, volunteers and community leaders on Friday, as an angry crowd outside directed shouts of "coward" and "shame on you" towards her.

Theresa May held a meeting in Downing Street the next day with residents she had spoken to at the church.

Bishop Tomlin, who is speaking at Sunday's service, said after the meeting that residents left feeling they had been listened to.

Mr Khan left the church more than two hours later, having spoken to many members of the congregation as well as others who came in after the service to see him.

He said: "I've spent time with the local community, not just the Christian congregation, but members of all faiths here at the church, grieving, sharing their stories.

"And I've got to say some of the stories that I've heard will stay with me forever.

"I've heard stories of heroism, from Christians, from Muslims and from others, looking after their brothers and sisters, their neighbours and doing the job that we expect from this brilliant community because of the fantastic community that is here in this part of London."

UPDATE 12.25pm:Survivors of the Grenfell Tower blaze are being given just 10 to live on by the council, a volunteer has said.

West London film producer Nisha Parti, who has been helping victims in Kensington, said the cash is being given to those checking into hotels in the wake of Wednesday's blaze.

She said volunteers were unable to get hold of any money, despite huge donations of cash being made and Theresa May pledging 5 million in emergency funds.

Speaking on ITV's Peston on Sunday, she said: "Kensington and Chelsea are giving 10 to the survivors when they go to hotels.

"There is money pouring in from all these amazing volunteers, we can't get access to the money and we cannot get it to the families."

When asked why they couldn't get access to it, she said: "Because no one's telling us where it is.

"Victims were going to hotels, arriving at hotels, with no one from the council to greet them, to check them in, to give them clothes and food.

"Volunteers are now going to hotels with food packages, with cash that they're trying to find because they have nothing."

Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad said survivors were being repeatedly moved around.

She told BBC One's Sunday Politics: "We are still hearing stories of people not being allocated properly.

"There's one woman this morning and her child, they have been moved three times since Wednesday into different accommodation.

"That's absolutely appalling."

Jeremy Corbyn has renewed calls for empty homes to be taken over by the Government to house victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The Labour leader also criticised the official response to the tragedy, saying people should have been offered immediate accommodation similar to travellers who are offered hotels when their planes are delayed.

He urged the Government to consider requisitioning or using compulsory purchase orders for flats that are deliberately kept vacant, in a process known as land-banking.

Mr Corbyn told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "Occupy it, compulsory purchase it, requisition it - there's a lot of things you can do.

"But can't we as a society just think, all of us, it's all very well putting our arms around people during the crisis but homelessness is rising, the housing crisis is getting worse and my point was quite a simple one.

"In an emergency, you have to bring all assets to the table in order to deal with that crisis and that's what I think we should be doing in this case."

UPDATE 11,30am: Cladding used on Grenfell Tower blamed for spreading the blaze is banned in Britain, Philip Hammond has said.

The Chancellor said a criminal investigation would examine whether building regulations had been breached when the block was overhauled.

Mr Hammond said the public inquiry set up by the Government following the tragedy would also examine if rules had been broken.

He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "My understanding is the cladding in question, this flammable cladding which is banned in Europe and the US, is also banned here.

"So there are two separate questions. One, are our regulations correct, do they permit the right kind of materials and ban the wrong kind of materials? The second question is were they correctly complied with?

"That will be a subject that the inquiry will look at. It will also be a subject that the criminal investigation will be looking at."

UPDATE 8.15am:The Home Office has assisted the family of Grenfell Tower victim Mohammad Alhajali in "making arrangements for their travel to the UK".

The 23-year-old Syrian refugee was the first fatality of the disaster to be formally identified by police.

More than 85,000 people have signed a petition calling for his parents to be granted visas for the UK so they can attend his funeral.

A Home Office spokesman said on Saturday: "We made contact with Mr Alhajali's family yesterday and assisted them in making arrangements for their travel to the UK in these terribly sad circumstances."

Photo issued by the Metropolitan Police of Mohammad Alhajali who has now been formally identified as one of the victims who perished in the Grenfell Tower fire.

The petition was set up by family friend Mirna Suleiman, 26, who had been ringing around numerous hospitals, rest centres and the casualty helpline for news of his fate before discovering he had not made it out alive.

She chose to launch the campaign because as someone with Syrian family herself, she knows how difficult it is to obtain a visa for visits.

The Syria Solidarity Campaign posted on Facebook: "We're very pleased to announce that the family of Mohammad Alhajali received visas to come to the UK for Mohammad's funeral.

"It's not the kind of reunion anyone would have wanted, but we know it will be comforting for the family as they grieve for the loss of Mohammad together."

Mr Alhajali's family said in a statement: "Mohammad was a very amazing and kind person. He gave love to everyone. He came to the UK because he had ambitions and aims for his life and for his family.

"Our whole family will miss Mohammad dearly and he will never be forgotten.

"To God we belong and to him we return."

Mr Alhajali's older brother Omar - who was with him in the flat - survived the fire after they were separated on the way out.

The percentage of rejected visa applications for visits from Syria has soared after the country's devastating civil war began in 2011.

But the Home Office has established processes which allow it to consider visa applications outside the Immigration Rules on compassionate grounds.

EARLIER: British Prime Minister Theresa May has ordered more boots on the ground at the Grenfell Tower fire site after labelling the support given to families in the aftermath of the deadly blaze "not good enough".

Police said at least 58 people died, or are missing, presumed dead, after fire ravaged the 24-storey tower block in the early hours of Wednesday.

Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police warned that the death toll could rise further as he formally identified the first victim as 23-year-old Syrian refugee Mohammad Alhajali.

At 58 casualties, it would make the Grenfell Tower blaze the deadliest in the capital since the Second World War.

The Prime Minister, who "welled up" after hearing harrowing accounts from people caught up in the deadly fire, said there had been "huge frustrations" on the ground as people struggled to find information.

More than 250 firefighters tackled the blaze in north Kensington as London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said the scene looked like a "disaster movie".

Speaking to the Observer, she said crews did not follow normal practice, adding: "Had we just followed standard fire brigade procedures, we would not have been able to commit firefighters in and conduct the rescues we did."

Sixteen bodies have been taken to the mortuary after flames tore through the 1970s tower block - while 14 others have been recovered from the building.

Moving tales from those caught up in the disaster are continuing to emerge, including a five-year-old girl who was swept up by her mother's boyfriend as black smoke filled her seventh floor bedroom.

Thea West, who was rescued by Mickey Paramasivan, told the Sun on Sunday: "Mickey woke me up. He's my hero. He put me under his dressing gown and ran down the stairs.

"There was smoke everywhere and it was too strong. I could not breathe."

Mr Cundy said: "Sadly, at this time there are 58 people who we have been told were in the Grenfell Tower on the night that are missing, and therefore sadly, I have to assume that they are dead."

"That number 58 may change. I really hope it won't, but it may increase.

"My commitment to families is that as soon as we can, we will locate and recover their loved ones.

"The reason we had to pause the search and recovery yesterday was for the safety of our staff.

"We do not want another fatality arising out of this tragedy."

Police have appealed to anyone who may have escaped from the building, but has not yet come forward, to make themselves known.

When asked about the search, Mr Cundy replied that the officers had gone "all the way to the top" of the tower, and explained that the first phase was a visual search.

Mr Cundy said the police investigation into the blaze would look at the building and its refurbishment in 2016 and vowed to prosecute people if there was evidence.

The police are appealing to anyone with pictures or videos of the blaze to hand them in, as they may help establish not only where and how the fire started, but also how it spread.

Victims met the Prime Minister at Number 10 on Saturday evening and man representing the group said they had spoken about their "demands and what we expect".

Mrs May said she had fixed a deadline of three weeks for everybody affected to be rehoused locally.

She added: "I have ordered that more staff be deployed across the area, wearing high visibility clothing, so they can easily be found, dispense advice and ensure the right support is provided."

Family liaison officers are working with 52 families, and as soon as victims are identified, their loved ones will be told.

Mr Cundy said: "I absolutely understand the frustration of why figures haven't been released earlier. The reason for that - at one point, in terms of our casualty bureau, there were 400 people who were reported missing from Grenfell Tower.

"Grenfell Tower itself is 120 flats. We have worked tirelessly over the last four days to truly understand those that we know were there on the night."

Anger flared in the Kensington community over the weekend - with many protests taking place across the capital - as some accused the authorities of withholding information and responding inadequately.

Mr Cundy said: "The investigation will be exhaustive. My intention is that it will help provide answers.

"If, as we investigate, we identify issues that are a risk to public safety, we will not be waiting until the end of the investigation before we provide that information to the appropriate authorities.

"If there are any safety issues that we and experts that we will be using identify, we will share that immediately."
Formal negotiations on the terms of Brexit begin tomorrow, some 361 days after the British EU referendum of June 23 2016.

It is also 82 days after Theresa May sent a letter formally notifying the European Council of Britains intention to withdraw.

So what is the timeline from now on?

June 19 - Brexit Secretary David Davis and European Commission chief negotiator Michel Barnier open negotiations in Brussels.

Issues on the table will include the status of EU citizens in the UK and of British people living in continental Europe, as well as the Northern Irish border and the size of any "divorce bill" - estimated at anything up to 100 billion euro (88 billion).

The EU insists that phase one of talks will focus only on the terms of withdrawal, and not on a future trade relationship.

June 21 - The Queens Speech sets out details of extensive UK Government legislation required to put Brexit into effect, expected to include a Great Repeal Bill bringing EU laws and regulations onto the British statute book, as well as bills on issues including immigration and customs.

June 22 - Mr Barnier reports back to the leaders of the EU27, who are expected to endorse a process for relocation of EU agencies currently based in the UK.

The meeting comes ahead of a two-day summit of the European Council on June 22 and 23, attended by all 28 leaders including Theresa May, which is due to focus on migration and security.

Summer - Negotiations on the Brexit deal expected to continue in Brussels, with the Davis and Barnier teams meeting for one week in each month, before returning to base to report back and develop their positions.

September 24 - German federal elections could see Angela Merkel replaced as Chancellor by former European Parliament president and staunch federalist Martin Schulz, who once called for the creation of a genuine European government.

October 19 - Mr Barnier is set to report back to the EU27 on whether sufficient progress has been made to move on to phase two of the talks, covering the UKs future trade relationship with the remaining EU. The Prime Minister will attend a two-day European Council summit in Brussels.

Winter/spring 2017/18 - If talks are proceeding to plan, negotiators can be expected to be meeting regularly to iron out remaining issues and identify the points of difference to be settled by political leaders at the highest level.

They are likely to be discussing the possibility of a transition period following Brexit during which new trade arrangements can be finalised and phased in, in order to prevent a "cliff-edge" move to the new model.

May 2018 - English local government elections will provide the Prime Minister with her first widespread electoral test since the disastrous snap election of June 8 2017.

October 2018 - Mr Barnier hopes to be able to conclude withdrawal negotiations around this point, in order to allow time for them to be ratified before the end of the two-year Article 50 deadline.

Winter/spring 2018/19 - The European Court of Justice could be asked to rule on whether the deal requires approval by each EU state. If so, it could have to be ratified by up to 38 national and regional parliaments, with any of them effectively holding a veto.

Mrs May has promised MPs a "take it or leave it" vote on whether to accept the deal or take Britain out of the EU without agreement and fall back on World Trade Organisation rules.

The Westminster vote will take place before the European Parliament debates and votes on the deal, effectively giving MEPs the final say on whether it will go ahead.

March 29 2019: Two years after the invocation of Article 50, the UK ceases to be a member of the EU and is no longer subject to its treaties, whether or not a withdrawal agreement has been reached.

Because the exact moment of exit is midnight Brussels time, the UK is due to leave at 11pm on March 29.

This date can be extended by agreement between all member states. It is not yet clear whether the exit clock can be stopped by the UK withdrawing its Article 50 notification.

The EU insists that a trade deal can only formally be adopted after withdrawal, though the UK hopes this will happen very swiftly, with necessary negotiations completed before Brexit day.

If no trade deal has been reached by this point, UK-EU relations could be governed by a transitional arrangement for some months or years. Even if a trade agreement has been sealed, it could be introduced gradually during an implementation phase after Brexit.

June 2019: European Parliament elections will take place without the UK.
A six-year-old boy has handed over his pocket money to help the victims of the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze.

Alfie Lindsey visited the estate in west London on Sunday and donated a superhero-themed tin filled with cash he had collected to the Bishop of Kensington, Graham Tomlin.

Dad Arthur said his son was moved to give his money to those in need after watching the tragedy on television. He estimated around 60 to 70 was in the money box.

"I felt a little bit worried," Alfie told the Press Association when quizzed about what he had seen reported in the news. He said he felt "sad" for the people who lived there.

After making the journey from their Hounslow home, Mr Lindsey said he was "cut up" when his son said he wanted to give his cash to the victims.

"I am proud of him. It was such a warm feeling, a warm glow when he handed over the cash," he said of his son, who wants to be a policeman.

"It was the morning after when he said he wanted to give his money box. They said they needed donations and he said 'I want to give my money box', so that's what we decided to do."

After the fire ravaged the 24-storey block in the early hours of Wednesday, Scotland Yard has said at least 58 have died, or are missing, presumed dead.

Many others have lost their homes as a result of the blaze, which has gutted the tower and left it charred and virtually destroyed.

Bishop of Kensington Mr Tomlin described Alfie's gesture as "amazing" and said when he accepted the donation, he promised Alfie it would get to those who needed it.

"He brought out of his bag this tin, I haven't counted it yet, but it is actually quite a lot of money in it and I said have you been collecting and he said 'no, it is my pocket money'," he said.

"It was absolutely amazing. It is just a little sign of the incredible outpouring of compassion there has been in London as a result of this.

"And in some ways, that is actually what we need, because we are now in a situation where we probably have enough clothing, food and so on, but cash, money, really does help.

"We have to make sure that money gets to the people who need it right now."
Australian diagnostic testing outfit SpeeDx's European launch of its test for a sexually transmitted infection has added significant value to its sale price potential as it looks to a trade sale or sharemarket float over the next year or two. The ramp up of sales in Europe comes as the company is finalising $5 million-plus financing with a large local fund manager, with international funds stumping up a large tranche of the cash. Colin Denver, SpeeDx chief executive. Credit:Michael Amendolia The extra capital will come in handy as SpeeDx is planning to launch sales of additional tests later in the year as it broadens its product line-up while it budgets to become cashflow neutral in 2018, when revenue is expected to offset outlays as the $10 million-plus spent on its diagnostic platform moves to commercial reality. Under a deal with Cepheid, a US speciality molecular diagnostic company, sales of the SpeeDx test are to be launched in the largest European markets of Germany, France, Italy, and Britain.

The launch coincides with changes to guidelines across Europe that recommend screening for resistance to Mycoplasma genitalium in the management of non-gonococcal urethritis. The inclusion of a macrolide resistance test when detecting the infection is intended to give doctors the information needed to guide antibiotic treatment. Mycoplasma genitalium is more prevalent than gonorrhea and its resistance to frontline macrolide antibiotic treatment is rising rapidly, seen in up to half of all patients testing positive for the infection in recent studies. "We gain better access to these important European markets and Cepheid can bring its customers a comprehensive test for Mycoplasma genitalium and azithromycin antibiotic resistance," SpeeDx chief executive Colin Denver said. Cepheid's chief medical and technology officer David Persing said SpeeDx offered a unique approach to simultaneous detection of pathogens and drug resistance directly from clinical specimens, consistent with Cepheid's approach to detecting tuberculosis. "This technology could potentially be applied in multiple settings in which actionable treatment information is needed quickly." SpeeDx was launched by Australian scientist Alison Todd, who bought the diagnostic platform from US major Johnson and Johnson when it slashed its local research spending in the wake of the global financial crisis a decade ago. As well as moving to boost sales in Europe, the company expects its biggest value lift will come once approvals have been won to enter the key US market. In the US, SpeeDx is working with ThermoFisher Scientific to gain the regulatory approvals necessary to begin using its test.
home US Missouri Senate passes bill that would require abortion clinics to undergo annual inspections

The Missouri Senate has approved a legislation that would require abortion clinics to have annual inspections after Gov. Eric Greitens called a special session for the purpose of passing pro-life measures.

Senate Bill 5, sponsored by Sen. Andrew Koenig, was passed on Thursday morning by a vote of 20a8, and it is now headed to the state House for consideration.

The Associated Press reported that the bill included a provision that would repeal a St. Louis ordinance that bans discrimination based on abortion or pregnancies.

The area Catholic diocese filed a lawsuit against the ordinance in May, saying it violates their constitutional freedoms.

Last week, Greitens called for a special legislative session to stop the St. Louis ordinance and to pass new regulations for abortion facilities. On Wednesday, the governor held a rally in the state Capitol in support of special session and the legislation.

"Today, hundreds of pro-life Missourians came together to celebrate the work that our pregnancy care centers do for women and children. These are pro-life organizations that offer medical care, housing, food, and support throughout pregnancy and for years after a baby is born," Greitens wrote on Facebook.

The measure approved by the Senate would also enable the attorney general to prosecute violations of abortion laws, but only if local prosecutors do not act first. However, the lawmakers threw out a proposal that would have prohibited abortion clinic staff from asking ambulances to drive without lights or sirens.

Additionally, the legislation would require abortion facilities to submit fetal tissue samples for examination within five days of the procedure. The state health department would be tasked with reviewing the samples regularly to ensure that abortion clinics are complying with state laws.

Some Republican lawmakers have been trying to pass laws dealing with fetal tissue since 2015, when pro-life activists released undercover videos that allegedly showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of tissue.

Meanwhile, Greitens has expressed plans to appeal a court decision that blocked a state abortion clinic regulations that would have required abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges for patient emergency situations. The regulation also would have required abortion clinics to meet standards similar to other ambulatory surgical facilities.

Life News noted that many abortion facilities have closed since the state regulations were passed in 2005. The number of abortion clinics in the state dropped from seven in 2005 to two in 2014, because the facilities would not or could not comply with the regulations.
Police "strongly suspected" that Mr Guo orchestrated the escape of an alleged Triad gang member from Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre in 2002. Credit:Kate Geraghty Immigration officials were told of his alleged involvement with organised crime in 1996, following his application for an Australian permanent entry visa. Intelligence provided by state and federal police in response to the application strongly recommended the visa should be declined. "The Australian Federal Police have stated that Mr Guo was a member of the Triad group, and that seven of his colleagues are in prison and one is on bail," an internal Immigration Department briefing from 1996 read. "If Mr Guo was allowed to remain in Australia he would be likely to engage in criminal conduct."

Although the Immigration Department decided to decline the visa on the basis of police intelligence, a legal "defect" in the notification letter meant the decision was invalid. It took until 2014 before a second letter was sent to fix the mistake, but the decision was bungled a second time with another "legally deficient" notice. It is understood the letters failed mandatory requirements to inform Mr Guo of his right to have the decision reviewed. Only in March 2015 was Mr Guo presented with a third letter that carried legal standing. His application for a permanent entry visa has been tied up in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal since.

In the almost 20 years between the two letters, Mr Guo allegedly rose to the top of one of Sydney's most influential crime syndicates  The Big Circle Gang. The gang is an offshoot of the Triads, a notorious Asian crime network originating in China. A parliamentary report in 1995 described the emerging Big Circle Gang as "particularly violent" with links to heroin trafficking. NSW Police intelligence records show how today the gang has allegedly branched out to become involved in all facets of organised crime. "Guo is a senior member and considered in the upper echelon of an Asian organised crime gang known as 'The Big Circle Gang'," one senior NSW Police officer alleged.

"Extensive intelligence holdings relating to the Big Circle Gang indicate they are involved in acts of violence, extortion, drug importation and distribution, credit card fraud and prostitution." In 2002, NSW Police raided an alleged meeting of the Big Circle Gang at Sydney's Silver Spring restaurant in Haymarket. More than 50 people were arrested in the raid and a number of suspected gang members were sent to an immigration detention centre. Reports described how police found semi-automatic handguns and machetes stashed under restaurant tables. Although Mr Guo admitted he was dining at the restaurant at the time of the raid, he was not among those arrested and he denied any knowledge of the strong Triad presence.

He also denied police allegations that, days later, he orchestrated an escape attempt on behalf of gang members inside the Villawood Detention Centre. Mr Guo was allegedly present when another incident took place at a Sydney nightclub in 2002, during which a member of a rival gang was set-upon and stabbed in the stomach. Footage of the incident allegedly shows Mr Guo appearing after the stabbing and intervening to halt the melee. Mr Guo has maintained he was an innocent bystander who only learned of the stabbing when told by nightclub staff. But investigators have since concluded that "only a person with significant authority in the eyes of those involved would, or could, have [intervened]".

While considering Mr Guo's application, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal questioned how he had maintained a living while in Australia. Mr Guo said he had done so through gambling, cleaning and by holding down other odd jobs. Star City Casino records showed that, between 1995 and 1997, a VIP card in Mr Guo's name had gambled more than $900,000 and lost more than $600,000 before he was banned. Between 2004 and 2005 Mr Guo was illegally detained at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre for a period of 132 days. He was freed on May 6, 2005 and has since been compensated $100,000.

In statements provided to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Mr Guo has repeatedly denied the alleged links to organised criminal activity and instead described himself as a "good family man". "I think I'm just an ordinary person in society who tries to live by principles and to do the best to get by," he said. "I sometimes have dinner and drinks with friends, but I generally lead a very simple life, keeping to myself and spending time with my family." In May 2017 the Administrative Appeals Tribunal finally issued its ruling, confirming that Mr Guo's visa should be cancelled on grounds he was not of "good character". A police source told Fairfax Media this decision had come on the back of two decades of gruelling police work tracking Mr Guo and his alleged ties to organised crime.

Although the tribunal could not conclude Mr Guo was the leader of the Big Circle Gang, it did conclude he was closely associated with a number of underworld crime figures. "We are further satisfied that the evidence establishes that Mr Guo could, and did, exercise significant authority over other persons involved in organised crime," the tribunal found. It is understood that Mr Guo is currently detained within Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre. The life, times and crimes of Qi Guang Guo 1957: Born in Guangzhou City, China

1988: Arrived in Sydney on a six-month student visa 1991: Arrested in an illegal gambling house 1994: Found in possession of a fraudulent passport 1994: Failed to declare foreign currency 1994: Applied for a permanent entry visa

1996: Police intelligence indicates alleged involvement in organised crime 1996: Visa application declined but letter held no legal standing 2004: Found in possession of stolen goods 2012: Found in possession of prohibited drugs 2014: Immigration re-notifies Mr Guo that his visa has been denied. The second letter has no legal standing
A man has been charged after a citizen's arrest on the Gold Coast overnight.

The 32-year-old, allegedly armed with a knife, carjacked a woman and man in an Upper Coomera carpark about 7pm after they refused to give him a lift, police said.

The man was charged after an alleged carjacking on the Gold Coast. Credit:Glenn Hunt

He then drove to a home on Reserve Road where he argued with the residents before they restrained him and called police.

The Arundel man was taken to Gold Coast University Hospital with minor injuries and was charged with one count each of armed robbery and unlawful use of a motor vehicle.
A motorcyclist has died and two drivers were seriously injured after separate crashes on south-east Queensland roads overnight.

The fatality occurred south-east of Brisbane when a motorbike and car collided in Alexandra Hills just before 6.40pm on Saturday.

Police at the scene of the crash in which a motorcyclist died. The Forensic Crash Unit was investigating all three crashes and were appealing for any public information or footage. Credit:Nine News Queensland - Twitter

The 26-year-old rider from Capalaba declared dead at the scene and the female driver of the car was treated for shock.

Two men were also taken to hospital with serious injuries after a head-on collision between two cars at Mount Marrow in Ipswich.
A plate of glowing red bacteria holds the key to taking the first step in finding a new cure for the biggest infectious killer in the world.

University of Queensland researcher and senior lecturer Nick West and his 140 students had one task for the semester: stop that plate of bacteria glowing.

This glowing red bacteria is a close relative of tuberculosis used in research to help find drugs that can treat the bacteria.

In an uncommon way of teaching, Dr West had his students help conduct his research into drugs that could cure tuberculosis (TB).

A few of his students completed that task, identifying five or six compounds that stopped the growth of a bacteria related to tuberculosis.
That's it from me on the blog this morning, thanks to those who have stuck with me since the wee hours.

Keep you eyes on The Age homepage for all your breaking news throughout the day and we will be back again at 6am tomorrow.

Have a great Monday, Melburnians!
A supporter of Herve Berville, a candidate with the new La Republique en Marche party, holds a flyer at a market in St Jacut-de-la-Mer. Credit:New York Times While Macron may not generate broad enthusiasm, neither are people voting against him. It is in effect a hands-off stance by an electorate that seems prepared to let Macron advance by default. Changing that support from passive to active will be one of his biggest challenges. For the time being, Macron is benefiting from a kind of honeymoon period. Many French are basking in the new sense of optimism he has ushered in, and a latent desire for their country to get unstuck, after years of relative economic and political malaise. Enough people are sufficiently discouraged by the status quo that they are willing to try something new. Herve Berville a 27-year-old development economist who was adopted from Rwanda and raised in Brittany, campaigns in Lanvallay, France. Credit:New York Times "There is a sort of change in the culture," said Marc Abeles, a professor of political anthropology at the academic institution ecole Des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

"There was an atmosphere that was a bit deadening, the impression that one couldn't get out, that one was cornered," he said. "And I think against that backdrop something was pushed. We were completely looking at things negatively, and now people have a tendency to see things more positively." Sarah El Hairy, a candidate for La Republique En Marche, campaigns in Thouare-Sur-Loire, in Nantes. Credit:New York Times But others say that once the impact of Macron's changes is understood, at least some segments of the population may actively resist him. That presents a lurking danger to his ability to succeed, said Jean Garrigues, a historian at the University of Orleans. Because those opposed to him lack much representation in the parliament, they may take to the streets, he said. People listen to Sarah El Hairy as she campaigns in Heric, France. Credit:New York Times

Nonetheless, there is a sense that Macron brings a breath of fresh air. "He's completely upended the landscape, and the thing one admires in him is his guts," said Maurice Billet, a retired executive, as he purchased the first of the summer peaches at the Thouare-Sur-Loire market. "The people are tired of half-solutions." Noura Moreau, 45, who runs a restaurant and also serves as an assistant mayor in a neighbouring town, was enthusiastic enough to join the campaign of the local Republique en Marche candidate, Sarah El Hairy, 28. For Moreau, Macron is something of a hero-rebel willing to take on the establishment (although Macron, a former investment banker, is also a part of it). "Emmanuel Macron has burned all the old codes," she said, handing out campaign leaflets at the local market. "With him, there is going to be more dynamism. He's younger, he's going to make the country move."

Candidates who, like Hairy, are political unknowns running under Macron's umbrella, have been able to take advantage of his glow. If she were not running as a member of his coalition, she said, she might get 1 per cent of the vote. Hairy is in many ways an example of the Macron movement's strength and weaknesses. She has only ever run for political office before in internal party elections. She works as a negotiator - a mediator between unions and businesses when they discuss nonsalary-related aspects of remuneration, such as lunch hours. She is the daughter of a French-Moroccan anesthesiologist who moved to France when he was still in medical school and a mother who worked in business and has also been involved in charitable projects. Although she is Muslim by background, like Macron she believes in secularism in public life and does not wear a hijab, though she would not support a ban on it for adults. A recent study of candidates for the Macron coalition found a plethora of people a lot like Hairy.

They "represent the upper-middle class, largely those with degrees, and the problem in France is that the popular classes, the workers, the blue-collar workers, they are not represented there", said Luc Rouban, a researcher at the Centre for the Study of French Political Life at Sciences Po in Paris. "Yet the working class represent 40 per cent of the French population," he said. The voters who turn out for Hairy, and those who sound open to voting for her, are in many respects a bit like the candidate: driven, optimistic and high achieving, although some are far older than she is. Among those she was trying to persuade last week was Celine Davy, 44, who runs a hair salon on the main street of the small town of Nort-sur-Erdre, which is part of her district. With a shock of red-pink hair, Davy rushed around her salon on a recent day, periodically stopping to give a short lecture to Hairy about the difficulties of being a small business owner.
Seoul: North Korea accused US authorities on Sunday of "mugging" its diplomats at the John F. Kennedy airport in New York, forcibly confiscating a diplomatic package which it said raised questions about the city as the seat of the United Nations.

The North's Foreign Ministry spokesman said a delegation of the North returning from a UN conference on the rights of persons with disabilities "was literally mugged" at the John F. Kennedy airport in "an illegal and heinous act of provocation."

North Korea's Foreign Ministry accused US authorities of mugging its delegates to a UN conference. Credit:AP

"Diplomats of a sovereign state are being robbed of a diplomatic package in the middle of New York where the headquarters of the United Nations is located and that serves as the venue for international meetings including the United Nations General Assembly," the spokesman said.

"This clearly shows that the US is a felonious and lawless gangster state," the spokesman said in comments carried by the North's official KCNA news agency.
London: The British Parliament will hold a rare two-year legislative session to tackle the complexities of Britain's departure from the European Union, the government said on Saturday.

A parliamentary session usually runs for a year, from spring to spring, marked by the Queen's Speech outlining the laws the government hopes to pass the following year.

But the government has cancelled the 2018 speech, to effectively double the length of the session to let lawmakers debate Britain's approach to Brexit without interruption. It is only the second time since 1949 the speech has been scraped. The last time was in 2011, a decision criticised by the Labour opposition at the time as an "abuse of power".

Britain's negotiations with the EU over its exit from the bloc begin on Monday and stand to be complicated by the surprise loss of Prime Minister Theresa May's parliamentary majority in a national election last week.
Beijing: Frustration with being continually late because he couldn't find a carpark convinced Donald Tang, 33, that Sydney needed to embrace Asia's digital bike-sharing boom.

The University of Technology, Sydney graduate says there are some places, like Darling Harbour, where city workers can't even catch a train or bus to the office.

Donald Tang founder of bike sharing new Sydney start-up ReddyGo. Credit:Steven Siewert

Mr Tang's start-up, Reddy Go, will place red bicycles wth GPS tracking at train stations around the Sydney CBD in July.

The bikes are located and unlocked with a smartphone app, and will cost $1.99 for 30-minutes. They come with a helmet, and can be left wherever it is legal to do so.
Springfield quarry plan still unresolved as residents wait, worry

Conditional Use Hearing on a proposed quarry along Rt. 309 in Springfield may be nearing an end after two years. Here's what residents have to say.
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...
NJ Weedman got a license to sell NJ legal weed. He almost said no.
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German luxury carmaker is investing another Rs 130 crore in India to enhance operations, taking its total investment in the country to Rs 1,250 crore.

The company will launch new version of its locally manufactured 5 Series later this month and 6 Series Gran Turismo (GT) model next year to strengthen its product portfolio in India.

"Since 2007, we have been consistently investing in India. This year, we are going to increase our investment further to up to Rs 1,250 crore on a cumulative basis," India President Vikram Pawah told PTI.

has invested Rs 1,120 crore in the Indian operations so far.

The new investment will go into BMW group operations, including Motarrad (two-wheeler business) as well as the financial services arm, he added.

With the fresh investments, the total investments on BMW group operations in India will go up to Rs 520 crore and on BMW Financial Services to Rs 730 crore.

The company is looking to expand its dealer network in the country. It currently has 18 partners and is present in 30 cities.

"Besides, we have 63 touch points. Out of these, we have 41 sales outlets. So we want to take these 41 outlets to 50 by 2018," Pawah said.

In other emerging towns, in addition to 30 major cities, the company utilises its 'Mobile Studios' to expand the market further.

This year, the weather proof BMW mobile studio will cover 50 towns, Pawah said.

On new product launches, he said: "As part of our power to lead strategy, product offensive starts. In next two weeks, we will be launching the new 5 Series."



The model has played a big role in the success of BMW in India. Since 2007, the company has sold around 66,000 vehicles in India with 5 Series having contributed close to 30 per cent of the total sales.

"Next year, we will be introducing another model in between 5 and 7 Series, called the 6 GT and that would again define a new segment and create new market for us," Pawah said.

On local manufacturing, Pawah said: "We are locally producing eight of our total 16 models that are available. So as we introduce new models, also the new 5 Series, will be produced in the Chennai plant."



The 6 GT would also be manufactured locally, he added.

"So all our main volume drivers as we call them will also be produced locally. Niche models will continue to come in CBU form. As the volumes increase we will continue to evaluate as what can manufactured locally," Pawah said.

The company's Chennai plant has an installed capacity of 14,000 units on a single shift basis. It started operations in March 2007 and currently produces BMW's 1 Series, 3 Series, 3 Series Gran Turismo, 5 Series, 7 Series along with SUVs X1, X3 and X5.

When asked about competition with its German rivals Mercedes and Audi to be the number one player in the luxury car market in India, he said BMW's focus is to remain the fastest growing premium car brand in India.

In the January-May period this year, BMW has sold 3,533 units in India at a growth of eight per cent.

Pawah further said the company would be focusing on its power to lead strategy to grow the entire premium car market.

"The idea is to grow the segment. Currently in India, premium car segment remains less than two per cent of the total passenger vehicle market (3 million last fiscal) as compared to five to 10 per cent in various countries," Pawah said.

The efforts should be to at least make it five per cent and and eventually 10 per cent of the PV market, he added.

The premium vehicle segment is estimated to be around 35,000 units per annum currently.

Difficult to popularise green cars without govt support: BMW



Disappointed over plug-in hybrids being ignored for incentives in the upcoming GST, German luxury car maker BMW says it will be difficult to popularise green vehicles in India in the absence of government support.

Although the company welcomed the government's idea of going for all-electric vehicles by 2030, BMW said lack of infrastructure and consumer's concerns over getting stranded with pure electric vehicles when charge runs out will be major challenges to overcome.

Under the GST rates, tax incidence on hybrid vehicles will go up to 43 per cent from the current level of effective tax rate of 30.3 per cent.

"When the GST rates were announced, we were disappointed that the plug-in hybrids have been totally ignored," BMW India President Vikram Pawah told PTI.



In a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, apart from a conventional petrol or diesel engine, there is a large battery that is recharged from an outlet by plugging in thus enabling it to drive extended distances using just electricity.

On the other hand, in normal hybrid vehicle, battery is charged from energy generated from running conventional engine and the range offered on electric drive mode is shorter.

"We would have liked plug-in hybrids to be included as part of the electric vehicles," he added.

Pawah argued that lowering tax incidence on plug-in hybrids can lead to much faster adoption of electric mobility in the country as it would help in addressing range anxiety concerns that customers have.

"If we want to achieve results earlier, then the approach should be plug-in hybrids leading to pure electrical vehicles. That will make transition much easier but with current policies it does not allow us to do that," he added.

He asked the government to look "at plug-in hybrid as equal to electric vehicles for the transition phase" to accelerate movement towards green mobility.

BMW already sells both pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles across the world.

While welcoming the government's plan to move towards completely electric mobility by 2030, Pawah, however, cited two major challenges towards achieving the goal.

"One, infrastructure needs to be set up to go purely electric and that will take time. It cannot happen immediately," he said.

The second challenge is the concern among consumers of getting stranded in the middle of the road when the battery charge runs out, he added.

"So the transition to electric mobility from a customer viewpoint would be a bigger hurdle," Pawah said.

The government is working on a scheme to provide electric cars on zero down payment for which people can pay out of their savings on expensive fossil fuels, for becoming 100 per cent electric vehicle nation by 2030.

When asked about the impact of higher tax on hybrids on the company's plans for introduction of green vehicles, Pawah said: "Obviously we will have to wait till infrastructure is set up before we bring in the electric vehicles."



Auto industry has already said that the increased tax incidence on hybrids is against the government's long-term goal of promoting green vehicles in the country.
The National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL), which has emerged as the biggest road construction player in the country with a portfolio of over Rs 90,000 crore, has now taken up at least seven specialised tunnel projects in Jammu and Kashmir.
To get the telecom sector a stable financial base, the government is waiting for a favourable verdict from the Supreme Court on the longest dispute in the sector, instead of tweaking interconnect charges or setting tariff rules, according to a top bureaucrat.
They bestrode the business world, or at least the suburban corporate campus, like a colossus. Sitting behind burnished wooden desks, in glass-walled corner offices like the one Jeffrey R Immelt occupied at General Electrics former headquarters here in Fairfield, Connecticut, a select group of American chief executives were once more akin to statesmen than businessmen.
A public library, two panchayat offices and a police vehicle were set ablaze at Kalimpong on Sunday, though Darjeeling, the epicentre of the GJM-led agitation for a separate Gorkhaland, remained incident-free. Kalimpong, part of Darjeeling district until recently, was made a separate district on February 14 this year.
The demand for Gorkhaland has crossed ethnic boundaries. Muslims and a part of the Rajasthani population have joined in to demand a separate statehood for the Darjeeling Hills, amid larger protests led by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM).
Darjeeling remained on the edge on Sunday as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a GJM activist, who was killed during clashes with police and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.

Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and the police were witnessed on Saturday.

The protesters, also carrying black flags and the Tricolour, assembled at the Chowkbazar. They shouted slogans demanding that the police and security personnel be "immediately removed" from Darjeeling.

"We think the police and security personnel should be immediately removed from Darjeeling to create a conducive environment for talks. The government should allow us to carry out peaceful and democratic agitation," Darjeeling MLA Amar Rai of the GJM told reporters in Darjeeling.

The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari yesterday. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.

This was the first death since violent protests returned to Darjeeling on June 8, after a gap of a few years.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had yesterday said that the ongoing agitation in Darjeeling hills was a "deep-rooted conspiracy" supported by the insurgent groups of the Northeast and some foreign countries.

The GJM had rubbished the allegation made by Banerjee, saying that she was trying to malign the Gorkhas fighting for their identity.

The police, who have been on high alert after yesterday's violence and arson, conducted route marches with the Army in several parts of the hills.

Police pickets and barricades were placed in front of the government and GTA offices, and various entry-exit points of the hills. Several woman police personnel have also been deployed.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed private and government schools to submit an action plan on installing rainwater harvesting systems in their premises.

Till Monday the schools have to submit their proposals in the NGT registry after serving a copy to the Delhi Jal Board.

A bench headed by Justice Jawad Rahim had given schools five days in its June 15 order.

"Each of the noticees (schools) is directed to file memo indicating the stage of the work in progress and further time required to complete the work," the bench, also comprising expert member Ajay A Deshpande, said.

The green panel said the schools need to take immediate steps to set up rainwater harvesting systems as the monsoon season is likely to start soon.

The matter is listed for next hearing on July 17.

The tribunal had earlier directed schools to install rainwater harvesting systems in their premises within 10 days. In the event of failure, it had warned, each one would be saddled with a cost of Rs 20,000.

The NGT had earlier directed the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) and Delhi Jal Board (DJB) to inspect private and government schools here after a plea alleged that they had failed to install systems to harvest rainwater in their premises.

The direction came during hearing of a plea of Mahesh Chandra Saxena, who claimed to be associated with an NGO working in the field of groundwater conservation.

He has claimed that government departments, educational institutions and residential societies had either not installed rainwater harvesting systems, or had set them up but they were non-functional.
A committee set up by the Maharashtra government to finalise criteria for farm loan waiver will meet on Monday.

Leaders of all farmers' organisations will come to the megapolis to attend the meeting, to be chaired by the state Revenue minister Chandrakant Patil.

An official release about this meeting was issued this evening by the state government.

On June 11, the Maharashtra government had announced a loan waiver for farmers and decided to form a committee to decide the criteria of debt relief.

Members of the committee are Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatna's Raju Shetti, independent MLA Bacchu Kadu, farmer leader Raghunath Patil and coordinator of steering committee of farmers Ajit Navale among others.
Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission President Swami Atmasthanandaji Maharaj passed away on Sunday after a prolonged illness, said the Belur-based Math. He was 98.

The monk, who was elected President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission on December 3, 2007, had been admitted to Seva Pratishthan hospital from February 21, 2015 for treatment of old-age ailments.

"With deep sorrow we announce the passing away of Swami Atmasthanandaji, President of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, on Sunday, at about 5:30 pm at Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan hospital, Kolkata," said a statement from the Math.

The cremation will take place at Belur Math on Monday at about 9.30 p.m and the gates of Belur Math will remain open tonight and through Monday till the last rites are completed, it added.

Born in May 1919, at Sabajpur near Dhaka, he received "emantra diksha" from Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj (a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna) in 1938 and joined the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math in 1941 at the age of 22.

In 1945, Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the sixth President of the Order, gave him Brahmacharya vows and in 1949, Sannyasa vows and the name Swami Atmasthananda.

After serving the Order at Belur Math and the branches at Deoghar (Vidyapith) and Mayavati (Advaita Ashrama), he served Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj himself for a long time and spent several years in his company in the solitude of Shyamla Tal in the Himalayas.

In 1952, he was posted to Ranchi TB Sanatorium branch as an Assistant Secretary. He worked hard to expand itss services in many ways. Sent to Rangoon Sevashrama as its Secretary in 1958, he developed its hospital to make it the best hospital of Burma (Myanmar) at that time.

He was elected a Trustee of the Ramakrishna Math and Member of the Governing Body of the Ramakrishna Mission in 1973.

In 1975, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the twin organisations.

Under his stewardship as Relief Secretary, the Math and Mission conducted massive relief and rehabilitation operations in various parts of India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

He became the General Secretary of the Math and Mission in 1992 and continued to be in that post for five years till 1997 when he became a Vice-President of the Order.



Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has condoled the demise of Swami Atmasthananda.



"The demise of Swami Atmasthananda ji is a personal loss for me. I lived with him during a very important period of my life", Modi tweeted.



The demise of Swami Atmasthananda ji is a personal loss for me. I lived with him during a very important period of my life. pic.twitter.com/eY3TKU41Xf  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 18, 2017



Expressing her grief, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said in a tweet: "Saddened that Rev. Swami Atmasthanandaji, President, Ramakrishna Math & Mission passed away today at Seva Pratishthan."

"A life of outstanding social and religious service. This is an irreparable loss to mankind," she added.
India will have to ensure strict confidentiality of information about its citizens' received through the new automatic exchange window, failing which the Alpine nation will stop sharing the data.Switzerland and its banks will also keep a close watch on the data protection measures taken by India regarding the details received from other jurisdictions and want all other global financial centres to implement the global framework for automatic exchange of information (AEOI) on financial matters.On Friday, the Swiss Federal Council ratified the AEOI with India and 40 other jurisdictions to facilitate immediate sharing of details about suspected black money.The pact with India would not be subject to referendum and is planned for implementation in 2018, with the first set of data to be exchanged in 2019.Bankers in Switzerland said this rollout plan will give them enough time to study the implementation by other global financial centres and the adherence to confidentiality and data protection requirements by India and other recipients.They also clarified this exercise would be followed not just for India, but all countries with which Switzerland will share banking information under the automatic route.Switzerland competes with Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong, London and New York among the major global financial hubs.Black money issue has been a political hot potato for long and the Indian government has stepped up its efforts in recent years to clamp down on this menace. These efforts have included hectic parleys with the Swiss authorities.With its long-standing banking secrecy walls crumbling in under global pressure, Switzerland has finally agreed to share tax information on automatic basis with several countries including India, but wants adherence to strict data protection and privacy requirements.Officials from the Switzerland government and leading groupings of Swiss banks told PTI that data protection and a level playing field need to be ensured by India and other jurisdictions with whom the AEOI regime would be implemented.The Association of Swiss Private Banks said the main concerns with respect to AEOI relate to data protection and level playing field."We would like to ensure that bank data that will be transmitted in 2019 is used for tax verification purposes only... If data received from another country has been misused in a jurisdiction, Switzerland is unlikely to send data to that jurisdiction," the grouping's manager Jan Langlo told PTI from Geneva.The Geneva-based association has nine member banks employing around 7,500 people worldwide, as per its website.On whether there are any particular concerns related to India with respect to privacy and protection of data, Lango replied in the negative."We have no particular concern over India, where the rule of law seems to be properly upheld," Lango added.Further, the association said that since Switzerland would start exchanging data one year later than most other countries, the banks would be able to verify that the other financial centres also exchange with India and the 40 other jurisdictions.A Swiss government official said that if states do not meet certain requirements of the standard, then the Federal Council would suspend AEOI.While emphasising that banks agreed to the plan of the government, SIF (State Secretariat for International Financial Matters) spokesperson Frank Wettstein from Berne said banks there only had concerns about the way the AEOI is activated and wanted to do so only only with jurisdictions that are sure to fulfil the requirements of the standard."The Swiss authorities will make sure that the partner states meet the requirements of the standard. If not, the Federal Council will suspend the AEOI according to the MCAA," Wettstein told PTI.The exchange of information would be based on the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (MCAA) on AEOI, which is in turn based on the international standard for the exchange of information developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).Asserting that the banks in Switzerland are fully committed to implement AEOI, Swiss Bankers' Association (SBA) said the banks have suggested a specific clause for data protection, security and to guarantee a level playing field in terms of competitiveness.SBA's Head of Public Relations Sindy Schmiegel told PTI from Basel that for reasons of data protection and data security and to guarantee a level playing field in terms of competitiveness, the banks have suggested a specific clause which demands that the federal council verifies that these two factors are considered."This clause will be integrated in Swiss legal provisions to implement the AEOI. India is one of many other countries and not addressed in particular," Schmiegel said.SBA has around 296 institutional members and thousands of individual members.The Swiss Federal Council would soon notify India about the exact date from which the automatic exchange would begin.Besides, the council would prepare a situation report before the first exchange of data with India and other jurisdictions.The Association of Swiss Private Banks is also in "close contact" with Swiss authorities to better understand how the standard must be implemented and to ensure consistency with the other financial centres."Of particular concern is the reluctance of the United States to apply the OECD standard, since their FATCA agreements provide other countries with far less information," Lango noted.The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is aimed at ensuring that details of financial assets of American citizens are available to the US authorities.

Indians have a few deposits Indians have few deposits in Swiss banks compared to other global financial hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong, says a grouping of private bankers in Switzerland amid stepped-up efforts to check the black money menace. Money held by Indians in Swiss banks declined to a record low of 1.2 billion franc (about Rs 8,392 crore) at the end of 2015, according to the latest official data.

However, no official data are available for money in other global hubs. Committing itself to the global framework for automatic exchange of tax information, Switzerland last week ratified the decision to implement this regime with India and 40 other jurisdictions.
On Sunday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah called on Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at the latters residence to discuss the coming presidential poll. This was a first for Shah to reach out on the issue. Until now, only the three-member committee of Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and M Venkaiah Naidu has held talks with allies as well as opposition leaders.
Branded mid-market and luxury hotels have a reason to cheer because the Council on Sunday relaxed the criteria for imposing the goods and services tax (GST) on hotel rooms.


The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliate, will hold protests against the NITI Aayogs strategic disinvestment policy in several parts of the country on Friday and Saturday.
Questions on Goods and Services Tax (GST), benami transactions and schemes run by the central government were asked in the civil services preliminary examination held on Sunday.

The aspirants were also asked questions related to National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), 'Vidyanjali Yojana' and 'Smart India Hackathon', all of which are the NDA government's initiatives.

Lakhs of aspirants appeared in the preliminary examination held across the country.

"What is/are the most likely advantages of implementing Goods and Services Tax?" reads a question.

The option for students to choose the correct answers included "it will enormously increase the row and size of economy of India and will enable it to overtake China in the near future".

The second option was "It will drastically reduce the Current Account Deficit (CAD) of India and will enable it to increase its foreign exchange reserve".

The third option given in the first paper of the test was "It will replace multiple taxes collected by multiple authorities and will thus create a single market in India".

The civil services examination is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) annually in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- to select candidates for the prestigious Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.

The preliminary exam consisting of two papers (Paper I and Paper II) of two hours duration each was held without any reported incidents of protests, official sources said.

The first paper began at 9:30 AM and second one started at 2:30 PM.

The candidates were also asked questions with reference to Benami Property Transaction Act, 1988.

With a view to providing effective regime to check the benami transactions, the 1988 Act was last year changed through the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amended Act, 2016.

The amended law empowers the specified authorities to provisionally attach benami properties which can eventually be confiscated. It has penal provisions for the defaulters.

There were questions on the NSQF, a competency-based framework that organises all qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge, skills and aptitude to ultimately help an individual to get a job or start his own work, asked in the exam.

Paper I also had a question on the government's Smart India Hackathon, the world's biggest ever open innovation model to find digital solutions to the problems of state and union territories.

Another question was on the Vidyanjali scheme, an initiative to enhance community and private sector involvement in government-run elementary schools across the country.

Through this initiative, people from the Indian diaspora, retired teachers, former government officials and defence personnel, professionals and women who are home makers can volunteer at a school that requests for one.

"There were questions on and benami and since I know about these initiatives, I hope to have answered them correctly," said Ashish, who took the test.

The UPSC did not make public the total number of candidates who applied for the test and those who actually sat for it.

About 11.35 lakh candidates had applied for the last year's prelims exam. Of these, 4,59,659 had appeared in the test held on August 7, 2016.

As many as 15,452 candidates qualified for appearance in the written examination held in December last year. Of them, 2,961 candidates qualified for the personality test or interview conducted in March-May, this year.

A total of 1,099 candidates (846 men and 253 women) qualified the exam, result of which was declared on May 31.
Amid doubts in some quarters over the tech preparedness for the goods and services tax (GST), the high-powered Council on Sunday decided to introduce the new indirect tax system from the midnight of June 30-July 1, but gave a relaxed timetable and exemption from penalties and late fees to industry while filing returns in the first two months.
The finance ministry on Sunday said developers should pass on any reduction in prices of under-construction houses (due to input tax credits) to buyers after the goods and services tax (GST) is
The Khushboo Gujarat Ki campaign is well past its prime. Amitabh Bachchan's appearance in the campaign, which first went on air in 2010, had given a shot in the arm to Gujarats tourism sector then. But, the state still manages to hold on to impressive growth rates in tourist footfalls. On a much-enlarged base, it has accomplished a 16.94 per cent growth in tourist arrivals in FY17 over the previous year.
Signs of a deeply disturbed family life kept surfacing from the well-kept house with the pale sun awning and the pretty flowerpots off a gravel road here.

One of James T Hodgkinsons foster daughters killed herself in a gruesome fashion: by dousing herself with gasoline and setting herself on fire. Another described herself as more of a hindrance than a daughter. And when Mr Hodgkinson dragged his grandniece by her hair and tried to choke her, the police were called in, and he was charged with battery. In previously sealed court papers obtained by the local newspaper, she described him as an abusive alcoholic who hit her repeatedly.
With her strategy unclear and her position insecure, Prime Minister Theresa May plunges this week into tortuous divorce talks with the European Union that will shape Britain's prosperity and global influence for generations to come.
The pressure is growing to force President Trump to turn over his tax returns. The other day, for example, 200 Congressmen filed a suit in federal court, arguing that voters and lawmakers have a right to know whether Trumps businesses are violating the Constitutions emolument clause, which bars the president from accepting payments from foreign countries.
Dozens of activists protested on 10 June outside the flagship restaurant of Maxim's Group in against the selling of shark fin soup in its restaurants menus.
A new phenomenon of kidnapping bald people for organ trafficking, reportedly for superstitious reasons, is worrying the police in Mozambiques Zambezia province, whose government launched a series of operations to curb the practice.
The meeting between Prime Minister and US President would set the tone and the framework for the bilateral relationship going forward, a leading expert on India and Asia has said.

"The two leaders will have a chance to find some common ground on the way they look at the world and a common strategic view that would set the framework on how the two governments pursue the relationship going forward," Senior Fellow for India with the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) Marshall Bouton told PTI.

Bouton, a nationally known expert on India and Asia, said the first meeting between Trump and Modi in Washington on June 26 will be "all about setting the tone and the framework for the relationship going forward" but he does not expect the meeting to be "big bang."

"I am not dismissing the possibility, but I am not expecting major breakthrough announcements from this meeting. In some ways those would be the cart before the horse," said Bouton, who is President Emeritus of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

He said that the "most positive" outcome of the first summit talks between leaders of the world's largest and oldest democracies would be "a meeting of the minds on the issues that the two leaders want to pursue together."

Bouton had last month authored a comprehensive ASPI paper 'The Trump Administration's India Opportunity,' in which he called for the US administration to move decisively and engage Modi's government to deepen cooperation and manage potential disputes.

Listing the priority areas for the first Modi-Trump meeting, Bouton said the two leaders must begin by emphasising the strongest areas of mutual interest, which are clearly security and terrorism issues.

He noted that the Trump administration has not yet articulated with India its role in the broader Asia-Pacific region, importance of the US-India partnership over the next two-three decades of bringing stability and peace to Asia and India's "absolutely critical" role in accomplishing that.

On terrorism, he said both countries are grappling with the scourge and both are experiencing some growing concerns.

"Another area in the security realm is Pakistan," Bouton said, adding that Modi will want to share with Trump his view and his concerns about Pakistan behaviour vis-a-vis India in their bilateral relationship.

Modi will also be very interested in learning what is the strategy of the Trump administration on Afghanistan.

"What is the US interest in Afghanistan, that is highly relevant to India's interest. So I am sure that will be a very important subject of conversation. As part of that and also separately what does Prime Minister Modi want to hear from Trump about the US relationship with Pakistan going forward," Bouton said.

Another key issue could be China and what is the Trump administration's strategic view of China going forward, said Bouton, who has previously served as Director for Policy Analysis for Near East, Africa and South Asia in the US Department of Defense and as Special Assistant to the US Ambassador to India.
A rival foreign power launched an aggressive cyberattack on the United States, interfering with the 2016 presidential election and leaving every indication that its coming back for more  but President Trump doesnt seem to care.
Amid a broadening investigation of Russian contacts with his associates and his own role in trying to stop it, President Trump fired off another angry tweet this past week repeating his assertion that he has no business interests in .

But while no Trump Tower graces the Moscow skyline, the Russian authorities recently made sure that another piece of valuable property  the intellectual kind  bearing the same name remained safely in Mr Trumps portfolio.
As many as five suicide bombers attacked the police headquarters of eastern Paktia province on early Sunday morning, a spokesman for Interior Ministry, Najibullah Danish said.

Clashes are still going on, Tolo News reported.

A suicide bomber first detonated his explosives close to the parking area of the headquarters, followed by four other who tried to enter the compound.

Danish further informed that out of the five, three were killed. Two policemen were also killed.

The attack took place at about 6.30 a.m.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With the farmers' agitations spreading across many states, senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Sunday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reneged on its promise by denying the farmers a reasonable increase in the minimum support price (MSP).

"Agriculture, despite its declining share in the total output (GDP), is the largest employer. In its manifesto and in the election campaign, the BJP had unequivocally promised that it would implement the M.S. Swaminathan Committee's recommendation that MSP should be cost plus 50 percent. The BJP not only reneged on its promise, it dealt a body blow to farmers by denying them even a reasonable increase in the MSP in its first three years," Chidambaram said.

He added that the agriculture portfolio is the "Cinderella of this government."

"Unfortunately, the NDA government lost sight of this basic truth. Young men can find no work on farms or off farms as micro, small and medium businesses are not offering new jobs," he asserted.

Chidambaram further said that two years of drought in many states was the main cause and the governments cannot be blamed for the occurrence of drought, but governments are solely responsible for the mismanagement of the consequences of drought.

Chidambaram's tweets come in the wake of the widespread protests by farmers across India over their issues including the right price of the produce.

Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur has become the epicentre of farmers' agitation over a demand for loan waivers and better prices for their produce.

During an agitation, six farmers were gunned down by the police, thereby drawing criticism from political parties. The situation forced the district officials to impose Section 144, and restricted prominent personalities from visiting the violence-hit district.

A number of political leaders, including Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, and social activists, tried to visit Mandsaur but the police didn't let them enter the area.

Section 144 was later revoked ahead of CM Chouhan's visit to the families of the deceased farmers.
Several demonstrators protested against the Pakistan Army outside the Karachi Press Club, alleging that the military establishment was responsible for extremism in the region.

In a video posted by Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) activist Zahid Sindhi on Twitter on Sunday, people can be seen shouting slogans - "Yeh jo dehshad gardi hai, iske peechhey wardi hai" (Men in uniform are responsible for the terror), "yeh jo mullah gardi hai, iske peechhey wardi hai" (the Army is responsible for extremism).

The protestors also demanded the independence of Sindh from the state of Pakistan.

Earlier, Members of the Sindhi Congress (WSC) held anti-Pakistan protests in front of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva against Islamabad's use of brutal force against the Sindhi community.

The protest held on June 14 was also attended by representatives of the Baloch community, Gilgit and Baltistan, Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and human rights defenders of other nations.

The WSC protested against enforced disappearances of Sindhi political activists, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and other human rights abuses against Sindhi people.

The protestors raised, 'Go go China go', 'Pakistan stop killing Sindhi people', 'No to CPEC' slogans.

A WSC representative told human rights defenders, "Sindhi people are facing one of the worst human rights atrocities in their history and in recent months there have been an intensification in disappearance of Sindhi political activists by Pakistani security agencies. In the last three months alone scores of renowned political activists and writers have been abducted."

"In all these cases, the state denies any role and the judiciary has also failed to provide any relief. We understand that these disappearances are part of an operation by the Pakistani state to create terror and stop political and civil society activists from raising their voices for democratic and human rights," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Condemning the recent Bihar's Begusari incident of stripping and parading of two minor girls, women activist has said the horrendous incident is a blot on India's image.

"I think this incident of stripping naked two girls and parading them in Begusarai is not only a blot on India, but it destroys the image of Indian's across the world, especially when we are talking of initiatives like Beti Bacho, Beti Padhao," women activist Abha Singh told ANI.

Singh called on the state government to take stern action against the school administration and book them under Section 9 (u) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012.

"Where would the girl have education if the father could not pay the fees? They could have called the father to school or there are so many welfare schemes. They could have written to the state government for some scholarship, rather than doing that the school authority stripped them," she said.

Earlier on Friday, two young girls were stripped and thrown out of their school in Begusarai as their father was unable to pay the fee for their school uniform on time.

One of the girls was a Class I student while the elder one was in Class II.

The incident came to light when the father of one of the students Chunchun Sah went to pick up his daughter after school, where a teacher asked him to bring in the money for the uniforms immediately.

The school, B.R. Education Academy, in Sikraula village in Koriya panchayat, had provided school uniforms to the two girls who were supposed to pay for them.

"I pleaded for some time to deposit the fee, but the teacher stripped my daughters on the spot in front of everyone," Sah told ANI.

He then went to the police and an FIR was lodged.

The principal and a female teacher of the school have been arrested, Sub-Divisional Police Officer Rajesh Kumar said.

State Education Minister Ashok Choudhary termed the incident as insensitive and said that stern action would be taken against the school and the culprits.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A woman has been killed and 11 have been injured in an explosion that rocked the Centro Andino shopping center in Colombia's capital of Bogota on Sunday.

Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa took to Twitter and announced that it was a terrorist attack.

"A coward terrorist attack in Centro Andino hurts me. There is one woman dead and. 11 injured," Penalosa wrote on Twitter.

According to media reports, the blast occurred in a toilet room on the second floor of the mall, reports Sputnik.

Meanwhile, an evacuation is underway at the mall following the explosion, and paramedics have reached the spot to provide immediate aide to the injured.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos expressed his solidarity with the victims and ordered an investigation into the matter.

More details to follow.

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The Supreme Court will on Monday hear the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's (DMRC) plea on Rs. 60 crore dispute case.

The DMRC had moved the apex court against the Delhi High Court's order that asked it to pay Rs. 60 crore as three months interest to a lender of Delhi Airport Metro Express Private, a former concessionaire for airport express line.

The DMRC has challenged the June 7 order of the High Court that upheld its single judge order asking it to pay the three months interest to DAMEPL.

The single judge had directed the DMRC to deposit the amount of Rs. 60 crore within 10 days directly into DAMEPL's loan account with Axis Bank - the main lender.

This was ordered after DAMEPL, a subsidiary of Reliance Infrastructure, had sought early payment of the award, claiming it was paying Rs. 65 lakh per day to its lenders, comprising public and other banks, since the termination of its agreement with DMRC to run the Airport Metro line.

The DMRC in its appeal sought stay on the interim order on the grounds that it would amount to partial implementation of the award and would also be akin to dismissal of its objections against enforcement of award.

The Anil Ambani company had claimed a total compensation of Rs. 4,670 crore, which includes the penalty and the interest on it, from DMRC.

The compensation awarded by the arbitral tribunal in May covers damage as a result of a breach by DMRC of its obligations under the concession agreement and material adverse effect on the ability of DAMEPL to perform its obligations under the concession pact.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The local police on Sunday seized and destroyed over 7000 liters of liquor here, which was allegedly smuggled and brought into Bihar.

The entire containment of liquor, which was crushed by a roller under the supervision of government officials reportedly amounted to a whopping Rs. 30 lakh, and contained a mix of domestic and imported alcohol.

In a similar incident early this month, the Bihar police crushed bottles and pouches containing a total of 60,000 liters of liquor in Rohtas district.

The Nitish Kumar government last year notified the new Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 which ensured complete ban on sale and consumption of liquor - both Indian Made Foreign Liquor and country-made - in the state.

While the initial date for disposing off old stock of liquor was May 31, the Supreme Court on May 29 extended the time limit for the same to July 31.

Several liquor manufacturers approached the apex court seeking an extension of the May 31 deadline for moving liquor stocks out of the state.

The Bihar Government had in January moved the apex court seeking transfer of plea against the liquor ban legislation from the Patna High Court.

Alcohol companies had earlier moved the Patna High Court against the liquor ban.

The new legislation, banning sale and consumption of alcohol, including Indian-Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) as well as spiced and domestic liquor, prescribes harsher punishment for possession and consumption of alcohol.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
COLUMBUS  A business that started from the back of a pickup has grown to serve a customer base across Nebraska and western Iowa.

Advanced Fire & Safety began when Dave Sock, a former truck driver, bought a power washer with a friend in 1994 to clean kitchen exhaust systems. The two traveled from business to business to do the work.

Eventually, Dave did the washing on his own and began to provide more services as his clientele grew. He started selling fire extinguishers and installing and maintaining fire suppression and kitchen exhaust systems.

Daves son Don Sock began working alongside his father and eventually took over the business in 2014. To accommodate the companys growth, an office opened at 2561 53rd Ave. in Columbus to go along with an office at Don's Omaha home.

Don, who comes to Columbus twice a week, and five other staff members get plenty of windshield time while driving to see clients.

Most of our work is at the site of the customers. We work mostly with commercial- and industrial-based businesses, Don said.

Customers are on a schedule for inspection and maintenance.

We have a program where we set up everyone to make sure we get back to them in their time frame, said Don, adding that most systems need to be looked at every six months.

Fire extinguishers are inspected once a year.

In addition to working on exhaust systems, the business recently began offering a line of cleaning products for restaurants to use on greasy floors.

Most services provided by Advanced Fire & Safety are governed by the National Fire Protection Association and employees are certified for the work.

Every day were protecting people's and buildings lives, so its important to make sure the guys are trained and completely know what they are doing with proper certification," Don said. "Its tough to grow too fast because you cant just quickly put someone in the field. The last thing I want is for someones building to burn down or somebody to get hurt."

Dave, who lives in Lincoln, still helps part time at the business he started in Columbus, where a large chunk of the customer base remains.

The business has grown in the area since the local office opened about three years ago.

Since weve opened the shop here, Im surprised how much work weve got walking through the door," Don said.
Google today is celebrating Father's Day 2017 dedicating an endearing doodle to all the fathers out there.

The doodle shows the beautiful father-child bond into six pictures of a cactus plant.

The doodle starts with a cactus flexing his muscles. Then, father cactus is seen making the hair of his little girl. In the third animation, the daddy and baby cacti are seen playing with each other.

The fourth animation shows Papa cactus giving his child a shower. In the last animation, we see the cacti kids giving their father cactus a loving hug.

Like Mother's day, dads too deserve a special day to feel delighted and happy for all the sacrifices and love they shower on us.

While Father's Day is usually celebrated on the third Sunday of June, several countries such as Italy, Croatia, Spain and Portugal celebrate it on March 19.

However, the first Father's Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910 officially.

.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be rolled from July 1, amid concerns raised by industries citing unpreparedness to comply with the provisions of the new indirect tax regime.

He said the next meeting of the GST Council will be held on June 30 to redress some outstanding issues.

Addressing the media here, Jailtey said, "We don't have luxury of time to defer implementation of GST. The Council decided categorically it will be implemented from July 1 onwards."

He said the official launch of the GST will take place from midnight of June 30 at a function in New Delhi, which is being expected to be celebrated at a grand scale.

Jailtey said the GST Council, during its 17th meet, discussed about the IT preparedness at length and added that 65.6 lakh have taken provisional registration under the new tax regime.

The Finance Minister's statements came a day after ASSOCHAM asked the government to postpone the implementation of GST, citing that the IT network was not ready.

D.S. Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM, applauded government's effort to implement GST at the earliest, but said there are various issues which still need to be looked at before GST can be implemented successfully.

"Going by the statements of CEO, Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), the GSTN will not be fully operational on the 1st of July, 2017. This being the status of preparedness of the GSTN, the taxpayers would find it very difficult to comply with GST requirements from July 1, 2017... We believe that industry deserves some more time and assistance to get prepared for GST implementation," Assocham said

The GSTN, a not for profit Company incorporated on March 28, 2013, is tasked to provide IT infrastructure and services to the Central and State Governments, tax payers and other stakeholders for implementation of the GST.

Rawat said that during the current phase of GST migration for existing assessees, the server was constantly under maintenance.

There are at present about 80 lakh excise, service tax and VAT assessees, of which 64.35 lakh have already migrated to the portal of GST Network.

However, ASSOCHAM is not the first to raise questions about the GSTN's readiness for the GST rollout.

On June 3, West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra also said the rollout of the GST can be delayed by a few days as the preparedness of the GSTN is unsatisfactory.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Personnel from the Commissioner's Task Force, West Zone team, in a joint operation with Golconda Police, apprehended a Cameroon who was in possession of cocaine and heroin drugs.

The accused was apprehended near Khan's Mansion, Brundavan Colony in Hyderabad's Golconda on Saturday.

The task force team and Golconda Police also seized 90 grams of cocaine and 60 grams of heroin from his possession.

Besides narcotic substances, the team also seized two passports, two laptops, seven cell phones, one bike and cash worth Rs. 1,10,990 from his possession.

In a similar case, the sleuths of Commissioner's Task Force, West Zone team, in a joint operation with Tappachabutra Police, apprehended five persons near Gudimalkapur Market, Tappachabutra, Hyderabad who were in possession of ganja.

The team also seized 53 kilograms of ganja, one vehicle, six cell phones and net cash worth Rs. 3000 from their possession.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Kang Kyung-wha was appointed as South Korea's first female foreign minister on Sunday despite facing strong objections from the opposition parties.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in appointment Kang after the opposition-led parliament failed to issue a report on the outcome of its confirmation hearing for her.

President Moon urged Kang to show actions that will prove the opposition parties' objections wrong.

"I want you to truly help expand the external appearance of our diplomatic relations and show how great our capabilities are. I hope you would make those who have opposed you realise that they were wrong," Yonhap news agency quoted President Moon as saying to Kang.

Kang, a former UN official, has been accused of alleged tax evasions and false registration of address for her daughter.

She was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in March 2013.

Previous to this position, she served as United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights. She was appointed to this position by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in September 2006.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday met Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and held discussions over the Presidential election.

Naidu, after the meeting, told the media that the name of the Presidential candidate would be announced before June 23.

"The decision will be taken soon and the name of the Presidential candidate will be announced before June 23," Naidu told media here.

"Paswan went to London for his treatment, and we all were waiting for him to come back. Now, he is absolutely fine. I have informed him about everything happening in the connection of presidential elections. He told me that his stand is clear and whatever Prime Minister Narendra Modi decides will be acceptable to us," he added.

Later, he will meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

"Rajnath Singh has suffered some sprain in his feet this morning therefore I am going to meet him. Everything will be done on time. On June 24, the Prime Minister is going abroad so decision has to be taken before that," Naidu added.

On Friday, the first meeting between the government and the opposition on presidential elections remained inconclusive as no names were discussed by either side.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Naidu on Friday met Communist Party of India (CPI) leaders D. Raja and Sudhakar Reddy at the latter's party office over presidential elections.

Speaking to the reporters, CPI leader Sudhakar Reddy said, "On behalf of the three-member committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- Rajnath Singh and Venkaiah Naidu met us today after meeting various political parties, but didn't make any particular proposal. They only wanted a 'consensus candidate' asking who would be best suited. Only after being proposed by the government or by the ruling party, we can take a decision."

Meanwhile, AIADMK leader M. Thambidurai has said, "The party will meet soon and announce support to the Presidential candidate. We are friendly with the Centre, but not in alliance with anyone."

Naidu has also spoken to Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav and Samajwadi Party (SP) leaders Ram Gopal Yadav and Naresh Agrawal over phone and met Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and senior Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Satish Chandra Mishra in this regard.

According to reports, the BJP committee is holding discussions with all parties as they are trying to finalise a consensus candidate for presidential poll before Prime Minister Modi departs for foreign tour on June 24.

The BJP was forced to form a panel for parleys with the opposition as Sonia constituted a sub-group of the opposition parties for the presidential election to create troubled waters for the ruling Democratic Alliance (NDA) for the country's coveted post.

Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjun Kharge, JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad Yadav, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, TMC leader Derek O'Brien, Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav, BSP's Satish Chandra Mishra, DMK leader R. S. Bharathi and NCP's Praful Patel are part of the sub-group.

The election for the next President of India is to be held on July 17 as President Pranab Mukherjee will demit the office on July 25.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) issued the notification in this regard and the process of the nomination has started that will continue till June 28.
The Sri Lankan Navy on Sunday arrested five Indian fishermen for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters.

"Naval personnel attached to a Fast Attack Craft belonging to the Northern Naval Command arrested 5 Indian poachers along with a fishing trawler engaged in illegal fishing practices in Sri Lankan territorial waters west of Delft Island this morning," the Sri Lankan Navy said in a statement.

The arrested Indians will be handed over to the Jaffna Assistant Director of Fisheries for a legal action.

The Sri Lankan Navy also rendered assistance to another Indian fishing trawler in northwest of Analativu Island as sea water had trickled into the vessel making a panic-stricken situation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday expressed his condolences to the Portuguese Government and the people after wildfires have claimed many lives.

"I am shocked and horrified by the many lives claimed by today's devastating fires that hit the Pedrogao Grande region of Portugal," Guterres said in a statement, Xinhua reported.

"Earlier today, I spoke with the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and with the Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, to express my deep sadness and condolences to the Portuguese government and people. I wish a speedy recovery to the injured. At this time of loss, my thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of the victims," he added.

A raging forest fire in central Portugal sent flames sweeping over roads, killing at least 61 people, many of them trapped in their cars as they tried to flee, according to media reports.

The UN chief commended the government, firefighters, emergency responders and civil society organizations "who are sparing no efforts to battle the wildfire and help people in need."

"The United Nations stands ready to assist in any way possible," he said.

Portuguese Prime Minister Costa called it "the biggest tragedy" that Portugal has experienced in decades and declared three days of national mourning.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An out-of-control forest fire in central Portugal has killed at least 62 people and injured 57, according to updated figures provided on Sunday by the government.

Secretary of State for Internal Administration Joao Gomes reported that the number of deaths had increased as a result of the devastating wildfires that erupted on Saturday in the vicinity of Pedrogao Grande, a small rural town near the city of Coimbra, and remained uncontrolled due to strong winds, reports Efe.

Gomes, who was tasked with delivering the latest information available to authorities, said that the return of adverse gales and crosswinds would further impede extinction efforts.

He added that firefighters hoped to "shortly" extinguish two of the four separate fronts on which the blaze remained active.

The fire's epicentre is located some 190 km to the northeast of Lisbon.

Gomes previously said that at least 30 victims, including entire families, were found dead in their vehicles on two roads in the Leiria district that were blocked by the flames' advance, trapping motorists in the inferno.

Another 17 bodies were found next to the roads and 10 were recovered from the rural areas surrounding them.

Gomes also said that eight firefighters were among the injured -- four of them in serious condition.

Meanwhile, teams of psychologists have been deployed to attend to survivors, who were reportedly "in shock" and in many cases had lost relatives in the tragedy.

In addition to the Portuguese rescue teams that arrived from the cities of Coimbra, Setubal and Lisbon, two Spanish aircraft were aiding extinction efforts, while the arrival of French support was also expected.

The flames spread during Saturday afternoon in a way that "has no explanation", Gomes said, after strong winds turned a low-scale fire into an uncontrollable wildfire.

"Unfortunately, this seems to be the greatest tragedy we have seen in recent years in terms of forest fires," said Prime Minister Antonio Costa.

Sources from Portugal's Judicial Police said that the likely cause of the fire was a bolt of lightning that struck a dry tree in the heavily-forested area.

High temperatures and a lack of rainfall were major factors that allowed the flames to spread very quickly, thus trapping many of the people attempting to flee Pedrogao by car.
Nine persons of a gang allegedly involved in ATM robberies were arrested in West Bengal's Hoogly district on Sunday. Arms and ammunitions were seized from them, police said.

"We have arrested nine persons of a gang that was involved in multiple cases of ATM robbery. It seems the miscreants had gathered near Rishra's Pachloki area (in Hoogly) for looting another ATM," a police officer told IANS.

"Pipe guns, cartridges, four choppers, chloroform and acid for melting metal have been recovered from them," he said.

--IANS

mgr/pgh/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Celebrities including Lena Dunham, RuPaul, and Kristen Schaal have expressed outrage and aggravation after a judge declared a mistrial in the sexual assault case against stand-up comedian Bill Cosby.

"For Cosby, mistrial. For his 60 accusers, no justice," tweeted lawyer Lisa Bloom, who is representing Janice Dickinson's separate case against the comedian.

Judge Steven O'Neill declared the mistrial on Saturday when the jury in Montgomery County, Pennsilvania, claimed to be "hopelessly deadlocked" after six days of deliberations. Cosby was accused of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, at his Elkin Park mansion in January in 2004, reports ew.com.

District Attorney Kevin Steele told reporters his office plans to retry the case.

Dunham, who in 2014 wrote about a sexual assault committed against her, said that "Bill Cosby's trial is about much more than Bill Cosby", in a series of tweets.

She posted: "When women see justice served, their own fear and trauma are eased. When they don't, survivors of sexual assault have to watch every day as the legal system calls them liars and denies their truth. It is an unimaginable grind. My heart is with every survivor reliving the erasure of their own experience today. I see you. I love you."

RuPaul posted: "Our criminal justice system is a joke that's not at all funny."

Comedian Kristen Schaal asserted that there should be retrial. She said: "Try him again. #CosbyTrial. Heart goes out to women who came forward. Without that courage there will be more victims. Serial rapist."

American-Pakistani stand-up comedian Kumail Nanjiani asked; "Serious question: How will Cosby ever get an unbiased jury? Who doesn't know him or have some sort of association with him?"

Television producer Andy Lassner tweeted: "To all the women who say Bill Cosby drugged, raped or assaulted you: I BELIEVE YOU".

--IANS

sug/rb/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJP on Sunday stepped up its efforts to gather support for its unnamed Presidential nominee, with its top leaders talking to allies Shiv Sena and LJP as well as the Trinamool Congress and BJD, even as it disclosed that the NDA candidate will file the nomination before June 24 after the opposition is conveyed its choice.

Bharatiya Janata Party and allied MPs are being called to New Delhi by Tuesday to sign the nomination papers. Each nomination paper has to be signed by at 50 proposers and an equal number of seconders who can also be MLAs.

The National Democratic Alliance's attempt is to file at least three-four sets of nominations of its candidate so that all allies can get to sign.

BJP sources said the nomination will be filed before Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves on his three-nation foreign tour. Modi is slated to visit Portugal on June 24, before his trip to the US on June 26 and the Netherlands on June 27.

By then, the opposition parties will be told about the NDA candidate. The last date for filing of nominations is June 28. The Prime Minister is set to return home a day before that.

BJP President Amit Shah on Sunday met its sulking ally and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aditya in Mumbai to ensure the Sena's crucial support in the July 17 Presidential election.

But the BJP's oldest ally has been pitching for the candidature of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat as the "first choice" and eminent agro-scientist M.S. Swaminathan as a second preference. Both Bhagwat and BJP have already ruled out the possibility of fielding him.

It was not clear what was Sena's response to Shah's plea. In the last two Presidential elections, the Shiv Sena did not support the NDA candidate.

Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday held discussions with Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who heads the Lok Janshakti Party. Naidu also met Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav and Naresh Agrawal.

Informed sources said Naidu briefed Shah about his discussions.

Paswan said his party will stand by the Prime Minister's decision while the Samajwadi Party is understood to have favoured a politician as the new President.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, part of a three-member panel set up by Shah to evolve a consensus among ruling and opposition parties on the Presidency, has spoken to leaders of the Trinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal (BJD).

The BJP, which has an edge in the electoral college, is seeking to muster maximum support for its nominee to ensure a comfortable victory.

This is why it has reached out to parties like the BJD, which is opposed to the Congress. But the Trinamool is part of the opposition on the Presidential election.

On the opposition side, there are hints that the non-BJP parties may announce their candidate by Wednesday if the BJP does not come out with its nominee.

CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury reportedly suggested on Saturday that the opposition should announce its candidate by June 21. He had described the government consultations as a "PR exercise".

The Left parties are pitching for a contest because they feel the Presidential election was in a way an ideological battle and the Rashtrapati Bhavan's occupant should be a person with impeccable secular credentials and one who can uphold the Constitution.

They are said to be considering the name of Gopalakrishna Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson and a former West Bengal Governor. The name of JD-U leader Sharad Yadav has also cropped up as a Presidential contender on grounds that he is a veteran political personality.

--IANS

vsc-qn-bns-ps/mr/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Brazilian businessman said in an interview that President Michel Temer heads the country's biggest and most dangerous criminal organisation.

Temer "is the head of the criminal organisation that operates in the Chamber (of Deputies)," Brazil's lower house of Congress, Joesley Batista, one of the owners of multinational meatpacking giant JBS, said in the interview on Saturday.

Batista said a mafia of politicians continually demanded that he pay bribes and make illegal donations to election campaigns; in return, his companies received favours or were allowed to operate unhindered, reports Efe news.

He added that the group's leaders included Temer and Eduardo Cunha, a former lower-house speaker and one of the highest-profile politicians to be sentenced to prison in the sprawling Car Wash investigation into a $2 billion bribes-for-inflated contracts scheme centred on state oil company Petrobras.

"The one who's not in prison (among the group's members) is in (the presidential palace) Planalto. That group is very dangerous. You can't argue with them," Batista said in the interview.

He said Temer called him every time he needed campaign donations for his Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) and its political allies or money for personal reasons.

"Temer is very direct in (asking for money). He's not a person who's careful with that," Batista said.

Batista said the payments were necessary because the group had control over offices that were crucial to JBS' operations, including agencies linked to the Agriculture Ministry.

The illegal funding initially was channeled through lobbyist Lucio Funaro and then subsequently through Cunha.

Batista, who has entered into a plea deal with prosecutors, returned to Brazil last week after having been authorised to leave the country due to alleged threats against his family.

Last month, Brazil's Supreme Court launched a probe into the President based on allegations from Batista and his brother, Wesley Batista, that Temer encouraged the payment of secret money to Cunha.

Temer, who served as ousted President Dilma Rousseff's Vice President from 2011 to 2016, turned against his predecessor, supported the impeachment process and eventually succeeded her in office.

Earlier this month, Temer and Rousseff were acquitted in a case pertaining to the financing of their successful 2014 election campaign.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala called on Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan here on Sunday to brief him about the "health department's failure" to contain the dengue outbreak in the state.

On Saturday, of the 19,000 patients who reported at hospitals with fever, there were 680 suspected dengue cases, of which 138 were tested positive. Also, 11 people died on Saturday, taking the dengue toll in the state to 115 this year.

According to reports, the worst affected districts are Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode and Palakkad.

Figures provided by the health department indicate that on an average, in June, daily over 10,000 people came to hospitals with fever.

After meeting Vijayan at his official residence, Chennithala, who is also Leader of Opposition in the Kerala assembly, said "the situation is very grave".

"This peculiar situation has risen because the health department failed to rise to the occasion ahead of the rains in the state. No measure was taken to do cleaning operations that generally take place before the arrival of monsoon rains," Chennithala said.

"The temporary cleaning staff, who were in service, were terminated and hence no proper sanitation programme was conducted," the Congress leader added.

Chennithala also said that "I have been told that there is a shortage of medicines and health professionals to tackle this raging fever".

"We are not going to launch any sort of protest. Instead, we have directed all our legislators to see that they take the lead and on June 20, start massive cleaning operations in their constituencies."

"The health department, including the Health Minister, has been a total failure and I have asked Vijayan to see that he immediately takes corrective steps. He has promised to intervene by calling a meeting of top health officials," added Chennithala.

However, Health Minister K.K. Shylaja defended her department's initiatives and said "its work before the rains is unprecedented but the results appear different".

"The need of the hour is not to make this a political issue and work together to keep the surroundings clean," she said.

Though Kerala has a well accounted state-run health department, a large number of people visit the private healthcare centres. Hence, private hospitals in the affected districts are also overflowing with patients.

"Patients are lying in the corridor and availing treatment. The situation looks really bad," said a health professional of a leading private hospital in Thiruvananthapuram district.

--IANS

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Riding on Fakhar Zaman's brilliant batting, Pakistan posted a challenging 338/4 against India in the Champions Trophy final at The Oval here on Sunday.

Apart from Zaman (114), Azhar Ali (59), Mohammad Hafeez (57 not out) and Babar Azam (46) also contributed handsomely to Pakistan's cause.

Pakistan, who lost their campaign opener against India, seemed a different side this time. Pakistani batsmen played intelligently and showed their character for the big match. They played the ball according to its merit and made full use of the conditions despite losing the toss.

India, on the other hand, who played to their potential throughout the tournament, were struggling against the disciplined Pakistani batting lineup and failed to utilise the conditions completely.

Fielders made several mess-ups in the outfield while bowlers failed to bowl at the right line throughout the innings as a result arch-rivals Pakistan managed to score a healthy total.

Put in to bat, Pakistan got off to a perfect start. Openers Azhar and Zaman put up a solid platform for other batsmen to post a good total on the board. The duo forged 128-run partnership in 23 overs before a running mix-up cost Pakistan a wicket.

After playing a shot to left of the square leg, Azhar wanted to steal a single but Zaman didn't respond his call and thus India got a much needed breakthrough in form of Azhar. The 32-year-old batsman slammed four boundaries and one six in his 71-ball knock.

Unperturbed by the fall of Azhar's wicket, Zaman, who was given a lifeline at three runs by pacer Jasprit Bumrah, continued his attack and displayed some quality strokes around the ground to enthrall the crowd. Soon, Zaman completed his century in 92 balls through a sweep at the square leg.

Incoming batsman Babar Azam kept on supporting the 27-year-old in-form batsman by giving him the strike. After completing his century and adding 72 runs for the second wicket with Azam, Zaman tried to up the ante. But while trying to slog the medium pacer Hardik Pandy's delivery, Zaman was caught by Ravindra Jadeja, who ran from the point to take a brilliant catch at the square on the off-side in the 34th over. In his 106-ball innings, Zaman hit 12 boundaries and three sixes.

With 16 overs remaining and two set batsmen back to pavilion, Azam and Shoaib Malik (12) played sensibly and punished the bad balls. Azam, who was previously supporting Zaman, now took the charge and played freely. But just when it seemed good for the Pakistan team, Malik played a loose short off pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar and gifted his wicket. Kedar Jadhav took a simple catch at the deep cover to dismiss the 35-year-old batsmen in the 40th over.

Middle-order batsman Mohammad Hafeez then joined Azam but this time the Pakistani duo failed to click as India skipper Virat Kohli's ploy to bring back spinner Jadhav clicked. After adding 20 runs for the fourth wicket with Hafeez, Azam was caught by Yuvraj Singh at the boundary in the 43th over. His 52-ball knock comprised of four boundaries.

The last few overs saw Hafeez thrashing Indian bowlers all around the park. In the process, Pakistan crossed the 300 run mark with Hafeez slamming a huge six over deep square leg in the 46th over off pacer Kumar. Soon, Imad Wasim (25) also joined Hafeez and attacked Indian bowlers to post a healthy total.

For India, pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya and spinner Kedar Jadhav took one wicket each.

Brief score: Pakistan 338/4 (Fakhar Zaman 114, Azhar Ali 59; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 1/44, Kedar Jadhav 1/27) against India.

--IANS

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Mounting debt and crop losses led a farmer in Madhya Pradesh to commit suicide, officials said.

Brijmohan Patel, 40, from Gadaghat village in Hoshangabad district, drank pesticides on Sunday night, police told IANS. He was admitted to a hospital where he died late at night.

According to his relatives, Patel was troubled because he failed to repay the Rs 4 lakh loan he had taken due to poor yields.

--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.)
DMK leader M.K. Stalin on Sunday flayed the "delay in filing an EC-recommended" criminal case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Palaniswami and other Ministers and warned that his party will approach the High Court if this was not done.

The Election Commission had ordered on April 18 the Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer to get registered a criminal complaint against Palaniswami and five Ministers on charge of attempting to bribe voters during the R.K. Nagar assembly by-election here, Stalin said in a statement.

Stalin said the poll panel had also sent a 34-page report by the Income Tax Department to the state Chief Electoral Officer and the Chief Secretary.

He said the Election Commission's order for lodging a police complaint was obtained from the poll panel by an applicant under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

Stalin said the delay in registering a complaint was nothing but disrespect to the Election Commission, a constitutional body.

Ahead of the bye-election to the R.K. Nagar constituency, the Income Tax Department had raided the residences and business premises of Health Minister C. Vijayabaskar, his relatives as well as persons close to him and his business associates.

An Income Tax official then told IANS that they had seized cash totalling Rs 5.5 crore besides documents showing that Rs 89 crore changed hands in R.K. Nagar.

Subsequently, the Election Commission cancelled the by-election for the seat that fell vacant after the death of then Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa in December 2016.

--IANS

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The Republic on the Move Party (LREM) led French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, won a large majority in the French Lower House of Parliament.

The second and final round of legislative competition cleared the way for France's youngest top official to control the country's political power over five-year term.

Based on partial vote count made by Kantar Sofres-onepoint pollster, the LREM alone won 315 seats, more than 289 seats needed for a majority in the 577-member National Assembly, Xinhua news agency reported.

With its allies from MoDem centrist party, it is represented by 360 lawmakers, sparing the need to rely on other movements to pass legislation on labour codes, cut public expenditure by billions of euros, raise taxes on consumption and wealthy pensioners and invest more in training and innovative sectors.

On the right, the conservatives won 133 seats, making it the biggest opposition party. However, the Republicans would not pose any threat to Macron's governance.

The far-right National Front (FN) improved its performance after snatching 6 seats compared to two currently, while the outgoing ruling the Socialist Party, lost its lead with only 32 seats.

--IANS

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Actress Amyra Dastur says she wants to balance work between Bollywood and south as she loves both the industries.

"I want to balance both (Bollywood and southern film industry) of them. Everything is becoming way more global. We have seen a lot of south remakes in Bollywood and they are making Bollywood remakes in south as well. In fact, a lot of producers are making bilingual films," Amyra told IANS over phone from Mumbai:

She added: "I think both the industries are really going to merge, and they have already started merging. So, I haven't put Bollywood in the backseat. I had to give up two south projects to complete 'Kung Fu Yoga'. I had put south in the back for a little bit...I love everything about both the industries."

Amyra forayed in Bollywood in 2013 with "Issaq", went on to do Tamil film "Anegan", Hindi film "Mr. X", Sino-Indian co-production "Kung Fu Yoga". She will also team up with Tridha Choudhury, Sundeep Kishan in a new yet-untitled Telugu coming-of-age romantic drama.

The actress, who is also known for her association with brands like French fashion label Promod, pointed out: "Both the industries are actually pretty much the same. So, I am not keeping anything on the back burner."

Amyra also said she is not interested in heading to Hollywood.

"'Kung Fu Yoga' happened by chance. If anything good comes my way then it comes my way but I am not focusing on Hollywood at all. My focus is on south and Bollywood."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hailing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council's decision to give initial two months' relaxation in filing of returns, industry said that the move will give ample time for businesses to prepare their IT systems and comply with the new indirect tax regime.

"It will give more time to traders to prepare themselves to comply with GST law," Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said welcoming the announcement by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley after the Council's meeting here on Sunday.

"With the objective of ensuring smooth rollout of GST and taking into account the concerns expressed by the trade and industry regarding filing of the returns in GST regime, it has been decided that, for the first two months of GST implementation, the tax would be payable based on a simple return containing summary of outward and inward supplies which will be submitted before 20th of the succeeding month," Finance Ministry said.

Aiming to provide a sense of comfort to the taxpayers and give them an elbow room to attune themselves with the requirements of the changed system, no late fees and penalty would be levied for the interim period, it said.

"Much needs to be done at the level of empowerment of small businesses with technology as about 60 per cent of the traders still have not adopted computerisation. It is a major challenge and government should devise a way through which traders can make digital compliance as required under GST," CAIT National President B.C.Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said.

Pratik Jain, Partner and Leader Indirect Tax said: "Relaxation of time for filing initial invoice wise returns is a welcome move which, to some extent, allays fears of readiness both from Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) and industry's point of view."

The GST council has offered relaxation in the timelines for filing the invoice-wise details in GSTR1 for July and August. Such details can be filed up to September 5 for July and September 20 for August. A summary statement of self-declared tax liability is required to be filed in Form 3B by August 20 for July and September 20 for August.

Ansh Bhargava, Senior Consultant, Taxmann.com said: "It is a welcome decision by the GST Council on the filing as it would allow taxpayers to get accustomed and adapt to the new system of taxation."

Archit Gupta, Founder and CEO ClearTax, said: "The Council's decision to allow flexibility in return filing has come as a welcome boon for many. Businesses now have time till September to purchase and familiarise themselves with GST-compliant software. Using the 2-month transition period wisely will help businesses avoid unnecessary delays once all rules and regulations are fully enforced in September."

Rajeev Dimri, Leader, Indirect Tax, BMR and Associates LLP said: "This measure should significantly help in assuaging the concerns of inadequate readiness of GSTN being faced by the industry and confirms that preparedness of GSTN will not be a roadblock for the implementation of GST as was being anticipated by the industry.

"The Council approved draft rules relating to advance rulings, appeals and revision, assessment, anti-profiteering and fund settlement. With removal of major road blocks on the pathway to implementation of GST, the deadline of July 1 appears to be an absolute reality."

Jaitley expressed confidence that GST laws from all pending states shall be in place by the end of next week. He further announced that the official launch of GST shall take place at midnight on June 30.

The Finance Minister mentioned that further deliberations are required to reach consensus on e-waybill rules. Till then, an alternate rule authorising states to continue using existing systems for road permits shall be put in place.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Keralite woman, travelling from Saudi Arabia's Dammam to Kochi on a Jet Airways flight, delivered a baby en route on Sunday morning, an official said.

The woman, whose name was not known, was travelling alone and suddenly developed labour pains as the plane was in Pakistani air space. The cabin crew sought the help of a nurse who was also on the flight and the mother-to-be was moved into the first class area, where the delivery took place.

Following the delivery, the flight was diverted to Mumbai where the mother and baby were taken off and move to a hospital.

The flight then took off from Mumbai after a two hour stop for Kochi.

Cochin International Airport Ltd. Managing Director V.J.Kurian told IANS that he heard about the incident, but does not have more details of the woman passenger.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Kerala woman gave birth to a healthy baby boy while flying at a height of 35,000 feet on Jet Airways's Dammam-Kochi flight on Sunday morning, officials said. Both mother and child are in "stable condition".

Jet's 9W-569 flight, with 162 passengers on board, was diverted to Mumbai for handling the medical emergency as the 29-year-old C. Jose, who was travelling alone, went into premature labour on Sunday morning when the plane was flying in Pakistan airspace.

The flight crew made an announcement to find out if there was any doctor on board, but there was only a trained paramedic, Mini Wilson, who stepped forward to help.

Jose was shifted to the first class, where Wilson, assisted by cabin crew comprising Mohammad Taj Hayath, Deborah Tavares, Isha Jayakar, Sushmita David, Cathering Lepcha and Tejas Chavan, helped deliver the baby boy safely.

Upon landing, mother and child were rushed to the Holy Spirit Hospital in Andheri east where their condition was reported to be "stable".

Jet Airways announced that being the first baby to be born in flight for the airlines, the kid would get a free lifetime pass for any travel on the carrier.

Jet Airways also informed Jose's family, who are rushing to Mumbai.

After a two-hour halt for the medical emergency, the flight departed for its onward destination to Kochi.

Talking to IANS, Cochin International Airport Ltd. Managing Director V.J. Kurian confirmed the incident, but did not have more details.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Malta on Sunday denied that Saudi Arabia has severed diplomatic ties with the island nation, stating the ties remain as strong as ever.

The statement was prompted following an online report that appeared on fox-news24.com, claiming that Saudi Arabia had cut off ties with Malta over its friendship with Qatar, Xinhua reported.

Foreign Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela said the remarks attributed to him in the report, or any other remarks on the situation concerning Saudi Arabia and Qatar are "completely false".

There is currently tension between Qatar and its immediate neighbours, led by Saudi Arabia, who say Qatar is turning a blind eye to terrorism financiers. Qatar denies these claims.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A man has been arrested on charges of running a fake job call centre and duping 200 jobless persons from north Delhi's Azadpur area, the city police said on Sunday.

Narender Gaurav, who allegedly duped young men by promising them jobs in a well-known Ayurveda company in Delhi, was arrested on Saturday night from his Azadpur residence, the police said.

"We received a complaint from a Patanjali Ayurved Limited's official that a fake call centre is active in various parts of Delhi and the National Capital Region and many job-seekers were duped in the company's name," Deputy Commissioner of Police Vijayanta Arya said.

Gaurav during interrogation told the police he earlier worked in a consultancy firm but later set up his own fake firm M/S Smart HR Zone and cheated people to make easy money.

"Telecallers he had hired called up job aspirants and fixed 'interviews' with potential employees. Gaurav took money in the name of security deposits during the 'final round' of interview. He had also opened multiple bank accounts in the name of Gaurav Kumar," the police officer added.

The police are looking for his accomplices.

--IANS

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Massive protests in Darjeeling and sporadic incidents of violence in Kalimpong and Kurseong marked the GJM-called "black day" in the north Bengal hills on Sunday while its 12-hour strike in Dooars -- foothills covering parts of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts -- received lukewarm response.

However, there were no reports of fresh clashes between the agitators and the security forces in Darjeeling.

Thousands of protestors took out rallies on the streets of Darjeeling amid tight security, including by army patrols, to mark the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha's protest against alleged killing of its three activists in police firing and also pressing the demand of a separate state of Gorkhaland.

Led by the GJM activists, protestors carried the coffins of the three activists allegedly shot dead by security personnel in Darjeeling's Singmari during clashes on Saturday.

Holding aloft the tricolour, GJM youth members led the rally from Chawk Bazar, the famous lower market area on the Hill cart Road in Darjeeling, passionately shouting pro-Gorkhaland slogans.

Shouts of "Police go back" and "Gorkhaland-Gorkhaland" reverberated through the picturesque hills as some Gorkha activists claimed that the protest has shifted from the political to the commoners' movement in the hills.

"There are more than 15,000 people in the rally today. This is not just GJM. People of the hills have come together to demand separate Gorkhaland. Let's see how far we can go," a young woman protestor told a TV channel.

Superintendent of Police Akhilesh Kumar Chaturvedi told IANS that the rally "was by and large peaceful. There were no instances of violence in Darjeeling today".

He also rebuffed GJM's claims of gathering more than 15,000 people, putting the attendance somewhere around 2,000.

The rally was preceded by a silent march of the civilians on Sunday morning, demanding peace to be restored in the hills.

Sporadic violence was reported from elsewhere.

GJM supporters allegedly vandalised two cars in Kurseong and torched three panchayat offices in the neighbouring Kalimpong district while a prominent library in Kalimpong town went ablaze with the administration blaming 'GJM-backed goons' for it.

Terming the situation "very very volatile", GJM leader Amar Singh Rai claimed that a separate state of Gorkhaland is the biggest priority for them and rebuffed any possibility of discussions with the Bengal government.

"We will seek a discussion with the Centre. But only on one agenda -- a separate state of Gorkhaland," he added.

GJM activists also blocked roads and staged demonstrations at many places in the Dooars -- foothills covering parts of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts -- in support as the agitation in the hills spilled onto the plains.

They blocked the road near Dalsingpara tea estate in Jaigaon, choking the only road connecting India and Bhutan.

However, unlike the hills, the GJM-called strike only managed to achieve partial success as most of the shops stayed open in prominent towns like Jalpaiguri, Malbazar, Dhupguri and Nagrakata and public transport plied as usual.

According to the North Bengal State Transport Corporation (NBSTC), buses from Jalpaiguri to various places in Dooars and Cooch Behar district ran in sufficient numbers.

However, the effect of the strike was better felt at the regions close to Bhutan border that boasts a higher amount of Nepali population.

The gateway to Bhutan at Chamurti was kept closed by the Bhutan government to avoid any possible scuffles.

The GJM announced an indefinite general strike from last Monday in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts and the Dooars to oppose the government's purported decision to make study of Bengali language compulsory in state-run schools -- despite the government clarification this would not be applicable in this region -- and to press for a separate state of Gorkhaland.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actress Alyssa Milano has filed a $10 million lawsuit against her former business manager for "severe misconduct" that caused her a financial disaster.

The suit accuses accountant Kenneth Hellie and his firm, Hellie, Hoffer & Co, of forging her signature on cheques, failing to pay overdue bills and taxes, and inducing her to make bad investments in businesses in which he was also an investor, without disclosing the conflict, reports variety.com.

Hellie's actions, according to the suit, left Milano and her husband, talent agent David Bugliari, "with millions of dollars in debt and their credit in ruins".

The suit was filed on Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court in Van Nuys. Hellie has declined to discuss the specifics.

He said: "I'd like to say something. Obviously a lot of it's like the Johnny Depp situation. I can't say anything just yet."

Depp is currently engaged in a legal war with his former managers, who have accused him of destroying his finances through reckless spending. Depp contends that his managers engaged in "gross misconduct" and has sued them for $25 million.

Milano has claimed that her financial woes began with a "home improvement debacle". Milano says that Hellie's poor oversight of the remodeling job caused costs to spiral. She ended up spending $5 million, though the home is worth no more than $3 million.

She also says her accountants failed to notify her of Ventura County building code violations, which lingered for more than five years, resulting in a lien and $376,950 in fines.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The seven missing sailors from a US destroyer were found dead in flooded berthing compartments following the warship's collision with a cargo vessel off the coast of Japan, a Navy official told CNN on Sunday.

The Navy's 7th Fleet said the bodies were found on Sunday morning after the ship returned to its base in Japan.

"The families are being notified and being provided the support they need during this difficult time. The names of the sailors will be released after all notifications are made," the Navy said in a statement.

The USS Fitzgerald, a 10,000-tonne guided-missile destroyer and the ACX Crystal, a 29,000-tonne container ship flagged in the Philippines, collided in the Pacific Ocean about 56 nautical miles off the coast of Yokosuka in the early hours of Saturday, the Japanese coast guard told CNN.

The destroyer suffered severe damage to its starboard side, while the container ship sustained light damage.

The bodies were taken to a US naval hospital in Yokosuka.

Fitzgerald's Commander Bryce Benson, was evacuated by a Japanese naval helicopter while US military copters evacuated two injured US sailors.

All three were in stable condition at the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, said Commander Ron Flanders, a spokesman for US Naval Forces Japan.

The Fitzgerald is an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer with a crew of approximately 330 sailors. The vessel is 505 feet long.

It completed $21 million in upgrades and repairs in February and is forward-deployed to Yokosuka, supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, the service said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Marriages are made in heaven, they say. But there is at least one more place where marriages are made in large numbers -- in Saurath village of Madhubani district in north Bihar.

A matchmaking festival -- Saurath Sabha -- is held here every year in the Hindu calendar months of Jyestha-Aasadh (June-end), which brings together many Brahmin families to negotiate marriages of their children.

In this unique 700-year-old festival, parents and relatives of prospective brides and grooms gather and get marriages fixed after an elaborate system of checking genealogical records by the "Panjikars" (community marriage registrars).

But, over the years, this age-old tradition has been losing its sheen in the hustle and bustle of modern life, as people have moved away to far off places, losing touch with their customs.

Now, a socio-cultural organisation, Mithilalok Foundation, has taken upon itself the task of reviving the tradition by organising a similar assembly here on June 25 with an anticipated participation of around 20,000 people from different places in the Mithila region.

"The assembly in Saurath used to have a pre-eminent position in not only settling marriages of Maithil youth but also providing a socio-cultural platform to debate and deliberate upon matters of local significance," Mithilalok Chairman Birbal Jha told IANS.

"Two decades ago, Saurath Sabha Gachhi (the orchard, where the event is held) used to attract more than 100,000 people from across the country. But this custom has been fading. We wish to bring this very interesting and important tradition back to life to facilitate marriages," he said.

Jha said that the upcoming assembly would bring together Maithils of the world and reconnect them with their roots. "People will walk from Madhubani to Saurath and gather there to participate in the age-old tradition," he said.

"On the sidelines of this campaign, we will also organise an intellectual discourse."

Saurath village was originally named as Saurastra, which meant a cultural and intellectual centre of "sau-rastra" or nations associated with the ancient king of Mithila, Janaka.

The "Swayamvara" of Janaka's daughter and revered deity Sita took place here, after which the tradition of Saurath Sabha started, according to Jha.

Recounting his experience of visiting Saurath Sabha in the late 1970s as a bride's father, 72-year-old Mahesh Thakur said: "It was like a huge village festival lasting over 10 days, depending on the length of auspicious period (according to Hindu calendar).

"People talking in the local dialect, vendors hawking rural delicacies on the sidelines of the fair, rural household items being sold here and there...a perfect village fair setting."

Prospective grooms sat on rugs and carpets, along with their fathers, uncles and Panjikars, at fixed distances. The brides' side would go around looking for a "suitable" boy. If one was found, both parties would go into a huddle to negotiate the match.

"So, girls would have an upper hand there... it was the grooms sitting and awaiting their would-be brides and not the other way round. That shows how, in Mithila culture, women have been placed on a higher pedestal since olden times," Thakur said with pride apparent in his voice.

According to him, this traditional matchmaking festival has been losing popularity among the families of the girls, because fewer "well-placed" boys are to be found there.

"Good boys are located at distant places these days, some even in foreign countries, who are unable to make it to Saurath on the occasion. Besides, their preferences have also seen a shift, as most of them now look for well-placed girls as their wives. Such girls can't be reached through Saurath Mela," said Thakur.

He, however, hailed the move to revive the dying custom of matchmaking and linking Maithils back with their roots.

--IANS

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The Naga Hoho, the apex body of all Naga tribes of Nagaland, on Sunday demanded a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe over the alleged unaccounted wealth of former state police official M.K.R. Pillai.

"We appealed to the state government to take appropriate steps to ensure that all the 'illegitimate' activities of Pillai allegedly carried out during both his active career and as consultant to the Police Department are fully exposed. He is to be brought to justice for his actions," said Naga Hoho President Chuba Ozukum.

He said the investigation will act as a deterrent in future to those who may try and misuse their position for their own personal gain and benefit.

"In this regard, the Naga Hoho fervently appeals to the state government to set up a neutral high-level SIT to thoroughly investigate into various allegations against Pillai even without the help of CBI so as to deliver justice to the people," Ozukum said.

"If Nagaland is even to have any hope for a better tomorrow, what we need is for the state government to ensure that the trial for Pillai's corruption which leads to our own backyard is investigated in its entirety and tackled without any compromise whatsoever," he added.

IT sleuths in Kerala's Kochi have unearthed unaccounted money worth Rs 400 crore from the Sreevalasam Group firm owned by Pillai, who was working as a consultant for the Nagaland Police's motor transport wing after his retirement.

A President's Police Medal winner, Pillai, who retired as the Additional Superintendent of Police in 2010, came under the IT scanner post demonetisation.

Okuzum said the case was a "wake-up call" for the state government to discipline government servants, be it Nagas or outsiders, as the "picture that is emerging is one of a totally unrestrained scam of enormous magnitude stretching across the last decade or so".

"All the ingredients are there among others, abuse of official position; misappropriation of government funds; misuse of government property; money laundering; and benami transactions," he added.

Chief Minister Sharhozelie Liezietsu has said that his government would not defend Pillai over alleged unaccounted wealth.

--IANS

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The ruling National Democratic Alliance's candidate for the July 17 presidential election will file his nomination papers before June 24, and the opposition parties would be informed of the name before the papers are filed.

BJP sources said the nomination will be filed before Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves on his three-nation foreign tour. Modi is slated to visit Portugal on June 24, before his trip to the US on June 26 and the Netherlands on June 27.

Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday held discussions with Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who heads the Lok Janshakti Party, on the July 17 presidential election.

Naidu also held discussions with Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav and Naresh Agrawal.

Paswan said his party will stand by the Prime Minister's decision while the Samajwadi Party is understood to have favoured a politician as the new President.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, part of the three-meber panel set up by Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah to evolve a consensus among ruling and opposition parties on the presidential choice, has spoken to leaders of the Trinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal.

Informed sources said Naidu briefed Shah about his discussions.

Shah on Sunday met ally and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aditya in Mumbai to ensure the Sena's crucial support in the presidential election.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan has reopened another border with Afghanistan that was closed in February after a series of attacks from across the border killed over 100 people, the Foreign Ministry announced.

"The decision reflects Pakistan's continued efforts for facilitating Afghan transit and trade. This is not a pedestrian crossing, but is meant for facilitation of trade and transit vehicles," The Nation daily quoted the ministry as saying on Saturday.

Two major crossings - Torkham and Chaman - were already opened earlier.

Government sources said the decision to open the Kharlachi crossing for trade was part of the confidence-building measures of Islamabad to make Afghanistan realise that Pakistan wanted to see stability in the country.

During a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of the SCO summit last week, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had reiterated his commitment to support the Kabul government in bringing peace to the country, reports The Nation.

Pakistan and Afghanistan share a roughly 2,500km-long border, which runs through a mountainous terrain and remains largely unmanned.

In February, Pakistan completely sealed the border crossing with Kabul for over a month after the attacks.

--IANS

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Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday appealed for calm after speaking to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the situation in Darjeeling which has witnessed widespread violence since June 8.

Rajnath Singh said all concerned parties should resolve their differences through dialogue in an amicable environment.

"Spoke to Mamata Banerjee... She has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling," he said.

"I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence... In a democracy like India resorting to violence will never help in finding a solution. Every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue.

"All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment," he added.

The Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) staged a protest on Sunday over the death of three party activists in police firing.

After Saturday's violent clash between security forces and the agitators, GJM chief Bimal Gurung termed the three activists as "the martyrs of Gorkhaland movement" and urged Gorkhas to give out a befitting reply.

The violence in Drajeeling's took an ugly turn after a massive rally was halted by the security forces on Saturday afternoon. GJM supporters attacked security forces with bricks and bottles.

The GJM has announced an indefinite general strike from Monday against the government's purported move to make study of Bengali language compulsory in state-run schools and to press for a separate state of Gorkhaland.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three policemen and four militants were killed after Taliban extremists stormed police headquarters in Afghanistan's Gardez city on Sunday, officials said.

The attack started after one militant rammed an explosives-lade car into the front gate of Afghan National Police (ANP) headquarters at around 6.15 a.m.e, Xinhua news agency quoted an Interior Ministry official as saying.

The blast was immediately followed by an assault by several other militants in different parts of the city.

A nearby police station and a training centre were also damaged by the explosion.

Twenty-five others including police personnel and civilians were injured.

--IANS

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Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday maintained his party's aggressive stance on the issue of the Presidential polls at the much awaited meeting with BJP President Amit Shah here on Sunday.

Though the Bharatiya Janata Party chief did not disclose the names of any candidate for the post of President, he sought Thackeray's support for the NDA nominee who would be announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, Thackeray reiterated his pet names for the top post - RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and agro-scientist M.S. Swaminathan. The BJP has remained non-committal to the names though it has said it is open to discussions.

Thackeray is also understood to have informed Shah that the BJP must announce first its candidate for Presidency before his party can take a decision on whether to support the nominee.

On record, both parties kept mum on the deliberations at the Shah-Thackeray meet though the BJP termed it as "a courtesy call where talks were held in a cordial atmosphere".

For the Sena, Thackeray and his son Aditya took part in the talks while Shah and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis represented the BJP.

Other Sena leaders and BJP state President Raosaheb Patil-Danve stayed out of the 75-minute meeting.

The meeting was part of the BJP's strategy to evolve a consensus among all political parties over the Presidential polls and to ensure the support of its oldest ally, the Shiv Sena, for the NDA nominee.

In the Presidential polls of 2007 and 2012, the Sena deviated from the NDA to vote for the Congress nominees: Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee respectively.

Shah later drew the curtains on his three-day visit to Mumbai by meeting NDA constituents like Republican Party of India-A President Ramdas Athawale, who is Union Minister for Social Justice, Rashtriya Samaj Party chief Mahadeo Jankar, Shiv Sangram Party chief Vinayak Mete and Jansurajya Party chief Vinay Kore among others.

However, he could not meet Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana President Raju Shetti, who led the recent farmers' agitation in the state.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Scientists have found that exposure to just 10 minutes of light at night suppresses biting and manipulates flight behaviour of malaria mosquitoes.

Critical behaviours exhibited by the species, such as feeding, egg-laying and flying, are time-of-day specific, including a greater propensity for night-time biting.

While insecticide-treated bed nets and walls have helped prevent bites and reduce malaria, mosquitoes are adapting to preventive conditions, leaving adults and children vulnerable in the early evening and early morning hours -- when they are not under the nets or in the house.

"We need to discover new methods to address mosquito control and prevention. The systems and tools we currently have including global distribution and usage of insecticide-treated bed nets and spraying are not enough," said Giles Duffield, Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, US.

The findings, published in the journal Parasites and Vectors, suggests that light can be used to manipulate mosquitoes, thereby offering a potential novel solution to preventing bites and reducing malaria.

For the study, Duffield and his team tested the mosquitoes' preference to bite during their active host-seeking period by separating them into multiple control and test batches.

Control mosquitoes were kept in the dark, while test batches were exposed to a pulse of white light for 10 minutes.

Researchers then tested the propensity of the mosquitoes to bite immediately after the pulse and every two hours throughout the night, holding their arms to a mesh lining that allowed uninfected mosquitoes to feed while remaining contained.

Results indicated a significant suppression. In another experiment, mosquitoes were pulsed with light every two hours, and using this multiple pulse approach the team found that biting could be suppressed during a large portion of the 12-hour night.

"Most remarkable is the prolonged effect a short light treatment has on their preference to bite, with suppression lasting as long as four hours after the pulse," Duffield said.

"This may prove to be an effective tool that complements established control methods used to reduce disease transmission," Duffield added.

Pulses of light would probably be more effective than constant exposure, Duffield said, as the mosquitoes would be less likely to adapt to light presented in periodic doses.

The research team is testing the effectiveness of different wavelengths of light, such as red light, that would be less disturbing to adults and children while they sleep, with an aim towards developing field-applicable solutions.

--IANS

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One of Donald Trump's personal attorneys categorically denied that the President is under investigation for obstruction of justice, despite Twitter posts in which Trump apparently acknowledges it.

"The President is not under investigation by the special counsel," Jay Sekulow said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press".

"The President has not been and is not under investigation" for obstruction of justice, he added, referring to press reports saying that special counsel Robert Mueller is also investigating Trump, Efe news reported.

The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, reported on Thursday that Mueller, who is investigating possible Russian interference in the 2016 election and the contacts between Moscow and the Trump campaign team, had included in his probe the possibility that Trump could have attempted to obstruct justice.

After those reports, Trump himself had once again resorted to Twitter, where he posted an enigmatic message on Thursday in which he seemed to acknowledge that he was under investigation.

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt," Trump tweeted, referring to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who in early May had written a memo for Trump recommending that former FBI chief James Comey be fired.

Sekulow, however, emphasized that Trump was referring to the "fake" story in The Washington Post and denied that the tweet was an admission by the President that is being investigated.

Mueller was named as special counsel after Trump abruptly fired Comey, who up to his dismissal had been heading the Russia probe into Moscow's alleged interference in the US presidential election.

--IANS

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A US man was sentenced to 72 years in prison for beating his 84-year-old grandfather to death during a dinner argument.

Jason Vanbommel, 34, was sentenced in Arapahoe District Court, Colorado, after being found guilty by a jury on April 13 of reckless manslaughter and first-degree assault of an at-risk adult, among other charges, the District Attorney's Office said on Saturday.

According to local media reports, Vanbommel argued with his grandmother over what to have for dinner on December 29, 2015.

His grandfather, Frans Vanbommel, interrupted and told the man to show respect to his grandmother. Jason Vanbommel got angry, throwing things and yelling profanities, reports Xinhua news agency.

When Frans Vanbommel tried to call the police, Jason began punching his grandfather in the head. When his grandfather fell to the floor, he kicked him in the torso, fracturing his ribs.

The condition of Frans Vanbommel deteriorated after he was hospitalised and died on January 6, 2016.

"This horrific crime ... all because your grandfather told you not to yell at your grandmother," District Judge Phillip Douglass told Jason Vanbommel.

"There is no room in a civilised society for those who would think this is acceptable," the judge added.

--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 Assembly elections in Karnataka due in a year, its capital city has become the cynosure of all eyes. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who comes with a strong base in rural Karnataka and who has been accused of ignoring Bengaluru, the city famous for its chock-a-block roads and polluted lakes, has been launching new projects for the city almost on a daily basis. While President Pranab Mukherjee was invited to inaugurate the first phase of the metro amid much fanfare, the government announced the launch of cash cards not just for tickets to ride the metro and local buses, but also for some other government services. If political buzz can be relied on, the coming weeks promise more bounty for the city.
Almost all of the 400 employees of in India, who were offered a voluntary separation scheme (VSS), have accepted the deal, according to the company.

had last month offered the VSS after it decided to stop selling vehicles in India by the end of the year. The scheme began on May 19 and ended on June 15.

Majority of the employees who were offered the scheme were from marketing, sales, finance and administration departments.

"We are pleased to share that we have received 100 per cent acceptance from our employees who were offered separation packages, as a result of restructuring efforts to cease domestic sales and focus on exports," a India spokesperson told PTI.



When asked how many employees were offered the VSS, the spokesperson said it was around 400.

The company is working closely with the employees and providing them support through career counselling, financial advice, outplacement support and flexibility to explore other job opportunities, the spokesperson added.

The employees were offered compensation of "45 days salary for every year of completed year of service or part thereof in excess of six months" in normal cases.

On the other hand, for those who are nearing retirement, GM offered employees compensation of "monthly salary multiplied by the remaining months of service till normal age of retirement".

The minimum compensation payable eligible was three months salary.

On May 18, General Motors decided to stop selling its vehicles in India as there was no turnaround in its fortunes here after struggling for over two decades to make a mark.

General Motors India President and Managing Director Kaher Kazem had stated around 400 employees engaged in domestic sales and after sales activities would be impacted by the move.

The company will now focus on exporting vehicles from its manufacturing plant at Talegaon in Maharashtra after it stopped production at its first plant at Halol in Gujarat last month.
In line with its South Asian essence of being hosted in different countries of the region by rotation, the DSC Literary Prize will be announced this year at the Dhaka Literary Festival (DLF) on November 18.

The winning author will be felicitated on the concluding day of the festival, which is scheduled to begin on November 16.

Instituted by Surina and Manhad Narula in 2010, the USD 25,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is a leading international literary award specifically focused on South Asian fiction writing.

The five-member international jury, which is adjudicating the books, as well as the five or six shortlisted authors, are likely to attend the award ceremony.

Speaking about the partnership with DLF, Surina Narula says it will bring in significant positive synergies to further the cause of South Asian writing.

"We are delighted to partner with the Dhaka Literary Festival this year. Being one of the leading literary festivals in the region with its focus on South Asia we see a lot of positive synergy in this partnership. The DSC Prize is now in its seventh year and in line with its South Asian essence, our plan has been to announce its winner in different South Asian countries by rotation," she says.

The winner of the DSC Prize 2015, which went to Jhumpa Lahiri, was announced at the Jaipur Literature Festival in India while the name of last year's winner, Anuradha Roy, was announced at the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka.

DLF director and producer Sadaf Saaz says the organisers of the festival are delighted to be hosting the DSC Prize, calling it one of the most prestigious international literary prizes, specifically focused on South Asian writing.

"The aim of the DSC Prize to bring writing on South Asia to a global audience, as well as nurturing the best talent writing about South Asia, aligns with our vision at Dhaka Lit Fest, of enabling voices from this region to have a reach far beyond our borders. The DSC Prize also seeks to promote writing in regional languages by encouraging entries in translation, an area we strongly support at Dhaka Lit Fest.

"We are very excited about this partnership, and look forward to having some wonderful conversations with some of the most talented writers in South Asian literature, at Dhaka Lit Fest this year," Saaz says.

Over the years, the DSC Prize has been successful in bringing South Asian writing to a larger global audience through rewarding and showcasing the achievements of the authors writing about this region.

Other past winners of the prize are H M Naqvi of Pakistan, Shehan Karunatilaka of Sri Lanka and Jeet Thayil and Cyrus Mistry from India.

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Three people, including two women were killed and five others were injured when their SUV rammed into a tree at Lohgarh village here in the wee hours today.

Two families were returning after offering prayers at Mata Chintpurni shrine in Himachal Pradesh when around 4 am, the driver lost control over the wheel at the village on Zira road here, police said.

The deceased were identified as Vinod Kumar (40), his wife Pushpa (38) and Manisha (35).

Those injured were referred to a private hospital in Amritsar, police said.

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Five persons were injured when police fired rubber bullets to disperse supporters of agitating Rastriya Janata Party (RJP) in southern Nepal.

The clash ensued after RJP cadres torched election materials belonging to main opposition CPN-UML in Nawalparasi district yesterday.

According to Chief District Officer Uday Bahadur Rana, police opened five rounds of rubber bullets and four shells of tear gas to contain the clash.

Among the injured, four are RJP cadres and one Assistant Sub Inspector. Nerly 20 people were arrested in connection with the incident.

The injured are receiving treatment at a district hospital.

However, the situation has returned to normal and various political parties and independent candidates are filing nomination papers for the June 28 local body polls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Police have arrested seven robbers after a brief encounter, and recovered Rs 8 lakh cash they had looted from a private firm employee earlier this month.

The gang members were arrested yesterday, Muzaffarnagar Senior Superintendent of Police Anant Deo told reporters here today.

Police said that during the brief encounter with police of the gang member suffered bullet injuries. He has been admitted to a hospital.

The employee of a private finance firm was robbed of Rs 8 lakh cash here on June 9.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Ashok Singhal, one of the accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case, will soon have a tourist hub around his final resting place.

One of the architects of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992, Singhal died in 2015.

After his death, his ashes were preserved in a monastery in Himachal Pradesh for around six months.

As the VHP leader had wished, the ashes were immersed in Tandi Sangam, the intersection of the rivers Chandra and Bhaga in the Lahaul region of Himachal, in June last year.

Tandi Sangam is the focus of the Tourism Ministry which plans to give a facelift to the area through the Chandrabhaga Development Board.

It will also be included in the Himalayan Circuit, one of the 13 circuits planned by the ministry as part of its endeavour to promote tourism in India.

"It is a beautiful place, but inaccessible for six months because of extreme conditions. With the Rohtang tunnel to be completed soon, we are planning to make it a tourist attraction. Also, Singhalji's ashes were immersed there, so it gains special significance for us," Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma, who visited the area earlier this week, told PTI.

Sharma also said the place gained significance because the Chandrabhaga River is considered the purest after the Ganga for immersions.

"The river is also mentioned in multiple Hindu scriptures. The plan is to promote the place as a spiritual and religious destination," Sharma said.

Sources in the ministry said the plan was to develop the ghats at the intersection or 'sangam' on the lines of those by the Ganga in Varanasi and Haridwar.

Some hotels will also be built in the area, they said.

Also, for the first time, the central ministry will take over the Chander-Bhaga Sangam Parv, which was mostly organised by a local organisation, the Chander-Bhaga Sangam Parv Samiti.

The local group will advise the ministry on the development of the area, the sources said.
A Jet Airways plane flying from Saudi Arabia to India had an unexpected guest today when a baby was born mid-flight.

Jet Airways 9W 569 took off from Dammam to Kochi at 2.55 am this morning and when an expectant mother travelling onboard went into labour the crew declared a medical emergency and diverted the flight to Mumbai.

While the plane was still over the Arabian Sea she was helped by crew members and a nurse travelling to Kerala to deliver a baby.

The plane landed in Mumbai and both the mother and the newborn were rushed to a hospital.

The plane then resumed its onward journey to Kochi and reached its destination at 12.45 pm after a delay of 90 minutes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With the bobbitising case involving a self-styled godman in Kerala getting murkier with twists and turns, Police have approached a court here seeking permission to conduct scientific tests, including lie detector, on the young woman victim.

Police moved the court for conducting the polygraph and brain mapping tests after the woman, a law student, retracted her earlier confession that she had chopped off the genitals of the swami to foil a rape bid by him on her.

A senior police official said they filed a petition in the special court yesterday seeking permission for the tests. The court is presently hearing a bail plea of the swami.

"Since the woman is changing her statements and it will affect the investigation, we have to have a scientific investigation so that truth will come out," City Police commissioner, G Sparjan Kumar, told PTI.

A letter written by the woman to the defence lawyer emerged last week in which she accused the police of having forced her to confess against the 53-year-old swami, who she said had not sexually abused her.

The 23-year old woman has now approached the court seeking CBI probe into the whole incident, saying she does not have faith in local police.

The woman had given a statement before the Magistrate and now she has been changing her statements on a daily basis, the police commissioner said adding this would only help 'weaken' the case.

The woman had blamed police for allegedly coercing her to make the statement against swami Gangashananda. Both the petitions will come up before the court tomorrow. The accused, who was arrested after the incident, is under judicial remand.

An audio clip purported to be that of the woman speaking to the swami's counsel is also doing the rounds.

Her mother had earlier written to the DGP stating that the swami had not raped her daughter and claimed she had some mental problems.

The godman was admitted to the government medical college here with critical injuries in the wee hours of May 20.

The woman had earlier stated that she had chopped off the genitals of the man during a rape attempt at her home at nearby Pettah, where he was a frequent visitor.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Chennai-based businessman was shot on the Delhi-Dehradun highway by unidentified motorcycle-borne men, the police said today.

Aditya (30), the manager of a Chennai-based company, and his wife were travelling from Haridwar to Delhi when some bike-borne men intercepted them near the Bhagonwali bypaas yesterday and opened fire.

Aditya, who suffered serious bullet injuries, was rushed to New Delhi for treatment, SP City Ombir Singh said.

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A Colonel has been arrested by the CBI for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 50,000 from a Pune-based private company for supply of rock splitting equipment.

The probe agency also arrested three officials of the company.

Col. Shaibal Kumar posted in Planning and Engineering branch of the Kolkata-based Army's Eastern Command, Sharat Nath, Managing Director of Pune-based Xtech Equipment Pvt Ltd, Vijay Naidu, a Director in the company and Amit Roy, a company representative were arrested by the CBI.

"It was alleged that the Colonel had demanded a bribe of Rs 1.80 lakh from the Managing Director of the company in connection with the supply of power pack rock splitters, which are used by various field formations of the Army," CBI Spokesperson R K Gaur said here today.

He said it is alleged that the army officer, in February this year, had received a bribe of Rs 50,000 and as part of the second installment, the Colonel has now accepted Rs 50,000 from the accused company.

"The CBI tracked the Director of said private company who came from Pune to deliver the bribe to Colonel and nabbed him after the payment of bribe to the army officer. The CBI caught the Colonel and recovered the bribe amount from his residence," he said.

Searches have been conducted in four premises at Pune and two premises at Kolkata, the CBI said.

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Even as President Pranab Mukherjee laid foundation stone for BRS Health and Research Institute super speciality hospital at Udupi today, a citizen's group has come out with a protest against it.

The proposed super speciality hospital is being built on the basis of a MoU between BRS Ventures and the state government, which handed over the government maternity and children's hospital and its land on lease to the BRS Health and Research Institute Private Limited.

A litigation by the citizens' group seeking cancellation of the MoU and the lease granted to BRS ventures is pending before the additional civil court in Udupi.

There was widespread public opposition to the MoU between the state government and the private company.

The Sarkari Aspatre Ulisi Horata Samiti (Government hospital protection committee) president and noted psychiatrist P V Bhandary in a statement said they were "dismayed to see the President laying the foundation stone for a project" which was "mired" in controversy.

Bhandary said the district maternity and children's hospital had been rendering service to poor women and children for the last seven decades and it was a ray of hope for the poor.

A well-performing charitable hospital was being handed over to a private group, a move which had "devastated" the dreams of the poor for better quality health care facilities at cheaper price, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Darjeeling is bracing for another shutdown as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leadership has decided to hold a protest rally with the bodies of two persons allegedly killed during yesterday's clashes.

The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.

A senior GJM leader today said, "We will conduct the rally at Chowbazar with the bodies."



The police has declined them the permission to hold such a rally. A senior police official said, "No one has been given permission to hold a rally in the hills."



West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had yesterday said that the ongoing agitation in Darjeeling hills was a "deep-rooted conspiracy" supported by the insurgent groups of the Northeast and some foreign countries.

The GJM had rubbished the allegation made by Banerjee, saying that she was trying to malign the Gorkhas fighting for their identity.

The police, who have been on high alert after yesterday's violence and arson, conducted route marches with the Army in several parts of the hills.

Police pickets and barricades were placed in front of the government and GTA offices, and various entry-exit points of the hills. Several woman police personnel have also been deployed.

Except for medicine stores, all others shops and hotels remained closed in Darjeeling.
Delhi BJP's north-east and outer Delhi district units today organised 'Sabka Sath Sabka Vikas' function to celebrate the completion of three years of "good governance" by the Narendra Modi government.

The event held at Nangloi here was attended by several senior party leaders, including Union minister Thawar Chand Gehlot, Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari and MP Udit Raj, a party release said.

Addressing the function, Gehlot said his Ministry of Social Justice was working to give new avenues to all backward classes as well as the handicapped and deprived sections of society in order to achieve the prime minister's aim to provide opportunity of economic growth to the poor.

One such avenue was direct deposit of social welfare pensions in the bank accounts of the needy, he said.

Tiwari said the Modi government was working to bring change in the work culture in the country by encouraging self-employment and generating new jobs through increase in foreign equity.

The function was also attended by municipal councillors, former MLAs as well as district and mandal office bearers, the release said.

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Aviation regulator DGCA has suspended the flying licence of Coimbatore-based carrier Air Carnival, which has not operated a single flight since early April.

With this, Air Carnival has become the third regional carrier, after Air Pegasus and Air Costa, whose air operator permit has been suspended by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in the last eight months.

"The DGCA has suspended Air Operator Permit (AOP) of Air Carnival after it failed to satisfy the regulator in its response to the show-cause notice," a DGCA official said.

The order for suspension of the flying licence of Air Carnival was issued earlier this month, the official said.

Air Carnival Chairman and Managing Director S Irudaya Nathan was not available for comments.

As per section 15(2)(b) of Schedule XI of the Aircraft Rules 1937, DGCA may cancel or suspend permit of an airline for such period as it thinks fit, if it is satisfied that the holder of the permit has failed to establish a safe, efficient and reliable service.

However, before cancelling or suspending the flying permit of an operator, the regulator issues a show-cause notice



with a two-week time to respond.

Promoted by the CMC Group (Coimbatore Marine College), Air Carnival had started operations last July with with one ATR-72 aircraft.

Before grounding operations, the regional carrier was operating 10 daily flights to three cities -- Chennai, Trichy and Tuticorin -- from Coimbatore.

Its loan aircraft has also been deregistered and taken away by the lessor, the official said.

The promoters had earlier inked a deal for a 100 per cent stake dilution to an angel investor for about Rs 70 crore, but the transaction is yet to be completed, sources said.

Significantly, only one carrier -- TrueJet -- of the four airlines which were operating under the regional AOP has survived the market in the last almost one year.

The Bengaluru-based Air Pegasus was the first one to cease operations on July 27 last year on account of fund crunch.

Consequently, the DGCA suspended its AOP in last November.

Though its promoters had announced a deal with another aviation firm FlyEasy in January and said the carrier would resume services under the new management from March, the airline failed to take-off.

Then in February, another regional carrier, Vijaywada-based Air Costa announced suspension of its services initially for a few days and later indefinitely for want of cash and non-payment of dues to the aircraft lessors.

Its AOP was also suspended last month, according to the DGCA official.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actress Diane Kruger will be next seen in an untitled film directed by Robert Zemeckis.

The 40-year-old actress joins the cast along with actor Steve Carell in the film based on Jeff Malmberg's 2010 documentary "Marwencol", reported Variety.

The plot centres on a man who recuperates from an assault by building a miniature World War II-era village in his backyard.

Kruger will play the role of Deja Thoris, the Belgian Witch of Marwencol in the world of the backyard village.

Zemeckis started working on the project two years ago under his Universal-based ImageMovers banner.

The filmmaker is also producing from a screenplay he wrote with Caroline Thompson.

The movie also stars Leslie Mann and Janelle Monae.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As Darjeeling remained on the boil over a separate statehood agitation, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today appealed to protesters not to resort to violence and, instead, hold dialogue to resolve any issue.

He said resorting to violence would never help them in finding a solution and asked the people living there to remain calm and peaceful.

"All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment," Singh said.

In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution, he said, emphasising that "every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue".

"I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence," the home minister said in a series of tweets.

Singh also spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today and discussed with her the situation prevailing there.

"She (Banerjee) has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling," he said.

Singh had yesterday also spoken to Banerjee and asked her to take all possible steps so that peace is restored in the picturesque hill station where people are protesting against "imposition" of Bengali in schools by making the language mandatory.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which is in power in the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, is spearheading the agitation there demanding a separate state -- Gorkhaland.

Darjeeling remained on the edge today as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a GJM activist, who was killed during clashes with police, and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.

Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and the police were witnessed yesterday.

The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari yesterday. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.

This was the first death since violent protests returned to Darjeeling on June 8, after a gap of a few years.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
It was truly a happy Father's Day for 63-year-old Al Annunziata who came face to face with his 40-year-old daughter he never knew he had.

Annunziata and Jyll Justamond had an emotional first meeting on June 11.

"I'm never going to let you go, ever," ABC quoted Annunziata as telling his daughter during the meeting.

Justamond of Littleton, Colorado, said that she found Annunziata after tracking him down on Facebook on April 3 -- her 40th birthday.

She started searching for her biological father years after learning that people she thought were her parents were actually her grandparents.

"My biological mother was 18 when she had me and for whatever the reason, felt that she wasn't capable or old enough to raise me," Justamond said.

"She asked her stepfather and mother to raise me and I didn't know I wasn't their child. I found out when I was 10. It turns out that the person I thought was my half-sister was actually my mom," she said.

Justamond said she approached her biological mother, Linda to ask about her father.

"She told me it could be this guy Al and she said, 'When I met him, he was bartending at this bar called Neary's and it was essentially a one night stand. A first name and the bar he worked in -- that was all I had to go on. That, and he was Italian."



In April, Justamond posted in a Facebook group dedicated to natives of Palisades Park, New Jersey, where the bar Neary's was located in the 1970s.

One user asked her to speak with Don Neary, the owner of the former bar.

"I said, 'I know this is crazy, but do you happen to know a guy named Al that worked or you in 1976, 1977?'" Justamond asked. "He said, 'Oh, you mean Al Annunziata.'"



Justamond found and reached out to Annunziata on Facebook.

Justamond and Annunziata exchanged messages via Facebook and on April 24, Annunziata took a paternity test. The results were 99.9966 probability that he is Justamond's biological father.

Annunziata said he and his daughter have a lot in common and the pair are already close.

The father-daughter duo now plan to spend Christmas together in Las Vegas, where Justamond will meet her aunt.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A bomb went off today at an election office in Nepal's Kapilvastu district, injuring five people ahead of the second phase of the crucial local body elections which are being held after a gap of 20 years.

The bomb exploded at the election officer's office in Vadganga Municipality of Kapilvastu district when a joint panel of Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Center) was returning after filing their nomination for the second phase of local level election to be held on June 28.

The injured are being treated at a local hospital. No one has claimed responsibility for the explosion so far.

The process of filing nomination papers by candidates for the second phase of elections in 334 local units of provinces 1, 5 and 7 completed today.

The government has stepped up security at the election offices in various districts of southern Nepal to prevent any untoward incident in the wake of agitating Rastriya Janata Party Nepal's declared programme to disrupt the polls.

The Election Commission (EC) said the registration of candidacy for the second phase of election has concluded smoothly.

Cadres of Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal in Rupandehi district have filed nomination in the second phase of filing nomination as independent candidate.

Rastriya Janta Party-Nepal, the major political grouping belonging to the Madhesi communities, did not field candidates for the first phase of election held on May 14.

Election officer Kamal Panthi said they had received independent nominations for all the 37 positions in the council.

The local level election is taking place across Nepal after a gap of 20 years.

The local body elections should have been held in every five years in Nepal. Due to political instability, they have been halted since May 1997.

The agitating RJP N has announced to disrupt the local level polls on June 28.

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.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Following are the top foreign stories at 2130 hours today:



FGN25 CHINA-LD SINGH



By K J M Varma



Beijing: India says it looks forward to strengthen its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China as the two sides held talks here amid differences over a host of issues including the USD 50 billion CPEC and India's NSG membership bid.

FGN38 WORLD-YOGA



Washington/Beijing: Yoga enthusiasts across the world perform various asanas at events organised by Indian missions at iconic places in several countries ahead of the third International Yoga Day.

FGN39 TRUMP-ATTORNEY-PROBE



By Lalit K Jha



Washington: US President Donald Trump is not facing any probe for obstruction of justice, a member of his legal team says, contradicting Trump's own assertion that he was under investigation for firing former FBI Director James Comey and being the target of a "witch hunt".

FGN19 UK-FIRE-GOVT



By Aditi Khanna



London: Facing fierce criticism over its response to London high-rise inferno, the British government sends its staff to assist local council authorities in rehabilitation of victims of the deadly blaze that claimed at least 58 lives and rendered hundreds homeless.

FGN31 BANGLA-LD LANDSLIDES



Dhaka: The death toll rises to 163 in Bangladesh's landslides as five more persons, including three children, were killed due to incessant rains in two districts.

FGN13 US-YOGA



By Lalit K Jha



Washington: Hundreds of yoga enthusiasts gather at the historic National Mall here ahead of the third International Yoga Day to mark the event.

FGN40 CHINA-2NDLD YOGA



By K J M Varma



Beijing: Yoga fever grips China ahead of the third International Day of Yoga as thousands of enthusiasts performed 'asanas' in the Communist nation where scores of events have been lined up to organise the second biggest celebrations of the day in the world after India.

FGN9 NEPAL-MADHESIS



By Shirsh B Pradhan



Kathmandu: Two Madhesi leaders join the main opposition CPN-UML ahead of the June 28 local-level polls, a day after a meeting between Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and a key Madhesi party failed to yield any results.

FGN30 CHINA-2NDLD EXPEDITION



By K J M Varma



Beijing: China includes the controversial USD 50 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor in its second scientific expedition to the 4,000-metre-high Qinghai-Tibet plateau to study changes in climate and environment over the past decades in the region.

FGN28 NEPAL-POLL-BLAST



By Shirish B Pradhan



Kathmandu: A bomb went off at an election office in Nepal's Kapilvastu district, injuring five people ahead of the second phase of the crucial local body elections which are being held after a gap of 20 years.

FGN6 PAK-AFGHAN-OFFICIALS



By Sajjad Hussain



Islamabad: Pakistan says two officers from its consulate in Afghanistan's Jalalabad province have gone missing while returning to their home country by road.

FGN24 PORTUGAL-5THLD FOREST FIRE



Penela (Portugal): (AFP) Raging forest fires in Portugal have killed at least 62 people, most of whom burnt to death in their cars, the government said today, in one of the worst such disasters in recent history.

FES40 GERMANY-ISIS-PLANES



Berlin: (AP) Germany's defence minister hopes to start transferring planes serving in the international coalition against the Islamic State group from Turkey to Jordan by mid- July.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
: Following are the top stories from the northern region at 2120 HRS:



DES1 NDMC-DENGUE-PREZ ESTATE



New Delhi: The New Delhi Municipal Council slaps several notices on the Rashtrapati Bhavan after mosquito-breeding was observed at many pools of stagnant water on the sprawling complex.

DES9 YOGA-JNU



New Delhi: After several rejections and objections raised by a section of students and teachers, JNU's proposal to introduce short-term course in yoga has finally been approved by the varsity's top decision making body.

DEL36 CBI-ARMY



New Delhi: A Colonel arrested by the CBI for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 50,000 from a Pune-based private company for supply of rock splitting equipment.

DES11 UP-ADITYANATH-100 DAYS



Lucknow: As Yogi Adityanath completes 100 days in office this week as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, formidable challenges including funds for the farm loan-waiver, and law and order stare him at his face, with the opposition claiming the misses have outnumbered the hits.

LGD11 SC-LOVE STORIES



New Delhi: Unsuccessful love stories have found a very vivid description in a Supreme Court observation wherein it has said that women sacrificing their relationship to accept parents' decision is a common phenomenon in India.

DES33 DL-DEAD-BABY-ALIVE



New Delhi: In a shocking case of negligence, a newborn allegedly declared "dead" by staff of a central government hospital but found alive by the family members just before it was to be buried.

DEL19 EMERGENCY-PRASAR



New Delhi: School students should be taught about the Emergency in India to make them aware about the consequences of democracy being derailed, Prasar Bharati chairperson A Surya Prakash says.

DEL18 PREZ-NOTES



New Delhi: Despite the Centre's push for digital payments post demonetisation, candidates who wish to be president have to pay Rs 15,000 in cash.

NRG11 JK-ATM-ROBBERS



Srinagar: Unidentified robbers decamp with an automated teller machine (ATM) of State Bank of India (SBI) in Anantnag district of south Kashmir, the police says.

NRG13 UKD-YOGA-SAINIK



Dehradun: Those who aspire to become soldiers from Uttarakhand will take part in a special yogasession to be held here on International Yoga Day on June 21.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government is planning an outright sale of Dredging Corporation of India (DCIL) through auction, which could fetch about Rs 1,400 crore to the exchequer.

Besides, there is a proposal to sell 100 per cent government holding in four unlisted companies- Kamarajar Port, HLL Lifecare, Indian Medicines & Pharmaceutical Corporation Ltd, and Karnataka Antibiotics and Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

According to sources, the core group of secretaries on disinvestment, headed by the cabinet secretary, has already approved the sale of these five companies.

The government think tank Niti Aayog too has favoured disinvestment.

An approval of the Cabinet Committee Economic Affairs (CCEA) would be sought soon, sources said.

The government currently holds 73.47 per cent stake in Dredging Corporation of India (DCIL). At the current market prices, sale of this stake would fetch about Rs 1,400 crore to the exchequer.

Shares of Dredging Corp closed at Rs 690.90, up 1.29 per cent on the BSE yesterday.

The government is also mulling a two-stage auction process for the PSU, which made a net profit of Rs 7.40 crore in 2016-17 fiscal.

The two stage will entail shortlisting of eligible bidders and competitive financial bidding.

Also the CCEA is likely to consider an improved voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) along with the process of sale of the profit making PSU.

Since dredging is not a strategic sector, the government is considering to exit the Miniratna PSU by selling it to private players.

With regard to Kamarajar Port, the government is looking to divest 100 per cent of its holding and is considering valuation methodology like discounted cash flow, asset valuation and relative valuation.

For HLL Lifecare, the proposal entails hiving off the CPSEs vaccine venture and Medipark into two separate special purpose vehicles. After that, the government could look at 100 per cent stake sale in the company.

The assets of Indian Medicines & Pharmaceutical Corp and Karnataka Antibiotics and Pharma, according to sources, are likely to be valued at a mix of discounted cash flow, relative valuation and asset-based valuation.

The government has budgeted to raise Rs 15,000 crore through strategic sale of PSUs this fiscal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Brian Harman opened up a one-shot lead at the 117th US Open in a dramatic third round lit up by a record-equalling 63 from Justin Thomas.

Torrential rain that doused the 7,818-yard layout at Erin Hills overnight presented the field with a feast of birdie chances, transforming the leaderboard into a sea of red as dusk fell.

Harman, who had begun the day in a four-way tie for the lead, carded a five-under-par 67 which included six birdies and one bogey.

The 30-year-old from Georgia had never gone past the second round in a US Open before this year, missing the cut on his two previous visits in 2012 and 2015.

"We're breaking down all kinds of barriers," Harman quipped.

"I'm proud of the way I hung in there today. I got off to a pretty good start, which I really haven't done yet, so that was nice.

"Struck it well, hit a bunch of greens, and that's what you've got to do to play well around here."



The world number 50 headed to the clubhouse on 12 under, one ahead of Thomas, Brooks Koepka and England's Tommy Fleetwood.

- Forgiving conditions -



========================



The soft, forgiving conditions created opportunity for major movement up the leaderboard for those players willing to take it.

And the prime beneficiary was Thomas, who catapulted up the leaderboard with his record-breaking nine-under-par 63.

The 24-year-old world number 13 produced a magnificent eagle three on the 600-yard 18th hole to crown a spellbinding display that was the lowest to par score in US Open history.

The previous lowest score in relation to par was the eight-under 63 shot by Johnny Miller in the final round of the 1973 Open.

Thomas was already on course for a share of the lead as he stepped up to the 18th having carded nine birdies against two bogeys in a spectacular round.

He then drilled a 300-yard second shot to around eight feet before rolling in his eagle putt to roars from the galleries.

"I feel comfortable. Being in contention in a major is new and I'm excited," said Thomas.

"I hope the moment will come as soon as possible. I know I'm going to be nervous, I just need to harness that as best I can."



- Fowler confident -



====================



Rickie Fowler was two behind Harman on 10 under after a four-under-par 68 which kept him firmly in contention.

Fowler likes his chances of breaking his major duck on Sunday.

"It's going to be a really cool day for someone tomorrow," the world number nine said.

"I'm looking forward to my shot at it. It's not going to be an easy day, for sure. I've been there a handful of times and had some good finishes. But I'm looking forward to getting the job done."



South Korea's Kim Si-Woo was one behind Fowler on nine under after also shooting 68, while three players -- Patrick Reed, Russell Henley and Charley Hoffman were on eight under.

Reed was one of the biggest movers, powering up the board with a dazzling seven-under-par 65 that included four birdies on the front nine against one bogey.

The American Ryder Cup star then bagged a trio of birdies on the 14th, 15th and 16th holes to finish at eight under.

The low-scoring sets up a wide open final Sunday, with the world's top three ranked players -- No.1 Dustin Johnson, No.2 Rory McIlroy and No.3 Jason Day -- all missing the cut on Friday.

None of the leading 16 players have won a major before, making it likely that a run of six consecutive victories by first-timers will extend to seven this weekend.

South Korea's Kim will lead the Asian quest for a major on Sunday after Hideki Matsuyama was unable to build on his second round 65.

Matsuyama, the world number four, had to settle for a one-under-par 71 which left him on six under, six off the pace.

Elsewhere, Masters champion Sergio Garcia finished with a 71 to stay on six under, six behind Harman.

China's Li Haotong, who on Friday became the first player from mainland China to make the cut at a major, bombed out of contention with a 10-over-par 82.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The head of a panel set up to prepare a blueprint for the Ramayana Circuit, an initiative of the Tourism Ministry to link pilgrimage destinations related to the epic, has written to Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma, expressing disappointment over the delay in starting the work.

Ram Autar Sharma, who heads the five-member Ramayana Circuit National Committee, wrote two letters to Sharma, urging him to address the issue and convene a meeting of the the panel.

The committee is tasked with preparing a plan for the development of 11 destinations linked to Lord Rama and giving advice to the Tourism Ministry on its ambitious Rs 225-crore Ayodhya Museum.

In the letter dated June 9, Sharma said the panel had last met on June 14, 2016 and "we have no information on the steps taken on the decisions made during its first meeting".

He said they have not been informed about the remuneration the committee members will receive for travelling and being part of the team.

The panel chairman said it has been a year since the committee was formed and had its first meeting, and "we have no idea where this is going. Nothing has happened so far".

"We have no idea how to go about it. I am upset. In fact, the panel members are also not happy with the circumstances. There is no system in place for the committee to work," Sharma told PTI.

The five-member panel comprises spiritual guru Vijay Kaushalji Maharaj, Akhilesh Gumastha, a Jabalpur-based orthopedic specialist who has penned "Ramayan, The hymns of Himalaya", journalist Rahul Sinha of Zee and social activist Gopeshwar Tripathi.

Gumastha said there is no information from the government on the project since the first meeting of the panel.

"It (being a member of the committee) is not the only job we have ... We are busy in our lives. I am part of it because I have a personal interest in the topic," he said.

The government had last year announced the decision to develop two religious circuits -- Ramayana and Krishna.

Eleven cities across six states are part of the proposed religious tourism circuit, of which four are in Uttar Pradesh. Officials say these cities have created a roadblock for the ministry.

The tourism minister blamed the previous government for the delay.

"A new government has taken over. Now, the work will begin and will be completed in the next 12-15 months," he said, when asked about the reason for the delay.

Sources said the previous Akhilesh Yadav government in UP had failed to respond to requests for proposals for the development of the cities.

With Yogi Adityanath in power, things are now falling in place. Just days after taking over, the chief minister had sanctioned land for the Ayodhya Museum, they said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Raging forest fires in central Portugal have killed at least 57 people, most of whom burnt to death in their cars, and injured scores of others, the government said today.

Nearly 600 firefighters and 160 vehicles were dispatched late yesterday to tackle the blaze, which broke out in the afternoon in the municipality of Pedrogao Grande, about 50 kilometres from Coimbra, before spreading fast across several fronts.

"Unfortunately, this seems to be the greatest tragedy we have seen in recent years in terms of forest fires," a visibly moved Prime Minister Antonio Costa said.

"The number of fatalities could still rise," he said at the Civil Protection headquarters near Lisbon.

"The priority now is to save those people who could still be in danger."



The European Union said it would provide firefighting planes following a request from Lisbon.

"France has offered three planes through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and they will be quickly sent to assist the local emergency efforts," EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides said.

Portugal was sweltering under a severe heatwave across the weekend, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius in several regions.

Some 60 forest fires broke out across the country during the night, with around 1,700 firefighters battling to put them out.

Secretary of State for the Interior Jorge Gomes said 57 people burned to death, mostly trapped in their cars engulfed by flames in the Leiria region. At least 59 were injured.

"The fire is still raging on four fronts," he said, of which two were spreading "violently".

"It is difficult to say if they were fleeing the flames or were taken by surprise," Gomes said, speaking of the dead.

Dry thunderstorms were thought to have been the cause of the fatal blaze, according to the prime minister.

A number of villages were affected by the main fire and homes were evacuated. Some were sheltered in neighbouring areas.

"There are people who arrived saying they didn't want to die in their homes," Ricardo Tristao told AFP.

Officials were not immediately able to comment on the extent of the damage.

Spain dispatched two water-bombing planes today to aid the Portuguese fire service on the ground, Costa said.

He added a period of national mourning would be announced shortly.

"My thoughts are with the victims in Portugal," EU commission head Jean-Claude Juncker tweeted. "I commend the bravery of the firefighters. EU civil protection mechanism activated & will help."



President Marcelo Rebelo went to the Leiria region to meet families of the victims, "sharing their pain in the name of all the Portuguese people," he said.

Firefighters did "all they could" when faced with the blaze, he added.

Dozens of people who fled their homes were taken in by residents of the nearby municipality of Ansiao.

"There are people who arrived saying they didn't want to die in their homes, which were surrounded by flames," Ansiao resident Ricardo Tristao told reporters.

Portugal was hit by a series of fires last year which devastated more than 1,000 square kilometres of the mainland.

Fires on the tourist island of Madeira in August killed three people, while over the course of 2016 around 40 homes were destroyed and 5,400 hectares of land burned.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds of yoga enthusiasts have gathered at the historic National Mall here ahead of the third International Yoga Day to mark the event.

The Indian Ambassador to the US, Navtej Sarna, said it was a moving sight to see people turning up in large numbers at the heart of the US capital for the event.

"What has happened in the last three years is quite phenomenal, that this movement of pushing forward and achieving recognition of the 21st of June as the International Day of Yoga, started by Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi, has brought this ancient discipline, philosophy, and practice from India into the hearts and lives of people in every corner of the globe," he said at the event yesterday.

Sarna said the international event is neither a political movement, nor an economic movement.

"This is something which is only for the benefit of all humanity at both an individual level and a macro level, because ultimately all societies in all countries are made up of human beings," he said.

"If we have each human being who has a balanced view on life, who has achieved a kind of equilibrium inside and outside, I think ultimately will go and affect how nations govern and are governed and how they relate to each other," Sarna said.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, in a citation, sent his best wishes for "a joyous observance" of the third International Yoga Day organised by the Indian Embassy here in association with the Friends of Yoga.

Virginia Governor Chris Van Hollen also sent his citation on the occasion in recognition of "the spiritual value that yoga and meditation offer, and with appreciation and gratitude for the organising committee's outstanding efforts to encourage, peace, harmony and consciousness".

Extending warm greetings to all who are gathered on the occasion, Senator Mark Warner, in his message, said the event provides an opportunity to celebrate one of the many important traditions of the Indian culture, yoga.

"The appeal of this ancient, holistic tradition crosses cultural boundaries and increases international understanding and friendship. I hope all of the attendees enjoy taking part in today's activities," said Warner, a Ranking Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Co-Chair of the Senate India Caucus.

Warner said he remains very optimistic about Indo-US relationship, and continues to believe that they can make great strides together.

"As two of the world's largest democracies, and with the incredible Indian-American population that contributes so much to our culture, commerce and community in this country, it is critical for us to continue to deepen and broaden the existing framework of partnership and friendship.

"In the last Congress, we were able to expand the US- India relationship on several fronts, including hosting Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi for a joint session. During this session, the prime minister described the many ties that bind India and the US together, as well as the significant contributions the Indian-American community has made to this country," he said.

"The overwhelmingly positive response to his visit demonstrates the strength of the relationship between the US and India," Warner added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Political parties may be in hectic huddles to forge a consensus for the upcoming presidential poll, but history shows that all presidential polls -- barring one -- in India have seen a contest, some keen, most a walkover.

Going by precedence, the 15th presidential election scheduled to be held on July 17 this year will see a contest, notwithstanding the frenetic political confabulations for a consensus candidate.

Of the 14 presidential elections held in the country so far, the only one which saw a candidate getting elected without a contest was the seventh poll, which Neelam Sanjiva Reddy won unopposed.

The election, caused by the sudden death of serving President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, saw 37 candidates filing their nominations, of whom 36 were disqualified. This led to Reddy's unopposed victory on July 21, 1977.

"This (the seventh Presidential election) was the first time a candidate was declared elected to the highest office of the President of India without a contest," the Election Commission of India records.

All the other elections witnessed contests, mostly insignificant ones, though some were close. The most noted fight was that between V V Giri and Reddy in the fifth presidential poll held on August 6, 1969.

Held at a time the Congress was plagued by bitter rivalries, Giri, backed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, polled 4,01,515 votes against Reddy. The anti-Gandhi camp candidate, supported by the old guard of the party known as the Syndicate, was not far behind with 3,13,548 votes. The margin of victory for Giri was 87,967 votes, the smallest ever in the history of the election.

The fourth presidential election on May 6, 1967, was also closely contested between Dr Zakir Hussain and Kota Subbarao, the two respectively garnering 471,000 and 364,000 votes.

This election was historic for another reason. It saw as many as 17 candidates, the maximum number ever to take part in a presidential poll in India. It is another matter than many of the candidates failed to get even a single vote.

Historical records on presidential polls throw light on the early practice of contests. The first such election, held on May 2, 1952, saw five candidates. Among them was Dr Rajendra Prasad, who became India's first president after polling 560,000 votes and defeating his nearest rival, K T Shah, who got less than 100,000 votes.

The second election, held on July 6, 1957, saw a triangular contest. Rajendra Prasad was elected after he won 460,000 votes. He was followed by Choudhry Hari Ram, an inveterate contester, who won a mere 2,672 votes.

Hari Ram contested the first four elections, giving up the race only after scoring a zero in the last poll he contested on May 6, 1967.

To weed out "non-serious" candidates, the EC recommended amendments to the law governing the poll. The first such amendment to the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Election Rules was introduced in 1974, making it mandatory for a candidate to have 10 proposers and 10 seconders to be able to contest. Prior to this, candidates could enter the fray without the slightest chance of winning.

The 1974 rules also enhanced the limit of security to be deposited by a candidate to Rs 2500.

The law was again revised in 1997 to raise the number of proposers and seconders for each candidate from 10 to 50 and the security deposit amount to Rs 15,000.

Since the 1997 amendment, all four Presidential polls have seen direct contests between two candidates, starting with the 11th Presidential election on July 14, 1997, in which K R Narayanan defeated T N Seshan.

The 12th election held on July 15, 2002, saw NDA nominee APJ Abdul Kalam win against the opposition candidate, former Indian Army officer Lakshmi Sahgal.

UPA candidate Pratibha Patil won the 13th presidential election against opposition NDA's Bhairon Singh Shekhawat on July 19, 2007.

The 14th Presidential poll was held on July 19, 2012. It ended with the victory of ruling UPA nominee Pranab Mukherjee against the NDA's P A Sangma.
India on Sunday said it looks forward to strengthen its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China as the two sides held talks here amid differences over a host of issues including the $50 billion CPEC and India's NSG membership bid.

Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh met Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting being held here to finalise the agenda for this year's BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit to be held in September in China's Xiamen city.

They discussed steps to strengthen strategic relations on the directions laid down by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting at Astana recently.

Wang referred to the fruitful and constructive meeting between Xi and Modi on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on June 8-9 at Astana.

In his opening remarks, Singh said that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj wanted to visit Beijing but health and other restrictions did not permit her.

"She is looking forward to meet you," he said.

Xi and Modi have "laid down directions for us and both the countries to proceed with a path of mutual respect, mutual cooperation on how to improve the existing mechanisms so that more trade, commerce and people to people contacts can take place," Singh said.

"We both are Asian neighbours, two growing economies, people with ancient relations, we mark the path others to follow. India looks forward to strengthening and deepening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China," he said, adding he looks forward for many interactions with Wang.

Singh avoided making any reference to differences between the two countries including India's sovereignty concerns over the controversial China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Beijing blocking India's entry into the strategic Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) besides a UN ban on Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) leader Masood Azhar.

India last month skipped China's high profile Belt and Road Forum (BRF) under which CPEC comes.

Beijing also opposed the visit of the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh which it considered as part of Tibet.

Officials said that both the governments are keen to find common ground on the contentious issues.

Singh later attended a banquet hosted by Wang for the Foreign Ministers of BRICS countries.

All the foreign ministers from the BRICS who would also call on Xi.

During the foreign ministers' meet, China is expected to outline the agenda for this year's BRICS summit which included efforts to seek common ground against terrorism.

The meeting is a precursor to chain of meetings of BRICS officials including the National Security Advisors (NSAs) meeting to be held later next month ahead of the summit.

China took over the rotating presidency of the BRICS from India after last year's Goa summit of the group of emerging countries.

China is also expected to outline its proposals for the BRICS summit.

At the Goa summit, India invited heads of the members of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) excluding Pakistan from the region.
Mid-summer, a group of IIT- graduates and their seniors were sweating it out in the outskirts of Gurugram, fiddling with their laptops to calibrate sensors as they prepare for yet another round of testing a fully driverless shuttle.

The campus of Hi-Tech Robotic Systemz Ltd offers very limited space for such testing but that has not stopped the company from developing Novus Drive autonomous shuttle that can ferry over six persons, which was showcased at the Auto Expo last year.

Gaurav Singh, an alumni of Carnegie Mellon University has spent close to three years on the project and for him seeing the shuttle drive on its own is a feeling that words cannot easily describe.

"This is about passion. To come up with such a product out here in India and not America, also shows what we can achieve with dedication and hard work," he said.

The company, founded in 2004 by Anuj Kapuria, who dropped out of his PhD programme at Carnegie Mellon University, has been working silently over the last decade to master driverless vehicles technology -- a domain where Google and Tesla are the front runners.

However, being an Indian company in an area where not many have ventured into, it has not been an easy journey for Hi-Tech Robotic Systemz to come up with a driverless shuttle and such technology for other vehicles.

"One of the most challenging parts is the awareness and trust among global customers about the technology coming from India for self-driving vehicles," Kapuria told PTI.

Yet, he said the company has been able to overcome the hurdle through intellectual property which it has generated over years both in the US, Europe along with India and other emerging countries.

When asked how confident is the company of competing with the likes of Google, Tesla and other global firms in the area of autonomous driving, he said: "We are competitive to the enabling tech if not better."



Elaborating further, he said: "When we compare with Google or Tesla, we still need to clock more self-driving miles to make our autopilot and fully autonomous algorithms more robust, which we are doing by collecting lot of data with our driver assistive systems."



Need for regulatory support:



Kapuria said while companies in India like Hi-Tech Robotic Systemz can play their part in the global pursuit for perfection of autonomous driving technology, government also needs to play its role to support the industry.

"We still do not have the regulatory framework to enable testing of autonomous vehicles," he said.

Expressing similar views, Ritukar Vijay, head of Robotics - Tech and Strategy at the company said: "We have the technology ready but we need more trials on real time traffic, which at the moment we are unable to do."



So it has been an uphill task to collate data from other driver assistive systems that the company has developed and integrate to pure autonomous driving technology, he added.

Kapuria is banking on "the current forward looking government" so that India can be "very soon among very few countries in the world with regulatory frameworks and vision for adoption of autonomous vehicles, specifically in smart cities".

Also, driver assistive systems are something which can be mandated or users can be incentivised for reducing the number of accidents in the country, he added.

Commercialisation of technology



With presence in both mobile robots and drive assistive systems, the company has revenue of around USD 10 million at present. It has set an ambitious target of touching USD 350- 400 in the next five years.

"Our core tech is globally competitive and we already are in talks with few of the North American OEMs for enabling autonomous navigation for their vehicles," Kapuria said.

Reiterating that arrival of autonomous vehicles is inevitable in the coming times, he said "all the global players realise this multi-billion dollar opportunity, which will take the complete auto industry for an overhaul".

The company is preparing itself to cash in on the opportunities. It has already increased R&D headcount to 120 from around 50 three years back.

"We are living in exciting times. Being the early movers in developing the technology and intellectual property around underlying tech for autonomous and driver assistive systems, we are in a position to offer full spectrum of products ranging from Autonomy Level 0 till Level 5," Kapuria said.

The Gurugram-based firm is already working at various stages with all the major OEMs in India.

"Now we are looking outwards and going global with our proven track record and long term contracts with blue chip OEMs for driver assistive systems, AEB, autopilots and fully autonomous vehicle technology (software + hardware)," he said.

Kapuria, however, said the road towards autonomous driving would be incremental in nature.

It will start from driver assistive systems such as forward collision and lane departure warnings, autonomous emergency braking, traffic assist to autonomous vehicles that ranges from highway autopilots, constraint environment autonomy till fully autonomous vehicles. Patience is the key here.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indians have "few deposits" in Swiss banks compared to other global financial hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong, says a grouping of private bankers in Switzerland amid stepped-up efforts to check the black money menace.

Money held by Indians in Swiss banks declined to a record low of 1.2 billion francs (about Rs 8,392 crore) at the end of 2015, as per the latest available official data. However, no official data is available for money in other global hubs.

Committing itself to the global framework for the automatic exchange of tax information, Switzerland last week ratified the decision to implement this regime with India and 40 other jurisdictions.

The framework for the automatic exchange of information requires strict adherence to data confidentiality, but the Geneva-based Association of Swiss Private Banks said it has no particular concern over India, where the rule of law seems to be properly upheld.

"There are also rather few deposits of Indian residents in Switzerland, as opposed to Singapore or Hong Kong for instance," the association's manager Jan Langlo told PTI from Geneva.

When asked about trends in terms of deposits from Indian residents, Langlo said it has not noticed any particular trend.

"It is simply more practical for them to open an account in an Asian financial centre than in Switzerland," Langlo noted.

Currently, the association has nine member banks employing around 7,500 people across the globe, as per its website. The grouping represents the business interests of privately-owned Swiss banks that specialise in wealth management.

According to data from the Swiss Bank, the funds held by Indians with banks in Switzerland fell by CHF 596.42 million to CHF 1,217.6 million at the end of 2015.

It was the lowest amount of funds held by Indians in the Swiss banks ever since the Alpine nation began making the data public in 1997 and marked the second straight year of decline.

The funds held by Indians in Swiss banks stood at a record high of CHF 6.5 billion (Rs 23,000 crore) at 2006-end.

However, the quantum of these funds has been falling since then, except for in 2011 and in 2013 when Indians' money had risen by over 12 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively.
Entrusted with a task to suggest reform measures for the higher education sector, has said centrally funded educational institutions that are performing well will get more financial and operational autonomy.

However, the government will keep a close watch on "not- so-better" higher educational institutions and if their ranking in terms of academic performance does not improve over a period of time then the financial support to them will be reviewed, member V K Saraswat said.

"The focus of higher education is now on quality...The Aayog has said that the evaluation of educational institutes will be based on outcomes such as what level of quality a education institute has achieved, how many PhD scholars a particular institute has produced," Saraswat said.

Saraswat, a former DRDO chief, also said the government plans to introduce a three-tier autonomy mechanism for educational institutes.

"Better performing educational institutes will get more operational autonomy and more financial support. Suppose if they want to open new research centres, then the government will provide financial support," he said.

The move is aimed at providing adequate autonomy to those institutes that are performing well so that they can go for high level research, which at times may not show immediate result, the Aayog member said.

"The not so better performing educational institutes will be watched out but will continue to get support," Saraswat said, adding that those "ranked poor would remain under the government control and if they don't improve after some time then financial support to them will be reviewed".

Saraswat statement assumes significance as the is finalising the higher education reform package.

The Aayog was tasked by the Prime Minister's Office in March to prepare a blueprint for higher education reform.

India spends about 1 per cent of its GDP on research and development.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had allocated Rs 37,435 crore in 2017-18 budget for scientific ministries.

Jaitley in his 2016-17 Budget speech had said that regulatory architecture will be provided to 10 public and 10 private institutions to emerge as world-class teaching and research bodies.

A Higher Education Financing Agency will be set up with initial capital base of Rs 1,000 crore, the minister had said.
Last minute preparations were underway to host the third International Yoga Day event here on June 21 in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead some 55,000 people in performing 'asanas' (yogic postures) at the Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan here.

An elaborate security will be in place with commandoes and para-military forces keeping a close watch in and around the venue.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will lead a rehearsal of IYD function at the programme venue tomorrow and is himself monitoring all arrangements.

"Police chiefs of adjoining districts of Lucknow have also been alerted to take preventive measures, especially in the wake of call given by Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) to stage dharna on highways," a police official said.

Spokesperson of the Bhartiya Kisan Union Rakesh Tikait said, "Our party office bearers along with farmers will be performing yoga on the streets in various cities across the state. This will be our way to lodge protest against the government's attitude towards farmers."



BKU General Secretary Dharmendra Malik said that BKU supporters will perform 'Sheersashan'.

Officials of the Lucknow administration said that more than 400 CCTV cameras will be installed.

"Participants of the programme have been allowed to enter the venue from 2.00 AM to 5.30 AM. Giant LED TV screens will be installed at the programme venue to enable them to have a close look at the yogic postures," Additional District Magistrate (Lucknow East) Virendra Pandey said.

"Apart from this, we will instal LED TV screens in 11 parks in Lucknow so that the public and morning walkers, who are not able to enter the Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan, may also simultaneously participate," Pandey told PTI.

The main programme will begin at around 6.30 AM, for which the state government has sent invites to senior political leaders including former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (of Samajwadi Party), BSP supremo Mayawati, and former chief ministers and governors.

Samajwadi Party (SP), on its part, has organised cycle yatras across Uttar Pradesh to spread the message of environment conservation.

"SP national president Akhilesh Yadav has asked all the district presidents and office-bearers of the party to undertake cycle yatras on Yoga Day to spread the message of environment and health awareness," SP spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury said.

"The leaders of the party will perform Yoga at the district headquarters and the workers will ride bicycles in their constituencies," he said.

When the SP was in power in the state, it had shunned the International Yoga Day celebrations.

On May 14, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and the chief minister reviewed preparations in the presence of Union Ayush minister Shripad Yesso Naik.

To ensure that the Day was a grand success, the chief minister had issued directions to hold a 28-day workshop for the participants, which had begun last month.

While Modi will be performing various 'asanas' here, around 92,000 inmates living in various jails of Uttar Pradesh will also be participating in parallel sessions from the confines of the prisons itself.

"Nearly 92,000 inmates lodged in various jails of the state will be participating in the International Yoga Day celebrations from the jail premises itself," UP minister of state for jail Jai Kumar Singh told PTI.

He explained that the main purpose was that by doing yoga regularly, the jail inmates will remain medically fit and think positive, shunning thoughts of committing crime or suicide.

Meanwhile in Pratapgarh, at least 200 farmers are likely to perform yoga simultaneously with the Prime Minister.

"A television will be installed at the venue so that the farmers can not only follow the asanas being performed, but also take inspiration from the prime minister," event organiser Janki Sharan Pandey said.

Pandey also said that farmers on this occasion will take a pledge to spend at least half an hour daily on yoga.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Kerala Tourism advertisement film 'A room with a view' on the cultural diversity of Kerala, was awarded the best film in 60 Sec+ category at the prestigious Kyoorius Awards.

The awards were organised in association with D&AD London, one of the most sought after creative communities in the world, a press release said.

Directed by renowned cinematographer Sameer Thahir, the film was created as a promotional tool for Kochi Muziris Biennale, India's biggest contemporary art expo.

'A room with a view' is the only film nominated from South India.

The Kyoorius-D&AD jury featured an internationally acclaimed panel including stalwarts like Chris Baylis, Gigi Lee, Josy Paul and Raj Kamble among others.

The state government recognises Kochi Muziris Biennale as Kerala's biggest crowd puller that lures art and culture enthusiasts across the globe and was determined to conserve the valuable cultural diversity and communal harmony that makes Kerala, Tourism minister, Kadakampalli Surendran, said.

"The film is the perfect depiction of what Kerala wants to convey to rest of the world regarding its social well being", he added.

The film is considered as the beginning of Kerala's strategic move in positioning the state as an art and cultural hub, hence, linking it with a host of festivals across a spectrum of arts.

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Kuwait's supreme court today reduced the death sentence of a Shiite citizen convicted of forming a pro-Iranian cell and of plotting attacks to life in prison.

Hasan Abdulhadi Ali was sentenced to death by the lower and appeals courts last year after he was convicted of being "the mastermind of a cell" of 26 Shiites accused of links to Iran and of plotting attacks in the Sunni-ruled emirate.

Members of the cell had been charged with spying for Iran and hiding large quantities of arms, explosives and ammunition in underground warehouses.

Ali was also found guilty of having been an operative of Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement since 1996 and of smuggling significant amounts of arms and explosives from Iran into Kuwait.

The supreme court judges, whose rulings are final, sentenced 20 other members of the cell to between five and 15 years in jail and acquitted two.

The cases of the remaining three members were not taken up by the supreme court because they remain fugitives.

They include the only Iranian member of the cell, Abdulredha Haider, who was handed the death penalty in absentia by the lower court in January last year.

The court had accused Haider of ties to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard and of recruiting the Kuwaiti Shiites and facilitating their travel to Lebanon, where they received military training from Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The 23 defendants present at the trial have denied the charges and said that their confessions were extracted under torture.

Iran has denied any links to the group.

Around a third of Kuwait's native population of 1.35 million is Shiite.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Expecting better sales after the new uniform taxation regime from next month, jewellery chain Malabar Gold & Diamonds has drawn up a Rs 2,000 crore expansion plan to open 80 more stores this financial year.

On how the expansion will be funded, company's Chairman M P Ahammed said 75 per cent will be debt from banks and the remaining Rs 500 crore will be internal accruals.

The Kozhikode-based company is the second largest jewellery retailer in the country with 85 showrooms, behind Tata's Tanishq, and has 97 stores abroad.

"Of the 80 stores planned this year, 40 will come up in the Gulf markets, and 10 in other markets like Sri Lanka, Hong Kong and Singapore. Lanka will be first new overseas market. In the domestic market, we will open 30 more stores," Ahammed told PTI over phone.

Its 95 overseas showrooms are spread across six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and Singapore and Malaysia, and the chain is on course to enter Sri Lanka and Hong Kong soon.

The group, which is also into real estate, has clocked Rs 26,000 crore in revenue in the financial year 2017, up from Rs 21,000 crore a year ago.

Of this, Rs 1,000 crore came in from realty business, into which it has drawn up plans to invest Rs 10,000 crore over the next few years, Ahammed said, adding that the company's first mall, claimed will the largest in Kerala, will come up in Thiruvananthapuram shortly.

On non-jewellery expansion plans, he said the company will be opening its electronics retail outlets in Kochi and the state capital by Onam.

He also said for the proposed expansion, the company will be hiring over 1,000 professionals, including over 400 in the GCC markets and 600 in the country, taking its total head count to over 10,000 by the end of this year.

Ahammed said he expects jewellery sales to clip at 10- 20 per cent this year on the back of lower taxes under .

In Kerala, which is its mainstay in the domestic market, he said taxes will come down by almost 2 percentage points to 3 per cent under GST, which should increase sales.

He said the company on an average sells around 75 kg of gold/diamond jewellery a day in Kerala, which should go up as the prices will come down after the is rolled out.

But, he was quick to add that GST alone cannot make the gold market more transparent, instead the government should crackdown on unofficial/ unbilled sales which today constitute around 75 per cent of the industry in the country.

He further said that Malabar sells only against a bill and also only BIS-hallmarked 916 gold, IGI-certified diamond jewellery, PGI-certified platinum jewellery and hallmarked silver jewellery.

Apart from retailing, Malabar is also into design centres and factories spread across India, the Middle East and the Far East. The company currently ranks among the world's top five jewellery retailers in terms of turnover.

It also has 11 cluster manufacturing units in the country and the GCC.

When asked about more jewellery manufacturing units, Ahammed said they are yet to decide on that as they are awaiting the input tax credit details under the GST.
Former union minister Arun Shourie has alleged that many of today's godmen are "traders" who run real estate and financial empires and are in contrast with those of yesteryears who provide personal solace to many of us.

"Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Ramana Maharshi, the real miracle of their lives was the solace they provided...Their contribution and their enormous influence in the course of our country.

"Today reading about them...Lifts us up and provides personal solace to many of us," Shourie said at the release of his latest book 'Two Saints' here last evening.

Terming Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Ramana Maharshi are the two great saints of India, he said that his book examines their experiences from whatever is today known about brain and also about their peripheral experiences.

This book has relevance in many other respects also for instance in one contrast between their utter simplicity and humility and the pride of the godmen today, said Shourie.

"Godmen today run real estate empires, financial institutions empire, cosmetic and pharmaceutical empires in the name of yoga and all sorts of things," he alleged.

"Such is their influence...That the authorities have repeatedly found their products to be contaminated and their advertisements to be false and they have given the rulings, but you will find only small mention and no follow up action by any government," he claimed.

So, he said, there is great contrast and we must hold such fellows (today's godmen) to the high standards of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi in their simplicity, in humility and in their attainments.

Shourie further said Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi, embodied the "essence of our tradition and the essence of our tradition is the inner directed search."



According to Shourie, today all the emphasis is on the externals. "Are you a vegetarian or not?. Externals do not matter...It was the inner directed search and their attainments in depths which we should focus on," he said and alleged that "these fellows will destroy our tradition of looking inwards."



"Politicians who use religious symbol and these godmen of today are traders in our religion...Such organisations also have nothing to do with our religion and tradition and essence of our tradition which Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi embodied.

"The great insights which they gained in that inner directed search is the pearl of great price which India can still offer to the world," he said.

One of the reasons for remembering Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi is that they lived and embodied inner directed search and reached unimaginable depths, he said.

Earlier, former Reserve Bank of India Governor Y V Reddy released the book.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mosul's Old City, where Iraqi forces are closing in on the Islamic State group's final urban refuge in Iraq, is an ancient maze of narrow alleys.

At its heart lies the emblematic Al-Nuri mosque, where jihadist supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in June 2014 after his forces seized Iraq's second city along with swathes of territory extending into neighbouring Syria.

Baghdadi's cross-border "caliphate" has been shrinking steadily since mid-2015.

The loss of Mosul would leave Raqa, in Syria, as the group's only major urban stronghold.

Perched on the bank of the river Tigris and protected for centuries by 11th century ramparts, medieval Mosul was a key meeting point for merchants from India, Persia and the Mediterranean.

Today, the three-square-kilometre (one-square-mile) district is a maze of alleys lined with stone houses, small shops and the workshops of local carpenters, weavers and metalworkers.

It contains numerous markets, churches and mosques, the most emblematic of which is the Great Mosque of Al-Nuri.

Baghdadi's only known public appearance there heralded the most ambitious and brutal experiment in modern jihad, a period marked by mass murder, slavery and attempts to commit genocide.

The mosque takes its name from Nureddin al-Zinki, who ordered it built in 1172 after unifying Syria and parts of northern Iraq.

A predecessor to Saladin, Zinki was a Muslim hero in what he labelled a jihad (holy war) against the crusaders.

Present-day jihadists often borrow his rhetoric, referring to western forces as "crusaders". One influential rebel group in Syria has even named itself after him.

His mosque in Mosul was largely dismantled and rebuilt last century as part of a renovation project, but its iconic leaning minaret, which locals dub the "hunchback", survived.

Decorated with geometric brick patterns, it is an emblem not just of Mosul but of Iraq and appears on the 10,000 dinar bill.

After seizing Mosul, IS fighters hung their black flag from the top of the 45-metre (150-foot) tower.

While the jihadists destroyed priceless historical sites in other parts of their "caliphate", witnesses say the "hunchback" was saved after locals formed a human chain around it to protect it.

Historians and architects fear that fierce fighting in the Old City will imperil its heritage as well as the mosque's fragile minaret.

In 2012, UNESCO warned that the minaret was suffering "serious structural weakness".

"It is feared that the leaning minaret, that has brought fame to the city of Mosul, may soon collapse if measures to save it are not taken," it said.

A UNESCO-led effort launched in June 2014 to stabilise the structure was interrupted just days later as IS seized control of Mosul in a lightning assault.

In a "desperate plea" published in March, Iraqi architect Ihsan Fethi called for the Old City to be spared.

It contains "monuments and houses of historical and architectural value that are among the most remarkable in Iraq and the region," he said.

He urged Iraqi and international coalition forces not to resort to "any sort of indiscriminate artillery, bombing... Or any similar heavy weaponry" in the battle for the Old City.

"We have already seen that in (Syria's) Aleppo and elsewhere," Fethi said.

"If the city is liberated at the price of destroying Old Mosul, it will be a hollow 'victory.

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Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has decided to put off his six-day visit to Russia, starting today.

"Chouhan's six-day visit to Russia from today stands cancelled," said SK Mishra, principal secretary to the chief minister.

The chief minister's visit was aimed at branding and marketing Madhya Pradesh in Russia primarily to attract investments, Mishra told PTI today.

The development assumes significance as it has come at a time when Congress is gunning for Chouhan's head and backing the farmers who are angry at the state government.

Congress has staged an impressive 72-hour satyagraha supporting farmers' demands, which include loan waiver, satisfactory price for farm produce among other things.

The satyagraha started in Bhopal and ended in Dhar yesterday.

Farmers agitation in Madhya Pradesh had turned violent and police firing had left five farmers dead and six injured on June 6 in Mandsaur district.

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North Korea accused the United States today of "mugging" its delegation carrying a diplomatic package in New York, as tensions between the two countries soar.

The North Korean foreign ministry said US officials seized a diplomatic package from its delegation at John F Kennedy International Airport on Friday as the diplomats were about to fly home, according to the state agency.

Pyongyang called on Washington to explain what it called a "provocation", KCNA reported.

"As the diplomats vigorously resisted, they grabbed the diplomatic package using physical violence and made off," the ministry was quoted as saying.

North Korea, a one-party state that maintains prison camps and has a dire record on human rights, has for decades pursued a nuclear weapons programme, despite global condemnation and successive rounds of UN sanctions.

US President Donald Trump has made "solving" the peninsula's problem a top priority for his administration.

The North Korean delegation was in New York to attend the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the KCNA report said.

It added that the ministry also asked the international community to "seriously reconsider" New York as a venue for major international events.

"If the US fails to give its due response to our demand which is all too reasonable and fair, it will be totally responsible for all the consequences to be entailed," the ministry was quoted as saying.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today accused the Palestinian president's party of praising Palestinians who killed an Israeli policewoman, calling for an end to payments to the families of attackers.

Two Palestinians on Friday opened fire on a group of Israeli officers just outside the walled Old City in annexed east Jerusalem, while a third stabbed a border policewoman a short distance away.

The three perpetrators, all from the West Bank, were shot dead, and the policewoman, Hadas Malka, a 23-year-old staff sergeant major, was taken to hospital in critical condition and later died of her wounds.

"Instead of condemning the attack, Fatah... Issued a statement in which it condemn(s) the officers who killed the terrorists, and praised the murderers as heroes," Netanyahu said, referring to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas' party.

A statement by Fatah carried on the official Palestinian agency Wafa condemned the "killing" of the three Palestinians, without mentioning the circumstances leading up to their deaths.

The Israeli premier was apparently referring to a Fatah poster mourning the "martyrdom" of the three perpetrators in the "heroic" operation, and a series of tweets on a Fatah account referring to their "glory and immortality".

"Of course, the Palestinian Authority is refusing to condemn the murder and the same authority will now pay financial compensation to the murderers' families," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.

"I call on the countries of the world to condemn the murder and those who praise it, and to demand an immediate cessation of Palestinian Authority payments to the families of terrorists, something that only encourages terror," Netanyahu said.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the Palestinian Authority had agreed to halt payments to the families of slain attackers, including suicide bombers.

Israel, however, said it saw no evidence of such a decision, and the Palestinians wouldn't confirm.

Compensation payments to the families of "martyrs" who die carrying out attacks on Israelis are one of the sticking points in the moribund Middle East peace process.

The Israeli policewoman was buried late yesterday in a military cemetery in the southern city Ashdod.

Friday's attack is the latest in a wave of unrest that has rocked Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories since October 2015.

While most attackers act independently, Israel accuses the Palestinian establishment of inciting the violence, including through glorifying attackers and supporting their families.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Scientists have developed a new that can alert a car driver if they are sleeply, an advance that may help avoid fatal accidents caused by fatigue driving.

The new approach adopts a smartphone's real-time video to track and analyse the facial features of a driver, in particular the changes in his eyelids and head position, which are prominent fatigue symptoms.

With the app installed in a smartphone, a driver just has to put it near the steering wheel with the front camera facing him in his normal driving position.

When the camera captures features like drooping eyelids, drowsiness or even nodding off, an alarm is automatically set off. To ensure that the driver is awakened, the driver has to turn off the alarm either by voice or by hand.

The method, developed by Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) in China, requires only a smartphone without any additional devices or sensors.

It is cost-effective, simple to operate, portable, detects accurately, highly reliable, and supports online system updates.

As the system can activate the rear camera of the smartphone, it can also be utilised as a normal driving recording system, as used by many drivers now.

The results of fatigue driving should not be underestimated, said Professor Cheung Yiu-ming from HKBU.

The new system is suitable for all drivers, but especially for professional drivers and machinery workers who have long working hours.

Yiu-ming added that the system may also interest corporations with a vehicle fleet, or insurance companies.

Fatigue-driving detection systems are currently installed only in a few luxury models offered by car manufacturers.

Those systems require additional devices and sensors installed in a vehicle, making them non-portable, expensive and difficult to fit system updates, thus not beneficial to general drivers.
Aviation regulator has suspended the flying licence of Coimbatore-based Air Carnival, the third regional airline to face such an action in the last eight months.

Air Carnival, which has not operated a single flight since early April, follows Air Pegasus and Air Costa, whose air operator permits have also been suspended by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

"The has suspended Air Operator Permit (AOP) of Air Carnival after it failed to satisfy the regulator in its response to the show-cause notice," a official said.

The order for suspension of the flying licence of Air Carnival was issued earlier this month, the official said.

Air Carnival Chairman and Managing Director S Irudaya Nathan was not available for comments.

The suspension of flying permits of these regional carriers has come at a time when the government is moving ahead with the ambitious regional air connectivity scheme that aims to connect unserved as well as under-served airports and make flying more affordable.

As per section 15(2)(b) of Schedule XI of the Aircraft Rules 1937, DGCA may cancel or suspend permit of an airline for such period as it thinks fit, if it is satisfied that the holder of the permit has failed to establish a safe, efficient and reliable service.

However, before cancelling or suspending the flying permit of an operator, the regulator issues a show-cause notice with a two-week time to respond.

Promoted by the CMC Group (Coimbatore Marine College), Air Carnival had started operations last July with with one ATR-72 aircraft.

Before grounding operations, the regional carrier was operating 10 daily flights to three cities -- Chennai, Trichy and Tuticorin -- from Coimbatore.

Its lone aircraft has also been deregistered and taken away by the lessor, the official said.

The promoters had earlier inked a deal for a 100 per cent stake dilution to an angel investor for about Rs 70 crore, but the transaction is yet to be completed, sources said.

Significantly, only one carrier -- TrueJet -- of the four airlines which were operating under the regional AOP has survived in the market in the last almost one year.

Bengaluru-based Air Pegasus was the first one to cease operations on July 27 last year on account of fund crunch.

Consequently, the DGCA suspended its AOP in last November.

Though its promoters had announced a deal with another aviation firm FlyEasy in January and said the carrier would resume services under the new management from March, the airline failed to take-off.

Then in February, another regional carrier, Vijaywada- based Air Costa announced suspension of its services initially for a few days and later indefinitely for want of cash and non-payment of dues to the aircraft lessors.

Its AOP was suspended last month, according to the DGCA official.
More than three decades after his father strayed across the Pakistan border while grazing cattle, 36-year-old Hasam Khan still waits for his return.

Khan was just five-year-old in 1986 when his father, Jamaldeen, inadvertently stepped into Pakistani territory from the neighbouring Bandha Village in this district and was put behind bars in the Karachi Jail on charges of spying.

As the world celebrates Father's Day, Khan struggles to hold back his tears as he recalls his childhood with Jamaldeen who used take him for long walks near the international border.

"Whenever I see him in old photographs, I sleep with the hope that he will return home safely and we will be a happy family once again," Khan says.

The escalation of tension between India and Pakistan and the death sentence to Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav worry him.

"We continued to receive his letters till 1990 when he was lodged in Karachi jail. His letters kept me and my mother in high-spirits. But, it's been 17 years now and there is no information about his whereabouts," he said.

Khan expresses disappointment that political leaders and government officials did not bother about his plight.

"The Kulbushan Jadhav death sentence has revived my fear that all is not well. I met top officials in Jaipur and New Delhi and ran from pillar to post for years but unfortunately all attempts went in vain," he said expressing hope that the government will take up his father's case as seriously as it has taken Jadhav's.

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Around 92,000 prison inmates would participate in parallel yoga sessions in various jails in Uttar Pradesh along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and thousands across the globe would be performing 'asanas' during the International Yoga Day celebrations on Jun 21.

The authorities are already holding training sessions for them.

"Nearly 92,000 inmates lodged in various jails of the state will be participating in the International Yoga Day celebrations from the jail premises itself. The main motive behind is that by undertaking regular Yoga, jail inmates will remain medically fit, and it will also inculcate a dose of positivity in their mindset," UP minister of state for jails Jai Kumar Singh Jaiki told PTI.

Their concentration power will gradually increase, and thoughts of ending life or committing suicide, which cross their mind will disappear, the minister said.

The inmates will perform Yoga under the supervision of an expert Yoga trainer, Jaiki said.

Meanwhile in Pratapgarh, at least 200 farmers are likely to perform Yoga at the same time.

"Around 200 farmers will perfor Yoga in Pratapgarh. A television will be installed at the programme venue, so that the farmers can not only follow the aasan being performed, but also seek inspiration from the Prime Minister," said Janki Sharan Pandey, the event organiser.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) will be celebrating the International Yoga Day with cycle yatras across Uttar Pradesh to spread the message of environment conservation.

"SP national president Akhilesh Yadav has asked all the district presidents and office-bearers of the party to undertake cycle yatras on Yoga Day to spread the message of environment and health awareness," SP spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury said.

"The leaders of the party will perform Yoga at the district headquarters and the workers will ride bicycles in their constituencies," he added.

The move is being seen as a counter to the BJP's International Yoga Day programme in Lucknow. When the SP was in power in the state, it had shunned the International Yoga Day celebrations.

Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to invite the leaders of all the political parties, including former chief ministers Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, to the International Yoga Day function on June 21.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed officials to send invitation to the leaders of all the political parties, former chief ministers and Assembly speakers, a senior government official said.

The main function on June 21 will be held at the sprawling Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan in the state capital. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Adityanath will lead around 55,000 yoga enthusiasts in performing asanas (yoga postures) at the maidan, he added.

The programme, which is being organised by the AYUSH ministry, is also likely to be attended by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and other Union and state ministers, said the official.

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The parents of a 16-year-old Hindu girl who was allegedly abducted and converted before being married to a Muslim man in Pakistan have changed their location due to fear, a media report has said.

Ravita Meghwar was abducted by some men from the influential Syed community in Tharparkar's Nagarparkar area in the southeast Sindh province on June 6, creating an uproar among the minority community.

Her parents said that they have changed their location fearing they might be attacked by the family of their daughter's so-called husband, Geo TV reported.

Meghwar's parents said they moved from Wanharo village to Mithhi after they raised their voice against a man, nearly double the girl's age, kidnapped their daughter, forcefully converted her to Islam and married her, the report said.

A court has summoned both the parties on June 30. The girl's mother wanted the police to take Meghwar in their protective custody until the hearing day, but the police said they cannot take action against the "couple".

The Hindu community, along with the girl's family, has insisted that she was kidnapped and forcefully converted.

Her father Satram Das Meghwar alleged that influential members of the Syed community had kidnapped his daughter after giving sleeping pills to the family.

He alleged that despite frequent appeals, Thar police did not take any action to trace the girl till she was forced to convert.

However, the girl said that she had not been kidnapped but eloped with Ali Nawaz Shah. She and her husband have requested the Hyderabad bench of Sindh High Court to provide them protection.

The PML-N member of national assembly from Thar and chief of the Pakistan Hindu Council, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, has expressed his concern over the alleged abduction and the subsequent conversion of Ravita.

Scores of people have questioned the validity of the marriage certificate issued by the cleric and condemned the incident on social media, demanding a probe into the incident.

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Pope Francis is calling for the faithful to not only welcome refugees, but to personally learn from their stories as a way to curb fears and "distorted" ideologies about them.

Francis made the appeal today as he marked the UN's World Day of Refugees, which will be celebrated on Tuesday.

Speaking from his studio overlooking St Peter's Square, Francis prayed for all those who have lost their lives fleeing war and persecution. He said their stories of pain and hope are actually an opportunity for reciprocal understanding.

He said: "In reality, personal meetings with refugees can dissolve fears and distorted ideologies and become paths for growth in humanity."



Francis' four-year papacy has been marked by his profound solidarity with refugees and demand that countries build bridges of welcome, not walls.

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Following are the PTI's top stories at 2200 hours today:



DEL41 WB-GJM-LDALL-SITUATION



Pradipta Tapadar



Darjeeling/New Delhi: A public library, two panchayat offices and a police vehicle were set ablaze at Kalimpong, though Darjeeling, the hub of the GJM-led agitation for a separate Gorkhaland, remains incident-free.

CAL6 WB-RAMAKRISHNA-ATMASTHANANDA



Kolkata: President of Ramakrishna Math and Mission Swami Atmasthanandaji Maharaj passes away at a city hospital after a prolonged illness. He was 98.

DEL31 PRESIDENT-LD HEALTH SECTOR



Udupi (Karnataka): President Pranab Mukherjee laments the lack of health care infrastructure and staff in the country, particularly in rural areas, and expressed hope that more investments would help bridge the gap.

DEL38 AVI-PLANE-LD NEWBORN



New Delhi: He is a born frequent flier -- a baby boy, born 35,000 feet above sea level on a Jet Airways plane from Saudi Arabia to India, receives a free lifetime pass from the airline as his first birthday gift.

BOM6 MH-SHAH-LD UDDHAV



Mumbai: BJP president Amit Shah holds a close-door meeting with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray as part of the ruling party's efforts to ensure support of allies in the presidential election.

BOM11 CG-LD NAXALS-ENCOUNTER



Rajnandgaon: Two women naxals, including a senior commander with a reward of Rs 8 lakh on her head, among the three ultras killed in a gunbattle with police in insurgency- hit area of Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district.

DEL37 BIZ-LD GST



New Delhi: India will turn into one market at the stroke of mid-night between June 30 and July 1, with the rollout of the unified GST along with liberal tax filings rules for first two months to tide over any teething issues.

DCM33 BIZ-SWISS-BLACKMONEY-DEPOSITS



New Delhi: Indians have "few deposits" in Swiss banks compared to other global financial hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong, says a grouping of private bankers in Switzerland amid stepped-up efforts to check the black money menace.

DEL16 DL-BHIMARMY PROTEST



New Delhi: Mobilised by the Bhim Army, a large number of Dalit youths hit the streets of Delhi, for the second time in less than a month, protesting caste violence in Uttar Pradesh and demanding the relase of Chandrashekhar Azad, the outfit's chief.

LGB1 COURT-SALEM-ECHR



Mumbai: Gangster Abu Salem, convicted for his role in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, moves a European Union court in a bid to have himself sent back to Portugal from where he was extradited to India to face the trial.

FGN10 CHINA-LD YOGA



Beijing: Yoga fever grips China ahead of the third UN International Day of Yoga as thousands of Chinese would participate in scores of events organised across the Communist nation, which officials say will make it the second biggest celebrations of the day in the world after India.

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Actor Rana Daggubati is all set to turn chat show host for a programme which would invite his industry friends for a candid conversation.

Titled 'No 1 Yaari', the show in Telugu aims to indulge in personal life conversations, camaraderie and inside stories of Tollywood's most prominent stars.

"Thank you for all the love on No 1 Yaari...Truly overwhelming, hope to do my best and keep you guys entertained," Rana said in a statement.

This will be the first time that the "Baahubali" star will be seen hosting a chat show.

The show will be aired on Gemini TV and Viu, a video- on-demand service, from June 26.

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Oscar-winning filmmaker John G Avildsen, best known for directing films like "Rocky" and "Karate Kid," has died. He was 81.

The filmmaker died of pancreatic cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center here, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Famous for bringing on screen the stories of underdogs and long shots who persevered and ultimately triumphed, Avildsen won a directing Oscar for "Rocky," which starred Sylvester Stallone as the titular Philadelphia boxer.

Avildsen also directed Susan Sarandon and Peter Boyle in the ultimately violent drama "Joe" (1970); guided Jack Lemmon to the Academy Award for best actor in "Save the Tiger" (1973) in a story about a businessman having a mid-life crisis; and kept things together on the set of "The Formula" (1980), which starred the temperamental actors George C Scott and Marlon Brando.

The filmmaker also helmed "The Karate Kid" (1984), the inspirational movie that starred Pat Morita as an Okinawan martial arts master who agrees to teach karate to a bullied teenager (Ralph Macchio), then stayed on for the sequels in 1986 and 1989.

Stallone remembered the late director on social media.

"The great director John G. Avildsen who won the Oscar for directing Rocky! R I P. I'm sure you will soon be directing Hits in Heaven- Thank you , Sly," he wrote.

Macchio tweeted, "RIP to my friend and KK director John G Avildsen. He brought inspirational stories to us all and had a guiding hand in changing my life."



A native of Oak Park, Ill, Avildsen started out as a cinematographer, and he shot his directorial debut, "Turn on to Love" (1969).

He was also the subject of a documentary, "John G Avildsen: King of the Underdogs," that premiered this year at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

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Russia's foreign ministry today said it regretted US President Donald Trump's policy reversal on Cuba, calling it reminiscent of the Cold War era.

"The new line towards Cuba announced by US President Donald Trump takes us back to already half-forgotten rhetoric in the style of the Cold War," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Trump vowed Friday to overhaul his predecessor Barack Obama's deal to restore ties with Cuba, promising instead to support the Cuban people against Raul Castro's government.

Moscow said Trump's policy changes showed that "anti- Cuban discourse is still widely in demand. This cannot but cause regret."



It said that easing of sanctions under Obama was a "well-thought-out political decision in which there were no losers except marginal Castro opponents."



Russia said it was reaffirming its "unshakeable solidarity with Cuba."



Cuban President Raul Castro visited Russia in 2015 while President Vladimir Putin visited the island on a tour of Latin America in 2014, meeting both the president and the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who died last year.

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A 33-year-old Sikh convert was and arrested in the US for carrying a kirpan after a customer at a grocery store called police.

Harpreet Singh Khalsa, who was born as Justin Smith, has worn the ceremonial knife known as a kirpan every day since he converted to Sikhism nine years ago.

Khalsa, who owns a catering business, was quoted by The Baltimore Sun as saying that he has been stopped multiple times by police, and was arrested again last week outside a grocery store in Catonsville, Maryland, after a customer called police.

Khalsa said he explained to the officers that the knife is part of his religion, but they frisked him, took the kirpan, placed him in handcuffs and drove him to the local precinct.

Khalsa was later released without charges, after police "confirmed that the knife was a kirpan and part of his religion, and not a threat to the community," Baltimore County Officer Jennifer Peach was quoted as saying.

"The officer did follow all Maryland and county laws properly in this incident. There is no known exception to the deadly weapons laws at this time," Peach said.

She said the department is providing education and guidance to its officers about Sikhs and their culture.

"This incident clearly illustrates that this is an increasingly diverse county, and BCoPD (Baltimore County Police Department) works hard to understand and respect the many cultures that call Baltimore County home," Peach said.

Stressing on the importance of the kirpan, Khalsa said, "We don't consider it a knife, but a visual reminder to stand up to justice."



"The kirpan obligates a Sikh to the ideals of generosity, compassion and service to humanity," Harsimran Kaur, legal director of the New York-based Sikh Coalition, was quoted as saying.

"It acts as a reminder to its bearer of a Sikh's solemn duty to protect and promote justice for all," she said.

Khalsa said he was shopping on Monday when police approached him, walked him out of the store and took his kirpan.

Rachel Bereson Lachow, a witness to the incident, captured the arrest on video and posted it to her Facebook page. The 54-second video has been shared 1.6 million times and received hundreds of comments.

Lachow said she watched Khalsa leave the store with police. She said the officers told him to keep his hands away from the knife until they removed it from him.

Lachow said Khalsa continued to tell the officers he was a Sikh and showed the officers his five articles of faith. Lachow said she hopes the video will raise awareness.
Around 8,000 yoga enthusiasts across Singapore were today joined by Singaporean leaders, envoys of Cambodia and Israel to celebrate the third International Day of Yoga in the city-state.

Addressing the participants on the benefits of the yoga, Parliamentarian Gan Thiam Poh, as Guest of Honour, said it is becoming more and more popular in the city-state.

"Yoga is a very good sport and is popular among Singaporeans all age groups," said Gan, pointing out that Yoga's popularity was growing here.

The UN International Day of Yoga is held on June 21 every year but it was celebrated today in Singapore.

Singapore's Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam also joined the yoga event this morning at his constituency of Nee Soon, said the Indian High Commission.

Cambodian and Israeli Ambassadors Ngoun Sokveng and Yael Rubinstein joined Indian High Commissioner Jawed Ashraf in the hour-long exercise at the National Stadium pavilion which went through a cool breeze after a thunderous Sunday morning rain.

Both Gan and Ashraf launched journalist Kavita Chandran's Book 'The Head That Won't Stand: A Woman's Journey of Letting Go With Yoga' at the event.

Eighty-five yoga sessions were held this morning at 70 centres across Singapore, with some 8,000 participants.

The events were held across the country with the support of local volunteer groups.

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The Samajwadi Party today asked the BJP to opt for a politician and not an apolitical person as its presidential candidate on a day the saffron party also reached out to the TMC and the BJD on the issue of a nominee.

Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu spoke to Ramgopal Yadav and Naresh Agarwal of the SP and also met BJP ally and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who assured him of his party LJP's support to the BJP's choice.

BJP sources said the SP leaders told Naidu that his party should choose a political person.

Naidu, who along with Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley are members of a party panel formed to consult parties to evolve a broad consensus, later briefed BJP chief Amit Shah, the sources said.

Jaitley spoke to TMC and BJD leaders.

Shah, who is in Mumbai on a three-day tour, had met Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray in the morning.

Though the saffron party has been speaking to different parties across the ideological spectrum, it has given no indication of who its choice for the top constitutional post will be.

Many party leaders have suggested that its top brass may opt for somebody moored to the saffron party's core ideology, but there has been no word from the leadership.

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The whole world is today celebrating the Father's Day but how many of you know that it was started by an American woman who was raised by a widower.

Sonora Smart Dodd was born in Sebastian County in Arkansas in 1982 and her mother died when she was 16.

Dodd's father, William Smart, raised her and five brothers after their mother died.

While listening to a Mother's Day sermon with her father at the Central Methodist Church in 1909, Dodd was bothered that there was not a day to honour her civil war veteran father who raised her and five younger brothers alone.

Dodd wanted the celebration to be held on June 5, her father's birthday, but planning difficulties pushed the first Father's Day celebration to Sunday, June 19, 1910, ABC reported.

As Dodd's idea gained momentum across the country, two National Father's Day committees were formed, one in Virginia in 1921 and one in New York City in 1936.

President Woodrow Wilson sanctioned the idea of celebrating Father's Day in 1913 and visited Spokane to join the celebration in 1916. President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea in 1924, as well.

In 1957, US Senator Margaret Chase Smith from Maine introduced a bill to create a federally proclaimed day writing: "Either we honour both our parents, mother and father, or let us desist from honouring either one. But to single out just one of our two parents and omit the other is the most grievous insult imaginable."



President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father's Day in 1966. President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of the day in 1972.

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Two women naxals, including a senior commander with a reward of Rs 8 lakh on her head, were among the three ultras killed in a gunbattle with police in insurgency-hit area of Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district today.

The encounter took place at around 2.30 pm on a forested hill near Pendori village under Aundhi police station limits while a team of district force was out on an anti-Maoist operation, Rajnandgaon Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal told PTI.

Based on specific inputs, security personnel led by Aundhi Station House Officer (SHO) Ashwani Rathore had launched the operation towards Pendori and Nideli villages, around 125 kms away from here, he said.

When the patrolling team was ascending a hill near Pendori, it came underheavyfiringfromagroup of ultras leading toafierce exchange-of-fire, he said.

However, on finding security personnel zeroing on them, ultras fled towards Gadchiroli (Maharashtra) forests, he added.

"During the search, bodies of three naxals, including two women, clad in 'uniform' besides one SLR rifle, one Insas rifle, one 303 rifle and several rounds of ammunitionwere recovered from the spot," the SP said, terming the operation as "a major success."



The women naxals were identified as maoists' Aundhi area committee secretarySameela Potai (30) and another as Rammo, a member of Aundhi LOS (local organisation squad), he said.

The identity of another ultra was yet to be ascertained.

A hardcoreguerrillacadre, Sameela was among the top cadres who are active in Aundhi area of Rajnandgaon on Chhattisgarh-Maharashtra border.

She was carrying a reward of Rs 8 lakh on her head, he said.

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The new exterior cladding used in a renovation on London's Grenfell Tower may have been banned under UK building regulations, two British ministers said as police continued their criminal investigation into the inferno that killed at least 58 people.

Trade Minister Greg Hands yesterday said the government is carrying out an "urgent inspection" of the roughly 2,500 similar tower blocks across Britain to assess their safety, while an opposition lawmaker urged the government to quickly secure documents in the Grenfell renovation for the criminal probe.

Late yesterday, the Metropolitan Police released three photos from inside Grenfell Tower, which showed in close detail how the fire charred the 24-story building that once housed up to 600 people in 120 apartments.

Experts believe the building's new exterior cladding, which contained insulation, helped spread the flames quickly up the outside of the public housing tower early Wednesday. Some said they had never seen a building fire advance so quickly.

Hands and Treasury chief Philip Hammond said in separate TV appearances that the cladding used on Grenfell seems to be prohibited by British regulations. Hands cautioned that officials don't yet have exact details about the renovation that ended just last year.

"My understanding is that the cladding that was reported wasn't in accordance with UK building regulations," Hands told Sky . "We need to find out precisely what cladding was used and how it was attached."



Aluminum cladding with insulation sandwiched between two panels has been blamed for helping to spread flames in major fires in many parts of the world, including blazes in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the United States.

Labour Party lawmaker David Lammy demanded that the government and police immediately seize all documents relating to Grenfell's renovation to prevent the destruction of evidence that could show criminal wrongdoing.

"The prime minister needs to act immediately to ensure that all evidence is protected so that everyone culpable for what happened at Grenfell Tower is held to account and feels the full force of the law," Lammy said, suggesting that contractors might be destroying evidence before it is sought by police.

He said all records -- including emails, minutes of meetings, correspondence with contractors, safety assessments, specifications and reports -- must be kept intact.

"When the truth comes out about this tragedy, we may find that there is blood on the hands of a number of organisations," Lammy said.

He complained bitterly that a friend -- the young artist Khadija Saye -- was still alive three hours after the fire started but was unable to get out of her apartment to safety. Police Commander Stuart Cundy says police will seek criminal prosecutions if the evidence warrants. He has not provided details about the inquiry.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said yesterday after attending a church service several blocks from the tower that the fatal blaze was entirely preventable.

He said displaced residents are "angry not simply at the poor response in the days afterwards from the council and the government, but the years of neglect from the council and successive governments."



They feel they have been ignored because they are poor, he said.

British officials have announced a nationwide minute of silence to honour the victims today morning.

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: A walkathon held here today to create awareness on child labour saw about 500 persons take part.

The event, organised by Child Rights and You (CRY), was flagged off by Deputy Commissioner of Police M Durai and covered about five KM, a press release said.

The release said 16-year-old Shambavi Vaidiyanathan, hailing from this city but presently living in Singapore, had helped raise funds for the fight against child labour.

While volunteering with CRY, she also started crowdfunding and so far had raised about Rs. Two lakh to support the organisation.

"It is heart-warming to see our youth spearhead this initiative and bring together the entire community to fight for this cause," CRY Program Head-South John Roberts said.

Only collective action by various stakeholders - parents, teachers, and community apart the government could make sure that children were not deprived of their right to education and development, the release said.

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Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao today said his government will take up the bill providing 12 per cent reservation to Muslims, passed by the state legislature, with the Centre for its nod.

"When I had a meeting with the Prime Minister, I told him that it was our (TRS') election promise to give 12 per cent reservations to Muslims....The Assembly has already passed resolutions in this regard and it was sent to the Centre. He (PM) asked me to send it and promised to look into it positively," said Rao, speaking at an Iftar gathering organised by the government here this evening.

"We will go to Delhi and take up this matter with the Central government and ensure its success (clearance). Or else, Telangana government will not keep quiet. This (reservation) is our right," he said.

The bill, passed by the Telangana legislature, increases reservations in jobs and education for backward sections of Muslim community to 12 per cent from the earlier four.

Earlier, speaking after laying foundation stone of Rs 20-crore Anees-ul-Gurbha Complex in Nampally area, the chief minister said his government accords utmost importance to education of Muslim children.

The state government has set up 204 residential schools for underprivileged children from the Muslim community which will benefit 1.33 lakh students, he said.

Anees-Ul-Gurbha, a shelter house, is functioning in Hyderabad since 1921. It lost some land in road expansion, so the government allotted it 4,000 square yards of land to compensate the loss and sanctioned Rs 20 crore to construct a new complex, a government release said.

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A woman employee of a private insurance company was allegedly raped by her branch manager here, police said today.

The woman lodged a complaint with the senior superintendent of police in Batala on April 24 saying she was working in the company since 2013.

She alleged that the branch manager, a resident of Basant Vihar in Ambala, Haryana, used to ask her to accompany him in official meetings in other cities where he raped her on many occasions and threatened to kill her if she narrated the incident to anyone.

She further alleged that he also threatened her brother over phone when he came to know about the rape.

On her complaint, DSP City Sucha Singh conducted a probe after which a case of rape and criminal intimidation was registered against the accused, Sunil, who was said to be absconding.

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Women anti-liquor campaigners allegedly ransacked a liquor shop and were going to vandalise another, when they were assaulted by a mob injuring five of them in Kendrapara district, police said.

They campaigners were attacked at Olaver village under Rajkanika police station area after they vandalised a country liquor shop in the locality and were marching towards an India made foreign liquor (IMFL) shop.

"We have received reports of women anti-liquor activists causing damage to a country liquor unit. Report of attack on the campaigners has also been received by us. Police are investigating," Kendrapara Superintendent of Police Dayanidhi Gochayat said.

Rajkanika area had hogged the limelight on March 8, 2015 for alleged police excesses on anti-liquor campaigners.

Police had allegedly lathi charged and opened fire injuring nine agitators who who earlier vandalised an IMFL shop in a village where alcoholism was rampant.

The state government ordered a probe by revenue divisional commissioner but its report was not yet made public.

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DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar will not cut off gas to the United Arab Emirates despite a diplomatic dispute and a "force majeure" clause in its contract, the chief executive of Qatar Petroleum told Al Jazeera network, two weeks after some Gulf Arab states severed ties with Doha.

CEO Saad al-Kaabi said that although there was a "force majeure" clause in the agreement on the Dolphin gas pipeline, which links Qatar's giant North Field with the UAE, Qatar would not stop supplies for other reasons.

"The siege we have today is a force majeure and we could close the gas pipeline to the UAE," he said.

"But if we cut the gas, it does great harm to the UAE and the people of the UAE, who are considered like brothers ... we decided not to cut the gas now," he told the Doha-based channel in an interview aired on Sunday.

The Dolphin gas pipeline links Qatar with the UAE and Oman and pumps around 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day to the UAE.

The chief executive of Sharjah National Oil Corp said earlier on Sunday he did not expect flows of natural gas from Qatar to the United Arab Emirates to be interrupted by the diplomatic dispute in the region.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall in Dubai and Ali Abdelaty in Cairo; Editing by Andrew Roche)

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The situation in Darjeeling continues to remain volatile as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) plans to take out a procession today to honour those who died in the protests on Saturday. Three people were reportedly killed yesterday in the clashes between the GJM supporters and security forces in the hill town.

According to sources, the West Bengal state government has blocked mobile internet in the hills in a bid to prevent people from mass gathering. Broadband connections are believed to be working in some parts but the network is extremely patchy.



All economic activities in Darjeeling, a popular tourist destination, have also come to a complete halt. Tourists were left stranded after the GJM called for strike. After yesterday's violence, Bimal Gurung had released a video statement calling for all Gorkhaland supporters to step out of their houses to honour the 'martyrs'.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee, in a press conference, alleged that Bimal Gurung-led GJM had links with terror groups in the northeastern states.

The streets of Darjeeling looked like a war zone with protesters and police repeatedly clashing in different parts of the town. It later emerged in the day that three people in the region had lost their lives in the clashes. While GJM alleged the three protesters were killed in police firing, but the state administration denied the charge. According to reports, the army has also been deployed in the area.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh is believed to have had a phone conversation with Mamta Banerjee to discuss the situation.

The protests were triggered after raids were conducted on Gurung's house following his party's opposition over the state government's decision to make Bengali language mandatory in schools. Darjeeling and adjoining hills have a dominant Gorkha population who speak Nepali language.

The state administration had later clarified that the Bengali language in schools would be optional and not compulsory.

Meanwhile, after yesterday's protests, Gorkhas across the country have been sharing graphic images of those injured and calling for support to bring back peace in the region. Many of them have turned their display pic black on social media sites as a mark of protest against the police's high handedness.

Darjeeling had seen a bloody agitation for a separate state of Gorkhaland in 1980s when about 1,200 people lost their lives.


Bank officers union has asked the government to urgently appoint officer and workmen nominee directors on the boards of public sector banks.

"Despite our best and continuous efforts the government is silent on the issue (of appointment of officers and workmen directors) even when Banking Regulation Act mandates for it," All India Bank officers Confederation (AIBOC) said in a statement.

The union asked the government to respect the law of the land and clear the appointment of officer and employee directors which is pending with the Prime Ministers Office for several months.

Since, the government has not filled the vacancy for long, former employee or union members are forced to take the route of election of shareholder director process to enter the board, it said.

Citing an example, it said, at the request of All India State Bank Officers Federation (AISBOF), Amarpal who was the former president of the federation, former Director to the Central Board (SBI) and former General Secretary of AIBOC filed nomination for director position.

The confederation took it a challenge and at a very short notice went all out to contact SBI shareholders from all walks of life, AIBOC General Secretary D T Franco said in the statement.

The polling took place on June 15, he said. "We are given to understand that Amarpal polled more than 6 lakh votes in the election," he claimed.


Schools in Cameroon entered the second week for the 2015/2016 academic year on Monday September 14, 2015.

ADS



As the euphoria that usually characterizes the schools reopening dies down, hopefully with effective teaching and learning, parents who rushed to enroll their children in one school or the other will now certainly start crossing their fingers to wait for results.



But the expectant mood will be far from being lived by all and sundry. This is owing to the troubling announcement made last week by the Ministry of Basic Education. In effect, government ordered the banning of hundreds of schools across the country for falling below the administrative procedure for their creation and functioning. Going by the communique, while some of the concerned schools are faulted for not possessing declaration orders for their creation and opening, others are booked for operating on unauthorised sites.



While devolved services of the Ministry of Basic Education, local administrative authorities and officials of private education brave the odds to ensure an effective implementation of the banning order, so many questions beg for answers here. Where would the kids that have been admitted there go to should the schools not regularize their situations? With the number of school goers growing by the day, would there be space in schools that conform to lodge those from the clandestine schools? Even if there is space, who will reimburse the first installments that had been paid in these schools especially as proprietors claim much, if not all, of the money had been used for repair works or to acquire didactic equipment? The questions could go on till the cows come home.



It is no secret that the creation of schools is fast becoming a juicy business in the country, especially in major towns. Push factors comprise the growing number of the population as a result of increasing rural exodus and newfound desire by parents to bequeath the best of education to their children. In the midst of this, some unscrupulous business people defy the laws of the land to set up anything in the name of a school. After all, once a building or two are erected and an attractive sign board put up, the proprietor is sure to have pupils the next academic year. Most often, desperate parents may not even have the time and know-how to verify the authenticity of some of the schools before registering their kids therein. Results are usually enrolling into clandestine schools most of which have everything but convenient infrastructure for effective learning.



The announcement of the Ministry of Basic Education, to say the least, surprised so many parents even though sources say the schools were suspended some months ago. It is true the officials might have been notified, but with the unquenchable quest for money by most of the proprietors, one would not imagine that they would have posted the decision for public notice.



It goes without saying here that the powers that be would have employed all communication means and early too to get parents abreast with the illegality in which some of the schools are operating. Cameroon Tribune published the list of the set schools only last week.



But beyond the early publication and wider publicity of the clandestine schools, stakeholders could limit the damage on poor parents and innocent pupils and students through vigorous control of schools. It is blameworthy to brandish as motive for banning a school the fact that some of them got authorization to open schools and have been functioning without a corresponding authorization. The ministries of basic and secondary education have devolved services right down to the level of Sub Divisions.



A stitch in time, they say, saves nine. There is an urgent need to reinforce indiscriminate control in the creation and functioning of schools at all levels. The authenticity of a hotel and its strength is measured by its star number pasted obligatorily at its entrance. Without necessarily advocating that schools be identified as such, which is not bad anyway, those involved in controlling their creation and functioning should, as a matter of priority, check and ascertain that existing schools live up to laid down administrative and pedagogic rules.

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| BY Ricki Green |

Bec Brideson, Advisor, Speaker and Author, is representing Australia on the Cannes Glass Lions jury. Brideson, along with most of the other Australian and NZ jurors write exclusively for CB.

Change has been slow in an industry full of fast people

Two years ago when the first ever Glass Lion of 2015 was awarded, I was the first Australian female to speak at Cannes about marketing and the missed opportunity with the female economy.

Two days ago I spoke at The Indie Summit in the UK  a conference for owners of global independent agencies. My subject again highlighted the #blindspots in this industry. (My book on Blind Spots launches in Aus, September 2017).

I was so pleased to speak with Cannes Lions Chairman Terry Savage last night at welcome drinks. He is incredibly committed to making sure womens voices are heard and that our industry becomes educated and aware of the role of unconscious bias in our day-to-day work.

The Glass Panel

Wendy Clark, President and CEO of DDB North America, is heading up our jury. Of the nine on the panel we have only male, which is odd  at least 50/50 would be the perfect quorum. All of the talent on the panel is inspiring and Im feeling lucky to be on it already.

Small steps towards great change.

The Glass Lion is a category attempt to bring gender-intelligence to the Cannes Lions, and therefore to the industry.

Its a commendable start to turning the world right-side up. Work that sets out to positively impact and address gender inequities will be rewarded.

In the last month I have reviewed nearly 200 case studies that were entered into the category. I have seen some entertaining and clever gender-smart lenses on entries for all kinds of consumer brands. These have been ridiculously refreshing and a delight to appraise.

Disturbingly, I have learned so much about the plight of women and transgender folk globally. The common themes of domestic violence, genital mutilation, female reproductive rights, rape, slavery, human trafficking and sexual discrimination have been sickening.

It would appear that women dont just have a glass ceiling and asbestos walls. Many endure a daily fragile ecosystem just to achieve Maslows basic need for safety.

The irony is we want and need women to Lean-In but many are just trying to stay on their feet.

Womens basic human rights and visibility need urgent attention.
| BY Kim Shaw |

Julian Schreiber and Tom Martin (pictured top), from Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, have taken out the 2010 Gold Siren award for best radio ad of the year. Its the third time Clemenger BBDO Melbourne has won the top gong in the six years of the awards.

The ad, called Clothes for international brand Tena, developer of absorbent hygiene products, in addition collected a Silver Siren for the single advertisement category. Schreiber was also one of the writers of the winning Gold Siren Award in 2008 for RACV Financial Services called Disclaimer.

The winning Tena ad, which uses humour to promote pads designed for weak bladders, was announced today at a breakfast in Melbourne for the industrys annual awards for creative excellence in radio advertising. It will automatically be entered into the Cannes Radio Lions to be held next month at the Cannes Advertising Festival and the winning writers receive two free tickets to the event.

Sirens judge and executive creative director of Smart, John Mescall, said the following about the winning ad: What I loved about the Tena work is how it took a pretty sensitive subject matter and delivered a benefit, with a brand of humour that was empathetic to the target audience. When you put the words humour and incontinence pads together in the one sentence, in the wrong hands it would be a recipe for disaster. Not so here,and a very worthy winner.

Judge, Craig Moore, creative director from agency OneForAll said: It would have been easy to do something serious and boring for this, clearly they went the other way.

Winner of the Silver Siren for the campaign category was the Glee Launch Campaign for Network Ten, written by Andrew Garrick (pictured second from top) from Network Ten. The campaign promoted the launch of Glee, a musical comedy series now screening on Network Ten.

Judge, Rem Bruijn, creative director from agency Make, said about the Glee campaign: Amazing talent, great production, massively entertaining. Whilst some radio campaigns suffer the weakest link syndrome, every spot in the Glee campaign adds to the overall promise. 

The other Silver Siren winner announced today was an ad for HBF, called Passenger which won the 2010 craft category. The ad was produced by sound engineer, Paul Taylor (pictured bottom) from production studios, Eardrum and Sound Reservoir in Sydney.

Judge, Brad Grisaffe from production studio, Audiobrien said about the HBF ad: A soundscape that delivered the message. I found myself listening intently to the commercial, more than I do to most. A subtle, clever way of expressing the passing of time (past to present) by the use of the voice as part of the soundscape and as the voice-over narration.

Chief executive officer of Commercial Radio Australia, Joan Warner said the Gold Siren winning ad provided a great example of radios unique ability to deal with products that are a little more personal: Products in pharmaceutical, hygiene and medical categories are particularly well suited for radio because you can have quite intimate conversations with the consumer, Ms Warner said.

Ms Warner said the Siren Awards raised the bar each year in terms of creativity and originality. There have been nearly 600 entries this year  a fantastic result which shows how important this Award has become. Also, the success of past winners and entrants at Cannes is testament to the fact that great work is being achieved with radio ads in Australia, Ms Warner said.

Last years Gold Siren winner, a controversial advertisement called 21st Birthday for Adults Surviving Child Abuse (ASCA), written by Steve Dodds from agency, Whybin TBWA in Sydney, was one of five Siren winners shortlisted for the Radio Lions at the 2009 Cannes Advertising Festival.

The national Siren Awards, now in their sixth year, are run by Commercial Radio Australia and are designed to recognise the best radio advertising in the country. A winner is announced in each of the three categories: single, campaign and craft as well as an overall winner who receives the Gold Siren. The awards are judged by the Siren Creative Council, comprising creative directors and producers from advertising agencies and studios from throughout Australia.

Todays breakfast was hosted by Ant and Becks, the new drivetime duo on ARNs Mix101.1 in Melbourne and Mix106.5 in Sydney and was followed by a one-day, hands-on workshop on how to make great radio ads.

2010 Siren Award winners

Siren Awards 2010 Overall Category Winner (Gold Siren)

Agency: Clemenger BBDO Melbourne

Writer: Julian Schreiber and Tom Martin

Client: Tena

Commercial Title: Clothes

Siren Awards 2010 Single Category Winner (Silver Siren)

Agency: Clemenger BBDO Melbourne

Writer: Julian Schreiber and Tom Martin

Client: Tena

Commercial Title: Clothes

Siren Awards 2010 Campaign Category Winner (Silver Siren)

Agency: Network Ten, Sydney

Writer: Andrew Garrick

Client: Network Ten

Campaign Title: Glee Launch Campaign

Siren Awards 2010 Craft Category Winner (Silver Siren)

Sound Engineer: Paul Taylor

Production Studio: Eardrum and Sound Reservoir, Sydney

Client: HBF
"So at 13, once she realised OK, I can make money from this and fly, she went out and got a tax file number and ABN, registered the business name, set up the website, did all the food handling registration, got all the inspectors in, did all the online courses to be a food handling supervisor, did it all and off it went.
"All the events happening are good but we need more of a clean-up, things need to be fixed, there are holes in the paving, there needs to be better lighting."
Treasury is the department with the largest concentration of staff in Canberra at more than 94 per cent, ahead of Finance with 90 per cent. Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister and Cabinet, both unlikely to face forced moves, have about 70 per cent of their workforce in the capital.
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.
Drive-thru locations are one of lifes little conveniences but one driver in China apparently doesnt understand the concept isnt meant for traditional stores.



According to Peoples Daily China, a Smart ForTwo driver didnt want to waste time looking for a parking spot. so he simply drove the car into the open doors of a convenience store in Zhenjiang.

Upon entering the store, he honks the horn to get the attention of a surprised worker, who walks up to the car and has a quick talk with the driver who apparently asks him to grab a couple of items.

After getting them, the worker hurries back to the register and rings the customer up. He then delivers the products to the driver  who hopefully tipped  and then helps him reverse out of the store.

While the video could have been easily staged, local media reportedly spoke with the clerk who confirmed the incident did indeed happen. However, he apparently believes the driver drove into the store to avoid getting out in the rain.

Regardless, weve seen plenty of bizarre cases of laziness including a drive-thru fight and a limo getting stuck in a McDonalds drive-thru because someone couldnt be bothered to walk inside.

H/T to CNET

Video
The war between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and the Environmental Protection Agency recently escalated, but newly released documents reveal the battle has been brewing since 2015.



According to e-mails attained by Reuters, the EPA informed FCA it suspected the company had used a defeat device in some of its models. The company set up a meeting with the EPA in November 2015 and the government agency revealed there was a least one auxiliary emissions control device that appeared to violate regulations.

After a couple of month, the director of the EPAs Transportation and Air Quality Compliance Division e-mailed FCA North Americas Head of Vehicle Emissions, Certification, and Compliance to ask for a conference call. As Jalopnik reports, the email sent by Byron Bunker said: I am very concerned about the unacceptably slow pace of the efforts to understand the high NOx emissions we have observed from several [redacted] vehicles with the [redacted]. The redacted words are believed to be diesel-powered and 3.0-liter EcoDiesel engine or some variation of them.

FCAs Head of Vehicle Safety and Regulatory Compliance followed up with the EPA a few days later: As I am sure you can appreciate, conclusions regarding possible noncompliance of FCAs engine design, as violating EPAs defeat device regulations, are conclusions of a legal nature with potentially significant regulatory and commercial consequences. Mike Dahl went on to ask the EPA to hold off on making any conclusions before the company could fully explain its emissions strategy.

Last month, FCA presented a proposal to install updated emissions software on 2014-2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 vehicles equipped with diesel engines. The company also filed an application for a diesel vehicle emissions certification on the 2017 Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 EcoDiesel.

The proposal apparently didnt cut it with the authorities, as the United States Department of Justice and the EPA both sued the automaker a few days later, claiming 104,000 vehicles equipped with the 3.0-liter diesel engine have a defeat device as well as software functions that were not disclosed during the certification process.

Photo Gallery
Sales of diesel vehicles in Europe have started to fall as bans on diesel vehicles look set to be rolled out.



In the aftermath of Volkswagens dieselgate scandal, public sentiment and demand in diesels across Europe has started to falter as consumers learn about the toxic nitrogen oxide emissions produced by diesels.

Automotive News reports that in Germany, a leader in diesel-vehicle adoption, diesel sales accounted for 40 per cent of the new-car market in March, a significant decrease on the 45.8 per cent of 2016 and 48.1 per cent of 2012. In Europe, sales dropped from 50 per cent of the market to 46 per cent.

Starting next year, theres a possibility that Stuttgart could prevent 3-year-old diesel vehicles from entering city limits on certain days, and it is likely that Munich could follow suit shortly after. The mayors of Paris, Madrid, Athens and Mexico City have also pledged to ban diesel vehicles by the year 2025.

This changing public perception of diesel vehicles will represent a massive hurdle for automakers as many customers will shy aware from purchasing a diesel if theres a chance it could be banned within a few years.

According to transportation law specialist Tobias Ulbrich, In an environment where bans are an immediate threat, those people that regularly drive in the major metropolitan areas are not going to purchase a diesel under any circumstance  no matter how clean manufacturers claim these cars allegedly are.

PHOTO GALLERY
Going to war

Westenhofer says that Jenkins wanted Wonder Woman to be a throwback to the early days of Superman, with real locations used where we could. We would save visual effects for wherever was needed. We also had to do this with a fraction of the budget of Batman vs Superman, and other previous DC films, so we did have to get more things in camera.

An example was the scene of Diana braving the trenches in Belgium and deflecting a series of gunfire and explosions. The location shoot was a purpose-built muddy field at the backlot of Leavesden Studios in London with a fully-realized trench and another partially built one.

That real environment was then supplemented with some extended horizons, and tracer hits, enhanced explosions, and additional mud and debris. Some of the running parts of the scene were also filmed on greenscreen. Gal is very self-deprecating, said Westenhofer. She can strike incredible poses but she hates the way she runs. We found that she actually runs really confidently on the treadmill, so we had a couple places where, for some full body shots of her, we actually put her on an oversized treadmill in front of a greenscreen to make those runs feel a bit more heroic as she charges across the field.

Dianas powers grow as the film continues, and she soon realizes she can make enormous leaps and bounds and has incredible strength. Since these powers were reaching into the superhero domain, occasionally a digital double of Diana was necessary. Clear Angle Studios undertook scanning and photogrammetry services, with the principal vfx vendors, MPC and Double Negative, using a digital-double in various scenes.

One digi-double is seen in the trenches scene, and another where Diana takes on some soldiers in a village. The shot of Diana bursting through a window, having pushed a soldier out as well, involved completely cg characters. This village fight sequence also utilized Gadots stunt double and some face replacements were also part of the mix.

The village square was a complete set that required minimal vfx enhancement for the buildings. At one point Diana upends a tank and throws it at a church to dispense some adversaries. The tank that she flips over is a piece of green styrofoam with a couple grips standing by, said Westenhofer. Special effects added some of the explosion of the building. We enhanced that, and then when she leaps up its her digital double, and then finally a complete digital destruction by MPC as the church collapses.

To deal with scenes in which Diana would make a running jump or some other superhero action, the visual effects teams relied on digital take-overs  essentially turning the live-action Gadot into her digi-double mid-shot. That was something also used on the Batman and Superman films, so Westenhofer referenced how that had been done on those visual effects. The secret was the use of something called a Shandy-cam, a six Canon 5D-camera array rig mounted on a pipe rig and connected together to take photographs simultaneously.

The idea is that we photograph the character in their pose right where we think the take-over will happen and it gives us a lot of high resolution material in the right lighting, said Westenhofer. That really helps us reconstruct the character for the digital take-over.

Wonder Woman vs Ares

Things really ramp up when Diana confronts Sir Patrick Morgan (David Thewlis) who is actually the god of war Ares in disguise. A huge battle ensues on an army airfield. Its here that cg and visual effects were a much bigger part of the final shots, since this was intended to be a battle of the gods, and reminiscent of other scenes appearing in the DC Extended Universe films.

Ares, who mostly appears in human form in the fight, was originally envisaged as more of a cloud-like form, made up of debris from the airfield. In the end, said Westenhofer, we moved away from the cloud monster because it was more about a personal battle. Ares is trying to convince her that mankind isnt worth saving, so theres a personal battle of wills thats going on between them. Some of the supernatural stuff that was designed wasnt going to allow that to happen.

Thewlis does don some distinctive armor, which was a digital replacement by Double Negative. On set, the actor wore a tracking suit that could be motion captured and he was also scanned in a similar way to Gadot. As the battle rages, the airfield fills with fire and a distinctive orange glow. Westenhofer says Jenkins described the inferno away from any particularly technical terms.

She always couched the visual effects in emotions, the visual effects supervisor observed. It was always, What is Diana feeling? Its meant to be representative of Dianas rage at that moment. Shes now lost Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). Were with her, feeling the emotion of how she is just about ready to give up on mankind. We added in some rationale for why there was so much fire  with the nearby lab exploding  but its symbolic of whats happening in her mind.
Photo: Pinterest

I do my best writing in coffee shops. Im not sure what makes them such fertile environments for my thoughts, but they are.

Perhaps it is because I am separated from work and domestic distractions, or maybe its because they are a buzz of energy.

Regardless of the reason, when it is time to create my column, I grab my laptop and walk to my neighbourhood java joint. The walk is a good opportunity to think about possible topics, so I dont spend my writing time, thinking.

I write on the same day each week, sitting at the same table.

For scheduling reasons, I had to write on a different day than usual this week. Writing about change seemed like an applicable topic, but I had one or two other thoughts that I was also mulling over.

When I walked in the door of the coffee shop, I found someone sitting at my table.

I felt off balance and momentarily wondered if I should just turn around and go home, but after a brief look of disbelief, I heaved a sigh of resignation and chose a different table.

As I settled myself with my coffee and muffin, I realized that I had indeed found my topic for the week.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you imagined a situation that didnt pan out the way you expected?

Some people are born with a natural affinity for change. They look forward to it with anticipation, and are masters of going with the flow.

Others are lovers of routine, and familiarity. When change comes their way, they try to avoid having eye contact with it, in the futile hope that it will pass them by.

I have spent most of my life in the latter category. Im not sure if I was born this way, or learned it from my parents who love the comfort that familiarity brings.

You, too, may be one of these comfort-zone groupies, but one of the few things you can count on in life, is that nothing stays the same forever, even if you want it to.

Happy people may not love change, but they are accepting of it. If you want to increase the happiness in your life, take a few minutes to examine the relationship you have with new situations and experiences.

If you can honestly say you have no negative association with them, or try in any way to avoid them, all is good.

If you resist change, it may be time for you to take steps to become more comfortable with it. With practice, you may even learn to invite it in to your life. But lets not get carried away.

At the very least, it is important to learn to accept change rather than resist it.

You can resist all you want, but you can rarely stop it from happening. All resistance does is keep you from feelings of positive well-being.

Change is harder for people who arent practised at stepping out of their comfort zones, so if you want to get better at new experiences, get better at stepping into the unfamiliar. Choose to venture into the unknown.

The more you do it, the more comfortable it will feel.

I used to imagine comfort zones as islands that we took a holiday from, but always returned to when we got tired of being uncomfortable.

This picture has changed since I started to imagine life as a continuous journey, or route that we travel.

Imagine a path with ever-changing terrain. Sometimes it is sandy, then it goes steeply up hill, only to become muddy as you reach the top.

By the time you get back to sand, the sensation feels new and strange. This time, you adjust quickly to the terrain, as it is something you have experienced before.

On your journey through life, the only way you can keep the surface under your feet the same is to stand still, or march on the spot. You may not feel the discomfort of new experiences, but life is likely to become boring, and monotonous.

Some of the best things in life come as the result of being forced out of your zone of comfort. You never know what may be around that unexpected corner.

Change becomes a natural part of life as you get used to experiencing new things.

As you learn to accept change, it becomes easier to navigate. If you can survive it once, your mind will rest easy that you can survive it a second time. The first time is often the most difficult. If you wait too long between unfamiliar experiences, every time you have one, it will feel like the first time.

Start by inviting change into your life on your own terms.

Change up your schedule.

Choose to do something habitual on a different day than usual.

Challenge yourself to sit at a different table in the coffee shop, until you have sat at them all.

When unexpected change presents itself, rather than greeting it with a doom-and-gloom attitude, find something positive in it. Happiness is a choice, and I choose to find a positive reason for sitting at a different table.

As I look across to my usual table, I see that two men have sat at a nearby one and are having a loud conversation.

My current table is much more peaceful.

I believe the universe has my back. It is sending me opportunities to change things up, so I can learn to be more adaptable, and less attached to familiarity.

Learn to be happier in your life by getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: Contributed Kelowna council will review a new temporary farm work housing policy Monday.

The City of Kelowna is ready to try again to implement a temporary farm worker housing bylaw.

In April, council gave initial reading to a bylaw, however, opposition from both farmers and the BC Fruit Growers Association prompted council to defer second, and third readings, to implement changes heard at a May 2 public hearing, and consult both the BCFGA and Ministry of Agriculture.

A report outlining a new set of bylaws will be brought to council Monday.

Staff made eight changes to the original draft policy.

Among the amendments, a change in the maximum number of months farm workers can stay from eight to 10, maximum size of structure to accommodate up to 60 workers from 40, and increase in structure footprint from .20 hectares to .30 hectares, and allowing for structures in each sector of the city. That will allow more than one temporary farm worker housing location per farmer.

In its report, staff indicated a desire to provide a balanced approach that would meet the needs of the industry and other interests.

"Staff have endeavored to provide a policy framework that promotes certainty for farmers while acknowledging the land use implications, and aim to minimize conflicts with broader community issues," the report stated.

"The discussions with industry and resulting amendments represent a softened approach to reflect the

agricultural industry needs, but also aim to provide the necessary land use, compatibility and servicing

analysis to ensure they fit within each city sector with minimal impact."

The final bylaw must be signed off on by the Ministry of Agriculture before it can pass final reading.
Photo: Contributed Conceptual drawings of Nickel Road proposal.

Kelowna city council will review two rezoning applications that would add another 35 rental units in the Rutland area.

One proposal would consolidate properties at 1287 and 1297 Findlay Road into one lot for a 20-unit row housing project.

According to the staff presentation, the proposed complex would feature 20 three-bedroom units accessed from a common driveway, a type of housing currently in low supply.

Each unit would have parking for two vehicles either in a tandem or in a double garage.

Units would have a ground-oriented entrance off the rear that is accessed from a common walkway. The end units have an entrance facing the public street.

Council has said on many occasions it would like to see the development of more three-bedroom housing units, which are in short supply in the city.

A second proposal is for a townhouse on Nickel Road.

The proposal would again seek to consolidate two lots, at 170 and 230 Nickel to make way for the development.

The townhouse row fronting Nickel Rd. is proposed to have seven two-bedroom units. The back row is proposed to have eight three-bedroom units.

Staff are in support of both rezoning applications.
Photo: Denise E. Okanagan Lake water level has dropped slightly.

UPDATE: 12:05 p.m.

Two of the Valleys big lakes  Okanagan and Kalamalka  continue their slow descent from historically high water levels.

Inspections Sunday of all flood protection on the lakes found no damage from strong overnight winds that gusted to 50 kilometres an hour, said the Emergency Operations Centre in a press release.

Protective measures along the foreshore will be in place for many more weeks due to high water levels and the threat of wave damage caused by windy conditions. Okanagan Lake is still 71 centimetres above its normal lake level for this time of year.

With smaller creeks less of a concern, wildfire crews are repositioning sandbags today in the upstream portions of Mill Creek. Crews expect to have the sandbags removed along the creek up to Pandosy Street by Monday. Sandbags will eventually be removed from all riparian areas along creeks and lakes.

For now, however, local authorities advise residents to leave sandbags in place, along with any debris that has washed ashore.

A plan is being formulated to coordinate the removal of nearly two million sandbags throughout the Central Okanagan, the equivalent of 23 kilometres of sandbags.

Okanagan Lake has come down 5.6 centimetres since last Sunday, June 11. The lake has dropped one centimetre since yesterday, to a level of 343.191 metres above sea level.

At this rate of decrease, it will be weeks before lakes are low enough to remove protection, emergency officials have said.

Kalamalka Lake is also down five centimetres in the past week to its current level of 392.367 metres above sea level, which is unchanged from June 17.

If large floating debris becomes a hazard impacting flood protection measures such as gabion basket, bladder dam systems and sandbag walls along the foreshore, notify Emergency Operations officials at 250-469-8490 immediately.

For more information, go online, sign up for e-updates or call the information line at 250-469-8490.

ORIGINAL STORY: 7:55 a.m.

Okanagan Lake's massive water level dropped slightly overnight to sit at 343.191 metres above sea level, according to real-time hydrometric data provided by the Emergency Operations Centre in Kelowna Sunday morning.

Operations staff report "no issues with winds or erosion" at this time, said Ross Kotscherofski, EOC spokesperson.

Kalamalka Lake also dropped a fraction overnight to now stand at 392.367, he said.

All flood protection barriers should remain in place at this time.

Castanet will release more information as it becomes available.
Photo: RCMP Two people remain missing ten days after their small plane disappeared.

A total of 15 aircraft are involved in a search Sunday for two people whose small plane went missing ten days ago on a flight from Cranbrook to Kamloops.

Ten civilian and five military aircraft, including three helicopters, continue to follow the mountainous terrain between the two cities for any sign of the missing four-seater Piper Warrior PA28-161, according to a spokesperson for the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Kelowna.

The civilian aircraft are piloted and manned by CASARA volunteers who assist the Canadian Forces in rescue operations.

The missing plane was piloted by 21-year-old Alex Simons. His girlfriend, 24-year-old Sidney Robillard was onboard as well. The plane left Cranbrook on June 8th, but never arrived at its destination in Kamloops.
A dramatic swift water rescue took place in the Shuswap last week after a woman fell into Sicamous Creek.

The June 11th rescue was caught on camera and posted to Facebook by the Sicamous Fire Department.

Sicamous firefighters worked with members of the Eagle Valley Rescue Society and Shuswap Search and Rescue to save the woman who was screaming and clinging to a boulder in the raging water.

RCMP officers and BC Ambulance Services were also at the scene.

The video shows a firefighter carefully wading through the current while tied to a rope while others secured the rope on the side of the creek.

The woman was safely brought to shore.

"Great team work was needed to get her to safety," said the Facebook posting.
If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,...
All images ACEA / Sander van der Borch & Ricardo Pinto  Video sent by Emirates Team New Zealand. 

Americas Cup Final 2017 , Day 2:

R1  Spithill trying to get Burling at the start but the young kiwi is playing his own game defending his position, both teams wth clear and even start. Oracle to windward trying to roll over TNZ, side to side towards reaching Mark and through the boundary. A better gybe by TNZ puts them ahead, and thats it. They were gone.

R2  Another start in parallel, this time TNZ from above and n better speed they simply could complete the roll over Spithill tried in race 3. From then on, New Zealand was gone once more.

On doubt were the starts by Burling: On the 4 races till now Spithill could not now a single one or push Burling around, Peter demonstrated he can adapt in no time and he is up to any challenge.

End of the racing report.

It was Boring only thanks to Emirates Team New Zealand being faster, added to their smoother handling , plus excellent sailing today by Burling & Ashby. Not an error and flawless course racing.

In more breeze Oracle might win some races and even the Cup, but performance wise, in 8 to 12 knots midrange where the design difference is really made they are far behind NZ. In 5 knots or 20knots, things get more even.

On the Design & Implementation Game, TNZ has won by miles already.

I really thought Oracle unlimited resources and full collaboration with JPN, drive from last Cup, plus all the sailing done in Bermuda was going to play a role for them to do better.

They might end winning this Final but once more the Kiwis confirm they are Nr 1 innovators , builders & designers. At the end of this Cup they might confirm again they are top AC sailors.

AC Final 2017:

Emirates Team New Zealand 3 (4) vs Oracle Team USA 0

Racing resumes next weekend.



Day 2 Press Conf
NEW KINGSTOWN  Trucks have been banned on West Main Street in New Kingstown for more than five years, but Mary Fernengal says she says she hears them two or three times a day on her quiet road.

Theyre really loud when my babies are trying to nap, Fernengal said.

Brian Emberg, a traffic engineer who works with Silver Spring Township, commissioned a traffic study in the area about five years ago. As a result, the area was remapped.

The relocation of Main Street and widening of the Carlisle Pike was to alleviate most of the trucks coming through Main Street, Emberg said.

But even he admits it didnt work, and its worrying neighbors, especially since another warehouse is opening up in the area soon.

They could run over the curb, said Fernengal, who has two children. If my kid is going ahead of me and running to the corner and I tell them to stop, and they could hit my kid.

At a Silver Spring Township meeting Wednesday, New Kingstown leaders requested money for a traffic study, citing ripped up roads and dangerous conditions.

Emberg showed us the trouble spot and said, The radii at the corners of the intersection, as you can see, a lot of them have been rubbed by the trucks. The curb is busted over there.

He says the study is looking into whether East Main Street should be a no-truck zone as well to prevent spillover. He also mentions potential signage on the Carlisle Pike.

Emberg says New Kingstowns problem is one traffic engineers are studying all over Pennsylvania.

Thats just the nature of our culture now, he said. Theres a lot of trucks.

Not everyone is bothered by that.

They deserve to stop here every now and again, too, said Jesse Ro, an employee at New Kingstown Pizzeria. We would be out of business without them.

Silver Spring Township gave a green light to traffic engineers to start the study on Main Street. Engineers say the results could be complete by the end of summer.
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Amazon can ship books, furniture and clothing across the Pacific Ocean in what feels like a blink of an eye. But when it comes to delivering fresh groceries to your doorstep, the e-commerce giant's logistical prowess wilts like a bag of salad left out in the sun.

That's because the long journey of, say, an avocado from Mexico gets progressively harder the closer it gets to the final consumer. It's more costly and time consuming to deliver individual pieces of fruit to many customers. The hurdle, which has long vexed online retailers and is one of the chief reasons the grocery business is notorious for its low profit margins, is known in the logistics industry as the "last mile."

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By acquiring Whole Foods, Amazon is buying not just an established, upscale supermarket brand, but also a vast distribution network of warehouses and more than 460 stores worldwide  replete with back rooms and cold storage  in some of the most affluent ZIP codes in America. That's a significant boost in numbers for the Seattle company, which currently operates fewer than 100 distribution centers in the U.S., a handful of them in the Inland Empire.

More hubs means quicker and fresher delivery, which will bolster Amazon's existing grocery delivery service, AmazonFresh. The service, which is offered to the company's subscription Prime members for a monthly fee of $14.99, is available only in about 20 U.S. cities. While the bid for Whole Foods may not bridge Amazon's "last mile," it certainly brings it closer, experts say.

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In the U.S. "this adds 440 refrigerated warehouses within 10 miles of probably 80% of the population," said Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Securities. "More importantly, it puts refrigerated distribution within 10 miles of probably 95% of Prime members. That means we can rely upon Whole Foods' consistently high quality meat and produce, and can rely upon prompt delivery from the store as a distribution point."

The marriage of the two companies means Amazon can vertically integrate a business it has dabbled in since 2007, when it first offered grocery delivery in Mercer Island, Wash. That's a blow to rivals like Target and Walmart, which boasted brick-and-mortar stores as the one thing they had over Amazon. The physical stores allow people to try on clothing before buying, still one of the biggest hang-ups about online fashion, and they allow shoppers to choose the groceries they want, lest there be a bruised apple in their order.

Those big-box competitors were already disadvantaged by Amazon's captive audience, an estimated 80 million Prime members, who could theoretically order groceries online or task Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant, to prepare a delivery or arrange for a pick-up at the nearest Whole Foods.

The deal could also make competing delivery services such as Instacart  which Whole Foods invested in last year  superfluous. Why pay for food delivery elsewhere if Amazon is cheaper and easier?

It's a natural progression for Amazon, said Brendan Witcher, a retail analyst at Forrester. The e-commerce behemoth first disrupted retail by offering lower prices. Now it's focusing on "logistics and fulfillment and the ability to get what you want when you want it," Witcher said.

To that end, Amazon is encroaching on territory long dominated by the likes of UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service. In the last two years, the tech giant has leased 20 Boeing 767 air cargo jets from Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, won shipping licenses that allows it to pay for containers at wholesale rates and rent them out for more expensive retail rates, and added thousands of long haul trucks emblazoned with the Amazon logo.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and chief executive, said his company wasn't looking to replace legacy supply chain companies. Instead, Amazon is adding its own logistics network because it simply can't have enough  not surprising considering the company was responsible for 43% of all online sales in the U.S. last year.

"We will take all the capacity that the U.S. Postal Service can give us and that UPS can give us and we still need to supplement it. So we're not cutting back. We're growing our business with UPS. We're growing our business with the U.S. Postal Service," Bezos said at Recode's 2016 Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, according to Bloomberg.

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Analysts say there's no reason to think Amazon's deal with Whole Foods will be limited to groceries. The company could one day use Whole Foods locations as a place for customers to drop-off e-commerce returns and make exchanges for items bought online. The stores could also serve as a hub to pick up non-grocery items, a move that would pare delivery costs and provide an alternative for shoppers who don't want their packages lying unattended on their porch.

"Ultimately, we see the deal allowing Amazon to take further share of its customer's wallet and see a large opportunity to leverage many of its technologies to grow and optimize the Whole Foods business. We are also highly confident that Amazon will leverage the new store footprint for much more than just selling groceries," said Daniel Salmon, an analyst for BMO Capital Markets.

The $13.7-billion deal for the high-end supermarket chain could pay off quickly, but it still runs counter to trends in the tech world, where fixed assets like real estate and heavy equipment are shunned, said Amit Sharma, a former supply chain executive at Walmart and now chief executive of Narvar, a retail app.

"Look at companies in the sharing economy. You don't need to own assets long term," Sharma said.

But other experts see advantages to buying Whole Foods beyond just its array of gourmet and organic food, and access to the affluent customers who favor it.

Groceries can serve as a lure  one that consumers can't live without  which could result in more sales of Kindle e-books and other high-margin goods that could find their way onto Whole Foods' shelves.

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"You don't shop for appliances multiple times a week. You don't shop for any durable goods multiple times a week. But you need to put fresh food on the table," said Lloyd Greif, a Los Angeles investment banker and president and chief executive of Greif & Co. "That's what drives customer traffic. The more touch points you have with a consumer, the more you'll be able to sell them everything else. From Amazon's standpoint, they don't have to focus so much on making money on groceries if they make money everywhere else."

david.pierson@latimes.com

@dhpierson
People pick up children after two girls were wounded by gunfire erupted near Warren Elementary School in Chicago on June 16, 2017. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

Two teen boys and an 18-year-old man have been charged in a Friday shooting at a Far South Side grade-school playground that injured two young girls, police said.

Raekwon Hudson was charged Saturday afternoon with two counts of attempted first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, police said.

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Two boys, ages 16 and 17, also were charged in the Pill Hill neighborhood shooting, but their names were not released because of their age.

Raekwon Hudson, 18, is charged in a shooting that injured two young girls at a grade-school picnic on the Far South Side. (Cook County sheriff's photo)

About 1:40 p.m. Friday, the girls, 13 and 7, were outside near Warren Elementary School at a picnic in the 9200 block of South Jeffery Avenue when shots rang out from a vehicle. Both girls suffered wounds and were taken to Comer Children's Hospital, where their conditions were stabilized, police said.

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The trio was quickly located in the 8900 block of South Phillips Avenue, where they were arrested after being curbed in a stolen vehicle, police said.

Hudson and the two boys also were facing charges associated with the stolen vehicle.
An Army officer was ordered held on $150,000 bail for shooting and wounding a motorcyclist following a minor fender bender in the Grand Crossing neighborhood last month.



Hosie Coleman, 45, was charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery for the May 16 attack that left the 26-year-old victim hospitalized with a gunshot wound to his back.

In court Saturday, Judge James Brown ordered Coleman held on $150,000 bail and scheduled him to return to court next week. Prosecutors had asked that the jail remand Coleman into custody without bail.



The shooting occurred following a traffic collision between Coleman's Oldsmobile Cutlass and the victim's motorcycle in the 7100 block of South Stony Island Avenue just before midnight on May 16, authorities said.



The victim was stopped in a right-turn lane at a red light in the southbound lanes of Stony Island when Coleman  whose car was next to the victim's motorcycle  turned his vehicle in front of the victim's motorcycle, prosecutors said.

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Coleman's car struck the bike's handlebars, causing the victim to nearly lose control and drive onto the sidewalk, Assistant State's Attorney Andrew Yassan said.



After both men pulled over and assessed the damage, they began to quarrel. Both the victim and Coleman separately called police, Yassan said.



At one point, Coleman told the victim that he was going to "take" his motorcycle, Yassan said. The motorcyclist said he rode off fearing for his life, which prompted Coleman to pull a handgun from his waistband and fire a single shot, striking him once in the back.



A friend of the victim who was riding a motorcycle next to Coleman and who pulled over after the collision witnessed Coleman reaching for his waistband and then heard a gunshot, prosecutors said.

The victim was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he spent 10 days undergoing treatment for his injuries, which included a collapsed right lung and a grazed kidney and liver, Yassan said.



Coleman's private attorney, D'Anthony Thedford, identified his client as an Army sergeant working out of Milwaukee. Public records confirm that Coleman did military work in north suburban Waukegan.
A 45-year-old south suburban man was charged with a hate crime after he called a Muslim-American civil rights advocate, said, "We will kill you," and left his own phone number in the voicemail, prosecutors said Saturday.



Marvin Meyer, of Oak Forest, admitted calling the deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Chicago office on May 16, according to prosecutors. Meyer was charged with a felony count of a hate crime and a misdemeanor count of a telephone threat, Chicago police said.



"Hey. Guess what? This is America calling," Meyer's call to Sufyan Sohel's office voicemail began, according to prosecutors. "You are not welcome here. Take your (double expletive) back to Syria. We will kill you."



Sohel, an American-born attorney whose parents came to this country from India, oversees CAIR Chicago's legal strategy. Prosecutors said he does not know Meyer.



The phone message insulted Allah and Democrats, according to prosecutors, who said Meyer not only gave out his phone number but also asked, "Do I seem afraid of you?"



After Sohel reported the incident, Chicago police obtained phone records showing Meyer as the only subscriber on the telephone account, authorities said.



At the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Judge James Brown ordered Meyer held on $75,000 bail and required him to wear an electronic monitoring device once released.



Sohel told the Tribune he was relieved about the charges. "I'm very happy with the seriousness the Chicago Police Department and Cook County state's attorney's office took in the matter," he said.



Sohel said the incident highlights why many Muslim-Americans are increasingly concerned about anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric.



Groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have reported spikes in Anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic hate crimes in recent years. So far this year, CAIR Chicago has received about 400 calls reporting discrimination against Muslim-Americans, which is the group's usual total for the entire year, Sohel said.



"His comments were very violent in nature," said Sohel, "and he threatened to kill people, and that raised flags and that kind of shook me because when people use that sort of language, it made me both fearful for me and my team, but I also got a sense of being unwelcome in the only country that I've ever called home."
University of Illinois police say they believe Yingying Zhang, 26, has been killed. A 28-year-old Champaign man has been charged with the Chinese scholar's kidnapping at the University of Illinois. (Chicago Tribune)

The FBI is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information that helps authorities locate Yingying Zhang, a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois who went missing from the Urbana-Champaign campus more than a week ago.

Zhang, 26, was last seen near the north end of campus June 9. Police say she was on her way to an apartment complex in Urbana around 2 p.m. that day to sign a lease but never showed up for the appointment. Her friends alerted authorities when they were unable to contact her after that, police said.

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U. of I. Police recovered security footage from a parking deck that shows a black Saturn Astra four-door hatchback pulling up alongside Zhang as she stood on the sidewalk near North Goodwin Avenue and West Clark Street. The video shows Zhang speaking with the driver for several moments, then getting inside the car. The vehicle then drives north on Goodwin Avenue.

Prior to that, police said, she had taken a bus from Orchard Downs, east of the University of Illinois Arboretum, to the intersection of Springfield and Mathews avenues, arriving at 1:52 p.m. The car approached her about four blocks from where she got off the bus.

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The FBI has classified Zhang's disappearance as a kidnapping investigation, and authorities have said the suspect vehicle circled the area before approaching Zhang.

Authorities are working to identify the car's license plate and the driver, who appeared to be a white male.

"Investigators from the University of Illinois Police Department, the Illinois State Police and the FBI continue to move forward with the investigation, but information from the public remains an important part of the case," police officials wrote on the department's website Saturday. A dedicated page on the site has regularly posted updates and information on the investigation.

Additionally, the U. of I. Community Credit Union has launched a GoFundMe campaign and an account to raise money to cover living expenses for Zhang's family, who have arrived in Urbana-Champaign and are staying on campus while authorities continue their search. Investigators met with Zhang's family over the weekend.

More than 1,100 people have contributed more than $40,000 to the fundraising effort since Saturday, according to the campaign web page.

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"The University of Illinois Police Department again thanks the community for its continued support of Ms. Zhang, her family and friends, and those who have volunteered to find Ms. Zhang," police said.

Zhang, originally from southeast China, arrived at U. of I. in late April as part of a yearlong appointment as a visiting scholar in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, university spokeswoman Robin Kaler said. She is considering entering a doctoral program, Kaler said.

The FBI is asking that anyone with information on Zhang's disappearance contact the agency 1-800-CALLFBI (1-800-225-5324) or tips.fbi.gov. People also can provide information anonymously through Champaign County Crime Stoppers at 217-373-TIPS (217-373-8477), 373tips.com or via the P3 Tips mobile app.

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Anyone wishing to help with the Zhang family expenses can donate online or at any of the credit union's three branches.

Zhang is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and about 110 pounds, with brown eyes, shoulder-length black hair and glasses. She was wearing a charcoal-gray hat with a white logo on the front, a white-and-pink flannel print long-sleeve shirt, a white undershirt, jeans, white shoes and a navy backpack when she went missing.

drhodes@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @rhodes_dawn
Gerry Martin isn't sure he will ever tell a police officer during a traffic stop that he has a concealed-weapon permit  and possibly a weapon  on him.

The acquittal of a Minnesota officer in the death of a licensed gun owner who volunteered that he had a gun seconds before being fatally shot during a traffic stop adds to the worries of African-American gun owners about how they are treated by police and society.

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Acknowledging that they have a weapon, they said, can open them up to violence from police, who can then claim they feared for their lives simply because of the presence of a gun, even a legal one.

"As soon as you say, 'I'm a concealed carry holder. This is my license,' they automatically are reaching for their gun thinking you're going to draw your gun on them, once again not realizing you're a good guy," said Martin, who lives in Glenside, Pennsylvania.

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Philando Castile was fatally shot by the officer July 6 in a St. Paul suburb seconds after he told the officer he was armed. Officer Jeronimo Yanez, who is Latino, was acquitted Friday of manslaughter and two lesser charges.

During the stop, Castile volunteered, "Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me."

Yanez told Castile, "OK, don't reach for it then" and "Don't pull it out."

On the squad-car video, Castile can be heard saying, "I'm not pulling it out," as Yanez opened fire. Prosecutors said Castile's last words were, "I wasn't reaching for it."

The verdict "tells African-Americans across the country that they can be killed by police officers with impunity, even when they are following the law," said Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana Democrat who is chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The verdict also tells blacks that "the Second Amendment does not apply to them" because Castile "was honest with the officer about having a weapon in the car, and there is no evidence that he attempted to or intended to use the weapon against the officer," the Louisiana Democrat said.

Outside the courthouse, Castile's mother said Yanez got away with murder. Her son was wearing a seatbelt and in a car with his girlfriend and her then-4-year-old daughter when he was shot.

"I am so very, very, very ... disappointed in the system here in the state of Minnesota," Valerie Castile said.

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Licensed gun owner and open-carry advocate Rick Ector of Detroit said stereotypes can cloud the minds of some officers when dealing with black gun owners. Officers may have had previous encounters with people carrying guns illegally  especially young black men. And that experience can carry over, Ector said.

Once they find out that a black American has a gun permit, "they are not necessarily going to relax, but they now have an idea about your character," Ector said.

Phillip Smith, head of the National African American Gun Association, said police need additional training to remind them that Second Amendment rights apply to black gun owners as much as anyone else.

Like several similar cases, Castile's death was shared worldwide on social media. His girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, livestreamed the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook because, she said, she wanted to make sure the truth was known.

But videos of black people dying at the hands of police have led to few convictions.

"I'm sure people of color are going to say, and rightfully so, what is the burden of proof for an officer to be" convicted? asked Dwayne Crawford, the executive director of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

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Eric Garner died in July 2014 in New York City after a white officer placed him in a chokehold during an arrest for selling loose cigarettes. Garner complained that he couldn't breathe on video captured by onlookers. A grand jury declined to indict that officer or any others involved in the arrest.

Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy with a pellet gun tucked into his waistband, was fatally shot by a white Cleveland police officer in November 2014. But a grand jury declined to indict patrolman Timothy Loehmann, who fired the fatal shot, or training officer Frank Garmback. The city settled Rice's family's lawsuit for $6 million.

Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, was fatally shot by a white officer, Darren Wilson, in August 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Their confrontation was not captured on video. A grand jury declined to indict Wilson, and the Justice Department opted against civil rights charges. Wilson later resigned.

Only one police officer in recent publicized cases is facing jail time.

South Carolina officer Michael Slager, who is white, shot black motorist Walter Scott in the back as he fled from a traffic stop. Slager pleaded guilty in May to a federal charge of violating Scott's civil rights, and a judge will determine his sentence, which could range from probation to life in prison without parole.

Scott's shooting in April 2015 was captured on cellphone video seen worldwide. It contradicted Slager's original statement that Scott had attempted to grab his Taser.

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"This was a clear-cut case of unnecessary, fatal police violence," Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color Of Change, said of the Castile case. "District attorneys around the country, from Tulsa to Cleveland to now St. Paul, must be held accountable for their failures to secure justice for victims of police violence."

Associated Press Writer Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this story.
The political divide between rural and urban America is more cultural than it is economic, rooted in rural residents' deep misgivings about the nation's rapidly changing demographics, their sense that Christianity is under siege and their perception that the federal government caters most to the needs of people in big cities, according to a wide-ranging poll that examines cultural attitudes across the United States.

The Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey of nearly 1,700 Americans  including more than 1,000 adults living in rural areas and small towns  finds deep-seated kinship in rural America, coupled with a stark sense of estrangement from people who live in urban areas. Nearly 7 in 10 rural residents say their values differ from those of people who live in big cities, including about 4 in 10 who say their values are "very different."

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That divide is felt more extensively in rural America than in cities: About half of urban residents say their values differ from rural people, with less than 20 percent of urbanites saying rural values are "very different."

Alongside a strong rural social identity, the survey shows that disagreements between rural and urban America ultimately center on fairness: Who wins and loses in the new American economy, who deserves the most help in society and whether the federal government shows preferential treatment to certain types of people. President Donald Trump's contentious, anti-immigrant rhetoric, for example, touched on many of the frustrations felt most acutely by rural Americans.

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The Post-Kaiser survey focused on rural and small-town areas that are home to nearly one-quarter of the U.S. population. These range from counties that fall outside metropolitan areas such as Brunswick, Va. (population 16,243), to counties near population centers with up to 250,000 residents such as Augusta, Va. (population 74,997), close to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia. Urban residents live in counties that are part of major cities with populations of at least 1 million, while suburban counties include all those in between.

The results highlight the growing political divisions between rural and urban Americans. While urban counties favored Hillary Clinton by 32 percentage points in the 2016 election, rural and small-town voters backed Trump by a 26-point margin, significantly wider than GOP nominee Mitt Romney's 16 points four years earlier.

But popular explanations of the rural-urban divide appear to overstate the influence of declining economic outcomes in driving rural America's support for Trump. The survey responses, along with follow-up interviews and focus groups in rural Ohio, bring into view a portrait of a split that is tied more to social identity than to economic experience.

"Being from a rural area, everyone looks out for each other," said Ryan Lawson, who grew up in northern Wisconsin. "People, in my experience, in cities are not as compassionate toward their neighbor as people in rural parts."

In the poll, rural Americans express widespread concerns about the lack of jobs in their communities. Two-thirds of rural residents rate local job opportunities as fair or poor, compared with about half of urban residents. Nearly 6 in 10 rural residents say they would encourage young people in their community to leave for more opportunity elsewhere.

Rural areas have experienced a weak recovery from the Great Recession, with the total number of jobs down 128,000 from pre-recession levels. Suburban and urban counties have each gained about 3 million jobs, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The rural unemployment rate is only slightly higher than in cities, 5.3 percent vs. 4.8 percent. But rural areas have been affected by a shrinking workforce as people have left towns or stopped looking for work, while the workforce has grown in suburbs and cities.

Still, when asked about their personal situations, rural residents described financial experiences that largely mirror those of urban respondents. The share of people who report experiencing severe economic hardship is roughly equal in urban and rural America: About 1 in 5 say there was a time in the past year when they couldn't pay their bills. Similarly, about 1 in 5 in both areas say they rely on the federal government at least a fair amount to get by.

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The poverty rate is similar in both areas, 16 percent in cities and 17 percent in rural areas, according to analysis of Census Bureau data.

(The Washington Post )

"There are signs everywhere saying 'now hiring, now hiring,'" said Crystal Schafer, of Linesville, Pa., who voted for Trump, when asked how her local economy is doing. "Granted, it might pay $8.59 an hour, but the jobs are there."

Rural Americans express far more concern about jobs in their communities, but the poll finds that those concerns have little connection to support for Trump, a frequent theory to explain his rise in 2016. Economic troubles also show little relation to the feeling that urban residents have different values.

Rural voters who lament their community's job prospects report supporting Trump by 14 percentage points more than Clinton, but Trump's support was about twice that margin  30 points  among voters who say their community's job opportunities are excellent or good. Trump also earned about the same level of support from those who say they don't worry about paying their bills as those who couldn't pay their bills at some point in the past year.

Most rural residents say they think key elements of Trump's economic agenda would help their local economy. Large majorities of rural residents say infrastructure investments, better trade deals, a crackdown on undocumented immigrant workers, lower business taxes and deregulation are "very" or "somewhat" important to boosting jobs in their communities.

"I have a hopeful optimism that he'll be successful in bringing back that strong American foundation, and part of that is a strong economy. And when you have a strong economy, that produces jobs and then more jobs in a never-ending circle," said Matthew Wendt, a corrections officer and retired Marine from Ashtabula, Ohio.

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Jaykob Gilson, 16, works a Roll-a-Ball game at Conneaut Lake Park, an amusement park in Pennsylvania, in June 2017. (Michael S. Williamson / The Washington Post)

The largest fissures between Americans living in large cities and those in less-dense areas are rooted in misgivings about the country's changing demographics and resentment about perceived biases in federal assistance, according to the poll.

Rural residents are nearly three times as likely (42 percent) as people in cities (16 percent) to say that immigrants are a burden on the country.

"They're not paying taxes like Americans are. They're getting stuff handed to them," said Larry E. Redding, a retired canning factory employee in Arendtsville, Pa. "Free rent, and they're driving better vehicles than I'm driving and everything else."

The poll reveals that perceptions about abuse of government benefits often go hand in hand with views about race.

When asked which is more common  that government help tends to go to irresponsible people who do not deserve it or that it doesn't reach people in need  rural Americans are more likely than others to say they think people are abusing the system. And across all areas, those who believe irresponsible people get undeserved government benefits are more likely than others to think that racial minorities receive unfair privileges.

In response to this poll question  "Which of these do you think is the bigger problem in this country: blacks and Hispanics losing out because of preferences for whites, or whites losing out because of preferences for blacks and Hispanics?"  rural whites are 14 points less likely than urban whites to say they are more concerned about blacks and Hispanics losing out.

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Rural Americans also are broadly skeptical that the federal government is fair or effective at improving people's economic situations. More than 60 percent say federal efforts to improve living standards either make things worse or have little impact. And those views appear to feed the rural-urban divide: A 56 percent majority of rural residents says the federal government does more to help people living in and around large cities, while 37 percent feel they treat both urban and rural areas equally.

"The culture and the type of people you see, they're different" in big cities, said Bethany Hanna, a homemaker in Saint Albans, W.Va., who said she visits urban areas on missions with her church. "It tends to be the type of people who are getting more assistance. ... And the way you hear people talking, the viewpoints that they have on certain matters, it leans toward a pretty liberal opinion. Some of it's an entitlement thing. They say 'that's not fair,' or 'I deserve this,' that kind of thing."

That sense of division is closely connected to the belief among rural Americans that Christian values are under siege. Nearly 6 in 10 people in rural areas say Christian values are under attack, compared with just over half of suburbanites and fewer than half of urbanites. When personal politics is taken into account, the divide among rural residents is even larger: 78 percent of rural Republicans say Christian values are under attack, while 45 percent of rural Democrats do.

Coleman's Bar-B-Que is a popular place to eat in Senatobia, Miss. (Michael S. Williamson / The Washington Post)

Still, the poll results show that rural America is far from a monolith. Views about immigrants, for example, are more closely tied to respondents' party affiliations than to where they lived.

Joseph Cloward, 27, a high school teacher in the border town of Roma, Texas, said he voted for Clinton because he "was really inspired by her message of goodness and trying to help people who really need it." He said he's sad about the way immigrants are treated.

"I feel like many of the people who are most upset don't actually know any immigrants personally. They're just talking about them based on what their idea is," he said. "I wish I could just bring people here and have them meet good people who are coming across looking for a better life, escaping violence."

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Rural Americans overall have mixed views on whether Trump respects them, with 50 percent saying he does and 48 percent saying he doesn't, a finding that goes against a common theory that Trump won by providing a relatable alternative to political elites. And while 54 percent of rural Americans approve of Trump's job performance, 40 percent disapprove. Equal shares of rural Americans  30 percent  strongly disapprove and strongly approve.

There also are significant divisions in small-town America between whites and minorities. One in 5 rural Americans are nonwhite, according to census data. In short, the sense of shared identity that connects many rural Americans  which factors into rural America's sense of fairness and estrangement  is less intense among rural minorities than among rural whites. While 78 percent of white rural residents say other rural residents share their values, that falls to 64 percent among Hispanics and to 55 percent of black residents.

Still, the vast majority of rural Americans judge their communities favorably as a place where people look out for each other, which in follow-up interviews was cited a point of pride and distinction they say they cannot find in large urban centers. "It ain't nothing like living inside a city," said Clyde Hampton, 72, of Vienna, Georgia. "I'll say this: Rural areas are a place where you can depend on your neighbor next door. And the town is so small everybody knows something; if something happens on this side of town and an hour later it's all over the whole town."
Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke has withdrawn his name from consideration for an assistant secretary position at the Department of Homeland Security, an adviser to Clarke confirmed to The Washington Post on Saturday.

"Late Friday, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. formally notified Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly that he had rescinded his acceptance of the agency's offer to join DHS as an assistant secretary," said Craig Peterson, an adviser to Clarke. "Sheriff Clarke is 100 percent committed to the success of President Trump and believes his skills could be better utilized to promote the president's agenda in a more aggressive role."

Clarke was expected to start in a role at DHS at the end of June, but according to one person close to the administration who is familiar with the situation, his appointment had been subject to significant delays that contributed to his withdrawal.

Clarke, a vocal supporter of Trump during the 2016 campaign, is also a controversial figure. He was accused of plagiarism, and has drawn scrutiny for conditions in his jails that left one mentally ill inmate dead.

Trump and Clarke met in Wisconsin on Tuesday, according to Peterson, and they discussed other roles in which Clarke could support Trump.

"The sheriff is reviewing options inside and outside of government," Peterson said. "Sheriff Clarke told Secretary Kelly he is very appreciative of the tremendous opportunity the secretary was offering, and expressed his support for the secretary and the agency."

Homeland Security and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
President Donald Trump boards Marine One with first lady Melania Trump and their son Barron Trump as they depart the White House for Camp David on June 17, 2017. (Molly Riley / Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A member of President Donald Trump's legal team repeatedly insisted that Trump is not under investigation for obstruction of justice but acknowledged he could not know for certain during combative Sunday television interviews.

"Let me be very clear here, as it has been since the beginning, the president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction," lawyer Jay Sekulow said on NBC's "Meet the Press," part of a blitz of bookings on the Sunday morning public affairs shows.

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That assessment, repeated on three other broadcasts, was at odds with a Washington Post report last week and seemingly with a tweet by Trump himself on Friday.

During a later appearance on "Fox News Sunday, " Sekulow conceded that he could not say with absolute certainty that Trump is not being investigated because he cannot read the mind of special counsel Robert S. Mueller.

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The Post reported last week that Mueller, who was appointed to oversee the investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 election, is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice.

On Twitter on Friday, Trump wrote as part of a tweet about the probe that "I am being investigated."

On Sunday, Sekulow sought to explain that Trump was using Twitter, a favorite means of communication with his supporters, to address The Post report and was not actually confirming that he is being investigated, despite writing those words.

"The president is not under investigation by the special counsel," Sekulow told NBC's Chuck Todd. "The tweet from the president was in response to the five anonymous sources that were purportedly leaking information to The Washington Post about a potential investigation of the president."

Sekulow cited recent congressional testimony by fired FBI director James B. Comey in which Comey said he had told Trump on a few occasions that Trump was not personally under investigation in relation to the Russia probe. Those conversations, however, occurred before Trump fired Comey, who was helping lead the investigation, and before the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to oversee the probe.

Last week's Post story cited five people briefed on the interview requests, who said that the current director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, head of the National Security Agency, Mike Rogers, and Rogers's recently departed deputy, Richard Ledgett, agreed to be interviewed by Mueller's investigators.

The five people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Sekulow referred to The Post story as "a fake report" during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.

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"We stand by our story, which President Trump confirmed Friday in a tweet acknowledging he is under investigation for obstruction of justice," Post executive editor Martin Baron said in a statement.

Other news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and CNN have had similar reports since The Post broke the news Wednesday night about Trump being under investigation.

In a testy exchange on Fox, Sekulow acknowledged he could not know for sure that Mueller has not opened an investigation but said he had no reason to believe he had.

"Nothing has changed" since Comey informed the president that he was not being personally investigated, he said.

The interview turned tense, however, when host Chris Wallace then asked Sekulow about the remainder of Trump's tweet, in which Trump had complained that he was being investigated for firing Comey by the man who told him to fire Comey.

Wallace asked Sekulow if Trump believes that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who wrote a memo criticizing Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation, has done anything wrong.

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Sekulow responded that Trump had been getting at a "constitutional issue."

"He's being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general and the deputy attorney general recommended him to take, by the agency that recommended he take the action. That's the constitutional threshold issue," Sekulow said.

When Wallace pointed out that Sekulow had appeared to agree in his answer that the president is under investigation, the lawyer grew flustered. He said he had only been discussing the constitutional problem posed if the president were being investigated.

"I don't appreciate you putting words in my mouth when I've been crystal clear that the president is not and has not been under investigation," he said.

"But you don't know that he's not under investigation again, sir?" Wallace responded.

"You're right, Chris. I cannot read the mind of the special prosecutor," Sekulow responded.

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"We're in agreement then," Wallace said.

Asked on the CBS show "Face the Nation" how he could know Trump is not under investigation, Sekulow responded: "Because we've received no notification of investigation."

He added that he could not "imagine a scenario" where Trump would be under investigation and not be aware of it.

A prosecutor may inform the subject or target of an investigation that a probe is underway but is under no obligation to do so.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Manual, prosecutors are encouraged to notify investigation targets at a "reasonable time" before seeking an indictment, to provide a target the opportunity to testify in front of a grand jury. But it outlines no requirement of notification, particularly while prosecutors are still gathering evidence.

Sekulow also told CBS on Sunday that Trump remains willing to speak under oath about the Russia matter, as Trump had promised at a Rose Garden news conference earlier this month.

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But Sekulow said he has not yet determined whether such a session would take place with Mueller or as part of ongoing congressional investigations into Russian meddling in the election.

Sekulow also said that he thinks Trump will address the question of whether there are recordings of his private conversations with Comey "in the week ahead."

Sekulow had made a similar promise during interviews last week, but he said the release of information about possible tapes had been delayed by events last week, including Trump's speech redefining the U.S. relationship with Cuba and the shootings at a Republican congressional baseball practice in Virginia.

On Fox, Wallace asked Sekulow if Trump believes the law allows for a president to be indicted.

Constitutional scholars have debated the question for years, though the Justice Department has said in formal opinions written under former presidents Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon that the Constitution bars a sitting president from facing legal indictment.

Sekulow responded that Trump couldn't be indicted "because there's not an investigation."

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"Oh boy, this is weird," Wallace responded. "You don't know whether there's an investigation. You just told us that."

Sekulow also insisted that Trump's tweets have posed no problems for his legal team. He said Trump had learned the effectiveness of social media as a communications tool during the campaign.

"Nothing he's tweeted has caused me any issues whatsoever," he said. "Nothing."
Substitute Teacher Terry Thourson teaching sports in gym class at Hawthorn School of Dual Language on Friday, March 10, 2017 in Vernon Hills. (Mark Kodiak Ukena/News-Sun)

As a substitute teacher shortage continues to plague Lake County and schools statewide, Wauconda School District 118 bumped up how much it will pay both short-term and long-term subs.

Substitute teachers in the 4,800-student district will earn $110 a day, up from $100, moving forward, said Cameron Willis, the district's assistant superintendent of human resources.

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Long-term substitute teachers will earn $200 a day, up from $155, after their first 10 days on a particular assignment, he said.

Competitive salaries are "important because you want to make sure that when a teacher is absent that there is still instruction going on in the classroom," Willis said.

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The district surveys local school districts on an annual basis to make sure it's competitive and presented the school board with the recommendation last month, he said. The board gave final approval to the increases Thursday.

A News-Sun report from March found that many local school districts are having trouble finding qualified substitute teachers to cover all their classrooms, sometimes forcing paraprofessionals or administrators to cover classes or schools to cancel professional development opportunities.

A survey of nearly 400 school districts conducted by the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools this past fall found that, statewide, school districts could not find substitute teachers to fill 18 percent of absences, leaving about 600 classrooms a day without a traditional sub.

Besides increasing overall pay, North Shore School District 112 is trying to get its subs to keep coming back through better customer service, seeking their feedback and inviting them to training and an annual meet-and-greet where they connect with district staff and other substitutes, said Monica Schroeder, District 112's assistant superintendent of personnel services.

Each Waukegan School District 60 student left for their summer vacations with a class schedule for the coming year, Superintendent Theresa Plascencia said.

The move was made possible by a new registration system, Plascencia said.

The nearly $39,000 purchase approved by the school board in November allows new and already enrolled students to be registered from anywhere they can get on an internet-connected computer, according to board documents.

The goal was to make sure each student knew what classes they'd be taking next year and who their teacher would be, Plascencia told the board during her report last week.

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Plascencia had proposed taking a deep look into how the district's registration and human resources departments operate after poor projections led to the elimination of 12 classes across the district more than three weeks into the school year.

Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

About 40 children were transferred to different schools as well, a district spokesman said at the time.

"Our goal is to not overcrowd any student in our district," Plascencia said last week.

New school board members continue to be appointed across Lake County in the wake of April's school board elections as boards look to fill in their vacancies.

Winthrop Harbor School District 1's board appointed Nicholas Dowdal to fill the vacancy created when only three people ran for the four open seats.

Dowdal received a bachelor of arts degree from Western Illinois University and works at Cancer Treatments Center of America, Superintendent Pat Goodwin said in an email. He has children in the district and is an active member of the community.

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emcoleman@tribpub.com

Twitter @mekcoleman
Police ask public to help identify vehicle allegedly used in homicide
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has become an important member of the world's multilateral development system and has injected new vitality to the development of sustainable infrastructure and connectivity, said Chinese Finance Minister Xiao Jie.

Xiao made the remarks at the Second Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the AIIB held Jeju Island, South Korea through Saturday.

Xiao said that Chinese leaders have attached great importance to the building and management of the AIIB, while members of the bank have also held high expectations for its future development.

With the support of its members, the bank has been off to a good start since it was launched in January 2016, Xiao said, adding that the bank has finished with high efficiency formulating rules and regulations, building organizational structure, and has approved 23 new members while deepening cooperation and partnership with relevant parties.

He stressed that the annual meeting, with the theme "Sustainable Infrastructure," shows the bank's commitment to promoting Asian as well as the world economic development through providing financing for sustainable infrastructure development.

The bank, with its lean structure and highly efficient operation model, has a late-development advantage in promoting sustainable infrastructure development, mobilizing private sector capital, and effectively responding to the needs of clients, Xiao said.

He hopes that the AIIB could exhibit its uniqueness and innovativeness as a 21st century development institution and inject new vitality to the existing multilateral development system, accurately comprehend the new trends of international development and better meet the diversified needs of its members, and increasingly mobilize the money from private sector to build a long-term, steady, sustainable multilateral financing system with risks under control for supporting infrastructure development.

The Second Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the AIIB kicked off on Friday, with governors and representatives of the members, government officials, international organization officials, scholars and businessmen in attendance.

The meeting approved three new members, Argentina, Madagascar and Tonga, to joint the bank, and decided that the third annual meeting to be held in Mumbai, India in June 2018.

Xiao attended the meeting as a Chinese governor of the bank. He also met with South Korean Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, and Financial Secretary of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Paul Chan Mo-po on the sidelines of the meeting.
Five blind students joined their peers Saturday to sit the national college English test in Changchun, capital of northeast China's Jilin Province, where test papers in Braille were used for the first time.

The five students, from Changchun University's School of Special Education, were given test papers in Braille in a separate classroom away from other students.

The five students, from Changchun University's School of Special Education, were given test papers in Braille in a separate classroom away from other students. Their test lasted 195 minutes instead of the standard 130 minutes, as it takes longer to read and write in Braille.

In a classroom next door, three other visually impaired -- but not totally blind -- students were given large-font test papers and 169 minutes to answer with the help of magnifying lenses and reading lamps.

"All the visually impaired students were put in well-lit classrooms on the first floor and provided with power cords, bottled water and snacks," said Li Meng, an exam official with Changchun University.

Two teachers, one of whom knew Braille, stood by in case the students needed help, he said.

For Luo Qian, a senior student majoring in acupuncture and massage, Saturday's test was a dream come true.

"If I pass the test, I will be one step closer to graduate school," said Luo, from central China's Hunan Province. She stayed up until after midnight revising for the test over the past few weeks.

Luo said she dreamed of becoming a teacher to help disabled children in her hometown earn their own living.

Luo wrote to education authorities in Jilin Province last September, asking for test papers in Braille to be made available for blind students, but her plea was unanswered and she failed to take the test last December as she hoped.

She repeated her request to Ministry of Education earlier this year and in May was told test papers in Braille would be available in the June test.

"This is the second major landmark for visually impaired students after test papers in Braille were used in the national college entrance exam in 2014," Luo said after the test.

That year, Li Jinsheng, a student from central China's Henan Province, became the first blind candidate to take the college entrance test. The move encouraged thousands of visually impaired students to study harder, enter higher education and live with dignity.

Changchun University's College for Special Education is one of China's largest higher education institutions for disabled young people. More than 370 of its students are visually impaired, according to Liu Haihan, a top college official.

The biannual College English Test, better known as the CET, is a national English as a foreign language test, which includes listening, reading and writing.

CET-4 or CET-6 is a requirement for university students.

Many universities will not allow a student to graduate without obtaining such a certificate, and it is often a prerequisite for those entering the job market.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (C), European Council President Donald Tusk (L) and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker co-chair the 19th China-EU leaders' meeting in Brussels, Belgium, June 2, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Although Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's trip to Germany and Belgium from May 31 to June 2 aided China's diplomatic relations with the two countries, the 19th China-EU leaders' meeting from June 1 to 2 in Brussels ended without a joint consensus about granting Market Economy Status (MES) to China in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

During his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Li persuaded European leaders to accord the status of "Market Economy" to China and relax their actions regarding the dumping of Chinese goods.

In his keynote speech at the 19th China-EU leaders' meeting, Premier Li Keqiang urged the European Union (EU) to fulfill its obligations under Article 15 of the protocol on China's accession to the WTO, so as to pave the way towards a stable development of China-EU relations. He stressed that Article 15 is a sunset provision and that all sides should act in line with WTO rules.

China became the 143rd member of the WTO on December 11, 2001, after 15 years of arduous and prolonged negotiations. Over the past 15 years, China has made great contributions to the WTO's multilateral trading system as well as to global economic growth.

Since joining the WTO, China has strictly adhered to WTO rules by gradually reducing tariff levels. China has also actively assumed its responsibilities as a major developing trading nation, cutting its overall tariff rate from 15.3 percent to 9.8 percent. It has long been an advocate of free trade, as evidenced by the fact that it has to date signed 14 free trade agreements with 22 countries.

According to Article 15, WTO members should have stopped using the surrogate country approach to conduct anti-dumping investigations on China by December 11, 2016. Under the surrogate country approach, WTO members use costs of production in a third country to calculate the value of products from countries on its "non-market economy" list, which includes China.

China should receive Market Economy Status, which would allow it to enjoy the same market status as the United States and the European Union when it comes to anti-dumping investigations in the WTO. Since the WTO's establishment in 1995, EU members have launched 1,149 trade investigations into China.

In a biased, myopic move, the EU continues to deny Market Economy Status to China on the basis that China is not yet a proper free market. European companies complain that they cannot easily penetrate the Chinese marketplace. Europe does not want to let relatively cheaper Chinese goods flood European markets at a higher rate for fear of undermining local economies. The excuses put forward by the EU are discriminatory.

The EU's censure of China as being accountable for the steel glut in the 28-country bloc is untenable. China's steel exports to the EU are small compared to other countries. China's low value-added steel products are complementary to the EU's steel market portfolio. Without exports from China, the EU would still have to turn to other countries to import similar products. That will not stem job losses in the EU.

China's leadership in boosting regional and global economies through programs such as the "Belt and Road" initiative was supported by WTO reviewers during the sixth round of the Trade Policy Review (TPR) of WTO in Geneva last July.

However, during the meeting with Premier Li Keqiang, Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed that the EU will offer equal treatment to Chinese enterprises under the protocol on China's accession to the WTO. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said that his country is ready to play an active part to push the EU to fulfill its WTO obligations. But a majority of the EU members has failed to reach a consensus on accepting China's Market Economy Status.

It should be noted that over 80 countries, including Russia, New Zealand, Singapore and Australia, have recognized China's status as a market economy.

In fact, China's "non-market" label has become a wild card to the EU and the U.S. to contain China's exports and shield local industries, which is unfair. As the world's second largest economy and the largest trade partner for more than 130 countries, China has become a bedrock for protecting global free trade.

The EU and U.S. should not continue to look at China through colored glasses. As an important member of the WTO, the EU should designate China as a market economy if it can truly see the bigger picture of EU-China trade, especially at a time when the Trump administration has stepped back from America's traditional role of dominance on trade and development.

Rabi Sankar Bosu, Secretary of New Horizon Radio Listeners' Club, West Bengal, India.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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The Russian Air forces eliminated two top Islamic State (IS) field commanders and some 180 terrorists during airstrikes in Syria in early June, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday.

Based on disclosures by their unmanned aerial vehicles, the Russian troops in Syria carried out strikes on IS militants and thwarted the terrorist group's planned sortie against the defense lines of the Syrian government forces in the city of Deir ez-Zor, according to a statement of the ministry.

"The preemptive airstrikes, which the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out on the sites of ISIL facilities on June 6 and June 8, killed ISIL field commanders Abu Omar al-Baljiki and Abu Yassin al-Masri" Russia's Interfax news agency cited the ministry's statement as saying, using another acronym of the terrorist group.

In addition, a total of 180 IS militants were also killed, and 16 automotive and armored vehicles and tanks, one artillery, four control posts and an ammunition storage depot were destroyed as a result of the strikes, the statement said.

The Defense Ministry said Friday that an airstrike it carried out in northern Syria on May 28 might have killed IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. So far, no official confirmation of it has been released.
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The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing the fate of President Donald Trump's travel ban. But it remains unknown what the outcome will be.

Demonstrators rally in front of the White House, Washingtong against Trump's executive order barring U.S. entry to all refugees and seven Mideast and North African countries citizens on Feb. 4, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Just six weeks after coming into office, Trump signed an executive order in March that would ban citizens of six Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States for a period of 90 days. The Trump administration says it needs the 90-day window to better ascertain the supposed terror threat coming from these nations. The countries in question are Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - countries that were initially cited by the former Obama administration as "countries of concern."

Critics of the ban call it unconstitutional, while supporters say the White House and Congress should be, by law, deciding national security policy, not the courts.

On Monday Trump's ban lost a battle in the 9th circuit court, and the executive order is now being weighed by the Supreme Court, which has the final say on whether Trump's ban is constitutional.

Some experts said that, based on history, there's a high likelihood that the lower court ruling will be overturned, and that the Supreme Court will rule in Trump's favor.

One reason is because the 9th circuit court has had a large percentage of its rulings overturned.

Critics said it's one of the nation's most liberal courts, and noted that it is heavily laden with judges appointed by former President Bill Clinton, a liberal Democrat. Critics have blasted that court's judges for, they allege, acting more as activists rather than sticking to their duty of upholding the law.

Republican strategist Ford O'Connell told Xinhua the Supreme Court's decision will be very close, and will rest on the most moderate judge in the court, Anthony Kennedy.

"The question you have to ask yourself is, if this executive order went through under (former) President Obama...would it pass muster? A lot of people in the legal community think it might," O'Connell said, speaking of former President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

Hans von Spakovsky, a legal expert at the Heritage Foundation, told Xinhua: "it is my opinion that the three 9th Circuit judges - all appointed by Bill Clinton - who issued the decision, were acting as advocates, not judges."

"They failed to follow prior U.S. Supreme Court decisions that upheld the authority of the president to suspend the entry of any aliens into the country. They didn't even follow prior decisions of the 9th Circuit on this same issue," he said.

When asked how he thought the Supreme Court will rule on the issue, he said: "If the justices of the Supreme Court follow their own prior rulings, then they will overturn the 9th Circuit and rule in favor of the president and the government," he said.

"I hope they will put the law ahead of their politics," he said.

Trump's proposed travel ban comes at a time when terrorism is on the rise in developed countries, having risen 200 percent since 2013, according to a report released earlier this month.

The Global Terrorism Index, compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace, found that since 2007, deaths related to terror attacks have jumped by over 900 percent in OECD nations.

O'Connell said what's been frustrating for the Trump administration is that "they want to use all tools necessary to stop a threat that appears to be metastasizing around the world, and essentially what the Democrats are saying is 'well, we should just continue with our course of action.'"

Many Americans do not favor the ban, despite the support from Trump's base, and some experts said there is a disconnect between Trump's anti-terrorism policies and the actual threat. They say that many terrorism attacks or attempted attacks have come from people already living inside the United States.

One example is the Orlando, Florida shooter who last year opened fire inside a gay nightclub and killed dozens of people. The attacker, a U.S. citizen of Afghanistan descent, had pledged allegiance to terror group Islamic State.
Prospective homebuyers enquire about an upcoming residential property at a Beijing real estate fair. Recent measures against speculative property investments are said to be pushing demand from top-tier cities to small cities. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Transactions are down too, but demand shifts to lower-tier cities, sparking concerns

Recent measures against speculative property investments have begun to have the desired impact of reining in runaway preowned home prices and cooling the transaction frenzy in top-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, said analysts.

But the unintended side-effect is that demand is shifting to smaller cities where prices of both homes and land are surging.

According to Yunfang Data, a property information provider, 10,802 preowned homes in Beijing were transacted in May, down almost 36 percent from April and the lowest in the past 27 months.

The average price of preowned homes in Beijing dropped 0.72 percent in May to 69,493 yuan ($10,224) per square meter from the April level.

According to BA Consulting, the average price declined some 2.4 percent between April and May.

"As transaction volumes continue to drop, the average price is likely to decline further," said Kong Dan, a researcher with BA Consulting.

Sales of commercial-titled apartments to individual buyers were barred. So, such flats, which were part of the preowned homes market, are no longer part of supply.

As for Shanghai, according to qianzhan.com, another industry information provider, 14,600 preowned homes were transacted in May, down more than 5 percent from April.

The average price in Shanghai, however, did not budge much, staying around 72,000 yuan / sq m in the central area and 43,000 yuan/sq m in suburban areas.

One of the reasons is that supply of land parcels for new residential projects in Beijing and Shanghai is limited.

This sets limits on both incremental supply of, and transactions in, the preowned home market. So, existing supply dominated transactions in the two cities' central districts.

Shanghai housing authorities said earlier this month that the changes in the situation are proof that "market-specific policies" are taking effect.

Tighter lending norms meant that prospective homebuyers are no longer able to afford down payments for apartments.

Shanghai realty agents said transactions in the preowned home market are "sloppy" because both supply and demand are "bearish".

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, which monitors the average housing price in 70 cities, Shanghai's home prices have fallen 0.2 percent.

"After April, when the average price started to drop slightly for the first time in the past few years, many sellers withdrew from the market. They fear that deals at a time of falling prices would cause loss of value. They expect prices to recover later. But homebuyers have suspended buying, waiting for further price cuts," said Luo Weijuan, 29, an agent with Minyu Real Estate in Jing'an district.

"Some sellers, fearing that prices would drop further quickly, are open to bargaining, but they insist on payment in cash in lump sum."

She estimates that the average price of a preowned home in central Jing'an district has dropped some 4 percent in the past two months.

At the same time, for some spacious apartments that command a high price, the price cut could be as much as 10 percent, as long as the buyers are able to pay upfront using debit cards or bank checks.

In some smaller cities neighboring top-tier cities, such as Jiaxing, which is about an hour's drive from Shanghai, housing prices picked up quickly as a result of the spillover effect.

The average price of preowned homes in the city's central districts was about 5,000 yuan /sq m in June 2015, but rose to some 12,000 yuan/sq m earlier this month.

Yang Kewei, an analyst with CRIC China, a realty information provider, said that the market heat of key cities is now shifting to lower-tier cities, and it is likely that their key regions will heat up next.

"Fresh purchase restrictions may be imposed in lower-tier cities if local decision-makers decide to stabilize home prices," said Yang.

In a research note last Monday, the China Academy of Social Sciences said more home purchase restrictions and tightened monetary policy will weigh on market demand in the short term.

The note predicted that prices in previously red-hot markets like Beijing will continue to fall.

For their part, Shanghai authorities said they will continue to work toward stable and sustainable development of the local real estate market.
DAMASCUS -- China has been keeping in touch with concerned parties in Syria in order to achieve a political settlement to the country's long-standing conflict through peace negotiations, a Chinese envoy said here on Saturday.

China has kept in touch with all concerned parties in Syria, aiming to restore peace and stability through peace talks, said Xie Xiaoyan, special envoy of the Chinese government on the Syrian issue, at a news briefing in the Chinese embassy in Damascus.

"We are in touch with the Syrian government, the opposition, the regional countries, and other powers that are either directly, or indirectly, involved in the Syrian issue, and this is our advantage in mediation," he said.

With regard to the political reconciliation process, Xie stressed China's commitment to promoting peace talks and implementing the achievements in Syria.

China hopes that involved parties in Syria will achieve reconciliation and eventually form a national reconciliation government, he said.

Meanwhile, the envoy pointed out that China has been providing humanitarian assistance within its capacity.

China has provided Syria and some other countries in the region with around 680 million yuan (100 million U.S. dollars) of humanitarian aid, including cash, medical equipment, medicine, and food to help alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people, he said.

Xie stressed that terrorism is the common enemy of the whole world, and Syrian factions, regional countries and the international community should be united in counter-terrorism efforts without employing double standards.

Speaking of the deal on de-escalation zones, which went into force in Syria last month and largely helped curb violence in some areas, the envoy said the involved parties had reached a consensus on the establishment of de-escalation zones in the last round of peace talks held in Astana, which was an important step towards resolving Syrian crisis.

Xie voiced hope that the concerned parties would nail details of the agreement as soon as possible to bring it into effect.

There is no quick solution to the Syrian issue, Xie noted, stressing that all parties should understand each other and make joint efforts to maintain the momentum of the peace talks.

"China has patience and confidence to advance settlement of the Syrian issue on the right track through concrete work, so that the crisis could gradually ease before it is finally resolved," he said.

During his visit to Damascus on Saturday, Xie exchanged views with Syrian officials on bilateral relations, as well as regional and international issues of common concern.
An exhibition room at the EEKA Fashion Corp factory in Yudu county, East China's Jiangxi province, on June 14. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Huang Lei, senior director of EEKA Fashion Corp, a China based women's apparel manufacturer with nearly 1000 wholly owned stores, has confirmed the company's development of "smart manufacturing", which will enable women to custom-order, and request changes on, articles of clothing via a mobile application.

Huang said the company invested 100 million yuan ($14.7 million) in developing the project on June 15. He works at a factory in Yudu county, East China's Jiangxi province.

"The smart production line will be on trial in South China's Shenzhen city," Huang said. "If everything goes well, it will then be brought here."

As EEKA was the first women's clothing company in China to develop smart manufacturing, Huang said the company hoped it could become a leader in the field in the next two years. He added the company planned to produce 355,000 clothes through smart manufacturing, which would create a revenue of 603 million yuan by 2019.

Production would also be flexible, which meant more small-lot and personal orders, Huang said.

"In the past, an order in the clothing industry would create a thousand duplicates of the same dress, but in the smart manufacturing age, every dress might be different, catering to the customers' growing personalized appetite," he said.

"At the APP, a customer will not only be able to select the color and size of the clothes, but also change the design of the neckline, cuff, and other details."

The smart platform would also cut the time in half to design, make and receive the order, Huang said.

"It means a new style dress can be produced more quickly," he said.

In addition, smart manufacturing has been a focus in the Made in China 2025 strategy, a road map proposed in 2015, which was designed to upgrade China's manufacturing industry in ten years.

Manufacturing has gradually integrated with advanced information technologies, such as cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence. Robots will eventually replace humans in some factories.

However, Huang said human labor was still needed in EEKA despite the way things were going in the industry, as a result of "the feature of the clothing industry".

The EEKA factory in Yudu, a county where many people still live in poverty, has created about 1800 jobs. Huang said it was also a big tax payer for the local government, and the company's headquarter was located in South China's Shenzhen.

"The factory is just like a town," he said. "For the workers' convenience, it has various facilities like a dormitory, cinema and karaoke bar, and also library has been built."
A platform is used to collect combustible ice in the South China Sea recently. GUO JUNFENG/CHINA DAILY

Editor's note: In the run-up to the 19th Communist Party of China National Congress, China Daily will cover a series of key projects of national importance, showcasing the country's huge improvement and relentless efforts in manufacturing upgrade and innovation.

Though still 15 years from commercial use, so-called combustible ice and its successful mining in China is seen as a breakthrough toward a global energy revolution.

Chinese researchers have explored some 210,000 cubic meters of combustible ice trapped in frozen crystals in the South China Sea in the 30 days since a test drilling and production operation in early May. Daily production reached 6,800 cu m.

It will be another energy revolution, led by China following the US shale revolution, reshaping the global energy mix, said Li Jinfa, deputy director of China Geological Survey, which is under the Ministry of Land and Resources.

Reserves of gas hydrate, as combustible ice or flammable ice is known, in the South China Sea are estimated at 80 billion metric tons of oil equivalent, he added.

The ministry said it would formulate policies to encourage participation in the exploration of various types of combustible ice, while aspects including exploration block delineation, granting of licenses for mining, mining registration and development will be given priority to pave a path for commercialization of the frozen fuel.

According to a report on China's energy and mineral geology survey in 2016, China's gas hydrate could last the country for 100 years and could well be China's next big opportunity in energy.

China's choice of vigorous expansion of flammable ice mining at the moment is due to its urgency to replace conventional energy to optimize the energy structure and relieve problems caused by energy shortages, analysts said.

The nation now relies heavily on crude imports. Successfully mining flammable ice will substantially boost its energy security while lifting the country's clean energy production technologies to a new level, said Lu Hailong, a professor at the Institute of Ocean Research at Peking University.

Han Wenke, director of the Energy Research Institute at the National Development and Reform Commission, said environmental concerns had been pushing China to further upgrade its energy mix. Right now, China has a relatively high proportion of coal, which creates heavy pollution.

According to the International Energy Agency, China has been increasingly relying on imported oil as demand increases, and it is estimated that China's reliance on oil imports in 2020 could be even greater than the government's plan suggests.

All these are pushing China toward a cleaner fuel alternative.
Yu Ya'nan, a student majoring in piano performance at Changchun University's Special Education School, studies English at a library on Friday. Yu was one of the first five blind students to take the College English Test. ZHANG NAN/XINHUA

China's education authority pledged to keep improving the accessibility for students with disabilities to taking exams after five visually impaired students took the national college English test for the first time on Saturday.

Exam administration bodies nationwide will continue optimizing the procedures and providing logistical and academic assistance to exam takers who have disabilities to serve their specific needs in taking various national exams, the National Education Examination Authority said on Sunday.

The authority, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Education, stressed that accessibility is the key in a written response to an interview on thepaper.cn after a group of students took the English test in Jilin province.

Five blind students from Changchun University's School of Special Education joined their peers on Saturday to take the College English Test, better known as CET, with their test papers printed in Braille in a separate room away from other students in Changchun, capital of Jilin province.

The CET includes listening, reading and writing. Many Chinese universities will not allow a student to graduate without obtaining a CET 4 or 6 certificate.

This was the first time Braille test papers were used at the exam. The blind students were given 195 minutes for the test, 65 minutes longer than usual to allow more time to read and write in Braille.

In a classroom next door, three visually impaired students were given large-font test papers and 169 minutes to answer with the help of magnifying lenses and reading lamps.

All the visually impaired students were accommodated in a well-lit classroom on the first floor and provided with power cords, bottled water and snacks, Li Meng, an exam official at Changchun University, told Xinhua on Saturday.

Two teachers, one of whom knew Braille, stood by in case the students needed help, he said.

"The measures were made to ensure that visually disabled people could have convenient and equal access to the exams," the authority said.

Since early last year, the administration and the China Disabled Persons' Federation have been working closely to finalize the regulation and detailed operational procedures for blind and visually disabled students to take the exam.

Successful experiences of this test as a pilot will be introduced to more regional examining authorities to benefit more students, said the authority.

The new policy has helped some disabled students like Luo Qian, a senior majoring in acupuncture and massage at the university, realize their dreams.

Access to the CET marks the second major landmark for blind and visually impaired students after they were officially allowed to take the gaokao, the national college entrance exam, in 2014. In April of that year, the Ministry Education issued a regulation in April that year requiring examining bodies to provide assistance and tools to enable such students to take the test.

Last year, the regulation was extended to cover students with a variety of disabilities to allow them to enter gaokao test halls ahead of time with specialized staff, such as sign language interpreters, to offer help.

Xinhua contributed to this story.
Brian Linden helps to set up a dining area at his hotel in Xizhou, Yunnan. REN DONG/CHINA NEWS SERVICE

When he was 16, Brian Linden, from Chicago, started cleaning carpets 40 hours a week to make a living. In 1983, with little hope in life, he was in the fourth year of the job when he met a professor from Chicago University.

At the time, Linden had no idea where China was, so he never expected his destiny would be linked with the country or that he would devote himself to protecting its culture.

"'I don't have any choice.' That's what I told the professor when he said I shouldn't clean carpets all the time," recalled Linden, co-founder of the Linden Center, a heritage hotel in Xizhou township, Dali city, Yunnan province.

The professor offered Linden a choice by telling him that China was recruiting foreign students. Linden followed his suggestion to apply, and was successful as the "most proletarian" applicant, because he his father was illiterate and his mother didn't finish senior high school.

Soon after his arrival in China in 1984, Linden was chosen by the Beijing Film Studio to act in a movie. When CBS interviewed him about the film, he asked the broadcaster to employ him in China, gaining the job after spending a month teaching himself how to use a camera.

"I went from being a nobody from America to suddenly having hopes and dreams," the 50-something said, adding that his experience in China helped him win a scholarship to study at John Hopkins University and at Stanford University.

He said he was one of the few US nationals who "have been changed completely by the Chinese dream" rather than the American dream: "Most of these people already had the American dream because they had the money to go to university. I didn't have that."

Having visited more than 100 countries, he said Chinese culture is one of the best.

In 2006, he and his wife, Jeanee, quit their jobs, sold their house in the US and decided to settle down in China with their two children.

After traveling around for about two years, they started a heritage hotel in a traditional Bai ethnic compound in Xizhou, which was built in 1947 and listed as a national cultural heritage site in 2001.

Because it was large, old house, Linden could use to show that "even though you preserve the natural beauty and don't dress it up much, it will still seduce the world".

"We came here because we know China is not well-presented to the world. China's culture needs a new model of protection and promotion," he said.

For Linden, the biggest challenge he has met while running the hotel is the lack of recognition of heritage hotels in China.

The Chinese model of tourism relies greatly on luxury instead of tradition and good amenities: "Some of our Chinese guests have expectations of luxury and comfort that we cannot match here."

He and his employees have to overwhelm clients with their service and passion to makeup for the "hardware" in competition with other hotels.

Heritage hotels are still new in China, and some people still don't know exactly what they are. The situation is changing, though, thanks to the media's growing attention to the new phenomenon.

Linden employs 60 local people at the 16-room hotel because locals are also important for the hotel, and it needs to get the locals involved.

"This (the Linden Center) will be part of Xizhou and part of Chinese culture forever. This building should be taken good care of. It shouldn't be just a foreigner doing this. I hope that one day the local people will be able to take this over. It would be a joy to know that we provided a model and gave it back to the community," he said.
Australia's groundswell of bias counterproductive: China Daily editorial 2017-06-18 18:08:19 chinadaily.com.cn The longtime and deep-running US influence in their country means some narrow-minded Australians and biased media do not want to see China's economic influence in Australia rising.

That Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull labeled China a "frenemy" at an event last year was leaked by Australia's Fairfax Media on Friday shows some in Australia are intent on trying to disrupt the generally rosy picture of bilateral cooperation by continuing to whip up anti-China sentiment.

In the past few weeks, Australian media have used unfounded evidence And wild speculation to accuse China of trying to expand its political influence in Australia, trying to "instigate China panic" as Chinese Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye noted earlier last week.

Turnbull himself has joined the chorus of bias against China, and his speech addressing the Shangri-La Forum in Singapore early this month has been cited as proof he is adopting a tougher stance toward China.

Such a worrying trend has naturally aroused concerns in China and prompted doubts about Canberra's sincerity in promoting meaningful interaction with Beijing. If the trend continues, it will no doubt put a brake on the current good momentum in bilateral cooperation, which will only do a disservice to the interests of both sides.

The current groundswell of China-bashing in Australia stems from those Australians still clinging to an outdated zero-sum mentality, those who have bought into the US' strategy to contain China.

Indeed, it is Australia's role in the US' alliance system in the region that has resulted in it suffering from schizophrenia, since it is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a balance between its most important ally on the one hand and its biggest trading partner on the other.

The longtime and deep-running US influence in their country means some narrow-minded Australians and biased media do not want to see China's economic influence in Australia rising.

However, Australian politicians and media need to understand developing a constructive and growing relationship with China, and realizing the opportunities of what Australia itself has identified as the Asian century, serves the best interests of their country and contributes to the stability and development of the region at large.

Right now, the wide global support being offered to the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative should help dispel any ill-grounded suspicions it may have of Beijing's strategic intentions in the region and beyond.

The Australian leader should show political wisdom and vision by playing his part in building an objective and fair public perception of China in his country, which is the essential foundation for bilateral ties to grow healthily and exert a positive influence on regional peace and development.
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter jet does a low-level flyby over Forward Operating Base Bostick in eastern Afghanistan January 1, 2009. [Photo/Agencies]

US Secretary of Defense James Mattis and his Qatari counterpart Khalid bin Mohammad al-Attiyah recently signed an initial agreement for a $12-billion sale of US-manufactured F-15 fighters to Qatar.

The sale came amid the simmering crisis in the Persian Gulf after Saudi Arabia and its regional allies accused Qatar of supporting terrorism and cut diplomatic ties with Doha following US President Donald Trump's tour of the Middle East during which he alleged the emirate's involvement in "high-level funding" of terrorism. On the same day as the deal, two US warships arrived at Qatar's Hamad Port for a joint military drill in the Gulf.

In a statement after the agreement, Qatar's defense ministry said the deal highlighted the joint efforts of Qatar and the United States to fulfill their commitments to bilateral military cooperation. Coming a few days after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates launched a diplomatic embargo against Qatar, the move by the US reflects the Trump administration's diplomatic ambivalence toward the Middle East region.

During his first overseas trip to Saudi Arabia as US president, Trump struck arms deals with Saudi Arabia worth $110 billion and a contract worth $350 billion over the next 10 years.

As a reward for Riyadh, Trump made critical remarks against Qatar along with Iran during his Middle East trip, emboldening Riyadh's diplomatic boycotting of Doha.

However, the diplomatic crisis around Qatar may have gone beyond the Trump administration's imagining. Despite being a small nation, Qatar is of strategic significance to the US given that it is home to the US' largest airbase in the Middle East and the command headquarters for US military operations in the region. The diplomatic rift following Trump's accusations against Qatar has brought such trouble to the US that US departments of state and defense had to reassure Doha.

The US' U-turn toward Qatar is once again proof of the US' "money-first" foreign policy.

-Beijing Youth Daily
BOGOTA - At least one woman was killed and eleven injured after an explosive device detonated in a restroom in an upscale shopping center in Colombia's capital on Saturday, officials said.

The Andino shopping center in an exclusive area of Bogota was evacuated after the blast in the second floor women's toilets. The Andino commercial center was packed with people flocking to buy gifts ahead of Father's Day celebrations on Sunday.

Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa denounced the attack. Police said the device was placed in the toilet bowl.

"The cowardly terrorist attack in Andino really hurts me," he said on Twitter. The victim was a 23-year-old French woman, Penalosa told reporters.

Streets surrounding the commercial building were closed by police and ambulances raced to the scene as security officials tried to establish who was responsible for the blast.

A photograph on Twitter showed a woman slumped against the wall with a pool of blood around her and what appears to be a large shard of metal piercing her back. In front of her is another woman with her leg torn apart above the knee.

President Juan Manuel Santos has ordered an investigation into the incident.

Security has improved in Bogota over the last decade as police and military increased surveillance and put more armed officials on the streets. At one time all bags were checked at the entrance to shopping malls, but that has been vastly scaled back in recent years.

Sniffer dogs still check cars at parking facilities in the capital.

A peace accord signed last year with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's biggest guerrilla group, raised confidence bomb attacks might cease, but in February the second largest insurgent group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, exploded a device in Bogota that injured dozens of police.

Reuters
I want to begin by sharing that this is my final column for the "Interfaith Voices" series. Next month I will conclude my time with Beit Am and relocate to Portland to begin serving a congregation there. I am grateful to Barbara Nixon of First United Methodist, the visionary and coordinator behind this project, and Mike McInally, who has graciously welcomed these contributions onto the pages of the Gazette-Times. It has been an honor to participate in this ongoing conversation.

I will miss Corvallis, for many reasons. One of the things I have appreciated most here is that, despite the relative homogeneity of our population, many people, including those in leadership, work to foster diversity of representation and input. It is of course a work in progress, but I count it as one of Corvallis strengths.

To sincerely commit to inclusivity, however, is no easy task. To do so, not in a token fashion but for the sake of genuinely welcoming and being influenced by a diversity of identity and expression, is to enlist in a demanding and even risky project. I consistently return to the teachings of Jewish philosopher and sage Martin Buber, who viewed the world through the primary orientation of encountering the other  whomever they may be  as You (or Thou) as opposed to It.

In encountering another as you, he or she becomes in our eyes a living and vital entity in and of him or herself. They are not there to meet my needs or confirm the world as I perceive it. Rather, their genuine presence asks me to imagine the world as they might perceive it. This is where risk comes in: to truly encounter the other, we must be willing to have our own perceptions challenged. We must be willing to realize that there are things about the world that we do not and perhaps cannot understand from where we sit. And then we must be willing to dwell amidst the discomfort of being true to who we are while making room for others to be true to who they are.

Often this meeting involves tension, where two narratives clash with each other. At that point, we can either double down, so to speak  asserting our own assumptions of the world more fervently and claiming that the others is an illusion, or we can take the next step in the long, slow, humbling and ultimately redemptive work of actual human encounter across lines often left uncrossed.

As I experience it, meeting each other in this way is an essential ingredient in serving as a vessel for Gods presence in this world. This is at the heart of Bubers teaching: that the Divine dwells in that space  the often risky and destabilizing space  in which we encounter another just as he or she is. The tendency we have to cling to our own narratives at the expense of others is understandable. But in doing so we perpetuate misunderstanding, if not conflict and even oppression. The instruction to find God in the space between us challenges us to suspend our presumptions and actually be shaped by our encounters in the world.

Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav taught: The end of knowledge is [the realization] that we do not know. Not certainty, but curiosity and humility are at the heart of this model of faith. If we hope truly to include and affirm others humanity, we must be willing to abandon some  and at times much  of what we presume to know.

In these days and years ahead, may we endeavor to know less, and have the courage to set aside our well-trodden narratives, thus making room for the Divine wellspring that flows from the midst of our meeting the other anew.
People stand outside the Andino shopping center after an explosive device detonated in a restroom, in Bogota, Colombia June 17, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

BOGOTA - Three young women were killed and nine others injured after a strong explosion rocked a shopping mall in Colombia's capital Saturday, local media reported.

Among the dead is a 23-year-old French women who was performing social service in Bogota.

The explosion occurred in a bathroom on the second floor of Andino shopping mall in the northern part of the city after explosives were detonated, according to local authorities.

Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa called the attack a "cowardly terrorist bombing" on Twitter.

In a Twitter message, President Juan Manuel Santos ordered police to investigate the incident.




China's Global Newspaper





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South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivers a speech during an opening ceremony for 2nd annual meeting of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), in Jeju, South Korea June 16, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

JEJU ISLAND, South Korea - The China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) won achievements in a short time of just one and a half years despite challenges facing the international development bank, South Korea's deputy finance minister said.

"AIIB already generated achievements in one and a half years of its establishment," Song In-chang, deputy minister for international affairs at South Korea's Ministry of Strategy and Finance, told Xinhua Saturday on the sidelines of the AIIB's annual meeting.

The second annual meeting of the AIIB's board of governors lasted for two days through Saturday in South Korea's southern resort island of Jeju.

The first meeting was held in Beijing last year. The third annual meeting was scheduled to be held in India in June 2018.

The AIIB, officially launched in January 2016, is a multilateral development bank initiated by China and supported by a wide range of countries and regions, which provides financing for infrastructure improvement in Asia.

The deputy minister said the 18-month-old AIIB achieved what other multilateral development banks (MDBs) took four to five years to achieve.

To date, the AIIB has approved 2.49 billion U.S. dollars in financing for 16 infrastructure projects in nine countries. Twelve of the projects were co-financed, while four were standalone projects prepared by the bank.

"AIIB's progress is very fast. AIIB President Jin Liqun did well," said Song.

Despite the lack of experience of the newest international financial institution, Song said the AIIB has an advantage of making a fast decision by the decision-making body.

He said the South Korean government will actively support corporate infrastructure projects linked to the AIIB by creating a firm networking with AIIB officials.

Meanwhile, Song held a separate press conference with local reporters on Saturday, saying South Korea's hosting of the AIIB's first annual meeting outside the Beijing headquarters had a great meaning to the country.

President Moon Jae-in, who took office on May 10, made a congratulatory address at the opening ceremony of the AIIB annual meeting on Friday, making a debut into the international event.

South Korea is the fifth-biggest shareholder of the AIIB which owns about $100 billion of subscribed capital, including some $20 billion in paid-in capital.

The deputy minister said South Korea planned to share its technology, experience and finance of infrastructure with other AIIB members to contribute to the environmentally-friendly economic development in Asia.

Among the 80 approved members, 75 delegations attended the AIIB's second annual meeting along with 46 officials from multilateral development banks such as the Asian Development Bank.

"It was a very high participation rate," said Song. In addition to the delegations and MDB officials, central bankers and over 20 finance ministers attended the second annual meeting.

The number of AIIB members was raised to 80, including 57 founding members, as the board of governors approved Argentina, Madagascar and Tonga as new members during the business session on Friday.
Firefighters work to put out a forest fire near Bouca, in central Portugal, June 18, 2017.[Photo/Agencies]

LISBON - Portugal has declared three days of national morning as the forest fire death toll has reached 62.

Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes has told state broadcaster RTP that the number of victims from the flames and suffocating smoke has reached 60, while another two people perished in a traffic accident related to the fires.

The death toll has gradually climbed from the 19 initially announced late on Saturday. Gomes said most of the victims were caught in their vehicles on the road.\

Another 59 people have been injured and taken to hospitals, including five in serious condition.

The government has declared Sunday through Tuesday national days of mourning for the victims of a fire "which has caused an irreparable loss of human life."

The government also said that 360 soldiers are joining the 700 firefighters struggling to put out the blaze that started on Saturday.

The blaze on Saturday hit the mountainous area of Pedrogao Grande, 200 km northheast of Lisbon, amid an intense heat wave and rainless thunderstorms. Police said a lightning striking a tree probably caused the fire.

"The smoke cloud is very low, which does not allow helicopters and fire planes to work efficiently ... but we're doing everything possible and impossible to put out this fire," Gomes said, adding that no villages were currently at risk.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald, damaged by colliding with a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel, is seen at the US naval base in Yokosuka, Japan June 18, 2017.[Photo/Agencies]

TOKYO -- All seven bodies of US sailors missing after a collision between the US Navy's guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald and a Philippine container vessel have been found aboard the stricken destroyer, local media reported Sunday.According to Japan's public broadcaster NHK, all seven bodies of the missing sailors were found aboard the destroyer in areas that had become flooded after the collision, such as a living space and a machine room.The Navy said in a statement that rescuers had gained access to spaces that were damaged during the collision."As search and rescue crews gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision this morning, the missing sailors were located," the US 7th Fleet said, although itself, in contrast to Japanese media, did not specify the number of bodies recovered.The US military will now proceed to confirm the identity of the bodies and inform the families of the deceased, it said. The bodies are being transferred to Naval Hospital Yokosuka.Three others were injured in the collision, local media said, including Cmdr. Bryce Benson, the Fitzgerald's commanding officer, who is in a stable condition in hospital. Two other crew members were airlifted to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, the Navy said.According to the Japan Coast Guard, the collision occurred about 100 kilometers southwest of Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, and was first reported by the Philippine container vessel at around 2:25 a.m. local time on Saturday.Along with the US Navy, the Japan Coast Guard is investigating the collision and has questioned crew members of the 29,060-ton Philippine ACX Crystal container vessel on suspicion of possible endangerment of traffic caused by professional negligence, according to local media reports.NHK said that a record aboard the Philippine ship shows that it took a sharp right turn southeast of the Izu Peninsula at around 1:30 a.m., about an hour before the collision was reported.The vessel, which was carrying 1,080 containers, was recorded as traveling east for 30 minutes before making a U-turn and doubling back into the waters where the collision with the 8,315-ton Aegis-equipped Fitzgerald took place.Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen, operator of the Philippine vessel, said in a statement that it is collaborating with the ship owner and fully cooperating with the investigation by the relevant authorities.The shipping firm, headquartered in Tokyo and one of the largest shipping companies in the world, said that all crew members aboard the ACX Crystal have been confirmed to be safe and that it has set up its own independent task force to further probe the details of the collision and how to proceed.A myriad of information is currently being analyzed by all sides on the cause of the collision, sources close to the matter have said, such as the exact locations of the two vessels, the speed they were traveling at, their routes, their radar and other surveillance capabilities, as well as the weather conditions at the time.The Japan Meteorological Agency (JAM) said that at the time of the collision, the weather and therefore visibility should have been clear and the waves were at a height of around 2 meters.The weather agency had not issued any advisories or warnings for the area at the time.The 154 meter-long US guided-missile destroyer, which suffered considerable damage to its right side in the collision, is part of the US 7th Fleet and has returned to the Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 50 kilometers southwest of Tokyo.The 222.6-meter-long Philippine ship, which was sailing towards Tokyo from Nagoya in central Japan, has since docked at a port in Tokyo with visible scrape marks from the collision on the left side of its bow.US President Donald Trump thanked Japan for its help, which involved multiple vessels and planes being deployed to search for the missing sailors following the pre-dawn collision."Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families. Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance," Trump tweeted Saturday morning Washington time.
Attending a parliamentary confirmation hearing in Seoul on June 7, 2017, South Korea's foreign minister-nominee, Kang Kyung-whasays she would seek talks with Japan to reevaluate a controversial deal struck in 2015 over the 'comfort women' issue. [Photo/VCG]

SEOUL - South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Sunday appointed Kang Kyung-wha as the country's first female foreign minister despite harsh resistance from the conservative opposition party.

Moon provided a certificate of appointment for Kang at the conferment ceremony, which was held in the presidential Blue House earlier in the day, according to the press release by Moon's office.

The liberal leader, who took office on May 10, nominated Kang as the foreign minister nominee on May 21, but the official appointment was delayed amid strong opposition from the main conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party.

The conservative party opposed Kang's nomination over several controversies, including her false registration of her home address for educational purpose, but about 80 percent of South Koreans trusted Moon's nomination of his cabinet members, including Kang, recent opinion polls showed.

The minor conservative Righteous Party and the centrist People's Party denounced Moon's appointment of Kang despite their resistance, though the appointment is a right given to the president.

The minor progressive Justice Party welcomed Kang's nomination, describing the resistance as "opposition for the sake of opposition."

President Moon said the foreign minister post cannot be left vacant anymore because the South Korea-US summit is around the corner and the Group of 20 summit meeting will come.

Moon was scheduled to leave for Washington on June 28 for his two-day summit meeting with US President Donald Trump from June 29.
A man stands on his balcony in front of the burnt out shell of the Grenfell apartment tower block in North Kensington, London, Britain, June 17, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

LONDON - The British government Sunday scrambled to contain political fallout from the London high-rise inferno that has claimed at least 58 lives.

The cause of Wednesday's blaze is still under investigation, but anger has mounted in the community amid reports that exterior paneling used in an extensive renovation completed last year may have spread the flames.

Treasury chief Philip Hammond said Sunday he believes the flammable cladding used on the building's exterior is banned in Britain.

Labour Party lawmaker David Lammy said that the government and the police should immediately seize all documents relating to the building's renovation to prevent the destruction of evidence that could show criminal wrongdoing.

"The prime minister needs to act immediately to ensure that all evidence is protected so that everyone culpable for what happened at Grenfell Tower is held to account and feels the full force of the law," Lammy said.

He said all records, including emails, minutes of meetings, correspondence with contractors, safety assessments, specifications and reports  must be kept intact.

"When the truth comes out about this tragedy, we may find that there is blood on the hands of a number of organizations," Lammy said.

Prime Minister Theresa May said more help will be sent to the scene to help survivors cope and find alternative housing now that the 24-story Grenfell Tower has been destroyed.

"I have ordered that more staff be deployed across the area, wearing high visibility clothing, so they can easily be found, dispense advice and ensure the right support is provided," May said after a meeting with survivors at her Downing Street office on Saturday.

In addition, British health authorities will provide long-term bereavement counselling for those who lost loved ones in the tragedy. Counselors are already working with 52 families.

There has been a public outcry at the government's initial failure to provide up-to-the minute information.

May, criticized in the first few days after the blaze for failing to meet with victims, says the public inquiry looking into the tragedy will report directly to her.

She says she will receive daily reports from the stricken neighborhood, where hundreds of people have been displaced. Anger among residents has been mounting in recent days as information about the missing has been scanty and efforts to find temporary housing have faltered.

British officials say they are helping the Syrian family of the first officially confirmed victim of the London tower blaze to come to Britain.

The Home Office said late Saturday night it will make arrangements for the family of Mohammad Alhajali to "travel to the UK in these terribly sad circumstances." The 23-year-old Alhajali is the only victim of the Grenfell Tower fire to be officially named as the difficult process of identifying human remains continues.

His family said in a statement that Alhajali "came to the UK because he had ambitions and aims for his life and for his family." Police say at least 58 people are either confirmed or presumed dead, with the figure likely to rise in coming days.

Officials are using dental records, fingerprints and DNA samples to try and positively identify victims. They say they will also use visual elements like tattoos and scars, in the painstaking process.

Sixteen bodies have been taken to a mortuary for examination.

AP
I am a retired newspaperman. I am 69 and live in Poca, WV, with my wife of 45 years, Lou Ann. We grew up in Cleveland. Three kids. Grandfather.

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Let us not forget that 2017 is officially the year of the romper.

To help us remember, the good men and women of Houston gathered in Midtown this weekend to celebrate the garment with a pub crawl.
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A drunk man barreled through the closed gates of a business and sparked a fire Sunday morning in north Houston, according to authorities.

Just before 5 a.m., firefighters flooded the scene where smoke and flames were pouring out of storage units in the 14000 block of Northwest Freeway.
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Outspoken conservative commentator Tomi Lahren is stirring controversy again, this time in her home state.

The ex-Blaze commentator recently visited Dallas to share her thoughts on conservatism, womanhood and leadership.

"Being a conservative is much harder than being a woman," Lahren said to a group of teens at the Young Women's Leadership Summit, a four-day conference for young, conservative women.

Opening her speech by looking back on the 2016 election, Lahren said the first female president would have been a "big deal for all of us" but said she would "rather it not be Clinton," whom Lahren described as a liar and a crook  to which the audience responded with cheers and calls to "lock her up."

RECENTLY FIRED: Tomi Lahren lectures students on holding a job

The 24-year-old recently drew ire from conservative circles for her endorsement of abortion rights in an ABC appearance that would eventually lead to her show's termination from Glenn Beck's conservative media site, The Blaze.

Lahren has also previously received widespread criticism from many outside the right for her comments comparing Black Lives Matter to the "new KKK" and feminism as "b.s. masqueraded as women's rights."

"There's no better place to be a woman than the United States of America," Lahren said in the same leadership speech. "Somebody tell Katy Perry that."

LAHREN: 'Stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body'

"You will encounter people that think you're going to back down because you're a woman," Lahren added. "They think you'll just go away. Never go away."

The Young Women's Leadership Summit began on Thursday and will be attended by other conservative female figures including Kellyanne Conway, Laura Ingraham and Carly Fiorina.

Click through above to see things to know about Tomi Lahren.
On Wednesday, Houston and Harris County officials hosted an open house for residents wishing to learn more about proposed amendments to the city of Houston's Major Thoroughfare and Freeway Plan. The plan proposes widening and realigning area roads and would affect nearly 250 property owners locally.

The city's plan aims to address long-term mobility concerns within the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction, which stretches throughout Harris County into some parts of Tomball.

Below are descriptions of MTFP amendment requests affecting the Tomball and Cypress areas.

Cypresswood Drive

Per the city's Planning & Development department proposal, this would "delete major thoroughfare Cypresswood Drive from Grant Road to N. Eldridge Pkwy."

Brown, Lutheran School and Fred Petrich roads

Proposes reclassifying the roads as a major collector from the Houston ETJ line to Kobs Road as well as increasing existing right of way. Major Collectors are public streets that accumulate traffic from local streets.

Kobs Road from FM 2920

Categorizes Kobs Road as a major collector from FM 2920 to the proposed Brown Road major collector.

Lutheran Church Road from FM 2920

Proposes reclassifying Lutheran Church Road as a major collector from FM 2920 to proposed the Brown Road major collector as well as increasing the existing right of way, drawing 10 feet from property owners on both sides of the road.

Telge Road

Proposes categorizing Telge Road as a major collector from FM 2920 to proposed an unnamed east-west road.

Unnamed Road from Tomball Cemetery Road to Kobs Road

Proposed east-west road from Tomball Cemetery and Kobs road as a minor collector-streets that accumulate traffic from local streets for distribution into a major roadway.

Tomball Cemetery Road from FM 2920 to Brown Road

Proposes reclassifying Tomball Cemetery Road as a major collector from Brown Road to the Houston ETJ line and increases the existing right of way.

Holderrieth Road

A realignment along Holderrieth between Mason Road to future Cypress Hill Road is proposed.

Kitzman Road

There are several proposed amendments involving Kitzman Road including reclassifying Kitzman from a minor collector and expanding the right of way from Grant Road to Barker Cypress Road and Barker Cypress Road to Telge Road.

Also proposed is an unnamed east-west road from Kitzman Road to Barker Cypress Road (categorizing it as a minor collector) and another from Kitzman Road to Cypress Rosehill Road (also a minor collector). An unnamed north-south road would be categorized as a minor collector between Kitzman Road and the future Boudreaux Road.

Stuebner Airline Road

Reclassification as a major collector is proposed from FM 2920 to Hufsmith Kuykendahl Road as well as expanding the right of way.

"We have two amendments in the Tomball and Cypress area this year," Houston transportation planner, Kevin McNally said.

According to McNally, the city sends notifications to residents who live along current or proposed streets and roads when the city explores such amendments. He said 185 notifications were sent to those who will be directly impacted by the Brown Road collector network. He said 59 notifications were sent to property owners who will be directly impacted by the Holderrieth Road project.

At Wednesday's meeting, some area residents expressed concern over property values and a disruption to what they feel are quiet, isolated communities.

"I'm concerned about having to disclose it for a future sale," Cindy Duehwing, a former real estate agent, said. "They might not want to buy a property that's about to be bisected."

Duehwing-like others-argues that if the city plan were to be approved as is, even those looking to sell their homes might have to disappoint interested buyers with news that an area known for its bucolic feel will have roads running through it in 10 years.

"I understand how people might feel we've made up our mind," Loyd Smith, Harris County manager of transportation and planning, said, "but we're here for a public process. We want that input."

Smith said the MTFP aims to get ahead of road projects in anticipation of development. He said the timeline for area projects varies as some may be a decade away while others may be done in segments within five years.

Written comments may be submitted online until July 7.

The City of Houston Planning Commission hosts a public hearing at 2:30 p.m. July 20, at the City Hall Annex Chambers for additional comments on the proposed amendments which may be approved by Houston City Council in fall.

More information on the amendment requests can be found on the city's website: http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/transportation/17_MTFPRequests.html.
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A sixth grade Texas "cyber ninja" has made a big splash by showing security experts how easy it is to use common children's toys to spy on kids, parents and more.

Reuben Paul demonstrated how it could be done onstage at a cyber-security conference in the Netherlands last month during the World Forum in The Hague.

"From terminators to Teddy bears, anything or any toy can be weaponized," The Guardian reported him telling the crowd.

(Story continues below.)

For the demonstration, Paul scanned the crowd for Bluetooth devices and downloaded dozens of numbers, some of them from experts who arguably should have known better. He then used the cuddly bear's Wifi and cloud capabilities to remotely turn it on and record a message.

The pre-teen is a co-founder of the Cyber Shaolin organization which seeks to "educate and equip" people with the cybersecurity and tech skills they need to be safe. He, along with his father Mano Paul, are trying to teach people how any item that connects to the internet could be vulnerable to hacking.

The importance of securing your online security even when dealing with things as mundane as children's toys is quickly becoming known. Earlier this year more than 800,000 CloudPets users had their personal information and private voice recordings hacked. A Wired article this month also highlighted a not well-known but highly concerning case of vibrators being hacked and controlled remotely.

Some activists and politicians are urging the Federal Trade Commission to protect consumers.
A Coast Guard copter rescued a man Sunday morning from a tanker at sea off Galveston.

Just after 6:30 a.m., Argent Eyebright, a Panamanian oil and chemical tanker headed for Houston, called for help from about 120 miles off the Galveston coast.

A 44-year-old crewmember was experiencing stroke-like symptoms and needed medical assistance, the ship reported.

The Coast Guard dispatched an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Houston to hoist the man off the ship. Given the distance to land, the copter crew had to stop and refuel on a nearby oil rig.

The ailing man was flown to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he was last reported to be in stable condition, according to a Coast Guard press release.
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The odds of a tropical storm hitting southeast Texas this week are inching slowly upward as swirling winds pick up in the Caribbean.

A tropical disturbance sparked by a broad band of low pressure in the northwestern Caribbean now has a 90 percent chance of turning into a tropical storm, according to the National Hurricane Center. If that system hits Houston, it could mean a torrent of rain and possible flooding.

But as of now, it's still not clear where the stormy weather will hit.

READ ALSO: Houston streets that are prone to flooding, high water

"A lot of the models early on were going towards Florida and or south of Corpus Christi into Mexico," said National Weather Service meteorologist Wendy Wong. "But some of the newer ones have a wider spread and it looks like most of the U.S. Gulf Coast should be keeping an eye on this now."

Over the weekend, the warm seas and swirling winds have combined to toss a disorganized system of showers and thunderstorms at parts of the Caribbean. Over the coming days, that system is expected move slowly northwest over the Yucatan Peninsula and into the Gulf of Mexico where it will likely coalesce into a tropical or subtropical storm.

But will the storm pick up enough wind speed to turn into a hurricane?

READ ALSO: Maps and charts explain why Houston is flooding more often

"It's always a possibility," Wong said. "But given how close it is to the land when it does develop it may not."

In the meantime, there could be some patchy showers before the skies clear on Tuesday. If the storm strikes Houston, it will likely come Wednesday or Thursday.

Of course, there's still a chance the storm could miss the Bayou City entirely, but Harris County Homeland Security and Emergency Management is ready to go regardless.

READ ALSO: 30 terrifying before and after images of climate change

"It's pretty routine for us," said OHSEM coordinator Mark Sloan.

"Most of us have already been prepared for hurricane season. We understand where we're at because June 1 is the kick-off."

The hurricane season, which doesn't end till Nov. 30, is expected to be rougher than usual, with 11 to 17 named storms likely to strike. The first one - Arlene - formed out in the Atlantic in April, but stayed far from land.

READ ALSO: Clever signs from the 'March for Science'

If the current disturbance morphs into a storm, it will be named Bret.

A hurricane hunter aircraft mission slated for Sunday was cancelled as the storm still lacked a well-defined center, according to the NHC.

As the storm gradually develops, local officials are monitoring developments and staying at the ready.

"We'll be staffing the Emergency Operations Center and monitoring this, tomorrow and all through the week as we figure out what Mother Nature wants to do with the storm," Sloan said. "To us, this is what we do and why we do it."
An East Texas couple is accused of locking a 4-year-old boy in a dog kennel and forcing him to drink his own urine.

Matthew McMahon, 29, and Randa Askew Faust McMahon, 36, of Shelby County were arrested June 2 and charged with first-degree injury to a child, according to local reports.

It wasn't until late last week that more details of the abuse emerged after KTRE reported on the shocking particulars of the couple's arrest affidavits.

An investigation into the Shelbyville couple kicked off in late May after authorities got word of abuse allegations.

But when investigators stopped at the McMahon home, they learned the child and his stepmother were in North Carolina.

In the meantime, officials decided to interview Randa McMahon's other three children, including a teenager who recounted a horrific story of prolonged abuse of the toddler.

The older child said the 4-year-old was routinely made to sleep in a dog kennel because of his bed-wetting. He was allegedly left in a cargo trailer once without food or drink for 24 hours.

Another time he was forced to drink his own urine in retaliation for wetting himself.

The teenager also said the boy was sometimes whipped with a stick until he bled, according to the arrest affidavit.

One of Randa McMahon's adult children corroborated some of the teen's shocking claims, but justified the treatment, saying "children could safely go for several days without water," according to court documents.

Another of McMahon's adult children said the toddler "has a problem with not wanting to eat," and that her mother's decision to withhold water was a punishment for refusing to eat.

Matthew McMahon reportedly knew about and condoned his wife's abuse of the boy, investigators allege.

The couple was arrested in Somervall County, just days after the investigation began.

The couple was initially held on $200,000 bail but later released after a judge granted a bail reduction, according to county jail records.

The boy was taken into CPS custody.
A local woman warns the public of a man allegedly selling sick puppies to Houstonians for hundreds and ghosting the families after the weeks-old pooches die.

Erika Landers is the intake and adoption manager for PugHearts of Houston, and FOX 26's Angela Chen partnered to investigate the potential animal cruelty case.

WHAT NOT TO DO: Why you should never give your dog Ibuprofen

After further research, Landers and Chen found over a dozen former pug owners who say they have bought puppies from the same man through Craigslist and other online sites. About four to nine days later, their new dogs die from parvo, a viral infection that attacks the heart muscles of very young puppies, about six weeks to six months old.

"These people are buying puppies for $600 from a man in a parking lot from a box. I am worried about the deplorable conditions that these puppies are being born in but I am even more worried about the health of the mothers that are being forced to breed over and over again," Landers told Chron.com. "The only warning sign is that the puppy is small too small to be an 8-week pug." She says that the seller tells the buyers that the puppy is the "runt" of the litter.

For about a month, Landers has been working with the city and local animal shelters to potentially catch the breeder who's allegedly been selling the sick puppies, but the process is a slow one.

Chen reports that neither the Houston SPCA or Houston Humane Society are working the case because it is a civil matter between the seller and buyer. Though, the Harris County D.A.'s office has asked the Harris County Precinct 5 Animal Crimes Unit to investigate. As of publication, Landers has heard of whether the seller has been caught yet.

AMERICA'S BEST: Two Texas dogs up to become America's top dog with award

"If the City isn't going to lawfully stop him then I want the public to know not to buy from this man," Landers says. To see a photo of the alleged seller, visit FOX 26 for more information.

If you have any information on the seller, Landers asks you to call Harris County Precinct 5 at 281-463-6666.
As I reiterated yesterday, despite Bernies backing for Tom Perriello in Virginia, Perriellos loss was no blow to progressivism . During his single term in Congress, Perriello proved himself to be a careerist hack with just a worthless patina of fake progressivism and, a dishonest and untrustworthy politician. On Friday Shaun King, in an insightful essay on why progressives and liberals continue to feel like unwelcome guests in the Democratic Party , sited Perriellos loss as a loss for the movement. Hes correct in pointing out that the Virginia victor, conservative, semi-Republican Ralph Northam, has been a crap Democrat, but that doesnt make Perriello anything but-- if that-- the lesser of two evils. Northams values, he wrote simply don't line up with that of most progressives, including my own and hes right. But neither did Perriellos who is just a faker who managed to take in an awful lot of people, including Bernie and Shaun, who wrote that he doesnt know of any better illustration for the current dilemma of American progressives than this [Virginia] race and its result. The Democratic Party is moving to the right.

Hes right about the party establishment moving even further to the right. Guys like Perriello are, however, the polar opposite of the answer.

The Democratic Party has shifted to the right. It's not anti-war. It's not strong on the environment. It's not strong on civil and human rights. It's not for universal health care. It's not strong on cracking down on Wall Street and big banks or corporate fraud. Ralph Northam was and is weak on all of those core principles of the progressive left, but we're expected to get behind him, and candidates like him, as if we're just a few small details away from seeing eye to eye with him. We aren't. He's not a progressive. He's not a liberal. He's hardly even a Democrat.





Millions of us who ultimately voted for Hillary Clinton felt the very same way about her. On issues ranging from war, to corporate fraud, to campaign finance, to universal health care, and so much more, her positions were not discernibly different from the most basic Republican talking points.





Was she better than Trump? Of course she was. But I'd literally rather have a Kardashian sister or Curious George be President of the United States over Trump. Someone being better than Trump cannot be our key metric for choosing candidates.





I'm hearing more and more of my progressive friends talk seriously about the need for us to form our own political party. I get it. At the very best we are slightly tolerated guests in the Democratic Party. We are as different from establishment Democrats as those establishment Democrats are from everyday Republicans.





Being begrudgingly tolerated is a terrible feeling. We are an enthusiastic, organized bunch, but I certainly don't feel welcomed.





MSNBC's Joy Reid all but confirmed as much in a widely shared tweet earlier this week in which she said, "Bernie and his followers are like that college friend who stays at your place for weeks, pays $0, eats your food & trashes your aesthetic.





That Reid, who makes a living as a political commentator, came to this conclusion about Bernie Sanders and his millions of followers was deeply disappointing, but revealing. Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America. He has done far more for the Democratic Party than it has for him.





When the new head of the Democratic Party, Tom Perez, went on a speaking tour recently with Bernie, the enthusiastic crowds of thousands didn't show up at every single venue to hear Tom-- they were there for Bernie. Tom didn't do Bernie a favor, Bernie did Tom a favor. Bernie got behind Hillary Clinton and campaigned for her all over the country and asked his supporters to follow his lead.





I was one of those people who did just that. I've been a Democrat all of my life and have campaigned for and donated to so many Democratic candidates across the years. That the millions of us who support Bernie and his values have been reduced to bad guests who don't pay our way, eat up all the food, and trash the place, is a terrible insult rooted in something other than reality.





Democrats lost the House, the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court, and the strong majority of state houses and governorships across the country. I agree that it sure does look like somebody trashed the place, but it damn sure wasn't Bernie and his followers. Anybody saying that is delusional.
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WASHINGTON - The dream goes on - for now.

Despite campaign pledges to the contrary, the Trump administration signaled Friday that it is keeping in place Obama-era protections for so-called "Dreamers" - immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

But the news came in a Homeland Security memo announcing that the administration is revoking similar protections for certain legal residents and immigrants in the country illegally who have U.S.-born children. That Obama policy, known as DAPA, has been tied up in court since 2015 when a federal judge blocked it in response to a suit brought by Texas and 25 other states. It never went into effect.

The formal announcement actually came late Thursday, the same day that parties in the Texas suit challenging the program faced a court deadline in Brownsville to resolve the case. Instead, Homeland Security Department indicated on its website that "there is no credible path forward" for the federal government in court.

The administration said it was not ready to end former President Barack Obama's 2012 policy known as DACA, for Deferred Action for Childhood arrivals. A memorandum by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said the DACA program "will remain in effect."

'Living in the shadows'

The program has granted temporary work permits and reprieves from deportation to nearly 800,000 people living in the U.S. illegally. A fact sheet accompanying the policy said "no work permits will be terminated prior to their current expiration dates."

But administration officials and immigrant rights activists made clear that President Donald Trump has not made a final decision about the long-term fate of the program.

"It is unclear what will happen with DACA in the future," said Ignacia Rodriguez, an immigration advocate for the National Immigration Law Center.

During his presidential campaign, Trump called both programs "illegal executive amnesties" that circumvented Congress. He vowed to end them immediately. But as president, he has acknowledged that he would have trouble taking action against people who were brought into the country as children.

In April, White House press secretary Sean Spicer explained Trump's reluctance by saying that he "has a heart."

Nevertheless, immigrant rights activists said that Trump's aggressive new deportation policies continue apace, including against people with no criminal records. Many also decried the decision to revoke DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents), saying it extinguishes the hopes of more than 4 million parents of American citizens and green card holders.

"Their situation is not ameliorated at all," said Nina Perales of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represents three undocumented women from the Rio Grande Valley in the DAPA case. "They lead quiet lives, but they're living in the shadows, taking care of their children, trying to get by as best they can with no relief on the horizon."

'Unlawful edict'

Trump's decision won praise from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who led a coalition of 26 state attorneys general that sued the Obama administration in 2015 to block the order. Calling it "an unlawful edict," Paxton said Friday that "Texas handed President Obama his biggest court defeat of all" after the U.S. Supreme Court halted DAPA's implementation last June.

The high court justices deadlocked 4-4 on a challenge to the DAPA ruling in Texas, leaving the ruling in place from U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who said Obama had overstepped his authority.

The Trump administration announcement came on the fifth anniversary of Obama's order creating the DACA program. It also came exactly two years after Trump opened his presidential campaign, making derogatory remarks about Mexican immigrants.

Taking aim at another Obama initiative, Trump was in Miami on Friday to announce that he was rolling back much of the prior administration's overtures to the Communist nation of Cuba.

Both moves scored points with the conservative base that elected Trump, particularly the immigration initiative.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, posted on Twitter: "The restoration of our republican form of government advances. Next up, end lawless Dreamer amnesty for illegal alien children and adults."

Immigration rights activists said that in the face of Trump's campaign promises, Dreamers and their families still have cause for worry, particularly as Trump ratchets up immigration enforcement and pursues a wall along the southwestern border.

"While the Trump administration has left the DACA program in place for now, their enforcement actions and policy decisions continue to create fear and anxiety in immigrant communities," said U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. "Their announcement to keep DACA, while revoking DAPA and deporting family members is deceitful and is another effort to keep immigrant families uncomfortable about their place in America."

'The undesirables'

Others expressed hope, noting that if Trump wanted to summarily revoke the DACA program, there would be little to stop him except the political risk of offending Americans who are sympathetic to the plight of illegal immigrants.

"The only thing that is sure in Trump's America is uncertainty," said Lorella Praeli, director of immigration for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Action speaks louder than words."

With an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally, some 1.6 million of them in Texas, activists on both sides of the debate worry that the Dreamers could become the next front in a fierce political battle.

"It is a sad day when political powers still use Dreamers as pawns to continue to spread the narrative of the good immigrant versus the undesirables," said Houston activist Cesar Espinosa, executive director of Immigrant Families and Students in the Struggle. "We hope that we can continue to advocate for family unity, and eventually we reform our broken immigration system."

Bobby Cervantes contributed to this report.
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.
Writing forthis morning, Ben Rhodes, the architect of Obamas Cuba openingdug down into why Trumps ill-thought out Cuba policy will fail . Short version: tossing political bones to the reactionary Marco Rubio and Mario Diaz-Balart and their elderly supporters isnt policy. Its a pointless mistake. Rhodes pointed out that one of the most depressing things about Trumps decision to partially roll back parts of the Cuba opening is how predictable it was. A Republican candidate for president makes last-minute campaign promises to a hard-line Cuban American audience in South Florida. Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart hold him to those promises. The U.S. government announces changes that will hurt ordinary Cubans, harm the image of the United States, and make it harder for Americans to do business and travel somewhere they want to go.

While President Obama raised the hopes of Americans and Cubans alike with a forward-looking opening in diplomatic, commercial and people-to-people ties, President Trump is turning back the clock to a tragically failed Cold War mindset by reimposing restrictions on those activities. While not a full reversal of the Obama opening, Trumps actions have put relations between the United States and Cuba back into the prison of the pastsetting back the prospects for reform inside of Cuba, and ignoring the voices of the Cuban people and a majority of Americans just so that he can reward a small and dwindling political constituency.





It didnt have to be this way, and it wont stay this way.





Last month, President Trump travelled to Saudi Arabia-- a country ruled by a family, where people are beheaded and women cant drive. He announced tens of billions of dollars in arms sales, and said: We are not here to lecture. We are not here to tell other people how to live. Can anyone credibly argue that Trumps Cuba policy is motivated by a commitment to promote human rights around the world? No. Moreover, as a democracy-promotion vehicle, the embargo has been a failure. For more than 50 years, it has been in place; for more than 50 years, a Castro has governed Cuba. If anything, the embargo has provided a justification for the Cuban government to suppress political dissent in the name of protecting Cuban sovereignty.





By breaking with this past, the Obama administration improved the lives of the Cuban people, and brought hope to people who had learned to live without it. The nascent Cuban private sector-- shops, restaurants, taxis-- grew dramatically, fueled by unlimited remittances from the United States. Over a quarter of Cubans today work in the private sector. This represents both an improvement in their quality of life, and in their human rights, as they are no longer reliant on the state for their livelihoods.





[Trumps actions] represent a step backwards. By restricting engagement with large swaths of the Cuban economy controlled by the military, Trump is simultaneously demanding that Cuba embrace capitalism while making it harder for them to do so. Cuba will be exposed to less engagement from American companies and less incentives from American revenue. U.S. businesses can only press for reforms in how Cuba structures its economy-- like allowing foreign companies to hire Cubans directly-- if they can actually do business in Cuba. Meanwhile, the Cuban government is not going to let go of their holdings because the U.S tells them to; theyre far more likely to turn to Russia and China. By removing America from the equation, Trump delivered a better deal for Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.





While Trump did not take dramatic steps to restrict travel, he made it more difficult. U.S. travelers now have to go through the absurd process of figuring out if a hotel theyre staying at is owned by the Cuban military, which applies to most of Old Havana. Ominous language about requiring Americans to document their activities, and warning that they could be audited, will have a chilling effect. Despite rhetoric about supporting Cuban entrepreneurs, any reduction in travel is going to hit them-- common sense suggests that someone who stays at a military-owned hotel will also ride in taxis, eat in restaurants, and shop at stores owned by ordinary Cubans. Those are the Cubans that Trump is hurting--not hotel owners who will still welcome tourists other countries.





So what is gained by these actions? Trump will say he is promoting democracy, but the opposite is true. Cuba is going through its own leadership transition, with Raul Castro set to step aside later this year. What could have been an opportunity for the United States to support an evolution in Cubas system through engagement has now become an opportunity for hard-liners to tighten their grip on power. Meanwhile, there is no evidence that the Cuban government is about to collapse and give way to a democratic movement. On the contrary, the Cuban government is comfortable containing the dissidents that the United States supports.





The instinct for isolation that Trump embraced will fail. Ironically, the hard-liners who pressed Trump to make these changes are only condemning themselves to future irrelevance. Polls show that over 70 percent of Americans-- including a majority of Republicans--support lifting the embargo. Younger Cuban Americans are far more likely to support lifting the embargo than their parents and grandparents. Fifty-five senators have co-sponsored a bill to lift the travel ban, and Republicans from states that depend on agriculture want to promote business in Cuba. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that a poll showed 97 percent of the Cuban people supporting normalization with the United States.





Donald Trump is delivering his remarks on Cuba at the Manuel Artime Theater, named for a leader of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He couldnt have found a better symbol for the past. But ultimately, the past must give way to the wishes of the people. Fidel Castro is dead. A new generation, in Cuba and the United States, doesnt want to be defined by quarrels that pre-date their birth. The embargo should--and will-- be discarded. Engagement should-- and will-- prevail. That is why Trumps announcement should be seen for what it is: not as a step forward for democracy, but as the last illogical gasp of a strain of American politics with a 50-year track record of failure; one that wrongly presumes we can control what happens in Cuba. The future of Cuba will be determined by the Cuban people, and those Americans who want to help them, not hurt them.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Employees of Southwest General Health Center are effusive in their praise of President and CEO Bill Young: "He is so positive, friendly, encouraging, and always available," said one.

"He is very good at making you feel that he knows you in a good way and is very engaged with employees," said another.

Although Southwest General employs more than 2,200 medical staff and workers, Young was described as personable, approachable, and genuine. Workers praised his ability to communicate and keep them informed about the hospital, with one person saying, "he makes it a point to notice, recognize, speak and smile at SWGH employees."

Young, who has been at Southwest General for only one-and-a-half years, said being the boss is much more than a title; it's about appreciating and encouraging employees, and helping your people shine.

"I try to be very visible and accessible to our employees. If we treat our employees well, and they're engaged, they're going to support our physicians and make a difference to the patients we serve," he said. Young said it's crucial to make sure others both share your vision and understand how you hope to get there.

People who work in healthcare enter the field because they want to make a difference, "so we do a lot of recognition and showing people that they're valued" with employee picnics, ice cream sundaes, and thank you notes from the boss.

Southwest General employees submitted so much positive feedback on its leadership to Workplace Dynamics that it received an award for its standout responses.

Other organizations also recognized for their survey responses on leadership were: Q-Lab Corp. in Westlake and its President Douglas Grossman; and L'Nique Specialty Linen Rental in Valley View and owners Deidre Dockman and Angela Klodnick.

"Helping your people be successful"

Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, a 9-year manager at the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District and CEO since February, said the best leaders do two key things well: Provide an overall direction and value the workers who will help get them there.

Employees want to know where an organization is headed and more importantly, their specific role in that organization, she said. Leaders can help them do their best work by: "providing timely and helpful feedback, clearing roadblocks, and addressing issues that stand in their way," she said.

The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District created in 1972 to convey and treat wastewater in Cleveland and 61 suburban municipalities in Cuyahoga, Summit, Lake and Lorain Counties. As the largest wastewater treatment provider in Ohio, the sewer district spans 380 square miles and treats 90 billion gallons of wastewater a year. NEORSD employs 763 people and has been a Top Workplace for three years.

"I've always felt a strong personal responsibility for the general direction of the organization," Dreyfuss-Wells said. "You're focused on being the CEO, but at the same time, you're really trying to understand the operation of the team, because you are relying on everyone to do a good job. You have to have a strong sense of ownership of the work that they do," but trust their ability to do their jobs.

"My philosophy is you're responsible for helping your people be successful," she said.

"Shining the light on other people"

Ann Klotz, headmistress at Laurel School for 13 years, is not only a leader at the independent girls school, she also strives to cultivate leadership among her students. Laurel School, a private school in Shaker Heights for girls in kindergarten through 12th grade, employs 176 people and is a five-time Top Workplace winner.

Every year when the school surveys its graduates, their alumnae tell them that they are more confident than their peers in public speaking and taking leadership roles in college.

"Not everybody needs to be a stand-on-the-table leader who gives orders and makes a lot of noise," she said. "What I try to do is set an example that everybody needs to really choose their abilities, and not be afraid of or apologize for the abilities that don't come naturally. We put a lot of pressure on kids to do everything well, to check all the boxes," when they can excel in different ways.

"Leadership isn't always about being the boss; leadership is about shining the light on other people" without worrying about stepping out of the spotlight. Klotz said she tries to be transparent about her mistakes, to demonstrate that it's okay to be human and imperfect.

Someone once told her that "if a leader gets out too far in front of her troops, she can start to look like the enemy." A better approach is to go back and get some buy-in before expecting everybody else to follow you, she said.

One way she does that by promising employees that "no communication goes out to parents before faculty and staff have seen it first," Klotz said. "I'm going to try to make sure that I'm a leader who takes responsibility."

"Everybody going in the same direction"

Young, of Southwest General, said the hospital strives to be a place where employees treat each other like family. And like a family, "we can't get to the vision of where we want to be as an organization without our employees. We can't get there because I want to get there; it has to be everybody going in the same direction," he said.

When someone joins Southwest General, Young sends a note to the person's home welcoming him or her aboard. He also sends thank you notes when patients mention the care they've received and mention employees by name. "It's important that people see the work that they did, and how much it was appreciated," he said.

"If you've done something good at work and I send a note home, all of a sudden your partner or spouse sees it and knows that you did something really neat. It provides that recognition within that person's family and friends."

Young's employees tell him they put up his notes on their refrigerators or on their mantles. "It means a lot to people that you took the time to send them a personal note. I probably sent out close to 300 thank you notes last year," he said. "Last night, I wrote another six."
MENTOR, Ohio - Of the 250 employees at Merritt Woodworking, only one of them has the distinct job of selecting the finest woods from all over the world.

Why? Whether billionaires are into sleek contemporary or ornately traditional wood designs for their homes and superyachts, it's that attention to detail they crave. And what the Mentor-based company has to offer. Some of the most acclaimed architects, designers, builders and owners also call on the family-owned business to help transform spaces.

Brothers Michael and Keith Merritt who run the 50-year-old business have found a niche: ultra-high net-worth individuals.

Except for trade publications aimed at the rich and famous, the brothers are low-key about their success. But this year is different. The $50 million company is celebrating a half a century, expansions, acquisitions and a new re-branding campaign.

For the first time, they recently decided to celebrate publicly with parties that kicked off in Cleveland in April and moved on to their other markets in New York, Florida and California.

While the company is an entirely different business from when their late father founded it as a small custom wood shop targeting middle-class homes, the Merritt brothers say they never forget that its employees passion for the work that's helped catapult Merritt from about $5 million in sales in 2001 to about $50 million now - and growing.

Michael Merritt, chief executive officer, says they'll always value what they learned from their father - making efforts to strive to exceed industry boundaries and develop a standard, above and beyond what's expected.

Merritt has seven locations throughout the United States and in the past few years opened small offices in Germany and the United Kingdom. The company's growth strategy includes finding the best talent and opening an office, oftentimes letting employees work from home, as long as they're effective.

They know that without the right employees there's no way they could grow so fast. And even though they own 165,000 square-feet of manufacturing space between the two plants in Mentor and Lodi, California, there's only one work shift. Merritt says it's unlike other manufacturing businesses.



"We can only really effectively work one shift ... unlike most manufacturers: automobiles, ejection molding, tool and die ... With those type of businesses you can run two and three shifts to help amortize your investment," said Michael Merritt, 52.

"You can't start building a cabinet and your partner comes in and finishes your work," he said. "It's like knitting a quilt. People have different techniques. We're not making multiples. We're making one-offs, so you can't have one shift work and another one come in and pick up where they left off.

"This is a blue-collar business all the way up through ownership. We're craftsmen, and the reality is that the professionals in our business, cabinet makers, project managers, project engineers, do not normally pick up their life and move to another location for a new job like in a technical industry. It just doesn't happen," he said.

Merritt has multiple fabrication plants around the country specializing in architectural millwork. After pieces are completed to specification on site, they are protected, loaded by hand and transported in temperature and humidity-controlled vehicles. Once they arrive at their destination, the woodwork is unloaded by hand by Merritt's own employees.

These days, about 99 percent of the company's clients are billionaires. They're people with disposable income with homes starting at $15 million. Some have second homes in the Hamptons, the pricey resort communities on the eastern end of Long Island, while others want help tricking out superyachts in Florida or Europe with modern or classical designs.

Right now, the superyacht market accounts for about 20 percent of the company's business.

The Merritt brothers have built an enterprise that designs, engineers, manufactures and installs custom interior architectural woodwork, cabinetry and furniture. But they also remember the days when their father was running a very small business focused on basic home remodeling jobs, including encasing a television in a recreation room. It keeps them humble.

The contrast between the lavish parties and photos of the end-result displayed at their high-end customers homes is a stark difference from the company's manufacturing plant in Mentor, where piles of wood are stored in some areas, including a few that still have sap and bark on them.

In one area, two men work together on a machine that transforms veneer, while in another area hundreds of feet away, a woman slowly sands a door. The process is slow and meticulous, because the costs of Merritt's interiors typically run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per room. It's a business that has enough scale now to marry computer-aided design and manufacturing with old woodcraft in finishing and fitting.

But no business is bullet-proof. Merritt has navigated lots of changes, according to Keith Merritt, who knew he wanted to join the family business long before his older brother.

When the company grew tired of dealing with all of the changes and deadline pressures that come with the territory of working with residential owners, the business started targeting corporate America in the 1990s. And when the lavish spending dried up in corporate America, Merritt changed its focus again. This time they thought about an opportunity that they were first introduced to in the 80s when their father met an elder architect working on a Columbus law firm project. He was so impressed with their passion for the work that he gave Merritt an opportunity to work on their first luxury home in Connecticut.

"Here was an 80-year-old architect and my father was in his late 40s at the time," Merritt recalled. "He said, I've worked with the best woodworking companies in the country and working with you exceeds them all and I have a project I want to reward you with ... That was the break to do our first job out-of-state. After that we did more projects in Greenwich, then Manhattan, and then Palm Beach. And that's how the whole machine started," he said.

But during the recession, Merritt suffered significant losses by early 2009. Suddenly worked dried up, at a time when it had about half the number of employees it has today.

"When the crash hit, we lost about 30 percent of our work in 90 days. We had a backlog, but lost about 35 percent of that. But after the crash and after we lost the work, we didn't sell a new job for over a year," Merritt said.

The Merritt brothers reached out for help and hired business consultants.

"We couldn't change who we are, and we couldn't change what we delivered, but we looked at our whole processes," Merritt said. "We looked at costs that didn't impact who we are or what we made. We found ways to cut waste out of the process, and... yes, it all helped."

While prices are still about 20 percent less than boom-time levels, the Merritt brothers say the company is a stronger business because they were forced to deal with a downfall. Margins are tight and net proceeds are relative considering the cost of goods, they said.

"To use the industry jargon, we got lean," Merritt said. "And even though business was down for us, we took advantage of competitors that didn't fare so well during the recession and started hiring some of their best craftsmen."

Services today range from the expected: woodwork and joinery manufacturing, carpentry and installation; to the surprising and unexpected: hardware, metalwork, specialty materials procurement and classical decoration.

But what's elevated them to the very top of their field, is their all-encompassing engineering and consulting services.



Merritt's primary markets are N.Y., Greenwich, Connecticut, The Hamptons, Miami, Naples, Florida, Aspen and Vail, Colorado, San Francisco and Beverly Hills. "That's where the majority of work comes from as well as London, Paris and Moscow," Michael Merritt said.

"Now we're in seven locations instead of just Mentor. We put an office in Germany three years ago.



"Germans and the Northern Europeans are well-known for being highly-educated woodworkers - actually they're called joiners. They have a manufacturing education process in Europe that we can only dream to have in the United States. I'm talking about the whole process, including project management and engineering. And their apprentice program is unprecedented.

"So in order to continue to have the best of the best, we follow the people," he said. "At the end of the day, we're craftsmen."
CLEVELAND, Ohio - For the eighth straight year, Workplace Dynamics has ranked the top workplaces in Northeast Ohio. And this year, it was a first for all of the top winners.

With a theme "Secrets to Success," based on employee nominations and surveys, this year's list includes 150 companies in three divisions. The list includes 29 first-time winners this year and 11 companies that have won all eight years.

This year San Francisco-based Charles Schwab & Co. is the No. 1 top large company with 629 employees in the region, moving up from the No. 4 spot a year ago. The top 25 large companies were selected out of 32 participants with 500 or more employees in the region. With 9,500 employees, Mayfield Heights -based Progressive Insurance ranks No. 2 this year, up from No. 5 last year.

"At Schwab, we believe people want to work for a company with a purpose and to do work that's consistent with their values and makes them proud," said Steve Anderson, the highest ranking Schwab leader in Ohio and a member of the firm's Executive Council.

"Our strategy at Schwab is very simple - we believe success comes from operating our company 'through clients' eyes' - and by treating every client the same way we would want to be treated."



Some of the employers were nominated by employees and community members. Others responded to online or print advertisements or direct marketing efforts. Workplace Dynamics invited companies, nonprofits and government agencies to participate. Once nominated, the employers themselves - not The Plain Dealer or Workplace Dynamics - decided whether to participate. Workplace Dynamics encourages employers to survey all employees, but large employers can choose to randomly sample their Northeast Ohio employees, according to the firm.

In 2010, the first year The Plain Dealer identified the employers most lauded by their workers, there were only 75 Top Workplaces, with only the top three companies in each category ranked. This year, the list has doubled with companies ranging from manufacturers, technology companies and marketing firms to professional service firms to banks and hospitals. In the first year, Magnificat High School was the only high school on the list. This year more schools are on the list and some long-time participants are now winning.

Motorcars Group is the No. 1 midsize company. This year the top 50 midsize companies were selected from a pool of 73 participants with 150-499 employees in the region. Motorcars placed third in the category last year, while Reminger law firm claimed the top spot a year ago.

Chuck Gile, president of Motorcars Group in Cleveland Heights, said he and his two sons lead the business that operates Motorcars Honda and Motorcars Toyota, but he credits employees for their success.

"We set the tone, but our people are empowered to handle day-to-day interactions," he said.



"To support that, we're picky about who we hire. My sons and I make the final decision on each candidate. We're all about creating 'Customers for Life.' It's hard to do that if your employees have a different idea about what that means than you do. It makes more sense to pick smart people who believe as we do - even if they have no experience in this industry - and go from there."



For instance, the company's decision to invest in solar energy came all started with a persistent employee who continually suggested the idea year-after-year. Today the array is the largest single covered solar structure at any auto dealership in the nation, Gile said proudly.



L'Nique Specialty Linen Rental claimed the No. 1 spot for small companies this year. The Valley View-based company placed No. 7 on last year's list. The top 75 small companies were selected out of 136 participants with 149 or fewer employees in the region.



L'Nique has about 30 employees. Angela Klodnick and Deidre Dockman, co-founders and business partners at L'Nique Specialty Linen Rental, said the honor means a lot to them primarily because the process involves getting input from employees.



Dockman said the biggest lesson she learned about being a leader, long before she ran her own business was that you have to constantly find ways to make employees feel valued. It's the secret to the company's success.



"Employees are family and you have to treat them the way you want to be treated!," Dock man said. "We know and understand that our employees are what make our company successful."



The partners have one piece of advice for any size business that wants to be successful



"You should always be thankful and find ways to show appreciation," Dockman said.
Silicon Valley's days leading the tech revolution may be coming to an end, according to one optimistic observer who believes the future of technology lies much further abroad than San Francisco.

The future of tech "will be written in Lagos, Nairobi, Kampala and cities across Africa," Jeremy Johnson the CEO and founder of Andela told CNBC. "We believe that Africa is going to emerge as a very significant player in the global tech scene," he said.

Andela connects Africa's top 2 percent of developers with jobs at companies globally. "We created a platform that enables the best and brightest to basically scale their abilities as technologists, and in the process ... also solve the problem that many companies around the world are facing, and that's just a shortage of technical talent," said Johnson.

Today, there are 300 tech hubs in 93 cities across 42 countries on the continent, compared to none just a decade ago. Nigeria and Kenya are both centers of start-up activity, and among the fastest growing of the innovation hubs on the continent.

A trip to Nairobi opened Johnson's eyes to some of the opportunities and challenges that face Africa's growing tech ecosystem. "I just had almost no exposure to the continent and was kind of blown away by what I found and the people I met," said Johnson.

Companies are increasingly comfortable with teams that are widely distributed, he said. "That's a major trend in the tech industry that I think is flattening out the world even more. It has also gotten a lot of people interested in Africa," said Johnson.
Amazon Echo devices are fun and useful applications for consumers in the home. But in the hospital, such voice recognition technology has the potential to save lives.

Developers at top hospitals and medical clinics across the country are tinkering with Amazon Alexa and other voice technologies for a variety of applications. Some are working with Alexa to deliver routine medical information to patients at home; others are using it to help surgeons complete lists of tasks.

"There are some massive voice applications that will be built for health enterprises," John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital, told CNBC.

Physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital are researching how text-to-speech technology can be useful in helping surgeons comply with surgical safety checklists in the operating room.

Raul Uppot, a radiologist at the hospital, told CNBC that in one case a patient was listening in to the safety checklist via a voice application right before going under. The patient had an allergy to latex, a fact that was missing from the medical record, but was addressed thanks to the checklist.

That might have averted disaster, as the surgeons had intended to use latex gloves.

Uppot is now sold on the potential of voice technology, not just to help doctors but also to involve patients in their own care in new ways.

Likewise, Boston Children's hospital released an Alexa app called KidsMD for users to get health information for common illnesses and medication dosing. Internally, the hospital has also piloted an Alexa app to help its physicians comply with protocols before procedures and surgeries.
Using robotics for parcel delivery could help to bring down costs and transform the logistics industry, according to the founder of China's second-largest e-commerce player.

Speaking exclusively to CNBC, Richard Liu, founder and CEO of JD.com , said drone technology, in particular, could allow retailers like JD.com to offer delivery services in out-of-the-way locations, without incurring high logistics costs.

"Today we have over 70,000 delivery men working on the street. It's high cost, you know," he said. "If you can use robotics to deliver a parcel, the cost will be very low."

JD.com and rival Alibaba are already established players in China's top-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. But China's rising middle class is opening newer markets for retailers in smaller cities and the countryside, where the infrastructure is not yet as well-developed as the bigger cities for cost-efficient ways of doing business.

"In the past, it's very hard to do business in the countryside, because the logistic fee is very high, the cost is too high," said Liu. According to him, this is where drones, flown from the cities to the countryside, to deliver parcels, instead of cars or vans, could taper the cost.

"That kind of logistic fee will drop down at least 70 percent, so on our balance sheet, I think it will be profitable," he said.

Cost of global parcel delivery, which excludes pickup, line-haul, and sorting, already amounts to approximately 70 billion euros ($78.38 billion) according to a 2016 report from McKinsey & Co. China, along with Germany and the United States, accounted for more than 40 percent of the market, and e-commerce was the largest driver of growth.
watch now

Uber knows it's close to losing some employees. It's a stunning turn of events for a company that has dominated lists of best places to work. And while Uber still far outflanks most other American companies in the rankings, cracks are starting to show in its gold-clad workforce. Data from Paysa shows that Uber has been consistently the top-ranked company for quality of talent over the past two years. Uber was named the 5th most desirable place to work this year by LinkedIn. Uber employees are already paid an average of $279,000 a year, according to Paysa, lagging only Netflix, Lyft and Dropbox in the rankings.

Uber drivers protest the company's recent fare cuts and go on strike in front of the car service's New York offices on February 1, 2016 in New York City. Getty Images

But the company has been through what board member Arianna Huffington calls a "crucible," after allegations of sexual harassment and gender bias from former employee Susan Fowler. A series of scandals  an executive that reportedly obtained medical records from a rape victim, that employees reportedly did cocaine on a company trip and that top executives visited an escort karaoke bar  may be slowly blocking Uber's talent pipeline. Job applications doubled year-over-year in February, and people viewing and applying to open positions is still up by more than 35 percent at Uber, according to LinkedIn data. But they fell 15 percent after the sexual harassment allegations, according to LinkedIn.

watch now

Not only that, but the quality of existing talent  and Uber's edge over other companies  has been slipping since April, according to Paysa. "So I have spoken to a lot of you personally, and I know that you're polishing your resumes," Uber's human resources chief Liane Hornsey told staffers in leaked audio obtained by Yahoo Finance. "I know your LinkedIn profiles are getting a little more deep. And I know you're taking those calls. And I just want to say, I don't know how any of you could think this is the moment to leave this company." A company sliding a spot or two from the top of a list may seem negligible. But it comes at a time when tech companies are fighting harder than ever for the best talent. Companies that hadn't traditionally focused on technology  like refrigerator manufacturers or car companies  are recruiting in Silicon Valley now, too, said Lars Schmidt, founder of human resources firm Amplify. So now, recruiters and lawyers say, Uber has two challenges: Continuing to attract top talent in Silicon Valley, and keeping existing workers from getting discouraged.

Attracting the top talent for Uber 2.0

Any openings at Uber must now filled according to a rigorous set of new guidelines aimed at improving diversity. "I want to get very, very serious here. I truly do not think companies do this well," Hornsey said at an all-hands meeting this week. "This is where I've seen companies go wrong in the past. It is not just about hiring. We can hire as many people of color, or as many women engineers that we can absorb. But I have watched other companies hire many people, and those people leave."

I would have a really hard time being an Uber recruiter right now, trying to build trust with diverse candidates. Kate Bischoff tHRive Law & Consulting

The number of applicants is still growing at Uber, if more slowly than before. But one employment attorney, who asked not to be named because she works with Silicon Valley companies, said she suspected that many of the recent applicants felt they couldn't have gotten an offer from Uber a year ago, or were trying to get more job offers to leverage their salary at another employer. Since the field is so competitive, many engineers may be applying to multiple companies to weigh offers, she said. And part of it does, indeed, depend on the applicant. Applicants for self-driving car jobs across the industry were 69 percent male, 27 percent unidentified and 6 percent women, Paysa data shows. Another disparity: On anonymous review site Glassdoor, Uber has a 4.1-star rating. At InHerSight, which focuses on female employees, the company has a 3.1-rating. Still, it might not be as hard to fill Uber slots as one would think. Even with a deeper investigation of the interest in Uber's jobs and brand, and employee retention, LinkedIn concluded that opportunities outweighed culture for many applicants. After all, Susan Fowler was not the first to raise the concerns of gender bias at Uber. The viral Medium blog post, "Dear Uber recruiter," skewered Uber's track record on women in 2016.

Stemming brain drain

Uber let go of at least 20 employees while probing its workplace culture. A lot of the company's top brass has also departed in the past few months: senior vice president Emil Michael, president Jeff Jones, senior vice president of engineering Amit Singhal, self-driving car boss Anthony Levandowski, board member David Bonderman and finance head Gautam Gupta, to name a few. CEO Travis Kalanick is on leave and the company is still seeking a chief operating officer.

Emil Michael, senior vice president of business development at Uber. Chris Goodney | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Now on top of that, other companies now have an eye out for disgruntled employees. "In terms of recruiters circling, any time there's distress there's going to be people that are opportunistic," Solomon said. New data provided to CNBC shows that between April 2016 to April 2017, among applicants tracked by Paysa, the bulk of workers that left Uber (31) were software engineers. The top companies poaching Uber talent are Google, Facebook, Amazon and Lyft, in that order. And by far, most of the employees leaving Uber (92) were male, compared to 30 workers whose genders were unknown and 17 who were female. (Only 15.4 percent of Uber's tech talent worldwide is female).

That's the cost of doing business they way they are doing business. Michael Solomon 10x Management

And when you have engineers who work on self-driving cars  one of the most marketable skills in tech  bids get even fiercer. Michael Solomon, who represents freelance tech talent for 10x Management, said he's confident that recruiters have successfully poached Uber workers already. "100 percent likely. Recruiting is cut-throat," said Schmidt, when asked if Uber is a recruiting target. "Absolutely, their engineers are getting calls. Sales and marketing probably would as well. Uber has a good reputation. They draw talent, other recruiters know that. Regardless of the field." Retaining existing employees  and hiring new ones  may come down to one major factor: money, Solomon said. "I think that's one of the places they are going to pay for their foibles," Solomon said. "They are going to have to entice people to get them to stay, that's the cost of doing business they way they are doing business." And some potential employees may see tenure at the company as a black mark, given the culture there. Leslie Miley  an advocate for better diversity practices in the Valley  has said he'd be wary of hiring someone who did well in Uber's hard-driving culture. Because some people have been terminated in connection with claims of sexual harassment, discrimination, bullying or other violations, leaving Uber during this time period could paint one as "a hero leaving on moral ground" or a "perpetrator," Solomon said. He said that a due diligence process and "backchannel" references can usually differentiate the two. But Brooke Schneider, an associate in the employment practice at Withers Bergman, said that Uber would be very limited in the information it could give about past employees. "Even for those who have been dismissed for misconduct, the company wants to be careful not really to disseminate that information. It could be considered defamation," Schneider said. "The investigation should be confidential, even though recommendations became public." Schmidt said he thinks Uber alumni are still valuable in terms of tech talent. "I think that a lot of the ethical questions are primarily at the leadership level. Could it be a stigma? I don't think so. From an innovation standpoint, Uber is still considered a leader. The ethical stigma is tied to leadership," Schmidt said. "I do think it will create recruiting challenge for them. They are going to do their homework when choosing and employer. Some candidates will look at that. "

Breaking the golden handcuffs
Taxi drivers, union members and civic groups rally on the steps of City Hall to support a City Council move to limit the number of Uber drivers and other for-hire car companies, July 20, 2015 in New York City. Getty Images

Uber keeps adding to a growing list of lawsuits, with recent filings over the ride-hailing company's undisclosed 2016 hack  a trend that continues to plague the company's cultural reversal. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has made clear and sweeping changes since being tapped for the position in August to rid the company of scandal tied to founder Travis Kalanick. The company has made efforts to improve working conditions for drivers and has played nice with city officials who wanted to ban the service from operating in London. Japanese investment giant Softbank is eyeing a $48 billion stake in the company, and Khosrowshahi has hinted at an IPO as early as 2019. While most of the pending litigation facing Uber is carried over from its former CEO, a laundry list of suits could stand as a hurdle to the company's financial and cultural turnaround. Here are seven of the biggest legal threats ahead for the company, updated from our previous list that ran in June.

1. Failure to disclose a 2016 data breach

In November, Uber revealed a previously undisclosed 2016 hack that included the personal information of 57 million users and drivers. The company has said it paid the hackers $100,000 to delete the data and keep the breach quiet  raising consumer protection concerns. Last week the city of Chicago and the attorney general for the state of Washington filed separate lawsuits against the company, alleging misconduct by the company. The Washington lawsuit claims Uber violated the state's data breach notification law, which requires that the state be notified within 45 days of a breach if more than 500 Washington residents were impacted. The hack revealed the information of 10,888 Uber drivers in Washington, according to The Seattle Times. The Chicago lawsuit claims Uber failed to correct previously known security vulnerabilities: "After the details of Uber's May 12, 2014 data breach were revealed to the public, Uber was investigated by a number of state and federal regulators that were concerned about its inadequate data security practices. Uber ultimately promised to bolster its data security policies by, inter alia, adopting protective technologies for the storage, access, and transfer of private information ... less than a year later the same failures led to a breach that was one thousand times worse." The breach is also under investigation by several other states and the Federal Trade Commission, opening the door to potential future lawsuits.

2. Intellectual property battle with Waymo  and a regulatory investigation

Uber's courtroom fight with Alphabet , Google's parent company, has also heated up in recent weeks. Alphabet's self-driving car unit, Waymo, is claiming that Uber is using a key part of Waymo's self-driving technology. The fight centers around an engineer named Anthony Levandowski, who was deeply involved in Google's self-driving car initiative before leaving to found a self-driving truck start-up, Otto, in early 2016. Uber acquired Otto later that year. Waymo's lawyers have asserted that Levandowski stole documents from Alphabet, and that Levandowski was already negotiating with Uber before he left Alphabet. Levandowski has tried to stay out of the fray, looking to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights, and Uber has fired him. Last week, Judge William Alsup granted another delay in the lengthy legal battle in light of a letter written by a second former Uber employee, Richard Jacobs, that claims Uber employees were encouraged and enabled to steal trade secrets from competing companies. Uber has said Jacobs's letter was nothing more than an attempt to extort money from the company, but the contents appeared to carry weight with Alsup, who said it would be a "huge injustice" to force Waymo to go to trial now, adding that Uber "withheld evidence."

3. Emboldened claimants of discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation

During Kalanick's tenure as CEO, Uber was the subject of several workplace culture investigations, one of which resulted in the dismissal of at least 20 employees. Another probe resulted in a 13-page list of recommendations for overhauling the company. The company says it investigated 215 claims: 54 of discrimination, 47 of sexual harassment, 45 of unprofessional behavior, 33 of bullying, 19 of other harassment, 13 of retaliation, 3 of physical security and 1 wrongful termination claim. The company is facing several suits from women and former employees of color, alleging that Uber disproportionately favors white men. While Uber has taken steps to make sure these incidents don't repeat themselves, sexual harassment does not work like bankruptcy, said Phil Bezanson, white collar partner at Bracewell. "Just because they are doing their best going forward, doesn't erase liability for things they have done in the past," Bezanson said. He said potential litigants may feel emboldened to file a lawsuit after seeing the results of the investigation. "I do a lot of harassment training for companies," said Kate Bischoff of tHRive Law & Consulting. "Sometimes after that training, the HR department gets complaints, people saying, 'I didn't want to stick my neck out, but now I know that it's a big deal.' I don't know if litigation comes out of that .... We might see more come out of Uber." Bischoff said a lot depends on meeting various statutes of limitation, both at the state level and at the federal level under Title VII and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Other factors are whether the company took "timely and appropriate action" on the claims, and whether the interactions were between co-workers or with managers. There's also the option for "commissioners charge," a different way of handling such cases. It gets even more complicated when one considers arbitration agreements  a very common way for employers to keep legal matters private  and a release of claims that employees may sign when they resign, freeing their former employer from legal responsibility. Susan Fowler, the sexual harassment whistleblower that most prominently exposed Uber's issues, said in a Supreme Court brief that she was asked to sign a class-action waiver as a condition of employment, and that all employees were required to sign those waivers. Brooke Schneider, an associate in the Employment practice at Withers Bergman, said exiting employees can refuse to sign releases, or use them to negotiate more severance. Documents from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing show a former worker, whose name has been redacted from the document, filed a "right to sue" claim against Uber. The document says: Beginning in late 2015, a number of female colleagues sought his intervention regarding alleged sex-based discrimination and harassment they were suffering at the hands of a male supervisor. On several occasions, [redacted] raised these concerns with Uber`s HR department. Instead of investigating the allegations of discrimination and harassment and taking appropriate corrective action, HR told that 'we get a lot of phone calls from employees that we don`t always act on.'

Shortly thereafter, was subjected to a retaliatory investigation, resulting in his termination on or about March 15, 2016.

4. Recourse from sexual assault victims

Several women have come forward in recent months alleging assault by Uber drivers and levying some fault on the part of the company. In mid-November, two unnamed women sued Uber claiming the company failed to properly vet the drivers who they say assaulted them. The complaint says: "Uber has done everything possible to continue using low-cost, woefully inadequate background checks on drivers and has failed to monitor drivers for any violent or inappropriate conduct after they are hired. Nothing meaningful has been done to make rides safer for passengers  especially women. This is no longer an issue of "rogue" drivers who act unlawfully." Allegations of this kind of misconduct date back several years to 2014, when then-executive Eric Alexander is accused of obtaining the medical records of 26-year-old woman who was allegedly raped by her Uber driver. According to Recode, executives had trouble believing she was telling the truth, speculating that instead the reported rape was an attempt by a competitor to sabotage Uber. She filed a lawsuit against Uber in June, claiming Uber has intruded in her private affairs and defamed her. Uber helped the prosecution in the rape case at the time it was being heard, and also settled a lawsuit with the woman in 2015. Kalanick publicly said at the time of the case he would do "everything to help bring this perpetrator to justice and to support the victim and her family in her recovery." It's unclear what international laws and releases of claims apply to the case, lawyers said. Either way, the suit is "just another hit to their brand," Bischoff said. Tweet: Good. Finally, one of the many women hurt by Uber can actually sue. Women employees are bound by forced arbitration, and won't get justice.

5. Driver classification battles across the globe

Last month a British tribunal ruled on the employee rights of Uber drivers in the country, and again sided with the drivers. The tribunal ruled that drivers are employees and not self-employed contractors, and therefore entitled to minimum wage and vacation time, according to USA Today. The company said then it would appeal to decision, and it continues to fight for contractor status on a case-by-case basis in the U.S. Earlier this year a New York court ruled in favor of three New York Uber drivers aiming for employee benefits, a ruling that could extend to "others similarly situated," according to Law360. Uber has long argued that drivers, who can set their own hours and own their own cars, are independent contractors. But New York, as well as other local regulators, have found that the start-up exercises considerable control over the drivers, thus treating them like employees. While Uber headquarters might be undergoing a cultural makeover, the same protections recommended by Eric Holder's report won't necessarily extend to drivers if they are independent contractors, Schneider said. That could stoke even more contention between executives and drivers, she said. "I look at Uber as a workplace culture that has failed. So now we know, working at Uber is not always pleasant," Bischoff said. "It's difficult, it seems to have this bro culture. Each one of these individual cases now looks more credible. So yeah if they are treating drivers poorly, there's a natural human response to take that seriously."

Uber has updated its app over the past several months, adding a tipping option and giving drivers more control over their trips. But Michael Solomon, who manages freelance technology talent with 10x Management, said that the treatment of drivers is increasingly starting to affect the perceptions of Uber's technical talent. "I'm not sure their exact timeline for rolling out autonomous vehicles widespread, but one of the big selling points is they were are making everyone a driver and creating jobs," Solomon said. "That's a big part of their story as the taxi companies are going away. Now they are completely undoing the good part. ... this a company that was very vocal about how good they were to have provided them with gigs, as they rip that out from under them."

6. Regulatory probes into 'greyballing' and data collection

The U.S. Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation into Uber's evasion of authorities in May, according to Reuters. The investigation focuses on a software, "greyball," that Uber used to stay under the radar of transportation authorities, according to The New York Times. Uber also agreed to years of privacy audits in conjunction with a Federal Trade Commission investigation. Local authorities in Portland, Ore., found the software was active in that city and denied service to 17 individuals, 16 of which were city government officials, according to Reuters.

7. Lawsuits among board members
One of only two known $50/$100 Brown Back national bank notes, this one from the Aetna National Bank of Kansas City, was hammered at $62,500 at the Lyn Knight auction.

Memphis [mem-fis]. Noun. Term used by paper money aficionados to describe an annual show dedicated to paper currency held anywhere in the United States in June.

Even though this years International Paper Money Show was held in Kansas City, Mo., instead of Memphis, Tenn., for the first time in 41 years, Memphis was what many attendees were reflexively calling the June 8 to 11 event. The change in location did not seem to have an impact. The location was convenient, the crowds were no less, the bourse floor was active and the educational sessions well-attended. No complaints were heard and most participants seemed to welcome the change of venue.

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Four floor auction sessions were conducted by Lyn Knight Currency Auctions, two for world notes and two for those of the United States. The sales included the usual mix of floor, book, and Internet bids, with a focus on collectible notes, errors and national bank notes.

Most of the errors were a continuation of the collection offered by Knight at the Professional Currency Dealers Association show in March. Many again went for more than their estimated prices. Leading them all with a hammer price of $62,500 plus buyers fee was one of only two known double-denomination $50/$100 Brown Back national bank notes. This one, with a grade of Paper Money Guaranty Fine 12 was from Kansas Citys Aetna National Bank. The only other error of this type is from a bank in the New Mexico Territory, and it is in the American Numismatic Association Museum.

Small-size errors

The top small-size error was a unique Friedberg 1921-B* Series 1995 $1 Federal Reserve note with a grade of PCGS Currency Choice New 64 that sold for $7,500. The catalog says this is the only Type II star replacement note with an inverted overprint known for any denomination. The Type II designation refers to the presence of an adjacent portion of another note at the top edge. This note last sold for $5,175 in 2011.

A bid of $7,000 won a spectacular PCGS Currency Gem New 66 error that is so convoluted in the manner in which the paper folded before printing that you cannot tell what series it belongs to.

A Gem Uncirculated Series 1976 $2 Federal Reserve note (F-1935-H) with the back completely blank realized $4,250.

A note that at $3,250 more than tripled its estimate was a PCGS Currency Choice About Uncirculated 58 F-1910-B Series 1977A $1 Federal Reserve note from New York with a printed tear that resulted with Washingtons portrait being split in two.

The charm of the Morgan dollar, plus a look at the largest U.S. gold coin to circulate: Another column in the July 3 Coin World takes a look at the whimsical names of the $2 Federal Reserve note

At $2,250 against a $750 to $1,500 estimate was an F-1915-C Series 1988A $1 Federal Reserve note from the Philadelphia district with an ink smear on the back that floods the entire surface area of the note including the margins. The catalog calls it one of the finest ink smears known. It had a PCGS Currency grade of AU-50 with an edge tear.

More than 30 error lots exceeded $1,000.

National bank notes

Three First Charter Period Series 1875 national bank notes surpassed $60,000. One was an F-460 $100 issue from the Streator National Bank (Illinois) that brought $77,500 in Very Fine/Extremely Fine. It is one of two of the denomination from the state. A Wyoming Territory $20 note (F-434) from the First National Bank of Cheyenne (Wyoming) that was once owned by Amon Carter and graded Very Fine realized $72,000. It is one of only six Series 1875 $20 territorials known. A $50 note from the Second National Bank of Danville (Illinois), F-451, sold at $65,000 in VF/XF.
You will have seen those Russian dolls that open up one inside another. They offer a way of thinking about Brexit for this new Government and Parliament.

The first and biggest doll is the manifesto commitments of the two largest parties in the Commons. As Christopher Howarth pointed out recently on this site, both the Conservative and Labour documents endorsed last Junes referendum result. The first said: The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union. The second said: Labour accepts the referendum result. Add the DUP and the minor parties, and over 85 per cent of the electorate voted to leave the EU earlier this month, as Christopher put it.

None the less, it is a matter of fact that no party has a working majority, and the Governments manifesto commitments have thus not been endorsed  a point that the the Lords will duly note. It can therefore be argued that while the Commons wont challenge the principle of Brexit, it will force a say on the practice. There is a head of media steam up for staying in the Single Market and Customs Union as members. George Osbornes Evening Standard has been pushing this position; todays Mail on Sunday has commissioned a supportive poll; the CBI is knocking at the door. This is the second doll.

It opens up to reveal a third. One can be a Single Market member and not an EU member, as Norway and the other EEA members are. And one can be a Customs Union member and not an EU member  like Turkey, for example. But there is a solid case for asserting that both options are wide of what the British people voted for a year ago. The Remain and Leave campaigns alike insisted that a Leave vote would mean departing the Single Market. It follows that, since the British people voted to take back control, Single Market membership is incompatible with the referendum result, since it offers no proper means of controlling immigration.

Backbench MPs are therefore very unlikely to swing behind Single Market membership. Nigel Farage presently lies dead with a stake driven through his heart. Do Conservative MPs really want to pluck it out, and bring him back from the dead, by giving up on controlling EU migration? Do Labour ones, come to think of it? Lord Ashcrofts research suggests that immigration was the second-biggest driver of the referendum vote, and Leave polled very well indeed in what were once Labours impregnable fastnesses.

Mention of Labour brings us to Jeremy Corbyn. To believe that he will suddenly tear up Labours present approach to Brexit is to misunderstand his entire political career, his character  and his recent record on Brexit. Corbyn is an old-time Eurosceptic who leads a markedly pro-EU party. He pays lip-service to its consensus, but without much action to follow it up. With the assistance of John McDonnell, Seumas Milne and Andrew Fisher, he played a stonewalling blinder during the referendum campaign. As we have pointed out previously, Milne used every trick in the bureaucratic book, and then some, to stop Corbyn upping the ante for Remain. Speeches were watered down, e-mails queried, press releases blocked or delayed, meetings rearranged or cancelled  or simply not turned up to. In effect, Labours leader and his cabal sabotaged the cause that he was nominally signed up to.

Roll the clock forward a year, and nothing much has changed. There is no gain for Corbyn in making waves within his party by backing Single Market membership  to which he is in any event reflexively hostile, since its state aid and competition rules are contrary to his commitments on nationalisation and borrowing. Indeed, there is nothing in it for him in proposing a positive policy at all. He is set up to be the John Smith of our time, doing to the Conservatives over Brexit what Smith did to them over Maastricht. He will carp. He will criticise. He will table emergency questions. He will demand debates. He will spring ambushes. He will say that the Conservatives are all washed up, divided, discredited and incapable of conducting negotiations effectively. In short, you will scarcely be able to guess from his opposition to everything that the Government says and does over Brexit that the Oppositions position is actually much the same.

As for the Conservatives, they are unlikely to replace Theresa May  this mornings papers pullulate with talk of a leadership challenge  with a Remain sympathiser. Conservative MPs were narrowly for staying in the EU during the referendum. Like lots of former Remain voters, most have now come round to Leave. In any event, there is no consensus on a replacement for May, so there is unlikely to be a coronation of a single candidate  thus circumventing the leadership election rules, which give the final say to all party members (as they should). The membership supports taking back control  and leaving the Single Market.

All in all, then, the tiniest doll looks much like the largest, as is the case with those Russian originals. Theresa Mays new Government is weaker and smaller than her old one. But her Brexit policy, and that of the other main parties, is little different.

However, there are four important provisos.

The first is the most easily dismissed. Philip Hammond appears to be pushing a subtle variant of Customs Union membership. He is reported to want associate membership of the union, an option that the Prime Minister herself floated in January. The Chancellor apparently supports preserving the status quo on goods, and allowing negotiation for deals with the EU27 on services. We may find out more when he appears on Marr this morning.

However, what he and May mean by associate membership seems to be significantly different. Deals with EU countries on services would doubtless mean agreeing practices incompatible with deals on services with other countries. Furthermore, those other countries would be likely also to want deals on manufacturing, and would be unlikely to agree one without the other.

And seeking such deals worldwide is an integral part of the Tory manifesto. Hammond pushed a new Customs Union arrangement in Cabinet committee last week. He was backed by Amber Rudd, and opposed by May, David Davis and Boris Johnson. ConservativeHome is told that Damian Green stayed loyal to his boss, for all the pro-EU instincts that he must still feel strongly.

The Chancellor lacks a big band of supporters in Cabinet. And there is no sign that he has many on the backbenches, where his reputation took a big hit over the NICs debacle. His allies are telling the media that he is in street-fighting mode, but at the moment he lacks a knock-out punch.

Second, there is the coming Great Repeal Bill. This seeks to give business stability by temporarily preserving the corpus of EU law. That wont stop hardline Remainers, the Opposition and perhaps some Brexiteers seeking to kick lumps out of it. This will undermine the Governments already precarious position (assuming it survives).

Third, expect the Prime Ministers leitmotif of no deal is better than a bad deal to be downgraded. It still reflects her bottom line. But her failure to win a majority leaves her with less room for manoeuvre.

Finally, given the Governments weakness, it is possible, even likely, that what Ministers like to call the implementation period  thats to say, the transition period while EU arrangements remain in place  is longer than it would have been had May won that majority.

In summary, Brexit will happen. The clock ticks on towards March 31, 2019. But the Prime Ministers bungled election has raised the odds of it being disorderly.
CORNWALL, Ontario  Numerous thunderstorms are expected to affect much of southern Ontario this afternoon and early evening.

Severe thunderstorm watch in effect for:

Cornwall  Lancaster

Maxville  Alexandria

Morrisburg  Long Sault

Winchester  Newington

Damaging wind gusts and torrential downpours giving rainfall amounts in excess of 50 mm are the main threats.

Large hail can damage property and cause injury. Strong wind gusts can toss loose objects, damage weak buildings, break branches off trees and overturn large vehicles. Heavy downpours can cause flash floods and water pooling on roads. Lightning kills and injures Canadians every year. Remember, when thunder roars, go indoors!

Severe thunderstorm watches are issued when atmospheric conditions are favourable for the development of thunderstorms that could produce one or more of the following: large hail, damaging winds, torrential rainfall.

The Office of the Fire Marshal and Emergency Management recommends that you take cover immediately if threatening weather approaches.

Please continue to monitor alerts and forecasts issued by Environment Canada. To report severe weather, send an email to ec.cpio-tempetes-ospc-storms.ec@canada.ca or tweet reports using #ONStorm.

For more information:

http://www.emergencymanagementontario.ca/english/beprepared/beprepared.html.
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"Lay off my man. There's plenty of dogs on the land."

In the movie, Ariel (the titular mermaid) decides she needs to become human to seduce her crush, Prince Eric, so she makes a deal with Ursula for three days of leggy land action. The price for this trade is Ariel's voice ... which historically hasn't really been needed for love in Disney movies, anyway. Half of these princesses just lie there and wait for a dude to come make out with them.

So, if Ariel gets kissed by Eric by sundown on the third day, she gets her voice back and gets to keep her sexy legs free of charge. But of course, Ursula's fish-to-human-conversion powers extend to her own tentacles, and she transforms herself into a beautiful brunette. Ursula also bewitches Eric into falling in love with her (which sort of makes the whole "looking like a nubile human" thing unnecessary) and tricks him into marrying her in a massive, elaborate sea wedding.

Walt Disney

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The priest is already picturing their wedding night (unless you're watching this movie on DVD).

Except ... why? Eric is already under her control. If Ursula's only objective is keeping him busy so he can't kiss Ariel, she could have just forced him to eat fifteen pounds of Taco Bell so he couldn't leave the bathroom for three days. Or said, "Hey, slave, don't kiss her." The thing Ursula absolutely did not need to do was spend time and effort planning a fancy wedding. It makes no sense for her to put in all that work just to win a bet.

It would make sense, though, if what she truly wanted was love. Ursula needed to use Ariel's voice to magically seduce Eric -- their deal was the only way Ursula thought she could finally achieve her dreams of being married and raising a family of human/octopus hybrids from hell. Suddenly, Ursula is like a sad side-character in a romantic comedy who pulls off wacky schemes to find a spouse. And in response, her would-be lover impales her through the gut with a massive boat. Take that, non-conventionally-attractive women!
Jackie Chan DC Racing team owner-driver David Cheng has revealed Jackie Chan looked at getting a last minute flight to France to watch his eponymous team claim a historic podium result in the 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours after it moved into shock victory contention.

The LMP2 team came remarkably close to a huge upset when it was promoted into the overall lead of the endurance race with three hours to go as a high attrition rate struck the depleted LMP1 field.

In the year that saw the LMP2 class lapping upwards of 10secs faster than last year thanks to an overhaul of the regulations, the #38 Oreca emerged clear in the class battle thanks to the combined efforts of Oliver Jarvis, Thomas Laurent and Ho-Pin Tung.

Staying out of trouble despite the 'brutally' hot conditions, the trio climbed to second as LMP1 cars fell by the wayside before moving up to the top with three hours to go when the #1 Porsche - which was ahead by 13 laps - came to a halt.

Though the fairytale would be scuppered by the fast recovering #2 Porsche as it caught and retook the lead with just over an hour to go, Tung brought the car across the line in second position, just a lap off the win.

With the Chinese flag flying over the podium at Le Mans for the first time, Cheng - who himself finished fourth in the sister #37 car - is proud to be part of such a history and unexpected moment in the race's illustrious history.

"This is absolutely an incredible day for the entire team," he said. "The challenge was going to be for class victories and LMP2 victories so to make it on to the overall podium is incredible.

"For us as a team I am so proud of all the guys, the drivers, the mechanics and all the crew. It has been quite an interest journey these last four years with Ho Pin and the last two years in the team. Today it all came together and made it worthwhile."

According to Cheng, the team was formed in association with world renowned actor Jackie Chan, best known for the Rush Hour film series, four years ago with the intention of developing Chinese talent.

Though Chan himself couldn't be present in France this time he was live on call as the two cars crossed the line for their result.

"Myself and Jackie have known each other for a while, three or four years, and after mine and Ho Pin's Le Mans 24 race in 2015 at about 4pm straight after the race ended Jackie and I had this idea of forming a team together to help support Chinese drivers and help make a Chinese team at Le Mans.

"Jackie is not with us today as he has other commitments in China but he has been supporting us all the way with calls and right before the chequered flag he was on the phone cheering on with all of us as part of the team. He really supports us and supports the entire sport."
If I were a small-business owner, especially in retail, I might be a little irked by news that the state of Connecticut has struck a deal with Amazon to develop a third fulfillment center in North Haven.

If I were an entrepreneur trying to get started, I might be a little miffed that my state government set aside $25 million for a company that is, in terms of market valuation, among the four biggest in the world.

Its one thing to help David. Its another to help Goliath.

But there may not be a solution to this problem, because the problem is more about politics than it is about business. The more state and local officials scramble to create jobs for their constituents, the more they end up contributing to the growing economic power of monopolies. And the more they do that, the more they defeat their own purposes.

Ill explain.

Gov. Dannel Malloy announced earlier this month that Amazon would expand operations in Connecticut, building a facility in North Haven, creating an additional 2,000 jobs. The online retailer runs facilities in Wallingford and Windsor, already employing about 2,000.

That was great news for an unpopular Democratic governor eager to see his name emblazoned in headlines along with the word jobs. That was great news for his chief Republican rival for the same reason. Jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney used to reside on that 168-acre lot, but it has sat empty for the 18 years. I welcome the new jobs ... and I look forward to continuing to work with Amazon as the new local partner to bring new development, growth and vitality to our entire region, said state Senate President Pro Tempore Len Fasano of North Haven.

Development? Yes.

Growth and vitality? Maybe.

Consider the big picture. Economic growth is slowing. The president of the United States might believe that theres no reason we shouldnt be able to get at some point into the future to 5 (percent) and above, but no one who knows what theyre talking about believes that. The U.S. economy grew 1.6 percent in 2016, its worst rate since 2011. Only the most Pollyannish wonk expects more than 2 percent growth.

Theres a reason for that. We have not yet arrived as a consensus, but economists are seeing more evidence that concentration is the culprit. Specifically, the more the U.S. economy concentrates around a handful of multinational corporations, the less room there is for everyone else. This affects us in myriad ways. Wages stagnate. Productivity declines. Inequality worsens. And, importantly, dynamism flat-lines.

One survey of small businesses found more dying than being born across the country and across all sectors of the economy. Another study focusing on Connecticut found dynamism stalled. Thats important, because small firms tend to be net job creators while big firms tend to be net job killers. In enticing Amazon or any giant to create jobs, Connecticut officials could be, in reality, killing them off.

Amazon is a key player in this game. With Apple, Google and Facebook, its the most valuable company on the planet. Last year, it controlled 43 percent of internet revenues and 53 percent of online sales growth. Analysts dont see an end in sight, as Amazon is moving into finance, manufacturing and cloud computing, while brick-and-mortar retailers like Sears and Macys are losing ground, fast.

Most companies hope to realize a profit before they grow. For the past two decades, Amazon did the opposite. It grew and grew, nearly always in the red, but with size has come the key to its global strength. In platform markets, bleeding money to establish growth may be a guarantor of long-term dominance, wrote Lina Khan, a Yale Law School scholar in an article for Pro-Market, a publication by the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The market reflects a truth that our current (anti-trust) laws fail to detect.

Which brings us full circle: this problem is about politics more than business. Until national politics and legal thinking return to an anti-trust posture they had in the early part of the last century, the options for elected state and local officials would appear to be fairly limited.

But not entirely. Fact is, Malloy and Fasano are reaching for the low-hanging fruit when they should be making long-term investments, like giving entrepreneurs privileged status in the granting of state subsidies. Yes, theres a good chance many would fail, but theres also a good chance a few wouldnt. If and when they do succeed, it would be money well spent.

John Stoehr is a lecturer in political science at Yale University. He can be reached at johnastoehr@gmail.com.
WINSTED  The flaming rat case is a good one, but after you walk away from your imaginative, fun, inspiring 90 minutes in a repurposed bank building on the main drag here, youll first talk about the bright-red, early 60s Corvair. Sooner or later youll get around to the emerging threats from Washington against your rights to file legal claims.

Having nearly asphyxiated a couple times in a death-trap Corvair, back in that period of callow youth, youll look down at the mirror that shows the rear-mounted engine, perched behind the axle.

That kind of explains the ease with which your old high school buddy could perform parking lot doughnuts with just an inch of fresh snow. It also accounts for the fishtailing under even low-speed, dry conditions, along with the potential for the rear tires to collapse at the same time. Oh yeah, and the carbon monoxide that cuddled us when the heater was on. What you didnt know was, in a front-end crash, with nothing between you and the bumper but air, the steering wheel had a tendency to spear drivers through the chest. How cool is that?

Theres a lot to learn at the American Museum of Tort Law, consumer advocate Ralph Naders nearly 2-year-old cultural destination here in his hometown.

Yep, its not the most compelling name for a museum. And if you go there expecting to get some new recipes for sugar, butter, flour, baking powder, salt and eggs, well loser, thats a torte, not a tort. Try Nujaims Bistro, a new Mediterranean restaurant down the block that has baklava but not yet the wit to put a Ralph Nader Torte on the menu.

A tort is your fundamental right to sue, which can lead to things like million-dollar judgments, punitive damages, case-law precedents and safer cars. You like safe cars, dont you? Because you can drive like a jerk and not die, almost. Before the General Motors investigators got busted for harassing Nader and he called them out with the classic Unsafe At Any Speed, launching the consumer-advocacy revolution, car makers wrote off fatalities as the price of doing business.

Take Fords Pinto, as dangerous a piece of junk that ever put tire to asphalt. The rear-mounted gas tank could have been made safer for $11 per vehicle. The damning paper trail, first reported in the late-1970s by a young magazine called Mother Jones, led to wrongful death and injury settlements, $100 million in punitive damages, and recalls.

Richard L. Newman, executive director of the American Museum of Tort Law, fondly recalls his old Pinto from the memory of someone who was unscathed by the vehicle. He had the idea to create the T-shirt of the stylized, nearly engulfed Pinto that is a staple of the museum gift shop. The word museum is a misnomer, Newman said in a recent phone call. This stuff is still alive. A former president of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association, he joined the museum as it was opening, but after Eisterhold Associates architects of Kansas City, installed the easy-to-use interactive displays with their colorful graphics used to discuss landmark cases.

At the entrance, youre hit with a quote from Judge Learned Hand, who made history on the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York: If we are to keep our democracy there must be one commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.

Visitors learn that a partial cause of the American Revolution was King George IIIs termination of jury trials. Stratford residents will be enthralled by the asbestos-litigation corner, as opposed to the piles of asbestos tailings that Raymark spread around the town.

There are individual exhibits for everything from the famous case of the scalding McDonalds coffee, to the Dalkon Shield, a poorly designed intrauterine birth-control device marketed by the A.H. Robins Company that led to infections in many users, resulting in hundreds of thousands of lawsuits.

So what about the flaming rat? Back around World War II, a 19-year-old boy was cleaning some machinery with gasoline down in Mississippi. Some dripped through the machine, splashing on a sheltering rat. The rat scurried under a nearby gas heater, which ignited the rodent, which ran back to the boys machine. Boom!

I asked Newman whether the museums marketing team, so obviously not on the ball in getting some product placement at Nujaims Bistro, had considered a fundraising event in which Ralph Nader gets locked in the vault and donations are taken to bail him out. It is then he tells me the mystery. On an inside wall of the very serious vault is a small silver cylinder. If it is pulled, air is released on the other side of the wall: a possible distress signal.

Who  Newman mused  had to die in the vault before that was installed?

Ken Dixon can be reached in the Capitol at 860-549-4670 or at kdixon@ctpost.com. See twitter.com/KenDixonCT. His Facebook address is kendixonct.hearst. Dixons Connecticut Blog-o-rama is at blog.ctnews.com/dixon/
Pa. Dems could flip the House of Reps. Here's what that might mean.

elections
When Theresa May arrived in Downing Street she behaved like the leader of a rebel army seizing a Royal palace rather than the Home Secretary taking a step up the Westminster career ladder.

She purged the old guard, made great play of being different, and promised to set her party on a new course. Her foot soldiers and supporters cheered loudly, hailing her strength as they prepared to crush enemies at the ballot box.

Now the dust settles after a dismal Election that snatched near-defeat from the jaws of victory. And the self-styled Boudicca who promised to unite Britains warring tribes and defeat her European foes looks more like Mrs Bean.

When Theresa May arrived in Downing Street she behaved like the leader of a rebel army seizing a Royal palace rather than the Home Secretary taking a step up the Westminster career ladder

Yes, May still has the keys to Downing Street in her handbag. But she has trashed her own reputation. Tossed away a parliamentary majority. Torn up her manifesto. Lost her closest aides. Infuriated her party.

Assisted her enemies, both internal and external. Exacerbated divisions in Britain. And annoyed much of Europe.

Our nation begins all-important Brexit talks tomorrow with a badly wounded leader hastily cobbling together a fresh team and stance. Were not surprised by seeing her weakness, one European diplomat told me. We knew she was weak.

The two-year timescale after triggering Article 50 is designed to make withdrawal from the EU difficult. May wasted one-eighth of it on a ballot that backfired.

The economy is stumbling. And the new political reality makes it hard to see the shape of any deal winning Westminster support.

Perhaps the Prime Minister might reflect on the wisdom of overthrowing David Camerons regime with such revolutionary fervour, given the parliamentary paralysis. She might even, dare I say, try listening to her predecessor as she searches for a path forward on Europe.

Perhaps the Prime Minister might reflect on the wisdom of overthrowing David Camerons regime with such revolutionary fervour

Such was her hostility to the ancien regime, one key figure voted Green in the Election. And having humiliated George Osborne, the ex-Chancellor is demonstrating each day as editor of Londons Evening Standard that revenge is delicious served cold.

Another former Government insider bemoaned to me that the Maybot default setting is to do the opposite of the humanoid that preceded her.

Yet Cameron was a winner and more popular than his party  unlike his successor whose stature shrivels in the spotlight. He became Coalition leader in 2010 off the biggest Tory gain in seats for eight decades, then won unchecked power five years later amid austerity.

He saw the need to shift Conservatives to the centre ground, not revive grammar schools. He took part in difficult Election debates. And he would not have been frightened to meet victims and relatives of the dead in a disaster, something that will deservedly haunt May.

Cameron told friends he was amazed to see Tory Election efforts focus so heavily on Labour heartlands, insisting such seats would never turn blue. He was right; Labour even increased its share of the vote in Halifax, home to the Tory manifesto launch.

I accept some bias as his former speechwriter. Yet I was also a fierce public critic on issues such as aid, housing and immigration, while attacking his foolish appeasement of hard-Right zealots that led to the wretched EU referendum.

The big question confronting May is how to clean up the mess. She is so toxic that Labour insiders tell me they would reject efforts to forge a team of national unity on Brexit  and shes so holed that the hard-Left forces of Corbyn believe they are just one step from power.

This idea terrifies Tory troops. Perversely, MPs in the party that just won the Election are so stunned by the result that they are frantically reviewing everything, while the losers rally round a once-reviled leader and feel supremely confident. For now, at least.

Last week Cameron joined calls for May to adopt a softer Brexit, telling a Polish conference she should consult more widely. He was right: if she carries on pushing stubbornly for hard Brexit, she will lose any vote in Parliament, risking no deal and major economic disruption.

Last week Cameron joined calls for May to adopt a softer Brexit, telling a Polish conference she should consult more widely

Yet such is the Westminster stasis and surge of Labour confidence that even the more sensible Norwegian option  which cuts costs and regains some legislative control while avoiding hard borders and customs delays  might struggle to pass in this zombie Parliament.

Labour will play games, hoping for a new Election. And the headbangers who have already brought down three Tory prime ministers over Europe could put loathing of Brussels ahead of party and country again  even if it means Britain crashes out in devastating style.

Perhaps Camerons Brexit analysis was correct. First on Project Fear, given our stuttering economy. And second on his private conclusion that it will send Britain at best from being a fringe player in Europe looking outwards to an outside player always looking in.

Hard not to wonder if it is worth all the disruption, isnt it? Especially when a deadly inferno in London has exposed the sorry divisions in society needing urgent repair.

Ruth Davidson is seen by many as a Tory saviour in this age of populist politics. Friends say the likeable Scottish leader was planning to get married to partner Jen Wilson, start a family and then find a safe Edinburgh seat after boundary changes before joining Westminster.

Given the abrupt ending of Mays honeymoon with voters, she may need to hasten her plans.

When James Cleverly was out campaigning for his Braintree seat, he visited a village and came across two young mums with their children. They had a friendly chat and one took a selfie with the candidate.

Later she posted it on social media  only to receive a firestorm of abuse for associating with Tory scum. Shocked, she soon took the image down  one more civilian caught in the crossfire of an increasingly vicious online war.

Most believe the frenzy of online abuse is driven by hardline supporters of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn

Such onslaughts on Facebook and Twitter have become a depressing part of politics, especially for women who are often singled out for the worst savaging. The attrition left one defeated MP, a dedicated and decent individual, saying he might not stand again. This daily and routine aggression is making public life very difficult, he told me.

Concerns were raised at last weeks meeting of Tory backbenchers, addressed by the Prime Minister. Most believe it is driven by hardline supporters of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Regardless, this barrage of hate and hostility is one more reason to deter good people from frontline politics when we desperately need to raise, not diminish, the quality of Parliament.
'We are now in a crisis  a very real one'

Never let a crisis go to waste. That was one of the crucial lessons I learned from 30 years in the finance industry, not to mention a spell in Government.

We are now in a crisis  a very real one. And it is essential that we take the opportunity to restore some sanity to the way we attempt to deal with Europe.

The Government is in turmoil. Brexit negotiations are due to start tomorrow, almost a year to the day since Britain voted to leave the EU. Yet even now some crackpots seem determined to pursue a hard Brexit, with all the economic damage that might entail.

As the months have gone by, it has felt that many in this country have lost their grip on reality. Perhaps the new political landscape will focus minds. I certainly hope so.

Its true I am a Remainer, but not of the table-thumping kind. As a former chairman of Goldman Sachss asset management division  managing more than 600 billion in assets  and as an adviser to George Osborne, I have a decent understanding of what makes the world economy go round.

More than any Brexiteer I understand that, yes, you can do trade with any part of the world. And I understand that we must counter many falsehoods and fallacies. The first of these is the claim that belonging to the EU destroys our ability to trade with the rest of the world. Yet look at the example of Germany. Their No 1 trade partner for 2016? China.

The main things driving trade are: a) being good at it; and b) maintaining relationships with countries that have good domestic growth. Germany achieved these things while remaining at the heart of the EU.

We also face major economic challenges  productivity differences between regions of the UK and the dangerous income and wealth differentials between younger and older generations  that are nothing to do with Europe.

But a single market is to do with Europe, and this is my second point. Whatever Brexiteers might say, it is prerequisite to some aspects of successful modern trade.

Today, we produce more cars than we did 30 years ago, even though we dont have any major car producers. How is this possible?

Yes, we have a highly flexible labour market and, yes, we are integrated with the big German and Japanese producers. But without the single market and low tariffs that go with it, this would have been impossible. To claim that we can do these things better outside the EU is very, very shallow.

We simply dont have the expertise in our civil service or elsewhere to boost our trade when suddenly faced with new tariffs. We are decisively not one of the top exporters in the world.

My third concern is with the market in skilled labour and students.

'Recent events should force Mrs May to listen more broadly. Reach out to the other parties. Take note of what young voters were telling her'

It is important we accept substantial numbers of foreign students without pretending they are immigrants. Theresa Mays inner circle seems to think otherwise. They wish to clamp down  yet that would be preposterous. Anyone who sits down with India knows that, within ten minutes, their officials will raise the restrictions already in place for Indian immigrants, many of whom wish to study here.

The idea that we can have rigid controls on foreign students and then win great trade deals is so out of touch it is embarrassing.

Finally, I would point to the sheer risk involved in putting ourselves outside of the EU. It is enormous.

Weve already seen incomes squeezed because of the weak pound, which, in turn, is clearly due to the self-imposed risks of our national stance on Brexit.

Our so-called golden relationship with China is fraying. And as for talk of trade deals with New Zealand, I am speechless. It is a country smaller than Greece.

We can still get it right. I know we need a Brexit that benefits the whole of the UK. And I am not alone in wanting a realistic approach. A Survation poll in todays MoS shows a clear majority in favour of a second referendum once the Governments negotiations are complete.

Recent events should force Mrs May to listen more broadly. Reach out to the other parties. Take note of what young voters were telling her. The referendum gave her a  weak  mandate for Brexit, not a kamikaze self-destruct button.

We have to put an end to this ridiculous no deal better than a bad deal nonsense. Yes, we can trade with any part of the world. But to ignore  or even ditch  what we currently have is plain insanity. Dont do it.

Lord O'Neill of Gatley is a former Commercial Secretary to the Treasury
Unforeseen events have utterly transformed the political weather. First came the Election result. Then came the abiding, endlessly painful tragedy of Grenfell Tower, whose impact grows rather than diminishes as the days go by.

There is a dangerous impatience with authority at large, which, if mishandled, could do serious damage to confidence in government itself.

For the Prime Minister, these things have meant nothing but woe. Let us not judge Theresa May too harshly.

There is nothing wrong with being a reserved person who does not readily show her deepest feelings in public. The demonstrations against her were shocking, unjust and misplaced.

Theresa May's BBC Newsnight interview revealed once again that, when under pressure, she finds it very hard to cope

The PM is heckled as she leaves St Clement's Church near Grenfell Tower: There is a dangerous impatience with authority at large, which, if mishandled, could do serious damage to confidence in government itself

But her BBC Newsnight interview revealed once again that, when under pressure, she finds it very hard to cope. Presumably it was her own decision to face such questioning.

Yet she gave wooden, defensive answers, resorting to bureaucratic formulas. Even her mea culpa last night acknowledged only failures by others, rather than accepting she had herself not done enough.

The Mail on Sundays latest Survation poll, conducted by the research organisation which correctly warned of a close Election result two weeks ago

At the moment, her Government looks like a punctured tyre, flat and immobilised. Someone has to reflate it, and soon.

A week ago, many in her party and in the country were ready to rally round her for the sake of stability and continuity.

Tories particularly feared to start an avalanche which might lead to a new General Election in which they might do worse than last time.

But if Mrs May cannot provide these things, there will be growing pressure for her to be replaced, with all the risks that entails.

The mood has not only turned against her in general.

The Mail on Sundays latest Survation poll, conducted by the research organisation which correctly warned of a close Election result two weeks ago, now shows a significant shift in national feeling against a hard Brexit.

Last summers blithe, confident belief that we could free ourselves from the EU in a single joyous leap has turned to caution. Many more are prepared to consider ways of keeping trading links with the EU, through the customs union or the single market, perhaps the so-called Norway option.

Mrs Mays swaggering claim that no deal is better than a bad deal is also far from popular.

As we now know, more cautious opinions are also the views of the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, and of many others in the Cabinet.

Chancellor Philip Hammond arrives in Downing Street, in central London on June 14. As we now know, more cautious opinions are also the views of the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, and of many others in the Cabinet

In this crucial week, as talks with the EU get under way, the Prime Minister needs to recall her contrite post-Election promises to listen more, and to pay greater attention to her colleagues. This will entail rather more than a mere change in attitude. A major rethink of her approach to policy and presentation is required.

This will not solve all her problems. Flexibility on Brexit will lead to opposition from the usual hardliners. But it may soon dawn on them, too, that the Election has stripped them of much of the strength they previously had.

Rigid adherence to pre-arranged positions, slogans and tactics is the very thing that has got the PM into so much trouble. Now is the time for suppleness, subtlety and a readiness to both listen to the national mood, and draw new strength from it.
A mother who left school without any GCSE's started selling dresses on her Facebook page - and it quickly turned into a multi-million pound business with A-list fans.

Victoria Molyneux, 28, from Cheshire, was working in a call centre when she launched her own e-boutique Want That Trend in April 2015 - five months after giving birth to daughter Isabella.

Originally she hoped for a few dozen orders a week but she was shocked to find the business skyrocket and now she's processing 1,000 invoices a day with celebrities like Amanda Holden and Katie Piper donning her garments.

Victoria Molyneux, 28, from Cheshire, pictured with her stock, launched Want That Trend in April 2015 from home so she could stay at home with her daughter. Her company now turns over millions and has celebrity fans

Victoria told MailOnline that failing to find trendy but affordable clothes inspired her to launch her e-tailer.

She explained: 'My body changed so much when I was pregnant and after I had my daughter, and I noticed there was a lack of affordable clothing that hid the insecurities that came with being a new mum.

'The affordable aspect was really important to me. At times I would only have 30 disposable income a month but still wanted new outfits for parties and weddings.

'Having clothing that is still stylish and flattering yet affordable is key to my business.'

Victoria set up Want That Trend in April 2015 - five months after giving birth to daughter Isabella, pictured

Originally she hoped for a few dozen orders a week but she was shocked to find the business skyrocket and now she's processing 1,000 invoices a day

Victoria has also recently teamed up with Katie Piper for a collection, which she describes as a 'dream come true'

What makes her brand so authentic is that she models all the pieces herself, posting selfies in each of the outfits on her Facebook page

After visiting wholesalers and local manufacturers she pulled together an affordable collection in sizes 8 to 24.

VICTORIA'S TOP TIPS FOR MUMPRENEURS  Research the industry and get advice from others who have also built a businesses, as their first-hand knowledge is vital  Remember to stay positive, despite any setbacks you may encounter  Use your family and friends - without their support I couldnt and wouldnt be where I am today  Listen to your customers always  theyll always be honest and usually want the best for the brand  Always follow your gut instinct and do what you love  I ensure we only offer dresses and outfits that I really love Advertisement

She also watched online tutorials on how to build an e-commerce website.

To save money on models, photographers and expensive studios, Victoria started posting selfies in each of the outfits on her Facebook page, something she still does today.

'We now have a social media community of nearly 2 million, which is just incredible,' said Victoria, who has never accepted investment.

Want That Trend turned over 7m in the first year, with Victoria selling 1,000 outfits every single day and amassing celebrity fans such as Amanda Holden and Michelle Heaton.

Victoria has also recently teamed up with Katie Piper for a collection, which she describes as a 'dream come true'.

'Katie was actually already a customer of ours, and I have always admired her strength, particularly as a working mum.

'She just seemed like the perfect choice and Im thrilled to be working with her now and for many years to come,' she said of her celebrity friend.

Katie was spotted wearing one of her dresses at the Ideal Home Show in Manchester on Thursday. 'Katie was actually already a customer of ours, and I have always admired her strength, particularly as a working mum,' said Victoria

Victoria said at first it was tough juggling business and motherhood at first but now she's got into a good routine.

'It gradually comes together. If I need to do photos for the website, for example, I will do them at 5pm when my partner gets home.

'I still work from home a lot with my daughter but as the business has grown we now have an office and warehouse so I can take Isabella there too.

'Its only a very new business, its all been a whirlwind  an amazing one at that!'
Publishers are reporting a surge in demand among fiction fans for tales of 'hot single dads'.

Mills&Boon first spotted the trend earlier this year, pointing out that steamy novels about 'hot daddies' are setting pulses racing among romantic fiction readers - and flying off the shelves.

The imprint's publishing house HarperCollins has suggested the new trend is down to women's desire for 'real and relatable heroes'.

The romance novel industry is big business in the UK - with some 10.7 million regular readers - and experts believe the uptick in interest in single fathers could be being fuelled by women's attraction to men with 'emotional maturity' and fully-fledged parenting skills.

Scroll down for video

Saved by the Single Dad, a novel by Annie Claydon, is just one example of the Hot Single Dad phenomenon that Mills&Boon say is currently sweeping romantic literature

A spokesperson for Mills&Boon told Femail: 'There are so many different kinds of romance heroes, but single dads have a nurturing and caring element that is very appealing.

'The current popularity of the single dad trend definitely has some caring family men, but readers are appreciating these dad heroes in a new sexier light  from "cute father" to "hot daddy" if you will.'

HarperCollins is rolling out a bundle of six hot single dad stories for Fathers Day with an array of steamy plot twists and protagonists - including a hunky paramedic and a mysterious billionaire.

Falling for the Single Dad by Emily Forbes features a plastic surgeon returning from active duty in Afghanistan - who also happens to be a single parent.

Books like Lee McKenzie's The Daddy Project are currently flying off the shelves. A spokesperson for Mills & Boon told Femail: 'There are so many different kinds of romance heroes, but single dads have a nurturing and caring element that is very appealing'

Emily Forbes and Lynne Marshall are cashing in on the popularity of Hot Single Dads. Expert say fathers are now being seen in 'a new sexier light  from "cute father" to "hot daddy"'

Roxann Delamey's Bachelor Dad. HarperCollins are rolling out a bundle of six stories for Fathers Day with plot twists including a hunky paramedic and a mysterious billionaire

Meanwhile, in Charlene Sands' The Billionaire's Daddy Test, a woman tries to honour her sister's dying request to find the father of her baby girl - also a single father.

Mills&Boon Brand Marketing Director, Joanne Rose, added: Our "single dad" stories certainly strike a chord with readers - the heroes are real and relatable, and often offer hope of a second chance at happily ever after.

'We know that in a turbulent world readers turn to romance for comfort and reassurance, and a Mills&Boon book guarantees a delicious moment of escapism for every romance reader.
Crown Princess Mary and Prince Frederik of Denmark have had a busy few days hosting Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito.

And on Friday, the pair took some time out to join the prince at a concert in Copenhagen.

The 45-year-old princess looked effortlessly elegant as she arrived at the at the Royal Playhouse in a beautiful off the shoulder knit dress by Alexander McQueen.

Crown Princess Mary and Prince Frederik of Denmark have had a busy few days hosting Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito

The 45-year-old princess looked effortlessly elegant as she arrived at the at the Royal Playhouse in a beautiful off the shoulder knit dress by Alexander McQueen

The black and ivory dress, which retails for more than $1,000, featured woven stripes and was paired with patent leather T-bar pumps by Gianvito Rossi.

She accessorised her look with a simple black Sergio Rossi clutch.

Mary arrived at the venue with her husband and was snapped all smiles as she and Frederik mingled with the Prince in the foyer.

The black and ivory dress, which retails for more than $1,000, featured woven stripes and was paired with patent leather T-bar pumps by Gianvito Rossi

Mary arrived at the venue with her husband and was snapped all smiles as she and Frederik mingled with the Prince in the foyer

They then ventured inside to enjoy a concert of traditional Japanese music together.

The couple greeted the prince at the airport on June 15 ahead of his six day visit to the Denmark to celebrate 150 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Ever the appropriate dresser, Mary got it sartorially right once again when she sported an oriental-inspired floral Erdem gown to meet the Crown Prince of Japan with her husband of 13 years Prince Frederik.

At one point, the Australian-born Princess appeared momentarily distracted, staring downwards with her hands clasped across her beige handbag and gloves, with Prince Frederik by her side.

They then ventured inside to enjoy a concert of traditional Japanese music together

The couple greeted the prince at the airport on June 15 ahead of his six day visit to the Denmark to celebrate 150 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries

Ever the appropriate dresser, Mary got it sartorially right once again when she sported an oriental-inspired floral Erdem gown to meet the Crown Prince

Princess Mary kissed the Crown Prince on the cheek and shook him by the hand when she met him at the welcome ceremony.

Last week, the Japanese parliament passed a law allowing Prince Naruhito's father, Emperor Akihito, to become the first monarch to abdicate in 200 years.

For the regal occasion, Princess Mary donned a pretty sheer overlay gown which featured a nipped-in waist, chiffon layer and flowing skirt.

Princess Mary and Prince Frederik wait at Copenhagen airport to welcome Crown Prince Naruhito, who started a five-day visit to Denmark to celebrate 150 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries

Prince Frederik sported a navy blue suit, maroon tie and shirt - and stood with his arms crossed behind his back

The stylish Royal completed her outfit with her trademark pearl drop earrings, a nude clutch bag and her nude stilettos.

She also wore a fascinator in her hair, which was tied up in a neat chignon.

As one of the world's oldest monarchies, Prince Naruhito's Danish visit is an illustrious one.

For the regal occasion, Princess Mary donned a pretty sheer overlay gown which featured a nipped-in waist, chiffon layer and flowing skirt

Princess Mary kissed the Crown Prince on the cheek and shook him by the hand when she met him at the welcome ceremony at Copenhagen Airport

As one of the world's oldest monarchies, Prince Naruhito's Danish visit is an illustrious one

During his visit, he will meet with Frederik's mother, Queen Margrethe, as well as the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Loekke Rasmussen.

The state trip will also include a visit to the fairy tale writer, Hans Christian Andersen's museum, in Odense, central Denmark, and a dinner with Prince Frederik and Princess Mary.

The last time the Japanese Crown Prince visited Denmark was in 2004, at the nuptials of the Danish Crown Prince and Australian-born Crown Princess.
For more than a decade, Trisha Goddard was the queen of daytime confessional TV, helping to reunite warring relatives and solve furious paternity disputes. Her trademark sincerity won her legions of fans  a popularity that only increased when it emerged she had more in common with her troubled guests than they could have guessed.

Away from the cameras, she had herself contended with drug abuse, marriage breakdown and even a suicide attempt.

Yet today, the 59-year-old is enmeshed in a very different family drama, one that has turned her life and that of her family upside down. And at the heart of it is a grainy black-and-white photograph taken more than half a century ago.

Trisha Goddard spent a decade as the undisputed queen of daytime confessional TV

A relic of another time, the picture shows her mother Agnes, a nurse newly arrived from the Caribbean, at a Christmas dance in 1956 with her colleagues. It features, too, a tall man Trisha has never met. Indeed, for years, he was kept entirely secret from her.

Yet this is the man she believes could be her natural father.

It is fitting that what has turned into a decade-long mystery first began with the sort of DNA test so often featured on Trishas own shows  and with the distressing evidence that she had no genetic connection to the pale-skinned, red-haired man who brought her up as his own daughter.

I was stunned that my suspicions had been right all along, Trisha says today. It felt like such a betrayal, but in some ways it was a relief to finally know the truth. I want to find out more about this man whose blood runs though my veins  to know if I have other siblings or cousins out there. I dont feel I can rest until I do.

She adds: It was as if everything I had thought about myself was no longer real. I felt adrift. I had no idea who I was any more. All my life I had thought of myself as half-white and, although I knew I looked different from my three younger sisters, it was devastating.

Her mother Agnes had died of lung cancer by the time Trisha took the test in 2008, and it seemed the identity of her real father went with her to the grave. Peter, the father who brought her up, is still alive.

Only now, after nearly a decade of painstaking detective work does Trisha believe that she has unearthed the truth  that she is the biological daughter of a man called Leonard James, a dashing oil executive and the man, sadly now dead, she believes had been the true love of her mothers youth.

It has been a frustrating search, hampered by what the presenter describes as a wall of silence from relatives, who have told her to let sleeping dogs lie. Confidantes of her mother were equally unhelpful, refusing to reveal what they knew.

Trisha's mother Agnes and father Peter, with her daughters in 1999. As she grew up Trisha became increasingly estranged from Peter

Yet she has persisted  for this is no vanity project. Without definitive proof, troubling questions remain for Trisha and for her two daughters, about their genetic make-up and about their health.

And this is why today she is now appealing for anyone with information about her parents or the photograph to come forward to confirm her discovery. The eldest of four girls, Trisha says she has felt like an outsider for most of her life. Perhaps this is understandable. Peter, her white father, came from rural Norfolk while her late mother had arrived from Dominica.

They were both trainee nurses at Hackney Hospital in East London and drew attention as a multiracial couple at a time when such a relationship was highly unorthodox.

Trisha says the first real sign she was different came when she was in primary school in Brentwood, Essex, when the teacher read out Enid Blyton books featuring golliwog characters.

The other kids started to call me the naughty golliwog and would chant it when we were in the playground. It was horrible, she says.

Although I didnt really understand why people associated me with the golliwog, I knew that it was not a compliment and that they said it to upset me, which it did.

Trishas family, which included three younger sisters, Juliette, Linda and Paula  all born within four years of Trisha  were the only people of colour in the area. Two of them are so fair that they could pass for white, she says. But although she had far darker skin, it was not a matter for discussion.

Trisha now believes she's the daughter of a dashing oil executive called Leonard James, pictured here in a 1956 photo (top left)

When I tried to talk to my mother about why I looked so different, she would be dismissive and say that I was just imagining things.

With hindsight, she can now see the clues, especially with her growing estrangement from Peter as she entered her teens. He was violent in his physical punishment of her and took to referring to her as a bastard child when his temper flared  things for which today she says she has forgiven him.

I now realise too, why Mum hated it when I did DNA tests on my show, she continues.

I just had no idea that I was at the centre of my own familys dirty secret. It must have been a source of great tension between them and perhaps the reason they had so many rows.

Obviously mum was embarrassed and deliberately hid it from us, though clearly some members of the extended family realised that I was not the same as my three younger sisters.

Trisha believes that her mothers fear of being discovered might have been the reason why Agnes cut her ties with fellow Caribbeans in London. The family moved to Surrey, on the edge of the city; certainly, Trisha has little recollection of meeting black people in large numbers until she was about 16.

By then, we were living in Virginia Water and we went to a Christmas party in Perivale in West London. I was shocked to be surrounded by so many black faces, but I didnt really feel I was one of them, she says. She was artistic and ambitious. And after passing ten O-levels at a girls grammar school in Chertsey, Surrey, Trisha left home to play keyboards with a girl band called Eve on a tour of Germany.

Trisha believes her mother was embarrassed by the secret

While the band didnt last, it was the start of a successful career in the public eye. She made a name for herself in Australia as the countrys first black female news presenter, before starring in ITVs Trisha, her own show, followed by Trisha Goddard on Channel 5 until 2014. It was during an episode of the show concerning DNA testing that she began once again to question her own paternity.

I started having serious doubts when one of the genetic experts said it was impossible for me to have a white father, she recalls. He had argued that a child could not be darker than the darkest parent. But when I told my mother, she dismissed him as a stupid man.

Even as she lay dying, she refused to tell me the truth, insisting that I was imagining things.

My daughters wanted me to ask dad, but I was worried he didnt know and I didnt want to hurt his feelings. I was flabbergasted when he eventually confessed the truth to one of my sisters a few months after mum had died. He had known that I was not his daughter.

It was just 18 months ago that she had the first real breakthrough. And that was when Peter gave her the first clue about who her real father might be in the shape of the black-and-white photo.

My dad gave me a photograph, marked Hackney Hospital Christmas Dinner and Dance 1956 of my mother with a group, including the man he thinks might be my biological father, she reveals.

His name is Leonard James and he was supposedly my mums great love, but for some reason they could not be together. They had been very close in Dominica and he was visiting London when they apparently met up again at the West Indian Club in Bloomsbury.

Trisha is hoping that someone who knew her mother previously might now step forward

It was the late 1950s and mum was training as a psychiatric nurse, when she and Leonard had a fling. She had broken up with Peter, but he later married her believing she was pregnant with his child  me.

After I was born in December 1957, Dad waited several months to see if I would become lighter in complexion, before challenging mum. He asked if he needed to take a blood test and she tearfully confessed I was not his child.

But he says by then he had already bonded with me and, in any case, mum was again pregnant. When I asked why he had not told me the truth, he said she had forbidden him to say anything. They were devoted to each other until she died in 2004.

She is speaking now partly in the hope that someone who knew her mother back then might see the picture and contact her.

If this is the guy, he worked for an oil company and may have ended up settling in Trinidad, she says. I did not want to make this public, but Im hoping by speaking out it might jog a memory of someone who might be able to help.

I suspect that mum would have told my birth father about my existence. I also think she went back to Peter and married him because she had nowhere else to go.

Trisha has been angry with her mother about her secret but now forgives her

I tracked down one of my mums oldest friends and she told me she thought I had known all along, but she has point blank refused to give me any of the details. Its very frustrating. It feels like there is a void in my life and I have two daughters who want to know their lineage.

She has finally forgiven her parents for their deception. Peter, she says, has been doing everything he can to help her in her search.

My mum clearly felt ashamed of my illegitimacy and she did what she thought she had to, given the morality of the time, she adds.

I was angry about it for a long time and Ive not been to visit her grave in Norfolk since finding out. But Im ready to move on now.

I plan to sit by her grave side and tell her that I get it and that I forgive her.
Tom Griffiths is an Australian cognitive scientist and an expert in the connections between human and machine learning.

And as a result of his research over the years, he has come up with a simple way to help people be more organised - whether that's while decluttering their wardrobe or tidying their office space.

Speaking at the TEDx Sydney event on Friday, Mr Griffiths said when it comes to organising anything, there is just one question people need to ask themselves:

'When did I use this item last?'

Tom Griffiths is an Australian cognitive scientist and an expert in the connections between human and machine learning - and he has come up with a way to help you be more organised

Speaking at the TEDx Sydney event, Mr Griffiths said when it comes to organising anything, there is just one question people need to ask themselves: 'When did I use this item last?'

'Have you ever had to tidy up your wardrobe? You run into a particularly agonising decision  you have to decide what things you are going to keep and what things you are going to give away,' Mr Griffiths said.

'Martha Stewart thought very hard about this and she has some good advice. She says ask yourself four questions.

'How long have I had it? Does it still function? Is it a duplicate of something I already own? When was the last time I wore it or used it?'

But it was the last question that Mr Griffiths says is the most important of them all.

'The strategy that is most effective focuses on the items that are being the least recently used. What you should take out is the thing that was last accessed the furthest in the past,' he explained

'Your wardrobe is just like the computers memory. You have limited capacity and you need to try and get in there to the things you most likely will need so you can get to them as quickly as possible,' he said

When it comes to computers, Mr Griffiths said there are times when the machines need to remove something from their memory to make space for new information.

And experts found that the for the best results, the computer should remove an item that has been there the longest.

'The strategy that is most effective focuses on the items that are being the least recently used. What you should take out is the thing that was last accessed the furthest in the past,' he explained.

'If it has been a long time since you accessed that piece of information, its probably going to be a long time before you need to access it again.

Therefore, the perfectly organised wardrobe isn't colour-coded and labelled, but simply organised in order of the most used/likely to be used, to the least

'Your wardrobe is just like the computers memory. You have limited capacity and you need to try and get in there to the things you most likely will need so you can get to them as quickly as possible.'

Therefore, the perfectly organised wardrobe isn't colour-coded and labelled, but simply organised in order of the most used/likely to be used, to the least.

Mr Griffiths said the same principle can be used for most things in life that require organising, including desk papers.

He explained that Japanese economist Noguchi came up with a filing system where he placed documents in a cardboard box from left to right.

If any new documents were added or documents from the box were used, they then were to be placed back on the left hand side.

Mr Griffiths said the same principle can be used for most things in life that require organising, including desk papers

He explained that Japanese economist Noguchi came up with a filing system where he placed documents in a cardboard box from left to right - those on the left being the most recently used or newest in the box

That way, the documents were ordered from left to right by how recently they had been used.

'He found that he could very quickly find what he was looking for by starting at the left hand side of the box and working his way to the right,' Mr Griffiths said.

He likened this to the pile of papers on most desks.

'They're typically seen as messy and disorganised but a pile of papers is in fact perfectly organised as long as when you take a paper out you put it back on the top of the pile,' he said.

'They're typically seen as messy and disorganised but a pile of papers is in fact perfectly organised as long as when you take a paper out you put it back on the top of the pile,' he said

'Those papers are going to be ordered from top to bottom by how recently they were used.'

Mr Griffiths said this is a simple yet effective strategy for many areas of life and the question 'When did I use this last?' can completely change how many view organisation.

'The best problems are about doing what makes the most sense in the least amount of time. When computers face hard problems they deal with them by making them into simpler problems,' he said.

'You cant control outcomes, only processes.'
A couple desperate to have a child have revealed they remortgaged their 600,000 home in order to fund five rounds of IVF.

After spending seven years trying for a baby, Amanda, 48, and Nigel Mitcheson, 51, from Doncaster, Yorkshire, were left devastated when they struggled to conceive naturally.

Told there was a lengthy 18-month waiting list for IVF, the couple decided to take matters into their own hands.

They made the drastic decision to remortgage their 'dream home' and spent more than 70,000 conceiving their miracle tot - including one lot of treatment in the US.

Amanda and husband, Nigel, 51, were left devastated when they struggled to conceive naturally but after five attempts - and 70,000 later - their miracle baby son Max, pictured, arrived

Max was born seven weeks prematurely and the couple went through heartbreak once more as they thought they would lose him

It took five attempts before the couple successfully fell pregnant, using a donor egg - but tragedy almost struck again when Amanda went into labour seven weeks early - and their baby boy's life hung in the balance.

But their son, Max, was a little fighter and after four weeks in hospital, he was allowed home.

Now, at three years old, he is at nursery and hitting all of his milestones.

Amanda, a stay at home mother, said: 'After everything we had sacrificed to have a baby, it felt amazing to finally hold Max in our arms.

'We want to share our story to show other couples who are struggling to conceive never to give up hope.

'We never imagined we'd be remortgaging our beautiful home but it was all worthwhile in the end.'

Amanda discovered she had a low egg count after years of trying and even lost four stone in an attempt to make it easier to conceive.

Thankfully the little fighter was allowed home after four weeks in hospital and is now a healthy three year old

But when that didn't work Amanda and Nigel started to look at private options in Florida in order to speed up the process of having a child of their own.

'There was no waiting list and we were able to choose the donor off a website,' she explains.

'The more attractive the "package", the more expensive the eggs were. The donor we chose was a surgical assistant with no family history of anything wrong, her eggs alone were $7,000 (5,464).'

'As well as re-mortgaging our dream home we had incredibly generous gifts from both sets of parents to fund the trip, we couldn't have done it without them,' she adds.

The couple wanted to share their story in the hope it will inspire others who are desperate for a baby not to give up

Stay-at-home mother Amanda says it was 'worth it' to remortgage their home in order to have Max

Amanda said: 'I didn't meet Nigel until I was 32, in our first few years together we travelled, bought a home and focused on our careers.

'I was 39 when I first went to the doctors, he said that if I wanted a baby I needed to have one now but it wasn't as easy as that.

'I knew that the older you get the more difficult it is, and looking back I wish I had started trying much earlier.

'After numerous tests it was found I had no egg reserve, it could have been age related, but it could have been something that had always been there.

'At that point we were desperate and just couldn't wait any longer and looked for an egg donor in Florida but sadly that didn't work for us.'

Whilst Amanda and Nigel had been planning their trip to America, there had been a big push to get more egg donors in the UK and the couple finally reached the top of the waiting list.

They then paid for a further four attempts in the UK - each round costing 3,500.

The couple were faced with a lengthy waiting list in the UK so opted to try private treatment abroad in the US - but it was unsuccessful

Amanda also found out she had Natural Killer Cells, which meant her body was attacking anything foreign that entered and was rejecting the donor eggs.

'I was also diagnosed with antiphospholipid syndrome, which would have meant my chances of carrying a baby full term would have been slim.

'As well as taking a concoction of drugs, I was placed on an intralipid infusion that I took once a month for nine months, it cost 245 each time.'

'It's only when you have three failed attempts do they test you further to see if there are any other underlying issues.

'The tests were extortionate, one blood test cost 1,100.

'Realistically we knew we only had one more attempt left, it was our fifth time trying but miraculously it worked.'

Amanda said: 'We gave up so much to have Max and we would do anything for him.'

'But at six weeks I suffered a massive bleed, it happened on a Friday and I had to wait until the Monday to go to the clinic, we thought we had lost the baby and spent the weekend mourning the loss.'

Amazingly, their baby was fine and a scan revealed that Amanda had suffered a ruptured blood clot under her placenta and was monitored for the rest of her pregnancy.

They paid for four more rounds of IVF in the UK at 3,500 each time in a bid to become parents

She added: 'At seven months I started getting pains in my chest but assumed it was heartburn.

'The next day I went to the doctors and I was sent straight to the hospital..

'I had an emergency C-section and Max arrived seven weeks and three days early, he weighed just 3lb 15oz.

'Our hearts broke once again when doctors told us that he might not make it, he had collapsed lungs and was taken into special care.

'After everything we had been through, we couldn't bare losing him.'

Thankfully Max pulled through and four weeks later the new parents were able to bring him home.

Amanda said: 'We gave up so much to have Max and we would do anything for him.

'Even though we had a donor egg, Max's personality is exactly the same as my own and our bond is just like any mother and son.

'If one day he wants to find out who the donor was then I would be more than happy to help him find her, she gave me the ultimate gift and I'll be forever grateful.'
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Kensington Palace has released an adorable photo collage starring Prince William, his father Charles and son George to celebrate Father's Day - but social media users were quick to ask why a snap of the royal and his daughter hadn't been included in the montage.

Kensington Palace, the official Twitter account for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, shared the two photos on their Twitter page with the caption: 'Happy Fathers Day. Wishing all the fathers out there a very happy day.'

Whilst Twitter users gushed over the 'adorable' images, they were quick to note that the father-of-two 'shouldn't forget Charlotte', asking where the photos of the 34-year-old Prince with his two-year-old daughter were.

In the first snap, William can be seen in his youth posing with his father, Prince Charles, and younger brother, Prince Harry, during an amble in the countryside. The trio, donning their country tweed, all pose in a similar stance with their walking sticks.

In the second photo posted on the account, Prince William cradles his three-year-old son George tenderly in his arms in a photo taken on the family's tour of Canada last September.

Prince William celebrated Father's Day with adorable photos with his father Prince Charles and son George posted by his official Kensington Palace Twitter account on Sunday - but social media asks 'where's Princess Charlotte?'

Many users were quick to praise the 'cute' images and wish the royal a happy Father's Day.

However, plenty of users took to Instagram and Twitter to ask: 'Where's a photo with Charlotte?', whilst others pointed out: 'He has a daughter too!'.

'Odd there's only a picture with his son? Where's his daughter?', asked one user.

Kensington Palace declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline.

Prince William and his two young children joined the entire extended Royal Family at the Trooping the Colour in a four-generation show of strength on Saturday.

Thousands endured the sweltering heat of central London to enjoy the official birthday ceremony for Queen Elizabeth.

In the first snap, William can be seen in his youth posing with his father, Prince Charles, and younger brother, Prince Harry, during an amble in the countryside

In the second photo posted on the account, Prince William cradles his three-year-old son George tenderly in his arms in a photo taken on the family's tour of Canada last September

Plenty of users took to Instagram and Twitter to ask: 'Where's a photo with Charlotte?' and ask for 'a photo with both children', whilst others pointed out: 'He has a daughter too!'

It may have been the Queen's 91st birthday but Kate Middleton and her two young children Prince George and Princess Charlotte were the stars of the show on a packed Buckingham Palace balcony.

Prince George can be seen mouth agape and head tilted to the sky watching the planes. The three-year-old was also snapped peering out of the window behind the balcony taking in the thousands of people below.

His younger sister, Princess Charlotte, shared a joke with her parents, Kate Middleton and Prince William, and other youngsters atop the balcony.

From left to right: Prince Edward, Camilla Parker Bowles, Prince Andrew, Prince Charles, Princess Beatrice, Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, Prince Harry, the Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte, Prince George, Prince William, Peter Phillips, Autumn Kelly, daughters Savannah and Isla Phillips, Eloise and Estella Taylor, Lady Amelia Windsor and Lady Helen Taylor at the Trooping The Colour on Saturday

Are you not entertained? Prince George looks down at the crowd while Philip, medals on display, jokingly gestures during the iconic event on Saturday

Social media asked why the Duke of Cambridge hadn't posted a snap with his daughter for the special day. The royal is pictured with his daughter at a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada in September 2016 in Victoria, Canada

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are pictured with Prince George and Princess Charlotte during their Royal Visit to Canada in September 2016

The Duchess of Cambridge watches on with her children and Philip during the impressive RAF flypast

What're you up to? Prince George (centre) looks down behind the curtain with Savannah and Isla Phillips, catching the eye of both his parents and granndparents

Prince Charles is pictured with a young Prince Harry and William in Kensington Palace in the 1980s

Prince Charles, Prince William, and Prince Harry at a commemoration ceremony at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial during a commemoration ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, in Vimy, near Arras in April

WHO'S WHO ON THE PALACE BALCONY The royals on the balcony spanned four generations, from Queen Elizabeth to the young Princess Charlotte 1) Prince Edward: The Earl of Wessex is the third son of the Queen, and currently ninth in line to the throne. He is married to Sophie Helen, Countess of Wessex. 2) Camilla Parker Bowles: The Duchess of Cornwall is the second wife of Prince Charles. She divorced her husband Andrew in 1995 before marrying Charles in 2005. 3) Prince Andrew: The Duke of York is the second son of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Prince Andrew saw action with the Royal Navy in the Falklands War, flying warfare missions along with search-and-rescue operations. 4) Prince Charles: The Duke of Cornwall is next in line for the throne. He was reportedly 'perplexed' by his son's decision to talk about their mental health in wake of their mother's death in 1997. 5) Princess Beatrice: The eldest daughter of Prince Andrew is seventh in line to the thrown. The 28-year-old is currently working in Manhattan, and used to date Uber executive Dave Clarke. 6) The Queen: In September 2015 Elizabeth II became the longest-reigning monarch in the history of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria's 63 years and 216 days. 7) Prince Philip: Queen Elizabeth's husband recently retired from public engagements at the age of 96, joking that he 'can't stand up for much longer'. 8) Prince Harry: The young Prince has had the country on tenterhooks over whether he'll announce plans to marry Canadian actress Meghan Markle. 9) The Duchess of Cambridge: Kate Middleton met Prince William when they were both students at the University of St Andrews. The couple split up before rekindling their relationship years later. 10) Prince George: George has recently elected to attend the prestigious Thomas' primary school in Battersea 11) Princess Charlotte: The youngest child of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Charlotte was born on May 2 2015 at St Mary's Hospital in London. 12) Prince William: Like Prince Andrew, Prince William served as a search-and-rescue pilot with the RAF, before becoming an air ambulance pilot with East Anglian Air Ambulance. 13) Peter Phillips: The only son of Princess Anne, Peter Phillips worked for the Williams Formula 1 team in Canada. There he met his future wife, Autumn Kelly. 14) Savannah and Isla Phillips: The young daughters of Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly 15) Autumn Kelly: She and Peter Phillips first started dating soon after the Canadian Grand Prix in 2003. She had no idea he was a member of the Royal Family until she saw him on a TV programme about Prince William. She has renounced her Catholic faith so Peter can retain his position in line to the British throne 16) Eloise and Estella Taylor: The two teenagers sit 41st and 43rd in line for the throne. In a 2011 Trooping the Colour the Duchess of Cambridge was reportedly enamored with the pair. 17) Lady Amelia Windsor: The fashion-conscious royal has been hailed as the most beautiful member of the royal family. She has already walked the runway for Dolce and Gabbana. 18) Lady Helen Taylor: Lady Helen Taylor, 51, is the only daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Kent. Once affectionately called 'Melons' by the press for her ample proportions - a nickname she admitted she hated - she married art dealer Timothy Verner Taylor in 1992. Advertisement

The Red Arrows, as well as a formation of Typhoons and World War 2-era planes, flew over Buckingham Palace on Saturday
After years of pushing myself to the limit, one day in 2009 I woke up and found that I couldnt get out of bed. My body wouldnt function.

I was in my mid 30s, running training companies in Singapore. I loved my job. I had a great time socialising, but I wasnt looking after myself. I was living in a lovely apartment, but I remember walking through the door one day and thinking, I dont really live here, because Im away so often.

I would send emails at 3am, then be up again at 6am. I was on a treadmill that I couldnt see was having an effect.

Last year, stress accounted for 45 per cent of UK working days lost and 37 per cent of work-related illnesses

Looking back, there were signs I chose to ignore. I was three stone heavier than I am today; my joints ached constantly. I found it hard to sleep, although I was exhausted. On the fateful day my body refused to wake up, I was half-way through running a five-day training programme for executives. It took a week before Id recovered enough to get up, but only when my boss said do you think you need a holiday? did it seep in that I might not be well.

I went on holiday to Cornwall. A week turned into three months. I had no contact with the outside world. Once a week, Id travel to London to see a therapist. I slept more than I could ever imagine.

My experience isnt that unusual. The World Health Organisation predicts that work-related stress, burnout and depression will top the list of the worlds most prevalent diseases by 2020. Increasingly, none of us can truly get away from the office  we check our phones on average 221 times a day.

Last year, stress accounted for 45 per cent of UK working days lost and 37 per cent of work-related illnesses. So I started Pause retreats as a way to help other people to recognise the signs of burnout. Theyre the same whether youre a mother ploughing through an impossible to-do list or negotiating a high-powered deal.

Take the quiz to find out if you need to press pause. Then read on for how to do it  before life does it for you...

Take the quiz to find out if you need to press pause. Then read on for how to do it  before life does it for you...

SO HOW CLOSE TO BURNOUT ARE YOU? 1. I am easily upset by small things Often, score 2, sometimes, score 1 or never, score 0 2. I often try to please others Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 3. I find it hard to breathe or breathe excessively Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 4. I feel impatient if Im delayed Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 5. I often feel lonely Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 6. I feel refreshed when I wake up Often 0, sometimes 1, never 2 7. I worry what others think of me Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 8. I wake naturally in the morning Often 0, sometimes 1, never 2 9. I have quality time with friends Often 0, sometimes 1, never 2 10. I worry about how things will turn out Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 12. I check my phone compulsively Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 12. I can turn my technology off at the weekend Often 0, sometimes 1, never 2 13. I compare my life to the stories I read on social media Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 14. I feel I my life has purpose Often 0, sometimes 1, never 2 15. I worry about money Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 16. I can let my mistakes go Often 0, sometimes 1, never 2 17. I feel happy with my looks Often 0, sometimes 1, never 2 18. I feel full of energy Often 0, sometimes 1, never 2 19. I fall asleep on the sofa before bedtime Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 20. I dream of a different life Often 2, sometimes 1, never 0 Your results 010 If you scored 0 for many answers, youre taking good care of yourself and your emotions; perhaps youve developed practices for switching off. Look carefully at the questions you scored 1 or 2 for  now is the time to address areas of your life that feel overwhelming, frustrating or disappointing. It is not a case of fixing these areas; but about asking yourself what you need and what you wish to give. 1120 Sometimes, its harder to pause when everything on the surface seems good, albeit with a nagging sense of unease. It feels selfish to complain, but you cant seem to stop worrying about what might go wrong, or you dont feel passionate about life any more. Take the chance to take a break, before things get ahead of you. Be ready to ask yourself uncomfortable questions, but recognise that these are key to opening up your horizons. 2140 The signs are there for you: your body and/or your heart are showing you its time to take better care of yourself, to give yourself a bit of space. It might be frightening to think of spending time alone, with no phone to check and only a blank page. But deep down, you know you need this, even if you fear pausing may be setting yourself up for more disappointment, confusion or heartache. Keeping going is the one thing that is keeping you from falling apart. It is important to be gentle with yourself as you pause and allow your life to slow down, to let what really matters to you come to the surface Advertisement

5 STRESS BUSTERS

Try these exercises  theyre designed to help you discover what you need in order to be happier. Answers may not come instantly, but by allowing yourself to focus on the questions, you will make space to tap into your intuition.

A MICRO/MACRO WALK

Take a walk and pay attention to your surroundings by zooming in and out between the vastness of the landscape and the tiny details. Go to the countryside, a park, or a river, and choose a path. As you walk, you might focus on the sky and then on a droplet of water on the edge of a leaf. Absorb the experience before moving your attention elsewhere.

Try a senses safari, focusing first on scents around you, then colours and finally sounds. Dont try too hard  let yourself tune into whats around you. Often when I ask people to do these walks, they start to become aware of metaphors for their situation.

TURN OFF, TUNE OUT

Find a place you are drawn to and sit for an hour without a watch, phone, pen or paper. Consider a question youve been struggling with. Let insights float in and out when they are ready.

We rarely experience being alone in this way any more. If an hour seems too much, try 20 or 30 minutes. Even if you dont find answers, youre allowing the question to engage with your intuition. What emerges may surprise you.

Get a sheet of paper and a pen. Start off with yourself in a bubble at the centre of the page, then map your life into various areas

MAKE A MIND MAP

Get a sheet of paper and a pen. Start off with yourself in a bubble at the centre of the page, then map your life into various areas. You might include family, work, travel, relationships, home, health, friends, creativity and spirituality.

Write down everything that works for you in each area. Some may be full while others remain empty. Maybe its not your entire life that needs an overhaul. Consider the parts of your life that do work. What are the things that are worth keeping?

THE NO-LIMITS LETTER

Take a blank page and write at the top what I want is . . . Without thinking, allow yourself to fill at least two sides of paper with whatever words come out. Dont worry about it making sense.

When you have finished, put your letter to one side and sit for a moment. Breathe naturally and notice how you feel.

If any emotions arise, keep breathing and let them be present. Bypass your conscious mind and the shoulds and shouldnts. Find what your subconscious is trying to tell you.

That band of tension around your head isnt always stress; it can be dehydration. Keep a bottle of water with you and drink slightly more than you need

TWO-MINUTE MICRO PAUSES

A hectic week may not offer time for long walks or exercises  but everyone can take a moment for a micro-pause.

Rebalancing

Stand by a window, allowing your attention to move out to the horizon. Breathe and let fresh perspectives come to you. Allow your eyes to relax. Stay here for a couple of minutes. Breathe in through your nose and down into your belly.

Destressing

That band of tension around your head isnt always stress; it can be dehydration. Keep a bottle of water with you and drink slightly more than you need.

Calming

Lavender is the perfect oil for your de-stress kit. Put a couple of drops in your palms, rub together, then inhale deeply.

Freeing

Block out white space  time in your diary with nothing scheduled. Your brain and body arent designed to jam too much information in each day. This is your time to spend as you wish.

Adapted by FLIC EVERETT from Pause: How To Press Pause Before Life Does It For You by Danielle Marchant (12.99 Aster) published on June 29.  Danielle Marchant 2017. To order a copy for 9.74 (offer valid until June 26, 2017) visit mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640. P&P free on orders over 15.
To help quieten the constant chattering in the brain, which is the main source of our worry, anxiety and stress

The idea is to translate the fashion for mindfulness into the beauty world

Lying back on an ultra-comfortable facialists couch, I stare in fascination at the scenes swamping my vision. From the outside, the virtual reality headset Im wearing may look cumbersome, but here on the inside, its all space and wonderment.

A disembodied female voice  Ill call her Sofia  is welcoming me to my mindful spa experience and inviting me to reconnect to my senses as extraordinary images unfurl in front of me. A vast blue sky with fluffy clouds has given way to something stranger.

It looks as if I am underwater in some kind of lagoon, but Im actually at the Sanderson Hotels Agua Spa in central London, experiencing the latest high-tech facial, which combines virtual reality with mindfulness.

Wearing this headset, I feel Im not just watching something on the screen in front of me. Rather, it makes me feel Im actually in the middle of the scene I can see

A virtual reality headset and the world it creates may be something that is familiar to todays teenagers from the latest video games, but for middle-aged women like me it is a strange and somewhat unsettling experience.

Wearing this headset, I feel Im not just watching something on the screen in front of me. Rather, it makes me feel Im actually in the middle of the scene I can see. I darent move my head to look around  which you can do in the virtual world  for fear of losing my balance, which is ridiculous, given I am already lying down.

Sofias smooth, calm American accent is telling me about the power of touch, and how each new contact with my skin triggers the release of neurochemicals linked to serenity, tranquillity and happiness flow.

Gosh, yes, touch. Sofia isnt in this on her own. I forgot to mention the facialist  Sandy. A real human being who is synchronising her movements to Sofias words and steadily moving her hands down my arms and legs in a series of gentle acupressure movements.

Sofias voice asks me to breathe in deeply through my nose, and as I do, I can smell a delicious blend of essential oils, which Sandy is wafting in front of me.

Acknowledge, suggests Sofia, how in this precise moment, the aromas, along with the power of touch, are boosting your sense of wellbeing.

Face time: Alice (pictured) soon got used to the headset

My mind reels. Its verging on sensory overload, all this touch, smell, sight and sound coming at once, but its fabulous.

Pay attention to your head and observe the sensations, urges Sofia, as Sandy begins giving me a gentle scalp massage and kaleidoscopic shapes blossom and merge before my eyes.

When Sofia says, Whatever youre experiencing is your reality right now, my brain more or less hangs up, unable to process it all. Mind. Officially. Blown, as teenagers might say. Welcome to the future of the facial.

Natura Bisse, the brand behind this out-of-your-head experience, is no silicon valley fly-by-night. The Spanish luxury skincare company has more than 30 years experience creating ground-breaking beauty products, particularly in the field of anti-ageing. It spent two years developing and honing The Mindful Touch treatment, which was trialled on celebrities including Emma Stone in the pre-Oscars pampering suites, and has just launched in the UK.

The idea behind it, says the company, is to translate the fashion for mindfulness into the beauty world, to help quieten the constant chattering in the brain, which is the main source of our worry, anxiety and stress.

Stress certainly has a bad, and measurable, effect on the skin, and the benefits of mindfulness for our health are proven.

70k The average amount women in the UK spend on their appearance in a lifetime Advertisement

Using breathing techniques or just concentrating lightly on what we are doing at the present moment helps to boost our overall mood, our physical and mental health, our creativity, our concentration, our sleep.

I completely agree with all this. Ive been writing about the benefits of mindfulness for years, and I meditate every day. Well, almost every day.

But I still find the main difficulty with mindfulness is actually doing it, actually having the discipline to pull my thoughts, which tend to bounce about like ferrets in a sack, into a calm and orderly place of quiet.

I love facials, too, not least for the chance to lie down and rest, but I often find that it takes a good half hour to fully relax into the couch, however expert the facialist.

Whats fascinating about the Mindful Touch treatment is that it has an almost instant tranquillising effect.

The virtual reality part only lasts for an intense eight minutes  but eight minutes is enough. The Natura Bisse visions are amazing without being overwhelming  you get to watch what is going on, the images of giant flowers unfolding, or molten lava bubbling through cracked rock, rather than feeling too dangerously immersed in it.

The package of touch, smell, images and Sofias exhortations to reconnect with my senses has the effect of plunging me into a place of deep calm.

Natura Bisse is no silicon valley fly-by-night. The Spanish luxury skincare company has more than 30 years experience creating ground-breaking beauty products, particularly in the field of anti-ageing

By the time Sandy gently removes the headset  well, it wouldnt be much of a facial if she couldnt get at my face, would it?  I am so dozy and relaxed, I barely notice the tingly sting of a 25 per cent glycolic acid solution being painted on to my face  something that freshens the skin by dissolving the bonds that keep dead skin cells stuck to the skins surface, so they can just be wiped away.

As Sandy moves on to the main business of what she refers to as the Diamond Experience, I find myself pondering how far the facial has come.

When I started having treatments in my 20s, they tended to be basic and formulaic. A bit of cleansing, a bit of steaming, some painful extractions of blackheads and a face mask, with a massage if you were lucky.

Thirty years later, the term facial can encompass any amount of high-tech gadgetry, from needling devices and soothing red lights, both of which stimulate collagen production in the skin, to microdermabrasion  an advanced form of exfoliation.

But this mindful virtual reality moves the whole thing on to a new plane.

The headset may be off, but Sofia isnt done with me. Her voice continues on a speaker while Sandy works her magic.

I realise that when written out on the page, Sofias continual commands to breathe, to focus and to feel whats going on in my body look extremely annoying and slightly bossy.

As treatments go, this is definitely a game-changer, particularly as the virtual reality headset can be used before any of the facials or massages that Natura Bisse offers

A bit like a sat-nav for a full mind-body experience. I found myself flinching while typing them out. But at the time, they seemed just great  an invitation to go with her on this wonderful voyage of exploration into mindfulness.

As she reminds me to observe the thoughts that cross my mind, I realise she is talking over the lightly thumping soundtrack of a slow, calm heartbeat.

Clever. If my pulse wasnt already at an all-time low, I am sure this would help it sink further. The gaps between Sofias pronouncements become longer and longer. I drift off into a light doze, as Sandy kneads my face with her expert fingers and applies serums, nectars and creams.

I barely surface even when she whispers in my ear to check Im not claustrophobic before painting a thick layer of algae mask over a gauze cloth that covers my eyes, as well as the rest of my face.

Sofias voice comes and goes. She seems to be repeating herself a bit. In fact, she seems to be snoring. Oh, heck, thats me.

When the hour is up and Sandy and Sofia both gently encourage me back into the real world, I feel as if Ive been a long way away  on a different planet perhaps. My mind feels as clear and fresh as my skin looks.

As treatments go, this is definitely a game-changer, particularly as the virtual reality headset can be used before any of the facials or massages that Natura Bisse offers. It may be the only treatment of its kind available at the moment, but this stress-buster and skin-booster rolled into one is such a clever innovation that its bound to be widely copied.

As Sofia would say, this is the new reality in beauty.

The Natura Bisse Mindful Touch experience costs from 160 at Sanderson London and Pennyhill Park in Surrey, pennyhillpark.co.uk; naturabisse.com.
Suffering heartbreak can cause as much long-term damage to health as cardiac arrest, a study has found.

About 3,000 Britons a year suffer broken heart syndrome  also known as takotsubo syndrome  which mostly affects women.

The sudden rush of hormones that is caused by emotionally stressful events such as the death of a loved one, a divorce, betrayal or romantic rejection can damage the heart muscle, according to research. In extreme cases, victims die from the condition, which can also be brought on by positive events such as a lottery win.

About 3,000 Britons a year suffer broken heart syndrome  also known as takotsubo syndrome

Until now, it was thought that the heart could fully recover.

But research published in the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography suggests the muscle actually suffers damage.

This could explain why sufferers tend to have a similar life expectancy to those who have suffered a heart attack.

The syndrome was named takotsubo, which is Japanese for octopus pot, because the left ventricle  the hearts lower chamber  has a similar shape to a fishing pot.

A team from the Aberdeen University, funded by the British Heart Foundation, followed 52 takotsubo syndrome patients over four months.

They used ultrasound and cardiac MRI scans to look at how the patients hearts were functioning.

The results showed the condition permanently affected the hearts pumping motion, delaying the twisting or wringing motion made by the heart as it beats.

The hearts squeezing motion was also reduced, while parts of the muscle suffered scarring that then affected the elasticity of the heart and stopped it contracting properly.

The sudden rush of hormones that is caused by emotionally stressful events can damage the heart muscle

Dr Dana Dawson, of Aberdeen University, who led the research, said: We used to think that people who suffered from takotsubo cardiomyopathy would fully recover, without medical intervention.

Here weve shown that this disease has much longer lasting damaging effects on the hearts of those who suffer from it.

Figures show that between 3 per cent and 17 per cent of patients die within five years of diagnosis.

Some 90 per cent of sufferers are women and a stressful trigger for the condition is identified in around 70 per cent of cases.

Professor Metin Avkiran, of the British Heart Foundation, said: This study has shown that in some patients who develop takotsubo syndrome various aspects of heart function remain abnormal for up to four months afterwards.

Worryingly, these patients hearts appear to show a form of scarring, indicating that full recovery may take much longer, or indeed may not occur, with current care.

This highlights the need to urgently find new and more effective treatments for this devastating condition.

Sir James Munby, the countrys most senior family court judge has cited broken heart syndrome as a reason why it is important not to split up elderly couples in care homes. He said: We do know that people die of a broken heart. How long do people last if they are uprooted? A very short time.
No jams, no road rage, no fumes. Launching our outdoor special, Captain Chris Evans explains why you, too, should slow down to a maximum cruising speed of 5mph!

Contemplate the following, if you will: how come every weekend between now and the end of August, all our roads will be full but our rivers will be empty?

Its not only me who wonders this, its also the thousands of blissfully happy boat-owners up and down the UKs marinas. Its my mate Arnie at Lymington Yacht Charters, who owns a small fleet of leisure and pleasure craft and gets hundreds of people out on the water every week.

Its the countless listeners who contact my radio show every single day of the week to extol the virtues of messing about in boats.

Not for one moment of any given single day did any of the junior members of the crew become bored or distracted, or moody and miserable. Above: Chris and Natasha Evans, Eli and Noah

The architecture en route completely different when viewed from the river. And as for the lawns we passed... Oh lord, those lawns

They know, you see  out on the water is where the magic happens. Youll be hard pressed to find a more relaxed, contented and fulfilled bunch of human beings anywhere on the planet. The mere thought of another weekend  or even a cheeky stolen afternoon  aboard their pride and joy brings an instant smile to their faces wherever they may be. I dont even currently own a boat and I still feel the same way.

The secret to this wonder is simple. You cant rush boats and you cant rush boating. By spending time afloat, you are giving yourself permission to cast off the shackles of that insane 21st-century obsession of clock-watching. Your time is once again yours, to do with as you please. It feels like you literally have all the time in the world.

People automatically walk slower when they are around boats. Things appear to take longer, yet everyone seems to have as long as they need for whatever they need to do. Then theres the creeping realisation of how unafraid of eye contact people become once they remember were all human, all cut from the same cloth. Similarly, how anyone and everyone cant resist the urge to smile and wave to complete strangers.

How everyone looks so well, so healthy-skinned. So bright-eyed and bushy tailed. How everyone wears a more vibrant, happier wardrobe. How, if you sneak a peek through the window of the nearest galley, theres always a bottle of wine and a corkscrew on permanent stand-by. Whats not to like about all of that lot?

By spending time afloat, you are giving yourself permission to cast off the shackles of that insane 21st-century obsession of clock-watching. Above: Chris and Natasha

The kids absolutely adore doing' the locks. Noah and his brother Eli enjoying the river with their parents Chris and Natasha

Ive been fortunate enough to own several boats in recent years: one stupidly big one (a 125ft ten-berth motor yacht moored down in the south of France), a comparatively smaller one (a 37ft Nimbus cabin cruiser down on the south coast) and an eye-wateringly beautiful one (a vintage Riva Tritone) that I picked up at a car auction, of all places. Each has afforded me, my family and friends unique memories well never forget.

Being boatless this year, I came over all stir-crazy at the beginning of spring in a panic to get back behind the helm. Any helm would do, so I scurried off to the nearest one.

Got a boat we can hire for the weekend? I asked over the counter of Kris Cruisers, a self-drive boat-hire company on the Thames in Datchet, just opposite Windsor Castle, approximately 15 minutes from our house. Sure, replied Paul, son of founding father Kris, who in real life is Chris with a C but who thought a K would stand out more as part of his marketing launch 50 years ago. Well it did, and it still does  its because of that incongruous capital K that I and many other locals have driven past Chriss place a million times thinking, Mmm, one day...

Well, its Mmm... no more. We hired the Lady Jennifer cabin cruiser for our first three-night trip in April, Lady Natalia two weekends later and Lady Jennifer again the weekend after that to make it three trips in a month. A Kris Cruisers record, apparently  feel free to smash it to smithereens!

I cannot tell you what a complete blast we had. Chucking the supermarket delivery first into the back of the car instead of the kitchen cupboards and then getting straight onto the boat had the kids giddy with excitement from the get-go. All ankle-biters love upheaval and chaos.

And then theres the more serious stuff, which they equally love: the safety briefing, the walk round, the life jackets and the delegation of crew duties for the voyage. Because, of course, on rivers there are these things called locks every few miles or so. And the kids absolutely adore doing the locks. Noah and his mate Ollie, both just eight, can now operate any lock in the Thames Valley.

Not for one moment of any given single day did any of the junior members of the crew become bored or distracted, or moody and miserable.

We barely saw another soul most days, yet millions of people just a few miles away were more than happy to sit in spirit-sapping traffic jams

When we werent approaching, transiting or leaving a lock there were sandwiches to be scoffed, decks to swab, swans to befriend, cuppas to be brewed and, most exciting of all, other boats to avoid. Every evening meal was a pub dinner, every crew member a starving hungry grinner.

Come sunrise the next day and everyone was up with the lark, all ropes off and full speed ahead (5mph!) up river towards Cookham, Bray, Marlow and Henley, with the magnificent Cliveden House coming up on the right any time soon.

The architecture en route completely different when viewed from the river. And as for the lawns we passed... Oh lord, those lawns. The greenest, lushest celebrations of grass youve ever seen, cascading down majestically towards the river, while nearby weeping willows tickle and tease the surface of Old Father Thames. Stunning.

But again, we could not believe how few people were doing what we were doing. We barely saw another soul most days, yet millions of people just a few miles away were more than happy to sit in spirit-sapping traffic jams, attempting to escape the rat race while completely missing this gleaming jewel right under their very noses. I didnt understand it then and I dont understand it now. What is wrong with you lot? Come try this instead.

So often we shell out a small fortune to be thousands of miles away but leave our head back in the office. Whereas boating in the UK is the precise opposite. For a few quid, for a few hours or a few days, you only have to be a few feet away from the riverbank to feel like youre in a world of your own.

I remember waking up early one glorious misty August morning on a mooring in Lymington next to my old boss, lifetime guru and all-round hero Lord (Michael) Grade. Hes had boats for ever and loves them so much hes upped sticks across several counties over the years to be closer to his. Where are you off to today, Michael? I called over.

Oh you know, young Christopher, some place somewhere... and then back again.

See what I mean. It doesnt get any better than that.

SHIVER ME TIMBERS! MY GUIDE TO THE BEST BOATS FOR A WONDERFUL DAY ON THE WATER

CABIN CRUISER

When it comes to regular river cruising, most people tend to fall into one of two categories: either cabin cruisers or narrowboats. My gang are firmly in the camp of the former  for now. Cabin cruisers come in all shapes and sizes, from plastic-fantastic, mass-produced mini-Titanics to classic Fifties and Sixties wooden-hulled, coach-built beauties. I love the classics  they make my heart skip a beat but, not unlike cars, its really about what you want to do with your boat that should dictate which you choose. Which is why, and it shames me to admit this, we usually go for pragmatism over pure class. That said, the most important aspect of any boat for us is an outside helm. And even better still, an upper outside helm  which is far more sociable, far more fun for the kids and like being on the open-top deck of a sightseeing bus.

NARROWBOAT/DUTCH BARGE

So, when I said most people fall into either the cabin cruiser or the narrowboat set, that isnt the whole story. For narrowboat, see also Dutch barge. Equally as prevalent on Britains canals and rivers, the Dutch barge is a monster version of its stick-thin cousin. If I ever end up living on a boat, I will probably go for a Dutch barge  a fantastic example of which I recently spotted up for sale at circa 160k. What a thing, with its state-of-the art kitchen/diner, two very cool bedrooms, an open-plan bathroom (with free-standing bath and vintage shower), a wood-burner and even a cinema! The only issue with the Dutch barge is that it can be a big old lump to manoeuvre, and struggle to get into some of the smaller locks. The narrowboat, on the other hand, is much more versatile but a bit tight for space. The clue is in the name.

DAYBOAT

The slipper, launch and dayboat: some are gorgeous and expensive, many are cheap and cheerful, others look like they will barely float. And when is a dayboat not a dayboat? Thats a toughie. Its such a general term that basically covers anything that has a propeller but doesnt usually have accommodation. That said, a few dayboats do have a sneaky twin berth, usually below deck in the bow, and often only betrayed by the existence of a teeny-weeny porthole on either side. The ultimate dayboat in my book is the Sixties Riva Aquarama (above). Yes, it does have sneaky accommodation. And yes, it does have a pair of thumping V8s to boot. But most importantly, I believe it to be mankinds most beautiful creation. Theres a company called Vandutch giving it a good go nowadays, but although undoubtedly slick and easy on the eye, its boats pale in comparison to the handsome sophistication of Pietro Rivas mahogany works of art.

SAILING YACHT
In The Days Of Rain

Rebecca Stott

4th Estate 16.99

Rating:

Peter Cook once invented an exclusive religious sect called The Seductive Brethren. The exact number of the Brethren at any given time is always hard to calculate, he said, but it can be safely said that a figure of two would be exact. It is our proud claim that we are far more exclusive than our religious competitors.

Rebecca Stott, now Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia, was born into a not dissimilar sect called The Exclusive Brethren. She describes it, with some justification, as one of the most reclusive and savage Protestant sects in British history.

William Blakes 1808 illustration for Miltons Paradise Lost showing rebel angels being expelled from Heaven

Her great-grandmother, Ada-Louise, a member from birth, had been placed in an asylum by her fervent husband because she was an epileptic and too wilful. She emerged 40 years later talking incessantly, singing hymns at the top of her voice, ready to alert local shopkeepers to the perils of the Whore of Babylon.

Like many sects, The Exclusive Brethren defined itself by what it forbade. Under a new, even more hardline regime in the Sixties, the list grew longer with each passing year: no television, no newspapers, no radio, no cinema, no wristwatches, no meals to be taken in restaurants, trains or canteens, nothing to be eaten or drunk in the company of non-Brethren, no membership of any sort of external organisation. At school, the young Rebecca was forbidden from learning science, music and philosophy, or taking part in gym or sport. Halfway through the Sixties, the new leader issued an edict that pets, too, were now forbidden, and that anyone who already had a pet must either give it away, or have it put down.

Those who refused to conform to these rules were to be expelled, and prevented from making any sort of contact with their families. They were, in the leaders stark words, to be cut off as if they were bits of surplus flesh.

According to the theology of The Exclusive Brethren, the rest of the world was operated by Satan, who controlled everyone in the outside world. Some day soon, an event called The Rapture would dawn. The worthiest Members would all be swept up to Heaven, leaving the more slovenly or wicked Members, and all the rest of the world, to descend into Hell, where weeping and gnashing of teeth would be considered a luxury. They could also look forward to the Lake of Fire and the Bottomless Pit, which entailed falling down a hole for ever and ever.

Stotts father (far right) at St Ives in 1956. The Days Of Rain is a sometimes uneasy amalgam of Rebeccas autobiography and her fathers

Aged six, Rebecca Stott spent her time listening out for the sound of Satans hooves on the paving stones of Brighton. Before he died, her father Roger, who spent his life veering between fanaticism and scepticism, recalled returning home from school, aged ten, only to find the house deserted. As I looked up at the golden scatter of clouds in the sunset, a horror crept up on me. The Lord had come. The Rapture had happened. Id been left behind.

In fact, his family were out shopping, but from then on Roger Stott took this temporary absence as a warning from God about what would become of him if he continued along his disobedient path.

Philip Larkin famously wrote that they f*** you up, your mum and dad. To this, Alan Bennett later added the coda: But if you are planning on writing, and they havent f***ed you up, well, youve got nothing to go on, so then theyve f***ed you up good and proper.

From this point of view, neither Rebecca Stott nor her father, Roger, has much to complain about. Both of them, in their turn, wrote about their years within The Exclusive Brethren, and other writers, from Edmund Gosse to Jeanette Winterson, have created autobiographical gems from similar experiences.

Roger worked on a semi-fictionalised autobiography for eight years, never quite managing to knock it into shape. Before he died in 2007, he asked his daughter to help him finish it. In The Days Of Rain is thus a sometimes uneasy amalgam of Rebeccas autobiography and her fathers, a family saga, and a history of The Exclusive Brethren with all its multiple schisms, and schisms within schisms, stretching way back to the early 19th century. It is long, and dips to and fro in time. Perhaps a shorter, more forceful narrative would have made it as compelling as its subject matter. On the other hand, it is written in clear, graceful prose, and lacks any trace of self-pity. In these days of religious extremism, it also has an eerie relevance.

Stott as a child. Aged six, Rebecca Stott spent her time listening out for the sound of Satans hooves on the paving stones of Brighton

The tale of Rebeccas father is dominant. His own devoutly Exclusive father  a travelling salesman for the posh French soapmakers Roger & Gallet, of all things  had relocated the family from Scotland to Brighton in 1927. He was such a religious fundamentalist that he once summoned the family and made them watch as he took out a sharp knife and cut the D for Darwin section out of their new Childrens Encyclopaedia.

The young Rogers first crisis of faith occurred at primary school. Having asked his teacher the exact distance of the children of Israels flight from Egypt to the promised land, he found it baffling that a trip of 65 miles should have taken a full 40 years, or an average of about eight yards a day. And they were supposed to be travelling day and night. It made no sense. How could people walk that slowly? he wondered.

For many years, his faith wavered back and forth, though for most of the time he was careful to keep any doubts under wraps. In the Fifties, The Exclusive Brethren were, if not easy-going, at least more relaxed than they soon became. Roger was even allowed to study A-level English and then to attend Cambridge University.

But in 1959, there was a coup, and the Brethren were taken over by a man called Jim Taylor Junior, whom Rebecca Stott accurately describes as an aberration, a monster. Within five years The Brethrens list of prohibited activities had grown five times as long; within ten years, it had increased by 20 times. By the end of the Sixties, there were bans on, among much else, trade unions, universities, working wives, modern novels, and women wearing trousers and sporting short hair. Little Rebecca even had to drink her school milk in an area away from non-Brethren.

Along with a lot of younger members, Roger Stott became a zealot, and began assisting in the persecution of the old guard, cross-questioning old codgers in order to force them to confess to having improper thoughts. The same sort of raiding of guilty secrets goes on in the present-day Scientologists. All the while, the inner guard of The Brethren spent their time sifting through the Bible for quotations to support their new disciplinary procedures.

These grim days only came to an end when, in true pantomime fashion, Jim Taylor Junior was outed as an alcoholic sex-fiend, much given to groping Members wives. More schisms ensued. In the process, Roger Stott lost his faith, and transferred his energy towards amateur dramatics and roulette. In 1981, he was sent to prison for a year for fiddling the books to finance his gambling addiction. For the rest of his life, he attempted to work out a foolproof system of roulette, a substitute, perhaps, for a religion that had once offered him a foolproof system of the world.

Like so much in the world that it affects to despise, The Exclusive Brethren has since undergone a PR rebranding. Under the leadership of Jim Taylors nephew, it now calls itself The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, and its Australian-based website makes it sound as sweet as cherry pie. As a community were caring and respectful of others, it says. Others beg to differ. In 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, called it an extreme cult that breaks up families and is bad for Australia. He seems to have a point. Just a thought, but at some time in the future, might Public Relations come to be regarded as the most sinister cult of the 21st century?
People smile when they meet Sir Quentin Blake. They often say the same thing, says this kindly gnome of a fellow whose playful, scratchy pen has brought to life some of the best-loved childrens characters of all time, including the original Big Friendly Giant, Matilda and The Twits, as well as all the other stories by Roald Dahl.

You drew my childhood, is what all his many grown-up fans say. Its a curious phrase, but I really like it, says Blake, who is 84 now and looks like he could happily live on the pages of one of his own stories, with his wide smile and eccentric wisps of grey hair flowing behind an otherwise bald head.

Quentin Blake is 84 and now and looks like he could happily live on the pages of one of his own stories

It was Blake who came up with the gnarly face, huge ears, warm smile and the whole look of the original Big Friendly Giant

Blake is the very opposite of a tortured artist. Oh yes, I know about all that, but its not me'

This gentle genius has illustrated more than 300 books by the likes of David Walliams, Michael Rosen and even Beatrix Potter, as well as creating his own very popular characters such as the adventurous Mrs Armitage.

Blake is about to reveal a darker, more serious side to his character with a major exhibition of new work at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings, which is where we meet; its just a few steps from his home. There will be some surprises, he says.

But first, Im genuinely shocked by what he has to say about his most famous collaboration with Roald Dahl, The BFG. It was Blake who came up with the gnarly face, huge ears, warm smile and the whole look of the original Big Friendly Giant, which was lifted from the book and recreated in Steven Spielbergs summer blockbuster last year.

The shock comes when I ask if he chose to get involved in the film or just take the money and run? I dont take the money and run. Im not offered any, in fact. I dont know why.

The smile has gone. His lips are pursed. Hes serious. I know Mark Rylance is very good and probably he did it very well, but I didnt see it, says Blake.

The character in the movie was based on his original vision and artwork though, surely? We assumed, yes. But, I mean, you could say you got it from the text, I suppose.

The film topped the charts here last year. Did they really not pay him? No, no, no. Ive no connection with the film whatsoever.

Im gobsmacked, I say. Yes. Sounds like he is too, but presumably they paid the estate of Roald Dahl? Oh yes. Hugely.

Blake is about to reveal a darker, more serious side to his character with a major exhibition of new work at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings

The Only Way To Travel will present a surprising, more emotional, darker side to Blake, with more than 100 new paintings and drawings

Does the same thing apply to the highly successful, award-winning Matilda The Musical? More or less, yes. Thats terrible. Yes.

I feel terrible for him, because Blake is almost as responsible for these characters as Dahl. Does he ever feel that he doesnt get the credit he deserves? Thats what Roald said, very generously: When they read the book, they see Quents pictures. I think its true. No, its fine. I mean, I get my share.

His images appear on everything from games to tea towels, so he must have done well in other ways over the years? Yes. From Roalds books particularly, because I dont have a huge royalty but they sell so many copies that Ive done well out of it.

Thats more than he usually lets on. Blake has made a lifelong habit of not giving much away in interviews, but today is very different. Slowly, as we talk in an upstairs room at the gallery, something changes. This small, quiet man in a dark-blue linen jacket and stripy shirt, starts to talk about deeply personal things: from his love life and unusual living arrangements to his recent brush with depression.

Blake says he has done well out of the illustrations for Roald Dahl

It seems prompted by the unusual nature of the work we are here to discuss, as the gallery prepares for his biggest British exhibition ever. The Only Way To Travel will present a surprising, more emotional, darker side to Blake, with more than 100 new paintings and drawings.

The title is a joke, because there are as many different ways to travel as possible, he says. That allows me to draw anything. They are mostly sort of grotesque creatures. Youre not quite sure whether theyre alive or aeroplanes. So theyre these bizarre things with propellers and faces. Thats one aspect of it. Then there are also some quite gloomy ones: men on crutches, in some strange landscape, which are about some kind of distress.

He isnt specific about the distress, but there are clear references to the refugee crisis, particularly a dinghy on a frightening sea. Its a way of saying, This show is this about travel, dont forget about these people. We wont forget them.

They are part of a set of smaller, quieter paintings. The watercolours are sort of in moonlight. Theyre more contemplative, more reflective. They take the mood a bit more seriously.

For the past few years, Blake has been making work for the walls of hospitals and care homes. Ive seen the way art touches people, he says. I had a series of pictures in an adult mental-health unit in London. One of the specialists said there was a chap who was deeply depressed, they couldnt get him to respond to anything, but he actually reacted to my pictures. When that happens, wow!

Does any of this come from personal experience? Surprisingly, he says yes. I always thought it doesnt matter what age you are, you just go on working, so last year I worked for the whole year  but on January 1, I got some kind of bug and I went into a kind of anxiety state. I was completely out of action for two or three weeks. Then I gradually pulled round. And now Im all right. I mean, I had some medication for it. That was a form of depression, but it wasnt particularly related to anything, it was to do with just having worked too hard.

How does he feel now? Im still doing all this stuff, but now Im aware that Im the age I am. But Im pleased to be that age and not incapacitated and able to work. I was more afraid of dying when I was much younger than I am now. I think about it sometimes  you cant not  but its sort of counterproductive. I think we have to go on as though everythings all right.

I wonder if he lives alone, but the only thing I have ever read about his private life is that he didnt get married by accident of circumstance. What did he mean by that?

Well, two things, I think. I live in a bachelor establishment, but Im not gay. By this he means that he shares his home with a man. I live with John Yeoman, who is a writer and teacher. We have for ages. We have a modus vivendi, if you see what I mean.

Blake wants to inspire both adults and children to have a go at making their own art

The Latin phrase means way of life. The second part of his answer relates to someone he introduced me to earlier. I spend a lot of time with Linda Kitson. Weve known each other for 50 years.

Kitson is herself highly acclaimed and was the first female artist commissioned to go with troops to the front line, during the Falklands War. Are they partners? No, but weve known each other a long time. I mean, we are constantly in touch. Sounds like marriage without the hassle, I say. Very much like it. Exactly!

Some of the new pictures are enormous, stretching from the floor to the high ceiling. Its a big room and Ive done them in as many different techniques as I could think of. Some of them are done with paint rollers a decorator might use. Thats slightly like a performance: if it doesnt work you scrap it, if it works its all right.

There are serious themes, but his methods are as playful as ever. Blake wants to inspire both adults and children to have a go at making their own art. I hope the show says to the audience, You can muck about. You can do it if you like.

Dark or not, kids will love it. How has Quentin Blake managed to become the worlds favourite illustrator for children without direct experience, having never had any of his own? You make it up! No really. The other thing is you just pretend you are one. Its acting really.

THREE MORE SHOWS BY THE SEA YOU MUST SEE THIS SUMMER Jessica Warboys Tate St Ives, Cornwall Until September 3 Large scale paintings, films and sculptures by British artist Jessica Warboys fill the ocean-facing gallery. Large scale paintings, films and sculptures by British artist Jessica Warboys fill the ocean-facing gallery Safari: An Exhibition As Expedition De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, East Sussex Until September 3 Simon Pattersons exhibition  which spans 25 years of his work  takes visitors on a mini safari of the art deco De La Warr Pavilion to discover his work, as well as objects from Bexhill and Hastings museums. Every Day Is A New Day Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent Until September 24 Works by British sculptor Phyllida Barlow, British-Kenyan painter Michael Armitage and JMW Turner are shown alongside artwork by young people from both Kent and Africa. Safari: An Exhibition As Expedition Advertisement

Does he wish he was a father? Not particularly, no. I know people who have got sons and daughters growing up, and I can see how one would be deeply rewarded by that, but Ive had enough to do. A young man wrote to me a few years ago and began by saying, Knowing how much you love children... And I thought, No! I dont love children! I mean, Im interested in them, but thats not the same. Its not that I want to be surrounded by them.

So whats the secret of his success with kids? You just treat them like human beings.

His first book with Roald Dahl was The Enormous Crocodile in 1978, and Blake has now illustrated every one of his famously crotchety old friends books. He liked to wind you up if he could. He was able to be very aggressive, but I think he was more controlled than he pretended.

I wear white shoes because of him, he says, looking down at oddly bright white pumps. I must have been wearing something like that one time we met, and hed say, Heres old Quent, hes going out to dinner in his plimsolls. Did they ever fall out? No. He knew I wanted him to have what he wanted.

He did save Dahl from embarrassment once. He rewrote fairy tales in Revolting Rhymes and Rhyme Stew, and there was one about how the Sleeping Beauty fell asleep or was put to sleep and then the wizard or whoever it was came back, woke her up and took her off in his racing car. I just pointed out that she hadnt had time to grow up. She hadnt been to sleep long enough. And Roald said, Oh no! We cant have that, its paedophilia!

The last time they saw each other was just before Dahls death in 1990. It must have been not long after he went into hospital. He had a dog  a Jack Russell called Chopper, I think  lifted up outside the window of the hospital. That was a very Roald thing to do.

The day we meet, there is news that Downton Abbeys Hugh Bonneville is going to play Roald Dahl in a movie about the writers life. I didnt know, says Blake. Has nobody been in touch about this? No. Dirk Bogarde did it once. Strange casting.

Presumably, somebody may play Blake? Thats a terrifying thought.

He grins and it strikes me that for all the unsettling oddness of the new show, Blake is the very opposite of a tortured artist. Oh yes, I know about all that, but its not me. People sometimes find it hard to imagine you have an imagination. I make things up. Its shameful to say, he jokes without shame, but I enjoy it!

The Only Way To Travel runs at the Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, until October 15, jerwoodgallery.org


Hutong

The Shard, London Bridge Street, London SE1

020 3011 1257, the-shard.com

Rating:

Theres been a market in or around Borough for over 1,000 years. So the crazed, despicable and murderous actions of three cowardly, contemptible bastards  striking on a balmy summers night, as Londoners and tourists alike were making merry  will do little to dampen its eternal appeal.

They targeted Borough for precisely the reason we love the place most. Its a hub and a hive, a place of succour and good cheer, the quintessence of London in all its multicultural magnificence. Bitter and borek, potted shrimps and pide, tabouleh, tarka dal and tacos the area is testament to a city built upon immigration, a tribute to the eternally unifying power of food.

The cooking at Hutong is good, often excellent. Dim sum is up there with Royal China Club, if not quite reaching the heady heights of A Wong

Roast duck (left) and pan-fried Wagyu beef buns

You hardly need me to extol the endless gastronomic glories of Borough. Because here is a place where both street traders and restaurateurs can specialise in one thing, be it tacos, coffee or toasted cheese sandwiches. And do it very well indeed. Its not just the hordes of hungry tourists who descend on the place. But greedily discerning Londoners too.

God knows how many hours Ive spent in the vicinity over the years, either filming, flaneuring, sneaking a swift pint at the Market Porter, or simply stuffing my fat gob. Lots of stuffing my fat gob.

Because there are certain things that demand ones full attention. The chorizo, pepper and rocket roll from Brindisa, devoured after splurging in the shop on bottled chickpeas and silken Iberico ham, and those obscenely fine tinned anchovies that rarely make it to a plate; Mrs Kings pork pies, burnished pastry, wobbling jelly and peppery meat, a triptych of porcine perfection; Richard Hayward, the bivalve master of West Mersea, with his blessed, briny oysters; cheese at Neals Yard Dairy; and more of that same cheese toasted between two burnished slices of bread until lusciously oozing at Kappacasein; some of Londons best coffee at Monmouth; Hook and Son unpasteurised raw milk, bounteous and fulsome, yet impeccably clean and fresh; plump Arbroath smokies from Oak and Smoke, and excellent British charcuterie from Cannon and Cannon.

And then there are the restaurants  the finest tacos east of Quintana Roo at El Pastor; gleaming fruits de mer, served on dull, battered tin trays at Wright Brothers; old-school fry-ups at Marias Market Cafe; peerless fresh pasta at Padella; eternally reliable steak at Hawksmoor; and tip-top tapas at Brindisa. Everyone has their favourite stall, trader or pub.

FROM THE MENU

Octopus salad 15.50 Thinly cut pork belly with cucumber slices 11 Iberico pork dumplings 13.50 Scallop & prawn wonton 12.50 Advertisement

For far more edible expertise, go to rocketandsquash.com and check out the Borough article from that fine blogger, Ed Smith.

When I visited, Borough Market and its environs remained closed as police continued to trawl the crime scene. (Its since reopened and life is very much back to usual, the local pubs packed, Black cabs honking at cyclists, pedestrians artfully weaving through traffic.)

I meet Matthew for a pint before wandering down to the Shard, passing through scanners and security and whisking up, ears popping, to Hutong, on the 33rd floor.

The cooking at Hutong is good, often excellent. Dim sum is up there with Royal China Club, if not quite reaching the heady heights of A Wong. A brace of Iberico pork Xiao Long Bao, the broth sweet and searing. Baked Wagyu beef pork puffs, with a filling as dense as it is sticky. And XO sauce scallop and prawn dumplings, the pastry light as a silk slip.

Then on to the menu proper. Just-chewy slices of cool braised cuttlefish, with a grunt of chilli and whisper of Sichuan pepper. This kitchen knows when to hold back, to subtly pique, rather than boorishly overwhelm. Belly pork, cut so thin that its almost translucent, is layered with slices of cucumber. Gently spiced, its as cool and elegant as a Wong Kar-Wai leading man.

Prawns are clad in a salted egg-yolk batter, giving them a grainy texture that is odd. But pleasantly odd. Again, texture is treated with the same reverence as taste. Obviously. Beef braised in vinegar, slightly sweet and soft and fatty, immediately whisks me back to Shanghai. Well, Jian Guo 328, anyway. God, Ive eaten badly in Shanghai.

And string beans, blistered by the wok, seasoned with a handful of chilli-hot pork mince. The only real let down are dan-dan noodles, too polite and underpowered, not enough grease and grunt.

Still, this is high-end regional Chinese, no doubt about that, with prices as precipitous as the view. From up here, London sprawls towards the green and distant hills, hardly the most pulchritudinous of cities. Sure, there are the shiny skyscrapers and handsome mansions and St Pauls, off-white and wonderful. Plus the Thames, deceptively languid, sinuous and the colour of milky tea. But as trains glide and cars crawl and locals curse and tourists gape, life goes on as usual. In London, it always will.

Lunch for two: about 80

What Tom ate this week

Saturday

Lunch at St John, Icon of London Food Month. What a feast. Deep-fried tripe, plump langoustines, roast bone marrow salad, grilled ox heart, tomato, devilled kidneys on toast, pigs head and potato pie...

Sunday

Lunch at Chisou in Knightsbridge. Then off bowling at Meat Liquor in Bayswater. Ate Brett Grahams Bambi Burger, plus chicken wings. Finished off with sea urchin and bottarga pasta at Olivomare.

Monday

Launch of Refottorio Felix at St Cuthberts in Earls Court, a brilliant project involving chef Massimo Bottura, in connection with The Felix Project. Chefs such as Giorgio Locatelli, Angela Hartnett, Claude Bosi, Brett Graham, Jason Atherton, Margot Henderson and Sat Bains cook food that would otherwise be wasted.

Tuesday

Start of the London Food Month Night Market. I get stuck in to brisket rolls from Smokestack, raclette from Raclette Brothers, jerk chicken rotis from Mamas Jerk and much more.
Poldark

Sunday, BBC1

Rating:

The Loch

Sunday, ITV

Rating:

Captain, you have come back to us, and Sunday evenings can feel like proper Sunday evenings again, although The First Rule Of Poldark On Sunday Evenings must, of course, always be observed, and The First Rule of Poldark On Sunday Evenings is this: all young people shall be banished from the room. This is necessary or they are likely to say, Its like Game Of Thrones with all the interesting bits taken out, or, Ross is still a goodie, even though he raped someone?

They think they know everything, young people, even when its plain they are idiots. The first episode of your third series was a corker, Captain, as Elizabeth (Heida Reed) threw herself downstairs and made her horse bolt so as to provide a reason why her baby may come, you know, a month early, ahem.

Aunt Agatha (Caroline Blakiston) welcomes baby Valentine

Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) is still in pain, but you distracted yourself by thatching, and while Ive never thatched myself, I can imagine it is most distracting. So it was thatching, thatching, thatching  until you were called upon to go here, or there, in which case you galloped along the cliff edge as waves crashed against the rocky Cornish coast, and I did wonder: Ross, have you ever managed to get from A to B via an inland route? Is it even possible?

Meanwhile, Full-On Evil George (Jack Farthing, having the time of his life) opened the Warleggan Bank in Truro and has big ambitions. It will soon be the only bank in Truro, he said. As to whether he will succeed, I will only say this: last time I went to Truro there was a Barclays, a NatWest and a Lloyds. I am saying this from the future, Ross, so its probably not something you can use against him  George, one day there will be a Barclays, a NatWest and a Lloyds in Truro, so put that in your pipe and smoke it!  but I thought you would wish to know.

Naturally, George is being horrible to Geoffrey Charles who, in the last eight months  Im using Elizabeths pregnancy as the timeline here  seems to have aged at least four or five years. How does that work, Ross? And why does he call you Uncle Ross?

Was Francis your brother? Is Elizabeth your sister? You need to sit the boy down and say to him: I am full of admiration for your astonishing growth spurt, Geoffrey Charles, but I am not your uncle, and from henceforward I would ask you call me First Cousin Once Removed Ross.

And where is Little Jeremy, your legitimate son, while you are putting all this time into Geoffrey Charles, your first cousin once removed? We glimpsed him just the once. As he does not appear to have grown astonishingly in the last few months, are you ashamed of him and his puniness? Ross, in this instance I would wish to sit you down and say: Its Geoffrey Charles who is the freak here so wherever you are keeping Jeremy  is he tethered out back; is he in the gym, lifting weights?  please let him go.

We were introduced to new characters, including Demelzas brother Drake (Harry Richardson), who looks like he may be in search of the rest of One Direction, and the pretty young governess, Morwenna (Ellise Chappell), who has already caught his eye.

Run, Morwenna, run, you did not say, but then you havent read all the books, as we have. Mostly, we were preoccupied with the night of the black moon.

Tis a bad omen, mark my words, cackled mad, gangsta Aunt Agatha as Demelzas father died, and Bergerac died, and Carolines wedding night was interrupted by Dr Enys being summoned to attend to Elizabeth, who gave birth to a son.

He favours you, she told George, as she handed over Valentine with his black curly hair. (Although baby-sized for now, he may be 6ft 2in in a fortnight or so.) It ended with Demelza announcing her own pregnancy  a sibling to be tethered out back with Little Jeremy!  and you, Ross, vowing never to go near Elizabeth ever again.

Yeah, right, as the young people would probably put it, and although they are plainly idiots more often than not, sometimes there can be a nugget of truth in what they say. As you are no longer being pitched against Victoria, I thought Id check out the competition from ITV.

This is The Loch, Ross, although it could have been called Broadchurch-But-In-The Highlands. It is set in a small community beset by murder and it is so Broadchurchian we even have to discover where some blue twine may have come from.

There is a fine cast, including Siobhan Finneran as the detective called in to mastermind the investigation, but whats that scavenging at the lumps of offal left out back at the abattoir? A wolf? Even though wolves have been extinct from Scotland since the 17th century? So I dont think you have much to worry about here, Ross. You can carry on as per: thatching and galloping, galloping and thatching. And we will be thatching and galloping alongside you
Merger move

Secret talks have reportedly taken place between Scottish Widows and rival Standard Life in a deal to create one of Britains largest life insurers.

Exports boom

British exporters have outperformed Germany and France for the last 15 months thanks to a surge in manufacturing orders driven by the weak pound.

Talks: Scottish Widows in line for Standard Life merger

Pension row

Efforts to save the struggling Co-op Bank could be sunk by a spat over its pension pot.

Driving forward

Profits at the RAC were 67m last year, up from a 6m loss the year before.

Shop sale

Online retailer Shop Direct could be snapped up by a San Francisco private equity house.

Pioneering Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk is keen to explore Mars

Mars mission

Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk has called for an epic mission to colonise Mars so that humanity can survive even if Earth becomes uninhabitable.

Charging decision

The Serious Fraud Office could criminally charge Barclays this week over claims it illegally paid 322m to Qatari investors who helped save the bank during the financial crisis.

Cruising on

River cruise company Riviera Travel has reportedly been put up for sale with a 250m price tag.
Sainsbury's is set to swoop on convenience chain Nisa in a 130m deal, amid panic over a possible sector invasion by Amazon.

The web giant shocked markets on Friday by announcing an audacious plan to buy US organic grocer Whole Foods for 10.7bn.

Retail shares tumbled on both sides of the Atlantic as traders worried that the company  with all its financial might  was about to wade into the food sector.

Supermarket sweep: Sainsbury's is buying convenience chain Nisa in a 130m deal

Traders are braced for further swings when markets reopen this morning.

It follows a vicious price war on the ultra-competitive British High Street, with several household names seeking safety through big deals.

Sainsburys bought Argos for 1.4bn last year and is now reportedly hoping to bulk up further with the Nisa bid. The supermarket is said to be close to agreeing a deal with the business, which has 2,900 stores and is owned by its members.

Sources said the takeover had been in the works since long before Amazons raid on Friday.

It is claimed that Sainsburys has offered 2,500 a share for Nisa, meaning the mutuals shopkeepers are in line for up to 625,000 each.

Domination: Amazon's recent purchase of Wholefoods has worried traders with fears of dominating food sector

But members have resisted takeover attempts in the past and there is likely to be a major rebellion  with some already calling for Nisas chief executive Nick Read to resign.

Others have also decided there is strength in scale. Tesco, for example, is buying wholesale goods seller Booker for 3.7bn in a bid to broaden its horizons.

Meanwhile, Morrisons has an existing deal with Amazon  pushing its shares up on Friday when others fell, and inevitably leading to speculation it too might be a takeover target.

Another stock to gain ground after the Whole Foods announcement was online grocer Ocado, which is also likely to be in the frame if Amazon pushes further into the industry.

The company has developed advanced warehouse robots seen by many insiders as a valuable tool for online food retailers.

Ocado is facing a spat with activist investor Crystal Amber following concerns about its direction  in an intriguing parallel with Whole Foods, which had been locked in a bitter row with hedge fund Jana Partners.

Jana accused it of chronic underperformance and in response, Whole Foods founder and chief executive John Mackey said the investor was a greedy b******.
The University of Cambridge has refused a request made by an indigenous Australian man to return important Aboriginal artifacts taken by British explorer Captain James Cook nearly 250 years ago.

Rodney Kelly is seeking the return of four spears from the university's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology on behalf of the Gweagal people, who traditionally inhabited southern parts of Sydney.

According the to the university, Cook took the spears following a violent first encounter between Aborigines and Europeans on the shores of Botany Bay in Sydney in 1770.

He also took a shield, which is currently held by the British Museum and for which Mr Kelly has also sought repatriation.

Scroll down for video

Rodney Kelly is fighting to get important Aboriginal artifacts back from Cambridge University

This is the Aboriginal spears that Mr Kelly has been fighting for and wants it returned asap

The artifacts are recognised as a significant symbol of first contact between the British and indigenous Australians and of Aboriginal resistance to colonisation.

However, the University of Cambridge has rejected a request for their return lodged by Mr Kelly.

'Removing parts of the Cook-Sandwich collection, which is of great historical, scientific and educational importance nationally and internationally, would cause considerable harm by depriving the collection of its integrity,' a spokeswoman told Reuters on Saturday.

The university said the request contained no clear proposal for housing and conserving the spears if they were to be returned, and added it was important that any request for change be made with 'accredited representatives of the Gweagal people.'

Mr Kelly, who submitted a formal request for the repatriation of the spears in November last year, claims to be a direct descendant of the Gweagal warrior Cooman, from whom he claims the spears and shield were taken.

However, a report prepared by the University of Cambridge has questioned Mr Kelly's ability to prove his descent - something disputed by the Sydney man.

'It makes me angry they are trying these tactics to discredit me and my history,' Mr Kelly told Reuters.

Cambridge University has refused to meet Mr Kelly's request and wants his identity proven

Cook's landing in Botany Bay on April 29, 1770 marked the first point of contact between the British and Aborigines and preceded the arrival of the first waves of colonists to Australia eight years later.

Two Aboriginal men holding spears tried to resist Cooks party landing and one was injured by British musket fire, the university says. The Gweagal then retreated and Cook and his crew entered their camp and took the spears and a shield.

According to Mr Kelly, Cooman was the injured man in the historical account, a claim the university says is not well-supported.

Mr Kelly who is currently in Cambridge in the UK has brought the fight onto his Facebook page.

In a series of Facebook post, Mr Kelly has said that he was fighting for his ancestor's rights.

He has also gone as far as organising a talk about at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology in the University of Cambridge as recent as June 16 in which 15 people had shown interest.

Mr Kelly explains clearly in a Facebook post the reason behind him wanting the artifacts back

Mr Kelly even went as far as organising a talk on the matter at University of Cambridge itself

In the past, both the Australian Senate and state parliament of New South Wales voted last year to support the repatriation of the artifacts from the British Museum and the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Mr Kelly said he would continue to fight for the artifacts' return.

'I want to do everything I can to bring those artifacts home for my people and every indigenous and non indigenous person in Australia,' he said.
Scores of dairy farm workers and activists marched Saturday to a Ben & Jerry's factory to push for better pay and living conditions on farms that provide milk for the ice cream maker that takes pride in its social activism.

Protesters said Ben & Jerry's agreed two years ago to participate in the so-called Milk with Dignity program, but the company and worker representatives have yet to reach an agreement.

'We can't wait any more. We are going to pressure them and see what happens,' said Victor Diaz, a Mexican immigrant now working on a farm in Vergennes.

The march that began Saturday morning in Montpelier ended mid-afternoon at the plant in Waterbury, about 14 miles away.

Scores of dairy farm workers and activists are pictured above marching in Montpelier, Vermont, on Saturday to the main Ben & Jerry's factory to protest what they feel are slow negotiations to reach a deal on their 'Milk with Dignity' program

The program would ensure fair wages and living conditions. Ben & Jerry's CEO Jostein Solheim said that the company has been 'working to incorporate the socially responsible ideal of the Milk With Dignity into its production.'

Jostein added that Ben & Jerry's is an 'activist company' and 'that's why it allowed people protesting the company to do it on site.'

Organizer Will Lambek said the marchers presented a letter to company CEO Jostein Solheim who said the company was committed to joining the program.

Jostein told ABC22 that the company has been 'working to incorporate the socially responsible ideal of the Milk With Dignity into its production.'

'This is at the core of what Ben and Jerry's stands for,' Solhein said.

'It is not easy these programs and innovate and find new ways of doing things that really, really work. But this is at the core of what Ben and Jerry's is really about.'

He added that Ben & Jerry's is an 'activist company' and 'that's why it allowed people protesting the company to do it on site.'

Ben & Jerry's spokesman Sean Greenwood also said before Saturday's march from the Statehouse to the Waterbury factory that the company was eager to reach an agreement and negotiations were underway.

'We are a values-led business. We frame ourselves as an aspiring social justice company,' said Greenwood.

'We try to do good with everything we can with our business. Dairy has definitely been one of those issues we have done a ton of work on for decades.'

Ben & Jerry's touts its social activism as much as its quirky ice-cream flavors such as Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey and Phish Food.

Many of its raw materials, like sugar, cocoa, vanilla, bananas and coffee come from producers across the world that subscribe to the Fairtrade program, which promotes higher prices and better working conditions for farmers.

About 85 percent of the milk Ben & Jerry's uses in its ice cream made in North America comes from about 80 Vermont dairy farms.

Its Caring Dairy program promotes sustainable farming by offering farmers cash incentives for keeping up with best management practices.

The march that began Saturday morning in Montpelier ended mid-afternoon at the plant in Waterbury, about 14 miles away

The Milk with Dignity program was developed in 2014 by farm workers and the Vermont group Migrant Justice to ensure that farms provide them fair wages and working conditions and decent housing.

In 2015, Ben & Jerry's agreed to join the program. Since then, the two sides have been negotiating over the details.

'We've been negotiating in good faith,' said Lambek. 'It's an unacceptable delay.'

Greenwood said Ben & Jerry's didn't get the first details from the workers until a year ago and the two sides have been working since then to reach an agreement.

'It has to work for the farmers, the farm owners, and it has to work for the businesses involved and that's the complex piece,' Greenwood said.

'How do you make sure that it will be operationalized so it's a win-win across the board and that's what we've been working on for well over a year now.'
Concerns have been raised popular house sharing site Airbnb is forcing people out of rental properties and adversely impacting housing affordability.

Residents living in tourist hot spots and university professors studying the rise of sites like of Airbnb have warned they can have a significant effect on the local property market, the ABC reported.

'We're having a housing affordability crisis in Australia, and Airbnb and these sort of shared economy technologies can have an adverse impact on our housing affordability, specifically with the rental market,' Professor Chris Pettit from the University of New South Wales told the network.

Concerns have been raised about the impact popular house sharing site Airbnb is having on the Australian property market, particularly rentals (stock image)

A university professor said sites like Airbnb can have an adverse impact on housing affordability (stock image)

Of the 20,000 Airbnb listings in Sydney, 60 per cent relate to entire homes, figures from the university reveal.

Residents in the coastal tourist mecca, Byron Bay, in far-north New South Wales, say Airbnb has had a notable impact on the area's housing stock.

'The property market has pushed rents to insane levels and then on top of that, you have the existence of things like the Airbnb platforms where that has taken so many properties out of the permanent rental market,' Byron Community Centre's Paul Spooner said.

Mr Spooner said rental properties are now extremely rare to find in the area.

Airbnb says they are seeing a lot of people who are advertising just one room within their house to help pay for things like their mortgage or credit card (stock image)

Residents in the popular coastal tourist destination Byron Bay (pictured) say Airbnb has taken properties out of the local rental market

One Byron Bay resident, Ilona Harker, says she was forced out of her rental property prior to Christmas because she believed it was to be put on Airbnb, as was the case with other houses due to the busy summer holiday period.

Airbnb said most of the properties listed on its website are primary residences which are only made available for a few nights a year.

In New South Wales alone, it says it accounts for just 1.4 per cent of housing stock.

Its head of public policy for Australia and New Zealand, Brent Thomas, said single rooms were the most common on the site, advertised by people with spare space.

'If you're a baby boomer and your children have left home and you've got an extra floor or an extra couple of rooms, it's a great way for people to make their mortgage payments or pay for a family holiday, pay off a credit card bill, and we're seeing that a lot,' Mr Thomas said.
The Freeze has been frozen out, in a rare loss for the Atlanta Braves sprinting mascot who shot to fame last week when another competitor took a face plant during the race.

The speed-demon Freeze, whose identity has been revealed as 26-year-old Braves groundskeeper Nigel Talton, lost at Friday night's game in Atlanta's SunTrust Park.

Friday's upset, which came during the Braves' 5-0 loss to the Florida Marlins, was not the first for The Freeze, who has reportedly lost as many as four match-ups this season.

Friday's race started off tough for The Freeze, who can been seen gesturing at his competitor's foot, which is clearly over the starting line when the race begins

The Freeze was still far behind when the fan hit the finish line in the fateful race on Friday

The exhausted fan give The Freeze a high five after his stunning upset victory in Atlanta

The Freeze is seen flying by a challenger in a recent race. The sprinting superhero chalked up a rare loss during Friday's race against another fan

Unmasked: The Freeze has been revealed as 26-year-old track athlete Nigel Talton (left) who works as a groundskeeper at the Braves' SunTrust Park near Atlanta

The races, which see a fan take a sizable head start on The Freeze in a race around the ballpark warning track, have quickly become the most talked about between-innings promotion in the MLB.

Friday's race started off tough for The Freeze, who can been seen gesturing at his competitor's foot, which is clearly over the starting line when the race begins.

The Freeze regained his title at Saturday's game however, beating his challeger handily.

The promotion, called 'Unleash The Freeze' shot to prominence across the league last week after an epic mishap.

In that race, a cocky competitor pumped his fists in victory before being overtaken by the speed-demon superhero, and then stumbling and face planting in the dirt.

That clip has since gone viral with thousands of shares and memes mocking the contestant.

The epic fail came during the New York Mets June 9 game against the Atlanta Braves when one lucky fan was chosen for the Beat The Freeze contest.

Video shows the fan given a roughly 200-foot head start. As he runs around the track, he finally has the finish line in his sights and thinks he's going to win the race.

He tries to get the crowd excited about his victory and begins waving his arms to the stands (pictured)

But he didn't count on the freeze being so fast and, before he knows it, the 'superhero' is blowing past him (pictured)

In clear disbelief, the fan loses his footing and faceplants into the dirt to the laughter of the sportscasters, one who called it the 'greatest thing hes ever seen'

He tries to get the crowd excited about his victory and begins waving his arms to the stands.

But he didn't count on The Freeze being so fast and, before he knows it, the 'superhero' is blowing past him. In clear disbelief, the fan loses his footing and faceplants into the dirt.

The broadcaster during the video replay even called it the 'greatest thing hes ever seen' and said: 'just where he belongs, right in the dirt'.
Labours fragile post-Election unity was shattered last night after one of Jeremy Corbyns own MPs openly mocked his claim that he won the General Election.

In a scathing attack, Neil Coyle also accused his party leader of triumphalism and raised fears that Labours current position was a false dawn.

After wiping out the Tories Commons majority, Mr Corbyn has suggested that his party was the real victor from the June 8 poll  despite ending up with fewer votes and seats than Theresa May.

In a scathing attack, Neil Coyle also accused his party leader of triumphalism and raised fears that Labours current position was a false dawn

But in an article published on Mail Online today (see below), Mr Coyle  re-elected as Bermondsey MP ten days ago  said: Labour still went down to our third successive General Election defeat.

Anyone claiming we won is frankly being ridiculous.

The Labour MP coupled his remarks with a fierce attack on Theresa May and stressed he desperately wanted Labour to form the next government.

Mr Corbyn was given a standing ovation from Labour benches in the Commons last week  in stark contrast to the silent receptions he received before the Election by MPs convinced he was leading them to election disaster.

But in his article, Mr Coyle  a Corbyn critic before June 8  made clear that he would not be changing his views.

He also described his party leaders triumphalism as absurd.

Many of Corbyns critics now applaud him but most Labour MPs and campaigners know that his terrible ratings meant he did not even appear on our Election leaflets, he wrote.

Mr Corbyn has suggested that his party was the real victor from the June 8 poll  despite ending up with fewer votes and seats than Theresa May

It is deeply disappointing that leading lights and steady hands continue to be ignored in appointments to Corbyns post-election Shadow Cabinet.

Many Labour moderates are furious that genuine offers to work under Mr Corbyn had been thrown back in the faces of party colleagues previously critical of him. That includes ex-Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray who sources say had offered to talk to Mr Corbyn about returning to the front bench, only for the offer to be rejected. Instead, Mr Corbyn appointed Lesley Laird, a Scottish MP elected for the first time on June 8.

Offers by former leadership rival Angela Eagle, who last year branded Mr Corbyn unable to do the top job, also went unheeded, say party moderates. One senior ex-Minister said last night: For all his genial behaviour and talk of reaching out, its the same old closed-shop leadership from Corbyn.

Instead of genuinely trying to unite the party, its a we are the masters now attitude. Its a terrible missed opportunity.

But a source close to the Labour leader last night denied he had snubbed former critics, insisting he was focusing on the priority of being ready to respond to the new Tory Governments legislative programme and preparing to form a minority government if the current Tory administration falls.

Why I wont be cheerleading for Jeremy: Labour MP NEIL COYLE says Corbyn deserves some credit - but that he still did not lead the party to victory

Neil Coyle gives his views on the results of the general election

The extraordinary general election result has had an equally extraordinary response from pundits and politicians.

Those who suggested May would win a landslide have been buried by reality.

Those who suggested Corbyn couldnt run a bath now fawn over him.

Governments lose elections, Oppositions dont win them is an old political truism. May was heavily punished for Brexit, particularly in Kensington and Canterbury. Remainers revenge ravaged Mays hopes of a win. May was also savaged for her manifestos slim pickings for people Just About Managing. After seven years of their squeezed middle, JAMs were offered more of the same. It wasnt so much jam tomorrow; it was barely even bread and water.

What voters wanted was a positive future for them and their family. May failed to deliver a positive vision. All voters seemed to be told was that only she could deliver the hard Brexit  which sounded risky, especially when she absented herself from much of the campaign and debate. Add to that the very real prospect, published by her Government, of cuts to peoples childrens school budgets as well as a dementia tax that sounded like even poorer care in future and people rejected Mays thin gruel in spectacular style.

But faced with all that, Labour still went down to our third successive general election defeat. Anyone claiming we won is frankly being ridiculous.

Yes, we had a positive response to the manifesto  much of it which was similar to 2015.

A million homes over a parliament, including the chance to own one. A higher minimum wage and pay rise in the public sector. Renationalising some rail operating companies  with other industries thrown in. Tuition fees werent just to be lowered, but scrapped altogether. This was attractive to many young people and parents.

Our policing proposals were also positively received, especially after terrorist attacks meant doubts that May had provided sufficient police numbers and powers after her tenure in the Home Office and Downing Street.

But the triumphalism after losing again is absurd. Many of Corbyns critics now applaud him, but most Labour MPs and campaigners know that his terrible ratings meant he did not even appear on our election leaflets.

In London, it was Sadiq Khan instead. In Wales, First Minister Carwyn Jones.

Even supposedly loyal shadow cabinet members neglected to include Labours leader on their local offerings.

Corbyn does indeed deserve credit for running a much smoother campaign than expected and clearly for motivating new, especially younger supporters.

He did this partly by shifting debate on to domestic, daily concerns and away from problematic views for him on Trident.

But it took quite some persuading of his inner circle to do that.

I didnt clap when Brown lost in 2010 and Labour gained fewer seats this time. Unlike some colleagues, I wont be a cheerleader for Corbyn.

I desperately want Labour to succeed. I desperately want us to form the next Government.

Its why I now hope that the apparent reaching out promised by the leader must take place.

The first signs are not encouraging.

It is deeply disappointing that leading lights and steady hands continue to be ignored in appointments to Corbyns post-election Shadow Cabinet.

So to anyone popping champagne corks on the Left, I say this: Theresa May is still Prime Minister when my constituents need a Labour Government.

She may yet face an earlier sunset than anyone possibly imagined when the election was called, but Labour must not fall for a false dawn or slip into some blinkered perception that Government is automatically on the horizon without considerably more work.
A taxi driver has been left trapped for almost an hour after he collided with another car in Sydney's inner-suburbs.

Emergency crews were called to the scene in Waterloo on Saturday night to rescue the driver who was unable to move due to his injuries, 9 News reported.

Video captured the dramatic moment police rescuers and paramedics worked to release the taxi driver from his car.

Scroll down for video

A taxi driver has been left trapped for almost an hour after he collided with another car in Sydney's inner-suburbs

Video captured the dramatic moment police rescuers and paramedics worked to release the taxi driver from his car

In the video, the man can be seen motionless in the driver's seat while at least six rescuers and paramedics work by torchlight to free him.

Both doors on the driver's side of the silver taxi have been ripped off while a police rescue worker operates with heavy machinery.

Despite the intensity of the works the injured driver remains sitting still with his eyes closed as he waits to be rescued.

The man was taken to hospital with a broken shoulder once he was eventually released.

His passenger and the driver of the other car escaped without injury, 9 News reported.
He may have retired from public appearances, but the Duke of Edinburgh isn't letting anyone forget about his decades of service.

At Saturday's Trooping of the Colour, Prince Phillip wore his full array of 17 medals as he watched an RAF flyover in celebration of Queen Elizabeth's Birthday.

The Duke joined the Royal Navy straight from school in 1939, and was decorated for bravery during his Naval service in the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans.

Are you not entertained? Prince George looks down at the crowd while Philip, medals on display, jokingly gestures

The Duchess of Cambridge watches on with her children and Philip during the impressive RAF flypast

Prince Philip has also held military posts including Admiral of the Fleet and Lord High Admiral of the Royal Navy.

The weight of the medals didn't seem to bother the 96-year-old, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy watching this year's Trooping of the Colour.

The sweltering heat proved difficult for the footguards, clad in full ceremonial gear including their famous bearskin hats.

Five guardsmen fainted in the heat, and had to be taken away for medical assistance.

THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH'S 17 DECORATIONS - WHAT THEY ARE The Duke's chest is adorned with a variety of medals, many of which come from his time as a Naval officer in World War 2. Prince Philip saw action in the Battle of Crete, and helped protect convoys of Australian soldiers as they sailed across the Indian Ocean. He was even present in Tokyo Bay when Japan surrendered. Other medals stem from his service as the Duke of Edinburgh, Array of honour: The Duke of Edinburgh wore 17 medals and decorations to visit SSAFA today The Duke's medals as seen above, left to right: Queens Service Order, New Zealand: This is awarded by the Government of New Zealand for service to the country 1939-1945 Star: A campaign medal of the British Commonwealth awarded for service during the Second World War. Atlantic Star: Awarded this in 1945 for service in the Atlantic during the Second World War Africa Star: Awarded in 1945 for service in Africa during the Second World War Burma Star (with Pacific Rosette): Awarded for service in the Burma Campaign in the Second World War Italy Star: Awarded for service in Italy and surrounding areas in the Second World War War Medal 1939-1945, with Mention in Dispatches: Awarded to those who served in the Armed Forces or Merchant Navy for at least 28 days between 1939-45. The oak leaf on the ribbon denotes the Mention in Despatches King George VI Coronation Medal, 1937: These medals were made to commemorate the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal, 1953: A commemorative medal made to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal, 1977: A commemorative medal created in 1977 to mark the 25th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal, 2002: A commemorative medal created in 2002 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, 2012: A commemorative medal created last year to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne Canadian Forces Decoration (4 Bars): This honorary award was presented to the Duke in April 2015 New Zealand Commemoration Medal, 1990: This was awarded only during 1990 to around 3,000 people in recognition of contributions made to New Zealand life Malta George Cross 50th Anniversary Medal, 1992: This is a commemorative medal awarded by, or in the name of, the President of Malta Greek War Cross, 1950: This is awarded for heroism in wartime to both Greeks and foreign allies. The Duke earned his for his bravery in fighting the Italians when they invaded Greece in 1941. Croix de Guerre (France) with Palm, 1948: A French military decoration to honour people who fought with the Allies against Axis nations in the Second World War. Advertisement

The recent tragedies at Grenfell Tower, London Bridge and the Manchester Arena had weighed heavily on the Queen's mind.

In her official birthday message she said: 'Today is traditionally a day of celebration. This year, however, it is difficult to escape a very sombre national mood.

The Monarch arrived in an open horse drawn carriage with Prince Philip

The Royal Air Forces' Red Arrows capped off the day with a stunning flypast of the Palace

'As a nation, we continue to reflect and pray for all those who have been directly affected by these events.

'During recent visits in Manchester in London, I have been profoundly struck by the immediate inclination of people throughout the country to offer comfort and support to those in desperate need.

'Put to the test, the United Kingdom has been resolute in the face of adversity.'
The moment a former US Special Forces operator-turned aid worker rescues a young girl from the line of fire in Mosul has been caught on video.

David Eubank, 56, pulled off the daring rescue in the embattled northern Iraq city, where allied forces have been on a grinding offensive to re-take the city from ISIS for the past eight months.

Eubank says he came across a group of civilians who had been gunned down by an ISIS sniper, and saw a toddler and a girl of five moving among the bodies.

A video shows him running to save the girl as two other members of the self-styled aid group - the Free Burma Rangers - provide covering fire with machine guns.

Wearing a helmet and ballistic vest, David Eubank (right) sprints from cover to attempt a rescue

Eubank's colleagues lay down cover fire as the 56-year-old picks his way over bodies to the stranded young girl they've spotted among the dead

Wearing a helmet and ballistic vest, Eubank charged into the kill zone and retrieved the young girl, who had her hair tied with pink ribbons

'I thought, "If I die doing this, my wife and kids would understand",' Eubank told the Los Angeles Times.

Wearing a helmet and ballistic vest, Eubank charged into the kill zone and retrieved the young girl, who had her hair tied with pink ribbons.

Eubank returned to find the toddler, but was unsuccessful. Another injured man the team tried to save did not survive.

Eubank's daughter Sahale, 16, is pictured holding the little girl her father saved in Mosul

Eubank is pictured with the little girl after he saved her from ISIS in Mosul, Iraq

FREE BURMA RANGERS Free Burma Rangers (FBR) is a Christian humanitarian group formed in 1997 by former David Eubank. FBR has provided emergency relief in ethnic minority areas in Myanmar, which has been plagued by civil war for more than 60 years. Since January 2016, FBR has traveled to Iraq for relief and reporting trips. Advertisement

Eubank, who founded the Christian humanitarian group Free Burma Rangers after retiring from the US Army, led the group along with his wife Karen and their three children ages 11 to 16, into Mosul after hearing horror stories of ISIS's treatment of civilians.

'I believe God sent me here, and I don't think about security but I always ask myself if I'm doing it out of pride,' he told the Times.

Not long after the rescue, Eubank, who grew up in Texas, and his family returned to the US, but he has said he is already thinking of another mission to Iraq.

At the time of the rescue of the little girl, Eubank was embedded with Iraqi troops.

His wife was home-schooling their children Sahale, 16, Suuzane, 14, and Peter, 11, at a room above the Iraqi 9th Divisions medical clinic, just a mile from the front line.

Eubank was in Iraq with his wife and their children Sahale, 16, Suuzane, 14, and Peter, 11 (pictured)
Theresa May is today facing a Brexit civil war after a former Minister warned a soft break with Brussels would be a betrayal of the nation.

David Jones, sacked as Brexit Minister by the Prime Minister last week, warned that Mrs Mays Government would face the fury of voters if it now turned its back on a clean break with the EU.

Mr Jones told The Mail on Sunday that trying to keep the UK in the EU single market or customs union would be seen as an absolute betrayal of trust.

But his intervention came as a new poll showed overwhelming opposition to a so-called hard Brexit, just hours before the start of crunch talks with the EU.

Maybot malfunction: Prime Minister Theresa May is facing a Brexit civil war. The Survation poll for The Mail on Sunday shows support for the softer position advocated by Chancellor Philip Hammond

David Jones, pictured arriving at Downing Street in March, was sacked as Brexit Minister by the Prime Minister last week, warned that Mrs Mays Government would face the fury of voters if it now turned its back on a clean break with the EU

The Survation poll for The Mail on Sunday shows support for the softer position advocated by Chancellor Philip Hammond, who has spearheaded criticism of the hard Brexit stance of leadership contenders Boris Johnson and David Davis.

Pro-Brexit MPs fear that Mr Hammond is mounting a stealth coup by exploiting Mrs Mays post-Election weakness to assert his vision of leaving  over the Prime Ministers original preference to walk away from talks if Brussels denies the UK a good deal.

Survation found that the Chancellor is backed by an emphatic two-thirds of voters, while just 31 per cent of voters back the hard Brexit position of leaving the customs union.

Mrs Mays allies are now desperately trying to prop her up in power amid mounting discontent on the Tory backbenches over the disastrous General Election result and her lacklustre response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

One Brexiteer said: May is on her knees and Hammond is blatantly exploiting the fact.

Party whips received information this weekend that some MPs have started to draft letters of no confidence against Mrs May.

These will be sent to the partys backbench 1922 Committee if her performance fails to improve before the first Commons votes on the Queens Speech in ten days time.

Mrs Mays allies are now desperately trying to prop her up in power amid mounting discontent on the Tory backbenches over the disastrous General Election result and her lacklustre response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy

Mrs May is pictured emerging from St Clement's Church, near Grenfell Tower, as she is heckled and booed by residents

A contest would be triggered if the committee receives 48 letters  15 per cent of the parliamentary party  with Mr Johnson and Mr Davis already established as the clear frontrunners.

And last night, The Mail on Sunday was told by one senior pro-Brexit MP that he would be astounded if letters had not gone in already.

He said plans were being hatched to present Mrs May with an ultimatum that she had to go and be replaced if possible by a new leader, installed unopposed to avoid a divisive contest.

The MP said: The mood towards Theresa completely changed last week. We started thinking she could limp on for a few months. But her response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy has telescoped that into a matter of days or weeks.

The next PM? One senior pro-Brexit MP said that Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was most people's preferred choice

He said Mr Johnson was probably most peoples preferred choice.

Returning to their constituencies after being sworn in at Westminster, Tory MPs were taken aback at the scale of the anger of grassroots party activists over Mrs Mays performance last week.

The turmoil at Westminster comes as EU sources revealed that the Brexit discussions will have to resolve more than 7,000 outstanding issues by the time we leave in March 2019, ranging from pets passports to aviation safety.

The scale of the undertaking is revealed by the fact that Wednesdays Queens Speech will be the last for two years.

In a highly unusual move, two annual Commons sessions will be rolled into one in an attempt to pass the Great Repeal Bill, the legislation required to transfer all EU laws on to the British statute book.

A source said: No 10 is barely operational. Everything was run by Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill (pictured), and theyve gone'

Downing Street fears that the Bill will lead to months of guerrilla warfare in the Commons which could topple the Government now that it no longer has a majority.

A senior Government source said: Our great fear is that the soft Brexiteers will hang the sword of Damocles over our heads by putting down endless amendments to the Great Repeal Bill to pull us back from a hard Brexit.

If they put down motions which prevent us from leaving without a deal it could change the whole nature of our negotiations because the Europeans will know that we dont have a walk away position.

There is also the nightmare prospect that they use an amendment to try to commit us to staying in the single market.

The pro-Remain Tory rebels are likely to join forces with Labour MPs, who say they will subject the Governments negotiations to what they describe as continuous assessment  a series of rolling Commons votes as the talks progress.

The aim will be to, in the words of a senior Labour source, hold their feet to the fire and push Ministers into backing away from a hard Brexit.

t comes as international financier George Soros  who famously made $1 billion by betting against the pound on Black Wednesday in 1992  warned Brexit is a lose-lose proposition, harmful both to Britain and the European Union'

However, a senior Cabinet ally of Mrs May said last night: We just need to get back to ordinary politics and for everyone to calm down a bit.

But another Cabinet Minister said: The Cabinet is divided, the party is divided and the country is divided.

According to some MPs, the Downing Street operation was close to paralysis this weekend.

A source said: No 10 is barely operational. Everything was run by Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, and theyve gone. Everyone presumes that Nick, at least, is still advising at arms length. But its not the same as having him in there.

'They have lost virtually their entire political press team, and are scrabbling to put a new one in place.

Key civil servants left because they couldnt stand being bossed about by Nick and Fi, and their replacements lack the same institutional memory. Its a listing, half-empty boat taking on water  with a tired and demoralised captain at the wheel.

Last night, Liberal Democrat former Cabinet Minister Alistair Carmichael, pictured leaving the Edinburgh Court of Session in 2015 when he appeared over a falsified memo that was leaked when he was in charge of the Scotland Office, said: 'My message to Theresa May is simple: back down or you will fall from power'

It comes as international financier George Soros  who famously made $1 billion by betting against the pound on Black Wednesday in 1992  warned in an article for The Mail on Sunday: Brexit is a lose-lose proposition, harmful both to Britain and the European Union. It cannot be undone, but people can change their minds.

Mr Soros added: If Theresa May wants to stay in power she has to change her approach. There are signs she is prepared to do so.

By approaching the negotiations starting on Monday in a conciliatory spirit, she could reach an agreement with the European Union on their agenda and agree to continue as a member of the single market for a long enough period to carry out all the legal work.

Last night, Liberal Democrat former Cabinet Minister Alistair Carmichael said: There is no majority in the House of Commons for the extreme Brexit Theresa May is apparently still pursuing in defiance of her own Chancellor and just about every independent economic authority.

'The Conservatives are hopelessly split on Brexit, with saner voices in the party finally starting to question why they would rob the Treasury of 59 billion in revenue by leaving the single market and customs union.

My message to Theresa May is simple: back down or you will fall from power.

DEVASTATING POLL REJECTS THERESA MAY'S TACTICS: TWO-THIRDS OF VOTERS SUPPORT PLAN FOR SOFT BREXIT Philip Hammond has infuriated Leave-supporting Ministers by arguing in Cabinet that British jobs and prosperity depend on retaining the benefits of the customs union ANALYSIS BY GLEN OWEN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY Philip Hammond is commanding the increasing support of the British people in his Cabinet battle against the hard Brexiteers. Our Survation poll shows that on the totemic issue of whether the UK should remain in the customs union  giving British companies the automatic right to trade freely with EU firms  the Chancellor is backed by an emphatic two-thirds of voters who expressed a view while just 31 per cent back the hard Brexit position of leaving the union. Our poll surveyed 1,005 people on Friday and Saturday. Figures exclude 'don't know' responses Mr Hammond has infuriated Leave-supporting Ministers by arguing in Cabinet that British jobs and prosperity depend on retaining the benefits of the customs union  even if only for a transitionary period to allow them to adjust to the new trading conditions. The Brexiteers have counter-briefed their suspicion that, as an instinctive Treasury Remainer, he is trying to exploit Mrs Mays weakness by trying to water down Brexit. The poll points to a growing public fear about the consequences of a cliff-edge departure from the EU when Brexit talks conclude in March 2019  possibly because the political turmoil caused by the inconclusive General Election result has magnified peoples feelings of insecurity. Opinion is still firmly against Mrs Mays war-cry earlier this year that she could walk away from the negotiating table because no deal is better than a bad deal. The Survation poll shows that 65 per cent of those with a view were against walking away, while only 35 per cent agreed with the Prime Ministers tactic. And support is rocketing for the idea of a second referendum to be held on whether to accept the terms of the final Brexit deal with the EU. A total of 53 per cent of those with a view back a vote, while 47 per cent oppose, a margin of six points. When the question was asked in April, the majority was against a second referendum, with only 46 per cent backing a vote and 54 per cent opposed. Advertisement
A woman who was last seen getting into a car with three other men has been found after a desperate search.

The woman was last seen getting into a silver SUV about 6.50pm Saturday in Ipswich, south-west of Brisbane.

Police said three men were also in the SUV which was least seen travelling east on Mahogany Street.

The woman was found 'safe and well' 20 kilometres away in Ipswich's east about midday on Sunday and is assisting police with investigations.

A woman who was last seen getting into a car with three other men has been found after a desperate search

Police understand that the three men in the car are known to the woman.

An image of the woman was released to the public in a desperate bid to find her.

The woman has been described by police as in her 40s and Asian in appearance.

Police sought help from the public on Sunday morning to help locate the missing woman.

They are urging anyone who has any information that may assist to come forward.
He was the wild man of The Rolling Stones  an out-of-control musician whose drink and drug abuse led to an untimely death.

Yet the pages of an intriguing letter, found in the loft of his parents old house in Cheltenham, show a very different side of Brian Jones  the middle-class boy who worried that his long hair might upset his parents.

Written in July 1963 while away with the band, Jones tells parents Lewis and Louisa that hed like to visit but apologises in advance for his lengthy locks.

Brian Jones was infamous for his drink and drug-fueled exploits with the Rolling Stones

If its possible I would like to come to see you next Monday or Tuesday  but I warn you  my hair is pretty long although not untidy, he says.

Jones was just 21 at the time, six years before his controversial death in the swimming pool of his East Sussex home. But even then, the band seems to have known the importance of creating a brand.

We have created quite a stir  our publicity angles have been good  wild, off beat sort of thing (long hair etc), he writes.

Weve had literally hundreds of write-ups in the papers up and down the country.

The letters were found in the loft of his parents old house in Cheltenham

The letters were found during work on a loft extension by the couple who bought the detached house from the Joneses 40 years ago. They were then sold for a five-figure sum to James Constantinou, star of the Channel 4 series Posh Pawn.

Jones  originally christened the un-hip Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones  also makes reference to another group that went on to become a global phenomenon  The Beatles.

Jones was a founding member of the Rolling Stones, but was kicked out for his drug problems

He added: PS, incidentally, I expect Barbara [his sister] likes The Beatles, theyve been staying with us for a few days  we know them very well.

The letter was written shortly after the Rolling Stones had released Come On and were about to start touring the UK with the Everly Brothers.

Jones, a founder member of the band, was kicked out as a result of his drug and alcohol problems in June 1969, just a month before his death.

Constantinou said he was delighted to receive the notes. He said: They are amazing things to come across. This was a real find, they are a real insight into his life in the early days of The Rolling Stones.
Two women now feared dead after the Grenfell Tower disaster were allegedly threatened with legal action by housing bosses after campaigning against fire issues in the block.

Mariem Elgwahry, 27, and mother-of-three Nadia Choucair, 33, reportedly received letters telling them to stop their campaign for improved safety measures.

The two women were fighting for building improvements from the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation.

Mariem Elgwahry (pictured), 27, and mother-of-three Nadia Choucair, 33, reportedly received letters telling them to stop their campaign for improved safety measures

They were helped in their campaign by the Radical Housing Network, according to The Mirror's Nicola Fifield.

Pilgrim Tucker, who works for the group, said: 'The TMO's response was to threaten tenants with legal action and send out letters. Nadia and Mariem would have received them too.

'They both just wanted to do their best for their neighbours and keep everyone safe.

'Things had got so bad they knew a disaster like this was inevitable, but if there was a chance of stopping it they were up for the fight.'

Mr Tucker said the two women were not listened to despite holding protests outside the offices of management and setting up a petition.

The two women were fighting for building improvements from the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation. Pictured, Nadia Choucair

Pilgrim Tucker, who works for the group, said: 'The TMO's response was to threaten tenants with legal action and send out letters'

KCTMO said it is fully co-operating with investigations and could not comment on the legal threats.

MailOnline has contact KCTMO for comment.

Mariem Elgwahry has not been seen by friends since 2am on the morning of the blaze.

Yesterday it was revealed the woman hauntingly captured holding up a towel in desperation as she tries to signal for help as Grenfell Tower went up in flames is believed to be mother-of-three Nadia Chouchair.

The woman captured holding up a towel in desperation as she tries to signal for help as Grenfell Tower went up in flames on Wednesday is believed to be Nadia Chouchair

Brothers Nabill and Hisar Chouchair think the woman in the fateful image is their beloved sister Nadia, who haven't been seen since the disaster on Wednesday morning.

Sisters Fatima, Zaynab and Mierna Choucair, aged three, ten and 13, were in their flat on the 22nd floor, along with their parents Nadia and Bassem, 38, and Nadias elderly mother Sirra, from Lebanon.

The tragic image shows the acts of desperation residents were going to after they were allegedly told to remain inside their flats as smoke filled the building.
It was a sight to lift the hearts of a sombre nation  the Royal children waving joyfully to the crowds outside Buckingham Palace following Trooping the Colour.

Prince George and Princess Charlotte stole the show  with the two-year-old leaning on her brothers shoulder as they joined the Queen, Prince Philip and other senior Royals to watch as the RAF flypast roared overhead.

Prince George, three, resplendent in bright red braces to match his fathers scarlet tunic, stood on tiptoe to watch the display, occasionally placing his hands over his eyes.

Prince George and Princess Charlotte watch Trooping the Colour at Buckingham Palace

Ready and waiting: The Royal siblings take up their positions

It's a cover-up: Now the cheeky Princess copies her elder brother

Better by smiles: William and George enjoy the RAF flypast over the palace

And Charlotte, dressed in pink like her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, stood on a box so she could be seen more easily.

She copied her big brother by covering one of her eyes. The young Royals had earlier delighted spectators by peeking out from behind Palace windows.

The event to mark the Queens official birthday  her actual birthday was in April when she was 91  was missed by Theresa May, who met victims of the Grenfell Tower fire at Downing Street.

But the stirring ceremony, involving 1,600 guardsmen and 244 horses, provided a welcome fillip amid what the Queen had acknowledged in a message was a very sombre national mood.

Family fun: Prince Philip amuses Kate and William with a joke while watching Trooping the Colour

So nosy: George is spotted at a window
A newly-sworn in cop is speaking out about her former career as a professional dominatrix.

Kristen Hyman, 30, was suspended on May 26, six days before her academy graduation, for allegedly failing to disclose 'that she appeared in the films and sometimes saw clients privately for money'.

The Bayonne, New Jersey, native says she's fighting to keep her job as a Hudson County sheriff officer.

In an interview with the New York Post, she says she doesn't believe she should be judged on her past and that her previous occupation shouldn't determine her capability of performing her new one.

Kristen Hyman (pictured, center) is speaking out about her former job as a dominatrix. Hyman could be kicked off the police force the same month she was sworn in after it emerged she had appeared in several kinky films

In videos (pictured), she is seen kicking naked men in the testicles, slapping and insulting them, and making them 'worship' her but Hyman says she did it because she needed money

Hyman said she starred in dozens of kinky bondage films, not under her real name, during her four-year career in the fetish trade, insisting she never performed sex acts or doffed her costumes.

'I'm not embarrassed because I can own up to things I've done in the past,' she told the Post.

As her latex-clad alter-ego, 'Domina Nyx Blake,' Hyman would humiliate and subjugate naked men but it wasn't to satisfy a personal fetish, but rather to pay the bills.

'I was struggling financially as an actress [and model],' she said. 'I had been doing regular catalogs for clothing, small stuff.'

She was told that she would make a 'good wage' by performing in the videos and that 'it was a safe thing'.

Dismissing the role play as 'stupid stuff I did as a kid', Hyman said that 'the majority of the videos are ridiculously funny... it's super-cheesy stuff. Everything I'm doing is wink-wink.'

During her run from 2008 to 2012, Hyman was billed as 'a true sexual sadist who hurts people not because she has to, but because it truly brings her pleasure'.

In some clips seen by DailyMail.com, she is seen kicking naked men in the testicles, choking a man in a swimming pool, and putting her heels on the face of a man in a leather mask.

Hyman is seen here making a man in a leather mask lick her boots. She has called the videos, filmed between 20008 and 2012 'stupid stuff I did when I was a kid'

Sometimes she even provided her own costumes, many of which she purchased off the rack at Party City.

'I even purchased an Iron Man costume at a Target in Florida!' she said.

'Me walking in declaring "I'm Iron Man?" How sexy is that?'

The hateful comments Hyman has seen online since her story went viral have left her feeling unsafe.

'I'm trying right now not to look at the Internet. It's pretty painful for me,' she said. 'I'm afraid for my safety right now.'

She added that she was 'mortified and scared' following her training-academy suspension.

A judge quickly reinstated her, allowing her to graduate from the academy on June 8, although she faces a disciplinary hearing June 27

'I don't want to be judged on what I did in the past and not who I am now,' she said.

Her lawyer, James Lisa, says she deserves to keep her hard-earned job.

'I just want the world to see this young lady as she is,' he said. 'She's not a carnival sideshow. She's a woman committed to law enforcement.

'The biggest question is, "Did she lie in her application?" She did not. She said she was a model, photographer and an actress.'

Lisa said Hyman could be fired at the disciplinary hearing or the matter could be dismissed altogether.

The Hudson County prosecutor's office declined to pursue any criminal charges against Hyman.

Court documents show that Sheriff Frank Schillari concurred with the discipline against Hyman, saying it was necessary to protect the department's integrity and to prevent her from taking an oath of office 'for which she is not entitled'.

In several videos she is seen choking men until they appear to fall unconscious (pictured here pushing a man's head under the water) but she doesn't believe her past career should determine her ability to perform well in her new one
The unsolved murder case of an Australian toddler has been reopened by detectives as the government offer an incentive of $1 million in the hope new information will arise.

Lily Schettini was brutally killed after sustaining horrific injuries yet due to a lack of evidence no one has ever been charged with her murder.

The young girl died on June 1, 2010 after suffering a brain trauma after being bashed in the head at her home in Adelaide and seven years on detectives are no closer to solving her death.

Lily Schettini was found dead in her bed at her Adelaide home seven years ago yet no one has been charged with her murder due to a lack of evidence

Police hope that offering a $1 million reward will motivate witnesses to reveal the actual facts from the fateful night that resulted in Lily's death

Police hope that offering a $1 million reward will motivate witnesses to reveal the actual facts from the fateful night.

'We are not convinced we have got truthful versions of what occurred that night,' Detective Senior Sergeant Mark McEachern revealed to The Advertiser.

The 18-month-old toddler was found unconscious in her bed and despite the attempts of paramedics to save her life, the shocking trauma suffered to her brain was ultimately fatal.

Four suspects have been identified by Major Crime detectives, yet a lack of evidence has meant they are unable to charge any of them.

'Someone in the house has been responsible for the assault either overnight Monday or Tuesday morning but we have insufficient evidence as to who,' Detective Senior Sergeant Mark McEachern revealed.

On May 2, Lily was at her Smithfield Plains home with her mother, three of her mother's friends and her older sister.

When her mother and a female friend left the home around 9.30am, Lily was left in the care of two males as she and her sister were in bed in their joint bedroom.

When questioned by detectives, Lily's mother claims she never saw her daughter that morning as she 'did not want to wake her.'

One of the men left the home at 11.30am, and a hour later at 12.30pm, the remaining male found Lily in her bed 'unresponsive'.

An ambulance was called as neigbours frantically tried to revive the infant, yet to no avail.

Lily Schettini was found unconscious in her bed and despite the attempts of paramedics to save her life, the trauma suffered to her brain was ultimately fatal

Four suspects have been identified by Major Crime detectives, yet a lack of evidence has meant they are unable to charge any of them

A post-mortem showed that Lily had died of a head trauma yet it is unknown at what point in time the injury was inflicted.

'The trauma could have been caused either through shaking or assault or falling. Our suspicion is that she did not fall and that she was assaulted,' Det Snr-Sgt McEachern said.

Despite no previous complaints to authorities with regards to the care of the children, police have revealed their concerns that the children had been left alone in a bedroom for a long period of time.

The substantial reward is also being offered for information regarding the horrifying death of baby Dylan Lindsay, who died shortly before his first birthday.

In a similar incident on March 27, 2004, Dylan suffered extensive injuries that included a bruised heart, broken ribs and swelling to his brain while in the care of his babysitters.

The case has remained unsolved and police have tempted any witnesses to come forward with new information that could hold someone liable for the shocking murder.

'It is a horrible crime and somebody should be held responsible for taking the life of a child. Someone may have this on their conscience, Detective Brevet Sergeant Mat Bengel said.
The ex-girlfriend of a Hells Angels bikie, who shot her in the stomach before murdering a Good Samaritan in central Melbourne, has revealed her long road to recovery which included battles with anorexia, depression and guilt.

Kaera Douglas, 34, lost a kidney and spent days in a coma after she was shot at point blank range by her boyfriend at the time, Christopher Wayne Hudson.

Hudson bashed a stripper before shooting the intervening Ms Douglas, Paul de Waard and father-of-three Brendan Keilar, 43, who died at the scene 10 years ago.

Ms Douglas said her recovery has been a 'long, lonely dark road' that she has had to travel alone.

Ex-girlfriend of a Hells Angels bikie Kaera Douglas (pictured), 34, has revealed her 'long, dark' road to recovery after she was one of three people shot by her partner in central Melbourne ten years ago

Ms Douglas lost a kidney and spent days in a coma after she was shot at point blank range by her boyfriend at the time, Christopher Wayne Hudson

Hudson bashed a stripper before shooting Ms Douglas, Paul de Waard and father-of-three Brendan Keilar, 43, who died at the scene (pictured) ten years ago

'Because my situation was so different to anything people knew about, I didn't find anything or anyone that I could relate to or identify with,' she told the Herald Sun.

'My wish is that no young girl should ever have to walk that dark road alone again like I did.'

Ms Douglas has battled numerous demons that include alcohol, anorexia and depression over the past decade.

But she revealed she has also struggled with a sense of guilt after surviving the shooting, the newspaper reported.

Ms Douglas was being pulled by the hair in Melbourne's city centre when solicitor Mr Keilar tried to intervene but was shot dead by Hudson in a fit of rage.

Hudson received a minimum of 35 years behind bars when he was sentenced in September 2008.

Mr Keilar's courageous attempt to save Ms Douglas is something which she thinks about regularly.

Ms Douglas was being pulled by the hair in Melbourne's city centre when solicitor Brendan Keilar (pictured) tried to intervene but was shot dead

A police offer stands guard next to a car that was linked to Christopher Wayne Hudson, who went on a shooting spree on June 18, 2008

Hudson (pictured) received a minimum of 35 years behind bars when he was sentenced in September 2008

'She's always grateful to him and what he did for her,' mentor Jane Ashton - who Ms Douglas reached out to after the shooting - told the Herald Sun.

'I will always admire her because she is someone who is bright, bubbly, intelligent and, after all she went through, she came out wiser but her optimistic personality hasn't changed.'

Ms Douglas is now an advocate against men's violence towards women and volunteers for the White Ribbon Foundation.

She is currently writing a book that will detail her battle with 'survivor's guilt' after the 2008 shooting.

Ms Douglas is now an advocate for violence towards women and volunteers for the White Ribbon Foundation

Hells Angels motorcycle bike gang members leave the Supreme Court in Melbourne in 2008 after Hudson was sentenced to a minimum 35 years in prison
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All seven missing sailors have been found dead in the flooded berthing compartments of the US Navy destroyer that collided with a cargo ship early Saturday morning 56 miles from Japan.

According to the US 7th Fleet, the bodies were found Sunday morning by divers after the $1.5billion USS Fitzgerald returned to its base in Yokosuka.

The Navy confirmed that all seven missing sailors had been found, and revealed that 116 crew had been sleeping in the compartments that flooded when a 29,000 ton cargo ship crashed into the destroyer gouging a large hole in its hull below the water line.

The ships captain, Commander Bryce Benson, was asleep when the accident happened and his cabin was destroyed by the impact at 2.30am on Saturday.

Vice Adm Joseph Aucoin said Benson is lucky to be alive. Investigators in Japan are treating the crash as a result of 'negligence'.

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Catastrophic damage: A close-up of the USS Fitzgerald's destroyed starboard side after it was hit by a cargo ship at 2.30am on Saturday morning. Bodies of all seven missing sailors have been recovered

Lucky to be alive: The cabin of the ship's captain Commander Bryce Benson was completely destroyed by the impact and he is 'lucky to be alive'

Flooding: The cargo ship gouged a deep hole in the ship's hull below the water line - flooding two compartments where 116 crew were sleeping. The woke to fight a desperate fight to keep the sip afloat

Several months to fix: An aerial view shows the damage to the $1.5bn guided missile destroyer

Listing: A shot of the ship's helipad shows how dramatically the USS Fitzgerald is listing after the accident

According to the US 7th Fleet, the bodies were found Sunday morning by divers after the $1.5billion USS Fitzgerald returned to its base in Japan. The ships captain, Commander Bryce Benson, was asleep when the accident happened and his cabin was destroyed by the impact at 2.30am on Saturday. Aucoin said Benson is lucky to be alive

The Navy issued a statement about the search and rescue once they gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision.

'The missing sailors were located in the flooded berthing compartments,' according to a statement by the US 7th Fleet.

Authorities said the sailors are being transferred to Naval Hospital Yokosuka where they will be identified.

Relatives of the seven deceased sailors are being notified.

Dakota Rigsby, who is from Fluvanna County, Virginia, was identified Saturday as one of the missing seven sailors

'The families are being notified and being provided the support they need during this difficult time,' said Yoko Kato, a spokeswoman for the US Navy in Yokosuka. 'The names of the sailors will be released after all notifications are made,' officials wrote in the statement that was released at 10.33am on Sunday.

Aucoin told reporters during a press conference on Sunday that they 'discontinued the search and rescue' of sailors.

On Saturday night, a young sailor was identified by CBS 19 as one of the seven missing crewmen.

Dakota Rigsby, who is from Fluvanna County, Virginia, was identified Saturday as still missing. It is not known if Rigsby was among those found by divers.

According to his Facebook, he is a Gunner's Mate in the Navy. Rigsby volunteers for the Lake Monticello Volunteer Fire Department and is a graduate of Fluvanna County High School.

Rigsby's parents asked the community for their thoughts and prayers.

'Our #USNavy family is mourning a loss. Please keep families of fallen in your thoughts and prayers, as they are in mine,' Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, Steven S. Giordano, tweeted.

The USS Fitzgerald's captain, Benson, was airlifted early Saturday to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka and was in stable condition with a head injury, the Navy said.

The Wisconsin native, who took command of the AEGIS-equipped vessel in May of 2016, was med-evacuated along with two other crew members from the ship after the collision and is in a stable condition.

Rigsby's parents asked the community for their thoughts and prayers. According to Rigsby's Facebook, he is a Gunner's Mate in the Navy

The US 7th Fleet released a statement saying that a number of sailors who were missing were found

It is not known if Rigsby was among those found. 'As search and rescue crews gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision this morning, the missing sailors were located in the flooded berthing compartments,' the statement read

The other two crew members suffered cuts and bruises.

Despite the significant damage to the USS Fitzgerald, Aucoin said 'the ship is salvageable' and will hopefully take just under a year to repair.

Aucoin also said that there were at least two investigations launched into the collision, including a JAG investigation.

The Japanese coast guard said it received an emergency call from the container ship, the ACX Crystal, reporting the collision with the USS Fitzgerald around 2.20am on Saturday.

Officials from the Japanese coast guard were questioning crew members of the ACX Crystal, which is operated by the Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen K.K., and are treating the incident as a case of possible professional negligence, said Masayuki Obara, a regional coast guard official.

The search for the seamen continued throughout the day on Saturday and into Sunday morning local time in Japan.

US and Japanese vessels and aircraft have been looking for the missing crew members of the USS Fitzgerald since it crashed with a container ship four times its size on Saturday.

The US 7th Fleet said in a statement that the crash damaged two berthing spaces, a machinery room and the radio room. Most of the more than 200 sailors aboard would have been asleep in their berths at the time of the crash between the 10,000-ton USS Fitzgerald and the 29,000-ton ACX Crystal.

Authorities said the sailors were transferred to Naval Hospital Yokosuka where they will be identified. Heavy damage is pictured on the US Navy missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald after it collided with a cargo ship near Japan early on Saturday morning

The USS Fitzgerald's captain, Cmdr Bryce Benson (left and right), was airlifted early Saturday to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka and was in stable condition with a head injury, the Navy said

Commander Benson (pictured) earned his commission through the Naval ROTC program at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald suffered severe damage when the container ship plowed into it at 2.30am local time

The other two crew members suffered cuts and bruises. According to the Navy, the collision occurred 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, home to the 7th Fleet. A US defense official confirmed that the destroyer suffered flooding in three compartments

On Saturday, US and Japanese forces launched joint air-and-sea search missions to find the sailors as the heavily damaged guided-missile cruiser limped to its home port of Yokosuka Naval Base

An injured sailor is carried by US military personnel (left) and Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force members upon arriving at the US Naval base in Yokosuka

US military personnel prepare to transfer an injured sailor on board USS Fitzgerald, after the Navy destroyer collided with a merchant ship

The destroyer was back at its home port in Yokosuka Naval Base south of Tokyo by sunset Saturday. The Philippine-flagged container ship was berthed at Tokyo's Oi wharf, where officials questioned crew members about the cause of the crash.

After helping stabilize the USS Fitzgerald, the destroyer USS Dewey - another destroyer - joined other American and Japanese vessels and aircraft in the search for the missing sailors.

Water had to be pumped out of the flooded areas following the collision in order for the ship to make it to the Yokosuka Naval Base.

On Saturday, Aucoin told reporters that he was 'humbled by the bravery and tenacity of the Fitzgerald crew'.

According to the Navy, the collision occurred 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, home to the 7th Fleet.

On Saturday, US and Japanese forces launched joint air-and-sea search missions to find them as the heavily damaged guided-missile cruiser made its way back to the home port of Yokosuka Naval Base.

The owners of the commercial ship reported that all 20 of its Filipino crew were safe.

Aerial footage shows the crushed exterior of the destroyer which is commanded by Benson, who took over in May.

The container ship ACX Crystal is pictured with its left bow dented and scraped after colliding with the USS Fitzgerald in the waters off the Izu Peninsula earlier in the day, is berthed at the Oi Container Terminal in Tokyo

The ACX Crystal, which is 730feet meters long and weighs 29,060 tons, is back in Tokyo with superficial damage and no reports of casualties

Course: This was the approximate route of the ACX Crystal before it collided with the USS Fitzgerald on Saturday morning

The ACX Crystal's course shows that it performed a rapid U-turn at speed and then turned to head back to Tokyo - at which point it collided with the USS Fitzgerald

The president offered his thoughts and condolences to those affected by the USS Fitzgerald collision

'It was a was real fight by crew to keep the ship afloat. Our concerns now are with ship mates; seven sailors missing and 2 evacuees. When the news came we were all focused on the safety of or ship and the crew,' a naval spokesman in Yokosuka told DailyMail.com. 'We at the base are still reeling from the events.'

At full strength the Fitzgerald - a 154-meter long Aegis destroyer weighing 8,315 tons - has a crew of 331 sailors.

It is unclear how fast the destroyer was going when it collided with the merchant ship. The area is particularly busy with sea traffic, said Yutaka Saito, of the coast guard.

The ACX Crystal, which is 222.6 meters long and weighs 29,060 tons, is back in Tokyo with superficial damage and no reports of casualties.

Damage to the US destroyer is catastrophic, with the ship sustaining damage on starboard side above and below waterline. Helicopter and spy satellite footage shows considerable damage to the starboard of the Aegis destroyer.

Listing: The $1.5billion missile destroyer began taking on water after the violent collision

Damage to the bow of the 29,000 ton cargo ship ACX Crystal after it collided with the USS Fitzgerald

The 29,000 ton ACX Crystal is much larger than the 9,000 ton USS Fitzgerald. The cargo ship appears to have hit the destroyer head on

According to the US Navy, the collision occurred 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, off the coast of Japan (above)

Adm. John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations in a statement: 'As more information is learned, we will be sure to share to it with the Fitzgerald families and when appropriate the public. Thank you for your well wishes and messages of concern. All of our thoughts and prayers are with the Fitzgerald crew and their families.'

According to marine tracking websites, the Philippine-flagged cargo ship was on its way to Tokyo.

It is unclear how much warning the crew had that a collision was imminent.

Footage also captured a person in a stretcher being taken up to a helicopter from the deck of the USS Fitzgerald. The injured sailor had a head injury.

Following the collision, the Navy requested the assistance of the Japanese Coast Guard, with cutters Izunami and Kano on station.

Following the collision, the Navy requested the assistance of the Japanese Coast Guard, with cutters Izunami and Kano on station

The ACX Crystal received minimal damage to the port bow (pictured). According to marine tracking websites, the Philippine-flagged cargo ship was on its way to Tokyo

The USS Fitzgerald (pictured in August 2012) was commissioned in 1995 and is based in Yokosuka, according to the Navy

THE USS FITZGERALD Armaments: One 29 cell and one 61 cell Mark 41 vertical launching systems - a shipborne missile canister launching system which provides a rapid-fire launch capability against hostile threats

90 RIM-156 SM-2, BGM-109 Tomahawk or RUM-139 VL-ASROC missiles

Two Mark 141 Harpoon Missile Launcher SSM (surface-to-surface missile)

One Mark 45 5/54 inch (127/54 mm) lightweight gun

Two 25 mm chain guns

Four .50 caliber (12.7 mm) guns

Two 20 mm Phalanx CIWS (an advanced radar-controlled gun system)

Two Mark 32 triple torpedo tubes Specifications: 9,000 tons

505 feet long

66 feet wide

Top speed: 30 knots

Range: 4,400 nautical miles

Crew:

33 commissioned officers

38 chief petty officers

210 enlisted personnel

Propulsion: 4 General Electric LM2500-30 gas turbines, two shafts, 100,000 total shaft horsepower Advertisement

In a statement, Admiral Scott Swift, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet, said: 'Right now we are focused on two things: the safety of the ship and the well-being of the sailors.

'We thank our Japanese partners for their assistance.'

The destroyer's commanding officer, Benson, earned his commission through the Naval ROTC program at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In November 2015, Benson reported as the Executive Officer of the USS Fitzgerald as part of the Surface Navy's Command Fleet Up program.

On May 13 this year, he relieved Commander Robert Shu as the Commanding Officer of the destroyer.

According to a report from the Navy Times, Executive Officer Commander Sean Babbitt has assumed command after the collision.

The USS Fitzgerald - whose motto is 'Protect Your People' - was commissioned in 1995 and is based in Yokosuka, according to the Navy, at a cost of $1.48billion.

Its crew includes roughly 33 officers, 38 chief petty officers and 291 enlisted members of the Navy.

The Fitzgerald completed $21 million in upgrades and repairs in February, and recently made a port call to the US Navy's Subic Bay base in the Philippines and conducted patrols in the South China Sea.

The ship's crew used the stop to conduct some minor repairs with the assistance of Philippine companies.

Ryan Barenklau, from the Washington-based intelligence company Strategic Sentinel, told DailyMail.com: 'This is a very tragic event.

'There is not much information currently on how an advanced destroyer could have collided with a massive cargo ship, but I am confident that there is a reasonable explanation and I am sure we will hear what that is in the coming days.'
A young toddler was allegedly choked, beaten and dragged along the ground by his father in what is being called one of the 'worst cases of child abuse' ever seen.

The nine-month-old boy was left in hospital for a week after being subjected to the alleged horrific abuse inside his New Zealand family home, in January this year.

When he was found after the abuse, the youngster reportedly had cuts to his mouth, scars on his head, fractured cheekbones, a ripped lip and grazes to his tongue and face.

But much to the family's disgust, despite the horrific nature of the alleged attack the boy's father was released on bail after being charged with the abuse, the NZ Herald reports.

A nine-month-old boy was allegedly choked, beaten and repeatedly attacked by his father in what has been called one of the 'worst cases of child abuse' ever seen in New Zealand

Speaking out about the attack, the toddler's angry grandfather said when he saw the youngster in hospital he was reduced to tears.

'I dropped to on my knees and cried... I had never seen a baby like that and I don't ever want to see it again,' the boy's grandfather said.

'He was bashed up and beaten up and cut up, the hospital staff told me it's one of the worst cases of abuse of a child.'

So badly injured was the young boy he could barely open his heavily bruised eyelids when he arrived at hospital.

The nature of the injuries led medical experts to suggest he had been repeatedly dragged along the ground.

Graphic photos taken in hospital after the abuse reportedly show him bloodied and bruised.

'They said he'd been strangled and he had marks under his chin, like he'd been scraped across the carpet,' the grandfather said.

Despite having recovered from his injuries, he still suffers nightmares about his abuse.

Ruth Money (pictured), an advocate for victims of abuse, said the fact the boy's father - the alleged attacker - was released on bail was a prime example of why bail restrictions need to be urgently reassessed

The toddler's family are now living reportedly living in fear of attack at the hands of the father, with both the boy and his mother having fled town.

Ruth Money, an advocate for victims of abuse, said the case was a prime example of why bail restrictions need to be urgently reassessed.

'[This decision] is completely out of touch with both society's expectations regarding safety let alone current bail legislation,' Ms Money said.

'Once again the police have done great work to protect both the victims... and bring a violent offender to account and yet [their pleadings have been ignored].'


Property owners in New South Wales could soon be forced to immediately remove flammable cladding from high-rise buildings as part of a crackdown prompted by the deadly Grenfell Tower fire in London.

Following reports that thousands of Australian buildings are clad in material like that used on the 120-apartment block in west London, the State Government is introducing new fire-proof building measures.

The government is expected to discuss the establishment of a strikeforce to urgently identify fire-prone buildings at a meeting on Monday, The Daily Telegraph reported.

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The New South Wales government is expected to soon announce tough new measures to fire-proof high-rise buildings in the wake of London's deadly Grenfell Tower inferno

The government has vowed to do whatever it takes to protect residents who are living in high-rise buildings (stock image)

Under changes being reported, the strikeforce will pinpoint properties across the state with a high fire danger due to factors such as combustible cladding.

Building owners would then be given 30 days to carry out a fire safety inspection and could also be told to remove and replace the cladding.

NSW Fair Trading Minister Matt Kean has vowed to do whatever it takes to protect residents.

Other measures being floated by the government include lobbying its federal counterpart to put an import ban on the kind of cladding used on the Grenfell Tower and ensuring annual fire statements mention a building's cladding.

The government also wants annual fire statements to mention the type of cladding used on a building (stock image)

The Grenfell Tower blaze broke out in the early hours of June 14, with 58 people dead, or missing, presumed dead

Local councils will also be asked to detail the work they have carried out following concerns raised in February 2016 about flammable cladding.

Almost 3000 buildings in Sydney reportedly have aluminium composite cladding and about half of Melbourne's apartment blocks have the cladding.

Fifty-eight people are now dead, or missing presumed dead, following the Grenfell Tower blaze, which broke out in the early hours of June 14.

Fears emerged cladding used inside and outside the housing block was a major factor in it quickly becoming engulfed in flames.

Australia's federal opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has called for an inquiry to investigate nonconforming building products and the national building code, The Courier-Mail reported.

'This is a shocking tragedy. I don't want to see a similar tragedy occur here,' he said.
A woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted and bashed at a festival has bravely taken to social media to show off her injuries and speak out about her abuse.

Lilly Perrott was enjoying a night out with her boyfriend at the Newtown Festival, in Sydney's inner-west, last December when a drunk man allegedly groped her on the bottom.

Horrified at the sickening indecent assault she immediately confronted her attacker, only to have him hit out - leaving Ms Perrott with a fractured nose and eye socket.

While the man was convicted of punching her, a lack of witnesses meant an indecent assault charge was dropped - forcing Ms Perrott to take to social media in an effort to encourage other women to take a stand.

Lilly Perrott (pictured) was enjoying a night out with her boyfriend at Newtown, in Sydney, last year when a drunk man allegedly groped her on the bottom before punching her in the face

A lack of witnesses meant an indecent assault charge against the man was dropped, forcing Ms Perrott to take to social media this week to encourage other women to take a stand

The 24-year-old artist claims she was walking through the crowd at the busy festival when the man put his hand up the her dress.

'At Newtown festival last year, I was sexually harassed by a drunken bigot,' Ms Perrott wrote on Instagram.

'He stuck his hand up my dress and groped me on my a** whilst my boyfriend had his arm wrapped around me... [so] we spun around and called this man out.

'He clearly didn't like being scalded for his foul behaviour and by a woman who had rejected his sexual advances so he punched me right in the face.'

An image of her injuries and an accompanying message of defiance which she put online last week received more than 60,000 likes and hundreds of comments.

Linda Howlett, the NSW Police sex crimes squad commander, said Ms Perrott's case and the dropping of indecent assault charges is an important reminder for women.

Ms Perrott claims the man stuck his hand up her dress and groped her 'on the a**' while walking through the crowd with her boyfriend (pictured)

An image of her injuries and an accompanying message of defiance which she posted online to Instagram last week received more than 60,000 likes and hundreds of comments

Ms Howlett told the Daily Telegraph women should yell or scream immediately after being attacked to create witnesses and increase the chance of police prosecuting.

Posting a message of defiance to her social media account, Ms Perrott warned any other would-be attackers she would fight back.

'Stand up for yourself and don't let anybody get away with ANY form of assault, violence is for the weak,' she wrote on Instagram.

'Don't ever try grabbing or assaulting a woman because we'll grab you by your metaphorical balls and squeeze you right back twice as hard.'
Six University of Connecticut students charged with alcohol crimes related to the death of a 19-year-old girl have avoided jail time.

Rockville Superior Court Judge Carl E Taylor granted accelerated rehabilitation to the six men in written decisions issued this week.

This is a special form of probation that will allow them to avoid jail and have their records wiped clean if they successfully complete the program.

The students were charged in connection with the death of nursing student Jeffny Pally, of West Hartford, who attended an off-campus party thrown by them.

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Six University of Connecticut students, who were charged with alcohol crimes related to the death of 19-year-old nursing student Jeffny Pally (pictured), have avoided jail-time and will instead receive a special form of probation that will allow them to avoid jail and have their records wiped clean if they successfully complete the program

Police say Pally (pictured) drank alcohol at the party and fell asleep in front of the campus school's fire station bay door around 1:15am. When the door she was leaning on opened, Pally fell backward and was run over by the station's Chevy Tahoe

Police say Pally drank alcohol at the party and fell asleep in front of the campus school's fire station bay door around 1.15am.

When the door she was leaning on opened, Pally fell backward and was run over by the station's Chevy Tahoe.

Her body was discovered after the fire rescue team returned from the call, which turned out to be a false alarm. Pally's blood alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit for driving in Connecticut when she died on October 16.

The six men were ordered to perform community service and to make a charitable donation during their two-year probation.

Patrick Callahan, 21; Matthew Moll, 21; and Dylan Morose, 22; all of Mansfield, Connecticut, were charged with eight counts of permitting a minor to illegally possess alcohol, as was Jonathan Polansky, 22, of Beverly, Massachusetts.

Austin Custodio, 21, of Pine Bush, New York, was charged with sale or delivery of alcohol to minors.

Dominic Godi, 21, of Bolton, Connecticut, was charged with conspiracy to commit sale or delivery of alcohol to a minor.

Patrick Callahan, 21 (left), Matthew Moll, 21 (center), and Dylan Morose, 22 (right), all of Mansfield, Connecticut, were charged with eight counts of permitting a minor to illegally possess alcohol

Jonathan Polansky, 22 (left), of Beverly, Massachusetts, was charged with eight counts of permitting a minor to illegally possess alcohol. Austin Custodio, 21 (center), of Pine Bush, New York, was charged with sale or delivery of alcohol to minors. Dominic Godi, 21 (right), of Bolton, Connecticut, was charged with conspiracy to commit sale or delivery of alcohol to a minor

The six men each applied for accelerated rehabilitation in April, which is designed for first-time non-violent offenders a judge finds are unlikely to commit another crime, reported the Hartford Courant.

'I think it's an appropriate resolution, although I think he never should have gotten arrested in the first place,' defense attorney Anthony Spinella said of his client, Polansky.

'In fact I don't think any of them should have gotten arrested.'

Spinella, a former prosecutor, said there were others who were more responsible for the incident than the six men who were charged.

The six are scheduled to appear in Rockville Superior Court June 29, but can avoid the appearance if they pay a fee for the program prior to June 23.

Pally's blood alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit for driving in Connecticut when she died on October 16

Back in March, Abraham and Shinymol Chemmarappally, Pally's parents, requested that the video of their daughter's death not be released as it would cause the family emotional anguish.

The Hartford Courant and the state Freedom of Information Commission filed court papers objecting to the request to withhold release of the video, saying that would circumvent the state's public records law.

The newspaper's lawyer wrote in a legal brief that public interest in the case is high, and withholding the video 'would inhibit the Courant's ability to report upon the actions of the taxpayer funded UConn Fire Department'.
Victorians who have never been charged with any crimes could have their rights restricted if they are deemed a potential terror risk under a legal crackdown.

A expert panel led by former Chief Commissioner Ken Lay, and former Supreme Court of Appeal Justice David Harper will review the laws currently available to prevent, investigate, monitor and respond to acts of terror.

In announcing the review, Premier Daniel Andrews said 'nothing is off the table' and it could include curfews and GPS tracking people who have not even been charged.

A review of laws currently available to prevent, investigate, monitor and respond to acts of terror in Victoria has been announced by the state's government (stock image)

Mr Andrews admitted some of the moves would not be 'popular'.

'If kerbing the rights of a small number of people is what's required to keep Victorians safe then I won't hesitate to do it,' Mr Andrews told reporters.

The panel will look at what can be done during all stages of the justice system - including pre-charge, pre-sentence, during sentence and post-sentence measures.

It will also provide advice on removing any barriers to Victoria Police in responding to terrorist acts.
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Ten years after being abandoned, Gluck Kingdom - a once thriving German-inspired theme park attraction - has captured the awe of a Dutch-based photographer who recently visited the site.

Photographs captured by Dutch man Bob Thissen, 31, said the once revered tourist destination in Hokkaido, on Japan's north island, now gives out an 'apocalyptic' feel.

Thissen's observations shows the rides at the park have rusted, trees have reclaimed the tracks and in the midst of summer - much of the fanfare cannot be seen through the land's engulfing forestry.

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Abandon to the core, the Gluck Kingdom in Hokkaido, Japan was been left to rot for the past ten years since it opened in 1989

Dutch photographer Bob Thissen , 31 shows how the Ferris wheel looks like after being abandoned for the last 10 years

The theme park was opened in 1989, to draw more visitors to the island.

But 10 years on, the park has had all rides and shut its doors for the last time.

Thissen's has described the site as 'from the end of the world'.

'It really has the "life after people" or "apocalypse" feeling.

'You see what happens when no humans are around, nature reclaims all like an unstoppable force.

'The park is totally overgrown, in summer you almost can't see the attractions.

'Thick trees are growing everywhere even through the roller coaster tracks.

'Some attractions are totally enclosed by trees, which makes it hard to photograph.

The Gluck Kingdom has now been reclaimed by nature with trees have reclaimed its tracks and some of the rides as seen here

The abandond theme park has been left alone for so long that its rides have all turned rusted with trees claiming its tracks

One Facebook user said Gluck Kingdom has failed in its attempt to attract visitors to the Obihiro area in Hokkaido in Japan

'For me it's way nicer to see a totally decayed, overgrown amusement park rather than a recently closed one.

'They have attractions like the Sea Dragon, Reindeer Coaster, Merry-go-round, Balloon flight, Ferris Wheel, Pirate Ship, Train, Games Hall, and more. '

The theme park was built to allow Japanese visitors to see other parts of the world without leaving their own country.

A social media user also conceded with Thissen observations on the theme park.

'The Gluck Kingdom is a theme park in Hokkaido representing a German medieval castle,' the user said.

'It was supposed to be a way to attract people to the Obihiro area in Hokkaido but unfortunately it totally failed in this task.

A social media user who has conceded with Mr Thissen's observations on the Gluck Kingdom theme park in a 2014 FB post

The once revered Gluck Kingdom looks deserted and empty with no one visiting the site since it closed down 10 years ago

Gluck Kingdom park was built to allow Japanese visitors to see other parts of the world without leaving their own country

Thissen, who has been an urban explorer for more than 10 years, said it was beautiful to see Gluck Kingdom was left to be reclaimed by nature instead of being unspoiled by vandalism.

'There isn't a single tag or sign of vandalism in the park while the rides are falling apart.

'Amusement parks in Europe or the US get vandalised pretty fast which ruins the atmosphere.'

In its hey days the theme park was home to rides such as the Sea Dragon, Reindeer Coaster, Merry-go-round and Ferris Wheel

Thissen said while this location's beauty was emphasised by its overgrown nature, he believes this site doesn't compare to others.

'The attractions were nice, but sadly a bit too scattered around,' he said.

'You don't have the feeling walking in a big amusement park like the abandoned Nara Dreamland in Japan.'
Three people have been charged with killing two Maryland teens who were found dead the night before their high school graduation.

Police have charged 25-year-old Jose Canales-Yanez, and brothers 19-year-old Roger Garcia and 24-year-old Edgar Garcia-Gaona each on two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Authorities believe that Shadi Adi Najjar, 17, and Artem Ziberov, 18, were killed in revenge for a robbery that one of the teens was rumored to have committed.

Shadi Adi Najjar (pictured, left) was one of two honor roll teens found dead in Montgomery Village, Maryland, just one day before they were set to graduate high school

Artem Ziberov (pictured, left and right) was also pronounced dead at the scene after a hail of bullets was unleashed around 10:30pm on June 5. Police have declared it a double homicide

Montgomery County Police Chief J Thomas Manger said Friday that investigators learned from friends of Najjar that he was rumored to have robbed Canales-Yanez's girlfriend last December, and was killed in retaliation.

He added that: 'We're unsure right now if there was a motive to kill Ziberov as well, or if he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

Najjar and Ziberov were found shot dead on June 5 around 10.30pm in a blue Honda Civic in Montgomery Village, the night before they were supposed to graduate from Northwest High School.

Manger said Najjar had been shot four times and Ziberov 10 times. Amid the shattered window glass, police found numerous shell casings, including some Glaser .40-caliber shells.

Police have arrested Jose Canales-Yanez, 25 (left), Roger Garcia, 19 (center), and Edgar Garcia-Gaona, 24 (right), in connection with the boys' deaths. Montgomery County Police Chief J Thomas Manger said that investigators learned from Najar's friends that he was rumored to have stolen an iPad from Canales-Yanez's girlfriend last December, and was killed in retaliation

Najjar's AP Scholar certificate is pictured. 'They were both excellent students who had a positive impact on those around them,' school principal Jimmy D'Andrea said

'We believe there were 30 rounds fired,' he said.

The two boys both live in Germantown, about seven miles from the scene of the shooting, and it is unclear what they were doing in the well-kept residential cul-de-sac at the time they were shot.

Friends and family of the two honor roll teens were devastated by the news of their deaths.

'May God punish who did this to my son. I'm sure the police will find who killed my boy,' Najjar's father said on June 6, while holding his son's cap and gown.

Manger said investigators learned that Najjar was rumored to have committed a robbery in late 2016.

They linked the rumor to a report filed by Canales-Yanez's then-girlfriend, who told police on December 4 that the passenger in a blue Honda Civic had grabbed her iPad and dragged her about 50 feet with the car.

Manger said that just before Najjar died, he texted someone saying he was going to sell a graduation ticket to Roger Garcia, who was identified as a Northwest High School student.

Crime scene: Cops found the two teens riddled with bullets inside a parked Honda Civic (pictured), where they were pronounced dead at the scene

Northwest's graduation ceremony went forward as planned on the afternoon of June 6, with Principal D'Andrea (pictured) calling for a moment of silence at the beginning of the ceremony

Classmates bowed their head for a moment of silence before continuing with the ceremony

'We're certainly working on the strong possibility that this was a ruse to get the two victims to that location,' Manger said.

He added that a partial box of Glaser .40-caliber ammunition was found at Garcia-Gaona's house. He also said the suspects took Najjar's cellphone.

The investigation is ongoing, and Manger said he hopes the release of the suspects' names spur others with knowledge of the case to come forward.

'We think there's more information that folks out in the community have that can move us even further along with this case,' he said.

Graduation went forward as planned on the afternoon of June 6, with Principal Jimmy D'Andrea calling for a moment of silence at the beginning of the ceremony.

'When I spoke to Artem's mother this morning, while extremely upset, her words to me were "I hope everyone has a great celebration today,"' D'Andrea said, encouraging the students as they struggled to compose themselves.
Controversial Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke has reportedly 'rescinded his acceptance' of a Department of Homeland Security position because he believes he can promote the president's agenda in a 'more aggressive role'.

Clarke's adviser, Craig Peterson, told The Washington Post, that the sheriff had already formally notified the Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly about his decision.

Peterson said Clarke made the decision on Friday to rescind 'his acceptance of the agency's offer to join DHS as an assistant secretary'.

Controversial Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke has reportedly 'rescinded his acceptance' of a Department of Homeland Security position because he believes he can promote the president's agenda in a 'more aggressive role'

Clarke's adviser, Craig Peterson, said the sheriff had already formally notified the Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly about his decision. Trump and Clarke (file) reportedly met in Wisconsin on Tuesday and discussed other roles in which Clarke could support the president

'Sheriff Clarke is 100 per cent committed to the success of President Trump and believes his skills could be better utilized to promote the president's agenda in a more aggressive role,' Peterson told the Post.

Trump and Clarke reportedly met in Wisconsin on Tuesday, according to Peterson, and they discussed other roles in which Clarke could support the president.

'The sheriff is reviewing options inside and outside of government,' Peterson told the Post.

Clarke reportedly offered and expressed his support for Secretary Kelly and thanked him for the 'tremendous opportunity'.

The sheriff was supposed to take on his new position at DHS at the end of June, but sources told the Post that his appointment had been subject to significant delays that contributed to his withdrawal.

Clarke is known to be controversial and was one of Trump's most vocal supporters during the 2016 presidential campaign.

His decision to decline the offer of the appointment to DHS comes a nearly a month after Clarke 'ordered his deputies to detain a passenger who spoke to him in a "threatening manner" on a flight from Dallas'.

An investigation was launched into the airport allegation, but was later dismissed due to lack of evidence.

The sheriff was supposed to take on his new position at DHS at the end of June, but sources said his appointment had been subject to significant delays leading up to his withdrawal

Before that incident, Clarke was accused of plagiarizing content in his 2013 master's thesis, which he has denied.

The sheriff lifted language from multiple sources for his thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School, according to a CNN report.

Clarke provided footnotes for the sources of the thesis, titled Making US security and privacy rights compatible, the story by CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski said.

But the thesis failed to use quotation marks where Clarke used passages verbatim, which breaches school guidelines, the network said.

Clarke spoke in support of Trump at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last July.

The sheriff has criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, which grew out of protests following a number of police killings of unarmed black men, as subhuman creeps'.

Critics have also faulted Clarke for his management of a Milwaukee County jail where a mentally ill man died in 2016 of dehydration after seven days without water.
Rosalyn Faniel, 34, was arrested after her three-year-old pulled a loaded pistol from his toy box during a child welfare check

A toddler shocked investigators who were conducting a child welfare check of his home when he pulled out a loaded gun from his toy box on Tuesday.

The three-year-old was playing with his toys when the Boynton Beach officer and an investigator from the Florida Department of Children and Families arrived to his home over child neglect allegations.

Police were called to the home on complaints that a man was selling drugs from the apartment.

While officers were speaking with the child's mother, Rosalyn Faniel, 34, the child brandished a loaded pistol that he pulled from his 'my little learning' toy box, according to the Palm Beach Post.

One of the officers immediately took the black 9mm semi-automatic pistol away from the boy.

The officer found that there was one bullet in the chamber with the safety off.

Faniel told authorities the gun wasn't hers and she didn't know it was in the apartment, according to the Post.

After a search of the home, the officers found a yellow box of 9mm ammunition on top of the refrigerator.

Also on the fridge was a black scale and a pink makeup bag filled with six plastic bags of white and pink powder, according to the Post.

The powder tested positive for Oxycodone and weighed .6 grams in total.

Faniel was arrested on a charge of child neglect and her bond was set at $3,000.

She was released from jail on Wednesday.

Court records show that Faniel was previously charged with failure to appear in court and violated her release conditions. She is scheduled to appear in court on July 13.
A 52-year-old woman who was the leader of a money laundering ring was nabbed by police following an extensive investigation into Asian organised crime.

Ping He was arrested in October 2014 shortly after she was placed under surveillance when police became aware of her links to crime figures who knew her as 'the godmother'.

Her criminal past has now been revealed after He recently pleaded guilty to one final charge against her, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Police reportedly seized $260,000 in cash when they swooped on her apartment in Neutral Bay, Sydney's north shore, where they arrested He, with James Zhu, 48, and another man also nabbed.

Ping He, 52, (pictured) has been sentenced to jail for dealing with proceeds of crime and will be sentenced over the charge of participating in a criminal group later this year

Cash seized by police following the arrest of He in October 2014 when they swooped on her Sydney apartment. The cash reportedly totalled $260,000

James Zhu has also been convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

A syndicate which He had been involved in had laundered money obtained from drug sales from Australia to China and vice-versa, with the 52-year-old taking a commission of one to two per cent.

The two men had been recorded on a surveillance device placed inside He's apartment counting $300,000 through a cash machine in August 2014.

He - who had run Danny's Convenience Store close to her apartment - was overhead conversing with a courier about splitting $250,000 into $50,000 lots just days after the men were recorded.

He had also at one stage been heard talking about apples and oranges to describe ounces and methamphetamine when conversing about drug prices and used a remitter to transfer money from a drug sale from China to Australia.

In May, He was handed a five year jail sentence for dealing with proceeds of crime and will spend at least three years behind bars.

A sentence for the charge of participating in a criminal group will be decided in November.
Former Vice President Joe Biden criticized President Donald Trump without saying his name Saturday, telling a crowd of Florida Democrats last year's election unleashed a coarseness that hadn't been seen in decades.

However, he said the party's candidates can overcome that by showing disgruntled voters that they have solutions.

Giving a campaign-style, 45-minute speech at the state Democratic Party's annual fundraising dinner, Biden, 74, told about 1,300 party supporters that Democrats must help Americans see that the future is bright and overcome their fears.

Biden has said he isn't planning a third run for president by challenging Trump in 2020 - though he hasn't ruled it out either - and he certainly acted like a potential candidate Saturday.

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Joe Biden, 74, addressed 1,300 party supporters in Florida to speak about reaching disgruntled voters

In his campaign-style speech, he criticized the current administration and spoke about the party being one of 'ideas and solutions'

He got laughs when he pointed out Saturday was his 40th wedding anniversary, but he was spending it giving a speech.

'This past election cycle churned up some of the ugliest, ugliest realities that persist in our country. Civilized discourse and real debate gave way to the coarsest rhetoric, stoking some of the darkest emotions in this nation,' said Biden.

'I thought that after all these years we had passed the days when it was acceptable for politicians to bestow legitimacy on hate speech and fringe ideologies.'

Biden said Democrats could overcome that by showing everyone from working-class white men to women to minorities that they are the party of ideas and solutions, local 10 reported.

He called for investing in schools, community colleges and infrastructure and providing health care, saying that's how to improve the economy, not by building walls and excluding Muslim immigrants.

'We have to make it clear what we stand for and unite Americans behind the values which we stand for,' Biden said. 'We can't get bogged down in this phony debate going on in the Democratic Party.

'The Hobson's choice we have been given is that we need to become less progressive and focus more on working folk or become more progressive and focus less on working folk. There is no need to choose. They are not inconsistent.'

He said Democrats need to show Americans that their country is still the greatest in the world and will be for the foreseeable future. China, he said, is no match with its exploding population, lack of clean water and polluted farmland and that the U.S. military is the world's strongest by far.

'I believe with every fiber of my being that we are better positioned than any nation in the world to be the single-most productive, capable, value-added country,' Biden said.

'The reason why the rest of the world looks to us - and this administration doesn't get it - is that the example of our power is the power of our example. That's why we are able to lead.'

If Biden were to challenge Trump, Florida would be vital to his campaign as it is the largest swing state. Democrats and Republicans have split Florida over the last six elections and in 13 of the last 14 its winner took the presidency.

Biden has been busy this month, launching a political action committee, American Possibilities, that would be a springboard if he runs for president; flying to Greece, where he addressed a climate change conference; speaking three days later at a Utah political summit organized by 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney; and attending the commissioning in Houston of a battleship named after former Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a 2011 assassination attempt.

Biden served 36 years in the Senate from Delaware and twice chaired the Foreign Relations Committee. He considered challenging Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the 2016 nomination but was emotionally spent after his 46-year-old son, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer. A bid for the 1988 nomination ended after he plagiarized a speech and exaggerated his college record.

A 2008 bid ended quickly when he got 1 per cent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses that kick off the nominating season.
A desperate search is underway in an attempt to locate a missing Queensland father and his son after they were last seen five days ago with concerns continuing to grow for their welfare.

Ken Dixon, 56, and his eight-year-old son from Mount Gravatt, in Brisbane's south-east, are believed to be travelling and sleeping in the father's white Transit van before disappearing on June 13.

Their family last saw the pair at 4.30pm on June 9 at Mount Gravatt Lookout, with their last contact with them coming on June 10.

Queensland father Ken Dixon (right) and his eight-year-old son (left) are still missing following their disappearance five days ago

It is believed the pair are travelling and sleeping in a white Transit van as they were last spotted on June 13. Its registration plate is 065RTG (pictured)

The final sighting of the two was in Lismore, in New South Wales's north-east, on June 13.

It is unknown whether they have returned to Brisbane or remain in northern New South Wales.

Mr Dixon is said to have a slim build, 163cm tall and has grey, receding hair.

The eight-year-old boy is a metre tall with a heavy build and brown hair.

Police are urging anyone with any information regarding their whereabouts.
A young man has been stabbed in the head after a fight broke out during a wild party in northern Victoria.

The 20-year-old was at a small gathering of about 10 people when he was stabbed multiple times.

Police were called to the home at McEachern Court in Wodonga, in Victoria's north, shortly before midnight, Nine News reports.

A man has been stabbed in the head after a fight broke out at a party at a home (pictured) in Wodonga, in northern Victoria

Paramedics arrived at the home at around 11.30pm and rushed him to nearby Albury Hospital.

The man was suffering non-life threatening injuries and was expected to undergo surgery on Sunday.

Police are continuing with their investigation.
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Britain has basked in the hottest day of the year so far - just shy of 90F - and temperatures are set to soar even higher tomorrow.

The 'killer' heatwave has seen a level 3 amber Government heat health warning - just one tier below a level 4 'national emergency' - issued, with officials warning sunseekers to stay inside between 11am and 3pm next week.

Hospitals have been told to brace themselves for an increase in admissions due to sun stroke, while members of the public were asked to be vigilant with vulnerable and elderly friends and relatives.

The shingled shoreline on the East Sussex coast was jam-packed with sun cream-slathered bodies, as thousands crammed onto Brighton Beach to top up their tan on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

The mercury peaked at 89.4F (31.9C) at Hampton Water Works in south-west London today, while scorching weather was also enjoyed by the majority of Britons.

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The shingled shoreline of Brighton Beach on the East Sussex coast was jam-packed with sun-seekers today

Today is expected to be the hottest June 18 on record, with the mercury hitting 91F (33C) on Father's Day in Britain. Pictured, a woman relaxes this morning in Gyllyngvase, in Falmouth, Cornwall

This could be the warmest June 18 since records began 167 years ago; the present record is 32.2C, set in 1893 in Ochtertyre, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Above, sun seekers in Cornwall

Temperatures are set to rise even further this coming week. Above, the scene on Weymouth Beach, Dorset, today

Crowds flock to Swanage's sandy beaches on a hot afternoon in Dorset, as the government issued a level 3 amber Government heat health warning

Temperatures are expected to continue rising into the low 30s into early next week. Above, a woman enjoys the sunshine in Greenwich Park this afternoon

Sunbathers lie on the beach in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, as scorching weather was also enjoyed by the majority of Britons

And as more hot air pushes north from France and Spain, an amber level 3 Government heat health warning - one tier below a level 4 national emergency - has been issued across Britain

Yana Mills enjoyed the sea and sun in Gyllyngvase Beach in Falmouth, Cornwall as thousands of Brits packed out the country's open spaces on what has turned out as the hottest day of the year

Polzeath beach in Cornwall was full of swimmers, surfers and families as the UK enjoyed a heatwave during the weekend

Meanwhile, music fans could enjoy the hottest ever Glastonbury Festival in the coming week with the mercury possibly hitting 93F (34C) - which is 10C higher than usual, forecasters say.

The weather is expected to stay dry in the lead-up to the weekend, with a 20 per cent chance of 'isolated showers' on Wednesday and Thursday.

A 'wedge' of hot air from France could blow over to the Somerset site on Thursday, resulting in the sizzling temperature.

Glastonbury's infamous mud could make an appearance at the weekend though, when the weather is expected to be 'changeable'.

The 900-acre festival site, being headlined by Radiohead, the Foo Fighters and Ed Sheeran, will host a population of 200,000 during the event, which runs from Wednesday to Sunday.

'It is mainly going to be dry, looking at the whole event,' a spokeswoman for the Met Office said.

The show must go on: Glastonbury rain Glasto mud: Festivalgoers last year There was no rainfall during the first Glastonbury Festival in 1970, which was attended by 1,500 people. Only seven other years of the festival have not seen any rain. The hottest days were in 2010 and 1989, when temperatures reached 27.3C - leaving some revellers with heat stroke and exhaustion. In 2005, the festival was delayed after rainfall left some areas of the site under 4ft of water. Advertisement

'Wednesday, Thursday and Friday look dry with good spells of sunshine. People should take care in the heat, drink lots of water and take sun cream with them.'

The Met Office spokeswoman said temperatures were expected to fall by the weekend, feeling 'cooler and fresher' on Saturday and Sunday.

'We would describe the weather as changeable,' she added. 'We could see a mix of sunny spells and showers.

'There is a wedge of really hot air that is going to blow over France.

'That air could waft over the south of England.'

If that happens, temperatures in eastern and southern England could see temperatures of 33 or 34C.

'I would advise those going to Glastonbury to pack for all weather - bring your Pac a Mac and sun lotion,' the spokeswoman said. And wellies would be a good idea too.

This year, Glastonbury Festival will play host to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who will introduce US rap duo Run The Jewels and appear at the LeftField tent for a talk.

Clive Lewis, MP for Norwich South, tweeted: 'Chuffed to be speaking on Sat June 24 at Glastonbury 2017. Recharge your activism at the Leftfield tent with special gueststar @jeremycorbyn.'

Extra security precautions will be taken at the festival in the wake of the terror attacks in London and Manchester.

Avon and Somerset Police have said there is 'no intelligence' to suggest a specific threat to the festival.

Ticket-holders have been told to pack light, place luggage tags or ID on all their bags and expect searches from before entering.

'Like the rest of the UK, festival-goers should be alert but not alarmed,' assistant chief constable Caroline Peters said.

The public flock to Dovedale and its stunning stepping stones in the Peak District, with its lakes offering some respite from the searing heat

Surfers hit the waves to cool off from the excessive heat as they enjoy the hot weather at the Polzeath beach in Cornwall

The nation basked in the hottest day of the year so far on Saturday, with temperatures expected to soar as the heatwave continues into next week. Above, Polzeath beach in Cornwall today

People enjoy a spot of crabbing today off of the old stone quay in Swanage, Dorset

Public Health England (PHE) has issued a heat health warning. Dr Thomas Waite from PHE said: 'For some, such as older people, those with underlying health conditions and those with young children, the summer heat can bring real health risks.' Above, sunrise today over Maldon, Essex

Surfers hit the waves as they enjoy the hot weather at Polzeath beach in Cornwall this afternoon

A father and his daughter cool their feet off in shallow water on Swanage beach in Dorset, where temperatures were just shy of 90F

And Thursday could in fact be the third warmest June date on record, reaching 93.2F (34C), according to the Met Office.

June's record temperature is 96F (35.6C), set on June 28, 1976, in Southampton.

The mercury peaked at 86F (30C) in Teddington, south-west London, while clear skies and strong sunshine were also enjoyed by the majority of Britons.

A beachgoer bathes on the sands of Swanage this morning as the mercury continues to rise

Unusual levels of UV are also being recorded in the UK at the moment - with the strength of the UV in some spots being as high as that in Cyprus and Gibraltar. Pictured, Bredon Hill in Worcestershire this morning

A chocolate labrador unwinds with a cooling dip in the sea in Swanage, Dorset this morning

Temperatures are expected to continue rising into the low 30s into early next week.

Met Office forecaster Charles Powell said: 'We have seen the hottest day of the year so far.

'Sunday and Monday will see repeat performances of Saturday, with a lot of England and Wales seeing dry, sunny, warm, humid weather with high UV, high pollen.

'The temperature though is creeping up a little bit day on day, so we may see 91.4F (33C) on Monday, probably in similar sorts of areas - south-east England, Greater London.

Sun-seekers take shelter from the searing heat in Dorset, left; Flo, aged three, splashes in the surf at Polzeath, Cornwall

Young men and boys jump from the sea wall in Cullercoats Bay in North Tyneside yesterday. RNLI staff have warned against the dangers of tombstoning as the heatwave continues

Around half a dozen youngsters repeatedly took running jumps from the end of the south pier at Cullercoats Bay at around low water yesterday. It comes just 18 months after 15-year-old Caitlin Ruddy was swept from the pier opposite and to her death by a wave while playing with her friends

Tombstoning is the act of jumping in a straight vertical position into the sea, lake or reservoir from a high jumping platform, such as a cliff or pier. It is understood that between 2005 and 2015 the Coastguard dealt with more than 200 incidents of tombstoning, with 83 injuries and 20 deaths

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Three-day outlook Tonight: It will be a dry night across England and Wales, with largely clear skies and a few mist patches. Some patchy sea fog is possible around the coasts. A warm and uncomfortable night for sleeping, particularly in the south-east. Scotland and Northern Ireland will also be mild, but rather cloudy with a little patchy drizzle. Clear spells developing for Northern Scotland later in the night. Tomorrow: It will be hot and humid for England and Wales, and there will be sunny periods and fair-weather cloud. Maximum temperatures are likely to be slightly higher on Monday than over the weekend, with the highest temperatures likely around London and southern England. There's a risk of isolated thunderstorms during the afternoon. Northern parts of the country will be cooler and fresher with sunny spells and fair-weather cloud, but with a risk of drizzle in northern England and southern Scotland. Tuesday: Many areas will be slightly cooler, with the hottest conditions likely across southern England and south Wales. There is a chance of an isolated thunderstorm developing in the afternoon. Northern areas will be largely dry with sunny spells and patchy cloud, although the odd light shower or spot of drizzle may move into north-western coasts of Scotland. Advertisement

'All throughout this period, we will have some pretty mild uncomfortable nights - a lot of places in the mid to high teens for night-time temperatures.'

The building heat is forecast to keep temperatures in the south and south east some 50F (10C) above the usual average for this time of year.

'The sun is as powerful as it can be,' said Mr Powell.

'I would say we are in the midst of a heatwave.

'You can't really deny the fact that most places are well above average in terms of temperatures, and it feels pretty warm.'

Western Scotland, however, is experiencing its own weather front and saw only 55.4F (13C) on Saturday, compared with the highs of around 77F (25C) seen to the east.

Public Health England (PHE) has issued a heat health warning.

Dr Thomas Waite from PHE said: 'For some people, such as older people, those with underlying health conditions and those with young children, the summer heat can bring real health risks.

'That's why we're urging everyone to keep an eye on those you know who may be at risk this summer.

'If you're able, ask if your friends, family or neighbours need any support.'

Unusual levels of UV are also being recorded in the UK at the moment - with the strength of the UV in some spots being as high as that in Cyprus and Gibraltar.

This has prompted warnings that people should take extra care in the sun.

The heat was so intense in London yesterday that at least five Guardsmen were stretchered off after fainting in their sweltering uniforms during the Trooping the Colour ceremony at the Queen's birthday celebration.

Dressed in full uniform, including a 2lb bearskin, one soldier fell forward out of his formation as temperatures soared to 28C (82F) in Central London.

As the band marched towards his position, the guardsman collapsed to his knees before landing face down with his hands to his side.

Today's pollen forecast again shows very high levels throughout much of Britain

At least five Guardsmen were stretchered off after fainting in their sweltering uniforms in London yesterday

Pregnant woman is rescued by lifeboat after becoming trapped by tide

A pregnant woman was rescued by a lifeboat crew after her husband swam out of a cove to raise the alarm when they became trapped by the tide.

The woman was cut off by the tide below steep cliffs near the Barrowfields in Newquay, Cornwall, on Saturday evening.

Her husband managed to swim out of the cove around to the north-east side of Tolcarne Beach to raise the alarm.

RNLI volunteers managed to rescue the woman and brought her safely to the beach just before 9.30pm.

A spokeswoman said: 'Newquay's RNLI lifeboat volunteers rescued a pregnant woman who was trapped by the tide below steep cliffs near the Barrowfields, more than two hours before high tide on Saturday evening.

'Her husband swam out of the cove and around to the north-east side of Tolcarne Beach to raise the alarm and our RNLI volunteers quickly arrived on the charity's D class inshore lifeboat, having first carefully negotiated large submerged rocks in the one-metre swell, using the lifeboat's emergency oars to gauge the depth of water and guide them safely towards the woman's position.

'With Newquay Coastguard providing support from the cliff top, the RNLI lifeboat crew were able to manoeuvre back out past the rocks and landed the unhurt woman safely on Tolcarne Beach just before 9.30pm, along with a surfer who had gone to her aid before emergency services arrived.'

High tide on Saturday was at about 11.40pm.
They were an iconic band who spawned timeless disco classics like 'Stayin' Alive' and 'How Deep Is Your Love.'

And now the children of Bee Gees brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb and younger brother Andy have formed their own tribute band which will release it's first album today in honour of Father's Day.

Seven cousins teamed up a year ago to form 'The Gibb Collective' and will release their own poignant version of Bee Gees' hits on the eponymously titled album.

Legendary band the Bee Gees, this photo was taken around 1970. The band sold more than 220 million records worldwide making them one of the world's best-selling groups of all time

Musician Robin-John Gibb, son of Robin who died of cancer in 2012, said: 'I was happy to be part of it. It shows the musical legacy of the family is still strong.'

And Adam Gibb, whose father Maurice died in 2003 of a twisted bowel, added: 'To have family all over the world, all of us coming together to make this special album for our fathers, it's an honour.'

The group never convened in one place, instead they recorded their individual parts in places as far-flung as Sydney, Ohio, London and Los Angeles, with the segments being blended together in a US production studio.

Spencer Gibb is an award-winning musician, photographer and actor. Raised in London and New York, he quickly fell into his father Robin Gibbs footsteps and began performing aged 14

Michael Garbutt who was Robin Gibb's manager for the last six years of Robin's life said: 'The record is a poignant tribute to their fathers' legacy.

'Each of the children has music in their blood and when fans hear the harmonizing they will get goose bumps. The kids have put their own spin on their fathers' classic songs but there is no doubt that talent runs in the family.'

Stephen, the son of the only surviving Bee Gee Barry, said: 'Everyone has done some pretty interesting and unique interpretations of the material.'

Adam Gibb, pictured here performing for the Gibb Collective, is a singer/songwriter who was born in England but raised in Miami. His father is the late Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees

The Gibb tribute group will have a long way to go before reaching the fabled heights of their fathers.

The Bee Gees sold more than 220 million records worldwide making them one of the world's best-selling groups of all time, outsold only by The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney.

The Bee Gees brothers Maurice Gibb, Barry Gibb and Robin Gibb pictured in 1990. The band achieved global fame in the 1970s thanks to the soundtracks for Saturday Night Fever and Stayin' Alive which included hits like 'Night Fever' and 'If I Can't Have you'

They formed in 1958 but achieved global fame with their signature falsetto vocals in the 1970s thanks to the soundtracks for Saturday Night Fever and Stayin' Alive which included hits like 'Night Fever' and 'If I Can't Have you.'

Andy Gibb was never a part of the Bee Gees but was a successful teen idol. He died in 1988 of a heat infection brought on by years of drug abuse five days after turning 30.
Television presenter George Clarke has spoken of witnessing the horrific tragedy at Grenfell Tower from his home just yards away.

Clarke, who fronts Channel 4s Amazing Spaces, said he would never forget the screams of residents trapped in the inferno.

He also revealed how one woman who recognised him screamed at him to get her out while he saw three people jump from the 24-storey burning building.

Channel 4 presenter George Clarke, pictured, has revealed how he witnessed the harrowing scenes at Grenfell Tower from his home just yards away

The celebrity said he would 'never forget the screams' of victims inside the burning tower block, pictured

The 43-year-old told the Express: I was screaming and shouting trying to get people to get out, because I could see the fire spreading so quickly.

Speaking about the woman pleading with him to get the fire brigade to rescue her, he added: I was going, Theyll come and get you, theyll come and get you. The services didnt even get to the 14th floor. She didnt get out. I can tell you now she didnt get out.

Mr Clarke said he would never forget a fireman who had been fighting the blaze for eight hours and had never seen a look like that in a mans eyes in my life.

He added: He was gone. He was absolutely gone.

It comes after police said at least 58 people died, or are missing, presumed dead, after fire ravaged the tower block in the early hours of Wednesday.

Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police warned that the death toll could rise further as he formally identified the first victim as 23-year-old Syrian refugee Mohammad Alhajali.

At 58 casualties, it would make the Grenfell Tower blaze the deadliest in the capital since the Second World War.

Clarke, a trained architect, presents Amazing Spaces, pictured, on Channel 4 and previously presented property programmes on Channel 5

The presenter also revealed he met a fireman who had been battling the blaze for eight hours and described him as 'absolutely gone' (file picture)

So far dozens of victims, pictured, have been identified after the tower block blaze, with fears raised the death toll could still rise

More than 250 firefighters tackled the blaze in north Kensington as London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said the scene looked like a 'disaster movie'.

Speaking to the Observer, she said crews did not follow normal practice, adding: 'Had we just followed standard fire brigade procedures, we would not have been able to commit firefighters in and conduct the rescues we did.'

Sixteen bodies have been taken to the mortuary after flames tore through the 1970s tower block - while 14 others have been recovered from the building.

Police have appealed to anyone who may have escaped from the building, but has not yet come forward, to make themselves known.

When asked about the search, Mr Cundy replied that the officers had gone 'all the way to the top' of the tower, and explained that the first phase was a visual search.

Mr Cundy said the police investigation into the blaze would look at the building and its refurbishment in 2016 and vowed to prosecute people if there was evidence.

The police are appealing to anyone with pictures or videos of the blaze to hand them in, as they may help establish not only where and how the fire started, but also how it spread.

Victims met the Prime Minister at Number 10 on Saturday evening and man representing the group said they had spoken about their 'demands and what we expect'.

Mrs May said she had fixed a deadline of three weeks for everybody affected to be rehoused locally.

The death toll from the tower block inferno, pictured, currently stands at 58 with police warning the number could still rise

Hundreds of people have been staging demonstrations demanding justice for the victims through inquests and inquiries into the materials used in the tower

Many have been reduced to tears, pictured, after the deadly blaze, which has rocked the community

She added: 'I have ordered that more staff be deployed across the area, wearing high visibility clothing, so they can easily be found, dispense advice and ensure the right support is provided.'

Family liaison officers are working with 52 families, and as soon as victims are identified, their loved ones will be told.

Anger flared in the Kensington community over the weekend - with many protests taking place across the capital - as some accused the authorities of withholding information and responding inadequately.

Mr Cundy said: 'The investigation will be exhaustive. My intention is that it will help provide answers.

'If, as we investigate, we identify issues that are a risk to public safety, we will not be waiting until the end of the investigation before we provide that information to the appropriate authorities.

'If there are any safety issues that we and experts that we will be using identify, we will share that immediately.'

The government has promised a full public inquiry, but that has done little to ease a sense of frustration at the lack of information about how the fire moved so quickly to engulf the building.

Engineering experts and fire safety specialists believe the building's exterior cladding may have quickly fueled the blaze, overwhelming fire protection devices. British officials have ordered a review of other buildings that have had similar renovations.
Theresa May has just 10 days to save her job as Tory MPs plot to evict her from Downing Street, it was claimed today.

Around a dozen MPs are said to be ready to make a written demand for a new leadership contest to replace Mrs May before the summer.

And more will step up if votes on the Queen's Speech - due on around June 28 - look like being lost after Mrs May squandered the Tories' Commons majority in the election.

The failure to win the election outright and alarm over her flat footed response to the Grenfell fire has exposed splits within the Cabinet and rage on the Tory benches.

Chancellor Philip Hammond today refused to say how long Mrs May has in her job, insisting the whole Government 'wants to get on with the job'.

Theresa May (pictured at church with husband Philip in Maidenhead today ) has just 10 days to save her job as Tory MPs plot to evict her from Downing Street

Around a dozen MPs are said to be ready to make a written demand for a new leadership contest to replace Mrs May before the summer

Chancellor Philip Hammond (pictured outside the BBC today) refused to give Mrs May a deadline, insisting the whole Government 'wants to get on with the job'

Eurosceptics could try to force the pace of a contest by going public before any leadership election starts if they see 'backsliding' on Brexit, it was claimed.

A 'stalking horse' challenge is no longer allowed under Tory rules but would dramatically heighten pressure on the Tory leader.

An official leadership contest will begin automatically if 48 Conservative MPs write to Graham Brady, the chairman of the Tory 1922 committee.

Reports today suggest an attempt could be made to rally Conservative MPs around a single candidate if the contest is called to eliminate the need for a long leadership contest.

But supporters of both Boris Johnson and David Davis were said to be testing the ground for a challenge.

Remain supporting Tories could promote Amber Rudd for the job.

Mrs May has been left on the brink after her response to the Grenfell fire (pictured on Friday night giving an interview about the disaster) in the aftermath of the election

The Prime Minster welcomed Grenfell survivors to No 10 yesterday (pictured) to try and rescue her leaden response to the disaster

Mrs May will hope to get back on the front foot on Wednesday when she presents the Queen's Speech.

She will hope the occasion will draw a line under a disastrous fortnight where she lost seats at the election and was condemned for a 'cowardly' response to the Grenfell fire disaster.

But the failure to strike a quick deal with Northern Ireland's DUP means the Premier could face Commons defeat just a week later.

The Sunday Times revealed today conversations are already underway among ministers about whether she will be forced out next week.

A serving minister told the paper: 'She had better stop feeling sorry for herself, pull up her socks and start to lead  and if she can't do that she should go. Shape up or ship out.'

The paper said 12 MPs were already ready to send letters - just over a week after the general election that she had planned would secure a huge majority.

It the number would rise if crucial Commons votes on the Queen's Speech are threatened next week. Defeat could collapse the Government and set Britain on course for another election.

Mrs May was forced to run a gauntlet of angry protests on Friday (pictured) as her response to the Grenfell fire fell apart

Fury on the streets against Mrs May (pictured on Friday) is fuelling Tory plots to oust her as leader

The Sunday Telegraph said Eurosceptic MPs are ready to go public with a candidate if they see the Government 'backsliding' on Brexit - in a bid to recall Anthony Meyer's 'stalking horse' plot against Margaret Thatcher in 1988.

The goal would be use a candidate to flush out enough letters from Tories to start an official contest - but someone announcing their intention to stand for the leadership is not enough to oust Mrs May by itself.

A former minister told the Telegraph: 'The point is she is not a unifying figure any more.

'She has really hacked off the parliamentary party for obvious reasons. So I'm afraid to say there is no goodwill towards her.'

The paper revealed Mrs May is mocked by Tory MPs as the 'caretaker prime minister'.

Mr Hammond launched an attack on the election campaign and his limited role in it.

He said: 'It's true that my role [in the campaign] was not the one I would have liked it to be,' he said.

He did not comment on his conversations with Mrs May after the election, in which the Conservatives lost their Commons majority.

Mr Hammond said the Tories should have focused more on their record of running Britain's finances.

'The end result is that in my judgement we did not talk about the economy as much we should have done.'

Philip Hammond left the door open to raising taxes and said borrowing more is 'not the solution'

As the Government tries to rebuild its position, the Chancellor said the Conservatives were 'not deaf' to the message that had been delivered at the ballot box on June 8.

But Mr Hammond left the door open to raising taxes and said borrowing more is 'not the solution'.

'I think people are weary of the long slog,' he told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show.

Asked if he would go ahead with 3 billion of cuts to local government, he replied: 'We've set out a series of measures that are already legislated for. We have other proposals that we will now have to look at again in the light of the General Election result and in the new parliament.

'I will be delivering a budget in the autumn and you will find out then what we are proposing.

'There's not going to be a summer budget or anything like that.'

Pressed on whether the government would have to change direction, particularly if it does a deal with the DUP which is opposed to cuts to the winter fuel allowance and the end of the triple lock on pensions, he replied: 'We will look at all these things. Obviously we are not deaf. We heard a message last week in the General Election and we need to look at how we deal with the challenges we face in the economy.

'I understand that people are weary after years of hard work to rebuild the economy after the great crash of 2008-09, but we have to live within our means.

'More borrowing, which seems to be Jeremy Corbyn's answer, is not the solution.

'We have never said we won't raise some taxes. Overall, we are a government that believes in low taxes and we want to reduce the burden of taxes overall for working families.'

Mrs May admitted that the response to families needing support 'was not good enough'

Last night, Mrs May launched the fight for her political life as she apologised for her response to the Grenfell Tower fire.

After days of mounting criticism over her handling of the fatal blaze, Mrs May admitted that the response to families needing support 'was not good enough'.

Her statement was billed by a No 10 source to the Mail on Sunday as a 'mea culpa'.

But her critics described it as a 'belated act of contrition' which was itself 'not good enough'.

The apology came as Mrs May met survivors of Grenfell Tower in Downing Street  her third attempt in as many days to assuage public anger over the tragedy, which has so far claimed at least 58 lives.

While she was meeting the victims, hundreds of protesters gathered in Whitehall chanting for her to resign.

Her statement of regret did little to stem growing unrest on the Tory backbenches over Mrs May's authority, following her disastrous decision to call a snap Election that led to the loss of her Commons majority.

Brexit-supporting MPs say they fear Mrs May's political weakness is allowing Chancellor Philip Hammond to swing the Government's position round to a 'soft' Brexit in which the UK would remain in the customs union.

Influence: Chancellor Philip Hammond

However, a Survation poll for this newspaper found that more than two thirds of voters  69 per cent  support Mr Hammond's soft Brexit approach. There is also strong opposition to Mrs May's declaration that 'no deal is better than a bad deal', with 65 per cent calling for the UK to leave the EU with some form of agreement in place. And there is now a majority in favour of holding a second referendum to approve the Brexit deal.

The machinations on the backbenches are being fed by the Cabinet split between the Remainers, headed by Mr Hammond and Home Secretary Amber Rudd, and the Brexiteers, led by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis.

Yesterday, former Brexit Minister David Jones, speaking just hours before the start of our negotiations to leave the EU, warned Mrs May that to pursue a 'soft' Brexit would be a 'betrayal' of the nation. And another Brexit-backing MP said plans were being hatched to send the required 48 letters of no confidence to the Tory backbench 1922 Committee to trigger a leadership contest, which they hoped would lead to a coronation for Mr Johnson.

The rebellion is also being driven by MPs who have been dismayed by the negative response to Mrs May they have picked up in their constituencies over the weekend  in particular over her handling of Grenfell Tower.

Meanwhile, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the cut-price cladding blamed for accelerating the inferno was installed despite warnings that it was too dangerous for tall buildings.

Mrs May's response to the tragedy was in stark contrast to that of the Queen, who yesterday issued a message acknowledging the 'very sombre national mood'. She also appeared close to tears as she spoke to survivors about their ordeal on Friday morning.

Her statement of regret did little to stem growing unrest on the Tory backbenches over Mrs May's authority

In comparison, the Prime Minister made three attempts to show that she cared about victims of the tragedy before yesterday's statement.

She first went to the scene of the fire on Thursday morning, but spoke only to members of the emergency services.

On Friday she had to run a gauntlet of protesters as she fled a meeting with survivors.

And later that night, she gave a disastrous interview to BBC2's flagship Newsnight programme, in which she was accused of appearing 'inhuman' by repeatedly avoiding questions about whether she had misread the public mood.

In yesterday's statement, issued after the two-and-a-half-hour meeting, Mrs May said she had heard the concerns of those affected by the fire and agreed they had been let down. She said: 'The response of the emergency services, NHS and the community has been heroic. But, frankly, the support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough.'

A spokesman for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he welcomed the fact that 'the Prime Minister is finally facing up to her responsibilities after the terrible fire. The Government needs to listen to the voices of residents and give them the support they deserve.'

Sir Craig Oliver, who was David Cameron's communications director, claimed yesterday that Downing Street had been 'hollowed out' and so there was no one to tell Mrs May that she risked looking like she lacked 'grip or empathy if she didn't meet victims'.

Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, said: 'Theresa May is acting like a hopeless by-stander rather than Prime Minister. We are several days on, and her belated act of contrition is not enough.

'Despite the heroic work of the emergency services, support for survivors has been a shambles. This is a national disaster  yet the Prime Minister has largely left the response to the council and charities.'

But Cabinet Office Minister Damian Green, Mrs May's new No 2, sprang to the PM's defence saying she was as 'distraught as anyone' over the tragedy and said that criticism of her response was 'terribly unfair'.
Aid workers usually deployed in war zones have been drafted in to help with disaster relief following the Grenfell Tower inferno.

The British Red Cross - known for providing food, water and shelter to victims of natural disasters, will hit the streets of north Kensington to support both the survivors of the blaze and the local community.

It comes as under-fire Prime Minister Theresa May has admitted the response to the tragedy has 'not been good enough'.

Police said at least 58 people died, or are missing, presumed dead, after fire ravaged the 24-storey tower block in the early hours of Wednesday.

Meanwhile the new MP for Kensington has claimed that some of the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster have been sent outside of the borough with just 10 a day to live on.

Others said survivors had 'freaked out' after being offered temporary accommodation in other high-rise blocks, with families refusing to enter them.

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Red Cross workers will provide 'psychological support' to survivors and their families after Theresa May said the initial response 'has not been good enough' (file picture)

The emergency services teams, pictured, that went into the tower to battle the blaze and rescue residents will also be supported by the Red Cross

Hundreds of floral tributes and candles have been left at the scene of the blaze, pictured, in memory of those killed in the disaster

Residents have been seen breaking down into tears at the scene, pictured, following the deaths of dozens of people in the fire

Survivors of the Grenfell Tower inferno, pictured meeting The Queen, will be supported by the Red Cross after the charity was drafted in

So far dozens of victims, pictured, have been identified after the tower block blaze, with fears raised the death toll could still rise

According to the Sunday Times, the Red Cross will give 'psychological support' to the survivors and also the emergency services who went into the tower to fight the flames and rescue residents.

The charity - part of the International Red Cross - provides a range of services from ambulance support, first aid and setting up communications across a disaster scene.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister said there had been 'huge frustrations' on the ground as people struggled to find information.

After a meeting lasting nearly two hours in Downing Street with victims, residents, community leaders and volunteers, Mrs May said she had heard their concerns.

She added: 'The response of the emergency services, NHS and the community has been heroic.

'But, frankly, the support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough.'

Mrs May said money from the 5million emergency fund to help victims buy food and clothes was already being handed out and more funding would be allocated if needed.

It came as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said today the local authority 'did not have the resources' to deal with an emergency of that scale.

He told ITV's Peston on Sunday that the community and emergency services were 'incredible' in tackling the fire and its aftermath.

He added: 'What was less effective was the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, because they seemed to lack the resources to deal with a crisis of this magnitude in their borough and yet they are the country's wealthiest borough.'

But Labour MP Emma Dent Coad wrote in a letter to the Home Secretary: 'I have been told that some people who have lost their homes have been sent out of borough and are being given only 10 per day subsistence. If this is accurate it must be addressed without delay.'

The newly-elected Labour MP called for all those affected by the blaze to be given named officials to deal with, and said support should be available round the clock.

She also called on Amber Rudd to ensure the families of those who died are linked up with free funeral services that are being offered by organisations who want to help.

Mrs May, pictured, said there had been 'huge frustrations' on the ground with families struggling to find information on whether their loved ones were safe

Tensions have been rising in the area, with Mrs May finally hosting a group from the community at 10 Downing Street yesterday, pictured, after being criticised for not meeting them sooner

Protests have been taking place across London over the past few days blaming Mrs May and the Conservatives for the disaster

Many have been reduced to tears, pictured, after the deadly blaze, which has rocked the community

Meanwhile local residents have repeated the claim, with west Londoner Nisha Parti telling ITV's Peston programme Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council's response has been poor.

She said: Yesterday the only council presence was at the Westway. But it was three executives and every day it has been different executives. They are coming in from Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham and they dont know the area.

None of them (the other centres) are being visited by the council. Absolutely none of them.

We are trying to get money to the victims. Kensington and Chelsea have just given them 10 to survive on when they get to the hotel.

Survivors of the horrific Grenfell Tower inferno have also 'freaked out' after being offered temporary accommodation in high-rise tower blocks.

A woman known only as Nadia, who lives close to the 24-storey tower in west London, revealed one of the men who escaped the burning building was offered a place to stay in a hotel.

But she said he refused to go there with his children because they were frightened to enter a tall building similar to the one they dramatically fled.

Speaking just yards from the scene, Nadia said: They wanted to put him in a building which is a high-rise building. He freaked out because he doesn't want to put his children in a high-rise building - would you?

They have been trying to re-house them in the building but they [the survivors] do not want to go in it. Would you? Do you blame them?

He freaked out, he said he does not want to put my children in that building.

Mrs May added: 'There have been huge frustrations that people do not know who to talk to, that they can't get through on the council hotlines.

'I have ordered that more staff be deployed across the area, wearing high visibility clothing, so they can easily be found, dispense advice and ensure the right support is provided. Phone lines will have more staff.

'Victims have concerns their voice will not be heard, that their many questions about this tragedy will not be answered.

'That is why I ordered a public inquiry, with the costs for providing victims with legal representation met by Government.

Investigations will take place into whether plastic cladding was to blame for the fire, pictured, spreading so quickly across the building

Officials have been inspecting the ruins of the building for days, with police dogs, pictured, used to search for victims and survivors

Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police, pictured, said the death toll currently stands at 58 but could rise further

'The inquiry will be open and transparent. Government and ministers will cooperate fully. I anticipate the name of the judge will be announced within the next few days and that an open meeting will be held with residents to help shape the terms of reference.

'It has been decided today that the public inquiry will report back to me personally. As Prime Minister, I will be responsible for implementing its findings.'

More than 250 firefighters tackled the blaze in north Kensington as London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said the scene looked like a 'disaster movie'.

Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police warned that the death toll could rise further.

Mr Cundy said the police investigation into the blaze would look at the building and its refurbishment in 2016 and vowed to prosecute people if there was evidence.

The police are appealing to anyone with pictures or videos of the blaze to hand them in, as they may help establish not only where and how the fire started, but also how it spread.

Victims met the Prime Minister at Number 10 on Saturday evening and man representing the group said they had spoken about their 'demands and what we expect'.

Mrs May said she had fixed a deadline of three weeks for everybody affected to be rehoused locally.

Family liaison officers are working with 52 families, and as soon as victims are identified, their loved ones will be told.

Mr Cundy said: 'I absolutely understand the frustration of why figures haven't been released earlier. The reason for that - at one point, in terms of our casualty bureau, there were 400 people who were reported missing from Grenfell Tower.

'Grenfell Tower itself is 120 flats. We have worked tirelessly over the last four days to truly understand those that we know were there on the night.'

Anger flared in the Kensington community over the weekend - with many protests taking place across the capital - as some accused the authorities of withholding information and responding inadequately.

Dozens of former residents and victims met at the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre in Notting Hill last night.

Mrs May said she has set a deadline of three weeks for all survivors of the fire at the 24-storey tower, pictured following the blaze, to be rehoused

Witnesses described harrowing scenes on the night of the blaze, with residents seen desperately calling for help from their windows

Locals have hit out at the council and the building's managers, claiming the fire 'should never have happened'

One man named Mohammed, who lived in the area for 13 years, said: 'I'm ashamed of this borough. I am absolutely ashamed!'

Mohammed, who now lives in Brentford, said: 'I know the structure of that building, I know the families in that building. I know that should not have happened.

'There's been hundreds and hundreds of fires and nothing like that has ever happened. It's always been contained.'

The council youth worker added: 'People have died in there, babies have died in there, women and children have died in there, entire families have been wiped out.

'I feel ashamed because people are dying unnecessarily. I feel ashamed because they're poor. That's why they died in there, that's sick, it was an eyesore for the rich.'

New MP for Kensington Emma Dent Coad, left with Jeremy Corbyn, has claimed that some of the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster have been sent outside of the borough with just 10 a day to live on

Frustrations over the fatal Grenfell Tower fire boiled over as victims, residents and protesters took to the streets of central London demanding answers over the blaze

Several families of the victims who died in the Grenfell Tower have now hired lawyers to prepare a legal case against the authorities in the wake of the fire.

On Friday hundreds of people gathered outside Kensington town hall in west London wanting to know how the tragedy could have happened.

The frustrated victims and family members then marched to the scene of the blaze at Grenfell Tower.

A separate march was held on Whitehall, where protesters were angry with the response from the Government following Wednesday's disaster.

The group brought the heart of London to a standstill as they tried to march from the Home Office headquarters to Downing Street.

The crowd, shouting 'May must go', 'justice for Grenfell' and 'blood on your hands', were met with a cordon of police officers as they marched up Horse Guards Parade, coming to a stop outside Downing Street.

Mrs May faced angry scenes earlier in the day as she met the group of victims, residents, volunteers and community leaders at St Clement's Church close to the scene of the horrific blaze.

Angry protesters shouted 'murderer' and 'coward' at the Prime Minister as she abandoned the meeting to return to the security of Downing Street. Police broke up a scuffle between members of the crowd as Mrs May's car drove off.
'Grief tourists' taking selfies at the scene of the Grenfell Tower disaster have sparked fury among locals.

People have come from as far as Devon and Manchester to pay their respects to at least 58 who perished when the west London tower block went up in flames this week.

While most have laid flowers, written heartfelt messages and observed peaceful vigils, some have been accused of turning it into a 'tourist site'.

Several people have been seen posing for selfies in Notting Hill, with the charred White City tower block in the distance behind them.

'This is not the time or place to take selfies - in front of a tower block where my friends passed away,' said Lorraine Warrington, who has lived on the nearby Silchester estate her entire life.

'Grief tourists' taking selfies at the scene of the Grenfell Tower disaster have sparked fury among locals. Pictured: A sign warning people not to take selfies

While most have laid flowers (pictured), written heartfelt messages and observed peaceful vigils, some have been accused of turning it into a 'tourist site'

She went on: 'I understand people have come to pay their respects, even if they didn't know anyone we all feel this could happen anywhere.

'But there are some people who just keep taking photographs and filming all the time like tourists, it's disrespectful. At the vigil it was made clear not to do that but they kept photographing.'

Notting Hill resident Jamie Wallace, 57, who grew up in the nearby area, said the desire to document the tragedy was a 'modern disease'.

With dozens still missing and hundreds homeless after their homes went up in flames, Prime Minister Theresa May ordered more boots on the ground at the fire site to help survivors and victims.

Mrs May, who has been criticised for her handling of the tragedy, said the support being given to families was 'not good enough'.

An army of volunteers flocked to the area to help with provisions and items in the aftermath of the tragedy.

As donations have reached breaking point with warehouses in Notting Hill bursting with clothes, people on the ground are asking where the survivors are.

Several couples and have been seen posing for selfies in Notting Hill, with the charred White City tower block (left) in the distance behind them

Notting Hill resident Jamie Wallace, 57, who grew up in the nearby area, said the desire to document the tragedy was a 'modern disease'

With dozens still missing and hundreds homeless after their homes went up in flames, Prime Minister Theresa May ordered more boots on the ground at the fire site

'There is barely anyone who walked out there alive, there are t-shirts, shoes and items but there's not going to be anyone to give them to!' A woman who didn't wished to be named said.

Volunteer Gurismran Singh, 24, from West London, came to the scene to offer free food with his partner Simran Basran, 28.

He said: 'We pitched up here and have been handing out food but where are the survivors?

'We have met a lot of people but not any survivors. We came here to help and we are happy to, but we haven't spoke to any yet.'

Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police warned the death toll, officially at 58, could rise further as he formally identified the first victim as 23-year-old Syrian refugee Mohammad Alhajali.

The Grenfell Tower blaze is currently the deadliest in the capital since the Second World War but residents told MailOnline they fear the true death toll will rise to triple figures.

In the last few days Brooklyn Beckham and Adele are among the celebrities to visit the site.

Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police warned the death toll, officially at 58, could rise further

The Grenfell Tower blaze is currently the deadliest in the capital since the Second World War but residents told MailOnline they fear the true death toll will rise to triple figures

In the last few days Brooklyn Beckham and Adele are among the celebrities to visit the site to pay their respects

The Prime Minister, who 'welled up' after hearing harrowing accounts from people caught up in the deadly fire, said there had been 'huge frustrations' on the ground as people struggled to find information.

More than 250 firefighters tackled the blaze in north Kensington as London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said the scene looked like a 'disaster movie'.

Speaking to the Observer, she said crews did not follow normal practice, adding: 'Had we just followed standard fire brigade procedures, we would not have been able to commit firefighters in and conduct the rescues we did.'

Sixteen bodies have been taken to the mortuary after flames tore through the 1970s tower block, while 14 others have been recovered from the building.

Moving tales from those caught up in the disaster are continuing to emerge, including a five-year-old girl who was swept up by her mother's boyfriend as black smoke filled her seventh floor bedroom.

Thea West, who was rescued by Mickey Paramasivan, told the Sun on Sunday: 'Mickey woke me up. He's my hero. He put me under his dressing gown and ran down the stairs.

'There was smoke everywhere and it was too strong. I could not breathe.'

More than 250 firefighters tackled the blaze in north Kensington as London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said the scene looked like a 'disaster movie'

Mr Cundy said: 'Sadly, at this time there are 58 people who we have been told were in the Grenfell Tower on the night that are missing, and therefore sadly, I have to assume that they are dead.'

'That number 58 may change. I really hope it won't, but it may increase. My commitment to families is that as soon as we can, we will locate and recover their loved ones.

'The reason we had to pause the search and recovery yesterday was for the safety of our staff. We do not want another fatality arising out of this tragedy.'
Ronnie King said requests for urgent meetings were repeatedly turned down by former housing minister Gavin Barwell (pictured)

Government ministers ignored urgent requests for action on fire safety before the horror blaze at Grenfell Tower that has left dozens dead, it has been claimed.

Former chief fire officer Ronnie King said politicians ignored 'evidence and experience' - instead waiting for a 'significant loss of life before things are changed'.

King said requests for urgent meetings were repeatedly turned down by former housing minister Gavin Barwell - who is now facing a raft of criticism after he was appointed Theresa May's chief of staff.

He told the Observer: 'We have had replies, but the replies were to the effect that you have met my predecessor and there were a number of matters that we are looking at and we are still looking at it.'

King, who was chief fire officer for 20 years and is now secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety, added: 'They seem to need a disaster to change regulations, rather than evidence and experience.'

It comes as fire safety experts warned that cladding could pose a deadly threat when discussing the material 18 years ago.

Experts predicted that the material - similar to the cladding used on the Grenfell Tower - could quickly engulf a building, reports The Sunday Telegraph.

Glyn Evans, a Fire Brigades Union Official, warned MPs that the fire will 'spread vertically' when cladding is on the exterior of a building.

He added: 'If you get multi-storey buildings, you will get fire spread up the outside if the cladding will permit it.'

Thirty people have died and more are feared dead after a huge fire destroyed the tower block in north Kensington

The search effort is likely to take several days with the figure of the number lost in the tragic events set to rise as the days go on

Flames engulf the Grenfell tower in the early hours of Wednesday morning

But the Conservatives are set to face increased pressure with MPs from across Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP and Plaid Cymru planning to ask urgent parliamentary questions tomorrow about the review.

Yesterday Theresa May ordered more boots on the ground at the Grenfell Tower fire site after labelling the support given to families in the aftermath of the deadly blaze 'not good enough'.

Police said at least 58 people died, or are missing, presumed dead, after fire ravaged 24-storey Grenfell Tower in the early hours of Wednesday.

Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police warned that the death toll could rise further as he formally identified the first victim as 23-year-old Syrian refugee Mohammad Alhajali.

At 58 casualties, it would make the Grenfell Tower blaze the deadliest in the capital since the Second World War.

A firefighter looks through the remains of the floors in the middle of the building today

As the work on the charred remains continues, in Downing St, some of the victims met with Prime Minister Theresa May

The Prime Minister, who 'welled up' after hearing harrowing accounts from people caught up in the deadly fire, said there had been 'huge frustrations' on the ground as people struggled to find information.

More than 250 firefighters tackled the blaze in north Kensington as London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said the scene looked like a 'disaster movie'.

Speaking to the Observer, she said crews did not follow normal practice, adding: 'Had we just followed standard fire brigade procedures, we would not have been able to commit firefighters in and conduct the rescues we did.'

Sixteen bodies have been taken to the mortuary after flames tore through the 1970s tower block - while 14 others have been recovered from the building.

Moving tales from those caught up in the disaster are continuing to emerge, including a five-year-old girl who was swept up by her mother's boyfriend as black smoke filled her seventh floor bedroom.

As the death toll has risen through the week, scores remain missing, with many of those believed to have not been able to escape the building

As the searches of the public housing complex continue with sniffer dogs and drones, Metropolitan Police commander Stuart Cundy said there was 'a risk that, sadly, we may not be able to identify everybody'. Officers are pictured in the building this morning

Thea West, who was rescued by Mickey Paramasivan, told the Sun on Sunday: 'Mickey woke me up. He's my hero. He put me under his dressing gown and ran down the stairs.

'There was smoke everywhere and it was too strong. I could not breathe.'

Mr Cundy said: 'Sadly, at this time there are 58 people who we have been told were in the Grenfell Tower on the night that are missing, and therefore sadly, I have to assume that they are dead.'

'That number 58 may change. I really hope it won't, but it may increase.

'My commitment to families is that as soon as we can, we will locate and recover their loved ones.

Police officers 'will bring people to justice' if criminal offences have taken place in the Grenfell Tower disaster, said Met commander Stuart Cundy, as it was confirmed at least 58 people are missing presumed dead

'The reason we had to pause the search and recovery yesterday was for the safety of our staff.

'We do not want another fatality arising out of this tragedy.'

Police have appealed to anyone who may have escaped from the building, but has not yet come forward, to make themselves known.

When asked about the search, Mr Cundy replied that the officers had gone 'all the way to the top' of the tower, and explained that the first phase was a visual search.

Mr Cundy said the police investigation into the blaze would look at the building and its refurbishment in 2016 and vowed to prosecute people if there was evidence.

Dogs will be helping the urban search and rescue teams look through the building today, wearing specialist equipment to protect their paws

The dogs are much lighter than humans and can cover a large area quickly

The police are appealing to anyone with pictures or videos of the blaze to hand them in, as they may help establish not only where and how the fire started, but also how it spread.

Victims met the Prime Minister at Number 10 on Saturday evening and man representing the group said they had spoken about their 'demands and what we expect'.

Mrs May said she had fixed a deadline of three weeks for everybody affected to be rehoused locally.

She added: 'I have ordered that more staff be deployed across the area, wearing high visibility clothing, so they can easily be found, dispense advice and ensure the right support is provided.'

Family liaison officers are working with 52 families, and as soon as victims are identified, their loved ones will be told.

A firefighter is pictured in the charred remains of the building on Saturday

Mr Cundy said: 'I absolutely understand the frustration of why figures haven't been released earlier. The reason for that - at one point, in terms of our casualty bureau, there were 400 people who were reported missing from Grenfell Tower.

'Grenfell Tower itself is 120 flats. We have worked tirelessly over the last four days to truly understand those that we know were there on the night.'

Anger flared in the Kensington community over the weekend - with many protests taking place across the capital - as some accused the authorities of withholding information and responding inadequately.

Mr Cundy said: 'The investigation will be exhaustive. My intention is that it will help provide answers.

'If, as we investigate, we identify issues that are a risk to public safety, we will not be waiting until the end of the investigation before we provide that information to the appropriate authorities.

'If there are any safety issues that we and experts that we will be using identify, we will share that immediately.'
Radio shock jock Alan Jones is 'lucky to be alive' after going into septic shock last week.

Jones, 76, spent a week in the intensive care unit at St Vincent's Private Hospital after falling gravely ill to the condition last week.

Jones was told he almost died when he developed septicaemia and his blood pressure dropped dangerously low.

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Australia's talkback king is off air and back in hospital following an infection this week

The 2GB presenter said he considered giving up his radio gig after his serious health scare.

Friends revealed the extent of his condition on Sunday.

'Alan has been told he is lucky to be alive after enduring serious pain and delaying treatment for what quickly became a serious infection,' an unnamed fiend told the Daily Telegraph.

The infection started in Jones' urinary tract before developing into sepsis, Jones' friend told the publication.

The condition reportedly deteriorated when Jones failed to seek treatment.

Radio shock jock Alan Jones is 'lucky to be alive' after going into septic shock last week

Mr Jones personal statement in regards to his health was published on his Facebook page

Taking to social media after the ordeal, Jones revealed he was exhausted.

'I feel like I've gone 15 rounds with Ali,' he said.

'The sepsis has taken over and gone through my whole body.'

Macquarie Media confirmed Jones would have time off from his position at 2GB this week.

Macquarie Media confirmed Jones would have time off from his position at 2GB this week

Several people have gone on to Mr Jones Facebook page and posted get well soon messages

Jones was diagnosed as insulin resistant in 2016, told by doctors he was pre-diabetic.

He lost more than 30kg to stave off the disease.

Jones also underwent four major back and neck surgeries in late 2016, early 2017 to fix a collapsed disc.

Speaking on radio, Jones said the pain he endured was a 'nightmare' but he was 'still in one piece and going nowhere'.

'From March last year I was on a walking stick and pain killers, it was a nightmare. I couldn't walk because of the back pain,' Jones said

'From March last year I was on a walking stick and pain killers, it was a nightmare. I couldn't walk because of the back pain,' he said.

'The pain was massive.

'If you hate someone just make sure they have neck surgery because the wound pain after neck surgery is unbelievable.'
A British tourist shocked holidaymakers when he wore a fake suicide vest and brandished a plastic gun at a stag do in Croatia just two weeks after three men killed eight people in an attack at London Bridge.

The man was spotted with a group of friends, thought to be from Hertfordshire, at the BB Club restaurant on the popular island of Hvar.

He was pictured chatting on the phone as he strolled around in the insulting costume which included khaki trousers, a dark top, what appeared to be a fake suicide vest, a headscarf, and a plastic blow-up machine gun.

Sick joke: A British tourist shocked holidaymakers when he wore a fake suicide vest and brandished a plastic gun at a stag do in Croatia just two weeks after the London Bridge attack

Ashleigh Cowie, a TV reporter who works in Scotland, was enjoying the Croatian sun when she spotted the tasteless costume and shared photos of the man on Twitter.

She said: 'Gobsmacked to see a British stag in Croatia dressed as a terrorist 2 weeks after the Borough Market terror attack.'

One user commented: 'This is not OK! WTF is wrong with people? There's no excuse.'

The group of stags, thought to be from Hertfordshire, reportedly downed beers and laughed about the sick costume.

Sophie Meszar, an NHS physiotherapist, was at the restaurant at the same time as the stag do.

Not funny: The man was spotted with a group of friends, thought to be from Hertfordshire, at the BB Club restaurant on the popular holiday island of Hvar in Croatia

She told the Mirror: 'The mood at the bar changed as soon as they arrived. Everyone was in shock and some felt nervous.

'I'm surprised the restaurant let them in. People were staring and everyone was talking about how disgusting it was to make light of such a serious topic. Especially given the timing.

'The worst part is they were all British. The terror attacks in Britain have been relentless. Surely they knew they'd get a negative reaction. It's really insensitive.'

Insensitive: Ashleigh Cowie, a TV reporter who works in Scotland, was enjoying the Croatian sun when she spotted the tasteless costume and shared photos of the man on Twitter

But the man said he was actually dressed as a Somali pirate rather than a terrorist 'like the ones in London'.

He told the Mirror: 'I didn't think people would react like this. We're going on a boat later. That's why I'm dressed like this. It's just a bit of fun.'

Terrorists Khuram Butt, Yousef Zaghba and Rachid Redouane mowed down pedestrians on London Bridge, crashed their van and went on a stabbing spree before being shot dead by armed officers earlier this month.

They killed eight people and injured dozens in eight minutes of terror on the streets of the British capital.
Flammable cladding that helped the inferno which destroyed the Grenfell tower is already illegal on tall buildings in Britain, Philip Hammond claimed today.

The Chancellor said criminal probes and a public inquiry into the disaster would answer why the controversial material was used.

It emerged today that the cladding installed on Grenfell was not designed for use on buildings taller than 10metres high - a fraction of the 67metre Grenfell block.

The Department for Communities and Local Government said cladding with a flammable core - like that used on Grenfell Tower - was banned on buildings over 18metres high.

A breach of building regulations is a criminal offence with unlimited fines.

Philip Hamomnd told the BBC'd Andrew Marr today that flammable cladding which fuelled the inferno which destroyed the Grenfell tower is already illegal in Britain

Since the devastating blaze, which killed at least 58, suspicion has focused on how and why the cladding on the building both burned and helped the fire spread by acting a chimney.

It has emerged the cladding used was a cheaper option chosen during a recent refurbishment of Grenfell. Spending just 6,000 more would have meant a non-flammable product.

Mr Hammond told Marr: 'My understanding the cladding in question - this flammable cladding that is banned in Europe and the US - is also banned here.

'So there are two separate questions. Are our regulations correct, do they permit the right kind of materials and ban the wrong kind of materials.

'The second question is were they correctly complied with.

'That will be a question the inquiry will look at, it will also be a question the separate criminal investigation will be looking at.'

Since the devastating blaze (pictured), which killed at least 58, suspicion has focused on how and why the cladding on the building both burned and helped the fire spread by acting a chimney

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government told the Sunday Times: 'Cladding using a composite aluminium panel with a polyethylene core should not be used for cladding on a building taller than 18m.'

CORBYN MAKES GRENFELL JIBE AT MAY Jeremy Corbyn (pictured today on Peston on Sunday) has jibed some people care to a 'deeper extent' than others Jeremy Corbyn has jibed some people care to a 'deeper extent' than others in a brutal assault on Theresa May's handling of the Grenfell fire disaster. The Labour leader renewed his demand for the requisitioning of empty homes owned by the wealthy to accommodate the victims. Mr Corbyn said he could not understand why delayed passengers at Heathrow can always be accommodated in free hotels but the hundreds left homeless at Grenfell were not. The Government's bungled handling of the disaster last night forced Mrs May to apologise over aid on the ground and to call in the Red Cross to help. Mr Corbyn told ITV's Peston on Sunday: 'I think everybody cares to an extent - some to a deeper extent and some show empathy in a different way to others. 'The real issue is now about what we as individuals feel - Theresa May, me or anybody else - it's what those people are going through. 'It's unimaginable, you watch people burnt to death, jumping from windows of a flat. 'And then you have a very large number of people looking for somewhere to live now because the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea does not have the capacity for the crisis.' Advertisement

DCLG could not confirm what material was installed on the Grenfell Tower.

But the description given does match the Reynobond PE used when the block was overhauled last year.

The Chancellor vowed the Government would address any issues raised by the public inquiry when it reports.

But he ducked immediate questions, such as whether sprinkler systems should be immediately installed.

Mr Hammond said the inquiry must be allowed to investigate the issues and make its recommendations.

He said: 'My understanding is that the best expert advice is that retrofitting sprinklers may not always be the best technical way of ensuring fire safety in a building.'

Mr Hammond added: 'The commitment that government should make, and I'll make it now, is that when the inquiry produces its evidence, and I don't mean in years time because we are going to ask them to produce interim findings, when it produces its findings, we will act on them.'

Pressed on why the Government did not implement the finding of a report into a 2009 fire in Southwark, Mr Hammond said: 'We've looked at those recommendations and what's happened to them.

'My assessment is that we have responded correctly and appropriately to those recommendations.'

The Mail on Sunday revealed today the cut-price cladding blamed for the Grenfell Tower inferno was installed against the maker's advice that it was too dangerous to use on high buildings.

Manufacturers' instructions say it is 'crucial' that the panels should not be fitted above 10 metres (32ft). Yet contractors installed them on the full 24 floors of the block, reaching 67 metres (220ft).

Housing chiefs in Kensington and Chelsea now face an investigation over the work, carried out at a cost of 2.6 million. Using the dangerously flammable panels instead of a fire-safe option saved just a few thousand pounds.

Mr Hammond was challenged by the BBC's Andrew Marr today on why the material - which is banned in America and Germany - was used on British homes

The contractors, Harley Facades, will also come under scrutiny in the official inquiry. The firm's owners, Ray and Belinda Bailey, have not spoken since the fire, and there was no sign of them yesterday at their 1 million East Sussex home.

Last night, safety experts said the decision to use the panels was 'disturbing' as the cladding contributed directly to flames spreading up and down the tower block and trapping terrified residents inside.

The panels which transformed Grenfell Tower from a safe tower block into a deathtrap were made by the US company Arconic.

Called Reynobond PE, they are made from aluminium and polyethylene, which is also used to make plastic bags and bottles.

Search for bodies and building assessment continues at Grenfell Tower after this week's fire

This brochure from Arconic shows how the firm recommended using an 'incombustible' material on buildings higher than 10m

Documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday from Arconic clearly show that its cladding products containing polyethylene (PE) should not be used on buildings over a height of 10 metres.

Arconic said: 'It is crucial to choose the adapted products in order to avoid the fire spreading to the whole building. Especially when it comes to facades and roofs, the fire can spread extremely rapidly.

'It is especially crucial for public establishments. Buildings are also classified according to their height, which will define which materials are safer to use. Another important rule when it comes to the height of buildings concerns the accessibility of the fire brigade  as soon as the building is higher than the firefighters' ladders, it has to be conceived [sic] with an incombustible material.'

The company provides its customers with a height guidance table. While PE can be used up to 10 metres, products which are fire retardant should be used on buildings up to 30 metres. Above that height  the limit of American fire ladders  Arconic strictly advises cladding panels containing non-combustible substances.

When it comes into contact with fire, the PE plastic melts, drips and burns, which would explain why the fire spread downwards as well as upwards over the exterior of Grenfell Tower.

Around 3,125 square metres of PE panels were used to coat the tower block in a bid to improve its appearance and boost insulation.

Polyethylene has also been linked to a number of rapidly spreading fires around the world and is now generally avoided in the construction of tall buildings overseas. Yet in spite of the dangers it poses, PE remains legal under UK building regulations and it is estimated to have been used in 30,000 buildings.

Last night, fire safety expert Phil Barry, of the CWB consultancy, said: 'It is disturbing and shocking that these panels were used in the tower, contrary to the manufacturer's instructions, especially as you've got Arconic stating it in black and white.

'It also really demonstrates the inadequacy of the building regulations in this country that polyethylene can be used as an ingredient in cladding materials. I simply don't understand why it is still being used in high-rise buildings in the UK.'

The addition of the polyethylene and aluminium panels to Grenfell Tower last year meant that the tower had to undergo a new fire risk assessment.

However, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) responsible for the building refused to release any of the report's contents.

The KCTMO chose the safety consultants that put in the cheapest bid to carry out the work. The unnamed bidder was also chosen because they were happy to challenge the London Fire Brigade over its safety rules, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

In a report to her board of directors, KCTMO official Janice Wray said that a consultancy had been found which 'offered the best quality and also the most competitive price'. Controversially, she added that the winning bidder was 'willing to challenge the fire brigade on our behalf if he considered their [safety] requirements to be excessive'.
Iraqi troops have moved in on the last ISIS stronghold in Iraq's second largest city following an eight month campaign to destroy the terror group in Mosul.

The US-backed army has driven the militants out of all but a handful of neighborhoods after launching a massive operation to retake the city last October.

The extremists are expected to make their last stand in the Old City, a densely populated quarter with narrow, winding alleys where they are holding as many as 150,000 civilians hostage.

Iraqi troops have moved in on the last ISIS stronghold in Iraq's second largest city following an eight month campaign to destroy the terror group in Mosul

The US-backed army has driven the militants out of all but a handful of neighborhoods in Mosul

The extremists are expected to make their last stand in the Old City where they are holding as many as 150,000 civilians hostage

An Iraqi Army sniper fires at an ISIS soldier in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under the terror group's control

ISIS are said to be using these people, living in 'desperate' conditions with little food and water, as human shields.

Lieutenant General Abdul Yar Allah said Iraqi special forces, the army and Federal Police are all taking part in the assault on the Old City which began at dawn on Sunday.

'The initial airstrikes started at around midnight. The security forces started storming parts of the Old City at dawn,' an officer with Nineveh operations command said.

Machine gun fire tore through the dusty landscape and plumes of smoke from missiles rose above the Old City.

Iraqi state TV said leaflets were distributed urging civilians to leave through five 'safe corridors'.

The United Nations said Friday that ISIS may be holding more than 100,000 civilians as human shields in the Old City.

ISIS are said to be using civilians living in 'desperate' conditions with little food and water as human shields

Lieutenant General Abdul Yar Allah said Iraqi special forces, the army and Federal Police are all taking part in the assault on the Old City

Machine gun fire tore through the dusty landscape and plumes of smoke from missiles rose above the Old City

Iraqi state TV said leaflets were distributed urging civilians to leave through five 'safe corridors'

The UN refugee agency's representative in Iraq, Bruno Geddo, said ISIS had been capturing civilians and forcing them into the Old City.

With virtually no food, water or electricity left in the area, the civilians are 'living in an increasingly worsening situation of penury and panic', he said. 'They are surrounded by fighting on every side.'

The Old City is home to the centuries-old al-Nuri mosque where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivered a Friday sermon in 2014 as his group declared an Islamic caliphate in the areas it controlled in Syria and Iraq.

The militants have lost much of that territory over the last three years, and Mosul is their last urban bastion in Iraq.

Since the battle to retake Mosul began nine months ago, an estimated 862,000 people have been displaced from the city, although 195,000 have since returned, mainly to the liberated east of the city.

IS overran Mosul and swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, declaring a self-styled 'caliphate' over areas it ruled.

The United Nations said Friday that IS may be holding more than 100,000 civilians as human shields in the Old City

The UN refugee agency's representative in Iraq, Bruno Geddo, said ISIS had been capturing civilians and forcing them into the Old City

The Old City is home to the centuries-old al-Nuri mosque where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivered a Friday sermon in 2014

The fall of Mosul was the worst defeat that Iraqi forces suffered in the war with IS, and regaining it would cap a major turnaround for security forces, who broke and ran despite outnumbering the jihadists who attacked the second city in 2014.

The Iraqi security forces have since recaptured much of the territory seized by IS, including three cities, and have retaken most of Mosul, the fourth and largest.

IS is also under pressure in its last Syrian stronghold, Raqqa, where US-backed Kurdish-Arab forces have also been advancing in an offensive to retake the city.
A victim who helped to convict her sexually abusive stepfather has taken her own life after fearing he was about to be released from prison, her grieving husband has said.

Leyna Tucker, 47, from Porthleven, Cornwall, waived her anonymity after appearing in court to help jail her 'evil and sadistic' stepfather, Andrew Fulcher, who was convicted of molesting her when she was a child.

Fulcher, 66, was sentenced to four years in jail in July 2015. But Mrs Tucker's husband of eleven years, John Tucker, has now revealed that her body was found at the bottom of cliffs near their home after she worried that her abuser might be released early.

Leyna Tucker, 47, (pictured) waived her anonymity after appearing in court to help jail her 'evil and sadistic' stepfather, who was convicted of molesting her when she was a child

Mr Tucker, 59, a former heating engineer, said: 'She lived with it for 30 years but he's only had to for the last two.

'I think she secretly feared the perpetrator would be out soon. I think she was dreading that phone call from the police.'

He added: 'She couldn't handle it in the end.'

His wife had branded her stepfather 'evil and sadistic' and wanted to unmask him as a child molester, but said she waited until her mother Rose - Fulcher's wife - died before going to the police.

Mrs Tucker's body was discovered on May 13 at the foot of cliffs near to where she lived with her husband and their dog, Gracie.

Fulcher, 66, (pictured arriving to Plymouth Crown Court with an unidentified woman) was sentenced to four years in jail in 2015 after being convicted of sexually abusing Leyna Tucker

Her grieving widower explained how the abuse Mrs Tucker suffered as a child contributed to her suffering bouts of depression throughout her life, and that she had attempted suicide three or four times previously.

But he said it was a 'total shock' when he heard the tragic news.

He said: 'She went out that night, looking forward to having some fun with friends, she was happy.

'She liked to drink and she liked to party - she was always the first one on the dance floor.

'It was a total shock to wake up to a message from her saying she was going to take her own life.'

He added: 'Those were the hardest words to hear. She told me to look after our dog Gracie and that she loved me.'

Mrs Tucker's brave actions saw her stepfather convicted of eight counts of indecent assault against her and another girl between 1980 and 1987.

Mrs Tucker's body was found on May 13 at the foot of cliffs in Porthleven, Cornwall, where she lived with her husband and their dog

She told the court the abuse began when she was 12 or 13 years old, when he would engineer situations where he could touch her inappropriately over her clothes - such as pretending to teach her to play guitar in her bedroom.

Mrs Tucker said then: 'Looking back, my childhood ended the day he came into our small, tight-knit family.'

She waived her anonymity in order to unmask Fulcher as a molester, as well as to speak out to support other victims of sexual abuse.

Her husband has spoken of his pride of being married to the woman who took that courageous step to support others.

'She made my life worth living,' he said. 'Everyone loved her, she was a popular girl, but the court case took it out of her.'

He described her as a caring woman who was happiest when she moved out of her job in hospitality and began working at a residential home.

Mr Tucker said: 'She was caring and enjoyed looking after people - she was finally doing what she loved.'

The couple had booked a 5,000 holiday to the Dominican Republic for Mr Tucker's 60th birthday, which they were both looking forward to.

He said: 'When she was feeling depressed was it would hit her hard but she would hide it from friends and work college because she didn't want to burden them.'

Just four days before her death, Mrs Tucker had said on social media: 'Lucky to have a circle of wonderful friends who, no matter what, are always there.'

Her husband said there was 'so much more' to his wife than her depression.

Mr Tucker said: 'She loved walking our rescue dog Gracie, and loved fishing off the local charter boats.

Her husband has spoken of his pride of being married to the woman who took that courageous step to support others. Pictured: Mrs Tucker outside court after her stepfather's conviction

'We also did a lot of beach fishing where she would do a barbecue whilst we caught them.'

Mr Tucker has now urged other victims of abuse to speak out - but to also take care of themselves in the aftermath.

He said: 'Other abuse victims must come forward and convict their abusers - but they also need to seek counselling, which Leyna could not do.

'I can't praise her enough. She was brave enough to go to the court case, but she wouldn't have counselling afterwards.'

Tributes to Mrs Tucker posted by friends on Facebook in the days after her death described her as 'Wonder Woman'.

One friend wrote: 'Sleep tight Wonder Woman, going to miss you loads.'

Another posted: 'Leyna Tucker please relax now, but you are an amazing lady and always will be xxx my thoughts go out to all the family.'

For confidential support call the Samaritans in the UK on 08457 90 90 90, visit a local Samaritans branch or click here for details.
Armed police will be on hand at the Glastonbury Festival this Wednesday to protect the expected 150,000 music fans in the wake of three terror attacks in three months.

Security across the country - including at the summer solstice event at Stonehenge, Royal Ascot and Wimbledon - will be beefed up after the devastating atrocities in Manchester, London Bridge and Westminster.

The Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for all three of the attacks, has long called on its members and sympathisers to target well-attended events.

Police in charge of protecting the festival - which is being headlined by Ed Sheeran, Radiohead and the Foo Fighters - have advised fans to 'pack light', but not be alarmed.

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Around 150,000 fans are expected to attend the music festival this year. Pictured: A sea of tents at a previous Glastonbury Festival

Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the three terror attacks on Britain over the last three months, has urged its members and supporters to target well-attended events. Pictured: Revelers delighting in the music at 2014's Glastonbury

Armed police are set to be seen at events across the country, including Royal Ascot and Wimbledon. Pictured: Armed police on patrol after the devastating Manchester Arena attack

Ed Sheeran (pictured) will be headlining alongside the Foo Fighters this year

Assistant Chief Constable Caroline Peters, gold commander for the Glastonbury Festival police plan, said: 'There is no intelligence to suggest a threat to Glastonbury Festival but we, along with the event organisers, will be taking extra security precautions this year.

'The policing style might look and feel slightly different this year  there will be a higher visibility of officers on the perimeter of festival helping security with searches.'

Wimbledon, which begins in July, will feature concrete barriers to prevent attendees being mowed down by an attacker, as happened at London Bridge and Westminster.

Royal Ascot, which starts on Tuesday, will also be covered by extra armed police.

The summer solstice celebration at Stonehenge (pictured above) will also be guarded by armed police

Assistant Chief Constable Caroline Peters, gold commander for the Glastonbury Festival police plan, said there is 'no intelligence to suggest a threat' at Glastonbury this year. Pictured: Thom Yorke of Radiohead, who are also headlining the festival

The celebration of the summer solstice next Tuesday, meanwhile, is to be guarded by armed officers as well.

Three men murdered eight people on June 3 by driving into pedestrians along London Bridge before exiting their van to stab people.

On May 22, a man murdered 22 people in Manchester Arena as fans left an Ariana Grande concert.

And on March 22, a man drove into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing a police officer. He murdered five people.
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Hero firefighters who risked their lives trying to save victims of the Grenfell Tower inferno received a standing ovation from the community as they returned to the scene of the blaze today.

As fire engines passed a memorial service near the tower block, scores of residents got to their feet and applauded the emergency service workers as they drove past.

After a minutes silence in memory of those who lost their lives on Tuesday night, the crowd of hundreds of heartbroken mourners joined in solidarity with performers from the Latymer Community Church in a stirring rendition of the hymn Amazing Grace.

Meanwhile heartbroken children have left messages of love to the fathers they will never see again following the deadly inferno at Grenfell Tower.

Father's Day cards filled with touching messages have been left among floral tributes near the scene as sons and daughters bid a tearful goodbye to their relatives.

Many people have shed tears in front of the poignant scene, which has been transformed by flowers and posters over the past few days.

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Residents who gathered for a memorial service near Grenfell Tower today rose to their feet to give a standing ovation to firefighters driving through the scene, pictured

The crowd of residents waved and cheered for the firefighters as they drove past the scene earlier today, pictured

Heartbroken children have left Father's Day cards at the scene of the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze, pictured, as they bid a touching farewell to their relatives

The poignant scene is filled with floral tributes and heartfelt messages of everlasting love for fathers who will never see their children again

Several residents attended an outdoor memorial service to the victims this morning, pictured, with many breaking down into tears after losing friends and family to the blaze

Candles have also been left at the scene, pictured, with at least 58 people believed to have died in the blaze

Many are still struggling to cope with the effects of the tragedy with locals seen comforting each other in the streets around Grenfell Tower, pictured

Tributes from across religions and backgrounds in the community have been left on memorial white boards near the scene

Among the sea of tributes near Grenfell Tower were father's day cards left by devastated relatives among bunches of flowers.

One of them said: To dad, love you loads, never forget you, RIP, Love, your son Lee xxx'

Another, left for grandfather Tony Disson, 65, added: 'This will never be forgotten, this will never be let go.

'We will stay strong because you was strong and never gave up. RIP dad. Love Charlie, Alfie and Harry'

Father-of-four Mr Disson reportedly told a friend in a desperate final phone call: 'Tell my sons that I love them.'

Police say at least 58 people have died or are missing and presumed dead following the blaze, but have warned that figure could still rise.

One card said 'Dad, the man, the myth, the legend', while another read 'Best dad, we love you, we miss you Tony'.

Another message written on a bouquet of flowers said 'Thank you for raising such a beautiful and kind daughter; love you forever, the girls'.

More than 250 firefighters tackled the blaze in north Kensington as London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said the scene looked like a 'disaster movie'.

Anger flared in the Kensington community over the weekend - with many protests taking place across the capital - as some accused the authorities of withholding information and responding inadequately.

It has led to the Red Cross being drafted in to provide 'psychological support' to both victims and the emergency services who tackled the blaze and tried to rescue residents from the flames.

NHS England said 18 patients remained in hospital after the fire including nine who are in critical care.

The hospitals providing care include King's College, Chelsea and Westminster, the Royal Free and St Mary's.

Earlier today dozens of residents attended a service at St Clement's Church near the scene as worshippers remembered those who lost their lives and those who remain missing after the devastating fire.

SOME OF THE FATHERS WHO ARE STILL MISSING FOLLOWING BLAZE Mohamed 'Saber' Neda The 57-year-old is feared dead after after the fire ripped through his flat which was on the 23rd floor. His wife Shakila, 45, and son Farhad, 24, fled the blaze, but his family say he stayed behind because he was injured. Mr Neda, an Afghan migrant minicab driver, was last heard from at 2.20am on Wednesday when he made a frantic phone call to a relative to say that the building was burning and that there was 'no help'. Mohamed 'Saber' Neda (left) lived on the top floor with his wife and son and his family fear he died in the blaze. Tony Disson (right) is also still missing following the blaze Tony Disson The 66-year-old reportedly contacted his family at around 3am on Wednesday when he was inside the building and said: 'Tell my sons I love them.' His son, Lee, posted an emotional appeal on his Facebook page and added that he was 'still praying for him'. Lee, 47, confirmed that his father was still missing. He is reported to have lived on the 10th floor and his wife Cordelia, Lee and three other sons have been searching for him in hospitals. Komru Miah The 82-year-old lived on the 17th floor with his family and he remains missing following the blaze on Wednesday. His family, including his wife Razia Begum, 65, their children, Abdul Hanif, 29, Abdul Hamid, 26, and Hosna Begum Tanima, 22, have also not been seen. A family friend said: 'We are all just waiting and praying for some good news.' Komru Miah (left) has not been seen since the blaze started on Wednesday morning. Steve Power, another father, (right) lived on the 14th floor and reportedly told his relatives that he didn't want to leave his two dogs Steve Power Father-of-five Steve Power, 63, has not been seen since the devastating blaze. He is unaccounted for after reportedly telling his family that he was staying he was staying with his two dogs - believed to be Staffordshire Bull Terriers. His 62-year-old sister Christine Elcock revealed the family is desperate to hear some news. Advertisement

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan attended the service days after he was questioned by angry residents over the response to the tragedy.

Flowers and missing persons posters are taped to the gates of the church, while bags of donations are piled outside the door.

Mr Khan arrived with his wife Saadiya and walked silently into the church, which has been used as a relief centre in the wake of the blaze.

It is the same church where the Prime Minister met a group of victims, residents, volunteers and community leaders on Friday, as an angry crowd outside directed shouts of 'coward' and 'shame on you' towards her.

Theresa May held a meeting in Downing Street the next day with residents she had spoken to at the church.

Bishop of Kensington Graham Tomlin, who is speaking at Sunday's service, said after the meeting that residents left feeling they 'had been listened to'.

One message addressed to Tony Disson, pictured, read 'We will stay strong because you was strong and never gave up'

A wall of posters of the missing and dead has also been set up at the scene, with tributes written all over them, pictured

One card, shaped like a heart, pictured, was addressed to 'Tony', calling him the 'best dad' and saying they will miss him

A young boy is pictured laying flowers at a memorial site next to Latymer Church at the scene near Grenfell Tower

Many have been reduced to tears, pictured, after the deadly blaze, which has rocked the community

The British Red Cross - known for providing food, water and shelter to victims of natural disasters, will hit the streets of north Kensington to support both the survivors of the blaze and the local community.

It comes as under-fire Prime Minister Theresa May has admitted the response to the tragedy has 'not been good enough'.

The organisation - part of the International Red Cross - provides a range of services from ambulance support, first aid and setting up communications.

After the fire, the British Red Cross supported residents at several rest centres in the area and set up a fundraising appeal.

They are now all working at one large centre at Westway where volunteers were today seen handing out aid to locals who have been evacuated from their homes.

In a particularly touching moment, a female worker was seen helping two young boys who were arriving at the venue.

One of the signs left at one of the memorial sites in north Kensington has demanded 'safe homes for all', pictured

Locals have continued to display their grief with many seen embracing each other in the street as the community continues to stick together

One man is pictured appearing to wipe a tear from his eye as he surveys the mountains of flowers and tributes

Another woman leaves a candle on the street in front of the floral tributes as she pays her respects to the victims

One man appeared to bring his son to the site, pictured, so he could leave a bouquet of flowers in tribute to those who perished in the blaze

The crowd who gathered for the memorial service near Latymer Church looked sombre as they remembered the victims

The Red Cross said: Our volunteers are trained in providing practical and emotional support.

We are working with the local authority to make sure that anyone affected by the terrible incident is supported at this time.

To date, 66 Red Cross volunteers have been deployed since the incident started.

We have launched a fundraising appeal at the request of Kensington and Chelsea council.

Volunteer emergency responder Phil Osler, reflecting on the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, said: 'The community spirit is incredible, absolutely incredible,' said

'There is a constant stream of people coming in with offers of help  clothing, toiletries, food  everybody coming together, regardless of background or religion.

Missing person posters, pictured, continue to be put up around the area as families plead for help finding their loved ones

Buildings have become covered in floral tributes, pictured, after thousands of people have visited the scene over the past few days

One woman was pictured looking tearful as she clutched a bouquet of flowers she brought to lay at the scene

A firefighter is pictured walking past a church near Grenfell Tower, where the community has come together to honour the emergency services

A woman is pictured wiping a tear from her eye at the memorial service, where residents hung their heads out of respect for the dead

A child is pictured pointing at something among the tributes as more and more offerings are left in support of the victims

Mayor of London Sadiq Kahn, pictured, attended a local church service to remember those who lost their lives or remain missing

'At one point I was talking to a rabbi, an imam, and a pastor. Everyone is there for one thing and that is to help.'

He was awoken around 4am on Wednesday morning by a phone call saying his help was needed.

The 61-year-old was among the first group of Red Cross volunteers to arrive at a rest centre in north Kensington.

'When we got to the rest centre we set about talking to people, making sure they had plenty of water and drinks,' he explained.

'The main thing is listening. You may think you know what someone needs, but you dont. Only they know, so you ask them, and you listen really carefully to what they say.

'It may be you think they need clothing, or this and that, but when you listen to them, what they really need at that moment is a cup of tea and someone to talk to.'

How MailOnline readers can donate to a charity helping the Grenfell Tower fire victims The Grenfell Tower fire has prompted an extraordinary outpouring of support from Britons as they try to help the victims both financially and with gifts of food, clothing and other essentials. And MailOnline readers can donate to a charity co-ordinating efforts to help those whose lives were devastated by clicking here. The money will go to the Kensington & Chelsea Foundation, the company's local charity partner. The foundation is coordinating a major funding appeal with support from London Funders and the London Emergency Trust Fund, and has set up a donation page on its website. Every penny raised on the site will go directly to charities funding the relief effort in the local community, both for those who lost loved-ones and those who lost their homes and all their possessions. Readers can also donate via cheque. Please make cheques payable to 'The Kensington & Chelsea Foundation' and send to: Grenfell Tower Appeal, The Kensington & Chelsea Foundation, 111117 Lancaster Road, London W11 1QT. The gutted block is just over a mile from the MailOnline and Daily Mail offices in Kensington, West London, known as Northcliffe House. Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) chairman Lord Rothermere and chief executive Paul Zwillenberg last night announced a 100,000 donation to the charity. Advertisement

Dara Leonard, a volunteer with the Red Cross London emergency response team, said: 'It was pandemonium around the front of the rest centre. The worlds media is there, people are crying, shouting, they are exhausted and anxious.'

'It can be easy to think: how are we going to manage this? But it is the type of scenario that we train and prepare for with local authorities and emergency services.

'The first thing we bear in mind is that we are there to support people  listening to what they say. Sometimes that means letting them vent, on occasions it is a tsunami of emotion.'

Heartbroken mourners from across the area wept at a prayer service for the victims of the tower tragedy earlier.

One distraught woman who lost her granddaughter in the inferno was so overcome with emotion that she had to leave the memorial service in tears - stopping only for hugs from fellow mourners desperate to console her.

In another touching display of the grief that has struck at the heart of the west London community, a young woman embraced the older woman sitting next to her as she sobbed into a tissue.

The church threw open its doors and moved its stage outside as well as hundreds of chairs in a bid to make its Sunday service open to everyone at a time when north Kensington has been left broken.

Religious leaders said they had been overwhelmed with the generosity of those in the local area and further afield who have raised thousands for the people of Grenfell Tower.

Others have offered their time and skills or have given food and other supplies for those who have been left with nothing in the devastating blaze.

At the service, Latymer Community Church leader Jackie Blanchflower told the congregation, which comprised both young and old: Weve been working to help as many people as have needed our support. As the t-shirt left on our prayer wall left by a fireman says: "We did our best."

Were a small congregation here that seeks to have a big part reaching out to our precious community.

We are so grateful that others are standing with us at our time of need.

Wherever you are today in your grief, we have all experienced such terrible emotions and strength of emotion.

Whether were still in shock, whether were in denial, whether were angry or in despair, whether we just have that overwhelming sadness that I know Ive felt seeing the tower and seeing the photos.

It is okay to have this strong emotion, its a normal response in a time of such grief and horror.

But today we want to bring these emotions to God. The God who sees us, the God who hears us, who gathers up our tears in a bucket - and theres a lot of buckets being filled.

Meanwhile the new MP for Kensington has claimed that some of the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster have been sent outside of the borough with just 10 a day to live on.

The Prime Minister said there had been 'huge frustrations' on the ground as people struggled to find information.

After a meeting lasting nearly two hours in Downing Street with victims, residents, community leaders and volunteers, Mrs May said she had heard their concerns.

Red Cross charity workers have been brought in to support survivors and the community after the local response was described as 'not good enough'

Volunteers, pictured left and right, said 'people are crying, shouting, they are exhausted and anxious' as they struggle with their emotions in the wake of the tragedy

The charity provides a range of support services, from access to food and water to providing shelter and communications links to reunite people

The Red Cross have been based at the WestWay Sports Centre and have been supervising the collection and distribution of donations from the local community while also helping provide information to those looking for loved ones

She added: 'The response of the emergency services, NHS and the community has been heroic.

'But, frankly, the support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough.'

Labour MP Emma Dent Coad wrote in a letter to the Home Secretary: 'I have been told that some people who have lost their homes have been sent out of borough and are being given only 10 per day subsistence. If this is accurate it must be addressed without delay.'

The newly-elected Labour MP called for all those affected by the blaze to be given named officials to deal with, and said support should be available round the clock.

She also called on Amber Rudd to ensure the families of those who died are linked up with free funeral services that are being offered by organisations who want to help.

Mrs May said money from the 5million emergency fund to help victims buy food and clothes was already being handed out and more funding would be allocated if needed.

It came as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said today the local authority 'did not have the resources' to deal with an emergency of that scale.

He told ITV's Peston on Sunday that the community and emergency services were 'incredible' in tackling the fire and its aftermath.

He added: 'What was less effective was the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, because they seemed to lack the resources to deal with a crisis of this magnitude in their borough and yet they are the country's wealthiest borough.'

Mr Corbyn also urged the Government to consider requisitioning or using compulsory purchase orders for flats that are deliberately kept vacant, in a process known as land-banking.

He said: 'Occupy it, compulsory purchase it, requisition it - there's a lot of things you can do.

'But can't we as a society just think, all of us, it's all very well putting our arms around people during the crisis but homelessness is rising, the housing crisis is getting worse and my point was quite a simple one.

'In an emergency, you have to bring all assets to the table in order to deal with that crisis and that's what I think we should be doing in this case.'

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell backed calls for requisitioning, saying he would have done 'whatever necessary' to house families displaced by the fire.

Scores of people attended the service near Latymer Church which was used as a refuge centre in the wake of the fire

Members of the community rose to their feet as they prayed for the victims and survivors of the tragedy, pictured

One woman put up a poster showing 160 stick figures to show the scale of the '160 people confirmed dead by the community'

The outpouring of emotion at the tribute wall lead to heartbreaking scenes, with more and more people visiting to pay their respects to the victims throughout the day

The new MP for Kensington Emma Dent Coad, left with Jeremy Corbyn, has claimed that some of the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster have been sent outside of the borough with just 10 a day to live on

Local resident Nadia Isla (pictured), revealed that some of the survivors have been offered a place to stay in high-rise hotels and had 'freaked out' over the offer

Speaking to Sky News' Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Mr McDonnell said: 'People would not be living in high-rise blocks, unsafe conditions and some of them very poor quality, if we didn't have the housing crisis and part of that housing crisis is as a result of allowing housing particularly in London for use for speculative gain rather than for housing need.

TV PRESENTER: 'I'LL NEVER FORGET THE VICTIMS' SCREAMS' Presenter George Clarke revealed he witnessed the tragedy from his home nearby Television presenter George Clarke has spoken of witnessing the horrific tragedy at Grenfell Tower from his home just yards away. Clarke, who fronts Channel 4's Amazing Spaces, said he would 'never forget the screams' of residents trapped in the inferno. He also revealed how one woman who recognised him screamed at him to 'get her out' while he saw three people jump from the 24-storey burning building. The 43-year-old told the Express: 'I was screaming and shouting trying to get people to get out, because I could see the fire spreading so quickly.' Speaking about the woman pleading with him to get the fire brigade to rescue her, he added: 'I was going, 'They'll come and get you, they'll come and get you'. The services didn't even get to the 14th floor. She didn't get out. I can tell you now she didn't get out.' Mr Clarke said he would never forget a fireman who had been fighting the blaze for eight hours and 'had never seen a look like that in a man's eyes in my life'. He added: 'He was gone. He was absolutely gone.' Advertisement

'Now what Jeremy said is if we've got a crisis like that, we need urgent measures and if there are empty properties nearby, they should be used and councils have the power to do that already.'

Mr McDonnell dismissed the suggestion that hotel rooms would be cheaper and quicker for families, as he said people were sometimes placed in 'inappropriate and unsuitable' settings.

He added: 'I'll tell you, I would have done whatever necessary, whatever necessary to house those families what they'd been through and if that needed requisitioning of local properties, yes if necessary because they have suffered so much.'

Commons leader Andrea Leadsom said Mrs May had decided to send in senior civil servants to deal with the aftermath so 'issues can be addressed much more quickly and with greater experience and precision'.

Asked if she felt a sense of shame over the disaster, she told BBC One's Sunday Politics: 'Totally, yes, of course, of course.

'We all think what should we have done, could we have done? It's just unbearable. This cannot happen in the 21st Century and yet it has.'

Others said survivors had 'freaked out' after being offered temporary accommodation in other high-rise blocks, with families refusing to enter them.

Nadia Isla, who lives close to the 24-storey tower in west London, revealed one of the men who escaped the burning building was offered a place to stay in a hotel.

But she said he refused to go there with his children because they were frightened to enter a tall building similar to the one they dramatically fled.

Speaking just yards from the scene, Ms Isla said: 'The survivors are not watching the news. They don't want to see their houses burning.

'They don't want to see it so they don't know that you are doing all this kind stuff.'

She then showed a photograph of a man who lived in the building and said he was offered a place to live in a high-rise hotel.

Ms Isla added: 'They wanted to put him in a building which is a high-rise building. He freaked out because he doesn't want to put his children in a high-rise building - would you?

'They have been trying to re-house them in the building but they [the survivors] do not want to go in it. Would you? Do you blame them?

'He freaked out, he said he does not want to put my children in that building.

'His wife, I hugged her, she cried in my arms for five minutes.'

Residents have been seen breaking down into tears at the scene, pictured, following the deaths of dozens of people in the fire

Red Cross workers will provide 'psychological support' to survivors and their families after Theresa May said the initial response 'has not been good enough'

So far dozens of victims, pictured, have been identified after the tower block blaze, with fears raised the death toll could still rise

She then showed a picture of the hotel where the survivors were offered a place to stay and again described it as being a 'high-rise tower'.

FIREFIGHTER 'WILL NEVER FORGET THE FACES OF CHILDREN' Damian Magee said he will be forever haunted by the faces of children he could not save One of the first firefighters to arrive at Grenfell Tower has revealed he will be forever haunted by the faces of the children he could not save. Damian Magee said he saw youngsters banging against glass windows in a desperate plead for help and looking at him like he was a superhero. He told the Sunday People: We couldnt reach them. The horror of what I saw will stay with me for the rest of my life. Mr Magee, who has been in the emergency services for 20 years, added: These little boys were looking at me when I turned up in my superhero outfit, but I knew we couldnt save them. The firefighter, 45, who works out of Whitechapel Fire Station in east London, said the call came in at 2am and ended up running half a mile just to reach the building. He added: The heat coming off it was incredible but the thing that haunts me now is the screams. Advertisement

Ms Isla said: 'The wife said 'I don't want to go higher than the first floor'.'

Cladding used on Grenfell Tower blamed for spreading the blaze is banned in Britain, Philip Hammond has said.

The Chancellor said a criminal investigation would examine whether building regulations had been breached when the block was overhauled.

Mr Hammond said the public inquiry set up by the Government following the tragedy would also examine if rules had been broken.

He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: 'My understanding is the cladding in question, this flammable cladding which is banned in Europe and the US, is also banned here.

'So there are two separate questions. One, are our regulations correct, do they permit the right kind of materials and ban the wrong kind of materials? The second question is were they correctly complied with?

'That will be a subject that the inquiry will look at. It will also be a subject that the criminal investigation will be looking at.'

He added retro-fitting tower blocks with sprinklers is 'not always the best way to protect them from fires'.

The Chancellor said the Government wants to see the technical advice before deciding whether to go ahead with such a move.

Leading fire safety experts have said it is not always necessary to retro-fit sprinklers to make a building safe, according to Mr Hammond.

He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: 'If the conclusion of a proper technical evaluation is that that is the best way to deal with the problem, then of course.

'But my understanding is that the best expert advice is that retro-fitting sprinklers may not always be the best technical way of ensuring fire safety in a building.

'If it is, it should be done, but let's get the technical advice, properly evaluated by a public inquiry, and then let's decide how to go forward.

'If there is something that needs to be done to make buildings safe, it will be done.'

Told that technical advice is not needed to understand that sprinklers would help tackle fires, he replied: 'These are technical questions.'
A university has mistakenly sent an email to hundreds of people containing highly sensitive information about students who were having suicidal thoughts.

The email from the University of East Anglia had a spreadsheet attached which disclosed personal details of 40 students with extenuating circumstances.

The reasons given for needing an extension on their work included suicidal thoughts, sexual assault, and serious family illnesses and bereavements.

There were also multiple entries for anxiety, depression and other mental health conditions.

Some of the students, who are studying at the University of East Anglia (pictured), needed an extension on their work

The university later posted a tweet to apologise 'unreservedly' for sending the email to 320 students

The affected students were from the university's School of Art, Media and American Studies (AMA) and were identified by their full names and university ID numbers.

They have expressed their anger and humiliation at the breach of their privacy after learning the email was sent to 320 American Studies undergraduates.

Megan Baynes, 23, an American literature with creative writing student, described the university's action as 'a total violation of trust', and added that she is 'angry beyond belief'.

She was included in the spreadsheet due to a family member's illness, and first found out what had happened when a friend messaged her.

Ms Baynes said she 'felt sick' when she realised the extent of the information leak.

She added: 'I trusted my department to handle my extenuating circumstances in a sensitive manner, and instead they have quite literally put them on show for the world to see, it's humiliating.'

Sophie Atherton, 22, an American studies student said the university have told her they are investigating the situation.

However, she said: 'It shouldn't have happened in the first place.'

She described the department as 'not very supportive at all', and said that their response to the data leak was 'not good enough'.

She added: '[I'd like to see] handwritten apologies to every single person on that list.

'I know that the university is being watched by the Office of Academic Advising, and the Competition and Markets Authority, and this is just another thing that is coming from that specific department.

'There are so many flaws in that department (AMA) as a whole.

'I've worked very closely with someone in the students' union advice team for the last 15 months.

'I actually sent it across to him and he said: "They've violated data protection and you're well within your rights to make a complaint", which I think I'm very likely to do next week.'

The spreadsheet contains nine entries for students in their first year of study, 22 for second year students, and 14 third years.

In addition, one student is listed as a continuing finalist from 2015-2016.

The email was received by students on Friday and sent from a UEA member of staff's university email address.

A second email was sent shortly afterwards, from the same account, which said: 'You may have erroneously received an email with a spreadsheet attachment.

'Could you please delete this without opening/reading.'

Other students have shared their disgust at what happened on Twitter.

Maisie Greenwood tweeted the @uniofeastanglia to say: 'You should be reaching out to them! Absolutely disgusting, someone needs to be held accountable. Who does your data safety training.'

The university also sent an email asking people to 'delete' the message before opening and reading the message

Staff at the university (pictured) have now apologised after it accidentally sent the personal email

Khal Botterill wrote: 'I think you need to contact each and every student on this list and make them aware of the breach in their privacy.'

The UEA has since apologised 'unreservedly' and referred itself to the Information Commissioner.

In a statement, they said the email was 'mistakenly sent to 320 American studies undergraduates'.

A UEA spokesman said: 'This clearly should not have happened and the university apologises unreservedly.

'The university has launched an urgent inquiry and is offering support to anyone affected.'

UEA students' union undergraduate education officer Theodore Antoniou-Phillips said: 'This is a shocking and utterly unacceptable data breach that should never have happened.

'There are questions the university needs to answer both about this case itself and the antiquated systems that result in cases like this being logged on rudimentary Excel files in the first place.

'It is particularly galling given that students are required to divulge sensitive information to have an extenuating circumstances upheld.

'The least the university can do is keep their data safe.'
Seven West Media paid $100,000 to the family of murdered drug kingpin Carl Williams for their participation in a story for the Sunday Night program.

The company paid for Williams' prison diaries and a fee for Roberta Williams giving an interview for the flagship news show, reports The Age.

The story aired in July, 2016 and was polarising as it painted the slain gangster as a 'soft and gentle' man.

The money was believed to be paid to Sydney-based company linked to the manager of Roberta Williams.

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Seven West Media paid $100,000 to the family of murdered drug kingpin Carl Williams (pictured) for their participation in a story for the Sunday Night program

The company paid for Williams' prison diaries and a fee for Roberta Williams (pictured) giving an interview for the flagship news show.

Williams was a main figure in Melbourne's infamous gangland wars and was found guilty of murdering four people.

The Sunday Night episode featured Williams' ex-wife and daughter Dhakota, who painted him as a kind man who was only trying to protect his family.

Home videos and photos were shown with words from Dhakota who said 'he did it for his family'.

The program described him as 'a father missing his daughter' as recorded prison phone calls were played.

The decision to pay the family angered police who spent over a decade trying to catch the drug lord.

Former Victoria Police detective inspector Jim O'Brien told The Age he didn't agree with Roberta Williams being paid, saying he was 'sick to death' of her.

'I just wish she'd crawl back under the rock she came from,' he said.

The Sunday Night episode featured Williams' ex-wife and daughter Dhakota, who painted him as a kind man who was only trying to protect his family

Old family photos and videos were shown during the Sunday Night episode combined with words from Dhakota who said 'he did it for his family

In the program Roberta Williams said she was unaware of Carl's criminal behaviour until his arrest in 2003, something Jim O'Brien disputes.

'She was as much of a gangster as Carl ever was.

The whole thing with the likes of her and her type is they are quite happy to live off other people's misery. This flies in the face of every poor bugger who works and pays taxes.'

Roberta Williams was declared bankrupt in November, 2016 and has failed to supply legal documents stating her financial status.
The girlfriend of missing airman Corrie McKeague has announced the birth of his baby girl - on Father's Day.

April Oliver, 21, posted a picture of her cradling the newborn as she lay smiling in a hospital bed.

The tot, who has not yet been named, could be seen sleeping peacefully with her tiny hand outstretched from beneath a blanket.

April didn't confirm when the baby was born and simply posted two hearts and a unicorn emoji alongside the heartwarming image on her Facebook page today.

April Oliver, 21, posted a picture of her cradling the newborn as she lay smiling in hospital. The tot, who has not yet been named, could be seen sleeping peacefully wrapped in a blanket

She also changed her Facebook cover photo to feature the image.

Around a dozen people had 'liked' the picture just an hour after she posted it, including the little one's proud grandmother Nicola Urquhart.

April, from Downham Market, Norfolk, was hospitalised two weeks ago after doctors feared the stresses of Corrie still being missing may harm the baby.

She revealed she was expecting Corrie's child two weeks after his disappearance last September.

But the RAF gunner's father Martin McKeague claimed last month that Corrie knew she was pregnant days before he went missing.

Mr McKeague's father wished April 'all the best' this evening following the birth of his first grandchild.

Mr McKeague, 48, told how the baby girl was born on Wednesday.

However, he didn't find out until a day later when a senior member of the RAF told him the good news on Thursday.

Speaking today, Martin said: 'I'm not in the business of starting rumours and felt it was up to April Oliver to announce her own child's date of birth.

'I can only imagine that she's waited four days until Father's Day to make this announcement because she must have been recovering.

'We wish mother and baby all the best.

'As I've said before, Corrie knew about April Oliver's pregnancy before he disappeared. That's a matter of police record.'

Mr McKeague revealed that none of his family members had been in touch to tell him about his son's baby girl being born.

He does not believe the newborn has been named yet, but he said he couldn't be completely sure.

Martin added: 'When I met with a senior member of the RAF on Thursday, he asked me if I'd heard the news, to which I replied, 'No'.'

April, who had been dating Corrie for around five months before he went missing, previously shared a poignant black and white image of her baby bump.

In a emotional message to her unborn baby, she wrote: 'You bring me so much pain yet just as much joy.

Missing airman Corrie McKeague pictured with April before he went missing. 'Your daddy would be so proud of you, my little one and would love you as much as I do,' April wrote online

'Your daddy would be so proud of you, my little one and would love you as much as I do.

'Corrie will be part of both of us forever, no one can take that away.'

Corrie, 23, was last seen in the early hours of Sunday, September 24, after a night out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Police specialists believe that Corrie is in a landfill site in Milton, Cambs., after CCTV footage last saw him entering a refuge area behind a Greggs in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Corrie's mobile phone was tracked following a similar route to that of a bin lorry, which was found to have carried weight akin to a human body.

Police have been searching the landfill for more than 14 weeks, and have sifted through 4,000 tonnes of waste.

Police confirmed this week that they will be deciding on whether to carry on with the investigation at the landfill site after finding no trace of Corrie during the search.

The huge 1m search could move to an incinerator site if his body is not found in the site.

Writing on the Find Corrie Facebook page on Friday, Nicola, 48, said: 'The process the police are using, without going into too much detail, is they pick an amount of rubbish up with heavy mechanical machinery and then lay it on the ground for the search team police officers to rake through, looking for Corrie, but also looking for items as small as his keys or phone.

'Whilst doing this they continue to look for Greggs branded rubbish along with items that can date and give a location, this all takes time.

'However it does mean they would not miss Corrie if he is there.

'Although this sounds like a basic and simple way of searching It, so many other possible things have been considered and a huge amount of work has been carried out to ascertain there viability such as probes for certain gases, ground penetrating radar, specialist dogs have been used where appropriate.

'We still feel confident that if Corrie is in the landfill the methods Suffolk Police are using will find him.'

Corrie is originally from Fife in Scotland and moved down to Suffolk to live at RAF Honington where he worked as a gunner and team medic in the air force.

Anyone with information about his disappearance is asked to call the incident room at Suffolk Police on 01473 782019.
Donald Trump has been criticized by Moscow after going on the attack against Cuban leaders and flagging an undoing of changes made by Barack Obama.

The Russian Foreign Ministry took aim at Trump's decision to freeze a detente with Cuba and his verbal outburst the Caribbean island's leaders.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Sunday Trump is: 'returning us to the forgotten rhetoric of the Cold War.'

The statement added: 'It's clear the anti-Cuba discourse is still widely needed. This can only induce regret.'

Donald Trump has been criticized by Moscow after going on the attack against Cuban leaders and flagging an undoing of changes made by Barack Obama

Russia's statement came after Trump said on Friday he was 'cancelling the last administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba' and putting new travel and trade restrictions in place.

'They fought for everything and we just didn't fight hard enough, but now those days are over. Now we hold the cards. We now hold the cards,' he told a crowd in Little Havana, Miami.

Trump said the US will not negotiate a new deal with Cuba until it releases the political prisoners it claims it does not have, turns over fugitives from American justice, hands over military criminals, respects freedom of assembly and expression and holds free and fair elections.

The ban on tourism will be upheld until that time and American companies will be barred from engaging in financial transitions with Cuba's military-operated businesses, he said.

Donald Trump gestures after signing an executive order on Cuba policy while surrounded by Republicans on Friday night

Vladimir Putin's Foreign Ministry attacked Trump's policy changes in a statement, saying the reality television host is: 'returning us to the forgotten rhetoric of the Cold War'

President Donald Trump said Friday that he was 'cancelling the last administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba' and putting new travel and trade restrictions in place

The former reality television host also announced plans to crack down on Americans who contribute to the Cuban military's coffers by spending money at their establishments when they visit the country.

Commercial flights and cruise liners will still be allowed to ferry Americans to the island nation 90 miles south of Florida, but passengers will face the threat of a Treasury audit if they do not have a government-approved reason to be there.

Trump will not end an Obama-era policy that allows American visitors to bring back all the rum and cigars they can manage if they do make it down.

And he is not closing down the American embassy Obama opened in Havana - a pillar of the deal Trump claimed was so horrible for the US.

Obama worked to repair relations between the US and Cuba. He is pictured with Raul Castro in March 2016

Anti-Trump protesters who want open relations between the US and Cuba are pictured in Miami on Friday

Obama traveled to Havana last March to solidify a detente between the US and Cuba that his administration negotiated in 2014.

The former President delivered a speech on human rights and persuaded Cuban dictator Raul Castro to appear with him at a joint press conference.

Trump was not especially interested in US policy on Cuba early on in his campaign. He took a hardline on the issue in the general election after he was accused of violating the embargo as a businessman.

Under Trump's new policy, Americans will no longer be able to travel to Cuba individually unless they fall into one of 12 previously established categories that will continue to include people-to-people but only if they are part of a group with a set schedule.

Americans will no longer be able to travel to Cuba individually unless they fall into one of 12 previously established categories that will continue to include people-to-people but only if they are part of a group with a set schedule.
Alex Jones' ex-wife pleaded with Megyn Kelly not to air her interview with the controversial InfoWars host.

Kelly Jones reportedly approached NBC producers this week ahead of the highly anticipated interview with her ex-husband, which is due to air this Sunday, asking them not to run the piece, 'although I did express my strong concerns that I did deserve some air time if they were going to be talking to Alex', she said.

The couple have gone through a bitter divorce and high profile custody battle.

Alex Jones' ex-wife, Kelly Jones (pictured) allegedly threatened to trash Megyn Kelly in an op-ed if she wasn't included in her interview with the controversial InfoWars host

Kelly's (right) highly anticipated interview with Alex Jones (left) is due to air tonight. Kelly Jones has since denied the claim that she threatened the host

Kelly reportedly turned down Alex Jones' (both pictured) ex-wife's request tp appear on the segment, fearing it would be nothing more than a hit piece

A source at NBC told Mediate that producers of Megyn Kellys show reportedly told Ms Jones that it was too late to include her in the interview, as the segment had already been shot. They also said the interview was going to run,

The decision whether or not to include Ms Jones in an additional piece was left to Kelly, who decided to omit her.

She reportedly told NBC execs that she feared giving Ms Jones air time would amount to nothing more than a 'hit piece.'

'I said I wasnt going to do a hit piece. Im not going to a hit piece,' she told them, according to Mediate.

Jones told DailyMail.com she had a 'civil and genial' conversation with Kelly and her producer and suggested that she have some air time.

'This is before I learned she was going to use my custody case and my children's grief as a lure to get him before the camera,' she alleged.

The revelation came just days after Alex Jones released the 'secret audio' he recorded of Kelly over the course of 14 hours last week, when the NBC host interviewed the radio personality and conspiracy theorist in his Texas studio.

Alex Jones (above) released a second secret audio' of Megyn Kelly on Friday afternoon after hyping up the recording, taken during their NBC interview last week

What's the fuss: The 30-minute audio featured Kelly fawning over Jones and saying how impressed she became with him after following his child custody hearing(above in Texas on June 6 when Kelly conducted the interview)

The 30-minute recording went up on Jones' YouTube page early Friday, after he spent the better part of Thursday talking up the astonishing and shocking things that the NBC host said to him when the cameras were off.

A quick listen however proved that the tape is anything but damning, featuring audio of Kelly from just a single phone conversation that lasts less than a minute.

The exchange also gives the appearance that the NBC host and conspiracy theorist had a very cordial and professional relationship, which while admittedly shocking is not the revelation which Jones and the InfoWars staff seemed to be teasing earlier in the week.

'IT'S NOT GOING TO BE A HIT PIECE, PROMISE' In his video, Jones played a recording that appeared to be from a phone conversation with Kelly. This is what it says: 'All I can do is give you my word and tell you if there's one thing about me, I do what I say I'm gonna do, and I don't double-cross.' 'You know you just became very fascinating to me. I just always thought you were this maybe, one-dimensional guy, like this is your thing' 'My goal is for your listeners and the left - you know, who will be watching some on NBC - to say, "Wow, that was really interesting."' 'And then the next time I wanna get somebody, they're gonna say, "Look what you did to Alex Jones!" It's not going to be some gotcha hit piece, I promise you that.' Advertisement

An NBC News spokesperson said in a statement on Friday: 'Despite Alex Jones' efforts to distract from and ultimately prevent the airing of our report, we remain committed to giving viewers context and insight into a controversial and polarizing figure, how he relates to the president of the United States and influences others, and to getting this serious story right.'

However, the furor over the upcoming interview does appear to have sent NBC execs into a panic over the negative publicity.

They reportedly spent the whole of Monday in crisis meetings to work out how to handle the backlash from parents angry that Kelly has given a platform for Jones' ludicrous claims - including that the Sandy Hook shootings were faked.

'It's a s**t show,' a source told Page Six. 'No one wants to withstand a whole week of criticism over this. There are a number of people who want to pull the interview.'

Kelly's woes began when she tweeted a clip of the interview in which she presses Jones about his claims that Sandy Hook was a 'false flag' government operation.

The mother of one of the children killed in the 2012 shooting took Kelly to task, asking why she was giving publicity to Jones; Chelsea Clinton soon joined in.

And then JP Morgan Chase dropped its advertising from all NBC shows until after the interview's proposed airing date, on Father's Day, and things got serious, Page Six said.

Kelly pressed Jones on his claims that the Sandy Hook shootings were faked. Bereaved mom Nelba Marquez-Greene (seen center in 2014) took Kelly to task online, sparking a furor

However, another insider told Page Six that NBC had hoped for some kind of controversy in order to promote the channel.

'No one expected sponsors to pull out, but this is why they hired Megyn,' the source claimed. 'They expect to lose and gain viewers and they want the buzz.'

And a third insider said despite 'a lot of confusion,' NBC does not plan to pull the interview now - a claim that NBC News chairman Andy Lack was also heard making on Tuesday at the Mirror Awards.

Kelly was also present at the awards - which were perhaps a small bright spot for the presenter, who was told that day she had been dropped by Sandy Hook Promise.

She had been expecting to host the fundraising gala for the charitable organization in Washington, DC on Wednesday.

But the organization said in a statement: 'Sandy Hook Promise cannot support the decision by Megyn or NBC to give any form of voice or platform to Alex Jones and have asked Megyn Kelly to step down as our Promise Champion Gala host.

NBC has decided that it will air the interview, insiders claim, but they have lost advertiser JP Morgan Chase for the week; it has pulled all its ads until after the interview airs

Kelly responded to the statement saying she did 'understand and respect' the decision but that she was 'disappointed'.

'I find Alex Jones's suggestion that Sandy Hook was "a hoax" as personally revolting as every other rational person does,' she said.

'It left me, and many other Americans, asking the very question that prompted this interview: how does Jones, who traffics in these outrageous conspiracy theories, have the respect of the president of the United States and a growing audience of millions?

'President Trump, by praising and citing him, appearing on his show, and giving him White House press credentials, has helped elevate Jones, to the alarm of many.

NBC News chairman Andy Lack was heard at the Mirror Awards on Tuesday saying the show would go ahead (Lack is seen left at the Mirror Awards with Kelly and Tom Brokaw)

'Our goal in sitting down with him was to shine a light - as journalists are supposed to do - on this influential figure, and yes - to discuss the considerable falsehoods he has promoted with near impunity.'

Jones, who hosts the online 'news' site InfoWars, had initially said that the children killed at Sandy Hook were slain by government agents who wanted to restrict gun laws.

He then modified that claim to say the Sandy Hook shootings never happened and that the dead children were actors.

On Monday, he changed that stance yet again, telling InfoWars' listeners that he now believes Sandy Hook did happen, and that children died there.

He claimed that his remarks to that effect had been edited from the promotional clip, and added: 'I'm tired of being misrepresented.'

After Kelly shared the two-minute clip of her and Jones, in which she challenges him about the claims, then slaps him down twice for evading the question, bereaved mom Nelba Marquez-Greene took her to task.

Marquez-Greene, who lost her six-year-old daughter Ana in the shooting, posted a school photo of her deceased daughter.

'Here you go @MegynKelly - her name is Ana Grace Marquez-Greene. Say her name- stare at this & tell me it's worth it,' she wrote.

She also posted a message she had been sent by one of those taken in by Jones' claim, who asked her: 'Did Ana really die? Everyone knows SandyHook is SandyHoax. Did you sell her into a Child-trafficking ring?'

Marquez-Greene posted a photo of her daughter Ana, 6, who was slain in the Sandy Hook massacre, challenging Kelly to 'stare at this & tell me it's worth it'

That the government faked deaths at 'Sandy Hook' isn't the only absurd conspiracy Jones has come up with.

In 2012, in the wake of the Aurora cinema massacre that saw 12 killed and 70 injured when a gunman opened fire during a screening of The Dark Knight, Jones claimed it was a 'false flag'.

'If you look at the full spectrum of information unfolding right now, 100 per cent chance that the mass murder committed in the suburb of Denver, Colorado, right next to Littleton and Columbine was a false flag mind control event.'

He even blamed President Obama for being behind a series of deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma back in 2013 that claimed the lives of over 30 people.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for a shooting and stabbing terror attack which resulted in the death of an Israeli policewoman.

Hadas Malka, 23, a staff sergeant major, was fatally stabbed in Jerusalem and it is the first time ISIS has said it was behind an attack in the city.

But the claim, which came with the jihadists facing defeat in their Iraq and Syria bastions, was swiftly dismissed by Palestinian militant groups.

Israeli police said three Palestinians attacked officers at Damascus Gate in annexed east Jerusalem late on Friday before being shot dead by security forces.

Ambulance staff and police officers attended the scene of an attack in Jerusalem, Israel, on Friday night

Israeli security forces made their way to the scene after a female police officer was stabbed in the city

In an online statement, IS said jihadist fighters had targeted a 'gathering of Jews', warning that 'this attack will not be the last'.

But Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, dismissed the claim.

It said the attackers had come from among its own ranks and the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The assault took place as tens of thousands of Palestinians held night prayers at the nearby Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest site, on the third Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

According to police, two assailants opened fire on a group of officers who returned fire, and a third stabbed the border policewoman a short distance away before being shot.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said: 'Female border policewoman injured critically in attack at Damascus Gate.

'Three Arab terrorists shot by police units that responded at the scene.'

Police said the three were killed.

In its statement IS said the attack was 'revenge for the religion of Allah and the sanctities of the violated Muslims'.

They said: 'Let the Jews watch for the demise of their state at the hands of the soldiers of the caliphate.'

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack but this was swiftly dismissed by Palestinian militant groups

In an online statement, IS said jihadist fighters had targeted a 'gathering of Jews', warning that 'this attack will not be the last'

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the IS claim was an attempt to 'muddy the waters', adding that the attack was carried out by 'two Palestinians from the PFLP and a third from Hamas'.

The killing was 'a natural response to the crimes of the occupier,' he said, echoing the language used by Hamas after other recent attacks in Israel.

Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency identified the three assailants as Braa Salah, born in 1998, Adel Ankush, born 1999, and Asama Atta, born 1998, all from the village of Deir Abu Mashal near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The Shin Bet said they had been previously been implicated in 'terror activity'.

The PFLP said Salah and Atta had recently been released from several months in Israeli prison.

The names differ from those reported by IS, who said the attack was carried out by brothers called Abu al-Bara'a al-Maqdisi, Abu Hassan al-Maqdisi, and Abu Rabah al-Maqdisi.

Medics said four people besides the officer were wounded in the incident. Two of them were Palestinians from east Jerusalem.

A Palestinian from the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, initially thought to be a fourth assailant and was shot and wounded, turned out to be an innocent passerby, Israeli police said.

Israel had eased restrictions on the entry of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jerusalem for Ramadan.
A KKK literature campaign proclaiming 'wake up whitey' has residents of an Alabama town on edge.

Some residents of Hoover, a large suburban community south of Birmingham, awoke Friday surprised to discover the flyers from the United Dixie White Knights, an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan.

'Sleep well tonight knowing that the Klan is alert and awake,' the flyers read, before calling attention to a controversial acquittal in an area murder trial.

'A recent case in Hoover has our attention,' the flyers went on, referring to the acquittal of Charleston Wells in the murder of Mike Gilotti.

The flyers claimed to be from the United Dixie White Knights, an offshoot of the KKK

Residents of this neighborhood in Hoover, Alabama were shocked to find flyers from the United Dixie White Knights in their driveways on Friday morning (file image)

The flyers referred to the recent the acquittal of Charleston Wells (left) in the murder of Mike Gilotti (right) after contentious deliberations in which the judge ordered jurors not to consider 'emotion' and 'sympathy' to be evidence in the case

Iraq veteran Gilotti was shot dead in his driveway at 4.55am on January 5, 2016, as he left his house to go to the gym.

Police believe he interrupted a car burglary in process, as there had been a string of car break-ins in the area.

Wells, 17, was acquitted of the murder in May after contentious jury deliberations, during which jurors could be heard yelling at each other and a judge had to warn the jury that 'sympathy' and 'emotion' should not be considered evidence, AL.com reported.

However, Wells was found guilty of nine counts of breaking and entering a vehicle, and was released on time served.

The others charged in Gilotti's death have yet to stand trial: Darrian Bryant, 17, Ahmad Johnson, 18, and De'Ron Lucas, 20.

'A jury has acquitted Negro Charleston Wells of murder in the 2016 shooting death of White Hoover resident Mike Gilotti, a veteran and father of two. You better wake up whitey!' the UDWK flyers found on Friday read.

Charged: (left to right) Darrian Bryant, 17, Ahmad Johnson, 18, and De'Ron Lucas, 20 also face trial in the murder of Iraq veteran Mike Gilotti. The case has sparked a KKK recruitment drive

Hoover police Capt. Gregg Rector confirmed one resident had called police to report the flyers, according to AL.com.

'The terminology used in these flyers indicated the intent was to recruit new members to a hate group based in Leakesville, Mississippi,' Rector told the outlet.

Text on the flyers says that 'this is part of a mass recruitment drive, no one is being targeted for race, religion, national or sexual orientation'.

Handing out pamphlets in residential neighborhoods is generally a protected free speech activity under the First Amendment, legal experts have found.

'I got the same right under the First Amendment to pass out pamphlets and literature just the same as the newspaper does,' UDWK Imperial Wizard Brent Waller told the Clarion-Ledger last year.

The UDWK describes itself as a group of 'proud pro white activists' dedicated to 'preserving a future for our race and children'.
The Scottish Government is considering offering free abortions to women in Northern Ireland who face jail if they undergo the procedure illegally.

If Nicola Sturgeon's administration goes ahead with the plan it would be a stern rebuke to the DUP, the Northern Irish party in talks with the Tories about propping up the Government in Westminster.

Abortion law in Northern Ireland is much stricter than in the rest of the UK, allowing terminations only where a woman's life is at risk or there is a permanent or serious risk to her mental or physical health.

The DUP, led by Arlene Foster, is firmly against any relaxation of the law. Some fear the party's price for propping up Theresa May could be a toughening of UK-wide law.

Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish Government is considering offering free abortions to women in Northern Ireland who face jail if they undergo the procedure illegally

The issue has emerged in Scotland after the Supreme Court ruled three to two against an appeal for women in Northern Ireland to have abortions paid for by the NHS in England.

The case against Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt centred on a girl who became pregnant at 15 in 2012.

She travelled from Northern Ireland to Manchester to be told that she would have to pay hundreds of pounds because she was excluded from free abortion services.

Some women from Northern Ireland already have free abortions in Scotland by giving the address of a friend who lives in the country.

But doing so requires a skirting of the rules and for medics to ignore the fact the woman is not routinely resident in Scotland.

The Scottish government is said to be anxious that consulting on a policy change does not 'disrupt' this unofficial practice and make access more difficult.

A spokesman told the Sunday Times: 'We are supportive of all women having access to safe and legal abortions.

'We will carefully consider [last week's] Supreme Court judgment and the implications it may have in Scotland.'
This is the astonishing 'story behind the story' of how Princess Diana's tapes were secretly recorded and shared with the world.

Speaking with Liz Hayes on 60 Minutes on Sunday, journalist Andrew Morton revealed details of the covert operation he undertook to gain access to Princess Diana without the royal family's knowledge.

Morton said he befriended James Colthurst, a doctor and long-time friend of Princess Diana's, who agreed to be an undercover agent for him.

Scroll down for video

The story of how Princess Diana's story came to be told in a series of tapes is finally revealed

Colthurst told 60 Minutes he rode his pushbike to the palace under the pretense of meeting Diana for a friendly lunch  while secretly making recordings.

Colthurst said Princess Diana was extremely passionate about telling her side of the story, despite its sensitive nature.

'She was enormously enthusiastic to have her story out there, she knew exactly what she was doing,' he said.

Armed with a list of questions from Morton, Colthurst recorded the princess's answers.

'I'd cycle in, the recorder was in the briefcase, nothing surprising there.

'I'd go in and we'd normally have a few questions before lunch, we'd have lunch then we'd come out after lunch, I'd clip the microphone on and she'd finish them off,' he said.

'I'd cycle in, the recorder was in the briefcase, nothing surprising there,' long-time friend James Colthurst (pictured) said

Mr Colthurst said 'there were always people there curious to know what was going on' when he visited Princess Diana to record her

'There were always people there curious to know what was going on (I was asked) "was there a particular reason for lunch today?" and I said "yep I'm hungry".'

Colthurst also said he and Princess Diana used 'scramblers' to record their phone conversations.

'I had one and Diana had the other one, she'd put it over the phone like this. That's encrypted between the two. It's really primitive technology for now days, but at the time ... it worked very well,' he said.

Colthurst told Liz Hayes he and Princess Diana used 'scramblers' to record their phone conversations

Morton, who wrote the tell-all book in 1992, said its making was a 'ramshackle procedure'.

'(Colthurst) would put on a microphone then he'd munch his way through a plate of biscuits then just read out the questions,' he said.

Morton recounted the moment he listened to the first tape and realised the gravity of Diana's story.

'I'll never forget listening to the first tape which was in a working man's cafe,' he said.

'All around everyone's eating bacon and eggs chatting away, and I put these headphones on and turn on the tape recorder and listen to Diana talking about bulimia nervosa, which I'd never heard of, talking about her suicide attempts, talking about this woman called Camilla Parker Bowles.

'It was like entering a parallel universe, I walked out of that cafe thinking, wow what on earth have I heard.'

Princess Diana pictured with her then fiance Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace

'It was the most incredible outburst of really inner most pain rage frustration anger, you were swept away with it. It was very compelling,' Morton said

Morton said Princess Diana spoke with a 'breathless urgency'.

'Almost like someone who was a prisoner who had a few moments before the guards came,' he said.

Morton said there was no doubt in his mind Diana was speaking the truth.

'It was the most incredible outburst of really inner most pain rage frustration anger, you were swept away with it. It was very compelling,' he said.

Morton said there was no doubt in his mind Diana (pictured in 1983) was speaking the truth

Prince Charles and Princess Diana pose by the River Dee while on their honeymoon

Both colthurst and Morton said they knew how shocking the tapes were and understood the seriousness of what they were doing.

'From the very moment I heard that first tape I was looking over my shoulder and being very watchful and very careful,' Morton said.

Five years after the book was published, Princess Diana was killed in a horrific car crash in Paris.

Five years after the book was published, Princess Diana was killed in a horrific car crash in Paris

Now 20 years after her death, the tapes have been rebirthed, and Diana's story retold in a new book released by Morton.

Morton said it was the nearest thing to Princess Diana's biography.

Despite the negative attention he received for sharing Diana's story with the world, Morton said he had no regrets.

'I've often wondered, would I have done it again? I think honestly the consequences of not doing it were going to be too tough I think,' he said.
A drone has led to the rescue of a pair of stranded hikers and their dog who got lost as they trekked through a Colorado forest.

The gadget was sent up to scour Devil's Trail at Pike National Forest on Thursday after one of the hikers was able to call 911 for help at around 4.15pm.

A rescue team was sent out on foot but the drone, which was deployed at the same time, found them within two hours.

Scroll down for video

They were stood on the edge of a boulder looking down on the forest. Their golden Labrador was standing next to them.

The footage was being monitored by workers on the ground and a team was sent to retrieve the lost hikers.

'Instead of an all-night search we were done in about 4 hours,' Douglas County Search and Rescue Incident Commander Bruce Fosdick told KDVR afterwards.

He added that the hikers, who were found at around 6pm, were 'very excited' at the sight of their rescuers.

Neither has been named.

A drone found a pair of lost hikers and their dog after being sent up into the air by rescuers when they called 911 in Colorado on Thursday

The two hikers and their dog were perched on the edge of the boulder when they were spotted
A Victorian policewoman has relived the moment she discovered what she thought was the lifeless body of a missing woman in the boot of a car.

Narelle Fraser found mother-of-two Maria Korp in the back of a Mazda 626 in Melbourne on the 13th of February, 2005.

An emotional Fraser climbed in the boot to cradle the body, only to feel Korp breathe before rushing her to hospital.

Maria Korp was placed in a medically induced coma but would never regain consciousness and died several months later.

Police allege her husband, Joe Korp, and mistress, Tania Herman, plotted killing Maria. Joe committed suicide on the day of his wife's funeral, while Tania pleaded guilty to her murder.

A Victorian policewoman has relived the moment she discovered the lifeless body of missing woman Maria Korp (pictured) in the boot of a car

Narelle Fraser (pictured) was the first police officer on the scene and could not find Maria Korp's pulse

Police allege her husband, Joe Korp (pictured), and mistress, Tania Herman, plotted killing Maria. Joe committed suicide on the day of his wife's funeral, while Tania Herman pleaded guilty to murder

The car was allegedly driven to the Shrine of Remembrance by Joe Korp and Tania Herman after they bashed and strangled her in the garage of her home.

Police were alerted to the car by a security guard who was suspicious of the vehicle that had been parked for four days.

Fraser told the Herald Sun her decision to embrace the near-dead body of Maria Korp as 'an innate female bond.'

'I wanted to hold her and tell her that she was safe now, that no one would ever hurt her again.'

Fraser was the first on the scene and could not find Maria Korp's pulse, but placed her head on her chest for final confirmation.

'I felt it move the tiniest bit. She was breathing. I couldn't believe it. I started screaming: She's alive! She's alive, call an ambulance!'

The car was allegedly driven to the Shrine of Remembrance by Joe Korp and Tania Herman (pictured) after they bashed and strangled her in the garage of her home

The car was allegedly driven to the Shrine of Remembrance by Joe Korp and Tania Herman after they bashed and strangled her in the garage of her home

Narelle Fraser found mother-of-two Maria Korp in the back of a Mazda 626 in Melbourne on the 13th of February, 2005

Police allege her husband, Joe Korp (left), and mistress, Tania Herman (right), plotted killing Maria. Joe committed suicide on the day of his wife's funeral, while Tania Herman pleaded guilty to murder

Maria was rushed to The Alfred Hospital where she was placed in a medically induced coma that she would never awake from.

Head injuries, severe dehydration and oxygen deprivation to the brain meant Maria could not be saved.

She died in August of the same year after being taken off life support.

Narelle Fraser had a breakdown following the discovery of Maria Korp and developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result.

She has quit the police force and is speaking out on PTSD in an attempt to encourage others to address the illness.
Consumers might feel they are getting a bum deal after Andrex reduced the number of sheets in a standard toilet roll without lowering the price to match.

In the latest example of 'shrinkflation' - where producers freeze prices but make their goods smaller in size or quantity - Andrex sneakily reduced the number of sheets per roll from 221 to 220.

The brand known for its cute puppy mascot and the slogan 'soft, strong, and very, very long' had already brought the standard toilet roll number of rolls down from 240 last year.

Soft, strong and a bit short: In the latest example of 'shrinkflation' - where producers freeze prices but squeeze the size or quantity of their goods - Andrex sneakily reduced the number of sheets per roll from 221 to 220

Multipacks of Andrex now cost less, at 7.50, but that is only a 35p saving for the equivalent loss of two full toilet rolls, according to Channel 4's consumer affairs show, Supershoppers.

Andrex's parent company, Kimberly-Clark, has been contacted for comment about the altered packages, which are believed to have started appearing on supermarket shelves last autumn but have only just been highlighted by a consumer affairs programme.

Supershoppers is set to discuss Andrex as well as other big-name brands cashing in on the economic phenomenon in a new episode at 8.30pm this Tuesday.

Various other food items have recently been revealed to have shrunk in size or quantity despite being sold for similar prices.

The brand known for its cute puppy mascot and its slogan of being 'soft, strong, and very, very long' had already brought the standard toilet roll number of rolls down from 240 last year

Peperami, bags of Doritos and packs of Minstrels and M&Ms are all getting smaller, and Kellogg's has also reduced the size of some of its products without changing the price - and said it was due to cuts in the levels of sugar.

The spicy Peperami snacks have been trimmed from 25g to 22.5g, but the recommended sales price has remained the same at 79p.

There has not been any reduction in the price of multi-packs despite the smaller size.

2016 Cadburys Mini Rolls 12 pack cost 2.75 Activias Big Pot* (500g) cost 1.25 Birdseye Fish Fingers box of 12 cost 2.50 Doritos (200g) cost 1.99 Kellogg's Cornflakes (500g) cost 1.75 *price from Waitrose, the rest are taken from Tesco Advertisement

2017 Cadburys Mini Rolls 10 pack cost 2.49 Activias Big Pot* (450g) cost 1.25 Birdseye Fish Fingers box of 10 cost 2.50 Doritos (180g) cost 1.99 Kellogg's Cornflakes (450g) 1.75 Source: Supershoppers, Channel 4, which airs on Tuesdays Advertisement

Large, so-called sharing bags of Doritos, have been reduced from 200g to 180g, but remain onsale at the same average price of 1.99.

And Mars has cut the size of a large bag of Galaxy Minstrels from 232g to 210g while the price has stayed at 2.50.

The firm's M&M's Crispy bag has shrunk from 141g to 121g for 1.50 and a large bag of Maltesers is down from 184g to 166g at 2.50.

M&M's (left) and Galaxy Minstrels (right) are being reduced in size by 14 per cent and nine per cent respectively, but prices will stay the same

Peperami is also affected by 'shrinkflation' with a 25g packet (pictured) being reduced to 22.5g, a 10 per cent drop in size

Meanwhile a large box of Coco Pops has been reduced from 800g to 720g, while the 550g packet now weighs 510g - but prices in most supermarkets have stayed at 3.75 and 2.69 respectively.

A spokesman for Kellogg's said: 'The fact is the price shoppers see in the supermarket are shelf prices and these are set by the retailer. So the manufacturers' Recommended Retail Price is not always the price people pay.

'Kelloggs Corn Flakes packs reduced in Recommended Retail Price and size from 2.09 (500g) to 1.79 (450g) in August 2016. However the prices used on the show are shelf prices which, by law, we cannot control.

Kellogg's has confirmed its Coco Pops packs are shrinking with an 800g box (pictured) going down to 720g, but the company says the change is due to a reduction in sugar

'Kellogg's Coco Pops packs reduced in weight due to a recipe change which removed sugar and changed the coating. Although the packs now weigh less, the number of Coco Pops in each box increased by more than 10 per cent.

'It would be misrepresentative to claim that these changes were for any other reason.'

The reduction in pack sizes is part of a trend that has been blamed on the vote to leave the EU and the resulting fall in the value of the pound, which make imports more expensive.

In fact, manufacturers and supermarkets have been using the tactic for more than a decade and long before a vote on EU membership was a possibility.

Everything from chocolate bars to packs of nappies and even the amount of tea in some big brand teabags have been shrunk.

The effect of cutting pack sizes is to sneak through a price rise without customers realising what has happened.

In April, retail analysts highlighted the first food price rises in two years with the cost of filling a shopping basket up by 2.3 per cent on a year ago. It seems the real figure would be much higher if the changes to pack sizes were taken into account.

Peperami's manufacturer, who is based in Germany, blamed 'rising commodity costs and foreign exchange pressure' for shrinking packs.

A spokesman told The Grocer magazine: 'We always endeavour to reduce the impact of such movements to ensure our brands are as affordable as possible for our loyal consumers and have limited this impact to a reduction in the size of our sticks from 25g to 22.5g, whilst maintaining the number of sticks sold in multipacks.'

Pepsico, which makes brands like Doritos and Walkers, said 'fluctuating foreign exchange rates' had pushed up the cost of ingredients and materials, forcing it to 'make a few changes to certain Doritos packs'.

Mars said the decision to reduce pack sizes had not been an easy one. It said: 'We have been absorbing rising raw material and operational costs for some time, but the growing pressures mean that we can't keep things as they are.'

Bags of Doritos are also affected in the shrinking, with a 200g packet (pictured) dropping by 10 per cent to 180g

Shrinkflation hasn't been limited to the snacking aisles, with Birds Eye reducing pack sizes across a wide range of frozen chicken, fish and vegetable lines.

It has cut the number of fish fingers in a pack from 12 to 10. The number of Crispy Chicken Dippers in a pack is down from 14 to 12.

The firm has cut the weight of a bag of bag of frozen petits pois from 1.28kg to 1.005kg, while the price has remained the same.

The effect of cutting pack sizes is to sneak through a price rise without customers realising what has happened.
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Police and animal rights groups have rescued 84 Great Dane dogs from squalid conditions at a suspected puppy mill within a gated New Hampshire mansion.

Christina Fay, 60, of Warren Sands Road, Wolfeboro, was arrested on two misdemeanor counts of neglect, after the raid on her property on Friday found the animals living in 'horrifying' conditions.

Rescue teams say the house, previously valued for tax purposes at $1.45million, was covered in feces across the floors, walls and furniture, while the food preparation area was littered with raw, rotting chicken.

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Police have rescued more than 80 Great Dane dogs from squalid conditions at a suspected puppy mill

While some of the 84 dogs had free reign of the house, others were kept in cages or cages off areas

Teams from the Humane Society of the United States have since rescued the dogs, some of which were just a few weeks old

Many of the 84 animals had free roam of the eight-bedroom, and nine bath, gated mansion.

Others were kept in cages, or cages off areas.

'It was horrifying in and of itself, but I've never seen conditions like this in a house of that magnitude,' Lindsay Hamrick, N.H. State Director for the Humane Society of the United States, told Union Leader.

Fay was reportedly selling the puppies for $2,500 each under the kennel name De La Sang Monde.

Rescuers were shocked by the appalling conditions at the house, which had previously been valued at $1.45 million

The mansion was covered in feces across the floors, walls and furniture, while the food preparation area was littered with raw, rotting chicken

Many of the dogs has skin infections or eye irritations from the unsanitary conditions

Owner Christina Fay was arrested on two misdemeanor counts of neglect, after the raid on her property found the animals living in 'horrifying' conditions

Fay was reportedly selling the puppies for $2,500 each under the kennel name De La Sang Monde

The website shows photos of dogs in open grounds or in seemingly clean areas within the home.

'At some point, I got choked up. It is terrible to see animals treated like this,' said Tona McCarthy, a cruelty investigator with Pope Memorial SPCA in Concord, who received a tip off and photos of the Wolfeboro property.

'The conditions were deplorable. I'm trying hard to find words to describe it. It was certainly a situation that no animal should be kept in,' said Wolfeboro Police Officer Michael Straugh, who is the department's K-9 handler.

The dogs, which ranged in age form puppies just a few weeks old to adult dogs, have all been seized and are receiving veterinary treatment. Many were found with infections or eye irritation from the conditions.

While Fay's website showed dogs in open grounds, or clean rooms of the house, teams found animals living in cages and squalid conditions

The seized dogs have since been sent for veterinary assessment and treatment

The Great Danes, some of which weighed up to 300 pounds, required a team effort to free them from the house and transport them to safety

None of the dogs will be available for adoption until the case against Kay is heard as they are evidence

Some of the adult dogs were more than 5ft tall and weighed over 200 pounds.

The dogs will not be available for adoption until the case against Kay is heard as they are evidence in the criminal case.

Fay is scheduled to be arraigned in the Ossipee Circuit Court on August 3.

The HSUS will be accepting donations towards the care of the animals here.
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Tanks, motorbikes and troops with Sten guns have been marching today to pay tribute to Britains Armed Forces.

The Weymouth and Portland Armed Forces parade took place this morning along the Weymouth Esplanade as cheering spectators lined the road to watch.

Led by the Aden Veterans Association, the march in the sun-drenched South Coast town featured men in kilts playing bagpipes, vintage equipment and a wide variety of uniforms.

As well as honouring the country's military, the parade was also designed to mark the 50th anniversary of the British withdrawal from the colony of Aden.

The Middle Eastern settlement was in British control from 1839 until 1967, when troops oversaw a handover to Yemen.

Armed Forces Day organisers said the event provided a great opportunity to learn more about the British military and to focus on the 'tireless work' of veterans associations across the country.

Pictured: Men dressed in old British uniforms march along Weymouth Esplanade armed with Sten guns and rifles. Leading the parade were members of the Aden Veteran Association as a way of marking the 50th anniversary of the British withdrawal from the Middle Eastern colony. Aden, now part of Yemen, was under British control from 1839 to 1967. It became a chief commissioner's province of the British Raj in 1932 but was made a crown colony in 1937

Pictured: A man in traditional military dress with royal sash salutes in Weymouth. The parade, part of The Weymouth and Portland Armed Forces Celebrations, was blessed by magnificent sunshine as delighted spectators cheered from the side of the road. Tanks, motorbikes and troops were all on display as part of the Armed Forces Day tribute to the British military

Pictured: A vintage wartime motorbike taking part in the South Coast parade. Armed Forces Day is officially marked on June 24, but an array of events across the country build up to the main celebration. The tribute was first known as Veterans' Day and began to be observed in 2006. Its stated aim is to guarantee that the contributions of veterans to the country are never forgotten. In 2009 it became known as Armed Forces Day

Pictured: A Sherman tank driving down Weymouth Esplanade. Thousands of the American-made armoured fighting vehicles were delivered to the British Armed Forces during the Second World War as part of the Lend-Lease agreement with the United States. It was given the name 'Sherman' by the British troops who used it, after the American Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman. It was used to great effect by the British, where it helped seal victory in 1942 during the Battle of El Alamein in Egypt

Pictured: Veterans, one of is whom walking with a cane, on parade in Weymouth. Military bands were among the marchers as spectators were treated to a morning of music, marching and sunshine

Veterans made sure to be at the parade no matter what, as one (left) salutes from a wheelchair and another (right) stands proudly with a walking stick. There are currently 153,770 active members of the Armed Forces, with 81,850 reserve personnel, as well as millions of veterans

Pictured: Young boys dressed in vintage clothing ride along with the parade in Weymouth

Pictured: Spectators clap and take pictures as laughing men march while dressed in wartime kit

Pictured: A veteran marching in Weymouth as banners fly behind him

Pictured: Men in kilts play bagpipes as the sun shines on the South Coast town this morning

Pictured: Representative of the Queen Angus Campbell, the Lord Lieutenant of Dorset, salutes at the parade

Pictured: Standard bearers march in formation during the parade

Pictured: A vintage motorcycle is driven along Weymouth Esplanade by a man dressed in wartime military police kit

Pictured: Two women and a man in vintage attire take part in the parade

Pictured: Proud veterans during the Armed Forces Day march

Pictured: A church spire looms over marching troops, some of whom are armed with rifles and others with sub machine guns

Pictured: A woman dressed in vintage clothes shields herself from the powerful sunshine in Weymouth

Pictured: Angus Campbell, the Lord Lieutenant of Dorset, laughs as the parade goes by

Pictured: A rider in vintage clothing guides his motorcycle along the road as part of the parade
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One of the most important military campaigns in history has been re-enacted in one of the strangest possible settings.

History lovers donned German and Allied uniforms and recreated the invasion of Normandy in front of bikini-clad tourists in Benidorm, Spain.

Crowds of bemused holidaymakers watched on at the popular resort as the gun-toting military enthusiasts stormed the beach from replica landing craft and ducked for cover behind sand dunes during a fake fire fight.

The reenactment was run by Spanish historical society Codex Bilex, which has recreated battles from as far back as Roman times.

According to its website, the group has a 'passion for history' and an 'eagerness to reconstruct and understand the past', while it also embraces the 'Anglo-Saxon roots' of the area.

'Soldiers' carried heavy machine guns and manned artillery cannons just yards away from sunbathers relaxing on the beach under parasols.

The recreation area was fenced off but still drew a lot of attention from bemused and interested tourists who stopped to watch the fighting, with realistic explosions in the sand recreated from the real thing.

The Normandy attack was the largest seaborne invasion in history with 156,000 troops from the UK, US and Canada landing across five beaches, while 24,000 paratroopers were also dropped behind enemy lines to support the assault.

It also proved to be a bloody campaign, with almost 4,500 Allied troops killed and up to 9,000 Germans killed.

Holidaymakers at Benidorm watched on as history fans donned Second World War uniforms to reenact the invasion of Normandy, pictured, in one of the most bizarre locations possible

A holidaymaker carrying an ice box makes her way to Poniente beach in Benidorm past a military enthusiast dressed in full German uniform carrying a machine gun, with Spanish society Codex Bilex staging a three-day military reenactment of the famous D-Day landings

Participants dressed up as US soldiers made their way onto the beach from replica landing craft used in the real invasion, wading through the water in front of thousands of bemused and interested tourists

Despite the huge audience gathered around the fenced-off part of the beach, the history society got on with the reenactment without any distractions, as 'Allied troops' ducked for cover behind a makeshift bunker as they attempted to breach German defence lines

Codex Bilex began the reenactment on Friday and put real effort into making the action as genuine as possible, with explosions in the sand and participants hitting the floor after being 'shot dead', while the invading Allied troops ducked down in trenches as they continued their advance

Codex Bilex said it has a 'passion for history' and an 'eagerness to reconstruct and understand the past', while it also embraces the 'Anglo-Saxon roots' of the area, with British troops, pictured, featuring in the reenactment

A German 'commander', left, and soldier, right, watch the Allied advance during a regular summer's day at the popular tourist attraction. The Normandy landings became a bloody battle, with around 4,500 Allied troops killed while the Germans sustained around 9,000 casualties

Allied troops hit the Normandy beaches at five different zones, although they kept to just one in the Benidorm reenactment. It took six days for the Allied forces to unite all five beachheads after successfully breaching the German defences and driving them back into France

'German troops' are pictured surveying the area, although during the real battle they were not faces with holidaymakers and sunbathers relaxing under parasols or playing football in the sand

History fans dressed in US uniforms, pictured, walk along the promenade at Benidorm, standing out from the crowd in their military kit compared to the hundreds wearing very little as they enjoyed a day in the sun

'German soldiers' duck behind sand dunes as they try to resist the Allied assault during the reenactment. It is thought more than 200 members of the historical society took part in the action over the three days, while an exhibition and parade of Second World War military vehicles also took place at the Spanish resort

A group of Codex Bilex members dressed as German soldiers pose for a picture during the reenactment, which ended with a fireworks display

...and the Brits batter the French at Waterloo again too (and this one is actually in the right place!)

Hundreds more history fans took to the fields of Waterloo in Belgium to recreate the famous battle that saw Napoleon defeated by a joint British-Prussian force led by the Duke of Wellington.

The annual event is focused on accuracy, with the soldiers on both sides wearing uniforms designed to be as realistic as possible down to the buttons.

There are large-scale re-enactments every year, with people from all walks of life joining forces to fight the Battle of Waterloo.

On June 18, 1815, Napoleon led his 72,000-strong army into battle with 120,000 Allied soldiers on the gently rolling plateau of Waterloo in Belgium. The Allied army was a coalition of British, Dutch, German, Belgian and Prussian soldiers.

The two sides remained in a bloody conflict for several hours, but at the end of the afternoon the French emperor's Great Army was defeated by the Duke of Wellington and Field Marshal Blucher, commander of the Prussian army.

It meant the end of Napoleon's reign as Emperor of France and he abdicated just days later before he was exiled to the island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean, where he eventually died due to ill health in 1821.

Napoleon lost about 41,000 troops, with around 26,000 killed, and the Russian/British led forces sustained 24,000 casualties, although only around 5,000 died.

History lovers reenacted the 1815 Battle of Waterloo in Belgium this weekend, attempting to accurately recreate every detail, down to the buttons on the uniforms. Pictured is a French commander in front of officers and cavalry troops

A 'general' surveys the French infantry at the reenactment, which took place on the real Waterloo battlefield in Belgium 202 years after the original conflict. The recreation takes place every years and is open to the public

All members of the community are welcome to take part whether young or old, with a French trooper pictured here addressing the marching band and other soldiers in the car park ahead of the battle reenactment

The French cavalry, pictured, lead the charge against the British-Prussian led coalition forces, with Napoleon ordering several attacks against the enemy army during the real battle that were repeatedly beaten back until the Duke of Wellington was able to lead a successful advance that breached the French lines, while the Prussians broke through the French right flank

Dutch soldiers, who fought with the coalition against the French, are pictured among the smoke of the battlefield as they fought back against the French forces

French riflemen line up to fire on the coalition forces in the battle that would spell the end of Napoleon's reign as Emperor of France and lead to his exile on the island of Saint Helena after he abdicated the French throne days after the defeat

The history lovers took the trouble to set up camps on the field and two are pictured here taking a break from proceedings to enjoy a drink and a snack

The uniforms were recreated down to the French bearskin hats, with these troops French carabiniers (soldiers who carried carbine rifles or muskets) based on the white plumage in their hats

Dutch troopers return fire against the French at the Waterloo reenactment. The battlefield was actually in the Netherlands at the time of the battle but has since become part of Belgium
Three resourceful Scots: (L to R) Corporal MacDonald, Lance Corporal James Wilson and Private William Kemp in 1940 at Glencoe

The exploits of Scottish soldiers who dodged death by speaking GAELIC to their Nazi captors is being made into a film.

Heroic Private William Kemp, Corporal Sandy MacDonald and Lance Corporal James 'Ginger' Wilson fled Hitler's clutches in June 1940 after confusing their German captors by speaking only Gaelic and claiming they were from Ukraine - which was not then at war with Germany.

Weeks earlier their Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders regiment had surrendered to enemy forces following five days of bombardment from trench mortars and field guns.

The story of the soldiers' journey already holds legendary status in their native Highland village of Ballachulish but is now set to win a massive audience as it is used as the basis for Second World War drama In The Darkest Hour.

After initially escaping and managing to ditch their military uniforms for civilian clothes, the trio were captured by the Germans again at a checkpoint and taken to a prisoner of war camp.

Language skills: The memory of three resourceful Scots who escaped the clutches of the Nazis by speaking Gaelic is to be turned into a film called In The Darkest Hour

James Wilson pictured here in 1939, was one of the men who engineered the resourceful escape from German captors during the war

Facing down the barrel of a German commander's gun, the soldiers thought their days were numbered.

But, as Private Kemp recalled in his memoir about the escape, the use of their native Gaelic confused the Germans and the Scots were able to convince their captors they were actually from the Soviet Union, which at the time was not yet at war with the Nazis.

He said: 'In the morning we were brought before the German commander, whose first action was to point his revolver at each of us in turn.

'We took this to be a warning to speak the truth or take the consequences.

'A French officer, acting as an interpreter, asked us to state our nationality.

'I replied in Gaelic: I do not know'. When he asked what country we were from, I then said: Ardnamurchan'.'

Baffled by what they were hearing, the soldiers were joined by several other men in the room and questioned in seven other languages.

Their questions were met with more Gaelic responses and, once an atlas was produced, the soldiers pointed to Ukraine.

Medals belonging to Private William Kemp (L to R) the Military Medal, 39-45 Star, Africa Star, Italy Star, France and Germany Star and the War Medal

A few more officers came in to consult about what they were being told and, shortly after, the Scots were free to go.

Tired, hungry and penniless, the brave soldiers made their way through occupied France to Spain, where they discovered a British consulate and boarded a vessel under cover of darkness.

Collect of Corporal Alistair MacDonald (L) and Private William Kemp (R) receiving their Military Medal. The men, along with Lance Corporal James 'Ginger' Wilson, managed to confuse eight interpreters while on the run in Nazi- occupied Europe to make it home to Scotland

Once out of Spanish territorial waters, they transferred to a British warship and returned to Scotland.

News of the soldiers' escape spread and German forces, angered by being made to look stupid by the Scots, were said to have sent any Gaelic speakers straight to labour camps as punishment.

All three soldiers have now passed away but Private Kemp's niece, Susan Kemp, still lives in Ballachulish and said her family were proud of her uncle's story.

'It's always something I thought would make a great film,' she said. 'I understand the film will be loosely based on my uncle's story but I have only just heard about it.

Rod MacKenzie from Stirling Castle Museum with Private William Kemp's medals (L to R) the Military Medal, 39-45 Star, Africa Star, Italy Star, France and Germany Star and the War Medal

'As children we were aware of it but, as was often the case with that generation, they didn't make a big deal of it.

'They must have had nerves of steel.

'They don't make them like that any more.

James Wilson pictured in 1939. Scottish film company Burning Horseshoe Productions and Northern Ireland-based Silver Sombrero Pictures are behind the new drama

'The idea to only speak Gaelic was ingenious but that was their language so it was no hardship to them.'

Scottish film company Burning Horseshoe Productions and Northern Ireland-based Silver Sombrero Pictures are behind the new drama.

True to its inspiration, In the Darkest Hour's adapted script tells the story of two Scottish soldiers who used Gaelic to confuse their captors.

Funding for its development has been secured from Northern Ireland's national screen agency and promotional trailers are due to be filmed this week.
Theresa May has held private prayer sessions with the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was claimed today.

The Prime Minister, who is regularly pictured at church, is said to find the meetings with Justin Welby a 'great comfort' as she battles with life at No 10.

Today's Sun on Sunday revealed the private meetings but neither Lambeth Palace or No 10 were prepared to comment.

Mrs May is not thought to have visited the Archbishop since the disastrous election, in which her gamble on an early poll cost her a Commons majority.

Theresa May (pictured attending church in Maidenhead today) has held private prayer sessions with the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was claimed today

A source close to the PM said: 'Theresa has an unshakable faith and it's no secret that she goes to church every Sunday with her husband Philip.

What isn't so widely known is that she has had meetings and held prayers with the Archbishop of Canterbury.'

One of Mrs May's final campaign stops in the election was at a faith conference.

She posed with attendees and took part in a group prayer.

A friend told the Sun: 'Theresa is a little reserved which may not have done her any good in the cut and thrust of an election.

'But she's quite upfront about her faith.'

It was claimed today that Mrs May has just 10 days to save her job as Tory MPs plot to evict her from Downing Street, it was claimed today.

Justin Welby (file picture left in February) lives at Lambeth Palace, which is just minutes from Downing Street

Around a dozen MPs are said to be ready to make a written demand for a new leadership contest to replace Mrs May before the summer.

And more will step up if votes on the Queen's Speech - due on around June 28 - look like being lost after Mrs May squandered the Tories' Commons majority in the election.

The failure to win the election outright and alarm over her flat footed response to the Grenfell fire has exposed splits within the Cabinet and rage on the Tory benches.

Chancellor Philip Hammond today refused to say how long Mrs May has in her job, insisting the whole Government 'wants to get on with the job'.
Bill Cosby (pictured leaving court on Friday) was confident throughout his sex assault trial that he would either be acquitted or a mistrial would be declared, those who observed him throughout have said

Bill Cosby did not take the stand at his sexual assault trial but according to those close to him, the accused comedian had plenty to say about the proceedings.

Page Six cites sources who were on the inside throughout his two-week trial in Pennsylvania which ended in a hung jury on Friday.

Cosby, 79, was accused of drugging and molesting Andrea Constand, a colleague at his alma mater Temple University, in 2004.

The star remained confidently optimistic throughout the trial, Page Six's Sunday report claims, and jovially referred to the courtroom as his 'stage'.

The waiting room which he was sent to with associates and lawyers during breaks became his 'dressing room', they said, and visitors were announced as if stopping by for an autograph on the set of a hit show.

Andrew Wyatt, the star's loyal spokesman who escorted the legally-blind defendant in and out of court, would introduce them.

Wyatt gave a victorious fist-pump as the pair emerged after from the courthouse on Friday.

Despite the zeal of prosecutor Kevin Steele, Cosby was reportedly convinced the proceedings would either end in his acquittal or a mistrial.

'Steele wants me badly; he ran on getting me but he doesn't have a case,' he is claimed to have said at one stage.

He even hinted at his return to showbusiness.

The star's loyal spokesman Andrew Wyatt (left, celebrating the mistrial) announced visitors to the room where he was sent during breaks as though it was his dressing room. When his wife Camille (seen right on June 12, one of her only appearances at court) was not there, Cosby spoke to her on the phone

Cosby was accused of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004. She claimed he drugged and molested her while he insists their encounter was consensual

'I cant wait to get back out there, because I have a lot to say. Theres still so much to be said,' he said.

Cosby's wife Camille was rarely present throughout the trial. She gave an impassioned statement afterwards that was read on the steps of the courthouse by a family spokesman.

In his private area, Cosby spoke with her often on the phone, the source claimed.

Cosby was immediately told to expect a retrial by Montgomery County's District Attorney's Office.

He remains on bail on three counts of aggravated sexual assault. He maintains that he was having a consensual sexual relationship with the woman.

Constand's accusations are not isolated - scores more women have publicly alleged that the star drugged and sexually assaulted them over the past 40 years.

Hers are the only ones which have ever been criminally tried.
Newt Gingrich has appeared to support Donald Trump's 'Witch Hunt' claims by accusing Special Counsel Robert Mueller of stacking his legal team with left-leaning lawyers.

The former speaker attacked Mueller, as well as the Justice Department, during an interview on ABC's This Week.

'You tell me why the first four names that came up, I don't know about the next nine, but the four names are all people who gave to Democrats.

He continued: 'Two of them are people with a record of hiding evidence from the defense, and one of them is a person who defended the Clinton Foundation.

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Newt Gingrich (pictured) has appeared to support Donald Trump's 'Witch Hunt' claims by accusing Special Counsel Robert Mueller of stacking his legal team with left-leaning lawyers

'Now, in this environment with a Justice Department where 97 per cent of the donations last year went to Hillary, explain to me why I should relax as a Republican.

The interview then changed topic to Trump's recent tweets, including one in which he said 'I am being investigated', with Gingrich admitting the constant stream of social media posts does not help.

'Trump has a compulsion to counterattack, he is very pugnacious,' 74-year-old said.

'I don't think it serves him well, I don't think that tweet helped him, but it's who he has been his whole life.'

After the former speaker's interview, Democrat Adam Schiff suggested Trump and his team are seemingly determined to take Mueller down.

'They want to lay the foundation to discredit whatever Bob Mueller comes up with,' Schiff said.

'They're essentially engaging in a scorched earth litigation strategy that is beginning with trying to discredit the prosecutor. And that's all that's happening here.'

Gingrich's suggestion Mueller's team is becoming a partisan attack on the president has been pushed by the president on Twitter, as well as conservative media outlets this week.

Gingrich and Donald Trump are pictured together on stage during a rally in Ohio in July 2016

.@newtgingrich criticizes Special Counsel Mueller's team on Trump-Russia probe: "Explain to me why I should relax as a Republican." pic.twitter.com/bQciEEEcXb  This Week (@ThisWeekABC) June 18, 2017

'You tell me why the first four names that came up, I don't know about the next nine, but the four names are all people who gave to Democrats,' Mueller said on ABC's This Week

The former speaker first pushed out the line during a Good Morning America appearance on Tuesday, when he again highlighted the fact some of Mueller's hires had donated to Democratic political candidates, including Trump's rival Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama.

For example, Michael Dreeban, a criminal law expert who's working part-time for Mueller, donated $1,000 to Friends of Hillary, which was supporting Clinton when she ran for public office in New York.

Another big-name hire, Andrew Weissmann, who led the Enron Task Force, donated six times to the political action committees supporting Obama during the 2008 election, for a total of $4,700, according to the Hill.

In total, four of Mueller's top hires had contributed to Democrats, which Laura Ingraham's publication Lifezette also pointed out.

Donald Trump has called the investigation a 'Witch Hunt' - something Gingrich's comments appear to support

Newt Gingrich speaks at the National Press Club on June 16, 2017 in Washington DC

Trump ally Ingraham's involvement suggests this may be a broader strategy coming from the White House to taint Mueller's Russia probe.

'One of them worked for the Clinton Foundation,' Gingrich also pointed out to Stephanopoulos.

He was referring to Jeannie Rhee, a former Department of Justice attorney who represented the Clinton Foundation in 2015.

Rhee and her partner on the case Jamie Gorelick got a federal judge to block Bill and Hillary Clinton from testifying in a deposition in a lawsuit brought to the court by a conservative activist.

Then-FBI Director Robert Mueller testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Dirksen Building on oversight of the FBI

Gorelick is now an attorney for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

'He did not hire a Republican in the first wave,' Gingrich complained of Mueller.

Stephanopoulos, a veteran of the Clinton White House, pointed out that Kenneth Starr, the special counsel who investigated that White House, had called Mueller's crew a 'fantastic team' comprised of 'complete professionals.'

'Well, then Ken Starr and I live in two different universes then,' Gingrich replied. 'I am very dubious about the team Mueller is putting together.'

Gingrich has repeatedly defended Trump and attacked those critical of the president.
A married Indian taxi driver who repeatedly tried to grab and kiss a female passenger has avoided deportation in an administrative appeals tribunal ruling.

Jagdeep Singh, 34, was detained last month after he was removed from his home in Lalor, Melbourne's north, but escaped punishment when tribunal boss John Logan threw him a lifeline, the Daily Telegraph reports.

He was initially granted a bridging visa - but Immigration Minister Peter Dutton cancelled it again - and he is believed to be still awaiting deportation.

Singh was granted a bridging visa - but Immigration Minister Peter Dutton (pictured) cancelled it again

Singh picked his victim up in his cab from outside the Crown casino and drove her to her house in Clayton  about a 27 minute trip (stock)

Singh, who arrived in Australia on a student visa in 2008, pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a female taxi passenger in December 2015.

Singh assaulted the woman after picking her up from Melbourne's Crown casino and driving her to her house in Clayton, Melbourne's south-east - about a 27 minute trip.

When the girl asked him to put the cab meter on, Singh told her she should not worry because another arrangement could be worked out.

Singh used his left hand to reach behind to the girl, grabbing her leg and touching her hand.

She repeatedly told him 'no' before she managed to push him away.

Mr Dutton (pictured) exercised his power to overrule the AAT decision and cancelled his visa again

Singh assaulted the woman after picking her up from Melbourne's Crown casino (pictured) and driving her to her house in Clayton  about a 27 minute trip

When the taxi reached the girl's home she gave Singh money and left the taxi, but the ordeal was not over.

Singh jumped out of the taxi and followed her.

He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her, pulling her in towards his body.

He refused the money and told her 'please, let's work something out'.

The woman again told him 'no' and urged him to take the money.

Singh then leaned in to kiss the woman on the neck, before grabbing her from behind and pressing himself up against her.

Singh continued his attempts to kiss the woman, pushing her inside and against a staircase, before kissing her neck and face.

Singh's harassment only stopped when the girl's screams caught the attention of her housemate.

Singh used his left hand to reach behind to the girl in the cab, grabbing her leg and touching her hand (stock)

Singh was given an 18-month community service order in December 2015. He was ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid community service.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton attempted to deport Singh following the attack but was rebuffed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which ruled against his deportation despite finding 'it was apparent to the Tribunal that the applicant showed no remorse in relation to the criminal offence'.

AAT senior member Miriam Holmes reinstated Singh's visa in November last year, noting the cancellation of his visa would have adverse effects to his psychological condition.

Ms Holmes said Singh's wife would also suffer emotional hardship should her husband's visa be cancelled.
David Davis (pictured in Downing Street this week) will tomorrow head to Brussels with a vow Brexit will definitely happen in a rebuke to the new French president Emmanuel Macron

David Davis will tomorrow head to Brussels with a vow Brexit will definitely happen in a rebuke to the new French president Emmanuel Macron.

The Brexit Secretary will officially open talks with his EU counterpart Michel Barnier at the EU's headquarters and promised to approach them 'constructively'.

The talks begin less than a week after Mr Macron used a press conference with Theresa May to make the surprise claim the EU's door remained open to British membership.

The start of talks is a vital milestone in the two year Article 50 departure process due to expire on March 29, 2019.

On the eve of negotiations today, Chancellor Philip Hammond surprised many by backing the Government's plans to fully quit the single market and the customs union.

Mr Hammond warned failing to strike a deal would be 'very bad' Britain - but he backed Theresa May in insisting a bad deal would be even worse.

In a message to Brussels ahead of the talks, Mr Davis said today: 'There should be no doubt - we are leaving the European Union, and delivering on that historic referendum result.

'Now, the hard work begins. We must secure a deal that works for all parts of the United Kingdom, and enables us to become a truly global Britain.

'Leaving gives us the opportunity to forge a bright new future for the UK - one where we are free to control our borders, pass our own laws and do what independent sovereign countries do.'

On the eve of negotiations today, Chancellor Philip Hammond surprised many by backing the Government's plans to fully quit the single market and the customs union

Mr Davis said there had been a 'huge amount of work across Whitehall to prepare for these talks' and insisted the UK would not 'turn our backs to Europe'.

He added: 'These talks will be difficult at points, but we will be approaching them in a constructive way.'

Mr Davis' hopes of presenting a united government position were boosted by Mr Hammond's remarks on the Andrew Marr Show.

Despite rumours the Chancellor was preparing to advocate for a softer Brexit, he endorsed a full departure from the single market and the customs union.

Mr Hammond said: 'We're leaving the EU and because we are leaving the EU, we will be leaving the single market and by the way, we will be leaving the customs union.

'The question is not whether we are leaving the customs union.

The talks begin less than a week after Mr Macron used a press conference with Theresa May (pictured) to make the surprise claim the EU's door remained open to British membership

'The question is what do we put in its place in order to deliver the objectives the Prime Minister set out in her Lancaster House speech of having no hard land border in Ireland and enabling British goods to flow freely backwards and forwards across the border with the European Union?

'It's a statement of common sense that if we are going to radically change the way we work together, we need to get there via a slope, not a cliff edge.'

Mr Hammond said the prospect of the talks failing would be a 'very, very bad outcome' for Britain.

But he said: 'There is a possible worse outcome and that is a deal that is deliberately structured to suck the lifeblood out of our economy over a period of time.'

Labour's position remained unclear today as shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said Britain should explore remaining in the customs union - something which would rule out trade deals.

The Brexit Secretary will officially open talks with his EU counterpart Michel Barnier (file picture in May) at the EU's headquarters and promised to approach them 'constructively'

During an interview on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Sir Keir said Theresa May had 'alienated our allies in Europe' with her Brexit approach, and he said Britain could not stay in the single market in 'an unreformed, unchanged way' - but sidestepped questions on the details, saying it is more important to focus on the outcome.

He said: 'You can only be a full member of the single market if you are an EU member and therefore it is obvious that we are looking for something else.

'The question is do we leave options on the table, and I've said repeatedly - yes, let's leave options on the table.'

Sir Keir acknowledged freedom of movement for people would end after Brexit but said membership of the customs unions should 'stay on the table'.

Asked whether Britain could stay inside the customs union, he said: 'Yes.'

He added: 'I think the Prime Minister has got us into a complete mess. She's got no mandate here and she's got no authority abroad and the negotiation starts tomorrow.

'Things have to change. Her approach so far has alienated our allies in Europe, it's weakened our position with the EU and it's actually got us into the worst possible starting position.'
The coalition continues to trail behind Labor but leaders of both parties are equally unpopular, a new poll shows.

The latest Newspoll published on Monday in The Australian keeps Labor on 53 per cent to the coalition's 47 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis, and marks the 14th consecutive poll where the coalition has been behind.

Both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten have an approval rating of negative 23 per cent, meaning more surveyed voters were dissatisfied than satisfied with their performances.

The coalition continues to trail behind Labor but leaders of both parties are equally unpopular, a new poll shows

The latest Newspoll published on Monday in The Australian keeps Labor on 53 per cent to the coalition's 47 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis, and marks the 14th consecutive poll where the coalition has been behind

Former leader Tony Abbott said 'there should be no doubt' the Labor leader will be front runner to be the next prime minister.

'As things stand, Bill Shorten would have to be the favourite to win the next election,' Abbott said told Ray Hadley on 2GB last week.

Abbott said the Liberal Party should 'never underestimate' Shorten and despite disagreeing with his politics, says he is a 'capable politician.'

On a primary vote basis, Pauline Hanson's One Nation share of the vote has increased to 11 per cent from nine per cent three weeks ago, while Labor's edged up one pip to 37.

The coalition's primary vote was static at 36 per cent, and the Greens slipped to nine per cent.

Both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten have an approval rating of negative 23 per cent, meaning more surveyed voters were dissatisfied than satisfied with their performances
A husband is on trial for allegedly murdering his sixth wife and the hitman he hired to kill her, after he was acquitted of murdering his second wife in the 1980s.

Thomas Randolph, 62, of Las Vegas, is accused of ordering Michael James Miller to kill his latest wife Sharon Clausse, before killing Miller to keep him quiet.

The case is eerily similar to the death of Randolph's second wife, Becky Gault.

Randolph was accused with murder after Gault's body was found inside the couple's Clearfield, Utah, home in 1986, with a fatal bullet to her head, the Las Vegas Review reports.

Thomas Randolph, (right in court on Friday) is accused of a 2008 double homicide

Randolph is accused of ordering Michael James Miller (left) to kill his latest wife Sharon Clausse (right) before killing Miller to keep him quiet

A coroner officially ruled the death a suicide, but prosecutors had pointed to the unusual positioning of the gun. They also found Randolph, who had taken out life insurance on his wife, stood to gain more than $530,000 from her death.

He also tried to pay off an undercover cop to kill Eric Tarantino, the star witness, who had testified that Randolph had asked him to kill his wife. He told prosecutors he had refused and warned Gault before fleeing town.

Randolph's attorney's argued he was angry because he believed Tarantino had slept with his wife.

A former friend testified that Randolph used to walk round singing the chilling lyrics to Rod Stewart's Foolish Behavior, which include lines such as 'They'll think suicide, they won't know who done it/I'm gonna kill my wife, I'm really gonna take her life,' after the death of Gault.

Randolph was acquitted of murder in that trial, although he pleaded guilty to tampering with a witness.

This month, the 62-year-old was back in court to face homicide charges for the 2008 double murder of Miller and Clausse.

The case is eerily similar to the death of Randolph's second wife, Becky Gault (left) where l Eric Tarantino (right) testified that Randolph had asked him to kill her

It appeared he had visited the barbers in between his first appearance on June 7, where his long white hair was put in pigtails and beard was unkempt, to his clean shaven and short haired appearance on Friday.

Prosecutors say he had taken out four separate life insurances against her and was due to receive upward of $360,000 in the case of her death.

The court also heard that four of his six wives are dead, two having died from 'illness'.

Randolph is facing the death penalty if found guilty

The remaining two are expected to testify that Randolph threatened to kill them if he is found guilty of the 2008 homicides.

Randolph is facing the death penalty if found guilty.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Jacqueline Bluth pointed to the similarities in the 1980s cases and the 2008 case, but with one key exception.

'The only reason Mike Miller is dead is because Eric Tarantino lived to tell the story, and Thomas Randolph was not going to make that mistake again,' Bluth said.

Deputy Special Public Defender Randall Pike argued that his client had no idea about Miller's plan to kill his wife, and said that Randolph and Clausse - who married in 2006 and renewed their vows a year later - had a solid relationship.

'Things were going good, but they weren't going good for Mr. Miller,' Pike said. 'They had started moving toward the marriage they hoped this was going to be.'
An elderly cyclist has been knocked down and killed by a charter bus in New York in the same area that another bike-rider was killed just days ago.

Michael Mamoukakis, 80, was at the corner of West 29th Street and 7th Avenue in Chelsea when he was struck by the bus at around 1.30pm on Saturday afternoon.

'I turned around and I saw bus wheels go over a man's body,' a witness, identified only as Garrett, told the New York Daily News. 'It was horrible.'

Tragedy: Michael Mamoukakis (center), 80, was knocked down and killed by a charter bus while cycling around the corner of West 29th St and 7th Avenue on Saturday afternoon

Struck: He was hit on this corner; the bus driver said she was only aware of the accident after she was waved down by passersby. Mamoukakis initially tried to get up, but died in hospital

Garrett said he and his friend attempted to help Mamoukakis, who was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The bus driver remained at the scene and spoke to police. she was not charged.

'The bike, I guess, was in the crosswalk,' the driver, who did not wish to be named, told the New York Post.

'Somebody was hollering that he hit the bus [and] for me to stop. And I stopped. We went and checked, and he was trying to get up.

'Somebody got on top of him and was holding him down, [telling him], "Don't move."'

She added: 'I was driving the bus, but when I looked, I didnt see anybody. When I heard the thump, I didnt see anything. He was laying over there on he ground, in the crosswalk.'

Witness Charly Some said: 'People were screaming... There were some homeless guys sitting there. They ran and stopped the bus.'

Mamoukakis's Facebook account shows him surrounded by friends and family.

'We're in mourning right now,' his ' 17-year-old grandson, Michael Vezyrakis, told the Daily news. 'Everyone is just really broken up right now.'

Bereaved: The death of Mamoukakis (seen left in recent years, right as a young man) has left his family 'broken up,' his grandson said. He worked as a cobbler in New York for 25 years

Mamoukakis, a cobbler, had run Mike's Shoes, a small shoe shop in Dey St - next to the former site of the Twin Towers - for 25 years.

His death came just five days after another cyclist was hit by a charter bus just three blocks away.

Dan Hanegby, 36, an investment banker and father-of-two from Brooklyn, was on West 26th Street when he was knocked down.

He was riding a Citi Bike - New York's rent-a-bicycle system - making him the first user to be killed in the program's four years of operation.
A man who worked on 9/11 recovery efforts and suffers respiratory issues from Ground Zero has been held for deportation to his native Colombia over a drug sales conviction 27 years ago.

Carlos Humberto Cardona, 48, was taken into custody in February and is being held at the Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny, New Jersey, his family told the New York Daily News.

Cardona was 17 when he came to America in 1986 from Colombia, where he feared for his life after his two older brothers were killed while working as police officers, his family said.

Carlos Humberto Cardona is seen with his infant daughter in this family photo from the late 1990s. Cardona now faces deportation over a drug sales conviction from 27 years ago

Cardona's daughter Giselle, now 19, was shocked when he was detained at a routine appointment with immigration officials after his order of supervision was revoked in February

Cardona worked at Ground Zero doing cleanup work for Milro Construction after the 9/11 attacks, and has suffered respiratory illness since from the hazards at the site (file photo)

Cardona's daughter Giselle pleaded for her dad's release in an impassioned Facebook post

He pleaded guilty to a drug sales charge in 1990, and has had no convictions since then, said his wife Liliana, a naturalized US citizen who married him in 2013.

In May 2000, authorities entered a removal order for Cardona based on the conviction.

The order loomed as Cardona, who had a daughter to raise, worked at Ground Zero doing cleanup work for Milro Construction after the 9/11 attacks.

'I can't believe that this is happening to him after all of the sacrifices he has made. He says he feels like he's being treated like a criminal,' Cardona's wife Liliana told the Daily News. 'He's suffering from depression being locked up in there.'

Cardona had been on an order of supervision since 2011, akin to parole with regular check-ins with federal immigration authorities.

But his detention came suddenly during a routine check-in appointment in February, his wife said.

Cardona married Liliana, a naturalized US citizen, in 2013. His lawyer has filed a motion seeking to expedite a 2014 application verifying the marriage, the first step to citizenship

Cardona, seen with his daughter, came to the US in 1987 from Colombia, where his older brothers were killed while working as police officers, his family says

Cardona's order of supervision had been revoked under President Trump's executive orders. He is one of approximately 41,300 taken into custody in the administration's first 100 days

Cardona's order of supervision had been revoked under President Trump's executive orders, and he became one of approximately 41,300 illegal immigrants taken into custody in the first 100 days of the administration.

Cardona's lawyer filed a motion seeking to expedite a 2014 application verifying his marriage to Liliana, the first step to citizenship. Clemency applications in the drug case are also pending with New York state.

'Don't kick out my dad and then not even help him with treatment expenses,' Cardona's 19-year-old daughter Giselle said in an impassioned Facebook post.

'He's very much an American,' Rajesh Barua, Cardona's attorney, told the Daily News.

'He's scared of going back to Colombia. He doesn't know how he'll maintain a living and what kind of treatment he'll have for respiratory problems, which are very real.'
Hundreds of mourners from the community around Grenfell Tower joined together in solidarity for an outdoor prayer service held by a group from the local mosque.

Muslims and non-Muslims alike held arms in the street to remember the victims of Tuesday night's tragedy which left dozens dead and hundreds more without homes to live in.

The victims have not yet been recovered so a special prayer was offered in both Arabic and English with the enormous crowd rising to its feet to repeat the phrase.

One of those who spoke at the event said: 'This tragedy, this calamity has brought the people together.'

Hundreds of mourners from the community around Grenfell Tower joined together in solidarity for an outdoor prayer service

The diversity of the crowds can be seen here, with many people bowing their heads as the service goes on

With temperatures reaching up to 30C today, hundreds of Muslims came out to honour the dead despite being in the middle of Ramadan

The victims have not yet been recovered so a special prayer was offered in both Arabic and English

With temperatures reaching up to 30C today, hundreds of Muslims came out to honour the dead despite being in the middle of Ramadan - the Islamic festival in which no food is eaten during sunlight hours.

A separate service is set to be held in the Al Manaar mosque when the bodies are found by police.

It follows another event held earlier today by the local Christian church which saw a poignant display of grief with devastated mourners embracing each other as they sang along to Amazing Grace through floods of tears.

One of those involved in organising today's service, a community youth worker who did not want to be named, told MailOnline: 'Probably 60% of the people here are muslims but we wanted to do something for everybody.

'What we're doing is the prayer for the person who is not here - we haven't got the body so we're going to do that prayer today then we're going to do a prayer in the mosque when the bodies come.

'I'm a manager of a youth centre and a lot of my youths died in the tower.

More crowds stand outside the Grenfell Tower during the multi-faith ceremony earlier this afternoon

Prayers were made for all those who were killed, injured or are still missing following Tuesday's devastating fire

A group of young girls are seen here joining in the ceremony earlier today

Although the community here has united in their grief, many are still furious as to how the tragedy was allowed to happen

'A lot have also been left with no parents because they were out at night getting food or whatever, and they've come home to find the flats burning so they couldn't get in. Now they're left with no parents and no brothers or sisters.

'Everything about this is very complicated - it just seems to be over the top and we're just keeping it low.

'Everybody who has been affected by this doesn't want to be walking around, doesn't want to be talking to people, they're in a trauma.'

'The community's reaction is beautiful, it's fantastic, everybody's come together, everybody's had unity, everybody's shed a tear, everybody's hugged each other, I think it's a big big thing.'

Local student Souian, 19, was one of those at the service and hailed the way that the community has joined together regardless of faith.

He said: 'Everyone has come together and there's a sense of belonging no matter who they are. When they come here, everyone's welcome.

'Everyone belongs here. You could be from anywhere, if you just come here this is your home.

'No-one will ever forget what happened here.'

Some people, such as the man in the black t-shirt in the middle of the image, brought along megaphones to shout out messages

A fire engine at the scene. 58 people are known to have perished so far, but that figure is still expected to rise

A woman is seen here wiping away tears, while others stand solemnly and pay their respects

At least 58 people were killed in the devastating blaze at Grenfell Tower in Kensington in the early hours of Wednesday morning

Muslims who were awake for Ramadan were hailed as heroes after helping to save their sleeping neighbours from the Grenfell Tower fire.

Residents who had stayed up for Suhur - the meal between 1-2am before Muslims begin fasting again - saw the inferno break out just before 1am.

Muslims told of how they smelled smoke in the early hours of Wednesday morning and began running around, frantically banging on people's doors to wake them up.

They were dubbed a 'lifeline' in helping to get people out of their flats, amid claims that fire alarms and sprinklers were not working in the west London block.

Khalid Suleman Ahmed, 20, who lives on the eighth floor of Grenfell Tower, said he would not normally be up so late but was waiting for Suhur.

'No fire alarms went off and there were no warning. I was playing PlayStation waiting to eat suhuur then smelt smoke,' he told HufPost UK.

'I got up and looked out of my window and saw the seventh floor smoking. I woke my auntie up, then got clothes on and started knocking on neighbours' doors.

'Every house opened except two - I saw the other guy later on so only 1 family unaccounted for. My next door neighbour was fast asleep.'

Suhur is before the first prayer, Fajr, which would have been around 2.40am on Wednesday morning, according to the London Central Mosque Trust.

In the religious festival, meals are eaten before dawn (Suhur) and after sunset (Iftar).
The US has been branded a 'lawless and felonious state' by North Korea after its officials were supposedly 'literally mugged' by police in New York's JFK airport.

According to North Korean state media organization KNCA, the officials were returning from a UN conference on the rights of persons with disabilities on Friday when a package was taken from them.

'The international community needs to seriously reconsider whether or not New York, where such an outrageous mugging is rampant, is fit to serve as the venue for international meetings,' the government fumed in a statement.

The US should no longer host the UN after North Korean officials were 'mugged' of a package by cops and Department of Homeland agents on Friday, the Asian country's state media said

According to KNCA, the officials were in possession of a valid diplomatic courier certificate, which means they should have been able to pass through security unhindered.

But, they said, a 'gang of more than 20' cops and members of the Department of Homeland Security were waiting for them.

The cops then 'made a violent assault like gangsters to take away the diplomatic package,' the report alleged.

It added that the team were 'on standby waiting for the delegation in front of the boarding gate of the specific flight before making the assault.'

That, KNCA claimed, 'leaves no doubt that this was a planned and organized provocation.'

The supposed 'robbery' took place at JFK airport, where the officials were using diplomatic courier documents, North Korea claimed. It's unclear what was in the package

The State Department and White House had no immediate comment on the North Korean statement.

The official statement warned of 'grave consequences' and concluded by demanding an apology from the US government.

'If the US fails to give its due response to our demand which is all too reasonable and fair enough, it will be totally responsible for all the consequences to be entailed,' it said.

This is the latest ratcheting up of tensions between the US and North Korea following the return of prisoner Otto Warmbier, 22, who is in a coma after being held by North Korea for 17 months.

Warmbier, 22, who arrived in the United States on Tuesday, is stable but 'shows no sign of understanding language, responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surrounding,' a doctor at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center said.

Tensions have also been raised after North Korea held a succession of missile tests in the Sea of Japan.
A deck collapse at a camp in Montana sent 32 people to the hospital on Saturday to be treated for injuries, some of which are critical, according to authorities.

Lake County emergency services said a group of people were attending a memorial service at Glacier Camp, in Lakeside, when the balcony on the second story of one of the buildings collapsed.

The Fire Department confirmed 32 people had to be taken to local hospitals, and Sheriff Don Bell said six were airlifted, reported NBC Montana.

A collapsed deck at a camp in Montana sent 32 people to the hospital on Saturday to be treated for injuries, some of which are critical, according to authorities

Lake County emergency services said a group of people were attending a memorial service at Glacier Camp, in Lakeside, when the balcony on the second story of one of the buildings collapsed

Five of the victims are in critical condition, though there have been no reported fatalities.

People at the camp told KFBB the deck 'felt spongy' on one side before collapsing, causing a domino effect.

Somers fire department told NBC one person was taken to Missoula's Providence Saint Patrick Hospital via a Life Flight helicopter, and ten went to the hospital in personal vehicles.

As of 7pm Saturday all patients were in stable condition, with injuries ranging from mild to severe on the victims of all ages.

Glacier Camp is a Presbyterian summer camp near Lakeside, on the northwest side of Flathead Lake in Glacier National Park. The camp hosted a summer retreat over the weekend.

The camp's social media describes it as 'all about fun and meaningful Christ-centered camp/retreat experiences and good clean adventure based camp fun'

The camp's social media describes it as 'all about fun and meaningful Christ-centered camp/retreat experiences and good clean adventure based camp fun!'

On its website, the camp wrote: 'Dear friends, This afternoon, we had a major accident at the camp. Please join us in praying for the injured and their families.

'We are grateful to all of the EMTs/Paramedics, fire departments and first responders to came to our aid. We ask for your prayers for all involved. We will not have camp in session this week.'
As many as 250 animals across the UK may have been murdered by a serial cat killer who has terrified south London for two years.

The so-called 'Croydon cat killer' is now also thought to have attacked squirrels, rabbits and foxes as far away as Birmingham, Manchester and Merseyside.

Profilers working for the NCA - Britain's equivalent of the FBI - said the killer might be acting out 'dark and deviant sexual fantasies'.

Bertie, 12, was one of the Croydon Cat Killer's victims. His headless body was found in Surrey

Pippa Gregory, NCA profiling expert, said: '[This is] not your average animal abuse, you get plenty of animal abuse...it is the post mortem mutilation and the need to deposit [the bodies] that is particularly interesting.

'We don't know many of these individuals, because they are often not found, those that we do know about have been found to have really quite dark and deviant sexual fantasies.

Ukiyo's eviscerated body turned up on the doorstep of a nearby house in December 2015

'That is not to say they are doing this to make up for sexual fantasies but it certainly seems that they are getting gratification from the offenses and the mutilation of cats.

Scotland Yard has now deployed ten officers and enlisted the help of the NCA to help track down the killer, the Times reported.

Amber (left) was found with head and tail cut off, while (centre) Missy's body was dumped near the family home in Coulsdon. Louie (right) had his leg chopped off

Detective Sergeant Andy Collin said it was 'without doubt, the strangest case' he had dealt with.

Animal Charity South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty have also joined forces with police to help track down the killer.

It is now believed that the cat killer may be responsible for as many as 250 animal deaths

Tony Jenkins, from the charity, said: 'We are now looking at around 250 killings. It's not just cats. He's been targeting foxes and rabbits and, most recently, a squirrel.

CAT KILLER KEY MOMENTS... 2013: The RSCPA say they are aware of attacks stretching back this far but the killings did not ramp up until two years later September to December 2015: Croydon Cat Ripper name first used when a number of cat murders were reported in the south London borough of Croydon. At least seven cats were found mutilated in the area April 2016: More bodies were discovered across North and South London February 2016: Animals rights charity PETA offered a 5,000 reward to anyone who had information that could lead to the arrest of the killer August 2016: Five more cats were found chopped up around the M25 area January 2017: Two more cats had been killed with within 2 hours of each other Advertisement

'There was a very signature injury that we saw on the squirrel which, suggests this is not a copycat.'

The Metropolitan Police began investigating the killings in November 2015, under the name Operation Takahe.

The probe began after headless cats were found in Croydon, Streatham, Mitcham Common, Sutton, Charlton, Peckham and Finchley.

A vet found raw chicken in the stomachs of a number of the cats, suggesting the killer was luring them to their deaths with meat tidbits.

The RSPCA believes they were killed by blunt trauma, possibly from a moving vehicle but SNARL said some may have been thrown against a wall.

It's thought the killer cuts off the heads and tails to retain as grisly 'trophies'.

Other deaths have been reported in Maidstone and Sevenoaks, and Doc Martin actor Martin Clunes used social media begging people to help catch the killer.
Joao Scognamiglio Cla Dias, an honorary canon of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome

Exorcists who reportedly worship the devil and believe its former leader controls climate change are being investigated by the Vatican.

The Brazil-based group of exorcists, known as the Heralds of the Gospel, are said to use rogue exorcism practices to possess people.

They are also said to believe their former leader Dr Plinio Correa de Oliveira, who died in 1995, is in close contact with Satan.

Even in death, Dr Plinio is said to possess the ability to control climate change and is plotting towards the death of Pope Francis.

The Vatican's investigation was launched as video emerged online purporting to show group members recounting a conversation with the devil.

It's now former leader, Monsignor Joao Scognamiglio Cla Dias - an honorary canon of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome - also features in the clip.

The video purports to show one member reading from a transcript that recounts a conversation between the devil and Heralds of the Gospel.

Joao Scognamiglio Cla Dias, pictured right, listens as one of the group's members reads from a transcript that reportedly recounts a conversation with the devil

The title reads 'A gathering of priests to share experiences of exorcisms'. Dozens of members of Heralds of the Gospel feature in the footage

Referring to the group's original founder, the group foresees the downfall of Pope Francis and that a meteorite will crash into the Atlantic Ocean, destroying North America

'The pope does whatever I want, he's stupid! He obeys me in everything. He is my glory, he is willing to do everything for me. He serves me,' the member narrates

The demon, referring to the group's original founder, says: 'Dr Plinio, the author of the climate change, and the increase of heat.

'It is Plinio who does everything,' according to the devil as channelled through the exorcist.'

The 'devil' also foresees that a meteorite will crash into the Atlantic Ocean and that North America will 'disappear'.

It adds: 'The Vatican? It's mine, mine!

'The pope does whatever I want, he's stupid! He obeys me in everything. He is my glory, he is willing to do everything for me. He serves me,' the member narrates.

The devil then predicts that 'the pope will die falling' and that Dias will replace him.

The video shows a member of the group recounting a conversation with 'the devil', which predicts the downfall of Pope Francis (pictured)

A Vatican spokesman told Vatican Insider that 'an in-depth and thorough inquiry' will take place.

Other videos which have reportedly been removed from the internet are said to show exorcisms being performed using unauthorised techniques.

The group splintered from its original organisation, the Tradition, Family and Property Association (TFP), following Dr Plinio's death in 1995, and was headed up by Dias.

The Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life is investigating the over the alleged controversial practices.

Dias, who has now resigned from his position, will retain a role in Herald of the Gospel's affairs in a seemingly consultant-like position
Daleyza Avila-Hernandez, three, died on Monday in Stockton, California

A mother is in anguish and a community baffled after a three-year-girl died during a dental procedure to fix her teeth.

Daleyza Avila-Hernandez, three, died on Monday in Stockton, California at the Children's Dental Surgery Center while having two teeth removed and two teeth capped.

Pictures taken in the dental office's waiting room show Daleyza looking healthy, vivacious, and full of life.

'All I did was I took my daughter to the dentist because they were going to fix her teeth and about 30 minutes later they brought her back dead,' mother Araceli Avila told KTVU.

Avila had taken Daleyza in for surgery after the girl's dentist recommended it, she said.

Daleyza had been undergoing the procedure for about half an hour when an ambulance arrived.

Scroll down for video

This picture taken in the waiting room at the Children's Dental Surgery Center shows Daleyza moments before the procedure, looking healthy and full of life

'All I did was I took my daughter to the dentist because they were going to fix her teeth and about 30 minutes later they brought her back dead,' mother Araceli Avila said

'When I was in the waiting room, I saw the ambulance. I stood up to see and I thought to myself they are here for a child but never thought it was my child,' the mother told CBS Sacramento.

The family has created a GoFundMe page to help raise money for Daleysa's funeral expenses.

David Thompson, the administrator at Children's Dental Surgery Center, told Fox affiliate KTVU that during every surgery there is a dentist, an anesthesiologist, and two assistants present.

'This is not an easy thing to deal with. I've been doing this for almost ten years now; I've never had a situation like this,' Thompson said.

Avila said that a nurse's assistant told her that Daleyza's heart had stopped during the procedure, and suggested that the young girl had some underlying condition that had gone undetected.

Daleysa was at the dental surgeon to have two teeth removed and two teeth capped

An administrator at Children's Dental Surgery Center said the office follows proper procedures

That suggestion outraged Avila, who says Daleyza was perfectly healthy.

The Stockton Police Department is investigating the death, but says that at this time it isn't considered suspicious or a criminal case.

An estimated six million children undergo general anesthesia in the US every year, according to the British Journal of Anesthesia.

As with adults, anesthesia is never without risk, though some fear that children may be more susceptible to ill effects.

In March, four-year-old Mykel Peterson died under anesthesia for a dental procedure in Vancouver, Washington.

Last year in Texas, the death of one-year-old Daisy Lynne Torres under anesthesia for cavity fillings sparked outrage when an autopsy determined that the procedure was completely unnecessary.
A master perfumer has crafted a new fragrance to mark the launch of the new 10 next month  money.

It was created by Roja Dove, a former perfumer at Guerlain in Paris, and has been described best as 'Cologne de Cash'.

He was commissioned to produce a perfumed tribute to old-fashioned paper banknotes, that were made up of cotton.

'I was thinking of a note at the end of its life', Mr Dove told The Times.

It is best described as 'Cologne de Cash' and was created to mark the launch of the new 10 polymer note

'I was thinking of a note at the end of its life', said master perfumer, Roja Dove. The perfume will contain scents of hand cream, tobacco, soupcon ink and even human sweat.

'You've paid for the Tube or the car park, you've handled keys and coins and you've ended up having a bacon sandwich': Mr Dove said he wanted to capture the scene of humanity

'You've paid for the Tube or the car park, you've handled keys and coins and you've ended up having a bacon sandwich.

'You pay with the 10 note and it's given in turn to the woman who's wearing some terribly expensive hand cream'.

Among the scents mixed into the perfume are cotton, soupcon ink, leather, hand cream, human sweat and tobacco.

The master perfumer was commissioned to make the notes of a previous era.

The new 10 note, which features Jane Austen, is made of polymer, as well as the recently introduced 5.

The new 10 note, which features Jane Austen, is made of polymer, as well as the recently introduced 5

The Bank of England said the new notes are 'stronger, cleaner and more secure', in that they are difficult to tear and can survive being washed.

The polymer note, set to be unveiled in July on the 200th anniversary of the writer's death, depicts her with a slightly plump face, a lace bonnet and serene expression; it was painted after she died in 1817 at the age of 41.

Austens portrait will replace Charles Darwin on a new set of plastic, unrippable notes.

More than 35,000 people had signed a petition calling for the new 10 notes to feature a female face after Elizabeth Fry, the Quaker prison reformer, was replaced by Winston Churchill on 5 notes.
Paris Wallace, 52, is missing in the Rocky Mountains in New Mexico

A pastor has gone missing in New Mexico in search of buried treasure.

Paris Wallace from Grand Junction, Colorado, traveled to New Mexico last week and was reported missing on Wednesday.

The 52-year-old is looking for a chest which author Forrest Fenn claims to have buried somewhere in the Rocky Mountains in 2010.

Fenn claims its contents are worth $2million and fans of his work are to look for clues of its whereabouts hidden in his work.

On Saturday, The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction quoted a friend of the pastor who is also a keen Fenn fan and who has taken 19 trips himself to find the chest.

When Wallace went missing, he became suspicious that the pastor had launched his own quest and appealed to a fan forum for help.

One woman recognized the region from one of Fenn's books and went looking. Within hours, she found Wallace's car in the town of Pilar and alerted police.

The pastor's worried wife later confirmed the suspicion that he was looking for the treasure.

Days later, authorities looking for the man found his backpack and rope that was tied to a rock near the town of Espanola.

A receipt found in his car confirmed the rope purchase.

Fenn, 86, encourages readers to follow clues in his two books - Thrill of the Chase and Too Long For Walking - to find the treasure.

Wallace's car was found in Pilar by another reader who went looking for him in the area after a friend posted about his disappearance in a forum set-up for the treasure hunters. His backpack and rope was discovered in Espanola later

Author Forrest Fenn, 86, (left) buried the treasure in 2010 and includes clues and maps for his readers to find it in his books. Treasure hunter Randy Bilyeu (right) died last year looking for the chest

The Thrill of the Chase and Too Far To Walk contain clues which point to the chest's whereabouts

Fenn says the chest is Roman in appearance (similar shown above) and contains $2million worth of gold and jewels

The author said he buried the goods in 2010 and that the treasure hunt is his way of encouraging families to get outdoors and spend time together.

He told DailyMail.com: 'It is terrible news that the man has gone missing. I pray that he will be found safe and well.

'If I were 10 years younger I would be out looking for him myself.

'It is unfortunate that hundreds of hunters and hikers are lost each year in our forests and waterways.'

In rules on a website about the hunt, he stipulates that readers should never attempt the search alone.

Wallace's disappearance comes almost a year after the remains of another treasure hunter were found.

Randy Bilyeu was looking for the same hidden treasure when he disappeared in January 2016.

The father-of-two's remains were found in July. Afterwards, his grieving widow said she believed the entire treasure hunt was a hoax.

'We're disappointed that he lost his life because of a treasure hunt.

Pilar, New Mexico, where Wallace's car was discovered last week (file image)

'There's no treasure - it's not real. He lost his life for a hoax,' she told The Albequerque Journal.

A friend of the author defended the hunt on Sunday when contacted by DailyMail.com.

'Forrest has said many things which people should pay attention to [including] dont go anywhere a 79 or 80 year old man cant go, the chest is not hidden in a dangerous place, and dont search alone in the mountains, yet people still look in the Rio Grande.

'They feel they need to check out cliff faces using mountaineering skills and they try crossing raging, ice cold mountain rivers. There is no need for this. Forrest intended this treasure hunt to get kids off the couch and away from their video games.

'It is an adventure aimed at families. Folks who try these stunts with no experience other than watching reality TV programs are foolish and apparently cant read or listen well to the guidance offered by the only person who knows where the chest is located,' Dal Neitzel, who operates a blog about the hunt, said.
New footage taken from inside Grenfell Tower has revealed the devastation caused by the inferno - as police revealed the death toll is expected to rise once again.

Harrowing images show the charred remains of flats and hallways that were once home to hundreds of families before the blaze broke out on Wednesday morning.

One video shows the gutted interior of a flat, its kitchen appliances burnt to a crisp and a bed mattress reduced to nothing more than hundreds of springs.

Another shows the destruction caused to the lifts inside the 27-storey tower block, while one image captures a firefighter surveying the damage outside its entrance.

Met Police also revealed that the official number of people either dead or missing - currently 79 - is expected to rise following searches of the wreckage.

An appeal was launched for information on people who could have been visiting the tower at the time but have not yet been reported missing by friends of relatives.

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Harrowing images show the charred remains of flats and hallways that were once home to hundreds of families before the blaze broke out on Wednesday morning

Another photograph shows the destruction caused to the lifts inside the 27-storey tower block (pictured)

One grab from a police video shows how the plaster has fallen from the walls, exposing the flat's pipework

The latest images were captured by a specialist police recovery team sent into the wreck to find the bodies of victims and evidence on what caused the fire.

In a statement, Metropolitan Police said the images have been taken inside flats where police know that everyone inside has been accounted for.

Commander Stuart Cundy said the fire damage witnessed by specialist teams inside Grenfell Tower verged on 'indescribable'.

He said: 'It is really important that we are clear about the scale of the challenge facing us as our teams search Grenfell Tower to recover those people still inside and return them to their loved ones.

'Whilst our teams have been from the bottom to the top of the tower, we must now carry out a full forensic and systematic search.

'The conditions due to the fire damage verge on indescribable, which is why this will be such a lengthy operation taking weeks to complete.

In this image released by Metropolitan Plice, a firefighter is seen surveying the damage outside the entrance to Grenfell Tower

One video shows the gutted interior of a flat, its kitchen appliances burnt to a crisp and a bed mattress reduced to nothing more than hundreds of springs (shown)

Commander Stuart Cundy said the fire damage witnessed by specialist teams inside Grenfell Tower verged on 'indescribable'

An exercise bike stands among the rubble and charred remains of household items in one of the block's many flats

'We must also prepare people for the terrible reality that some people may not be identified due to the intensity of the fire.'

'Work has been ongoing throughout the night and continues today, so we can get as good an understanding as possible about who we believe to be still missing.'

Commander Cundy also said that today's searches suggest that there may have been people inside the tower who have not been reported missing.

'I must consider the fact that there may be others in the building who, for whatever reason, have not been reported to us.

'There is also a real possibility that there may be people in the building that no one knows are missing.'

'I want to hear from anyone who believes that they know someone who may have been living, staying or visiting but has not yet been reported missing to us.

In a statement, Metropolitan Police said the images have been taken inside flats where police know that everyone inside has been accounted for

These are the people who lived in the tower and are still missing following the blaze on Wednesday

'We are not interested in your reasons for not telling us sooner, we just want to understand as best as we can who may still be inside the building.'

It is understood that more bodies have been discovered during the search, with the figure due to be officially updated tomorrow.

It comes as residents whose homes were destroyed were told they would receive a 5,500 Government down payment from tomorrow.

The announcement was made by Downing Street on Sunday evening, as the Prime Minister faced intense scrutiny over her government's reaction to the disaster.

Residents will be given 500 in cash followed by a bank payment for the rest from Monday.

Theresa May insisted the Government was doing everything possible to help those caught up in the tragedy.

A woman was seen laying flowers close to the scene where the blaze happened in west London

Residents tried to escape from Grenfell Tower (pictured) in west London in the early hours of Wednesday morning

The money will come from the 5 million fund announced by Mrs May on Friday.

No 10 said further payments will be available from the Westway Centre and the nearby post office in Portobello Road.

Help will be given to residents who do not have bank accounts.

Mrs May said: 'As we continue to respond to the needs of the community, our focus is on ensuring that all of those affected by this unimaginable tragedy get the right support as quickly as possible.

'My government will continue to do absolutely everything possible to help all of those affected through the difficult days, weeks, months and years ahead.'
A Siberian Husky service dog who was missing for seven weeks after he escaped from a Las Vegas doggie daycare has been reunited with his owner.

Loki was missing after he broke through a crate, pushed through doors and jumped over the fences at Hot Diggity Dog Daycare in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The dog's owner, Melissa Nelson, never gave up looking for her two-year-old pup but was beginning to have her doubts.

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Melissa Nelson was recently reunited with her two-year-old Siberian Husky service dog Loki

She added: 'As soon as he licked my face, I started bawling like a baby, I was crying and he's trying to comfort me, putting his head up against my neck and stuff.' No charges will be brought against the couple

Seven weeks prior, Loki broke through a crate, pushed through doors and jumped over the fences at Hot Diggity Dog Daycare in Las Vegas, Nevada

'I was at the point where I didn't think I was going to get him back,' said Nelson to KTNV.

Almost giving up her search, Nelson had a glimmer of hope when a woman called saying that she had seen the report about the dog on the news and that her daughter had been keeping the pooch and refused to give him back.

A sting operation was set up by the Las Vegas police department after Nelson called them to notify them of the news.

'I was at the point where I didn't think I was going to get him back,' said Nelson about Loki who is her second dog

'The cop got tired of their games so he came over to me and he's like can I just see what he does when you come up to the window?' said Nelson

The police waited for Loki and his captures to walk out of a Lee's Discount Liquor store while Nelson waited nearby.

'The cop got tired of their games so he came over to me and he's like can I just see what he does when you come up to the window?' said Nelson.

'As soon as he licked my face, I started bawling like a baby, I was crying and he's trying to comfort me, putting his head up against my neck and stuff.'

No arrest were made and police deemed that the investigation was over following the reunion.
Seaman First Class Robert Monroe 'Bobby' Temple (pictured), who has been MIA since Pearl Harbor, has been laid to rest after the US Navy were able to identify his remains using DNA testing

A US sailor who has been missing in action ever since the Pearl Harbor attacks has finally been laid to rest.

The family of Navy Seaman First Class Robert Monroe 'Bobby' Temple say they have finally found closure after the US Navy was able to identify his remains through DNA testing.

On Saturday, veterans, scouts, and members of the local high school's Reserve Officers' Training Corps lined the streets along the route of the funeral procession in the village of Shiloh, Illinois.

The procession ended at Faith Family Church where a public funeral service was held with presentation of Naval military honors.

Temple's remains will lie in state until Monday where they will be returned to Hawaii for committal to his final resting place at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, in Honolulu, Of Fallen Weekly reports.

Temple, of Wathena, Kansas, was just 19 years old when his ship, the USS Oklahoma, was hit with nine torpedoes in the surprise attack on Pear Harbor on December 7, 1941. The ship sank within minutes, claiming the lives of all 429 crewmen aboard.

More than 2,400 Americans were killed that fateful day, including dozens of civilians.

The United States had not declared war on Axis countries at that time. It had frozen Japanese assets and cut off its access to wartime materials through an embargo in response to the country's invasion of China and French Indochina, however.

Temple's flag draped coffin was carried from the hearse to the church by members of the Navy

On Saturday, veterans, scouts, and members of the local high school's Reserve Officers' Training Corps lined the streets along the route of the funeral procession in the village of Shiloh, Illinois

Prime Minister Tojo Hideki ordered a strike on the U.S. Pacific fleet, destroying the USS Arizona, capsizing the USS Oklahoma and sinking the California, Nevada, and West Virginia.

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared it a 'date which will live in infamy' and Congress near unanimously voted to authorize the country's entry into World War II the next day.

Two years later, the Navy were able to raise the sunken ships - including the USS Oklahoma.

All the remains of the crew were recovered but only 34 were able to be identified by their dental records.

The remaining bodies were all placed in a mass grave at Pearl Harbor marked 'Unknown' and lay untouched until 2015, when the U.S. Navy decided to exhume the bodies to use DNA testing to once again try and identify them.

Temple was just 19 years old when his ship, the USS Oklahoma, was hit with nine torpedoes in the surprise attack on Pear Harbor on December 7, 1941 (pictured, another ship, the USS Shaw explodes in the Pearl Harbor attack)

The American battleship 'Arizona' on fire sinking after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor, 7th December 1941

After more than 70 years of being MIA, Temple was finally identified and his family were identified.

His brother James Temple said laying him to rest, 'brings... a real sweet comfort.

'At least I know the truth,' he told Fox News, adding that the funeral gave the family the 'opportunity to honor him'.

Bobby Temple was born in Wathena, Kansas as the second child of James Monroe Temple and the late Elizabeth Jane nee Hoke.

He signed up to the Navy when he was 18 and lost his life just one year later in the Pearl Harbor attacks.

Temple is survived by his brother James, sister Barbara Johnson, and several nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.
A group of Native American high school students walked out of a performance of the musical 'The Fantasticks' after taking offense to the play's context and stereotypes.

The walkout happened on Thursday during the intermission of a performance of the traveling musical at the University of Wyoming.

The high school students were attending a week long Native American Summer Institute program at the university, which aims to give them a first taste of college.

The 1960 musical, which is about two neighboring fathers who trick their children into falling in love by pretending to feud, contains a scene in which characters dress up as and villainize Native Americans.

The group of Native American high school students walked out on Thursday during the intermission of a performance of the musical The Fantasticks at the University of Wyoming. The play was first performed in the 1960s (above)

Attendees said they were also shocked at the casual use of the word 'rape' in the musical's dialogue, the Laramie Boomerang reports.

The walkout by the high school students also prompted a boycott by another summer camp, the Upward Bound group, who canceled plans to attend Saturday's performance at the Department of Theater and Dance.

It also prompted criticism from University of Wyoming's United Multicultural Council.

'The show especially demeans Native American cultures with outdated stereotypes of Native American appropriation by non-native actors wearing headdresses/warbonnets,' a statement by the United Multicultural Council read.

'It also portrays Native American and Latino/Hispanic characters as the villains or antagonists of the show.'

The walkout by the high school students prompted criticism from University of Wyoming's United Multicultural Council who shared this image of empty seats in the theater

The long-running musical - a staple of regional, community and high school theater - plays in four different Wyoming communities this week before closing next weekend in Laramie

The university is now warning audiences about the offensive material by preparing a program insert for future performances explaining the scene.

'With historical productions, we see a 'point in time,' which is different from the one in which we live,' the insert reads.

'We see portrayals of characters that are painful to watch as 21st century audiences. The challenge then, in producing historical works, is to help audiences understand the context and/or story for the play without taking undue or illegal liberties with the script.'

The long-running musical - a staple of regional, community and high school theater - plays in four different Wyoming communities this week before closing next weekend in Laramie.

The musical, which features the songs 'Try To Remember' and 'Soon It's Gonna Rain,' closed earlier this month in New York City, having played a total of 21,552 performances in the capital of American theater.

Tim Nichols, who helped set up the Native American Summer Institute, told The Boomerang that the content was unfortunate

'It's a 1960s play, but it was, in my view, inappropriate,' he said. 'We shared our concerns with the theater department and we shared our concerns with the students and, you know, we're OK.'
Representative Adam Schiff has said Trump and his legal team seem determined to 'take down' Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Mueller is the former FBI director heading the investigation into the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia and Trump's alleged obstruction of justice in light of his firing former FBI Director James Comey.

This comes just days after a report said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller to his position, may be the next person to recuse himself from the investigation.

Robert Mueller is the former FBI director heading the investigation into the Trump campaign's possivle toes to Russia and Trump's alleged obstruction of justice in light of his firing former FBI Director James Comey (stock image)

Representative Adam Schiff has said Trump and his legal team seem determined to 'take down' Special Counsel Robert Mueller (stock images)

'They want to lay the foundation to discredit whatever Bob Mueller comes up with,' Schiff, the top democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said on ABC News' 'This Week.'

He continued: 'They're essentially engaging in a scorched earth litigation strategy that is beginning with trying to discredit the prosecutor. And that's all that's happening here.'

These comments were in response to those made by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a strong Trump supporter, who has been bad-mouthing Mueller for weeks.

These comments were in response to those made by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a strong Trump supporter, who has been bad-mouthing Mueller for weeks

During the interview, Gingrich also brought up Mueller's friendship with Comey, referring to the well-known connection as 'weird' (stock image)

Just Saturday, he told 'This Week' he has 'every problem with what Mueller is doing,' before accusing him of stacking his legal team with left-leaning lawyers.

During the interview, Gingrich also brought up Mueller's friendship with Comey, referring to the well-known connection as 'weird.'

Trump's lawyer also took aim at Mueller on Sunday, claiming the President is not being investigated by Mueller, despite Trump tweeting otherwise on Friday.

Additionally, people have been speculating for weeks whether or not the President is going to fire Mueller.

Though, those suspicions looked ready to end when Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, told a Senate subcommittee he saw 'no cause' to remove Mueller from his position, according to the New York Daily News.

According to an ABC news report, Rod Rosenstein has said in private he might need to recuse himself, citing a memo he wrote to the President, which was later used in Trump's justification for firing Comey (Rosenstein is pictured on June 13, 2017)

Additionally, people have been speculating for weeks whether or not the President is going to fire Mueller (pictured in a stock image)

However, just days later ABC news reported Rosenstein has said in private he might need to recuse himself, citing a memo he wrote to the President, which was later used in Trump's justification for firing Comey.

Were Rosenstein to recuse himself, Mueller's fate would be in the hands of a new party, who may be convinced by the President that he should be let go.

However, Senator Marco Rubio told CNN he does not think Mueller will be fired, but acknowledge he did not think Comey would be axed either.
A Deerfield swim instructor was sentenced to life behind bars on Friday for molesting three six-year-old girls.

Francisco Xavier de Aragon II, 28, denied the claims made by the three young students that he groped them under their bathing costumes during lessons.

But his pleas failed to move the judge, who handed down the maximum sentence available: Four consecutive life sentences, ABC Local 10 reported.

Sentenced: Francisco Xavier de Aragon II (pictured) was sentenced to four life sentences on Friday for molesting three of his six-year-old swimming students in Deerfield, Florida

De Aragon had been found guilty on May 18 of all counts against him, including one count of sexual battery on a child, three counts of lewd and lascivious molestation, and one count of battery.

The incidents had occurred at a swim class in Deerfield Beach Aquatics Center in 2015.

All three of the victims came forward to speak in court, with one of them saying: 'The lifeguard touched my private part.'

The disgraced lifeguard denied the claims throughout, saying that there may have been 'accidental contact' when he was teaching them how to float, and that they may have misinterpreted that.

He said he spent less than a minute holding the girls up so they could float on their stomachs, describing the process as being 'too fast for anything like that,' and 'like a conveyor belt.'

But prosecutor Patyl Oflazian dismissed claims that the abuse was inadvertently caused by his teaching technique.

'I don't understand, in what swimming technique has it ever been taught that your hand would go inside of a child's bathing suit bottom, and that your finger would then penetrate that child's vagina,' she told jurors.

She commended the victims' bravery in court after the sentence was handed down, 7 News Miami reported.

'We're very proud of the victims who came forward and testified in the trial,' she said.

De Aragon touched the girls inside their swimsuits and digitally penetrated at least one of them here, at the Deerfield Beach Aquatics Center. He denied all of the charges

'This is a case that came down to what those three girls testified to versus the defendant's testimony.

'Not only was it a fair sentence, it was a sentence that supported the evidence in the case and was required.'

The prosecutor said she was 'very proud' of the three girls, who gave testimony against De Aragon in court

De Aragon cried as the sentence was passed, and mouthed 'I love you' to his wife.

His mother, Phoebe, who is also a swim instructor, believed that the girls fabricated the story to get out of swimming lessons.

'Were going to fight because hes innocent, and what theyre describing did not happen,' she added.

His wife also stood by him after he was sentenced. 'It was his pride and joy to know that saving somebody and being able to properly train them,' she said.

Oflazian said they were delusional.

'When someones in denial, they will continue to proclaim their innocence,' she said.

De Aragorn had previously turned down a plea deal that would have seen him getting 25 years in prison.
A pet snake may be on the loose in New York City after it attacked its owner on Saturday morning.

Waldo Santiago was in his fifth-floor Manhattan apartment at around 5.15am yesterday, when he was bitten in the foot by his pet snake, the New York Post reports.

When paramedics arrived at the apartment on West 45th Street near Ninth Avenue in Hells Kitchen, a neighbor said he was still in his pajamas but was able to leave without a stretcher or wheelchair.

A pet snake may be on the loose in New York City after it attacked its owner on Saturday morning (stock image)

Santiago was taken to the nearby Jacobi Medical Center in a stable condition.

He has since been treated and released, a hospital representative said.

Police have been unable to confirm the breed or whereabouts of the snake.
A US warplane on Sunday shot down a pro-Assad military aircraft that dropped bombs near American-backed fighters in Syria, the Pentagon said.

The US Central Command issued a statement saying the plane was downed 'in collective self-defense of Coalition-partnered forces,' identified as fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces near Tabqah.

The Syrian army said earlier that the US-led coalition shot down one of its planes during a combat mission against Islamic State militants.

Washington is leading an alliance in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.
A tiny Virginia island that is seeking help from the rising oceans before it disappears completely into the Atlantic Ocean has been helped by Donald Trump - but purely by accident.

Trump called James 'Ooker' Eskridge, the mayor of Tangier Island, on June 12 to reassure him that he believed the town would still be around for centuries to come.

While the crabbing community has been supportive of Trump, that promise - from the man who pulled out of the Paris climate agreement to the horror of scientists worldwide - didn't carry much water.

And Eskridge knows about water: Almost 70 per cent of his island has been lost to the ocean in the past 165 years, according to a 2015 study.

That's an average of 16 feet of land disappearing every year.

But Trump's much-publicized call has helped out the island in an unexpected way: The publicity led to it outstripping an important fundraising goal.

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James 'Ooker' Eskridge (left) received a call from Donald Trump on June 12 telling him not to worry about his island town of Tangier disappearing under rising seas

The same day as Trump's call (Trump seen here with son Barron on Saturday), a GoFundMe page was launched to raise money to send a documentary about Tangier's plight to members of the federal government. That fund has now exceeded its target

A GoFundMe page was launched by Tangier residents the same day as Trump's call.

It was intended to raise money to have 550 copies of the documentary Pieces of Tangier sent to every member of federal government.

That includes all members of the House and Senate, as well as President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

The documentary tells the plight of the island, which could be uninhabitable within 25 years, according to experts.

According to the 2015 study, 'The Tangier Islands and the Town are running out of time, and if no action is taken, the citizens of Tangier may become among the first climate change refugees in the continental USA.'

The fund had a goal of $3,200; as of Sunday afternoon - six days since it began - it had raised $4,615.

'Looks like over 500 copies of Pieces of Tangier are going to be sent to Congress!, the Pieces of Tangier Facebook page said.

'Over $3500 raised in just a few days! There is no pride like Tangier pride!'

Tangier - located just 100 miles from the White House - has lost 16 feet of land a year to the rising seas, and its occupants hope the documentary will help them get a barrier wall

This picture shows supports on the island jetting out from where 'crab shanties' used to stand before the bit of land was swallowed up by rising sea-levels caused by climate change

The president reached out to Eskridge on June 12, phoning him after a CNN report on the island that aired last week was brought to his attention.

'He said not to worry about sea-level rise,' Eskridge said.

'He said, "Your island has been there for hundreds of years, and I believe your island will be there for hundreds more."'

The mayor then explained how he ended up on the phone with Trump.

'It was unreal, He called around 2 o'clock this afternoon,' Eskridge said of the phone call with the president, according to the Daily Times of Salisbury, Maryland.

He said he first got a call from Tangier Oyster Company, during which he was told the president's team contacted them trying to get his home phone number.

A submerged boats rests under a bridge in Tangier, Virginia, May 15, 2017, where climate change and rising sea levels threaten the inhabitants of the sinking island

This chart shows what the island looked like in 1850 before it began sinking due to rising sea-levels

'So I came in from crabbing and they said I got a call - I said, "That's not real",' he said.

'Anyway, I hung around. I left for a short time to go to my crab house, and then came back and I got this call and the lady says, "I'm with the president's office. The president would like to know if he could speak to you".

'I said, "Yes, he sure can".'

Trump then got on the line, introducing himself by saying to Eskridge: 'You've got one heck of an island there.'

Studies show parts of the 1.3 square-mile island are disappearing at the alarming rate of 16 feet per year. Pictured is a boat in one of the island's inlets

An elderly couple rides a motorbike on the island. Experts have warned Tangier could be uninhabitable in about 25 years due to rising sea-levels

One of the potential reasons why Trump is so fond of the island could be because of how its inhabitants voted in last year's election.

The island is situated in the middle of a Republican stronghold, so much so that about 87 per cent of people who live on Tangier voted for Trump, according to the newspaper.

The mayor shared his constituents support for the president during his call with Trump.

'This is a Trump island; we really love you down here,' Eskridge said.

'I said, "The stuff you are doing is just common-sense stuff."

'I said, "I believe you're for the working man - and you want people to get back to work - you're for the military, and Israel and religious liberties. It's all the stuff that we value."

Workers on the small island are pictured on a boat on the ever-rising water around their shrinking home

'I said, "I believe you came along for such a time as this".'

After hearing that, Trump invited the mayor to Washington DC, and told him not to worry about the rising waters.

The low-lying island of Tangier is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Because of its isolation, many residents have retained the linguistic traces of the island's primarily English settlers who first arrived in the 17th century.

The island is also sinking from erosion and rising sea levels, and scientists predict residents may have to abandon it within 25 to 50 years.
Far-Left activists were accused of plotting to destabilise Britain in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster.

Thousands threatened to bring down the Government with plans to descend on Parliament during the Queens Speech on Wednesday under the banner of a Day of Rage.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also upped his rhetoric despite the tense atmosphere since the tragedy, which has left at least 58 dead.

He called on nearby empty homes belonging to the wealthy in Kensington to be occupied to house those left homeless by the fire. He also launched a thinly veiled attack on Theresa May yesterday.

Frustrations over the fatal Grenfell Tower fire boiled over on Friday as victims, residents and protesters took to the streets of central London demanding answers over the blaze

The shell of Grenfell Tower looms over protesters gathering at Notting Hill Methodist Church

Scotland Yard is watching closely for signs of further violence after hundreds of demonstrators forced their way into Kensington Town Hall on Friday before marching through central London.

Activists warn the conditions are similar to those following the police shooting of gangster Mark Duggan, which sparked five days of riots in the capital in 2011.

One protester said he will settle for nothing short of a revolution, adding: Sometimes all it takes is a spark.

At the centre of the calls is the Movement for Justice By Any Means Necessary, which accused the authorities of ethnic cleansing.

One poster tells supporters to walk out of school, take the day off, strike before joining a march from west London to Westminster to coincide with the Queens Speech.

Under the heading class war, no justice, bring down the Government, it accuses MPs of seizing power through racism and anti-immigration bigotry.

These were the scenes at Kensington town hall as frustrations over the fatal Grenfell Tower fire boiled over

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured today on Peston on Sunday) has jibed some people care to a 'deeper extent' than others in a brutal assaults on Theresa May's handling of the Grenfell fire disaster

Referring to the General Election result, another online poster said: Weve felt our power. Weve tasted victory. Now we must escalate our actions to take down this rotten government.

Militant union leaders are already plotting a summer of discontent and Red October to cause chaos and put Mr Corbyn into No 10.

Hardliners linked to Unite, rail guards, teachers and junior doctors told followers last week to prepare for co-ordinated strikes and protests to bring the country to a halt.

Appearing on ITVs Peston on Sunday yesterday, Mr Corbyn took a swipe at Mrs Mays reaction to Grenfell, saying some people cared to a deeper extent than others.

Asked by host Robert Peston if he would seize properties that have been bought by the wealthy and left empty, he said: Occupy, compulsory purchase it, requisition it, theres a lot of things you can do.

In an emergency, you have to bring all assets to the table to deal with that crisis. He also compared the plight of Grenfell victims waiting to be rehomed to hundreds of delayed air passengers who are found hotel rooms every day, adding: It seems to have been beyond the wit of the public services to deal with a crisis facing a relatively small number of people.

Protesters at Oxford Circus held signs saying 'Justice for Grenfell - We demand the truth'

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell backed the calls for requisitioning, telling Sky News he would have done whatever necessary to house families.

The rhetoric was in stark contrast to a peaceful outdoor memorial service held in the shadow of the burnt-out tower block yesterday.

Hundreds of mourners linked arms in the street to remember the victims of Wednesdays tragedy.

On Saturday, Mrs May spent two hours with Grenfell Tower residents at a private meeting in Downing Street. The Rev Mark ODonoghue, of Christ Church Kensington, said she spoke briefly before listening to their concerns.

He said: The first person spoke about how hed been rescued from the 19th floor, how he opened his door to a wall of smoke, he could not see his hand. He was led out by an arm he couldnt see. And I saw the Prime Minister welling up.

One female protester held a sign saying 'Tories have blood on their hands. Justice for Grenfell' at Friday night's march

Somebody began to sob beside her and she just held her hand for the next 20 minutes, which wasnt quite the caricature that we have of the Prime Minister.

Tory MPs criticised Mr Corbyn for trying to score political points by exploiting the disaster.

Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire, said: Corbyn has shown he is willing to trample over the bodies of the Grenfell fire victims in a cynical attempt to score a political point and push his far-Left political agenda. He seeks to exploit a tragedy.

George Freeman, Tory MP for Mid Norfolk, wrote online: We need calm leadership. Not rabble rousing.

Last night, Mrs May announced every household whose home was destroyed by the fire will receive an immediate 500 cash payment and a further 5,000 bank transfer later this week from an emergency fund. She said: My Government will continue to do absolutely everything possible to help all of those affected through the difficult days, weeks, months and years ahead.

Lawyer Mohammed Tasmine Akunjee

The left-wing lawyer

A lawyer who once said no Muslim should ever co-operate with British police joined demonstrators outside Kensington Town Hall.

Mohammed Tasnime Akunjee is at the centre of a tight-knit circle of Left-wing community activists, including other lawyers and campaigners.

Writing online beside footage of the burning building, he said: I bet you some Tories look at that video and see a solution to benefits claims... sick people.

Claiming the tragedy will ultimately reveal criminal profiteering and neglect for life, Mr Akunjee also called for some Tories to be wrapped in the cladding said to be partly responsible for the blaze.

He said: Ask them if they trust in fire safety regs for council housing... people need to go to jail for a long time on this one.

Mr Akunjee once represented Ibrahim Hassan, a close friend of Lee Rigbys killers who was arrested after giving a TV interview.

Hassan, also known as Abu Nusaybah, accused MI5 of being complicit in his torture in Kenya and driving him towards extremism.

Mr Akunjee, a graduate of the University of Sussex, has gone on to specialise in representing Muslim families, in particular those accused of terrorist offences.

He said no Muslim should co-operate with the British police because the Governments Prevent counter-terror policy is straightforward, paid-for spying on the community.

The lawyer lists controversial campaign group Cage  dubbed apologists for terror  among his likes on his Facebook page and includes its founder Moazzam Begg as a friend.

He follows its controversial research director Asim Qureshi on Twitter. Mr Qureshi sparked a firestorm of controversy by describing Islamic State butcher Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, as a beautiful young man.

Antonia Bright, of Movement for Justice By Any Means Necessary

Student union organiser

Antonia Bright is responsible for the Movement for Justice By Any Means Necessary. Within hours of the Grenfell fires scale becoming clear, she switched the campaigns focus from fighting Brexit and immigration policies.

Now, the group  named to echo a Malcom X speech  is calling for thousands to march on London.

This government has presided over thousands of deaths from seven years of austerity and anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant racism and bigotry. They need to go. Now, a poster urges.

In one online profile, Miss Bright says she is responsible for supporting student reps at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.

Asked about the march, she said: You have to ask what does it take to make this Government stand up and listen?

This is about justice for everyone and I would expect people from all strands to be there.

Miss Bright is close friends with Trotskyist Tony Gard, 76, who has been at the centre of violent protests, including at the State Opening of Parliament in 1995.

Ishmahil Blagrove is a veteran activist and professional controversialist

Veteran activist

A video of Ishmahil Blagrove ranting at a reporter in the shadow of the gutted building has gone viral on Facebook. In the clip, he says f*** the media and calls for a revolution.

He said sometimes all it takes is a spark as he highlighted the 2011 riots that swept Britain.

Im already hearing messages of people mobilising, of police intercepting messages on Facebook, he said. We saw what could happen in this country in 2011, over the shooting of Mark Duggan.

There are real issues in the underbelly of society that frustrate people.

Mr Blagrove, a key figure behind the Notting Hill Carnival, is a veteran activist and professional controversialist.

Once a regular of Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, he describes himself as a bona fide hood rat who suffered police brutality as a young man.

Friends joke the popular figure in pro-Corbyn circles could even join Labours shadow cabinet.

Mustafa al-Mansur, a tech businessman turned outspoken Corbynista political activist

Protest leader

One of the leading figures behind the Left-wing uprising is a tech businessman turned outspoken Corbynista political activist.

Mustafa al-Mansur, 39, rallied protesters outside Kensington Town Hall after learning a family friend had died in Grenfell Tower. As he appealed for calm, protesters forced their way inside and surrounded staff.

Last night it was revealed he has been spokesman for Finsbury Park Mosque for more than a decade  although after the time of notorious hate preacher Abu Hamza.

Mr al-Mansur was once arrested on suspicion of terrorist offences after his fingerprints were found on a book about improvised explosive devices.

Mr al-Mansur, who lives in Tottenham with his wife, said he faced no further action.

At Fridays protest in Kensington, he said the Grenfell tragedy highlighted lingering issues of inequality, adding: People are calling it a corporate manslaughter.

Mr al-Mansur has praised Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn recently, writing: Conservative supporters wish and dream that their leaders had an ounce of [his] impeccable character, dignity and principled politics.
The Chancellor hinted that taxes could rise in order to ease cuts to public spending yesterday  as he attacked Theresa May for hiding him away during the election campaign.

Philip Hammond warned that people are weary of the long slog of austerity as he promised to look again at planned reductions in money for councils.

But he accused the Prime Minister of losing her Commons majority by failing to make the case for economic responsibility.

The Chancellor (pictured on the Andrew Marr show yesterday) hinted that taxes could rise in order to ease cuts to public spending yesterday

Criticising Mrs Mays election strategy, Mr Hammond joked that he had been kept not quite in a cupboard over the course of the campaign.

The Chancellor  barely visible in the run-up to the vote on June 8  said the Tories would have probably done better if they had focused on their economic record.

Mr Hammond said that his role in the campaign had not been the one I would have liked it to be.

He told BBC1s Andrew Marr Show: I did a lot of travelling around the country.

I met lots of very interesting people, I heard lots of interesting stories. I would have liked to have made much more of our economic record, which I think is an excellent one, creating 2.9million new jobs, getting the deficit down by three-quarters.

Mr Hammond warned that people are weary of the long slog of austerity as he promised to look again at planned reductions in money for councils

Criticising Mrs Mays election strategy, Mr Hammond joked that he had been kept not quite in a cupboard over the course of the campaign

Asked if the PMs former aides Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill had kept him off the air waves, the Chancellor replied: Im not going to speculate about what happened inside the campaign leadership team.

The end result is, in my judgment, we didnt talk about the economy as much as we should have done. We didnt put enough energy into dismantling Jeremy Corbyns economic proposals and his spending plans, which would be catastrophic for this country, and we will now do that.

He said that, in light of the election result, he would look again at planned spending cuts ahead of Novembers Budget, adding: Obviously were not deaf.

But Mr Hammond warned that taxpayers could face rises to pay for a loosening of the purse strings. He said: Weve never said we wont raise some taxes.

He criticising Theresa Mays (pictured at church yesterday) election strategy

Overall we are a government that believes in low taxes and we want to reduce the burden of taxes overall for working families. That is our political objective.

But what is dishonest is the approach the Labour Party took in the general election  pretending that you can raise taxes but they will never impact ordinary people.

Im afraid increasing the burden of taxation will have an impact. If its tax on companies it will reduce investment and the creation of jobs.

Later, Mr Hammond told ITVs Peston on Sunday: I certainly recognise that people are weary after seven years of rebuilding the economy from the horrors that we saw after the financial crash.

Mrs May had been widely expected to sack Mr Hammond if she secured a large majority, but after the party lost MPs she kept him in post.

In an awkward campaign appearance together last month, the Prime Minister  standing alongside Mr Hammond  had refused to say if he would keep his job. The Chancellor kept a low profile for the rest of the campaign.

Theresa May must scrap the NHS pay freeze because standards of care are becoming unsafe, union bosses warn.

The leaders of 16 medical organisations have written to the PM urging her to end a seven-year cap on pay as they say hospitals and ambulance services are becoming dangerously understaffed.

The letter  signed by the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Midwives  was co-ordinated by the Royal College of Nursing, which last month said it would be staging a summer of protests over the pay cap.
Advertisement

The US Navy released the identities of the seven sailors who were tragically killed after their Navy destroyer collided with a Philippine-flagged container on Saturday.

Gunner's Mate Seaman Dakota Kyle Rigsby, 19, from Palmyra, Virginia, was the first sailor to be identified Saturday night. At the time it wasn't clear whether or not he had survived the collision.

The US Navy confirmed on Sunday that Rigsby, who volunteered for the Lake Monticello Volunteer Fire Department and was a graduate of Fluvanna County High School, was one of the fallen sailors.

Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo Alexander Douglass, 25, from San Diego, California, Sonar Technician 3rd Class Ngoc T Truong Huynh, 25, from Oakville, Connecticut, Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez, 26, from Weslaco, Texas; Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlosvictor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, from Chula Vista, California, Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier Alec Martin, 24, from Halethorpe, Maryland, and Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr, 37, from Elyria, Ohio, were identified as the sailors who tragically died in the collision.

'We are all deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our fellow shipmates as a result of Friday's collision between USS Fitzgerald and a commercial container ship, and our thoughts and prayers are with their families,' said Acting Secretary of the Navy Sean Stackley.

'As details emerge, we can all be proud of the heroic effort by the crew to tend to the needs of those injured and save the ship from further damage while returning safely to port.

'The Navy family comes together during tragic events such as this and I want to thank those who continue to provide around-the-clock assistance to the affected families during these difficult days,' the statement read.

Scroll down for video

Seven US Navy sailors were killed in the collision, authorities have confirmed. They are (top row, left to right) Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlos Victor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, from Chula Vista, CA; Gunner's Mate Seaman Dakota Kyle Rigsby, 19, from Palmyra, VA; Sonar Technician 3rd Class Ngoc T Truong Huynh, 25, from Oakville, CT; and Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo Alexander Douglass, 25, from San Diego, CA. Bottom row (left to right Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr., from Elyria, OH; Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier Alec Martin, 24, from Halethorpe, MD; and Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez, 26, from Weslaco, TX

Gone too soon: Dakota Rigsby (left) was the first sailor believed to be among the missing at sea following the collision between the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship. He was confirmed deceased by Navy officials who also released the other six names of the sailors, including Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez (right), 26, from Weslaco, Texas

Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo Alexander Douglass, 25, from San Diego, California, was among the seven sailors who were sleeping when the container ship slammed into their ship

Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr (left), 37, from Elyria, Ohio, and Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlosvictor Ganzon Sibayan (right), 23, from Chula Vista, California, were also identified as the sailors who tragically died in the collision

Sonar Technician 3rd Class Ngoc T Truong Huynh (pictured), 25, was from Oakville, Connecticut. The Navy confirmed he was among the deceased sailors

Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier Alec Martin, 24, from Halethorpe, Maryland, was also identified as one of the deceased

Stackley continued to say: 'I also want to express my most heartfelt appreciation to our Japanese allies for their swift support and assistance at this time of our need.

'In due time, the United States Navy will fully investigate the cause of this tragedy and I ask all of you to keep the Fitzgerald families in your thoughts and prayers as we begin the task of answering the many questions before us.'

On Sunday, Mia Sykes, the mother of US Navy sailor, Brayden Harden, who survived a direct hit to his sleeping berth during the collision said her son kept diving to try to save his shipmates until the flooded berth began running out of air pockets, while others - believing the ship was under attack - hurried to man the guns.

Sykes of Raleigh, North Carolina, said her 19-year-old son was knocked out of his bunk by the impact, and water immediately began filling the berth, after their destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald, collided with the container ship four times its size off the Japanese coast.

The ships collided about 2.20am Saturday, when the Navy said most of the 300 sailors on board would have been sleeping.

Sykes says her son, who is a gunner's mate, told her that four men in his berth, including those sleeping on bunks above and below him died, while three died in the berth above his.

'They did what they were trained to do,' said Sykes, who said she hopes her son, from Herrin, Illinois, can come home to be with family as he works through what happened.

'You have to realize most of them are 18, 19 and 20 year olds living with guilt. But I told him, 'There's a reason you're still here and make that count.''

Family and friends are mourning their loved ones in heartfelt social media posts.

Rigsby's family asked the community to pray for their loved ones as they try and process their tragic loss.

'Truly a sad day. I have nothing but great things to say about Dakota Rigsby,' wrote one friend on Facebook, Ryan Boone.

'One of the most positive, uplifting guys I knew in school no matter what. You will be missed by all of us and your Fluco family. Thinking and praying for your family through all of this. Thank you so much for your service to this country. Rest In Peace brother.'

'Such a genuine and caring man. I was friends with him in boot camp and during his time in Great Lakes prior to his deployment,' wrote another friend.

According to the Facebook page of Douglass, he grew up in Okinawa, Japan, and attended Kubasaki High School.

He graduated Fallbrook High School in 2010. His father was given the news of his tragic death on Father's Day.

'My mind's going a mile a minute,' said Douglass' father, retired US Marine Corps Master Sgt Stephen Douglass. 'We're still in sort of a state of shock.'

Stars and Strips reporter, Erik Slavin tweeted that Douglass was one of his 'greatest friends'.

'I'm glad to have spent almost 3 years of my time with you,' Slavin wrote.

Douglass was described by Sharyn Elizabeth Mulligan, whose daughter was a close childhood friend, as a 'sweet, kind boy with a big, bright smile that lit up the room'.

Hero: Mia Sykes (left), the mother of US Navy sailor, Brayden Harden, 19, who survived a direct hit to his sleeping berth during a collision at sea, said her son heroically kept diving to try to save his shipmates until the flooded berth began running out of air pockets, while others - believing the ship was under attack - hurried to man the guns

Sykes of Raleigh, North Carolina, said Harden, was knocked out of his bunk by the impact, and water immediately began filling the berth, after their destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald, collided with a Philippine-flagged container ship four times its size off the Japanese coast

Catastrophic damage: A close-up of the USS Fitzgerald's destroyed starboard side after it was hit by a cargo ship at 2.30am on Saturday morning

Brian Trudeau said Douglass was 'a brave sailor and a wonderful person. You will be missed, cousin. We love you. May you and your brothers RIP'.

The oldest of four siblings, Huynh, his mother and the children moved to Connecticut in 2005. He joined the Navy in 2014 after taking a few classes at Naugatuck Valley Community College.

His younger sister Lan issued a statement to Fox 61 Sunday that said: 'We want people to know that anyone who came across Tan noticed he was very quiet person, but he is also the sweetest and nicest. When he talked about things that he loved, he showed so much passion, just like his love for the Navy and niece. He had a bright smile.'

Hernandez leaves behind his wife, Dora, who was his 'first and only love'. They had one child together, Leon, who is about to be three years old.

His cousin Aly Hernandez-Singer told CBS 11 that her cousin died in the collision from a head injury as he slept. 'When they confirmed it, it was like a kick to the chest,' she said.

'We lived through his experiences. His travels. We were just proud that our boy was up there,' she added. 'We all came from poverty in Guatemala. He was the one who made it. And we were so proud of him,' Aly said.

Family members and friends remembered Sibayan as someone who always made people laugh.

Temecula's Chase Cornils, a fellow cadet in Chaparral High School's Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps told the San Diego Tribune that Sibayan 'always had a cheerful attitude and a smile on his face'.

'When I think of Carlos, I can only remember an extremely happy guy who was willing to help all of his friends.'

Rehm Jr, leaves behind his devastated wife, Erin Rehm.

'We mourn the death of 7 sailors aboard the USS Fitzgerald off the coast of Japan, including Ohio serviceman Gary Leo Rehm Jr. of Elyria,' Ohio Governor, John Kasich, tweeted.

Martin's family members spoke briefly with Fox45 about their loved one.

'He was a wonderful man who loved his job' said Martin's aunt, Daneace Jeffery.

Jeffery said Martin graduated from Lansdowne High School and joined the Navy five years ago. She said his father is simply heartbroken by his son's death and too exhausted to speak.

Martin's awards include the Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Good Conduct Medal, and Navy/Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon.

Authorities have declined to speculate on a cause while the crash remains under investigation.

All seven missing sailors were found dead in the flooded berthing compartments of the Navy destroyer.

According to the US 7th Fleet, the bodies were found Sunday morning by divers after the $1.5billion USS Fitzgerald returned to its base in Yokosuka.

The Navy revealed that 116 crew had been sleeping in the compartments that flooded when a 29,000 ton ACX Crystal cargo ship crashed into the destroyer gouging a large hole in its hull below the water line.

Lucky to be alive: The cabin of the ship's captain Commander Bryce Benson was completely destroyed by the impact and he is 'lucky to be alive'

Flooding: The cargo ship gouged a deep hole in the ship's hull below the water line - flooding two compartments where 116 crew were sleeping. They woke to fight desperately to keep the ship afloat

Several months to fix: An aerial view shows the damage to the $1.5bn guided-missile destroyer

Listing: A shot of the ship's helipad shows how dramatically the USS Fitzgerald is listing after the accident

According to the US 7th Fleet, the bodies were found Sunday morning by divers after the USS Fitzgerald returned to its base in Japan. Vice Adm Joseph Aucoin (pictured), the commander of the Navy's 7th Fleet, described a harrowing scene as other sailors fought to keep the ship from sinking

The ship's captain, Commander Bryce Benson, was asleep when the accident happened and his cabin was destroyed by the impact.

Benson was airlifted from the ship's deck after daybreak Saturday to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka with a head injury. The Wisconsin native, who took command of the AEGIS-equipped vessel in May of 2016, was said to be in stable condition.

Two other crew members suffered cuts and bruises and were also flown out by helicopter.

Vice Adm Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the Navy's 7th Fleet, said Benson is 'lucky to be alive'.

Aucoin described a harrowing scene as other sailors fought to keep the ship from sinking.

Most of the damage is below the waterline, including a large gash near the keel, Aucoin said.

'So the water flow was tremendous, and so there wasn't a lot of time in those spaces that were open to the sea. And as you can see now, the ship is still listing, so they had to fight the ship to keep it above the surface. It was traumatic,' Aucoin said.

Aucoin said one machinery room and two berthing areas for 116 crew members were severely damaged from what he called a significant impact to its side. The destroyer returned to Yokosuka on Saturday evening with the help of tug boats.

The victims might have been killed by the impact of the collision or drowned in the flooding, said Navy spokesman Lt Paul Newell, who led the media on a visit to get a firsthand look at the mangled destroyer.

'The damage was significant,' he said. 'This was not a small collision.'

Conditions were clear at the time of the collision, though the area is particularly busy with sea traffic.

Authorities said the sailors were transferred to Naval Hospital Yokosuka where they were identified.

'Our #USNavy family is mourning a loss. Please keep families of fallen in your thoughts and prayers, as they are in mine,' Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, Steven S. Giordano, tweeted.

Most of the damage is below the waterline, including a large gash near the keel, Aucoin said. 'So the water flow was tremendous, and so there wasn't a lot of time in those spaces that were open to the sea,' he said adding that the accident was 'traumatic'

The damage to the destroyer suggests that the ACX Crystal might have slammed into it at a high speed, raising questions about communication between the two vessels in an area where as many as 400 ships pass through every day, according to Japan's coast guard

The damage to the destroyer suggests that the ACX Crystal might have slammed into it at a high speed, raising questions about communication between the two vessels in an area where as many as 400 ships pass through every day, according to Japan's coast guard.

Most congestion occurs in the early hours of the day, and fast currents make it a tricky area that requires experience and skill to navigate.

The container ship was seen making a U-turn before the collision on some ship trackers, a move that has raised questions about what happened. Both Aucoin and the Japanese coast guard, however, said it was too early to determine what led to the collision.

The coast guard questioned crew members of the ACX Crystal, and is treating the incident as a case of possible professional negligence, said Masayuki Obara, a regional coast guard official.

All of the ACX Crystal's 20-member Filipino crew was safe, according to Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen K.K., which operates the ship.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a sympathy message to President Donald Trump on Sunday. 'We are struck by deep sorrow,' Abe said in the message. 'I express my heartfelt solidarity to America at this difficult time.'

Jennifer Adkison of Granbury, Texas, whose 20-year-old son, Bruce Adkison, a fifth-generation sailor, survived the collision, said in a Facebook message that families are grieving for those who died and trying to get clothing and other items to survivors who lost all their possessions.

'The only other day I have been so overwhelmed with joy to hear my son's voice was the day he was born,' Adkison said.

Heavy damage is pictured on the US Navy missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald after it collided with a cargo ship near Japan early on Saturday morning

The USS Fitzgerald's captain, Cmdr Bryce Benson (left and right), was airlifted early Saturday to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka and was in stable condition with a head injury, the Navy said

Commander Benson (pictured) earned his commission through the Naval ROTC program at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The victims might have been killed by the impact of the collision or drowned in the flooding, said Navy spokesman Lt Paul Newell, who led the media on a visit to get a firsthand look at the mangled destroyer. 'The damage was significant,' he said. 'This was not a small collision'

The coast guard questioned crew members of the ACX Crystal, and is treating the incident as a case of possible professional negligence, said Masayuki Obara, a regional coast guard official

The container ship was seen making a U-turn before the collision on some ship trackers, a move that has raised questions about what happened. Both Aucoin and the Japanese coast guard, however, said it was too early to determine what led to the collision

An injured sailor is carried by US military personnel (left) and Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force members upon arriving at the US Naval base in Yokosuka

US military personnel prepare to transfer an injured sailor on board USS Fitzgerald, after the Navy destroyer collided with a merchant ship

Despite the significant damage to the USS Fitzgerald, Aucoin said 'the ship is salvageable' and will hopefully take just under a year to repair.

As for the container ship, its left bow was dented and scraped, but it did not appear to have sustained any major structural damage when it was docked in the Tokyo bay late Saturday.

But on Sunday, a group of accident investigators from the Japanese transport ministry found damage to the container ship that had been hidden under the waterline when it arrived in Tokyo the previous night.

Footage from Japanese broadcaster NHK showed a sharp horizontal cut across the bow area, which looked like a shark's mouth. Many scratches were also seen in the frontal area.

The Japanese coast guard said it received an emergency call from the container ship reporting the collision with the USS Fitzgerald around 2.20am on Saturday.

After helping stabilize the USS Fitzgerald, the destroyer USS Dewey - another destroyer - joined other American and Japanese vessels and aircraft in the search for the missing sailors.

Water had to be pumped out of the flooded areas following the collision in order for the ship to make it to the Yokosuka Naval Base.

On Saturday, Aucoin told reporters that he was 'humbled by the bravery and tenacity of the Fitzgerald crew'.

According to the Navy, the collision occurred 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, home to the 7th Fleet.

Aerial footage shows the crushed exterior of the destroyer which is commanded by Benson, who took over in May.

The container ship ACX Crystal is pictured with its left bow dented and scraped after colliding with the USS Fitzgerald in the waters off the Izu Peninsula earlier in the day, is berthed at the Oi Container Terminal in Tokyo

The ACX Crystal, which is 730 feet long and weighs 29,060 tons, is back in Tokyo with superficial damage and no reports of casualties

Course: This was the approximate route of the ACX Crystal before it collided with the USS Fitzgerald on Saturday morning

The ACX Crystal's course shows that it performed a rapid U-turn at speed and then turned to head back to Tokyo - at which point it collided with the USS Fitzgerald

The president offered his thoughts and condolences to those affected by the USS Fitzgerald collision

'It was a was real fight by crew to keep the ship afloat. Our concerns now are with ship mates; seven sailors missing and 2 evacuees. When the news came we were all focused on the safety of or ship and the crew,' a naval spokesman in Yokosuka told DailyMail.com. 'We at the base are still reeling from the events.'

At full strength the Fitzgerald - a 154-meter long Aegis destroyer weighing 8,315 tons - has a crew of 331 sailors.

It is unclear how fast the destroyer was going when it collided with the merchant ship. The area is particularly busy with sea traffic, said Yutaka Saito, of the coast guard.

The ACX Crystal is 222.6 meters long and weighs 29,060 tons.

Adm. John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations in a statement: 'All of our thoughts and prayers are with the Fitzgerald crew and their families.'

According to marine tracking websites, the Philippine-flagged cargo ship was on its way to Tokyo.

Listing: The $1.5billion missile destroyer began taking on water after the violent collision

Damage to the bow of the 29,000 ton cargo ship ACX Crystal after it collided with the USS Fitzgerald

The 29,000 ton ACX Crystal is much larger than the 9,000 ton USS Fitzgerald. The cargo ship appears to have hit the destroyer head on

According to the US Navy, the collision occurred 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, off the coast of Japan (above)

Following the collision, the Navy requested the assistance of the Japanese Coast Guard, with cutters Izunami and Kano on station

The ACX Crystal received minimal damage to the port bow (pictured). According to marine tracking websites, the Philippine-flagged cargo ship was on its way to Tokyo

The USS Fitzgerald (pictured in August 2012) was commissioned in 1995 and is based in Yokosuka, according to the Navy

THE USS FITZGERALD Armaments: One 29 cell and one 61 cell Mark 41 vertical launching systems - a shipborne missile canister launching system which provides a rapid-fire launch capability against hostile threats

90 RIM-156 SM-2, BGM-109 Tomahawk or RUM-139 VL-ASROC missiles

Two Mark 141 Harpoon Missile Launcher SSM (surface-to-surface missile)

One Mark 45 5/54 inch (127/54 mm) lightweight gun

Two 25 mm chain guns

Four .50 caliber (12.7 mm) guns

Two 20 mm Phalanx CIWS (an advanced radar-controlled gun system)

Two Mark 32 triple torpedo tubes Specifications: 9,000 tons

505 feet long

66 feet wide

Top speed: 30 knots

Range: 4,400 nautical miles

Crew:

33 commissioned officers

38 chief petty officers

210 enlisted personnel

Propulsion: 4 General Electric LM2500-30 gas turbines, two shafts, 100,000 total shaft horsepower Advertisement

It is unclear how much warning the crew had that a collision was imminent.

Footage also captured a person in a stretcher being taken up to a helicopter from the deck of the USS Fitzgerald. The injured sailor had a head injury.

Following the collision, the Navy requested the assistance of the Japanese Coast Guard, with cutters Izunami and Kano on station.

In a statement, Admiral Scott Swift, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet, said: 'Right now we are focused on two things: the safety of the ship and the well-being of the sailors.

'We thank our Japanese partners for their assistance.'

The destroyer's commanding officer, Benson, earned his commission through the Naval ROTC program at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In November 2015, Benson reported as the Executive Officer of the USS Fitzgerald as part of the Surface Navy's Command Fleet Up program.

On May 13 this year, he relieved Commander Robert Shu as the Commanding Officer of the destroyer.

According to a report from the Navy Times, Executive Officer Commander Sean Babbitt has assumed command after the collision.

The USS Fitzgerald - whose motto is 'Protect Your People' - was commissioned in 1995 and is based in Yokosuka, according to the Navy, at a cost of $1.48billion.

Its crew includes roughly 33 officers, 38 chief petty officers and 291 enlisted members of the Navy.

The Fitzgerald completed $21 million in upgrades and repairs in February, and recently made a port call to the US Navy's Subic Bay base in the Philippines and conducted patrols in the South China Sea.

The ship's crew used the stop to conduct some minor repairs with the assistance of Philippine companies.

Ryan Barenklau, from the Washington-based intelligence company Strategic Sentinel, told DailyMail.com: 'This is a very tragic event. There is not much information currently on how an advanced destroyer could have collided with a massive cargo ship, but I am confident that there is a reasonable explanation and I am sure we will hear what that is in the coming days.'
A female firefighter just five days into her new job was on the front line of the Grenfell Tower blaze.

April Cachia, 26, had qualified only ten days before, based at Shoreditch Fire Station in east London  and was on her first full shift as the call came.

She arrived on the scene with her crew shortly after 2am. It was like the end of the world was happening, she said. My adrenaline was going and my thoughts were Get me in there, I want to help, this is what I signed up for.

Miss Cachia and colleagues reached the towers stairwell, retrieving casualties from other firefighters who were further inside the building.

April Cachia, 26, (pictured) had qualified only ten days before, based at Shoreditch Fire Station in east London  and was on her first full shift as the call came

She said: Id never done this before but there was something inside me telling me every step of the way this is what I have to do now. Ill never forget the things people say as youre helping them out.

Less than a year ago Miss Cachia was working as a payroll and HR administrator in an office. But becoming a firefighter was something she had dreamed of doing since I was a kid.

She volunteered with the London Fire Cadets and was accepted into the London Fire Brigade in August last year. After an 11-week intensive course she graduated in May, and her first day as a qualified firefighter was on June 4.

Less than a year ago Miss Cachia was working as a payroll and HR administrator in an office

Shifts, or tours, encompass two days and two nights. Miss Cachia had served only half a tour and encountered one other fire before the one at Grenfell Tower.

She spent several hours in the building. It was really smoky and the heat would make your eyes burn, she said. Any time someone opened a door somewhere the fire would surge and your eyes would go blurry. You needed a few minutes to get through the pain.

By 7.30am, with conditions increasingly fraught, Miss Cachia and her team had done all they could do before colleagues in breathing apparatus took over.

Thats one of the hardest things Ive had to do, walk away from the situation knowing there are people still in there, she said. Weve saved people but we havent saved everyone, so its bittersweet. Ive never felt more proud to be part of the fire brigade family. I have so much pride for these people.

Like all firefighters involved, Miss Cachia has been offered counselling sessions. She says the incident hasnt sunk in yet but she is coping by surrounding herself with her friends, family and dog Lola.

She said it absolutely hasnt put her off the job, adding: Although Im only 26, Im quite headstrong and will be able to get through this. I can deal with it and move on, once Ive cried about it enough.

I cant wait to go back to work. Im extremely proud to be a part of such an amazing emergency service and want to give credit to every single firefighter that was there. Ive never seen a group of people work so hard to save lives.

Im also praying and sending my love to all the families at this devastating time. They are in my thoughts and prayers. Miss Cachia was due to return to work today.
Contractors and council chiefs could face manslaughter charges over the Grenfell Tower inferno.

Senior prosecutors are already advising detectives investigating who was responsible, it emerged yesterday.

Everyone from local politicians who ignored warnings to contractors who fitted flammable cladding can expect to be questioned.

One MP demanded police seize crucial documents in raids as he said contractors were already deleting details of their work on the 24-storey block from websites.

Many residents who gathered outside the smoldering ruins of the building said the fire had been caused by a faulty fridge in one of the flats, but the fire service told MailOnline it could not confirm the reports at this stage

By mid morning, the plastic cladding could be seen charred and melted on the tower in west London

This aerial photo taken hours after the fire ripped through the tower block shows the devastating scale of the inferno

The plastic panels  that even the manufacturer warned were a deadly fire risk  are banned on high-rise buildings in Britain, ministers said yesterday. Yesterday Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders confirmed there was a criminal investigation into the fire that killed at least 58 in the early hours of Wednesday.

Former DPP and Labour MP Sir Keir Starmer told BBC1s Andrew Marr Show: I spoke to the DPP yesterday and there are prosecutors already in, advising the police. There are wider regulatory offences, but I think manslaughter is the most serious and thats the one that needs to be looked at first.

Chancellor Philip Hammond said the probe would look at whether regulations had been breached at the tower in North Kensington.

London MP David Lammy, whose friend died in the fire, called for politicians, council chiefs and contractors to face justice. He said: People are very angry. Trust is low. There are contractors who dealt with the tower and have taken off their websites that they worked on the tower.

The fire continued to burn all day. Left, the fire rages early on Wednesday morning, centre, firefighters battle the blaze and right, flames continue to rip through flats in the evening

A drone inspects the top floors of the wrecked tower block, where residents on the highest storeys are all feared dead after being trapped in their homes and then engulfed

Grenfell Tower, which was built in 1974, before the refurbishment (left) in 2011 and with the new cladding (right before the blaze)

The police have powers to go in and seize emails and documents. Is it going to happen in this case? Have they seized these computers? People have lost their homes and I have lost a friend. We believe its a crime.

Harley Facades, which was paid 2.6million to supply and fit the cladding, said it had removed the Grenfell Tower page from its website as a mark of respect.

Minister for London Greg Hands and the Department for Communities and Local Government said fitting plastic cladding to a tall building was not in accordance with UK building regulations.

The Mail found builders had saved just 6,250 on the 10million job to refurbish Grenfell in 2015 by fitting cladding that has a plastic core.

MINISTERS 'DRAGGED FEET OVER REFORMS' Ministers repeatedly stonewalled attempts to improve the safety of tower blocks, a former fire chief claimed yesterday. Ronnie King, who spent 41 years in the fire service and now advises MPs, said it took a tragedy for them to prioritise saving lives over saving money. They seem to need a disaster to change regulations, rather than evidence and experience, said Mr King, who is honorary secretary of the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group. It was the same with the Kings Cross fire [in 1987] and the Bradford City football club fire [in 1985]. They always seem to need a significant loss of life before things are changed. He said that Gavin Barwell  Theresa Mays new chief of staff  had no sense of urgency when, as housing minister, he was chased about reforms recommended after the last high-rise fire, at Lakanal House in south London. It was the same with Mr Barwells predecessor James Wharton, he added. New rules to prevent cladding fires have supposedly been in the pipeline for 18 years. Following a blaze at a tower block in Ayrshire, which killed an elderly man, the Commons regional affairs committee concluded that external cladding systems ought to be entirely non-combustible. However this has still not come into effect, with the rules stating limited combustibility as the threshold. Concerns grew again in July 2009, when six people died and 20 were injured in the Lakanal House fire. The inquest, which ended in 2013, heard the blaze spread within five minutes, burning through external panels attached to the buildings facade during a refurbishment. Advertisement

Initially a fireproof metal cladding had been chosen by architects, but contractors switched it for Reynobond PE. Arconic, which makes Reynobond, has three versions of its product  and warns the PE option should not be fitted above 10m (32ft) to avoid fire spreading extremely rapidly. Grenfell is 67m (220ft).

The fire retardant version, Reynobond FR costs only 2 more per square metre.

But even that should not be fitted above the reach of fire-engine ladders  around 30m (96ft).

Higher than that, only panels classed as zero combustibility should be used, Arconic says.

Speaking after a church service near the tower block yesterday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the community was frustrated and angry in the wake of the blaze.

He said: The tragedy were seeing is because of the consequences of mistakes and neglect from politicians, from the council and from the Government. If some tower blocks are death traps, we need to know which ones they are.

He said some might need to be pulled down as soon as possible.

Fathers Day cards were among the tributes left close to the burnt-out tower yesterday.

Downing Street has announced 5,500 in emergency funds would today be given to each family whose home was destroyed, after Theresa May apologised for the sluggish response to the crisis.

The reaction to the blaze from council officials had been criticised by residents who met the PM  but Nick Paget-Brown, the leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, yesterday refused to say if he would resign and insisted his staff had offered an effective, co-ordinated response.

It was also reported some survivors had freaked out after being offered accommodation in high-rise towers.

Harley Facades boss Ray Bailey has not responded to questions since an initial statement that said the firm was not aware of a link between the fire and the cladding. John Cowley, of Omnis Exteriors, which made the panels, yesterday denied Reynobond PE was banned in high-rise towers under building regulations.

Matthew Irving, whose fireproof panels had been initially chosen for Grenfell, said fire safety regulations were not worth the paper they are written on. He said: Its got to change, something must be done.
Media personality Red Symons has apologised for his awkward interview with Beverly Wang where he asked her 'what's the deal with Asians' and 'are you yellow'.

The ABC radio host used the beginning of his daily breakfast program to admit he had 'come across as racist' and was 'wrong' in the way he went about speaking to his colleague.

Ms Wang was promoting her new podcast, It's Not A Race - which discusses race, racism, identity and culture.

Symons, whose show is broadcast in Melbourne, claimed he had intended to 'take on a serious topic', but had caused 'offence and hurt' in his approach.

Former Hey, Hey It's Saturday star Red Symons (pictured) has apologised for his bizarre interview on ABC radio in which he asks an ABC journalist of Taiwanese descent if she's 'yellow'

'The plan was to take on a serious topic, race and culture, and talk with Beverley about a range of related issues,' he said.

'I came across as racist and I was wrong in the way I conducted the interview.

'This is not who I am, but I acknowledge on this occasion I caused offence and hurt, not only to Beverley but also to our listeners.'

Last week's interview with Symons was awkward from the start after he admitted to not listening to the podcast before telling Ms Wang he was upset because he wanted to launch a similar show.

'Except my segment was called "What's the deal with Asians",' Symons said during the show last week.

ABC journalist and producer Beverley Wang (pictured) was a guest on a ABC Melbourne radio program to discuss her podcast about 'racism, identity, culture and difference'. Mr Symons said he 'came across racist' and 'caused offence and hurt' in his apology on Monday morning

Symons asked Ms Wang (pictured) if her name is Chinese and if Mandarin or Cantonese is spoken in Taiwan

'Well let's tackle that. What is the deal with Asians, Red?' Ms Wang shot back.

'It's just a useful, general question about the nature of our culture, and how one should interact with people who have a different cultural background,' Symons replied.

But Symons was not finished there and went on to ask Canada-born Ms Wang if she's 'yellow'.

He also asked if the name Wang is Chinese and if Mandarin or Cantonese is spoken in Taiwan.

'They speak Taiwanese and they speak Mandarin and in Canada, where I'm from, they speak English and French,' Ms Wang replied.

Symons then said Ms Wang was 'probably from the west coast of Canada' because it was closer to Asia.

The morning breakfast host also appeared to defend his former program's infamous 'black face' skit.

Symons (pictured during Dancing With The Stars) said Ms Wang is 'probably from the west coast of Canada' because it's closer to Asia

Symons also went on to defend Hey, Hey It's Saturday's infamous 'blackface' skit

The skit drew condemnation from guest star Harry Connick Jr (pictured), and lead to an on-air apology from host Daryl Somers

During a Hey, Hey It's Saturday reunion special in 2009, five men in 'blackface' re-enacted a Jackson Five skit which they had previously done 20 years ago.

The skit drew condemnation from guest star Harry Connick Jr, and lead to an on-air apology from host Daryl Somers.

Symons said during the show that he wrote a defence of the skit and asked Ms Wang if it was 'plausible'.

'To be honest, Red, I didn't really understand what you were trying to say in that,' she said.

'I remember thinking at the time that it had become uncomfortable because Harry Connick Jr felt most uncomfortable with someone wearing what is alleged to be blackface,' Symons said.

One social media user labelled Symons as an 'embarrassment' after his interview with Ms Wang

Another user used an iconic picture of Harry Connick Jr during the infamous 'blackface' skit to voice his opinion

Another user jumped to Symons' defence, saying the radio host was simply broaching the topic in Ms Wang's podcast

One person said Symons needed to get 'the gong' which he made famous during Hey, Hey It's Saturday

People took to social media to voice their opinion about the awkward interview, with one person calling Symons an 'embarrassment' who is 'living in the 70s'.

'Red Symons was an embarrassment as a guitarist and even worse as a broadcaster. He really is living in the 70s,' the person said.

But another user jumped to Symons' defence, saying the radio host was simply broaching the topic in Ms Wang's podcast.

'Race, racism, identity, culture, difference - let's talk it out', isn't that what Red Symons was doing? This is today's outrage I guess,' the person said.
Google is to start automatically searching for extremist material online  as it finally takes seriously the threat of terrorists on the web.

The internet giant will use computers to look for potentially dangerous content, which will then be reviewed to decide if it should be taken down.

Technology firms, including Google and its video site YouTube, have been accused of dragging their feet and failing to remove extremist material quickly enough.

Technology firms have been accused of not doing enough to halt online IS propaganda

GOOGLE'S STEPS TO STOP TERROR Google says its measures are in four parts: Increasing our use of technology to help identify extremist and terrorism-related videos. Greatly increase the number of independent experts in YouTubes Trusted Flagger programme. Third, we will be taking a tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate our policies  for example, videos that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content. Finally, YouTube will expand its role in counter-radicalisation efforts. Advertisement

But yesterday, Googles senior vice president Kent Walker announced a plan to tackle the problem  as he admitted the search engine had previously not done enough.

There should be no place for terrorist content on our services. While we and others have worked for years to remove content that violates our policies, the uncomfortable truth is that we, as an industry, must acknowledge that more needs to be done, he said.

As part of the new effort, Google will use technology to help identify extremist videos. It is then extending its funding of experts who decide whether material should be taken down.

The firm has pledged a tougher stance on videos that do not violate its rules but contain, for example, inflammatory religious or supremacist content.

In future these will appear with a warning and adverts will not run with them, meaning those who post them online do not make money.

Google will now use technology to help flag and take down extremist videos

Finally, YouTube will re-direct potential Islamic State recruits who search for extremist material to anti- terror videos aimed at stopping them being radicalised.

Mr Walker added: Collectively, these changes will make a difference. And well keep working on the problem until we get the balance right.

Extremists and terrorists seek to attack and erode not just our security, but also our values  the very things that make our societies free.

We must not let them. Together, we can build lasting solutions that address threats to our security. We are committed to playing our part.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper, who was chairman of the home affairs select committee in the last Parliament, welcomed Googles announcement. She said: The committee recommended that they should be more proactive in searching for  and taking down  extremist content.

News that Google will now proactively scan content is therefore welcome, though there is still more to do.

YouTube will now also re-direct those searching for extremist material to anti-terror videos

Still today there is illegal content easily accessible on YouTube  including terrorist propaganda. Google cannot delay in implementing these new rules.

As with any other business, social media companies have a responsibility to make sure their platforms are safe. These steps are the first in a series which need to be taken to ensure they are fulfilling their important obligations.

Meanwhile Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will today call on fellow EU ministers to apply joint pressure on technology firms to do more to tackle extremism online.

At a meeting in Luxembourg, Mr Johnson hopes all 28 foreign ministers will agree to establish an industry-led forum on preventing radicalisation online.

In the wake of the Manchester bomb attack last month, it took the Daily Mail less than 30 seconds to find links to handbooks urging extremists to murder children and target concerts, and providing instructions for constructing home-made bombs.
Support for Pauline Hanson is continuing to surge with her One Nation party now more popular across Australia than the Greens.

The Queensland senator's party, which is opposed to Muslim migration, rose by one percentage point to 11 per cent in the latest Newspoll.

It came as support for the Greens dipped by one percentage point to nine per cent, putting the left-wing minor party's support in single digits.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's support meanwhile remains in the political doghouse, with his Coalition government trailing Labor for the 14th consecutive Newspoll survey.

Tickled pink: Pauline Hanson's One Nation party is more popular than the Greens party which Senator Peter Whish-Wilson (left) belongs to

The coalition continues to trail behind Labor but leaders of both parties are equally unpopular, a new poll shows

The latest survey published in The Australian on Monday has the the Coalition trailing Labor, 53 per cent to 47 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.

Mr Turnbull's Liberal Party is suffering from the kind of unpopularity that afflicted his predecessor Tony Abbott in 2014 and 2015, which led to the former prime minister being overthrown in a leadership coup in September 2015.

He had also cited Mr Abbott's 30 successive Newspoll losses to justify his leadership challenge almost two years ago.

Both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten have an approval rating of negative 23 per cent, meaning more surveyed voters were dissatisfied than satisfied with their performances.

The latest Newspoll published on Monday in The Australian keeps Labor on 53 per cent to the coalition's 47 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis, and marks the 14th consecutive poll where the coalition has been behind

Support for the Greens, led by Richard Di Natale, has slipped back to single digits

Last week, Mr Abbott said 'there should be no doubt' the Labor leader will be front runner to be the next prime minister.

'As things stand, Bill Shorten would have to be the favourite to win the next election,' Abbott told Sydney radio's Ray Hadley on 2GB.

Abbott said the Liberal Party should 'never underestimate' Shorten and despite disagreeing with his politics, says he is a 'capable politician.'

On a primary votes, Labor's support edged up one pip to 37 per cent while the Coalition's primary vote was static at 36 per cent.

Both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten have an approval rating of negative 23 per cent, meaning more surveyed voters were dissatisfied than satisfied with their performances
Peckham has become the latest - albeit surprising - region in the world to crack down on the use of Airbnb.

Residents of the London district are being warned by Southwark council not to let out their rooms or houses on a short-term basis if they are current or former council properties, as it claims a steady flow of visitors can be 'damaging to local communities'.

Officials are following in the footsteps of other cities including Paris and New York, as well as Barcelona, which is currently having a major crackdown on the use of sites like Airbnb.

Residents of Peckham (pictured) are being warned by Southwark council not to let out their rooms or houses on a short-term basis if they are current or former council properties

Peckham - population 11,000 and home to Del Boy of the legendary show Only Fools and Horses - has been enjoying somewhat of a revival in recent years, but hardly rivals the likes of Barcelona in terms of tourist numbers.

Nevertheless, Southwark councillor Stephanie Cryan said: 'We are aware that a growing number of leaseholders are letting their properties, on a short-term basis, through platforms including but not exclusive to Airbnb, Housetrip and Gumtree.

'As far as we are concerned our homes are homes, not hotels. We want people in our council homes and on our council estates who are a part of the community, not visitors passing through.'

She pointed to 'noise nuisance, over-occupation and damage to communal areas' as being problems that can arise from short-term lets.

The London district, population 11,000, is home to Del Boy of the legendary show Only Fools and Horses (pictured)

Leaflets are now being distributed to Peckham residents, warning possible legal action should their contracts be breached.

Barcelona, meanwhile, is sending inspectors to identify homeowners who are illegally letting out rooms or apartments on sites like Airbnb.

The law requires they be licensed with the Catalan tourism register, which many unwittingly are not.

The Peckham Library (left) won the Stirling Prize for Architecture in 2000. As for Barcelona (right), it's one of the world's most popular tourists destinations, with more than eight million visitors a year

Spain's most popular tourist destination attracted more than eight million visitors in 2015, according to the latest official figures, raising concern that it has hit saturation point and posing a headache for its 1.6 million residents.

In November, Airbnb was fined for failing to comply with Barcelona's local tourism laws.

In February, the company said in a letter that it would limit the number of listings per host and facilitate the collection of tourist tax from those advertising apartments.

BARCELONA'S HIGHLIGHTS Barcelona attracts more than eight million visitors per year, and rising The 44-acre Park Guell is considered one of the world's greatest architectural achievements Gaudi's Sagrada Familia cathedral is the most visited monument in all of Spain Barcelona is famed for its football team and was the setting for Woody Allen's movie hit, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Advertisement
He last appeared as the Master on New Years Day in 2010 and the villainous role has since been taken on by Scottish actress Michelle Gomez.

And John Simm's Master has been pictured alongside Missy for the first time in a chilling poster as the actor makes a triumphant return to Doctor Who.

The evil duo posed back to back behind Peter Capaldi's Doctor ahead of the dramatic series finale of the rebooted show's 10th series.

Scroll down for video

Double trouble: John Simm's Master was pictured with Michelle Gomez's Missy for the first time in a poster ahead of the Doctor Who series 10 finale

In the series finale, The Doctor will battle against the Cybermen, as well as see the two incarnations of the Master come face-to-face.

The poster mimics the teaser for the 50th anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor, which saw David Tennant, Matt Smith and John Hurt all play the heroic Time Lord.

The 2013 poster shows David and Matt standing back to back behind John Hurt's War Doctor.

The historic two-parter will also feature the Mondasian Cybermen, who haven't appeared on the show for 50 years.

A twist in time: The poster mimics the teaser for the 50th anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor, which saw David Tennant, Matt Smith and John Hurt all play the heroic Time Lord

The Master is one of The Doctor's most fearsome enemies and was most famously played by Roger Delgado in the classic series.

When the show was rebooted in 2005, the evil Time Lord took three series to appear and was played briefly by Sir Derek Jacobi.

Life on Mars star John, 46, played the role from 2007 to 2010, appearing in only five episodes.

During his stint on the show, the Master became Prime Minister in a bid to take over Earth, 'died' and was later resurrected to turn the human race into his clones.

Evil Time Lord: During his three-year stint on the show, the Master became Prime Minister in a bid to take over Earth, 'died' and was later resurrected to turn the human race into his clones

After a short hiatus, the Master returned as Missy, played by Michelle Gomez.

The newly regenerated Time Lady first appeared on the show in 2013 opposite Matt Smith's Doctor.

But her true identity was only revealed in November 2014, when she tried to take over the world with an army of Cybermen.

While the Master often appears alongside the Daleks and Cybermen as The Doctor's most feared enemies, the pair also maintain a strained friendship.

Back again: The historic two-parter will also feature the Mondasian Cybermen (pictured), who haven't appeared on the show for 50 years

The pair grew up together on the Time Lords' home planet of Gallifrey and the Doctor has tried numerous times to save the soul of The Master.

In the current series of the show, The Doctor is tasked with guarding Missy in a prison for 1,000 years and he uses that time to try and turn her away from evil.

The Doctor will battle against the Cybermen alongside companion Bill and cyborg Nardole in the episodes World Enough and Time, and extended episode The Doctor Falls.

The final episodes of series 10 of Doctor Who will air on BBC One on June 24 and July 1
She's the charismatic TV host who changed the face of brain cancer fundraising with her 2015 Gold Logie acceptance speech.

Now Carrie Bickmore is more determined than ever to raise much needed funds for her inspirational charity Carrie's Beanies 4 Brain Cancer.

The 36-year-old started the charity in memory of her late husband Greg Lange and told The Sunday Telegraph that the pain and trauma of his death in 2010 is still difficult to talk about.

'There's so much of the journey... that I won't ever talk about': Carrie Bickmore has claimed the pain and trauma of her husband Greg Lange's death in 2010 is still difficult to discuss

Since starting Carrie's Beanies 4 Brain Cancer, the Project co-host has helped other families cope by speaking about her own experiences.

But there are some details she will never share.

'There's so much of the journey, of Greg's bravery, that I won't ever talk about, and the honest truth is that it's always been incredibly painful to talk about any of it,' Carrie said.

'It's still difficult but the foundation has given me strength and hope and positivity, which makes talking about it easier.'

Family heartbreak: The 36-year-old started the Carrie's Beanies 4 Brain Cancer charity in memory of her late husband Greg Lange (pictured), who died of brain cancer in late 2010

When deciding to start her charity, Carrie realised she had stiff competition in Australia.

She said: 'Everyone has a cause they support and I know I'm just another charity, even though for me it's my entire life.'

But following a successful round of sales of her signature beanies, the support for the charity has continued to grow.

'I know I'm just another charity, even though for me it's my entire life': When deciding to start her charity, Carrie realised she had stiff competition in Australia

Carrie explained that positive feedback from other families affected by brain cancer kept her motivated in the early days of the foundation.

She said: 'It's the messages I get from families every day who are going through what I've been through and thank me for making them feel less alone, and that pushes me to keep going.'

'Once you lose hope, you've got nothing, but there's hope and that's a wonderful thing.'
The glamorous 'clones' of Roxy Jacenko's Sweaty Betty PR and The Ministry Of Talent assembled for a society wedding in Point Piper over the weekend.

Roxy's protege Holly Asser joined colleague Holly Brooke and others for the nuptials of Sydney publicist Danni Woodward and her partner Edward Carroll on Saturday.

But the 37-year-old PR queen herself did not attend, most likely because she was looking after her five-year-old daughter Pixie, who is feeling unwell.

Here comes the bride! The glamorous 'clones' of Roxy Jacenko's Sweaty Betty PR and The Ministry Of Talent assembled for a society wedding in Point Piper over the weekend

Danni, who has now changed her Instagram handle to her married name Danni Carroll, is a booker at Sweaty Betty PR's sister company, The Ministry Of Talent.

While Sweaty Betty focuses on representing fashion brands, bars and restaurants, The Ministry Of Talent is an agency for bloggers and 'social media influencers'.

Both companies share the same newly-refurbished office space in Paddington.

Wedding bells! Roxy's protege Holly Asser (right) joined colleague Holly Brooke (left) for the nuptials of publicist Danni Woodward (centre) and her partner Edward Carroll on Saturday

'Congratulations': Danni, who has now changed her Instagram handle to her married name Danni Carroll, works at Sweaty Betty PR's sister company, The Ministry Of Talent

The company website states Danni has a Bachelor in Communications and Business from Bond University and 'loves social media just as much as a good cup of coffee'.

On her special day, Danni wore a stunning, long white gown with intricate lace detailing across the shoulders and bodice.

Holly Brooke wore a slinky black frock while Holly Asser flaunted her petite frame in a patterned off-the-shoulder dress.

Here come the girls! Holly Brooke wore a slinky black frock while Holly Asser flaunted her petite frame in a patterned off-the-shoulder dress at the wedding

Surprisingly, Roxy did not attend her staff member's wedding ceremony - and her Instagram posts suggest she was at home looking after her sick children.

Meanwhile, Roxy's husband Oliver Curtis is expected to be released from Cooma Correctional Centre in less than a week.

The former investment banker was jailed for insider trading in June 2016.

'Missing you @roxyjacenko': Surprisingly, Roxy did not attend her staff member's wedding

Roxy previously told the Wentworth Courier she planned to meet Oliver at the prison gates with their children - Pixie, five, and Hunter, two.

But The Sun-Herald suggested there could be a change of plan after she was pictured kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal in April.

Nabil, a wealthy property developer and brother of Real Housewives Of Sydney star Nicole Gazal O'Neil, is reportedly 'smitten' with his former lover.

Little is known about Roxy and Nabil's past relationship, however he has been described as one of her more 'serious' boyfriends.
She just finished a beauty conference where her face was made up for a crowd.

And Chrissy Teigen put good use to her free make over as she later posed with her one-year-old daughter Luna in a gorgeous swimsuit on Saturday in Laguna Beach.

The 31-year-old supermodel looked flawless in a light brown one piece while she held her baby girl as they relaxed by a pool.

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Super mom: And Chrissy Teigen put good use to her free make over as she later posed with her one-year-old daughter Luna in a gorgeous swimsuit on Saturday in Laguna Beach

The Lip Sync Battle host proved to the world she is a top model as her incredible figure took center stage in the Instagram post.

Her bedazzled bathing suit cut low at the neck revealing her gorgeous decolletage while the hip was cut high giving a peak to her curves.

Chrissy kept her chestnut tresses in a tight bun as she dared to impress with minimal makeup letting her natural beauty shine.

Invite to glamour: Chrissy posted an invite to the Becca Cosmetics event via Instagram

Second job: The event was to held to showcase Becca Cosmetics, which Chrissy moonlights for as a spokesperson

Her daughter that she shares with musician John Legend looked adorable in a pink top and baby swimmers.

Earlier in the day, Chrissy attended a beauty conference held by Ulta Beauty in Huntington Beach.

The event was to held to showcase Becca Cosmetics, which Chrissy moonlights for as a spokesperson.

Giving face: Onlookers were given a surprise as the statuesque beauty sat in a robe as a makeup artist applied several different types of cosmetics

Double take: the supermodel posed next to her promotional poster

It looked to be a fun day for her fans as she was given a makeup tutorial in the middle of the store.

Onlookers were given a surprise as the statuesque beauty sat in a robe as a makeup artist applied several different types of cosmetics.

The avid home chef posed with her many fans and the employees of Ulta thanking them for such a great day on her Snapchat account.
Oliver Curtis was jailed in June last year after being convicted of insider trading.

And although his release from Cooma Correctional Centre just days away, wife Roxy Jacenko is unsure whether she will be at the prison gates to welcome him home.

The PR queen has previously said she will greet Oliver with their children - Pixie, five, and Hunter, two - but The Sun-Herald reports there could be a change of plan.

Change of plans? Oliver Curtis (L) is expected to be released from Cooma Correctional Centre on Friday, but Roxy has hinted she may not be meeting him at the prison gates

Fairfax reported on Sunday that the Sweaty Betty PR founder's plans surrounding her husband's scheduled release on June 23 are still up in the air.

Roxy told the publication: 'I am not sure of any arrangements as of yet.'

But despite her claims, The Sun-Herald also reported that a source close to Roxy said a 'private jet has been booked in her name to fly to Cooma on Friday'.

What happened? Roxy has previously said she will greet Oliver with their children upon his release, but she told The Sun-Herald on Sunday, 'I am not sure of any arrangements as of yet'

Roxy's apparent doubts contradict her previous interview with local newspaper the Wentworth Courier back in April.

'Yes. Absolutely (we will be at the gates),' she said at the time.

'The kids are looking forward to having their father back. It's very important we're there.'

'It's very important we're there': Roxy told local newspaper the Wentworth Courier in April that she and the kids would 'absolutely' be there waiting for Oliver - but now she has doubts

Roxy has said that her children didn't know the full details of why their father has been away for so long.

She has told Pixie and Hunter that Oliver is working overseas, rather than serving time for illegal activities.

The Double Bay socialite previously told Daily Mail Australia she will not be throwing a 'welcome home' party for her husband.

'I'm not really about making a big fuss over something that shouldn't be celebrated,' she said.



Jetting off? But despite her claims, The Sun-Herald also reported that a source close to Roxy said a 'private jet has been booked in her name to fly to Cooma on Friday'

'My children think he's coming home from work and that's how it needs to remain. If there was some big gala affair that would seem out of character,' she added.

'He'll be released on the June 23rd and the most important thing for him will be to spend as much time as he can reconnecting with the kids.'

Rumours have been circling in recent times that Roxy and Oliver quietly split before he was sent to jail.

The well-known publicist has been spotted several times without her wedding ring.

In April, after her interview with the Wentworth Courier, Roxy was photographed kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal in his apartment.
She rose to fame as the bikini-clad model in a 2006 Tourism Australia campaign.

And over 10 years later, Lara Worthington (nee Bingle) has transformed into a savvy businesswoman, a wife and a mother to two young boys.

The 29-year-old spoke to The Sun-Herald about her skincare company and relationship with actor husband Sam Worthington on Sunday.

'He's an amazing husband, and he's so good with the kids': Lara Worthington (nee Bingle) had nothing but praise for actor Sam Worthington (right) during an interview with The Sun-Herald

'Sam has a really good heart,' she said.

'He's an amazing husband, and he's so good with the kids. He's very hands-on, and I think we really complement each other. He is our world.'

Lara married Sam in 2014 in a secret wedding in the beachside suburb of Cronulla.

'He is our world': Lara married Sam in 2014 in a secret wedding in Cronulla, Sydney

Busy mum! The couple welcomed their first child, Rocket Zot, in March 2015 and their second son, Racer, in October 2016

The couple, who confirmed the news a year later, welcomed their first child, Rocket Zot, in March 2015 and their second son, Racer, in October 2016.

During the interview, Lara hinted that her busy lifestyle as a working mother was the secret behind getting back in shape just eight months after giving birth.

The fashionista explained she tries to squeeze in a workout session whenever she can, but would like to exercise more often in the future.

She's always on the go! During the interview, Lara hinted that her busy lifestyle as a working mother was the secret behind getting back in shape just eight months after giving birth

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph last year, Lara said her workout regime with trainer Michael Ryan is based entirely around floor work.

'He was Sam's trainer,' she revealed.

'My routine is all mat work. Lots of sit-ups and leg lifts at high repetition at a low weight, no more than five kilos.'
The is a real-life mother to 11-year-old daughter Matilda with tragic ex Heath Ledger.

But on Saturday in Rome, Michelle Williams was playing mom to her young co-stars Charlie Shotwell and Kit Cranston as they shot scenes for their 70's kidnap drama All The Money In The World.

Michelle sported a dark blonde wig for the scene that showed her crossing the street with the boys who play her sons in the movie.

Safety first: Michelle Williams shot scenes as Abigail Getty with her co-stars Charlie Shotwell and Kit Cranston in Rome on Saturday

The 36-year-old actress, who plays Abigail Getty, wore a long brown checkered peacoat which was typical of the era, matched with black boots.

Charlie Shotwell plays John Paul Getty III as a young boy, and Kit Cranston plays her younger son Mark Getty.

Actor Charlie Plummer pays the older John Paul Getty III in the real life story about a boy who was kidnapped in Rome at age 16.

Kidnap drama: They are filming All The Money In The World about the infamous kidnapping of John Paul Getty III in the 70's

He famously had his ear cut off by his kidnappers and sent to an Italian newspaper after his billionaire grandfather J. Paul Getty refused to pay a $17 million ransom demanded by his kidnappers.

Getty, who is played by Kevin Spacey in the film, held out for six months during which the teenager was held captive chained up in a cave.

His grandfather eventually agreed to pay a $2.9 million ransom that secured his release.

Coveted: Natalie Portman and Angelina Jolie were both eyed for the role before Williams got the part

Natalie Portman and Angelina Jolie were both eyed for the role of Harris by director Ridley Scott before casting Williams in the part.

Mark Wahlberg plays Fletcher Chase in the movie, an ex-CIA operative Getty hired to help and try and locate her son.

Wahlberg was not on set Saturday as he is currently promoting his latest film Transformers The Last Knight.
Olly Smith puts several celebrity spirits to the test

Theyve already got everything from clothing lines to fragrances. Now celebrities have found a new, and unlikely, way to boost their fortunes  by putting their names to spirits such as rum, vodka and tequila.

With the UK drinks industry worth 40 billion a year, it can be a lucrative sideline, but are their tipples any good? Mail on Sunday expert OLLY SMITH puts them to the test

George Clooney Casamigos Blanco Tequila 54.90

UK sales of tequila have soared from 46 million to 173 million in two years, and if this brilliant bottle has anything to do with it, I can see why. Clooney and his business partner, Rande Gerber, spent two years working with a Mexican distillery to perfect the flavours and this has immense fragrance, with fresh herby and vanilla aromas leaping out of the glass.

I would always sip this neat  no mixer, no salt, no lime, nothing. The flavours are just too intense and good to mix.

The palate is deliciously fruity with a sweet core, and a powerful, long-lasting flavour. The only quibble is the price  but if George is buying, Im drinking. 9/10

George Clooney and the Casamigos Blanco Tequila

David Beckham Clubman Haig Whisky 21.95

Like Becks, the bottle looks great; smart and striking. The whisky itself struck me as very simple, easy to drink and light, totally inoffensive and so a good way to entice new whisky drinkers.

This doesnt have the impact to hit the back of the net and score that decisive goal, but the presentation bottle is decent, and for the price its a friendly option for Beckham fans. With soda, it will do for a refreshing, simple sipper. 4/10

David Beckham and the Clubman Haig Whisky, which is very simple, easy to drink and light, totally inoffensive

Dan Ackroyd Crystal Head Vodka 43.95

If you presented me with a vodka filtered through Herkimer diamonds and served in a crystal skull, Id think you were either nuts or it was a marketing gimmick.

Dont be fooled. Dan Ghostbusters Ackroyd, who conceived and founded this brand with artist John Alexander in 2007, has crafted a vodka with precision, purity and freshness. Expect a glossy, svelte texture and an upbeat spicy finish inside a striking bottle. The vodka has been quadruple-distilled from Ontario grains and filtered seven times with Newfoundland water. Serve ice-cold. 8/10

Sean Combs Ciroc Vodka 32.50

With a 50-50 profit split apparently in place for this deal, Ive no doubt rapper Sean Combs (aka Puff Daddy) will do fine from his strategic alliance with drinks giant Diageo. With a light and easy fruity intensity, theres a satisfying warming crescendo to the finish of this spirit distilled from French wine grapes.

Light and summery, this is a decent option with tonic or martini, thanks to its freshness. The price feels a tad steep but the spirit is appealing enough to coax you gently into the rhythm of a summery cocktail. 6/10

Nancy DellOlio Limonbello 29.90

Nancy DellOlio with the Limonbello bottle. Nancy claims this is her baby and, with agave syrup in the mix, this is indeed from an old DellOlio family recipe

Light, fragrant and lemony with a zesty finish, this surprised me. I could see myself enjoying a few cocktails using this and dreaming of sunny Sicily where the lemons for it come from.

Nancy claims this is her baby and, with agave syrup in the mix, this is indeed from an old DellOlio family recipe described as organic and sugar-free. Useful in a range of summery cocktails or just sip it neat after dinner for a simple lemony refresher. A pleasant surprise. 6/10

Motorhead Vodka 32.50

Wow! By the gothic design adorning the bottle, I fully expected this vodka to be the hand grenade of regret in this line-up. On the contrary  it reaffirmed the old maxim never judge an album by its cover.

The hard-living band, who have also produced their own wine and beer, can be commended for a tipple that is quaffable and easy enough to sip if youre in the mood for rocking out. It is said to have been selected by Lemmy and the band while on tour. This good, clean vodka from Malmkoping in Sweden is perhaps more of a simpler solo note than a full band, but with five-star reviews on Amazon, fans clearly love it. 6/10

Enrique Iglesias Atlantico Reserve Rum 27.25

Enrique Iglesias with his Atlantico Reserve Rum

From the Dominican Republic, this rum has an impressive history of awards, and with its aromas of butterscotch and sultanas, I was initially enticed. But for me the oak influence here comes across a little too powerfully, almost verging on vanilla fudge. If you have a sweet tooth, this could be the rum for you.

Described as a partnership with Miami-based Atlantico Rum, there is a coda of spice on the palate but the headline for me was of simplicity around a profile that reminded me of maple syrup or sweet caramel. So while its not a top ten hit, its a solid effort from Enrique, above, if you prefer your rum on the easier side, and could even be good for backing up the harmonies in fruity cocktails. 5/10

Cleo Rocos Aquariva Blanco Tequila 23.95

Former Kenny Everett sidekick Cleo has been dubbed the Tequila Queen of the UK by Britains Tequila Society so youd expect her bottle to be good. Youd be wrong. Its way better than that. Premium tequila like this has to be made from 100 per cent agave, which gives elegant aromas ranging from high impact herbs to zesty fragrance, as well as sensational purity.

Cleo spent a year with a master blender in Mexico to create three varieties of Aquariva and this tequila has a finish as dazzling as fireworks, without the heat. Hands-down the best value drink in this chorus line. Bravo Cleo. 8/10

Queen Vodka 24.95

Created to mark the 40th anniversary of their hit, Killer Queen, this rather good vodka is, if not guaranteed to blow your mind, certainly the stuff to get you in the mood for singing. Vodka, apparently, was a firm favourite of Freddie Mercury, who is said to have carried the stuff with him on tour.

Brian May (left) and the Killer Queen Vodka, which was created to mark the 40th anniversary of their hit song of the same name

To create this bottle, the band teamed up with Latvian distiller SPI Riga, best known for its Stolichnaya vodka. This seven-times distilled and four times filtered vodka seduces with a regal charm, and is balanced with a rich, lavish texture.

Wrap your palate in boozes answer to coronation robes with this sassy number thats crowned with an invigorating freshness. 7/10
She's the famous daughter of the late 'King Of Pop' Michael Jackson.

And now it's Paris Jackson's time to shine as she makes her debut on the cover of Vogue Australia this month.

The 19-year-old flaunted her toned midriff in a blue crop top for the cover of the magazine's July issue.

Cover girl! Paris Jackson flaunted her toned midriff in a blue crop top for the cover Vogue Australia magazine this month

The American model and actress flaunted her numerous tattoos as she modelled a series of edgy looks.

Throughout the shoot, Paris's flawless complexion and piercing blue eyes were accentuated by a natural-looking palette.

In one photo, she went braless under a navy floral print dress featuring a plunging neckline and bejewelled bow detail.

Blooming beautiful! The 19-year-old model also went braless under a navy floral print dress

Punking out! For an edgy vibe, Paris also rocked a plaid skirt teamed with a navy cut-out top

She accessorised with with an S&M inspired black choker necklace and several sparkly earrings.

Paris kept the edgy vibe in another outfit, as she modelled an asymmetrical tartan maxi skirt and black punk boots.

She completed the look with a longsleeve blue top with a criss-cross design, which offered a glimpse of underboob.

'My parentals got married there': While she has yet to travel Down Under, Paris told the magazine she felt a deep connection to Australia

While she has yet to travel Down Under, Paris told the magazine she felt a deep connection to Australia.

'My parentals (Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe) got married there so it's for sure on my bucket list to go,' she said.

'Plus Bluesfest always has the grooviest set list so maybe one year I'll hit it up.'

She also told the publication that modelling and acting is where she is heading:

'I really want to leave a positive imprint in the fashion world, mostly regarding the media and the stereotypical beauty standard that is blasted all over every magazine you see, every article that pops up on your phone screen, every billboard you see while you're driving down the street,' she said.

'I already have many young girls looking up to me and I want to be something their parents are OK with them looking up to.'
He's known as one of the world's most experimental chefs, and will be making an appearance on MasterChef Australia this week.

And Heston Blumenthal credits his determination to succeed in the culinary world to the lack of affection he received from his own parents.

The 51-year-old told The Sunday Telegraph the first time he heard his father say 'I love you' was one his deathbed.

'My dad only told me he loved me on his deathbed': Heston Blumenthal credits his drive to succeed in the culinary world to the lack of affection he received from his own parents

'My dad only told me he loved me on his deathbed,' said Heston.

And it turns out his mother was also not very forthcoming in her praise.

The Fat Duck restaurateur said it was only last year she offered him any sort of encouragement, and now their relationship is better than ever.

'Last year we were at lunch and I said, "Cheers mum", and she tuned around and looked at me and said, "I'm really proud of you".'

Success: The Fat Duck restaurateur said it was only last year his mother offered him any sort of encouragement, and now their relationship is better than ever. Pictured meeting the Queen

The TV chef was diagnosed with ADHD last year after a psychologist friend suspected he had the condition.

Known for his overactive mind, Heston made headlines after his appearance on The Project in April, after answering the question 'What makes a restaurant great,' with a bizarre and detailed answer about human evolution.

'Human beings became the most powerful species on the planet through being able to imagine things that didn't exist - we created shared beliefs,' he began.

He eventually concluded his lengthy speech by saying that people define the food and restaurants they like through their 'raw emotions'.

Room for one more? Heston has said he would like a full-time role on MasterChef Australia

The celebrity chef will appear on MasterChef on Sunday night to kick off Heston Week, taking the contestants on a road trip across Victoria.

A guest judge on the hit reality show, Heston told TV Week that he would like to have a full-time role.

'I'd love to be transferred onto the show as a permanent guest,' he said. 'There's a camaraderie on set - it's like a family.'
Last year, Here Come The Habibs! attracted criticism for its portrayal of an Australian-Lebanese family, which some viewers claimed used racist stereotypes.

With Channel Nine's rags-to-riches comedy now in its second season, co-creator Rob Shehadie is hitting back at the naysayers.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Rob claimed Australian audiences are forgetting how to see the funny side of things.

'The world is getting very serious': Here Come The Habibs! co-creator Rob Shehadie (right) told The Sunday Telegraph he thinks Australian audiences are forgetting how to laugh

'The world is getting very serious which is very serious,' said Rob, who also portrays Janesh in the series.

'We created this show purely for comedy reasons,' he added.

'We didnt say, "Let's do a show to put some diversity on Australian TV." For us, it's always been about the laughs.'

'We created this show purely for comedy reasons': Rob said Here Come The Habibs! wasn't made to 'put some diversity on Australian TV', but to simply provide a funny show

Making headlines: The high-rating program attracted controversy before it even went to air, with some Australians dismissing it as 'casually racist'

The high-rating program attracted controversy before it even went to air, with some Australians dismissing it as 'casually racist'.

Social media users were quick to criticise the concept when the first trailers were aired, with some even likening it to 'blackface'.

'This show is an utter embarrassment to the Lebanese community, and not to mention racist!' read an angry Facebook comment.

Success! Despite the initial backlash, Here Come The Habibs! went on to be a success for Channel Nine, with season two currently airing on the network

Despite the initial backlash, Here Come The Habibs! went on to be a success for Channel Nine, with season two currently airing on the network.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia in March last year, Rob revealed those people denouncing the show only managed to hype it up and attract more viewers.

'We should thank the critics because they made the show bigger,' he said.
Their season of Bachelor In Paradise ended up with him popping the question.

And now lovebirds Carly Waddell and Evan Bass are finally exchanging 'I do's.'

The reality personas tied the knot this weekend in an intimate ceremony with family and friends in Puerto Vallerta, Mexico according to a Saturday report from Us Weekly.

Making it official! Bachelor In Paradise's Carly Waddell and Evan Bass tied the knot in an intimate ceremony this weekend. Above the pair are pictured in a June 15 Instagram

Series host Chris Harrison had the honors of officiating the ceremony while BiP alums Jade Roper and Tanner Tolbert were among the wedding's guests.

Carly and Evan are the only couple still going strong from last season of Paradise.

Couples Josh Murray and Amanda Stanton broke up in March while Grant Kemp and Lace Morris split last November.

Magic moment: Carly and Evan are the only couple from BiP's third season who are still together. Above you can see Evan pop the question during last season's finale of Paradise

Host with the most! Chris Harrison (above) had the honor of officiating the ceremony while BiP alums Jade and Tanner were also among the guests

Their nuptials will be broadcast during a special episode of the ABC dating show this summer.

And while Carly and Evan's wedding will still get the silver screen treatment, season four of Bachelor In Paradise is still in indefinite hiatus.

Last week the show's production came to a screeching halt after allegations of misconduct emerged following the first day of shooting on the steamy dating game.

Unclear future: While Carly and Evan's wedding will air on ABC during a special Bachelor broadcast, the fate of Bachelor In Paradise is up in the air following the emergency cancellation of season four

The scandal stems from a hookup between contestants Corinne Olympios and DeMario Jackson.

After the duo learned they would be paired together for a storyline on the partially-planned reality series, Corinne and DeMario embarked on a night of heavy drinking and hooking up which ended with Jackson publicly performing oral sex on his fellow contestant.

Although there were multiple witnesses to the drunken tryst on the first day of filming, a complaint was only filed after a producer raised serious concerns about Corinne's ability to consent after reviewing the footage from the previous day. Production was halted shortly thereafter.
She is enjoying a summer break from shooting her hit show Modern Family.

And on Saturday, Sofia Vergara looked ready for summer as she attended the premiere of her latest silver screen feature The Female Brain.

Vergara, 44, rocked a bright yellow lace dress that showed off her famous curves.

Sunny: Sofia Vergara sported a yellow lace dress with nude heels as she attended the premiere of her movie The Female Brain in LA on Saturday

She wore a pair of towering nude heels to add some height to her 5ft7in frame.

The voluptuous Colombian superstar plays a woman named Lisa in the movie, which is written by and stars Whitney Cummings.

The Female Brain explores the differences between male and female thinking and how it affects relationships.

Bright: The 44-year-old actress plays the role of Lisa in the upcoming movie The Female Brain

Making a wave: She struck a sexy pose for photographers on the red carpet and waved to adoring fans

Snack time: Vergara indulged in some popcorn once she got to her seat inside the theater

Sofia has been beefing up her movie resume while on break from Modern Family.

In addition to The Female Brain, she recently shot the movie Bent in Italy and she will voice the role of Flamingo Dancer in The Emoji Movie later this year.

Once inside the screening, Vergara took to Instagram to share a photo of herself indulging on popcorn in the theater.

Creator: Whitney Cummings wrote the film and stars in the lead role, playing a doctor breaking down the difference in male and female thoughts

Whitney chose a tight blue dress with bell sleeves for her film's big premiere.

She plays a doctor in the movie who studies the difference between male and female thoughts and how they affect relationships.

Chris D'Elia, Alysia Reiner and James Marsden also appear in the motion picture.

Giggles: The stunner giggled as she answered questions from the audience
She's making waves in the US with the recent release of her new film Once Upon A Time In Venice.

And it seems Jessica Gomes treated herself to a day of shopping and pampering at luxury beauty store Violet Gray.

The 32-year-old was spotted in the ritzy suburb of Beverly Hills on Friday cutting a relaxed and casual figure.

Step out in style! Jessica Gomes treated herself to a shopping trip in Beverly Hills on Friday

She wore a stylish all-black ensemble featuring a sleeveless shirt, ripped jeans and Birkenstock sandals.

The David Jones ambassador teamed her outfit with retro style sunglasses and a black leather Valentino Rockstud satchel bag.

Jessica appeared makeup free and radiant as she crossed the road heading back to her car, carrying a bag full of goodies.

Rising star: The Australian model is making waves in the US with the recent release of her new film Once Upon A Time In Venice

So far, 2017 has been a successful year for the Perth-born model with the launch of her skincare line Equal Beauty after three years of product development.

'I wanted to create something that was going to reflect my background and my beauty beliefs,' she previously told The Daily Telegraph.

'I wanted to create something that was going to reflect my background and my beauty beliefs,' she added.

Love life: Jessica's relationship with Australian actor Xavier Samuel has been blooming since they started dating in September last year

Meanwhile, her relationship with Australian actor Xavier Samuel has been blooming since they started dating in September last year.

She recently sparked engagement speculation after she was seen wearing gold ring on her finger at the InStyle Women Of Style Awards.

However, her agent denied the rumour.
Angelina Jolie and kids won't be spending their Father's Day with Brad Pitt.

Saturday, the 42-year-old star and six young kin were seen jetting out of Los Angeles Airport's international terminal.

The Academy Award winner looked ever-classic as she lead her offspring to their flight donning dark aviators, an olive trench coat and tall brown boots.

Time for a trip! Angelina Jolie and kids were seen jetting out of LAX on Saturday, just one day before Father's Day

The director/actress ooozed elegance as she shepherded her kids to the plane while hiding her eyes behind cool shades and carrying a dove grey handbag.

Mama Angelina held daughter Vivienne, eight, by the hand while her twin brother Knox walked beside them with their older siblings Maddox (15), Pax (13), Zahara (12), and Shiloh (11).

Though tomorrow is Father's Day, it appeared that the family would be spending Sunday without estranged dad Brad Pitt.

Whole gang's here! All six of the Jolie-Pitt kids were along for the international trip. Above you can see Pax, Maddox, Shiloh, Knox, Zahara, and Vivienne from left to right

Elsewhere: While Angelina was whisking the kids off for a weekend trip, dad Brad was busy sprucing up the former family home in Los Feliz where he was seen receiving delivery of a grand new tree for the property

Yesterday, the War Machine actor was seen adding to the Los Feliz property he once shared with his family and called the children's 'first real childhood home.

Brad invited a green addition to the former family property with a new towering tree delivered via flatbed truck.

Meanwhile, Angelina is settling into a six-bedroom house reportedly for $25 million just five minutes away from her ex husband.

Timeless look: The mother-of-six looked classic while travelling in a chic olive trench coat and tall boots

The sprawling two-acre property has an interesting history.

It was previously owned by film legend Cecil B DeMille and still has many trappings of old Hollywood glamour, complete with cascading fountains, a solitary pool house and one-of-a-kind views.

Brad and Angelina's split late last year came as a surprise to many who saw the pair as the epitome of a Hollywood power couple.

Home, sweet home: The Jolie-Pitt kids just moved into the iconic Cecil B Demille estate which it's reported mom Angelina purchased for $25million

In May, the Fight Club actor gave a brave candid interview to GQ magazine where he was asked if it felt like he was grieving a death to which he simply replied: 'Yeah.'

At first the Mr and Mrs Smith star found it too difficult to remain in the family home so he stayed with a friend while he mended his broken heart.

'It was too sad to be here at first, so I went and stayed on a friend's floor, a little bungalow in Santa Monica,' he told the publication.

'This house was always chaotic and crazy, voices and bangs coming from everywhere, and then, as you see, there are days like this: veryvery solemn.'
She dazzled in her brief stint as a Real Housewife Of Atlanta.

And Claudia Jordan is still turning heads as she stunned on the red carpet for the All Eyez On Me screening in Miami Beach on Saturday.

The 44-year-old TV personality flaunted her enviable figure as she rocked a daring silver gown for the Tupac Shakur biopic viewing.

Glittery beauty: Claudia Jordan, 44, stunned on the red carpet for the All Eyez On Me screening in Miami Beach on Saturday

The Price Is Right model made all the ladies jealous as she dazzled in a form fitting dress that revealed her ample bosom.

As she dared to impress, the Rhode Island native poured her svelte physique into the glittery gown that wrapped itself around her curves.

Never one to follow the tired trend, Claudia made a splash with a bold metallic necklace and pointed dark high heels.

All that glitters: As she dared to impress, the Rhode Island native poured her svelte physique into the glittery gown that wrapped itself around her curves

Her assets: The Price Is Right model made all the ladies jealous as she dazzled in a form fitting dress that revealed her ample bosom

She slicked her gorgeous raven locks back in a fierce ponytail and added neutral tone makeup to her cover girl face.

She wrapped the accessory category with a few choice baubles on her fingers and left her ears unadorned.

The screening featured the new film about the life and times of the famous rapper Tupac Shakur who was slain in 1996.

Girl's night: Claudia posed with actress Annie Ilonzeh

Leading man: Demetrius Shipp Jr. stars as the hop hop legend Tupac Shakur

Demetrius Shipp Jr. stars as the titular hop hop legend.

Titled after Shakur's 1996 fourth studio album of the same name, the film also stars Kat Graham, Lauren Cohan, Hill Harper, and Danai Gurira in supporting roles.

The movie was directed by Benny Boom who got his start in music videos.

The film premiered on June 14, 2017 in Los Angeles and was released in the United States on June 16, 2017, on what would have been Shakur's 46th birthday.

That's what you wore?: Brittany O Grady, Ryan Destiny, and Jude Demorest from Star attended as well
The show's already received major criticism for its trailer showcasing rich pregnant women who are repulsed by breastfeeding in public.

And now furious breastfeeding activists are calling out Network Seven's Yummy Mummies for breaching the Sex Discrimination Act that covers breastfeeding, with one commenter on social media saying, 'Shame on you! I hope ALL mums and mums to be boycotted this show! Nursing in public is LEGAL....anywhere, anytime!'

The move comes as the latest promo for the show features star Maria DiGeronimo say, 'Breastfeeding in public is illegal. You just don't do it,' after she sees a fellow patron at a cafe feed her child.

Creating a petition on change.org, The Australian Breastfeeding Project have already gained responses from 17,500 advocates in two days and are requesting the network stop the show from going to air.

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The next step: Breastfeeding activists have taken their fury over Network Seven's new show Yummy Mummies to the next level after the stars called breastfeeding in public 'illegal' in a new promo





They want it stopped: Activists have created a change.org page to try stop the network from airing the show

Disgraced fans have also taken to Channel Seven's Facebook page to voice their reproach.

'As a Breastfeeding mum I'm appalled you would air this show making fun of a mother nursing in public,' one angry fan wrote.

'Shame on you! I hope ALL mums and mums to be boycotted this show! Nursing in public is LEGAL....anywhere, anytime!'

Not happy: 'As a Breastfeeding mum I'm appalled you would air this show making fun of a mother nursing in public'

It's legal: Fans have also called their decision to air the promo damaging to the mental health of society

Asking for change: One fan asked that there be disclaimers throughout to protect the rights of breastfeeding mothers

Maria has replied to the controversy the trailer created, saying: 'They've seen 90 seconds of my entire life. You can judge someone on 90 seconds of their life, does that tell more about you or me?'

'I'm not out here to make people love me or hate me. It's not about the fame. I'm just being me.

'I'm going to say my reality to everyone's reality. I realise my reality may be different to others and anything I say is just my opinion.'

The show follows the wealthy and glamorous lives of Maria DiGeronimo, Lorinkska Merrington, Jane Scandizzo and Rachel Watts.

From $100 money bouquets, horse and carriage baby showers and matching Burberry clothes for baby, mum, dad and the dog, the show glorifies the lives of privileged pregnant women.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Network Seven for comment.


He's amassed an impressive 22,700 Instagram followers, at only three years of age.

And from a snap shared to the site, by his famous mother Roxy Jacenko on Sunday, there's no doubting his appeal.

A photo captioned 'the bellboy of the building' saw the precious tot attempting to manoeuvre a large Louis Vuitton luggage case.

'Bellboy of the building': Roxy Jacenko's adorable son Hunter Curtis, three, took on man of the house status, in a snap shared to Instagram on Sunday, as he managed a large Louis Vuitton luggage case

'When @doreenjacenko calls for the bellboy of the building,' Roxy captioned the adorable snap, referencing her mother Doreen.

The photo saw a casual clad Hunter, pulling a playful expression as he held tightly onto the handle of his grandmother's large grey Louis Vuitton case.

Doreen was grateful for the toddler's help, commenting underneath the image: 'So lucky to have you around to assist @huntercurtis14'.

Appeal: The adorable toddler has already amassed an impressive 22,700 Instagram followers, at only three years of age.

The precious photo came just a day after Hunter was seen fortifying his body against illness with a hearty bowl of matzo ball soup.

The image saw the cherubic toddler tucking into the gourmet meal that was home delivered by Double Bay eatery Twenty One.

With his eyes fixed firmly on his bowl, Hunter held a spoonful to his lips, looking as though there was nothing he'd rather be doing.

Hunter's cropped golden fringe fell over his forehead as he ate, while dressed in a cute pyjama top with cartoon cars emblazoned.

Immersed: The precious photo came just a day after Hunter was seen fortifying his body against illness with a hearty bowl of matzo ball soup

Under the weather: While on Friday night, Roxy shared an image of her daughter Pixie, 5, sick in bed. She captioned the image: 'Poor Poor little monkey feeling so poorly'

'When George at #twentyone delivers - Matzo Ball soup delicious,' the caption read.

Hunter's photo set some of his followers' stomachs growling, commenting : 'fixes everything' and 'Mmmm'.

On Friday night Roxy shared an image of her daughter Pixie, 5, sick in bed.

She captioned the image: 'Poor Poor little monkey feeling so poorly'.

In the image, Pixie, who appeared to be asleep, had her arms over her head, her normally slicked back hair around her face.

Social media star: Pixie is also quite the social media star, having amassed 110,000 Instagram followers, to date

Upcoming release: Meanwhile, the posts come as Roxy's husband Oliver Curtis (pictured) is expected to be released from prison next Friday, following a one-year sentence for conspiracy to commit insider trading

Fans quickly showed support, with one writing: 'It's so sad when they're sick'.

Another weighed in: 'It's that time of the year, sending warm cuddles your way Pixie hope you are feeling better soon'.

Meanwhile, the posts come as Roxy's husband Oliver Curtis is expected to be released from prison next Friday, following a one-year sentence for conspiracy to commit insider trading.

The disgraced former investment banker could be released from Cooma Correctional Centre as early as June 23, if he qualifies for good behaviour.
She returned to the Cannes red carpet in May after she welcomed her second child with her film director beau Guillaume Canet, 43, in March earlier this year.

And Marion Cotillard looked sensational three months after giving birth as she attended the 31st Cabourg Film Festival in Cabourg, France on Saturday.

Leading the glamour, the Oscar winner, 41, showcased her slender figure in the pleated dress which was cinched at the waist.

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Dazzling: Marion Cotillard, 41, wore a metallic gold and black dress as she attended the 31st Cabourg Film Festival red carpet in Cabourg, France on Saturday

The Allied actress dazzled in the spotlight as her garment was edged with a glittering gold fabric.

Adding to her glamour, the French born beauty accentuated her age-defying features with a light touch of make-up.

Walking with confidence, the BAFTA winner sashayed across the red carpet in sky-scraper stilettos which added to her statuesque height.

Great fun! Marion, 41, was having a wonderful time at the red carpet event as she couldn't stop giggling as she promoted her latest film

Pleased as punch, Marion was in high spirits as she couldn't stop giggling when she promoted film Ismael's Ghosts.

The French flick tells the story of a filmmaker who is faced with the return of a former flame just as he is about to start shooting a new film.

Marion had returned to the red carpet in May when she put on a dazzling appearance at the 70th Cannes Film Festival.

Oh dear: She proved even A-listers can have an off day as she stepped out on the beach with lipstick stained teeth and windswept hair on Thursday

Wow: But the French born beauty was back on top form on Friday when she accentuated her age-defying features with a light touch of make-up

In her personal life, the La Vie en rose star gave birth to her first daughter Louise in March earlier this year.

The A-lister couldn't contain her excitement when she broke the news she was pregnant in September 2016 on Instagram.

At the time, Marion wrote: 'Many years ago, I met the man of my life, father of our son and of the baby we are expecting.

'He is my love, my best friend, the only one I need.'

Standing tall! The BAFTA winner sashayed across the red carpet in sky-scraper stilettos which added to her statuesque height

Sensational: The Allied actress dazzled in the spotlight as her garment was edged with a glittering gold fabric

The loved-up couple have gone from strength to strength since they started dating in 2007.

Insisting they are not married, Marion referred to the screenwriter as her 'boyfriend' in a series of interviews in 2014.

The happy lovebirds sparked marriage speculation after the Golden Globe winner was seen wearing a diamond solitaire on her left hand.

Marion and Guillaume also raise their five-year-old son Marcel together.

People pleaser! She was happy to greet fans who were waiting at the side of the red carpet
She was ranked eighth on the Forbes top 100 earning-models list.

And Candice Swanepoel showed just why she's so successful as she walked the runway at the Donatella Versace during Men's Fashion Week in Milan on Saturday.

The braless South African model revealed a little too much in a semi-sheer dress with eye-catching beaded paneling over her cleavage.

Braless beauty: Candice Swanepoel revealed a little too much under a semi-sheer beaded dress with thigh-split as she walked the runway at Versace in Milan on Saturday

The sequined striped ensemble was striking with harsh shoulder angles and a tapered in midriff above the hips.

The slender, 80s inspired silhouette perfectly complemented Candice's angular jaw and perfect, elevated cheekbones.

Adding a dark headband to juxtapose against her tanned sternum, Candice wowed guests on the FROW.

Absolutely flawless: The slender, Eighties inspired silhouette perfectly complemented Candice's angular jaw and perfect, elevated cheekbones

Recently. the 5ft10in catwalker teamed up with Mara & Mine designers Jasmine Yarbrough and Tamie Ingham for a collection of four vegan sandles, which were released in May.

'Im a very creative person and am always looking for opportunities to explore that. So during the time off [from modeling] during my pregnancy, I needed a project to work on,' Candice told Footwear News.

'The inspiration came from my love of the summer months, travel and my bohemian and minimalist style. I wanted to create a summer collection that is flattering, simple and ethical, to show people that vegan accessories can be just as beautiful and luxurious as leather accessories...I will definitely be sharing the collection with my girls [in Victoria's Secret].'

The star of the show: Donatella Versace, 62, was also pictured walking the runway after showing off her creations to an eager crowd

Early bloom: Victoria's Secret Angel Candice was the tender age of 17 when she met the Brazilian male model Hermann Nicoli on assignment in Paris back in 2005

To wed: Hermann eventually popped the question in August 2015, but no wedding date was ever set for the New York-based couple

However it is her role as a Victoria's Secret model since 2007 that has made her household name. She was promoted to an Angel in 2010.

Looking bronzed, the fashion starlet - who welcomed her first child in October - looked flawless as she owned the catwalk in Milan.

Ever since they welcomed their first child on October 5, Candice and her fiance Hermann Nicoli have only been photographed separately cuddling son Anaca.

The Victoria's Secret Angel was the tender age of 17 when she met the Brazilian male model on assignment in Paris back in 2005.

Hermann eventually popped the question in August 2015, but no wedding date was ever set for the New York-based couple.

Candice has appeared on the covers of Australian, Mexican, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese Vogue, among others, and has walked the runways for major fashion houses such as Fendi, Chanel, Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce and Gabbana, and Michael Kors.

Open doors: Candice left the show in a light, breathable white ensemble with frilled trousers hemmed below the knees and a matching white top

Building the family: Baby Anaca is her firstborn child and no doubt Candice is thrilled with becoming a mother

The Chosen One: Candice wore a pair of Matrix inspired shades as she left the venue
She's the New Zealand-born supermodel with a deep connection with nature.

So when Rachel Hunter had 24 hours 'down time', she decided on a road trip to New Zealand's picturesque Raglan, sharing a picture of her kicking back in a hammock to her Instagram on Sunday.

The 47-year-old got back to her roots, sharing a series of images to her Instagram of her enjoying some time among nature.

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Natural beauty: Rachel Hunter, 47, spent her 24 hours of down time 'glamping' in New Zealand's Raglan

The model appeared to be making the most of her surroundings and opted to experience some 'glamping' in a Mongolian-style yurt for the night.

She hinted she would be sleeping in a hammock, captioning her picture, 'Good Night...From the Beautiful RoundTent.'

The beauty appeared ecstatic with her choice, sporting relaxed attire a giant-sized smile.

Peaceful getaway: Rachel looked ecstatic with her choice, sporting relaxed attire a giant-sized smile

Rachel's scenic adventure follows a brief stop-over in Sydney, where she enjoyed the city's Vivid Light Festival on Saturday night.

Just one day later she was amidst seaside Raglan, which she described as 'mystical and magical' in her first coastal snap from the lively surf town.

She also shared a video of herself drinking from a natural spring, comparing it to the dry conditions in her home in California.

'Beautiful Spring Water. This moment becomes quite special when u live in a drought like I do in Cali , so to drink from a spring like this is very precious.'

The beauty also caught up with Auckland-based magazine editor Steven Fernandez, who shared a picture to his Instagram of the pair amidst a bush walk.

They looked slightly out of place with Steven sporting an anxious expression and grasping his hair in his fist, while Rachel's faced was covered in a tree branch.

The model also shared an album of pictures that showed her taking in the sights of Raglan's Rogue Wave.

In the series of five snaps, she looked to become dangerously close to mother nature, with waves spurting up onto the rock she was standing on.
She's carving a name for herself in the spotlight after she made her first appearance as an actress on the Fox series Star in March.

And Paris Jackson showed off her own individual style as she headed to a tattoo shop in Los Angeles on Saturday in thigh-skimming shorts.

The outing came just after her uncle, Jermaine Jackson voiced his concern that 'fame could break her.

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Leggy: Paris Jackson wore a vintage Woodstock T-shirt and TINY shorts as she headed to a tattoo parlour on Saturday

Showing off her A-list figure, the daughter of Michael Jackson styled a chic Woodstock tee which flashed a glimpse of her heavily inked arms.

Paris showed off her natural beauty as she opted for minimum make-up on the outing and wore her icy locks in a choppy style.

The American model proved on trend as ever as she accessorised with a pair of kooky circular Sunday Somewhere shades which caught glimpses of the sunlight.

A-list figure! The daughter of Michael Jackson styled a chic Woodstock tee which flashed a glimpse of her heavily inked arms, also adding a pair of Sunday Somewhere sunglasses

With no need to add to her height, she sashayed through the busy city streets in comfortable Converse trainers.

The blonde beauty has more than 50 tattoos, nine of which are dedicated to her late dad.

As for her appearance in the spotlight, Paris is set to make her film debut in a dark comedy for Amazon Studios, according to Deadline.com.

The star-studded lineup for the upcoming flick includes Charlize Theron, Thandie Newton, Amanda Seyfried and David Oyelowo.

Australian actor Nash Edgerton will direct the movie and his brother Loving star Joel Edgerton who will also play a part in the project.

Spotlight! The famous offspring (pictured in January 2017) is embarking on a career as an actress after she starred in the Fox series Star in March 2017

Warning! Jermaine Jackson (pictured at The Dorchester Hotel in December 2011) has voiced his concerns that the showbiz industry could break Paris

Her outing comes a day after Paris' uncle Jermaine Jackson has voiced his concerns the showbiz industry could 'break her'.

Jermaine told The Sun: 'Were very proud of Paris. I just think we have to make sure she is OK because this business is not kind to anybody. It can break you.

'You have to know when to hold them, when to fold them, when to make your move and when to hold back.

'Shes had an incredible logic path  shes had the entire Jackson family legacy as the logic.'
He celebrated his daughter's birthday last month and will hope to be equally spoiled himself on Father's Day.

So it's no wonder Ryan Gosling looked in bright spirits as he carried his eldest daughter Esmeralda, 2, with him for a spot of bonding on Saturday.

The Oscar nominated actor, 36, hoisted his little one up to eye level with one arm and was spotted chatting intently to the toddler during a daddy-daughter day out.

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Special moment: Ryan Gosling appeared in bright spirits as he carried his eldest daughter Esmeralda, 2, with him for a spot of bonding on Saturday ahead of Father's day

Dressed in a relaxed navy T-shirt with loose fitting distressed black jeans and brown suede shoes, Ryan looked rugged and handsome as he walked and talked.

Ryan is married to actress Eva mendes, who was absent from the day out, and along with Esmeralda they share another daughter, Amada, who was born in May 2016.

Gosling and Mendes started dating in 2011 after meeting on the set of joint film venture, The Place Beyond The Pines.

Baby Driver: Ryan is married to actress Eva mendes, who was absent from the day out, and along with Esmeralda they share another daughter, Amada, who was born in May 2016

Back in 2007 she said: 'I don't wanna have kids... I love the little suckers. They're so cute. But I love sleep so much, and I worry about everything.

'I feel like the institution of marriage is a very archaic kinda thing. I don't think it fits in my world today.'

Thankfully it seems Ryan shares her view, as he previously said how much he values his status as a poster boy for the modern feminist man.

The Crazy, Stupid, Love star said: 'I do have a little girl now and (feminism is) important to me. These things are becoming not more important to me, but more important in general, I think.'

Meanwhile, things are on the up and up for Ryan who's filming the biggest film of his career so far.

Professionally, Ryan caused a storm among fans by appearing in a new trailer for the long-awaited sequel Blade Runner 2049 last week.

In the teaser, a bloodied Ryan is seen searching for Harrison Ford in the harrowing landscape of a dystopian future.

Robin Wright is featured as well as she growls: 'That's what we do here, we keep order.'

The teaser opens with a mysterious figure walking alone as it cuts to Gosling holding a gun.

His woman: Ryan is married to actress Eva Mendes, who was absent from the day out, and along with Esmeralda they share another daughter, Amada, who was born in May 2016

Afterwards, Gosling is walking in a desert landscape as he comes upon a strange towering temple.

Soon Ford approaches with a gun in hand as Gosling is seen screaming.

The teaser ends with Gosling firing his own gun as these words appear: 'See the official trailer in 3 days'.

Denis Villeneuve, coming off Arrival, directs a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista and Jared Leto co-star.

The sequel arrives in cinemas on October 6, 2017.
She has been enjoying single life since splitting from her husband in December.

And Joanna Krupa was enjoying her new found freedom once again as she headed out with her girl pals for dinner at Giorgio Baldi, Santa Monica on Saturday night.

Showing off her cheeky side, the model, 38, showed off some serious sideboob as she went braless in a sexy denim jumpsuit with an extremely low-cut halter design.

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It's ladies night! Joanna Krupa showed off some serious sideboob as she went braless in a sexy denim jumpsuit when she headed out to dinner at Giorgio Baldi, Santa Monica on Saturday

The former Real Housewives Of Miami star also showcased her slender model figure in the zip-up halterneck one-piece.

Joanna left little to the imagination as she showed off some serious skin in the backless garment.

Standing tall, the Dancing With The Stars contestant waltzed into the venue in metallic sky-scraper stilettos which added to her statuesque height.

Sex appeal! The former Real Housewives Of Miami star also showcased her slender model figure in the zip-up halterneck one-piece

Standing tall: The Dancing With The Stars contestant waltzed into the venue in metallic sky-scraper stilettos which added to her statuesque height

The Polish beauty completed her look with deftly touches of make-up as she tossed her golden locks over her shoulder to put the focus on her face.

Joanna was in high spirits as she couldn't stop smiling in the good company of her girlfriends at the Italian eatery.

As for romance, the former Dancing With The Stars contestant has been linked to restaurateur Nico Santucci in recent weeks.

A source told US Weekly: 'Joanna and Nico are feeling it out and like each other. Theyve been hanging out.'

Little imagination! She showed off some serious skin in the backless garment as she cheekily blew a kiss to the camera

Another source added: 'They've been inseparable and enjoying their time together, and they spent Mother's Day together.'

Their rumoured romance comes after Joanna confirmed she had parted ways from her husband of five years Romain Zago in December.

The model and nightclub owner were engaged in 2012 after several years of dating and were married in Carlsbad, California in 2013.

But a source told E! news that the couple 'just grew apart' after being married for three years.

Sensational style: The Polish beauty completed her look with deftly touches of make-up as she tossed her golden locks over her shoulder to put the focus on her face
Their romance was born on the set of Home and Away.

And now Summer Bay lovers James Stewart and Isabella Giovinazzo have been spotted looking as smitten as ever, attending the Sydney Film Festival arm-in-arm on Sunday night.

The 41-year-old actor and 27-year-old actress were rumoured to have turned their on-screen romance into an off-screen relationship in late 2016.

Summer Bay sweethearts: James Stewart, 41, and Isabella Giovinazzo, 27, looked as smitten as ever at the Sydney Film Festival on Sunday night

And despite Isabella fronting to the festival on her own last Monday, it seems the duo are now stronger than ever.

James sported an all-black ensemble including a T-shirt, jeans and leather biker jacket.

He broke up his look with a tan belt and a pair of brown leather riding boots.

Still going strong: They were first rumoured to be more than friends in late 2016

Isabella chose to keep her outfit casual chic, dressing up dark grey ripped jeans with a pair of pointed black heals.

On the top she wore an over-sized blue, yellow, green and white striped jumper and carried a steel grey purse.

The actress, who plays Phoebe in the Australian soap, styled her brunette locks in loose curls and accessorised with a simple black watch.

Casual couple: The loved-up couple looked relaxed in each other's arms on the red carpet

She also kept her make-up minimal, highlighting her natural features with some subtle mascara and blush.

The duo joined a number of other stars who walked the red carpet for the Australian premiere of Okja on the festival's closing night.

Home and Away's Tessa de Josselin, 28, dazzled on the red carpet wearing nearly no make-up and a white t-shirt tucked into a pair of high-waisted white jeans.

Home and Away babe: Tessa de Josselin was kept it all-white at the gala closing night

Super suave: Marcus Graham looked sharp in a tanned brown suit and shiny black dress shoes

Keeping it simple! Lord of the Rings trilogy star, David Wenham, went for an all-black ensemble

Former co-star Marcus Graham, 53, looked suave in a tanned suit, which he broke up with a pale blue shirt and maroon tie.

While fellow Australian actor David Wenham, 51, opted for a sleek black suit worm over a partially unbuttoned white dress shirt.

English actress and American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee, Vanessa Redgrave, 80, dressed for comfort in a cream knitted sweater, black trousers and a pair of white converse.
She's the X-rated Instagram model who shot to fame ten months ago when she enjoyed a naked romp in Hawaii with Justin Bieber.

So it was hardly a surprise to see Sahara Ray back up to her usual tricks over the weekend when she stripped off for a skinny-dipping session in Mexico.

The plastic fantastic babe didn't seem to have a care in the world as she flaunted her uncovered curves for her 1.3 million Instagram followers.

Who needs clothes? Socialite Sahara Ray went skinny-dipping in Mexico over the weekend

To further entice her fans, the busty blonde followed with a video of herself laughing whilst trying to cover her breasts with one hand.

The raunchy 24-year-old is currently enjoying a scantily-clad vacation in Mexico.

On Monday, she shared an Instagram photo of herself in a see-through top with one of her glamorous girlfriends.

Showing Justin what he's missing? The 24-year-old topless model is best known for going on a naked romp with Justin Bieber in Hawaii last year

Sahara's windswept hair covered her artificial face in the risque selfie.

Her suspiciously ample breasts were also on display in a skimpy polka dot top.

The daughter of surf legend Tony Ray went braless as she covered her modesty with a spare hand.

Feeling nippy? Justin Bieber's 'ex-fling' shared an Instagram photo of herself in a see-through top while on holiday in Mexico on Monday

Before and after: Sahara's looks have changed dramatically over the past two years

Born in the Australian coastal town of Torquay, Sahara was raised in Santa Cruz, California.

She found herself in the spotlight last year after she was spotted skinny dipping in Hawaii with Justin Bieber - whose impressive manhood was revealed to the world through some racy paparazzi photos.

They were reportedly shacking up in $10,000-a-week villa.
She's one of the most recognisable faces on TV, having spent the majority of her 20s on Freeform hit Pretty Little Liars.

And now toasting to another year as she nears the end of her time on the series, Lucy Hale didn't miss the opportunity to celebrate her 28th Birthday by painting the town red with pal Sarah Hyland in Los Angeles on Saturday.

The stylish pair were spotted heading to Viva Hollywood for Lucy's birthday bash, dressed to impress for their fun-filled evening together.

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Celebrations: Lucy Hale (pictured) celebrated her 28th birthday alongside pals Sarah Hyland and Dominic Sherwood as in Hollywood on Saturday night

Lucy stepped out in a revealing leather mini-skirt for the evening while she flashed the flesh in a daring cutout white silk blouse combination that flaunted her cleavage as she navigated her way to the hotspot.

Her daring choice of shirt showcased her matching Fleur du Mal 'Luxe' triangle bra and delicate decolletage while she held onto her bodyguard's arm.

Petite Lucy's added inches to her diminutive frame by adorning her feet in a pair of criss-crossed heels which elongated her slender pins.

Pretty: Lucy - flashing her Fleur du Mal 'Luxe' triangle bra - stepped out in a revealing leather mini-skirt white blouse combination

Glammed up: Modern Family's Sarah Hyland donned a checkered mini dress with a leather biker jacket and stilettos that highlighted her slender legs and petite frame

Modern Family's Sarah Hyland donned a checkered mini dress with a leather biker jacket and stilettos that highlighted her honed legs.

Wearing her golden brown hair up in a wavy do, Sarah added oversized frames and a slick of red lipstick to finish her look.

She was joined by pal Dominic Sherwood - who known for his role in TV series Vampire Academy - in a complementary flannel shirt and ripped knee denims.

Waking up on her 28th birthday, a bright and bushy tailed Lucy took to Instagram to express her joy.

Sharing a picture, she said: 'This picture is a perfect depiction of how I feel today.

'This last year was incredibly challenging, yet equally as fulfilling. I closed a huge chapter of my life and I'm moving on to the next phase and I could not be more grateful.

Adding: 'My life is filled with beautiful family and friends, an angel of a dog, a job I thank God for, a passionate support system (you guys!) and many other blessings.

'Sometimes I don't know how I deserve the life I've been given, but I promise to never take anything for granted. Thank you all for sharing many birthdays with me and for joining me on my journey. I wish I could share cake with all of you!'

It appears the TV beauty is finally maturing and adopting a healthy lifestyle, as she recently revealed she has given up drinking alcohol.

Legs for days: Wearing her golden brown hair up in a wavy do, Sarah added oversized frames and a slick of red lipstick to finish her look

Lucy even said she is retreating from the Hollywood party circuit, as she wants to surround herself with 'better people.

'I tried really hard to be the social butterfly,' she said, adding: 'Becoming a part of this popular showeveryone just says yes to you, so you get away with a lot, and then you make mistakes.'

She added that she has 'no interest' in the Hollywood party scene anymore, and shes given up alcohol.

'Im just always trying to surround myself with better people and be the best version of myself possible. I know it sounds obnoxious to hear people say that, but why not?' the star added.
ELKO  The U.S. Army is older than the United States, believe it or not, Staff Sgt. Barry Mondragon told out-bound recruits at a send-off barbecue commemorating the 242nd birthday of this countrys oldest military branch.

The Continental Army was established on June 14, 1775 by the Second Continental Congress, which appointed George Washington its Commander-In-Chief the next day.

In the Elko Junction parking lot by the U.S. Army Recruiting Station, Mondragon instructed a dozen new recruits in formation orders they will soon encounter. Mondragon fine-tuned their saluting and about-facing without the bluster of a drill sergeant.

In Basic Training, theyll teach you about the Hard Right or the Easy Wrong, Mondragon told the group, mostly new high school graduates. Theres always something going to be tough. Help your buddy to your left and right, but make sure you do it for yourself to finish.

Jenny McKinley is one of three local recruits departing June 25 for Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. McKinley graduated last week from Wells High School, but during her freshman and sophomore years was part of ROTC Varsity Drill, Varsity Color Guard, and Varsity Marksmanship at Basic Academy in Las Vegas.

In third grade, my Career Day presentation was about the Army, McKinley said. Ive wanted to be in the military as long as I can remember. I didnt shoot growing up; not until ROTC Marksmanship. McKinley will train as an automated logistics specialist.

Staff Sgt. Josh Melton said, The Elko Recruiting Station has the largest footprint of any office in our Battalion. The centers leader, Staff Sgt. Michael Burleson, commands a territory reaching from Ely to the Idaho border, and from Winnemucca to the Utah border.

Melton said the three recruiters paid for the barbecue from their own pockets. Its to congratulate the guys, send them off right. One they go in, theyre our kids. We mentor them, tell them what theyre in for.

Mondragon said, We wanted to send off our new recruits with a good hurrah. We even got a pretty Army birthday cake.

While only 20 percent of American citizens are qualified for the military, Melton said only 1 percent actually enlist. The Army is the only military branch that guarantees your job before stepping into the processing center, Melton said. People from Elko are getting medical, engineering, and mechanical training. A lot of our guys are in Military Intelligence, and get top secret clearance. No business is investing that time and money in a high school graduate.

When Melton first arrived in Elko in October he visited historic Fort Ruby, built in 1862 to protect Pony Express routes. At the time Fort Ruby was the Armys most desolate outpost. When I read the sign, it said they were 2nd Cavalry there. That was my regiment.

By coincidence, all three sergeants at the Elko Army Recruiting Station have been part of the 2nd Cavalry, connecting them with Elko Countys wild west past while enlisting this nations soldiers of the future.
The show's already received major criticism for its trailer showcasing rich pregnant women who are repulsed by breastfeeding in public.

A promo shared to Facebook saw Maria DiGeronimo stating to camera: 'Breastfeeding in public is illegal. You just don't do it,' after the 31-year-old saw a fellow patron at a cafe, feed her child.

The comment resulted in social media backlash, with The Australian Breastfeeding Project creating a petition to prevent the program from going to air.

And in an interview with The Advertiser, the wealthy Adelaide socialite shrugged off the criticism: 'I'm not out here to make people love me or hate me.'

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'I'm not here to make people love or hate me': Yummy Mummy star Maria DiGeronimo (far left), 31, shrugged off criticism in an interview with The Advertiser, after being slammed for controversial breastfeeding comments in the show's latest promo

Speaking of the controversy the 90 second trailer created, Maria said: 'They've seen 90 seconds of my entire life. You can judge someone on 90 seconds of their life, does that tell more about you or me?'

'I'm not out here to make people love me or hate me. It's not about the fame. I'm just being me.

'I'm going to say my reality to everyone's reality. I realise my reality may be different to others and anything I say is just my opinion,' she continued.

Maria's comments come after the latest promo for the upcoming reality series was released.

Speaking out: 'I'm going to say my reality to everyone's reality. I realise my reality may be different to others and anything I say is just my opinion,' she continued

Yummy Mummies follows the wealthy and glamorous lives of Lorinska Merrington, Jane Scandizzo, Rachel Watts and Maria.

From $100 money bouquets, horse and carriage baby showers and matching Burberry clothes for baby, mum, dad and the dog, the show glorifies the lives of privileged pregnant women.

Maria shared to camera: 'Breastfeeding in public is illegal. You just don't do it,' after the brunette saw a fellow patron at a cafe, feed her child.

Not happy: 'As a Breastfeeding mum I'm appalled you would air this show making fun of a mother nursing in public' one social media user posted, shortly after the promo was aired to Facebook

It's legal: Viewers also called Channel Seven's decision to air the promo as damaging to the mental health of society

Asking for change: One social media user asked that there be disclaimers throughout promos, to protect the rights of breastfeeding mothers

And the scene caused quite a stir online, with one commenting: 'As a Breastfeeding mum I'm appalled you would air this show making fun of a mother nursing in public.

'Shame on you! I hope ALL mums and mums to be boycotted this show! Nursing in public is LEGAL....anywhere, anytime!' she continued.

The Australian Breastfeeding Project also created a petition, hoping to prevent the program from making it to air.

They want it stopped: Activists created a change.org page shortly after, to try and stop the network from airing the show
On Sunday's MasterChef, the remaining contestants were lucky enough to go on a road trip with the legendary Heston Blumenthal.

'I seriously can't believe that we get to go on a road trip with HESTON!' exclaimed one of the contestants.

They ended up stopping in Swan Hill, right by the Murray River.

Let's go! MasterChef contestants went on a road trip to Swan Hill on Sunday's episode

The judges then informed everybody that they would be competing in another mystery box challenge.

Heston then revealed the ingredients they'd have to use, which included vine-dried currants, salt bush, oats, and snails.

Contestants then started thinking up their different meals, such as salted oatmeal ice-cream and saltbush cakes.

Star power: The legendary Heston Blumenthal appeared on the episode as a guest

Getting started: The judges informed everybody that they would be competing in another mystery box challenge

'If there's any day to make a risky move, today's the day to do it,' exclaimed Callum.

Heston later came over and had a taste of Callum's ice cream, which he praised.

Eloise ran intro trouble, fearing that she'd burned her caramel.

'It's got a really toasty, dark caramel smell to it,' she said. 'I like to push it right to the edge, but I think it went a little bit over the edge.'

'If there's any day to make a risky move, today's the day to do it,' exclaimed Callum

It soon came time for the dishes to be judged, however, there was a twist - only three dishes would be tasted.

Diana was first with her steamed cod rolled in saltbush dust, smoked corn puree and some sauteed snails. which the judges loved.

Second was Sarah, who prepared butter poached cod with charred corn and dehydrated olives, as well as an orange and salt bush vinaigrette.

The judges enjoyed it, but weren't thrilled with the fish portion.

Burning hot: Eloise ran intro trouble, fearing that she'd burned her caramel

Last was Karlie with pan-fried cod with salt bush cakes, olives and an orange sauce with fish, and the judges loved it.

Diana was ultimately crowned the winner, and awarded an extra fifteen minutes of cook time for the mystery box challenge - with some assistance from Heston himself.

The contestants scrambled to find inspiration for their dishes, with many looking to their environment to decide what to make.

Sarah ran into some trouble with her yabby tails, which she feared she'd under-cooked.

Verdict? The judges deliberated after sampling all the different dishes the contestants made

Her fears later turned out to be true, with the judges slamming her under-cooked yabbies and criticizing the presentation of the dish too.

On a brighter note, the judges were blown away by Callum, who was Heston's self-professed number one fan.

Heston later praised all the contestants, stating that they're even better than some professional chefs.

Sadly, Sarah and Diana named the bottom two for the challenge and therefore will have to compete against each other in an elimination round later.
Alessandra Ambrosio and Jamie Mazur seem more in love than ever after nine years together and two kids.

On Saturday they looked happy as they held hands while leaving Santa Monica, California, hotspot, Giorgio Baldi.

This comes after the leggy Brazilian wonder shared a sexy photo to Instagram where they were kissing.

In love: Alessandra Ambrosio and Jamie Mazur were seen leaving Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica, California on Saturday

Chic chick: The Victoria's Secret model looked sporty in a boho pair of jeans, sunset print T-shirt, and suede jacket with Gucci belt

On Saturday the Victoria's Secret model looked sporty in a boho pair of jeans, sunset print T-shirt, and suede jacket with Gucci belt.

Her hair was down and she had on pretty makeup with several layers of necklaces.

The stunner's handsome beau wore all black with a print shirt.

So close! This comes after the leggy Brazilian wonder shared a sexy photo to Instagram where they were kissing

Glammed: Her hair was down and she had on pretty makeup with several layers of necklaces

Alessandra is mother to daughter Anja, eight, and son Noah, five, with Mazur.

The Brazilian model began dating Jamie, founder of RE/DONE jeans, in 2005.

The couple became engaged on 12 May 2008 after Alessandra became pregnant with their daughter.

Night off from the kids: Alessandra is mother to daughter Anja, eight, and son Noah, five, with Mazur

However the couple are in no rush to get married, with the model telling presenter Mario Lopez last year: 'When I do the wedding, it's gonna be very special, so I want to take time for that.'

Alessandra recently spoke candidly about becoming a mother in an interview with Net-A-Porter last year and admitted since having children, her approach to modelling has changed.

Peace on the beach: Here she is seen last week soaking up the sun

The fashion star explained: 'I used to be 100% comfortable on lingerie shoots - then I had a child.

'Somehow it felt a bit weirder to be in lingerie once I was a mum. Your body will never go back to exactly what it was before pregnancy, whatever people tell you. It can't.

'But I think I have a better body now than before I had kids... it just looks more formed now and I feel better about it than I did.'
The last 10 years has seen her transform into a savvy businesswoman, wife and a mother to two young boys.

And in the latest issue of InStyle, Lara Worthington (nee Bingle) praised motherhood as she prepares to enter her thirties.

'Everything just seems much more rich and meaningful now,' she told the publication.

'Everything is more rich and meaningful': Lara Worthington (nee Bingle), praised motherhood in an interview with InStyle, as she enters her thirties

'I've never felt happier. I'm so incredibly excited about entering this new decade of my life,' Lara gushed.

'Everything just seems much more rich and meaningful now,' the blonde beauty continued, before admitting to a few downsides of motherhood.

'If I'm lucky I'll get to sleep until 7.30am, but usually (Rocket) comes calling sometime between 6 and 7am,' Lara said with a laugh.

'He's an amazing husband, and he's so good with the kids': Lara had nothing but praise for actor husband Sam Worthington, 40, during an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald just recently

This is not the first time the beauty entrepreneur has opened up about life with actor husband Sam Worthington, 40, and their growing brood.

Over the weekend, Lara told The Sydney Morning Herald: 'Sam has a really good heart.

'He's an amazing husband, and he's so good with the kids. He's very hands-on, and I think we really complement each other. He is our world,' she continued.

Busy mum! The couple welcomed their first child, Rocket Zot (pictured), in March 2015 and their second son, Racer, in October 2016

Lara married Sam in 2014 in a secret wedding in the beachside suburb of Cronulla.

The couple, who confirmed the news a year later, welcomed their first child, Rocket Zot, in March 2015 and their second son, Racer, in October 2016.

Lara and Sam have remained relatively quiet on the social circuit, calling New York their home base.
She's traded bustling Chelsea for the rolling English countryside.

And Millie Mackintosh, 27, looked delighted to be away from the big city as she basked in the quaint Ashley Village in Suffolk on Saturday.

The former MiC actress lounged between two large pottery sculptures on a perfectly cut green lawn while she soaked up the glorious British summer sun while wearing a gingham high-waisted bikini.

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Pottering around: Millie Mackintosh looked stunning in a high waisted gingham bikini after sharing TOPLESS selfie with boyfriend Hugo during English country getaway

Dressed in her two-piece, leggy Millie showed off her slender frame and toned abs that glistened with a sun-kissed glow.

Letting her hair flow past her shoulders and covering herself with a panama hat and oversized brown shades, Millie stretched her arms out to touch the two impressive pieces of art.

Cuddling up to beau Hugo, Millie took a makeup free selfie highlighting her enviable skin while he looked elsewhere in a pair of black Ray Ban Wayfarers.

Happy: Cuddling up to beau Hugo, Millie took a makeup free selfie highlighting her enviable skin as she posed topless with her man

Feeling hot, hot, hot: Millie made sure to squeeze in a spot of Balearic Island beach time as she slipped into a white bikini on Sunday after attending a friend's wedding

Meanwhile she spent the weekend soaking up the sun in Mallorca at a friend's beautiful wedding.

And Millie made sure to squeeze in a spot of Balearic Island beach time with her boyfriend Hugo Taylor, 31, as they relaxed on Sunday after the nuptials.

She looked incredible as she reclined on the shore, showcasing her toned and tanned figure in a white bandeau bikini with lace-up detail on the bottoms.

Wedding ready: The former Made In Chelsea star, 27, shared a kiss with her boyfriend of one year, Hugo, 31, as they attended a friend's wedding in Mallorca on Saturday

With her brunette locks flowing down her back, the fashion designer went make-up free, while accessorising with a pair of chic shades.

Both Millie and Hugo shared a plethora of striking snaps from the wedding of their friends Alex and Sophie Potter, who tied the knot in a stunning ceremony at a private venue in Port de Pollenca on Saturday.

The pair looked more loved up than ever as they shared a steamy smooch while showing off their wedding outfits in another snap.

Millie looked as chic as ever, slipping into a floaty yellow polka dot gown from her own clothing collection.

Mellow yellow: The fashion designer looked as chic as ever, slipping into a floaty yellow polka dot gown from her own clothing collection

Adding to her statuesque height, the reality star sashayed through the venue in black sky-scraper heels.

Hugo didn't let Millie down in the sartorial stakes, ensuring he was suited and booted to perfection in a tailored cream double-breasted suit, white shirt and polka dot tie.

It would seem the wedding was a boozy one, with sunglasses entrepreneur Hugo later telling his Instagram followers his memory was a little hazy on Sunday morning.

Alongside a snap of himself posing in an ornate feathered headpiece, he wrote: 'What a wedding! Have no recollection of taking this photo.'

Elegant: Adding to her statuesque height, the reality star sashayed through the venue in black skyscraper heels

The nuptials were a star-studded affair, with Millie and Hugo joined by their former Made In Chelsea co-star and Hugo's best friend, Spencer Matthews, 27, who also happens to be the brother-in-law of Pippa Middleton, 33.

Also in attendance were Made In Chelsea's Jamie Laing, 28, and Oliver Proudlock, 28, Oliver's model girlfriend Emma Louise Connolly, 25, socialite Roxie Nafousi, 26, actors Jack Fox, 31, and Luke Pasqualino, 27, and Jack's girlfriend, Les Miserables star Samantha Barks, 26.

Millie and Hugo decided to rekindle their love after they initially dated on the set of Made In Chelsea.

But it came to a dramatic end five years ago when Millie discovered her beau had slept with her best friend Rosie Fortescue.

Boozy? It would seem the wedding was a boozy one, with sunglasses entrepreneur Hugo later telling his Instagram followers his memory was a little hazy on Sunday morning

Newlyweds: Millie and Hugo's friends Alex and Sophie Potter tied the knot in a stunning ceremony at a private venue in Port de Pollenca on Saturday

The reality star moved on from the failed romance with rapper Professor Green, 32.

They were married in a romantic ceremony at Babington House, in Somerset, in September 2013.

But the couple called it quits on their marriage after two and a half years when they announced their break-up in February 2016.

At the time, they released a joint statement: 'It is with sadness and regret that we confirm our separation.

'It is a mutual decision, we still care deeply about each other and would like it to be known that it is on amicable terms and we wish each other well.'



Photobomb: The nuptials were a star-studded affair, with Millie and Hugo joined by their former Made In Chelsea co-stars Jamie Laing, 28, (L) and Spencer Matthews, 27 (R)
She shot to prominence after claiming the Australia's Next Top Model title in 2009.

And Tahnee Atkinson has proven she can still turn heads, stepping out in an extremely daring ensemble for Dolce & Gabbana's show at Milan Men's Fashion Week on Saturday.

The 25-year-old's ample assets were barely contained, with her sheer black dress leaving little to the imagination.

Holy smokes! Tahnee Atkinson, 25, flaunted her ample cleavage in low-cut dress at Milan Fashion Week

Tahnee's corset-style top showed off her midriff and left her nude-coloured bra visible and generous cleavage spilling out of her top.

The lacy number showed plenty of skin, with the full length of the model's legs visible through the transparent fabric.

She added a pop of colour to the revealing outfit, donning a floral cream and pink vest with an over sized collar.

Little to the imagination! The model's corset-style top showed off her midriff and left her nude-coloured bras on show

The stunning model, who is currently signed with IMG, slicked her long brunette locks back in a tight pony tail.

While she chose to keep her make-up simple and opting for a classic red lipstick.

Her accessories were kept to a minimum with her sporting a selection of plain gold rings, helping to draw attention to her perfectly manicured fingernails.

Striking a pose: The former Top Model flaunted her stunning looks for the Fashion Week cameras

Pop of colour! She added a quirky floral vest over her sheer black dress and the on some matching lippy

Busting out! On Friday, Tahnee Atkinson shared a photo of herself stepping out of a car outside event, clad in a black corset top that could barely contain her ample assets

Tahnee was there to watch her good pal, Australian model Jordan Barrett, walk the catwalk for the Italian fashion house.

Her front-row appearance comes a day after she shared a picture to her Instagram of her stepping out in another gutsy black corset top while in Milan.

The brunette beauty completed her look with a pair of patterned metallic leggings.
They are often seen clad in an array of spectacular costumes for their various films.

Yet Margot Robbie and a fellow fleet of A-listers decided to take their penchant for costumes to their day-to-day life as they headed to the Warner Brothers event at Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire on Sunday evening.

The 26-year-old Wolf Of Wall Street star looked spectacular in a chic period costume, in which she highlighted her figure with the extraordinarily tight bustier, while fellow superstar Rita Ora, also 26, went for a sexy circus performer outfit.

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Hello Ms Robbie! Margot Robbie and a fellow fleet of A-listers decided to take their penchant for costumes to their day-to-day life as they headed to the Warner Brothers event at Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire

Margot looked sensational in her pink gown which boasted a boned corset which boosted her cleavage while cinching in her tiny waist.

She was joined by her British film director husband Tom Ackerley, who looked dashing in a eighteenth century military costume, in which he coordinated perfectly with Margot's busty look.

It seemed the creme de la creme of Hollywood were under strict instructions from the powers that be to not share details of the party on social media as a sign on the wall read: 'One strike and you are out if anyone is seen taking a photo!!!!!'

Despite this, Rita flouted the rules as she took to Instagram to share a stunning snap as she wrapped herself around a horse of a carousel while joined by Margot, Tom and a host of other fancy dress-clad revellers.

The ring leader: The 26-year-old Wolf Of Wall Street star looked spectacular in a chic period costume, in which she highlighted her figure with the extraordinarily tight bustier, while fellow superstar Rita Ora, also 26, went for a sexy circus performer outfit

Strutting their stuff: She was joined by her British film director Tom Ackerley, who looked dashing in a eighteenth century military costume, in which he coordinated perfectly with Margot's busty look

Busty babe: Margot looked stunning in the hot pink gown with delicate beading at the cleavage

Nailed it: Tom's ensemble was perfectly fitting to the time period he stole from

Having a laugh: The group were clearly in the mood to party

Beaming: Margot's lipstick was the perfect shade for her dazzling gown

Sipping away: The stunner clutched a delicious looking drink while headed to the next port of play

Never one to fit into the crowd, Rita opted for an androgynous style in cigarette pants and a longline coat paired with a top hat.

She pulled her long, straight blonde tresses into a ponytail at the nape of her neck while adding a super glamorous touch by dripping in diamonds.

Her envy-inducing necklace was clad with huge gemstones while she wore a brooch on her lapel and boasted a dazzling ankle strap on her shoes.

A day before, Rita shared a snap as she jetted off in a helicopter with Margot, with the pair having been spotted together on various occasions, with Cara Delevingne acting as their mutual close friend.

Divas: Her envy-inducing necklace was clad with huge gemstones while she wore a brooch on her lapel and boasted a dazzling ankle strap on her shoes

Diamonds are a girl's best friend: Rita added dazzling touches to her androgynous look with diamonds on her neck, ankle and in her hair

Diamond girl: Her envy-inducing necklace was clad with huge gemstones while she wore a brooch on her lapel and boasted a dazzling ankle strap on her shoes

Check me out! One of the guests was admiring Rita's getup - while seemingly clad in a Seventies-inspired look himsel - although it was uncertain if the ensemble was fancy dress

James Bond star Samantha Bond, 55, looked incredible in a boned corset with a sensational frilled skirt while she lit up a cigarette outside the party.

The actress perfected her period garb with her trademark flame red tresses piled atop her head in tight curls with loose lengths falling over her shoulders.

Yet another Bond star was Olga Kurylenko, who played Camille Montes in 2008's Quantum Of Solace, as she wowed in a plunging corset while adding a slick of blood red lipstick.

Stunner: James Bond star Samantha Bond, 55, looked incredible in a boned corset with a sensational frilled skirt while she lit up a cigarette outside the party

Giggling: She was truly ready to live it up - yet ensured total comfort as she sported a pair of comfy flats

Dazzling: The actress perfected her period garb with her trademark flame red tresses piled atop her head in tight curls with loose lengths falling over her shoulders

Fancier than ever: Yet another Bond star was Olga Kurylenko, who played Camille Montes in 2008's Quantum Of Solace, as she wowed in a plunging corset while adding a slick of blood red lipstick

Cheeky! One particularly daring guest sported a striped onesie look like an old school weight lifter

Macho, macho man! The striped look was sure to show off every inch of the guest's frame

Dashing; Some of the men were more involved in the party's theme than others

Feeling fancy: The dashing guests pulled off the style perfectly
She was once famed for her sexy ensembles yet ditched her sizzling getups in favour of a family friendly style, following the birth of her one-year-old baby Paul.

Yet Sam Faiers was clearly feeling nostalgic on Sunday evening as she slipped into a saucy playsuit complete with a deeply plunging neckline and perilously high-rise hemline as she hit the Transformers: The Last Knight Global premiere in London.

The 26-year-old former TOWIE star was flashing a generous glimpse of cleavage in her mini, yet Paul seemed concerned about his stunning partner baring too much as he swiftly took her aside to pull her top closer together and shield her assets.

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A helping hand: Sam Faiers was clearly feeling nostalgic on Sunday evening as she slipped into a saucy playsuit complete with a deeply plunging neckline and perilously high-rise hemline as she hit the Transformers: The Last Knight Global premiere in London

Sam first soared to fame on The Only Way Is Essex in its 2010 inauguration, where she threw herself wholeheartedly into the glamorous party ethos of the show, yet she recently told MailOnline she has hardly had a night out since Paul's birth.

After six years in the limelight, the blonde beauty's lifestyle has taken a total U-turn since she left the show in 2014 after 11 seasons - bringing her to the present as she is happily settled with baby Paul Tony and her partner Paul.

It seemed it was mummy and daddy's big night off on Sunday as Sam slipped back into her glitzy style in her sizzling white playsuit, which boasted a blazer-style top and thigh-skimming shorts alongside a cape detail.

The V-neckline on the romper gave an eye-popping glimpse at her ample assets - enhanced further by a slick of shimmer - while she also flaunted a deeply bronzed colouring following a string of recent holidays.

Hitting the town: It seemed it was mummy and daddy's big night off on Sunday as Sam slipped back into her glitzy style in her sizzling white playsuit, which boasted a blazer-style top and thigh-skimming shorts alongside a cape detail

Eek: The 26-year-old former TOWIE star was flashing a generous glimpse of cleavage in her mini, yet Paul seemed concerned about his stunning partner baring too much as he swiftly took her aside to pull her top closer together and shield her assets

Once Paul had helpfully wrapped Sam up, she was ready to pull her very best red carpet poses once as she giggled while displaying her endless legs, which she boosted with the addition of staggering black heels with scalloped straps.

She wore her honeyed blonde tresses in a stunning bouncy style, with a sweeping side parting with loose waves gently worked through the ends.

Adding a classic Essex-style touch, she toted a stunning clutch bag completely adorned with glitter with Yves Saint Laurent's classic monogram adorned on the front - a perfect addition to the muted ensemble.

Paul meanwhile was wholly more casual than his girlfriend as he sported a cream bomber jacket paired with tight grey jeans and black suede shoes.

Designer darling: Adding a classic Essex-style touch, she toted a stunning clutch bag completely adorned with glitter with Yves Saint Laurent's classic monogram adorned on the front - a perfect addition to the muted ensemble

Legs eleven: She wore her honeyed blonde tresses in a stunning bouncy style, with a sweeping side parting with loose waves gently worked through the ends

Star spotting! Truly rubbing shoulders with the stars, Sam shared a snap on Instagram as she posed alongside the movie's main man Mark Wahlberg, as she shared a delighted snap with her 1.9million followers

Truly rubbing shoulders with the stars, Sam shared a snap on Instagram as she posed alongside the movie's main man Mark Wahlberg, as she shared a delighted snap with her 1.9million followers.

In her chat with MailOnline earlier this year discussed her evolving style: 'I still love designer pieces but whereas before it was about finding heels, it has changed. I rarely buy glitzy going out stuff.

Aside from her changing clothes, she also discussed her transformed lifestyle: 'I've not had a night off since I had the baby. Not had date night or anything.

'That's my own choice. I've enjoyed every second of being a mum because I think this time is so precious. People comment and say you need a night out and I say I'm not ready. It will happen but it's one of those things, isn't it?'

Changing it up: Aside from her changing clothes, she also discussed her transformed lifestyle: 'I've not had a night off since I had the baby. Not had date night or anything'

After years of hitting the party scene and being a regular on the red carpet and the hottest night clubs, Sam is insistent she is hanging up her party shoes for now.

With a firm stance, she explained: 'All mums are different and everyone has different ways of parenting. I had a dinner with the girls but I was home by 11.

'I haven't had a night or a proper night out. I've had a few glasses of Prosecco or wine with dinner but the baby's with me all the time so I can't have more than two.'
Cindy Crawford loves to share photos of her businessman husband Rande Gerber.

But it's not often when the 51-year-old Vogue model posts images of her dad.

On Sunday, however, the catwalk queen from Illinois included shot of her dad John to wish him a Happy Father's Day.

Papa bear: Cindy Crawford included shot of her dad John to wish him a Happy Father's Day on Sunday; the image was taken in 1998

Still bella! The beauty looked radiant this week in Venice, Italy

The snap was taken on the beach in 1998 when she was marrying Casamigos co-founder Rande Gerber.

John had his arms around the stunning Versace model who wore a white slip dress.

In her caption the mother to Kaia and Presley wrote: 'One more from my wedding day  with my dad! Happy Father's Day!'

Her celeb pals: In Spain in 2015 with co-founder Casamigos Tequila Mike Meldman, Amal Clooney, Co-Founder of Casamigos Tequila George Clooney, and Co-Founder of Casamigos Tequila Rande Gerber

Kelly Ripa also shared a photo with her dad on Sunday.

'Happy Father's Day to the absolute best!' she wrote.

'Just a little slide show tribute to my dad Joe Ripa and husband and father in law Tony Consuelos'

She ended her post: 'I love you three.'

Another: Cindy also shared this photo of Rande with their two kids

Cute papa: Kelly Ripa wished her father Joe a Happy Father's Day on Sunday

Yikes: Ryan Reynolds went for laughs when he shared an old photo of Sean Connery in a red bullet suit with over-the-knee boots. 'Happy Father's Day, Dad. You were always so hard to shop for,' the star wrote

Ryan Reynolds went for laughs when he shared an old photo of Sean Connery in a red bullet suit with over-the-knee boots.

'Happy Father's Day, Dad. You were always so hard to shop for,' the star wrote.

He is wed to Blake Lively.

Jokes make everything brighter: Next came Amy Schumer who shared a funny note. In the image the Trainwreck actress was seen kissing her dad who was in his wheelchair

The Brady bunch: Gisele Bundchen paid tribute to husband Tom Brady by sharing this photo with all three of his kids

Next came Amy Schumer who shared a funny note.

In the image the Trainwreck actress was seen kissing her dad who was in his wheelchair.

The caption read: Happy Father's Day to this morally bankrupt degenerate who I can't help but love so much.'

Interesting choice: Pamela Anderson shared a lust image with ex-husband Tommy Lee saying they made 'beautiful babies'

Pamela Anderson shared a lust image with ex-husband Tommy Lee.

The Baywatch star said they made 'beautiful babies.'

Together they have two sons Dylan and Brandon.

Darling! Bruce Willis holds one of his five children in this post

It's love forever: Kim Zolciak shared a kissing photo with husband Kroy Biermann

Her little ones: Mariah Carey posed with her twins Monroe and Morocco in a field of sunflowers; their dad is Nick Cannon

Mariah Carey posed with her twins Monroe and Morocco in a field of sunflowers; their dad is Nick Cannon.

Model Hailey Baldwin posed with her actor dad Stephen as they wore Snapchat filters.

Kim Zolciak shared a kissing photo with husband Kroy Biermann.

'Happy Fathers Day to the BEST daddy on this planet!!

Her pops: Gigi Hadid posted this photo of her dad Mohamed

Two cute: Model Hailey Baldwin posed with her actor dad Stephen as they wore Snapchat filters

'THANK YOU for all you do for our 6 children. You lead by example, you parent with passion, consistency, focus, determination and love.

'You take the time to discipline (time out for me ends in about 30 seconds) you are an incredible teacher!

'Not just today but everyday we want you to know WE all love you far beyond your imagination!! Happy Fathers Day to all the incredible dads, step dads, and all and any father figures (and Moms that are doing both roles) that make this world a better place .'

New family: Jeff Goldblum's sweetie shared a heartwarming photo with their two kids

Cute: Ryan Seacrest shared a rare image with his dad. The morning talk show host and American Idol vet looked fuller. He has talked extensively about being a 'fat kid' and how he works hard now to stay thin

Big smiles: Teresa Giudice looked thrilled as she posed with her dad and her brother

Ryan Seacrest shared a rare image with his dad.

The morning talk show host and American Idol vet looked fuller. He has talked extensively about being a 'fat kid' and how he works hard now to stay thin.

The radio expert looked happy and his caption was touching: 'To the greatest role model a kid could ever ask for.'

Jeff Goldblum's sweetie shared a heartwarming photo with their two kids.

She called him the 'best dada' to Charlie and River.

The family was outside enjoying what looked like their backyard.

Lea Michele paid tribute to her father on Snapchat. In the image she looked as if she is only about seven years old.

Arm in arm: Glee star Lea Michele stood next to her pops here said that he was the best

Throwbacks: Michele also paid tribute to her father on Snapchat. In the image she looked as if she is only about seven years old

Precious: Emily Ratajkowski shared a touching tribute with a flashback photo

So rare: Salma Hayek shared a photo with her daughter as well as her husband

Emily Ratajkowski shared a touching tribute with a flashback photo.

The 26-year-old wrote: 'Taking me to the Mediterranean since the very beginning...love you so much Papa.

'Thank you for everything! Happy Father's Day .'

Miley Cyrus went far back in her photo album to retrieve an old shot with dad Billy Ray who was sporting a mullet.

Heidi Klum shared an old photo with her father at an event.

She loves the guy! Miley Cyrus went far back in her photo album to retrieve an old shot with dad Billy Ray who was sporting a mullet

Her papa: Britney Spear's sister Jamie Lynn shared this image with her dad
Kim Kardashian took to social media on Sunday to wish the two special men in her life a Happy Father's Day.

First came a post to husband Kanye West, which saw the 36-year-old thank him for being 'such a good dad' to their children North, four, and Saint, one.

Pulling on the heartstrings further, the brunette then penned a touching tribute to her late father Robert Kardashian for the occasion - which saw her gush how 'lucky' she was to have him as a father, even for a short space of time.

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Her man: Kim Kardashian took to social media on Sunday to wish her husband Kanye West a Happy Father's Day with two sweet snaps (pictured with their daughter North, above)

First sharing snaps of her rapper husband smiling down sweetly at their son Saint and cuddling their little girl North, she wrote lovingly of her partner: 'Happy Father's Day! Thank you for being such a good dad to our babies!'

Next sharing an old photo with her dad Robert, who died in 2003, she said to fans: 'God I am so lucky you were my dad.

'I remember right before you passed away I thanked you for everything u taught me & I told u I would raise my kids with everything I learned from you, whenever that time would come.'

Proud: Sharing snaps of the rapper smiling down at Saint (above) and cuddling their little girl North, she gushed: 'Happy Father's Day! Thank you for being such a good dad to our babies!'

Before adding: 'Well I kept my promise dad! Thank you for being the best!'

Her father Robert was an attorney and businessman of Armenian descent. He gained national recognition as O. J. Simpson's friend and defense attorney during Simpson's 1995 murder trial.

Kourtney also mentioned her dad: 'Blessed to call him my daddy. I couldn't have dreamed for any better. Happy Father's Day.'

Kim has been wed to Kanye for three years. They tied the knot in 2014 in Italy.

Younger days: The brunette then penned a touching tribute to her late father Robert Kardashian - which saw her gush how 'lucky' she was to have him as a father

Doing just fine: Kim and Kanye together in 2016 in NYC

The TV personality's posts follow on from one posted by Kris Jenner- which left ex Caitlyn Jenner out.

Caitlyn, who was formerly Bruce, is technically not a father any more now she has transitioned, however his youngest daughters Kendall and Kylie still refer to her as 'dad'.

However Kris and her ex have a very frosty relationship, after the former Olympian's tell-all book Secrets Of My Life came out - which accused Kris of hoarding money.

Instead, the 61-year-old momager gave her late ex-husband Rob Kardashian a nod on social media as well as Rob, Kanye West and Scott Disick.

Her move: Kris Jenner did not wish Caitlyn Jenner a Happy Father's Day on Sunday; though she is technically not a father, her kids Kylie and Kendall do call her dad; here Kris is seen in May

Not pals: It would only be fitting to be wished a Happy Father's Day. Especially considering she spent most of her life as a father; seen in November 2015

In the collage Robert is seen relaxing at home with his arms around Kim, Khloe and Kourtney in the sweet snap.

Her son Rob, 29, is then seen underneath with his first child, Dream, who he welcomed in November with on/off girlfriend Blac Chyna.

Meanwhile Kanye looks every inch the doting dad in his snap with North, which sees him playfully lift and swing her around in the air, to her evident glee.

They were friends... for a while: Kris and Caitlyn civil in November 2015

And Scott - who is estranged from Kourtney Kardashian, 38, - is with son Mason. He also has daughter Penelope and son Reign.

Kris wrote: 'To all the fathers out there who love unconditionally, who put their children first above all, we love you!!

'To my son, Rob, on your first Father's Day... I am so so proud of you!!

Family lady: Kris with Corey Gamble, Kim, Kendall and Kylie in 2015

Before the show: Khloe, Kourtney, Bruce Jenner, Kris, Rob and Kim Kardashian in 1995

'I've watched you grow into the most loving, caring father to our precious angel, Dream.

'Your father would be so proud of you.

'I love you and I'm proud of you Kanye and Scott. You amaze me every single day and all of my grandchildren are so very blessed to have all of you as fathers.

Before there was Bruce: Kris, Robert, Rob, Khloe, Kim and Kourtney

'To all the amazing dads out there, Happy Father's Day!!! #FathersDay.'

Kris and Bruce Jenner split in 2015, before he announced his plans to become a woman to Diane Sawyer the following year.

Several outlets have claimed the two are no longer on speaking terms, and most of her children are thought to not be talking to Cait either.

On Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Kim said she would keep her distance out of respect to her mother.
EU Ambassadors sharp messages: Law enforcement system shouldnt serve the interests of the elite (video)

Piotr Switalski, Head of the EU delegation to Armenia, made a rather sharp speech at the conference entitled Electoral developments in Armenia; lessons learnt and future steps organized by the Council of Europe, In the whole world including Armenia the ruling party tries to use the Electoral Code for serving its interests. But in the world the EC doesnt become a separating issue, and I would like the same to be in Armenia. I would advise improving the EC; as the elections showed it needs improvements. Credibility of institutions is important for Armenians. In general, the CEC is especially important for Armenians. I highly assess the Central Electoral Commission, but it should enjoy high public confidence. The matter is perceptions. I think that the CEC personnel should be enlarged, involving representatives from the civil society. I would advise Armenians to think of how to make the CEC reliable. If the CEC wants the society rely on it, it should have a reliably operating body. He also touched upon the law enforcement system with some criticism, If the law enforcement bodies arent considered to be independent and neutral, they will never be able to convince the society that they operate for the benefit of it. The law enforcement system, its true, being a part of the state, shouldnt be perceived as a body serving the interests of the political elite. Public perceptions should be changed. According to the Ambassador, the voting was fair in the polling stations, but we should pay attention to what had happened outside. We are aware of vote buying, electoral bribe, cases of threats and guiding. There was even a photo showing that in the hospitals doctors were voting instead of patients. The media outlets issued publications on moral crisis in schools, cases of distributing money, people were beaten, in general, shameful cases. The employees of private companies were treated in an impolite and crude way for gathering votes. Sometimes there are problems, which must be revealed in the criminal case, but these facts are evident, and I think efforts will be put to eliminate them. Piotr Switalski ended his speech as follows, Armenians need deep democracy, Armenians genetically yearn for freedom, and they are courageous enough to fight for their freedom. I am optimistic about the future of Armenia; democracy will mature here and the RA will have an effectively operating electoral system. After Switalskis speech the CEC Chairman Tigran Mukuchyan started his speech. Mukuchyans speech has common highlights. Soon Piotr Switalski left the hall.
Even Republicans in Kansas are distancing themselves from the governor's failed plan to boost growth by drastically cutting taxes, a move that left the state with substandard schools and struggling to provide basis services.

Cut taxes to boost growth: Long before Donald Trump became president, Kansas conducted a real-world experiment with this formula in the hopes of reviving its economy.

But today the Midwestern state is beating a hasty retreat after the demonstrable failure of the ideas that have been embraced by the White House.

In 2012, staunchly conservative Governor Sam Brownback rolled out what he promised would be "a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy," which depends heavily on agriculture and aerospace.

Similar in many ways to the Trump administration's fiscal plans, the shock therapy cut local income taxes for the very wealthy and eliminated certain taxes on small business revenue, particularly for the self-employed.

Brownback promised the strategy would create thousands of jobs, encourage Americans to move to the state and help make it "the best place in America to start and grow a small business."

Five years later, the party is over. Growth has plummeted to below one percent, from three percent in 2012, falling well below the national average, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.

As a result, tax revenues dried up, blowing a $900-million hole in the state's budget in two years, creating a crisis in which the government is struggling to provide basic services.

"The revenue loss was much larger than anticipated because people took advantage of the cuts by turning themselves into small businesses or independents to avoid paying any taxes," said Alan Cole of the Tax Foundation in Washington.

In March, the state Supreme Court ruled the education system in Kansas failed to meet minimum standards guaranteed under the state constitution.

- Rejecting the governor -

"This plan was an absolute disaster. It caused economic destruction," said Jim Ward, leader of the opposition Democrats in the Kansas House of Representatives.

"There was just nowhere you could point to where it was successful in terms of providing core services."

But even Republicans now repudiate the Brownback tax plan.

After losing 12 seats in the 2016 elections, the large Republican majority has approved a $1.2 billion tax hike over two years -- overriding a veto this week to do so, in a show of determined opposition to the governor.

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback criticized he own party for overriding his veto of a tax increase they approved to reverse course on policies he promised would deliver economic growth for the state, but which instead created a huge hole in the budget.

Brownback deplored the vote, saying "it's wrong for the long-term view of the state of Kansas, it's wrong for growth."

But even supporters of low taxes are finding it hard to defend him.

"It was a good idea that was poorly implemented," said Dave Trabert of the Kansas Policy Institute, a think tank that promotes free market economics and "personal freedom for all Kansans."

"There was success but the governor made the classic mistake of over-promising and displayed political exuberance," he added.

Such warnings could reverberate well beyond the state's borders, all the way to Washington, where Trump has vowed to double economic growth to three percent while slashing corporate taxes by 20 percentage points, and providing tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

Economists say there is little evidence such tax cuts can pay for themselves by spurring growth, as the Trump administration claims, and even Republican lawmakers in Washington who are fearful of deficits doubt the wisdom of the plan.

"It's an illusion to think that you can get more revenue by cutting taxes, it's a fantasy," said Charles Wheelan, senior lecturer at Dartmouth College.

"You cannot eat more ice cream and expect to lose weight."
Around 120 people have attended workshops on investing in cannabis at The Cannabis World Congress Conference in New York

They are bankers, accountants and computer engineers -- mainstream in every way but for one respect: their love of cannabis and the desire to make megabucks in a growing US industry.

This week in New York, around 120 people took part in workshops on where and how to invest in cannabis, currently an estimated $7 billion industry, on the sidelines of the fourth annual World Cannabis Congress.

Mark Giannone and his son Justin, who traveled in from neighboring New Jersey, were among the wannabe cannabis CEOs.

"Both of us love the plant. We want to get involved with the industry, we feel that there is more than just the recreational benefits," explained 31-year-old cybersecurity engineer Justin.

"We came on a fact-finding mission. There is lots of uncertainty," said his 60-year-old accountant father Mark. "I am not quite ready to roll the dice."

An attendee at the Cannabis World Congress Conference, the plant is currently an estimated $7 billion industry

Patricia, currently an auditor and unwilling to give her last name because she works for the federal government, is further down the road with her plans -- to open a cannabis dispensary this year in Connecticut with her banker husband.

Connecticut, like New Jersey and New York, have legalized the medicinal use of cannabis. But authorities in the two states neighboring the Big Apple have only dispensed a handful of licenses in an industry that is still in its infancy.

Convinced of the virtues of cannabis and users themselves, Mark, Justin and Patricia represent a new wave of professionals wanting to invest in the sector before it is taken over by what Mark calls "Wall Street and the hedge funds."

- Like Silicon Valley -

Colorado became the first to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2012. Now, a total of eight US states -- including California and Massachusetts -- and the federal capital Washington have such expansive laws.

Twenty-nine states and the city of Washington have authorized the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Despite the presence of ultra-conservatives in the Trump administration such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, these budding entrepreneurs hope the sector will continue its path of rapid growth -- projected to reach $23 billion by 2020.

Budding entrepreneurs hope the cannabis sector will continue its path of rapid growth -- projected to reach $23 billion by 2020

They also hope that in the coming years a majority of states will legalize recreational use, pushing the federal government to review its position and do likewise, following other countries, particularly in Europe.

"We have seen an increasing number of mainstream individuals, from the finance world, large-scale companies from the agricultural world, the science world, very interested in getting involved," said Karson Humiston, CEO of cannabis industry placement agency Vangst who traveled from Denver for the workshop.

"We are receiving 500 resumes a day," said the 24-year-old entrepreneur, comparing the buzz to "being in the Silicon Valley when the tech industry was just taking off."

But one of the speakers, Nichole West, is upfront about the difficulties of making it work in a nascent industry.

A cannabis pioneer, she talks openly about bouncing back from bankruptcy to become, at age 32, vice president of Sweet Leaf, a company of more than 400 people that grows and sells cannabis and offshoot products.

The laws in different states are different and often confusing, creating huge uncertainty for companies, she explains.

- 'Stay away from kids!'

If the proportion of Americans favorable to legalization is growing -- a record 61 percent in April according to a poll carried out by CBS News -- a significant number still consider cannabis a dangerous drug.

To succeed, you must respect the hostility, West advises.

"Stay away from the kids!" she said. "All it takes is for a mom to get angry at you and then you are the devil!" she tells the class.

"Give money to rehab centers... it's really a good thing because it shows that you are aware drugs are a problem even though cannabis is not," she said.

Lots of her students, all of whom grew up thinking that smoking a joint is no big deal, seem convinced that cannabis going mainstream is only a matter of time.

They also cite latest studies showing benefits for those with certain illnesses, such as epilepsy.

"There is still some stigma, but if you look at the difference between now and five years ago, or 10 years ago when people were totally against it, it has flipped around," says Patricia.

"Once you start educating people, they start changing their minds."
Artificial intelligence can improve health care by analyzing data from apps, smartphones and wearable technology

Your next doctor could very well be a bot. And bots, or automated programs, are likely to play a key role in finding cures for some of the most difficult-to-treat diseases and conditions.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly moving into health care, led by some of the biggest technology companies and emerging startups using it to diagnose and respond to a raft of conditions.

Consider these examples:

-- California researchers detected cardiac arrhythmia with 97 percent accuracy on wearers of an Apple Watch with the AI-based Cariogram application, opening up early treatment options to avert strokes.

-- Scientists from Harvard and the University of Vermont developed a machine learning tool -- a type of AI that enables computers to learn without being explicitly programmed -- to better identify depression by studying Instagram posts, suggesting "new avenues for early screening and detection of mental illness."

-- Researchers from Britain's University of Nottingham created an algorithm that predicted heart attacks better than doctors using conventional guidelines.

While technology has always played a role in medical care, a wave of investment from Silicon Valley and a flood of data from connected devices appear to be spurring innovation.

"I think a tipping point was when Apple released its Research Kit," said Forrester Research analyst Kate McCarthy, referring to a program letting Apple users enable data from their daily activities to be used in medical studies.

McCarthy said advances in artificial intelligence has opened up new possibilities for "personalized medicine" adapted to individual genetics.

"We now have an environment where people can weave through clinical research at a speed you could never do before," she said.

- Predictive analytics -

Some the same artificial intelligence techniques used in the Google DeepMind Challenge to defeat a grandmaster in the board game Go can be adapted for medical uses

AI is better known in the tech field for uses such as autonomous driving, or defeating experts in the board game Go.

But it can also be used to glean new insights from existing data such as electronic health records and lab tests, says Narges Razavian, a professor at New York University's Langone School of Medicine who led a research project on predictive analytics for more than 100 medical conditions.

"Our work is looking at trends and trying to predict (disease) six months into the future, to be able to act before things get worse," Razavian said.

-- NYU researchers analyzed medical and lab records to accurately predict the onset of dozens of diseases and conditions including type 2 diabetes, heart or kidney failure and stroke. The project developed software now used at NYU which may be deployed at other medical facilities.

-- Google's DeepMind division is using artificial intelligence to help doctors analyze tissue samples to determine the likelihood that breast and other cancers will spread, and develop the best radiotherapy treatments.

-- Microsoft, Intel and other tech giants are also working with researchers to sort through data with AI to better understand and treat lung, breast and other types of cancer.

-- Google parent Alphabet's life sciences unit Verily has joined Apple in releasing a smartwatch for studies including one to identify patterns in the progression of Parkinson's disease. Amazon meanwhile offers medical advice through applications on its voice-activated artificial assistant Alexa.

Watson Health, whose Cambridge, Massachusetts office is shown in this photo, is also part of the artificial intelligence health movement

IBM has been focusing on these issues with its Watson Health unit, which uses "cognitive computing" to help understand cancer and other diseases.

When IBM's Watson computing system won the TV game show Jeopardy in 2011, "there were a lot of folks in health care who said that is the same process doctors use when they try to understand health care," said Anil Jain, chief medical officer of Watson Health.

Systems like Watson, he said, "are able to connect all the disparate pieces of information" from medical journals and other sources "in a much more accelerated way."

"Cognitive computing may not find a cure on day one, but it can help understand people's behavior and habits" and their impact on disease, Jain said.

It's not just major tech companies moving into health.

Research firm CB Insights this year identified 106 digital health startups applying machine learning and predictive analytics "to reduce drug discovery times, provide virtual assistance to patients, and diagnose ailments by processing medical images."

Maryland-based startup Insilico Medicine uses so-called "deep learning" to shorten drug testing and approval times, down from the current 10 to 15 years.

"We can take 10,000 compounds and narrow that down to 10 to find the most promising ones," said Insilico's Qingsong Zhu.

Insilico is working on drugs for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cancer and age-related diseases, aiming to develop personalized treatments.

- Finding depression -

IBM is using its Watson supercomputer, seen in this file picture, as part of a broad effort to help medical research and health care through its Watson Health division

Artificial intelligence is also increasingly seen as a means for detecting depression and other mental illnesses, by spotting patterns that may not be obvious, even to professionals.

A research paper by Florida State University's Jessica Ribeiro found it can predict with 80 to 90 percent accuracy whether someone will attempt suicide as far off as two years into the future.

Facebook uses AI as part of a test project to prevent suicides by analyzing social network posts.

And San Francisco's Woebot Labs this month debuted on Facebook Messenger what it dubs the first chatbot offering "cognitive behavioral therapy" online -- partly as a way to reach people wary of the social stigma of seeking mental health care.

New technologies are also offering hope for rare diseases.

Boston-based startup FDNA uses facial recognition technology matched against a database associated with over 8,000 rare diseases and genetic disorders, sharing data and insights with medical centers in 129 countries via its Face2Gene application.

- Cautious optimism -

Lynda Chin, vice chancellor and chief innovation officer at the University of Texas System, said she sees "a lot of excitement around these tools" but that technology alone is unlikely to translate into wide-scale health benefits.

One problem, Chin said, is that data from sources as disparate as medical records and Fitbits is difficult to access due to privacy and other regulations.

More important, she said, is integrating data in health care delivery where doctors may be unaware of what's available or how to use new tools.

"Just having the analytics and data get you to step one," said Chin. "It's not just about putting an app on the app store."
A displaced Iraqi family pose at a temporary camp in the compound of a hotel in Mosul on June 16, 2017

The Ferris wheel has long stopped spinning but the screening centre set up at its foot sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul and determines their fate.

Haggard-looking men sit on nearby bumper cars and others on the ground in the shade, waiting anxiously for army officers to call out their names.

The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river.

"Everyone who crosses to the eastern side has to go through here," said Air Force Brigadier General Jabbar Mustafa, who is in charge of the screening centre.

"There are medical tents here for the families and the men have to be checked against our database before they can move into eastern Mosul," he explained.

Most of the recent arrivals are from Shifa, a neighbourhood on the west bank of Mosul where Iraqi forces backed by Western jets and advisers are battling some of the last members of the Islamic State jihadist group in the city.

Some of the men are immediately designated as IS members or supporters and taken aside, their hands tied behind their backs with plastic cuffs.

Among them that day were two Egyptians, whose nationality made them suspects.

A displaced Iraqi boy carries a cage with pigeons as people arrive at a temporary camp in Mosul on June 16, 2017

According to Iraqi officers, the majority of the few hundred jihadists defending their last redoubt in Mosul's Old City are foreigners.

Men in the crowd will sometimes volunteer "information" incriminating one former neighbour or exonerating another.

One of the two Egyptians was described as a jihadist sympathiser and the other, who several people said had worked as a butcher in Mosul for 30 years, was released.

"The foreigners in IS stay to fight until the end but the Iraqi IS supporters blend back into the population," said Salah Mohammed, who fled Shifa the day before but came back because he had lost his ID card.

"It's not hard for (IS supporters) to slip through the cracks of such a screening process," he said, scratching tufts of hair he missed when he sheared off the long beard men were forced to wear under jihadist rule.

- Less than foolproof -

Mustafa, the officer in charge, said they detain 10 to 15 suspected IS members or supporters each day at the centre.

An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of a hotel in Mosul on June 16, 2017

Meanwhile, officers and medics were tending to a mute mother, struggling to convey her situation and whose six children looked very dirty and distraught.

Her husband was not with her and her sign language account of what had happened to him was confused.

The best hint the centre's staff got was that the youngest of her sons, aged about 18 months, was named Abu Bakr, which they took as an indication of the father's allegiance to IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

"If citizens don't help the security forces, then they can't know who they are," said Major Maan Mahdi of the army's 16th Division, admitting that the screening process was less than foolproof.

But he insisted it took many converging accounts from displaced residents to decide on somebody's fate and said that most displaced people were screened more than once.

For eight months now, Mosul has been the biggest battlefield Iraq has known in years, but the city's population has never dipped below one million.

Most residents of eastern Mosul stayed put when the operation was launched on October 17 last year and some have already returned to retaken neighbourhoods on the west bank, despite extensive destruction there.

Even before the floating bridge was built, the population never stopped moving across the city.

Next to the fairground-turned-screening centre, the Nineveh hotel -- a Mosul landmark with its truncated pyramid shape -- has also seen different waves of occupants.

Once considered one of Iraq's best hotels where former dictator Saddam Hussein would host his officers, IS took it over when it overran the city in 2014, renamed it "Waritheen" (inheritors) and used it for its own elite.

US and French special forces, and elite Iraqi fighters from the Counter-Terrorism Service have all stayed there over the past months, as evidenced by the different types of food rations and other objects they left behind.

The battle moved across the river and the hotel is now empty, waiting for its next masters.
Damage is seen on the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald off Japan's coast, after it collided with a Philippine-flagged container ship, on June 17, 2017

The bodies of US sailors missing after their destroyer collided with a container ship off Japan have been found in flooded sleeping berths, a day after the accident tore a huge gash in the warship's side, the US Navy said Sunday.

Seven sailors were reported missing after Saturday's predawn collision, triggering a major search operation off Japan's Pacific coast, and US authorities tacitly acknowledged there were no survivors.

"The search and rescue is over," US 7th Fleet commander Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin told reporters, describing huge amounts of water that gushed into the sleeping compartments after part of the ship's right side was caved in.

The Navy said it had found "a number" of bodies inside the guided missile destroyer, but did not specify if all seven crew had been found dead in the search that took place after it limped back into harbour.

Aucoin said the final toll was not being released "out of respect for their families".

However, he said the destroyer sustained "a large gash" below the waterline, and nearby crew would have had little chance to escape the "tremendous" amount of water that poured through the breach.

"It was 2:20 in the morning. A significant part of the crew was sleeping," he added, standing on the pier in front of the docked destroyer at its base in Yokosuka, southwest of Tokyo.

Several US crew members were injured and had to be evacuated by air to hospital

"There wasn't a lot of time in spaces that were open to the sea.

"So, it was traumatic. As to how much warning they had -- I don't know."

The container ship, the 222-metre Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal, came into port with large scrapes on its bow, but none of its 20 crew were injured, Japan's coastguard said.

Aucoin declined to say what might be to blame for the accident, the cause of which is being investigated.

"We will update you once the investigation process is complete," he said.

"I'm not going to speculate on what happened... Hopefully we'll get those answers, but I don't have them right now."

- 'Lucky to be alive' -

The 154-metre (500-foot) Fitzgerald was pulled by a tugboat back to its base on Saturday, where divers searched damaged areas of the destroyer, which was deployed in the mid-90s.

The Navy said the dead US crew were found by the divers.

"As search and rescue crews gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision... the missing sailors were located in the flooded berthing compartments," it said.

"They are currently being transferred to Naval Hospital Yokosuka where they will be identified," it added. "The names of the Sailors will be released after all notifications are made."

The damaged destroyer limped back to its mother port in Yokosuka, southwest of Tokyo

Several other US crew members were injured in the accident and had to be evacuated by air to hospital, including the vessel's commanding officer Bryce Benson, who is "undergoing treatment", Aucoin said.

"He is lucky to be alive," the fleet commander added, without elaborating.

The accident happened 56 nautical miles (104 kilometres) southwest of Yokosuka, in a busy shipping channel that is a gateway to major container ports in Tokyo and nearby Yokohama.

There have been several collisions involving large vessels in the area over the past five years, Japan's Asahi newspaper said.

Japan's coastguard is conducting an investigation into the accident -- including interviewing the container ship's Filipino crew -- although the US has primary jurisdiction in probing accidents involving military personnel.

"We can't comment on the accident as it's being handled by the Japanese coastguard," a spokesman for the container ship's Japanese owner, NYK Line, told AFP on Saturday.

"We will fully cooperate with authorities investigating the case."
Marieme Assietou Diagne, who manages a health food delivery business, says she has gained "more free time and better sales" since using the Weebi app

Corner shops, markets and street traders are still the traditional way most Senegalese do their shopping, but micro-businesses are turning to digital means of tracking clients in the west African nation's informal economy.

Amadou Bawol Bah, like many owners of the corner "boutiques" in Senegal, used to have a large ledger he filled in each day with purchases and credit offered to his customers.

"One day I was filling in some details and some cooking oil tipped onto the ledger," he recalled of the moment in 2015 that wiped out years of careful bookkeeping.

Bawol Bah's disaster became the inspiration for a locally-designed app called "Weebi", meaning "easy" in the local Pulaar language, and the trader hasn't looked back since downloading it.

"Weebi simplifies sales and my invoices. The tablet and smartphone replaces the notebook and pen," explained Weebi's co-founder Cheikh Sene, who began his start-up with two other Senegalese and a Frenchman.

A micro-printer for receipts completes the mix, Sene added.

- App ambitions -

Around half of Senegal's registered businesses are one-man traders like Bawol Bah, according to government statistics, and operate at thin margins with clients often reliant on credit paid back at the end of the month.

In the case of accidents like Bawol Bah's, the app comes with confidential backup for each user, according to Weebi, so data remains safe in case of loss or damage to a device.

After winning a prize for digital innovation at the Africa-France summit held in Bamako in January, Weebi's ambitions are growing in the capital.

Senegalese co-founder of the Weebi start-up Cheikh Sene

Although just 40 users so far have the app, which is a standalone download or can be bought for 118,000 FCFA ($200) preloaded onto a tablet, 300 clients have shown an interest in the product in the Dakar area.

Marieme Assietou Diagne, who manages a health food delivery business, says she has gained "more free time and better sales" since using the software.

"It helps us to follow clients -- who are the regulars, the number of orders, and how many meals we are selling per day," she told AFP. "We can reward loyal customers at the end of the month."

- Overcoming illiteracy -

Other small business owners have begun using "Somtou", a console launched in May with an interface specifically designed for Senegal's majority illiterate population that works with icons and voice commands.

The upstart costs of buying a laptop and the electricity required to run it all day are prohibitive for most, and training in accountancy programmes or software such as Microsoft Excel hard to come by without paying for classes.

With sturdy casing and bright graphics, Somtou is aimed squarely at market traders and small businesses, said its Cameroonian creator Ted Boulou.

"It allows those in the informal sector to manage their work more effectively, and gives them more precise estimates of income, revenue and clients," Boulou said.

That can empower them to better bargain wholesale costs and promotions, making businesses more effective, he added, while filing of tax returns and other government documents became simpler and more accurate.

Pricing is also flexible for clients without much upfront cash.

"Some will pay 13,000 FCFA ($22) per month for two years, or 500 FCFA (85 US cents) a day for two years," Boulou explained, as the single payment of 275,000 FCFA was prohibitive for many -- and he has taken 100 orders.
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Peeling a mango inside her rickety wooden shack, Chhum Long explains how her daughter's decision to nurture a Western couple's baby in her womb helped her family buy two desperately needed items: a metal roof and a motorbike.

Last year a broker appeared outside the 60-year-old's house in Cambodia's southern Takeo province and offered her daughter $10,000 to be a surrogate mother for a wealthy foreign couple.

"My daughter immediately agreed with the offer because we are very poor," she told AFP. "They took the baby away as soon as he was born, she did not even see his face."

An ongoing trial in Phnom Penh of Australian nurse Tammy Davis-Charles on charges of running an illegal surrogacy business has shone a spotlight on Cambodia's role in the rented womb trade.

It is a little-regulated industry that pairs wealthy foreign couples desperate for a child -- paying as much as $50,000 -- with some of the world's most vulnerable women.

The enterprise has sparked a regulatory game of cat and mouse as poorer nations move to halt the trade only to see it resurface or appear across their borders.

Australian national Tammy Davis-Charles has been charged with running an illegal surrogacy business, in a case that has has shone a spotlight on Cambodia's role in the trade

One-by-one countries that had been popular surrogacy destinations like India, Nepal and Thailand have banned the trade.

Cambodia did the same in November. But interviews conducted by AFP suggest the industry remains, albeit in the shadows.

Cambodia is one of Asia's poorest countries with an average annual income of just $1,150. Nine months of surrogacy might bring in as much as nine years salary.

- 'Keeping it quiet' -

The village of Puth Sar, where Chhum Long and her daughter hail from, is a typical target.

Its bucolic charm -- wooden houses surrounded by green paddy fields an hour south of the capital -- belies an entrenched poverty.

Village chief Ouk Savouen said brokers first appeared two years ago. At least 13 women have agreed to be surrogates since then, some after the ban came in.

The simple village of Puth Sar, where Chhum Long and her daughter hail from, is a typical target for surrogacy brokers

"There are now four surrogates who are currently pregnant but they keep it quiet," he said. "They were recruited in February and March."

The village chief dislikes the trade, saying it is exploitative and rarely provides families with the kind of riches they think will free them because the payments are mostly frittered away.

But he also recognises it is hard for women to turn down the offer of such large sums.

"I just want them to be fully paid and cared for," he said, suggesting careful regulation is better than an outright ban.

No surrogate mother in Puth Sar was willing to speak when AFP visited.

But two recent surrogates from other Cambodian villages agreed to talk on the condition that only their nicknames were used.

Both were driven by poverty but said they had broadly positive experiences.

Champei got pregnant before the ban, giving birth in April to a boy for a Dutch couple. She was paid $10,000, which was used to purchase a plot of land.

"This is a lot of money for me," she said.

"I want to be a surrogate mother again so I can build a home," she said, adding that other women from her village were also surrogates.

- 'I miss her' -

Romduol, 35, makes just $200 a month as a garment factory worker in Kampong Speu province.

She heard about surrogacy through her colleagues and gave birth to a baby girl for a gay Australian couple before the ban.

"The Australians were so happy with the baby," she said. "I still consider her my child. I miss her because she had been in my womb for more than nine months."

Critics say that the payments from surrogacy rarely rescue families from poverty as much of it is frittered away

She used the money to pay off debts.

"But I have not fulfilled my dream yet. If possible I want to be a surrogate mother again because I need a house," she said.

Cambodian government officials, however, say the ban was necessary.

"Cambodia is still poor but we don't want to use surrogacy to reduce poverty among our people," Chou Bun Eng, who heads an anti-human trafficking committee at the Ministry of Interior, told AFP.

"Otherwise Cambodia will become a factory to produce babies for sale".

The November ban came in the form of a government edict. But there has yet to be a law passed specifically outlawing the trade, leaving it in a legal grey area.

Chou Bun Eng said the government was drafting legislation but provided no timeframe.

Back at Puth Sar, Chhum Long admits the money from her daughter's surrogacy has not rescued them from poverty.

After burning through monthly cash instalments dealt out during the pregnancy and spending much of the remaining money on paying off debts, there wasn't enough to buy the new house they had hoped for.

"We are still poor," she shrugs and then grins. "But if they selected older women, I'd want to be a surrogate too."
Crowdsourced mapping applications adapted for use in Africa are trying to help people find their way in cities where haphazard development means many streets and buildings are unmarked

In Benin's economic capital of Cotonou, as in many other African cities, finding a house, office or restaurant is often like a treasure hunt.

Luck, if not a miracle, is required as easy clues such as street names, even where they exist, are usually not posted and address numbers are rarely marked.

Most people in Cotonou formulate complex combinations of landmarks and directions to navigate around town.

Typical directions might be: "My office is after the big market, past the apartment block on the right with the mobile phone mast, and it's the third road on the left, tiled building."

Can't see the apartment block with the mobile phone mast? Game over, back to square one.

Sam Agbadonou, a 34-year-old former medical technician, knows how frustrating it can be to get around and describes Cotonou as a "navigation challenge".

"I was called when there were break-downs and went to health centres to repair machines that save lives," he said.

"But some centres are really in the middle of outlying neighbourhoods and it is difficult to get there."

Now, to put an end to the hassle and quickly find their destination, locals are turning to crowdsourced mapping applications adapted for use in Africa that are challenging Google Maps for dominance on the continent.

- 'Map party' -

Mapping initiatives aim to provide more detail about what is found along streets and roads

In 2013, when Agbadonou heard about OpenStreetMap, an international project founded in 2004 to create a free world map, he knew it was a good idea.

Agbadonou founded the Benin branch of the project, which today boasts 30 members.

With his friend Saliou Abdou, a trained geographer, Agbadonou regularly organises "map parties" -- field trips to identify the city's geographical data.

They start with the basics -- street names and address numbers -- and move on to other details that set their maps apart from the Silicon Valley competition.

"We write down everything: the trees, the water points, the vulcaniser (tyre repairer) on the street corner, the tailor's shop... . You don't see that on Google Maps!" Agbadonou said with pride.

Thanks to his work over the last four years, Cotonou is slowly revealing itself.

For example, the Ladji district, which never used to feature on most maps, is now included.

Armelle Choplin, an urban planner at the Institute of Research for Development (IRD) in Cotonou, has no choice but to use Google Maps for her work.

But she is relying more and more on the crowdsourced maps which are more adapted to an African context.

"IGN France (the French national institute of geographic and forest information) carried out an aerial mapping of Benin between 2015 and 2016 and it should be available in September," Choplin said.

"But we don't know if we will have access or the terms."

- Social inclusion -

Rapid population growth, lack of regulation in real estate and haphazard urbanisation are a headache for most big cities in Africa.

Along the coast in Ghana, Sesinam Dagadu created a similar mobile app called SnooCode, which targets the poorest in society and the illiterate.

His goal is to give "an address for every man, woman and child" by issuing an individual "location code" as a substitute address.

"I wanted to make sure our system was accessible to those at the bottom of the social pyramid," Dagadu said about his app, which is free.

"Without addresses, many important features of the modern society no longer work, from tracking diseases and emergency response services to e-commerce and deliveries," said the 31-year-old.

- Citizenship -

OpenStreetMap is already being used by humanitarian organisations during epidemics.

Enthusiastic communities of amateur cartographers participating in 'mapathons' have been inputting geographical data from satellite images available on the internet into the online map.

Some have recently focused on the Democratic Republic of Congo, where several cases of Ebola have been reported.

In particularly remote areas of a country, maps only show the outline of roads.

The cartographers add houses and, crucially, water points -- essential data to stop the spread of an epidemic.

For volunteers or the app's creators, map-making isn't just a passion, it's become a part of what it means to be a citizen.

As geographer Abdou puts it, working on the maps is his way of "contributing to the development of my country".
South Korea's newly-appointed foreign minister Kang Kyung-Wha visiting Sudan in her former role as the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs

South Korean President Moon Jae-In on Sunday appointed a United Nations veteran as the country's first female foreign minister, tasked with easing tensions over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Kang Kyung-Wha, 62, served as Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights and Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs before becoming a senior policy advisor to UN chief Antonio Guterres this year.

Her appointment comes less than two weeks before Moon's first trip to the US for a summit with President Donald Trump as fears grow over Pyongyang's weapons programme.

The isolated regime has staged a series of missile launches this year, defying global pressure and triggering tightened UN sanctions.

Kang served at the South's foreign ministry for years before joining the UN.

Her diplomatic experience will help the South navigate tricky waters and tackle sensitive issues with its allies and neighbours, Moon's office said earlier.

South Korea's new foreign minister Kang Kyung-Wha will have to deal with the issues arising from the deployment of the US THAAD anti-missile system

Moon, a centre-left politician who took office after the ouster of impeached president Park Geun-Hye, has advocated dialogue with the North to bring it to the negotiating table in a break from his conservative predecessors who took a hardline stance against Pyongyang.

Ties with the US have also come under strain recently over a controversial deployment of a US anti-missile system in the South that soured relations with China, which sees it as a threat.

The South under Park agreed last year to install the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to guard against threats from the North, prompting Beijing to deploy informal economic sanctions against South Korean businesses in April.

Though parts of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system are already in place, Moon this month suspended further deployment, dealing a blow to Washington's regional security policy.

Officially, the delay is to allow for a new, comprehensive environmental impact assessment, but analysts say the move is a strategic delay by Moon to dodge the tricky diplomatic situation he inherited.
Iraqi forces, consisting of the Iraqi federal police and the elite Rapid Response Division, patrol in the Shifa neighbourhood, on the west bank of Mosul, on June 17, 2017

Iraqi forces on Sunday started their assault on Mosul's Old City as they press their battle to retake the northern city from the Islamic State group, an army commander said.

"The army, counter-terrorism forces and federal police launched an attack on the Old City," Staff Lieutenant General Abdulamir Yarallah said in a statement.

Staff Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saadi, a senior commander with the Counter-Terrorism Service, confirmed the "start of the assault on the Old City".

Iraqi forces backed by the air strikes of the US-led coalition are pressing a months-long offensive to retake the Old City on the west side of the city from the jihadists.

"The initial air strikes started at around midnight. The security forces started storming parts of the Old City at dawn," an officer with Nineveh operations command said.

Taking back the Old City, a densely populated warren of narrow alleyways on the western side of Mosul, is crucial to recapturing the whole of the former IS bastion.

The United Nations say around 100,000 civilians are trapped in the ancient city centre.

Iraqi forces launched the battle for Mosul in October, retaking the eastern part of the city in January and starting the operation for its western part the next month.

The Islamic State group overran Mosul in 2014, declaring a self-styled "caliphate" over areas it ruled.
Iraqi forces take a position on the roof of a building as they advance towards Mosul's Old City on June 18, 2017, during an assault to retake it from the Islamic State group

Iraqi forces launched an assault Sunday to retake Mosul's Old City, the last district still held by the Islamic State group three years after the jihadists seized the northern city and declared their "caliphate".

Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces, with the jihadists putting up fierce resistance.

The push into Mosul's Old City -- a densely populated warren of narrow alleyways on the western side of Iraq's second city -- marks the culmination of a months-long campaign by Iraqi forces to retake IS's last major urban stronghold in the country.

The loss of Mosul would mark the effective end of the Iraqi portion of the cross-border "caliphate" IS declared in the summer of 2014 after seizing large parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

The military announced the start of the assault in a statement, saying the army, counter-terrorism forces and federal police had "launched an attack on the Old City".

The battle for Mosul

Machinegun fire crackled and plumes of smoke rose above the Old City as surrounding Iraqi positions were hit with heavy mortar fire.

On the first floor of a building on a street lined with destroyed car repair shops, a commander holding a tablet computer feverishly called in coordinates for an air strike against a suicide car bomb approaching his position.

Staff Lieutenant General Abdulghani al-Assadi, a senior commander with the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), said the operation was advancing slowly "to preserve civilian lives as we breach the enemy's defence lines".

- 'Last episode of IS show' -

"Our forces have moved in on foot because the alleys are very narrow," he said.

"There is no room for our vehicles to manoeuvre and there are many civilians."

Smoke billows from Mosul's Old City on June 18, 2017, during an ongoing offensive by Iraqi forces to retake the city from Islamic State group fighters

The United Nations has said IS may be holding more than 100,000 civilians as human shields in the Old City.

Save the Children sounded the alarm over the fate of some 50,000 children, half the number of civilians it said were trapped in the Old City.

"They are running out of food and water, and face violence wherever they turn," the charity's Ana Locsin said.

"The impact of artillery and explosive weapons is likely to get even more deadly and indiscriminate, putting vulnerable children at greatest risk."

Surrounded by Iraqi forces on three sides and blocked on the other by the Tigris River that runs through Mosul, the jihadists had no choice but a fight to the finish, Assadi said.

"This is the last episode of the Daesh show," he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City where the UN says tens of thousands of civilians are trapped

"It's our most difficult operation. Fighting is fierce because it's their last stronghold... They have nowhere to flee."

Assadi said he hoped the operation could be over before Eid, the feast marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, expected around June 25 or 26.

"But I think it is going to take longer," he said.

Iraqi forces launched the battle for Mosul in October, retaking the eastern part of the city in January and starting the operation for its western part in February.

- 'A terrifying time' -

The International Rescue Committee, a major aid group operating in Iraq, warned of the huge risks facing already-traumatised civilians.

A displaced Iraqi boy carries a cage with pigeons as people arrive to a temporary camp at the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on June 16, 2017

"This will be a terrifying time for around 100,000 people still trapped in Mosul's Old City and now at risk of getting caught up in the fierce street fighting to come," the IRC's acting country director Nora Love said in a statement.

"Both coalition and Iraqi forces must do everything in their power to keep civilians safe during these final stages of the battle for Mosul."

Since the battle to retake Mosul began, an estimated 862,000 people have been displaced, although 195,000 have since returned, mainly to Mosul's eastern side.

On Sunday, only yards from Iraqi forward positions and falling mortars, civilians could be seen cleaning their homes on streets lined with rubble.

Some people appeared to have never left while others, carrying boxes of food and canvas bags stuffed with clothes, were returning to areas the security forces retook from IS only days earlier.

It was in Mosul in July 2014 that IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance, urging Muslims worldwide to move to the group's "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria.

The jihadists have since lost most of the territory they once controlled in the face of US-backed offensives in Iraq and in Syria, where an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces are advancing on their last Syrian bastion Raqa.

It is not clear how many IS members remain in Mosul, where many foreign fighters have joined local jihadists since the city was taken.

"The locals in Daesh will shave their beards and try to blend in with the civilians as they always do," Assadi said. "The foreigners will fight hard and eventually get killed."

The fall of Mosul was the Iraqi forces' worst defeat in the war with IS.

Regaining it would cap a major turnaround for security forces, who broke away and ran despite outnumbering the jihadists who attacked the city in 2014.
Jihadists have carried out many attacks on the Egyptian police and army since the 2013 army toppling of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi

A roadside bomb Sunday killed an Egyptian policeman and wounded four others on a highway on the southern outskirts of Cairo, the interior ministry said.

"A bomb buried by the side of the road exploded" as the vehicle drove by in the early hours of the morning, the ministry said in a statement.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but jihadists have carried out many attacks on the police and army since the 2013 army toppling of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Egypt is fighting a long-running insurgency by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group in North Sinai province, in which hundreds of soldiers and policemen have been killed.

In past months, another militant group called Hasm has claimed responsibility for attacks in Cairo and the Nile Delta, most of them targeting policemen.
An aerial bombing campaign on Islamist militants' hideout in Marawi, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, has left the city shattered

Twenty years after obtaining Christian educations, Muslim brothers Omarkhayam and Abdullah Maute returned to their southern Philippine city with the black flags of the Islamic State group and set fire to their alma mater.

Hundreds of gunmen, many of them young locals recruited by the Maute brothers, destroyed Dansalan College in a rampage across Marawi city last month as they launched a brutal offensive to stamp their credentials as Philippine leaders of IS.

It turned the siblings, aged in their mid 30s, into the most infamous high school alumni of the Protestant church-run institution, which had been a symbol of religious tolerance in the mostly Muslim city of 200,000 people.

The brothers have since remained holed up in parts of Marawi, using their local knowledge of tunnels and bomb-proof basements, to withstand a military offensive that has left entire neighbourhoods in ruins and claimed more than 300 lives.

"We do not understand where that hate is coming from," said Zia Alonto Adiong, a member of the regional parliament in a self-ruled Muslim area in the southern Philippines' Mindanao region that includes Marawi.

Duma Sani, an ex-dean of Mindanao State University whose daughter also went to school with one of the Maute brothers, said most locals did not support their radical brand of Islam, under which non-believers must be killed.

"These (Marawi gunmen) are young people who have their own interpretation of the Koran and who do not respect their own elders," Sani told AFP.

The partriarch of the Maute clan, Cayamora Maute who is the father of the infamous militant brothers, was arrested earlier this month

The Maute group emerged as a small rag-tag group around 2012 from a decades-old Muslim separatist rebellion in Mindanao, which makes up one third of the predominantly Catholic Philippines.

As the main rebel organisation -- the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) -- sought to broker peace with the government, the Maute and other small hardline groups filled a vacuum for fanatics as they took inspiration from IS's atrocities in Iraq and Syria.

"I think what transformed the Mautes from a small band of siblings to a real serious military threat was the emergence of ISIS in the Middle East," security analyst Sidney Jones told AFP, using an alternative acronym.

But the brothers were radicalised much earlier: while pursuing studies in the Middle East after college, according to Jones and Rommel Banlaoi, head of the Manila-based Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research.

Omarkhayam headed to Egypt's Al-Azhar University, while Abdullah went to Jordan.

Banlaoi said they returned to Mindanao after about a decade overseas to be mentored by a fugitive Indonesian militant, Ustadz Sanussi, who in turn put them in touch with other Southeast Asian jihadists, notably the Malaysian bomb-maker Zulkifli bin Hir.

- Family affair -

With an engineer father and a mother involved in construction and property development, the Mautes are part of Muslim Mindanao's elite.

They also have blood ties to one of the top MILF leaders, according to Banlaoi.

"These connections gave the group a measure of protection," Banlaoi said.

The body of one of four suspected Maute members, who were killed by unidentified gunmen in a June ambush on the police convoy they were being transported in, is seen on a stretcher at a hospital in Iligan on the southern island of Mindanao

Since the conflict erupted, the mother and father have been arrested. Authorities have said the arrest of the mother was particularly important, describing her as a financier of the group.

All her seven sons are believed to be involved in the Marawi conflict, according to Banlaoi.

However Jones said the mother was not the driving force of radicalism, rather she and the other family members had been led by Omarkhayam and Abdullah.

Their main ally is Isnilon Hapilon, a leader of another hardline group called the Abu Sayyaf who is on the US government's list of most-wanted terrorists.

IS named Hapilon as its leader in the Philippines in recent years, and he is believed to be in Marawi with the Maute brothers.

The fighting has forced residents of Marawi, a city of 200,000 people, to flee -- with many taking shelter in crowded evacuation centres

However Jones, director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, said leadership had effectively shifted to the Maute brothers because they were controlling events in Marawi.

Video footage of the brothers planning the rampage a few days beforehand and obtained by the military shows a long-haired Abdullah standing and giving instructions while Hapilon sits down and listens.

Regardless of whether the Maute brothers are driven out of Marawi, they have established the Philippines as a successful new base for IS, according to Jones, pointing to foreign fighters who have been reported killed in the conflict.

The military has said that slain fighters have come from countries or regions including Chechnya, Libya, Indonesia and Malaysia.

"Everybody has been concerned up till now about the threat of foreign fighters coming back from Syria and Iraq. Suddenly, the bigger threat (is) foreign fighters who never set foot in the Middle East going to Mindanao," Jones said.

"Marawi in particular has become the new sexy destination for jihad."
Some 158 people were killed in Bangladesh's hill regions last week in the worst landslides in living memory

Fresh landslides killed four people and sent hundreds fleeing in Bangladesh on Sunday, police said, just days after the worst mudslides on record left more than 150 dead amid a heavy monsoon.

Two children were buried in their sleep while two other victims were killed in a separate incident when their home was struck by an avalanche of mud and rock.

The twin tragedies followed renewed rainfall in Bangladesh's hill regions on Saturday, the scene of its worst landslides in living memory that last week killed 158 and destroyed roads and critical infrastructure.

Fearing further deadly landslides amid a fresh deluge, authorities in Khagrachhari hill district evacuated hundreds of civilians from disaster-prone areas, said district police chief Ali Ahmad Khan.

It was too late for two siblings, aged eight and 13, who were killed early Sunday in the district's Ramgarh town when their home was struck by a wave of mud.

"The siblings were sleeping when a segment of the hill buried their bedroom," local police chief Shariful Islam told AFP.

"There has been rainfall in the region over the last five days, but last night it was very heavy, causing this landslide," he said, adding no one else was missing.

Two people were also buried in their home in the northeastern town of Borolekha on Sunday, district police chief Mohammad Shahjalal told AFP.

Heavy monsoon rains have fuelled Bangladesh's deadline landslides

The latest casualties come a day after authorities raised the death toll from last week's landslides to 158 after the discovery of two bodies in the worst-hit district of Rangmati, local administrator Manzurul Mannan told AFP.

The vast majority of those killed were in Rangamati, where 2,500 people are still being housed in government shelters.

The landslides were the deadliest in modern times in Bangladesh, eclipsing a death toll of 127 from a similar event a decade ago.

Experts have blamed unregulated construction and the large-scale felling of trees in Bangladesh's hill districts for loosening earth and exacerbating the scale of the disaster.

The disaster agency has begun assessing the full extent of the damage in the hills around Chittagong, which cover one-tenth of Bangladesh's landmass, following last week's incessant rain.

The monsoon deluge came just a fortnight after Cyclone Mora smashed into Bangladesh's southeast, killing at least eight people and damaging tens of thousands of homes.
A Taliban suicide bomb and gun attack on a police hedquarters in eastern Afghanistan killed at least five officers and injured 18 people, authorities said.

The assault -- part of an all-out attack during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan -- was launched at 6:00 am and was still continuing more than six hours later, said the regional police commander, Asadullah Shirzad.

In addition to the dead, nine police officers and nine civilians were wounded, he said.

The attack involved at least five Taliban, one of whom blew himself up at the entrance to the site in the city of Gardez to clear the way for the others.

One was still holding out more than six hours later, said Shirzad, whose city centre base houses both regular policemen and police special forces.

His description of the assault suggested a well-prepared and coordinated assault.

"One (attacker) blew up his vehicle at the entrance of the headquarters, opening the way for two others who opened fire on the security forces. Another suicide bomber was killed," he told AFP.

The head of the police hospital, Dr. Shir Mohammad, confirmed the five fatalities.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the operation in a statement.

"Around 6:20 this morning a martyr attack was conducted by our mujahhidin against a special forces base in Gardez, Paktiya," he wrote, reporting often as a far greater balance than officials, of a "hundred Of the dead and wounded among the police ". Since the beginning of their spring offensive in late April, the Taliban have been mounting lethal assaults on the positions of the Afghan army and police, reflecting the vulnerability of the regular forces, which have lost several dozen men in recent years weeks. About sixty soldiers were killed on their bases, mostly at night, in the southern province of Kandahar alone during the same week at the end of May. The insurgents also target the international coalition forces deployed in support of Afghan forces: seven US soldiers were injured on Saturday by an Afghan soldier who returned his weapon against his instructors and advisers. Without calling for the operation, the Taliban fighting against the Kabul regime and the forces behind it have reported it and described the soldier as a "patriot." On 11 June, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a similar operation in the east of the country, perpetrated by an infected Afghan soldier who had killed three US soldiers and wounded a fourth in an operation in eastern Nangarhar province, Of the fighters of the Islamic State group. The multiplication of these incidents comes as the Pentacan is about to announce the sending of a few thousand additional men to counter the progression of the Islamist insurgents in the country. str-mam / ach

Five civilians were among the wounded.

One of the five attackers was still holding out more than five hours after the coordinated assault began, Shirzad said.

"The first attacker blew up his vehicle at the entrance to the headquarters, opening the way for two others who opened fire on security forces, and another suicide bomber was shot dead," he said.

The head of the police hospital, Dr Shir Mohammad, confirmed the casualty toll.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement.

Since the beginning of their spring offensive in late April, the Taliban have been mounting lethal attacks on the positions of the Afghan army and police, who have lost several dozen men in recent weeks.

Foreign forces assisting the Afghans have also been targeted. Seven US soldiers were wounded Saturday in an insider attack at a military base by an Afghan soldier described as a "patriot" by the Taliban.

They are battling to topple the government of President Ashraf Ghani and oust the Western forces that support him.

mam-ach/sm

At least five Afghan policemen were killed and 15 people injured in a suicide bomb and gun attack by Taliban insurgents on the police headquarters in an eastern city Sunday, authorities said.

The assault on the headquarters in Gardez, which was still continuing, was launched at 6:00 am, said the regional police commander, Asadullah Shirzad.

Five civilians were among the wounded.

One of the five attackers was still holding out more than five hours after the coordinated assault began, Shirzad said.

"The first attacker blew up his vehicle at the entrance to the headquarters, opening the way for two others who opened fire on security forces, and another suicide bomber was shot dead," he said.

The head of the police hospital, Dr Shir Mohammad, confirmed the casualty toll.

The spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack in a communique.
Iraqi forces launched an offensive to recapture Mosul in October 2016

Key dates in the Iraqi offensive to recapture Mosul, the country's second biggest city, from the Islamic State group (IS) jihadists who seized it in June 2014.

- The battle begins -

- October 17, 2016: Iraqi forces launch the assault. It was in Mosul in July 2014 that IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance, to urge Muslims worldwide to move to the recently proclaimed "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria.

Tens of thousands of army, police and counter-terrorism troops are thrown into the long-awaited offensive with air and ground support from a US-led coalition. Kurdish forces also take part in operations north and east of the city.

- Entering Mosul -

- November 1: The army says it has entered Mosul city for the first time since 2014.

- November 3: Baghdadi breaks a year-long silence, urging followers to fight to the death for Mosul in an audio recording. The Iraqi advance begins to slow.

- November 13: Iraq says it has recaptured Nimrud, an ancient city southeast of Mosul.

- November 23: Shiite-dominated paramilitary units known as the Hashed al-Shaabi say they have cut IS supply lines between Mosul and the jihadists' Syrian stronghold Raqa, 400 kilometres (250 miles) to the west.

- East Mosul is freed -

- December 29: Government troops end a two-week pause and launch the second phase of their assault on east Mosul.

- January 8: Iraqi units reach the Tigris River that divides Mosul and take up positions near one of the city's five bridges, all now destroyed.

- January 24: The Joint Operations Command coordinating the fight says the east has been "fully liberated".

- Battle for west begins -

- February 19: Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announces the start of the battle for western Mosul, with Iraqi forces backed by coalition air power and close-in support from coalition advisers.

- February 24: Iraqi forces seize full control of Mosul airport and enter their first west Mosul neighbourhood. Three days later they take control of a fourth bridge over the Tigris.

- March 12: A US envoy says Iraqi troops have cut all roads into western Mosul, trapping remaining IS fighters inside.

- March 14: Iraqi forces say they have captured the city's train station after reaching other symbolic sites such as the regional government headquarters and the city's museum.

- Old City -

May 4: Iraqi forces launch a second front in northwestern Mosul to further seal the siege on the Old City, where IS has concentrated most of its resources.

May 16: A military spokesman says it has recaptured almost 90 percent of west Mosul.

June 18: Iraqi forces launch an assault to retake the Old City, where the United Nations says jihadists may be holding more than 100,000 civilians as human shields.

Since mid-October, more than 860,000 people are estimated to have fled Mosul.
This photo taken on June 17, 2017 shows an Indian soldier patroling next to a burned-out vehicle after clashes in Darjeeling

Hundreds of protesters on Sunday paraded with coffins containing the bodies of two men they claimed were killed in clashes with Indian security forces in Darjeeling, as the hill resort reels from separatist unrest.

Nearly 50 people, mostly police, have been injured in riots and arson attacks that have rattled the picturesque hill station for more than a week and caused thousands of mostly Indian tourists to pack their bags and flee.

As the violence escalated sharply on Saturday, police said one man died and 35 policemen were hurt as protesters torched cars and set upon security forces with knives, who responded with tear gas and baton charges.

West Bengal director general of police, Anuj Sharma, said the dead man appeared to have been shot but the circumstances were still unclear. Police have denied using live ammunition.

But supporters of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) -- a separatist movement that has long called for a separate state for ethnic Gorkhas in West Bengal -- dispute this, saying three of their comrades were shot dead by police in the clashes.

"Three of our comrades were killed and five were critically injured in police gunfire yesterday," GJM's general secretary Roshan Giri told AFP.

Hundreds of mourners on Sunday silently escorted the coffins of two men through the streets of Darjeeling, waving India's tricolour flag and posters calling for peace.

A spokesman for GJM said the body of the third alleged victim was in a hospital awaiting post mortem.

State police strongly denied the charge that live rounds were used.

"The police did not open fire. Gunshots came from the other side," Sharma said.

The upswing in violence began when police raided the homes and offices of GJM members, prompting authorities to deploy troops and riot police to patrol the streets of the famed tea-producing resort in eastern India.

- 'Deep-rooted conspiracy' -

The troubles have dealt a major blow to the crucial tourism industry, leaving the normally busy destination deserted as shops, schools and banks closed.

Authorities on Sunday appeared to have blocked mobile internet services in riot-affected areas. Earlier, Home Minister Rajnath Singh appealed for calm, urging protesters to engage in dialogue with the state government.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee described the unrest as a "deep-rooted conspiracy".

"There is a terrorist brain behind this hooliganism and vandalism. Only a terrorist and not a common man can do this," Banerjee told reporters in the state capital Kolkata on Saturday.

The hills are famous for Darjeeling tea whose production is jealously guarded. It is also famed for its "toy train" -- a 78-kilometre uphill ride from New Jalpaiguri.

Tension has been mounting in the region since the government announced it was making Bengali mandatory in state schools -- angering the state's Gorkha population, who speak Nepali.

Gorkhas have been agitating for decades for a new state of "Gorkhaland" within West Bengal, claiming Bengali-speaking outsiders have exploited their resources and imposed their culture and language.

A similar uprising in 2007 saw Gorkhas granted some administrative powers.

Many groups in India have waged similar campaigns to break away from larger states, mostly on linguistic and ethnic grounds or in hope of economic benefits.

The last successful campaign saw the state of Telangana carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.

India is made up of 29 states and seven federally administered territories, which include the capital region New Delhi.
Police say the four accused are close associates of Galagodaatte Gnanasara (pictured), a Buddhist extremist who heads a group of radicals blamed for a slew of arson attacks

Sri Lankan authorities on Sunday arrested a police officer and a Buddhist monk accused of leading an arson attack against a mosque and a Muslim business amid a wave of religious violence.

Deputy Inspector-General Priyantha Jayakody said the policeman, a monk and two others were caught on camera torching the buildings in Panadura just outside the capital Colombo.

"They were taken after analysing CCTV footage which showed them setting fire to a mosque and a Muslim-owned book shop at Panadura last month," Jayakody told reporters in Colombo.

The arrested policeman, a constable stationed at Colombo, was accused of stoking racial and religious tensions, Jayakody added, describing the arrests as a "breakthrough" in efforts to curb the outbreak of violence.

Police say the four accused are close associates of Galagodaatte Gnanasara, a Buddhist extremist who heads a group of radicals blamed for a slew of arson attacks against Muslim businesses, cemeteries and mosques.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Gnanasara, who went underground in May after police linked dozens of alleged hate crimes against Muslims to his radical Buddhist Force, or BBS.

Police have warned that anyone harbouring or aiding the fugitive monk in any way will face prosecution.

Gnanasara maintains close ties with Wirathu, an extremist monk in Mandalay whose hate speech has galvanised religious tensions in Myanmar.

Wirathu visited Sri Lanka as a guest of Gnanasara in September 2014, shortly after anti-Muslim riots at the tourist resort of Aluthgama left four people dead and hundreds of Muslim homes destroyed.

The arrest warrant issued for Gnanasara dates back to April 2014, months before the outbreak of violence, when he was accused of insulting the Koran.

The government has vowed to protect Muslims in the Buddhist-majority nation and prevent the violence from escalating. Legislators have promised tougher laws to crackdown on hate speech.

Earlier this month, foreign diplomats urged Sri Lanka to take action to stop the violence from escalating.

In a video message released last week, the BBS denied any involvement in the attacks, but accused the government of allowing Islamic extremism to flourish in Sri Lanka.
A China Eastern Airlines plane departs from Hongqiaou Airport in Shanghai on February 8, 2015

At least 26 people were injured, four of them seriously, when a China Eastern Airlines flight from Paris hit turbulence on Sunday over southwest China, state media said.

The incident happened when Flight MU744 from Charles de Gaulle Airport was descending to land at Kunming Changshui International Airport in Yunnan province, Xinhua news agency reported.

Passengers are being treated for bone fractures, scalp lacerations and soft tissue injuries caused by falling baggage or collisions with overhead lockers, it cited local hospitals as saying.

"We felt strong turbulence twice and minor turbulence three times. The process lasted about 10 minutes," the agency quoted a slightly injured passenger surnamed Zhang as saying.

The nationalities of the other injured passengers are unclear.

China Eastern Airlines said on its official microblog account that it has arranged medical services but gave no other details.

"(We) remind all passengers, for your safety, please fasten safety belts," the post added.

The airline did not respond to questions from AFP.

The plane landed around 9 am (0100 GMT) on Sunday, an hour later than scheduled, according to Xinhua.

"We applauded when the plane landed safely. We feel lucky the plane did not crash," an injured passenger surnamed Shang was quoted as saying.
An Iraqi soldier stands guard outside the University of Mosul as students arrive to take their exams

Amid buildings destroyed by heavy fighting, University of Mosul students are returning to take exams interrupted three years ago when jihadists took control of their city.

The university and an army of volunteers are working to clear up rubble and repair the damage left by fierce battles between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants.

"The fact that I am here with my friends today shows our determination and our will to resist," says Ahmad Chehab Ahmad, 23.

Around 40,000 students were studying at the university, one of the biggest in Iraq, when IS seized the city in a sweeping summer 2014 offensive across Iraq and Syria.

Elite Counter-Terrorism Service forces seized the campus back in January as part of a months-long operation to oust the jihadists from the capital of their self-declared "caliphate".

Iraqi students are searched outside the University of Mosul as they arrive to take their exams

"Less than a month after we were liberated I was back in class," says Sanaa Nafih, minutes before going in for her English exam.

"I feel good, despite all the destruction I see," says the 21-year-old, who hopes to finish her studies and become a teacher.

With Iraqi forces still fighting jihadists across town in Mosul's old city, security at the university is tight.

Heavily armed guards check ID cards and search students at the campus entrance.

The signs of fighting are clear -- some buildings have been completely demolished, while others are pock-marked by shelling and small arms fire.

While the science department remains closed, humanities students have returned after years without setting foot in a lecture hall.

Iraqi students chat at the University of Mosul

"We girls stayed at home" under IS rule, says Nafih.

"In the beginning we had electricity and we could receive news -- I could use the internet to download books."

"But after a few months the internet was cut off and a period of darkness began," she says. "People could only imagine what was happening in the world."

- 'I broke down in tears' -

Part of the university continued to operate under IS control, mostly serving the relatives of IS fighters, according to a staff member who worked there at the time and asked to remain anonymous.

Before they fled the campus, the jihadists set fire to the university library, turning the large building into a blackened shell.

Iraqis walk towards the University of Mosul, where some buildings were destroyed in the fierce battles between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants

"Daesh destroyed hundreds of thousands of books, valuable encyclopedias and rare manuscripts," says university employee Zaid Muhieddine, using an Arabic acronym for the group.

"The first time I saw the library in this state, I broke down in tears."

But for Maher, a third-year geography student, life must go on.

"As long as there are classes, it doesn't matter so much that the buildings are burned or destroyed," he says.

The university's management hopes to have courses up and running as normal by October.

In the meantime, it is trying to catch up on exams.

"The clean-up has been finished in most faculties, thanks to volunteering by the city's youth -- both university and school students," says Osama Hamdun of the university's maintenance department.

"In four months they removed thousands of tons of rubble and remnants of the fighting."

Re-opening the university is a "message to the world", he adds.

"Mosul is a city of civilisation. Neither Daesh nor anyone else can break the will of Mosul's people to live," he says.
The Hokule'a was the first traditional double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe built in 600 years, according to the Polynesian Voyaging Society

A traditional double-hulled canoe has returned to Hawaii after concluding a three-year epic journey around the globe, the first trip of its kind by such a boat.

The Hokule'a vessel and its crew entered the marina at Honolulu's Magic Island peninsula on Saturday after sailing more than 40,000 nautical miles (74,000 kilometres) since its departure from the island of Oahu in 2014.

Large crowds gathered for the homecoming celebration to commemorate the end of the odyssey, which intended to "weave a lei of hope around the world through sharing indigenous wisdom, groundbreaking conservation and preservation initiatives," according to voyage organisers.

The goal was to use only ancient methods of wayfinding -- reading the stars, winds and waves -- to guide the journey, just as the first Polynesian settlers who reached the archipelago did hundreds of years ago.

The Hokule'a -- the Hawaiian name for "star of gladness" -- was the first traditional double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe built in 600 years, according to the Polynesian Voyaging Society.

The canoe's maiden voyage in 1976 was to Tahiti in French Polynesia.

Crews of some dozen people rotated at major ports of call throughout the round-the-world journey after undergoing training.

The homecoming celebration kicked off a three-day summit to celebrate the journey and discuss future sailing plans.

"Through her voyages, Hokule'a has sparked a reawakening of Hawaiian culture, language, identity and revitalised voyaging and navigation traditions throughout the Pacific Ocean," voyage organisers said.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem on June 18, 2017

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday accused the Palestinian president's party of praising Palestinians who killed a policewoman, calling for an end to payments to the families of attackers.

Two Palestinians on Friday opened fire on a group of Israeli officers just outside the walled Old City in annexed east Jerusalem, while a third stabbed a border policewoman a short distance away.

The three perpetrators, all from the West Bank, were shot dead, and the policewoman, Hadas Malka, a 23-year-old staff sergeant major, was taken to hospital in critical condition and later died of her wounds.

"Instead of condemning the attack, Fatah... issued a statement in which it condemn(s) the officers who killed the terrorists, and praised the murderers as heroes," Netanyahu said, referring to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's party.

A statement by Fatah carried on the official Palestinian news agency Wafa condemned the "killing" of the three Palestinians, without mentioning the circumstances leading up to their deaths.

The Israeli premier was apparently referring to a Fatah poster mourning the "martyrdom" of the three perpetrators in the "heroic" operation, and a series of tweets on a Fatah account referring to their "glory and immortality".

"Of course, the Palestinian Authority is refusing to condemn the murder and the same authority will now pay financial compensation to the murderers' families," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.

"I call on the countries of the world... to demand an immediate cessation of Palestinian Authority payments to the families of terrorists," Netanyahu said.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the Palestinian Authority had agreed to halt payments to the families of slain attackers, including suicide bombers.

Israel said it saw no evidence of such a decision and the Palestinians would not confirm.

Compensation payments to the families of "martyrs" who die carrying out attacks on Israelis are one of the sticking points in the moribund Middle East peace process.

The Israeli policewoman was buried late Saturday in a military cemetery in the southern city of Ashdod.

Friday's attack is the latest in a wave of unrest that has rocked Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories since October 2015.

Israel accuses the Palestinian establishment of inciting the violence, including by glorifying attackers and supporting their families.

Following the attack, the Israeli army raided Deir Abu Mashal, the village near Ramallah the three perpetrators hailed from, sealing off its entrances and mapping out the homes of the three for demolition.

Netanyahu also revoked 250,000 Ramadan permits for Palestinians from the West Bank to visit their relatives in Israel and Jerusalem, and "instructed the police to reinforce security arrangements and checking procedures in the plaza around Damascus Gate," the scene of the attack, he said on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump has denied trying to influence the FBI investigation into alleged Russian election meddling

US President Donald Trump early Sunday morning hurled a series of testy tweets defending his crisis-ridden presidency, once again decrying the "witch hunt" against him.

"The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt," the Republican leader tweeted while away on his first weekend to Camp David, the official US presidential retreat in the mountains of western Maryland.

"Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm," he wrote Sunday, also pointing to his successful nomination of conservative justice Neil Gorsuch to the top US court.

"Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax cuts in the works!" he continued.

Sunday's tweets followed Trump's furious Twitter outburst on Friday in which he announced he is under investigation in connection with a probe into alleged Russian election meddling that has dogged the administration and gained steam in recent weeks.

A source on Trump's legal team claimed the president was referring to a Washington Post story "from the other night" rather than confirming he is being investigated.

The daily was one of several media that reported that Trump himself is being investigated on allegations of obstructing justice.

Trump is accused of firing FBI director James Comey over his refusal to steer the Russia investigation away from former national security advisor and Trump ally Mike Flynn.

The US president has denied trying to influence the investigation, but has acknowledged in an interview that Russia was on his mind when he dismissed Comey.

Trump left Saturday with his wife and young son to spend the weekend at Camp David for the first time, and is scheduled to return to Washington late Sunday.
An investigation into mining deals ordered by Tanzanian President John Magufuli estimated that 75 billion euros ($84 billion) had been lost in tax evasion since 1998

The editor-in-chief of a Tanzanian newspaper suspended last week after linking two former presidents to controversial mining contracts said he has since faced threatening anonymous phone calls.

Tanzania's information ministry on Thursday imposed a two-year suspension on the Mawio weekly, a frequent critic of the government, after it linked former presidents Jakaya Kikwete and Benjamin Mkapa to dubious mining contracts.

A recent investigation into the mining deals, ordered by current President John Magufuli, estimated that 75 billion euros ($84 billion) had been lost in tax evasion arising from mining operations since 1998, but did not mention the former heads of state.

Despite warnings, Mawio last week reported comments by opposition MP Tundi Lissu, who told parliament that Kikwete (2005-2015) and Mkapa (1995-2005) were mainly responsible for the controversial contracts and that both should be summoned before an enquiry commission.

Simon Mkina, editor-in-chief of the suspended publication, told AFP he has received threatening, anonymous phone calls in the days since the suspension.

"After the newspaper's suspension, I have received three phone calls threatening me," he said in a telephone interview this weekend.

"One of them, a male voice, asked me if I attached any value to my life. I asked him who he was but he cut off.

"The call did not show a number. So I could not call the person back," he added.

Mkina said he has informed both the board of the newspaper and the police who told him it would be difficult to act as they were anonymous calls.

The government panel found that the losses were primarily due to the failure of foreign companies operating in Africa's fourth largest gold producer to declare earnings. It blamed flawed contracts unfavourable to the state.

Magufuli accused Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold of "stealing from us" in a live televised address this week, but welcomed discussions when the firm's CEO John Thornton flew to Tanzania last week.

Mawio has already faced a government ban for its coverage of a political crisis after elections late in December 2015 in the semi-autonomous Zanzibar islands. That ban was lifted by the courts.

Despite alleging threats, Mkina said he plans to go to court to challenge his newspaper's suspension.

"We are just negotiating with a good lawyer. We should get to court next week," he said.
Myanmar military family members weep during their relatives' funerals in Dawei on June 9, 2017

A Myanmar ship has retrieved the black box of a plane that crashed into the Andaman Sea with 122 people on board, the army said Sunday, raising hopes of discovering the cause of the tragedy.

The military aircraft plunged into the sea during a routine flight from the southern city of Myeik to Yangon on June 7.

Most of its passengers were the wives and children of servicemen.

Navy vessels and fishing trawlers have so far recovered 92 bodies plus some pieces of plane debris from off the coast of the southern town of Dawei.

Last week a fishing boat snagged a piece of the Shaanxi Y8's tail.

On Sunday Myanmar's army chief said the black box, which consists of a digital flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder, had been brought aboard a military vessel.

"The part of the tail of the Y-8 plane, which included the Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder, was successfully put on a ship in the afternoon," the office of the army chief said in a Facebook post, alongside photos of the bright orange recording units.

"After finding that part of the plane, we are now in the process of finding out why the plane crash happened," the statement added.

It did not say how long it might take to decipher the black box data, a process that can take days or even weeks.

There has been no official explanation for the cause of the crash.

The Chinese-made aircraft was less than two years old and had only flown some 800 hours, according to the military.

Experts say black boxes explain the causes of nearly 90 percent of plane crashes.
Pyongyang has called on the international community to "seriously reconsider" New York as a venue for major international events

North Korea accused the United States on Sunday of "mugging" its delegation carrying a diplomatic package in New York, as tensions between the two countries soar.

The North Korean foreign ministry said US officials seized a diplomatic package from its delegation at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday as the diplomats were about to fly home, according to the state news agency.

Pyongyang called on Washington to explain what it called a "provocation", KCNA reported.

"As the diplomats vigorously resisted, they grabbed the diplomatic package using physical violence and made off," the ministry was quoted as saying.

North Korea, a one-party state that maintains prison camps and has a dire record on human rights, has for decades pursued a nuclear weapons programme, despite global condemnation and successive rounds of UN sanctions.

US President Donald Trump has made "solving" the peninsula's problem a top priority for his administration.

The North Korean delegation was in New York to attend the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the KCNA report said.

It added that the ministry also asked the international community to "seriously reconsider" New York as a venue for major international events.

"If the US fails to give its due response to our demand which is all too reasonable and fair, it will be totally responsible for all the consequences to be entailed," the ministry was quoted as saying.
Qatari special forces on patrol in Doha

Bahrain has ordered Qatari troops serving with a coalition fighting the Islamic State group to leave its territory, a source with knowledge of the situation said on Sunday.

The soldiers, part of the US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) which is headquartered in Bahrain, had been asked to leave the coalition and may depart within the next 48 hours, the source told AFP.

"The Bahrainis told the US general in command of the base that Qatari soldiers must leave," the source said on condition of anonymity.

"They are still in the base but likely to leave within the next two days."

The news comes as the Gulf faces the biggest diplomatic crisis in recent years, with regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia and some of its allies suspending ties with gas-rich Qatar over accusations the emirate bankrolled Islamist extremists and had ties to rival Iran.

Qatar denies the charges.

Direct tensions between Manama and Doha have been further exacerbated after Bahrain accused Qatar of directly interfering in its internal affairs.

Qatar has also denied those charges.

The source did not detail the number of Qatari troops based in Bahrain. One analyst estimated it was no more than a "handful of officers".

Qatar has deployed troops with NAVCENT since 2014, according to one official.

NAVCENT is part of the US Central Command whose area of operation includes the Middle East and Asia.

As part of their operations, numerous air strikes against IS targets in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan have been conducted from Qatar's Al-Udeid, the largest US base in the region.

Washington is involved in diplomatic efforts to resolve the impasse in the region but US policy has proved unpredictable.

President Donald Trump has sided with Saudi Arabia and its allies, including Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt, claiming Doha had "historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level".

However, Pentagon and State Department officials have scrambled to reassure the emirate.

The United States last week agreed to a $12 billion sale of F-15 fighters to Qatar.
Brian Harman leads the field by one shot after the third round of the US Open at Erin Hills in Hartford, Wisconsin

Powerful winds battered the US Open on Sunday as a wide-open final round got under way with a cluster of inexperienced contenders aiming to claim their first major title.

After three days of benign conditions which have led to a feast of low-scoring, Mother Nature struck back with a vengeance on Sunday, lashing the challenging course with strong gusts.

The dramatically different playing conditions were already being reflected on the scoreboard, with a slew of players wildly over par.

China's Li Haotong was 10-over-par for the day through 14 holes while more experienced contenders such as England's Lee Westwood were also struggling. Westwood was four over after only seven holes.

Unheralded American Brian Harman leads the field by one shot on 12 under, and will tee off in the final pairing alongside Justin Thomas at 2:54pm local time (1954 GMT).

Thomas exploited soggy fairways and soft greens on Saturday to shoot a dazzling nine-under-par 63, the lowest to-par score for 18 holes in US Open history.

Harman, who had missed the cut in his four previous major appearances, also thrived with a five-under-par 67.

However with the strong winds ripping across the exposed, tree-less par-72 layout on Sunday, the chances of another low-scoring day looked remote.

Lee Westwood of England plays his shot from the seventh tee during the final round of the US Open on June 18, 2017 in Hartford, Wisconsin

If the winds hold, it could well mean that the final afternoon leaderboard battle comes down to who masters the conditions.

Around a dozen or players are realistically in contention on a crowded leaderboard.

Below Harman on 12 under, three players are tied on 11 under -- Thomas, Brooks Koepka and England's Tommy Fleetwood.

World number nine Rickie Fowler, runner-up in the US Open in 2014, is two off the lead on 10 under.

South Korea's Kim Si-Woo is one back on nine under, just ahead of Patrick Reed, Charley Hoffman and Russell Henley on eight under.

Four other players are tied for 10th on seven under.

Fowler, 28, resurrected his hopes of a maiden major title on Saturday with a four-under-par 68.

Although he trails by two, Fowler is optimistic that he can finally land a major after a series of near-misses.

"I'm looking forward to my shot at it, I know it's not going to be an easy day, for sure," Fowler said.

"I've been there a handful of times and had some good finishes. But I'm looking forward to getting the job done."

Unusually, the finale will not feature any of the world's top three players.

World number one Dustin Johnson, second-ranked Rory McIlroy and Australian world number three Jason Day all missed the cut.
Activists protest during the "March for Health" demanding equitable and affordable access to quality healthcare, in April 2017, in New York

Democrats gearing up for a new round of battles against Republican efforts to do away with Barack Obama's signature health care law are condemning a US Senate replacement bill being crafted by Republicans behind closed doors.

Senator Bernie Sanders urged Democrats on Sunday to do "everything they can" to oppose a Republican bill that for weeks has been drafted by party leaders in secret.

"My understanding is that it will be brought forth just immediately before we have to vote on it. This is completely unacceptable," Sanders, an independent who is a member of the Democratic party leadership, told CBS's "Face the Nation" program.

"It seems to me that what they want to do, because this legislation is so bad, is keep it secret, keep it hidden, and in the last possible second rush it before the Senate and get a vote within a few hours. That is beyond belief," Sanders said in a separate interview with CNN.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that a House version of the bill -- an effort to overturn the Democratic former president's sweeping reforms -- would cause 23 million Americans to lose health insurance.

The measure, which has already cleared the House of Representatives, is now before the Senate.

"It was the worst piece of legislation frankly against working class people that I can remember in my political life in the Congress... Throwing 23 million people off of health insurance is beyond belief," said Sanders, who lost the Democratic presidential nomination last year to Hillary Clinton.

Sanders said the Senate health care overhaul measure is particularly objectionable because of the lengths to which Republicans are going to ensure no one finds out what is actually in the bill.

Senator Bernie Sanders urged Democrats to do "everything they can" to oppose a Republican healthcare bill that for weeks has been drafted by party leaders in secret

"In the Senate, what you have is you have I believe it is 10 Republicans working behind closed doors to address one-sixth of the American economy," he said.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, however, insisted that the closed talks were only the start of what will eventually become a more public process.

"The Senate is not a place where you can just cook up something behind closed doors and rush it for a vote on the floor," said the Florida Republican, also speaking to CBS on Sunday.

"Ultimately we are all going to see what is in it, and the rest of us will have an opportunity to make changes to it, as a condition of our vote," Rubio said.
Jihadists have mounted numerous attacks on civilians and the army in Mali, as well as on French and UN forces still stationed there

Suspected jihadists stormed a tourist resort popular with Westerners outside the Malian capital Bamako on Sunday, the country's security ministry said.

Security forces were battling the attackers at the Kangaba resort after the assault, with nearby residents reporting hearing shots while smoke billowed into the air, with at least one building ablaze.

"There is an attack by presumed jihadists on the Kangaba camp," a security ministry official said, requesting anonymity.

The official confirmed that Malian special forces, backed up by French and UN soldiers, "have sealed off the area and are in the process of organising operations" against the attackers.

There was no information immediately available on any casualties in the attack, which comes after a similar strike less than two years ago on a luxury hotel in Bamako.

Malian troops and soldiers from France's Bakhane regional counter-terrorist force were surrounding the site, a resort boasting accommodation in hut-style rooms, as well as restaurants and swimming pools.

The landlocked west African country has been battling a jihadist insurgency for several years, with Islamist fighters roaming the north and centre of Mali.

In November 2015, gunmen took guests and staff hostage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in a siege that left at least 20 people dead, including 14 foreigners.

That attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda's North African affiliate Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

In March the same year, a grenade and gun attack on La Terrasse nightclub in Bamako killed five people, including foreigners.

- State of emergency -

A state of emergency has been renewed several times since the Radisson Blu attack, most recently in April when it was extended for six months, but attacks are continuing.

An attack is under way at a resort on the edge of the Malian capital Bamako

In 2012 Mali's north fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda who hijacked an ethnic Tuareg-led rebel uprising, though the Islamists were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013.

But the jihadists have continued to mount numerous attacks on civilians and the army, as well as on French and UN forces still stationed there.

Sunday's attack is the latest in a series of high-profile assaults in north and and west Africa, targeting locals and tourists.

In January 2016, 30 people were killed, including many foreigners, in an attack on a top Burkina Faso hotel and a nearby restaurant in the capital Ouagadougou. AQIM claimed the assault, saying the gunmen were from the Al-Murabitoun group of Algerian extremist Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

In March 2016, at least 14 civilians and two special forces troops were killed when gunmen stormed the Ivorian beach resort of Grand-Bassam, which was also claimed by AQIM.

The UN has a 12,000-strong force known as MINUSMA in Mali, which began operations in 2013.

It has been targeted constantly by jihadists, with dozens of peacekeepers killed.

France also has 4,000 soldiers in its Bakhane force in five countries -- Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso -- all of which are threatened by the jihadist threat across their porous borders.
The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS was created in 1995, includes public health officials, researchers, health care providers, faith leavers, HIV advocates and people living with HIV

Six top health advisors have resigned from Donald Trump's advisory council on HIV/AIDS, complaining that the US president doesn't really care about combatting the illness.

In a letter published Friday in Newsweek, Scott Schoettes said the Trump administration has "no strategy" on AIDS and that he and his five colleagues will be more effective advocating for change from the outside.

Schoettes, counsel and HIV project director at Lambda Legal, resigned Tuesday from the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, along with Lucy Bradley-Springer, Gina Brown, Ulysses Burley III, Michelle Ogle and Grissel Granados.

The council can have up to 25 members.

"The Trump administration has no strategy to address the on-going HIV/AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate HIV policy, and -- most concerning -- pushes legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease," Schoettes wrote.

"If we do not ensure that US leadership at the executive and legislative levels are informed by experience and expertise, real people will be hurt and some will even die," he said.

"Because we do not believe the Trump administration is listening to -- or cares -- about the communities we serve as members of PACHA, we have decided it is time to step down."

PACHA, which was created in 1995, includes public health officials, researchers, health care providers, faith leavers, HIV advocates and people living with HIV. Its helps inform the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, which was last revised in 2015.

Schoettes noted that Trump failed to appoint a head of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, a senior advisory position, and took down the Office of National AIDS Policy website the very day he took office -- on January 20 -- and has yet to replace it.

He also stressed that changes Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress are seeking to the sweeping health care reform initiated by former president Barack Obama would be "extremely harmful" to people living with HIV or AIDS.

Schoettes cited data showing that only 40 percent of people living with HIV in the United States can access life-saving medications.
Jihadists have mounted numerous attacks on civilians and the army in Mali, as well as on French and UN forces still stationed there

Suspected jihadists crying "Allahu Akbar" stormed a tourist resort popular with foreigners on the edge of the Malian capital Bamako on Sunday, briefly seizing more than 30 hostages and leaving at least two people dead.

The assault on the Kangaba Le Campement resort comes after a similar strike less than two years ago on a luxury hotel in Bamako, which lies in the south of the troubled country.

Four assailants were killed by security forces, Mali's security minister said late Sunday, without specifying if more were on the run.

Nearby residents had first reported the attack after hearing shots while smoke billowed into the air, with at least one building ablaze.

"It is a jihadist attack. Malian special forces intervened," Security Minister Salif Traore told AFP, adding that two people had been killed, including a Franco-Gabonese.

He later told journalists that "we have recovered the bodies of two attackers who were killed" and were searching for the bodies of two others.

"We were able to rescue around 36 guests and workers from the resort", including around 15 French nationals and a similar number of Malians, he added.

The special forces were supported by UN soldiers and French counter-terrorism troops.

Mali's army earlier said that one of the attackers was wounded and gave up his weapon. He also left behind "bottles containing some explosive substances", the security ministry said.

At least 14 people, both Malians and foreigners, were injured, according to the ministry.

A witness interviewed on local television ORTM said he saw a man arrive on a motorcycle who "started shooting at the crowd" followed by "two or three people" who came in another vehicle.

The landlocked west African country has been fighting a jihadist insurgency for several years, with Islamist fighters roaming the north and centre of Mali.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who is scheduled to visit Bamako on July 2 for a meeting with five Sahel countries, "is following the situation very closely," the presidency told AFP Sunday.

- 'Increased threat of attacks' -

Several people rescued at Kangaba said assailants had shouted "Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest)", although no group has yet claimed responsibility.

The US embassy in Bamako had warned earlier this month "of a possible increased threat of attacks against Western diplomatic missions, places of worship, and other locations in Bamako where Westerners frequent".

At a France-Africa summit in Bamako in January, the owner of Kangaba, Herve Depardieu, had complained about the "alarming security information" given by foreign consulates "which seriously disturb our love of life and our freedoms".

In November 2015, gunmen took guests and staff hostage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in a siege that left at least 20 people dead, including 14 foreigners.

That attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda's North African affiliate Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

In March the same year, a grenade and gun attack on La Terrasse nightclub in Bamako killed five people, including foreigners.

The Kangaba, located on the eastern edge of Bamako, boasts accommodation in hut-style rooms, as well as restaurants and swimming pools, according to its website.

- State of emergency -

A state of emergency has been renewed several times since the Radisson Blu attack, most recently in April when it was extended for six months, but attacks are continuing.

An attack is under way at a resort on the edge of the Malian capital Bamako

In 2012 Mali's north fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda who hijacked an ethnic Tuareg-led rebel uprising, though the Islamists were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013.

But jihadists have continued to mount numerous attacks on civilians and the army, as well as on French and UN forces still stationed there.

The unrest has continued despite a 2015 peace deal between the government and Tuareg-led rebels offering partial autonomy to the north.

Sunday's attack is the latest in a series of high-profile assaults in north and west Africa, targeting locals and tourists.

In January 2016, 30 people were killed, including many foreigners, in an attack on a top Burkina Faso hotel and a nearby restaurant in the capital Ouagadougou. AQIM claimed the assault, saying the gunmen were from the Al-Murabitoun group of Algerian extremist Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

In November 2015, gunmen took guests and staff hostage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in a siege that left at least 20 people dead, including 14 foreigners

In March 2016, at least 14 civilians and two special forces troops were killed when gunmen stormed the Ivorian beach resort of Grand-Bassam, which was also claimed by AQIM.

The United Nations has a 12,000-strong force in Mali known as MINUSMA, which began operations in 2013.

It has been targeted constantly by jihadists, with dozens of peacekeepers killed, including five on Saturday.

France also has 4,000 soldiers in its Bakhane force in five countries -- Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso -- all of which are threatened by the jihadists across their porous borders.
President Donald Trump is railing on Twitter about the "witch hunt" against him, which he says distracts from his political agenda

One of Donald Trump's lawyers insisted Sunday that the president was not under criminal investigation as part of the sweeping probe into Russia's alleged meddling in American elections, despite the US leader's tweets angrily calling the whole saga a "distraction".

The contradictory messages came after Trump first answered -- and seemingly confirmed -- reports that he is personally under scrutiny for potential obstruction of justice, tweeting on Friday: "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt."

But Jay Sekulow, part of Trump's legal team, said the president was writing about reports of an investigation, not an actual probe.

"The tweet from the president was in response to the five anonymous sources purportedly leaking info to The Washington Post," Sekulow told NBC television's "Meet the Press."

"He's not afraid of the investigation -- there is no investigation... there is not an investigation of the president of the United States, period."

The lawyer also suggested Twitter's character limit may be partly to blame. "The president's response was as it related to the Washington Post report. He cannot in a Twitter statement include all of that in there... That's it. Simple explanation," Sekulow told CNN's "State of the Union."

Sekulow was referring to a report in the Post this week that said Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in November's presidential election was now also trying to determine whether Trump obstructed justice.

Trump's fledgling presidency has been battered by allegations -- being dissected both by Congress and the FBI -- that Russia interfered to sway the 2016 election in his favor, in possible collusion with the former real estate magnate's campaign team.

On Sunday, Trump again referred to the probe, but dismissed it as a "distraction."

"The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm, massive regulation cuts, 36 new legislative bills signed, great new S.C. Justice, and Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax Cuts in works!" he wrote.

Sekulow said his legal team had not received notice of any such probe into Trump.

"There has been no notification from the special counsel's office that the president is under investigation. In fact, to the contrary," he told CBS' Face the Nation, pointing to recent testimony by sacked FBI director James Comey who said the president had not been the target of an investigation. Trump fired Comey in early May.

- Tapes next week? -

Trump has hinted that he may have taped conversations with Comey -- in which the ex-FBI chief says the president pressured him for his loyalty and on the Russia investigation while also urging him to drop a probe into former national security advisor Michael Flynn.

Sekulow said Trump would address the issue of the tapes -- whose very existence have been the source of much speculation -- in the "week ahead."

Senator Marco Rubio, who lost the Republican primary election to Trump, called for a "full and credible investigation."

"If we want to put all this behind us, let's find out what happened, put it out there, and let's not undermine the credibility of the investigation, and so my view on it is that is the best thing that could happen for the president and for the country," he told CNN.

Rubio sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting its own probe into Russian election meddling.

"The president has strong feelings about it and (what) I would communicate to the White House and to the world through this broadcast is, let this thing work its way through, let it be thorough and complete so no one will have any doubt," Rubio added.

Fellow panelist Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, estimated that investigators are just 20 percent into their probe, which could last for months.

"I can say categorically that the collusion or cooperation aspect of the investigation is not over," the Maine senator told NBC's "Meet the Press," adding that the probe could be done by the end of 2017.

"This is a very complex matter, involving thousands of pages of intelligence documents, lots of witnesses. There's a lot of information yet to go."
This US Navy photo shows an F/A-18E Super Hornet in 2016

An American fighter jet on Sunday shot down a Syrian warplane that the US-led coalition said attacked its allies in the fight against the Islamic State group in the war-torn country.

The escalation comes as Syria's six-year-old war becomes ever more complex, with US forces and their allies converging on the northern IS bastion of Raqa in close proximity to Russian-backed regime troops.

Further complicating matters, Iran said it launched missile strikes Sunday against "terror bases" in Syria's northeastern Deir Ezzor province in revenge for deadly attacks on its capital claimed by IS.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces -- an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters -- is battling to oust the jihadists from Raqa, and broke into the IS stronghold city last week.

Government forces are not involved in the battle for Raqa, but they are advancing in an area southwest of the city, skirting around SDF fighters, their eyes set on the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor.

Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had attacked the SDF in Jaaydine, south of Tabqa

"Aircraft from the 'international coalition' targeted one of our fighter planes in the Resafa region of southern Raqa province this afternoon while it was conducting a mission against the terrorist Islamic State group," said the army.

It warned of "the grave consequences of this flagrant aggression".

The US-led coalition later confirmed it shot down the Syrian warplane it said had dropped bombs near SDF forces.

"At 6:43 pm (1743 GMT), a Syrian regime SU-22 dropped bombs near SDF fighters... in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defence of Coalition partnered forces, was immediately shot down by a US F/A-18E Super Hornet," the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement.

It said that two hours earlier, forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had attacked the SDF in Jaaydine, south of Tabqa, "wounding a number of SDF fighters and driving the SDF from the town".

Coalition aircraft stopped the advance of Syrian pro-regime troops with a "show of force," the coalition added.

- 'Aggression' -

The Syrian army said the "aggression" against it came as government troops and their allies made ground in the battle against IS "on several fronts in the badiya".

It was referring to a large stretch of desert that extends over some 90,000 square kilometres (35,000 square miles) from central Syria to the borders with Iraq and Jordan to the east and southeast.

Since 2015, much of the badiya has been held by the jihadist group, but Syria's army has been chipping away at it for months.

Smoke billows from buildings in the northern Syrian city of Raqa on June 18, 2017

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting broke out in two villages, Jaaydine and Shouwayhane, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Raqa.

The Observatory said the clashes came after regime troops had reached the edges of Resafa, also in the same area, as part of an offensive to reach Deir Ezzor.

"The regime is trying to reach the oil province of Deir Ezzor through Raqa," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The regime has lost control of many oil and gas fields since the start in 2011 of Syria's conflict, especially in the provinces of Homs and Deir Ezzor.

Most of the province is held by IS, including parts of the provincial capital, Deir Ezzor city, and the jihadists are besieging government-held parts of the city.

SDF fighters entered Raqa on June 6 after months of heavy clashes to encircle it, and the US-led coalition has been backing them with air strikes, equipment and special forces advisers.

Since then they have seized a few neighbourhoods, including one in the east and one in the west, and are battling to push into the Old City of Raqa.

An estimated 300,000 civilians were believed to have been living under IS rule in Raqa, including 80,000 who fled there from other parts of the country.

IS seized Raqa in 2014, transforming it into the de facto Syrian capital of its self-declared "caliphate".

- Iran retaliates -

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard said they fired Sunday "medium-range missiles" targeting "a terror base" in Deir Ezzor "in retaliation" for the June 7 attacks in Tehran claimed by IS.

A picture provided by the Iran's state TV official website shows Iranian Revolutionary Guards launching a missile from an undisclosed location in western Iran, towards Islamic State bases in Syria

Seventeen people were killed when gunmen and suicide bombers attacked the parliament complex and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the Iranian capital.

Iranian television showed footage of the missiles being launched into the night sky.

It was the first missile attack by Iran outside its own territory in 30 years, since the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, media in the Islamic republic reported.

Senior Iranian officials had put the blame on Riyadh after the attacks, saying Saudi Arabia was "promoting terrorist groups" in Iran, while the Guard vowed to avenge the bloodshed.

Iran has sent to Syria military advisers as well as thousands of "volunteer" fighters recruited among its own nationals, and among Shiite communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011 before turning into a complex war involving regional and international players.
United States' top envoy in Sudan, Steven Koutsis (L), meets with North Darfur deputy governor Mohamed al-Nabi on June 18, 2017, in the conflict-wracked region's capital Al-Fashir

The top US envoy in Sudan began Sunday a four-day trip to Darfur to assess security in the war-torn region as the UN prepares to downsize its 17,000-strong peacekeeping force.

The visit of Steven Koutsis, Washington's charge d'affaires in Khartoum, also comes just weeks before President Donald Trump's administration decides whether to permanently lift a two-decades old US trade embargo on Sudan.

A joint report sent to the UN Security Council last month by the African Union and the United Nations recommends that the ceiling set for military troops be cut by 44 percent and the maximum number of police reduced by 30 percent in the UNAMID force.

Ahead of the expected drawdown, Koutsis embarked on a visit to Darfur for a first-hand assessment of the situation in the region.

The envoy met several Sudanese and UN officials, as well as tribal chiefs, academics and members of civil society groups in the North Darfur capital of El-Fashir.

"We are now discussing with UN the restructuring of UNAMID," he told North Darfur deputy governor Mohamed al-Nabi at a meeting attended by an AFP correspondent in what is a rare visit by the international media to the conflict-wracked region.

"Now the responsibility will fall on local authorities to bring security to the state."

Nabi assured Koutsis that Sudanese security forces were equipped to tackle the security situation, but Koutsis expressed his "concern" over their ability at a separate meeting with academics and university students.

He said he was concerned "whether the local government and the national government are prepared to assume responsibility of providing security" to the people of Darfur.

Darfur has been engulfed in conflict since 2003, when ethnic minority insurgents mounted a rebellion against President Omar al-Bashir, complaining that his Arab-dominated government in Khartoum was marginalising the region that is of the size of France.

Bashir launched a brutal counter-insurgency, and the United Nations says that at least 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict and another 2.5 million have been forced to flee their homes.

Sudanese officials claim the conflict in Darfur has ended, but reports of fighting between government forces and rebels continue to emerge.

The cuts to the UNAMID force would result in major savings to the UN peacekeeping budget at a time when Washington is seeking to reduce its financial contribution to the blue helmets.

UNAMID has a budget of $1.04 billion per year, making it one of the UN's costliest missions along with the UN force in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Washington is expected to decide next month on whether to permanently lift its trade embargo on Khartoum imposed in 1997.

Before leaving office, president Barack Obama eased US sanctions, but kept Khartoum on a six-month probation period before Washington formally lifts the trade embargo.

The sanctions were imposed over Khartoum's alleged support for Islamist groups.

Late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was based in Khartoum from 1992 to 1996.
BERLIN (AP) - A new German party founded by the man who once dominated the nationalist Alternative for Germany has decided against running candidates in the national election after failing to make an impact with voters.

The Liberal-Conservative Reformers party emerged from the split in 2015 of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, after Frauke Petry beat Bernd Lucke to take the latter's leadership.

Economics professor Lucke dominated the early profile of AfD. Under new leadership, the party increasingly focused on opposition to migration and Islam.

Lucke's new party failed to attract significant support, though it has five of the seven European Parliament lawmakers originally elected for AfD. News agency dpa reported that a regional leader, Detlef de Raad, said at a congress Saturday the party decided against participating in the Sept. 24 election.
VATICAN CITY (AP) - The head of the Vatican's bioethics panel is defending the decision to name as a member an Anglican moral theologian who has said that abortion could be condoned up until the 18th week of gestation.

Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia spoke out Saturday after conservative commentators criticized the inclusion of Oxford University professor Nigel Biggar as a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Biggar, a noted Christian ethicist, was quoted as saying in 2011 that he would draw the line for abortion at 18 weeks, since that is "roughly about the earliest time when there is some evidence of brain activity, and therefore of consciousness."

In an interview with Italy's La Stampa, Paglia reaffirmed the Catholic Church's unwavering opposition to abortion. He said Biggar wouldn't engage in abortion debates as a member.
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - The latest on deadly explosion in upscale mall in tourist district of Colombia's capital (all times local):

9:25 p.m.

The biggest still active rebel group in Colombia is denying it had any role in a bombing that killed three people and injured nine others at an upscale mall in the capital.

Police officers and safety personnel stand at the entrance of the Centro Andino shopping center after and explosion rocked the place, in Bogota, Colombia, Saturday, June 17, 2017. Authorities reported one woman was killed and 11 people injured. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

Members of the National Liberation Army have carried out several recent attacks in Bogota, but the group said it was not involved in the explosion at the Centro Andino in the heart of the city's tourism zone.

Negotiators for the rebel group at peace talks say in a Twitter message that people shouldn't make "unfounded and reckless accusations." They say that could derail its negotiations with the government.

___

8:25 p.m.

Colombian authorities now say three people, including a French woman, have been killed in a powerful explosion at one of the busiest shopping centers in the South American nation's capital.

Officials say nine more people have injuries from Saturday's blast at the upscale Centro Andino in the heart of Bogota's tourist district.

Mayor Enrique Penalosa is calling it a "cowardly terrorist bombing."

Witnesses have told of being evacuated from movie theaters and stores after a blast in a second-floor women's' bathroom. Ambulances and firetrucks rushed to the scene and the injured were taken to a hospital, where two later died.
BAGHDAD (AP) - U.S.-backed Iraqi troops pushed into the last Islamic State stronghold in Mosul on Sunday, launching a major battle for the Old City where some 150,000 civilians are believed to be trapped and risk being used as human shields by the extremists.

The push for the Old City is the final major fight of an eight-month campaign to drive the militants from Iraq's second largest city. The extremists are expected to make their last stand in the densely populated quarter with narrow, winding alleys.

Iraqi special forces, the regular army and Federal Police are taking part in the operation to retake the Old City, said Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah, who commands army operations in Ninevah province.

FILE - In this Monday, June 8, 2009 file photo, residents walk past the tilted minaret of al-Nuri mosque in busy market area in Mosul, Iraq. U.S.-backed Iraqi troops pushed into the last Islamic State stronghold in the country's second largest city of Mosul on Sunday, an Iraqi commander said, formally launching the final major battle of an eight-month campaign. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)

Iraq state TV aired live footage showing thick black smoke rising from the Old City, with the sound of gunfire rattling inside. It said leaflets were distributed urging civilians to leave through five "safe corridors."

The International Rescue Committee called on Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition to "do everything in their power to keep civilians safe during these final stages of the battle for Mosul."

"With its narrow and winding streets, Iraqi forces will be even more reliant on airstrikes despite the difficulty in identifying civilians sheltering in buildings and the increased risk of civilians being used as human shields by ISIS fighters," said Nora Love, the aid group's acting country director, using another acronym for IS.

The Islamic State group captured Mosul when it swept across northern and central Iraq in the summer of 2014. Iraq launched a massive operation to retake the city last October, and has driven the militants from all but a handful of neighborhoods.

Love warned that the assault on the Old City could lead to even more civilian deaths than the hundreds killed so far in airstrikes across the rest of the city, as "the buildings of the old town are particularly vulnerable to collapse even if they aren't directly targeted."

Those who try fleeing to government-controlled areas risk being caught in the crossfire or targeted by IS snipers, Love added.

Gen. Abdel Ghani al-Asadi, the head of Iraq's special forces, told state TV he expects the extremists to put up a "vicious and tough fight." Al-Asadi said the troops "will be very careful" to protect the civilians.

The Old City is home to the centuries-old al-Nuri mosque, where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivered a Friday sermon in 2014 as his group declared an Islamic caliphate in the areas it controlled in Syria and Iraq. The militants have lost much of that territory over the last three years, and Mosul is their last urban bastion in Iraq.

Up to 150,000 civilians are believed to be trapped in the Old City, where the militants are using them as human shields, U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande told The Associated Press on Friday. She said conditions are "desperate," with little food and no clean water.
LONDON (AP) - The Latest on the London high-rise tragedy (all times local):

7:10 p.m.

Two British ministers say the cladding used in a renovation of Grenfell Tower may have been banned under U.K. building regulations.

A poster and flowers are left near Grenfell Tower in London, Saturday, June 17, 2017. Police Commander Stuart Cundy said Saturday it will take weeks or longer to recover and identify all the dead in the public housing block that was devastated by a fire early Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Experts believe the exterior cladding, which contained insulation, helped spread the flames quickly along the outside of the tower in the Wednesday morning blaze that has killed at least 58 people.

The government is carrying out an "urgent inspection" of roughly 2,500 similar tower blocks across the country to assess their safety.

Trade Minister Greg Hands and Treasury chief Philip Hammond said in separate TV appearances that the cladding used on Grenfell seems to be prohibited by British regulations. One opposition lawmaker urged the Conservative government and police to immediately seize all documents related to the tower renovation.

___

1:45 p.m.

Britain's trade minister says the exterior paneling used on the exterior of the London high-rise, in which dozens were killed in a fire, appears to have violated building rules.

Greg Hands told Sky News that "my understanding is that the cladding that was reported was not in accordance with U.K. building regulations. We need to find out precisely what cladding was used and how it was attached."

Experts say the cladding and the insulation it contained seems to have spread the flames quickly along the exterior of the building, overwhelming safety devices like fire doors.

Hands cautioned Sunday that investigators still don't know exactly what cladding was used when the building renovation was completed last year. The building was gutted by a fast-moving fire early Wednesday, claiming at least 58 lives.

___

1:10 p.m.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has attended a church service near the ruined London high-rise apartment building where at least 58 people perished.

The mayor and his wife Saadiya joined the congregation Sunday at St. Clement's Church near Grenfell Tower.

Flowers and posters of missing persons are still taped to the gates of the church, which has been used as a temporary shelter and gathering point for donations.

Khan is London's first Muslim mayor.

He says it may be necessary for many of the outmoded tower blocks built in the 1970s to be demolished because of safety concerns.

___

11:45 a.m.

A prominent British Labour Party lawmaker is calling for police and the government to seize all documents relating to the renovation of a London high-rise destroyed by a fire that killed dozens of its residents.

David Lammy said Sunday he is worried that documents will be quietly deleted and disposed of as police begin a search for evidence.

Lammy said that "the prime minister needs to act immediately to ensure that all evidence is protected so that everyone culpable for what happened at Grenfell Tower is held to account and feels the full force of the law."

He says tower residents who survived fear a cover-up will keep the truth from coming out. He says trust in the authorities is "falling through the floor."

Police have said criminal prosecutors will be pursued if there is evidence of wrongdoing. Attention has focused on materials used during the renovation process completed last year.

___

11:25 a.m.

The leader of Britain's main opposition party is calling for the government to take over empty homes for use by residents displaced by the London high-rise fire.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said Sunday the government has the power to take over empty apartments and offer them to the hundreds of Grenfell Tower residents left homeless in Wednesday' inferno.

He told ITV: "Occupy it, compulsory purchase it, requisition it - there's a lot of things you can do."

He said the situation has become an emergency and that "all assets" should be brought to the table.

The government is struggling to find temporary housing for people who lived in the 24-story tower. At least 58 people are believed to have died in the blaze.

___

9:40 a.m.

British officials say they are helping the Syrian family of the first officially confirmed victim of the London tower blaze to come to Britain.

The Home Office said late Saturday night it will make arrangements for the family of Mohammad Alhajali to "travel to the U.K. in these terribly sad circumstances."

The 23-year-old Alhajali is the only victim of the Grenfell Tower fire to be officially named as the difficult process of identifying human remains continues.

His family said in a statement that Alhajali "came to the U.K. because he had ambitions and aims for his life and for his family."

Police say at least 58 people are either confirmed or presumed dead, with the figure likely to rise in coming days.

Other victims have been named by their families.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and his wife Saadiya Khan arrive for a service at St Clements Church, near to Grenfell Tower in west London, Sunday, June 18, 2017. The British government Sunday scrambled to contain political fallout from the London high-rise inferno that has claimed at least 50 lives. The cause of Wednesday's blaze is still under investigation, but anger has mounted in the community amid reports that exterior paneling used in an extensive renovation completed last year may have spread the flames. (John Stillwell/PA via AP)

People take photos of Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn during a visit to the scene of the massive fire in Grenfell Tower, in rear, in London, Thursday, June 15, 2017. A massive fire raced through the 24-story high-rise apartment building in west London early Wednesday. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian Foreign Ministry has criticized President Donald Trump's decision to freeze a detente with Cuba and his verbal attack on the Caribbean island's leaders.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Sunday that Trump is "returning us to the forgotten rhetoric of the Cold War."

The statement says that "It's clear the anti-Cuba discourse is still widely needed. This can only induce regret."

FILE - In this Friday, June 16, 2017, file photo President Donald Trump speaks about Cuba policy in Miami. The Trump Organization dissolved subsidiaries created to pursue business opportunities in Qatar six days after Donald Trump was inaugurated as America's 45th president. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Despite Trump's campaign pledge to improve relations with Moscow, there has been no significant improvement in foreign policy cooperation between the two countries. Last week, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to back new sanctions on Russia.

Moscow maintains close ties with Havana, and in March signed a deal to ship oil to Cuba for the first time in over a decade.
BERLIN (AP) - Germany's foreign minister says there may now be a chance of a "soft" British exit from the European Union that keeps the U.K. in the bloc's single market, but is warning that Britain couldn't pick and choose its conditions.

Brexit negotiations start on Monday, with question marks over Britain's approach after Prime Minister Theresa May lost her parliamentary majority in an election meant to strengthen her hand in the talks.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told Sunday's Welt am Sonntag newspaper that "maybe there is now a chance to achieve a so-called 'soft Brexit.'" But he said staying in the single market would require Britain to accept EU workers' freedom of movement.

In this Wednesday June 14, 2017 photo German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel speaks during a press conference at the ministry of foreign affairs in Berlin, Germany. Gabriel and Austria's Chancellor Christian Kern have voiced sharp criticism of the latest U.S. sanctions against Moscow, Thursday, June 15, 2017, because they could affect European businesses involved in piping Russian natural gas to Europe. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

It also would have to accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, "or at least a joint court that is staffed by Europeans and Britons" and in principle follows the ECJ's rulings, Gabriel said.

For many Brexit advocates, those conditions would be impossible to accept as last year's referendum campaign focused on getting back control over laws and immigration from the EU.

Gabriel said "it would naturally be best if Britain didn't leave at all."

"It doesn't look like that at the moment," he added. "But we want to keep the door open for the British."

The center-left Social Democrat strongly criticized May's Conservatives, saying that they "played with the emotions of citizens in Britain, told fake news about Europe and left people unclear about what consequences this would all have."

Referring to the "difficult, even impossible situation" created by the indecisive election, he added: "here, those who created such chaos would have long since gone."

"We will negotiate fairly," Gabriel was quoted as saying. "And fair means that we want to keep the British as close as possible to the EU - but never at the price that we divide the remaining 27 EU states."
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's navy has conducted a joint exercise with a Chinese fleet near the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.

The official IRNA news agency said Sunday's drill included an Iranian warship as well as two Chinese warships, a logistics ship and a Chinese helicopter that arrived in Iran's port of Bandar Abbas last week.

It said the scheduled exercise came before the departure of the Chinese fleet for Muscat, Oman. It did not provide further details.

The U.S. navy held a joint drill with Qatar in the Persian Gulf on Saturday.

U.S. and Iranian warships have had a number of tense encounters in the Persian Gulf in recent years. Nearly a third of all oil traded by sea passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Southeast Asia's jihadis who fought by the hundreds for the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria now have a different battle closer to home in the southern Philippines. It's a scenario raising significant alarm in Washington.

The recent assault by IS-aligned fighters on the Philippine city of Marawi has left more than 300 people dead, exposing the shortcomings of local security forces and the extremist group's spreading reach in a region where counterterrorism gains are coming undone.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress last week a long-running U.S. military operation to help Philippine forces contain extremist fighters was canceled prematurely three years ago. Small numbers of U.S. special forces remain in an "advise and assist" role, and the U.S. is providing aerial surveillance to help the Philippines retake Marawi, an inland city of more than 200,000 people.

FILE - In this Friday, June 9, 2017 file photo, debris and smoke rises after a Philippine Air Force fighter jets bombed suspected locations of Muslim militants, in Marawi city, southern Philippines. Southeast Asia's jihadis who fought for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria now have a different battle closer to home in southern Philippines. It's a scenario raising significant alarm in Washington. The recent assault by IS-aligned fighters on the Philippine city of Marawi has left almost 300 people dead, exposing the shortcomings of local security forces and the extremist group's spreading reach. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

But lawmakers, including from President Donald Trump's Republican Party, want a bigger U.S. role, short of boots on the ground. They fear the area is becoming a new hub for Islamist fighters from Southeast Asia and beyond.

"I don't know that ISIS are directing operations there but they are certainly trying to get fighters into that region," said Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, using another acronym for the group. "We need to address the situation. It should not get out of control."

U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials note that IS has publicly accepted pledges from various groups in the Philippines. In a June 2016 video, it called on followers in Southeast Asia to go to the Philippines if they cannot reach Syria.

About 40 foreigners, mostly from neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia, have been among 500 involved in fighting in Marawi, the Philippine military says. Reports indicate at least one Saudi, a Chechen and a Yemeni killed. In all, more than 200 militants have died in the standoff, now in its fourth week.

Video obtained by The Associated Press from the Philippine military indicates an alliance of local Muslim fighters, aligned with IS, are coordinating complex attacks. They include the Islamic State's purported leader in Southeast Asia: Isnilon Hapilon, a Filipino on Washington's list of most-wanted terrorists, with a $5 million bounty on his head.

U.S. officials are assessing whether any of the estimated 1,000 Southeast Asians who traveled to Iraq and Syria in recent years are fighting in Catholic-majority Philippines. They fear ungoverned areas in the mostly Muslim region around Marawi could make the area a terror hub as in the 1990s.

Then, the Philippines was a base of operations for al-Qaida leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Yousef, who plotted in 1994-95 to blow up airliners over the Pacific. The plot was foiled. But the same men were instrumental in the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Other nations share the fear. Singapore recently warned of IS exerting a radicalizing influence "well beyond" what that of al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah ever mustered. Jemaah Islamiyah carried out major terror attacks around the region in the 2000s. IS already has been linked to attacks in Indonesia and Malaysia, and foiled plots in Singapore, this past year.

This month, Mattis told the region's defense chiefs that "together we must act now to prevent this threat from growing." In Congress this past week, he stressed intelligence sharing and nations like Singapore sharing the burden, rather than deploying U.S. troops.

More than 500 U.S. special forces were based in the Mindanao region from 2002 to 2014, advising and training Filipino forces against the Abu Sayyaf, a group notorious for bombings and kidnappings. When it ended, Philippine and U.S. officials voiced concern the U.S. withdrawal "could lead to a resurgence of a renewed terrorist threat," the RAND Corp. later reported. Months before the withdrawal, Abu Sayyaf pledged support to IS.

Supporting the Philippines isn't straightforward in Washington. President Rodrigo Duterte is accused of overlooking and even condoning indiscriminate killings by his forces in a war on drugs. Thousands have died. But that campaign has involved mainly police and anti-narcotic forces, not the military leading the anti-IS fight.

Still, the Philippine government is partly to blame for Marawi's violence, said Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia expert at the National War College. He said the root cause was the government's failure to fulfill a 2014 peace agreement with the nation's largest Muslim insurgency, which fueled recruitment for IS-inspired groups.

Ernst, who chairs a Senate panel on emerging threats, wants the U.S. military to restart a higher-profile, "named operation" helping the Philippines counter IS. The Pentagon retains between 50 and 100 special forces in the region. At the request of the Philippine military, it has deployed a P3 Orion plane to surveil Marawi. It gave more than 600 assault firearms to Filipino counterterrorism forces last week.

Duterte has retreated from threats to expel U.S. forces from the Philippines as he seeks better ties with China. He said recently he hadn't sought more U.S. help, but was thankful for what he was getting.

"They're there to save lives," Duterte said.

____

Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann in Washington and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

FILE - In this June 12, 2017, file photo, protesters stage die-in with a banner reading "Stop the killings" during a rally near the Presidential Palace to denounce the Martial Law declaration of President Rodrigo Duterte after Muslim militants laid a siege of Marawi city in southern Philippines for three weeks, in Manila, Philippines. Southeast Asia's jihadis who fought for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria now have a different battle closer to home in southern Philippines. It's a scenario raising significant alarm in Washington. The recent assault by IS-aligned fighters on the Philippine city of Marawi has left almost 300 people dead, exposing the shortcomings of local security forces and the extremist group's spreading reach. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the investigation into Russia's interference in the election and ties to Trump campaign associates (all times local):

9:20 p.m.

A member of President Donald Trump's outside legal team says the president isn't under federal investigation. The statement comes even though Trump himself has suggested that he is.

President Donald Trump and his son Barron Trump walk to Marine One across the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Saturday, June 17, 2017, en route to Camp David in Maryland. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The attorney, Jay Sekulow, appeared on several Sunday news programs to counter the impression that Trump has acknowledged he's become a target of the expanding Russia probe.

Last week, Trump sent a tweet referring to being the victim of a "witch hunt."

But Sekulow said repeatedly Sunday that "the president has not been and is not under investigation." He says the Trump tweet was specifically directed at a story in The Washington Post about the expanding probe into Russia's election meddling.

Sekulow says that Trump hasn't been notified of any investigation.

___

12:15 p.m.

Sen. Marco Rubio says it's best for the country to let the FBI's investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election take its course, and the Florida Republican tells CNN's "State of the Union" that's what he'd advise President Donald Trump.

Rubio says Trump firing former FBI Director James Comey hasn't impeded the FBI's or the Senate intelligence committee's investigations into Russia's role in the 2016 campaign.

Rubio says: "If it involved working with Americans, whether wittingly or unwittingly, that needs to be part of" the investigation.

Trump insists his campaign had nothing to do with Russian efforts to undermine credibility in the U.S. election. Rubio says it's important for the American people to know how the Russians interfered because we have more elections coming up.

___

10:30 a.m.

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee says the panel is looking forward to getting a response from the White House this week as to whether President Donald Trump has tapes of private conversations with fired FBI Director James Comey.

Rep. Adam Schiff says he wants the White House to acknowledge the tapes or make clear there are no tapes and "it was an idle threat."

The panel sent a bipartisan letter this month to White House counsel Don McGahn seeking an answer by this Friday. The committee also sent a letter to Comey asking for any notes or memos.

Schiff says if the panel can't get an answer then he believes a subpoena will be needed.

He spoke on ABC's "This Week."

___

9:30 a.m.

A member of President Donald Trump's outside legal team says the president is not under investigation, contradicting a recent tweet from Trump.

Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, attorney Jay Sekulow said the "president is not under investigation by the special counsel." He said Trump's statement on Twitter Friday was specifically in response to a story in The Washington Post about the expanding probe into Russia's election meddling.

The president wrote on Twitter: "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt." The message apparently referred to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general whose role leading the federal investigation has become increasingly complicated.

Sekulow said Trump "is not and has not been under investigation."

___

7:40 a.m.

President Donald Trump is beginning his day with a stream of tweets defending his record and lashing out at the investigation into Russian interference in the election.

In a two-part tweet posted before 7 a.m. Sunday, Trump wrote: "The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt."

He continued by saying: "Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm ...massive regulation cuts, 36 new legislative bills signed, great new S.C.Justice, and Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax Cuts in works!"

"Witch hunt' is how Trump characterizes the probe into Russia's election interference and possible ties to his campaign associates.

Trump advisers describe the president as increasingly angry over the investigation, yelling at television sets carrying coverage and insisting he is the target of a conspiracy.
BANGOR, Maine (AP) - Fewer of North America's Atlantic salmon are making it back to rivers to spawn, which bodes poorly for the future of the imperiled fish, an international conservation group says.

Atlantic salmon were once abundant in the rivers of New England and Atlantic Canada, but they are now endangered or have disappeared in parts of both areas. The salmon are born in rivers, swim to the Atlantic and return to their natal river to spawn.

The New Brunswick, Canada-based Atlantic Salmon Federation released a report this month that says total estimated returns of the fish to North America in 2016 was a little more than a half million salmon. That is a 27 percent decrease from the previous year.

FILE - In this April 2, 2012 file photo, Michael West holds on to a 4-year-old Atlantic Salmon at the National fish Hatchery in Nashua, N.H. The New Brunswick, Canada-based Atlantic Salmon Federation says total estimated returns of the fish to North America in 2016 was a little more than a half million salmon. That is a 27 percent decrease from the previous year. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)

The group says young salmon who spent only one winter at sea before returning to the river, called grilse, fared especially poorly last year. They returned at a rate nearly a third lower than 2015, the group said.

The salmon federation warns that signs show 2017 is looking like another poor year, said spokesman Neville Crabbe.

"What do we do? We've asked people to choose to kill fewer salmon," Crabbe said. "The long term solution is government to government agreements."

Atlantic salmon face a number of challenges in the wild, ranging from the presence of river dams to continued fishing pressure off of Canada and Greenland.

Crabbe said the changing environment of the North Atlantic has also impacted populations. Because of changes in availability of the fish they prey upon, the salmon have to exert the same amount of energy to eat the same amount of food, he said. That makes it more difficult for the fish to live long enough to make it back to rivers and spawn.

The salmon federation's report states that Greenland fishermen are catching fewer of the fish, which could be a signal of poor survival of salmon in the wild. Greenland fishermen caught less than half as many salmon last year as in 2015, the report states.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a recovery plan for Gulf of Maine salmon that calls for restored habitats, removal of dams and use of hatchery programs to try to rebuild the population. The Gulf of Maine's Atlantic salmon was listed an endangered in 2000 and has fallen sharply in population since the 19th century.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northeast Fisheries Science Center includes an Atlantic Salmon Ecosystems Research Team that tracks and studies the population. Tim Sheehan, a research fishery biologist with the team, said it's important to keep an eye on long-term trends in salmon population and not put too much stock in one year.

But Atlantic salmon are "still in pretty rough shape," said Dan Kircheis, a fisheries biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
CANTON, Ohio (AP) - The mother of a pregnant woman slain by her boyfriend, a former Ohio police officer, has forgiven the man and persuaded prison officials to allow the couple's surviving child to visit him behind bars.

Patty Porter, 70, also is working for the early release of Bobby Cutts Jr., The (Canton) Repository reported (http://bit.ly/2seSWpa ).

"I think he's been broken, and I think he has allowed God to heal him," Porter told the newspaper.

FILE - In this Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008, file photo, Bobby Cutts Jr., left, talks with his attorney Fernando Mack after the jury recommended a sentence, in Canton, Ohio. Cutts was convicted of killing Jessie Davis and their unborn daughter. Davis' mother has forgiven Cutts and persuaded prison officials to allow her daughter's surviving son to visit his father behind bars. (Scott Heckel/The Canton Repository via AP, Pool, File)

Cutts was sentenced to life in prison in 2008 for the murder of 26-year-old Jessie Davis and their unborn daughter. He left behind their son, Blake, now 12 and in Porter's care.

The former Canton City police officer testified that he elbowed Davis in the throat during an argument in their home in Stark County's Plain Township.

Porter grappled with her daughter's death after Cutts' trial. She thought about Cutts serving his prison sentence as she took care of his son. Porter said a spiritual moment convinced her to forgive him. She said she believes forgiveness will help both her and her grandson heal.

Porter began writing letters to Cutts at her grandson's request. After two years, she convinced prison officials at Toledo Correctional Institution to allow Blake to visit his father.

Blake was about 6 when he first visited Cutts after the boy's counselor endorsed the idea. Porter later was able to get regular visits approved with the help of politicians and civil rights activists.

Cutts' chances of an early release are unlikely, but Porter is still hopeful. She said Blake needs his father.

"I felt like he had to go (to prison)," she said. "But now when Blake needs his dad in his life, he's the one that suffers the most."

Porter is hoping Cutts will be released by the time Blake graduates from high school.

___

Information from: The Repository, http://www.cantonrep.com
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - An uptick in attacks by Afghan National army soldiers against foreign troops would seem a worrisome trend ahead of the deployment of another 4,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the latest attempt by Washington to turn around the protracted war against insurgents.

Two so-called insider attacks, in which a soldier in an Afghan National Army uniform turns his weapon on foreign troops, in as many weeks have killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded another seven.

Insider attacks have been occurring with deadly regularity since 2011. According to an April report by the Modern War Institute at America's West Point it was in 2011 that "insider attacks became the preferred war-fighting tactic of the Taliban, an organization that understood well how to apply limited resources for maximum effect."

FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016 file photo, New members of the Afghan National Army attend their graduation ceremony at the Afghan Military Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan. An uptick in attacks by Afghan National army soldiers against foreign troops would seem a worrisome trend ahead of the deployment of another 4,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the latest attempt by Washington to turn around the protracted war against insurgents. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

The report says since 2007, insider attacks have killed 157 NATO personnel and 557 members of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. But it also blames many attacks against foreign troops on what it calls cultural friction, where Afghans become infuriated by a perceived insult.

In June alone there were two separate attacks on U.S. soldiers by Afghans wearing an Afghan army uniform. In March another insider attack killed three U.S. soldiers. In April, Taliban fighters dressed in Afghan army uniforms passed through several security rings to enter a base in northern Afghanistan's Balkh province and kill as many as 140 Afghan soldiers.

The attacks come as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to bolster Washington's presence in Afghanistan to stem the violence and the Taliban's military advances, particularly in rural areas of the country, and largely in the south and the east. But the emergence of an affiliate of the Islamic State group has created a sense of urgency to turn the war around.

WHAT HAVE THE LATEST INSIDER ATTACKS LOOKED LIKE AND WHAT DO THEY SAY ABOUT INSURGENTS' ABILITY TO INFILTRATE?

The diverse locations of the two most recent insider attacks shows the depth of reach now available to insurgents, with one attack taking place in eastern Nangarhar province and the second in northern Afghanistan's Balkh province.

Eastern Nangarhar province is understood to be one of the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan, where both the Taliban and the upstart IS affiliate operate. It also borders neighbor Pakistan and has been the scene of the heavy fighting and where the United States last month dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal. The target was the IS affiliate.

In the deadliest attack in Achin in eastern Nangarhar province, three U.S. soldiers were killed when an Afghan soldier emptied his automatic rifle in their direction. There was no earlier indication of his intent. He was also killed.

The most recent attack which took place Saturday occurred in northern Afghanistan where the Taliban have been making inroads, moving beyond their traditional support base in the south and east of Afghanistan.

When the Taliban announced the start of their spring offensive they took particular aim "on foreign forces, their military and intelligence infrastructure and in eliminating their internal mercenary apparatus." They said one of the tools they would employ to carry out their strategy would be insider attacks. Since the start of their spring offensive three insider attacks have occurred, compared to the two carried out last year.

WHAT MIGHT PROMPT AN AFGHAN ARMY SOLDIER TO TURN HIS WEAPON ON FOREIGN TROOPS WHO ARE IN AFGHANISTAN AS ALLIES AND TO PROVIDE MILITARY SUPPORT?

The report by West Point's Modern War Institute entitled "Dress Like Allies, Kill Like Enemies" said the reason for insider attacks is a mix of "cultural friction" that results in a perceived insult and Taliban infiltration. A second report done in 2011 by U.S. military psychologists and behavioral scientists, who interviewed dozens of Afghan and American soldiers, discovered a dramatic cultural disconnect, with most Afghan soldiers feeling mistreated and insulted by their American allies.

According to that report, A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility, Afghans "found many US. soldiers to be extremely arrogant, bullying, unwilling to listen to their advice, and were often seen as lacking concern for civilian and ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) safety during combat."

The same report said the perception of U.S. soldiers toward their Afghan allies was equally unflattering. U.S. troops accused their Afghan allies of "pervasive illicit drug use, massive thievery, personal instability, dishonesty, no integrity, incompetence, unsafe weapons handling, corrupt officers . . high AWOL rates, bad morale, laziness (and) repulsive hygiene." They were equally unflattering of civilians whom they said were often sympathetic toward insurgents.

The 2017 report by West Point's Modern War Institute would indicate that little has changed, saying that 40 percent of the 102 insider attacks that occurred between 2007 and 2016 was the result of a personal grievance, while 25 percent the result of Taliban infiltration.

Still there does appear to be attempts to bridge the divide and reduce easy access by insurgents with a much improved vetting process for Afghan soldiers entering the army and stepped up efforts to build relationships and reduce cultural understandings on both sides.

___________

Gannon reported from Islamabad, Pakistan.

FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016 file photo, new members of the Afghanistan's National Army march during their graduation ceremony at the Afghan Military Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan. An uptick in attacks by Afghan National army soldiers against foreign troops would seem a worrisome trend ahead of the deployment of another 4,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the latest attempt by Washington to turn around the protracted war against insurgents. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Mar. 15, 2016 file photo, Afghanistan's National Army soldiers stand guard, following weeks of heavy clashes to recapture the area from Taliban militants in Dand-e Ghouri district in Baghlan province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan. An uptick in attacks by Afghan National army soldiers against foreign troops would seem a worrisome trend ahead of the deployment of another 4,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the latest attempt by Washington to turn around the protracted war against insurgents. (AP Photos/Massoud Hossaini)

FILE - In this Thursday, Aug. 4, 2016 file photo, an Afghan soldier, left, and a U.S. soldier guard during a visit of Kabul's officials, in the governor's compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan. An uptick in attacks by Afghan National army soldiers against foreign troops would seem a worrisome trend ahead of the deployment of another 4,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the latest attempt by Washington to turn around the protracted war against insurgents. (AP Photos/Massoud Hossaini)
ATLANTA (AP) - An auction raising money for the human rights organization founded by Jimmy Carter will include a four-poster bed designed by the former president.

The annual event raises money for The Carter Center, which is based in Atlanta. The auction is part of a four-day retreat to be held this year near Lake Tahoe, Calif. from June 21 to 25.

Other items up for bid include three paintings by Carter, a navy-blue blazer Carter wore at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, guitars signed by Van Halen and Elton John and a private concert by Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary.

Last year, the event raised a record-breaking $3.7 million for the organization that Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, formed in 1982.
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - A look at major attacks in West Africa by Islamic extremists in recent years:

MARCH 2016: An assault along the beach in Ivory Coast's resort town Grand Bassam left at least 19 dead. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the attack, identifying the three attackers as members of al-Mourabitoun and Sahara units.

___

JANUARY 2016: Extremists attacked a cafe near a hotel popular with foreigners in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, killing at least 30 people. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Mourabitoun claimed responsibility for the attack.

___ NOVEMBER 2015: Jihadists attacked the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako, killing at least 20 people. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Mourabitoun claimed responsibility for that attack, saying it was their first joint attack since al-Mourabitoun joined al-Qaida's North Africa branch in 2015.

___

MARCH 2015: An attack at La Terrasse restaurant in Bamako, Mali killed five people including a French citizen and a Belgian national. Al Mourabitoun, or The Sentinels, a northern Mali jihadist group allied with al-Qaida, quickly claimed responsibility. It was the first of its kind in Bamako.
An arts centre has apologised for any distress caused by a loud fireworks display which sparked panic in the capital, just days after the London Bridge attack and the Grenfell Tower disaster.

Somerset House said the display was not organised by the institution, but was linked to a private event taking place in its grounds.

Members of the public went online to voice their distaste for the loud show of celebration late on Friday, with some passers-by fearing another terrorist atrocity was taking place.

Fireworks over the Thames. (Lewis Whyld/PA)

Lilly Roberts, 29, who works for the front of house team at the nearby Novello Theatre, told the Press Association she saw five or six members of the public running down the street in panic.

We are very sorry for the distress caused by fireworks in the River Thames near to Somerset House last night pic.twitter.com/bIbKqB4B8V  Somerset House (@SomersetHouse) June 17, 2017

She said: I just heard this almighty crash.

Obviously, with everyone being on a bit of tenterhooks from the attacks a couple of weeks ago, the first thing I thought was Oh my God.

Ive heard fireworks but Ive never heard them that loud before. There were some people running up the street away from the explosion, because I guess they thought the same thing about the explosions: that we were under attack.

Ms Roberts said the horrible bangs appeared to be emanating from Somerset House.

Pls enough with the fireworks London, the building echos do not make them sound fun pic.twitter.com/wK3uEbV55V  Matt 'TK' Taylor (@MattieTK) June 16, 2017

Footage from eyewitnesses confirmed the scale of the display, which featured multicoloured bursts of colour and rapid-fire gunshot noises over the Thames.

Twitter user Alison Hamilton tweeted: Fireworks from a private event in London. I find that incredibly distasteful in light of what has happened over the past few weeks here.

Another user, Harry Barrett, also criticised the event, and said: Of all the times to spontaneously set off fireworks in central London, this is absolutely not it.

A spokeswoman from Somerset House said: We are very sorry for the distress caused by fireworks in the River Thames near to Somerset House last night.

These were not organised by Somerset House, but were linked to a private event taking place here.

Of all the times to spontaneously set off fireworks in central London, this is absolutely not it  Harry Barrett (@HTHBarrett) June 16, 2017

The event organisers sought all the correct permissions for the fireworks from the relevant authorities. However, we regret that their plans for the evening were not sufficiently reviewed in light of the tragic recent events in the city.

We know this is a time of great sorrow, sensitivity and pain for Londoners and everyone at Somerset House stands in solidarity with all those affected.

Eight people lost their lives in an attack on nearby London Bridge and Borough Market on June 3, which followed further atrocities in Westminster and Manchester earlier this year.

At least 30 people have now died as a result of a devastating fire in the Grenfell Tower apartment block in north Kensington on Wednesday, although authorities say the figure is expected to rise significantly.
Republicans who murdered and secretly buried a Co Down teacher more than 30 years ago snuffed out a life of many wholesome qualities, his funeral has heard.

Family and friends of Seamus Ruddy  a Disappeared victim of the Northern Ireland Troubles whose remains were recovered in a French forest last month  finally got the chance to say farewell at the service in his home city of Newry.

The 32-year-old was found at Pont-de-lArche, near Rouen in northern France.

An order of service during the funeral of Seamus Ruddy (Niall Carson/PA)

Mr Ruddy was abducted in Paris in 1985 by the republican paramilitary group the INLA. He was murdered and then secretly buried.

In his homily, Bishop John McAreavey told the funeral mass at St Catherines Cathedral in Newry that his family had suffered years of not knowing.

He said: Whatever about the circumstances of his death, one thing is certain  his death represented the snuffing-out of a life that had many wholesome qualities. It also cut off the promise of a new life in France.

A family account of that time refers to letters and phone calls from Seamus, visits to him and plans to visit. And then, the account states, there was nothing.

Mourners outside the church in Newry (Niall Carson/PA)

Ahead of burying Mr Ruddy in Monks cemetery in Newry, where his parents John and Molly lie, his relatives were supported at the funeral service by the families of other Disappeared victims.

Anne Morgan, the teachers sister, said the other Disappeared relatives now felt like part of her family. She also thanked everyone who had been involved in the long search, saying: We will be forever grateful to you all.

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains (ICLVR) recovered Mr Ruddys remains.

The ICLVR was set up during the peace process by the UK and Irish governments to find the bodies of those secretly buried, mainly by the IRA, in the 1970s and 1980s.

The funeral took place in Newry (Niall Carson/PA)

Three of the 16 Disappeared victims are still to be recovered. The remains of Columba McVeigh, Joe Lynskey and Robert Nairac have yet to be found.

Candles representing those three victims were carried to the front of the cathedral at the start of the service.

Prayers were said for their families; for the ICLVR team; and for the individual or individuals who provided the information to the commission that led to the recovery of Mr Ruddys body.

Sinn Fein MP Mickey Brady, a childhood friend of Mr Ruddy, was among the hundreds of mourners.

Mr Ruddy was a former member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP)  the political wing of the INLA. It is believed he was murdered amid a dispute with INLA members about an arms dump.
The brother of a woman missing alongside her young son following the Grenfell Tower blaze has gathered with friends to pay tribute to her.

Zainab Dean, who was in her 14th floor flat with her son Jeremiah, two, when the fire broke out in the early hours of Wednesday morning, is described as a beautiful, loving lady.

A few dozen people, some carrying flowers and wearing T-shirts featuring a picture of the 28-year-old and her son, walked along Bramley Road in west London, singing songs including Amazing Grace. When they were in sight of the remains of the tower, some pointed and shouted we shall overcome before breaking into song again.

Friends of Zainab Dean gathered near Grenfell Tower (Victoria Jones/PA)

The group then walked towards a spot nearby where candles have been lit and messages left on heart-shaped paper, where one woman described Ms Dean, originally from Sierra Leone, as a beautiful, loving lady.

Francis Dean, Ms Deans brother, was too upset to speak. Members of the UKs Sierra Leone community travelled from Manchester and Birmingham to take part, a friend, Isha Thomas, said.

She said Ms Dean had been on the phone to her brother from the 14th floor flat in which she was living with Jeremiah as the fire raged. She said she believed Ms Dean was following advice not to leave the building, adding: She was on the phone to her brother until four in the morning.

She added: We are just devastated. I just want them (authorities) to answer. We need answers, we need to know what happened.

Ms Thomas, who knows Ms Dean through the City of Light evangelical ministry in Brentford, said the family have been checking hospitals but have heard nothing. She said: Im hopeful, I have to be hopeful.
The Home Office has assisted the family of Grenfell Tower victim Mohammad Alhajali in making arrangements for their travel to the UK.

The 23-year-old Syrian refugee was the first fatality of the disaster to be formally identified by police.

More than 85,000 people have signed a petition calling for his parents to be granted visas for the UK so they can attend his funeral.

Mohammad Alhajali was the first victim to be formally identified (Metropolitan Police/PA)

A Home Office spokesman said on Saturday: We made contact with Mr Alhajalis family yesterday and assisted them in making arrangements for their travel to the UK in these terribly sad circumstances.

The petition was set up by family friend Mirna Suleiman, 26, who had been ringing around numerous hospitals, rest centres and the casualty helpline for news of his fate before discovering he had not made it out alive.

She chose to launch the campaign because as someone with Syrian family herself, she knows how difficult it is to obtain a visa for visits.

The Syria Solidarity Campaign posted on Facebook: Were very pleased to announce that the family of Mohammad Alhajali received visas to come to the UK for Mohammads funeral.

Its not the kind of reunion anyone would have wanted, but we know it will be comforting for the family as they grieve for the loss of Mohammad together.

Mr Alhajalis family said in a statement: Mohammad was a very amazing and kind person. He gave love to everyone. He came to the UK because he had ambitions and aims for his life and for his family.

#Breaking Family of Syrian refugee Mohammad Alhajali, 23, who died in Grenfell Tower disaster, pay tribute to "very amazing and kind person" pic.twitter.com/MwITY3HqCi  PA Media (@PA) June 17, 2017

Our whole family will miss Mohammad dearly and he will never be forgotten. To God we belong and to him we return.

Mr Alhajalis older brother Omar  who was with him in the flat  survived the fire after they were separated on the way out.

The percentage of rejected visa applications for visits from Syria has soared after the countrys devastating civil war began in 2011.

But the Home Office has established processes which allow it to consider visa applications outside the Immigration Rules on compassionate grounds.
Pamela Anderson has penned an online love letter to Julian Assange, branding Theresa May the worst Prime Minister in living memory and calling for the WikiLeaks founders release.

The former Baywatch star also calls on world leaders, and China, to intervene and help free Mr Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for almost five years.

She said there is no longer any reason to keep Mr Assange trapped in a small room now Sweden has dropped its case against him.

Why My Heart Stands With Julian https://t.co/Je0HVoVLum  Pamela Anderson (@pamelaanderson) June 17, 2017

Anderson continues: But Theresa May  who kept him imprisoned in the embassy for 5 years  refuses to allow him to leave. Theresa May, who is on her last legs. Theresa May of the pyhrric victory (sic).

Theresa May, who wont shake the hand of the victims of the Grenfell fire. Who doesnt care about poor people. Who doesnt care about justice or peace. Who doesnt care about Julian. The worst Prime Minister in living memory.

Anderson also invites French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte to the July opening of her new restaurant in France, and asks him to grant Mr Assange asylum.

Pamela Anderson outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London (Jonathan Brady/PA)

Anderson uses the letter to address Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and highlights their mutual compassion for animals, while stating Mr Assange should be given compensation.

To Mr Corbyn, she said: I have watched the recent UK election with great interest. I have cheered the turn in your partys fortunes! You are clearly a decent and fair man.

Anderson describes the US government as the ultimate bully, a superpower, with 1,200 military bases all around the world.

Pamela Anderson calls Theresa May "the worst Prime Minister in living memory" https://t.co/hsXeMMqDyP pic.twitter.com/zIygzdM6om  WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 17, 2017

In the letter posted on pamelaandersonfoundation.org, the ex-playboy model gushes over how his bravery and courage make Mr Assange sexy.

She signs it: I love you, Pamela.

Anderson was spotted delivering lunch to Mr Assange at the embassy in October last year and then again in February this year, saying she was concerned about his health and his family.

She later wrote about him on her blog in a long message which was accompanied by a photo of him, saying: My relationship with Julian  its no secret. He is one of my favourite people and he might be the most famous, most politicised refugee of our time.
These are some of the key players in negotiations over Britains withdrawal from the European Union:

UK

Getting Brexit right is crucial to our childrens future. From jobs to our schools, everything depends on securing the best Brexit deal. pic.twitter.com/Xe7n6ugZmV  Theresa May (@theresa_may) June 3, 2017

The Prime Ministers legacy will be defined by whether she makes good on her promise to make a success of Brexit. But the disastrous outcome of the June 8 snap election, which left her without a majority in the House of Commons, has raised doubts over whether she will even be able to see the two-year process through.

Critics argue she is in a weak position to fight Britains corner against EU counterparts who question whether her writ still runs in Westminster. She will not take part in day-to-day negotiations but is expected to set Britains approach and have the final say on any compromises or concessions.

: The Brexit Secretary will lead the negotiations for the UK and Mrs May will hope he lives up to his reputation as a charming bastard  staunchly Eurosceptic but with the ability to win people round to his argument.

His initial bullish stance has been tempered with experience in Government and he has already acknowledged it could take years and years to bring immigration down, and suggested the UK may have to pay for access to the single market.

Britain's Ambassador to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow hand delivered the Brexit letter to Donald Tusk (Alex Britton/PA)

Britains ambassador to the EU will be expected to gather information on the 27s thinking and feed it back to Mrs May, including on where there could be chinks in the armour for the UK to exploit. He will be under pressure as the replacement of the highly-experienced Sir Ivan Rogers, who announced his shock resignation with accusations the Government was suffering from muddled thinking over Brexit.

: Senior Whitehall mandarin who will co-ordinate the officials involved in day-to-day negotiations. A former principal private secretary to Labour prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the career civil servant was later deputy national security adviser before being appointed permanent secretary of Mr Daviss Department for Exiting the EU in July 2016.

Hi folks, here's my reaction to the Prime Minister's fantastic speech on Brexit pic.twitter.com/BzYrizwISp  Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) January 17, 2017

The Foreign Secretary may need to watch his mouth and avoid a repeat of his insulting claims that Italy should back a generous deal for the UK to avoid losing sales of its prosecco sparkling wine.

EU:

Michel Barnier will lead the EU side of negotiations (Bryan Meade/PA)

The hardball European Commission chief negotiator will be across the table from Mr Davis and has already been established as a something of a villain for Brexiteers.

The Frenchman has been given a mandate by the leaders of the remaining EU27 states to focus initially on the key elements of the withdrawal package  a multi-billion euro divorce bill, rights for EU citizens and the status of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. A second phase of talks on future trade relations will follow only after they are satisfied that sufficient progress has been made on these issues.

Mr Barnier has said he wants to conclude a deal with the UK, not against the UK and insists any exit bill will not represent a punishment, but a calm assessment of financial commitments the UK has undertaken.

: Mr Barniers deputy, a trilingual German-born trade specialist who studied English literature, political science and economics at university, and spent time as a student at Cambridge. She has risen through the ranks of the European institutions, serving as an adviser to former Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and appointed a deputy director-general in 2016.

We don't know when Brexit talks start. We know when they must end. Do your best to avoid a "no deal" as result of "no negotiations". #GE2017  Charles Michel (@eucopresident) June 9, 2017

The European Council president will be a key mediator between the other 27 EU leaders for the duration of the negotiations. Well-liked and respected by both sides, the Pole will attempt to keep the EU27 united in the face of British attempts to curry favour among individual allies.

So far, he has been successful in that job, making clear the European single markets four freedoms, including free movement, are indivisible and forcing Mrs May to confirm her intention to pull the UK out to get control of immigration.

: The European Commission president will not be directly involved in talks and his spokesman has said he is unlikely to spend more than half an hour a week on Brexit. However, it seems unlikely he will be able to resist public comment on the Brexit process, which he has described as a tragedy.

If Britain changes its mind, it will find an open door. But it will be a new door to a new Europe. Watch my speech: https://t.co/pMhiocsPQ8 pic.twitter.com/dsj7QmYNl3  Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) June 15, 2017

Another scoundrel in the eyes of Eurosceptics, the European Parliament Brexit co-ordinators role will grow as the talks near their end because MEPs will have a veto over any final deal.

The arch-federalist former Belgian PM, who this year published a book calling on EU states to forge a more perfect Union, warned last week Britain could lose its rebate and opt-outs if it changes its mind and decides to stay.

: Europes main power-broker could play a key role in shaping the EUs overall approach but her stance may be coloured by domestic electoral considerations, with federal elections scheduled for September.

Le Royaume-Uni lance aujourd'hui le processus du #Brexit. Je recois en ce moment le maire de Londres @SadiqKhan. pic.twitter.com/lVeRcyc1gl  Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) March 29, 2017

The new French President is a fervent European who has made clear that he sees Brexit as an opportunity for the remaining 27 states to relaunch a reformed and improved EU  and for France to poach bankers, academics and other talented people from the UK. He told Theresa May last week that the door remains open for the UK to reverse its Brexit decision, but said backtracking would become more difficult the longer talks go on.
Theresa Mays Cabinet and party colleagues have broadly given her backing during a series of TV interviews.

Philip Hammond refused to say how long he believes Theresa May will remain in number 10, despite suggestions she had side-lined her Chancellor during the snap election campaign.

Asked how long Mrs May had left in number 10, he told BBC Ones Andrew Marr Show: I think what the country needs now is a period of calm while we get on with the job at hand. Theresa is leading the Government and I think the Government needs to get on with its job.

Theresa May and Philip Hammond during a general election campaign event (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Commons leader Andrea Leadsom, who challenged Mrs May for the leadership before pulling out of the race, also refused to be drawn on the PMs future.

Asked when the right time for her to go would be, Ms Leadsom told BBC Ones Sunday Politics: That is absolutely a statement I would utterly reject. You cant see into the future. We have seen a lot of change in recent weeks and months.

The Prime Minister has done a fantastic job in bringing the country back to a good place since shes been the leader and the Prime Minister. She is absolutely determined to continue and she has the backing of her party.

London Minister Greg Hands dismissed reports that Tory MPs had told Mrs May she had 10 days to save her position, saying the party was united in its support of the Prime Minister.

"She's very personally affected by this disaster," Minister for London @GregHands says about Theresa May's response to #GrenfellTower #Ridge pic.twitter.com/010lTdBZU0  Sophy Ridge on Sunday & The Take (@RidgeOnSunday) June 18, 2017

He told Sky News Sophy Ridge on Sunday: I dont recognise that. Ive not heard this and what I did see on Monday when Theresa May addressed the whole parliamentary party in the House of Commons was a party united and in support of our Prime Minister, getting on with the job of delivering a programme for government, which we will see on Wednesday in the Queens Speech, starting the Brexit talks tomorrow.

There is a lot going on, dealing with the consequence, dealing with the immediacy of the Grenfell Tower fire. All of these things of course, there is quite a lot in the in-tray, but the Prime Minister is getting on with it.

Meanwhile, former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who was forced out as Conservative leader in 2003, said Tory colleagues should back Mrs May to prevent Jeremy Corbyn from becoming PM.

"We need stability, we don't need silly people in Tory Party trying to tell people what they're going to do," says Iain Duncan Smith #Ridge pic.twitter.com/HPWxnenzgW  Sophy Ridge on Sunday & The Take (@RidgeOnSunday) June 18, 2017

The reality is we need stability now, we dont need silly people in the Conservative Party with big mouths and small brains running around the place trying to tell everybody what they are going to do, he told Sky News Sophy Ridge on Sunday.

Former Tory minister Robert Halfon, who was axed from his frontbench role after the election, backed Mrs May but said the Conservatives need a fundamental change in their vision to win back voters.

.@Halfon4Harlow responds to his comments from earlier this week about the Conservatives "being on death row" #Ridge pic.twitter.com/QkP6Tx0a3D  Sophy Ridge on Sunday & The Take (@RidgeOnSunday) June 18, 2017

Speaking to Sky News Sophy Ridge on Sunday, he said: We could have Alexander the Great, we could have the Archangel Gabriel as leader of the Conservative Party, but unless we fundamentally change and work out what we stand for, show people that we are on the side of the most disadvantaged, show people that we are the real workers party in terms of wages, in terms of jobs and skills in terms of welfare, in terms of rights, in terms of workers services like energy bills, then we wont achieve what we want to do whoever is the leader.
Formal negotiations on the terms of Brexit finally begin on Monday, some 361 days after the EU referendum of June 23 2016.

It is also 82 days after Theresa May sent a letter formally notifying the European Council of Britains intention to withdraw.

(PA graphic)

What is the timeline from now on?

Brexit Secretary David Davis and European Commission chief negotiator Michel Barnier open negotiations in Brussels.

Brexit Minister David Davis will sit down with Michel Barnier (PA)

Issues on the table will include the status of EU citizens in the UK and of British people living in continental Europe, as well as the Northern Irish border and the size of any divorce bill  estimated at anything up to 100 billion euro (88 billion).

The EU insists that phase one of talks will focus only on the terms of withdrawal, and not on a future trade relationship.

The Queens Speech sets out details of extensive UK Government legislation required to put Brexit into effect, expected to include a Great Repeal Bill bringing EU laws and regulations onto the British statute book, as well as bills on issues including immigration and customs.

Mr Barnier reports back to the leaders of the EU27, who are expected to endorse a process for relocation of EU agencies currently based in the UK.

The meeting comes ahead of a two-day summit of the European Council on June 22 and 23, attended by all 28 leaders including Theresa May, which is due to focus on migration and security.

Negotiations on the Brexit deal expected to continue in Brussels, with the Davis and Barnier teams meeting for one week in each month, before returning to base to report back and develop their positions.

Good and substantial discussion with @PHammondMP on #Brexit. UK intentions becoming clearer, getting there remains tricky. pic.twitter.com/IetiI470c9  Martin Schulz (@MartinSchulz) January 19, 2017

German federal elections could see Angela Merkel replaced as Chancellor by former European Parliament president and staunch federalist Martin Schulz, who once called for the creation of a genuine European government.

Mr Barnier is set to report back to the EU27 on whether sufficient progress has been made to move on to phase two of the talks, covering the UKs future trade relationship with the remaining EU. The Prime Minister will attend a two-day European Council summit in Brussels.

If talks are proceeding to plan, negotiators can be expected to be meeting regularly to iron out remaining issues and identify the points of difference to be settled by political leaders at the highest level.

They are likely to be discussing the possibility of a transition period following Brexit during which new trade arrangements can be finalised and phased in, in order to prevent a cliff-edge move to the new model.

English local government elections will provide the Prime Minister with her first widespread electoral test since the disastrous snap election of June 8 2017.

Mr Barnier hopes to be able to conclude withdrawal negotiations around this point, in order to allow time for them to be ratified before the end of the two-year Article 50 deadline.

With your support, I can get the best Brexit deal  and deliver my plan for a stronger Britain. pic.twitter.com/hVRz4659D9  Theresa May (@theresa_may) May 29, 2017

The European Court of Justice could be asked to rule on whether the deal requires approval by each EU state. If so, it could have to be ratified by up to 38 national and regional parliaments, with any of them effectively holding a veto.

Mrs May has promised MPs a take it or leave it vote on whether to accept the deal or take Britain out of the EU without agreement and fall back on World Trade Organisation rules.

The Westminster vote will take place before the European Parliament debates and votes on the deal, effectively giving MEPs the final say on whether it will go ahead.

Two years after the invocation of Article 50, the UK ceases to be a member of the EU and is no longer subject to its treaties, whether or not a withdrawal agreement has been reached.

Because the exact moment of exit is midnight Brussels time, the UK is due to leave at 11pm on March 29.

This date can be extended by agreement between all member states. It is not yet clear whether the exit clock can be stopped by the UK withdrawing its Article 50 notification.

The EU insists that a trade deal can only formally be adopted after withdrawal, though the UK hopes this will happen very swiftly, with necessary negotiations completed before Brexit day.

If no trade deal has been reached by this point, UK-EU relations could be governed by a transitional arrangement for some months or years. Even if a trade agreement has been sealed, it could be introduced gradually during an implementation phase after Brexit.

European Parliament elections will take place without the UK.
Google has ramped up its efforts to tackle online terrorism with the introduction of four new steps to address the problem.

The internet giant acknowledged that the threat poses a serious challenge and more immediate action needs to be taken.

Google pledged four additional steps in the fight against online terrorism  better detection of extremist content and faster review, more experts, tougher standards, and early Intervention and expanding counter-extremism work.

(Dominic Lipinski/PA)

In a blogpost, Kent Walker, senior vice president and general counsel at Google, said: Terrorism is an attack on open societies, and addressing the threat posed by violence and hate is a critical challenge for us all.

Google and YouTube are committed to being part of the solution. We are working with government, law enforcement and civil society groups to tackle the problem of violent extremism online.

There should be no place for terrorist content on our services.

While we and others have worked for years to identify and remove content that violates our policies, the uncomfortable truth is that we, as an industry, must acknowledge that more needs to be done. Now.

Googles engineers have developed technology to prevent re-uploads of known terrorist content using image-matching techniques.

Google will devote more engineering resources to apply its most advanced machine learning research to train new content classifiers to help identify and remove extremist and terrorism-related content more quickly.

(John Stillwell/PA)

Google will increase the number of independent experts in YouTubes Trusted Flagger programme.

It will expand this programme by adding 50 expert NGOs that it will support with operational grants.

It will also expand its work with counter-extremist groups to help identify content that may be being used to radicalise and recruit extremists.

The company will take a tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate its policies.

In the future, videos such that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content will appear behind an interstitial warning and they will not be monetised, recommended or eligible for comments or user endorsements.

Google-owned Youtube will expand its role in counter-radicalisation efforts. Its approach targets online advertising to reach potential Islamic State recruits, and redirects them towards anti-terrorist videos that can change their minds about joining.

Google is also working together with Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter to establish an international forum to share and develop technology and support smaller companies and accelerate our joint efforts to tackle terrorism online.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper welcomed the pledges.

Yvette Cooper

She said: This is a very welcome step forward from Google after the Home Affairs Select Committee called on them to take more responsibility for searching for illegal content.

The Select Committee recommended that they should be more proactive in searching for  and taking down  illegal and extremist content, and to invest more of their profits in moderation.

News that Google will now proactively scan content and fund the trusted flaggers who were helping to moderate their own site is therefore important and welcome though there is still more to do.
Players from all competing nations have lit up the Champions Trophy this month.

Here, we select its elite composite XI

Fakhar Zaman (Pak)

Fakhar Zaman hit a century in the final

A revelation with two successive 50s and then a century in the final, in only his fourth one-day international - less than two weeks after his debut, at the age of 27. Where has he been?

Shikhar Dhawan (Ind)

The tournaments leading runscorer is a must at the top of the order. He and his opening partner Rohit Sharma bestrode the campaign almost throughout, until they fell foul of Mohammad Amir in the final.

Tamim Iqbal (Ban)

Has to come in down at three in this line-up - but after starting with a century against England, very nearly following up against Australia and then doing his best to keep Bangladesh competitive in their semi-final against India too, his weight of runs keeps him in the mix.

Joe Root (Eng)

That is a record run chase in the Champions Trophy! #EngvBan #CT17@root66 finishes on 133* - what an innings  pic.twitter.com/1rigWMJ27u  England Cricket (@englandcricket) June 1, 2017

The Yorkshiremans unbeaten hundred engineered Englands successful 300-plus run chase in the opening match. He comes in slightly out of position too here, but definitely makes the cut.

Virat Kohli (Ind)

Amir did for him in the final, and there was a duck along the way too. But three unbeaten half-centuries were fair evidence of the India captains habitual world-beating status.

Ben Stokes (Eng)

The England all-rounders career-best century made mincemeat of Australia at Edgbaston, as his counter-attack alongside Eoin Morgan ended the tournament for Steve Smiths men. Stokes is go-to with the ball as well after recovering his fitness following a knee injury.

Sarfraz Ahmed (Pak, cap & wkt)

Sarfraz Ahmed celebrates after catching India's Jasprit Bumrah out to win the match during the Champions Trophy final

You have to pick the winning captain. Sarfraz is an exemplary presence behind the stumps, and he kept Pakistan in the reckoning as he rode his luck for a winning hand against Sri Lanka in Cardiff.

Mohammad Amir (Pak)

Amir batted with nous and skill to help Sarfraz clinch the deal after Pakistan stuttered in the chase against Sri Lanka. But it is for his impact on the final - pure theatre with two huge wickets in his first two overs, and another following pretty swiftly - that the brilliantly talented left-armer is primarily included.

Junaid Khan (Pak)

No spinner gets in this team - Englands Adil Rashid arguably comes closest - and the finalists dominate selection. Junaid was the consistent wicket-taker who helped Pakistan find their feet mid-tournament.

Hasan Ali (Pak)

13 - Hasan Ali took 13 wickets in #CT17 (at an average of just 14.7); 4 more than any other bowler. Star. pic.twitter.com/E8IZrkRKgV  OptaJim (@OptaJim) June 18, 2017

The resourceful seamer accelerated South Africas slide at Edgbaston, and his skilful variations were a banker option for Sarfraz in some of the toughest overs.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar (India)

No one got hold of Indias most reliable bowler at any stage, and Kumars figures of 10-2-44-1 were a remarkable outlier in Pakistans total of 338 for four in the final.
Residents who met the Prime Minister in Downing Street following the Grenfell Tower fire have criticised estate managers of the building as having been invisible in the aftermath of the tragedy".

The group, made up of victims, residents, community leaders and volunteers, said they were grateful to Theresa May for listening to their concerns but demanded real action and immediate results moving forward.

In a statement to the Press Association they criticised Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation for its reaction to the disaster.

The group said: In our meeting at Downing Street, we explained to the Prime Minister the anger of all residents towards the management of the estate over a long period of time, paving the way to this tragedy.

With the exception of very few junior officers, the estate managers have been invisible in the aftermath of the tragedy.

The group, which spent two-and-a-half hours with Mrs May on Friday and Saturday, hit out at the longstanding neglect of council buildings in the area.

Grenfell Tower fire timeline

It said: We are devastated by this tragedy. We are angry about the inadequacy of the response and the longstanding neglect of our buildings by the council and building management.

We are grateful to the Prime Minister for listening to us and for the assurances she has given us but now we need to see real action and immediate results with centralised coordination of the relief effort with residents closely involved.

The Government must also take a serious look at the neglect and chronic underfunding of social housing over decades.

They added that local residents should be consulted at all stages and that we should be listened to in dealing with the fallout from the tragedy.

People look at tributes near Grenfell Tower in west London

Shortly after Saturdays meeting, Downing Street released a strongly-worded statement in which the Prime Minister said support in the immediate aftermath of the fire was not good enough.

Mrs May, who has since ordered more boots on the ground at the scene, is said to have welled up after hearing harrowing accounts from people caught up in the fire.

One of those emotional stories was given by an 11-year-old girl who was evacuated from a nearby block and attended the meeting at Number 10.

The group said her plea to Mrs May that survivors of the atrocity have the final say on what happens with the site in the future was agreed at the meeting.
Islamic extremists who stormed a resort area in Mali popular with foreigners killed five people, including a Portuguese soldier who had been serving in the EU mission to stabilise the West African country beset by mounting extremism.

The death toll rose after a Malian soldier who was wounded in the Sunday afternoon attack died of his injuries.

Three civilians  a Chinese citizen, a Malian and a French-Gabonese dual national  were also killed in the worst terror attack to strike Bamako since late 2015.

"EU men and women in uniform are already serving to fight against terrorism in many parts of the world" @FedericaMog #Bamako pic.twitter.com/js7NIzBjwJ  European External Action Service - EEAS  (@eu_eeas) June 19, 2017

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the Malian victim worked for the European delegation in Bamako.

The attack struck a resort area that was considered safe enough that it was an approved rest and recreation location for soldiers with the EU mission.

It was not immediately clear how the attackers managed to overpower the security staff and shoot at guests.

Fire can be seen by the swimming pool of the Campement Kangaba after suspected jihadists attacked the hotel resort in Mali's capital (Baba Ahmed/AP)

Malis special forces arrived on the scene not long after the reports of gunfire erupting from Campement Kangaba, known for its three swimming pools and serene surroundings as an escape from the bustling capitals heat and traffic.

Initially the countrys security minister said one of the wounded attackers had managed to escape but on Monday officials said they had accounted for all the jihadists.

At this hour, all of the terrorists have been killed. The situation is under control, Malis security minister Salif Traore said.

A sign points to the Campement Kangaba hotel resort, near Bamako (Baba Ahmed/AP)

Witnesses described a chaotic scene on Sunday afternoon, with one man saying the first jihadist on the scene arrived by motorcycle, shouting Allah Akbar.

Three others subsequently arrived in a vehicle and began firing their weapons.

One of the attackers was subdued by a French soldier who happened to be at Campement Kangaba on the weekend.

A Malian fire department vehicle is stationed outside a tourist resort near Bamako, Mali, after suspected jihadists attacked the resort in Mali's capital (Baba Ahmed/PA)

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which took place amid the final week of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

However, the attack resembled a number of others carried out by the local affiliate of al Qaida in West Africa over the past two years.

It was not immediately known how the attackers managed to breach security at Campement Kangaba, where officials from the EU and UN missions as well as members of the French military were spending time.

Sundays violence also came about a week after the US state department warned of possible attacks on Western diplomatic missions and other locations in Bamako that Westerners frequent.

Religious extremism in Mali was once limited to northern areas, prompting the French military in 2013 to lead a military operation to oust jihadis from power in the major towns in the north.

But the militants have continued targeting Malian forces and peacekeepers, making it the deadliest UN mission in the world.
VIENNA, June 18 (Reuters) - A staff worker for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent relief organisation was wounded in an attack on a humanitarian convoy near Damascus, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement on Sunday.

Air strikes hit rebel-held districts east of Damascus on Thursday for the first time in weeks after shells landed in parts of the capital controlled by the Syrian government.

Fighting and bombardment around Damascus have eased significantly since Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed a deal for "de-escalation zones" around Syria in an April meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan. Talks between different Syrian and foreign factions are due to take place early next month.

"The 37-truck convoy from the ICRC, Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the United Nations was to deliver food, medicine and daily essentials to 11,000 people in the town of East Harasta," the ICRC said.

The aid worker was seriously wounded in a shooting that took place in on Saturday evening, it said.

"Residents in East Harasta have not received any humanitarian aid for nearly eight months. Renewed security guarantees are needed in order to proceed with this planned aid delivery."

After six years of war between President Bashar al-Assad and rebels seeking to oust him, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and more than half the country's pre-war population made homeless. (Reporting By Shadia Nasralla and Stephanie Nebehay, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
BEIRUT, June 18 (Reuters) - Iran and China began a joint naval exercise in the Gulf on Sunday, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

The military drill comes at a time of heightened tension between the Iranian and U.S. military in the Gulf and is likely to be a cause of concern for Washington.

In recent months, the U.S. navy has accused the Iranian navy of sending fast-attack boats to harass warships as they pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

An Iranian destroyer and two Chinese destroyers are among the vessels that will participate in the exercise, which will take place in the eastern portion of the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman, according to IRNA. Some 700 Iranian navy personnel will be participating in the drill.

Two Chinese warships docked at Iran's Bandar Abbas port to take part in a joint naval exercise in the Gulf for the first time in 2014. (Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh, editing by Larry King)
By Robin Emmott and Angeliki Koutantou

BRUSSELS/ATHENS, June 18 (Reuters) - Greece has blocked a European Union statement at the United Nations criticising China's human rights record, a decision EU diplomats said undermined efforts to confront Beijing's crackdown on activists and dissidents.

The EU, which seeks to promote free speech and end capital punishment around the world, was due to make its statement last week at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, but failed to win the necessary agreement from all 28 EU states.

It marked the first time the EU had failed to make its statement at the U.N.'s top rights body, rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said.

A Greek foreign ministry official said Athens blocked the statement, calling it "unconstructive criticism of China" and said separate EU talks with China outside the U.N. were a better avenue for discussions.

An EU official confirmed the statement had been blocked.

Presented three times a year, the statement gives the EU a way to highlight abuses by states around the world on issues that other countries are unwilling to raise.

The impasse is the latest blow to the EU's credentials as a defender of human rights, three diplomats said, and raises questions about the economically powerful EU's "soft power" that relies on inspiring countries to follow its example by outlawing the death penalty and upholding press freedoms.

It also underscores the EU's awkward ties with China, its second-largest trade partner, diplomats said.

Brussels has welcomed Beijing as an ally against U.S. President Donald Trump in the fight against climate change and trade protectionism. But as business ties grow, the bloc is struggling to speak out against a Chinese government crackdown on human rights lawyers and other activists since 2015.

China's COSCO Shipping, owner of the world's fourth-largest container fleet, took a 51 percent stake in Greece's largest port last year.

Hungary, another large recipient of Chinese investment, has repeatedly blocked EU statements criticising China's rights record under communist President Xi Jinping, diplomats said.

One EU diplomat expressed frustration that Greece's decision to block the statement came at the same time the International Monetary Fund and EU governments agreed to release funds under Greece's emergency financial bailout last week in Luxembourg.

"It was dishonourable, to say the least," the diplomat said. (Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Mark Potter)
By Tova Cohen

TEL AVIV, June 18 (Reuters) - Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved a new law banning the sale of binary options overseas by online trading firms based in Israel, a business that has drawn broad international criticism over allegations of illicit practices.

The proposed amendment to the country's securities law was drawn up by the Israel Securities Authority (ISA) and other government offices and submitted to the cabinet by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon.

It now heads to parliament, where it is expected to be fast-tracked, giving it priority over other bills, an ISA spokeswoman said.

The draft law also prohibits any type of trading forum that sells to overseas clients - even if they do not offer binary options - without receiving a licence from the country where clients reside.

Breaking the law will be punishable by up to two years in prison and if money laundering is involved, punishment could reach 10 years in prison.

"Beyond the severe economic harm to citizens around the world, marketers of binary options are increasingly causing reputational damage and inflaming anti-Semitism towards Jews and Israelis," ISA Chairman Shmuel Hauser said in a statement.

Israeli regulators have received many complaints regarding losses suffered by binary option traders in various countries, the statement said.

Binary options involve placing a bet on whether the value of a financial asset - a currency, commodity or stock - will rise or fall in a fixed timeframe, sometimes as short as a minute.

Israel already banned the domestic sale of binary options last year, the first country to do so.

The owner of an Israeli binary options firm was arrested on suspicion of fraud and extortion last month after an investor abroad reported losses of more than $500,000 to the online company, the first arrest since authorities announced a crackdown.

A Reuters special report published in September shed light on the rapid rise of the industry in Israel. London-based lawyers said hundreds of their clients were duped out of vast sums of money by some Israeli firms. More than 100 operators are estimated to be based in Israel, a technology hub.

Investors have accused some of these Israeli companies of transferring money between accounts without approval and in some cases of preventing them from withdrawing their own funds. (Reporting by Tova Cohen, editing by Louise Heavens)
PARIS, June 18 (Reuters) - Japan brought its first passenger aircraft in half a century to the Paris Airshow, confirming it is on track for first delivery in mid-2020 and hoping to show potential customers the progress it has made.

The 90-seat Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) is Japan's first commercial aircraft in 50 years but it has been delayed five times and is facing rising costs.

"We have brought it here to demonstrate that the plane is making good progress," Shunichi Miyanaga, the president and chief executive of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, told journalists at the Paris Airshow on Sunday.

He said he did not expect to announce any orders at the show but would be speaking to many potential customers.

Yugo Fukuhara, vice president of sales and marketing at Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp, said he hoped Swedish leasing company Rockton, which last year signed for up to 20 of the MRJ planes, would help market the jet to European customers.

Europe is the second largest market for regional aircraft after the United States.

"There are a lot of regional jets still operating in Europe and we have some great opportunity to replace those with the MRJ," he told Reuters.

The MRJ, which is on static display at the air show, was delayed for two more years in January to redesign its wiring and meet the requirements for certification by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp has now brought French company Latecoere on board to introduce new wiring, Alex Bellamy, senior director of the programme management office at Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp, said.

When asked whether it could be delivered sooner, Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp president Hisakazu Mizutani said the company was aiming for mid 2020 but was working hard to bring the technology forward.

Launch customer ANA, which has resorted to leasing jets and pushing back the retirement of older aircraft while its awaits the delayed MRJ, said on Sunday it remained committed to the programme.

"As an airline, we are completely ready to receive it," Osamu Shinobe, vice chairman of ANA Holdings, said. (Reporting by Victoria Bryan Editing by Louise Heavens and Mark Potter)
MILAN/ROME, June 18 (Reuters) - Italy has ruled out the idea of winding down two struggling lenders in the northern Veneto area, a source said on Sunday, following a report Brussels was set to tell Rome it could not use direct state support to rescue them.

"The Treasury excludes any suggestion of a banking resolution," a Treasury source said.

According to La Stampa daily the European Commission will tell Italy in coming days it cannot inject public money to rescue Veneto Banca and rival Banca Popolare di Vicenza.

Citing sources at the Italian Treasury and EU institutions, the newspaper said Rome's plan of using a precautionary recapitalisation to save the two lenders by using more than 5 billion euros ($5.6 bln) of public funds was no longer viable.

Instead the branches and assets of the two banks would be hived off into a "good" bank while the non-performing loans would be placed in a "bad" bank, it said.

A spokesman for the Commission said he could not confirm the report. "The Commission and the Italian authorities are working closely together to ensure a viable solution".

Rome has been trying for months to reach an agreement over a bailout to avoid their liquidation.

Talks with the European Commission have dragged on because Brussels wants private investors to pump 1.25 billion euros into the banks before any taxpayer money can be used to avert them being wound down.

But La Stampa said Rome had failed to find lenders willing to provide the private capital requested by the Commission.

It said talks with Italy's main banks in recent days had spoken of a resolution - the EU procedure to wind down a failing lender - of the two Veneto lenders and their sale at a symbolic price.

Earlier this month European authorities stepped in to avert a collapse of Spain's Banco Popular following a run on the bank, orchestrating a last-minute rescue by Santander.

La Stampa said it was still not clear who might buy the performing assets of the two Veneto lenders but said talks were most advanced with Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo.

However it cautioned that Italy's biggest retail bank was concerned about stretching its balance sheet and jeopardising dividends, adding that any acquisition might prompt the European Central Bank to ask for a capital increase.

The Italian Treasury and Intesa Sanpaolo were not immediately available for comment.

Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said on Friday he was confident a solution for the two banks could be reached soon. ($1 = 0.8933 euros) (Reporting by Stephen Jewkes and Giuseppe Fonte, additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Brussels and Paola Arosio in Milan, editing by Louise Heavens and Susan Fenton)
By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, June 18 (Reuters) - Hamas played down on Sunday the possibility that the energy crisis in the Gaza Strip would lead to renewed hostilities with Israel and said relations between the Islamist group and Egypt were improving.

"We in Hamas do not initiate wars and we do not expect one, this is our political assessment," Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas's deputy leader in the Gaza Strip, told reporters in Gaza. The two adversaries have fought three wars, most recently in 2014.

"We do not expect war because we are not interested and the occupation also say they are not interested," he said, using the group's term for Israel.

Tensions over power supplies in recent weeks have led to speculation there could be a new conflict between the two sides.

Israel said last week it would reduce electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is pressing Hamas to relinquish control of the enclave seized in 2007, limited how much it pays for power to the area.

The decision was expected to shorten by 45 minutes the daily average of four hours of power that Gaza's 2 million residents receive from an electricity grid dependent on Israeli supplies, the officials said.

The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority blamed Hamas's failure to reimburse it for electricity for the reduction in power supplies.

Separately, a Palestinian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Sunday that Cairo had agreed in talks last week with a Hamas delegation to sell the group fuel to get the Gaza Strip's sole power station back online.

Fuel for the small plant ran out two months ago, and a resumption of operations could give Gazans power for eight hours a day.

There was no immediate word from Egyptian officials on whether a deal had been struck, and Hayya declined to confirm any agreement.

He said Hamas's newly elected Gaza leader, Yehya al-Sinwar, had met in Cairo with Egyptian officials and discussed securing the frontier with Egypt's Sinai peninsula, where Islamist State fighters have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers.

Egypt has accused Hamas of aiding the militants, an allegation the group denies, and has kept its border crossing with the Gaza Strip largely closed. Israel also maintains tight restrictions along its frontier with the enclave.

Hamas-appointed security chief Tawfiq Abu Naeem, one of the delegates to Cairo, recently toured the Egyptian border and issued new orders to tighten security there.

"Securing borders is a joint interest. We are keen and we have the determination and the ability to prevent any harm to reach out for Egypt from Gaza," Hayya said. (Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Susan Fenton)
DUBAI, June 18 (Reuters) - Qatar will not cut off gas to the United Arab Emirates despite a diplomatic dispute and a "force majeure" clause in its contract, the chief executive of Qatar Petroleum told Al Jazeera network, two weeks after some Gulf Arab states severed ties with Doha.

CEO Saad al-Kaabi said that although there was a "force majeure" clause in the agreement on the Dolphin gas pipeline, which links Qatar's giant North Field with the UAE, Qatar would not stop supplies for other reasons.

"The siege we have today is a force majeure and we could close the gas pipeline to the UAE," he said.

"But if we cut the gas, it does great harm to the UAE and the people of the UAE, who are considered like brothers ... we decided not to cut the gas now," he told the Doha-based channel in an interview aired on Sunday.

The Dolphin gas pipeline links Qatar with the UAE and Oman and pumps around 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day to the UAE.

The chief executive of Sharjah National Oil Corp said earlier on Sunday he did not expect flows of natural gas from Qatar to the United Arab Emirates to be interrupted by the diplomatic dispute in the region. (Reporting by Sylvia Westall in Dubai and Ali Abdelaty in Cairo; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Following a request made by the President Maithripala Sirisena during a discussion held on Saturday (17) Laboratory Officers have initiated a programme where most essential tests for dengue patients such as Full Blood Count (FBC), Dengue Antigen or Antibody tests will be carried out within a very short period of time in order to make sure that the ever increasing number of dengue patients get treated on time. This programme will come into effect from Wednesday (21) a statement issued by the Sri Lanka Society for Medical Laboratory Science (SMLS) today said.

SLMS President Ravi Kumudesh said the recent dengue outbreak differs from what they experienced previously as the dengue mosquito Aedes aegypti characteristic adjustments has changed the symptoms of disease.

He said previously FBC test was performed after 3 days where they mainly check the platelet count of the patient as the platelets gradually decrease, however, during the recent outbreak in most cases Laboratory Officers identified the platelet count descends rapidly within two days.

It has become a huge burden to the hospitals to treat these Dengue patients with the limited facilities available. Following the President's intervention we decided to establish a separate laboratory in each hospital located in areas where the dengue epidemic exists, he said.

Further he said the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) and the Negombo District General Hospital had been inundated with dengue patients. These hospitals are overcrowded already. In these hospitals there are more dengue patients than hospital beds. So it is clearly an epidemic situation in those areas. So far we dont have the necessary personnel and equipment to face this grave situation. However we will carry out our task continuously until the situation improves, he said.

According to the programme Mr. Kumudesh said the patient would be sent for a FBC test before he was channelled to a doctor - making it that much easier for the doctor to determine whether that particular patient should be admitted to a hospital or not. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)
The Police were investigating into politicians' statement, which was seen as inciting racism and create communal disharmony, Police Spokesman DIG Priyantha Jayakody said today.

He said that legal action would be taken against such politicians under the instruction of the Attorney-General.

Speaking at a press briefing DIG Jayakody said total of 14 individual had been arrested in connection with the incidents based on racism.

The suspects were arrested in connection with several incidents that had taken place in Panadura, Kurunegala, Eluvila and Weeraketiya.

A monk and a police constable were also among the arrested, he said.

The Spokesman said the Police were also investigating several complaints received relating to the social media.

He said a special Police unit was investigating such incidents.

We would obtain Attorney Generals instruction in connection against individuals who incite racism and violence trough social media, he said.

DIG Jayakody also said that strict action would be taken against any individual or group, who were involved in stirring racial tensions and incidents of insulting religions.

Commenting on Bodu Bala Sena General Secretary Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera, DIG Jayakody said that investigations were underway to arrest the Thera.

He said that legal action would be instituted against any individual found to be hiding Gnanasara Thera, for aiding and abetting in inciting racial violence. (Darshana Sanjeewa)

Video by Buddhi
More than 7,000 motorists have been charged for violating lane rules in Colombo and its suburbs since June 12, the Police said today.

The Police launched special traffic operations on June 12 to arrest the drivers who violated lane rules in Colombo and its suburbs.

They said a total of 7,456 motorists were charged for violating lane rules during operations.

Meanwhile 1,674 motorist were also charged for traffic violations such as driving under the influence of liquor and reckless driving.

Police said the operation would continue in the future.

Earlier, Police said that they will issue a charge sheet or legal action to be taken on drivers who drove carelessly neglecting the lane law.
US president Donald Trumps new restrictions on trade and travel in Cuba overhaul his predecessor Barack Obama's Cuba policy.

The clarion call to reject the Cuban people's oppressors at Miami's Little Havana showed irrational politics which does not keep pace with contemporary realities.

The goal is to stop the flow of US cash to the country's military and security services. This is a lethal blow on Cuba's government in a bid to suppress oppression and promote human rights.

Those who ignore the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat it. Clampdown on trade and travel, if history has a lesson to teach, has never done any good.

Learning from the 1959 phase, a small nation like Cuba, has seen its society commit to renew its economic and social apparatus. Sadly, the US has imprisoned ties in the past, with no efforts to learn from the bygone.

Attempts to conduct diplomacy as per the failed outlook of the Cold War, disregarding its own dismal human right records in Guantanamo Bay, fails to augur well in a world which has challenged traditional notions of power and security.

If the reversal towards Cuba is based on acting tough against the oppressor, then will the US act to put an embargo on Kazakhstan or Egypt or Saudi Arabia also?

What the earlier Cuban ban did was to justify suppression of dissent on its soil. Its people saw the US using its economic and geographical might as an enemy of humanity. This forcible evangelising or capitalist pursuit for economic expansion and harassment against national limits only left one resolve for Cuba - use socialism to crumble imperialism.

People-to-people contacts generated new ideas. By cutting off flights, Trump will not be able to derail this progress and has rather taken American foreign affairs a step backward. The Texas aviation industry and Republican agrarian states shall be the most affected. All it will lead to is Cuba having less dependence from American revenue.

Cuba is itself going through a leadership change. If the US was sincere in its fight for rights and democracy, it should have enabled things that support change. It is evident that Trumps instinct for isolation is growing each day.

Post-Castro, Cuba is ready to embrace new change and not let past atrocities define them. Trump is the first US president of the post-Castro era, but sadly, instead of fostering new partnerships, he has squandered this historic moment.

Trump is overturning his predecessor Obama's policies.

This also comes as part of his initiative to restore American glory by upholding segregation as a norm, as is seen in snapping of ties with NAFTA and pulling out of the Paris Agreement.

The Vietnam War displayed the spirit of ordinary people against military might; in this present scenario all are wondering whether the US will be able to dampen the spirit of the Cubans who have firmly resolved to overcome this blockade. China and Russia may rather fill in this vacuum in the context of the emerging hostility towards Cuba.

Jobs, safe borders and fight against terrorism are the planks that got Trump the top job, and Cuba too wants that now. Obamas efforts for normalisation of ties may not have done enough good but will sanctions alone be good for those in exile and dissidents?
Quang Nam is coordinating with other localities to promote culture and beach tours. This is the theme of an exhibition called Cultural Heritage of Vietnams Sea and Islands as part of the 6th Quang Nam Heritage Festival.

A ba trao chant, sung at local festivals to pray for safe and productive fishing, was rehearsed by a group of fishermen from Phu Yen province to be performed at the exhibition at Tam Thanh square in Tam Ky.

Huynh Van Minh, a member of the Phu Yen ba trao club, said, Ba trao chant praises the physical strength of fishermen. The chant, which accompanies whale worshipping festivals in most of Vietnams coastal areas, has been preserved for generations. It encourages coastal residents to embrace and honor offshore fishing despite its hardships.



The Phu Yen fishermen were joined by fishermen from 15 other localities to extol their coastal culture through art performances.

The exhibition featured photos, documents, and ancient maps describing Vietnams sea and islands throughout history. 19 royal documents from the Nguyen dynasty confirm Vietnams sovereignty over the Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelagoes.

The 16 localities participating in the exhibition were showcasing their cultural heritage, beach tours, costumes, and food and craft specialties.

Truong Cong Ly, Deputy Director of the Culture Center of Ba RiaVung Tau province, told VOV, Our exhibition focuses on provincial development from the time when the southern area was reclaimed until now, when Ba RiaVung Tau province becomes a regional economic hub. We wanted to introduce the traditional festivals of local residents, whose fortunes have improved thanks to the sea and local tourism development.

In Quang Nam province the sea is not only the main source of income but is also closely associated with a diverse culture. Quang Nam province is widely known for Hoi An ancient town, Ha My fishing village, Cua Khe fish sauce village, and other handicraft villages.

Dinh Hai, Director of the Quang Nam provincial Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, said, Quang Nam province initially relied on its marine economy. The sea is the root of local culture, spiritual life, and social development. This exhibition is expected to help uphold the younger generations responsibility to preserve Vietnams sea and island culture./.
He was welcomed by Chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee Cao Van Trong, who briefed him on the localitys socio-economic development situation.

The Cuban NA leader spoke highly of Ben Tres socio-economic development achievements and operation experience of the local Peoples Council, Deputy Delegation and political and social organisations.

Chairman of the Cuban National Assembly Juan Esteban Lazo Hernandez attends ceremony

to inaugurate and rename the Luong Hoa kindergarten the Moncada kindergarten (Source: VNA)



Speaking at the working session, Vietnamese NA Vice Chairwoman Tong Thi Phong stressed the significance of the visit to Vietnam and to Ben Tre in particular by Cubas top legislator, saying it shows the time-honoured friendship and high political trust between the two countries.

Earlier, the guest attended a ceremony to inaugurate and rename the Luong Hoa kindergarten in Luong Hoa commune, Giong Trom district the Moncada kindergarten.

On January 9th, 1984, the provincial People Committee decided to choose Luong Hoa commune to twin with Cuba and call it Moncada village. Moncada is where the Cuban revolution against the dictatorship of Batista began.

Meanwhile, the Hinba Bonita cow farm in Moncada was named Ben Tre village.

The naming, initiated by President Fidel Castro and general Nguyen Thi Dinh, reflects the solidarity between the two nations./.
At the meeting, the President said he was moved to meet the Vietnamese volunteer soldiers, who stood side by side with the Cambodian people in the struggle against the genocidal Pol Pot regime, helping the neighbouring country gradually revive and develop.

He praised achievements recorded by the Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Association over the past time as well as the initiative to admit the veterans to the association, contributing to enhancing the traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries.

President Tran Dai Quang met with Vietnamese former volunteer soldiers

who helped Cambodia in the 1979-1989 period. (Photo: VNA)



The Cambodian State and people as well as the Vietnamese Party, State and people have appreciated great contributions and sacrifice of the volunteer soldiers, the leader stressed.

He urged the Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Association to further spread information about the fine bilateral relations among Vietnamese and Cambodian people, especially on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the two countries bilateral ties.

President Quang tasked authorities of different levels with supporting the association in organising the Vietnam  Cambodia Friendship Year 2017.

He assigned the presidential office to work with relevant agencies to ensure welfares for former Vietnamese volunteer soldiers, who helped Cambodia during its past struggle against the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. The office was also demanded to propose authorised agencies commend and reward units and individuals that are yet to be honoured.

He also urged organisations and businesses to help former volunteer soldiers in Cambodia visit the country this year on the occasion of 40 years since the end of the genocidal regime in Cambodia./.
With 12 performances, the Alma Vietnam 2017, featured Ao Dai (Vietnamese traditional long dress) and traditional dances, along with songs depicting the spiritual life of Vietnamese people as well as praising heroic mothers and soldiers who laid down their lives for the nation.



This years event also saw the participation of Cuban artists.



First held in 2015, the annual programme has helped intensify the solidarity among Vietnamese students in the Caribbean country./.
Janice "Jan" Smoot Heischman, 87, of Charlottesville, Va., died peacefully at her home on Tuesday, June 6, 2017. She was born on January 20, 1930, in the small town of Mt. Jackson, Va., to Lester Randolph and Glenna Myers Smoot. Jan experienced struggles in her childhood that would later help shape the person she would become. At the age of seven she lost both her baby brother and her mother within a few short months of each other, shattering her family. She might have grown up without the love, nurturing and encouragement that a child needs had it not been for the mother of her new first grade friend who welcomed her in, helping to fill the void. Later on in her life, without ever consciously realizing it, she instinctively gave those same qualities freely and generously to everyone she encountered. In 1950, she married Samuel "Bill" William Heischman in Mt. Jackson and they moved to Charlottesville so he could attend the University of Virginia. In 1952 he enlisted in the Service during the Korean War and Jan followed him to his various stations in Alabama, Kansas and the Pentagon. They returned to Charlottesville, which became her home for the next 63 years. She always felt blessed to have found the beauty of place and community she enjoyed here. Jan was a person with a real heart for the well being of others. She made friends easily and took a genuine interest in everyone she met. Her natural grace and engaging personality made people feel comfortable and special. She had a great sense of humor, loved a good laugh and had a knack for seeing the funny side of things. But she also had an intuitive sense of knowing when someone was struggling and was always there to listen and offer perspective and encouragement to lighten their burdens. A person of deep faith, Jan firmly believed that God had protected her throughout her childhood and would continue to do so for her entire life. She was a member of First Baptist Church and the Dawn Sunday school class. Jan was also a founding member of the Charlottesville Christian Women's Club, where she served for 30 years using her natural gift of hospitality with great passion hosting the club's monthly luncheons. She co-chaired the Hospitality Committee for The Franklin Graham Festival, and later merged her patriotism with her gifting in support of The Family Foundation. Throughout her life, Jan's first and foremost love was for her family. She was the heart and center of the welcoming and nurturing home she was determined to create for her children and their friends. She lived in that home, providing both roots and wings for her children and grandchildren, for more than 53 years. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her brother, John Smoot; sister, Eldo Wheat; brother Thomas Smoot; and her former husband and children's father Bill Heischman. She leaves her legacy behind in her children and grandchildren,son, Kim Heischman and his wife, Martha; daughter Jana Crutchfield; daughter, Pamela Brownfield and her husband, Hal; her beloved grandchildren, Jennifer Crutchfield, Will Crutchfield and his fiance, Rachel Clark, Cayman Brownfield and Skylar Brownfield. Also surviving her are three nieces and a nephew. The family is especially grateful to the many people that helped Jan including Dr. Lindsay Friesen,Dr. Michael Ragosta and UVA's 4thFloorEast Coronary Care Team and all of the compassionate nurses and aides. When she came home, the loving and dignified care of Mary Lloyd and her team along with her caregivers from Home Instead made her final days comfortable and peaceful. A celebration of Jan's life will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 24, 2017, at First Baptist Church, Park Street, with a reception following. Burial will be private. Those wishing to make a memorial contribution in Jan's honor may do so to the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad, P.O. Box 160, Charlottesville, VA 22902. Or, in Jan's typical style, take a friend to lunch and enjoy some laughs. Condolences may be sent to the family at www.hillandwood.com.
Haas' Romain Grosjean enjoyed his first experience in Baku last year and relishes another exciting mid-field battle with his rivals in Azerbaijan.

The Frenchman calls Baku "two different circuits" in one, the Herman Tilke-designed track blending old and new amid fast straights and slow corners.

Its a unique and challenging layout that is augmented by Bakus notorious winds, which are always prevalent. In fact, City of Winds is the unofficial, but literary, name for Baku.

"Its going to be pretty exciting," Grosjean said in the US outfit's preview.

"I think some parts of the circuit are going to be very tight for the wider cars, but some other corners are going to be really nice to drive.

"Straight-line speed is going to be a bit down. I think its going to be a really cool track to drive with these cars  braking late and carrying a lot of speed in the corners, and playing around with some pretty fast corners through the walls."

There were no points for Haas in Azerbaikjan last year, for F1's first visit, but there are always lessons from the past to be applied to the present.

"I believe theres always a lot of things you can bring from the past, even when the cars are different," says the Frenchman.

"Well look at what we did last year, what our setup was like, and what we couldve done better in the race.

"I think weve got some ideas and well apply that with the deltas of this year. There are always things we can learn and improve."

It's a huge battle in F1's mid-field this season, and one which Grosjean is obviously appreciating.

"Its actually very exciting. If you were removing the three big teams at the front and only leaving the midfield, there would be a different race winner almost every Grand Prix.

"The difference between pole position and P2 in Canada was much bigger than from P10 to around P17 or P18.

"That shows how tight it is in the midfield and how much we have to be getting 100 percent from the car every time."

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For someone who didnt want Civil War monuments, Robert E. Lee certainly has a lot of them. None differ more, though, than those in Charlottesville and Lexington, just 75 miles apart.

The contrast says much about him, why theyre there  and why he didnt want them in the first place.

In Charlottesville, a statue venerates a military hero of a defeated cause. In Lexington, a college and its chapel bear the name of an educator who saved the school while striving to restore a section and nation following the war that he, the general, once led.

If the current day finds this paradox hard to grasp, were not alone. P.G.T. Beauregard couldnt. Like many ex-Confederates, Beauregard considered fleeing the defeated South. Others had already left. Lee advised staying, to rebuild and even reconcile with the hated Yankees. He himself became a college president to practice what he preached.

When Beauregard expressed his consternation, Lee replied: True patriotism requires of men sometimes, to act exactly contrary at one period, to that which it does at another in order to fulfill the desire to do right.

George Washington, he noted, fought with the British against the French in one war, then with the French against the British in another.

Beauregard stayed.

When a Maryland Confederate private who had bolted to Toronto returned home, it was because thats what Lee recommended, he wrote to his mother.

Lee had quietly become one of the greatest rarities in history: the leader of the defeated side in a bitter civil war who turned into its most respected advocate for peace and reconciliation.

Studying his theological convictions, I found his faith to be at the core of the paradox.

To Beauregard, he was all pragmatic.

At Appomattox before the surrender, he mixed practical with religious motives.

Some on his staff proposed fighting on by a guerrilla war. Lee vetoed the idea. The Confederacy has failed, he told them. As Christian men, we must consider only the effect which our actions will have upon the country at large.

If his soldiers could go home quietly and quickly they could plant crops & begin to repair the rages of the war. That is what I must now try to bring about.

To others, his language was all religious. God has thought fit to afflict us most deeply & his chastening hand is not yet stayed, Lee wrote to a priest in Petersburg. We have only to submit to his gracious will & pray for his healing mercy.

That meant seeking genuine peace, that the afflictions & interests of the country may be united. ... To this end all good men should labour.

For years, Lee  like many in the South  believed the South would win only if God willed it. The South lost. Lee did the math.

He reportedly told a Union general he knew from Mexican War days: The only question on which we did not agree has been settled, and the Lord has decided against me.

For Lee, that meant resigning. For him, to resign did not mean throwing in the towel, but rather what we might call getting with the program. He had to discern his role in furthering Gods will for the country  North and South.

He rejected ideas that would enrich him, like endorsing businesses, writing memoirs, or leading some prestigious school like the University of Virginia. Instead, the chance to lead a down-and-out college in remote Lexington captured his imagination.

Lee sought out a priest friend in Albemarle County for some godly counsel. When the friend proposed more viable institutions, Lee responds that this door and not another was opened to him by Providence and wanted reassurance that he could do the job such that his remaining years would be a comfort and a blessing to his suffering country. At that, the cleric recalled, Lees whole countenance glowed with animation.

Lee came to Washington College to do his part in binding up the wounds of war  which he had done so much to inflict  by training the young to serve their country in ways both practical and principled.

To the old classical studies, he added courses in English and modern history but also mining, engineering, agriculture, journalism, business.

He abolished mandatory chapel attendance, then built a new chapel  the first college structure built by free labor. He attended every day, so everyone else did, too  not because they had to but because they chose to.

The innovative one-time superintendent at West Point proved to be a forward-looking, progressive educator in Lexington, to good effect. In 1868, the college enrolled 410 students, its most ever until 1907, making it the largest in the South second only to Mr. Jeffersons university.

At his death, the college trustees renamed their school Washington and Lee University. The chapel became the place of his burial, a statue of him in uniform, and his memory.

Two Lee memorials, so different as to seem contradictory, and guaranteeing controversy. Nothing new.

Even before the war, Lee had been a focus of contention, which war increased so exponentially that he wondered if he should subject Washington College to the inevitable negative publicity  which, of course, came. In his day and ours, enough rumor, innuendo, and, yes, fact can produce as scathing a portrait as anyone desires.

For Lee was not without fault. He knew that. His religion made him uncomfortable with the adulation heaped upon him even while he lived. He would not have welcomed monuments to him.

But he discouraged monuments for another reason we now see in full force: They flame negative passions. He refused to go to Gettysburg to advise on placing battlefield memorials, lest they perpetuate ill will. He counseled not to keep open the sores of war, but ... to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.

Likewise, he refused to run for governor. By arousing inevitable division, it would contradict his post-war purpose: to bring people together, to promote prosperity, to foster justice, to lay aside the animosities of the past in order to pursue true peace for the future  qualities he hoped for all people, including, contrary to common opinion and even some evidence, people of all races. (His influence is credited with diffusing at least two potential lynch mobs, one aimed at a white man, one at a black.)

Based on the advice he gave students tempted to get rowdy, especially where race or justice were concerned, Im certain he would discourage passion-arousing rallies of any kind.

Based on what he advised the officials in Gettysburg, I doubt Lee would want any statues recalling the war, especially of himself.

One man, two memorials  reflecting very different chapters in an important life for our history. Ironies surround them, and controversy  rather like the story of our nation.

Ironically, then, we may need both kinds. A Lexingtonian shouldnt advise what Charlottesville does. Nor do I believe in keeping all mementos of the past. We do, though, need a fuller picture not only of Lee, but of our history; having both may help.

And if one statue evokes pride in some and offense in others, then dealing with that contrast could be precisely what may bring us closer to the reconciliation to which Lee ironically  dedicated the last years of his life.

David Cox, who received a bachelors degree from the University of Virginia in 1969, teaches history at Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista and is the author of The Religious Life of Robert E. Lee (Eerdmans, 2017).
New Delhi: German luxury carmaker BMW is investing another Rs 130 crore in India to enhance operations, taking its total investment in the country to Rs 1,250 crore.

The company will launch new version of its locally manufactured 5 Series later this month and 6 Series Gran Turismo (GT) model next year to strengthen its product portfolio in India. "Since 2007, we have been consistently investing in India. This year, we are going to increase our investment further to up to Rs 1,250 crore on a cumulative basis," BMW India President Vikram Pawah told PTI. BMW has invested Rs 1,120 crore in the Indian operations so far.

The new investment will go into BMW group operations, including Motarrad (two-wheeler business) as well as the financial services arm, he added. With the fresh investments, the total investments on BMW group operations in India will go up to Rs 520 crore and on BMW Financial Services to Rs 730 crore.

The company is looking to expand its dealer network in the country. It currently has 18 partners and is present in 30 cities. "Besides, we have 63 touch points. Out of these, we have 41 sales outlets. So we want to take these 41 outlets to 50 by 2018," Pawah said.

In other emerging towns, in addition to 30 major cities, the company utilises its 'Mobile Studios' to expand the market further. This year, the weather proof BMW mobile studio will cover 50 towns, Pawah said.

On new product launches, he said: "As part of our power to lead strategy, product offensive starts. In next two weeks, we will be launching the new 5 Series." The model has played a big role in the success of BMW in India. Since 2007, the company has sold around 66,000 vehicles in India with 5 Series having contributed close to 30 per cent of the total sales. "Next year, we will be introducing another model in between 5 and 7 Series, called the 6 GT and that would again define a new segment and create new market for us," Pawah said.

On local manufacturing, Pawah said: "We are locally producing eight of our total 16 models that are available. So as we introduce new models, also the new 5 Series, will be produced in the Chennai plant." The 6 GT would also be manufactured locally, he added. "So all our main volume drivers as we call them will also be produced locally. Niche models will continue to come in CBU form. As the volumes increase we will continue to evaluate as what can manufactured locally," Pawah said.

The company's Chennai plant has an installed capacity of 14,000 units on a single shift basis. It started operations in March 2007 and currently produces BMW's 1 Series, 3 Series, 3 Series Gran Turismo, 5 Series, 7 Series along with SUVs X1, X3 and X5.

When asked about competition with its German rivals Mercedes and Audi to be the number one player in the luxury car market in India, he said BMW's focus is to remain the fastest growing premium car brand in India. In the January-May period this year, BMW has sold 3,533 units in India at a growth of 8 per cent.

Pawah further said the company would be focusing on its power to lead strategy to grow the entire premium car market. "The idea is to grow the segment. Currently in India, premium car segment remains less than 2 per cent of the total passenger vehicle market (3 million last fiscal) as compared to 5-10 per cent in various countries," Pawah said.

The efforts should be to at least make it 5 per cent and and eventually 10 per cent of the PV market, he added. The premium vehicle segment is estimated to be around 35,000 units per annum currently.
New Delhi: Consumer durables makers say the run up to GST implementation has caused 'discomfort' among their trade partners who are busy clearing old stock to avoid losses before the new indirect tax regime kicks in next month.

The manufacturers expect normalisation of operations to take at least 2-3 months after the GST implementation. "GST has caused a sense of discomfort amongst the traders as they are worried over the cash flow that might occur during GST implementation therefore, consumer-centric offers are being introduced," Panasonic India Head-Channel Operations Ajay Seth told PTI.

Explaining the current situation in the industry value chain, Godrej Appliances Business Head and Executive Vice President Kamal Nandi said that if distributors were to carry forward stocks to the GST regime from VAT regime, they would lose around 3-4 per cent margin. "Right now they are liquidating their stock. If they do not have any stock, they are purchasing it. They are not upstocking anything," he added.

According to the Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA), the situation could take up to three months to normalise after the implementation of GST. "Business will be normalised over the next two-three months of operations," CEAMA President Manish Sharma.

Nandi ruled out any panic in the market saying informed decisions and planned strategies are being executed, and companies are supporting their dealer partners. "We have given some sell out schemes to reduce stocks and they (trade partners) would purchase from July 1," he added.

Expressing similar views, Videocon COO C M Singh said traders are focusing on liquidating their stocks. "In order to help out traders in the given situation, we are extending the excise paid bills," he added.

Under the Goods and Services Tax regime, to be rolled out from July 1, most of the home appliances and consumer durables will attract 28 per cent levy barring some items such as air coolers which are under the 18 per cent bracket.
New Delhi: The finance ministry has asked the housing and urban poverty alleviation (HUPA) ministry to sensitise states and the real estate regulator to hold consultations with developers to pass on benefits of GST to home buyers.

The tax department and states have received complaints that those who have booked flats and made part payment are being asked to make entire payment before July 1, 2017, or to face higher tax incidence for payment made thereafter.

Replying on this issue, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said "this is wrong" and real estate developers should pass on the benefits of input tax credit to buyers or else they would have to face action under anti-profiteering rules.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has written to HUPA secretary and asked him to sensitise all the states as well as the regulator under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA). "We have requested the HUPA secretary to hold meetings with real estate developers associations and make them understand," Adhia told reporters here.

Construction of flats, complex, buildings will attract a 12 per cent goods and services tax (GST) compared to about 11 per cent tax, which includes excise duty, VAT and service tax. Jaitley said the real estate builder will enjoy the

benefit of input credit, which will be deducted from tax liability. "The lowered tax liability should lead to price reduction. The price reduction has to be be passed on to the customer," Jaitley said.

Asked if the anti-profiteering rules will apply if the home builder fails to pass on benefit, the minister said: "Anti-profiteering rules can apply. But we want to use the anti-profiteering rule as a deterrent. I hope we are not compelled to use it."

The GST Council, chaired by Jaitley and comprising state finance ministers, today cleared the anti-profiteering rules. As per the rules, if the Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS) after investigation finds that the benefit of

price reduction has not been passed to consumers, the anti-profiteering authority will ask the business to refund the same to the consumers.
New Delhi: The finance ministry has asked four large PSU lenders to explore opportunities for acquisition of small and mid-sized banks with a goal to create global sized lenders, sources said.

One of the possibilities is that large public sector banks (PSBs) like Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank and Bank of India could try looking for potential candidates for acquisition, they said. So, informally, the finance ministry has sounded them that they should study the possibility for mergers and acquisitions so as to acquire scale and size of State Bank of India (SBI), the sources added.

There are factors like regional balance, geographical reach, financial burden and smooth human resource transition that have to be looked into while taking a merger decision, they said, adding there should not be merger of a very weak bank with a strong one "as it could pull the latter down".

However, the clear picture would emerge only after the Niti Aayog report sets the tone and tenure of the roadmap for the second round of consolidation in the banking sector. In the last consolidation drive, five associates and Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) became part of SBI on April 1, 2017, catapulting the country's largest lender to among the top 50 banks in the world.

State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ), State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH), State Bank of Mysore (SBM), State Bank of Patiala (SBP) and State Bank of Travancore (SBT), besides BMB, were merged with SBI. With the merger, the total customer base of the SBI reached around 37 crore with a branch network of around 24,000 and nearly 59,000 ATMs across the country. The merged entity began operation with deposit base of more than Rs 26 lakh crore and advances level of Rs 18.50 lakh crore.

The government in February had approved the merger of these five associate banks with SBI. Later in March, the cabinet approved merger of BMB as well. SBI first merged State Bank of Saurashtra with itself in 2008. Two years later, State Bank of Indore was merged with it.

Enthused by the success of SBI merger, the finance ministry is considering clearing another such proposal in the public sector banking space by this fiscal-end. Another round of merger should kick off once the non-performing assets (NPAs) situation improves.

Toxic loans of public sector banks rose by over Rs 1 lakh crore to Rs 6.06 lakh crore during April-December of 2016-17, the bulk of which came from power, steel, road infrastructure and textile sectors.
New Delhi: Industry association Assocham today urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take up the tightening of H1B visa rules with US President Donald Trump during their meeting next week.

The chamber said that the prime minister should push India's case by highlighting that American corporations enjoy liberal market access in India while repatriating profits back home.

In his first visit to the US after the new administration took over, Modi will hold talks with Trump on June 26. "Yes, they (US firms) do create jobs for Indians, but also repatriate billions of dollars as profits and India is fine with it. Thus, it is absolutely unfair to target Indian firms which are facing increasing pressure in the US through different non-trade measures like visa fee and other unrelated levies," Assocham said.

India gives much more market access to the world than the country enjoys elsewhere, the chamber said, asserting that the US corporates are immensely benefiting by doing business with India and Indian companies and that must be conveyed to the US administration. "It is a matter of concern that in the name of America First, restrictions are sought to be slapped on Indian IT firms, which are creating jobs in the US as well," it added.

The chamber expressed concern over the proposed visa restrictions which will hit Indian IT professionals in the US. "In a technology driven and free market global economy, governed by rule-based multilateral World Trade Organisation, major trading partners should abstain from unilateral restrictions on flow of trade in goods and services," it said.
New Delhi: Indians have "few deposits" in Swiss banks compared to other global financial hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong, says a grouping of private bankers in Switzerland amid stepped-up efforts to check the black money menace.

Money held by Indians in Swiss banks declined to a record low of 1.2 billion franc (about Rs 8,392 crore) at the end of 2015, as per the latest available official data. However, no official data is available for money in other global hubs. Committing itself to the global framework for automatic exchange of tax information, Switzerland last week ratified the decision to implement this regime with India and 40 other jurisdictions.

The framework for automatic exchange of information requires strict adherence to data confidentiality, but the Geneva-based Association of Swiss Private Banks said it has no particular concern over India, where the rule of law seems to be properly upheld.

"There are also rather few deposits of Indian residents in Switzerland, as opposed to Singapore or Hong Kong for instance," the association's manager Jan Langlo told PTI from Geneva. When asked about trends in terms of deposits from Indian residents, Langlo said it has not noticed any particular trend. "It is simply more practical for them to open an account in an Asian financial centre than in Switzerland," Langlo noted.

Currently, the association has nine member banks employing around 7,500 people across the globe, as per its website. The grouping represents the business interests of privately-owned Swiss banks that specialise in wealth management.

According to data from the Swiss National Bank, the funds held by Indians with banks in Switzerland fell by CHF 596.42 million to CHF 1,217.6 million at the end of 2015. It was the lowest amount of funds held by Indians in the Swiss banks ever since the Alpine nation began making the data public in 1997 and marked the second straight year of decline.

The funds held by Indians with Swiss banks stood at a record high of CHF 6.5 billion (Rs 23,000 crore) at 2006-end. However, the quantum of these funds has been falling since then, except for in 2011 and in 2013 when Indians' money had risen by over 12 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively.
Washington: Turns out, physical activity among children and teens is lower than previously believed.

Young adults after the age of 20 show the only increases in activity over the lifespan, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. And, the study found, starting at age 35, activity levels declined through midlife and older adulthood.

The study also identified different times throughout the day when activity was highest and lowest, across age groups and between males and females. These patterns, the researchers say, could inform programs aimed at increasing physical activity by targeting not only age groups but times with the least activity, such as during the morning for children and adolescents.

The findings come amid heightened concern that exercise deficits are contributing to the growing obesity epidemic, particularly among children and teens. "Activity levels at the end of adolescence were alarmingly low, and by age 19, they were comparable to 60-year-olds," said senior author Vadim Zipunnikov. "For school-age children, the primary window for activity was the afternoon between two and six P.M. So the big question is how do we modify daily schedules, in schools for example, to be more conducive to increasing physical activity?"

For their study, the researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from the 2003-2004 and 2005-2006 survey cycles. The 12,529 participants wore tracking devices for seven straight days, removing them for only bathing and at bedtime. The devices measured how much time participants were sedentary or engaged in light or moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. The researchers broke down findings into five age groups: children (ages six to 11); adolescents (ages 12 to 19); young adults (ages 20 to 29); adults at midlife (ages 31 to 59); and older adults (age 60 through age 84). Forty-nine percent were male, the rest female.

Activity among 20-somethings, the only age group that saw an increase in activity levels, was spread out throughout the day, with an increase in physical activity in the early morning, compared to younger adolescents. The increase may be related to starting full-time work and other life transitions. For all age groups, males generally had higher activity levels than females, particularly high-intensity activity, but after midlife, these levels dropped off sharply compared to females. Among adults 60 years and older, males were more sedentary and had lower light-intensity activity levels than females.

The study confirmed that recommended guidelines were not being met. For instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity a day for children ages five to 17 years. The study found that more than 25 percent of boys and 50 percent of girls ages six to 11 and more than 50 percent of male and 75 percent of female adolescents ages 12 to 19 had not met the WHO recommendation. "The goal of campaigns aimed at increasing physical activity has focused on increasing higher-intensity exercise," said Zipunnikov. "Our study suggests that these efforts should consider time of day and also focus on increasing lower-intensity physical activity and reducing inactivity."

The study is published online in the journal Preventive Medicine.
The MBIs cause the brain to steer our DNA processes along a path which improves our wellbeing (Photo: AFP)

Washington: For a healthy body in the long run, practising mind-body interventions (MBIs) such as meditation, yoga and Tai Chi daily reduces risk of depression and cancer by reversing the molecular reactions in DNA, suggests a study.

Researchers from the universities of Coventry and Radboud, through 18 studies -- featuring 846 participants over 11 years -- revealed a pattern in the molecular changes which happen to the body as a result of the MBIs, and how those changes benefit our mental and physical health.

They explained the way that genes activate to produce proteins which influence the biological make-up of the body, the brain and the immune system.

When a person is exposed to a stressful event, their sympathetic nervous system (SNS) -- the system responsible for the 'fight-or-flight' response -- is triggered, in turn increasing production of a molecule called nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB) which regulates how our genes are expressed.

NF-kB translates stress by activating genes to produce proteins called cytokines that cause inflammation at cellular level -- a reaction that is useful as a short-lived fight-or-flight reaction, but if persistent, leads to a higher risk of cancer, accelerated aging and psychiatric disorders like depression.

According to the study, however, people who practise MBIs exhibit the opposite effect -- namely a decrease in production of NF-kB and cytokines, leading to a reversal of the pro-inflammatory gene expression pattern and a reduction in the risk of inflammation-related diseases and conditions.

Lead investigator Ivana Buric said that millions of people around the world already enjoy the health benefits of mind-body interventions like yoga or meditation, but what perhaps these people do not realise is that these benefits begin at a molecular level and can change the way our genetic code goes about its business.

"These activities are leaving what we call a molecular signature in our cells, which reverses the effect that stress or anxiety would have on the body by changing how our genes are expressed. Put simply, the MBIs cause the brain to steer our DNA processes along a path which improves our wellbeing."

The research is published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.
Mumbai: A committee headed by former chief secretary Swadhin Kshatriya has given a clean chit to procurements worth Rs 10 crore by nine state government departments done during the last 15 years of the Congress and NCP rule.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had ordered the probe in 2015, after one of his ministers, Pankaja Munde was accused in the Chikki scam. The panel did not uncover anything irregular. But that has not satisfied the chief minister, who has now ordered a probe by the Economic Offence Wing and Directorate of Accounts and Treasury.

Besides Kshatriya, the other members of the committee included the then Finance Secretary Sudhir Shrivastav and then Industries Secretary Apurva Chandra. The report was submitted to the CM in March 2017 before Kshatriya retired.

The committee probed into procurements above Rs 10 crore undertaken by nine government departments, namely agriculture, home, health, social justice, women and child welfare, rural development, school education, information technology and tribal.

A report accessed by Deccan Chronicle did not mention anything objectionable in the inquiry. In fact, it has recommended independent inquiries by the respective departments if necessary.

As the scope of the committee is limited, the report said, One has to check the system of rate of contract and from whom the purchase was done. The committee does not have that probe mechanism in the limited period and hence the officials responsible for recruitment can have an independent inquiry.
Salem moved the European Union court months before his conviction in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case early this week. (Photo: PTI/File)

Mumbai: Gangster Abu Salem, convicted for his role in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, has moved a European Union court in a bid to have himself sent back to Portugal from where he was extradited to India to face the trial.

Salem moved the European Union court months before his conviction in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case early this week.

"We have moved the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), a court under European Union seeking his recall to Portugal as there were many violations to his extradition order," his lawyer Sabha Qureshi said.

Salem contended that after the Portugal court terminated the 2014 order for his extradition, his entire trial in India has become illegal.

Qureshi said it was stipulated in his extradition order that he would not be given death sentence but he was tried for charges which attracted capital punishment.

While permitting his extradition in 2005, the Portugal court had said Salem could not be given death sentence.

In his plea to the ECHR, Salem has sought directions to Portugal to take steps for his return.

Qureshi said the court has asked Portugal to file its reply.

His lawyers had said despite termination of the extradition, Portugal has not taken any steps to call him back.

Earlier, last month the ECHR had also sought some documents of the 1993 Mumbai serial terror blast case. In his application, Salem had also given details of two attempts on his life - one in 2010 by co-accused in 1993 blasts case Mustafa Dossa and a second one by another prisoner.

Salem further contended that he is being tried for those charges which were not mentioned in the treaty. He said that in Taloja jail, he is being kept in a solitary confinement which is prohibited by ECHR.

He was recently awarded life imprisonment in builder Ajit Deewani case.
CM Siddaramaiah inaugurates the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation Smart Card at Kempegowda Bus Station at Majestic, in Bengaluru on Saturday  R Samuel

Bengaluru: BMTC strategically timed the launch of their new hi-tech buses, smart cards and Foot Over Bridge, in co-ordination with the inaugration of Namma Metro Phase-1. Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy and BMTC Chairman Nagaraj Yadav caught Chief Minister Siddaramaiah unaware when they publicly asked for more funds for BMTC.

1500 buses out of the 3000 have been paid for by the State. BMTC buses carry 52 lakh Bengalureans. The patronage will not reduce with metro coming in to the picture. Infact, metro needs feeders for which our business will increas," said Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy, further adding, " I request more money in budget to be allotted for public buses. Metro has only 5 lakh passengers, while buses will still ferry 50 lakh citizens"



Infographic

Chairman Nagaraj Yadav echoed the sentiment saying, " There are 65 lakh private vehicles. Just as large amounts of funds are being given out for Metro, BMTC needs the support too, as we carry the maximum number of people."

Speaking at the launch in the presence of the Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister KJ George, MD Ekroop Caur took the officials on a round, pointing out to them the facilities in the 150 Hi-Tech buses.

These include 4 kinds of buses, having variety of features like Bus ramp, dedicated seat for the disabled, emergency switch, request stop switches, Vehicle Health Monitoring systems and more. As for the much delayed Smart Cards brought about in collaboration with Axis Bank, 4 Lakh discounted passes smart cards were announced for students.

In the pilot phase, smart cards will be launch on Route 335 E from 23 June 2017, for 100 commuter. This will be followed by a launch on 15th July, August 1 and 15 subsequently," a press statement said.

The card roll out is being done in phases starting with the student/college passes, E-Purse, and monthly passes. Smart cards will be issued from BMTC counters and select Bangalore One counters.

MLA Dinesh Gundu Rao who also present, said, " Bus fares have to be reduced for people to use it.

If state government provides support just they way they do in Anna bhagya and krishi bhagya. it will be helpful. White topping and concreting of roads within the bus stands is also needed."

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said,"The renovated foot over bridge, connecting all platforms will have solar panels installed on it later. The Rs 375 lakh F.O.B, also funded by DULT, will give protection to the commuters from rain and heat. "

New Metro is a blessing, say Bengalureans

With the inauguration of Phase 1 of Namma Metro, the city now has better connectivity from Nagasadra in the north to Yelachenahalli in the south.

It is easy for me after this Metro phase, especially when I travel to MG Road. For a city like ours, Metro is a necessity, said Akshay Balan, a student.

Metro makes society more advanced. It brings a feeling of civic sense. In our country, it brings a certain quality to public transportation, said Susan Liju Ipe, a professor, speaking to DC.

Frequent travellers from Malleswaram to areas like JP Nagar and Jayanagar are stuck in traffic for hours on road.

But with the Metro life will be much easier for them, said Sujala Gangadhar, a student.

As President convoy arrives, cops make way for ambulance

The city traffic police made way to an ambulance during the movement of the Presidents convoy at Trinity Circle on Saturday afternoon.

While President Pranab Mukherjees convoy was passing from the HAL Airport towards Raj Bhavan, the police had stopped movement of all vehicles as per protocol. Around 3.45 pm, an ambulance was reportedly stuck between vehicles at Trinity Circle.

But the alert policemen ensured that the ambulance passed through the traffic and reached the other side of the empty road against one-way, as there was no vehicle movement.
Coimbatore/Chennai: Miscreants hurled petrol bombs at the Coimbatore CPI (M) district office near Gandhipuram on Saturday morning, but there were no human casualties.

According to police, the incident happened around 5.45 am after the party office car driver Anandhan 50, went for his morning stroll. He regularly stays at the party office.

Fortunately, nobody was injured in the incident, in which an ambassador car belonging to party and parked at the office premises was partially damaged in the fire.

Miscreants have followed driver Anandan for the past few days, recorded his movements and have waited for the right time to hurl the bomb early today, police said.

Anandhan sensed smoke smell coming out of the office premises and at once he reached closer to the party office on his return when he was shocked to see pieces of broken beer bottle and burnt wicks. A front door of the car was damaged in the fire.

Immediately Anandhan informed Rathinapuri police and party members; on information, deputy commissioner Lakshmi rushed to the spot along with a police team. They found two petrol bombs, one using a beer bottle and the other placed in a plastic bottle.

Police started collecting the CCTV footages recorded in the camera installed at the nearby houses and a commercial outlet, as the party office has no surveillance camera.

Preliminary investigations revealed that neighbors have noticed youth on two motorcycles passed the party office stretch several times for the last few days.

Following the incident City police Commissioner Amal Raj directed deployment of police security to the party offices, while security was immediately beefed up with armed policemen deployed at the district BJP, RSS and Hindu Munnani offices in the city. Three special teams have been formed and further investigations are on.

The CPI (M) State secretary G Ramakrishnan, party's Coimbatore district secretary V Ramamurthy, Opposition leader M.K. Stalin, CPI state secretary R. Mutharasan, MDMK founder Vaiko and other party leaders have condemned the incident.

Leaders flay petrol bomb attack on Left office

Leaders on Saturday condemned the hurling of petrol bombs on CPM office in Coimbatore and urged the state to arrest the culprits immediately and take stern action on them.

DMK working president M.K. Stalin, who flayed the incident said the state should not be silent spectator to the threats by evil forces and asserted that exchange of views in a democratic manner alone could lead to constructive politics.

Condemning the attack, TNCC president S. Thirunavukkarasar urged the state government to identify the outfit behind the incident and take appropriate action.

MDMK general secretary Vaiko said such attacks on political parties are continuing and police should investigate the incident and punish the culprits, whoever it could be. CPI state secretary R. Mutharasan blamed the policies of the centre for such attacks and charged that the Union government is supporting groups which indulge in violence under the garb of cow protection, moral policing and protecting religion.

VCK leader Thol. Thirumavalavan said communal forces are trying to gain foothold in the state through violent activities and asked the state government not to be complacent. Thamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi leader T. Velmurugan said the attack had taken place at the heart of the city and it is a precursor to more dangers.
Chennai: AIADMK Amma senior leader and Tamil Nadu Finance Minister D Jayakumar on Sunday ridiculed DMK working president MK Stalin for targeting the ruling party on various issues, saying his 'desperate' effort to become Chief Minister would end up as a pipe dream.

"Stalin is spending sleepless nights, dreaming of becoming Chief Minister," he said.

Stating that the Leader of the Opposition was "desperate" to become CM by trying to use using whatever tiny opportunity that came his way, he said "for sure Stalin's dream will never come true and it will end up as a pipe dream."

DMK has stepped up its attack on the ruling AIADMK Amma regime by seeking its dismissal on the alleged horse-trading of ruling party legislators.

The main opposition party has also intensified its attack on the Palanisamy government on a host of other issues as well.

Hitting out at DMK for the behaviour of its MLAs on February 18 last when the trust vote was taken up in the Assembly, the Minister said people despised the main opposition party for it.
Revenue department records say the tank is spread across 476 acres and irrigates around 1,500 acres throughout the year, enabling farmers to reap a good harvest of paddy, sugarcane and banana crops.

There was an age when the rivers flowed clean and free, when the tanks and lakes in Karnataka were brimming with glistening water and when there were no droughts and water shortage. Those were the times of the Vijayanagar empire, when the 15th century kings made sure their subjects never went thirsty in the searing heat and had enough water to farm their fields and reap a bountiful harvest.

The glorious age has gone and all that remains are crumbling inscriptions and plaques to remind us of the wisdom of the ancient rulers, who knew that the welfare of their people started with providing them something as basic as water. An inscription dating back to the Vijayanagar period, recounts how a mother tells her kid, Kereyum kattisu, baviyum savesu, devagaram madi, sajjereyolu silukida anatharannu rakshisu (build tanks, dig wells, make temples and protect those orphans/slaves caught in the vicious circle).

Building a tank was as sacred as worshipping the gods which was why the Vijayanagar kings gave prime importance to constructing anicuts and tanks across their empire.

What worked to their advantage was the fact that Hampi, the erstwhile capital city of the empire, was located in the natural basin formed by river Tungabhadra, which flows in a north-easterly direction. Many embankments were built along the streams to create reservoirs of different sizes. Since Vijayanagar was one of the most arid zones in the peninsula, perfect arrangements were made to store rainwater to be used in the city.

Kamalapura tank is the best example of such a tank, built in the early years of the fifteenth century. Water from this tank was used not only for irrigating fields but was also sent through a channel to the 'royal centre.' According to folklore, the tank was built by Bharamappa Nayaka, who even sacrificed his pregnant wife Bhageerathi to prevent the tank from bursting when it was being constructed.

Historians say that the tank was later developed by Vijayanagar king and the greatest of the Sangama dynasty rulers, Devaraya II or Prouda Devaraya (1425-1446 CE) who named it after his principal queen, Kamala Devi.

Kamalapura is an apt example of how expertise in hydraulics can be put to use to make optimum use of water for drinking and irrigation. Revenue department records say the tank is spread across 476 acres and irrigates around 1,500 acres throughout the year, enabling farmers to reap a good harvest of paddy, sugarcane and banana crops.

Another inscription dating back to 1541, found in Hampi, describes Kamalapura as the big and never drying tank of this suburb. Modern rulers, however, do not seem to have any inking of how to preserve the famed tank, which comes under the core area of the Hampi World Heritage Area Management Authority (HWHAMA). Result: there are encroachments all across the tank bed, heavy silt deposits and unauthorised agricultural fields, reducing the tank to a shadow of its original self.

The first major threat is 200 acres of unauthorised cultivation, followed by accumulation of silt, diversion of natural streams feeding rainwater to the tank, and construction of a tarred road on the tank bund. These roads pose a serious threat to ancient sluices supplying water to agriculture fields in the catchment area.

With the assistance of the revenue, irrigation and forest departments, volunteers of Jan Sangram Parishat and Gandugali Kumararama Yuva Sene worked hard through the month of May to restore the lost glory of the Kamalapura tank.

Though the storage capacity of the tank is .086 tmc, owing to large scale encroachment of the tank bed and silt accumulation, the storage has come down to less than half of this. The tank now gets dried up in February every year, three months before the onset of the monsoon, putting farmers to untold hardship. Waking up to the serious threat, Jan Sangram Parishat, a people's organisation and Gandugali Kumararama Yuva Sene, a local youth forum, appealed to Ballari deputy commissioner Ram Prasath Manohar and Hosapete Assistant Commissioner Prashanth Kumar Mishra to launch measures to protect the tank before it disappeared forever.

With the assistance of the revenue, irrigation and forest departments, volunteers of Jan Sangram Parishat and Gandugali Kumararama Yuva Sene worked hard through the month of May to restore the lost glory of the Kamalapura tank. They started off by conducting a survey of the tank bed, erected boundary stones and then asked unauthorised cultivators to clear the encroachments on their own. On deputy commissioner Mr Manohars advice, a cattle-proof trench was dug all along the boundary in the tank backwaters that runs nearly five km. The trench has stopped trespassers and encroachers from entering the tank bed. The authorities have also warned of serious action against those who try to encroach the tank bed.

After digging the trench, local villagers were employed to dig pits and plant saplings along the boundary to make a natural fencing for the tank, with the assistance of the forest department. This tank attracts many domestic and migratory birds, once the fruit bearing trees grow, they will provide a good hub for nesting of birds. Tourists who arrive here to visit the Hampi monuments, can visit the tank to see the migratory birds too, said Dr Subba Rao, a wildlife enthusiast. Desilting was another major effort to rejuvenate the tank. As per estimates, the silt is more than eight feet deep in the tank and about Rs 10 crore is required to remove silt to a depth of four feet in the 476 acre tank. With local farmers keen on using the silt to increase the fertility of their fields, the district administration permitted them to take it away free of cost.

Its not silt. It's fertile black soil and is good for sugarcane, banana and paddy crops. Once you dump this soil in your field, you do not need fertiliser for growing crops for 3-4 years, explained farmer Jigali Galeppa from Hosa Malapanagudi village. For almost 45 days, there was a heavy rush of farmers to take the silt to their fields. Every day, about 10 to 12 earthmovers would lift the silt and load it onto farmers tractors. As many as 1,500 to 2,000 tractor loads of silt was removed with the desiltation helping in removing silt in about 20 acres of the tank bed.

A farmer incurs an expenditure of about Rs 300 for the JCB machine and tractor, but I do not mind paying this sum. I took 500 tractor loads of silt for my five-acre field spending Rs 18,000, it's no big amount compared to the fertility the silt added to the soil, says farmer Ambanna.

Farmers should be permitted to take silt every summer, by doing this, we can increase storage capacity of the tank without looking for financial assistance from the government, said Bharamappa Nayaka, president of Gandu gali Kumararama Yuva Sene.

Another threat to Kamalapur tank was the construction of the Hosapete-Hyderabad state highway beneath the tank bund. The UNESCO had last year objected to this saying work on the tarred road in the core zone, would place Hampi again in the list of endangered sites of UNESCO. Now, the district administration had shelved the work and decided to improve the existing road without affecting the original character of the tank much to the joy of farmers and those who cant have enough of the Hampi monuments.

Like Kamalapur tank, another Vijayanagar period tank  Halli Kere tank which is located near Hampi Kannada University, is also being rejuvenated. According to an inscription as old as 1534, this tank was a source of drinking water to Varadadeviammana Pattana, a suburban township established to the south-east of Kamalapura. This Pattana was built by king Achyutadeva Raya in memory of his principal Queen,Varadadevi.

The district administration has initiated measures to protect this ancient tank too and is planning to promote it as an eco-tourism destination as it is close to Daroji sloth bear sanctuary. There are many lessons to learn from this rejuvenation effort-maybe Bengalureans who live in constant fear of a crippling water scarcity in a city which once had a 1,000 tanks, and the citys planners could take a fresh look at their dirt filled lakes and think up innovative measures to bring them back to life.

A bit of brainstorming and a lot more of toil, could make these pristine water bodies spring back to life. If Hampi can do it, why not Bengaluru?
Chennai: Tamil superstar Rajinikanth on Sunday met a delegation of 16 farmers led by P Ayyakannu and assured them his support for their plea to interlink rivers.

Weeks after asking his fans to "prepare for war," hinting that he might consider joining politics, the Kabali star on Sunday told the visiting farmers that their plea to link up rivers will be represented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and pledged Rs 1 crore in this regard.

"Rajini told us that he will take steps to facilitate interlinking rivers, he said first (Peninsular) rivers like Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Palaru, and Cauvery should be linked," Ayyakannu said after meeting the top star.

In 2002, Rajinikanth had famously offered Rs 1 crore towards interlinking Himalayan and Peninsular Rivers after a fast on the Cauvery issue.

"Rajinkanth offered to give us Rs 1 crore immediately towards river linking, however, we requested him to hand it over to PM Modi for a project in this connection," the farmer leader who kicked up a storm with his recent multiple forms of protest in Delhi said.

He said, "we wanted Rajinikanth to help make a beginning (pillayar suzhi) for this river link-up effort and he said he will do it."

The farmer leader said the top star, who is shooting for his upcoming flick 'Kaala', told them that he will represent the issue to PM Modi "though he did not specifically say that he will personally meet Modi in this regard."

Ayyakannu, president of National South Indian Rivers Inter-Linking Farmers Association said Rajinikanth assured support to farmers on all issues faced by them.
Hyderabad: Industries and IT minister K.T. Rama Rao on Sunday asked the GST Council at its meeting in New Delhi on Sunday to spare drinking water and irrigation projects. He also sought lower GST ates for social housing and textile sectors, granite and bidi industries.

Mr Rao told Union finance minister Arun Jaitley about the Rs 43.000-crore Mission Bhagiratha to provide drinking water through taps to every household, and said imposing higher GST on on pipelines, equipment and machinery used in the project would jack up the cost and affect its completion.

This project was being taken up in the larger interests of the people and the Centre should exempt it from GST, he urged.

He expressed concern that the higher GST on irrigation projects. The state had taken up Rs 1.5 lakh crore worth of projects to irrigate 1 crore acres. These projects are aimed at providing a permanent solution to drought and drinking water problem and boost the income of farmers by providing better irrigation all through the year. Imposing higher GST rates will increase project costs manifold," Mr Rao said.

He said nearly 8 lakh workers are dependent on the bidi industry for their livelihood in the state and higher GST on the industry would adversely affect them.

Mr Rao told the Council that the government was was constructing 2.7 lakh two-bedroom houses for the poor at a cost of Rs 25,000 crore, and sought exemption for this scheme.

He said the higher GST on textile sector and granite industry would lead to closure of units affecting the livelihood of over 10 lakh people working in these sectors.
KOCHI: The inauguration of the Kochi Metro Rail Ltd (KMRL) on Saturday had all the elements of a mega event with high security buildup around the venue. But the star of the event was Metroman E. Sreedharan, who even overshadowed Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the inaugural function at Kaloor Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium. The very mention by KMRL managing director Elias George of Mr Sreedharan in his welcome speech triggered thunderous applause and whistling and cheering from the audience which did not subside for a while. Then when he resumed to formally welcome Mr Sreedharan, another round of applause erupted.

The mention of Sreedharan's extraordinary role in completing the Kochi Metro project in record time by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu in their speeches too were welcomed by the audience with huge applause. All these while Mr Sreedharan sat on the dais calm and composed like a yogi. The venue sprang into life earlier around 11 am with the huge screen behind the dais showing visuals of Prime Minister along with Chief Minister, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu and BJP state president Kummanam Rajsekharan and a few officials including Mr Sreedharan boarding the Metro at Palarivattom after cutting the ribbon.

The 3,500-strong invited audience welcomed the memorable moment with loud applause. After the journey, the Prime Minister arrived at the venue and the formal inauguration by the PM was over after the speeches of Mr Naidu and the Chief Minister. Mr Modi, as is his wont, greeted Malayalis and Kochiites in Malayalam. Mr Naidu too did not miss the opportunity to spice up his speech with the use of Malayalam words in the beginning to endear himself to the audience. The Prime Minister's speech did not have elements to arouse the audience and it ended with the customary applause. There was no speech by Governor P Sathasivam, Sreedharan, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala and State Transport Minister Thomas Chandy.

Almost the entire State Cabinet was seated in the front row, while local MLA P.T. Thomas too turned up for the event. However, poor acoustics at the make-shift venue, marred the speeches. Interestingly none stood up for the prayer in Sanskrit delivered by a woman at the beginning of the event and when it began, Governor P Sathasivam was seen turning restive in his seat doubting whether to stand or not and then settling down while Mr Modi, next to him, sat in a straightened posture. The function missed the national anthem in the beginning and in the end.
Chennai: The activities of AIADMK MLAs supporting deputy general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran will be under the scanner in next week's Assembly session since the discussion on demands of two ministers detested by Dhinakarans followers will be taken up in the first three days.

If Dhinakaran's supporters want to embarrass the state government, they could move cut motions or absent themselves during the voting on the demands of ministers who had opposed Dhinakaran and said to be close to the Chief Minister. When Assembly session will resume next week, a discussion would be taken on demand for grants to electricity ministry and the next two days will see the discussion on the local administration ministry.

The mood of Dhinakaran's supporters who want the deputy general secretary to be allowed to take up party work, will be gauged during the debate and passing of the two demands.

Dhinakaran seems to be weighing his options since he cancelled the meeting of party functionaries of North Chennai District on Saturday. Earlier, he had planned to meet the district functionaries every day starting from Chennai. The major obstacle for him seems to be party general secretary V.K. Sasikala's unwillingness to topple the government and the staunch opposition of uncle Dhivarkaran, who controls a large chunk of party MLAs.

The clash within the family came to light when police stopped a public meeting organised by Dhinakaran's supporters in Mannargudi, the family's hometown. Some of the vociferous supporters of Dhinakaran including Nanjil Sampath refused to comment on the police action as it came after a complaint from local AIADMK functionary, known to be a Dhivakaran loyalist.

The supporters of the deputy general secretary are restless after the Mannargudi incident, but are unlikely to go against the government without any green signal from Sasikala.

If Dhinakaran's supporters ditch the government on any of the motions or voting on grants, the ruling party will have a strength of about 90 members. Even if the AIADMK (PTA) led by former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam wants to save the government, his support of 12 legislators including himself will not be enough for the purpose.

The DMK has the option of utilising the occasion to mount pressure on Speaker P. Dhanapal with vociferous pleas for a division in voting on demands for grants on crucial occasions, besides bringing cut motions. Though the Speaker could block demands for the division in voting and go for a voice vote, the situation could turn out to be stormy, if the opposition pressed for its demands aggressively.
Mumbai: BJP president Amit Shah on Sunday met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at the latter's residence in suburban Bandra.

Shah, along with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, visited Thackeray's residence 'Matoshree' and held a close-door meeting, which started at around 10 am and lasted for nearly 75 minutes.

The meeting comes a day after the BJP chief, who is here on a three-day visit to strengthen the party organisation in the state, said his party would consult its allies before finalising the NDA's presidential candidate.

Shiv Sena, which has often been critical of the BJP and the Modi government, recently suggested the name of M S Swaminathan, the father of India's Green Revolution, as its presidential choice.

The Shiv Sena had earlier said it may choose an "independent" path in the election to the highest constitutional office. It had backed Congress nominees - Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee - in the last two presidential elections.

Asked about Fadnavis' remark that the BJP was prepared for snap Assembly election, in an apparent reference to continued strain in ties with the Shiv Sena, Shah earlier said, "What he meant was that if mid-term polls are forced on us, we are ready to fight."

On the recent farm loan waiver announced by the Maharashtra government, Shah had said through it the state was offering relief to the farmers. "The burden of loan waiver will be on the government and not banks," he had said.
It also said the Centre failed to set up AIIMS at the right time and added that the AIADMK is facing them with dignity.

Chennai: The AIADMK organ 'Namadhu MGR' on Saturday came out with a poem depicting a conflict between the demands that should be placed by the party to vote for the BJP in the Presidential elections. Whether to ask for a vice-president of the party's choice or to ask the Centre to fulfil the demands of the state on various pressing problems like the Cauvery Management Board and Neduvasal hydrocarbon project.

Listing the woes of the state under the BJP government, the poem asserted that the world had come to know that the AIADMK's role in Presidential elections is paramount. It said the AIADMK is patient on the Centre's refusal to form the Cauvery Management Board and the rejection of a request for exemption from Neet. It said the party government's accepted Udhay scheme to respect federalism and the GST for the country's welfare despite a great loss to the state.

It also pointed out that the Centre denied relief for drought, Vardah cyclone, flood, but the state did not fight over it and continued to be friendly.

The Centre refused to continue excavation at Keezhadi, but bent on implementing the Neduvasal hydrocarbon project, the poem said. It also said the Centre failed to set up AIIMS at the right time and added that the AIADMK is facing them with dignity.

Will the Presidential elections give the state a solution for its problems or a vice president post, the poem ended. The AIADMK is said to be pushing for former Chief Justice P. Satha-sivam, now serving as Kerala Governor to be elected to the vice president post.
Two consequences flow from British Prime Minister Theresa Mays disastrous snap election she called to strengthen her hands in negotiations on leaving the European Union (EU). She is living on borrowed time and her country faces its gravest crisis in the modern era. Contrary to her hopes, Ms May lost her parliamentary majority, but rejuvenated the Opposition Labour Party, with Mr Jeremy Corbyn claiming victory in augmenting his partys strength by enthusing youth who want to stay in Europe and promising an end to austerity. Given his extreme views, Mr Corbyn was recognised as the unelectable Prime Minister. After Mr David Cameron resigned on losing the referendum on staying in the European Union, Ms May presented herself as the new decisive leader boldly declaring that Brexit [leaving Europe] means Brexit and she let it be known that she favoured a hard Brexit, signifying leaving the common market to safeguard her countrys control over migrants.

Today she appears as a tragic figure, rather than the reincarnation of the indomitable Margaret Thatcher, dependent upon the support of Northern Irelands 10 MPs to scrape a majority. Even as she is beholden to Tory grandees cheering Brexit, others in the party are suggesting that leaving the single market, the largest trading partner, would prove too expensive and the country should opt for a soft Brexit  that is, sacrifice control over European migrants for survival. Talks with the European Union are set to begin today even as EU leaders are expressing frustration. Beyond Ms Mays fate lies the portentous question of the crisis facing the British political system. The first-past-the-post system that India inherited from Britain has traditionally led to a two-party system, unlike in continental European practice of proportional representation, making coalitions easier to assemble. Yet the UK practice seems inadequate to new emerging trends, with the Conservatives deeply split, Labour deeply divided and the young not confining themselves to old party divisions. By and large, the last category is pro-EU because of the greater opportunities on offer.

Since Ms May triggered the mechanism on leaving the EU in March, there is a two-year limit on completing negotiations, an impossible task, experts say. But Ms Mays team will enter negotiations in Brussels on Monday with a much weaker hand, with the British position still to be fleshed out. It is useful to recall the events that led to the present crisis. Former Prime Minister David Cameron promised a yes/no referendum on EU to sue for peace in his party. When he acted upon his promise, he and the world were shocked to discover that he had lost narrowly to the no vote for a variety of reasons. The consequences of this folly are unfolding every day, with the British authorities discovering the enormity of their loss, with London staring at the prospect of losing its enviable role as the pole of international banking and exchange. The best outcome one can hope for is a reversal of Britains decision to leave the EU in another referendum, but since such an outcome is unimaginable, with Tory Brexit grandees sharpening their lives, the country must live with the consequences of their folly.

The problem is in part psychological. Many Britons have never felt they are part of Europe. They view themselves as superior and, given the history of past centuries, having been the most successful of European conquerors, India being the jewel in the crown. And they have chafed at the largely faceless bureaucrats in Brussels making policies and decisions for their country. After the end of the Second World War, exhausted by the effort and sacrifices involved, Britain was happy to hand over what remained of its empire to the United States, deriving some satisfaction from being Washingtons chief adviser. That the UK had built a special relationship with the US is a given even acknowledged by mercurial President Donald Trump. But despite its own perception, Britain belongs to Europe and must find its salvation in the European setting. How long Ms May will carry on with a fragile coalition, even if it materialises, remains to be seen. But it is imperative for thinking Britons to look at the long-term future. Given the new players in the field and the orientation of the young, is it time to move to the continental system of proportional representation? Second, how best can leaders face serious problems presented by the UKs place in the 21st century?

It is doubtful whether Ms May can lead her country to a new future or even whether she will be in office as and when the final deal with the EU is signed. Rather, it is time for soul-searching in the Conservative Party. For Labour, the problem with Mr Corbyn, despite his vigorous campaigning, is how to rescue the party from a hard-left leader who can never hope to be Prime Minister. To look at the brighter side. Britons have shown themselves as a highly talented and resilient people with a knack of getting themselves out of deep holes. Since Ms May is virtually a leader spoken of in past terms, a new leader needs to emerge from the shadows. Who that leader will be is for Britons to discover and follow. But immediate discussions on Brexit will not take away the urgency of framing a long-term goal. Perhaps Britons sense of humour will save the country from reaching a dead end. First, they must seriously look at proportional representation as a partial answer to a changing Britain. The days when Mrs Thatcher extracted big concessions from the EU proverbially on the strength of waving her umbrella are gone. In a sense, it is a new European world, with Germany at the top of the ladder and a vital new leader in France giving new hope for the continent not only to survive but prosper with an unpredictable leader of the worlds most powerful country whistling in the dark.
The Saudi-led combine of Sunni-Arab states (including the UAE, Bahrain, Yemen and Egypt) has stunned the international community with its coordinated severing of ties with its fellow GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) member and co-sectarian, Sunni-ruled sheikhdom of Qatar. The timing of the move was surprising, as all nations in the Middle East (irrespective of their deep intra-regional divides) were in the midst of reclaiming vast swathes of land from the principal enemy in the region, Islamic State or Daesh. Undoubtedly, parallel sectarian struggles like the one between the Tehran-led Shia Crescent of Iran, Iraq and Syria and its proxies like the Hezbollah and Houthis, were embroiled in a parallel power struggle against the combined forces of Sunni-ruled nations and their sponsored Sunni militias. The international powers in the region like the United States, Russia or Turkey have had their own national or geopolitical agendas that further muddied the waters with their own interventions and alliances. Disentangling the genealogical roots of the unrest in the Middle East is an endless saga of intrigues, complicities and terror-sponsorships that can be traced to all regimes in the region ithout exception, as indeed, to the policies, secret agencies and militaries of other regional players (such as Israel and Turkey) and traceable directly to Western capitals. Every nation has blood on their hands and has contributed to the bloody quagmire in the Middle East.

A WikiLeaks email that was purportedly sent from Hillary Clinton to John Podesta reads: We need to use our diplomatic and more traditionally intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL (Daesh) and other radical Sunni groups in the region. Indisputably, the rise of extremist militias like Al-Nusra Front (also known as Al-Qaeda in the Levant), owe its sustenance and fighting abilities to the generous financial doles from Qatar. While initially the Qatari support was more overt and public via various social or religious charities, international pressure forced it to adopt a more a covert way of facilitating ransom monies in exchange for kidnapped prisoners by organisations like Al-Nusra Front. From managing prisoner swaps in Lebanon to the more high-profile release of American writer Peter Theo Curtis (where the mediation was done by Ghanem Khalifa al-Kubaisi, head of Qatar state security), petro-dollars and hydrocarbon-fueled coffers have allowed Qatar to pick its own independent choice of regional organisations that it wishes to support, even if the Qatari choice rails against the instincts of its other Arab neighbours, such as Doha openly courting the Palestinian Hamas as opposed to the more Riyadh-friendly PLO, and in Egypt it supports the ousted Muslim Brotherhood.

Similarly, Qatar is hosting Taliban elements to push reconciliation between Taliban, Afghanistan and the US government  though importantly, the move to allow the Taliban to open an office in Doha was done after a specific request was made to this effect by the US. However, the obvious hypocrisy in this latest Arab spat emanates from the supposed Saudi indignation against terror sponsorship, that is oblivious to its own role in spreading the extremist and violent strains of puritanical religiosity globally. The released portions of the congressional investigation into the 9/11 terror attack on the United States (in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis) has some discomforting statements that suggest Saudi linkages, such as this reference on Page 415 While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support and assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government [At least] two of those individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers. Earlier still, the Saudis had matched the US contributions towards arming and abetting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980-90s, the progenitors of Osama bin Laden, Taliban and suchlike mutations. The acquiescence of the Western powers in allowing the Al Saud family to infuse Wahhabism as an antidote to the Cold War challenges and energy considerations facilitated the global export of Salafist tendencies that gave birth and inspiration to organisations like ISIS, Boko Haram and the Taliban.

Beyond sovereign funding, the concept of raising funds through private individuals and institutions, towards causes that impacted the ummah was afforded by the affluence of Saudi society  later, the same energy-related wealth in countries like Qatar allowed a similar fundraising initiative. Today, both Qatar and Saudi Arabia claim to have tightened the screws on private fundraising for terrorist organisations  though the survival of various organisations in the Middle East like Al Nusra, ISIS, Hezbollah or Hamas without sovereign support, directly or indirectly, is hardly plausible. So even if Saudi Arabia is not directly involved in funding terror organisations any longer, its role in creating the infrastructure, ideological framework and societal justifications is undeniable. Therefore, the Qatar-Saudi spat is a perfect case of the pot calling the kettle black and is more likely due to the fears emanating from the independent streak emanating from Doha that threatens the status quo in the Arab world. The Arab monarchies are pathologically petrified of an Arab Spring redux, hence the aversion to the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Qatar supports. Further, the convenient illiberality of the region gets threatened by the relative independence of Al Jazeera.

The unkindest cut, however, was the unpardonable act of legitimising Iran as an Islamic power, forcing the Saudis to accuse Qatar of supporting Iran-backed terror groups (even though Qatar deployed over 1,000 troops in Yemen to support the Saudi-led drive against the Iran-supported Houthi rebels). The unwarranted tilt of US President Donald Trump in the Saudi-Qatar fracas has demonstrated the curse of perpetuating selective truths that ensures the dominance of certain regional and international powers. Beyond fighting ISIS, local conflicts (such as Turks versus Kurds), sectarian conflicts (Shia-Sunni) and geopolitical conflicts (Russians versus Americans), a fifth internecine dimension of intra-GCC conflict has emerged to diminish the prospects of peace.
The EU unveiled a blueprint to safely regulate drone traffic in Europe by 2019 in order to tap the growing commercial potential for unmanned aircraft technology.

The blueprint from the European Commission, the EU executive, covers allowing drones to operate in high density under the supervision of fleet operators.

"Drones mean innovation, new services for citizens, new business models and a huge potential for economic growth," EU Transport Minister Violeta Bulc said.

"We need the EU to be in the driving seat and have a safe drone services market up and running by 2019," she said in a statement.

"The EU needs to take a leading role worldwide in developing the right framework for this market to flourish, by unleashing the benefits for key economic sectors."

The idea is to build a system similar to that of Air Traffic Management for manned aviation, that would supply information to allow drones to fly safely and avoid obstacles or collisions.

The aim is to have the regulatory framework functioning by 2019, with basic services like registration and e-identification.

The European Commission said it hopes negotiations involving the European Parliament and 28 member states will be completed by the end of the year as a key part of the process.

Drones can be used to deliver services in urban areas, collect data for a wide range of industries, inspect infrastructure, and aid farming.

The Commission cited estimates that the drone services market could grow up to 127 billion euros in the next few years.

Current common European rules only cover drones weighing above 150 kilograms (330 pounds).

The demand for regulation is increasing with the rising use of drones and the risk of collisions.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which sets global standards for the aviation industry, counted 856 cases worldwide between January 2013 and August 2015 of a drone getting too close to a plane for comfort.

There have been no collisions to date, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) reported in February.

According to IATA, 65 countries currently have rules for the use of small drones.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is trying to establish a global framework for the future use of drones.

Among EU countries, France is a pioneer. Government decrees already regulate drone use and parliament has voted in a law coming into force next year that will punish users of drones flying over airports and other sensitive areas with fines or prison.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
With the help of narrow bezels, Apple can offer a bigger screen to body ration in a chassis that has almost the same dimensions as the one of the existing 4.7-inch model.

With the continuous flow of rumors surrounding the latest upcoming iteration of the iPhone 8, Apple has understandably not confirmed anything. But as the date for the launch draws nearer, more and more leaks seem to pointing towards major changes in design.

This time, another tipster @VenyaGeskin1 has discovered what seems to be an alleged iPhone 8 screen protector which now provides us a peek at the new design of Apples flagship device.

Photo: Benjamin Geskin

The screen protectors appear to substantiate the fact that the next iPhone will come with a bezel-less display, an approach which was embraced by Samsung for its Galaxy S8 lineup and presumably for the upcoming Note 8 phablet which has been projected to launch soon.

With the help of narrow bezels, Apple can offer a bigger screen to body ration in a chassis that has almost the same dimensions as the one of the existing 4.7-inch model. So its a bigger display in a smaller phone, which for Apple users who want to stick with the original iPhone is an offer they can hardly refuse.

Also, these screen protectors have confirmed that the iPhone 8 will come with a top bar that would hold new cameras. In addition to the FaceTime and selfie camera, the iPhone 8 is also slated to get new cameras for facial recognition and iris scanning.

Just like rival Samsung, Apple is also going for biometric authentication as well, with new cameras trying to provide iPhone buyers with an extra security system. This doesnt necessarily mean that Apple is giving up on Touch ID, as existing speculation has claimed that the new fingerprint sensor would be integrated into the display screen.

This means, Apple can become the innovator of this new technology at a time when most Android phone manufacturers put the fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone. However, it remains to be seen if these leaks are accurate or not, and it goes without saying that you should take these leaks with a pinch of salt, but we will find out more information as the date of launch comes nearer.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
Washington: US Vice President Mike Pence has lauded the contribution of Sikhs in America and asked them to continue to give back by serving in the military and public offices at local, state and federal levels.

Sikh Community and its issues are always close to my heart and I always admire the contribution of Sikhs in Indiana and across the US, he told a Sikh delegation in Indianapolis.

During the meeting with the Sikhs Political Action Committee (Sikhs PAC) led by Gurinder Singh Khalsa, Pence said that he was fully aware of Sikh awareness issues since his days as Governor, a Sikhs PAC media release said. Main topic of discussion with the delegation was Sikh awareness and introduction of Sikh History in public history curriculum through federal department of education.

The 58-year-old leader also admired the efforts of Sikhs PAC for encouraging Sikh Community for its participation in the main stream politics, the statement said.

During the meeting, Pence reaffirmed his commitment to the Sikh community and encouraged it to continue to give back in the form of serving in the military and public offices at local, state and federal levels, it said.

Early this week, Khalsa visited Washington DC and met about two dozen US Senator and Congressmen. He also attended US Global Leadership Collision where about 500 world faith leaders, veterans and elected leaders participated to influence the American foreign aid policies.

Pence was the first siting Governor who attended Sikh Parade and bestowed highest Civil award to a Sikh in 2015.

The US state of Indiana has passed a resolution recognising Sikhs significant contributions to America. Hate-crime incidents against Sikhs have seen a spurt in in America recently.

A 39-year-old Sikh man was shot in the arm outside his home in Kent, Washington in March by a partially-masked gunman who shouted go back to your own country.
It was truly a happy Fathers Day for 63-year-old Al Annunziata who came face to face with his 40-year-old daughter he never knew he had.

Annunziata and Jyll Justamond had an emotional first meeting on June 11. Im never going to let you go, ever, ABC News quoted Annunziata as telling his daughter.

Justamond of Littleton, Colorado, said that she found Annunziata after tracking him down on Facebook on April 3  her 40th birthday.She started searching for her biological father years after learning that people she thought were her parents were actually her grandparents.

My biological mother was 18 when she had me. She asked her stepfather and mother to raise me and I didnt know I wasnt their child. I found out when I was 10 ... the person I thought was my half-sister was actually my mom, she said.

Justamond said she approached her biological mother, Linda to ask about her father. She told her her father could be a bartender at a bar called Nearys.

In April, Justamond posted in a Facebook group dedicated to natives of Palisades Park, New Jersey, where the bar was located in the 1970s. Justamond found and reached out to Annunziata on Facebook.
An ongoing trial in Phnom Penh of Australian nurse Tammy Davis-Charles on charges of running an illegal surrogacy business. (Photo: File)

Takeo (Cambodia): Peeling a mango inside her rickety wooden shack, Chhum Long explains how her daughter's decision to nurture a Western couple's baby in her womb helped her family buy two desperately needed items a metal roof and a motorbike.

Last year a broker appeared outside the 60-year-old's house in Cambodia's southern Takeo province and offered her daughter $10,000 to be a surrogate mother for a wealthy foreign couple.

"My daughter immediately agreed with the offer because we are very poor," she told. "They took the baby away as soon as he was born, she did not even see his face."

An ongoing trial in Phnom Penh of Australian nurse Tammy Davis-Charles on charges of running an illegal surrogacy business has shone a spotlight on Cambodia's role in the rented womb trade.

It is a little-regulated industry that pairs wealthy foreign couples desperate for a child paying as much as $50,000 with some of the world's most vulnerable women. The enterprise has sparked a regulatory game of cat and mouse as poorer nations move to halt the trade only to see it resurface or appear across their borders.

One-by-one countries that had been popular surrogacy destinations like India, Nepal and Thailand have banned the trade. Cambodia did the same in November. But interviews conducted by AFP suggest the industry remains, albeit in the shadows.

Cambodia is one of Asia's poorest countries with an average annual income of just $1,150. Nine months of surrogacy might bring in as much as nine years salary.

The village of Puth Sar, where Chhum Long and her daughter hail from, is a typical target. Its bucolic charm wooden houses surrounded by green paddy fields an hour south of the capital belies an entrenched poverty.

Village chief Ouk Savouen said brokers first appeared two years ago. At least 13 women have agreed to be surrogates since then, some after the ban came in.

"There are now four surrogates who are currently pregnant but they keep it quiet," he said. "They were recruited in February and March."

The village chief dislikes the trade, saying it is exploitative and rarely provides families with the kind of riches they think will free them because the payments are mostly frittered away.

But he also recognises it is hard for women to turn down the offer of such large sums. "I just want them to be fully paid and cared for," he said, suggesting careful regulation is better than an outright ban.

No surrogate mother in Puth Sar was willing to speak when AFP visited. But two recent surrogates from other Cambodian villages agreed to talk on the condition that only their nicknames were used.

Both were driven by poverty but said they had broadly positive experiences. Champei got pregnant before the ban, giving birth in April to a boy for a Dutch couple. She was paid $10,000, which was used to purchase a plot of land.

"This is a lot of money for me," she said. "I want to be a surrogate mother again so I can build a home," she said, adding that other women from her village were also surrogates.

Romduol, 35, makes just $200 a month as a garment factory worker in Kampong Speu province. She heard about surrogacy through her colleagues and gave birth to a baby girl for a gay Australian couple before the ban.

"The Australians were so happy with the baby," she said. "I still consider her my child. I miss her because she had been in my womb for more than nine months."

She used the money to pay off debts. "But I have not fulfilled my dream yet. If possible I want to be a surrogate mother again because I need a house," she said. Cambodian government officials, however, say the ban was necessary.

"Cambodia is still poor but we don't want to use surrogacy to reduce poverty among our people," Chou Bun Eng, who heads an anti-human trafficking committee at the Ministry of Interior, told. "Otherwise Cambodia will become a factory to produce babies for sale".

The November ban came in the form of a government edict. But there has yet to be a law passed specifically outlawing the trade, leaving it in a legal grey area.

Chou Bun Eng said the government was drafting legislation but provided no timeframe. Back at Puth Sar, Chhum Long admits the money from her daughter's surrogacy has not rescued them from poverty.

After burning through monthly cash instalments dealt out during the pregnancy and spending much of the remaining money on paying off debts, there wasn't enough to buy the new house they had hoped for.

"We are still poor," she shrugs and then grins. "But if they selected older women, I'd want to be a surrogate too."
French President Emmanuel Macron meets peoples he leaves his house before voting in the final round of parliamentary elections, in the northern seaside town of Le Touquet, France. (Photo: AP)

Paris: French President Emmanuel Macron has voted in parliamentary elections expected to hand his 14-month-old party a big majority.

Curious crowds gathered in the northern seaside town of Le Touquet where Macron cast a ballot Sunday morning in the second round of elections for the 577-seat National Assembly. His centrist Republic on the Move! party is expected to win more than 400 seats.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, a center-right politician who joined Macron's movement, cast his ballot in the port of Le Havre. Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen is voting in the depressed northern town of Henin-Beaumont, where she is running for a parliament seat.

Far-left ex-presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon is voting in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, where he is seeking a seat as well.

French voters are casting ballots in the final round of parliamentary elections that could clinch President Emmanuel Macron's hold on power, as his fledgling party overturns politics as usual.

Pollsters say that after routing traditional parties in last week's first-round vote, Macron's Republic on the Move! party could win up to 450 seats Sunday in the 577-seat National Assembly, the powerful lower chamber. That would allow Macron to move fast with promised legislation, notably on changing labor laws to make hiring and firing easier.

Candidates from the conservative party, The Republicans, are expected to form the largest opposition group, with 70-110 seats, according to pollsters.

Less than half of the 47.5 million-strong electorate turned out last Sunday, a record low that especially punished Marine Le Pen's far-right National Front party.
The man said he did not provoke the woman in any way. (Photo: AP/Representational)

London: A 21-year-old Pakistan-origin Muslim man in the UK was allegedly hurled with racial slurs by a woman while walking down a road after breaking his Ramazan fast, according to media reports.

The woman was sitting in a doorway in Huddersfield, a large market town in West Yorkshire, England, when she began swearing at the man on Friday. "Do you wanna know why I'm being racist? In my own country? Because it's your race that's blowing up our f***ing nation," the woman yelled. She then screamed: "What are you going to do? I'll s*** in your face..."

Her outrageous outburst was targeted at the man walking down Kirkgate after breaking fast for Ramazan when the woman began her unprovoked tirade of abuse, The Sun reported.

The victim, who did not want to be named, took out his phone to record her slurs. The woman's face has not been blurred so people can help identify her.

The man said he did not provoke the woman in any way. "I was minding my own business. She just started having a go at me. I asked her what her problem was and she just carried on. I could tell she had a bit to drink but there is no excuse for it," he said.

"I am a 21-year-old British-Pakistani born and raised in Huddersfield and I have never been in this situation before. After this I seriously don't feel safe in my own country!," he added.

The victim has reported the incident to the police. A representative for West Yorkshire Police said that a hate crime has been recorded and enquiries are ongoing.
Days after the tragedy, a lot of attention has been on the panels that were fitted to the outside of the tower in 2011, that have been labelled flammable by German and US authorities and banned from use on high rise buildings.

British Chancellor Philip Hammond on Sunday said that the controversial non-fire resistant cladding fitted to Grenfell Tower was banned in the UK.

Days after the tragedy, a lot of attention has been on the panels that were fitted to the outside of the tower in 2011, that have been labelled flammable by German and US authorities and banned from use on high rise buildings.

Asked about this by the BBCs Andrew Marr, The Chancellor said: My understanding is the cladding in question, this flammable cladding which is banned in Europe and the US, is also banned here.

So there are two separate questions. One, are our regulations correct, do they permit the right kind of materials and ban the wrong kind of materials? The second question is were they correctly complied with?

Mr Hammond said, That would be a subject that the inquiry will look at. It will also be a subject that the criminal investigation will be looking at.

Contractors are reported to have saved 5,000 by using cheaper aluminium cladding known as Reynobond PE which does not have a fire resistant core. The cladding installed on the 67-metre Grenfell block was not designed for use on buildings taller than 10metres high  a fraction of the  the Daily Mail reported.
The United Nations said Friday that ISIS may be holding more than 100,000 civilians as human shields in the Old City. (Photo: AFP)

Mosul: Iraqi forces launched an assault Sunday to retake Mosul's Old City, the last district still held by the Islamic State group three years after the jihadists seized the northern city and declared their "caliphate".

Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance.

The push into Mosul's Old City a densely populated warren of narrow alleyways on the western side of Iraq's second city marks the culmination of a months-long campaign by Iraqi forces to retake ISIS's last major urban stronghold in the country.

The loss of Mosul would mark the effective end of the Iraqi portion of the cross-border "caliphate" ISIS declared in the summer of 2014 after seizing large parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

The military announced the start of the assault in a statement, saying the army, counter-terrorism forces and federal police had "launched an attack on the Old City". Machinegun fire crackled and plumes of smoke rose above the Old City as surrounding Iraqi positions were hit with heavy mortar fire.

On the first floor of a building on a street lined with destroyed car repair shops, a CTS commander holding a tablet computer feverishly called in coordinates for an air strike against a suicide car bomb approaching his position.

Staff Lieutenant General Abdulghani al-Assadi, a senior commander with the Counter-Terrorism Service, said the operation was advancing slowly "to preserve civilian lives as we breach the enemy's defence lines".

"Our forces have moved in on foot because the alleys are very narrow," he said. "The strategy has changed compared to other operations. There is no room for our vehicles to manoeuvre and there are many civilians."

The United Nations said Friday that ISIS may be holding more than 100,000 civilians as human shields in the Old City. Surrounded by Iraqi forces on three sides and blocked on the other by the Tigris River that runs through Mosul, the jihadists had no choice but a fight to the finish, Assadi said.

"This is the last episode of the Daesh show," he said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS. "It's our most difficult operation. Fighting is fierce because it's their last stronghold. They have nowhere to flee." He said he hoped the operation could be concluded before Eid the festival marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, expected around June 25 or 26 "but I think it is going to take longer".

Iraqi forces launched the battle for Mosul in October, retaking the eastern part of the city in January and starting the operation for its western part the following month.

The International Rescue Committee, a major aid group operating in Iraq, warned of the huge risks facing already-traumatised civilians. "This will be a terrifying time for around 100,000 people still trapped in Mosul's Old City and now at risk of getting caught up in the fierce street fighting to come," the IRC's acting country director Nora Love said in a statement.

"Both coalition and Iraqi forces must do everything in their power to keep civilians safe during these final stages of the battle for Mosul." Since the battle to retake Mosul began, an estimated 862,000 people have been displaced from the city, although 195,000 have since returned, mainly to its eastern side.

It was in Mosul in July 2014 that ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance, urging Muslims worldwide to move to the group's "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria.

The jihadists have since lost most of the territory they once controlled in the face of US-backed offensives in Iraq and in Syria, where an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces are advancing on their last Syrian bastion Raqa.

It is not clear how many ISIS members remain in Mosul, where many foreign fighters have joined local jihadists since the city was taken.

"The locals in Daesh will shave their beards and try to blend in with the civilians as they always do," Assadi of the CTS said. "The foreigners will fight hard and eventually get killed."

The fall of Mosul was Iraqi forces' worst defeat in the war with ISIS. Regaining it would cap a major turnaround for security forces, who broke and ran despite outnumbering the jihadists who attacked the city in 2014.
Security forces are deployed at the site of suicide attacks and an ongoing clash between Taliban insurgents and government forces in the main police station in eastern Paktia province, Afghanistan. (Photo: AP)

Kabul: At least five Afghan policemen were killed and 15 people injured in a suicide bomb and gun attack by Taliban insurgents on the police headquarters in an eastern city Sunday, authorities said.

The assault on the headquarters in Gardez, which was still continuing, was launched at 6:00 am, said the regional police commander, Asadullah Shirzad.

Five civilians were among the wounded. One of the five attackers was still holding out more than five hours after the coordinated assault began, Shirzad said.

"The first attacker blew up his vehicle at the entrance to the headquarters, opening the way for two others who opened fire on security forces, and another suicide bomber was shot dead," he said. The head of the police hospital, Dr Shir Mohammad, confirmed the casualty toll.

The spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack in a communique.
Two officials of our Consulate General Jalalabad are missing since June 16. (Photo: File)

Islamabad: Pakistan on Sunday said two officers from its consulate in Afghanistans Jalalabad province have gone missing while returning to their home country by road.

Two officials of our Consulate General Jalalabad are missing since June 16, 2017 while commuting to Pakistan by road, foreign office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said.

Pakistan has requested the Afghan government that all efforts may be made to ensure early recovery of its officials and bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.

The Afghan authorities have informed that all efforts were in hand to probe the incident and three distinct investigating groups have been constituted to ensure safe recovery of the officials, Zakaria said.

We are in constant touch with the Afghan authorities, according to the spokesman.

Jalalabad is the regional hub in eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan. The Taliban and militants linked to the ISIS both operate in eastern Afghanistan.
Darjeeling is bracing for another shutdown as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leadership has decided to hold a protest rally with the bodies of two persons allegedly killed during yesterday's clashes.



The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.



A senior GJM leader today said, "We will conduct the rally at Chowbazar with the bodies."



The police have declined them the permission to hold such a rally. A senior police official said, "No one has been given permission to hold a rally in the hills."



West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had yesterday said that the ongoing agitation in Darjeeling hills was a "deep-rooted conspiracy" supported by the insurgent groups of the Northeast and some foreign countries.



The GJM had rubbished the allegation made by Banerjee, saying that she was trying to malign the Gorkhas fighting for their identity.



The police, who have been on high alert after yesterday's violence and arson, conducted route marches with the Army in several parts of the hills.



Police pickets and barricades were placed in front of the government and GTA offices, and various entry-exit points of the hills. Several woman police personnel have also been deployed.



Except for medicine stores, all others shops and hotels remained closed in Darjeeling.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed private and government schools here to submit an action plan on installing rainwater harvesting systems in their premises.



The schools have till Monday to submit their proposals in the NGT registry after serving a copy to the Delhi Jal Board.



A bench headed by Justice Jawad Rahim had given schools five days in its June 15 order.



"Each of the noticees (schools) is directed to file memo indicating the stage of the work in progress and further time required to complete the work," the bench, also comprising expert member Ajay A Deshpande, said.



The green panel said the schools need to take immediate steps to set up rainwater harvesting systems as the monsoon season is likely to start soon.



The matter is listed for next hearing on July 17.



The tribunal had earlier directed schools to install rainwater harvesting systems in their premises within 10 days. In the event of failure, it had warned, each one would be saddled with a cost of Rs 20,000.



The NGT had earlier directed the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) and Delhi Jal Board (DJB) to inspect private and government schools here after a plea alleged that they had failed to install systems to harvest rainwater in their premises.



The direction came during hearing of a plea of Mahesh Chandra Saxena, who claimed to be associated with an NGO working in the field of groundwater conservation.



He has claimed that government departments, educational institutions and residential societies had either not installed rainwater harvesting systems, or had set them up but they were non-functional.
BJP president Amit Shah today held a close-door meeting with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray as part of the ruling party's efforts to ensure support of allies in the presidential election.



According to a source in the Shiv Sena, Shah told Thackeray that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would decide the NDA's candidate for the highest constitutional post.





To this, the Sena chief said they would take a call on support after the BJP reveals its choice for president, the source said.



Shah, along with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, visited Thackeray's residence 'Matoshree' and held a close-door meeting, which started around 10 am and lasted nearly 75 minutes.



BJP state unit chief Raosaheb Danve, who had gone to Thackeray's residence, and senior Sena MP Sanjay Raut, a close aide of the party president, were not part of the meeting.



According to the source, during the meeting Shah appealed to the Sena to support the BJP's nominee for the president's post.



However, Thackeray said he would like to know the name of the ruling party's candidate before deciding on its support in the July 17 presidential election.



The source said, "Shah said the name of the candidate would be announced by Narendra Modi. We are hopeful of receiving Shiv Sena's support.



"Thackeray told Shah that his party should declare the name then only the Shiv Sena can decide whether to extend the support."



The meeting comes a day after the BJP chief, who is here on a three-day visit to strengthen the party organisation in the state, said his party would consult its allies before finalising the NDA's presidential candidate.



The Shiv Sena, the BJP's oldest ally, had earlier said it may choose an "independent" path in the election to the highest constitutional office.



It had backed Congress nominees -- Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee -- in the last two presidential elections.



The Sena, which has often been critical of the BJP and the Modi government, recently suggested the name of M S Swaminathan, the father of India's Green Revolution, for President.



Asked about Fadnavis' remark that the BJP was prepared for snap Assembly elections, in an apparent reference to the continued strain in ties with the Shiv Sena, Shah yesterday said, "What he meant was that if mid-term polls are forced on us, we are ready to fight."



On the recent farm loan waiver announced by the Maharashtra government, Shah had said through it the state was offering relief to farmers.



"The burden of loan waiver will be on the government and not banks," he had said.
Darjeeling remained on the edge today as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a GJM activist, who was killed during clashes with police, and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.



Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and the police were witnessed yesterday.



The protesters, also carrying black flags and the Tricolour, assembled at the Chowkbazar. They shouted slogans demanding that the police and security personnel be "immediately removed" from Darjeeling.



"We think the police and security personnel should be immediately removed from Darjeeling to create conducive environment for talks. The government should allow us to carry out peaceful and democratic agitation," Darjeeling MLA Amar Rai of the GJM told reporters here.



The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari yesterday. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.



This was the first death since violent protests returned to Darjeeling on June 8, after a gap of a few years.



West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had yesterday said that the ongoing agitation in Darjeeling hills was a "deep-rooted conspiracy" supported by the insurgent groups of the Northeast and some foreign countries.



The GJM had rubbished the allegation made by Banerjee, saying that she was trying to malign the Gorkhas fighting for their identity.



The police, who have been on high alert after yesterday's violence and arson, conducted route marches with the Army in several parts of the hills.



Police pickets and barricades were placed in front of the government and GTA offices, and various entry-exit points of the hills. Several woman police personnel have also been deployed.


As Darjeeling remained on the boil over a separate statehood agitation, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today appealed to protesters not to resort to violence and, instead, hold dialogue to resolve any issue.



He said resorting to violence would never help them in finding a solution and asked the people living there to remain calm and peaceful.



"All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment," Singh said.



In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution, he said, emphasising that "every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue".



"I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence," the home minister said in a series of tweets.



Singh also spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today and discussed with her the situation prevailing there.



"She (Banerjee) has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling," he said.



Singh had yesterday also spoken to Banerjee and asked her to take all possible steps so that peace is restored in the picturesque hill station where people are protesting against "imposition" of Bengali in schools by making the language mandatory.



The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which is in power in the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, is spearheading the agitation there demanding a separate state -- Gorkhaland.



Darjeeling remained on the edge today as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a GJM activist, who was killed during clashes with police, and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.



Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and the police were witnessed yesterday.



The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari yesterday. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.



This was the first death since violent protests returned to Darjeeling on June 8, after a gap of a few years.
Bankers are meeting from Monday to finalise their next course of action on six of the 12 bad loan accounts for immediate referral to NCLT after the RBI named the largest defaulters to face bankruptcy proceedings.



The first set of six troubled accounts are Bhushan Steel (Rs 44,478 crore), Essar Steel (Rs 37,284 crore), Bhusan Power and Steel (Rs 37,248 crore), Alok Industries (Rs 22,075 crore), Amtek Auto (Rs 14,074 crore) and Monnet Ispat (Rs 12,115 crore), a banker said.



According to RBI, these 12 accounts owe Rs 2.5 trillion to the system, which constitute around 25 per cent of gross bad loans.



The other accounts named for bankruptcy action, according to bankers, include Lanco Infra (Rs 44,364.6 crore), Electrosteel Steels (Rs 10,273.6 crore), Era Infra (Rs 10,065.4 crore) Jypaee Infratech (Rs 9,635 crore) ABG Shipyard (Rs 6,953 crore) and Jyoti Structures with a defaulted loan of Rs 5,165 crore.



Last week, the RBI's internal advisory committee (IAC) had sent the list of 12 accounts to bankers for immediate reference under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). These 12 accounts are led by SBI (six of them), PNB, ICICI Bank, Union Bank, IDBI Bank and Corporation Bank, according to bankers.



"Beginning Monday, banks are meeting to discuss six of the 12 accounts named by the RBI before referring accounts to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) by the end of this month," a banker told PTI.



Since these are large accounts and involve multiple banks, the lenders will try to take a common view on all administrative requirements before referring these accounts to the NCLT.



Another banker said "they will also decide on appointment of insolvency professional (IP) who will later decide on the resolution plan and submit it to the lenders for their consideration".



While ABG Shipyard, Amtek Auto, Alok Industries, Bhushan Steel, Bhushan Power and Steel, Electrosteel Steels, Jaypee Infratech, Jyoti Structures and Monnet Ispat and Energy did not respond to e-mails sent to them, Era Infra and Lanco Infra could not be contacted.



When reached out for comment, Essar Steel spokesperson said, "We are not aware of any such development."



These 12 accounts referred by the RBI have an exposure of more than Rs 5,000 crore each, with 60 per cent or more classified as bad loans by banks as of March 2016.



Once a case is referred to the NCLT, there is a time line of 180 days to decide on a resolution plan. An additional 90 days can also be given. If a plan is not decided, then the company will go into liquidation.



Total NPAs of the banking system stand at over Rs 8 trillion of which Rs 6 trillion are with public sector banks. Last month, the government had cleared an ordinance to amend the Banking Regulation Act, giving the RBI more powers to direct banks to resolve bad loans.



Bankers, however, are worried about the haircut they may have to take if the accounts go into liquidation.



"It needs to be seen that what kind of haircut we will have to take. In case of liquidation, there will be a large haircut we will have to suffer," said an executive director of a state-owned bank.



The internal advisory committee of the RBI had identified these 12 accounts after studying top 500 ones of the banking system.
Just a few days after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami urged the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take diplomatic measures for the release of Indian fishermen who are in Sri Lankan custody, five fishermen were arrested and their boat were seized by the Lankan navy on Sunday on the charges of violation of International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL).



Fisheries department sources here said that fishermen from Rameswaram ventured into the sea in the morning and they were fishing off Nedutheevu. Sri Lankan navy intercepted the boat and arrested five fishermen beside seizing their boats.



Last month, six fishermen from Tamil Nadu, who were arrested by the Lankan authorities, were lodged in Sri Lankan jail.



Last Tuesday, Chief Minister Palaniswami asked Modi to take up fishermen issue urgently with the concerned authorities in Sri Lanka and arrange for an early release of the 135 fishing boats and 11 fishermen currently in Sri Lankan custody.



Palaniswami also pointed out that Sri Lankan Government is following a deft strategy of not releasing the fishermen and their fishing boats.



He said fishing boats are perilously berthed and are in imminent threat of irreparable damage due to long periods of disuse and the onslaught of the monsoon.
A virtual reality therapy that involves watching calming 3D videos can significantly reduce pain for hospitalised patients, according to a study.



Researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in the US examined 100 hospitalised patients who reported pain scores of greater than three on the Numeric Pain Rating Scale from zero to 10.



Fifty patients received virtual reality (VR) therapy consisting of wearing VR goggles to watch calming video content such as helicopter rides over scenic portions of Iceland, or imagery of swimming in the ocean with whales. Those patients reported a 24 per cent drop in pain scores after using the virtual reality goggles.



Another 50 patients viewed a standard, two-dimensional nature video, depicting relaxing scenes with a calming music audio track, on a close-proximity screen. Although those patients also experienced a reduction in pain, the decrease of 13.2 per cent was less dramatic.



"Results indicate virtual reality may be an effective tool along with traditional pain management protocols," said Brennan Spiegel, director of Cedars-Sinai's Health Service Research. "This gives doctors and patients more options than medication alone," said Spiegel.



While it remains unknown exactly how VR works to reduce pain, Spiegel attributes the benefit to what he calls "immersive distraction."



When the mind is deeply engaged in an immersive experience, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to perceive other stimuli, including pain. "We believe virtual reality hijacks the senses, but in a good way," Spiegel said.



"It creates an immersive distraction that stops the mind from processing pain, offering a drug-free supplement to traditional pain management," he said.



Since thw VR intervention was only 15 minutes long and included only one visualisation, it is possible that pain could rebound after completion of the therapy session, Spiegel said adding that longer-term pain reduction might require sustained and repeated exposure to varied virtual reality content. The study was published in the journal JMIR Mental Health.
A man in the US was sentenced to 72 years in prison for beating his 84-year-old grandfather to death during an argument over what to have for dinner.



Arapahoe District Judge Phillip Douglass on Friday sentenced Jason Vanbommel, 34, to 72 years in the Department of Corrections after a jury in April found him guilty of reckless manslaughter and first-degree assault of an at-risk adult, among other charges.



Vanbommel was also found to be a habitual offender, which enhanced his sentence, the Fox News reported.



"The Vanbommels were an American success story. They came from difficult circumstances and created a home for themselves in this great country," Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Sugioka told the court. For Frans Vanbommel "to be be repaid with this ferocity and hatred is inconceivable."



Judge Douglass noted that the defendant had shown no remorse during the trial and showed only spite during his sentencing hearing. "This horrific crime...all because your grandfather told you not to yell at your grandmother," Douglass told Jason Vanbommel. "There is not room in a civilised society for those who would think this is acceptable."



On December 29, 2015, Vanbommel's grandmother was preparing dinner. Vanbommel argued with her over the shrimp she planned to prepare. Frans Vanbommel interceded and told Jason Vanbommel to be respectful of his grandmother. Jason Vanbommel flew into a rage, throwing things and yelling profanities.



When Frans Vanbommel tried to use the phone to call 911, Jason Vanbommel began punching his grandfather in the head with full-strength blows.



When Frans Vanbommel fell to the floor, Jason Vanbommel kicked him in the torso, fracturing his ribs.

Jason Vanbommel left the home; police were called and responded to the scene.



The condition of Frans Vanbommel deteriorated. He was admitted to a hospital and died January 6 from injuries inflicted by Jason Vanbommel.



"Unfortunately, all too often our seniors our abused by those closest to them," said District Attorney George H Brauchler.



"This was an especially egregious case, and this defendant who victimised his grandfather is going where he deserves to be: in prison for a very long time," Brauchler said.


In a consensus building exercise ahead of the Presidential elections, BJP president Amit Shah on Sunday met his Shiv Sena counterpart Uddhav Thackeray and chiefs of other allies in Maharashtra.



The Amit Shah-Uddhav Thackeray meeting assumes significance in the wake of war-of-words between the two allies and Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnaviss threat that his party was ready for mid-term polls after Shiv Sena ministers skipped a weekly Cabinet meeting and kept on targeting the BJP.



The meeting lasted for 75 minutes; however, there was no word on what exactly transpired in the meeting.



While Uddhav was accompanied by his son and Yuva Sena president Aditya Thackeray, Shah was accompanied by Fadnavis and BJPs state unit chief Raosaheb Danve-Patil.



There has not been any official word on the meeting except for mere confirmation that it was a courtesy meeting and held on a cordial atmosphere.



Shiv Sena is the oldest ally of BJP and it does not want to go wrong this time as the Shiv Sena founder late Balasaheb Thackeray had supported Congress nominees - Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee in the Presidential elections in 2002 and 2012. While Patil got the support on the ground that she was a Maharashtrian, Mukherjee had personal relations with the Thackeray family.



This time around initially Shiv Sena floated the name of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and later agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan.



Apparently, the Shiv Sena has kept its card close to its chest and want the BJP to finalise the name and seek support.



Shah on Sunday wrapped up his three-day visit to Mumbai during which he spoke to leaders of various parties as part of an exercise ahead of finalisation of NDAs presidential candidate.



During the day, Shah also met Ramdas Athawale, the founder-president of RPI (A), who is also the union minister for social justice and empowerment, Mahadev Jankar, the founder-president of Rashtriya Samaj Paksha and minister for animal husbandry, dairy development and fisheries, Vinayak Mete of Shiv Sangram, who is the chairman of the committee that is overseeing the Chhatrapati Shivaji memorial project and Vinay Kore, president of Jansurajya Party.



However, Shah could not have a meeting with Raju Shetti, the president of Swabhimani Shetkari Sangathan, who was one of those who is spearheading the farmers agitation.



In factShetti is agitated since the last few months over BJP poaching his colleague Sadabhau Khot, who is the minister of state for agriculture.



Shetti, who is in Delhi to plan for farmers agitation nationwide, was quoted saying: Shetti said, For me, politics is not important. The issue of farmers are serious and various leaders from all over the country are coming together. I decided to remain present for the farmers.






Pope Francis is calling for the faithful to not only welcome refugees, but to personally learn from their stories as a way to curb fears and "distorted" ideologies about them.



Francis made the appeal today as he marked the UN's World Day of Refugees, which will be celebrated on Tuesday.



Speaking from his studio overlooking St Peter's Square, Francis prayed for all those who have lost their lives fleeing war and persecution. He said their stories of pain and hope are actually an opportunity for reciprocal understanding.





He said: "In reality, personal meetings with refugees can dissolve fears and distorted ideologies and become paths for growth in humanity."



Francis' four-year papacy has been marked by his profound solidarity with refugees and demand that countries build bridges of welcome, not walls.
Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Akhilesh Yadav and his father and SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav seem to be heading for yet another face off in the forthcoming presidential poll.



According to the SP sources here, Akhilesh was not in favour of extending support to the NDA's nominee in the event of a contest for the president's post.



Mulayam, sources said, had assured senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh and Venkaiya Naidu, when they met the former, that he would support the NDA nominee provided he was not a hardcore Hindutva leader.



Akhilesh, however, has made it clear that he was firm with the non-NDA opposition on the issue. ''There is no question of supporting the NDA candidate,'' said a senior SP leader and a close aide of Akhilesh here.



The leader said that his party was for a consensus candidate. ''We will support the opposition nominee in the event of a contest,'' he added.



Although the SP leader chose not to comment on Mulayam's reported assurance to the NDA leaders on this issue, he claimed that the entire party leadership was behind Akhilesh.



He also said that the party leaders would speak to Mulayam try to persuade him to back the opposition nominee in the presidential polls.



Akhilesh had also recently indicated that his party's alliance with the Congress would continue. SP and Congress had fought the recent assembly polls in an alliance though it failed to click.



SP currently has five members in Lok Sabha and 18 in the Rajya Sabha. Its strength in the UP assembly is 47.



According to the SP leaders, there could be another face-off between Akhilesh and Mulayam on the issue. The efforts to re-unite the father-son duo by some senior party leaders had not yielded any positive results in the past.






President Pranab Mukherjee today lamented the lack of health care infrastructure and staff in the country, particularly in rural areas, and expressed hope that more investments would help bridge the gap.



After laying the foundation stone for a super speciality hospital here, he said creating better health infrastructure through investments has helped cure several diseases but "there remains a huge gap yet".



The president said, the country requires not only accessible but affordable medical facilities.

"Against the international norm of a doctor per thousand population, we have one doctor for 1,700 people in our country," he rued.



"No civilised society can tolerate this," he said. The situation is more alarming in rural India where the shortage of surgeons is estimated to the tune of 83 per cent. The overall shortage translates to 81.2 per cent as on 2015.



The president offered solutions to help overcome some of the challenges. He suggested the situation requires increasing the number of medical colleges and engagement of corporate sector, especially in rural areas.



He asked people to think about the kind of health care system they want - a commercial, profit-driven one or a system compatible with the socio-economic conditions of society.



The president also condemned attacks on doctors, medical staff and vandalism of health institutions. "This is no way...If you can't trust doctors whom can you trust?"



The region has witnessed protests by medical professionals over the issue in the recent past.

Mukherjee also visited the 800-year-old Sri Krishna Temple in Udupi.



The temple was renovated with wooden craft a month ahead of the presidential visit, said K R Shashank Bhatt, a disciple of the 88-year-old head priest at the temple.



Later, Mukherjee also prayed at the Mookambika temple in Kollur, a little over 70 kilometres from here. The distance was covered by road.



Mookambika temple is the only temple dedicated to goddess Parvati. Goddess Mookambika is in the form of Jyotir-Linga which combines both Shakti and Shiva. Kollur is a small village of about 6 sqkms in area at the foot of the Western Ghats.



Udupi is considered a fertile ground for the banking sector and is the birthplace of the Syndicate Bank and the Corporation Bank. Karnataka's coastal city is also known for its cuisines and temples.
The death toll rose to five with the recovery of two more bodies in a rain-hit landslide in Ri-Bhoi district today, while a child was killed in a separate landslide in Meghalaya.



While three persons were killed in the landslide at Umiam industrial area yesterday, bodies of two missing women were found this afternoon, SP Ramesh Singh said.





All the five persons belonged to two families, he said.



Nine injured persons were admitted to hospital.



He said the incident took place at around 5 AM when the people were asleep inside the makeshift quarters of a sawmill at the Meghalaya Industrial Development Corporation area.



In another landslide at Mawjrong in East Khasi Hills district one child was killed yesterday, a delayed report said. The parents of the victim escaped with minor injuries, police said.



The incessant rain in the past 48 hours have triggered several landslides in the state causing extensive damage in several roads.
A college girl was today allegedly raped and set on fire by her boy friend at her house in Bihar's Khagaria district.



The young man entered the house of the girl and raped her before setting her on fire with kerosene oil at Temtha Karari village, Superintendent of Police Minu Kumari said.



After committing the crime, he left the girl's room by locking the door from outside.





On hearing her cries, her relatives and neighbours broke open the door of her room and took her to Sadar hospital where she died, Kumari said.



In her dying statement, the victim blamed her lover for the crime, the SP said.

The accused and his relatives were absconding.



Both the victim and her boy friend lived in the same village and were students of the same college, she added.
Despite thousands of arrests being made of late, those engaged in illegal trade of liquor in dry Bihar continue to flout laws with impunity. The latest instance has been reported in Munger where the consignment was being smuggled from Jharkhands Deoghar district to Bihar. The Munger police were baffled to find that liquor was stored in LPG cylinders being transported in a carrier van.



When a police team intercepted the van, the driver and the cleaner ran away. After being chased and nabbed, the duo admitted they were couriers for liquor traders, said Munger SP, Ashish Bharti. The police stumbled upon 138 bottles of Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL), 10 containers of beer besides a huge quantity of country-made liquor pouches hidden inside LPG cylinders after cutting its bottom.



Four persons have been arrested for violating Bihar Excise and Prohibition Act 2016, the senior cop said. The seizure follows police raid at Patnas Agamkuan area where two trucks from Haryana were seized for carrying 520 cartons of around 5000 liquor bottles. While one truck had 290 cartons, the other one (following it) had 230 cartons of liquor.



The banned consignment, which was sent by Jitan, a liquor trader in Haryana, was to be delivered in Bihars Samastipur district. To ensure that his consignment reaches its destination without any hitch, Jitan would follow the trucks in his car. Based on the statements of arrested truck driver, the Patna police arrested Jitan too.



This was the second unsuccessful attempt made by Haryana traders to smuggle in liquor in dry Bihar this month. Last week, the police arrested 11 persons for smuggling liquor from Gurgaon to Bihars Vaishali district. One such trader had even made a fake identity card of Haryana police to dodge the cops. After the arrested persons complained that they had greased the palms of Bihar cops too, three police personnel in Patnas Beur police station were suspended for being hand-in-glove with illegal liquor traders.
Janatha Dal (Secular) state president H D Kumaraswamy said there is no question of partnering with the BJP or the Congress either before or after Assembly elections.



Addressing reporters in Mangaluru on Sunday, he said the JD(S) is not in need of support from the Congress or the BJP, but they do.



Referring to the recent no-confidence motion passed by the Congress against Legislative Council Chairman D H Shankaramurthy, he said the Congress did not ask for the support of JD(S) in the beginning stage. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah wanted Shankaramurthy to step down from the post of the Chairman of Legislative Council. The Congress had thought they would pass the non-confidence motion with the support of their independent MLAs. But their plan turned upside down, Kumaraswamy said.



He said that may be Yeddyurappa also didnt want Shankaramurthy to continue as the Chairman of the Council and that was why he did not seek the JD(S) support. We do not need to learn a lesson of secularism from Siddaramaiah. He is always involved in caste-based politics which is evident in his decisions.



Kumaraswamy pointed out that Congress did not have a majority in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). It has been running the administration with the help of JD(S) now, he said.



He meanwhile condemned the assault by a Congress MLA on corporation member from JD(S) in Bengaluru.



The JD(S) MLAs too are being insulted by the Congress-led state government. The rights of Chikkamagaluru MLA has been curtained in the Bagair Hukum Committee.



Opposing the harassment by a group on a family belonging to minority in Kalladka, he said both the Congress and the BJP have been playing games in Kalladka, only to disturb the communal harmony.



Leaders Amarnath Shetty, Farooq and Akshith Suvarna were present during the press meet.




Council Opposition leader of Mangaluru City Corporation Ganesh Hosabettu has said that the functioning of wet wells in Mangaluru has been paralysed and sewage flows on open drains in several parts of the city.



He told reporters here on Saturday that the stormwater drains had become open sewage carriers. He said residents had been complaining of unbearable stench emanating from the drains.



He said that staff working at wet wells and STPs have been on a stir for the past five days as they have not been paid salaries for the past three months. The protest by the staff has aggravated the situation, he said and accused the officials of failing to find a solution to the problems. The ruling Congress is silent on the issue, he said.



The overflowing sewage on roads from Pandeshwar, Kudroli, Kodialguthu, Kandathpalli, Sulthan Bathery, Kodikal, Dambel, Kottara Chowki, Bangrakulooru and Kavoor wet wells has been causing inconvenience to the public, he said.



He said that there are three pumps at Kavoor Sewage Treatment Plant of which, two have become defunct. Three pumps are essential during monsoon. When one available pump stops functioning, then the sewage overflows on national highway at Kottara Chowki to Bangrakuloor and joins the water body.



The blocked manhole near a private college on Kuloor-Kavoor road has broken allowing the sewage to flow till Maladi Court, causing inconvenience to the residents of the region, he said.



When the issue of the five wet wells in Surathkal becoming dysfunctional was brought to the notice of the Council meeting on May 31, the Mayor promised to set it right within 15 days. However, no action has been taken to plug the loopholes, he said.



With no steps being taken to de-clog the drain, residents fear such stagnation of sewage could pose a health hazard, he said. BJP Corporator Premananda Shetty said that in spite of availability of water in the Thumbe vented dam, about 10 wards in Mangaluru including Kankanady, Valencia, Pandeshwara, Bunder, Cantonment and Central were facing acute shortage of water for the past few days. Owing to the fault in concrete road works, a single rain inundates most of the roads in the city. The stormwater drains have not been constructed scientifically, he said.



Works on footpaths and junctions too have not been taken up in the city, he said.








Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president G Parameshwara are learnt to have held a meeting on Sunday and discussed expansion of the council of ministers, likely to be done after the ongoing monsoon session of the state legislature.



The leaders, it is learnt, discussed probable candidates for induction into the council of ministers. Reshuffling of portfolios and appointment of new KPCC office-bearers also came up for discussion.



Currently, there are two vacancies in the council of ministers. Another vacancy will arise as Parameshwara has already submitted his resignation as minister. He has been asked to continue as the home minister till the end of the legislature session, June 21.



Soon after seeing off President Pranab Mukherjee, who left for Udupi in the morning, the two leaders had breakfast at a hotel in VV Puram in southern Bengaluru. From there, they left to an undisclosed location in a private vehicle. The leaders are likely to hold another round of meeting in this regard with AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka K C Venugopal, who is expected to visit Bengaluru on June 23, sources in the Congress said.



Vacancies in the council of ministers were created due to the death of H S Mahadeva Prasad and the resignation of H Y Meti following charges that he was involved in a sex CD. While the late Mahadeva Prasad was a Lingayat, Meti belongs to the Kuruba community. Parameshwara is Dalit. More than a dozen ruling party legislators who belong to these communities are aspiring for ministerial berths, the sources added.



P M Ashok, M C Mohan Kumari, Dr A B Maalkaraddy, Rajashekar Patil, D B Inamdar, Basavaraj Shivannavar, (all Lingayats), P M Narendraswamy, Motamma (both Dalits), Meti, H M Revanna, Govindappa, C S Shivalli, MTB Nagaraj (all Kurubas) are among the aspirants for the ministerial posts. It is speculated in the Congress circles that Siddaramaiah may keep the crucial Home portfolio with himself.






Police have arrested a 35-year-old man for molesting a techie after throwing a rubber lizard on her in the lift of her office on CMH Road in Indiranagar, east Bengaluru, recently.



On June 14, around 9.30 am, the 24-year-old woman from Bihar got into the lift to go to her office on the fourth floor. Murali, a resident of Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagar near HAL, also entered the lift. He then threw a rubber lizard on her and she raised an alarm on seeing it. He then touched her inappropriately on the pretext of helping her get rid of the lizard. She realised it was a rubber lizard and blasted him for touching her. The man fled once the lift opened.



Murali, who works in a vegetable stall, and his friends had come to CMH Road for some work that day. CCTV cameras in the area captured his movements. Policemen on patrol started searching for him on the basis of the footage.



On Saturday, Murali and a relative came to CMH Road. Murali started behaving differently after seeing the police on patrol. He left behind his relative and started running away when policemen approached him. But they chased him down, a senior officer said.



Murali initially claimed that he had spotted a honeybee on the womans head and wanted to hit it. But he couldnt withstand intense questioning and confessed to the crime. Murali had actually followed the woman into the lift. He molested her as soon as the doors of the lift opened, the officer said.




Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math President, Swami Atmasthanandaji Maharaj passed away at a city hospital today after a prolonged illness.



The 98-year-old monk had been undergoing treatment for old age related ailment since February, 2015. A statement released by the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math said, "Despite the best medical attention, his condition deteriorated over the last few days and he passed away around 5.30PM today at Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan hospital."



The cremation will take place at Belur Math tomorrow at about 9.30 pm and the gates of Belur Math will remain open tonight and throughout tomorrow till the last rites are completed, it stated.



Atmasthanandaji, born in May, 1919, at Sabajpur, near Dhaka now in Bangladesh, had received "mantra diksha" from Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj (a monastic disciple of Ramakrishna) in 1938 and joined the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math in January 1941 when he was only 22 years old.



In 1945, Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the sixth President of the Order, gave him Brahmacharya vows, and in 1949, Sannyasa vows and the name Swami Atmasthananda.



After serving the Order at Belur Math and the branches at Deoghar (Vidyapith) and Mayavati (Advaita Ashrama), Atmasthanandaji got the opportunity to serve Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the then President of the Order, for a long time. He spent several years in his holy company in the solitude of Shyamla Tal in the Himalayas. In 1952, he was posted to Ranchi TB Sanatorium branch as an Assistant Secretary.



In 1958, he was sent to Rangoon (Yangon) in Burma (now Myanmar) Sevashrama as its secretary.

When military rulers took over Rangoon Sevashrama, he returned to India in 1965. and was posted to Rajkot branch as its head in 1966.



He was elected a Trustee of the Ramakrishna Math and Member of the Governing Body of the Ramakrishna Mission in 1973.



In 1975, he was appointed an Assistant General Secretary of the twin organizations. Under his stewardship as Relief Secretary, the Math and Mission conducted massive relief and rehabilitation operations in various parts of India, Nepal and Bangladesh.



He became the General Secretary of the Math and Mission in 1992 and continued to be in that post for five years till 1997 when he became a Vice-President of the Order.



He was elected President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission in December 2007.



Swami Atmasthanandaji had travelled extensively in various parts of the country as well as the globe and visited many branches of the Order and some unaffiliated centres spreading messages of Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda and Vedanta besides, giving mantra diksha to many spiritual seekers.



He was one of the key persons to organize Pallimangal (integrated rural development) activities in Kamarpukur and Jayrambati, a youth training centre at Saradapitha (Belur) and many other social service programmes.



Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who paid a visit to the ailing Maharaj earlier in the afternoon, described his passing away as "an irreparable loss to mankind".



"Saddened that Rev. Swami Atmasthanandaji, President, Ramakrishna Math & Mission passed away today at Seva Pratishthan #Kolkata," Banerjee tweeted.



"I paid my last visit to him this afternoon. A life of outstanding social & religious service. This is an irreparable loss to mankind," Banerjee said.
In a consensus-building exercise ahead of the Presidential election, BJP president Amit Shah on Sunday met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and the chiefs of other allies in Maharashtra.



The meeting assumes significance in the wake of a war of words between the two allies and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who issued a threat that his party was ready for mid-term polls after Sena ministers skipped a weekly Cabinet meeting, and kept targeting the BJP.



While Uddhav was accompanied by his son and Yuva Sena president Aditya Thackeray, Shah was escorted by Fadnavis and BJPs state unit chief Raosaheb Danve Patil.



There has not been any official word on the meeting, except for a mere confirmation that it was a courtesy call held in a cordial atmosphere, sources said.



The Shiv Sena is the oldest ally of the BJP and it does not want to go wrong this time as the partys founder, the late Balasaheb Thackeray, had supported Congress nominees Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee in the 2002 and 2012 Presidential elections.



While Pratibha got support on the grounds that she is a Maharashtrian, Mukherjee shares personal relations with the Thackeray family.



This time around, the Shiv Sena initially floated RSS chief Mohan Bhagwats name. However, later it suggested agriculture scientist M S Swaminathans name as its choice for the august post.



Three-day visit ends



On Sunday, Shah wrapped up his three-day visit to Mumbai, during which he spoke to leaders of various parties as part of an exercise ahead of the finalisation of the NDA Presidential candidate.



He also met Ramdas Athawale, founder-president of the Republican Party of India (A), and some other leaders.



However, the BJP president could not meet Raju Shetti, president of the Swabhimani Shetkari Sangatha, who was one among those spearheading the farmers agitation in the state.








IT major Wipro has listed cybersecurity breaches as a potential risk to its business, stating that such attacks could lead to financial obligations to its customers.



The development comes weeks after the WannaCry ransomware hit systems across sectors in over 100 countries, including India, Russia and the UK. One of the most widespread cyber attacks in history, WannaCry infected computers running on older versions of Microsoft operating systems like XP, locking access to files on the computer.



Wipro, in its filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), noted that while there is an increase in the number of connected devices and transition to cloud, the impact of threats is also on the rise.
Popular kitchen spice turmeric may turn out to be a new weapon against tuberculosis, with Indian scientists discovering a set of wonder properties of the spice.



Curcumin, the basic ingredient of turmeric, has been found to enhance the efficacy of standard TB treatment and reduce the treatment time by almost 50%.



Moreover, the chances of reinfection  a common phenomenon for scores of TB patients  are negligible when curcumin nanoparticles are used as an adjunct therapy along with the standard TB treatment.



Even though called the short course, the standard DOTS (directly observed treatment short course) regimen involves 6-9 months of treatment for regular TB and 12-24 months or more for drug-resistant TB. The prolonged treatment time substantially increases the risk of the development of drug-resistant variants of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.



In our laboratory study on mice, there is 50% reduction in treatment time when curcumin nanoparticles were given. Also, since it reduces the hepatotoxicity, the possibility of reinfection is minimal, team leader Gobardhan Das from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi told DH.



However, the efficacy of nano-curcumin has to be demonstrated through clinical trial before it can be used in clinical treatment.



Popularly known as Indian yellow gold, the ubiquitous kitchen spice exhibits therapeutic efficacy against many chronic inflammatory and infectious diseases. Even with its potential as a drug, the translational potential of curcumin is limited by its low systemic bioavailability, due to its poor intestinal absorption, rapid metabolism and rapid systemic elimination.



To overcome the problem, Das and his colleagues from International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Delhi, University of Calcutta, KIIT University in Bhubaneswar and Vanderbilt University, USA used nano-particles of curcumin that retains all its wonder properties and are absorbed better by the body.



From half an hour, the bio-availability of medicines increased to 18 hours with curcumin. Most of the medicines worked with 12 hours of bioavailability of the drug inside the body. Our data gives the basis for continuing clinical trial for curcumin, said Das.



We developed a simple one-step process to generate curcumin nanoparticles of about 200 nm in size, which yielded a 5-fold enhanced bioavailability in mice over regular curcumin, he said. The research paper has been accepted for publication in the journal Frontiers.



With an estimated 28 million TB patients, the bacterial infection is one of the major public health worries in India. Nearly 40% of all drug-resistant tuberculosis cases occur in Russia, India, the Philippines, and South Africa  accounting for more than 230,000 cases of drug-resistant disease in 2015.


(Xinhua) 12:13, June 18, 2017

In this photo provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service shows Russian air force Tu-22M3 bombers strike the Islamic State targets in Syria, Monday, Jan. 23, 2017. The air raid targeted the IS around Deir el-Zour in eastern Syria where the IS has launched an offensive against Syrian government forces. [Photo: Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP]

Based on disclosures by their unmanned aerial vehicles, the Russian troops in Syria carried out strikes on IS militants and thwarted the terrorist group's planned sortie against the defense lines of the Syrian government forces in the city of Deir ez-Zor, according to a statement of the ministry.

"The preemptive airstrikes, which the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out on the sites of ISIL facilities on June 6 and June 8, killed ISIL field commanders Abu Omar al-Baljiki and Abu Yassin al-Masri" Russia's Interfax news agency cited the ministry's statement as saying, using another acronym of the terrorist group.

In addition, a total of 180 IS militants were also killed, and 16 automotive and armored vehicles and tanks, one artillery, four control posts and an ammunition storage depot were destroyed as a result of the strikes, the statement said.

The Defense Ministry said Friday that an airstrike it carried out in northern Syria on May 28 might have killed IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. So far, no official confirmation of it has been released.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, June 17

By Huseyn Hasanov - Trend

The measures are being taken to intensify the activity of the Turkmen National Oil and Gas Company and redistribute equity participation of its founders, Altyn Asyr TV channel reported June 17.

Turkmen Deputy Prime Minister Maksat Babayev presented the report on the implementation of the "Program for the Development of the Turkmen Oil and Gas Industry until 2030" at the governmental meeting.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov instructed to thoroughly examine the situation in the world oil and gas market.

The president pointed to the need to increase the export potential of the industry, the volume of production of high-quality oil and gas chemical products.

According to the presidential decree signed in January 2016, the Turkmen National Oil and Gas Company was planned to be established.

The State Agency on Management and Use of Hydrocarbon Resources under the president of Turkmenistan with a 90 percent share in the authorized capital, Turkmengas state concern with a 2 percent share in the authorized capital, Turkmennebit oil concern - with a 2 percent share in the authorized capital, Turkmenbashi complex of oil refineries - with a 5 percent share in the authorized capital were to act as the founders of the new company.

However, the State Agency on Management and Use of Hydrocarbon Resources under the president of Turkmenistan was abolished in July 2016. Among the main activities of the Turkmen National Oil and Gas Company are exploration and drilling operations, oil and gas production, implementation of international projects in the fuel and energy sector.

Turkmenistan plays the role of one of the key players in the energy market in the Caspian region. Around 70-80 billion cubic meters of gas are produced in the country annually. Gas has been exported to Iran for a long time. A route to China was opened in 2009. An agreement was reached with China to increase the previously announced volumes up to 65 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
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Last Monday evening, two of Dothans civic leaders attended the regular meeting of the Dothan Board of Education and signed up to address the board during the public comment portion of the agenda. Matt Parker, president of the Dothan Area Chamber of Commerce, and Barbara Alford, president of the Wiregrass Foundation, had come to urge school board members to take a more deliberative approach to their search for a new superintendent to replace Chuck Ledbetter, who resigned last month to take another job. The imminent search would be the third in five years, and comes at a time when the makeup of the school board could change drastically with the result of the Aug. 1 municipal election.

The board allowed Parker and Alford a very brief opportunity to speak. And then in a special meeting at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, members of the board gathered to approve a job description and timeline for the search and selection of a new superintendent. No input from stakeholders within the school system or the community about what should be expected from a school system leader. No meaningful deliberation of strategies or vision for the school system. No hesitancy over the imminent changes in the makeup of the school board. And more disappointingly, no consideration of the request the chamber president and the head of a private foundation that contributes millions of dollars to the operation of our local school system, a circumstance that alone should warrant a seat at the table.

With its announcement Wednesday, the board set its accelerated timeline in motion, opening the window for a month-long application period. A meeting with school staff is scheduled for Thursday; a community engagement meeting is scheduled next week. However, such meetings would have been far more valuable before the search was set in motion.

The application period will close July 16; the board plans to select the superintendent on Aug. 14  almost two weeks after the election for the school board members who will serve from October 2017 to September 2021.

We urge the members of the school board to reconsider this ill-conceived approach, and take time for a deliberative post-mortem of the last two superintendent searches to determine why those did not result in productive, positive and committed leadership for Dothan City Schools.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 18

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Irans First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri has termed the issue of water shortage in the country serious calling for modifying the consumption patterns.

The countrys water shortage is serious. We must protect the countrys water resources through modifying the patterns of consumption and harvest, the official said through a Twitter post on June 18.

The energy ministry earlier in May reported that the countrys dam reservoir input reached 32.69 billion cubic meters during the current crop year, which began Sept. 22, 2016.

According to the report, the figure indicates a 15 percent fall compared to same period of preceding year.

Official IRNA news agency on Sunday suggested that up to 90 percent of the countrys water goes to agricultural sector which must be controlled.
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Start-ups selected to participate in Creative3 Pitch, QUT Creative Enterprise Australias annual creative-tech pitching competition, will compete for a place in StepUp, Virgin Startups mini-accelerator program in London. The winner will also secure the right to represent Australia at the international Creative Business Cup (CBC) in Copenhagen, Denmark, where there will be opportunities to connect with investors and other entrepreneurs.

Up to eight applications will be chosen to participate in the Creative3 Pitch semi-finals in July, with four businesses progressing to the finals, which will be held at the annual Creative3 conference in Brisbane on 22 September. Applications for the Creative3 Pitch are now open and will close on June 26.

According to CEAs acting CEO, Mark Gusowski, the prizes available to the winner of Creative3 represent opportunities money cant buy.

One of the most expensive and risky endeavours for a startup is building trusted international channels to market, he told Dynamic Business. By being a part of the Creative Business Cup and a part of StepUp  opportunities only available through the CEA network  the winner of Creative 3 Pitch will have exposure to hundreds of European angel investors, venture capitalists, strategic partners and supporters all in the one place, at the one time. The Virgin Startup program also introduces the winner to the whole of the Virgin Groups infrastructure and empire providing customer channels, experience and networks.

To build and develop these trusted networks and connections can often take months, if not years, and also tens of thousands of dollars to develop. So, these two prizes will significantly accelerate the pace at which the winner can enter these international markets through trusted networks and intermediaries.

Gusowski said initiatives such as Creative3 Pitch help shine a spot light on the importance of creative industries, both in Australia and internationally. He said he also hopes inspire budding entrepreneurs to follow their passion towards launching the next Canva, Atlassian, Shoes of Prey or Trademark Vision.

He added, Whether you are purchasing fashion or wearables online, using graphics-based software, developing digital content or launching a fashion label, the creative industries collectively represent over $3.2 billion annually to the Australian export market, and contribute $45.9 billion in GDP.

The 2016 Creative3 Pitch winner, Darren Tonkin told Dynamic Business that winning the prestigious event enabled his photo sharing app, Storyboard Social, to cut through the massive amount of noise in Australias start-up ecosystem.

He explained, The C3 Pitch provided Storyboard with a build-up of awareness through media coverage, as well as validation of the company. This has assisted us with connecting into business both across Australia- and internationally. At the end of the day, those business connections and that brand awareness is priceless.

C3 Pitch also helped me take my pitching ability from that of public speaking or presenting at a university level, to a level where I can professional present and sell Storyboard Social. There is no better way to hone your pitching abilities to investors and other business leaders, than by entering and participating in a competition that is judged by the same audience you are already targeting.

Tonkin said the opportunity to participate in StepUp and attend the International Creative Business Cup, where his startup placed 13 out of 65 participants, meant exposure to investors, business leaders and potential mentors.

Since participating in CBC, Ive retuned to Denmark to attend business events, including lunches with the Australian Ambassador and other business leaders in our field, he said. Just last week I had a new start-up out of Denmark get in touch because they had heard about me at CBC and wanted to know how we can work together.

I was lucky enough to be the first Australian startup selected by CEA to attend StepUp. For me, the program opened the door to the Virgin Brand globally. With little bit of hustle inside and outside of the camp I was able to meet with some amazing people and we are working on some big things on the horizon. So keep an eye on the Storyboard platform in the coming months!
China maintains contacts with all parties to the Syrian conflict in order to achieve a political settlement through peace talks, Special Envoy of the Chinese Government on the Syrian Issue Xie Xiaoyan said, Sputnik reported.

"We are in touch with the Syrian government, the opposition, the regional countries, and other powers that are either directly, or indirectly, involved in the Syrian issue, and this is our advantage in mediation," Xie said Saturday during his visit to Damascus, as quoted by Xinhua news agency.

The Chinese official stressed that Beijing remained committed to political reconciliation process.

Speaking about the establishment of the de-escalation zones in Syria, Xie pointed out that it was an important step in the crisis settlement.

The Chinese special envoy highlighted that there was no quick solution to the Syrian problem, and called on the all involved to make efforts to settle the issue.

"China has patience and confidence to advance settlement of the Syrian issue on the right track through concrete work, so that the crisis could gradually ease before it is finally resolved," he added.

Syria has been in a grip of civil war for six years, with government forces fighting against both Syrian opposition groups who strive to overthrow President Bashar Assad, and numerous extremist and terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (Daesh) and Jabhat Fatah al Sham.

At the latest Astana meeting on Syria on May 3-4, three ceasefire guarantor states - Russia, Iran, Turkey - finalized and signed a memorandum on establishment of four safe zones in Syria. The four zones span the northwestern Idlib province and parts of the neighboring Latakia, Hama and Aleppo, the north of the central Homs province, Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, as well as southern Daraa and Quneitra regions. The memorandum came into force on May 6.
A shooting incident at Camp Shaheen, headquarters of the 209 Corps of the Afghan National Army, inflicted injuries to seven US servicemen, NATO's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan said Saturday, Sputnik reported.

Earlier in the day, the mission issued a statement, saying that the attack, which took place at 2 p.m. local time (approximately 9:30 GMT) killed one Afghan serviceman and wounded another.

"UPDATE: Seven U.S. service members wounded, evacuated for treatment. Insider attack Camp Shaheen, Mazar-e Sharif under investigation," the mission wrote on its Twitter account.

The US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan formally ended its operations in December 2014 after a presence in the country since 2001 to help local authorities defeat the Taliban Islamist movement. The NATO-led Resolute Support mission, focused on training, advising and assisting Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and Afghan Security Institution (ASI) organization, was launched on January 1, 2015.
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A roadside bomb went off near el-Maadi district of Cairo, killing one police officer and injuring four other people, the Egyptian Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday, Sputnik reported.

According to the ministry's statement, published on Facebook, the bomb targeted a police vehicle which was carrying a group of police officers and conscripts.

Among those injured were three conscripts and a police officer, all the victims were taken to hospital.

Egypt has recently witnessed a number of roadside bomb attacks. In April, two separate explosions of roadside bombs in the Egyptian Sinai peninsula left two Egypt police officers dead and one civilian injured.
Latest News

Maharashtra government approves upgradation of 92 schools Upgradation of primary schools will provide better education to EWS students

KTET October 2022 registration last date today The Kerala TET Exam 2022 is scheduled to be conducted on December 3 and December 4, 2022

AP EAMCET 2022 special round seat allotment result to be declared today, find details here Candidates will have to report to the assigned colleges between November 11 and 14, 2022
A soldier was martyred during a clash between security forces and PKK terrorists in eastern Tunceli province on Sunday, according to a local security source.

The clash in Nazimiye district left two other soldiers wounded, the source said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, Anadolu reported.

The injured soldiers were rushed to Tunceli State Hospital, the source said, adding an air-backed operation against PKK terrorists remained ongoing in the region.

The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- resumed its armed campaign against Turkey in July 2015.

Since then, it has been responsible for the deaths of some 1,200 Turkish security personnel and civilians, including a number of women and children.
The case goes back to illegal protests staged in the Nile Delta city of Sharqiya in 2015

A Zagazig Criminal Court in the Nile Delta city of Sharqiya has sentenced 26 defendants to life in prison for crimes related to illegal protests in 2015 that authorities say were linked to a "terrorist organization".

The defendents were found guilty of "inciting violence and riots, disrupting security and social order, inciting against state institutions, and destroying private and public property", as well as membership of a terrorist organization.

Two defendants in the same case were sentenced to three years in jail, while one was acquitted. The verdict can be appealed in a court of cassation within 60 days.

The 29 defendants were arrested in 2015 on charges of being members of a terrorist group and organizing a protest without a permit in Abo Hamad district in Sharqiya governorate.

In December 2013, Egypt designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

Protests without a police permit are illegal in Egypt, having been outlawed by a protest law enacted in 2013.

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The European Physical Society Accelerator Group (EPS-AG) has awarded the ESRFs Accelerator & Source Director, Dr. Pantaleo Raimondi, the 2017 Gersh Budker Prize, for his outstanding contribution to the accelerator field in the form of his invention of the Hybrid Multi Bend Achromat (HMBA) lattice, which has become the design basis of most future 4th generation synchrotron sources.

Awarded once every 2-3 years, the prestigious Gersh Budker Prize recognizes a recent, significant, original contribution to the accelerator field. The Prize was awarded today, 18 May 2017, during the International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC17, in Copenhagen (DK).

According to the EPS-AG, the HMBA-lattice shows Raimondis ability to foster new ideas, his deep understanding of accelerator physics and mastering of technological aspects. This Prize is also a great honour for the ESRF as the design has inspired the design of other big light-source facilities around the world, as underlined by the EPS-AG: The HMBA-lattice has been adopted as the basis for the design for most future 4th generation storage ring light sources such as the Advanced Photon Source upgrade at Argonne National Laboratory and the Advanced Light Source Upgrade at Berkeley Lab in the US (APS-U and ALS-U); Spring8-2 at the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute; and the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility and the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility in China (SSRF and IHEP).

The new lattice will improve the brilliance of the ESRF light source by a factor of 100 while fulfilling the constraint to keep the original beam line structure, thanks to an innovative magnet design. With its larger dynamic aperture, smaller sextupole settings and smaller emittance with respect to previous proposals, the HMBA-lattice has made a large impact on the light source community.

It is currently being implemented at the ESRF as the foundation of the 150M Extremely Brilliant Source upgrade project, lasting from 2015 to 2020. Presently in the component procurement and production phase, the project will see the facilitys user program put on hold at the end of 2018 while the existing accelerator is removed and new girders pre-assembled with the novel magnet arrangement are installed and commissioned in the storage ring before the start-up of the user programme in summer 2020. This will be followed by the construction of new state-of-the-art beamlines, an ambitious instrumentation programme with a particular focus on high-performance detectors and an intensified big data strategy, designed to exploit the enhanced brilliance, coherence flux and performances of the new X-ray synchrotron source.

Dr. Raimondis ability to foster new ideas is based on a long and rich experience in research and development at accelerators including ENEA, CERN, SLAC and INFN, where he gained in-depth knowledge of all aspects of accelerator design and commissioning, from the development of RF power systems, linacs and microtrons to the operation, design and realisation of linear and circular colliders. During a career spanning 30 years, he has written over 300 publications and developed several new techniques, including the revolutionary crab waist scheme implemented at the DAFNE PHI-Factory in Italy in 2009 that significantly improved luminosity in the circular electron-positron colliders and strongly influenced the development of similar kinds of accelerators.

Dr Raimondi said, I am very pleased and honoured to be nominated for the award. This is a very important recognition of all the efforts made by the accelerator community to improve the performance of storage rings and to extend the scientific reach of the research based on such machines.
The big win on Saturday night at Cannes was the Lions Health Grand Prix for Good for Immunity Charm  a campaign made by McCann Health, New Delhi/ McCann Worldgroup India, Mumbai, for the Ministry of Public Health, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. It revolves around the idea of colour-coded wristbands for children, that automatically tells doctors their vaccination status in a nation where information about a childs health records is not always available. It draws on the Afghan tradition of tying black lucky charms on childrens wrists to deliver a simple result.

Commenting on the win, Prasoon Joshi, CEO, India and Chairman (Asia Pacific) of McCann Worldgroup, said, Winning the top honour at a festival like Cannes is really special. I have been fortunate to give this honour to others in the past as Jury chairman, but receiving this honour is unmatchable. Also, making meaningful contribution to peoples lives is what I believe advertising should do, and this campaign does exactly that. I am proud of my entire team that worked on this campaign. Joshi, however, could not make it to Cannes to receive the award.

Harshit Jain, Senior Vice President & Country Manager McCann Health India, said his young son  then eight months old  gave him the idea for the Immunity Charm campaign. After receiving the award on the Cannes Lions stage, he said, I am feeling very excited, privileged and honoured with this win, in addition to four golds, four silvers and one bronze. It is not a small win. India has won the Lions Health Grand Prix for Good for the first time ever, and what we are excited about is that the campaign will reach millions of children and actually save lives.

On crafting the campaign, Jain said, There was no specific brief given to us. We work with the Ministry of Public Health, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to help them create health communication campaigns. So we know that Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate anywhere in the world and we had to do something about it. It so happened that one day at home, we were having this dinner conversation where talk veered to our eight-month-old son and the fact that we used to make him wear a bracelet everyday, which would protect him from evil energies. And then I said why cant we use the same method for compliance of vaccination to save childrens lives? And then Immunity Charm happened. I always credit my son Lavit, now 16 months old, for giving me this idea. It took us eight months to make it happen.

The Lions Health Grand Prix for Good award was judged by Caleb Tiller, Executive Director of Communications & Public Affairs, the United Nations Foundation, and members of the Pharma and Health & Wellness Juries: Mike Rodgers, June Laffey, Christine Abbott and R. John Fidelino. The Immunity Charm is really a great piece of work because its so simple. In big countries like the US and UK, we are talking about wearable tech. What we really have here in a country like Afghanistan is for young children to have the vaccines status as a wearable. Thats a whole different kind of wearable. Its what they have been using all their lives, from generation to generation, so its not something that they have to adapt to and be neutral. Its a fantastic way in a country where people are moving around, they dont have any constant doctors; so its a way for doctors to keep in touch with each other through this immunity charm. Rodgers told exchange4media.

On what made the jury pick this campaign over all others, Rodgers said, One of the filters that we applied is life-changing creativity. Many campaigns do things, many others raise money and many help people in certain ways, but to look for something that really changes the lives and even saves the lives of young children in a country that is so devastated with war like Afghanistan, and then with such a simple idea, its both clever, and also incredibly emotional. That was to everybody in the jury a very big point.

The Lions Health Grand Prix for Good is open to Gold Lion winning entries ineligible for a Grand Prix in their section. Commenting on the Grand Prix, Caleb Tiller of the UN Foundation said, The Lions Health Grand Prix for Good award sits at the cross-section of creativity and social impact. Its an exciting time for our community, as cross-pollination between sectors is creating new opportunities to engage people in driving social change and improving lives.

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Home  Articles  The Irish border and Brexit  what now? Fri, 11th November 2022

The Irish border and Brexit  what now?

Published: 18 Jun at 6 PM by Admin and tagged under category Brexit



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Brexit is happening  even the most committed of remain voters largely accept that now. But that doesnt mean the issues it brought up are solved, with many just emerging. One of the most pressing, and unanswered, problems centres on the question of the Irish border.With somewhat confusing terms such as hard border often thrown around in the media, theres a lot to unpack in this question. The UK government has already hinted that it will favour a softer approach to the border in a post-EU agreement, with Brexit Secretary David Davis commenting, We want to have a very light touch open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. However, not only are there difficult economic and trade questions, the political consequences to the peace process are worth a second look too.So, firstly, what do potential changes to the Irish border mean for trade? Its worth noting that, at present, the almost 500km border is essentially completely open, with EU free movement rules and the Common Travel Area allowing goods and people to move freely, without oversight from either the UK or the Irish government. More than 200 public roads currently connect the two. In 2015, the trade between the UK and the Republic of Ireland was worth 2.6 billion.When the UK ceases to be an EU state, this poses a host of issues for that trade. In any other situation, it may be expected that customs and security checks would be warranted on an EU border. However, as such significant trading partners for each other, both the UK and Ireland would suffer considerable economic consequences were this to happen, with delays, additional costs, and potential limitations on how much trade can take place all possible. To highlight that, a reported two-thirds of Irish businesses stated that a Brexit border would hurt their trade.For that reason, there have been several suggestions that attempt to address these issues. Political groups across all affiliations in Northern Ireland have stressed the need for a soft border. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)s Arlene Forster commented, No-one wants to see a hard border, referring to the implementation of trade restrictions. Meanwhile, other, more innovative solutions, have included the implementation of an business /brexit/ambitious-eborder-plan-can-help-keep-trade-flowing-35835835.html">e-border, in hope of avoiding limitations, as well as long waiting times at potential customs points.Inherent within the economic questions are the inescapable political questions concerning the Irish border. These have been further complicated by the result of the 2017 UK general election, and the potential inclusion of the DUP in a Conservative minority government. The republican Sinn Fein have already warned of the potential dangers they see within such an agreement, and continue to call for a Border Poll surrounding Brexit, resurfacing the potential for Irish unification Even more so than the economic questions, these political concerns have no easy answers or solutions. While the trading future of the Irish border will be resolved in the Brexit negotiations (that are set to commence imminently ), the political questions may drag on well beyond that.
There are lots of races in Cars 3. There are races in big stadiums, on dirt tracks, on simulators and even through the woods with the headlights out. The races, almost too many to count, take up an enormous amount of screen time, so if youre someone who cant get enough of contests between animated automobiles, this movie is a dream come true.

For everyone else, this latest installment in the Pixar franchise is a disappointment. Its essentially a drama about a midlife crisis. Our hero, Lightning McQueen  a red car voiced by Owen Wilson  was a naive up-and-comer in the original Cars.

The new film is the inevitable eventual sequel, the formula to go to when there are no other ideas. Its the story of Lightnings coping with inevitable decline, with the realization that there are other, faster cars entering the sport.

As in the other Cars movies, the cars are people, though its never exactly clear to what extent they are born whole, as fixed entities, and to what extent they have parts that can be replaced. In other words, where is the soul or the brain located?

If Lightning McQueen wants to go faster than his new rival Jackson Storm (voice of Armie Hammer), couldnt he just get a brand new engine? Or would that be like a person getting a head replaced? We do know that the cars here can get body work and a paint job, but that might be the equivalent of a haircut. Or a facelift.

More Information Cars 3 ** See More Collapse

But wait, arent we taking this all too seriously? Well, sure, but the movie invites it. Aside from the whimsicality of the cars-are-people set-up, a set-up were already used to from two previous films, Cars 3 has nothing funny about it. Instead it invites us into the pain and self-questioning that comes to every great athlete when he realizes that hes slipping.

So when were not seeing a red car chasing a blue car, Cars 3 consists of lots of forlorn whining from Owen Wilson (one of the best forlorn whiners in the business) as Lightning swings from hope to doubt to despair over his career. This is the movies emotional hook, the thing the audience is supposed to invest in and worry about.

But would it really be so terrible to retire? Its a difficult adjustment that all athletes ultimately face, but its not the end of the world.

Director Brian Fee and a team of seven screenwriters (including himself) attempt to intensify the rooting interest by making Lightnings young rival arrogant and obnoxious. But even then, the notion of beating him hardly rises to the level of a moral quest. The filmmakers overestimate the audiences investment in Lightning McQueens automotive supremacy.

Or perhaps they do realize it, because midway the movie starts focusing on the character of Lightnings trainer, an enthusiastic young female car named Cruz (Cristela Alonzo). The movies pivotal conversation, in which Cruz reveals that she once hoped to be a racer but found that she lacked the nerve, is a standout piece of writing, a scene that could, with some obvious adjustments, work just as well with live actors.

Cars 3 goes through lots of predictable paces, and for all the emphasis on speed, it takes a long time getting to where its going. However, Pixars production values alone make Cars 3 intermittently entertaining, and the facial expressions of the cars are emotionally on target and uncanny in their evocation of human expression. That alone is a worthwhile achievement.

Running time: 109 minutes

MPAA rating: G
My question is in reference to an old, three-room country elementary school by the name of Old Coker and its history. As far as I can guesstimate, it was close to where U.S. 281 and Wurzbach Parkway are today, but back in 1955, it was way out in the country. I was lucky enough to have attended the school in 1955-56. The principal, who was also my teacher, was a Mr. Fike. It had a small stable or barn where some students would ride in from local farms. At recess, we played around a creek that ran through the property. It was located in the recently created North East Independent School District. I rode the school bus from just inside Loop 13 at Vance Jackson Road for over an hour, as we picked up students from all the houses and farms. Any information you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Leopoldo Trevino

This was the third and last school serving an unincorporated community about 10 miles north of downtown San Antonio and thus far outside the city limits for most of its life. The Coker community grew up around the homestead of John Jack Coker, who came from South Carolina and fought in the Battle of San Jacinto, the deciding engagement in the Texas Revolution and the one we celebrate each year with Fiesta San Antonio. For his service, Coker received 1,920 acres  a first-class headright, according to the Handbook of Texas entry on Coker, Texas along the Salado Creek in 1841. His brothers Joseph and James soon followed and helped develop the settlement, eventually bounded by streets now known as Bitters Road, Nakoma Drive, San Pedro Avenue (later U.S. 281) and West Avenue.

Schooling for the communitys children seems to have been informal during its first couple of decades. In the early days, school was taught in different parts of the community, apparently in an attempt at fairness to equalize the distance children had to travel, says a history written for the 50th anniversary of North East Independent School District, founded in 1955.

The teacher was paid by contributions from families  $2 per child in 1861, says The Coker School: 1862-1966, an uncredited history provided by NEISD. Its unclear how often that was paid. There were only about a dozen children attending at this time, says the history, and since families could prorate tuition to subtract for absences, One can estimate the meager salary paid the teacher for his services.

On land donated by the Coker family, a one-room, red schoolhouse was built in the late 19th century on San Pedro Avenue. A two-story school, relocated across Salado Creek, replaced it around 1904, and the first school became the teachers residence. Both of these buildings were lost to a fire Oct. 28, 1924, after which A tent was erected so the children could finish the term, says the anniversary history.

The building you remember would have been the replacement completed in 1925 - originally a two-room brick and hollow tile school, expanded in 1936 with a large room used as a library, a hallway and two indoor toilet rooms with the schools first indoor plumbing.

With the citys growth trending northward, the number of students served by the school increased dramatically, from 80 students in 1936 to 140 in 1942. In 1949, the Coker school and six others were consolidated into a then-rural district that became NEISD in 1950. While figures for the 1950s arent available, the community  no longer limited to the Cokers and their extended family  must have needed a school with more space. Coker School itself grew to 534 students by 1961.

Additions were made and expansions undertaken to accommodate the growing population, says the anniversary history. In 1954, the New Coker School was completed at its present site, with 12 rooms and a cafeteria. The 1925 building was used for the fourth grade, says the 1966 history.

According to both histories, the principal when you attended was Gladys Sirdevan, who served in that position from 1950 to 1958 and went on to teach at Lee High School.

New Coker  thats Coker Elementary School at 302 Heimer Road  continued to grow as more new streets and housing were constructed around the campus. Renovations during the 1960s, 70s and 90s added more classrooms, a new library, clinic, music rooms and computer technology.

Sadly, none of the three older structures are in existence any longer, said Butch Gerfers, president of the Coker Cemetery Association. Gerfers attended the new school starting in 1958.

The Coker name also lives on in a street, Coker Loop, and the church, now Coker United Methodist at 231 E. North Loop Road, and the historic Coker Cemetery.

Anyone with memories or photographs of the old Coker School may share them with this column. All responses will be forwarded and may be published in a future column.
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On May 15, San Antonio attorney Thomas J. Smith received an email from an unknown Dutch man: Dear Mr. Smith, My name is Don Schmitz and I live in Margraten, The Netherlands.

Smith said he immediately thought it was some sort of sham letter.

Then, as he read on, he realized that Schmitz, 64, was on a journey, a detective story spanning two continents in search of the relatives of a fallen American soldier from World War II.

In the email, Schmitz said families in his hometown of Margraten adopted grave sites of American soldiers who died during WWII. For the last 20 years, Schmitz and his family have cared for four grave sites at the Netherlands American Cemetery. One of these graves belonged to a man named Harold Norman Smith.

Schmitz said he wanted to find any surviving relatives of the soldier. He had few clues, but he knew Smith had been born in Bexar County and that he had a brother named Thomas A. Smith.

Is there a possibility that Harold was a member of your family? Schmitz asked the San Antonio attorney in his email.

It wasnt the right Smith  this Smiths family was from Austin and had no roots in San Antonio  but, intrigued, the attorney started helping Schmitz.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Schmitz was learning about American names and geography.

I didnt know Smith is a common name, Schmitz said. He said he thought even if he contacted the wrong Smith that surely he could be connected to the right one. I kinda thought San Antonio was like a village.

Schmitz grew up steeped in the horrors of WWII. He said his father would tell stories of living under German occupation. Its common for families from his town to care for the 8,301 Americans buried there, he said. And yet he knew very little about the American whose grave he has placed flowers on each year.

Schmitz, who had committed to visiting Texas earlier in the year, resolved to meet the relative of the man buried near his hometown.

On May 22, a week after his first email, Schmitz received a response from the San Antonio attorney, whose legal assistant, Carol Stephens, had found a vital clue: an obituary for Thomas Anthony Smith, Harolds brother. That obit helped turn up a niece: Patricia Carnes of Houston.

Carnes, 73, said she couldnt believe a family from the Netherlands was interested in her late uncle. My family, they never spoke that much of him, she said.

On June 4, Schmitz and his family arrived in Houston for brunch with Carnes and her husband, Jess. The families shed tears and exchanged hugs.

It really touched me the way these people over there in the Netherlands have adopted these graves, and after 70 years its a really big deal for them, Patricia said.

Schmitz gave Carnes flags from Smiths grave. In turn, Carnes showed the family the letters she had recently received about her uncle. The letters provided a look into who Harold was and what had happened while he was stationed in Europe.

During the war, Smith served as a lieutenant in the 80th Tank Battalion of the 8th Armored Division.

After heading through Luxembourg, his unit stopped at Vilt, a small village in Holland. There, Smith and other officers became friends with a local Dutch family.

According to a letter written by Hubert Duyzings, soldiers would join his family for dinner each night. They would drink tea and listen to the wireless radio the soldiers brought. The soldiers had fun teaching Duyzings and his sisters English and in turn learning Dutch.

Then one day, Duyzings brother Guillaume was arrested by American troops under suspicion of being a German. I immediately went to my best friend Lt. Harold Smith and thought if he could not help me nobody could help me, Hubert wrote.

Harold and Hubert walked to the American headquarters and spoke to them, an action Hubert said saved Guillaumes life.

On March 28, 1945, Smiths unit crossed the Rhine River. A German sniper put him in his crosshairs, standing in the cockpit of his tank, and killed him.

What a shock it was to me, who had seen him, smoked with him, and talked with him, Duyzings wrote in a letter to Smiths family. And now his remains are at Margraten cemetery. One amongst the thousands of military graves.

In a gesture repeated 50 years later by Schmitz and his family, Duyzings asked to be the caretaker of Harolds grave.

I will do everything, what I possibly can. and no trouble will hinder me to see to it, that I may be the one to take care and adorn his grave with flowers, he wrote.

Later in the week, Schmitz traveled to San Antonio, where the San Antonio attorney treated him to a tour of the River Walk and the San Antonio City Council honored Schmitzs efforts to care for a local soldier.

In the shadow of the Alamo on Friday, Schmitz held next to his heart a picture of Harold Smith, a man he never knew and yet had wondered about for 20 years.

Schmitz said he lives within walking distance of the cemetery in Margraten, and he sometimes walks through it, looking at the epitaphs on the markers. He is always astonished by the ages on the crosses. Many of the dead were, like Harold, teenagers.

They left their homes, their families, their wives sometimes, Schmitz said. They tried to free other people they didnt know.

jlawrence@express-news.net
Sameh Shoukry will discuss Nile water issues with ministers ahead of a presidential meeting later this year

Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry is to fly to Entebbe, Uganda, on Monday for ministerial meetings involving the Nile Basin countries, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Senior government officials, including ministers of foreign affairs and water, are due to attend two-day preparatory meetings on 20-21 June in the run-up to a presidential summit scheduled a day later.

The presidential gathering, which Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi will attend, is the first such summit to bring together all Nile Basin countries, with a population of over 500 million.

The ministry says the "historic" gathering will "open the way to exploring broad areas of cooperation in many development areas beyond the field of water," according to spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid.

During this week's meetings, Egypt aims to "work towards bringing the views and positions on the Nile water closer by focusing on prospects for cooperation and achieving common goals, as well as expanding the scope of cooperation ... to include cultural and security cooperation and political coordination," the ministry statement read.

Last week, Sisi and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Musevini discussed preparations for the summit in a phone call.

Officials had said earlier that the upcoming summit would look at the results of earlier meetings as well as points of contention on the Entebbe Agreement.

Uganda is the current chair of the Nile Council of Ministers of Water Affairs of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). Egypt froze its NBI membership in 2010 over disagreements about the Cooperative Framework Agreement, also known as the Entebbe agreement.

Spokesman Abu Zeid said Egypt hopes the upcoming summit will "come up with a common vision to re-launch the initiative based on the principle of the mutual interests of all countries."

In July, Egyptian irrigation minister Mohamed Abdel-Ati attended the 24th annual meeting of the NBIs Nile Council of Ministers (Nile-Com) in Uganda after an absence of several years, a move seen as a partial return of the North African nation to active participation in the group.

The NBI comprises 10 permanent members: Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Eritrea has observer status.

In March, Egypt's water resources Minister Mohamed Abdel took part in talks held by NBI's council of ministers in Uganda's Entebbe that addressed Cairo's concerns over the Nile Basin Initiative and the Entebbe agreement.

By 2011, six Nile Basin nations had signed the agreement, which was developed over more than a decade: Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Egypt and Sudan have declined to sign the treaty -- which sets out the principles and obligations of member states regarding the use of the basin's water resources -- citing concerns about its reallocation of water quotas and other provisions.

Historic water-sharing pacts between Egypt and Sudan continue to govern the distribution of Nile water between the two countries.

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TOKYO - A number of the seven U.S. Navy sailors missing after a collision between a destroyer and a container ship have been found dead, the Seventh Fleet said Sunday.

The sailors were found in the berthing compartments of the ship that flooded after the collision, which occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning. The container ship appeared to have hit the Aegis class destroyer almost square on, severely damaging the berthing compartments where the sailors were sleeping.

A spokesman for the Seventh Fleet would not immediately confirm whether the bodies of all seven missing sailors had been found or just some of them.

They were found after the Fitzgerald returned to its home port at Yokosuka on Saturday night and search and rescue crews were able to enter the ship.

The sailors bodies have been taken to the naval hospital on the Yokosuka base to be identified. Their names will not be released until their families have been notified, the Seventh Fleet said in a statement.

Civilian and military investigators tried to figure out how the nighttime collision between two vessels - both with advanced navigation systems - could have occurred.

This has been a difficult day, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the Seventh Fleet, said as the badly damaged USS Fitzgerald, an Aegis guided-missile destroyer, limped back into its home port at Yokosuka Naval Base, south of Tokyo, after emergency efforts at sea to control flooding and before the deaths were announced.

Family members of the missing were waiting on the pier with Aucoin when it arrived, guided by two tug boats. The Seventh Fleet had set up an information center for the families, and had chaplains and a counselor on site.

The Fitzgerald collided with the Philippine-flagged Crystal, nearly four times its size, in a busy shipping lane south of Tokyo at 2:30 a.m. local time Saturday. The weather was clear with a swell of about six feet at the time.

Three of the Fitzgeralds crew, including the destroyers commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, were evacuated from the damaged vessel and are being treated at the U.S. naval hospital at Yokosuka, the home of the U.S. Navys Seventh Fleet.

Benson was reported to be in stable condition, while the other two were treated for lacerations and bruises.

All three were awake and being kept under observation in hospital, the Seventh Fleet said in a statement.

The Fitzgerald, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer commissioned in 1995, is part of the Yokosuka-based group that includes the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, but it was operating independently of the carrier when the collision occurred, said Cmdr. Ron Flanders, public affairs officer for U.S. Naval Forces Japan.

When its crew is at full strength, the Fitzgerald usually has more than 250 personnel aboard and can reach speeds in excess of 30 knots.

The operators of the merchant ship, ACX Crystal, reported all of the 20-member Filipino crew were safe.

The Crystal, which was fully loaded with cargo, is bound for Tokyo, according to a website that tracks maritime traffic. It is operated by Nippon Yusen K.K., a Japanese shipping company, and was on its way from Nagoya port at the time of the collision.

We are collaborating with the ship owner and fully cooperating with the investigation by the coast guard, Nippon Yusen said in a statement.

All 20 Filipino crew members aboard the ship are safe and it has set up a task force to deal with the accident, the company said, according to the Kyodo News Agency.

Photos showed the container ship with minor damage to its bow, while the Fitzgerald appeared to have extensive damage midship on its right, or starboard, side, just below its bridge.

The destroyer was listing slightly, with water visibly being pumped, as it was towed into harbor.

Divers were waiting to inspect it below the waterline, where there had also been significant damage.

The collision had caused flooding in two berthing spaces, a machinery space and the radio room, the Seventh Fleet said.

Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families, President Donald Trump wrote in a Twitter message Saturday. Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance.

The USS Dewey, another Navy destroyer, was helping with the search and rescue operations, along with three Japanese naval ships and two Japanese coast guard vessels.

An American P-8 Poseidon aircraft was joined overhead by Japanese helicopters and an Orion aircraft.

There are extensive international guidelines for accident avoidance at sea known as the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, or Colregs.

The rules require that ships must have a watch posted at all times and follow a number of collision-avoidance steps when crossing paths with or overtaking other vessels.

- - -

The Washington Posts Thomas Gibbons-Neff in Washington contributed to this report.
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Barbarous monster and villain or patriot and astute political leader?

Reviled for the massacres at the Alamo and Goliad, Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was once venerated in Mexico.

At one time Mexicos most powerful caudillo (military dictator), Santa Anna was hailed as the liberator of Veracruz and the hero of Tampico. He was named Benemerito de la Patria, or national hero, after defeating rebels in the Battle of Guadalupe in 1835.

It seemed that he could do no wrong, even when he was plundering the federal treasury. Mexicans were oblivious to his excesses  in war, he slept on silk sheets under a silk tent and ate on monogrammed china.

Nor did they care that Santa Anna did not attend his wedding to his first wife, Maria Ines de la Paz Garcia, who was only 14 when they married in September 1825. He pressed his father-in-law to stand in his place.

One of seven children, Santa Anna was born Feb. 21, 1794, in Xalapa, Veracruz, to a middle-class Creole family. His father was a university graduate and a lawyer; his mother a housewife.

In his autobiography, Santa Anna recalled that from a young age, I was inclined toward the glorious career at arms and felt a true vocation for army life.

In his teens, he joined the army as a cadet in the Fixed Infantry Regiment of Veracruz.

Though he preferred the army to politics, Santa Anna was president of Mexico six times: 1833-1836, 1839, 1841-1843, 1843-1844, 1846-1847 and 1853-1855. He spent little time in Mexico City, preferring to tend to his estate, Manga de Clavo, in Veracruz or go to war.

His consistent eagerness to offer his services on the battlefield can be explained partly because he was aware that his status depended on his military actions, said Will Fowler, a professor of Latin American studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and author of the 2007 biography, Santa Anna of Mexico.

Santa Anna lost his left leg defending Veracruz from the French in 1838. The leg was buried in September 1842 at the Santa Paula cemetery in Mexico City. Foes dug up the leg two years later and dragged it through the streets, shouting death to the cripple, kill the lame bastard and long live Congress.

Years earlier, his eagerness to repel the revolt in Texas led Santa Anna north in 1835.

From the Mexican perspective of the time, Texas was part of Mexico. As a result of very generous colonization laws dating back to the early 1820s, Texas had become overrun by U.S. immigrants  to use a current and highly charged term  who not only refused to comply with the laws of the land, which included becoming Catholic and learning to speak Spanish, but were bringing in slaves by the dozens illegally even after Mexico abolished slavery, Fowler notes.

Challenged by lack of funds, obsolete armaments and vastly unseasoned men, Santa Anna managed to arm a 6,111-strong force, which he led from San Luis Potosi to San Antonio de Bexar in the winter of 1835-36.

Lack of provisions hindered us in our journey across the desert, and plants and wild animals provided the rations for our army, Santa Anna wrote in his autobiography.

Santa Anna and his army arrived in San Antonio on the afternoon of Feb. 23, 1836.

Several historians, including Fowler, say that during his stay in San Antonio, a young woman who refused to sleep with Santa Anna was placated by marrying him in a wedding that, unknown to her, was a sham. A general was a witness, and an aide portrayed a priest.

Writing little about the Battle of the Alamo in his memoirs, Santa Anna claimed that William Barret Travis had 600 men and 18 cannons inside the garrison.

Believing that Sam Houston was en route to San Antonio with 2,000 men and more cannons, Santa Anna decided to attack immediately.

The assault on the Alamo began before dawn March 6, 1836. Ninety minutes later, all the defenders inside the old mission were dead. The only survivors inside were a few women and children and a black slave.

The Mexican army would be defeated a few weeks later at the Battle of San Jacinto.

The last part of Santa Annas life would be disheartening. During the Mexican-American War, troops led by Santa Anna were defeated by U.S. forces at Cerro Gordo, at Churubusco and at Chapultepec. After the fall of Mexico City, the Mexican government agreed to give up a large part of its territory  present-day Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Other terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo called for Mexico to give up all claims to Texas and recognize the Rio Grande as Americas southern boundary. In return, the U.S. paid Mexico $15 million and agreed to settle all claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico.

After that painful war, Santa Anna was accused of treason. It would not be the only time. Accused of treason by Benito Juarez, Santa Anna retorted, The name of Santa Anna has always been in the forefront of those who defended our country in times of danger. I encountered death many times in the defense of my countrys freedom. My country has been my master, and her soldiers, my brothers.

Unable to blunt his critics, however, he was overthrown, court-martialed, imprisoned, called the most corrupt of all Mexicans, stripped of his estates and sent into exile several times. During one of those exiles, he went to the New York City area, where he is credited with contributing to the creation of Chiclets, by introducing chicle (a tropical vegetable he liked to chew) to the future founder of the Adams Chewing Gum Co.

Allowed to return to Mexico in 1872 from exile, Santa Anna died June 21, 1876, nearly blind, penniless and in oblivion.

Fowler said Santa Anna was neither traitor nor turncoat and not always a tyrant.

Santa Anna was a general, a landowner and a 19th-century caudillo who tried to prosper personally and help his country develop at a time of severe and repeated crises, as the colony that was New Spain gave way to a young, troubled, besieged and beleaguered Mexican nation, Fowler said.

COMING MONDAY: When bison roamed Central Texas.
Egypt welcomed on Saturday a 48-hour cease-fire declared by the Syrian government in southern Syria and called on the opposition to likewise halt attacks, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said that Egypt "welcomes the decision by the Syrian government to cease fire in the southern city of Deraa."

Abu Zeid called on the Syrian opposition to comply with a Russia-sponsored May deal setting up four "de-escalation zones" in the war-torn country.

The statement reiterated Egypt's call to reach a political solution to end the country's seven-year war.

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A Cairo misdemeanour appeals court reduced on Sunday a three-year prison sentence against 32 factory workers to two-months in prison on charges of illegal protest.

Earlier this month, 32 workers from Torah Portland Cement Company were handed prison sentences of three years after organising a 55-day sit-in that was dispersed by security forces in May.

The workers were protesting the company's decision to lay them off after 10 to 15 years of service, saying the company had failed to pay money owed to them, treating them as contractors rather than employees.

Egyptian law stipulates a minimum of two years in prison and a fine of EGP 50,000 for those found guilty of illegal assembly.

The misdemeanour appeals courts verdict comes one day after the High Administrative Court ruled, in a labour dispute dating back to 2014, that peaceful strikes over work grievances are not a punishable offense, even in the absence of a legislation regulating the action.

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The director of the first Fifty Shades of Grey movie, Sam Taylor-Johnson has opened up about the awful experience she had on the set when filming the flick.

Sam Taylor-Johnson

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, she claimed that every scene was fought over with the author of the book series, EL James, because the two had such different creative visions.

She went on to say: Her vision versus mine They were polar opposite. Every scene was fought over. It was tough. It was like wading uphill through sticky tar. Her thing was, this is what the fans expect. Id be like, well, lets try and hit those marks but create a new universe at the same time.

Taylor-Johnson also explained how her position in Hollywood was hindered because of her association with the film, with the experience after its creation being ego-denting, which may not have been a bad thing.

James Foley replaced the director on the Fifty Shades Darker sequel, and hell also be returning for the final instalment, Fifty Shades Freed.

Adding that she will not ever watch the series, she concluded that she had literally zero interest in the franchise. Words from a director of the first movie.

Fifty Shades Freed will be released in February next year.

by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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RuPauls Drag Race season 9 may be coming to an end, but when it comes to the final four queens, theres so little between them that we think its going to be one of the closest finales the series has ever seen! Here, we rank the final four queens; lets see how close we are to the final result when all is said and done next week!

RuPaul will choose a season 9 winner next week

4. Trinity Taylor

Theres no bottom when it comes to this list, figuratively speaking, but Trinity Taylor is likely the queen wholl be finishing up in fourth place. Shes had a great number of competition wins and placing highly, but when shes put up against the other three queens fighting it out for the crown, she seems to fall to the wayside. This is not taking away from Trinitys talents at all  shes an incredible worker  but we just dont see her snatching the crown and representing this season as the winner.

3. Peppermint

In the past few weeks, Peppermint has seen a surge of popularity. Shes an incredible lip-syncer and, with the news that a lip-sync tournament will take place in the live finale, she could be well on her way to winning. When putting her record up against that of the rest of the queens however, could she really take the crown without a riot breaking out? Were not sure. Were behind Peppermint 100%; lets hope that Ru and the audience at the live show are as well.

2. Shea Coulee

Shea is without a doubt one of this seasons top standouts. Shes consistently done well in challenges and her take on Blac Chyna during the Kardashians musical is something that will be talked about in the drag community for years to come. Its going to be an extremely close call between her and Sasha for the crown, but when it comes down to it, weve always got one lady on our mind when we think of RPDR season 9

1. Sasha Valour

Unique. Fashionable. Trendsetter. Just a few words to describe the incomparable talent that is Sasha Velour. Weve never had anybody like Sasha on Drag Race, which just goes to show that the drag art form is one thats constantly shifting and evolving. Its time for that evolution to be given the recognition it deserves. Sasha represents the future of drag and for that she should be rewarded. What better way to do so than by giving her the RPDR crown, $100,000 and a supply of cosmetics?

by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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Huma Qureshi is going through a jolly good time. The actor, who debuted with Anurag Kashyaps two-part crime drama Gangs Of Wasseypur wowed viewers with her raw portrayal. Later, she added to her credentials with her nuanced acts in Ek Thi Dayan, Dedh Ishqiya and Badlapur. But the beautiful girl from an affluent family of restaurateurs had not left Delhi with limited dreams. Her dreams were as larger-than-life as the screen she wanted to own. As Akshay Kumars spunky wife in Jolly LLB 2, she broke new ground and entered the superhit league. Her foray into the horror premise with brother Saqib Saleem in Dobaara-See Your Evil has already created a buzz. Up next is Gurinder Chadhas Indo-Brit historical, Viceroys House. Most importantly, she will be romanced by superstar Rajiniknath in his upcoming Tamil film. Yes, Huma Qureshi has arrived. Albeit without cutting any corners or her generous curves Be yourself is what she describes as her success mantra. Truly, her individuality stands apart in a world of clones and cosmetic wonders







Youve ventured into the horror zone with Dobaara-See Your Evil

The movie is an adaptation of the Hollywood film Oculus (2014) directed by Mike Flangan. The story revolves around a supernatural mirror. While my character Natasha believes that the mirror had a role to play in her parents death, her brother Kabir (Saqib Saleem) does not share the belief. The siblings set out to unravel the truth.

How was your experience working with brother Saqib Saleem?

Interesting! Weve never worked together before. I believe were the first brother sister duo to share screen space in Indian cinema. I couldnt make the distinction in my head, Oh hes just a co-star. I was always looking out for him as a sister in my silly way.

In a creative process, theres bound to be a difference of opinion. Sometimes hed say, Tum behen hone ka faida utha rahi ho!











Youve been always supportive for each other We came from Delhi. Mumbais not an easy city to survive in. And the film industry is a competitive place. So we always had each other to hold on to. Saqib is my support system, my best friend. Hes someone I can talk to about everything. Being older, Im more protective about him. But actually both of us are protective about each other. I show it far more. While he doesnt.



Would you say Jolly LLB 2 was your breakthrough movie? Its a special film because I got to work with Akshay Kumar. Hes a fantastic co-star, a lovely human being and of course a superstar. But at the same time it was a beautiful script. Subhashji (Kapoor, director) wrote a strong female character. She has fire, shes brave. Though shes a homemaker, he gave it a spin. She isnt just an accessory or a glam doll. People always appreciated me as an actor! But Jolly put the stamp of superhit next to my name.



Would you agree that along with critical acclaim, commercial success is equally important? Yes, commercial success is necessary because you can then reach out to a maximum number of people. It means more people have watched your film.



Is it difficult for an outsider to make it here? Yes, its difficult. But Id rather focus on positive things because despite it all the industry has been welcoming. I got a chance to work with good actors and filmmakers, be it in Gangs Of Wasseypur , Badlapur or Jolly LLB. I received critical acclaim. And now after Jolly LLB, Im getting offers that I can pick and choose from. So I cant complain. Yet there are days when youre like Oh my God! Nothing is happening. But God has been kind to me. How much has the industry changed you? I learnt to be patient. I choose my roles carefully because I want to make a mark. I dont want to be replaceable. I dont want to be taken because some other actress doesnt have the dates. I want directors to think of me when they have a particular role in mind. I didnt have the luxury of being launched. Yet, I dont regret anything. I dont want to be in the rat race, I dont want to be number one or number two.



How difficult is it for a girl to survive in a male-dominating industry? The whole world is male-dominated  the corporate world, the banking sectoreverywhere. For girls its difficult in any profession. But today girls are smart, well-educated with a strong value system. They can stand up for themselves, no matter what the profession. If you feel youre being disrespected, voice it. If you feel youre not being paid enough, demand it. If you feel theres something that you dont want to do, say no.



How did you tackle the size zero expectations? Ive never tried to adhere to any standard of slimness. I had done a campaign My body, my rules for Femina. Recently, I did a campaign for jeans, which says I shape my world. I will not be bullied and why do you have to fit in when you can stand out? This idea of size zero is silly. Its not sustainable. The results are unhealthy - anorexia, bulimiaRecently, I underwent a 28-day detox program. I shared what I ate every day. You dont have to starve. You can still lose weight and look great. The mindset, that theres something wrong with me and till I dont fix it I wont be happy, has to change. This weight loss is not because I want to fit in. Its only because I am taking better care of myself.













Does media scrutiny about your personal life bother you?

Earlier, when I was new it used to bother me but now I dont care about it. You get used to it. Ive figured out that social media is a good platform to express yourself. But if somebody continues writing incorrect things, I cant do anything about it.





What do you have to say about rumours linking you with Sohail Khan?

I dont want to comment on it.





A secret you discovered...

Ive learnt that laughter is the key. You just laugh and everything becomes better.








Its said a truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms even when his hands are empty. Given that our industry dads have literally the world at their feet, the maxim doesnt apply to them, considering that they are constantly showering their kids with goodies right off the shelves of Bloomingdales. The star kids are accustomed to travelling in Porsches and taking international vacations before they can even spell the word international. But scratch the surface and you find that the fears and anxieties, the aspirations and hopes of industry dads remain the same as your normal Ramprasad doing a 9-5 job. So Saif Ali Khan, who belongs to royalty, gets the most joy in reading out fables to his tiny tot, Akshay Kumar wants his son to do well at Kudo, Ajay Devgn wants Nysa to grow up with a worldview while Karan Johar is ready to put his career on the backburner for the sake of his twins They maybe superstars, but deep down they are protectors to the core



Akshay Kumar



His father brought him up like an army kid and Akshay Kumar is no less a disciplinarian when it comes to bringing up his own children Aarav and lil Nitara. His kids have to earn their place in life and wont have everything handed to them on a platter. Like he allowed Aarav a business class ticket on a recent trip only because he got his first degree black belt in Kudo. Likewise, he wants his daughter to learn self-defence and grow up to be a self-assured young woman like her mother Twinkle Khanna. Hes tough on the surface but a real softie at heart alright.



Its said a truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms even when his hands are empty. Given that our industry dads have literally the world at their feet, the maxim doesnt apply to them, considering that they are constantly showering their kids with goodies right off the shelves of Bloomingdales. The star kids are accustomed to travelling in Porsches and taking international vacations before they can even spell the word international. But scratch the surface and you find that the fears and anxieties, the aspirations and hopes of industry dads remain the same as your normal Ramprasad doing a 9-5 job. So Saif Ali Khan, who belongs to royalty, gets the most joy in reading out fables to his tiny tot, Akshay Kumar wants his son to do well at Kudo, Ajay Devgn wants Nysa to grow up with a worldview while Karan Johar is ready to put his career on the backburner for the sake of his twins They maybe superstars, but deep down they are protectors to the coreHis father brought him up like an army kid and Akshay Kumar is no less a disciplinarian when it comes to bringing up his own children Aarav and lil Nitara. His kids have to earn their place in life and wont have everything handed to them on a platter. Like he allowed Aarav a business class ticket on a recent trip only because he got his first degree black belt in Kudo. Likewise, he wants his daughter to learn self-defence and grow up to be a self-assured young woman like her mother Twinkle Khanna. Hes tough on the surface but a real softie at heart alright.





Shahid Kapoor



Evidently, Misha has brought out the protective side in Shahid. We cant help but notice the way Shahid shields Misha from the paparazzi each time he ventures out with her. The dancing sensation shared some lovely moments while dancing with Misha on World Dance Day. Looks like baby Misha is learning to burn the dance floor like her father. Wife Mira and daughter Misha are truly the power women in his life.







Shah Rukh Khan



He reportedly once joked on Karan Johars show that hed probably rip off the lips of the boy caught smooching his daughter Suhana. When her photos in swimwear were flashed on the social media, he urged his fans to respect her privacy. Shah Rukh Khan, superstar and super entrepreneur is also super protective when it comes to his three children Aryan (20), Suhana (17) and AbRam (4). Hes also known to be a super young dad, liking nothing else than chatting with them late in the night, keeping abreast of all the cool gadgets, games, music and films they like, so that he can converse in their lingo. He was a hit at Aryans orientation at the University Of Southern California. He took time off to accompany Suhana to her college in London. And his bond with AbRam as they cheer together for Kolkata Knight Riders makes us all go awww







Aamir Khan



In a Filmfare interview, Aamir Khan candidly confessed to not being a hands-on father preferring to give credit to first wife Reena and second wife Kiran Rao in the rearing up of his children Junaid, Ira and Azad. Maybe, because hes such a perfectionist he spelt it out so honestly. Were sure thats not the case given his perfect sense of commitment. In fact, reading out stories to lil' Azad at bedtime is something hes passionate about. Earlier, he had reportedly requested a half-day off during the shoot of Dhoom 3 as he wanted to be with daughter Ira on her birthday. He made sure his youngest Azad Rao Khan travelled with him on the set of Dangal and mock-wrestled with him during breaks. Elder son Junaid seems to have been following his footsteps, assisting Rajkumar Hirani on PK and organising cricket matches for the physically challenged. Of course, Aamir has supported him all the way.







Karan Johar



Its all about loving your family is the bedrock of Dharma Productions. And now that twins Yash and Roohi have come in his life through surrogacy, Karan Johar's joy is complete. Ive submitted to the fact that my children are my world and priority. My work, travels and social commitments would have to take a back seat and I am prepared for that..., he tweeted when they were born. Hes been flooded with visitors as well as heaps of advice ever since hes brought them home. He even got best friend Gauri Khan to design a beautiful nursery for them. Were sure Yash and Roohi are going to be the industrys most pampered kids for a long time to come.







Ajay Devgn



Hes one of the toughest actors on screen but turns marshmallow when it comes to kids Nysa and Yug. Hes often mentioned in his interviews that fatherhood has matured him. That he wants to head home straight after pack-up just to be with his kids. He recently captioned a photo of him posing with his kids as the best birthday gift. Hes had a middle-class upbringing and has tried to inculcate those values in his children as well. He wants them to grow up as responsible human beings and not bratty star kids. He attended a charity event about the girl child with Nysa sometime ago as he believed it would open her eyes to the disparities of life. Thats surely a step in the right direction.







Hrithik Roshan



Hrithiks Instagram account is a part dad-manual and part photo-journal where he records all the fun times he has with his sons Hrehaan and Hridhaan. Whether its photos of them doing push-ups together or skiing together or just plain goofing around in an amusement park, they make for great memories. He hasnt let his divorce with Sussanne Khan sour his relationship with his kids, making sure to spend quality time together with them. Hes aware that they are going to grow up soon and be involved in their own universe. Hence one of his dad goals is to get as many cuddles and kisses before that. Sweet!







Emraan Hashmi



Emraan Hashmi was a super dad but when his four-year-old son, Ayan, was diagnosed with cancer, it changed his life forever. From taking him abroad for extensive treatment to rallying around him, cheering him up and staying positive himself Emraan left no stone unturned till Ayan returned home in the pink of health.







Vivek Oberoi



He was thrilled to be daddy dearest to Vivaan Veer. With Ameyaa Nirvanas arrival, it completed Viveks beautiful family. The doting father feels more protective and responsible after the arrival of his baby girl. Hes doing a wonderful job at being Daddy dearest in tandem with wife Priyanka.







Riteish Deshmukh



Sons Riaan and Rahyl are definitely the apple of his eyes and hes passing off some great values to his babies. The three  often with mom Genelia DSouza, make for some really adorable pictures! Whether it is playing football or dancing to daddys song, Raada, Riaan and Rahyl steal the show.







Tusshar Kapoor



The actor took everyone by surprise when he announced Laakshyas entry into his life through surrogacy. Tusshar is a devoted dad, changing nappies, feeding the baby and pitching in devotedly when the caretaker isnt around. His father Jeetendra, mother Shobha and sister Ekta are rejoicing ever since the new arrival came into their lives as little Lakkshya completes their family.







Farhan Akhtar



From writing an open letter to his teenage daughter Shakya talking about rape, to taking younger daughter Akiras girl gang for a group lunch on the young girls birthday... Farhan has been an exemplary father.







Arjun Rampal



Arjun Rampal sure knows how to be a friend to his teenage daughters, Mahikaa and Myra. He sets some trendy goals for all fathers to follow. From teaching his girls to riding bicycles to attending Justin Bieber concert with them, he gets it right. We like his zeal.







Saif Ali Khan



Saif Ali Khan is a star with a difference. Recently, when asked what advice he had for daughter Sara Ali Khan, whos making her acting debut, he replied that he had asked Sara to concentrate on her craft and not be swayed by the glamour. Hes a chilled out dad and at the same time proud of his legacy as a Nawab of Pataudi and wishes nothing more than to pass that on to his children. His was caught in a controversy when he named his newborn Taimur and kept his cool throughout, waiting for the storm to brew over. Hes looking forward to telling Taimur all the tales hes shared with his elder children, Sara and Ibrahim. Hes a hands-on dad and doesnt want to miss out on enjoying witnessing his tiny tot grow. Given both Kareena's and Saif's good looks, we have another killer Khan in

the making.







Imran Khan



Imran mentioned in an interview that wife Avantika and he hardly slept during the first six months after daughter Imara was born. In fact, he went on a paternity leave just to be by his lil girls side. He added that he had lost his heart to her and couldn't imagine living without her even for a day. Hes a nature lover so Imara gets to accompany him to his farmhouse in Karjat and make friends with the various dogs that he looks after at his animal shelter there.







Abhishek Bachchan



Following a family tradition, going back to his grandfather the late Harivanshrai Bachchan's days, Abhishek Bachchan writes letters to daughter Aaradhya the old-fashioned way. He still treasures the letters his dad, Amitabh Bachchan wrote to him when he was in school. Though Aaradhya is too young to read them now, hes sure shell go up to cherish them later. Hes a father with a poets soul alright. He pampered his niece Navya Naveli Nanda and now he pampers his daughter, playing good cop to wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchans disciplinarian act. Hes been a hands-on father throughout, reportedly reading up on everything related to babies before she was born and asking his parents and in-laws hazaar questions. On his 40th birthday, we saw a cute video of Aaradhya feeding him cake and the footage kind of won our hearts.
At least 24 Yemeni civilians were killed in an air raid Sunday on a market near the border with Saudi Arabia, a medical official said.

Most of the casualties worked in the Mashnaq market, which sells the mild narcotic qat, in the rebel-controlled northern Saada province, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

A Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes in Yemen for more than two years against Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels.

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Mumbai: Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has suspended the flying licence of Coimbatore-based carrier Air Carnival, which has not operated a single flight since early April.

With this, Air Carnival has become the third regional carrier, after Air Pegasus and Air Costa, whose air operator permit has been suspended by the DGCA in the last eight months.

"The DGCA has suspended Air Operator Permit (AOP) of Air Carnival after it failed to satisfy the regulator in its response to the show-cause notice," a DGCA official said.

The order for suspension of the flying licence of Air Carnival was issued earlier in June, the official said.

Air Carnival chairman and managing director S Irudaya Nathan was not available for comments.

As per section 15(2)(b) of Schedule XI of the Aircraft Rules 1937, DGCA may cancel or suspend permit of an airline for such period as it thinks fit, if it is satisfied that the holder of the permit has failed to establish a safe, efficient and reliable service.

However, before cancelling or suspending the flying permit of an operator, the regulator issues a show-cause notice with a two-week time period to respond.

Promoted by the CMC Group (Coimbatore Marine College), Air Carnival had started operations in July 2016 with with one ATR-72 aircraft.

Before grounding operations, the regional carrier was operating 10 daily flights to three cities  Chennai, Trichy and Tuticorin  from Coimbatore.

Its loan aircraft has also been de-registered and taken away by the lessor, the official said.

The promoters had earlier inked a deal for a 100 percent stake dilution to an angel investor for about Rs 70 crore, but the transaction is yet to be completed, sources said.

Significantly, only one carrier  TrueJet  of the four airlines which were operating under the regional AOP has survived the market in the last year.

The Bengaluru-based Air Pegasus was the first one to cease operations on 27 July last year on account of fund crunch.

Consequently, the DGCA suspended its AOP in November 2016.

Though its promoters had announced a deal with another aviation firm FlyEasy in January and said the carrier would resume services under the new management from March, the airline failed to take-off.

Then in February, another regional carrier, Vijaywada-based Air Costa announced suspension of its services initially for a few days and later indefinitely for want of cash and non-payment of dues to the aircraft lessors.

Its AOP was also suspended last month, according to the DGCA official.
It was a night to remember at the 64th Filmfare Awards! Perhaps for the first time in recent years that the Filmfare awards for Best Film were given to the most critically acclaimed films of 2016 across all the South Indian languages with Pellichoopulu (Telugu), Joker (Tamil), Thithi (Kannada) and Maheshinte Prathikaram (Malayalam) winning the top award in respective languages. The decision not only came as a big surprise, but also, in a lot of ways, it reinforced peoples belief in award ceremonies.

The 64th Filmfare Awards South 2017, which was held at HICC, Novotel in Hyderabad, as some of the biggest stars from Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam cinema graced the ceremony to celebrate the best of cinema. Hosted by Vijay Devarakonda, Allu Sirish, and Ragini Dwivedi, the event saw the likes of AR Rahman, NTR, Allu Arjun, Suriya, Samantha, Trisha, Madhavan, Nivin Pauly, Rakshit Shetty, Jyothika, Karthi Rakul Preet rub shoulders with each other.

My fav actress @Samanthaprabhu2 wins Best Actress in a Leading Role in #FilmfareAwardsSouth2017  pic.twitter.com/LeP4STyW3s  Mahesh S Koneru (@smkoneru) June 17, 2017

This year, veteran actor-filmmaker Vijaya Nirmala was bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement Award, which she received from Superstar Krishna. I began my acting career at the age of seven and went on to act in nearly 200 films. Ive also had the privilege of working with some of the biggest stars in Malayalam cinema like Prem Nazir, and Tamil cinema. Once I started directing films, I had no clue that Ill end up making 44 films. With all your love and blessings, I hope I get to direct 50 films in near future, Vijaya Nirmala said, when she got a standing ovation from the audience.

In Telugu, NTR won the Best Actor award for his performance in Nannaku Prematho. Speaking at the event, NTR said, Nannaku Prematho will always be a special film in my career. The film released within a year after my son was born and I learnt so much from the film about the relationship between a father and his son. Ill always be thankful to Sukumar for giving me this film. On the other hand, Allu Arjun won the Best Actor (Critics Choice) award for Sarrainodu and he dedicated the award to the late Dasari Narayana Rao. Among the actresses, Samantha won the award for Best Actress for AAa and stated that shell have something to show to her kids in future, much to everyones delight. The jury also gave the Best Actress (Critics Choice) award to Ritu Varma for her performance in Pellichoopulu. It was an emotional moment for the whole team of Pellichoopulu, which went on to win the Best Film award. Tharun Bhascker, the director of Pellichoopulu, said, This award is for all the short-filmmakers out there who have big dreams in their eyes. On the other hand, Jagapathi Babu, who won the award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Nannaku Prematho, quipped, Ive never gotten awards when I played a good guy. I guess Ill have to continue being the villain in my films now. The awards for Tamil films went to Irudhi Suttru which won three of the top four honours, a big bounty to say the least. Madhavan won the Best Actor award; Ritika Singh took home the Best Actress award whereas Sudha K Prasad won the Best Director award for Irudhi Suttru. Among others, Suriya won the Best Actor (Critics Choice) for his role in 24 and soon after winning the award, he said, It was really nice to see my son (Dev) trying to imitate my role as Athreya after watching the film. Im going to share this award with him on the occasion of Fathers Day. Trisha won the Best Actress (Critics Choice) award for her performance in Kodi.

There were plenty of tears too during the acceptance speeches. When Samyuktha Hegde won the award for Best Supporting Actress (Kirik Party), she shared a heartwarming story about how she started out as a background dancer just couple of years ago to being a lead actor today. Perhaps, the most heartfelt speech came from Shraddha Srinath, who won the Best Actress (U Turn) award, who broke down into tears.

Ill always be thankful to Pawan Kumar for writing such a wonderful character and having an actress as the central character of the film. Thank you so much in believing in me, she said. Kirik Party, one of the biggest hits in Kannada cinema, won the awards for Best Director (Rishab Shetty) and Best Actor - Critics Choice (Rakshit Shetty), whereas Godhi Banna Sadharana Maikattu also won awards for Best Actress - Critics Choice (Shruthi Hariharan), Best Supporting Actor (Vasishta Simha), and Best Actor (Anant Nag).

AR Rahman won his 31st Filmfare award and this time, he took home the Black Lady for his work in Gautham Menons Acham Enbathu Madamaiyada. In Telugu, the award went to Devi Sri Prasad for his work in Nannaku Prematho.

Among the Malayalam stars, Nivin Pauly won the Best Actor award for his role in Action Hero Biju, whereas Dulquer Salmaan was judged the Best Actor (Critics Choice) for his performances in Kaali and Kammatipaadam. Interestingly, Nayanthara won the Best Actress award for Puthiya Niyamam whereas Dileesh Pothan won the Best Director award for Maheshinte Prathikaram.

The award ceremony also saw performances by Rakul Preet, Catherine Tresa, Shraddha Srinath, Samyukta Hegde, Ramya Nambeesan and Nikki Galrani.

Heres the complete list of award winners:

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

VIJAYA NIRMALA

TELUGU

BEST FILM

Pelli Choopulu

BEST DIRECTOR

Vamsi Paidipally - Oopiri

BEST ACTOR (MALE)

NTR - Nannaku Prematho

BEST ACTOR (FEMALE)

Samantha - A... Aa

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE (MALE )

Jagapathi Babu - Nannaku Prematho

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE (FEMALE )

Nandita Swetha - Ekkadiki Pothaavu Chinnavada

BEST MUSIC ALBUM

Devi Sri Prasad - Nannaku Prematho

BEST LYRICS

Ramajogayya Sastry - Pranamam (Janatha Garage)

BEST PLAYBACK (MALE)

Karthik - Yellipoke shyaamalaa (A... Aa)

BEST PLAYBACK (FEMALE)

Chitra - Ee prema ki (Nenu Sailaja)

TAMIL

BEST FILM

JOKER

BEST DIRECTOR

SUDHA K PRASAD (IRUDHI SUTTRU)

BEST ACTOR (MALE)

MADHAVAN (IRUDHI SUTTRU)

BEST ACTOR (FEMALE)

RITIKA SINGH (IRUDHI SUTTRU)

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE (MALE )

SAMUDRAKANI (VISARANAI)

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE (FEMALE )

DHANSIKA (KABALI)

BEST MUSIC ALBUM

AR RAHMAN (ACHCHAM YENBADHU MADAMAIYADA)

BEST LYRICS

THAMARAI  THALLI POGATHAEY (ACHCHAM YENBADHU MADAMAIYADA)

BEST PLAYBACK (MALE)

SUNDARAYYAR  JASMINE U (JOKER)

BEST PLAYBACK (FEMALE)

SHWETHA MOHAN  MAYA NADHI (KABALI)

MALAYALAM

BEST FILM

MAHESHINTE PRATHIKARAM

BEST DIRECTOR

DILEESH POTHAN (MAHESHINTE PRATHIKARAM)

BEST ACTOR (MALE)

NIVIN PAULY (ACTION HERO BIJU)

BEST ACTOR (FEMALE)

NAYANTARA (PUTHIYA NIYAMAM)

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE (MALE )

VINAYAKAN (KAMMATTIPAADAM)

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE (FEMALE )

ASHA SARATH (ANURAGA KARIKKIN VELLAM)

BEST MUSIC ALBUM

BIJIBAAL (MAHESHINTE PRATHIKARAM)

BEST LYRICS

MADHU VASUDEVAN - CHINNAMMA (OPPAM)

BEST PLAYBACK (MALE)

M.G.SREEKUMAR - CHINNAMMA (OPPAM)

BEST PLAYBACK (FEMALE)

CHINMAYI - OONJALIL AADI (ACTION HERO BIJU)

KANNADA

BEST FILM

Thithi

BEST DIRECTOR

Rishab Shetty (Kirik Party)

BEST ACTOR (MALE)

Anant Nag (Godhi Banna Sadharana Maikattu)

BEST ACTOR (FEMALE)

Shraddha Srinath (U Turn)

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE (MALE )

Vasishta Simha (Godhi Banna Sadharana Maikattu)

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE (FEMALE )

Samyukta Hegde (Kirik Party)

BEST MUSIC ALBUM

Ajaneesh Loknath (Kirik Party)

BEST LYRICS

Jayant Kaikini  Sariyaagi nenepide ( Mungaru Male 2)

BEST PLAYBACK (MALE)

Vijay Prakash  Belageddu yaara mukhava (Kirik Party)

BEST PLAYBACK (FEMALE)

Ananya Bhat  Namma kaayo devare (Rama Rama Re)

CRITICS AWARDS

TAMIL

BEST ACTOR (MALE)

SURIYA (24)

BEST ACTOR (FEMALE)

TRISHA (KODI)

TELUGU

BEST ACTOR (MALE)

ALLU ARJUN (SARRAINODU)

BEST ACTOR (FEMALE)

RITU VARMA (PELLI CHOOPULU)

MALAYALAM

BEST ACTOR (MALE)

DULQUER SALMAN (KALI & KAMMATTIPADAM)

KANNADA

BEST ACTOR (MALE)

RAKSHIT SHETTY (KIRIK PARTY)

BEST ACTOR (FEMALE)

SHRUTHI HARIHARAN (GODHI BANNA SADHARANA MAIKATTU)

Special Awards:

BEST DEBUT (MALE)

SHIRISH (METRO)

BEST DEBUT (FEMALE)

MANJIMA MOHAN (ACHCHAM YENBADHU MADAMAIYADA)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

PS VINOD (OOPIRI) (TELUGU)

THIRU (24) (TAMIL)

BEST CHOREOGRAPHER (TELUGU)

SEKHAR VJ - APPLE BEAUTY (JANATHA GARAGE)
The teaser of the most anticipated television reality show Bigg Boss's Telugu version teaser is out. The host of the show - Junior NTR looks dapper in every sense in the introductory video.

Music composer SS Thaman took to his Twitter account on 17 June to unveil the Bigg Boss Telugu teaser:

Here we go guys the #bigbossteluguteaser and my love to our dear darling @tarak9999 https://t.co/WUQqeX1cZQ @StarMaa



Thaman  thaman S (@MusicThaman) June 17, 2017

SS Thaman has previosuly composed music for Junior NTR's films. Some of them are Brindavanam (2010), Baadshah (2013) and Rabhasa (2014).

The teaser looks promising with all the pyrotechnics at the background and dancing silhouettes of women. It gives you the feeling of the opening theme song of Pierce Brosnan's GoldenEye (1995). It was the first movie for Brosnan as the English spy. Half way through the video one can see the signature eye of Bigg Boss that too made out of fire. With such heat building in the teaser itself, there is no wonder that this installment of Bigg Boss in Telugu is in fact going to be a gala event. Junior NTR's presence in the show, as the host, has already grabbed it enough eye balls.

It is for the first time that the Telugu superstar will be seen hosting a television show. Bigg Boss Telugu will be aired on Star Maa.

Earlier, speaking to IANS, Alok Jain, the Business Head of Star Maa, had said,"With Junior NTR, one of the most popular and revered Telugu stars as the host, we look forward to engage a diverse spectrum of viewers. On the show, our endeavour will be to continuously innovate keeping in mind the sensibilities of this market. This will be an experience unlike any seen on Telugu TV before."

The teaser is here:


Muzaffarnagar: Two people have been arrested in connection with the death of a 28-year-old disc jockey who was killed allegedly in celebratory firing at a village.

According to Superintendent of Police Ombir Singh, the two accused have been booked under Section 302 (punishment for murder) of Indian Penal Code and the SC/ST Act.

Prince was killed in firing on Friday night at a function to celebrate the birth of a child at Dudhaheri village.

According to police, the deceased, a Dalit, was seriously injured after two upper caste men allegedly opened fire during the ceremony. Prince later died in a hospital.

Following the incident, his father and brother were killed in a road accident when they were on way to the hospital on a motorcycle to see him.
Mumbai: BJP president Amit Shah on Sunday met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at the latter's residence in suburban Bandra.

Shah, along with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, visited Thackeray's residence 'Matoshree' and held a close-door meeting, which started at around 10 am and lasted for nearly 75 minutes.

The meeting comes a day after the BJP chief, who is here on a three-day visit to strengthen the party organisation in the state, said his party would consult its allies before finalising the NDA's presidential candidate.

Shiv Sena, which has often been critical of the BJP and the Modi government, recently suggested the name of MS Swaminathan, the father of India's Green Revolution, as its presidential choice.

The Shiv Sena had earlier said it may choose an "independent" path in the election to the highest constitutional office. It had backed Congress nominees  Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee  in the last two presidential elections.

Asked about Fadnavis' remark that the BJP was prepared for a snap Assembly election, in an apparent reference to continued strain in ties with the Shiv Sena, Shah earlier said, "What he meant was that if mid-term polls are forced on us, we are ready to fight."

On the recent farm loan waiver announced by the Maharashtra government, Shah had said through it the state was offering relief to the farmers. "The burden of loan waiver will be on the government and not banks," he had said.
Hyderabad: Union Minister of State for Law P P Choudhary on Sunday said the Congress-led governments at the Centre focused only on "marketing".

He was addressing a lawyers' meeting organised by Telangana BJP in Hyderabad.

"In the last three years under Narendra Modi, the focus has been on work. But in the last 60 years of Congress rule, focus was on marketing without doing any work," he said.

Prime Minister Modi has changed the definition of politics which now means "service" while earlier it was synonymous with business, he said.

He credited the prime minister with creating a new work culture among ministers and bureaucrats.

"Under the previous regimes the poor were made vote bank, but now Modi's and government's vision is welfare of poor and farmers," Choudhary said.

On the issue of separate high courts for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the minister said as per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, the two states must have separate high courts (post-bifurcation).

At present the two states have a common high court.

"With regard to separate high court, the matter is sub-judice in the high court. Once order is passed by the court, we will issue necessary instructions to both the state governments for compliance of the order," he added.

"I have been told that they have identified land for setting up the high court. As far as the Central government is concerned, Rs 500 crore have been given to Andhra for construction of Raj Bhavan, secretariat and the high court," the Union minister said.
Editor's note: This is the concluding article of a three-part series on the demanding and unreasonably high cutoff levels imposed on students seeking entry into the country's preeminent colleges

Like their firm belief that watching two jungle mynas will always bring good luck, India's pushy parents are seeking divine help to get their children admitted in top colleges. They are at temples, churches, dargahs, and even consulting astrologers to propitiate the Gods, blissfully unaware that they are themselves the biggest trigger of this insurmountable pressure of high marks sweeping the country like a permanent tsumani.

In India, demands of ambition and demography collide with a shortage of desirable schools.

Parental pressure in India is among the worst in the world, with most parents seeking top performances which make for proud living room discussions. Only a handful can defy this pressure, the rest claim the system can never change. And so they join the deathly rat race, right from the day their child walks into a preparatory school.

Let's illustrate this with an example of defiance. Some months ago, a top corporate honcho in Delhi, J Anthony, was called by his daughter's class teacher. Among other complaints, the one that stuck out was the fact that the student, Preetika, was "a dreamer, living in her own world". And then, haltingly, the teacher added, "She is average in her studies."

Anthony said he was happy that his daughter was not among the top students in the school, and that he was happy that she was a dreamer. "My daughter is in a group which is the biggest in India. She may not get chance in a local college, but she could be in a small college abroad, living with four students in a room, learning to share and care. I am happy she won't be in the rat race, and happy that she is a dreamer, because this is the time to dream."

The teacher found Anthony bold. It was a rare conversation between a father and a teacher. But those who heard the story shuddered, ostensibly because parents in India live under a perpetual fear of teachers, of their whims and fancies, so much that it all adds up to the much talked about term "parental pressure".

"But that's an exception. In most cases, the parent would have collapsed, and the pressure shifted to the child," remarked Sudha Sadanand, a senior editor with Amazon-Westland.

Sadanand says Indian parents pick up these pressures from schools where they see top students wearing special blazers or badges, and sitting in what are called "scholar classes".

"Ordinary students suffer the most, because their parents do not have the galls to seek an alternate career for them. Students marks have a strange co-relation with their parents' decibel levels in drawing room discussions. Better the marks, higher the pitch," he said. "Every parent wants his/her child to go to high-flying schools, get big scores. It's a changed society today."

It is clearly taking a big toll, as statistics would tell. Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says one student commits suicide in India every hour. The NCRB has figures pertinent to 2015, when the number of reported suicides of students reached 8,934. In the five years leading to 2015, 39,775 students killed themselves. The number of attempted suicides is double the figure. This apart, there are also many unreported suicides in India, notorious for having the highest suicide rates in the world for youth aged 15-29. They account for one third of all suicides in the country. A 2012 Lancet report said there's now serious need for urgent intervention in India's education system.

The government has been speaking of decriminalising suicide, the idea being to ensure young Indians who are already stressed and burdened aren't punished for cracking under the pressure. They often end up cracking, because of the pressure from parents to perform better. Especially considering it's Class XII scores that determine college admissions and subsequent employment opportunities, students aged 16-18 years face undue pressure at home to succeed. And when they don't, suicide becomes a way out.

"Parents in India are scary; they look at the neighbours' successes and turn it inwards, to raise their pitch. Students must perform or perish, there is no middle ground. Indian schools have become no-nonsense disciplinarian institutes," said Tanveer Nasreen, a lecturer from Burdwan.

Nasreen said that many principals do refer in private conversations to the preponderance of parents who want their kids to start school early, and be burdened with homework and activities. "It has always occurred to me that more than students, it's parents who get competitive in India," Nasreen said. "Every school creates a pressure cooker like situation, with claims of producing the perfect child, and every parent buys into that dream."

About 40 percent of India's 1.2 billion population is aged under 18, while many more are parents in their late 20s and 30s, who also have school-going children. What is worrying is that except for the very poor, government schools are not an option, because they are considered inferior. Hence, the competition for private schools is fierce.

And it is here, in the scramble to be successful in the great Indian education rush, that parents get hyperactive, spending hefty amounts or taking loans to send their children to private schools mushrooming all over the country. Education is big business, as corporate captains, real estate developers and foreign colleges all eye the billion-dollar Indian education market.

But the actual choices on the ground are few. As a result, there aren't too many alternative courses for children to follow. Educationists, social scientists and human resources managers feel that students need to seek alternative courses and not make run-of-the-mill choices, if they are to beat this pressure. More importantly, however, parental behaviour needs to undergo a serious change.

But nothing has actually changed in India. For over four decades, Science, Commerce and Arts were the most common choices, and this, in turn, determined what college courses students applied for. Even today, medicine and engineering remain the two most popular choices, and students depend on their Science and Math grades in classes X and XII to get there.

Parents rarely put pressure on education boards to add newer, innovative or creative courses, nor do they wish their children run for such courses. "Parents' expectations are the highest," says Suman Kumar, principal of Bluebells School in Delhi, adding that those who opt for the big courses hardly follow it up at the end. So why even push them to decide their life's choices when they are just 15?

A simple poll across six cities taken by filmmaker Ishani Dutta in January 2017 showed how people who had trained formally as engineers hadn't practiced engineering, but drifted to running restaurants, medicine stores, real estate brokerage and adventure sports. Some even became editors and some ran advertising agencies. "So why should children mindlessly study for professional courses? Why don't parents celebrate a 65 percent score or a 75 percent score on Facebook? Aren't they bringing competition into their bedrooms, traumatising their own children?" Dutta asked.

She is yet to find an answer.

The stereotyping of students and parents eventually impacts their careers at workplaces, claim HR experts. "Many act like robots, they can handle some great softwares, but cannot make a cup of coffee because they were not told by their parents. At work, these very kids must get bold and ask themselves  am I upping my game?" HR exponent Chandan Chattaraj asked.

Earlier this year, Class XII students and their parents huddled together in a Delhi school for one last interaction before the crucial final examinations. Tempers ran high when teachers told parents that students were complaining of "huge pressure to outperform others" at home. A majority of the parents denied the charge, while some agreed. Only a couple remained silent. The room had in many ways turned into a cauldron, resembling an angry town hall or shareholder meeting of a company on the verge of going bust.

"But there is no way one can come out of this, the pressure will always be present. Like the shlokas and mannerisms, this one has also been handed down generation after generation. We know we should not pressure children. Some of us don't. But the children are impacted severely by the environment," says communication consultant Swati Bhattacharya.

Her son scored 90 percent this year in Class XII, while her daughter scored 95 percent two years ago. The parents tried their best to bury the comparison. "But it kept bouncing back, parental pressure is lethal. And its extremely sad that it will stay for the next decade as well," Bhattacharya rued.

The face of the Indian school parent, sadly, has not changed  it remains angry and anxious. Their children spend days and nights boning up for exams, refusing to think there are worthwhile pursuits outside of being a doctor or an engineer. No one has lifted the knob of the pressure cooker to let the steam off.
Rajnandgaon: Police on Sunday killed three naxalites, including a woman commander, in an exchange of fire with the ultras in insurgency-hit area of Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district.

The encounter took place around 2 pm in a forested hill near Pendori village under Aundhi police station limits when a team of district force was carrying out a search operation in the region, Rajnandgaon superintendent of police Prashant Agrawal told PTI.

Based on specific inputs, security personnel had launched the operation in the interiors of Aundhi, around 125 km from Rajnandgaon, he said.

When the patrol team was advancing through the forests of Pendori, it came under heavy firing from a group of ultras leading to a fierce gun-battle, he said.

On finding security personnel were zeroing in on them, the ultras fled from the spot, he added.

"During the search, bodies of three naxalites, including a woman, clad in 'uniform' besides one SLR rifle, one Insas rifle and one 303 rifle were recovered from the spot," the superintendent of police said.

The woman has been identified as Sameela, a commander rank cadre who was active in Aundhi area committee of Maoists, he said.

The identity of two others was yet to be ascertained, the superintendent of police said adding details are awaited.
Kolkata: Following a "positive meeting" with Union Labour Department and Coal India officials, the central trade unions operating in the coal industry on Sunday deferred their proposed three-day strike, supposed to commence from Monday, for three months.

"In view of the positive discussion, the proposed three-day nationwide strike from 19-21 June 2017 has been deferred for next three months," INTUC-backed, Indian National Mineworkers Federation (INMF) said in a statement.

"On interference by Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), Kolkata in the proposed strike called by five operating central trade unions i.e. INTUC, BMS, HMS, AITUC, CITU through a notice served to Secretary (Coal), Chairman, CIL and CMD, Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. for their seven-point charter of demand has been put on hold for having positive discussion and recording here at Kolkata on Sunday," it added.

Coal unions had called for the strike opposing the merger of Coal Mines Provident Fund into Employees Provident Fund.

On Friday, the detailed discussion was held with Coal Secretary regarding the proposed merger.

"The Centre has stated that it has not taken any decision to merge the EPF and the CMPF and there is no such proposal pending with the ministry," said INMF's Secretary General SQ Zama.

As far as full implementation of the National Coal Wage Agreement (NCWA) IX agreement, especially the clause of unfitness of coal workers which is not being implemented by the subsidiaries of CIL, the management stated that the pending issues will be discussed in the Joint Bipartite Committee for Coal Industry (JBCCI), the unions said.
Bahrain has ordered Qatari troops serving with a coalition fighting the Islamic State group to leave its territory, a source with knowledge of the situation said on Sunday.

The soldiers, part of the US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) which is headquartered in Bahrain, had been asked to leave the coalition and may depart within the next 48 hours, the source told AFP.

"The Bahrainis told the US general in command of the base that Qatari soldiers must leave," the source said on condition of anonymity.

"They are still in the base but likely to leave within the next two days."

The news comes as the Gulf faces the biggest diplomatic crisis in recent years, with regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia and some of its allies suspending ties with gas-rich Qatar over accusations the emirate bankrolled Islamist extremists and had ties to rival Iran.

Direct tensions between Manama and Doha have been further exacerbated after Bahrain accused Qatar of directly interfering in its internal affairs.

Qatar has denied those charges.

The source did not detail the number of Qatari troops based in Bahrain. One analyst estimated it was no more than a "handful of officers".

Qatar has deployed troops with NAVCENT since 2014, according to one official.

NAVCENT is part of the US Central Command whose area of operation includes the Middle East and Asia.

As part of their operations, numerous air strikes against IS targets in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan have been conducted from Qatar's Al-Udeid, the largest US base in the region.

Washington is involved in diplomatic efforts to resolve the impasse in the region but US policy has proved unpredictable.

President Donald Trump has sided with Saudi Arabia and its allies, including Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt, claiming Doha had "historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level".

However, Pentagon and State Department officials have scrambled to reassure the emirate.

The United States last week agreed to a $12 billion sale of F-15 fighters to Qatar.

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Darjeeling : With GJM gearing up for a prolonged confrontation with West Bengal government over the Gorkhaland statehood issue, the party's leadership is planning to revive Gorkhaland Personnel(GLP) - its "peacekeeping" wing.

"The situation is getting worse with each passing day. We feel that a head-on collision is just a matter of time. So we need to prepare ourselves to counter the state government democratically," GJM central committee member and former in-charge of GLP Colonel (retd) Ramesh Alley told PTI.

"We (GJM) will revive and recruit more youths in GLP our own peacekeeping force. We are not into any kind of violence nor is GLP into this. But we have to prepare ourselves," he said.

GJM, Alley said, wants to raise a 8000-strong force in Darjeeling hills which will be well prepared to tackle "any kind of situation".

The idea of setting by GLP by recruiting youths from the hills was first mooted by Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) supremo Bimal Gurung during the Gorkhaland agitation of 2008.

Gurung had then held a meeting with former army personnel and officers from the hills and requested them to take charge of selection, ecruitment and training of the youths. The outfit was first named Gorkhaland Police, but after opposition from various quarters it was renamed Gorkhaland Personnel (GLP).

The criteria for a place in this force was education upto standard eight and of course physical fitness and agility. After initial selection, nearly 3000 youths were trained for joining GLP.

The force in 2009 enforced bandhs called by GJM, ensured that locals wear traditional Nepali attire at least thrice a week, seize and destroy liquor and provide protection to Gurung and top GJM leaders.

Paid only a paltry allowance, the GLP youths were promised to be absorbed into the police force after the creation of Gorkhaland. However, GLP took a back seat and most of its trained youths were absorbed into GJM youth wing instead following the formation of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration in 2011.

"During GTA, the state government had promised that these youths would be absorbed in the state police force but nothing of the sort happened. Now we no longer have any expectation from the state government. We are Indians and we hope that the Centre will take action to resolve the crisis in the hills," Alley said.

After Bimal Gurung's office and other premises of GJM were raided in this latest round of agitation, the party leadership decided to revive the force to counter the alleged police atrocities.

Alley and other GJM leaders pointed out they are not for any armed struggle as that would mean taking up arms against the Centre.

"We have been soldiers all our life. We can never think of armed struggle against the Centre. We love our motherland India, but we want a separate state. It is a fight for our own identity," Alley said.

Darjeeling has been on the boil for the past ten days and and indefinite shutdown is on by GJM in support of its separate Gorkhaland demand. Reacting to GJM's decision to revive GLP, senior TMC leader and minister Gautam Deb said " We all know that GJM is a separatist force. So it is expected that they well set up a militant organisation. But we will not allow such separatist forces to grow."

The police said they are keeping a close watch on all the activities of GJM and will do the needful.
The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) has claimed that three of its supporters were killed in police firing on Saturday, the third day of protests that have hit the hills of north Bengal.

According to a report in The Times of India, GJM accused the police of opening fire on protesters near St Joseph's College located in Singmari, and in Ghoom, after the army was deployed due to increasing violence and stone pelting instances.

The report also said that protesters attacked Kirang Tamang, a central paramilitary force assistant commandant and slit his throat. He has been admitted to hospital, and is battling for life. As per the report, the commandant belonged to the Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB), and he had his throat slit when he attempted to prevent protesters from setting police vehicles on fire in front of the police outpost in Singmari.

On Saturday, The Hindu reported that clashes across Darjeeling killed one GJM supporter and injured 35 security personnel. The report further added that GJM supporters had been killed in police firing after their womens wing  Nari Morcha  organised a rally in Singmari. The rally turned violent, resulting in clashes between GJM supporters and security personnel, it said.

However, the state administration rejected GJM's claim, and stated that the police never opened fire on any of their supporters. They also accused GJM supporters of opening fire, but did not mention anything on casualties.

"Police did not open fire. This is absolutely wrong," West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said, as reported by Hindustan Times.

The chief minister criticised the GJM and blamed them for the unrest. "Five years you (GJM) enjoyed, now when elections are coming you start violence because you have lost credentials... What is happening is a deep-rooted conspiracy. These arms were not collected in a day, they were collected over time," she reportedly told the Deccan Chronicle.

She also blamed GJM for having alleged terrorist links, as the Hindustan Times report added. "There is a terrorist brain behind this hooliganism and vandalism. We have got clues that this has terrorist connections," she said.

Deccan Chronicle also said that protests in Darjeeling were initially meant to revolt against the forced imposition of Bengali in schools, but they soon turned into a demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland, and even students' unions are now supporting the cause.
Darjeeling: Hundreds of protesters on Sunday paraded with coffins containing the bodies of two men they claimed were killed in clashes with Indian security forces in Darjeeling, as the hill resort reels from separatist unrest.

Nearly 50 people, mostly police, have been injured in riots and arson attacks that have rattled the picturesque hill station for more than a week and caused thousands of mostly Indian tourists to pack their bags and flee.

As the violence escalated sharply on Saturday, police said one man died and 35 policemen were hurt as protesters torched cars and set upon security forces with knives, who responded with tear gas and baton charges.

West Bengal director general of police, Anuj Sharma, said the dead man appeared to have been shot but the circumstances were still unclear. Police have denied using live ammunition.

But supporters of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM)  a separatist movement that has long called for a separate state for ethnic Gorkhas in West Bengal  dispute this, saying three of their comrades were shot dead by police in the clashes.

"Three of our comrades were killed and five were critically injured in police gunfire yesterday (Saturday)," GJM's general secretary Roshan Giri told AFP.

Hundreds of mourners on Sunday silently escorted the coffins of two men through the streets of Darjeeling, waving India's tricolour flag and posters calling for peace.

A spokesman for GJM said the body of the third alleged victim was in a hospital awaiting post mortem.

State police strongly denied the charge that live rounds were used.

"The police did not open fire. Gunshots came from the other side," Sharma said.

The upswing in violence began when police raided the homes and offices of GJM members, prompting authorities to deploy troops and riot police to patrol the streets of the famed tea-producing resort in eastern India.

'Deep-rooted conspiracy'

The troubles have dealt a major blow to the crucial tourism industry, leaving the normally busy destination deserted as shops, schools and banks closed.

Authorities on Sunday appeared to have blocked mobile internet services in riot-affected areas. Earlier, Union home minister Rajnath Singh appealed for calm, urging protesters to engage in dialogue with the state government.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee described the unrest as a "deep-rooted conspiracy".

"There is a terrorist brain behind this hooliganism and vandalism. Only a terrorist and not a common man can do this," Banerjee told reporters in the state capital Kolkata on Saturday.

The hills are famous for Darjeeling tea whose production is jealously guarded. It is also famed for its "toy train" - a 78-kilometre uphill ride from New Jalpaiguri.

Tension has been mounting in the region since the government announced it was making Bengali mandatory in state schools - angering the state's Gorkha population, who speak Nepali.

Gorkhas have been agitating for decades for a new state of "Gorkhaland" within West Bengal, claiming Bengali-speaking outsiders have exploited their resources and imposed their culture and language.

A similar uprising in 2007 saw Gorkhas granted some administrative powers.

Many groups in India have waged similar campaigns to break away from larger states, mostly on linguistic and ethnic grounds or in hope of economic benefits.

The last successful campaign saw the state of Telangana carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.
New Delhi: As Darjeeling remained on the boil over a separate statehood agitation, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday appealed to protesters not to resort to violence and, instead, hold dialogue to resolve any issue.

He said resorting to violence would never help them in finding a solution and asked the people living there to remain calm and peaceful.

"All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment," Singh said.

In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution, he said, emphasising that "every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue".

"I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence," the home minister said in a series of tweets.

Singh also spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday and discussed with her the situation prevailing there.

"She (Banerjee) has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling," he said.

Singh had on Saturday also spoken to Banerjee and asked her to take all possible steps so that peace is restored in the picturesque hill station where people are protesting against "imposition" of Bengali in schools by making the language mandatory.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which is in power in the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, is spearheading the agitation there demanding a separate state - Gorkhaland.

Darjeeling remained on the edge on Sunday as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a GJM activist, who was killed during clashes with police, and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.

Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and the police were witnessed on Saturday.

The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari on Saturday. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.

This was the first death since violent protests returned to Darjeeling on 8 June, after a gap of a few years.
New Delhi: An army colonel has been arrested by the CBI for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 50,000 from a Pune-based private company for supply of rock splitting equipment.

The probe agency also arrested three officials of the company.

Colonel Shaibal Kumar posted in Planning and Engineering branch of the Kolkata-based Army's Eastern Command, Sharat Nath, Managing Director of Pune-based Xtech Equipment Private Limited, Vijay Naidu, a director in the company and Amit Roy, a company representative were arrested by the CBI.

"It was alleged that the Colonel had demanded a bribe of Rs 1.80 lakh from the managing director of the company in connection with the supply of power pack rock splitters, which are used by various field formations of the army," CBI Spokesperson RK Gaur said in New Delhi on Sunday.

He said it is alleged that the army officer, in February 2017, had received a bribe of Rs 50,000 and as part of the second installment, the Colonel has now accepted Rs 50,000 from the accused company.

"The CBI tracked the director of said private company who came from Pune to deliver the bribe to Colonel and nabbed him after the payment of bribe to the army officer. The CBI caught the Colonel and recovered the bribe amount from his residence," he said.

Searches have been conducted in four premises at Pune and two premises at Kolkata, the CBI said.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has rejected a suspected Islamic State (IS) operative's plea seeking nod to inspect the documents, submitted by the NIA to a trial court in a case relating to the alleged charges of recruiting and financing people to join the terror group.

A bench of justices GS Sistani and Vinod Goel said that the case was related to the "larger conspiracy" by the Islamic State, (referred to as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by the bench) and further investigation in the matter was going on.

The court also said that a charge sheet has already been filed in the case and the material relied upon by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) would be part of the final report filed by the investigators. Delhi-based Islamic scholar Mufti Abdus Sami Qasmi had approached the high court challenging a special court's December order by which he was denied the copy of documents submitted by the NIA in sealed covers.

Upholding the special court order, the bench referred to the agency's affidavit before it which said that during the investigation, credible intelligence inputs were received that a module for IS was active in different parts of the country and is engaged in recruiting Muslim youth for the banned terror group.

"The input was developed and raids were conducted in different cities at different locations. Eighteen accused persons were arrested in the instant case and incriminating literature, material to fabricate IEDs, electronic devices and money received through hawala channels were seized from the possession of the accused," the bench noted in its order.

According to the NIA, Qasmi was the first cleric to be arrested in the case from Uttar Pradesh's Hardoi district on 5 February, 2016.

The NIA claimed that he was "delivering provocative and inflammatory speeches and was instigating youths for anti-national activities".

The agency, in its affidavit, has also claimed that Qasmi "in the guise of a religious preacher was inciting, motivating and abetting Muslim youths, who sought his guidance in waging violent jihad and supporting and joining the ISIS (Islamic State)".

The charge sheet was filed for the alleged offences under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The agency had filed an FIR in the matter on 9 December, 2015 against unknown and unidentified persons involved in the activities of IS in India and Asian powers in peace with India on inputs received from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

On 5 October, 2015, 23-year-old accused Naser Packeer was apprehended by Sudani authorities for concealing his identity and trying to join IS in Syria. Later, he was deported to India on 10 December, 2015.

The accused persons against whom the agency had filed the charge sheet include Mohd Aleem, Mohd Obaidullah Khan, Nafees Khan, Mohd Shareef Moinuddin Khan, Asif Ali, Najmul Huda, Mudabbir Mushtaq Shaikh, Mohd Abdul Ahad, Suhail Ahmed, Syed Mujahid, Mohd Hussain Khan, Mohd Afzal, Imran and Abu Anas.

They were arrested from different parts of the country for allegedly recruiting and financing people to join the terror organisation.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea seeking rehearing of a petition to restrain the Supreme Court collegium from recommending names for appointment to the higher judiciary.

"Under the garb of a review petition, the appellant is actually seeking a rehearing of the appeal that was dismissed on merits, which is impermissible," a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal said.

Delhi-based lawyer R P Luthra had moved an application to review the 1 March order of the high court's division bench rejecting the plea against its single judge's order.

The single judge had declined to stop the Supreme Court collegium from making any recommendation to appoint judges in higher judiciary.

The petitioner moved an application seeking review of the decision, claiming that the previous division bench had not allowed him to argue his appeal against the single judge order.

Disallowing the petitioner's request, the bench observed that the purpose of a review application is fairly limited and it "cannot be used as a tool to re-argue an appeal, which has already been decided. The grounds taken in review application do not entitle the appellant to seek a review."

Luthra, while filing the appeal before the previous bench, had submitted that he was not arguing for removal of the judges who were already elevated to the apex court, but had claimed that the collegium system for recommending appointments to the higher judiciary was "unconstitutional".

The high court in May last year too had dismissed two similar pleas. One of them was filed by Luthra, which had sought to put a restraint on the government from acting on the collegium's recommendation for elevating three high court chief justices and a senior lawyer to the apex court.
New Delhi: In a shocking case of negligence, a newborn was allegedly declared "dead" by staff of a central government hospital on Sunday but was found alive by the family members just before it was to be buried.

The incident happened at Safdarjung hospital when a resident of Badarpur delivered a baby this morning.

The nursing staff apparently failed to find any respiration by the baby.

"The doctor and the nursing staff declared the baby dead and sealed the body in a pack, labelled it and handed it over to us for burial," said Rohit, the father of the child.

As the mother's condition was not stable, she remained in the hospital while the father and other family members took the body and went home and started making preparations for the burial.

But then Rohit's sister suddenly felt some movement in the pack and when they opened it they found the baby breathing and moving its limbs.

Immediately a PCR call was made and the baby was rushed to Apollo Hospital from where it was shifted to Safdarjung.

The baby is now undergoing treatment at the hospital.

The parents who had a shock of their lives have approached police regarding the case.

"How can they be so irresponsible and declare a baby, who is alive, as dead? If we had not opened the sealed pack in time, my baby really would have died and we would never have come to know the truth. This a gross negligence on the part of the hospital and the guilty should be punished," Rohit said.

Safdarjung hospital authorities have ordered an inquiry into the matter.

"The woman had delivered a baby 22-weeks-old premature baby. As per WHO guidelines, babies born before 22 weeks and weighing less than 500 gms do not survive and are not considered as deliveries. The baby was motionless without any cry or respiration after birth.

"We have ordered an inquiry to find out whether it was not checked properly if the baby was alive before being declared declared and handed over to his parents," said Dr A K Rai, medical superintendent at Safdarjung hospital.

According to another doctor, such babies are kept under observation for about an hour before being declared dead.
Ahmednagar: A four-member family of an ex-soldier was found brutally murdered in Shevgaon village of Ahmednagar in Maharashtra on Sunday morning, police said.

According to a police official, the victims were found in a pool of blood by neighbours around dawn.

The victims were identified as: Appasaheb Govind Harvane, 58, his wife Sunanda, 48, their daughter Snehal, 18, and son Makarand, 15. The motive behind the killings is not yet known.

They had been repeatedly stabbed by a sharp weapon. The incident reportedly occurred at around midnight, the official said.
New Delhi: Loan waiver is not a permanent solution for the problems faced by farmers, feels the chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party's farmers' cell, Virendra Singh "Mast", who says only a fair price for their produce can mitigate the situation.

He is also of the view that the MS Swaminathan Commission's recommendations are not feasible as the government body which fixes input costs has failed in its job.

"It (loan waiver) is not a permanent solution but a short-term relief. The central government is not in a position to spare funds for loan write-offs," Mast told IANS in an interview.

He was replying to a question about the mounting demand for writing off farm loans, particularly in states like Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra where agrarian unrest has led to loss of lives.

A third-term Lok Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh, whose profession is agriculture, Mast said that family "break-ups" are one of the reasons causing unrest among farmers and affecting their incomes.

"Their problems should be solved politically and the unrest will continue till they are economically, socially, politically and culturally strengthened," he said.

Mast's remarks assume significance in the wake of unrest among farmer communities in many parts of the country.

He said that the main issue that is impacting farmers' lives is that they are not getting profitable prices for their produce.

"The biggest issue is how farmers get profitable prices for their produce, which is the base of their economy. How they can be strengthened economically," he said.

"Being a farmer, I have found that break-up in families is one of the reasons for these or such problems. When a family is divided, the acreage (land) reduces and due to this the cost of farming increases, which impacts production. Undoubtedly, it's a social problem - but we also need to find a political solution for this," he said.

Singh said that farmers' incomes cannot be doubled in a day or two but the National Democratic Alliance government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is moving in that direction.

"Our focus is to reduce the cost of farming by improving the irrigation situation, supplying power at a low cost and connecting roads, among other things," he said.

He said that Swaminathan Commission's recommendations can be implemented only if the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) accurately fixes the input costs, which he said "has failed to do".

Citing the variations in input costs based on different geographical conditions, Mast said the CACP has failed to take those into account.

"In coastal areas, the cost of farming is much lower than that of landlocked areas," he pointed out.

The National Commission on Farmers, constituted under the chairmanship of MS Swaminathan, suggested a Minimum Support Price, including an additional 50 percent over and above the total expenses incurred on farming.

Asked about the death of five people in police firing in Mandsaur, Singh said that movements, agitations and disagreements are part of a healthy democracy, but violence has no place in it.

"Talks were going on between the farmers' organisations and the Madhya Pradesh government and they had almost reached an agreement; but what happened a day after that - the agitation went aggressive and violence erupted.

"I don't approve of firing on farmers. There can't be firing during a movement and those responsible for it need to be punished. It also needs to be probed under what circumstances the police opened fire. When there is violence during any movement, its objective is lost," Mast said.

He also advised the agitated farming community to refrain from displaying a negative attitude and come out with suggestions.

"Those who want real solutions to the agrarian crisis should come out with suggestions," he said.

Mast also said that the agrarian crisis and farmer's problems are not new to this country and it is not true that the country is facing it after the BJP took power in 2014.

"In fact, those who ruled this country after independence did not work to eradicate these problems. Narendra Modi is the first Prime Minister of this country who cares about farmers. Such problems can't be solved by banking only on the government. The government, administration and society need to work together to solve them," he said.
The Syrian army on Sunday advanced into the northern province of Raqa as part of an offensive to reach the neighbouring oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor, a monitoring group said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime troops had reached the edges of Resafa, a town some 40 kilometres (25 miles) southwest of Raqa city, bastion of the Islamic State group.

The goal of the operation is to push further east and reach Deir Ezzor, the Observatory said.

The regime has lost control of many oil and gas fields since the start in 2011 of Syria's conflict, especially in the provinces of Homs and Deir Ezzor.

Sunday's advance came after government troops captured several villages in the past few days, said the Observatory.

Troops were also about 50 kilometres from a US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance of fighters which launched a new offensive this month to retake Raqa city.

The fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces entered the northern city earlier in June, after months of heavy clashes to encircle Raqa.

Since June 6 they have seized a few neighbourhoods, including one in the east and one in the west, and are battling to push into the Old City of Raqa.

The Observatory says a large number of IS fighters are holed up in the Old City.

IS seized Raqa in 2014, transforming it into the de facto Syrian capital of its self-declared "caliphate".

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Google has released a doodle on Sunday commemorating Father's Day. The doodle portrays an anthromorphic cactus father nurturing his children. The doodle comprises six panels which spell out the word Google as is the pattern in many of the company's doodles. One panel depicts the father combing the child's hair (which is actually a flower), another has him and the child playing with a balloon, yet another has him shaving with his kid and the last one portrays the four of them as a happy family.

Google has commemorated this occasion in multiple years with the first one going back to 2000. That doodle was a simple one in which the first 'o' of Google had a hat and the 'g' wears a tie.

Every year, the third Sunday of June is celebrated as Father's Day in India. This year, it falls on 18 June. The occasion complements similar celebrations of family members, such as Mother's Day, Siblings Day and Grandparents Day. The day is usually celebrated with children giving gifts like greeting cards, books, flowers, clothes, electronic gadgets etc. to their fathers.

Father's Day is celebrated on different days in different countries. India follows the North American tradition of celebrating it on the third Sunday of June. Some South American nations as well as a few European ones celebrate it on this day too.

The origin stories of Father's Day vary but one of them involves a woman named Grace Golden Clayton from Fairmount, West Virginia, according to The Sun. She was an orphan whose father had died in a mining accident. She then had lobbied her local Methodist church ministers for a church service to honour fathers in 1908. The service then morphed to become an annual celebration of fathers. Vox gives another origin story which involves an American woman, Sonora Dodd who along with her five siblings were raised by a single father in a time when that was largely uncommon. In 1910, she started a petition to recognize holiday celebrating fathers. The third Sunday of June was recognised as such by both US legislation and Presidential proclamation.

Interestingly, Father's Day is spelt with the apostrophe before the 's' because then it belongs to each individual father. If the apostrophe was after the 's' then it would belong to all fathers as a collective.

Also, Mother's Day sees a bigger spike in the retail gifting industry compared to Father's Day, according to the Vox report.
Jaisalmer: More than three decades after his father strayed across the Pakistan border while grazing cattle, 36-year-old Hasam Khan still waits for his return.

Khan was just five years old in 1986 when his father, Jamaldeen, inadvertently stepped into Pakistani territory from the neighbouring Bandha village in this district and was put behind bars in the Karachi jail on charges of spying.

As the world celebrates Father's Day, Khan struggles to hold back his tears as he recalls his childhood with Jamaldeen who used take him for long walks near the international border.

"Whenever I see him in old photographs, I sleep with the hope that he will return home safely and we will be a happy family once again," Khan says.

The escalation of tension between India and Pakistan and the death sentence to Indian navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav worry him.

"We continued to receive his letters till 1990 when he was lodged in Karachi jail. His letters kept me and my mother in high-spirits. But, it's been 17 years now and there is no information about his whereabouts," he said.

Khan expresses disappointment that political leaders and government officials did not bother about his plight.

"The Kulbushan Jadhav death sentence has revived my fear that all is not well. I met top officials in Jaipur and New Delhi and ran from pillar to post for years but unfortunately all attempts went in vain," he said expressing hope that the government will take up his father's case as seriously as it has taken Jadhav's.
On Saturday afternoon, Addah Feroz stood by the main gate of her two-storey house in Awantipora in Pulwama district of Kashmir, and watched a steady trickle of mourners walk in and out. It was the funeral of Feroz Ahmad Dar, a station house officer (SHO) of Acahbal polie station, who was killed by militants late on Friday evening.

Addah cried for her father, unaware of the tragedy that had befallen the family. Despite pleas from everybody who came to offer their condolences, five-year-old Addah kept her right hand hooked to the gate, refusing to step away and crying for her father every time they came to take her away.

Feroz was travelling with five policemen in a hired vehicle, when a group of Lashkar-e-Taiba militants ambushed them near Thajiwar in Achabal area of Anantnag. The militants sprayed a volley of bullets from point blank range at the six policemen, killing them instantly. They fled with the police's weaponry. LeT called it a "retaliation" to the encounter in which its commander Junaid Mattoo was killed.

Feroz's father Abdul Raheem Dar sat cross-legged in a room on the second floor of the house. The silence inside and outside this newly build house was frequently overpowered by the many conversations taking place. Dar, a short man with a neatly trimmed beard, looked stricken. "He was my only son," he said.

On Friday evening, Abdul met his son and asked him if he would return home for Iftar. Thirty minutes later, Feroz was gunned down. "I didn't know it would be the last time I ever saw him. I wish I had hugged him," Dar, who is in his early 60s, murmured softly, as if not wanting anybody to overhear these thoughts.

The room was full of mourners, most of whom had travelled from the family's ancestral village to their new house in Pulwama. Feroz had a Masters in Zoology from a university in Maharashtra, and had also completed his MPhil. He said he was thinking of completing his PhD, but a phone call from home one day in 2009 "forced" him to come back to Kashmir.

In 2010, when the Valley was burning, he joined the Jammu and Kashmir police as a sub-inspector and exactly a year later, got married. He has two daughters  Addah (5) and Simran (3). Both are still too young to comprehend what happened, that there father will never come back.

"Like every father, I did whatever I could to raise him and give him a good education, thinking that he would take care of me in my old age. But I never knew that instead of him shouldering my coffin, I would have to take him to his grave, Dar said.

Inside a wood-paneled room on the first floor of the house, a group of women are trying to console Feroz's wife Mubeena Akhtar. Every other moment, she would cry out aloud, as if the preceding cry hadn't been enough to bring her dead husband back.

"Wala myani deke'ki nishana, bah traev'thas yeti kuni (Come back my star, you have left me so alone)," Akhtar broke into tears and cried out as her younger daughter slept by her side.

I was on a reporting trip in Anantnag in April, when I happened to notice a long-nosed, tall, young man with broad shoulders and thick eyebrows sitting outside the office of a senior police officer in the district. It was the first time I met Feroz. "Are you in the police," I asked. "Yes, learning to be a policemen," he replied, and the conversation started.

In all, we met three times, and in all the conversations we had he always avoided taking about militancy and militants in south

Kashmir, which has become a stronghold of new age militancy. He would prefer to talk about his children, how he wished to give them a better future, thinking of the time when his daughters would be grown up, so that they could go out and enjoy the

life which people in Kashmir rarely did.

"You will help me that time," he used to tell me.

Except that day will never come now.
The people in the idyllic Koorachundu village in Keralas northern district of Kozhikode are in a panic mode with fever claiming seven lives in the village since the onset of monsoon.

More than 10,000 of the 17,751 residents of Koorachundu are now battling fever caused by mosquitoes since the onset of monsoon this year. In fact, out of 160 cases reported in the village in the last 15 days, 88 cases have been confirmed to be dengue fever by the health authorities.

The total number of deaths due to fever in the state is 101. Out of this 32 were victims of dengue fever.

The blame game: rubber growers vs pig farms

District Collector UV Jose, who led a team of health officials to the village last week, has attributed the alarming situation to lack of proper cleaning of the surrounding by the villagers.

Jose told Firstpost that the rubber plantation in the village was the main culprit in the proliferation of mosquitoes. The half coconut shells used by the rubber growers to collect milk from the tree turn a breeding ground for mosquitoes during rainy days.

Rubber is the main crop of the people in the village. We have been advising rubber growers to remove the collection cups or cover them during the rainy days but none paid any heed. The water-borne diseases that the village face every monsoon are a result of the negligence of the people in keeping their surroundings clean, Jose added.

The villagers, however, are not ready to put the blame solely on rubber growers. They feel that the large-scale pig farming in the village should be blamed equally for the situation. The village adjoining a forest had as many as 27 pig farms, but 17 have been shut down following protests from the people.

EC Cheriyan, who led the protests, said the waste from the farms was being dumped in the open areas providing a fertile ground for the mosquitoes.

The local people, who had forced shops in the village to remove Pepsi, Coke and palm olein from their shelves in the late nineties  when globalisation at its peak  are continuing the protests under the auspices of an action committee formed to fight the hazardous pig farms.

"The waste from the farms that settles into the soil and water bodies for years is causing various types of fever. We have been urging the authorities to take action against this. When they failed to act we resorted to direct action forcing some farms to shut down," Cheriyan said adding that the protest was continuing.

However, District Medical Officer Dr Asha Devi said that waste from pig farms could not be singled out as the main reason for dengue as the Aedes aegypti mosquito that causes dengue fever breeds in fresh water. "The village has several ponds, lakes and open wells. They breed mosquitoes," Devi added.

This could be true since fever is not confined to Koorachundu.

Beyond Koorachundu

Officials in the health department told Firstpost that the entire state is in the grip of a major fever epidemic. The fever which has affected over 2 lakh people since the onset of monsoon had started spreading even before monsoon arrived.

A report in leading Malayalam daily, Malayala Manorama, said that a total of 11.26 lakh people have been affected by various types of fever since January. The number of the dengue cases confirmed by the health authorities till 15 June was 6,468, according to the report.

There are 21,443 suspected dengue cases in the state. H1N1 (that causes swine flu) is also assumed to be spreading at an alarming level in many parts of the state this year. The authorities have so far confirmed 743 cases in the state.

Health authorities have been raising concern about the steady spread of dengue fever in the state. The mosquito-borne disease was reported for the first time in the state in the year 1997. Subsequently, it has spread far and wide and has now become endemic in several districts, according to health activists.

The worst-affected districts this year are Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Kottayam, Kollam, Palakkad and Malappuram. Reports said that hundreds of people in these districts were visiting hospitals every day with symptoms of dengue.

A deteriorating healthcare system

Though a majority of patients require platelet transfusion for treatment, the rapid increase in the number of patients has led to an acute shortage of platelets in government hospitals. A majority of the patients depend on government hospitals for treatment.

Kerala has been witnessing a regular onslaught of epidemics, some of them banished long ago, for the last few years. Millions of people are being affected by vector-borne diseases during every monsoon for some time now. Hundreds have died across the state in the last one decade.

The major reason attributed to this is the steady deterioration of grassroots-level public healthcare system and a lack of waste disposal by local self-governments. Health activists said that the system that helped Kerala achieve a 'developed-country-like' status in public health started eroding since the 1990s when the government cut down the budget allocation to the health department.

A study by Dr D Narayana of the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, found that there was an overall drop in the rate of growth in government health expenditure.

Between 1981-82 and 1997-98, the state's expenditure on medical and public healthcare services, as a proportion of total expenditure, declined from 9.62 percent to 6.98 percent.

Capital expenditure on medical and public health services, as a percentage of total capital expenditure, plunged from 9.61 percent to 1.57 percent. This forced the people to rely more on private services. The study revealed that 60 percent people living in rural areas avoided government's primary health centres, citing lack of medicines and care.

A senior doctor at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College said that the state could banish many epidemics by laying focus on prevention. The outbreak of water-borne diseases during monsoon could be prevented if the authorities had taken measures to check the spread of virus-carrying mosquitoes and created awareness among the people.

Unfortunately, the agencies concerned with these activities are not given enough funds to take any effective step, the doctor added.
Nagpur: Vishwa Hindu Parishad international general secretary Surendra Jain on Sunday alleged that 'gau rakshaks' who should be felicitated for trying to stop cow slaughter are being implicated in false cases by police.

"Gau rakshaks (cow protectors) are doing the work that the police department needs to do. They are coming out on roads to stop cow slaughter. They should be felicitated for the same," Jain told reporters in Nagpur on Sunday.

"Unfortunately, the police books gau rakshaks and frames wrong charges against them to hide their failures," he said.

Jain also slammed the Congress for supporting cow slaughter under Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

"Mahatma Gandhi was opposed to cow slaughter but Congress under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi is organising beef parties across the state," he said.

On the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Jain said, "We believe that the central government in the coming two years will bring a law for constructing Ram Mandir in Ayodhya."

Jain pitched for a phase-wise implementation of MS Swaminathan committee report to solve the agrarian crisis in the country.
New Delhi: Ex-gratia compensation for paramilitary personnel, injured in action leading to 100 percent disability, has been increased from Rs 9 lakh to Rs 20 lakh.

The enhanced compensation will be applicable to all central paramilitary personnel whose disability is attributed to or aggravated in service on or after 1 January, 2016, the home ministry said in an office memorandum recently.

"It has been decided to revise rate of ex-gratia lump sum compensation from Rs 9 lakh to Rs 20 lakh with effect from 1 January, 2016 for 100 percent disability to CAPF and Assam Rifles on the basis of recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission," it stated.

For cases with less than 100 per cent disability, the amount of ex-gratia compensation may be reduced in proportion to the degree of disability.

About 10 lakh personnel in eight forces come under the home ministry.

They are: Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force (ITBP), Assam Rifles (AR), National Security Guards (NSG), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).

Paramilitary personnel are deployed in some of the most hostile environments and face some of the toughest fights. These include battling terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern region, anti-Naxal operations and other law and order duties.

They are also deployed along the inhospitable India-Pakistan border and the icy heights of the Sino-Indian border.
Bhopal: An Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, Sonia Meena, has been received a death threat from the mining mafia in Madhya Pradesh, following which her security has been beefed up, official sources said here on Sunday. The woman officer hails from Rajasthan.

Meena is at present posted as additional district magistrate and zila panchayat chief executive officer in Umaria district.

Earlier, she was posted as sub-divisional magistrate in Rajnagar in Chhattarpur district, where she had got impounded sand-laden trucks of sand mafia Arjun Singh Bundela, who had then allegedly threatened her.

In a letter to Chief Secretary Basant Pratap Singh, Sonia Meena has mentioned the death threat issued to her and sought adequate security since she has to travel to Chhattarpur district to submit documents/evidence in court regarding the seizures.

Umaria district magistrate Abhishek Singh told the media on Sunday that security to the woman officer of the IAS has been increased and adequate security will be provided to her during her Chhattarpur visits.
Lucknow: Last minute preparations are underway to host the third International Yoga Day (IYD) event in Lucknow on 21 June in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead some 55,000 people in performing 'asanas' (yogic postures) at the Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan in the city.

An elaborate security will be in place with commandos and para-military forces keeping a close watch in and around the venue.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will lead a rehearsal of IYD function at the programme venue on Monday and is himself monitoring all arrangements.

"Police chiefs of adjoining districts of Lucknow have also been alerted to take preventive measures, especially in the wake of call given by Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) to stage dharna on highways," a police official said.

Spokesperson of the Bhartiya Kisan Union Rakesh Tikait said, "Our party office bearers along with farmers will be performing yoga on the streets in various cities across the state. This will be our way to lodge protest against the government's attitude towards farmers."

BKU general secretary Dharmendra Malik said that BKU supporters will perform 'Sheersashan'.

Officials of the Lucknow administration said that more than 400 CCTV cameras will be installed.

"Participants of the programme have been allowed to enter the venue from 2.00 am to 5.30 am. Giant LED TV screens will be installed at the programme venue to enable them to have a close look at the yogic postures," Additional District Magistrate (Lucknow East) Virendra Pandey said.

"Apart from this, we will instal LED TV screens in 11 parks in Lucknow so that the public and morning walkers, who are not able to enter the Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan, may also simultaneously participate," Pandey told PTI.

The main programme will begin at around 6.30 am, for which the state government has sent invites to senior political leaders including former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (of Samajwadi Party), BSP supremo Mayawati, and former chief ministers and governors.

Samajwadi Party (SP), on its part, has organised cycle yatras across Uttar Pradesh to spread the message of environment conservation.

"SP national president Akhilesh Yadav has asked all the district presidents and office-bearers of the party to undertake cycle yatras on Yoga Day to spread the message of environment and health awareness," SP spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury said.

"The leaders of the party will perform Yoga at the district headquarters and the workers will ride bicycles in their constituencies," he said.

When the SP was in power in the state, it had shunned the International Yoga Day celebrations.

On 14 May, Union home minister Rajnath Singh and the chief minister reviewed preparations in the presence of Union Ayush minister Shripad Yesso Naik.

To ensure that the Day was a grand success, the chief minister had issued directions to hold a 28-day workshop for the participants, which had begun last month.

While Modi will be performing various 'asanas' in Lucknow, around 92,000 inmates living in various jails of Uttar Pradesh will also be participating in parallel sessions from the confines of the prisons itself.

"Nearly 92,000 inmates lodged in various jails of the state will be participating in the International Yoga Day celebrations from the jail premises itself," Uttar Pradesh minister of state for jail Jai Kumar Singh told PTI.

He explained that the main purpose was that by doing yoga regularly, the jail inmates will remain medically fit and think positive, shunning thoughts of committing crime or suicide.

Meanwhile in Pratapgarh, at least 200 farmers are likely to perform yoga simultaneously with the prime minister.

"A television will be installed at the venue so that the farmers can not only follow the asanas being performed, but also take inspiration from the prime minister," event organiser Janki Sharan Pandey said.

Pandey also said that farmers on this occasion will take a pledge to spend at least half an hour daily on yoga.
Pune: The tourism department of Jammu and Kashmir has started a campaign to highlight the sector's "success stories" to counter negative perception about the state, often in news for unrest and terrorist violence.

Mehmood Ahmad Shah, Director of J&K Tourism, admitted that tourist arrival has taken a hit due to the latest phase of civil unrest, but maintained the problem is restricted to a handful of districts and the rest of the state is safe for holiday-makers.

"I admit there is a problem in the Valley, but not of the magnitude that is being portrayed (in the media). There are 22 districts in the state and the current problem is restricted to just three districts," he said.

Shah, who was in the city on the invitation of local NGO Sarhad, was speaking to reporters on Saturday.

He said the state's tourism industry, a key source of revenue and employment, was badly affected due to the violent protests which broke out in the wake of the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani in July last year.

Things had started improving after the protests ebbed but widespread violence during the recent by-polls for the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat again disrupted tourism activities, Shah said.

"The average annual footfall of tourists in the state is around one crore and compared to last year, this year arrivals are down by 4 to 5 lakh (till now)," said Shah.

He said the department is using social media platforms to counter negative perception in the media about the state and provide a "correct picture". "To do that we have started our own social media handles on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, where we are showing success stories of our tourism business. "We are recording interviews of VVIPs and celebrities who visit the Valley and putting out their experiences through social media. This will help present a correct and positive image of the Valley," he said. Talking about the objective of his visit to Maharashtra, Shah said the state, along with Gujarat and West Bengal, is a principal market for travellers coming to Kashmir. These three states account for the most number of sightseers visiting Jammu and Kashmir, the officer said.

"This year, the arrivals from these states have not been satisfactory. So I have come here to instill confidence among prospective tourists from Maharashtra and to dispel negative image of the state."

He said the state government has introduced helicopter services to the picturesque Gurez Valley with an aim to attract more visitors to the area in North Kashmir.

Shah said tourism is an effective tool for promoting national integration. "Tourism binds the nation and makes people aware about its diversity."

The official said the Kashmir Valley offers immense potential for adventure activity and this needs to be tapped in a big way.
New Delhi: After several rejections and objections raised by a section of students and teachers, JNU's proposal to introduce a short-term course in yoga has finally been approved by the varsity's top decision making body.

"A decision in this regard was taken at a meeting of the academic council on Thursday. It will be an excellent idea to celebrate Yoga Day (on 21 June) by approving the much-debated course," a senior university official said.

The proposal to introduce three short-term courses in Indian culture and yoga was first floated in 2015 against the backdrop of Right-wing organisations such as the RSS insisting on propagation of culture on educational campuses to promote India's rich heritage and restore its cultural identity.

Following various communications from the HRD ministry and the University Grants Commission (UGC), JNU had then circulated a draft of three courses among its various schools and departments for their feedback.

The proposal was rejected by the Academic Council (AC), the university's statutory decision making body, in November 2015. However, the varsity had in May last year decided to reconsider it and the departments were asked to rework on the proposed course structure and place it before the council. The proposal was again rejected in the academic council meeting in October last year.

While the course in yoga philosophy has been approved, there is no word yet on the two courses proposed on Indian culture.

According to the proposed draft, the course on Indian culture is aimed at expounding the importance of the country's culture as well as exploring the etymological, social, spiritual, cultural and mythological aspects and establishing Indian values in the world.
A man has been killed and dozens of police injured in clashes between Indian police and protesters in Darjeeling, an official said Sunday, as unrest worsens in the hill resort at the height of the tourist season.

Nearly 50 people, mostly police, have been injured in riots and arson attacks that have gripped the usually bustling area for more than a week and caused thousands of mostly Indian tourists to pack their bags and flee.

As the violence escalated sharply on Saturday, a man died in clashes as protesters torched cars and set upon police with knives, who responded with tear gas and baton charges.

"A man was killed and at least 35 policemen were injured yesterday. Some of them were stabbed in the back," the director general of West Bengal state police, Anuj Sharma, told AFP.

One officer who intervened in an arson attack was "seriously wounded after protesters slashed his throat", Sharma said.

The dead man appeared to have been shot but the circumstances were still unclear, Sharma added. Police have denied using live ammunition.

The upswing in violence began when police raided the homes and offices of members of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), a separatist movement that has long called for a new state of "Gorkhaland" to be carved out of West Bengal.

The group has accused police of shooting dead three of its members in Saturday's clashes -- a claim which police have strongly denied.

"Three of our comrades were killed and five were critically injured in police firing yesterday," GJM's general secretary Roshan Giri told AFP.

He said hundreds took to the streets of Darjeeling on Sunday for a silent protest against "police atrocities", waving India's tricolour flag and posters calling for peace.

The hills are famous for the Darjeeling tea whose production is jealously guarded. It is also famed for its "toy train" -- a 78-kilometre uphill ride from New Jalpaiguri.

But the troubles have dealt a major blow to the crucial tourism industry, leaving the normally busy destination deserted as shops, schools and banks closed.

Apart from the campaign for a new state, tensions have risen recently over a decision to introduce the Bengali language in schools, angering the Nepali-speaking Gorkhas.

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Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir police personnel will donate a day's salary for the families of the cops who were killed in the line of duty in the state this year.

Fourteen police personnel and two special police officers (SPOs) have sacrificed their lives in various militancy-related incidents during the year, according to a police spokesman.

Police personnel will donate one day salary for the families of the martyrs who have sacrificed their precious lives in the line of duty, the spokesman said.

"To show solidarity and their concern for the bereaved families of these martyrs, Jammu and Kashmir police personnel will donate one day salary of the current month," he added.
Srinagar: Militants on Saturday night shot dead a civilian in Pulwama district of south Kashmir, police said.

Aijaz Ahmad Malik (27) was shot at and critically injured by militants outside his residence at Arrubugh in Pulwama around 10.30 pm, a police official said.

Malik was rushed to a hospital in Srinagar for treatment but succumbed to injuries, the official added. It was not immediately known why the militants targeted the civilian, he said.
Thiruvananthapuram: Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala called on Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday to brief him about the "health department's failure" to contain the dengue outbreak in the state.

On Saturday, of the 19,000 patients who reported at hospitals with fever, there were 680 suspected dengue cases, of which 138 were tested positive. Also, 11 people died on Saturday, taking the dengue toll in the state to 115 in 2017.

According to reports, the worst affected districts are Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode and Palakkad.

Figures provided by the health department indicate that on an average, in June, daily over 10,000 people came to hospitals with fever.

After meeting Vijayan at his official residence, Chennithala, who is also leader of Opposition in the Kerala assembly, said "the situation is very grave".

"This peculiar situation has risen because the health department failed to rise to the occasion ahead of the rains in the state. No measure was taken to do cleaning operations that generally take place before the arrival of monsoon rains," Chennithala said.

"The temporary cleaning staff, who were in service, were terminated and hence no proper sanitation programme was conducted," the Congress leader added.

Chennithala said, "I have been told that there is a shortage of medicines and health professionals to tackle this raging fever".

"We are not going to launch any sort of protest. Instead, we have directed all our legislators to see that they take the lead and on 20 June, start massive cleaning operations in their constituencies."

"The health department, including the Health Minister, has been a total failure and I have asked Vijayan to see that he immediately takes corrective steps. He has promised to intervene by calling a meeting of top health officials," added Chennithala.

However, Health Minister KK Shylaja defended her department's initiatives and said "its work before the rains is unprecedented but the results appear different".

"The need of the hour is not to make this a political issue and work together to keep the surroundings clean," she said.

Though Kerala has a well run state health department, a large number of people visit the private healthcare centres. Hence, private hospitals in the affected districts are also overflowing with patients.

"Patients are lying in the corridor and availing treatment. The situation looks really bad," said a health professional of a leading private hospital in Thiruvananthapuram district.
The troubles for CBSE students who gave their board exams this year seem to go on and on. According to a report in The Times of India, there are massive errors in totaling of students' marks.

The report highlighted the cases of two students who applied for verification (checking if the marks have been totaled and recorded correctly). Sonali saw her maths marks rise to 95 from 68, while Samiksha Sharma's marks rose to 90 from 42, an increase of over 100 percent. And according to the report, these were not stray incidents: Other students saw increases too, some by as many as 40 marks.

Times of India also quoted a CBSE official, on the condition of anonymity, as saying that the number of applications for retotaling was unprecedented. Another official said that there could be various reasons for the errors such as incorrect transfer of marks to the first page and detachment of supplementary answer books.

Currently, CBSE allows only for verification but not re-evaluation. And if a student wants to get a photocopy of his answer sheet, they must apply for verification.

NDTV spoke to a student who had scored 5 in maths and 8 in chemistry, while scoring 85 in English. He insisted that he was not a bad student and wanted his answer sheets re-evaluated at the earliest. It also reported that in Bhubaneshwar, marks had actually dipped after verification. The Odisha High Court has asked the board to re-verify the marks.

Unfortunately, this is just the latest instance of students facing hassle this year. The examinations were delayed due to Assembly elections in five states  Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur  and then results were withheld at the last moment following a high court order.

The court chided the board for its moderation policy, which it has been following since 1992. The board follows this policy to bring about uniformity in results and to make up for the differences in difficulty levels when dealing with different sets of question papers on the same subject.

But Prashant Bhattacharji and Prabhat Singh, writing in Firstpost, argue that grades and passing percentages are being artificially increased under the garb of marks moderation. They say this results in far too many students ending up scoring in the high 90s, which means those who score a perfect 100 now would have received substantially lower marks a few years ago. Besides distorting comparisons, this concentration of students in the higher marks bracket also blurs the line between good and bad performers, thus ruining their efforts to secure admission in top institutes, they claim.

The CBSE is one of the country's most popular boards. The transition period, when results are declared, is extremely important in the lives of students', who are looking to higher education. Any mistakes made by the board can take a huge toll on the students' future. It's important that the board sets it right. And fast.
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government will ensure with the help of a digital platform that only needy farmers benefit from its loan waiver scheme, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has said.

Fadnavis said his dispensation took the decision in view of "the big scam" which occurred in Maharashtra after the then UPA government at the Centre wrote off debts in 2008, which, he said, deprived distressed peasants of the benefits intended for them.

The Maharashtra CM said the state government had formed a joint committee which would work out within a week conditions to ensure who should benefit from the waiver.

He suggested that farmers who were financially better off and professionals and government employees also into farming be left out of the scheme.

Fadnavis observed the waiver  announced on 11 June after a widespread farmers' agitation  would further stress the debt-ridden state, as his government will have to raise Rs 25,000 crore or more for this.

"But it can be managed," he said at a recent interaction organised by BJP's 'Good Governance' department in Mumbai.

He said implementing the relief measure would "take some time" and added the government might create "some financing instrument" to tackle the situation after the waiver.

Fadnavis also said decisions by Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh to waive farmers' loans in their states led Maharashtra peasants to demand similar relief, which prompted his dispensation to announce the waiver.

He ruled out speculation that the move would cause prices to rise in the state and elsewhere.

"There was a big scam when loans were waived in 2008 in Maharashtra. The CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) gave a very critical report on it, noting small farmers had not benefited, while the big ones looted money. So our biggest challenge now is to avoid such cases," he said.

Only farmers who needed the relief should benefit from it, he stressed.

Fadnavis praised his Andhra Pradesh counterpart, N Chandrababu Naidu, for doing a "good job" in using a digital platform to eliminate duplication of bank accounts after the AP government wrote off farmers' debts in the southern state.

"We are thinking of adopting such model. A decision will be taken at a cabinet meeting this month," he added.

Fadnavis, however, stressed that loan waiver was "not the ultimate solution" to end the miseries of farmers. Ensuring capital investment in the agriculture sector was a "challenge" before his government, he said.

The government was constructing one lakh farm ponds, digging as many wells and had embraced drip irrigation as part of such investments, he said, adding that the state government had invested Rs 25,000 crore in the agriculture sector.

"The challenge will be to keep doing this on a sustained level notwithstanding the loan waiver," he said.

To a question, Fadnavis said "some" political parties tried to spread violence from behind the scene when the farmers' stir was on.

"If you look at the FIRs filed in places where violence was reported (during the stir), it is not the farmers, but political leaders who have been named," he said.
Washington: US vice-president Mike Pence has lauded the contribution of Sikhs in America, and asked them to continue to give back by serving in the military and public offices at local, state and federal levels.

"The Sikh community and its issues are always close to my heart and I always admire the contribution of Sikhs in Indiana and across the US," he told a Sikh delegation in Indianapolis.

During the meeting with the Sikhs Political Action Committee (SikhsPAC) led by Gurinder Singh Khalsa, Pence said that he was fully aware of Sikh awareness issues since his days as governor, a SikhsPAC media release said.

The main topic of discussion with the delegation was Sikh awareness and introduction of Sikh history in public history curriculum through federal department of education. Pence also admired the efforts of SikhsPAC for encouraging the Sikh community for its participation in the mainstream politics, the statement said.

During the meeting, Pence reaffirmed his commitment to the Sikh community and encouraged it to continue to give back in the form of serving in the military and public offices at local, state and federal levels, it said.

Early this week, Khalsa visited Washington DC and met about two dozen US Senators and Congressmen. He also attended US Global Leadership Collision where about 500 world faith leaders, veterans and elected leaders participated to influence the American foreign aid policies.

Pence was the first siting governor who attended the Sikh parade, and bestowed the highest civil award to a Sikh in 2015. The US state of Indiana has passed a resolution recognising Sikhs' "significant contributions" to America.

However, hate-crime incidents against Sikhs have seen a spurt in America recently. A 39-year-old Sikh man was shot in the arm outside his home in Kent, Washington in March by a partially-masked gunman who shouted "go back to your own country".
Bhubaneswar: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday took out silent protest march across Odisha against egg attacks on several Union ministers during their visits to the state recently, saying their novel peaceful method was to counter violence.

Besides protesting the egg attack allegedly by Biju Janata Dal (BJD) activists on the vehicle of Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram in Kendrapara on 14 June, the party activists also sought proper probe in the gang rape and killing of a widow in Dhenkanal district recently.

Party activists and leaders covered their mouths with black tapes and held placards while staging the silent protest and dharnas in areas under all the municipalities, Notified Area Councils (NACs) and Zilla Parishad Zones of the state.

"The decision to hold silent protest in a peaceful manner was taken to counter violent methods being adopted by the ruling BJD in the state," BJP Odisha unit vice president Samir Mohanty said, referring to the egg attack on Oram's vehicle during his Kendrapara visit.

The party activists also protested the egg attack earlier on Union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh's vehicle in Bhubaneswar, he said.

Stating that violence has no place in a democratic set-up, the BJP leader said the frequent attacks on Central ministers by alleged "BJD goons with the cooperation of police" had posed a serious a threat to the democracy.

Alleging that investigation into the Dalit woman's gang rape and killing in Kankadahada area of Dhenkanal was conducted in a shoddy manner, Mohanty said some more people were involved in the June-12 incident, but they were not booked by the police.

The BJP leader claimed that some people close to a senior ruling BJD leader of the area were allegedly involved in the brutal gang rape and murder of the 45-year-old widow, but they have been left scot-free.

Another BJP leader Pinky Pradhan claimed that the probe into the incident had been directionless.

Claiming that ruling BJD has been shaken by the rising popularity of BJP in the state, the BJP leaders said the regional party was now resorting to violence against their political opponents in a desperate attempt to regain its grip over the people.
Bhubaneswar: Congress is set to hold an agitation across Odisha on Monday over the sensational gangrape and murder of a dalit widow in Dhenkanal district and to demand assistance to the woman's family and trial of the case in a fast track court.

Party workers will stage demonstrations across the state against worsening law and order situation in the state where woman are not safe, said Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee President Prasad Harichandan.

Coming down heavily on the BJD regime over the rape and murder of a 45-year-old woman in Kankadahada area of Dhenkanal district, he said the incident was as barbaric as the horrific Nirbhaya episode of Delhi, but Odisha government failed to handle it seriously.

Though four persons have been arrested in connection with the 12 June incident, it has exposed the failure of the Naveen Patnaik government to ensure safety and security of women and give them justice, he said and accused the police of being soft on the accused.

The accused were not booked under relevant sections of SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and though there are two ministers from the area, none has so far visited the village where the incident took place, the Congress leaders said.

Asking the state government to provide help to the woman's family, the Congress has demanded an assistance of Rs 20 lakh to the affected family and trial of the case in a special fast track court.

President of the state Congress women's wing, Sasmita Behera, who had led a party team to the village where the brutal incident had taken place, lashed out at the state government for not providing any financial assistance to the kin of the deceased.

As part of the agitation on Monday, demonstrations will be held at the district headquarters of the state and other places by the party's women's wing and ST-SC cell.

BJP too has raised questions about the investigation that was conducted in the case by the police. BJP women wing president Prabhati Parida, who also visited the village, alleged the case was not probed in "a proper and serious manner" and some more people are suspected to have been involved in the crime.

The BJP leader demanded that trial of the case be held in a fast track court.
Udupi (Karnataka): President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday lamented the lack of healthcare infrastructure and personnel in the country, particularly in the rural area, and expressed hope more investments would help bridge the gap.

After laying the foundation stone for a super speciality hospital in Udupi, he said creating better health infrastructure through investments has helped cure many diseases but "there remains a huge gap yet".

The president said, the country requires not only accessible but affordable medical facilities.

"Against the international norm of a doctor per thousand population, we have one doctor for 1,700 people in our country," he rued.

"No civilised society can tolerate this," he said.

The situation is more alarming in rural India where the shortage of surgeons is estimated to the tune of 83 percent.

The overall shortage translates to 81.2 percent as on 2015.

The president offered solutions to help overcome some of the challenges. He suggested the situation requires increasing the number of medical colleges and engagement of corporate sector, especially in the rural area.

He asked people to think about the kind of healthcare system they want - a commercial, profit-driven one or a system compatible with the socio-economic conditions of the society.

The president also condemned attacks on doctors, medical staff and vandalism of health institutions. "This is no way... If you can't trust doctors whom can you trust."

The region has witnessed protests by medical professionals over the issue in the recent past.

Mukherjee also visited the 800-year-old Sri Krishna Temple in the Udupi.

The temple was renovated with wooden craft a month ahead of the presidential visit, said KR Shashank Bhatt, a disciple of the 88-year-old head priest at the temple.

Udupi is considered a fertile ground for the banking sector and the birthplace of the Syndicate Bank and the Corporation Bank. Karnataka's coastal city is also known for its cuisines and temples.
New Delhi: The ruling National Democratic Alliance's candidate for the 17 July presidential election will file his nomination papers before 24 June, and the opposition parties would be informed of the name before the papers are filed.

BJP sources said the nomination will be filed before Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves on his three-nation foreign tour. Modi is slated to visit Portugal on 24 June, before his trip to the US on 26 June and the Netherlands on 27 June.

Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday held discussions with Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who heads the Lok Janshakti Party, on the 17 July presidential election.

Naidu also held discussions with Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav and Naresh Agrawal.

Paswan said his party will stand by the Prime Minister's decision while the Samajwadi Party is understood to have favoured a politician as the new President.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, part of the three-meber panel set up by Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah to evolve a consensus among ruling and opposition parties on the presidential choice, has spoken to leaders of the Trinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal.

Informed sources said Naidu briefed Shah about his discussions.

Shah on Sunday met ally and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aditya in Mumbai to ensure the Sena's crucial support in the presidential election.
Two people were killed in a jihadist attack on a tourist resort outside the Malian capital on Sunday, while special forces troops freed about 20 hostages seized by the gunmen, the country's security minister said.

"It is a jihadist attack. Malian special forces intervened and about 20 hostages have been released," Salif Traore told AFP. "Unfortunately for the moment there are two dead, including a Franco-Gabonese."

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Jaipur: Rebel BJP MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari has threatened to hold a 'satyagraha' if Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje does not vacate her current bungalow.

Tiwari in an open letter to Raje has said that there is still time to vacate public property and move to 8, Civil Lines  government allotted bungalow, failing which he would hold a 'satyagraha'.

He said that people of the state are disappointed with her (Vasundhara's) goal to misuse public property for availing life-time luxuries.

"I am amazed with Raje's silence on the issue who without caring about people's sentiment is focusing on her desires," Tiwari said.

Accusing Raje of believing in 'use and throw' policy, Tiwari said that she had kept her ministers on front to save herself from legalities.

"Since I have raised the issue of misuse of the state's public property, I am being pressurised and attacked by your sympathisers. You have kept yourself safe as they will face legal action. They will be used and you will find someone else," he said.

Earlier, Tiwari on 8 June at a press conference had given a 10-day ultimatum to Vasundhara Raje to either declare her current bungalow as the chief minister's house or move into the government allotted residence.

He had said that if Raje fails to take decision, he will hold the protest along with members of the Deen Dayal Vahini, a group founded by him.

Tiwari had alleged that to take life-long possession of the bungalow, the Raje government had passed the Rajasthan Ministers Salaries (Amendment) Bill, 2017 in the last Budget Session of the Assembly.

Tiwari alleged that the Bill was an attempt to implement "feudalism" in Rajasthan, which he has opposed several times in the Assembly.

Tiwari has been criticising Raje and the BJP leadership after he was served show cause notices last month by the party's national discipline committee.

The notices were sent after he alleged that the BJP in Rajasthan had become "a place for mafias and sycophants while dedicated, loyal and qualified people had been sidelined".
Chennai: Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth on Sunday met a delegation of 16 farmers led by P Ayyakannu and assured them his support for their plea to interlink rivers.

Weeks after asking his fans to "prepare for war," hinting that he might consider joining politics, the Kabali star on Sunday told the visiting farmers that their plea to link up rivers will be represented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and pledged Rs 1 crore in this regard.

"Rajini told us that he will take steps to facilitate interlinking rivers, he said first (Peninsular) rivers like Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Palaru, and Cauvery should be linked," Ayyakannu said after meeting the top star.

In 2002, Rajinikanth had famously offered Rs 1 crore towards interlinking Himalayan and Peninsular Rivers after a fast on the Cauvery issue.

"Rajinkanth offered to give us Rs 1 crore immediately towards river linking, however, we requested him to hand it over to PM Modi for a project in this connection," the farmer leader who kicked up a storm with his recent multiple forms of protest in Delhi told PTI.

He said,"we wanted Rajinikanth to help make a beginning (pillayar suzhi) for this river link-up effort and he said he will do it."

The farmer leader said the top star who is shooting for his upcoming flick 'Kaala' told them that he will represent the issue to Modi "though he did not specifically say that he will personally meet Modi in this regard."

Ayyakannu, president of National South Indian Rivers Inter-Linking Farmers Association said Rajinikanth assured support to farmers on all issues faced by them.

Rajinikanth while addressing his fans last month had asked them to be ready for war when it comes, asserting the "system is rotten" and that it needs to be changed.

While DMK working president M K Stalin had said that it was Rajinikanth's wish "whether or not to join politics," others including pro-Tamil leader Seeman opposed it even as others like BJP welcomed the actor's remarks.

All India Mahila Congress General Secretary and actress Nagma had said days before Rajini addressed his cadres that the top star will be successful if he chose to come to politics.

She had paired with Rajinikanth in the blockbuster 1995 movie Baasha.
New Delhi: Disillusioned by the manuwadi Hindu religion and the hypocritical role that leaders of the Hindu party have played in using Dalits for political gains, a section of the communitys youth is renouncing the religion of their birth.

Among thousands of Dalits gathered at Jantar Mantar on Sunday to mark their protest for the wrongful arrest of Bhim Armys leader Chandrashekhar Azad, a group of youngsters in their 20s said that the issue of caste is too deep-rooted in the Hindu society to go away with economic growth or modernisation.

I witnessed the hypocrisy of the religion when at a temple I saw people offering thousands of rupees, and outside the same temple, a poor girl was begging for few rupees and people were avoiding her, said 21-year-old Kamal Gautam.

A resident of Bishenpur village in Saharanpur district, a disenchanted Gautam is preparing for a mass conversion of Dalits at his village on 26 November this year.

Our village has a population of 2,500, most of them are Dalits. On 26 November, which is celebrated as Constitution Day in our country, 1,000 residents of our village will renounce Hinduism and accept Buddhism, Gautam said.

A student of Industrial Training Institute (ITI), Gautam said that at the bottom of the Saharanpur violence is BJPs quest for using Dalits against Muslims in the region.

Raghav Lakhanpal, the Member of Parliament from Saharanpur wants Dalits to be used against Muslims in the area. Chandrashekhar didnt agree with him so he was portrayed as a villain and implicated in several false cases by the administration, Gautam added.

Gautams friend and neighbour Surender, who also came to Jantar Mantar for the protest gathering, said that he has thrown all the idols and posters of Hindu deities out from his house.

Not afraid of letting go the government benefits which being from Scheduled Caste could give him, a proud Surender said he is good enough to compete with the General category students and job seekers without the crutches of reservation.

My brother, despite being from the SC category always competed in the General category. I am also good enough to do well in my life without seeking reservation, Surender said.

The third member of the group of friends, Mukesh Kumar(name changed on request), is so bitter with the religion that he said the religion has given him and his community only violence and made them a second class citizen.

"Can an idol or a portray of a deity save us from the social, economic and physical violence unleashed on us by the upper caste? It clearly hasn't till now. We can come out of this web of casteism in this country only if we are strong educationally, physically and economically," Kumar said.

On one thing the Dalit youngsters are unanimously worried about is the idea of India as a Hindu Rashtra.

We cant let this country turn into a Hindu Rashtra, as that will be the end of the idea of a secular India. We will not let it happen. I am ready to even die for it. At least that will be the death for a cause, Gautam concluded.
Rameswaram: Five Tamil Nadu fishermen were arrested and their boat impounded by the Sri Lankan navy on Sunday for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters.

The fishermen from Mandapam had put out to sea in a boat early on Sunday and were fishing off Neduntheevu, when Lankan naval men surrounded them and took them to Kangesanthurai port there, state fishermen association president N Devadoss said.

On 23 May, six fishermen were arrested for allegedly fishing near Neduntheevu.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami had on 13 June sought the intervention of prime minister Narendra Modi for getting back 135 fishing boats of state fishermen impounded by Sri Lanka.

He had also requested Narendra Modi to take steps to secure the release of 11 fishermen in the island nation's custody.
By Lisa Barrington

| BEIRUT

BEIRUT The Syrian army said it would suspend combat operations in the southern city of Deraa for 48 hours from Saturday, as mediators announced two separate attempts to convene new peace talks early next month.The Syrian army general command said a ceasefire at 12 noon (0900 GMT) on Saturday was being implemented to support "reconciliation efforts", according to a statement carried by state news agency SANA.The local ceasefire announcement came on the same day as the United Nations said it wanted to start a fresh round of peace talks between Syrian factions on July 10 in Geneva, and Moscow said it hoped to hold talks in Kazakhstan's capital Astana on July 4-5. Since a resumption of peace negotiations last year, there have been multiple rounds brokered by the United Nations in Geneva between representatives of Syrian rebels and the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, resulting in scant progress.Another track of talks brokered by Russia - a key Assad ally - has also been happening in Astana since January.In an emailed statement the office of United Nations special mediator for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said he wished to convene a seventh round of Geneva talks in July and further rounds in August and September.PAUSE IN HOSTILITIES

Over more than six years the Syrian conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven more than 11 million from their homes.In May, Iran, Russia and Turkey brokered a deal in Astana to create four de-escalation zones in Syria.Violence levels have vastly reduced in those proposed de-escalation areas, but fighting has continued in major frontline areas, including in Deraa city.

The Syrian army and Iran-backed militia forces have escalated attacks against a rebel-held part of Deraa city in recent weeks, in a possible prelude to a large-scale campaign to gain full control. De Mistura said earlier this week a new round of talks would depend on the progress made in setting up the de-escalation zones. A war monitor said the level of violence in Deraa had fallen three hours after Saturday's ceasefire was due to take effect, but rebels said the city was still being bombarded. A rebel commander in Deraa told Reuters hostilities had not stopped.

"We have not heard of any such talk and the regime is still attacking us with the same intensity," the commander said at 3:30 PM (1230 GMT). The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said there had been a decline in the pace of fighting and shelling in the city for the three hours since the ceasefire came into force. But the Britain-based monitor said some shells and air strikes had continued to hit parts of the city. "There are breaches and we are distrustful of the regime's intentions in abiding by the ceasefire," Major Issam al Rayes, spokesman for the Southern Front grouping of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels, told Reuters."The regimes forces have stopped their military operations after big losses in equipment and men since the start of their campaign over a month ago ... after the failure of repeated attempts to advance," he said.The United States and Russia have been holding talks on creating a separate "de-escalation zone" in southwestern Syria which would include Deraa province, on the border with Jordan, and Quneitra, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Additional reporting by Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow, Shadia Nasralla in Vienna and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
New Delhi: Questions on Goods and Services Tax (GST), benami transactions and schemes run by the central government were asked in the civil services preliminary examination held on Sunday.

The aspirants were also asked questions related to National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), 'Vidyanjali Yojana' and 'Smart India Hackathon', all of which are the NDA government's initiatives.

Lakhs of aspirants appeared in the preliminary examination held across the country.

"What is/are the most likely advantages of implementing Goods and Services Tax?" reads a question.

The option for students to choose the correct answers included "it will enormously increase the row and size of economy of India and will enable it to overtake China in the near future".

The second option was "It will drastically reduce the Current Account Deficit (CAD) of India and will enable it to increase its foreign exchange reserve".

The third option given in the first paper of the test was "It will replace multiple taxes collected by multiple authorities and will thus create a single market in India".

The civil services examination is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) annually in three stages  preliminary, main and interview  to select candidates for the prestigious Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.

The preliminary exam consisting of two papers (Paper I and Paper II) of two hours duration each was held without any reported incidents of protests, official sources said.

The first paper began at 9.30 am and the second one started at 2.30 pm.

The candidates were also asked questions with reference to Benami Property Transaction Act, 1988.

With a view to providing effective regime to check the benami transactions, the 1988 Act was last year changed through the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amended Act, 2016.

The amended law empowers the specified authorities to provisionally attach benami properties which can eventually be confiscated. It has penal provisions for the defaulters.

There were questions on the NSQF, a competency-based framework that organises all qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge, skills and aptitude to ultimately help an individual to get a job or start his own work, asked in the exam.

Paper I also had a question on the government's Smart India Hackathon, the world's biggest ever open innovation model to find digital solutions to the problems of state and union territories.

Another question was on the Vidyanjali scheme, an initiative to enhance community and private sector involvement in government-run elementary schools across the country.

Through this initiative, people from the Indian diaspora, retired teachers, former government officials and defence personnel, professionals and women who are homemakers can volunteer at a school that requests for one.

"There were questions on GST and benami and since I know about these initiatives, I hope to have answered them correctly," said Ashish, who took the test.

The UPSC did not make public the total number of candidates who applied for the test and those who actually sat for it.

About 11.35 lakh candidates had applied for the last year's prelims exam. Of these, 4,59,659 had appeared in the test held on 7 August 2016.

As many as 15,452 candidates qualified for aappearing in the written examination held in December last year. Of them, 2,961 candidates qualified for the personality test or interview conducted in March-May this year.

A total of 1,099 candidates (846 men and 253 women) qualified the exam, result of which was declared on 31 May.
Ballia: A BJP MLA, who sat on a protest alleging extortion by the police, called off his dharna after the government assured him of action.

Surendra Singh, MLA from Bairia constituency in Ballia, said he decided to call off the protest, after he got a phone call from Deputy Chief Minister Maurya late last night.

He said, "Yesterday when a person was bringing a tractor full of sand here, he was stopped by one Sub-Inspector Virendra Yadav, who demanded Rs 2,000 from the person."

But when he refused to give him the money, the sub-inspector beat him up, snatched Rs 500 and mobile phone from him, Singh alleged.

The MLA along with his supporters on Saturday staged a dharna outside Dokati police station in Ballia.

Meanwhile, superintendent of Police Sujata Singh on Sunday ordered a probe into the incident. "If the need arises to register a case after the probe is complete, it will be done," she said.
Beijing: Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh on Sunday met Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and discussed improvement of bilateral relations.

Singh met Wang on the sidelines of the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting being held in Beijing to finalise the agenda for this year's BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit to be held in September in China's Xiamen city.

In his opening remarks, Singh said India would like to strengthen strategic cooperative relationship with China.

The BRICS foreign ministers' meeting is a precursor to the chain of meetings of BRICS officials including the National Security Advisors (NSAs) meeting to be held later next month ahead of the summit.

Incidentally, this is the first time the foreign ministers meeting has been called by a host country holding the BRICS Summit.

China took over the rotating presidency of the BRICS from India after 2016's Goa Summit.
Editor's note: In this column called 'Beyond the Artists Studio  Travelling for Art's Sake', Rosalyn D'Mello will be engaging with artists as she travels to new places, both at home and abroad.

You know this mountain? Julien Segard asks me we speed along the highway in his SUV. Weve been friends long before he began to be represented by Experimenter Gallery in Kolkata, and Ive had the privilege of writing about his work and visiting his studio in Delhi many times. But this is different. Were in another continent. His continent. His territory. We are en route to the Aix en Provence TGV station from where I am scheduled to catch a train to Dijon Ville.

No, I dont know this mountain, I replied innocently, a bit unsure why I was meant to know about its existence, as if it were iconic, like the Pyrenees, or the Alpes. There was no denying its sprawling expanse, its immense breadth, how it swept across the landscape carrying the weight of millennia upon its stony facade. Julien then revealed its name as it continued to follow us to our right, offering spectacular angles from which to contemplate its vitality. Mont Saint Victoire, he said, before contextualising how it was made famous by Cezanne, the French artist who was so fascinated by its structure and form, it became the subject of more than 30 paintings and numerous watercolours made over decades.

Cezanne had a hillside studio in Les Lauves, which afforded him a magnificent view of Mont Sainte Victoire. What if, one day, years from now, someone similarly voyaging through sunny Southern France was introduced to elements of the landscape in much the same way, but using Julien as the point of reference? It wasnt improbable. Some months ago, he decided to buy himself a cabin, ostensibly in the middle of nowhere, but close enough to Marseille, where he was born and grew up. Since April, the upkeep of the studio has become his work in progress.

Having spent two nights camping on his property, I wasnt ready to leave. Julien himself was almost scornful about my impending departure to Montard, where I was going to meet Sylvie, a long-time friend of my partner (also an artist). You will have horrible weather, he said to me in his quintessentially Marseillaise accent, the silent h of horrible compensated for by the accentuated o. Orrible he said, echoing himself. I had considered staying another day, but I knew from the time I came that I would never feel like leaving. And I was so grateful that I had come, especially because it was on a whim. His whim.

When I was fidgeting with my itinerary, unsure whether to go exclusively to Greece and Istanbul or to also go to Kassel in Germany for the opening week of the quinquennial, Documenta 14, I happened to call Julien over Whatsapp, just to check where in the world he might be. If youre coming all the way to Berlin, you might as well come to see my cabin, he said. I couldnt argue with his sound logic. Just take a train from Paris to Aix en Provence and I will pick you up, he said and I obeyed, totally excited yet unsure what to expect.

When I arrived, Julien took me to Carry le Rouet instead, to his childhood home. It was past midnight, and he assumed I would have enjoyed the privilege of a warm shower and a comfortable bed after having taken an early morning flight from Berlin to Paris and spending the day gallivanting around Le Marais until it was time to board the train from Gare de Lyon. Julien also knew about my curiosity concerning Carry le Rouet, it was where Nina Simone had been living until she died. I assumed she would have been buried there, and had asked Julien if he could help me find her grave. When I arrived in Aix en Provence, he broke the news to me that Simone had been cremated instead, and her ashes scattered over parts of Africa. His girlfriend Priyanka, however, told me a little bit of family trivia she was in the know about. Juliens father, a florist, had supplied the flowers for Simones memorial.

The next afternoon, after a very leisurely lunch comprising barbecued skewed lamb, tomato salad, and melon, followed by coffee and fromage, Julien ordered us to get ready. We were to pick up Prabhakar Pachpute, an artist whose work I love, from Marseilles. He had just returned from Art Basel. Prabhakars presence in the South of France was a welcome surprise. We picked him up, then headed to the Parc National des Calanques, south of Marseilles, for a trek.

Julien was tight-lipped about the details. All we knew was after walking for about an hour, we would arrive at water. I assumed it was a lake or a river, since he kept referring to a canyon. It turned out to be the Mediterranean Sea, the water a deep, cerulean green, and so salty you could see its molecular structure floating upon the surface, and so still and wave-less but stony underneath. We entered one by one, shrieking a little at the shock of the chilling water. Prabhakar shared my fear of water, the anxiety of its depthless-ness. But we had a riot. When a small group of American girls was convinced they had seen an octopus, Julien reached in to look for it and found a sea urchin instead.

Later that evening, after our trek back, we headed to Marseilles. We were starving. We finally sat down to our extravagant meal: a platter filled with generous portions of oysters, crab, shrimp, escargot, mussels, clams, and prawns and a chilled bottle of white wine. Our silence was amusing. Every now and then I laughed at the meditative manner in which we had each been eating, like starved children unsure about the source of their next meal.

Which could never have been a legitimate concern with Julien around. He is as excellent a provider as he is an artist.

That night, after our meal, we wandered around Marseilles looking for an apt landmark against which we could take a selfie. We settled for the entrance of a building next door to an Algerian sweetshop and asked the owner to take our picture. We wandered into the shop after to pick up pastries for the next morning and stumbled upon what looked like jalebis. Jalebis? we asked, much to their excitement. You know jalebis? the owner asked in French. Yes, we said as we laughed at the suggestion that the three Indians in his shop could possibly have been clueless about jalebis.

We dropped off Prabhakar at his hotel, bid him goodbye, since hed be returning to India in a day, and we made our way to the cabin. The sun had set hours ago. It was now past midnight, and it neared two by the time we arrived. We had a celebratory drink in candlelight  the cabin currently boasts neither water nor electricity  a locally produced pear liquor, the same that Id tried many times at Juliens studio in Shahpur Jat, Delhi. It was in the clear light of dawn that I finally experienced the vastness of the landscape surrounding the cabin, the abandoned vineyards next door, the wandering herd of sheep and their bleating, the picturesque village in the near distance, and the marking of the hours by two different sets of bells from two different churches. Juliens mother was sure the cabin was once a hunting lodge, he was sure it was also a chapel.

Whatever it was before, it was being transformed. It was becoming a site for Julien to make his sculptures, for him to grow tomatoes and vegetables, to bathe in the open air, to sleep in a tent if he so decided, and to sway on a hammock in the afternoon. Where most artists choose upward mobility after every whiff of success, Julien was doing the opposite, choosing to live simply, in harmony with the land he loved.

His cabin feels beautifully lived-in and bears evidence to his finely attuned aesthetic vocabulary, his penchant for hospitality, his love of cutlery, and above all, his commitment to marrying his arte povera inclinations with his way of living, so there is no room for hypocrisy between his practice and his lifestyle.

Rosalyn D'Mello is former editor-in-chief of Artinfo India, and the author of A Handbook For My Lover
India runs on 'maternal instinct'. Television advertisements embody the role of the mother as a hard-working, dedicated woman, a victim of the double burden, running to office and running the household  with a smile on her face always, while the father, sits on a chair, with a cup of tea in hand, and the newspaper, frequently smirking at his children or wife, always isolated from the household. Then, there are advertisements that embody the role of the father as the provider  he knows that the insurance has to be paid on time; he knows his daughter is nubile and hence, he must spend his savings on her wedding trousseau. Indias relationship with the public/private divide is stark: it places fathers in the public realm, to be the ultimate breadwinner of the family, and the mothers stay put in the private realm, managing the household and taking care of the children. Unfortunately, this perception has also seeped into to the policymakers, legislators and the judiciary, and fatherhood is not envisioned as a necessity in the Indian legal system.

Earlier this year, the Maternity Benefit Amendment Bill, 2016 was passed by both Houses of Parliament, and received the Presidents assent. The amendments were favourable for women working in the organised sector who would be entitled to receive maternity benefits for 26 weeks, up from 12 weeks. The Bill would also provide maternity benefits to mothers adopting a child below the age of three months, as well as to commissioning/biological mothers who act as surrogates. However, the Bill is silent with regard to paternity leave. In fact, last year, Maneka Gandhi debunked the concept of paternity leaves in India  Paternity leave can be considered only if, once the woman goes back to work after her 26 weeks of leave, we find that men are availing their sick leave for a month to take care of the child. Let me see how many men do that. I will be happy to give it but for a man, it will be just a holiday, he wont do anything.

As per a notification in the 1990s under the Central Civil Services Leave Rules, men in engaged in government service, irrespective of biological or adoptive father, can take 15 days paid leave, that they are allowed to merge with any other leave. However, this is not explicitly defined as paternity leave, which is problematic  as if the very aspect of leave to perform the duties of fatherhood is a taboo for men. Moreover, there are no rules or guidelines that require companies to mandatorily grant paternity leave.

When it comes to regulatory and legal framework of custody laws, the law does not seem very confident about the interplay of law and fatherhood. Traditionally under Common Law, the father was seen to be the absolute guardian of the child. However, a legal development  the courts claiming parens patriae jurisdiction over the child, thereby, superseding the natural guardianship.

The Supreme Court of India has persistently held that in custody cases, the best interests of the child are paramount. In Mausami Moitra Ganguli vs Jayant Ganguli (2008), the Court pointed out that [t]he first and paramount consideration is the welfare and interest of the child and not the rights of the parents under a statute. In another landmark judgment, Ms Githa Hariharan and Anr vs Reserve Bank of India (1999), the Supreme Court declared its position on custody rights by stating that gender was not primary factor in deciding cases of child custody and guardianship  gender equality is one of the basic principles of our Constitution, and, therefore, the father by reason of a dominant personality cannot be ascribed to have a preferential right over the mother in the matter of guardianship since both fall within the same category. However, in 2003, the Karnataka High Court in a judgment stated that  it is the most natural thing for any child to grow up in the company of ones mother and a child gets the best protection and education only through the mother even in nature. The socialisation that mothers are nurturing caregivers, and fathers are not, is a message that the judiciary began to send out.

Almost a decade later, Karnataka High Court, in KM Vinaya v B Srinivas (2013), stated that both parents would have a shared custody of the child for the sustainable growth. The child would live with the father for six months of the year, and then with the mother, and all expenditures of the child would be split equally. It was one of the few cases that upheld the principle of equal and shared parental responsibility.

Adoption laws also do not favour the father. In Sawan Ram and Ors vs Kalawanti and Ors (1967), the Court stated  If a bachelor adopts, the child will have a father and will have no mother. In 2016, the story of Aditya Tiwari was everywhere: he is a Pune-based software engineer, who adopted Binney, a child with Downs syndrome. For him, it was 15-month ordeal until December 2015, as he ran from pillar to post in the intricate labyrinth of Indian procedures for adoption, until it was finally permissible to bring Binney home. According to the law, single men can adopt only male children.

The Surrogacy Regulation Bill, 2016 allows only heterosexual couples to get a surrogate, and such surrogate must be a close relative, who has been married and has a child of her own. In this absurd legislative policy, neither single men nor women are considered. Bollywood director Karan Johar was perhaps one of the last single men who was able to find a commercialised surrogate for his twins, earlier this year.

The Indian legal system is ruthless on fathers. This is especially significant on the occasion of Fathers Day, that the legislature, executive and the judiciary  motivated by structural powers and the strains of patriarchy  institutionalise the public/private divide by drafting legislations and implementing policy that keep mothers at home (close to children, managing the household), and the fathers outside (hard-workers, breadwinners, providers). In this way, fatherhood becomes a tabooed issue for most men, and as a result, women are expected to continue to uphold the double burden.

It is imperative that all branches of the government understand that unless the legal quagmire around fatherhood is resolved, there will be very little changes in the socio-political dynamics of the family. What India needs this Fathers Day is to find and follow its paternal instinct.
In the last week of Ramadan, it is time to look for an alternative Ramadan dessert. A creamy rice pudding is in order

Coppermelt

In Heliopolis, Dokki, New Cairo and 6 October, Copermelt is offering clients who are willing to spend more than LE30 on a small pot of pudding a wide variety of tastes. Coppermelt is not exactly the place to go for grandma's rice pudding. Its brand is more fashionable: rice pudding with caramelised berries or even marron glaces topping. Mahalabiya, a sticky milky pudding with rosewater, could go a bit more traditional, with a topping of caramel or lightly caramelised pumpkins. Om Ali is offered with a well-liked chocolate spread and an extra caramel and nuts topping.

The puddings of Coppermelt are not too heavy in any variety. They are always fresh.

Exception

This is where one would go for a nice variety of traditional recipes and typical Egyptian cuisine puddings: rice pudding, Mahalabiya, Meshmeshiyah (an apricot based pudding) and of course Oum Ali. Here one is transported back to the Ramadan desserts of one's early childhood and appeals to those put off by the new varieties.

Exception, however, is not a destination for those who wish to go the extra mile, adding to a traditional Ramadan dessert, say, creme caramel.

The puddings come in simple and disposable bowls, nice for an informal gathering over iftar or sohour.

Branches of Exception are to be found in 6 October, Nasr City and Maadi.

Nola

Many non-traditional Ramadan desserts are available at Nolas branches across Cairo and Giza. This year, however, Nola is offering the traditional rice pudding, with or without nuts, Oum Ali, Meshmeshiya and Layali Lebenan (a thick pudding of milk, cream, semolina and grounded pestachios).

Nola puddings always provide an original taste. And each pot is put in a box, which makes it easy to store in a fridge, one on top of the other, ahead of the dessert moment after iftar.

Safy dairies

Going basic and heading to a local dairy store does not at all mean compromising on the quality of the dessert  certainly not if it is coming from the large and inviting fridge of Safy dairies.

Forgo the profiteroles, the mousse chocolat and most certainly the tiramisu. This is the place to indulge in intense original flavour rice pudding and Mahalabiya. Not trying Safy's baked rice pudding is truly an opportunity lost.

The plastic and foil deposable pots are not necessarily flattering for your iftar table, but Safy is willing to fit their delights into your own porcelain bowls if you visit a day in advance.

Sonesta dairies

All across the eastern boroughs of the capital, Heliopolis, Nasr City, Obour and Tagammu, Sonesta dairies have simple but well-frequented milk bars that attract above average demand during Ramadan evenings, especially for their yogurt. Their rice pudding and Mahalabiya, scooped in simple plastic boxes, are also in high demand for sohour and iftar, especially towards the end of Ramadan.

This is one of the most affordable destinations for a nice homemade rice pudding and Mahalabiya that score high at this milky pudding destination par excellence.

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Chennai: The Election Commission has asked the Tamil Nadu chief electoral officer to lodge a police case over the alleged bribery of voters in RK Nagar Assembly segment, the poll panel has said in reply to a query under the transparency law.

The bypoll slated for 12 April was cancelled subsequently following allegations of large-scale distribution of money to voters, entailing raids by the tax authorities.

The Election Commission said it had directed the CEO, Tamil Nadu on 18 April to ask the RK Nagar returning officer to file a complaint with police for bribing the voters.

In its response to a plea under Right to Information Act by a Chennai-based lawyer, MP Vairakkannan, a copy of which was circulated to media here, Election Commission secretary Malay Mallick in his letter to the CEO refers to the Income Tax report on raids in Tamil Nadu, vis-a-vis the bypoll.

The letter said the commission had received a report on 9 April from IT department on search and seizure of documents indicating a large-scale distribution of money to bribe voters.

The alleged bribe/ inducement was to influence the bypoll in RK Nagar which is an offence under IPC, the letter noted.

"Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, the commission has directed that an FIR may be filed by the RO in the instant case," the letter said.

The letter, signed by Mallick, further said, "It is expected that quick and appropriate action is taken by the police and the commission is apprised about the same at the earliest."

The RTI plea of 26 April was received by the commission on 3 May and the first of its eight questions sought to know about the action over the alleged distribution of money.

The query asked as to what action the poll panel would be taking against the electoral misconduct of distribution of money to voters in RK Nagar constituency against various persons.

The people against whom the proposed action by the poll panel had been enquired about included AIADMK (Amma) deputy general secretary TTV Dinakaran, Chief Minister Edapadi K Palaniswamy and ministers Sengotaiyan, Sellur K Raju, Thangamani and Vijayabaskar.

In response to the RTI plea, the Election Commission said, "The commission has directed that an FIR may be filed by the returning officer in the instant case, vide the commission's letter dated 18 April."

The second query in the RTI application asked, "Whether you (the Election Commission) have any proposal to disqualify the above persons for indulging in election misconduct?"

The Election Commission has responded to this query saying "information not in material form."

Similar was the answer to a question asking if there was any proposal to refer the matter to the CBI for a probe.

Meanwhile, Vairakkannan has approached the Madras High Court over this issue.

In his writ plea, expected to come up on Monday for hearing, he contended that though Election Commission directed the Tamil Nadu CEO to take appropriate action, the latter and the RK Nagar returning officer had not done so.

On the RTI response, he alleged that the CEO and the returning officer "are shielding the offenders for political reason."

He further submitted that it was just and necessary to direct the Tamil Nadu CEO and RK Nagar RO to file an FIR with the police.

He also sought a direction to the police to probe the matter and file a chargesheet for offence punishable under the IPC.
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is feeling increasingly isolated as political parties huddle together to select a candidate for the presidential polls.

The party has so far not figured in the ongoing political consultations within the Opposition, or in the talks initiated by a three-member BJP panel.

"No major political party has approached us for our support," a senior AAP leader and a member of the political affairs committee, the party's highest decision-making body, said.

AAP, which has been busy fighting the Centre while seeking to suppress dissent in the party, has held informal talks on the presidential poll with a few opposition parties.

Over the past few days, AAP members have had talks with CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, JDU's Sharad Yadav and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee.

But with the Congress, the main opposition party, keeping AAP out of the loop, and the NCP said to be distancing itself from Arvind Kejriwal's outfit, AAP said it was waiting for the government and the Opposition to make their stands clear on candidates for the highest constitutional post.

"There has been no major discussion within the party over the presidential poll. Let us see what the opposition comes up with," a senior AAP leader said, indicating it may not go with a candidate suggested by the Congress, but may back someone supported by the entire Opposition.

In power in Delhi and a principal opposition party in Punjab, four-year-old AAP has 86 MLAs and four MPs in the Lok Sabha.

However, the Congress did not invite the party to a meeting of opposition leaders held in May, which was widely perceived as a snub to the party.

The Congress does not see AAP as an ally, for the new party, in the long run, aims at unsettling the Congress as a principal opposition party at the national level as well as in several states.

In the past, Kejriwal has often attacked the Congress, especially Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

The NCP is believed to be ignoring AAP because of Arvind Kejriwal's personal attacks on NCP leader Sharad Pawar in the past.

The presidential poll is slated to be held on 17 July.
New Delhi: The Samajwadi Party on Sunday asked the BJP to opt for a politician and not an apolitical person as its presidential candidate on a day the saffron party also reached out to the TMC and the BJD on the issue of a nominee.

Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu spoke to Ramgopal Yadav and Naresh Agarwal of the SP and also met BJP ally and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who assured him of his party LJP's support to the BJP's choice.

BJP sources said the SP leaders told Naidu that his party should choose a political person.

Naidu, who along with Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley are members of a party panel formed to consult parties to evolve a broad consensus, later briefed BJP chief Amit Shah, the sources said.

Jaitley spoke to All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leaders.

Shah, who is in Mumbai on a three-day tour, had met Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray in the morning.

Though the saffron party has been speaking to different parties across the ideological spectrum, it has given no indication of who its choice for the top constitutional post will be.

Many party leaders have suggested that its top brass may opt for somebody moored to the saffron party's core ideology, but there has been no word from the leadership.
Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday reportedly rejected BJP president Amit Shah's proposal that Prime Minister Narendra Modi be allowed to decide on a presidential candidate.

The decision comes after a closed-door meeting between Shah and Thackeray as part of the ruling party's efforts to ensure support of allies in the presidential election.

The Sena chief said they would take a call on support after the BJP reveals its choice for president, a source in Shiv Sena said.

Shah, along with Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, visited Thackeray's residence 'Matoshree' and held the meeting, which started around 10 am and lasted for nearly 75 minutes.

According to the source, during the meeting, Shah appealed to the Sena to support the BJP's nominee for the president's post.

The source said, "Shah said the name of the candidate would be announced by Narendra Modi. We are hopeful of receiving Shiv Sena's support."

On record, both parties kept mum on the deliberations at the Shah-Thackeray meet though the BJP termed it as "a courtesy call where talks were held in a cordial atmosphere". Other Sena leaders and BJP state president Raosaheb Patil-Danve stayed out of the 75-minute meeting.

The meeting comes a day after the BJP chief, who is in Mumbai on a three-day visit to strengthen the party organisation in the state, said his party would consult its allies before finalising the NDA's presidential candidate.

According to NDTV, the presidential election is a contentious issue for Shiv Sena and the party has indicated that it might vote "independently". Earlier, the Sena had also shown its displeasure when it was suggested that Modi lead the NDA in the 2019 general elections.

The report mentioned how the Sena had been rooting for Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of BJP's ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, for the president's post. While the BJP did not reply and Bhagwat went on to say he was uninterested in the job, the Sena floated the name of 91-year-old agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan, father of the Green Revolution.

The Sena had backed Congress nominees  Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee  in the last two presidential elections.

Shah later drew the curtains on his visit to Mumbai by meeting NDA constituents like Republican Party of India president Ramdas Athawale, who is Union minister for social justice, Rashtriya Samaj Party chief Mahadeo Jankar, Shiv Sangram Party chief Vinayak Mete and Jansurajya Party chief Vinay Kore among others.

However, he could not meet Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana president Raju Shetti, who led the recent farmers' agitation in the state.

With inputs from agencies
For a party known for its hubris, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) decision to consult the Opposition for a consensus on the presidential candidate has come as a pleasant surprise.

However, it is possible that its majority in the electoral college has enabled the party to display a show of magnanimity.

At the same time, the information and broadcasting minister, Venkaiah Naidu, has reminded the opposition parties that although the consultations will take place in the "true spirit of a democracy", they must remember that "the mandate of the people is for the government."

Naidu is one of the three chosen by the BJP to interact with the Opposition. The other two are home minister Rajnath Singh and finance minister Arun Jaitley.

However, the chances of a consensus candidate being chosen will brighten only if the BJP refuses to abide by the wish reportedly conveyed by its mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), that the party must utilise the advantage of a majority in the electoral college to choose a person who is a Hindutva ideologue.

Considering that the RSS has succeeded in planting saffron aficionados in a fairly large number of "autonomous" institutions, including the Indian Council of Historical Research and the Indian Council of Social Science Research, it is unlikely to be hesitant about having a man of its choice in Rashtrapati Bhavan, the best prize of all.

Perhaps reading its mind, the Shiv Sena had suggested RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's name as the next President. The Maharashtrian party may have also wanted to test the BJP's sincerity to the cause of Hindutva, for it has said that Bhagwat will be a good choice to turn India into a Hindu rashtra (nation).

However, after Bhagwat himself turned down the proposal, the Sena has opted for MS Swaminathan, known as the father of India's "green revolution" in agriculture. The name of E Sreedharan, the engineer who built the world-class Delhi Metro, has also been mentioned. Needless to say, both are eminently suitable for the high office if only because of their distance from politics.

There might have been a faint chance of a compromise between the BJP and the "secular" parties if LK Advani's name was put forward. However, the BJP's margdarshak (visionary) has not been a favourite of the RSS ever since he praised Mohammed Ali Jinnah during a visit to Pakistan. Indeed, he had to leave the party president's post soon afterwards.

More recently, however, his involvement in the Babri Masjid demolition case as a "conspirator" has effectively ruled out his chances. Similarly, Murli Manohar Joshi, who is known to be close to the RSS, has also lost the opportunity for making it to the big house on top of the Raisina Hill because of the Babri Masjid case.

Cynics have said that the reopening of the case against them by the Central Bureau of Investigation was meant by the powers that be to keep them out of reckoning, for neither of them is believed to enjoy Narendra Modi's trust.

However, another person, who was not delighted with Modi's elevation in the BJP before the general election, that is Sushma Swaraj, has come to the forefront. She has several plus points. One is her humanitarian acts as the external affairs minister where her help is required by, among others, by stranded NRIs and ailing Pakistanis. The other, and more important, is that she is believed to enjoy the backing of the RSS.

Among the other front-runners are Draupadi Murmu, the governor of Jharkhand, and Sumitra Mahajan, the Lok Sabha Speaker.

The choice of Murmu, a tribal, will enable the BJP to reach out to one of the most neglected communities in the country, about whom the now virtually forgotten but undoubtedly their foremost leader, Jaipal Singh Munda (1903-1970), told the constituent Assembly that "the whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India".

It is clear that none of the BJP's opponents will oppose her choice for obvious reasons. But whether Murmu herself will be interested is unclear, for the president's post can be the end of the road where a political career is concerned. Being 59 years old, a relatively young age for a politician, she may be unwilling to put a full stop to any further advancement in politics. Rumours have it, therefore, that she is keener on a cabinet berth at the Centre.

A consensus is also possible on Mahajan, for she has shown herself to be temperamentally calm. But this may be the very reason why the RSS is said to be against her.

In less fraught times, it may have been possible to evolve a consensus on the former Lok Sabha Speaker, Meira Kumar, who, as a Dalit and with a distinguished lineage  she is Jagjivan Ram's daughter  may have had claims similar to Murmu's for being selected for the highest constitutional position in the land.

But her Congress background ruins her chances straightaway in view of the BJP's avowed intention of making India Congress-mukt (free). Moreover, the RSS would have been appalled to find a Congress person once again becoming the president.

If the Congress is untouchable for the saffron lobby, so are the Muslims, which is why the Vice-President Hamid Ansari did not have a chance. And there is no one like APJ Abdul Kalam around, who was a nationalist despite being a Muslim, as Minister for Culture Mahesh Sharma said.

The Left parties have been pushing for Gopal Krishna Gandhi, a grandson of the "chatur bania" (clever trader) as BJP president Amit Shah described Mahatma Gandhi.

But for all his credentials  a former governor and diplomat and related to the Mahatma and C Rajagopalachari  his palpable secularism is a black mark where the Modi dispensation is concerned.
The lynching of Zafar Khan by municipality employees in Rajasthan's Pratapgarh area sparked dejection across the nation on social media, but it seems to have gotten overshadowed by the outrage over Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje's reaction to the incident.

Raje tweeted out the following two days after the incident occurred:

The demise of Zafar Khan ji in Pratapgarh is extremely unfortunate. Investigation is on - justice shall prevail. https://t.co/1V9DmV26KY  Vasundhara Raje (@VasundharaBJP) June 18, 2017

She also mentions a tweet by the Udaipur police which states that "scientific evidence doesn't suggest murder" in the lynching case.

Demise of ZafarKhan is unfortunate. Scientific evidence doesn't suggest murder. Law will take its course @BDUTT @thesuniljain @ShekharGupta  IG Police Udaipur (@igpoliceudaipur) June 17, 2017

It seems that the Rajasthan minister's choice of words, considering the sensitivity of the issue, were not taken kindly.

With regards to the issue in question, municipality employees in Pratpargh town beat Zafar Khan to death on Friday when he allegedly tried to stop them from scaring women. The officials were intimidating the women who were defecating in the open by taking their photographs.

The incident happened near Bagwasa Kachi Basti area at around 6.30 am. It was then that the middle-aged man intervened. In retaliation, the municipality employees kicked, punched and beat Khan with a stick, which led to his death, according to the FIR lodged by Khan's elder brother Noor Mohammad.

In reaction to the incident and the Raje's eventual reaction, Twitterati relentlessly questioned why she refuses to acknowledge the lynching. Some of those who took on Raje on Twitter included Congress leaders Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot including several media persons such as Barkha Dutt and Shekhar Gupta.

The CM of #Rajasthan seems to have already reached a conclusion even before an inquiry that #ZafarKhan was not murdered. https://t.co/JjjILy4NPW  Ashok Gehlot (@ashokgehlot51) June 18, 2017

"Demise." When a lawfully elected Chief Minister, sworn to rule based on the Constitution, can't call a murder a murder, it's time to cry https://t.co/YBzvfKBw6i  Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) June 18, 2017

Ma'am he was lynched to death. This was no 'demise'. https://t.co/ik8NuElTFh  barkha dutt (@BDUTT) June 18, 2017

Unfortunate sudden demise. He was walking along in the morning when he suddenly saw a cow, said BMJK, collapsed and died. https://t.co/Q4X9aOB2ek  Prasanto K Roy (@prasanto) June 18, 2017

He didn't just drop dead on a morning walk! Died as a result of lynching by Govt officials!! Arrest Nagar Parishad Commissioner Ashok Jain https://t.co/kmDeNYBtFD  Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) June 18, 2017

How to drown a real human tragedy in meaningless bureaucratese (and pretend one has done the right thing.) https://t.co/6zsYRiW39X  Sidharth Bhatia (@bombaywallah) June 18, 2017

There Fixed it for @VasundharaBJP

The Murder of Zafar Khan ji in Pratapgarh is Murder.

And, we will bring the criminals to justice. https://t.co/fIlOi8DqcO  Harini Calamur (@calamur) June 18, 2017

Ma'am I think the word you are looking for is 'murder'.. And there have been a spate of such murders in your state.. https://t.co/yqLpssUGH8  Swara Bhasker (@ReallySwara) June 18, 2017

Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot condemned Khan's killing a day after the incident itself, saying that the unfortunate and condemnable. After Raje's comment, he tweeted:

"Killed"would have been far too appropriate a word to use for theCM.And going by previous lynching instances,justice is unlikely to prevail https://t.co/eQiMGfaICU  Sachin Pilot (@SachinPilot) June 18, 2017

According to PTI, he demanded a high-level inquiry into the matter and strict action against the responsible employees and officers. Pilot also said that people are forced to construct toilets without releasing of funds for the purpose in the BJP-ruled state.

Noor has lodged a complaint against Kamal Harijan, Ritesh Harijan, Manish Harijan, Nagar Parishad commissioner Ashok Jain and others following police have registered a case of murder, Pratapgarh Kotwali police said.

With regards to the case, Khan's sister has lodged a complaint against Kamal Harijan, Ritesh Harijan, Manish Harijan and Nagar Parishad commissioner Ashok Jain, Pratapgarh Kotwali police said.

Pratapgarh Superintendent of Police, Shivraj Meena said to PTI on Friday that, "We are getting the matter investigated and a case has been registered against four named accused in the FIR".

With inputs from agencies.
Chennai: AIADMK Amma senior leader and Tamil Nadu finance minister D Jayakumar on Sunday ridiculed DMK working president MK Stalin for targeting the ruling party on various

issues, saying his 'desperate' effort to become chief minister would end up as a pipe dream.

"Stalin is spending sleepless nights, dreaming of becoming CM," he said.

Stating that the Leader of the Opposition was "desperate" to become CM by trying to use using whatever tiny opportunity that came his way, he said "for sure Stalin's dream will never come true and it will end up as a pipe dream."

DMK has stepped up its attack on the ruling AIADMK Amma regime by seeking its dismissal on the alleged horse-trading of ruling party legislators.

The Opposition has also intensified its attack on the Palaniswami government on a host of other issues as well.

Hitting out at DMK for the behaviour of its MLAs on 18 February when the trust vote was taken up in the Assembly, the minister said people despised the Opposition for it.
Lucknow: As Yogi Adityanath completes 100 days in office this week as Uttar Pradesh chief minister, formidable challenges including funds for the farm loan-waiver, and law and order stare him at his face, with the opposition claiming the misses have outnumbered the hits.

The loan-waiver, a major pre-poll promise of the BJP, is making finance department burn the midnight oil in trying all permutations and combination to offload the sudden fiscal burden of nearly Rs 36,369 crore.

This coupled with Rs 34,000 crore for the implementation of the seventh pay commission recommendations, has put an additional burden of a whopping over Rs 70,000 crore on the state's coffers.

The government faces other major challenges including of arranging funds for mega projects like the Purvanchal e-way.

The government itself has admitted it could manage to make just 63 percent of the state roads pothole-free by the 15 June deadline set by the chief minister.

Distribution of free laptops among students  mentioned in the BJP's 'sankalp patra' (election manifesto)  is another challenge confronting the Yogi government, which was inaugurated on 19 March.

No date has been announced for the scheme to be launched.

With certain law and order incidents, especially caste and communal clashes, threatening to eclipse the achievements of the 45-year-old saffron-clad chief minister, his officials are going the extra mile to ensure there is no dent in BJPs image in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The chief minister and his cabinet colleagues have already sought more time saying they inherited a "jungle raj" from the Samajwadi Party (SP) government and it would take them some time to set things in order.

Soon after being sworn-in, the chief minister had claimed he would prove his government's commitment to good governance first by ridding the roads of potholes completely by 15 June.

However, his deputy Keshav Maurya, who also holds the public works department portfolio, admitted that out of 1.21 lakh-km of road length, repair works on only about 70,000km had been completed.

The condition of roads in Kanpur and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency of Varanasi is particularly bad.

Another challenge for the government is holding the urban local body elections by 15 July, when their term expires.

The state election Commission was ready and had completed its preparations, but the government itself put off the polls saying the rapid survey of the backward seats was faulty the survey was conducted under the present BJP regime.

Now the elections are likely to be held in October.

As the state government prepares to come out with a 100-day achievement document later this week, state Congress spokesperson Dwijendra Tripathi ridiculed the ruling party for making promises that it could not meet.

"Two months of the Adityanath government have not sent out any strong message on any of the issues which were part of BJP's campaign  improved law-and-order situation and better administration," he said.

BSP chief Mayawati has alleged that the Dalits, the OBCs as well as forward castes including Brahmins have been facing "atrocities" in the state  in an apparent attempt to associate Adityanath and his government with Kshatriyas only.

As head of the Gorakhnath Peeth, Adityanath has often associated himself with Kshatriya symbols.

He is often seen surrounded by Kshatriyas mostly and he has supported Thakur leaders of other parties too  in 2013, he came out in support of Kunda MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya who was accused of conspiring to kill a deputy superintendent of police.

Not known to take frequent barbs at him lying down, ex-chief minister Akhilesh Yadav recently took on the Yogi government, saying, "I never knew officers wielded brooms so well. Now the question is how much filth have they cleared so far?"

He said the deadline to make state roads pothole-free by 15 June remained a "pipe dream".

When asked about the Yogi government's decision to probe the Expressway and river front projects launched during the SP rule, Akhilesh said, "Will this government do any work...or will it only conduct probes? This government should try to do better work than us."

Presently, the entire state machinery  from ministry to departmental level  is working on their 100-day progress reports which will be presented to the public in the form of a "white paper", an official said.

While the chief minister is personally reviewing the works, a web-based monitoring system has also been put in place for 73 departments in the state to submit their progress reports, the official said.

The government has not announced any major scheme or big-ticket infrastructure projects other than the farm loan-waiver.

These are likely to be addressed when the government presents its maiden budget in the next few months. Adityanath has said that two months is a too short a period to showcase any achievements.

Law-and-order and governance, however, remain the primary challenges for Adityanath. It will be a herculean task to change the attitude of the bureaucracy down to the lowest level and make the government machinery responsive to the needs of the public, political observers feel.

Adityanath will need to begin the process of change and show tangible results soon in order to satisfy those who voted the BJP, and to stave off anti-incumbency sentiment before the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for 2019, analysts say.

The recent clashes between the Dalits and the Kshatriyas in Saharanpur, several instances of vigilantism in the name of cow protection or moral policing and the run-ins of BJP leaders, including legislators, with police and officials have hindered the new governments attempts to send out "right signals on good governance".

"The change has started to show in Uttar Pradesh since the Yogi government took charge. Well-meaning people are feeling relieved with the closure of illegal slaughterhouses. With the constitution of anti-Romeo squads, anti-social elements harassing women and girls are now in fear.

"Rowdyism is dying and crime graph falling. People's confidence in the government has been restored," the state BJP had said in its political resolution at its recent working committee meeting here.

But, on the ground, certain recent incidents like caste clashes in Saharanpur and communal violence in Bulandshahr, Sambhal and Gonda gave the law-enforcing agencies sleepless nights more so as BJP came to power on the plank of improving law and order, terming the erstwhile Samajwadi Party rule as a "goondaraj".

In Bulandshahr, members of the Adityanath-founded Hindu Yuva Vahini were alleged to be behind the killing of an aged Muslim man after a "love-jihad-style" elopement. The Bulandshahr incident took place even as Adityanath met senior Yuva Vahini workers during a visit to Gorakhpur and warned them againts taking law in their own hands.

The attack on Saharanpur SSP's residence allegedly by BJP activists "led" by local MP Raghav Lakhanpal, hogged the headlines.

And even before the dust settled on the controversy, caste violence broke out in the region.

The Samajwadi Party latched onto these developments. "We were termed the goonda party. Now, what is happening under Yogi ji? Will he act?" Akhilesh asked.

Perturbed over the sudden spurt in such incidents, the chief minister decided to set up a special monitoring cell in his office.

"A special cell will be constituted in the chief minister's office for crime-monitoring, which will be done personally by the chief minister," cabinet minister Shrikant Sharma said.

Refuting SP's criticism over the law and order, he said, "Those SP leaders, who have carried criminals and rapists with them in their cars, should introspect."

Ever since Adityanath took over the reins of the state, the bureaucracy is constantly on its toes.

It is an unusual sight to see that the parking lots at the secretariat here get full even before the clock strikes 9:25 in the morning.

Adityanath has proved himself to be a tough taskmaster, holding back-to-back meetings with ministers and bureaucrats well past midnight, only to return to office before 9.30 the next morning.

For almost a month, some 80-odd presentations were made by as many departments before the chief minister.

The state government has so far announced half a dozen significant measures, starting with the Rs 36,500-crore loan-waiver and power-for-all agreement, said Principal Secretary (Information) Avaneesh Awasthi.

At the BJP working committee meeting, Adityanath praised Cane Development Minister Suresh Rana for his efforts to clear Rs 5,558 crore of dues of sugarcane farmers within 40 days.

A panel of Group of Ministers constituted by the chief minister has submitted a report on a new mining policy and on clamping down on illegal mining, which is a major problem in UP.

A portal being launched under the CMO's supervision to allow people to file complain on illegal land-grab could be a game-changer, too.

The Power-for-All agreement between the Yogi government and the Centre promises electricity around the clock to district headquarters and 18-hour a day to all villages.

Another key decision was making transfers and postings of bureaucrats "merit-based" and free from extraneous pressures as reflected in wide-scale transfers done by the government.

"In the erstwhile government, transfers had become an industry. Now, honest and talented officers are getting respectable posts," a BJP leader said.
Madrid: Spain's maritime rescue service has recovered the bodies of five migrants who died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea in a small boat.

The service said on Sunday that a passing merchant ship spotted the small boat adrift Friday some 70 miles (113 kilometers) from Spain's southeastern coast.

It said when rescuers reached the boat, they found that all five passengers "apparently from sub-Saharan Africa" were in an "advanced state of decomposition."

The rescue service also says 92 migrants were saved Saturday from three separate boats just east of the Strait of Gibraltar.

Each year, thousands of migrants die trying to reach European shores from North Africa in small and often unseaworthy boats, many of which belong to smugglers.

So far this year, 1,808 people have died crossing the Mediterranean.
British Brexit minister David Davis heads to Brussels on Monday to open divorce talks with the EU with a message that there should be "no doubt  we are leaving the European Union".

Days after a suggestion from French president Emmanuel Macron that Britain could still choose to remain, Davis said there would be no backtracking from Prime Minister Theresa May's plan to deliver on Brexit, for which Britons voted in a referendum almost a year ago.

"As I head to Brussels to open official talks to leave the EU, there should be no doubt  we are leaving the European Union, and delivering on that historic referendum result," Davis said in a statement.

"Leaving gives us the opportunity to forge a bright new future for the UK  one where we are free to control our borders, pass our own laws and do what independent sovereign countries do."

May, under pressure after losing her ruling Conservatives' majority in a botched snap election and over her response to a devastating fire that killed at least 58 in a London apartment block, says she wants a clean break with the EU - a strategy some in her party have challenged as risking economic growth.

Davis, a prominent 'Leave' campaigner in the referendum, said he was approaching the talks in a "constructive way", knowing they will be "difficult at points".

"We are not turning our backs on Europe," he said in the statement. "It's vital that the deal we strike allows both the UK and the EU to thrive, as part of the new deep and special partnership we want with our closest allies and friends."
Beijing: India on Sunday said it looks forward to strengthening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China as the two sides held talks in Beijing amid differences over a host of issues including the $50 billion CPEC and India's NSG membership bid.

Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh met Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting being held here to finalise the agenda for this year's BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit to be held in September in China's Xiamen city.

They discussed steps to strengthen strategic relations on the directions laid down by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting at Astana recently.

Wang referred to the fruitful and constructive meeting between Xi and Modi on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on 8-9 June at Astana.

In his opening remarks, Singh said that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj wanted to visit Beijing but health and other restrictions did not permit her.

"She is looking forward to meet you," he said.

Xi and Modi have "laid down directions for us and both the countries to proceed with a path of mutual respect, mutual cooperation on how to improve the existing mechanisms so that more trade, commerce and people to people contacts can take place," Singh said.

"We both are Asian neighbours, two growing economies, people with ancient relations, we mark the path others to follow. India looks forward to strengthening and deepening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China," he said, adding he looks forward to many interactions with Wang.

Singh avoided making any reference to differences between the two countries including India's sovereignty concerns over the controversial China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Beijing blocking India's entry into the strategic Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) besides a UN ban on Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) leader Masood Azhar.

India last month skipped China's high-profile Belt and Road Forum (BRF) under which CPEC comes.

Beijing also opposed the visit of the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh which it considered as part of Tibet.

Officials said that both the governments are keen to find common ground on the contentious issues.

Singh later attended a banquet hosted by Wang for the Foreign Ministers of BRICS countries.

All the foreign ministers from the BRICS who would also call on Xi.

During the foreign ministers' meet, China is expected to outline the agenda for this year's BRICS summit which included efforts to seek common ground against terrorism.

The meeting is a precursor to a chain of meetings of BRICS officials including the National Security Advisors (NSAs) meeting to be held later next month ahead of the summit.

China took over the rotating presidency of the BRICS from India after last year's Goa summit of the group of emerging countries.

China is also expected to outline its proposals for the BRICS summit.

At the Goa summit, India invited heads of the members of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) excluding Pakistan from the region.

Incidentally, this is the first time that the foreign ministers meeting has been called by a host country holding the BRICS Summit.
Beijing: At least 20 people were hurt, four of them seriously, when a China Eastern Airlines flight from Paris hit turbulence on Sunday over southwest China, state media said.

The incident happened when Flight MU744 from Charles de Gaulle Airport was descending to land at Kunming Changshui International Airport in Yunnan province, Xinhua news agency reported.

Passengers are being treated for bone fractures, scalp lacerations and soft tissue injuries caused by falling baggage or collisions with overhead lockers, it cited local hospitals as saying.

The nationalities of the injured passengers are unclear.

China Eastern Airlines said on its official microblog account that the company has arranged medical services, without providing other details.

"(We) remind all passengers, for your safety, please fasten safety belts," the post added.

The airline did not respond to questions from AFP.

The plane landed around 9 am local time on Sunday, an hour later than scheduled, according to Xinhua.
Beijing: Agitated over the killing of two Chinese nationals in Pakistan by Islamic State militants, Chinese netizens have been demanding that China should send troops to Pakistan to fight the dreaded terror group.

The reports about the killing of two Chinese nationals in Pakistan's Balochistan province has generated a cascade of discussion on Weibo, a Twitter-style Chinese social media platform, with many users calling for revenge, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Sunday.

Social media users are demanding the Chinese government to send troops to Pakistan to seek "payback" for the killing of the two Chinese nationals, the daily said.

"We shall start a war against Islamic State, killing them on behalf of the two murdered Chinese, said a user going by the name Zhou Qi Bei Hou.

It is time to fight violence with violence, another user, Lingchen99096, said.

Pakistan government's claim that the two Chinese nationals were involved in illegal preaching activities has ignited more anger.

"The Pakistani government said they were told that the two Chinese were missionaries. I was just wondering, who told them," the Post quoted one Weibo user as saying.

It is rare that netizens in China could let loose such a barrage of criticism against Pakistan on social media which is controlled by heavy firewalls by Chinese authorities.

It is not clear how this barrage of criticism on the social media appeared despite the firewalls.

Chinese foreign ministry on 9 June said Beijing was informed by Pakistan officials that a Chinese man and a woman identified as Lee Zingyang, 24, and Meng Lisi, 26, who were kidnapped in May from Quetta may have been killed.

Reports from Pakistan said the two were killed by Islamic State group after being abducted by gunmen dressed as policemen in Quetta in restive Balochistan province in May.

Chinese officials have yet to confirm the deaths, but a spokesman from the Chinese foreign affairs ministry said on Wednesday that Beijing was investigating whether the two were illegally preaching in Pakistan before they were abducted.
Bogota: A strong explosion from a bomb rocked one of the busiest shopping centers in Colombia's capital, killing three people, including a 23-year-old French woman, and injuring nine others, authorities said.

Witnesses told of being evacuated from movie theaters and stores after the blast on Saturday in a second-floor women's restroom at the upscale Centro Andino in the heart of Bogota's tourist district. Ambulances and firetrucks rushed to the scene and the injured were taken to a hospital, where two later died.

Police said a bomb from an undetermined explosive had caused the destruction. Mayor Enrique Penalosa called it a "cowardly terrorist bombing."

He said the French victim, identified as Julie Huynh, had been in Colombia the past six months volunteering in a poor neighborhood and was preparing to return to France in the coming days. He said authorities were providing assistance to the victim's mother, who was also in Bogota.

Authorities' attention immediately focused on the country's largest still active rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, which in February claimed responsibility for a bombing near Bogota's bullring that killed one police officer and injured 20 other people.

Penalosa urged residents of Bogota's wealthier districts to be on high alert but cautioned that there was no hint of other attacks being planned. Police said they were still trying to determine what the device that exploded was made of.

The government last year reached a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which was much bigger than the ELN. The ELN is also engaged in peace talks but has so far refused for its fighters to lay down their weapons.

Some analysts attribute an uptick in violence in Colombian cities to the group's desire to wrest concessions from the government at the negotiating table.

Bogota has seen dramatic improvement in security over the past decade as the country's long-running conflict has wound down. But the capital remains vulnerable to attacks as residents let down their guard.

Still, the Andino shopping center would seem a difficult target. All vehicles entering the parking garage are screened by bomb-sniffing dogs and security guards are present throughout the mall.

President Juan Manuel Santos said he was returning immediately to Bogota and ordered the head of Colombia's police to lead the investigation and keep him regularly updated. In a message posted on Twitter he expressed his solidarity with the victims.
Tehran: Iran's Navy has conducted a joint exercise with a Chinese fleet near the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.

The official IRNA news agency said Sunday's drill included an Iranian warship as well as two Chinese warships, a logistics ship and a Chinese helicopter that arrived in Iran's port of Bandar Abbas last week.

It said the scheduled exercise came before the departure of the Chinese fleet for Muscat, Oman. It did not provide further details.

The US Navy held a joint drill with Qatar in the Persian Gulf Saturday.

US and Iranian warships have had a number of tense encounters in the Persian Gulf in recent years. Nearly a third of all oil traded by sea passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Doha: Bahrain has ordered Qatari troops serving with a coalition fighting the Islamic State group to leave its territory, a source with knowledge of the situation said on Sunday.

The soldiers, part of the US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) which is headquartered in Bahrain, had been asked to leave the coalition and may depart within the next 48 hours, the source told AFP.

"The Bahrainis told the US general in command of the base that Qatari soldiers must leave," the source said on condition of anonymity.

"They are still in the base but likely to leave within the next two days."

The news comes as the Gulf faces the biggest diplomatic crisis in recent years, with regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia and some of its allies suspending ties with gas-rich Qatar over accusations the emirate bankrolled Islamist extremists and had ties to rival Iran.

Qatar denies the charges.

Direct tensions between Manama and Doha have been further exacerbated after Bahrain accused Qatar of directly interfering in its internal affairs.

Qatar has also denied those charges.

The source did not detail the number of Qatari troops based in Bahrain. One analyst estimated it was no more than a "handful of officers".

Qatar has deployed troops with NAVCENT since 2014, according to one official.

NAVCENT is part of the US Central Command whose area of operation includes the Middle East and Asia.

As part of their operations, numerous air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan have been conducted from Qatar's Al-Udeid, the largest US base in the region.

Washington is involved in diplomatic efforts to resolve the impasse in the region but US policy has proved unpredictable.

President Donald Trump has sided with Saudi Arabia and its allies, including Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt, claiming Doha had "historically been a fund sponsor of terrorism at a very high level".

However, Pentagon and State Department officials have scrambled to reassure the emirate.

The United States last week agreed to a $12 billion sale of F-15 fighters to Qatar.
Riyadh: Ties between Saudi Arabia and Turkey have begun to fray due to sharply different policies toward Qatar.

Saudi Arabia has led other Arab nations in cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar over allegations the small Gulf nation backs terror groups. Qatar denies this and says the decision to isolate it is politically motivated.

Turkey has criticized the decision and authorized the deployment of additional troops to Qatar in a show of support.

Saudi tour guides Khalid Abdullah and Edris Ismail told The Associated Press on Sunday that some Saudis are cancelling planned visits to Turkey for the upcoming Muslim Eid holiday, which starts next week. Saudi Arabia says around 250,000 Saudis visited Turkey last year.

An Arabic hashtag on Twitter has also appeared calling for Saudis to cut ties with Turkey.
Baghdad: An Iraqi commander says troops are pushing into the last Islamic State stronghold in the country's second largest city.

Lieutenant General Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah, who commands army operations in Ninevah province, says Iraqi special forces, the regular army and Federal Police are taking part in the operation to retake Mosul's Old City, which began on Sunday.

The Islamic State group captured Mosul when it swept across northern and central Iraq in the summer of 2014. Iraq launched a massive operation to retake the city in October 2016.

Up to 150,000 civilians are believed to be trapped in the Old City, where the militants are using them as human shields, United Nations humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande told The Associated Press on Friday. She said conditions are "desperate", with little food and no clean water.
Mosul: Iraqi forces began storming the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul on Sunday, an assault they hope will be the last in the eight-month campaign to seize the militants' stronghold.

The historic district is the last still under control of the militants in the city, which used to be the Iraqi capital of the group, also known as Islamic State."Iraqi forces early this morning breach into old Mosul, the final Islamic State-held district in the city," Brett McGurk, the US envoy to the international coalition fighting Islamic State, said on Twitter. "We are proud to stand with them."It is a densely-populated maze of narrow alleyways where fighting is often conducted house by house.

About 100,000 civilians remain trapped there in harrowing conditions, with little food, water and medicine and limited access to hospitals, according to the United Nations."This will be a terrifying time for around 100,000 people still trapped in Mosul's Old City ... now at risk of getting caught up in the fierce street fighting to come," the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said in a statement."This is the final chapter" in the offensive to take Mosul, said Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, commander of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) elite units spearheading the assault.

A US-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the campaign. Several air strikes during the day hit a medical complex located just north of the Old City, alongside the western bank of the Tigris river, a Reuters TV reporter said. Armoured vehicles were heading toward the front line north of the Old City as shelling and gunfire could be heard.

The medical complex, housing the two biggest hospitals of Mosul, is still held in part by the militants who are using its buildings as sniper outposts. Islamic State's security services chief in the Old City, Kanaan Jiyad Abdullah, also known as Abu Amna, was killed in the morning clashes, Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises several Middle East governments on Islamic State affairs, told Reuters.

The Iraqi government initially hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign took longer as militants reinforced positions in the middle of civilians to fight back.Islamic State is also using suicide car and motorbike bombs, booby traps and sniper and mortar fire against the troops."The buildings of the old town are particularly vulnerable to collapse even if they aren't directly targeted, which could lead to even more civilian deaths than the hundreds killed so far in air strikes across the rest of the city," the IRC said.

"We are trying to be very careful, using only light and medium weapons ... to avoid casualties among civilians," CTS commander Major General Maan Saadi told Iraqi state TV.

Street Fighting

Hundreds of civilians were killed near the frontlines in the past three weeks while fleeing the Old City, as Iraqi forces could not fully secure exit corridors."We expect thousands of families to escape from the Old City. We made all preparations to evacuate them from the frontlines," army colonel Salam Faraj told Reuters. Islamic State snipers are shooting at families trying to flee on foot or by boat across the Tigris River, as part of a tactic to keep civilians as human shields, the United Nations said on Friday.

The Iraqi army estimates that the number of Islamic State fighters in the Old City does not exceed 300, down from nearly 6,000 when the battle of Mosul started on 17 October. "The operation now is about street fighting. Air and artillery strikes will be limited because the area is heavily populated and the buildings fragile," CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numan told al-Hadath TV in Dubai. Iraqi government forces regained eastern Mosul in January, then a month later began the offensive on the side located west of the Tigris, which includes the Old City.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in a speech from a mosque in the Old City three years ago and that had covered parts of Iraq and Syria.The group is also retreating in Syria, mainly in the face of a US-backed, Kurdish-led coalition.

Its capital there, Raqqa, is being besieged. Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul and Raqqa to field commanders, to become effectively a fugitive focused on his own survival in the border area between Iraq and Syria. US air strikes have killed several commanders of the group over the past two years, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, a top military commander, chief propagandist Abu Mohammed al-Adani and Abu Ali al-

Iraqi government forces regained eastern Mosul in January, then a month later began the offensive on the side located west of the Tigris, which includes the Old City. The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in a speech from a mosque in the Old City three years ago and that had covered parts of Iraq and Syria.

The group is also retreating in Syria, mainly in the face of a US-backed, Kurdish-led coalition. Its capital there, Raqqa, is being besieged. Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul and Raqqa to field commanders, to become effectively a fugitive focused on his own survival in the border area between Iraq and Syria.US air strikes have killed several commanders of the group over the past two years, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, a top military commander, chief propagandist Abu Mohammed al-Adani and Abu Ali al-

The group is also retreating in Syria, mainly in the face of a US-backed, Kurdish-led coalition. Its capital there, Raqqa, is being besieged. Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul and Raqqa to field commanders, to become effectively a fugitive focused on his own survival in the border area between Iraq and Syria.

US air strikes have killed several commanders of the group over the past two years, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, a top military commander, chief propagandist Abu Mohammed al-Adani and Abu Ali al-Anbari, the former top civilian administrator.

About 200,000 people were estimated to be trapped behind Islamic State lines in Mosul in May, but the number has declined as government forces have thrust further into the city.About 850,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of the northern Iraqi city, have fled, seeking refuge with friends and relatives or in camps, according to aid groups.
London: A 21-year-old Pakistan-origin Muslim man in the UK was allegedly hurled with racial slurs by a woman while walking down a road after breaking his Ramazan fast, according to media reports.

The woman was sitting in a doorway in Huddersfield, a large market town in West Yorkshire, England, when she began swearing at the man on Friday.

"Do you wanna know why I'm being racist? In my own country? Because it's your race that's blowing up our f***ing nation," the woman yelled.

She then screamed: "What are you going to do? I'll s*** in your face..." Her outrageous outburst was targeted at the man walking down Kirkgate after breaking fast for Ramazan when the woman began her unprovoked tirade of abuse, The Sun reported.

The victim, who did not want to be named, took out his phone to record her slurs.

The woman's face has not been blurred so people can help identify her. The man said he did not provoke the woman in any way.

"I was minding my own business. She just started having a go at me. I asked her what her problem was and she just carried on. I could tell she had a bit to drink but there is no excuse for it," he said.

"I am a 21-year-old British-Pakistani born and raised in Huddersfield, and I have never been in this situation before. After this I seriously don't feel safe in my own country," he added.

The victim has reported the incident to the police. A representative for West Yorkshire Police said that a hate crime has been recorded and enquiries are ongoing.
Vatican City: The Pope and the Chancellor of Germany met at the Vatican to discuss issues such as multilateral relations, the importance of Africa and the Paris Climate Accord.

Pope Francis I and Angela Merkel on Saturday held a 38-minute talk in which they discussed the need for a multilateral world without walls and the importance of the African continent due to its proximity to Europe, Efe News reported.

According to Merkel, they also broached subjects such as the protection of the environment and the Paris agreement, while lamenting United States President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the pact.

The German Chancellor stressed that the Pontiff completely agreed with her on these issues.

In addition, the two dignitaries exchanged views on the defence of international treaties and the upcoming G20 summit that is set to be hosted by the northwestern German city of Hamburg on 7-8 July.

Merkel, who arrived at the Vatican accompanied by her spouse Joachim Sauer, was received by the prefect of the Papal Household, German Archbishop Georg Ganswein.

They were then welcomed by the Pope at the private library of the Apostolic Palace.

Merkel, whose father was a Lutheran pastor, had officially met the pope on six previous occasions, while Saturday's talks constituted her fourth private audience with the current head of the Catholic Church.

Francis expressed his condolences over the death of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who passed away on Friday at the age of 87.
Vatican City: Pope Francis is calling for the faithful to not only welcome refugees, but to personally learn from their stories as a way to curb fears and "distorted" ideologies about them.

Francis made the appeal Sunday as he marked the UN's World Day of Refugees, which will be celebrated on Tuesday.

Speaking from his studio overlooking St Peter's Square, Francis prayed for all those who have lost their lives fleeing war and persecution. He said their stories of pain and hope are actually an opportunity for reciprocal understanding.

He said: "In reality, personal meetings with refugees can dissolve fears and distorted ideologies and become paths for growth in humanity."

Francis' four-year papacy has been marked by his profound solidarity with refugees and demand that countries build bridges of welcome, not walls.
Bucharest: Romania's ruling party submitted a no-confidence vote against its own government on Sunday after it withdrew its support for the prime minister.

Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu has refused to quit, sparking a political crisis.

Mihai Fifor, a Senator of the center-left Social Democratic Party read out the motion against Grindeanu, who is accused of not implementing the party's program. Parliament will vote Wednesday on whether to dismiss the government.

The motion accuses Grindeanu of "contempt for democratic rules... immaturity and political irresponsibility." Grindeanu, in office since January, denies that he has underperformed. He claims the powerful party chairman, Liviu Dragnea, who can't be prime minister because of a conviction in 2016 for vote rigging, wants to install a party loyalist as premier.

Ex-Prime Minister Victor Ponta, an ally of the prime minister, has called for talks with Dragnea to resolve the crisis. He has described the no-confidence vote as "an atomic war between the Social Democrats and the Social Democrats."

Ponta said the party in-fighting would only benefit President Klaus Iohannis, a political rival, who has the power to nominate a premier who is then approved by Parliament.

The Social Democrats and their political allies need 233 votes out of a total of 465 seats to remove the government.
Moscow: The Russian Air forces eliminated two top Islamic State field commanders and some 180 terrorists during airstrikes in Syria in early June, the Russian defence ministry said.

Based on disclosures by their unmanned aerial vehicles, the Russian troops in Syria carried out strikes on Islamic State militants and thwarted the terrorist group's planned sortie against the defence lines of the Syrian government forces in Deir ez-Zor, Xinhua cited a statement of the ministry on Saturday.

"The preemptive airstrikes, which the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out on the sites of Islamic State facilities on 6 June and 8 June, killed Islamic State field commanders Abu Omar al-Baljiki and Abu Yassin al-Masri".

In addition, a total of 180 IS militants were also killed, and 16 automotive and armored vehicles and tanks, one artillery, four control posts and an ammunition storage depot were destroyed as a result of the strikes, Russia's Interfax news agency cited the ministry's statement as saying.

The defense ministry said on Friday that an airstrike it carried out in northern Syria on 28 May might have killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. So far, no official confirmation of it has been released.
Moscow: Russia's foreign ministry on Sunday said it regretted US president Donald Trump's policy reversal on Cuba, calling it reminiscent of the Cold War era.

"The new line towards Cuba announced by US president Donald Trump takes us back to already half-forgotten rhetoric in the style of the Cold War," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Trump vowed Friday to overhaul his predecessor Barack Obama's deal to restore ties with Cuba, promising instead to support the Cuban people against Raul Castro's government.

Moscow said Trump's policy changes showed that "anti-Cuban discourse is still widely in demand. This cannot but cause regret."

It said that easing of sanctions under Obama was a "well-thought-out political decision in which there were no losers except marginal Castro opponents."

Russia said it was reaffirming its "unshakeable solidarity with Cuba."

Cuban president Raul Castro visited Russia in 2015 while President Vladimir Putin visited the island on a tour of Latin America in 2014, meeting both the president and the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who died last year.
Washington: A 33-year-old Sikh convert was handcuffed and arrested in the United States for carrying a kirpan after a customer at a grocery store called the police.

Harpreet Singh Khalsa, who was born as Justin Smith, has worn the ceremonial knife known as a kirpan every day since he converted to Sikhism nine years ago.

Khalsa, who owns a catering business, was quoted by The Baltimore Sun as saying that he has been stopped multiple times by police, and was arrested again last week outside a grocery store in Catonsville, Maryland, after a customer called the police.

Khalsa said he explained to the officers that the knife is part of his religion, but they frisked him, took the kirpan, placed him in handcuffs and drove him to the local precinct.

Khalsa was later released without charges after police "confirmed that the knife was a kirpan and part of his religion, and not a threat to the community," Baltimore County officer Jennifer Peach was quoted as saying.

"The officer did follow all Maryland and county laws properly in this incident. There is no known exception to the deadly weapons laws at this time," Peach said.

She said the department is providing education and guidance to its officers about Sikhs and their culture.

"This incident clearly illustrates that this is an increasingly diverse county, and BCoPD (Baltimore County Police Department) works hard to understand and respect the many cultures that call Baltimore County home," Peach said.

Stressing on the importance of the kirpan, Khalsa said, "We don't consider it a knife, but a visual reminder to stand up for justice."

"The kirpan obligates a Sikh to the ideals of generosity, compassion and service to humanity," Harsimran Kaur, legal director of the New York-based Sikh Coalition, was quoted as saying.

"It acts as a reminder to its bearer of a Sikh's solemn duty to protect others and promote justice for all," she said.

Khalsa said he was shopping on Monday when police approached him, walked him out of the store and took his kirpan.

Rachel Bereson Lachow, a witness to the incident, captured the arrest on video and posted it on her Facebook page. The 54-second video has been shared 1.6 million times and received hundreds of comments.

Lachow said she watched Khalsa leave the store with police. She said the officers told him to keep his hands away from the knife until they removed it from him.

Lachow said Khalsa continued to tell the officers he was a Sikh and showed the officers his five articles of faith. Lachow said she hopes the video will raise awareness.
Gardez, Afghanistan: Dozens of people were killed or wounded when as many as five suicide bombers attacked a police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said.

The attack, claimed by the Taliban, began around 6.30 am (0200 GMT) when one bomber detonated a car packed with explosives at the gate of the police headquarters in Gardez city, capital of Paktia province, said Najib Danish, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

Four more attackers stormed the gate after the blast, with at least two quickly killed by police. The others held out against Afghan special forces that had responded to the attack, he said.

Danish put the toll at two police killed and five wounded.

However, doctors at the city hospital said they had received the bodies of at least five police personnel, as well as at least 30 wounded people, including 20 civilians.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid reporting more than 100 police personnel were killed and wounded. The Islamist group often exaggerates casualty numbers in attacks against government targets and security forces.

Insurgent groups like the Taliban and Islamic State have launched a string of attacks across Afghanistan in recent weeks.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a mosque in Kabul on Thursday.

A massive truck bombing and later suicide attacks left hundreds dead and wounded at the end of May and beginning of June, raising political tensions for the Afghan government, which is struggling to combat rising violence and corruption.

Thousands of international troops remain in the country to train and assist Afghan security forces as well as carry out counterterrorism missions.

American defence officials say in coming weeks they will decide whether to send between 3,000 to 5,000 more troops as requested by military commanders.
Yokosuka: Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has sent a sympathy message to United States president Donald Trump over the fatal collision involving an American navy destroyer.

Seven United States sailors went missing after the USS Fitzgerald collided with a Philippine-flagged container ship early Saturday off Japan's coast. Several of their bodies were found inside the ship's flooded compartment on Sunday.

Abe said in his message to Trump on Sunday, "We are struck by deep sorrow," expressing condolences and sympathy "straight from my heart" to the victims and the injured.

Abe wrote, "I express my heartfelt solidarity to America at this difficult time," praising United States servicemen in Japan under the allies' bilateral security pact.
Vatican: Excommunication could be on the cards for mobsters and the corrupt following an international debate hosted by the Vatican, Italian media said Sunday.

Some 50 dignitaries, including several ambassadors to the Holy See, magistrates and police representatives attended the "International Debate on Corruption" to address means of tackling the issue.

The group agreed in a closing statement on the importance of deepening international cooperation to stem corruption.

The Vatican said it was time to put excommunication on the table as a legal sanction for "corruption and mafia association".

Excommunication is a severe punishment in Catholic doctrine, in that it excludes those sanctioned from holy communion sacraments.

Pope Francis has already been active in the fight against corruption. In 2014, he visited the 'Ndrangheta, mafia's southern heartland, and warned excommunication awaited anyone who followed the criminal path.

There have been cases of local bishops excommunicating mobsters in Sicily or Campania, around Naples, the fiefdom of the Camorra  but to date, there is no actual legal framework surrounding the sanction.

"We asked ourselves why the rest of Italy and the world should not have the same rules," said Monsignor Michele Pennisi, archbishop of Monreale in Sicily and a member of the working group.

"The (expert) group raised the problems of Colombian and Mexican drug traffickers  so we need a 'penal decree', a formal legal act at the national and global level," he told La Stampa daily.

Federico Cafiero de Raho, Prosecutor General at Reggio di Calabria, capital of the Calabria region, told the same paper that raising the possibility of formally introducing the sanction of excommunication sends out "a very important signal" given "the Church holds great sway here."

Relations between the Church and organised crime have been seen to be intertwined to a degree, for example with mafia sponsorship of religious processions.
From the perspective of the food industry and the business community generally, the Trump administrations withdrawal from The Paris Agreement on climate change is a significant disappointment, undercutting efforts by U.S.-based companies to establish their businesses as good stewards of the environment and leaders in the development of effective strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While the setback from the Trump administration is unfortunate, it does not mean food industry leaders should alter ongoing efforts.



For food and agriculture, the challenges presented by climate change are particularly acute. Climate change scenarios run through the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Integrated Global System Modeling framework, which accounts for key sources of uncertainty and incorporates five climate indices, including accumulated frost days, dry days, growing season length, plant heat stress and start of field operations, show the potential effects of climate change on agriculture in the United States by 2100.



Under a scenario in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the model projects the United States will experience fewer frosts, a longer growing season, more heat stress and an earlier start of eld operations by the end of the century. When greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies  those aimed at capping the rise in global mean surface temperature between pre-industrial times and 2100 at 2 degrees Celsius, the other targeting a 2.5 degrees Celsius cap  were applied, projected changes in four out of the five indices were reduced by half. This modeling suggests greenhouse gas emission reduction efforts may blunt the effects of climate change  both adverse ones, such as increased heat stress, and beneficial ones, such as a longer growing season, according to the MIT researchers.

For food and agriculture, the challenges presented by climate change are particularly acute.

Within the food and beverage supply chain, a focus on better waste management practices in animal agriculture or committing to reducing deforestation are both efforts that may mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Shortly after President Donald Trump announced the United States would be withdrawing from The Paris Agreement, numerous industry leaders stepped forward to express their companies commitments to addressing climate change. Irene Rosenfeld, chairman and chief executive officer of Mondelez International, reaffirmed her companys commitment to continuing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To date, Mondelez International has reduced CO2 emissions from its plants by 7 per cent since 2013 and is on track to achieve its 2020 goal: a 15 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions.

David MacLennan, chairman and c.e.o. of Cargill, made a similar statement noting,  We have no intention of backing away from our efforts to address climate change in the food and agriculture supply chains around the world, and in fact this will inspire us to work even harder. Caring about sustainability of the planet is not only the right thing to do for people and the environment, it is also good business.

One hopes these high-profile expressions of support to continue focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be the norm rather than the exception throughout food and beverage. Climate change affects all industries, but agriculture, food and beverage stand as some of the most vulnerable, making it imperative that industry commitment to addressing climate change continue and expand.
Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday President Trumps policy changes on Americas relationship with Cuba were very appropriate, and explained why the U.S. needs to take a tougher stance when it comes to dealing with the communist country.

I dont understand how anyone could argue that we should not have a policy that enriches the Cuban people instead of the Cuban military, Rubio, R-Fla., told Maria Bartiromo during an interview on Sunday Morning Futures.

During a speech in Miami on Friday, President Trump said his administration would be stricter on American tourism to the Caribbean island and that the embargo, in place since 1958, would continue to be enforced. Trump also stressed the importance of making sure investments would flow directly to the people in an effort to promote private Cuban businesses.

Rubio, who helped craft the presidents policy, criticized the Obama administration, which restored diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2015, saying it allowed too many concessions, in turn hurting Cuban citizens while benefitting the countrys military.

Those concessions have allowed the Cuban military, which controls upwards of 50-60 percent of their economy, to enrich itself and to tighten its grip through a monopoly that they control. And were reversing that, the president is reversing that, the Florida senator said.

Under the new policy, which is not a total shift from Obamas, airlines and cruise lines will still be able to travel to Cuba, though it will be more closely monitored. American (NASDAQ:AAL), Delta (NYSE:DAL), JetBlue (NASDQ:JBLU), Southwest (NYSE:LUV), United (NYSE:UAL) and Alaska Airlines (NYSE:ALK) are the U.S. carriers currently offering flights to Cuba.

I would much rather have American Airlines flying people into Cuba on regular flights than have them chartering their planes to a company thats a pro-Castro operating in the United States of America, Rubio said.

As previously reported by FOX Business, at least one non-profit group said that rolling back travel expansions would hurt U.S. airlines that have flights to the island.

Both Rubio and Trump praised each other on Friday, despite fierce rhetoric directed at each other during the race for the GOP nomination, where Trump called the Florida senator little Marco.

This whole relationship thing is overblown. He was a competitor of mine out of 17 people that ran for President, Rubio said. President Trumps success is Americas success  of course I want the president to be successful.
Since the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany concluded their nuclear negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, several Iranian ballistic missile tests have been carried out. It is one of several facts that leaves no doubt about the persistence of defiant attitudes and threats to the international community coming out of the Iranian regime.

Even though such tests are plain violations of a UN Security Council resolution that accompanied implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the global media and the nations of Europe have given unfortunately little attention to the issue. Under the previous administration, the White House downplayed such activities, which are obvious violations of the spirit of the closely-guarded JCPOA. Washingtons apparent dismissiveness also set the tone for the responses of European officials.

President Donald Trump is, rightly, developing an assertive policy toward the Islamic Republic. This includes a sharper focus on illicit ballistic missile tests. When the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) conducted another such test in the immediate aftermath of Trumps inauguration, his administration responded by putting the Islamic Republic on notice over its destabilizing activities in the region. More recently, the White House has moved to new sanctions on the ballistic missile program. The U.S. Senate voted almost unanimously Friday to impose new sanctions on Iran (and Russia) for its missile program among other activities.

The modest limits imposed on the Iranian nuclear program will be worthless if the Islamic Republic emerges from the nuclear agreement with improved delivery systems which - being capable of reaching the whole of Europe - would constitute an immediate threat for European security and peace.

The European governments must quickly follow suit. The EU and the global media have been slow to adapt to the new geopolitical reality, and Tehran remains barely deterred from its brazenness. As a result the world paid little attention late in May when the IRGC announced that it had completed work on a third underground facility for the production of ballistic missiles.

The modest limits imposed on the Iranian nuclear program will be worthless if the Islamic Republic emerges from the nuclear agreement with improved delivery systems which - being capable of reaching the whole of Europe - would constitute an immediate threat for European security and peace. Already, Irans illicit tests demonstrate the capability of hitting Israel and Western assets throughout the Arab world. It is little wonder, then, that Israel, Saudi Arabia and others expressed mutual anxiety about the growth of Iranian power and influence on the occasion of President Trumps recent visit to the region.

The EU has remained reluctant and hesitant about standing up to Irans destabilizing behavior and disregard for international rules. This has much to do with a false narrative and the political environment encouraged by the JCPOA. European leaders and businesses are ill-advisedly rushing  at their own risk - to gain access to Iranian oil and market. The IRGC currently controls more than half of the Iranian gross domestic product: it is nearly impossible to invest in the Islamic Republic without financing directly or indirectly the nuclear-capable missile program, as well as terrorist organizations and Iranian military interventions and ethnic cleansing in the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars.

The multiple functions of the IRGC also call attention to the fact that Iranian missile development does not exist in isolation. It has an impact on the types of capabilities that Iran is able to share with other entities which pose significant threats on their own. It is thanks to Iranian missiles that the Houthi rebels in Yemen have been able to penetrate deep into Saudi Arabian territory and target Western vessels around the Arabian Peninsula. The Islamic Republic also has a record of arming Lebanese Hezbollah, their proxies in Iraq and Syria, and Palestinian terrorist organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad which Tehran directly controls.

The White House is engaging in a more assertive policy vis-a-vis Iran. European policymakers and public opinion must do their part. They should exert pressure on the EU and its national governments before their laxity leads to Iran taking a central role in a much larger crisis. They should look to the Iranian people and the expatriate community. They need to firmly support the forces of a truly democratic opposition, the values of freedom and human dignity those forces are striving for, and their fight against the clerical regime.

This message will be emphasized on July 1 in Paris, when the National Council of Resistance of Iran holds its Iran Freedom rally, with the participation of tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates, hundreds of high-profile figures from political, academic, and military backgrounds, and intelligence personalities from Europe, the United States, and many other countries. As on previous occasions - and even more now in an increasingly unstable Iranian environment - millions of Iranians will follow the event via satellite, taking personal risks, as a clear indication that the Iranian people support the NCRI and the measures the Council suggests. This, too, is a clear message that Europeans must recognize as a key reference in shaping their foreign policy.

The Iranian regime's longest-suffering victims are its own people, President Trump said during his May visit to Saudi Arabia. Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations of conscience must work together to isolate Iran, deny it funding for terrorism. But terrorism is not the only issue. The regimes weapons development must be severely constrained. And European nations need to get on board.
Thank God Capitol Police were on scene when the deranged man began his shooting spree aimed at GOP congressmen and senators. It's clear the courageous police officers on the scene prevented a tragedy of epic proportions. Those GOP members of Congress were sitting ducks. Without brave police there, wiling to lay down their lives in the line of duty, it would have been a massacre.

But this was no anomaly. The police protect and serve every day, in every corner of our country.

Take my hometown of Las Vegas.

Last weekend, Vegas was home to one of the great positive stories in the media this year. It was Saturday's graduation of Las Vegas high school senior Daxton Alyn Beck, the son of slain Las Vegas police officer Alyn Beck.

I could not read that story without crying. Tears were flowing from this macho Republican businessman who never cries. I was taught by my wonderful dad David Root- a real mans man- that men dont cry. Well I broke his rule on Sunday when I read the story of Daxton Alyn Beck. My tears were tears of both sadness and joy.

I cant help it. I love the police. I was raised to love and respect cops. To me, cops are Americas biggest heroes. They run towards the sound of gunfire. They drive towards reports of violence. If tomorrow they heard there was a terror attack in progress on the famous Vegas Strip, every cop on Metro would be speeding towards the scene.

Do you appreciate how remarkable that reaction is?

Cops are willing to die to keep you and me safe - even if they dont know you and me. Cops get up every morning, eat breakfast, kiss their spouse and kids goodbye, and then head off to work - but unlike the rest of us, they dont know if theyll ever come home again, if theyll ever see their family again. They do this to keep us safe, so we can get home to see our families. That my friends, is the definition of heroism.

Thats why they call them The Thin Blue Line. Because a few hundred cops in each city are the only thing standing between the good, honest, law-abiding citizens, taxpayers, homeowners and business ownersand robbery, murder, mayhem, anarchy, and rioting. These brave men and women in blue are our last line of defense.

I cant help thinking this way. I am a S.O.B.- son of a butcher. My dad was a patriotic, conservative butcher and Navy veteran from Brownville, Brooklyn. There werent too many Jewish cops in those days. But my Uncle and Godfather Alvin Root was a Jewish police detective in Brooklyn, New York. I idolized Uncle Alvin.

I grew up in a typical rough, ethnic New York neighborhood. My next-door neighbor was Tom Lennox, a tough Irish cop in the Bronx. He became like my second father. He actually took me out on patrol, to see him on the job on the rough streets of the Bronx. Tom the Irish cop and my Uncle Alvin the Jewish cop were my boyhood heroes.

I cant even imagine waking up one day to hear they were never coming home. I cant imagine a little boy hearing his dad and hero is never coming home again.

Daxton Alyn Beck had to hear that news. His dad and his Vegas police partner Igor Soldo were assassinated in cold blood three years ago. It was a dark day in Vegas history. I cried that day too. I shed tears every time I hear a cop is killed. I can't help it - I wear blue on my sleeves.

But last Saturday here in Vegas was a great day. Because Daxton Alyn Beck didnt graduate high school without his dad Alyn. I know Alyn was looking down from heaven. But Daxton also had 150 surrogate dads there - 150 Las Vegas Metro cops showed up at Daxtons graduation as stand-in dads.

The entire Vegas police department is now Daxtons extended family. They pledged to be there for all the important moments in his life - his college graduation, his wedding, the birth of his first child. That's the strength of the police bond.

What a great story. What heroes these Vegas cops are. I dont care how macho you are - if that story doesnt make you cry, you have no heart.

Now you know why I love cops. Now you know why I will always stand behind the police.

Thank you, Daxton for your familys and your fathers sacrifice to our community. Your dad will forever be in our hearts. But Im so thrilled to hear you have 150 stand in dads.

Just like Vegas police officer Alan Beck, those Capitol Policemen and Policewomen were willing to sacrifice their own lives to protect those GOP Congressmen and Senators. That takes quite a hero. We should all be thankful we have people like that in our communities.

God bless the Thin Blue Line.
Terrorism is among the most repugnant of human atrocities, and sadly as society progresses, its specter does not seem to wane. The passing this week at 93 of Patricia Knatchbull, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, who lost both a father and a son in a 1979 terrorist explosion, serves as a reminder of the staggering toll that evil can inflict. But from her life and example we can take inspiration about coping with grief and moving forward even after having been touched by inexplicable evil.

On August 27, 1979, IRA terrorists assassinated Lord Louis Mountbatten and his grandson Nicholas (Patricias son), as well as two others, by exploding a bomb aboard his familys motor launch at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland. Other passengers, including Patricia, were wounded in the violence. The very same day, this evil group exploded bombs elsewhere that killed 18 British paratroopers in Northern Ireland. The slaying of Lord Mountbatten as well as so many British military was a catalyst for Margaret Thatchers government to take a courageous and hard-line stance against the terrorist IRA.

A naval commander, decorated war hero, and a senior member of the Royal family who acted as an advisor to Her Majesty, his second cousin, it was actually Lord Louis who introduced his nephew, Prince Phillip, to the woman who would become the British Monarch. Mountbattens loss was both symbolic for the nation, and personal for those who loved and respected him.

One member of the Royal Family who particularly felt Mountbattens loss was Prince Charles who thought of him as combined grand-father, great uncle, father, brother and friend Life will never be the same now that he has gone 

Baroness Thatcher, then-UK Prime Minister, eulogized Mountbatten as follows: Our country has suffered a great loss. Lord Mountbatten's service to Great Britain spans three reigns and two world wars. His life ran like a golden thread of inspiration and service through the history of our country in this century. He was one of our greatest commanders and a great seaman.

Later Thatcher would eloquently express her condemnation of the murders of Mountbatten and the British service members and resolve to address the scourge of terrorism that her contemporary successors would be to well to emulate: The Government will spare no effort to ensure that those responsible for these and for all other acts of terrorism are brought to justice. The people of the United Kingdom will wage the war against terrorism with relentless determination until it is won.

For her part, Baroness Mountbatten expressed the sorrow of having lost her esteemed father and beloved son, Nicholas: I was so overwhelmed by grief for Nicky, who was just on the threshold of his life, that I began to feel guilty that I was not able to grieve for my father, whom I really adored, in the same way,

The human spirit is a marvelous thing when one considers that her grief pushed her, a prominent figure in society, to give back by serving as patron of several charities for the bereaved.

Moreover, just as the beloved Pope John Paul II was able to forgive his would-be assassin in 1981, Lady Mountbatten was able to feel forgiveness for the savage crimes against her family. In response to a controversial 2012 meeting between Queen Elizabeth and IRA operative, Martin McGuinness, Lady Patricia commented: She was absolutely right to do that. I very much approve of anything that will bring about peace.

In the wake of the unfathomable violence visited upon New York, Orlando, London, Manchester, Paris, Nice, and too many other places around the world, we would do well to turn to Countess Mountbattens reflections upon coping with loss to provide wisdom: There are many stages of grief and it is a great help to be in contact with others who have experienced the same thing because you don't have to explain anything. They understand."

If you are bitter, she continued, it consumes you, your family and the people round you. It is corrosive. It destroys your normal life. If my father had survived he would have felt the same.  You never get over it, in the sense that you never forget. But you learn to live with it. You have to accept what's happened and make the best you can.

Talk about stiff upper lip! Rest in Peace Lady Patricia.
Senate Republicans must make significant headway this week on efforts to repeal ObamaCare before their self-imposed July 4 deadline -- as Democrats plot ways to grind the chambers daily business to a halt to protest the GOP plan and closed-door process.

Doing this behind closed doors is actually not what we did, said Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a member of the Democratic Party that in 2009 passed ObamaCare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats are upset that the GOP replacement bill is being drafted by 13 Republican senators and that leaders of the GOP-controlled Senate wont allow Democrats to participate in the process.

The GOP-House passed its repeal bill in May. And the Senate intends to pass its version without a single Democratic vote -- by using a parliamentary process known as budget reconciliation.

How far Senate Democrats will go to slow the chambers day-to-day business, particularly hearings, remains unclear. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other members of his leadership team have declined to talk to Fox News about such plans.

However, Fox has confirmed that they intend to at least slow the process with extended speeches on the chamber floor, as first reported by Politico.

The pressure is on Republicans to repeal or at least fix ObamaCare.

President Trump and essentially every congressional Republican campaigned on a promise to replace the 2010 health care law, struggling under increasing premium costs while offering Americans fewer policy choices.

Republicans need 51 votes to pass the legislation and put the bill on Trumps desk to sign.

However, they have only 52 senators, with several expressing concerns -- particularly those in poorer states -- about supporting a bill that could increase premium costs for tens-of-millions of Americans, as the House bill is projected to do.

Among them is Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul, who last week raised the issue of the emerging Senate bill including new entitlement, like the House version, according to The Hill newspaper. One is a refundable tax credit to help Americans pay for their premiums. And the other is a so-called stabilization fund that would lower the cost of premiums.

Trump celebrated the House passing its version. And he appears encouraged by the Senates progress.

However, during a meeting with senators last week the president reportedly called the House version mean and suggested the upper chamber add more money to the bill, apparently to lower premium costs and cover more people.

But the Senate must also craft a bill that saves $113 billion to pass the measure by a simple majority, which gives them little room for such improvements.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday he thinks that there is evidence of collusion and obstruction in the panel's Russia investigation.

I think there is evidence of collusion, Schiff told ABCs This Week. I can't go into the particulars of our closed investigation. But I also think there is also evidence of obstruction.

President Trump has repeatedly denounced investigations by the FBI and Congress into whether his campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 White House race.

This week, the president tweeted that the FBI investigation is a witch hunt that is shifting focus from his agenda.

I'm not prepared to say that there's proof you could take to a jury, Schiff said Sunday. But I can say that there is enough that we ought to be investigating.

A Washington Post story last week, based on anonymous sources, suggested that the FBIs probe now includes whether Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey.

The president has not been notified by anyone that he is under investigation, Jay Sekulow, a member of Trump's legal team, told Fox News Sunday.

Comey had also previously told Trump and Congress that the president is not the focus of the FBIs Russia investigation.

The Posts story comes amid growing criticism about Robert Mueller, who leads the FBIs special counsel, and his decision to select three members to the counsel who made previous donations to top Democrats.

The reality is that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle find Mr. Mueller to be a man of incredible integrity and courage who served his country with bravery in Vietnam, who served presidents of both parties, and it's going to take a lot more than a few presidential tweets, or Newt Gingrich, to try to smear this very good man, Schiff said.

Some of Trumps allies have called for the firing of Mueller. And people close to the president have said that he is considering it, though Republicans and Democrats alike have urged against doing so.

The president wants to take down Bob Mueller, Schiff said. His lawyer wants to take down Bob Mueller, and the question is why?

He also told ABC News that he believes that president is targeting Mueller to discredit the findings of his investigation.

The investigation continues for a good reason, Schiff said.
Jay Sekulow, a member of President Trumps legal team, said Sunday he has no knowledge of the president being the target of a federal probe, following Trump's recent statement suggesting that he is being investigated.

The president has not been notified by anyone that he is under investigation, Sekulow told Fox News Sunday, in a heated exchange with host Chris Wallace about whether Trump could be under investigation without knowing.

You dont know that he's not under investigation, Wallace said.

Sekulow responded: I cant read minds.

Sekulow also said that Trumps tweet that led people to believe he was under investigation was in response to a Washington Post story in which unnamed sources said the president was being investigated.

The FBI and two congressional panels are investigating whether the Trump campaign or presidential transition team colluded with Russia during or after the 2016 White House race.

Before Trump fired James Comey as the FBI director, Comey told the president he was not a target in the agency investigation. The Post story suggests the FBI probe, now being led by special counsel Robert Mueller, includes whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey.

Nothing has changed since Comey said the president is not a target, Sekulow also said Sunday.

Sekulow said Trump has never accused Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein of doing anything wrong, and has expressed no opinion about him.

'Nothing has changed since Comey said the president is not a target.'  Jay Sekulow, Trump attorney

Rosenstein wrote a letter that seemed to support Trump firing Comey.

He told Congress last week that he would not fire Mueller without good cause, amid speculation Trump wanted to get rid of Mueller.

He also said he couldn't say whether Trump has discussed Mueller, citing attorney-client privileges.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a tough-on-crime conservative Democrat, will not accept a post with the Department of Homeland Security.

It had been announced last month that he was taking a job as assistant secretary in DHSs Office of Public Engagement. He was to serve as a liaison between DHS and local and state law enforcement agencies, according to The Daily Caller.

Clarkes advisor, Craig J. Peterson, said in a statement, Sheriff Clarke is 100% committed to the success of President Trump, and believes his skills could be better utilized to promote the President's agenda in a more aggressive role.

Peterson added, Last Tuesday Sheriff Clarke met with President Trump and discussed other roles where the Sheriff could be of greater assistance to the President, and the Country. The Sheriff is reviewing options inside and outside of government.

Clarke, who built a following among conservatives with his provocative social media presence, was a vocal supporter of Trump during his 2016 campaign. According to The Washington Post, he has been accused of plagiarism for his masters thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School, and he has drawn scrutiny for conditions in his jails that left one mentally ill inmate dead who prosecutors say was deprived of water as punishment.
Legality is a construct of the powerful  and black Americans are worried how laws and rights of the land affect how minorities are treated by police and society.

Acknowledging that they have a weapon, they said, can open them up to violence from police, who can then claim they feared for their lives simply because of the presence of a gun, even a legal one.

Philando Castile was fatally shot by Officer Jeronimo Yanez July 6 in a St. Paul suburb seconds after he told the officer he was armed. Yanez, who is Latino, was acquitted Friday of manslaughter and two lesser charges.

During the stop, Castile volunteered, "Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me."

Yanez told Castile, "OK, don't reach for it then" and "Don't pull it out."

OFFICER YANEZ ACQUITTED OF MANSLAUGHTER, DISMISSED FROM POLICE FORCE

On the squad-car video, Castile can be heard saying, "I'm not pulling it out," as Yanez opened fire. Prosecutors said Castile's last words were, "I wasn't reaching for it."

The verdict "tells African-Americans across the country that they can be killed by police officers with impunity, even when they are following the law," said Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana Democrat who is chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The verdict also tells blacks that "the Second Amendment does not apply to them" because Castile "was honest with the officer about having a weapon in the car, and there is no evidence that he attempted to or intended to use the weapon against the officer," the Louisiana Democrat said.

Licensed gun owner and open-carry advocate Rick Ector of Detroit said stereotypes can cloud the minds of some officers when dealing with black gun owners. Officers may have had previous encounters with people carrying guns illegally  especially young black men. And that experience can carry over, Ector said.

CASTILE TRIAL HAD VIDEO EVIDENCE, BUT NOT OF KEY SECONDS

Once they find out that a black American has a gun permit, "they are not necessarily going to relax, but they now have an idea about your character," Ector said.

Phillip Smith, head of the National African American Gun Association, said police need additional training to remind them that Second Amendment rights apply to black gun owners as much as anyone else.

Like several similar cases, Castile's death was shared worldwide on social media. His girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, livestreamed the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook because, she said, she wanted to make sure the truth was known.

But videos of black people dying at the hands of police have led to few convictions.

"I'm sure people of color are going to say, and rightfully so, what is the burden of proof for an officer to be" convicted? asked Dwayne Crawford, the executive director of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

Only one police officer in recent publicized cases is facing jail time.

South Carolina officer Michael Slager, who is white, shot black motorist Walter Scott in the back as he fled from a traffic stop. Slager pleaded guilty in May to a federal charge of violating Scott's civil rights, and a judge will determine his sentence, which could range from probation to life in prison without parole.

Scott's shooting in April 2015 was captured on cellphone video seen worldwide. It contradicted Slager's original statement that Scott had attempted to grab his Taser.

"This was a clear-cut case of unnecessary, fatal police violence," said Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color Of Change. "District attorneys around the country, from Tulsa to Cleveland to now St. Paul, must be held accountable for their failures to secure justice for victims of police violence."
Police say they killed a woman and wounded a man who drove at them in separate incidents this weekend in Northern and Southern California.

One of the shootings closed the eastbound lanes of San Franciscos Bay Bridge for hours early Sunday, according to reports.

Highway patrol officers were investigating a multi-car crash on the bridge when a red Cadillac drove toward officers for unknown reasons, KTVU reported.

It came up the right shoulder, and they saw it coming at them, California Highway Patrol Officer Vu Williams said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. They gave the driver multiple commands to stop, but the driver kept coming. One of the officers felt threatened for his life and fired.

One bullet struck the driver and he was taken to the hospital.

His condition was unknown, KTVU reported.

Two passengers in the car were unharmed and were interviewed by investigators.

Police reopened all the bridges five eastbound lanes around 10 a.m. local time.

The woman who was killed had been drinking and arguing with her boyfriend Saturday in the city of Montebello in Los Angeles County.

Officers responded to a disturbance call at a motel parking lot after the woman hit the man and accused him of taking her purse.

The woman got in her car and drove out of the parking lot. Los Angeles County Sheriffs Deputy Kelvin Moody says she returned moments later and drove at a police officer and her boyfriend.

Moody says the officer opened fire, striking the woman. She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The woman was not immediately identified.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Eighteen people were injured after a high-speed ferry struck a jetty in Hyannisport, Mass., and began taking on water, authorities said.

The U.S. Coast Guard and steamship authority said the ferry Iyanough hit the jetty and grounded on the rocks at the Hyannis Harbor entrance around 10 p.m. Friday. It serves a 26-mile route between Nantucket and Hyannis.

The ferry is operated by the Woods Hole, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority, connecting the Massachusetts islands with the mainland. It can hold up to 400 people.

Steamship Authority general manager Wayne Lamson said Saturday it's still not clear what led to the crash and an investigation is underway. He said the seas were about 4 feet, and the captain and the pilot may have had difficulty with the entrance to Hyannis in the harbor channel.

The trip had been the last one of the night, Lamson said.

The authority had said in a statement that bad weather, strong winds and choppy seas are believed to have contributed to the grounding of the vessel.

There were 48 passengers, six crew members and three food service workers on board, according to the authority. Hyannis acting Fire Chief Dean Melanson said that a total of 18 people were injured. And of those, 15 people-- 13 passengers, one crew member and one food service worker --were taken to the hospital. The other three underwent evaluations that did not require them to be hospitalized.

Melanson said the injuries included bumps and bruises, and one person had an asthma attack. But none of the injuries are considered life-threatening.

A Cape Cod Hospital spokeswoman said the injured had been treated and released by noon Saturday.

Lamson said the ferry was removed early Saturday morning and is currently at the authority's dock in Hyannis. Temporary repairs are being made to the vessel.

The steamship authority has charted a vessel to fill in for the weekend and a different one for next week, Lamson said.
Its a debate engulfed with concern and emotion in California, as a number of criminal justice leaders and lawmakers  including Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey  work to revamp the states sex offender registry system.

As it stands, more than 105,000 people are listed as sex offenders in California; however, the state Senate recently approved a proposal that would allow the names of those who had committed non-violent or lower-level sex offenses to be expunged after one or two decades.

California is one of just four states in the country that mandates lifetime enrollment for sex offenders, joining Florida, Alabama and South Carolina. The existing law necessitates that those convicted provide addresses, employee names, fingerprints, license plate numbers and photos to the state Department of Justice after leaving prison, and such information -- with the exception of juvenile culprits and those found guilty of incest thus to protect related victims -- is available to the public on its website.

Offenders must re-register each year and extensively detail their movements and locations to comply with regulations that prohibit them from being near places such as schools and parks. Proponents of overhauling these laws claim that local authorities then have to spend disproportionate amounts of time processing paperwork on people who have long been free of any offenses or no longer pose a risk.

The states sex offender registry has lost significant value over time because it contains too many low-risk offenders with decades-old offenses, Lacey told the L.A Times, claiming that their new bill  Senate Bill 421  would improve public safety with a three-tiered system that would provide a greater focus on higher-level offenders.

Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who introduced the new proposal, told the L.A Times that the time spent on paperwork takes away from time that should be devoted to finding potential offenders, and those stuck on the lifetime registry face impediments to everything from employment to housing, which then often leads to mental illness and drug addiction. Moreover, some on the registry say they have been the target of brutal attacks given their information is publicly accessible.

The new three-tier proposal would consist of a first tier in which those deemed low-level offenders  convicted of crimes such as felony possession of child pornography with intent to distribute, misdemeanor sexual battery and indecent exposure  could potentially by wiped from the registry all together after ten years.

SEX OFFENDER ADMITS GROPING WOMAN ON INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT

SINGAPOREANS ANGRY AT 'TOO LENIENT' SENTENCE FOR AMERICAN CHILD SEX OFFENDER

The second tier  categorized by those convicted of forcible sodomy, rape and lewd engagement with a minor under 14  would enable possible removal after 20 years, following review and approval by prosecutors.

The third tier would hold the most serious sex offenders, such as those considered sexually violent predators. Those in this tier would still require lifetime registration.

Furthermore, the bill  which also has the support of groups like the American Civil Liberties Union of California, Equality California and the California Police Chiefs Association  would automatically delete the names of offenders in the one- and two-tier categories if their convictions are older than 30 years.

However, the proposed new changes to the system have also sparked widespread opposition. Republican Sen. Jeff Stone of Murrieta stressed that it remains crucial for residents to know if sex offenders, irrespective of how long ago the crime was committed, live nearby. Senators Josh Newman of Fullerton and Steve Glazer were the only two democrats to join eight Republicans in voting against the enactment.


Dozens of people were injured, some critically, after a second-story deck collapsed at a Montana lodge Saturday during a funeral, officials said.

Lake County Sheriff Don Bell told the Daily Inter Lake newspaper 32 people were hurt, 5 critically, after the deck collapsed at the Glacier Presbyterian Camp in Lake County, located about 100 miles north of Missoula.

First responders rushed adults and children to various medical facilities, while the critically injured were airlifted to hospitals.

Witnesses to the collapse told ABC FOX Montana one side of the deck was spongy, and that once it collapsed it was a domino effect.

Leslie Dillon, who told the Daily Inter Lake newspaper she was among about 50 people on the deck at the time of the collapse, said she walked away with some bruising. Dillon added many of her friends and relatives were taken away by ambulance.

The Somers/Lakeside Fire Department said the cause of the collapse is under investigation.

The crowd at the time was gathered on the deck to remember William Nickel, a longtime Flathead Valley firefighter who died in April.

Read more from The Daily Interlake.

Read more from ABC FOX Montana.

The Associated Press contribtued to this report.
Putnam County Sheriff now says he's confident the $130,000 reward offered for the capture of two escaped inmates will be paid out.

In a statement released Sunday, Sheriff Howard Sills explained why he initially said the reward would not be dispensed and why his decision had changed.

Ricky Dubose and Donnie Rowe were arrested Thursday evening in the rural community of Christiana, Tennessee, ending a three-day manhunt. The men are accused of killing Sgt. Christopher Monica and Sgt. Curtis Billue and escaping from a prison bus on state Highway 16 in Putnam County.

During a news conference Thursday, Sills said he announced the reward money would not be paid out after receiving incorrect information from Tennessee authorities, claiming the suspects surrendered to law enforcementwho are prohibited from receiving rewards.

However, Sills said he later learned that Rowe and Dubuse had not surrendered to deputies in Tennessee.

We are investigating and assessing the situation and if there were people who were in fact responsible for providing information which resulted in the arrests of the fugitives, there would be payments made accordingly, said Sills.

Patrick Hale is the man authorities are crediting with holding the two escapees until authorities arrived.

But authorities have not announced how and to whom the reward money will be dispersed.

Read more from FOX 5 Atlanta.
A treasure chest of gold and jewelry hidden in the rugged Southwest wilderness by an eccentric octogenarian author lured a Colorado pastor to New Mexico, where he has been reported missing.

The wife of Paris Wallace, the lead pastor of Connection Church in Grand Junction, reported him missing Wednesday.

New Mexico State police say they have been told that the 52-year-old man had come to Expanola in search of the treasure of Forrest Fenn.

Fenn, an eccentric author, announced that he hid a chest full of gold and jewels somewhere in the Rocky Mountains worth at least $1 million in 2010. Those who seek the alleged treasure say the clues are hidden in his writings.

Police searched for Wallace Saturday in an area where they found his vehicle.

SEARCH FOR SOUTHWEST TREASURE TO GO ON, AGREE HUNTER'S WIDOW, MYSTERIOUS MILLIONAIRE

Cops found a backpack in the Rio Grande downstream from a tributary, where a rope was found tied to a rock on the riverbank, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported Saturday.

Police believe the rope belonged to the pastor. A receipt found in his vehicle shows he recently bought rope.

Raging waters have prevented dives from accessing the other side of the river where the rope was located, the paper reported.

Wendell Smith told the paper that he belongs to a group interested in the Finn treasure and that Wallace was a friend. He said he never knew the pastor was interested in the treasure.

I never did talk about it with him, Smith said. I never told him. I dont talk about it casually, I only talk about it when I have to, he said. He never said anything to me about it. Hopefully, Ill get to talk to him soon about it.

Another Coloradan, Randy Bilyeu, disappeared while searching for the treasure in January 2016. His remains were found in the Rio Grande five months later.

About 65,000 treasure hunters have ventured into the New Mexico wilderness since Fenn released a poem titled, "The thrill of the chase: a memoir." and launched an international craze in 2010, Fox News reported in July.

The poem is said to contain nine cryptic clues and subsequent works have had maps that suggest the treasure has been hidden in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico or Utah.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Department of Homeland Security says Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke is no longer a candidate for a position in the agency.

The conservative firebrand said last month he was taking a job as an assistant secretary at the DHS, but the agency declined to confirm the appointment, saying it announces such senior appointments once the DHS secretary makes them official.

Craig Peterson, a political adviser to Clarke, said in a statement that the sheriff notified DHS Secretary John Kelly late Friday that he "had rescinded his acceptance of the agency's offer" to join the department. The Washington Post first reported on Clarke's decision.

The tough-talking Clarke, who is known for his provocative social media presence, is an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump. According to Peterson's statement, Clarke said he "is 100 percent committed" to Trump's success and that he "believes his skills could be better utilized to promote the President's agenda in a more aggressive role."

Clarke is "reviewing options inside and outside of government," the statement said.

A DHS spokesman said by email Sunday that Clarke is no longer being considered for a position within DHS.

Clarke has drawn a considerable amount of controversy as Milwaukee County sheriff.

He was hit by allegations last month that he plagiarized content in his master's thesis on homeland security, which he denied.

Seven workers at the county jail he oversees are at the center of a criminal investigation into the dehydration death last year of an inmate who prosecutors say was deprived of water as punishment. Clarke isn't among the seven staffers  prosecutors said he wasn't directly involved in the events that led to the death of 38-year-old Terrill Thomas  but the death happened under Clarke's leadership, which his critics say is enough cause for his firing.
North Korea claimed Sunday that U.S. officials forcibly seized a diplomatic package from one of their delegations at John F. Kennedy Airport, calling it an "illegal and heinous act of provocation."

The official Korean Central News Agency said officials were returning from a UN conference on rights of persons with disabilities Friday when they were "literally mugged."

"At the airport, a group of more than 20 including those who claimed to be from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the police officers made a violent assault like gangsters to take away the diplomatic package from the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) diplomats who were in possession of a valid diplomatic courier certificate," a spokesman for North Korea's foreign ministry told the news agency.

"As the diplomats vigorously resisted, they grabbed the diplomatic package using physical violence and made off," the North Korean spokesman said.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan said Sunday its officers did seize multiple media items and packages from three North Koreans who, according to the U.S. State Department, were not accredited members of North Korea's Mission to the U.N. and had no diplomatic immunity.

"The package in question had no diplomatic protection from inspection," said Lapan, adding that North Koreans attempted to physically retrieve the items but were prevented from doing so by DHS officers.

"The reported aggression was initiated by the North Koreans," Lapan said. "The individuals were released without further incident but subsequently refused to board their departing flight without the items that had been seized."

It wasn't immediately clear why the items were taken. The State Department in a statement confirmed the assertions by DHS that the package had no diplomatic protection and that the travelers weren't accredited North Korean diplomats at the U.N., but offered no other details.

The incident comes days after 22-year-old American college student Otto Warmbier was returned to his home state of Ohio in a coma with severe brain damage after being imprisoned in North Korea for 17 months.

North Korea claims the coma resulted from botulism and a sleeping pill, but U.S. doctors said they found no evidence of active botulism, a rare, serious illness caused by contaminated food or a dirty wound.
Seven American soldiers were wounded when an Afghan army solider opened fire at a military base in northern Afghanistan, US military officials said Saturday.

A spokesman for Resolute Support in Afghanistan said in a statement that all seven soldiers were medically evacuated and are being cared for.

The attack occurred at Camp Shaheen in Mazar-e Sharif around 2 p.m. local time.

Abdul Qahar Araam, spokesman for the 209th Army corps, said soldiers returned fired killing the attacker. One other Afghan soldier was wounded.

There were no U.S. fatalities.

A Taliban spokesman praised the attack, but did not claim responsibility.

Saturdays incident is the second insider attack in just one week.

On June 10, three U.S. soldiers were killed and one wounded when an Afghan army soldier opened fire in the Achin district in eastern Afghanistan. In that case the Taliban claimed responsibility, saying that a loyalist had infiltrated the Afghan army just to attack foreign forces.

Such insider attacks seem to be becoming more common in Afghanistan. In March, another Afghan soldier was killed after he opened fire on foreign forces at a base in Helmand province, wounding three U.S. soldiers.

Saturdays attack comes just days after reports surfaced that the White House will be sending an additional 4,000 soldiers to Afghanistan. Roughly 8,400 American soldiers are in Afghanistan now  most of them helping to train the Afghan security forces fighting the Taliban.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
At least 61 people have been killed in several raging forest fires in central Portugal, many of them trapped in their cars as flames swept over a road, officials said Sunday.

Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes said at least 16 people were killed when their vehicles were engulfed by flames on a road between the towns of Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera, Sky News reported.

"The smoke cloud is very low, which does not allow helicopters and fire planes to work efficiently, but we're doing everything possible and impossible to put out this fire, " he said.

Nearly 60 other people were injured, including four firefighters and a seriously injured minor, Gomes told state broadcaster RTP.

RTP showed terrifying images of several people on a road trying to escape the intense smoke that had reduced visibility to a question of a few yards ahead. A young man was seen sharing a bottle of water with a distraught woman as she stumbled down the road.

A lightning strike is believed to have sparked the blaze in the Pedrogao Grande area after investigators found a tree that was hit during a "dry thunderstorm," the head of the national judicial police told Portuguese media. Dry thunderstorms are frequent when falling water evaporates before reaching the ground because of high temperatures. Authorities had previously said that 104 F heat in recent days might have played a part in the inferno about 95 miles northeast of Lisbon. About 700 firefighters have been trying to put out the fires since Saturday, Gomes said.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa called the recent fires "the biggest tragedy of human life that we have known in years."

Costa said that firefighting crews were having difficulties in approaching the area because the fire was "very intense." He added that Portuguese authorities were working on identifying the victims and that Spanish rescuers would assist in efforts to control the blazes.

"The priority now is to save those people who could still be in danger," he said Sunday.

A huge wall of thick smoke and bright red flames towered over the top of trees near houses in the wooded region. Local resident Isabel Brandao told The Associated Press that she had feared for her life.

"Yesterday we saw the fire but thought it was very far. I never thought it would come to this side," she said. "At 3:30 a.m., my mother-in-law woke me up quickly and we never went to sleep again. We were afraid the fire would reach us."

Portugal's civil protection agency, which coordinates the firefighting efforts, issued a warning of the increased risk for forest fires in Friday. Citing the high temperatures, it said that all outdoor fires were prohibited.

The European Union has activated its civil protection efforts to help Portugal extinguish the fires. EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides expressed his condolences for the victims in a statement, saying the "EU is fully ready to help."

Stylianides says that in response to a request for help by Portugal, Spain and France are both sending aircraft to help fight the flames. France is sending three planes, while Spain has sent several firefighting aircraft, including two water-bombing planes, to help fight the fires.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tweeted that he is "overwhelmed by the tragedy at Pedrogao Grande. The Portuguese people can count on our solidarity, support and care."

Read more from Sky News.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard said Sunday it launched missiles into eastern Syria targeting Islamic State (ISIS) militants in response to an attack on Iran's parliament and a shrine in Tehran, warning that it would similarly retaliate on anyone else carrying out attacks in Iran.



The launch of surface-to-surface medium range missiles into Syria's Deir el-Zour province comes as ISIS militants fleeing a U.S.-led coalition onslaught increasingly try to fortify their positions there.



Activists in Syria said they had no immediate information on damage or casualties from the strikes, launched from Iran's Kurdistan and Kermanshah provinces. Social media was awash in shaky mobile phone footage from those areas, allegedly showing the missiles rise in an orange glow before heading toward their targets.



Sunday's assault marked an extremely rare direct attack from the Islamic Republic amid its support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad. Iran's Revolutionary Guard, a hard-line paramilitary force, has seen advisers and fighters killed in the conflict.



A Guard statement carried on its website said many "terrorists" were killed and their weapons had been destroyed in the strike.



The Guard warned ISIS militants and their "regional and international supporters" that similar retaliatory attacks would target them as well if another assault in Iran occurs.



Activists in Syria did not immediately have information about the Iranian-claimed strikes. Deir el-Zour is home to both ISIS militants and civilians.



Five ISIS-linked attackers stormed Iran's parliament and a shrine to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on June 7, killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 50.



That attack marked the first to hit Iran, shocking its residents who believed the chaos engulfing the rest of the Middle East would not find them in the Shiite-majority nation.



Iran has described the attackers as being "long affiliated with the Wahhabi," an ultraconservative form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. However, it stopped short of directly blaming the kingdom for the attack, though many in the country expressed suspicion Iran's regional rival had a hand in the attack.



The attack also came as emboldened Sunni Arab states -- backed by U.S. President Donald Trump -- are hardening their stance against Iran.
U.S.-backed Iraqi troops pushed into the last Islamic State stronghold in Mosul on Sunday, launching a major battle for the Old City where some 150,000 civilians are believed to be trapped and risk being used as human shields by the extremists.

The push for the Old City is the final major fight of an eight-month campaign to drive the militants from Iraq's second largest city. The extremists are expected to make their last stand in the densely populated quarter with narrow, winding alleys.

Iraqi special forces, the regular army and Federal Police are taking part in the operation to retake the Old City, said Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah, who commands army operations in Ninevah province.

Iraq state TV aired live footage showing thick black smoke rising from the Old City, with the sound of gunfire rattling inside. It said leaflets were distributed urging civilians to leave through five "safe corridors."

The International Rescue Committee called on Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition to "do everything in their power to keep civilians safe during these final stages of the battle for Mosul."

"With its narrow and winding streets, Iraqi forces will be even more reliant on airstrikes despite the difficulty in identifying civilians sheltering in buildings and the increased risk of civilians being used as human shields by ISIS fighters," said Nora Love, the aid group's acting country director, using another acronym for IS.

The Islamic State group captured Mosul when it swept across northern and central Iraq in the summer of 2014. Iraq launched a massive operation to retake the city last October, and has driven the militants from all but a handful of neighborhoods.

Love warned that the assault on the Old City could lead to even more civilian deaths than the hundreds killed so far in airstrikes across the rest of the city, as "the buildings of the old town are particularly vulnerable to collapse even if they aren't directly targeted."

Those who try fleeing to government-controlled areas risk being caught in the crossfire or targeted by IS snipers, Love added.

Gen. Abdel Ghani al-Asadi, the head of Iraq's special forces, told state TV he expects the extremists to put up a "vicious and tough fight." Al-Asadi said the troops "will be very careful" to protect the civilians.

The Old City is home to the centuries-old al-Nuri mosque, where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivered a Friday sermon in 2014 as his group declared an Islamic caliphate in the areas it controlled in Syria and Iraq. The militants have lost much of that territory over the last three years, and Mosul is their last urban bastion in Iraq.

Up to 150,000 civilians are believed to be trapped in the Old City, where the militants are using them as human shields, U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande told The Associated Press on Friday. She said conditions are "desperate," with little food and no clean water.
The Latest on the London high-rise tragedy (all times local):

10:45 p.m.

The Metropolitan Police have released three photos from inside the charred Grenfell Tower in London, which show in close detail how the fire devastated the 24-story building that once housed up to 600 people in 120 apartments.

One photo shows a burnt-out elevator on an undisclosed floor of the public housing project that was ravaged in Wednesday's inferno, while another shows an apartment that was reduced to rubble and white ash.

Fifty-eight people are confirmed or presumed dead in the fire and authorities fear that death toll will rise.

Two British ministers said Sunday that the new exterior cladding used in a renovation on Grenfell Tower may have been banned under U.K. building regulations. Police are investigating.

___

7:10 p.m.

Two British ministers say the cladding used in a renovation of Grenfell Tower may have been banned under U.K. building regulations.

Experts believe the exterior cladding, which contained insulation, helped spread the flames quickly along the outside of the tower in the Wednesday morning blaze that has killed at least 58 people.

The government is carrying out an "urgent inspection" of roughly 2,500 similar tower blocks across the country to assess their safety.

Trade Minister Greg Hands and Treasury chief Philip Hammond said in separate TV appearances that the cladding used on Grenfell seems to be prohibited by British regulations. One opposition lawmaker urged the Conservative government and police to immediately seize all documents related to the tower renovation.

___

1:45 p.m.

Britain's trade minister says the exterior paneling used on the exterior of the London high-rise, in which dozens were killed in a fire, appears to have violated building rules.

Greg Hands told Sky News that "my understanding is that the cladding that was reported was not in accordance with U.K. building regulations. We need to find out precisely what cladding was used and how it was attached."

Experts say the cladding and the insulation it contained seems to have spread the flames quickly along the exterior of the building, overwhelming safety devices like fire doors.

Hands cautioned Sunday that investigators still don't know exactly what cladding was used when the building renovation was completed last year. The building was gutted by a fast-moving fire early Wednesday, claiming at least 58 lives.

___

1:10 p.m.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has attended a church service near the ruined London high-rise apartment building where at least 58 people perished.

The mayor and his wife Saadiya joined the congregation Sunday at St. Clement's Church near Grenfell Tower.

Flowers and posters of missing persons are still taped to the gates of the church, which has been used as a temporary shelter and gathering point for donations.

Khan is London's first Muslim mayor.

He says it may be necessary for many of the outmoded tower blocks built in the 1970s to be demolished because of safety concerns.

___

11:45 a.m.

A prominent British Labour Party lawmaker is calling for police and the government to seize all documents relating to the renovation of a London high-rise destroyed by a fire that killed dozens of its residents.

David Lammy said Sunday he is worried that documents will be quietly deleted and disposed of as police begin a search for evidence.

Lammy said that "the prime minister needs to act immediately to ensure that all evidence is protected so that everyone culpable for what happened at Grenfell Tower is held to account and feels the full force of the law."

He says tower residents who survived fear a cover-up will keep the truth from coming out. He says trust in the authorities is "falling through the floor."

Police have said criminal prosecutors will be pursued if there is evidence of wrongdoing. Attention has focused on materials used during the renovation process completed last year.

___

11:25 a.m.

The leader of Britain's main opposition party is calling for the government to take over empty homes for use by residents displaced by the London high-rise fire.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said Sunday the government has the power to take over empty apartments and offer them to the hundreds of Grenfell Tower residents left homeless in Wednesday' inferno.

He told ITV: "Occupy it, compulsory purchase it, requisition it  there's a lot of things you can do."

He said the situation has become an emergency and that "all assets" should be brought to the table.

The government is struggling to find temporary housing for people who lived in the 24-story tower. At least 58 people are believed to have died in the blaze.

___

9:40 a.m.

British officials say they are helping the Syrian family of the first officially confirmed victim of the London tower blaze to come to Britain.

The Home Office said late Saturday night it will make arrangements for the family of Mohammad Alhajali to "travel to the U.K. in these terribly sad circumstances."

The 23-year-old Alhajali is the only victim of the Grenfell Tower fire to be officially named as the difficult process of identifying human remains continues.

His family said in a statement that Alhajali "came to the U.K. because he had ambitions and aims for his life and for his family."

Police say at least 58 people are either confirmed or presumed dead, with the figure likely to rise in coming days.

Other victims have been named by their families.
More than 900 African and Asian migrants  including at least 25 minors and seven pregnant women  en route to Europe have been rescued by a Libyan Coast Guard patrol, Al-Monitor reports.



A navy spokesman for the embattled North African country, Gen. Ayoub Qassem, stated Saturday that the coast guard seized five inflatable boats and a wooden vessel.

One of the rubber boats was holed and on the point of sinking, Qassem said. While the wooden one did not have a motor.

The potential disaster being averted is a slim silver lining in the otherwise deepening migration and drowning crisis encircling Libyan waters. People smugglers have taken advantage of the disarray in the battle-torn country since 2011, when their dictatorial leader Muammar Qaddafi was killed.

The country has since been without a stable government as various factions fight for authority, but, despite the safety risks the country presents, the vast majority of smuggling routes from Africa pass through Libya.

Last weekend alone, according to the United Nations, more than 50 migrants  mostly from sub-Sahara Africa  went missing at sea and a further 2,500 were rescued leaving Libya on feeble dinghies. An additional eight were found dead. Two weeks before, the Libyan Coast Guard allegedly shot at a migrant-filled boat -- prompting many to jump overboard, and leading to the deaths of all 34, including children.

UN APPROVES EU SHIPS TO SEIZE ILLEGAL ARMS OFF LIBYA

GERMANY PROVIDING $3.9 MILLION FOR REFUGEES IN LIBYA

And earlier this month, a video emerged appearing to show several Somalis and Ethiopians  beaten and starved, crowded and frightened  in a concrete room where they are allegedly being held for ransom by criminal Libyan gangs. Some captives claimed to have had their bones broken and teeth pulled out, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said relatives of some had received demands for ransom payments up to $10,000 otherwise their child or relative will be killed.

The IOM and numerous human rights groups have for the past six years repeatedly condemned the treatment of migrants and refugees at the hands of traffickers as they pass through the unruly Libya and into the Mediterranean Sea by often unsafe and mass-filled boats bound for Italy.

Yet despite the international attention directed toward the refugee disaster in the sea and then flooding Europe in recent years, it is in many respects continuing to worsen. IOM claims that the number attempting to cross the Mediterranean this year has risen compared with years past  and had already reached more than 60,500 by the end of May with more than 1,500 recorded deaths.
A look at major attacks in West Africa by Islamic extremists in recent years:

MARCH 2016: An assault along the beach in Ivory Coast's resort town Grand Bassam left at least 19 dead. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the attack, identifying the three attackers as members of al-Mourabitoun and Sahara units.

___

JANUARY 2016: Extremists attacked a cafe near a hotel popular with foreigners in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, killing at least 30 people. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Mourabitoun claimed responsibility for the attack.

___ NOVEMBER 2015: Jihadists attacked the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako, killing at least 20 people. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Mourabitoun claimed responsibility for that attack, saying it was their first joint attack since al-Mourabitoun joined al-Qaida's North Africa branch in 2015.

___

MARCH 2015: An attack at La Terrasse restaurant in Bamako, Mali killed five people including a French citizen and a Belgian national. Al Mourabitoun, or The Sentinels, a northern Mali jihadist group allied with al-Qaida, quickly claimed responsibility. It was the first of its kind in Bamako.
Four jihadists in the West African country of Mali attacked a luxury resort popular with foreigners on the outskirts of the country's capital Sunday, killing at least two people.

Authorities said 30 people had been able to escape Campement Kangaba on the outskirts of Bamako. Moussa Ag Infahi, director of the national police, told The Associated Press that three of the assailants had been killed while a fourth escaped.

Mahamadou Doumbia, a security guard who was working at the time, said a militant on a motorcycle entered the area around 3:40 p.m. and cried "Allah Akbar" before jumping off and running toward the pool area.



"Then a car with three jihadists entered the resort and they started to fire their weapons," he said. "A French soldier who had come for the weekend but had his gun shot and wounded a jihadist."



Mali's security minister later issued a statement confirming at least two deaths, one of which was a dual French-Gabonese citizen.



As night fell, witnesses saw smoke rising from the Campement Kangaba, which features three swimming pools and is a popular escape from the Malian heat. It was not immediately clear what was burning, although jihadists in other attacks have set cars ablaze.



There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which took place amid the final week of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In predominantly Muslim Mali, people have been fasting from sunrise to sundown for three weeks.



Sunday's violence came about a week after the U.S. State Department warned of possible attacks on Western diplomatic missions and other locations in Bamako that Westerners frequent.



A U.N. official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists said those at the resort when the attack began included people affiliated with the French military mission, as well as the U.N. and European Union missions in the country.



Religious extremism in Mali once was limited to northern areas, prompting the French military in 2013 to lead a military operation to oust jihadists from power in the major towns in the north. But the militants have continued targeting Malian forces and peacekeepers, making it the deadliest U.N. mission in the world.

There are no French troops based in Bamako, but about 2,000 French troops are based in northern Mali fighting Islamic extremists.



French President Emmanuel Macron was informed about the attack and was following the events carefully, according to an official in his office.



In recent years, the jihadists have become even more brazen, attacking sites frequented by Westerners. In March 2015, five people died when militants hit a popular restaurant in the capital. A devastating attack on the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako later that year left 20 dead - six Malians and 14 foreigners.



That attack was jointly claimed by both the regional Al Qaeda affiliate and a group known as Al Mourabitoun, which was founded by Moktar Belmoktar after he fell out with Al Qaeda leaders.



In a video released in March, jihadists said those two were joining together along with two Mali-based terror groups.



The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from Sky News.
A U.S. Navy fighter jet shot down a Syrian government warplane after it attacked Washington-backed fighters near ISIS' de facto capital of Raqqa, the U.S.-led coalition said Sunday.

In a statement, the coalition headquarters in Iraq said that a F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down a Syrian Su-22 that had dropped bombs near positions held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The statement said coalition aircraft had "conducted a show of force" to turn back an attack by Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's forces on the SDF in the town of Ja'Din, south of Tabqah.

The coalition said the shootdown took place "in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of Coalition partnered forces."

The statement said "a number of SDF fighters" were wounded in the regime's attack, but did not specify further. The coalition also said that Russian officers had been contacted on a special "de-confliction" hotline in an effort to halt the assault.

"The Coalition's mission is to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria," its statement said. "The Coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime, Russian, or pro-regime forces partnered with them, but will not hesitate to defend Coalition or partner forces from any threat."

The statement went on to call for all parties in Syria's complex and bloody six-year-long civil war to "focus their efforts on the defeat of ISIS, which is our common enemy and the greatest threat to regional and worldwide peace and security."

A U.S. defense official told Fox News that the Super Hornet that shot down the Syrian jet was based on board the USS George H.W. Bush, which is currently operating in the Mediterranean Sea. The official did not say which weapon was used to shoot down the Syrian plane.

U.S. forces tangled earlier this month with Syria-allied aircraft in the region. On June 8, U.S. officials reported that a drone likely connected to Iranian-supported Hezbollah forces fired on U.S.-backed troops and was shot down by an American fighter jet. The incident took place in southern Syria near a base where the U.S.-led coalition was training Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State group.

An Army spokesman at the Pentagon said at the time that the drone carried more weapons and was considered a direct threat, prompting the shootdown.

Just hours earlier, the U.S. had bombed Syrian government and allied troops inside a protected zone in that area, and marked a sharp escalation in the skirmishes between the coalition and those pro-Syrian government forces there.



In April, the U.S. Navy launched 59 cruise missiles targeting a Syrian airbase from two destroyers in the Mediterranean following a chemical weapons attack by Assad's forces.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and FoxNews.com's Hollie McKay contributed to this report. The Associated Press also contributed to this report.
The search for seven missing U.S. Navy sailors was called off Sunday after several bodies were recovered from the flooded compartments of the destroyer.

Commander of the Navys 7th Fleet told the grim news to reporters at a Navy base in Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo. Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin wouldnt say how many bodies were found but said the identities of the sailors would be released following notification of the families.

The bodies were found in previously flooded compartments, including sleeping quarters.

Searchers gained access to these spaces that were damaged during the collision and brought the remains to Naval Hospital Yokosuka where they are to be identified, the Navy said in a statement.

The USS Fitzgerald was back at its home port in Yokosuka Naval Base south of Tokyo by sunset Saturday. The Philippine-flagged container ship was berthed at Tokyos Oi wharf, where officials were questioning crew members about the cause of the nighttime crash.

After stabilizing the USS Fitzgerald, the destroyer USS Dewey had joined other American and Japanese vessels and aircraft in the search for the missing sailors.

The U.S. 7th Fleet said in a statement that the crash damaged two berthing spaces, a machinery room and the radio room. Most of the more than 200 sailors aboard would have been asleep in their berths at the time of the pre-dawn crash.

Water was being pumped out of flooded areas and it was unclear how long it would take to get into the crushed mid-right side of the ship once it was at the pier in Yokosuka, the statement said.

Nippon Yusen, the Japanese shipping company that operates the container ship, said in a statement it is collaborating with the ship owner and fully cooperating with the investigation by the coast guard. The 29,060-ton ship is Philippine-flagged and all the crew are Filipinos.

The USS Fitzgerald's captain, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, was airlifted early Saturday to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokosuka and was in stable condition with a head injury, the Navy said. Two other crew members suffered cuts and bruises and were evacuated. It was unclear how many others may have been hurt, but they remained on board for the 16-hour journey back to port in Japan following the collision, officials told Fox News.

Benson was in his stateroom at the time of the collision, officials tell Fox News. The stateroom aboard a guided-missile destroyer is located on the right side of the ship and below the bridge, and was destroyed when the cargo ship crushed the destroyer. The collision also caused severe damage and flooding to berthing spaces, the radio room and an auxiliary (machinery) space.

The Navy said that the collision occurred 56 nautical miles (103 kilometers) southwest of Yokosuka, home to the 7th Fleet.

"Right now we are focused on two things: the safety of the ship and the well-being of the sailors," said Adm. Scott Swift, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Conditions were clear at the time of the collision, though Yutaka Saito of the coast guard said the area is particularly busy with sea traffic.

The names of the sailors were being withheld pending notification of their families. U.S. Navy personnel set up support and counseling services to help families as they sought updates on crew members.

"Just heard the sweetest voice and saw a wonderful face. He's okay. Thank you all for the prayers," Rita Schrimsher of Athens, Alabama, tweeted after speaking with her 23-year-old grandson, Jackson Schrimsher, via Facetime.

"It could have been worse, so we're grateful," she said by phone.

The USS Fitzgerald collision is the third mishap since February involving Navy warships near Japan.

In February, USS Antietam, a guided-missile cruiser, damaged its propellers and spilled hydraulic oil into the ocean after running aground off the coast of Japan. At the time, officials told Fox News the warship had dragged its anchor after 30 knot winds blew the ship from its anchorage onto shoal water grounding the ship.

Last month, USS Lake Champlain a guided-missile cruiser hit a South Korean fishing boat, near the Korean peninsula but no injuries were reported.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report
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Greg Coleman had driven 12-year-old daughter Aleyah to the parking lot of an old middle school on Saturday mornings before the race to practice. She took test runs down a hill in the hand-built car powered by nothing other than momentum.

On this Saturday morningon the eve of Fathers Daythere would be no more practices, no more lessons on how to fix up a car and steer it straightjust some last-minute advice on keeping her head down and remembering to stay between the lines.

This was Aleyahs third year participating in the annual Soap Box Derby in downtown Fredericksburg. Shed learned about it through the Shiloh Baptist Church (New Site) recreation ministry, which served as her sponsor.

Pictured on Aleyahs black car that sparkled in the sun was one of the events biggest supporters. Vernon Elric Green, a deacon at the church, had attended the 21-year-old Soap Box Derby as far back as anyone could remember. Hed died unexpectedly at age 75, less than a month before this years race.

Instead of feeling his absence, Coleman said minutes before Aleyahs first heat of the day, we feel hes around us right now.

She and two other participants from Shiloh Baptist had their own cheering section, including church members whose kids had long since aged out of the event. Theyd arrived just after 7 a.m. hauling coolers and lawn chairs and a big canopy to keep the sun out of their eyes.

Now, William Street was lined with spectators and parents and kids waiting their turn. Eighty children in three divisions had signed up, with the winners in each advancing to the nationals in Akron, Ohio.

Back at the parking lot near the start line were fathers and daughters and fathers and sons.

Josh Luck, dad to Hakeem Chohan, 10, proudly wore a Worlds Greatest Dad t-shirt, a gift from his children last Fathers Day. Hakeem had given some thought to this years surprise; maybe theyd take Luck to a restaurant called Wingstop. That sounded good to this father.

Ive never been to one before, Luck said, but I am man of wings.

For Luck and dozens of fathers like him, Saturday was the real treatnot some day marked on the calendar. To rise early on a Saturday morning, to stand beside your kid until that moment you have to let them go was the essence of fatherhood, the best thing about being a dad.

The Soap Box Derby, said Wayne Cato, dad to 10-year-old Isaiah, gave his son a chance to learn and have fun at the same time. It would bring Cato and his only child a little bit closer together.

There arent a lot of old-school things left, said race director Alvin Staples. Its just spending time with your kids.

Staples own three children, though grown, were there on Saturday. Years earlier, his son, who on this day helped unload cars, was a seven-time winner. One daughter had been a two-time champion; another was the first female racer to take the top title.

Among a fleet of soapbox cars painted Pepto pink and deep purple and streaked with blue flames and stars and stripes, Aleyah and her dad moved forward until it was time to switch wheels with her first competitora practice meant to keep the race as fair as possible. Each car also weighed the same, and each racing pair took turns going down opposite lanes because one lane is inevitably faster than the other, said Staples.

Aleyah put on her helmet and Coleman peered at the strap beneath her chin to make sure it was on right. He reminded her to tie her hair back. Then came the weigh-in, and then they stood on William Street, just a few cars ahead of them.

Aleyah shook out her arms and legs and shifted from foot to foot. Coleman did the heavy lifting, picking up the car each time another one moved out. She climbed in. Her father held it steady.

They didnt know it then but Aleyah would advance through four roundsone more than last year and two more than the year before, when her helmet had slipped over her eyes and shed lost control and crashed into one of the hay bales that lined the street.

The hardest part was out of the way, Coleman had told his daughter then. Now she knew how to crash.

Remember to hold that straight line, he said just before stepping to the sidelines. Thats how youve got to do it.
In retrospect, the summer of 1990 was a hinge moment for people who value Civil War history.

That April, a Washington Post op-ed called for a national initiative to identify threatened battlefields and create alliances and guidelines to protect them.

That June, on the 127th anniversary of the Battle of Brandy Station, historian Brian Pohanka stood atop the Culpeper County battlefields Fleetwood Hill and fretted about a particular threat to its future.

Some kid a hundred years from now is going to get interested in the Civil War and want to see these places, Pohanka told a reporter from The Washington Post. Hes going to go down there and be standing in a parking lot. Im fighting for that kid.

Looking spit and polish, he wore a Union officers uniform, but was up against a California builderthe 14th largest developer in the United Stateswhod just spent $21 million to buy 5,300 acres at Brandy Station.

Somehow, Pohanka and his associates eventually prevailed, though that fight over developing Brandy Station wouldnt be the last. Today, visitors there enjoy 2,159 untrammeled acres on the cavalry field that opened 1863s Gettysburg Campaign.

Preservations saga there spans nearly three suspense-filled decades, and fills two chapters of the just-published Fighting the Second Civil War: A History of Battlefield Preservation and the Emergence of the Civil War Trust.

Brandy Stations champion, Virginia historian Clark B. Hall, has been involved in every dramatic moment at the battlefield, from before Pohanka crested that hill to the present day.

Hall praises the well-illustrated, 22-chapter chronicle written by Bob Zeller as being without equal.

 Fighting is a masterpiece, Hall said. And most importantly, the book conveys enormous credit and purpose to its noble topicbattlefield preservationand to those who have directly labored in the trenches.

Experts whove read Zellers tome said it offers an excellent look at the origins and growth of national efforts to preserve some of the Civil Wars historic ground.

As one who was deeply involved in the earliest phase of this phenomenon, I can attest to Zellers evenhanded and accurate handling of many complicated, politically charged episodes, University of Virginia professor Gary W. Gallagher, director of U.Va.s John L. Nau III Civil War Center, said Thursday. The book also serves as a reminder, at a time of increasing conflict regarding the Civil Wars memorial landscape, of the difference between history and memory and of the need to engage with our past, warts and all.

The author, when questioned, is almost as passionate about why Civil War sites are worth preserving as Hall or Pohanka, an Alexandrian who died of cancer in 2005.

This matters because a whole generation sent their 18- and 19-year-old boys to war in the greatest of hopes. And the slaughter, suffering and sacrifice that happened on the Civil Wars battlefields goes beyond comprehension, Zeller said.

If we dont save the places where things happened, we lose touch with that history, with ourselves and our steering mechanism for the futurethe gyroscope that keeps our society on course.

But Zeller, backed up by studies, also said that saving battlefields preserves green space and stimulates local economies through heritage tourism.

Its not just memorialization for the sake of memorialization, he said. Its smart. Its smart government.

HISTORY MADE HERE

Many of the major events described in the bookwhole chapters worthplayed out in the Fredericksburg area.

Its where what became the Civil War Trust was born in 1987, an idea hatched by historian Donald C. Pfanz after he watched a preservation fiasco unfold at Fairfax Countys Chantilly battlefield. The trusts predecessorthe Association for the Preservation of Civil War Siteshad its first offices on Caroline Street.

At 448 pages, the book is packed with surprising, never-told detailthe secrets, successes, failures and heartaches of what became a comprehensive national effort.

Readers will learn how Robert J. Mrazek, a history-loving New York congressman (and later novelist), guided by Fredericksburg historian Robert K. Krickwho he jokingly termed his puppet masterhelped save hundreds of acres here, at Manassas and elsewhere. Krick calls Mrazek the best friend imaginable to battlefield preservation everywhere.

Zeller interviewed more than 50 participants and dug nuggets from news coverage, personal archives, court cases and government records.

In vivid scenes, readers witness history in the making:

Capitol Hill testimony by Jody Powell, President Carters former press secretary, in 1988 during which Virginia activist Annie Snyder wept. Television cameras took note, which helped change hearts and minds amid a bitter fight over a regional shopping mall on the Second Manassas battlefield. Zeller calls Snyder the Babe Ruth of the movement because she was on the winning side of so many fights over nearly a half century.

Ron Cogswell, the Civil War Trusts chief operating officer, praying in a Washington churchs historic Lincoln pew to guide the groups 2006 bid to buy Slaughter Pen Farm, soul of the Fredericksburg battlefield.

The day in 1994 when historian Gary Gallagher rebuked colleague Wilson Greene for churlish responses to foes of the Disneys America theme park in Prince William County, including Annie Snyder. She had been a major figure in battlefield preservation and should not be treated as a cranky old woman, Gallagher wrote Greene.

The candlelit 2002 rally in Spotsylvania County, with snow falling on the courthouse steps, where residents urged county supervisors to reject a new town proposed on the First Day of Chancellorsville battlefield along State Route 3.

The moment in 2005 when Franklin, Tenn., Mayor Tom Miller took a sledgehammer to a Pizza Hut as locals partnered with the trust to reclaim part of an urban battlefield where a tragic Confederate attack had dwarfed Picketts Charge.

Preservationist Johnny Mitchells handshake bargain with builder Tim Welsh at a local John Deere dealership, which saved the 104-acre Latimers Knoll tract on the Fredericksburg battlefield, and presaged the record-setting $12 million Slaughter Pen Farm acquisition that followed in 2006.

The 2011 courtroom face-off in Orange County between residents, Walmart lawyers and Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield that persuaded the mega-retailer, at the 11th hour, to drop its plan to build a SuperCenter on that battlefield.

The pivotal 1988 debate on the U.S. Senate floor between Arkansas Dale Bumpers and colleagues skeptical of intervening to save the Stuarts Hill tract at Second Manassas destined for a regional shopping mall.

Congress seized the mall land, which a Northern Virginia developer was busily bulldozing as lawmakers argued. The federal taking, only the third ever after actions at Mount Vernon and Redwood National Park, cost $134 million.

Reaction to that big tab spawned a congressionally chartered commission and a blue-ribbon study, hatching policies and a federal program that still guide battlefield preservation today.

LOCAL EFFORTS ESSENTIAL

But hard-won victories wouldnt happen without local feet on the street, and Zeller credits the many colorful characters who have figured in those battles. Among local preservation groups, he gives high marks to Franklins Charge in Tennessee, the Princeton Battlefield Society in New Jersey, and the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust in Fredericksburg.

When CVBT, a small all-volunteer group, pledged to raise $1 million toward buying Spotsylvanias Slaughter Pen Farm, its early commitment helped persuade the Civil War Trusts board to swallow hard and approve the huge purchase.

Zellers anecdotes also reveal how preservation issues can erode friendships, fracture coalitions and threaten careers.

When National Park Service historian John Hennessy guided preservationists across Chancellorsvilles First Day battlefield and told them its degradation was an outcome we cannot blithely accept, the tracts would-be developer complained to a congressman. In punishment, Hennessy briefly found himself contemplating a transfer to Arizonas faraway, seldom-visited Tuzigoot National Monument.

SOMETIMES, INFIGHTING

Preservation is hard, said historian Dennis Frye, one of the eight founders of the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites. It requires patience, persistence, and promotion, and ceaseless vigilance. And often its ugly. I experienced disagreement and downright nasty fights, even among allies.

Famed historian and author Ed Bearss and Civil War Trust President Jim Lighthizer, for instance, are among those who take a few lumps in Zellers tome, making it a real book, the author said.

Nasty indeed were the disputes during the 1999 merger of the trust and APCWS, which had become counterproductive rivals. APCWS racked up many successes, but also accumulated debt.

Yet today, Gallagher, the Civil War scholarwho was president of APCWS for its first yearsmarvels at how the trust is light-years from the group he co-founded.

I would not have forecast, as a member of the original board back in 1987, that the organization would be anywhere near where it is now, Gallagher told Zeller.

According to the latest issue of the trusts magazine, Hallowed Ground, 201,839 donors have made 1,632,826 gifts totaling $188.88 million. In recent years, at the urging of Congress, the nonprofit created a standalone effortCampaign 1776to save War of 1812 and Revolutionary War sites.

The issue profiles preservation legends including Pfanz, Mrazek, Bearss and Lighthizer. In Memoriam items laud leaders who have died including Pohanka, Bumpers, Snyder, Powell, U.S. Sen. James Jeffords and journalist Deborah Fitts, Clark Halls wife.

All told, since 1987, the trust and its Fredericksburg predecessor have saved 46,355 acres on Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefields in 24 states. The largest fraction, 24,350 acres at more than four dozen sites, is in Virginia, the conflicts most fought-over ground.

But preservation is more than mere acreage, the trusts chief said.

Weve learned a lot since the early days, that preserving hallowed ground isnt just about the land itself, but about teaching future generations of the defining events of our nation, Lighthizer said.

And as we preserve the fields where our forefathers fought and died, we decided we ought to write our own history as well, because its really a story worth telling.
VIRGINIA BEACHState Attorney General Mark Herring and GOP challenger John Adams leveled spirited attacks over social issues and the role of the office Saturday in the first debate of the November election.

They offered opposite views on abortion, gay rights, religious liberties and actions by the Trump administration on the environment and immigration in a face-off before members of the Virginia State Bar during its annual meeting, held at the Sheraton Virginia Beach Oceanfront Hotel.

Herring, a former state senator from Loudoun County, is seeking re-election after becoming Virginias first Democratic attorney general since 1994. Adams, a white-collar defense lawyer from Chesterfield County, got the GOP nomination after state Del. Robert B. Bell, R-Albemarle, withdrew from the primary.

Herring said Adams, who is opposed to gay marriage and abortion rights, would be the attorney general for the Republican caucus if elected.

Adams said Herring has applied his own personal views to the law rather than the intent of the legislature and the people.

Saturdays debate gave Adams the first chance to attack face-to-face.

I decided to get into the arena for the first time because of what I believe is the extreme politicization of the Attorney Generals Office, he said. The way to get the politics out of the Attorney Generals Office is to get the politicians out of the Attorney Generals Office.

I will always put the interests of the commonwealth of Virginia ahead of my own political or personal preferences.

If Washington exceeds its constitutional authority ... I will fight back, Adams said.

Herring said his love for helping people and righting wrongs makes attorney general the best job. He highlighted his record on public safety, working with law enforcement to fight opioid addiction, pushing for testing of evidence in untested sexual assault cases and in fighting Medicaid fraud.

Voters will have a stark choice, Herring said. And theres some interesting things in Johns background but he doesnt talk that much about the work that hes done more recently. He has been part of a powerful Richmond law firm for the last seven years, and he and his team brag about how they specialize in shielding people who are involved in kickbacks, pyramid schemes, embezzlement, money laundering, tax fraud, bribery, obstruction of justice. Its astounding.

Herring said Adams protects the kind of people prosecutors work hard to bring to justice. Its like hes trying to be the anti-attorney general.

Adams, a former federal prosecutor, is on a leave of absence from law firm McGuireWoods, where he is chair of the government investigations and white-collar litigation department.

The firm and its consulting arm are one of the most powerful political entities in the state, representing corporations like Dominion Virginia Power and high-profile players such as Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City; former Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones; and Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the businessman who testified that he tried to bribe then-Gov. Bob McDonnell.

McGuireWoods Chairman Richard Cullen is now representing Vice President Mike Pence amid a special counsel investigation involving Russia. Cullen, who completed Jim Gilmores term as attorney general, and who has a house in Virginia Beach, attended Saturdays debate.

Adams defended his work. Im a lawyer and I have clients and I am proud to do what I do on behalf of my clients, he said. Everyone deserves adequate representation.Herring said Adams views on abortion are comparable to those of former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the 2013 GOP nominee for governor.

He would ban abortion in all cases. He would even limit access to birth control, Herring said.

Herring also referenced Adams work on behalf of Hobby Lobby, which won a 5-4 decision in 2014 at the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that requiring family-owned companies to pay for contraception for employees violated religious freedom.

Do you know what those cases were about? Limiting access to birth control, Herring said. He fought at the Supreme Court twice for that.

Adams said his position had nothing to do with birth control, but instead religious freedom.

I have zero interest in limiting womens access to birth control. None. Its not an issue I think about. Its not an issue I care about, Adams said.
Jackie graduated from West Chester State Teachers College early, while holding down five jobs to pay her way through, and earned a degree in elementary education. She retired after 40 years as a teacher and then a guidance counselor. She had a real passion for teaching and helping others, and touched many of her students lives as she worked and moved with her husbands military career in La., Va., Pa., and N.C. Jackie earned her Masters degree in Guidance Counseling from the University of Virginia. Jackie was expert at juggling the demands of being a Marine Corps wife, and moved her family 26 times while making a warm and welcoming home in each location. She loved the open water and sailed the Chesapeake with her husband, Donald, on their boat the Shannon II, and they were often accompanied by their children and the family dogs. During retirement, they traveled extensively in the United States, Canada, and Japan with their friends and family and were proud members of the Airstream Club and avid RVers. They were actively involved in the community of their second home in Travelers Rest, Fla. where they lived for six months of the year. Jackie was a voracious reader, amazing cook, and loved to sew and quilt. She liked nothing better than being surrounded by her children, grandkids, and grand dogs; sharing a good laugh; taking fun day trips; being at the beach; and enjoying the magic of Disney World trips with her family.
Mary Louise Babinsky,84, died peacefully on Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at her home in the Summerlake community of Fredericksburg, surrounded by her family.

Mary, beloved daughter of John E. Leinbach Jr. and Carrie Harrington Leinbach of Lockport N.Y., was preceded in death by her husband, Theodore C. Babinsky. She had one sibling, Nancy Leinbach Ressue, of Little Falls, N.Y.

Mary attended local Lockport schools, where she was a member of the National Honor Society and played first violin in the orchestra. She graduated from the Buffalo General Hospital School of Nursing with an RN degree, and earned additional certification as a public health nurse. She was the visiting home nurse for the Erie County Public Health Department, making calls in some of Buffalos most impoverished neighborhoods. Proof that her patients held her in high regard was demonstrated when an accomplished patient made her wedding gown.

Mary married Theodore Babinsky in Buffalo, N.Y. in September of 1958. Ted was a graduate of the University of Texas with a degree in chemical engineering. He went on to further his education and graduate with honors from Perdue University. Their honeymoon was a car trip across the United States to California, where Ted had accepted a job with the solid rocket fuel industry in Sacramento. In Sacramento, their two daughters, Karen and Linda, were born. When the California company closed, Ted accepted a position in Washington, D.C. with the U.S. Navy. The family then made Fredericksburg, Virginia their new home on Conway Road.

Mary continued her interests in Virginia by working as a practical nursing instructor at Mary Washington Hospital, and playing violin in the community orchestra. She retired as a public health nurse at the Fredericksburg Health Department. In retirement, she was a respected docent at Belmont, home of nationally-known artist Gari Melchers. She was also an avid player and teacher of mah-jongg, and was an active and dedicated member of the Presbyterian Church.

Survivors include her daughters, Karen Babinsky and her fiance, George Holtz, both of Manassas and Linda Rockwell and husband Mark and their son, Bryan, of Lorton.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 25 at Covenant Funeral Service, Fredericksburg.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Mary Washington Hospice at 2300 Fall Hill Avenue, Suite 401, Fredericksburg, VA 22401; and/or please perform a random act of kindness to honor Marys memory.

The family would like to thank Mary Washington Hospice, Comfort Keepers, Covenant Funeral Service, Fredericksburg Presbyterian Church, and dear friends, for their care and support.

Online guestbook at covenantfuneralservice.com.
PRESIDENT Donald Trump was right to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement on climate change, which makes no scientific or moral sense and was extremely unfair to Americans.

Misled by inaccurate, allegedly scientific arguments, a worldwide network of sanctimonious policymakers generated the agreement to solve a problem that does not existso-called carbon pollution from burning coal, oil and gas.

Indeed, uncontrolled combustion of fossil fuels can generate real pollutants: fly ash, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, and heavy metals that can and should be controlled with cost-effective technologies, as has been done in the United States, resulting in one of the cleanest environments in the world.

But carbon dioxide, or CO2the main target of the Paris Agreementis not a pollutant; its a benefit to the Earth.

Agriculture, forestry and plants benefit from having much more CO2 in the atmosphere. Since humans and other animals are fed, clothed and sheltered by the products of plants, the entire biosphere will benefit from more CO2, which makes plants grow more efficiently and need less water.

Satellite images already show a significant greening of the Earth from more CO2. Some 15 percent of the impressive increases in crop yields over the past 50 years is due to more CO2.

The very major benefits of more CO2 to agriculture have been largely ignored or downplayed in the economic models used to justify the Paris agreement.

And the costs of the Paris agreement will fall most heavily on the poor, who will be compelled to pay much more for so-called sustainable energy, which is highly unreliable. Energy costs in the European Union have doubled since 2005 in the name of CO2 reductions, leaving many unable to heat their homes.

Sincere policymakers and other trusting people, including many scientists, have been hypnotized by lurid predictions of computer models.

In ominous colors, computer screens show a future Earth that is afflicted by droughts, hurricanes and the seven plagues of Egypt. But there has been no change in the incidence of observed droughts, floods, tornados and hurricanes. This is propaganda, not science.

The climate models that are the basis for the Paris agreement predicted temperature increases that are three to four times larger than the very modest temperature changes that have been observed over the past few decades.

Much of the temperature increase of the last century appears to be due to natural climate variability.

Warming from additional greenhouse gases will be very moderate, probably about 1 percent from a doubling of atmospheric CO2. Sea levels will continue to rise slowly as they have since the end of the little ice age in the early 1800s. There is no sign of the accelerated rate of rise predicted by alarmists.

The Earth has already experienced much larger CO2 levels than those of today, about 400 CO2 molecules per million air molecules, or 400 ppm.

Over most of the geological history of Earth, CO2 levels were 1000 ppm, 2000 ppm, even more. Life was more abundant than today at these higher CO2 levels, both on land and in the oceans. Coral reefs flourished, sea creatures did not die from ocean acidification and there were no mass extinctions. New species of every sort evolved at impressive rates.

Anguished cries from environmental lobbyists, crony capitalists and some foreign governments about the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement remind me of Aesops fable about the silly fox who lost his beautiful bushy tail (reliable, affordable fossil energy) in a trap (unreliable, expensive renewable energy).

To try to cover up his embarrassment, the tailless fox used all sorts of absurd arguments (we have to save the planet) to persuade all the other foxes to cut off their tails.

Luckily, at least one fox, the United States, has decided to keep its tail.

William Happer is the emeritus Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University and a former director of energy research at the U.S. Department of Energy. Readers may write him at 258 Jadwin Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 08544.
WARFARE has traditionally been executed within easily defined periods of time and geographic boundaries. These conflicts have been fought on identifiable terrain in the air, on the ground, under the sea, and, as of the last 20 years, in space.

Even the changing tools of war have been easily defined: the rifle, bomb, aircraft, tank, ship, et al. Some of the newer tools, such as the improvised explosive device, are equally tangible and identifiable.

But the internet has opened a whole new domain for warfare. There are no geographical boundaries. Cyber warfare is a game-changer. It changes how we assess our enemies, meet their challenges and enact policies that match the growth of the cyber domain.

What exactly is cyber warfare?

We need a clear understanding of what the term means and how cyber warfare differs from traditional warfare. Otherwise, it will be impossible to discuss and understandlet alone address.

Unfortunately, no universal definition of cyber warfare exists. Even agreement on a single way to spell the term has proven elusive. Is it cyber warfare, Cyber-Warfare, Cyberwarfare or Cyber warfare?

The subtle differences reflect a large difference in the words connotation. Is the emphasis on cyber? Is the emphasis on war to reflect an offensive focus versus a more conventional defensive positioning? Or, is the term meant to reflect a select type of warfare? Is it only limited to actions taken on a computer?

It also is important to differentiate a cyber-attack from cyber warfare. Calling it war implies a wider scope and longevity. An attack is understood to be a singular event, while war is a series of attacks.

My emphasis is on using a digital means to attack an opponentwhat constitutes an attack and the warranted response.

Cyber warfare should not be thought of as computer against computer, but a much broader concept. These attacks could range from state-sponsored infiltration with the objective of disrupting information systems to individual hackers trying to make a political statement or influence outcomes.

With the advent of non-state-sponsored terrorist organizations and the ubiquity of internet access, offensive cyber-attacks have become frequent occurrences. Reaching agreement on terms and meanings will be critical to achieving and determining how to best deal with this new type of warfare.

Changing view of war

Cyber warfare stands apart from traditional warfare, where the good guys could see or touch the enemy. In cyber warfare, a sniper does not pull the trigger of a gun. Cyber warfare is fought on keyboards with armies of ones and zeros acting like the soldiers executing orders.

The Department of Defense and others have spent billions viewing cyber space and solutions in traditional physical termslikely because that is what is familiar to them. A new paradigm must be developed that reflects the realities of cyber space, which expands the battlefield past the supposedly-safe borders of our homeland and into almost every aspect of our lives.

That so much activity relies on this technology means escaping the impact of cyber warfare is unlikely. The capacity for a single solution is equally unlikely.

What do we do?

All of these developments present the Department of Defense with a new challenge and beg the question: What will traditional warfare mean in 2025 or 2030?

The American military does not possess sufficient numbers of skilled operators to counter this growing threat, much less obtain superiority in the cyberspace domain. We need to train for a different set of skills and knowledge.

The tools that will advance U.S. military capabilities are also creating vulnerabilities since they operate on the same internet that is under attack. As U.S. policies evolve and incorporate innovative technologies into defense systems, they need to be designed with an eye toward security. Developing a strong military without protecting the electrical grids at home is short-sighted and will hinder longer-term success.

A proactive planning approach will prove the most effective way to move forward. The focus must be on finding solutions within the network. As history has shown, military strategy must adapt to new domains.

Cyber space is that next domain. A traditional system that cannot respond in digital time to a multi-pronged threat or that cannot provide protection while attacking others may be of little use in the future. It would be the equivalent of the Polish army attempting to use their horse cavalry team against the German armored brigades at the beginning of World War II. Society and warfare have evolved from horses against metal to metal against the matrix.

Going forward, many political and military questions will need to be addressed as we determine how to conduct and respond to cyber warfare. Unanimous agreement is unlikely, but an informed dialogue with the public on these issues is essential. That will pave the way for compromise necessary to establish new policies and principles for this complicated subject of cyber warfare.

Marie Neill Sciarrone is president of Trinity Cyber LLC and a former special assistant to the president for homeland security. She wrote a longer version of this essay for The Catalyst: A Journal of Ideas from the Bush Institute. This is being distributed by InsideSources.com.
EARLIER this month, President Donald Trump announced the United States would withdraw from the historic Paris agreement on climate change even though his own administration was deeply divided on the decision.

Trump had promised during the campaign to cancel the agreement, in part because he and the Republican Party so strongly oppose the climate change policies President Barack Obama put in place.

These include new vehicle fuel-efficiency standards and the Clean Power Plan directed at coal-fired power plants.

Yet President Trumps announcement puts the United States at odds with every country in the world but two, Syria and Nicaragua, and the latters reasoning for rejecting the agreement was that it wasnt strong enough.

All other nations recognized the critical importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit the risks posed by climate change.

What does the United States gain from this withdrawal?

Very little. It will take at least three to four years to complete, and the U.S. pledge under the agreement was voluntary anyway. We could have moderated that pledge while remaining a full party to the agreement and retaining a strong voice in its implementation.

Why withdraw from an agreement that imposes no requirements on us, and when there is overwhelming scientific consensus on the reality of climate change, strong public preferences to take action and broad support in the business community to do so?

The answer seems to be that Trump wanted to reassure his loyal base of supporters and keep promises he made to the fossil fuel industry.

Unfortunately, the president did not draw upon the scientific and diplomatic expertise available to him to balance opposition to the Paris accord by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and political strategist Stephen Bannon.

Indeed, the president has yet to appoint a White House science adviser, and he has announced nominees for only seven of the 46 top science positions in the federal government. Similarly, high-level positions at the State Department remain unfilled.

Would President Trump have made a different choice had he listened to science and economic advisers or to State Department staff who strongly favored the agreement?

Perhaps not, but a decision of this magnitude should never be made without serious consideration of the information and perspectives that such professionals can offer.

What does the United States lose from its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement?

A great deal. Under Obama, the nation became a global leader on climate change and helped to bring about the nearly unanimous agreement to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, a decision critical to national security, the economy, the environment and public health.

Now, that leadership falls to China and the European Union. They will be the ones to benefit from development of new energy sources and the jobs and economic growth that go with them.

The Trump administration also seems determined to sharply reduce federal research on energy technologies as well as on climate change itself, compounding the problem.

The White House and its supporters argue that taking action on climate change will hurt the economy and cost jobs.

They are wrong on both counts. With rapidly falling prices for sustainable energy sources, decarbonization creates jobs and helps the economy, as the business community understands well.

Despite Trumps decision, a profound change in energy use is under way. Many states, cities and businesses will continue their leadership on energy efficiency, conservation and renewables because it makes economic sense to do so.

In short, withdrawing from the Paris agreement was not a smart move. Ideally, it would be reconsidered.

The presidents choice hurts our standing with allies, diminishes our scientific credibility and harms national security, the economy and the environment.

It was a remarkably short-sighted and ill-informed decision by the Trump White House that the nation will come to regret.

Michael Kraft is a professor emeritus of political science and public and environmental affairs at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay. Readers may email him at kraftm@uwgb.edu.
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Under the cover of small deposits-taking 'Nidhi' company, Vinod Kumar is running a money chain scam, says investigating officer.
Society, movies or peers: Who is to blame for crimes by jilted lovers, stalkers? | News Brake Ep 41
A Pinch of Salt: The election is over, I think, so what now?
Successful recovery operation : Crane righted after tipping over at Bonn train station

Bonn A crane being used in demolition works crashed into Bonn main train station on Saturday afternoon. Three cranes were able to right it on Saturday evening. Trains were disrupted and roads blocked during the operation.

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After a crane being used in demolition works at the construction site in front of Bonn main train station tipped over at midday and crashed onto the station roof, rescue workers were able to right it on Saturday evening. Three heavy-duty cranes and numerous firemen were involved in the operation. Bonn train station and the surrounding buildings had to be completely evacuated because of the rescue operation and rail services were suspended.

After the rescue operation, the crane was secured, re-constructed and checked. At the same time, debris was removed from tram tracks. Stadtwerke Bonn then wanted to repair the overhead lines in front of the train station as quickly as possible so that trams could start running again.

Accident caused by digger

According to initial information, the driver of a digger with a gripper arm was in the process of removing several tonnes of heavy concrete pieces from the construction site at around 2.30pm. The street in front of the train station was to be temporarily blocked as a result. The employee then apparently mistakenly opened the diggers claw and the concrete pieces crashed onto an approximately 15 metre high protective cover that was fixed to a large crane. The crane was then pulled forwards and finally crashed onto the roof of the station building.

The crane also pulled down the overhead tramlines in front of the building. A Deutsche Bahn security employee told our reporter at the scene that a taxi driver, who had parked his car in front of the station, got himself to safety at the last minute. He would have been fried by the electric current, said the security man.

Tip of crane broke through station roof

Fire services spokesman Martin Haselbauer said the tip of the crane had broken through the station building roof. No one was hurt in the incident. Bonn city centre was disrupted for hours as the area in front of the station was completely closed to traffic.

The Baumann company, which also owns the crane, took over the recovery and three heavy-duty cranes were used on Saturday evening to right the toppled crane.

The cordoned off and safety area was first extended. Haselbauer said this was in case the crane fell in the wrong direction during the recovery operations. During the operation, the entire train station and neighbouring buildings towards the city centre were completely evacuated, including a McDonalds restaurant and the VR-Bank. Rail services had to be suspended during the rescue operations.

There was a real party atmosphere around the train station during the operation. There are people everywhere filming with their smartphone or sometimes also with professional equipment, said our reporter at the scene.

Local traffic severely disrupted

The accident severely affected local transport until Saturday evening. The central bus station was closed until shortly after 6pm. Buses had to be redirected and trams could only run between Oberkassel and Auerberg.

The Bonner Stadtwerke said in the evening that repair works to the damaged overhead lines would last into the night. It was thought trams would first be able to use the route in front of the train station again in the early morning.
nametalkam at 18-06-2017 08:42 AM (5 years ago) (m)

A return visit to Akamili, Umudim in Nnewi, the home town of the dreaded kidnap kingpin, Mr. Chidumeme Onwuamadike, a.k.a Evans, has revealed that a magnificent property in the maiden home compound of his mother, Mrs. Chinwe Onwuamadike, was built by the mother.

A return visit to Akamili, Umudim in Nnewi, the home town of the dreaded kidnap kingpin, Mr. Chidumeme Onwuamadike, a.k.a Evans, has revealed that a magnificent property in the maiden home compound of his mother, Mrs. Chinwe Onwuamadike, was built by the mother.





And following the large number of people trouping into a directive has been given by leaders of the community to their people not to answer further questions from visitors concerning Evans and his family.



The village had become a Mecca of sort since the arrest of Evans at his Magodo residence in Lagos, as visitors have been going to the area for one inquiry or the other.



Two days after the arrest of Evans, people in the area, who were asked for the direction of the home of the Onwuamadikes freely provided the needed information and some even volunteered to take the visitors to the compound.



But on noticing the increasing number of people coming to the community as well as the controversy that trailed the information provided, it suddenly became more difficult to get people to direct the visitors, as a result of what a source said was a directive by some community leaders.



Commercial motorcycle operators, who were making brisk business by taking visitors to Akamili, said, yesterday, that they had been warned not to bring visitors to the village anymore. But the directive could not be effectuated as the motorcycle operators continued moving their human cargo.



However, to give teeth to the directive, it was gathered, yesterday, that leaders in the village had taken a decision that anyone found to be directing visitors to peoples houses in the area risked payment of an unspecified fine.



The reason, it was gathered, was because of alleged conflicting statements from members of the family and those who answered questions posed by the visitors.



One of the conflicting statements was the one allegedly made by Evans wife, that she was taking care of her husbands siblings.



Sunday Vanguard was told that this is far from the truth. Some of the reasons they gave for their dissenting voice can be located in what one of the family members said: How can somebody we do not know tell people that she has been taking care of us? Here is a woman we have no idea of, we dont know how she looks and we have not seen her before. At no time did we see, hear or participate in any marriage rites that would make an individual claim to the wife of Evans. People can choose to say whatever they like when they have problems. When did we even see her, not to talk of the woman feeding us in this family.



According to a community leader in the area, most people in the village did not know Evans and his wife and wondered why his wife would claim to be taking care of people from that village.



Meanwhile, following the statement by Evans father, Mr. Stephen Onwamadike, that his estranged wife and mother of Evans, Mrs. Chinwe Onwuamadike, had so much influence on his son, and that that contributed greatly towards the wrong path the ioy toed, it became more difficult to know her where about.



Though she no longer lives with her husband, she was said to be virtually residing in her maiden home a few meters away from her husbands home.



In fact, Mrs. Onwuamadike was believed to be the bread winner in her maiden home, where it was also believed that the magnificent house in that compound was built by her.



However, checks in her maiden home showed that she disappeared few days after the arrest of her son by the police and fled to an unknown place.



While some people in her village, Akamili, Umudim said she was seen in Nnewi few weeks ago, others said she traveled to Lagos few days before the arrest of her son. And following the large number of people trouping into a directive has been given by leaders of the community to their people not to answer further questions from visitors concerning Evans and his family.The village had become a Mecca of sort since the arrest of Evans at his Magodo residence in Lagos, as visitors have been going to the area for one inquiry or the other.Two days after the arrest of Evans, people in the area, who were asked for the direction of the home of the Onwuamadikes freely provided the needed information and some even volunteered to take the visitors to the compound.But on noticing the increasing number of people coming to the community as well as the controversy that trailed the information provided, it suddenly became more difficult to get people to direct the visitors, as a result of what a source said was a directive by some community leaders.Commercial motorcycle operators, who were making brisk business by taking visitors to Akamili, said, yesterday, that they had been warned not to bring visitors to the village anymore. But the directive could not be effectuated as the motorcycle operators continued moving their human cargo.However, to give teeth to the directive, it was gathered, yesterday, that leaders in the village had taken a decision that anyone found to be directing visitors to peoples houses in the area risked payment of an unspecified fine.The reason, it was gathered, was because of alleged conflicting statements from members of the family and those who answered questions posed by the visitors.One of the conflicting statements was the one allegedly made by Evans wife, that she was taking care of her husbands siblings.Sunday Vanguard was told that this is far from the truth. Some of the reasons they gave for their dissenting voice can be located in what one of the family members said: How can somebody we do not know tell people that she has been taking care of us? Here is a woman we have no idea of, we dont know how she looks and we have not seen her before. At no time did we see, hear or participate in any marriage rites that would make an individual claim to the wife of Evans. People can choose to say whatever they like when they have problems. When did we even see her, not to talk of the woman feeding us in this family.According to a community leader in the area, most people in the village did not know Evans and his wife and wondered why his wife would claim to be taking care of people from that village.Meanwhile, following the statement by Evans father, Mr. Stephen Onwamadike, that his estranged wife and mother of Evans, Mrs. Chinwe Onwuamadike, had so much influence on his son, and that that contributed greatly towards the wrong path the ioy toed, it became more difficult to know her where about.Though she no longer lives with her husband, she was said to be virtually residing in her maiden home a few meters away from her husbands home.In fact, Mrs. Onwuamadike was believed to be the bread winner in her maiden home, where it was also believed that the magnificent house in that compound was built by her.However, checks in her maiden home showed that she disappeared few days after the arrest of her son by the police and fled to an unknown place.While some people in her village, Akamili, Umudim said she was seen in Nnewi few weeks ago, others said she traveled to Lagos few days before the arrest of her son.

Post Reply I specialize in investigative reportage across several subject matter and sectors but mainly focus on metro events and investigation. Do leave your thoughts and opinion on my reports to let me know what you think about them. Thank you Posted: at 18-06-2017 08:42 AM (5 years ago) | Addicted Hero
Military Strikes Continue Against ISIS Terrorists in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, June 17, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, conducting 43 strikes consisting of 83 engagements, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

In Syria, coalition military forces conducted 33 strikes consisting of 44 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Abu Kamal, three strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed three ISIS oil tanks and two ISIS oil trucks.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, five strikes destroyed seven ISIS oil trucks, four ISIS oil tanks, a front-end loader, an ISIS oil pump and an ISIS wellhead.

-- Near Raqqa, 25 strikes engaged 21 ISIS tactical units and destroyed 34 fighting positions, three tunnels, three mortar systems, two vehicles and a vehicle bomb-making facility.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted 10 strikes consisting of 39 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Kisik, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a mortar team.

-- Near Mosul, three strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units; destroyed 15 fighting positions, two supply caches, a mortar team, and a vehicle bomb; damaged seven fighting positions; and suppressed an ISIS tactical unit.

-- Near Rawah, two strikes destroyed an ISIS fuel point, an ISIS staging area and a vehicle bomb-making facility.

-- Near Samarra, two strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed a vehicle and a command-and-control node.

-- Near Tal Afar, two strikes destroyed an ISIS staging area and a tactical vehicle.

June 15 Strikes

Additionally, seven strikes were conducted in Syria and Iraq on June 15 that closed within the last 24 hours:

-- Near Raqqa, Syria, on June 15 six strikes destroyed eight fighting positions, an ISIS headquarters and a tunnel, and suppressed two snipers.

-- Near Mosul, Iraq, a June 15 strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and a sniper, destroyed three vehicles, and damaged five ISIS supply routes.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The destruction of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria also further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct external operations throughout the region and the rest of the world, task force officials said.

The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted.

Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect.

For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said.

The task force does not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.

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7 U.S. sailors missing after Aegis destroyer collides with container off Japan

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 14:56, June 17, 2017

TOKYO, June 17 -- Seven crew members of U.S. Navy's guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald were missing following a collision between the Aegis destroyer and a Philippine container in waters off Japan's central Shizuoka Prefecture early Saturday.

The Japan Coast Guard said the collision, which left one person injured on the destroyer, occurred about 100 km southwest of Yokosuka.

The collision was first reported by the Philippine container at around 2:30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT Friday), according to the coast guard.

The Japan Coast Guard said it believed the Philippine merchant vessel is the ACX Crystal, which, according to Japan's public broadcaster NHK, is 222.6 meters long and weighs 29,060 tons.

The USS Fitzgerald is 154 meters long and weighs 8,315 tons.

NHK reports said the U.S. guided-missile destroyer had suffered considerable damage to its right side, with helicopter footage revealing an orange hose on the deck of the destroyer.

Crew members, according to local media images, could be see on the deck of the Aegis-equipped destroyer assessing the damage while a Japan Coast Guard vessel was in the vicinity of the ship to offer assistance.

More patrol vessels and a helicopter would be dispatched to the collision site, Japan's coastguard said.

NHK's aerial footage showed that the Philippine ship, which was sailing towards Tokyo, had scrape marks from the collision on the left side of its bow section.

According to U.S. Navy personnel, the damaged destroyer was heading towards the Yokosuka Naval Base, located about 50 km southwest of Japan's capital of Tokyo.

Neither of the vessels involved in the collision were in danger of sinking, according to the Japan Coast Guard.

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Afghan soldier killed, US troopers wounded in shooting in Afghanistan

Iran Press TV

Sat Jun 17, 2017 4:58PM

An Afghan army trooper has been killed and an unspecified number of US soldiers have been injured in an incident in northern Afghanistan, a US military official says.

The apparent shooting incident occurred on Saturday at Camp Shaheen, which is the headquarters of the Afghan Army's 209th Corps in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, said a spokesman for the US military command in the capital Kabul.

The official rejected an earlier report by Abdul Qahar Araam, a spokesman for the Afghan corps, who had said that an Afghan trooper had "shot and killed" four US soldiers inside the base in an apparent insider attack.

The US official went on to say that one Afghan soldier lost his life and another was injured in the incident, without giving further details. The US military command in Kabul had earlier confirmed that it was "aware of an incident" at the military base.

The deadly attack came just a week after a similar shooting took place in Achin district in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where an Afghan army soldier shot dead three US troopers and wounded another.

In March, three US soldiers were killed in yet another such attack in Helmand, the volatile province where the Taliban militant group still holds a grip.

The attacks by Afghan military personnel on foreign forces have occurred some 15 years after Washington led a Western military campaign to oust the Taliban from power.

The deadly incidents come as anti-US sentiments still run deep among Afghan police and military forces as many blame Washington for the continued bloodshed in the country. They say the US presence in Afghanistan continues to claim lives from civilians and security forces while attacks by the Taliban and other militant outfits, such as the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, are also on the rise.

Every so often, US troops or air raids kill both Afghan soldiers and civilians across the country. Earlier this month, US soldiers shot and killed an Afghan man and his two sons in Ghani Khel, a district in the south of Nangarhar.

Last August, a US drone attack killed 22 Afghan soldiers in Helmand, and in September that year airstrikes conducted by American warplanes claimed the lives of at least eight Afghan troops in the central province of Uruzgan. Back in February, US airstrikes also killed over 20 civilians in Helmand.

Despite the presence of thousands of foreign boots on the ground, Afghanistan has been rocked by an increase in terrorist attacks, some of them carried out by Taliban and others by Daesh, which is mainly active in Nangarhar.

American officials said last month that the US military needed between 3,000 and 5,000 additional troops, including hundreds of Special Operations forces, in Afghanistan. The United States currently has about 8,400 soldiers in Afghanistan with another 5,000 troops from NATO allies.

Afghanistan has already been torn apart by decades of Taliban-led militancy and the 2001 invasion by the United States and its allies.

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Afghan forces recapture Tora Bora in Nangarhar

Iran Press TV

Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:3PM

Afghan forces have managed to retake Tora Bora from the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, two days after the militants seized the key mountainous region along the border with Pakistan.

Acting Afghan Defense Minister General Tariq Shah Bahrami said on Saturday that the Afghan military had recaptured the area in the eastern province of Nangarhar after fierce clashes with Daesh in cave and tunnel complexes.

The terrorists had taken control of Tora Bora on Thursday, after days of fighting with rival Taliban militants. The area has been a major stronghold of Taliban and has been used by militants to transfer weapons and arms across the border with Pakistan.

Bahrami said during the army operation to retake Tora Bora some 22 Daesh militants were killed, adding that 10 others were also wounded in the clearance mission. He would not elaborate on potential military casualties.

Daesh, a group mainly based in Iraq and Syria, has gained a foothold in eastern Afghan territories mainly due to a lack of security and growing infighting between Taliban factions. The group has sought to establish a branch under the title of Khorasan province in the Afghan territories. It has carried out several high-profile attacks on civilians and security forces, including a recent bombing in the diplomatic zone of the Afghan capital, Kabul, which killed more than 150 people.

The rise of Daesh has prompted Afghan officials to ask for increased military assistance from the United States, which still holds a massive military presence in the country more than 15 years after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, which toppled Taliban.

In his Saturday statement, Bahrami welcomed a decision by Washington to send an additional 4,000 US troops to Afghanistan. He said the move was in consultation with the Afghan government and that the troops would mainly engage in training and advisory mission in the country.



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3 Armenian soldiers killed in fresh clashes in Karabakh

Iran Press TV

Sat Jun 17, 2017 2:13PM

Three ethnic Armenian soldiers have been killed in clashes with Azerbaijani forces on the volatile front line in Karabakh.

Rebel authorities in Karabakh said on Saturday that Azerbaijani forces had shelled Karabakh army positions using anti-tank grenade launchers a day earlier.

"Three servicemen of the Karabakh army, all aged 20, were killed as a result," said a Karabakh defense ministry statement.

Armenian officials also accused the Azerbaijani side of violating a ceasefire agreement that has been in place in the region for more than a year.

Russia intervened in April last year after some 110 people were killed from the two sides in what has been described as one of the worst confrontations over Karabakh in decades.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are technically at war over Nagorny Karabakh, an Azerbaijani territory that was seized by Armenian separatists in a bloody war in the 1990s.

Some 30,000 people were killed in the conflict, which ended with a fragile truce in 1994. The two sides have yet to reach a permanent peace agreement on the issue as clashes have continued over the years, claiming more lives from both sides.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly warned that it would take back Karabakh by force, but Armenia, which supports the rebels, says it would crush any military intervention by Baku.

Military officials in Azerbaijan have yet to comment on the clashes on Friday and what caused the incident.

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Three killed in fresh US drone strike on Yemen's Shabwah

Iran Press TV

Sat Jun 17, 2017 9:43AM

The US has conducted a fresh drone attack on the south-central Yemeni province of Shabwah, killing three people.

Residents and local sources said the incident took place in Shabwah's al-Naqba area on Friday.

Meanwhile, Yemeni officials, who were speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US missile had targeted a vehicle while it was driving and killed all its occupants.

The officials identified the victims as al-Qaeda militants, saying one of them was close to Saad al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda leader in Yemen.

Over the past few months, Washington has stepped up its drone strikes against what are claimed to be al-Qaeda targets in Yemen.

Back in March, US President Donald Trump gave the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) new powers to launch drone attacks against suspected terrorist targets. The authority was limited to the Pentagon under the former US administration.

The US also conducted deadly ground and aerial raids on Yemen in January and May, leaving dozens of Yemeni civilians dead in total.

Yemen has been under regular US drone strikes, with Washington claiming to be targeting al-Qaeda elements while local sources say civilians have been the main victims of the attacks.

The country has also been rocked by a military campaign by Saudi Arabia since late March 2015. The US has been providing huge amounts of arms and military training to kingdom's military.

The aggression, which allegedly seeks to restore Yemen's former Saudi-allied government to power, has killed over 12,000 people, according to the latest tallies

Al-Qaeda has exploited the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen to enhance its terror activities in the impoverished country.

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Kyrgyzstan's Presidential Election Looks To Be A Cliffhanger

Bruce Pannier June 17, 2017

The nomination of candidates in Kyrgyzstan's presidential election officially started on June 15, and the vote already promises to be one of the most interesting and exciting elections yet seen in Central Asia.

Current Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev is prohibited by the constitution from seeking another term and, unlike leaders in some of the neighboring Central Asian states, Atambaev is really going to honor that stipulation.

So Kyrgyzstan will have a new president before the end of this year, and four months before polling stations open we don't know who that will be. It might require a second round of voting to determine the winning candidate.

That's absolutely unheard of in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It's always clear who will win there and there is never a need for a second round.

Courts Playing A Role

This won't be smooth sailing though. There is already controversy and it seems that, like Kyrgyzstan's elections in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the court system will be playing a prominent role during the registration and campaign process.

So far, at least 10 people have expressed an interest in running for the presidency.

From the political parties, so far former Prime Ministers Temir Sariev of the Ak-Shumkar (White Falcon) party and Omurbek Babanov of the Respublika party have indicated they will run, as have the current prime minister, Sooronbai Jeenbekov of the ruling Social Democratic Party; Bakyt Torobaev, leader of the Onuguu-Progress party, who actually was the first person to say he intended to run back in January; former parliament speaker Akhmatbek Keldibekov; Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party leader Omurbek Tekebaev; and former deputy Sadyr Japarov of the Ata-Jurt (Homeland) party.

There are also several people, such as Taalatbek Mamasadykov and Kamila Sharshekeeva, who are contemplating running as independent candidates.

Tekebaev and Japarov are currently both behind bars.

Tekebaev is being held on bribery and corruption charges. He was detained at Bishkek's Manas Airport on February 26 as he returned from Europe with what he claimed was evidence of President Atambaev's business interests outside Kyrgyzstan.

Courts have extended Tekebaev's detention several times while the investigation continues.

Japarov, a nationalist politician, is wanted for his alleged role in an incident in the northeast town of Karakol in 2013 when the regional governor was taken hostage by an angry crowd and held until police launched an operation to free him. He fled the country to avoid arrest and was taken into custody shortly after he returned to Kyrgyzstan on March 25.

Japarov was also briefly imprisoned in the first half 2013 after he and two other members of Ata-Jurt were convicted of attempting to forcibly seize power, a verdict that was overturned less than three months later.

On June 14, Kyrgyzstan's Central Election Commission informed Keldibekov he was not eligible to run for the presidency because, technically, he has a criminal record.

The Supreme Court fined Keldibekov 10 million soms ($142,900) in October 2016 for abuse of office when he was speaker and corruption when he was head of the State Tax Service. Keldibekov paid the fine on November 8, 2016.

According to Kyrgyzstan's Criminal Code, a conviction is removed one year after serving or execution of the sentence, meaning Keldibekov is ineligible to run until November 8, 2017, several weeks after the presidential election.

Keldibekov told RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Azattyk, that he was not surprised and would fight the decision while he forged ahead with his bid for the presidency.

Situation Normal...

Some might view all this as confusing, but for voters in Kyrgyzstan this is nothing new. Similar incidents occurred in previous elections.

In Kyrgyzstan's 2000 parliamentary elections, for example, several political parties were banned from participating just three months before election day. Individual candidates were declared ineligible days before the elections, and party leaders suddenly found themselves charged with offenses.

In one of the more memorable incidents of the 2000 elections, Ar-Namys (Dignity) leader Feliks Kulov, who had been fighting off lawsuits throughout the campaign, won the first round of voting but inexplicably lost in a runoff election to an opponent who had received half the votes Kulov had in the first round.

It sparked riots in Kulov's home district. Kulov himself was detained barely a week after the runoff election and eventually imprisoned. And amid the controversy over the questionable outcome of the election, the local election commission official committed suicide.

So expect this upcoming presidential election campaign to provide an abundance of twists and turns.

Outliers, Front-Runners

As for the other likely candidates, Sariev is a veteran politician and served as a prime minister for 11 months in 2015-16 despite his Ak-Shumkar party not being represented in parliament.

Torobaev's Onuguu-Progress party is new to Kyrgyzstan's political stage. The party took part in elections for the first time in the 2015 parliamentary elections, winning 13 seats (fourth out of the six parties that got seats).

The two front-runners, at the moment, would seem to be businessman and Respublika party leader Babanov and Prime Minister Jeenbekov, who enjoys the support of President Atambaev.

The newspaper Vecherny Bishkek published the results of an informal poll of its readers that showed Babanov well ahead of others who might run for the presidency.

For that very reason, some suspect Babanov's campaign will be derailed somehow.

Charges have emerged suddenly against many perceived opposition candidates in the past, Kulov and the corruption charges against him being one example (he later became prime minister in 2005-07).

There are all sorts of other potential obstacles in Kyrgyzstan's political minefield -- citizenship issues, tax payments and declarations, sources of funding, and for those seen as the pro-government candidate, use of administrative resources for campaigns.

"Admin resources" is a term you're almost guaranteed to hear once the campaigning gets under way. And that won't happen officially until September 10, after the registration process (August 1 to September 10) is completed.

This will likely be another problem since it is sometimes difficult to define what constitutes campaigning. Some of these potential candidates appear to have already started articulating their platforms to the public.

The requirements to register as a candidate are: to be nominated by a registered political party or, in the case of independents, fill out the necessary documentation to run as an independent; pay a 1 million-som (about $15,000) deposit; pass a Kyrgyz-language test demonstrating above-average proficiency in the language; and collect signatures of support from at least 30,000 registered voters.

Ata-Meken is already disputing the signatures requirement, saying that number is not specified in the election regulations. (Unofficial support of the Kremlin is underlined by many candidates in the latest elections, and potential hopefuls now also try to show their loyalty toward Moscow.)

So get ready, here comes one of the most unpredictable elections yet in Central Asia.

Azattyk Director Venera Djumataeva contributed to this report. The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the views of RFE/RL

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyzstan-presidentia l-election-set-to-be-exciting/28560404.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Houthi militias and ousted Saleh forces use locomotives and relief convoys to transport arms and fighters

Saudi Press Agency

Saturday 1438/9/22 - 2017/06/17

Aden, Ramadan 22,1438, June 17, 2017, SPA -- The Houthi militias and the ousted Saleh gangs have resorted to the detention of relief and humanitarian aid convoys of the World Food Program (WFP), in several Yemeni provinces in order to provide their members, who received painful slaps and successive defeats by the Yemeni army and popular resistance, with weapons and explosives in addition to transport armed men to the fighting zones.

Sources inside Yemen said that the coup militia of the Houthi and the ousted Saleh forces recently detained a number of relief convoys, including 200 locomotives carrying relief materials allocated to 12 directorates of the province of Taiz, and detained 7 locomotives dedicated to the Department of Abs in the province of Hajjah carrying relief materials for displaced people in the that province.

The sources pointed out that the Houthi criminal militia requires changing the drivers of these locomotives and then replacing the content of the relief materials with weapons and ammunition and the use of WFP locomotives to transport armed elements of the militia in order to reinforce the besieged fronts in Taiz, Abas, and Medi and use those convoys to camouflage.

King Salman Center for Relief and Humanitarian Aid said on Tuesday that three trucks belonging to the Center were subjected to an explosion while preparing to distribute food aid in the city of Marib that reflex to the entire world the criminal level of the coup militia.

-- SPA

16:46 LOCAL TIME 13:46 GMT

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Afghan 'Insider Attack' Wounds 7 US Soldiers

By VOA News June 17, 2017

A member of the Afghan Special Forces turned his weapons Saturday on U.S. military personnel during a training exercise in northern Afghanistan, killing a local partner and injuring seven Americans.

NATO's Resolute Support Mission said an Afghan soldier also was among the wounded.

The "insider attack" occurred at an Afghan National Army regional base, Camp Shaheen, in Mazar-i-Sharif. A U.S. soldier reportedly engaged and gunned down the assailant before wounded Americans were evacuated for treatment.

The Taliban did not claim any association with the attacker but did praise him, saying he would be remembered "as a hero."

In a similar attack June 10 in eastern Nangarhar province, an Afghan commando opened fire on U.S. soldiers, killing three of them before he was gunned down by retaliatory fire.

The Taliban took credit for that attack, claiming the assailant was one of its fighters who had infiltrated Afghan army ranks.

The military base where Saturday's shooting took place was the scene of a coordinated Taliban gun-and-bomb raid in April that killed more than 150 soldiers and wounded many more, the deadliest assault on Afghan forces since 2001.

Helmand province

A senior international diplomat in Afghanistan said authorities are looking into the possibility that the June 10 killings in Nangarhar might be related to the earlier deaths of two Afghan policemen in what the U.S. called a 'friendly fire incident" in Helmand province. The U.S. has apologized for that incident.

Helmand is Afghanistan's largest province, and most of it is under the control or influence of the Taliban.

A group of roughly 300 U.S. Marines arrived in Helmand in April to support struggling Afghan forces in their battle against the Taliban.

The insurgents have extended their control over swaths of Afghanistan and killed scores of Afghan security forces members since launching their so-called yearly spring offensive in late April.

The wartorn nation -- and its capital city, Kabul, in particular -- has also been hit in recent weeks by suicide bombings that have caused unprecedented civilian casualties.

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US Navy Ship Returns to Base in Japan After Collision

By VOA News June 17, 2017

The U.S. Navy destroyer that collided with a merchant vessel off the coast of Japan has returned to its base.

The USS Fitzgerald returned to Yokosuka, Japan Saturday. Search and rescue efforts continue for the ship's seven missing sailors.

Earlier, the Navy said two crew members in addition to commanding officer Bryce Benson were injured and had been "medically evacuated" from the Fitzgerald to U.S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka.

The commander is said to be in stable condition, while the crew members are being treated for lacerations and bruises, the Navy said.

The merchant vessel ACX Crystal sailed into Tokyo Saturday afternoon with minor damage. No one on the Philippine-flagged container ship was reported injured.

According to Jiji Press news agency, the ACX Crystal captain said his ship was "sailing in the same direction as the U.S. destroyer and then collided."

Early morning collision

The collision happened about 2:30 a.m. local time Saturday about 100 kilometers southwest of Yokosuka, Japan, according to the Navy's 7th Fleet, which operates in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.

Video shot from a helicopter Saturday morning by Japanese broadcaster NHK showed heavy damage to the right, or starboard side, of the Navy ship, just in front of the vessel's control area.

The Navy said the destroyer had "experienced flooding in some spaces."

The 29,000-ton Philippine ship is 222 meters long, while the 8,315-ton Navy destroyer is 154 meters long.

Such collisions between two ships are rare. It was not immediately clear what caused the vessels to collide.

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5 Killed, 12 Hurt in al-Shabab Attack on Somali Military Base

By Mohamed Olad June 17, 2017

At least five people were killed and 12 others wounded Saturday in heavy fighting between Somali National Army soldiers and al-Shabab militants in the Bakol region of southwestern Somalia, officials said.

Somali army officials told VOA that the militants had attacked a government military base in el-Lahelay village, about 20 kilometers west of Hudur, the provincial capital of the region.

The militants used machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades to assault the base from different directions at midday Saturday, engaging in a fierce gunbattle with Somali troops for about an hour, officials said.

On the condition of anonymity, witnesses told a VOA reporter in the region that they saw the bodies of at least five combatants, some from each side. No civilian casualties were reported.

Meanwhile, a cease-fire was brokered between two rival clan militias near the central Somali city of Beledweyne, about 325 kilometers north of Mogadishu  a move intended to end several days of fighting that killed at least 25 people.

The Somali National Army and forces loyal to Ahlu-Sunna Wal Jama (AWJ),a central Somalia-based paramilitary group consisting of moderate Sufis opposed to radical Islamists, have been deployed between the warring clan militias belonging to the Habar Gidir and Hawadle of Hawiye subclans. They have been fighting over pastures and land.

"Now we have succeeded in moving the rival militias away from the front line where they have been fighting. We sent troops to go between them, and I hope the fighting will be over," said Mohamed Ali Adle, a senior government official involved in the peace effort.

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China, U.S. to hold first diplomatic and security dialogue in Washington

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 10:22, June 17, 2017

BEIJING, June 16 -- China and the United States will hold their first diplomatic and security dialogue next Wednesday in Washington D.C., a Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced here Friday.

Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi will co-chair the dialogue with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, said spokesperson Lu Kang at a daily press briefing.

Fang Fenghui, a member of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) and chief of the CMC Joint Staff Department, will also participate in the dialogue.

The two sides will exchange views on China-U.S. relations and other issues of common concern, Lu said.

The diplomatic and security dialogue is one of four high-level mechanisms established during the Mar-a-Lago meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida in April.

The other three are dialogues on economics; law enforcement and cyber security; and on social, cultural and people-to-people exchange.

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Spotlight: Trump curtails Obama-era's opening with Cuba

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:49, June 17, 2017

WASHINGTON, June 16 -- After targeting his predecessor Barack Obama's legacies in global trade and climate change, U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday announced plans to roll back parts of Obama-era's opening with Cuba.

Speaking at a rally at Miami's Little Havana, Florida, Trump announced new restrictions on Americans' travel to Cuba and U.S. business with Cuban military while keeping the restoration of normal U.S.-Cuban diplomatic ties untouched.

"It's hard to think of a policy that makes less sense than the prior administration's terrible and misguided deal," said Trump.

Under Trump's new directive, U.S. individuals and companies will be prohibited from doing commerce with Cuban businesses, including the Cuban tourism sector, owned by the Cuban military.

As to travel, Americans who travel to Cuba for non-academic educational purposes will be required to visit Cuba through tour groups, and the self-directed and individual travel, permitted by the Obama administration, will be prohibited.

Trump also reaffirmed U.S. statutory embargo of Cuba.

The Cuban government had no immediate comment.

"The previous administration's easing of restrictions on travel and trade do not help the Cuban people," said Trump, adding that effective immediately, he was canceling Obama's "completely one-sided deal" with Cuba.

However, according to a White Housestatement released during Trump's speech, the policy changes "will not take effect until those (U.S.) Departments have finalized their new regulations."

Despite his effort to roll back parts of Obama's Cuba policy, Trump left many of Obama's legacy intact, including remaining U.S. embassy in Cuba.

"Our embassy (in Cuba) remains open in the hope that our countries can forge a much stronger and better path," he said.

Calling the policy changes "moderate," Sebastian Arcos, associate director of the Cuban Research Institute, told Xinhua that Trump was making adjustments to, instead of cancelling Obama's Cuba policy, and the impact on U.S.-Cuba relationship was limited.

"I don't think things are going to change in a significant way," said Arcos. "The United Stateswill always react to what the Cuban government did. Trump is trying to adjust in a way that doesn't help the (Cuban) government that much."

While the policy changes aligned Trump with hawkish Cuban-American Republicans in the U.S. Congress, Trump soon met with opposition from his own party.

Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican lawmaker from Arizona, said in a statement that any policy change that diminishes the ability of Americans to travel freely to Cuba "is not in the best interests of the United States or the Cuban people."

Together with other 54 co-sponsors, Flake was introducing a bipartisan bill to allow Americans to travel to Cuba for tourism purposes.

In December 2014, in the most sweeping change in U.S.-Cuban relations in five decades, Obama announced plans to normalize ties with Cuba in a move that quickly sparked much controversy in the United States.

Since then, improvements have been made in U.S.-Cuban diplomatic, social and commercial ties, with the U.S. opening an embassy in Cuba, increasing flights to Cuba, and some U.S. businesses expanding into the island nation for the first time in five decades.

America severed ties with Cuba in 1961, shortly after Fidel Castro launched a revolution that toppled a U.S.-friendly government, and the two countries had been at loggerheads ever since.

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India Scraps One Billion Dollar Deal of Multirole Helicopters With Sikorsky

Sputnik News

11:09 17.06.2017

A few days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US, the Indian defense ministry has scrapped a naval multi-role helicopter deal with US firm Sikorsky after failing to reach an agreement on price since 2014.

NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  The decision was taken after the cost negotiation committee recommended retraction of the tender for 16 multi-role helicopters. The Indian Navy had initiated the procurement of multi-role helicopters for its warships capable of anti-submarine warfare in 2009. Sikorsky's 70B and European NH-90 had cleared the technical trial but NH-90 had faced disqualification for commercial bid due to corruption charges in a defense deal with India, which was linked to NH-90's parent company Finmeccanica.

"The deal for procuring 16 helicopters for the Navy has been scrapped by the Defense Ministry after it was stuck for over two years on price, and the American firm Sikorsky refused to extend the validity of its commercial bid," Government sources told Mail Today.

The Indian Navy is in dire need of multi-role helicopter for anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare mission because of its aging Seaking fleet. Due to the immediate requirement, the Indian government was going ahead with Sikorsky despite a single bid tender, which is against India's defense procurement rule.

With the acquisition of S-70B, Indian Navy was expecting a long overdue modern, battle-proven helicopter for anti-submarine warfare and vertical replenishment. "It may be very nice from an indigenization point but Navy needs helicopters very urgently. Our capability is very much compromised. We don't have helicopters on our ships," Anil Jai Singh, a retired Indian Navy commodore, and defense analyst told Sputnik.

Initially, Indian Navy had planned a total of 140 naval multi-role helicopter, out of which only 16 was being planned to bought in flyway condition while 124 were to be manufactured in India under country's indigenization boost. It is now considering a fresh tender for 140 helicopters under Make in India program.

"We should have got those (16) first and gone ahead with indigenization or whatever strategic partnership could have been made after that. My opinion is that you can't compromise nation's combat capability because of some experiment you want to do with indigenization, Make in India, or strategic partnership. By all means you can go ahead and do that but only after fulfilling the immediate requirement," Anil Jai Singh added.

Earlier this year, Indian Navy has asked for additional funds to augment anti-submarine warfare capability in the backdrop of increased presence of Chinese naval ships in the Indian Ocean region. "New helicopters should have been inducted in the naval fleet by 2008-09, but they have not arrived yet. The ships, such as INS Chennai, INS Kochi and INS Delhi, are already commissioned, but they are moving without new helicopters. The demand is in excess of 100 and we have a requirement of multi-role helicopters with facilities such as anti-submarine, anti-surface equipment, sonar facility. It is not about when we want it, we have crossed that line. Currently, we are using old Sea King helicopters for some works," Western Naval Command chief Girish Luthra had said.

India's state-owned HAL is also working on naval multi-role helicopters and is expected to find support from the Narendra Modi government.

 Sputnik

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Saudi coastguard kills Iranian fisherman in Persian Gulf

Iran Press TV

Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:7PM

Saudi Arabia's coastguard has killed an Iranian fisherman in the waters south of Iran, a senior border official of the Islamic Republic says.

The incident happened after two Iranian boats fishing in the Persian Gulf strayed from their course due to big sea waves, the Iranian Interior Ministry's director general for border affairs Majid Aqa-Babaei said on Saturday.

"Accordingly and without establishing whether the Iranian boats had crossed Saudi borders, the coastguard of this country opened fire on the Iranian boats and an Iranian fisherman was killed due to a bullet hitting him in the waist," he added.

"This Saudi move is not compatible with human principles and even assuming that the boats had crossed Saudi borders due to sea waves, they were not authorized to shoot at the Iranian boats," the official said.

Aqa-Babaei noted that the Islamic Republic is following up on the issue to determine whether the boats had entered Saudi territorial waters.

"This move by the Saudis was incompatible with human and maritime principles," he reiterated.

Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia worsened after a deadly human crush occurred during Hajj rituals in Mina, near Mecca in September 2015.

Islamic Republic officials blamed the incompetence of Saudi officials for the incident, which, according to Iran, killed 4,700 people, including 465 Iranian nationals.

Earlier that same month, a massive construction crane had collapsed into Mecca's Grand Mosque, killing more than 100 pilgrims, including 11 Iranians, and injuring over 200 others, among them 32 Iranian nationals.

Mutual ties deteriorated further when Riyadh executed prominent Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in January 2016. Saudi Arabia unilaterally severed its diplomatic ties with Iran after protests in front of its diplomatic premises in the cities of Tehran and Mashhad against Nimr's execution.

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Iran Says U.S. Senate's Proposed Sanctions On Missiles Violate Nuclear Deal

June 17, 2017

The U.S. Senate's move to impose new sanctions on Iran is an "unquestionable" violation of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Iranian officials say.

The Senate this week approved legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic-missile program and other activities that U.S. legislators say are not related to the nuclear agreement.

"The U.S. Senate's move is unquestionably in breach of both the spirit and the letter of the nuclear deal," Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on June 16.

"Iran's ballistic program is totally legitimate," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said. "Iran's armed forces will continue to defend the country's security and interests."

Both Qassemi and Velayati said Iran would take "reciprocal measures" if the legislation was enacted.

To become law, the Senate bill would have to pass the House of Representatives and be signed by President Donald Trump.

Trump, a fierce critic of Iran's government, has already imposed new sanctions over Tehran's ballistic-missile program and is open to tough legislative measures.

However, the Senate bill also contains provisions cementing into law existing sanctions on Russia -- a move the administration has cautioned against.

Based on reporting by AFP, dpa, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-says-us-senate-proposed- sanctions-ballistic-missiles-violat -nuclear-agreement-/28559921.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Following IS Attacks, Iran Cracks Down on Armed Dissident Groups

By Mehdi Jedinia June 17, 2017

Iranian forces have staged operations against dissidents they say were planning terror attacks during Ramadan in the wake of twin suicide assaults on symbolic sites in Tehran. Officials linked one group to Saudi Arabia, which it claims is trying to destabilize the country.

Intelligence forces killed three members of the small Ansar al-Forqan group and arrested five others Wednesday in the southeastern city of Chabahar in Sistan and Balouchestan province, seizing seven suicide vests and a large amount of ammunition, according to state-run media.

Tehran claims the fundamentalist Sunni group is linked to al-Qaida, with possible support from Saudi Arabia.

In a second incident, Iran's Fars News Agency reported Friday that several alleged "terrorists" had been killed or wounded in clashes with Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members in the Qasr-e Qand region.

Explosives confiscated

An IRGC statement said 700 kilograms of explosives had been confiscated, along with a car packed with another 600 kilograms of explosives and five bombs. It was not clear whether the targets of the assault belonged to a specific group.

The details of the operations could not be independently verified. They were carried out as Iran was still reeling from the June 5 attacks on Parliament and the mausoleum of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that killed at least 17 people and injured several others.

Islamic State claimed responsibility, but Iran has linked the attacks to Saudi Arabia, its main rival for influence in the region, claiming Riyadh is trying to destabilize the country by supporting dissidents.

IRGC Commander Mohammed Ali Jafari told Fars that Iran had "precise information" that Saudi Arabia "has asked terrorists to carry out operations in Iran."

The Fars report said the Saudis might have recruited Ansar al-Forqan to carry out attacks.

"The intelligence shows that the Saudis have hired mercenaries from the neighboring states to create insecurity inside Iran," said Mahmoud Alavi, the Iranian intelligence minister. He alleged that the U.S. and Israel also support terrorist groups in the region.

Rising tensions

Tensions between longtime rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran have escalated in recent weeks after the Saudis and their Gulf partners cut ties to Qatar, citing, in part, its association to Iran and Tehran's alleged link to terrorism.

Before the June 5 attacks in Tehran, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Iran "must be punished" for its disruptive role in the region.

Mohammed bin Salman, deputy crown prince and defense minister of Saudi Arabia, slammed Iran recently for its intrusion in Arab world affairs and threatened using force inside Iran's borders.

"We won't wait for the battle to be in Saudi Arabia," he said. "Instead, we'll work so that the battle is for them in Iran."

Ansar al-Forqan's website says its mission is fighting the "cruel Shi'ite regime of Tehran" for persecution of the country's Sunni minority.

"Since this cruel Shi'ite regime only deprives Sunni Muslims of their rights, we have no other means but to fight back," Ansar al-Forqan said in a video statement last year.

It is an ethnic Baloch group and active only in poverty-racked Sistan and Balouchestan. Blamed for launching several attacks on military outposts in the region and targeting military vehicles with short-range missiles, the group is considered to have strong ties to Salafism ideology.

"Their motto of 'Either martyrdom or Sharia' depicts the level of their commitment to the execution of Islamic decrees," said Abdolsatar Doshoki, a U.K.-based Baloch affairs analyst.

Estimates put the number of members from 200 to more than 400.

Recruiting targets

"The group mostly recruits from young Balochs from poor families who are strongly religious, poor and frustrated," said Azhar Shoeibi, a Sweden-based Balouch asylum-seeker from the region.

The group reportedly is ill-funded and receives only ammunition support from Afghan and Pakistani militant allies.

"The militants usually harbor in Pakistan and receive enormous support from Pakistani tribes," Doshoki said.

In February 2013, Iran and Pakistan signed a security agreement under which both countries are required to cooperate in combating organized crime and fighting terrorism, as well as countering threats to national security. Iran has repeatedly called on Pakistan to comply with the terms of the agreement.

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Russia tests short-range nuclear missile interceptor

Iran Press TV

Fri Jun 16, 2017 9:18PM

Russia's military has successfully launched a short-range interceptor missile, capable of delivering a nuclear warhead in a ballistic flight trajectory, to boost the country's defensive network, the Defense Ministry says.

The Russian Strategic Missile Troops and Aerospace Forces (VKS) jointly carried out the launch of a 53T6 (SH-08 Gazelle) endoatmospheric interceptor missile at the Sary Shagan test range in Kazakhstan on Friday, said Col. Andrey Prikhodko, a VKS deputy commander.

"During the test, the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) successfully accomplished its task and destroyed the designated target," he said, referring to the country's A-135 ABM system, which has been designed to protect the capital Moscow and its surroundings from a possible nuclear missile strike.

The A-135 ABM system includes phased-array radars, a command center and launchers, which fire two types of interceptor missiles, the long-range 51T6 and the short-range 53T6, both designed to be tipped with nuclear warheads to eliminate any incoming nuclear warheads with a nuclear blast in the air.

The 10-meter-long 53T6 missile is reportedly capable of carrying a 10-kiloton nuclear warhead to as far as 80 kilometers at a speed of three kilometers per second.

The defensive system, operational since 1995, reportedly uses 68 launchers for 53T6 interceptors at five launch sites with 12 or 16 missiles each. It also employs 16 launchers for 51T6 interceptors at two launch sites with eight missiles each.

The Russian military tests interceptor ballistic missiles roughly annually to confirm their combat readiness. A video of Friday's launch was released by the Russian Defense Ministry. The short-range missile launched on Friday did not deliver a nuclear warhead.

Russia says the A-135 ABM defensive system is compliant with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, from which the United States unilaterally pulled out in 2002.

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New sanctions against Russia to complicate ties with US: Putin

Iran Press TV

Sat Jun 17, 2017 1:13PM

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that new sanctions by the US Senate against Russia will complicate the relations between the two states, noting that it is too early to talk about retaliatory measures.

Putin made the remarks in an interview with Rossiya1 state TV channel, excerpts of which were released on Saturday.

"This will, indeed, complicate Russia-American relations. I think this is harmful," the Russian president said.

Putin noted that Russia needs to see how the situation evolves, saying, "That is why it is premature to speak publicly about our retaliatory actions."

The sanctions were approved by the US Senate on Thursday by 98 to 2, but it still needs to pass the House of Representatives and be signed by US President Donald Trump to become law. Trump is believed to be skeptical of anti-Russia moves, and White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Thursday that the Trump administration was still reviewing the Senate legislation.

The sanctions bill mainly affect firms cooperating with Russian oil and gas companies, including BASF, Shell, Engie, OMV, Wintershall, and Uniper taking part in the Nord Stream 2 project.

American policymakers are considering the new round of sanctions in an attempt to punish Russia for alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and for backing the government in Damascus since the Syrian crisis started in March 2011.

Germany and Austria have criticized Senate's new anti-Russia sanctions, calling them an instance of American interference in European affairs.

Russia and the West have been imposing sanctions against each other since the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea seceded from Ukraine and rejoined Russia in 2014.

While the West's economic and financial sanctions harmed Russian exports, Moscow retaliated by banning imports of Western food and barred some individuals from entering Russia.

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Putin Unhappy with New US Sanctions, but Says Too Early for Retaliation

By VOA News June 17, 2017

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed disappointment Saturday over possible new sanctions to be levied against his country by the United States, but said it is too early to speak of "retaliatory actions."

"This will, indeed, complicate Russia-American relations. I think this is harmful," Putin the told state-run RIA news agency.

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly this week to strengthen sanctions against Russia as punishment for its campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The new sanctions, passed Wednesday, target Russians involved in serious human rights abuses, supplying weapons to the Syrian government, carrying out malicious cyber activities and doing business with Russian intelligence and defense.

Putin to wait and see

The proposed sanctions still must gain approval from the House of Representatives and be signed by President Donald Trump, which is why Putin said he would wait to see how the situation moves forward.

"We need to see how it is all going to be. That is why it is premature to speak publicly about our retaliatory actions," Putin said.

The White House has not said if Trump would sign or veto the legislation, but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson testified on Capitol Hill this week and warned against measures that would cut off dialogue with Moscow.

He asked that Congress give the Trump administration "the flexibility to turn up the heat" on Russia, should the need arise in the future.

McCain backs strong message

Republican Senator John McCain, a leading critic of Russia in the Senate, said after the sanctions vote that America has "no time to waste" in punishing Russia and the U.S. needs to send a strong message to Putin that "we will not tolerate attacks on our democracy."

Putin downplayed the effectiveness of the proposed sanctions, saying Russians would have to "adjust something" or "do something extra," but the new sanctions will not lead to a "deadlock or a collapse" in Russia.

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Saudi Foreign Minister holds a press conference at Saudi Embassy in London

Saudi Press Agency

Saturday 1438/9/22 - 2017/06/17

London, 22 Ramadan,1438 AH, 17 June,2017 , SPA -- Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir affirmed that the Kingdom's hosting of the historic conference which brought together a number of Islamic and Arab countries with the United States of America aims to change the language of dialogue between Arab and Islamic countries and their counterparts in the West.

In a press conference at the Saudi Embassy in London yesterday in the presence of Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Al-Jubeir said that the Kingdom has recently launched the Global Center for Combating Terrorism, currently working, that can in a period not exceeding six seconds pick up messages from the Internet and deal with them immediately according to their types and we are now seeking to expand the capabilities of the Center.

He added that the GCC countries signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States of America on combating terrorism financing in a step of great importance in efforts to dry up all sources of financing terrorist organizations and extremist groups, pointing out that we aim after completing preparing of agreement activating mechanisms to expand the number of participating countries in the agreement so as to achieve the desired goals to the fullest.

On Yemen, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs also stressed the continuation of operations of the military Arab coalition forces against coup militias, expressing the Kingdom's concern over the humanitarian situations there, pointing out that the government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has allocated 800 million US dollars to confront the crisis through King Salman Center for Relief and Humanitarian Aid which distributes aid through 81 humanitarian organizations.

Minister Al-Jubeir expressed the Kingdom's concern over the siege imposed by Al-Houthi groups on some areas causing many famines and hindering the arrival of medical and food aid, pointing out that the coalition forces are working to lift the siege and reach the needy as soon as possible.

In the same context, he explained that the Kingdom hosted a reconstruction conference in Yemen in cooperation with the World Bank, and that it has allocated more than $ 10 billion to these efforts.

On the Syrian issue, the Minister of Foreign Affairs reiterated that the end of the crisis there should be through the political solution in accordance with the 1st Geneva Declaration and the resolution of the United Nations Security Council 2254, adding that the Kingdom is working according to The International Syria Support Group in preparation for the political transition.

Minister Al-Jubeir reiterated the Kingdom's commitment to fight and defeat the terrorist group Daesh (ISIS) in Syria and throughout the world, pointing out that the Kingdom was at the forefront of the Coalition against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, calling for continuing international great and strong efforts against Daesh to ensure its defeat.

He also reiterated the Kingdom's support for steps being taken by the Iraqi government to fight terrorist Daesh, welcoming the visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Monday to discuss bilateral relations and ways of their development.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs pointed out that the Iranian regime continued to ignite violence by intervening in the affairs of the countries of the region, supporting terrorist groups in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain and using the Revolutionary Guards in Syria and Iraq in a clear violation of international laws and norms.

He explained that Iran should act like the committed states if it wants to return to the international community and stop the aggressive behavior of supporting militias, bombing of embassies and interfering in the affairs of others, expressing his pessimism that the regime of Tehran cannot change the approach that has been used over the past years.

On the Libyan issue, Minister Al-Jubeir pointed out that the Kingdom is coordinating with its international partners to restore the country's stability and not allow the spread of terrorism in Libya and Africa.

On the Qatari issue, he said that the Kingdom, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have taken the recent position towards Qatar after the failure of all endeavors with Doha and its non-commitment after repeated demands, the latest ones in 2013 and 2014 to stop supporting extremism, terrorism, interference and fueling conflicts in other countries.

He explained that the recent decisions have been taken to send a message to Doha that it has gone too far, adding that we consider Qatar as an ally in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for Arab States, we do not seek for harming the Qatari people, but the current situation must be corrected as Doha can not continue its current policy and it must stop financing terrorism.

The Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs also said that they are is in the process of lodging a complaint to Qatar containing all points that caused the crisis, hoping that Doha will address those fears and resort to the voice of reason in order to resolve the issue.

-- SPA

15:09 LOCAL TIME 12:09 GMT

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US-led Coalition Closely Monitoring Turkish Training of Syrian Militia

By Rikar Hussein, Kasim Cindemir June 16, 2017

The U.S.-led coalition in Syria is closely monitoring Turkey's arming and training of a Syrian militia in northern Syria and asking Turkey instead to return the region to control of local residents, coalition sources told VOA.

U.S. Army Colonel Joseph Scrocca, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition's Operation Inherent Resolve, told VOA that the coalition "feels strongly that any land seized [from Islamic State] should be returned to the people and governed by local representatives from that area."

The coalition's focus is on defeating IS in Syria and Iraq, and "we urge all of our partners and allies to do the same," Scrocca said.

'National army'

Scrocca's comment came as the Turkish military is working to establish a "national army" for rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters to operate in northern Syria's Jarabouls and al-Bab areas.

The two areas were seized from IS during a Turkey-supported operation known as Euphrates Shield, which involved Turkish troops and tanks and some FSA factions.

The operation began in August 2016 and ended in March, and the area along the Turkey-Syria border remains under the Turkish army's control.

Syrian Kurds see Turkey's presence as a de facto occupation. Turkish officials say more than a million residents have returned to their homes and the IS presence on the Turkish-Syrian border has been eradicated.

"Once we have created a safe zone, the Syrians will be able to establish their national army, so they can feel safe," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in May.

Turkish officials said the expanded FSA unit has 10,000 to 12,000 fighters and will be prepared to carry out defensive and offensive operations inside Syria.

"They will show their difference in possible future operations and they will be successful," the Anadolu Agency, a news agency headquartered in Ankara, quoted one Turkish military official as saying.

Training of FSA members

Metehan Demir, a Turkish defense and military analyst, told VOA that training of FSA members started in March, when the government prepared two military camps in Turkey's Hatay and Kilis areas.

Turkey's official news agency said the unit was being trained in how to use weapons, including mortars, rocket launchers and machine guns.

"Hatay camp is especially very well-organized for this purpose," Demir said.

He said Turkey would most likely use the new FSA unit to try to counter the increasing influence of Kurdish YPG forces who are leading the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in a major battle for the IS stronghold of Raqqa.

While the United States supports the YPG and sees it as a key Syrian partner in the fight against IS, Turkey opposes its role and considers it a terrorist organization linked to Turkish-Kurdish separatists inside Turkey, known as the PKK.

"The message from Ankara to Washington is clear," Demir said, "Don't cooperate with YPG, because we are training a new FSA that can do a better job."

U.S. officials have not commented on Turkey's reinforcement of the FSA.

After the U.S. announced last month that it was sending arms to the SDF for the Raqqa operation, Erdogan warned that Turkey would not remain idle and watch the YPG gain in strength. He said Turkey would "exercise its rights under the rules of engagement."

Not likely to align

Analysts say it is unlikely that U.S. forces will align with the Turkey-backed FSA.

"By all reports, the U.S. military does not believe that the FSA forces being trained by Turkey are anywhere near ready to carry out the Raqqa-related mission that SDF/YPG forces are performing," Alan Makovsky, senior analyst for the Center for American Progress and a former U.S. State Department official, told VOA.

Kurdish officials say they are concerned that Turkish-supported militias will ultimately attack their areas and disrupt the Raqqa operation.

"Turkey should cease its involvement in Syria and focus on resolving its internal problems, especially with its Kurds," Salih Muslim, co-chairman of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party, which provides political direction to the YPG, told VOA.

Muslim accused Turkey of supporting extremist groups to stop Kurdish aspiration for autonomy, and he pleaded with the U.S. for more support.

"Our focus will be to liberate Raqqa and bring back security to it," Muslim said. "America has by now realized how important Syrian Kurds are for the region's stability."

The U.S. in recent months has tried to prevent direct confrontations between Turkey and the YPG. When Turkish planes and artillery attacked YPG bases in April, U.S. troops began patrolling the Syria-Turkey border and tensions eased.

And Turkey's influence on the FSA does not extend deep into Syria, analysts say. Rebels south of the Turkish-controlled area in Syria are reportedly severing ties with the FSA and former self-styled militias that are becoming aligned with the U.S.-led coalition.

"Turkey's biggest challenge over the long term might be consolidating its hold on the territory it now holds," Makovsky said. "Based on the internal fighting and defections among FSA forces in al-Bab, it will need a far more reliable proxy than the FSA forces it now commands."

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Syrian army declares 48-hour combat cessation in southern city

Iran Press TV

Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:46PM

The Syrian military has announced the cessation of hostilities in the southern city of Dara'a for 48 hours in support of national reconciliation efforts meant to secure civilian lives and give an opportunity to foreign-sponsored militants to lay down their arms.

The General Command of the Syrian Army and Armed Forces said in a statement that all combat operations would stop as of Saturday 12 p.m. (0900 GMT) for 48 hours.

Earlier this week, a western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in Beirut that officials from the United States, Russia and Jordan were holding closed-door meetings in Amman to halt the fighting between the militants and government troops in southern Syria.

The diplomat added that the officials were exchanging viewpoints on the boundaries of a ceasefire line between the foreign-backed extremists and Syrian army soldiers, which is projected to yield a comprehensive agreement and outline the control of border crossings with Jordan.

During ceasefire talks in the Kazakh capital city of Astana last month, Russia, with backing from Turkey and the Islamic Republic of Iran, brokered a deal for establishing de-escalation zones in Syria's mainly militant-held areas.

The plan, which came into effect at midnight on May 5, calls for the cessation of hostilities between the militant groups and Syrian government forces.

It covers the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, northeastern areas of the western coastal province of Latakia, western areas of Aleppo province and northern areas of Hama province.

The deal also applies to the Rastan and Talbiseh enclave in Homs province, Eastern Ghouta district in the northern Damascus countryside as well as the militant-controlled southern part of the country along the border with Jordan.

UN wants to start fresh Syria talks in July

Meanwhile, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Monday that a fresh round of intra-Syrian talks would begin in the Swiss city of Geneva on July 10.

"(De Mistura) wishes to announce he will convene a seventh round of the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva. The target date for arrival of invitees is July 9, with the round beginning on July 10," his office said in an emailed statement.

"He intends to convene further rounds of talks in August and in September," it added.

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Syria Declares 48-Hour Cease-Fire In Daraa

June 17, 2017

The Syrian Army has declared a 48-hour cease-fire in its operations against antigovernment rebels around the southern city of Daraa.

The army said the cease-fire started at 12 p.m. local time on June 17 and described the move as a bid "to support efforts for national reconciliation."

The independent London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the same day that the cease-fire seemed to be holding.

The U.S. State Department issued a statement welcoming the development and calling for the opposition to also enforce a cease-fire so that humanitarian aid can reach civilians.

The Syrian Army and Iran-backed militias have stepped up efforts to capture the rebel-held parts of Daraa in recent weeks.

Also on June 17, the United Nations announced a further round of peace talks between the government and forces fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Geneva on July 10.

Moscow also announced it hopes to organize another round of talks in the Kazakh capital, Astana, on July 4-5.

The 6-year-old Syrian conflict has left hundreds of thousands dead and driven more than 11 million people from their homes.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/syria-army-declares-48- hour-cease-fire-daraa/28560656.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Russian Warplanes Foil Daesh Attack in Deir ez-Zor, Eliminate 180 Terrorists

Sputnik News

16:49 17.06.2017(updated 21:32 17.06.2017)

The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that the Russian warplanes have foiled a massive Daesh attack on the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor earlier in June.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Russian reconnaissance means recorded Daesh units preparation to break through the defenses of the Syrian government troops deployed in Deir ez-Zor.

"In the beginning of June, the Russian Armed Forces' group in the Syrian Arab Republic recorded via UAVs the preparation of Daesh terrorist group's units to break through the defensive lines of a garrison of the government troops blocked in the city of Deir ez-Zor."

Russian warplanes have eliminated two top Daesh field commanders and some 180 terrorists in Syria during aerial operations on June 6 and 8.

Moreover, the Russian Aerospace Forces also destroyed 16 units of terrorists' automotive and armored vehicles and an ammunition depot during the air raids.

"As a result of preemptive airstrikes of the Russian Aerospace Forces on June 6 and 8, [two] Daesh field commanders were eliminated. Moreover, about 180 militants, 16 automotive vehicles and armored vehicles, one artillery gun, four command points,and an arms and ammunition depot were destroyed."

Syrian government forces control over a half of Deir ez-Zor, which has been besieged by Daesh militants over three years. The Syrian forces continue an offensive aimed at lifting the siege and creating supply lines for the city's residents. Presently, the only means of delivering supplies to the city is by air.

 Sputnik

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Syrian Army Suspends Combat Operations in City of Daraa for 48 Hours - Reports

Sputnik News

16:39 17.06.2017(updated 16:42 17.06.2017)

The Syrian army has ceased combat operations against militants in country's southwestern city of Daraa for 48 hours in order to support ceasefire efforts, local media reported Saturday, citing the army command.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The combat operations have been halted since 12 p.m. local time on Saturday [09:00 GMT] to promote national reconciliation, Syria's SANA news agency said.

According to the media outlet, the Syrian government continues enhancing the process of local ceasefire regimes in different parts of the country and, at the same time, puts in efforts to defeat terrorism.

According to a memorandum on the creation of safe zones in Syria, the southern zone of de-escalation of tensions in Syria was set to be established in Daraa and Quneitra provinces.

On May 4, Russia, Turkey and Iran signed a memorandum on the establishment of safe zones in war-torn Syria as part of the the Astana talks on Syrian settlement. The four zones include the northwestern Idlib province and parts of the neighboring Latakia, Hama and Aleppo provinces, the north of the central Homs province, eastern Ghouta near Damascus and certain parts in the country's southern Deraa and Quneitra provinces. The memorandum on these de-escalation zones took effect on May 6.

 Sputnik

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US Cautious But Hopeful About New Syria Cease-fire

By VOA News June 16, 2017

The United States supports a 48-hour cease-fire declared by the Syrian army in southern Syria but says it will wait to see what happens before judging its effectiveness.

"We will judge this initiative by the results, not the words," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement Saturday. "The opposition should similarly halt attacks to allow the cease-fire to endure  and hopefully be extended  and humanitarian aid to reach those in need."

Earlier in the day, the Syrian army announced the unilateral cease-fire in the southern city of Deraa in order to support "reconciliation efforts." According to a statement carried by state news agency SANA, the cease-fire was set to take effect at 12 p.m. Saturday local time.

The announcement of the cease-fire came on the same day the United Nations said it wanted to start new peace talks involving all sides in Syria next month in Geneva.

The United States and Russia have also been holding talks on creating safe zones in Syria, which would include Deraa and several other cities.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighting and shelling in Deraa fell off slightly after the announcement of the cease-fire, but a rebel leader told the Reuters news agency there had been no change in the pace of the fight.

"We have not heard of any such talk, and the regime is still attacking us with the same intensity," the commander, who was not named, told Reuters.

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Taiwan to face China's diplomatic offensive head on: foreign minister

ROC Central News Agency

2017/06/17 09:41:03

Taipei, June 17 (CNA) Foreign Minister David Lee () said Saturday that Taiwan would face China's efforts to isolate the self-governing island "head on" after Taiwan lost a second diplomatic ally to China in six months.

"With the other side of the Taiwan Strait clearly intending to take the offensive, we cannot but face it head on," Lee told reporters. He did not elaborate.

Lee made the comment early Saturday at Taoyuan International Airport, where he and other officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs greeted diplomats returning from Panama after the Central American country cut off official ties with Taiwan on June 13 Taipei Time.

That same morning, Panama's Vice President and Foreign Minister Isabel Saint Malo signed a joint communique with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi () in Beijing on the establishment of formal ties between their two countries.

The returning diplomats were led by Miguel Tsao (), who went to Panama City as ambassador of the Republic of China (Taiwan) just a month ago.

Panama became the second country to switch diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing since the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power in May 2016, leaving Taiwan with 20 diplomatic allies in the world. The island state of Sao Tome and Principe in West Africa turned its back on Taiwan on Dec. 21, 2016.

In addition to wooing Taiwan's allies, China has taken other measures aimed at isolating Taiwan and downgrading its relations with foreign countries over the past year.

They include obstructing Taiwan's bid to attend the annual World Healthy Assembly as an observer, as it had done between 2009 and 2016, putting pressure on China's allies -- such as Nigeria -- to force Taiwan to move its representative offices from their capital cities and/or change the names of those missions.

Just a year ago, a non-governmental humanitarian mission to Kyrgyzstan was aborted late in its planning stages by the Central Asian country's foreign ministry, which cited its one-China policy.

Liu Chi-chun (), head of the Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps (), said that was the first time since the founding of the group in 1995 that it was rejected because of apparent pressure from Beijing.

A volunteer group organized by the charity organization had originally planned to travel to the Kyrgyz Republic in late July 23 to provide medical services to the Kyrgyz people living in remote area.

While the group's coordination with the local government went smoothly, the Kyrgyz foreign ministry would not approve the visit.

Beijing considers Taiwan as part of the Chinese territory, to be reunited by force if necessary.

Enditem

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Turkish PM's top adviser detained over Gulen links released

Iran Press TV

Sat Jun 17, 2017 2:34PM

Turkish authorities have freed Prime Minister Binali Yildirim's chief adviser that was arrested earlier this month over suspected links to the movement of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of having masterminded last year's failed coup.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency reported that Birol Erdem, a former senior Justice Ministry official, was released under judicial supervision on Saturday.

His wife Gulumser Erdem was, however, placed under arrest by an Ankara court ahead of trial.

Earlier this month, Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor Harun Kodalak issued the arrest warrants for Birol and Gulumser Erdem as part of a probe into their links to the Gulen movement. The couple was detained in the capital on June 3.

Meanwhile, a Turkish court has ordered the arrest of Huseyin Capkin, the former Istanbul police chief, as well as Omer Faruk Kavurmaci, the son-in-law of Istanbul mayor Kadir Topbas, over links to the Gulen movement.

Capkin had earlier surrendered to police late on Friday after the Istanbul 30th High Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him and former governor of southwestern Denizli Province, Abdulkadir Demir, on charges of supporting Gulen.

Turkey witnessed a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, when a faction of the Turkish military declared that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was no more in charge of the country.

A few hours later, however, the coup was suppressed. Almost 250 people were killed and nearly 2,200 others wounded in the abortive coup.

Gulen has censured the coup attempt and strongly denied any involvement in it.

Turkey remains in a state of emergency since the coup, and Ankara has been engaged in suppressing the media and opposition groups, who were believed to have played a role in the failed putsch.

Over 40,000 people have been arrested and more than 120,000 others sacked or suspended from a wide range of professions, including soldiers, police, teachers, and public servants, over alleged links to the coup attempt.

Many rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have denounced Ankara's heavy clampdown.

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Baseless Expectations: Saudi Arabia Rejects Turkish Idea to Station Troops There

Sputnik News

20:43 17.06.2017

Saudi Arabia does not intend to allow Turkey to form a military base in the Kingdom as there is no need for it, the Saudi Press Agency stated Saturday, citing an official source.

On Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an interview with a Portuguese news channel, said that he was discussing the possibility of establishing a Turkish military base in Saudi Arabia with King Salman, who, he said, had agreed to consider the proposal.

However, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) denied such a possibility in its report.

"An official source has stressed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia cannot allow Turkey to establish military bases on its territories, pointing out that the Kingdom has no need for this," the SPA said.

According to the source, Saudi Arabia's armed forces and military capabilities are "at the best level" and it has "great participation abroad including Incirlik base in Turkey for combating terrorism and protecting security and stability in the region," the report read.

Meanwhile, a three-person Turkish military delegation arrived in Qatar on June 12 to prepare a military base for the deployment of the Turkish military forces amid an ongoing diplomatic row between Qatar and other Arab states, the Turkish General Staff said in a statement obtained by Sputnik on Tuesday.

According to Turkish Ambassador to Qatar Ahmet Demirok, about 3,000 soldiers of the ground forces, servicemen of the country's air forces and navy, as well as instructors and Special Forces, will be deployed at the base in Qatar.

On June 5, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and embargoed all sea, air and land traffic to the country, accusing Doha of supporting terrorists and destabilizing the Middle East, and several other states in the region reduced diplomatic relations with the country.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey would continue to develop relations with Qatar and will make efforts to resolve the crisis through dialogue.

On Friday, Erdogan approved legislation allowing the deployment of Turkish troops to Qatar amid the ongoing diplomatic crisis between Doha and other Arab states and said he had not witnessed Doha backing terrorism.

 Sputnik

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Avie Niece

From June 11 until June 24, Washington Volleyball is in search of competition and culture in four different countries in Europe. The Huskies are on their first foreign adventure since 2013, joined by many family members and donors, to share in a once in a lifetime experience outside of their comfort zones. Arriving in Milan, Italy on June 12, the Dawgs have visited Lake Como and Venice before leaving Italy for Croatia (Umag and Rovinj) and then on to Slovenia (Maribor, Ljubljana, and Bled) with an additional side trip to Graz, Austria, returning to Seattle on June 24. During the trip, the Huskies are scheduled to play seven matches against a mixture of senior national teams, junior national teams, and professional club teams.While abroad, Husky players will be blogging about their experiences each day here on GoHuskies.com.This morning I woke up with a beautiful view of some Italian hills and a bad stomach ache. I rolled around that whole night trying to find a position that didn't further upset my tummy so I was a tad tired to start the day. But, the amazing buffet breakfast made up for my restless night. I chose some fresh fruit and yummy eggs. We loaded all our luggage onto the bus and hopped on to drive to the city of Venice. Our bus parked and we walked onto this big boat with seats on the roof to enjoy our twenty-minute ride to the docks of the island of Venice. We got off where most of the tourists were so we had to shuffle our way around for a while till we found a yummy place to eat right on one of the many canals.We had about four hours and that was a good amount of time for me to see the main attractions and get the gist of city life in Venice. We had an enjoyable boat ride back to the bus where we prepared for a three-hour bus ride to Croatia. We got through the border smoothly and made it to the beautiful hotel right on the sea. We watched the sunset on the water while keeping an eye on the tiny crabs shuffling a little too close to us then walked around until dinner time. We got a buffet dinner which was very very exciting, there was meats, fruits, veggies, pastries, and gelato! We get to sleep in tomorrow morning which I'm also excited for.See all you Husky followers in August!Ciao!-Avie
John Grishams latest novel, Camino Island, hit the bookstore shelves June 6.

The books release marks a growing connection between our state and the bestselling author more than 300 million in print at last count. Thus, it is an important moment for North Carolinians, some of whom are claiming Grisham as one of their own.

They have some good arguments.

For the first time in many years, he is going on a book tour to promote his book. Of the 11 scheduled stops, four are in North Carolina, twice as many as in any other state. Along the way, he is inviting other North Carolina literary giants  Randall Kenan, Jill McCorkle, John Hart, Ron Rash, Wiley Cash and Clyde Edgerton  to discuss his work and theirs.

Another connection is the new books leading character, Mercer Mann, a fictional writing instructor at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is losing her job and suffering writers block as she tries to write a novel to follow up her first mildly successful one. She is at loose ends and a prime target to be recruited for an undercover assignment. More about that assignment in a minute. Her recruiter comes to Chapel Hill and wines and dines Mercer at Spankys and the Lantern restaurants, two of the towns favorites, and not far from the house where Grisham and his wife Renee live when they visit their daughter and her family in Raleigh.

Now that we have almost made Grisham a North Carolinian, what about the new book?

Camino Island breaks some of Grishams usual patterns. As regular as clockwork for many years, each October Grisham has delivered a legal thriller that quickly becomes a bestseller. But Camino Island came out this month instead of October. And it is not a legal thriller. Lawyers make only cameo appearances. The action is set in the literary world, the world of writing, publishing and selling books. There is also a literary underworld of criminals who steal and distribute valuable manuscripts.

In Camino Island a group of clever thieves breaks into the Princeton University library and walk away with the original manuscripts of The Great Gatsby and four other novels written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The papers are insured for $25 million. The insurance company suspects that Bruce Cable, a rare book dealer and bookstore owner, has possession of the Fitzgerald papers. Cable is the center of a group of writers, fans and book collectors on Camino Island, a small resort community near Jacksonville, Fla.

The insurance company sends Elaine Shelby to Chapel Hill to recruit Mercer to go to Camino Island, where she once had family connections. There she can infiltrate Cables group, make friends with him, and try to learn whether or not he has the Fitzgerald papers.

Along the way Mercer loses confidence in her ability to fool Cable. Elaine, trying to persuade her to stay on the job, tells her that the cover is perfect, Youre a writer living at the beach for a few months in the family cottage. Youre hard at work on a novel. Its the perfect story, Mercer, because its true. And you have the perfect personality because youre genuine. If we needed a con artist we wouldnt be talking right now. Are you afraid?

Sure enough Mercer gains Cables friendship and the story moves toward an expected ending. Then, Grisham does his usual, twisting the expected into a set of cascading surprises that fooled and entertained this reader just as he does in his legal thrillers.

If you are worried about missing his regular annual legal thriller, dont. He promises that a new one will be ready, as always, in October.
As grocery shoppers work to digest Amazon's massive acquisition of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, the digital storefront recently scored a victory that aims to reinforce the company's growing investments in brick-and-mortar retail.

Amazon was awarded a patent on May 30 that could help it choke off a common issue faced by many physical stores: Customers' use of smartphones to compare prices even as they walk around a shop. The phenomenon, often known as mobile "window shopping," has contributed to a worrisome decline for traditional retailers.

But Amazon now has the technology to prevent that type of behavior when customers enter any of its physical stores and log onto the WiFi networks there. Titled "Physical Store Online Shopping Control," Amazon's patent describes a system that can identify a customer's Internet traffic and sense when the smartphone user is trying to access a competitor's website. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos is also the owner of The Washington Post.)

When that happens, Amazon may take one of several actions. It may block access to the competitor's site, preventing customers from viewing comparable products from rivals. It might redirect the customer to Amazon's own site or to other, Amazon-approved sites. It might notify an Amazon salesperson to approach the customer. Or it might send the customer's smartphone a text message, coupon or other information designed to lure the person back into Amazon's orbit.

As Amazon increasingly bridges the online-physical divide, regulators should be on the lookout for potentially anti-competitive behavior, said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

"Amazon knows younger consumers increasingly want home delivery of grocery products and online ordering. But there are huge privacy issues," he said. "Amazon has created a largely stealth Big Data digital apparatus that has not gotten the scrutiny it requires."

Just because a company wins a patent doesn't necessarily mean it'll use it. Sometimes companies file for patents to ensure they have the option to put the idea into practice later, or to keep other companies from implementing the concept. So, a system such as the kind Amazon's envisioning might never be rolled out. And even if it is, chances are shoppers could still get around the system by staying off the in-store WiFi.

Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

But the patent takes on even greater significance as Amazon has expanded its brick-and-mortar ambitions. It has launched more than a half-dozen physical bookstores, with more on the way. And with the purchase of Whole Foods, Amazon will gain control over more than 465 physical grocery stores. Which gives Amazon an enormous stake in making sure that its customers don't look for better deals right from its own baking aisle.
GREENWICH  Greenwich students basked in broken records, first places and gold medals this school year.

Some 48 students who live in Greenwich placed in the top 10 in nine different national or international competitions. Another 34 were commended for their outstanding academics.

High school students at Greenwich Academy, Brunswick School, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Stanwich School and Greenwich High School are often high performing, but some educators said this years recognitions were particularly high.

Several students placed higher in competitions this year than their school ever previously had or claimed wins that escaped Greenwich for years.

Greenwich High School senior William Yin was named a U.S. Presidential Scholar in May, one of 161 in the nation and the first in Greenwich since 2009 when James Biondi of Brunswick School won the title.

In science, Greenwich High School junior Shobhita Sundaram became the first student from her school ever to win the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium and sophomore Rahul Subramaniam, a high-achieving GHS student, competed in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair after claiming first in the microbiology category and winning a Grand Award, $8,000 in prize money and all-expenses paid trip to India.

Greenwich High also had its highest ever number of students qualifying for the International Sustainable World (Energy, Engineering and Environment) Project Olympiad this year.

It was a good year, said GHS science teacher Andrew Bramante. In his research class, you get good technicians some year and good speakers in others, he said. It seems like this year, I got kids who could do it all.

In history, GHS students took first in the Harlan National Virtual Supreme Court Competition in the schools first year participating.

I'm very proud to lead a school like GHS that produces large numbers of award winners on the local, state, national and international levels, said Chris Winters, headmaster of Greenwich High School. These are the students who stand poised to make significant contributions to the world. It is an honor to work with staff who set high expectations and work passionately to cultivate the talents of these young adults. Our whole town should be very proud.

Greenwich Academy and Convent of the Sacred Heart students claimed prizes in English and journalism. A Brunswick School team swept at the All-Star Contest of the American Computer Science League.

We're very proud of all of these boys, said Tom Philip, head of Brunswick School. The time and effort they put into these interests and competitions is to their great credit. Each year is a special one at Brunswick, but we're certainly excited and reaffirmed by the various successes garnered this year."

Students from Greenwich also nabbed numerous state and regional awards this school  enough to at least triple the list of national and international competition winners.

In addition to two GHS national visual arts winners, Greenwich High had 15 state Scholastic art winners and 29 all-state band, choir and orchestra qualifiers, as well as four all-Eastern qualifiers.

This is the most awards the visual arts department won for Scholastics for the last four years, said Laura White, district arts coordinator for Greenwich Public Schools. In music, while the numbers are smaller than in previous years, Greenwich has representation in all the performing groups for the festival. This is exceptional.

Convent of the Sacred Heart and Greenwich Academy also posted dozens of Scholastic Art and Writing Award winners at the state level.

Several Brunswick School and Greenwich High students had strong finishes at the Connecticut State Association of Math Leagues competition and the Connecticut Science and Engineering Fair.

Stanwich Schools team placed tenth in the Connecticut State MATHCOUNTS Competition.

emunson@greenwichtime.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson
The pages were yellowed and long forgotten. Sorting through old documents, Id happened upon a special Fathers Day section of Greenwich Time, saved for nearly 30 years. Dated June 7, 1988, it was a collection of reflections about fatherhood, fathers and grandfathers written by prominent Greenwich residents.

Among the contributors, now dead, were Ruth Sims, Greenwich first selectman from 1977 to 1981, BET member Pete Gasparino, and Bob McGonagle, WGCH radio announcer. Another contributor was actor Jonathan Silverman, son of Rabbi Hillel Silverman who was then Temple Sholoms rabbi, now rabbi emeritus.

Why had I saved these pages? I noticed that I, too, was a contributor, included because I was then chair of the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee.

While reading this rediscovered, unremembered personal recollection of my father, I decided to revive it for Fathers Day 2017.

Let me begin, as I did then, by stating that my father scoffed at the very idea of Fathers Day and Mothers Day, adamant that such constructs were nothing but commercial inventions to benefit the greeting card industry. As a family, we never celebrated either of these days.

In my 1988 narrative, I introduce my father through the obituary he wrote well in advance of his death, displaying his commitment to organization. In planning for death and writing his own obituary, as with everything, he was meticulous, and compulsive in his attention to detail.

The only details missing from the obituary were his age and date and place of death, obviously things unknown ahead of time. He left blanks for this information.

My father died June 3, 1982, in Greenwich Hospital, at age 91. Born March 17, 1891, in Amsterdam, Holland, he would now be 126 years old. Active and energetic, hed always seemed indestructible to me. Hed never been hospitalized until the day he died, nor did he have any diagnosed condition requiring medication. His death came less than 24 hours after a massive stroke from which he never regained consciousness.

His obituary was filled with information that my mother, my sister, and I would never have known to include with sufficient accuracy. His Ph.D. was from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. In the 1930s, he worked for the Netherlands government negotiating and implementing financial and trade agreements, including in Rome, Paris, Ankara, Bucharest, Prague, Tallinn, and Copenhagen. These were the cities he mentioned in his obituary.

He also worked on trade negotiations with Germany from 1934 until Hitlers invasion of Holland in 1940. He then served as a member of the Netherlands London Government-in-Exile during World War II, serving in the former Dutch colony of Suriname in South America, and the Netherlands Indies, now Indonesia.

All this was before I was born and before my parents married in New York City on Feb. 2, 1942, a second marriage for both. Had my Dutch father not fallen in love with my American mother, he would never have come to the United States, where he eventually started a business importing flower bulbs from Holland.

Theyd met at a party in Budapest, Hungary in the late 1930s when my mother was still married to her first husband, a Dutch diplomat. It was then, so the story goes, that my father told himself he would someday marry this woman.

They did not meet again, however, until 1941, in Indonesia, then still a Dutch colony. My mother, in the process of divorce, was returning to the United States, about to cross the Pacific on a Dutch cargo ship, the Jagersfontein, torpedoed the following year by a German U-boat. It was in the days before the ship sailed that their romance began.

Growing up, I often felt those former lives my parents lived, although far removed from our post-war Greenwich life, nonetheless, overshadowed our existence. My mother, nearly 20 years younger than my father, died at home, in hospice care, in 2000 at age 89. I wrote the obituary at her bedside the last day of her life.

Looking back through the lens of time, I recall my fathers disdain for Fathers and Mothers Day holidays. Yes, Im thinking, there is something superficial about this commercialized way of honoring parents that trivializes the profound nature of parenthood, unfathomable as life itself.

Alma Rutgers served in Greenwich town government for 25 years. Her blog is at blog.ctnews.com/rutgers/.
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There was plenty of Father's Day joy for four jubilant dads who had an extra reason to celebrate the arrival of their new babies.

Two boys and two girls were born at Grimsby Maternity Hospital on a very special  and boilingly hot  day for the delighted fathers.

The hospital was extra busy because staff shortages at Scunthorpe General Hospital meant that two couples from that town had to make the trip to Grimsby instead.

Proud father Lee Bell, 34, of Legsby Avenue, Grimsby, was a happy man when his daughter, Elsie Grace, was born at 6am, weighing 9lb 9.5oz.

(Image: Grimsby Telegraph)

He said: "I'm made up. I didn't think it was going to be today. It was a week-and-a-half over the due date.

"I'm over the moon. It's the best Father's Day present ever, without a doubt. Happy days."

It was a first baby for mother Hayley Dent, 39, who said: "She was due on the 8th. She was 10 days overdue.

"She was a long time coming. I'm absolutely amazed by the size of her."

Tom Shaw, 29, and his wife, Donna, 30, of Chauntry Road, Alford, were also celebrating after the birth of their son.

He was born at 3.15pm, weighing 8lb 10oz, but at the time of writing, they had not yet finalised a name for him.

Tom said: "He's a beautiful bundle of joy. He was due on the 6th and was 11 days overdue."

(Image: Duncan Young)

Tom joked to his baby: "You didn't want to come out. You were enjoying it too much."

He added: "It is one of the best Father's Day presents anybody could ever want but it means we will probably never celebrate it again because it will be his birthday."

Donna was still in theatre at the time the photograph was taken.

Cameron McArthur, 38, of Riddings, Scunthorpe, welcomed baby Morgan into the world at 4.30am, weighing 6lb 12oz, but he nearly missed the big event.

"Thanks to the midwife for waking me up otherwise I would have missed it," he said.

(Image: Duncan Young)

"It's brilliant. I don't need a card. He came on Father's Day and I am absolutely over the moon.

"He's a diamond  a real diamond. He's a little Smurf."

His wife, Claire, 34, said: "He's perfect. I'm happy. The fact that he was born on Father's Day means there's a bond those two can have."

She praised the Grimsby hospital staff and said she was really impressed  especially as she was expecting to give birth in Scunthorpe.

"The staff and the room  everything  have been absolutely brilliant," she said.

The couple have five other children between them.

Another couple forced to transfer from Scunthorpe to Grimsby were father Egidijus Lindzius, 35, and mother Jurate Adomaviciute, 33.

Baby girl Urte was born at 10.50am, weighing 7lb 1.5oz.

Egidijus was away on an errand when the photograph was taken but Jurate, of Ravendale Street South, Scunthorpe, said she was not even aware that it was Father's Day in this country.

The special day falls on June 1 in their home country of Lithuania.

"I didn't know until the midwife told me," she said.

Jurate was in labour for only 50 minutes and the birth was "very quick".

She said: "I feel very good. It makes it extra special that it's Father's Day."

She already has a son, Jordan, who is aged two years and three months.
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There are calls for a fix to traffic problems exiting the car park at the Tesco store in Cleethorpes after long delays were reported as hundreds of shoppers headed to the supermarket on Sunday morning for Father's Day supplies.

One motorist who did not wish to be named reported he had been caught up in the traffic nightmare at the Hewitt's Circus retailer for more than an hour.

He said: "I parked over near the cash machines and it took me 45 minutes to get near the petrol station.

"Why has this not been addressed before now?

"It's not just the introduction of smart traffic lights that's needed, it's Tesco staffing the car park with people direction cars and ensuring cars don't go up the wrong lane, the council and Tesco streamlining the route with an additional exit at the other side to lessen congestion.

"Because cars are at a standstill, it must also have an environmental impact with car fumes so air quality will be getting worse."

The problem appears to be caused by traffic merging from the petrol station exit and the side road at the retail park. With traffic also building on Hewitt's Avenue, drivers are struggling to leave the car park due to traffic lights only remaining green for a short period of time.

Commenting on the problem, Councillor Stan Shreeve (Con, Humberston & New Waltham) said: "It is something I am aware of, I've been stuck in it myself a few times.

"It does get particularly bad at weekends and during holidays. I think the problem is exacerbated by the slow cycle of the traffic lights. Until the technology is added to the lights, it will continue to be an issue."

Cllr Shreeve added an additional exit is something that could be "considered" but was unsure of the feasibility of such a project and the benefits it would have.

The chaos echoes similar scenes just ahead of Mother's Day in March when dozens of drivers were waiting for more than an hour to get out of the car park due to a traffic bottleneck.
Some of her fine work. Photo: Courtesy of Troll Cakes

Who hasnt dreamed of making mean internet commenters somehow eat their own words? Well thanks to Troll Cakes, that karmic reckoning is no longer one that only plays out in your head. This New York bakery, run by Kat Thek, the woman behind other online gems like Inedible Arrangements, will create a chocolate-brownie cake for that person in your life who leaves nasty Instagram comments or neo-Nazi Facebook posts. All it takes is $35 and a message thats embarrassing enough that theyll potentially wince at seeing it again. Thek will write it out with frosting, sprinkles, fondant, and whatever typos were in their original, then mail it directly to the perpetrators home. If the person lives in New York City, theres also the option for next-day, in-person delivery.



They might look mean and juvenile, but Thek assures people that they taste nice:



Of course, few can troll like the sitting U.S. president, so Thek also tells NPR that shell happily mail orders to the White House, Mar-a-Lago, or wherever else Trump is hanging out. It seems like hes received a couple of them already:


Photo: Elsie Hui/CC/flickr Pizza would never be the same.

Sam Panopoulos, considered to be the creator of the Hawaiian pizza, died on Thursday at the age of 83. A Greek immigrant to Canada, Panopoulos and his two brothers ran a number of restaurants in Ontario. Satellite Restaurant, where Panopoulos started serving pizzas in the 1960s, is the spot where he came up with the controversial assemblage of toppings. Depending on whom you talk you, it was either in a moment of divine inspiration or devilish blasphemy that Panopoulos first put pineapple on pizza, telling the BBC just this year that the crew did it just for the fun of it.

Pizza is one of those foods thats good even when its bad, but its a true understatement to say that the Hawaiian pizza  the star ingredients of which are some kind of hamlike pork product and pineapple  has been uniquely controversial. All these years later, it can still stir a good debate: When Icelands president Guni Johannesson announced his policy position on it earlier this year (fundamentally opposed), he started an international incident. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau came to the defense of his countrys culinary creation, and Panopoulos refused to back down in an interview with the BBC, where he called Johannesson crazy.
Photo: NicheOfLess/Reddit Avocado hand is a cakewalk compared to this.

Depleting folks savings accounts was one thing, but its time somebody tells these millennial-hating avocados to chill: A shopper at Sprouts  the organic grocery chain analysts have called a Whole Foods killer  claims she bought an avocado at one of its stores, and there was a bullet embedded inside it. Her friend posted the evidence on Reddit, where the picture has picked up 26,000 points and 1,400 comments in about a day. Most of the threads commenters are there to write their one clever joke and leave (e.g., Glockamole!!! or to ask what if vegans had to hunt their food), but a few have tried to logically think through how this couldve happened, like was it a farmer with a squirrel problem, or maybe our guac-obsessed civilization has now reached the point of conflict avocados? A lab worker even chimes in to reassure everyone that theres nothing to worry about, because finding bullets in food is an incredibly common occurrence.

Still seems problematic, though, that nobodys formulating a good defense plan in the event of a full-out war with avocados. Its all fun and games until the fruits turn against humankind, at which point you might say our species is toast.


Weekly poll: Are you getting a new Nokia and if so, which one?

HMD's Nokia trio is gradually launching around the world - already in Finland, the Philippines, India and soon in many other markets. The nostalgia-packed 3310 is rolling out as well, for those in the mood for a good old-fashioned feature phone.

So, are you planning to get one and if yes, which one? The Nokia 6 is clearly the leader of the pack with a 5.5" 1080p screen and 16MP camera, but even it is firmly in the mid-range (the high-end offerings are rumored, but still hidden).

The Nokia 5 sits on a lower rung of the ladder with its 5.2" 720p screen, but it has the same chipset as the 6 - the not so impressive Snapdragon 430. And you're getting a solid 13MP/1080p main camera and the same 8MP selfie cam.

The Nokia 3 is the budget option, its 5" 720p screen not too different from the 5, but the quad-core processor and simple 8MP main camera mark it as an entry-level device. Still, a clean Android 7.0 Nougat and a promise of Nokia build quality should be enough to draw in the crowds.



Nokia 6  Nokia 5  Nokia 3  Nokia 3310 (2017)

The new Nokia 3310 is a much modernized version of the worldwide classic, but still offers the simple experience of a feature phone and the long battery life that comes with it. You may not be able to Snapchat with this one, but voice calls are how work gets done (and Snake is how it doesn't).

Of course, many of you will be tempted to wait for the Nokia 9 that often visits the rumor mill. The talk of dual Carl Zeiss cameras and Snapdragon 835 are enough to make our ears perk up. Though HMD still has to prove it can live up to the Nokia legend, would you rather leave that in the past?
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Haiti - Politics : Haiti wants to strengthen trade links with Cuba





Thursday, Pierre Marie Du Meny, the Minister of Commerce and Industry held a meeting with the Cuban Ambassador to Haiti, Luis Castillo during which the Cuban ambassador officially invited Haiti to the 35th International Fair of Havana, FIHAV 2017, to be held from 30 October to 3 November in Havana.



Minister Du Meny told Ambassador Castillo that Haiti intends to strengthen its trade links with Cuba and confirmed its presence at the head of a Haitian trade delegation at FIHAV 2017, recalling the presence last year at this Cuban trade fair, of Haitian companies such as Cannex, Caribbean Food, Carribex, Huileries Haitienne, Pasta Haiti, Sun Food, Tropic, Farmatrix...



In addition, he stressed the importance of breaking down the traditional obstacles to intra-regional trade in the Caribbean and recalled the struggle of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) for fair trade.



Finally, he highlighted the actions taken by Cuba in CARICOM and the development efforts in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) as well as those of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Treaty of Peoples' Trade (ALBA - TCP).



Note that a Trade Policy Directive for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment recently stated that Haiti remains Cuba's top priority in trade and solidarity relations in Caribbean.



SL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2017/06/18

Seoul City calls on residents to help unearth the city's street art, enjoy a photo gallery of the stunning Seokbulsa Temple, Ocula reports on the recently concluded Art Busan, and Vice puts some of Korea's brave female tattoo artists in the spotlight.

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"[Herald Interview] 'Public input can improve Seoul's art'"

Seoul City is on a mission to "help residents unearth art on the city's streets" through an innovative social project called "Art on Seoul's Streets Found by Citizens". If you've ever visited Korea before, especially the country's capital, Seoul, then you would have witnessed the splendid array of stunning artworks scattered around the city. This project encourages participants (accompanied by art experts) to discover and promote lesser-known works of art around the city. "When it comes to public art, citizens should participate from the early stage of planning to removal. Citizens, instead of institutions or building owners, are the main appreciators of public art with responsibility to provide their opinion", said Shim So-mi, an independent curator.

...READ ON THE KOREA HERALD

"Seokbulsa Temple, South Korea. The most amazing temple I have ever seen"

It's the perfect time of year to enjoy one of Korea's many amazing hiking trails. But the journey will be all the sweeter if there is a beautiful vista at the end of it, and Seokbulsa (Stone Buddha Temple) is just the right place. "As soon as I reach the top and enter the area with all the statues carved into the mountain I fell silent", writes one foreigner who ventured up the 3km path to the top of this stunning temple. "Respect to the artists who had the patience and skill to carve directly into the mountain". Click on through to see some stunning pics of this gorgeous Buddhist temple...

...READ ON STEEMIT

"Train to Busan: a report from the art fair in South Korea's second city"

The Art Busan food fair recently came to a close in country's seconds biggest city and Ocula has this report. The event was launched in 2012 with the purpose of "branding the city as a hub for art and culture, positioning the city's attractive scenery as a draw for international collectors". Art Busan 2017 included 170 galleries from 16 countries and contained both traditional and modern art. "As gleaned from a conversation with an artist in Seoul, only now with the new more liberal President Moon Jae-in do artists feel more comfortable to publicaly show their more critical works", writes Elliat Albrecht.

...READ ON OCULA

"Inside the Illegal Subculture of Female Korean Tattoo Artists"

Vice investigates the lives of a handful of brave South Korean tattoo artists who are 'sacrificing safety for art'. Although it's not illegal to have a tattoo in Korea, only medical professional are allowed to give tattoos because it's considered an invasive procedure. "Unless they leave the country, they can't legally get a tattoo", writes Tim Chan. "If they visit an underground parlor, they run the risk of getting arrested-and taking the tattoo shop down with them".

...READ ON VICE
Published on 2017/06/18 | Source

Sunwoo Ye-kwon competes in the 15th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas on Saturday.

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Sunwoo Ye-kwon on Saturday won the 15th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, the first Korean to win the prestigious prize.

He won the prize money of US$50,000 and three years of professional management, which includes an opportunity to make a studio recording and tour the U.S33.

Sunwoo is the second Korean to win one of the world's most prestigious piano competitions after prodigy Cho Seong-Jin Won the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in 2015.

Sunwoo won over the judges and audience with Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, op. 30 and his part in Dvorak's Piano Quintet in A Major, op. 81. His energetic performance of the concerto earned a standing ovation.

Sunwoo studies under Bernd Goetzke at Hanover University of Music and Drama in Germany.

Sunwoo Ye-kwon (center) poses with the trophy after winning the 15th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas on Saturday.

The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition honors American pianist Van Cliburn (1934-2013), who enjoyed pop-star status after winning the inaugural Tchaikovsky Competition in the Soviet Union in 1958. It has been held since 1962 in his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, every four years.

This year's competition saw a new collaboration with British management company Keynote Artist Management to help winners launch their career in Europe.

Tickets to Sunwoo's recital in Seoul on Dec. 20 sold out at the news of his victory.

One other Korean has previously distinguished herself in the contest, with Son Yeol-eum winning second place in 2009. Past winners include legendary pianist Radu Lupu, who triumphed in 1966.
Published on 2017/06/18 | Source

The population of Seoul is forecast to fall from the present 10 million to less than nine million by 2045.

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Statistics Korea on Thursday said the number of citizens in the capital will fall from 9.94 million in 2015 to 8.81 million in 2045.

At present they make up a whopping 19.5 percent of Korea's total population.

The figure has been declining since 2010 as people move to surrounding satellite cities due to rising housing costs and traffic congestion and as state-run corporations and ministries relocated to Sejong City and other parts of the country.

That means that the population of Gyeonggi Province surrounding the capital, which absorbs a large portion of the exodus, is expected to rise from 12.42 million in 2015 to 13.56 million in 2045.

The population of other big cities like Busan, Daegu and eight others are also expected to shrink.

But seven areas including the new administrative capital of Sejong, as well as South Chungcheong Province and Jeju Island are expected to see their populations rise.

As the birthrate keeps declining and the population ages, the economically active population between the ages of 15 to 64 is expected to fall from 37.44 million or 73.4 percent of the population to 27.72 million or 54.3 percent.

Busan (down 38.2 percent), Daegu (down 37 percent) and North Gyeongsang Province (down 33.6 percent) are expected to see the biggest declines in the working population.

In some regions older people will account for the bulk of the populations. South Jeolla Province, North Gyeongsang Province and Gangwon Province are dominated by people in their 40s, who will be in their 60s by 2045.

In South Jeolla Province, the median age is expected to rise to 62.2 and in North Gyeongsang and Gangwon Provinces to 60.9.

The proportion of the population over 65 is expected to surpass 30 percent across the country by 2045, with the exception of Sejong. That means one in three people in Korea will be a senior citizen.
#Yoon Suk-yeol Yoon leaves for Southeast Asia for ASEAN, G-20 summits President Yoon Suk-yeol left for Cambodia on Friday on the first leg of a two-nation tour that will include his attendance at various summits involving the Association of Southeast...

#KBO Landers starter Kim Kwang-hyun wins top KBO pitching award After making a successful return from a two-year stint in the majors, SSG Landers starter Kim Kwang-hyun was named the winner of South Korea's top professional pitching award on Fr...
New poll shows Assad-backing Tulsi Gabbard's popularity waning with Hawaii Democrats

From Daily KOS, June 8, 2017 (excerpt)

HI-02: Very interesting. A major reasonprobably the major reasonthat Hawaii Democrats have been reluctant to float any kind of primary challenge to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard so far is the fact that she's long been very popular. That may now be changing. According to a new poll for Honolulu Civil Beat conducted by Merriman River Group, Gabbard's statewide favorability rating dropped from 64-19 two years ago to 50-29 today. Gabbard fares better in her home district, but she's still taken a bit of a hit there, too, falling from 67-17 to 58-25.

What matters most, though, is where Gabbard's support isand isn'tcoming from. Statewide, Gabbard earns positive marks from just 49 percent of Democrats, which is low given that we're talking about members of Gabbard's own party, while she gets a thumbs up from 48 percent of Republicans, a shockingly high score  ordinarily, at least. To put this in context, Hawaii's other member of the House, Democrat Colleen Hanabusa, has a similar 48-27 statewide favorability rating, but with 65 percent of Democrats viewing her positively and just 24 percent of Republicans doing so. That's a much more conventional split.

But Gabbard is anything but conventional. She's received tremendous scorn for cozying up to murderous Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and until Donald Trump launched a few missiles Assad's way, she'd refused to publicly criticize the Great Orange Terror. In fact, she was one of the only Democrats to meet with him (at Trump Tower, of course) right after the election.

Gabbard's recent dalliances with autocrats didn't spring from nowhere, though: She's long put together a bizarre crypto-conservative record that includes refusing to support an assault weapons ban, introducing a bill to ban online gambling at the behest of casino magnate and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, and attacking Barack Obama for not using the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism." (Obviously the problem of terrorism has gotten much better since Trump started repeating these magic words, right?)

It's the Assad business, though, that's really incensed Democrats, both nationally and locally, particularly after Gabbard declared she was "skeptical" that Assad had used chemical weapons on his citizens in April, simply refusing to believe reports from the Pentagon and independent non-governmental organizations like Human Rights Watch. Someone this far out in nonsense land has no business representing a dark blue district that can and should elect a strong progressiveand has in the very recent past.

And while no prominent Democrat has yet to openly consider a bid against Gabbard, perhaps this latest poll data will start to change some minds. Hawaii unfortunately has open primaries, so GOP voters could cross over to support the woman the Washington Post accurately dubbed "the Democrat that Republicans love." But it would be quite the spectacle if Gabbard had to rely on Republicans to save her. And in this age of white-hot furor over Trump, is that something Gabbard really wants to count on?

---30---

KOS: How Chris Butler Cult will Defend its Tulsi
Nearly 80 PA people have been charged for Jan. 6 riot. Three are dead.

news
My wife is a retired teacher so I can speak with some knowledge of their hard work and dedication. Working in the private sector, I am also aware of the wage gap for comparable work in the public and private sectors. Good benefits helped to partially close that gap.

It is with interest, therefore, that I watch what is going on in our legislature relative to retiree health benefits and pensions for state employees.

Viewing this debate pragmatically, defined benefit pension plans are slowly but surely disappearing from the private sector with only companies the size of EXON or UPS offering them. Some states have also made the switch.

The fast pace of change has driven the private sector to offload long term liabilities of pension plans and retiree health coverage. Defined contribution 401K plans have taken the place of pensions and fewer and fewer companies now offer retiree health insurance.

We all face the reality that our retirement security in the hands of Wall Street and our personal hands to make wise decisions in managing our money. It is what it is, so how do we make the best of the new reality?

In the middle of the nations debate about the right to health care, the legislature is attempting to take health care benefits from state employees who now have coverage. Sen. Wells says he is eliminating future liability for the state but isnt he just shifting the burden to the individual in the short term and to the federal government over the long term, to fill the void created by the loss of coverage?

Teachers and state employees need to deal with these realities but not without a fight to protect the value of their total compensation package. Retiring after 20 years with partial benefits is probably history.

Sen. Wells and the legislature should not be allowed to cherry pick. If they take a dollar in benefits, teachers and state employees should be given a dollar more in wages.

We understand that the state must manage unfunded liabilities, but we also understand that governments, unlike businesses, have the power of tax policy to deal with shortfalls.

Several years back Congress used the unfunded liability crisis on the U.S. Post Office. Could it be our Republican-led legislature is going down the same road, this time on our teachers and state employees?

David Turman

Hickory

United States departure from Paris Agreement troubling

As an architect, one of my key goals is designing sustainable buildings for current and future generations who will live and work in the structures Ive created. A sustainable and resilient built environment is one of the best solutions we have to combat the effects of climate change.

Thats why Im so concerned about President Trumps plan to withdraw the United States from The Paris Agreement. 195 countries  including the U.S.  adopted this first-ever universal climate deal in 2015 that sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change.

Architects have a unique role to play in achieving the Agreements goals. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, buildings are responsible for 73 percent of all electricity consumption in the U.S., with about half of that coming from commercial buildings.

American architects are focused on designing buildings that are energy efficient and in some cases, nearly carbon neutral. We have worked hand-in-hand with the federal government to help make our profession and country competitive global leaders in the quest for an energy efficient built environment.

Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement is a major step back for Americas global leadership in sustainable design.

J. Michael Woollen

Charlotte
A doting dad, actor Maniesh Paul decided to celebrate his son Yuvanns first birthday a little differently, and was spotted in an old age home in Gurgaon this week. We distributed around 400 pairs of shoes as part of a drive in the old age home, Earth Saviours Foundation, says Maniesh.

Last seen in the film, Tere Bin Laden 2 (2016), the actor shares that he has always believed in charitable causes. Generally, on my daughter or sons birthday I like to help people, who are in need. I came to know about this NGO last year through my father. I got in touch with them and started helping them. But I wanted to visit them personally this time and was shocked to see their state. I am trying to fulfil their needs, says Maniesh.

He was more than happy to see a smile on their faces. My day was made, he says. People usually say that they will send money, but its also important to spend time. Some people said that their son hasnt spoken to them in years, while others said that they were stranded by their family. I sat down with a lot of them and they were happy with this gesture because for them, money is nothing.

Maniesh Paul recently participated in a drive where he donated more than 400 pair of shoes to an old age home in Gurgaon.

He is pleased that the residents of Gurgaon take up similar initiatives on their birthdays and anniversaries. Honestly, I want to request everybody to contribute in whatever way they can. Why dont we get together and spend a day with them [senior citizens]?

Its great being a father. I feel great seeing my kids attached to me,especially my daughter. We have a great rapport as I have become her best friend.

As the actor has a house in Gurgaon, he makes frequent trips to the city. He is impressed with the transition the city has undergone in the past few years.I remember when I came to Gurgaon initially, I used to fight a lot with my parents because that time my girlfriend, who is my wife now, was based in Delhi. It was a task to travel from Gurgaon to Delhi, as I did not have a conveyance at that time. Pehle gaadi bhi nahi hoti thi, paise bhi nahi hote they. I would hop onto a Sumo at Sikandarpur Metro Station and get dropped at Qutab Minar, he says, adding, I have seen so many changes in terms of the buildings and malls. And such fabulous infrastructure is coming up. Its amazing to be here now.

Actor Maniesh Paul spotted with his family at the airport. (Manav Manglani)

The actor has grown into an adventurous father and has a great rapport with his six-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Saisha. I feel great seeing how my kids are attached to me, especially my daughter. I have become her best friend. She loves to visit amusement parks and she knows that her papa is the one who will always say yes. I am always game for the most dangerous rides and it feels great when I come back in the night and she sleeps while clinging on to me, says Maniesh.

How does she react to his stardom? She asks me: Papa why is everybody coming to you for selfie? I tell her that its because you are my daughter!

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Actor Ayesha Takia has been away from the public eye for quite a few years now. The Wanted (2009) actor got married to businessman Farhan Azmi in 2009, and ever since she had a son, named Mikail, in 2013, she took a sabbatical from films. Earlier this year, Ayesha was back in the news  but for the wrong reason. When she attended a few events in Mumbai, what caught everyones attention was her different appearance, quite unlike herself. Photographs of Ayesha with a face that looked Botoxed and a mouth that seems to have lip fillers invited much speculation and trolling. Social media were quite abuzz with rumours that she had undergone cosmetic procedures.

In a chat with us, Ayesha says that those reports were nothing but absolutely crap and that the pictures were morphed. The actor, who is making a comeback on television, with a music video on human trafficking that releases on June 19, says, I was holidaying in Goa when those pictures went viral and its so ridiculous, because anyone who has seen me in person would know that its absolutely crap. But celebrities have to go through all this where they are picked upon for one reason or the other.

This snapchat filter is so cute, I own the same glasses  lovin itttt. #ayeshatakia #glam #glamour #glasses #fringebangs #fringebarbie  A post shared by Ayesha Takia Azmi (@ayeshatakia) on Jun 16, 2017 at 2:28am PDT

So how does she react to such reports? I didnt even feel that I should react to them, so I just laughed off those comments on my Instagram posts. I wont say I totally ignored them, but I didnt let them play with my mind, says Ayesha.

In todays times, when most celebs have fallen prey to trolling on social media, Ayesha says that avoids responding to them. Everyone gets trolled. And these people, who say all sorts of stupid things while judging us, are not even known by their names. And I have always been a person who has disconnected from everything thats not important in my life.

#ZindagiYehZindagi A post shared by Ayesha Takia Azmi (@ayeshatakia) on Jun 16, 2017 at 10:47pm PDT

The actor adds that while people have slammed her for (allegedly) getting cosmetic procedures done, her sister Natasha, who isnt even a public figure, always gets flak for being herself with her tattoos and piercing. So, its not just us actors who are subjected to these mean trolls. My sister gets to read shit all the time on her Instagram photos posted by random people, says Ayesha, adding that she feels scared for her son, once he grows up. Hell grow up in a world where people would know who he is and with social media, there will be those whod be jealous or mean, and theyll say something that might hurt him.

In all the years that Ayesha has stayed away from the limelight, social media have grown by leaps and bounds and she says that she is catching up. I feel its a great tool for everyone to promote films. People in the showbiz can connect with fans directly. Such a great platform never existed before. Then theres also that side where you have people who have nothing else to do or people who are trolls and talk shit about [celebs]. But I think its important to use it for the good, she says.

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Hrithik Roshan would have been great to play the title role in the Indian remake of Hollywood film Rambo but the actor was not keen to do another remake after Bang Bang!, the official adaptation of Knight and Day, says director Siddharth Anand.

Siddharth had directed Hrithik in Bang Bang! and they share a good camaraderie. For the Rambo remake, the director roped in Tiger Shroff and feels he is the apt choice.

Hrithik and I have an equation or a relationship which is of great trust and respect, and the fact is that we are constantly talking about doing something together. We almost did Fighter together, which eventually didnt happen last year.

Also Hrithik would be really a great choice for a character like Rambo but he didnt want to do another remake after Knight and Day. So were working on something else, Siddharth told IANS over phone from Mumbai.

Siddharth has worked on two films each with Saif Ali Khan and Ranbir Kapoor back to back. His debut directorial Salaam Namaste and the following film Ta Ra Rum Pum was with Saif, while his subsequent projects Bachna Ae Haseeno and Anjaana Anjaani were with Ranbir.

So, one was hoping he would keep the pattern going with Hrithik after Bang Bang!.

Siddharth said: Hopefully, we will have something to do together very soon. Rambo is not that. I chat with Hrithik on everything I do. Hes one of the first people to know whenever I do something. Hes more like an elder brother to me.

Grew up on this character, humbled and blessed to step into his shoes years later. #RamboRemake #greatestactionheroofalltime #legend #irreplacable #rambo A post shared by Tiger Shroff (@tigerjackieshroff) on May 19, 2017 at 7:45pm PDT

He spoke about casting an actor for the desi Rambo.

After we completed the script, we deliberated a lot on the casting. It could draw a lot of polarised opinion on the casting because you take Sylvester Stallone and say this guy is going to portray a character immortalised by Stallone. Its too big a shoe to fill in, too big a responsibility.

And so we had to get somebody who would be the apt choice. I was certain I wanted a young boy for it. Tiger felt just a natural choice for us. Fortunately, he loved it and came on board, Siddharth said.

The audience can look forward to some high-octane action from the movie, which is likely to go on floors in February 2018.

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The Emoji Code By Vyvyan Evans Michael OMara Books

Is emoji the new global language? The tsunami of emoji  which is Japanese for picture character  engulfed the world in 2011 and never receded. More than 6 billion emoji are sent every day and emoji-only texts have become so common worldwide that the Oxford English Dictionary named the Face with Tears of Joy emoji their word of the year in 2015.

This triggered worldwide debate. Is emoji just a dumbing down of language? Are emoji even words? Are they making people lazy? Or are they the worlds first truly global language?

Cognitive linguistics and communication expert Vyvyan Evans draws on linguistics, psychology, neuroscience and anthropology to explore the evolution of communication over generations and how it will evolve more rapidly as people juggle communicating in the real and digital worlds.

Far from being a passing fad, Emoji reflects, and thereby reveals, fundamental elements of communication; and in turn, this all shines a light on what it means to be human, he writes, in The Emoji Code.

Like most things humans, emoji evolve and change, often in unexpected ways. Some are more popular when theyre used as slang for something completely different than what they were meant to symbolise.

Take the peach emoji, whose unfortunate resemblance to a peachy butt has made it the most popular symbol for butt across continents and languages  so much so that when Apple released a new design for the peach emoji that looked more like a fruit than a butt, users objected and Apple was forced to withdraw the update.

The eggplant, meanwhile, is emoji-slang for the penis, which prompted Instagram to exclude it from its emoji hashtag list because it feared it would be attached to images containing nudity. And the cherry emoji means what you think it does, so we dont even need to go there.

As with any language, there are wide cultural variations. In Japan, for example, the bank emoji is more commonly used to imply skipping work or slacking off, because the letters BK are short for the Japanese word bakkureru, or slacker.

Does this make Emoji a new language? Not quite, says Evans. It cannot replace a language because it has no grammar and cannot be combined with more complex words and phrases in order to communicate.

What emoji can do is communicate nuances of humour and mood between people who cannot see each others gestures and expressions.

A word of warning from linguist Evans: Emoji is now so recognised as a tool of communication worldwide that it can and will be used in a court of law against you.

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Margaret Atwood is receiving a lifetime achievement award from one of the worlds oldest literary organizations.

PEN Center USA announced Wednesday that Atwood will accept the honour at the groups annual Literary Awards Festival in October.

And here is a poster from it... @HandmaidsOnHulu pic.twitter.com/TIOTqov4we  Margaret E. Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) April 30, 2017

Atwood has written more than 40 books of fiction, poetry and essays. The television adaptation of her novel The Handmaids Tale premiered on Hulu earlier this year and has been renewed for a second season that will be released in 2018.

PEN Center USA says the 77-year-old author will be recognized at an Oct. 27 ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Actor and writer Nick Offerman is scheduled to host the evening.

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Bankers are meeting from Monday to finalise their next course of action on six of the 12 bad loan accounts for immediate referral to NCLT after the RBI named the largest defaulters to face bankruptcy proceedings.

The first set of six troubled accounts are Bhushan Steel (Rs 44,478 crore), Essar Steel (Rs 37,284 crore), Bhusan Power and Steel (Rs 37,248 crore), Alok Industries (Rs 22,075 crore), Amtek Auto (Rs 14,074 crore) and Monnet Ispat (Rs 12,115 crore), a banker said.

According to RBI, these 12 accounts owe Rs 2.5 trillion to the system, which constitute around 25 per cent of gross bad loans.

The other accounts named for bankruptcy action, according to bankers, include Lanco Infra (Rs 44,364.6 crore), Electrosteel Steels (Rs 10,273.6 crore), Era Infra (Rs 10,065.4 crore) Jypaee Infratech (Rs 9,635 crore) ABG Shipyard (Rs 6,953 crore) and Jyoti Structures with a defaulted loan of Rs 5,165 crore.

Last week, the RBIs internal advisory committee (IAC) had sent the list of 12 accounts to bankers for immediate reference under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). These 12 accounts are led by SBI (six of them), PNB, ICICI Bank, Union Bank, IDBI Bank and Corporation Bank, according to bankers.

Beginning Monday, banks are meeting to discuss six of the 12 accounts named by the RBI before referring accounts to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) by the end of this month, a banker told PTI.

Since these are large accounts and involve multiple banks, the lenders will try to take a common view on all administrative requirements before referring these accounts to the NCLT.

Another banker said they will also decide on appointment of insolvency professional (IP) who will later decide on the resolution plan and submit it to the lenders for their consideration.

While ABG Shipyard, Amtek Auto, Alok Industries, Bhushan Steel, Bhushan Power and Steel, Electrosteel Steels, Jaypee Infratech, Jyoti Structures and Monnet Ispat and Energy did not respond to e-mails sent to them, Era Infra and Lanco Infra could not be contacted.

When reached out for comment, Essar Steel spokesperson said, We are not aware of any such development.

These 12 accounts referred by the RBI have an exposure of more than Rs 5,000 crore each, with 60 per cent or more classified as bad loans by banks as of March 2016.

Once a case is referred to the NCLT, there is a time line of 180 days to decide on a resolution plan. An additional 90 days can also be given. If a plan is not decided, then the company will go into liquidation.

Total NPAs of the banking system stand at over Rs 8 trillion of which Rs 6 trillion are with public sector banks. Last month, the government had cleared an ordinance to amend the Banking Regulation Act, giving the RBI more powers to direct banks to resolve bad loans.

Bankers, however, are worried about the haircut they may have to take if the accounts go into liquidation.

It needs to be seen that what kind of haircut we will have to take. In case of liquidation, there will be a large haircut we will have to suffer, said an executive director of a state-owned bank.

The internal advisory committee of the RBI had identified these 12 accounts after studying top 500 ones of the banking system.
Indians have few deposits in Swiss banks compared to other global financial hubs such as Singapore and Hong Kong, says a grouping of private bankers in Switzerland amid stepped-up efforts to check the black money menace.

Money held by Indians in Swiss banks declined to a record low of 1.2 billion franc (about Rs 8,392 crore) at the end of 2015, as per the latest available official data. However, no official data is available for money in other global hubs.

Committing itself to the global framework for automatic exchange of tax information, Switzerland last week ratified the decision to implement this regime with India and 40 other jurisdictions.

The framework for automatic exchange of information requires strict adherence to data confidentiality, but the Geneva-based Association of Swiss Private Banks said it has no particular concern over India, where the rule of law seems to be properly upheld.

There are also rather few deposits of Indian residents in Switzerland, as opposed to Singapore or Hong Kong for instance, the associations manager Jan Langlo told PTI from Geneva.

When asked about trends in terms of deposits from Indian residents, Langlo said it has not noticed any particular trend.

It is simply more practical for them to open an account in an Asian financial centre than in Switzerland, Langlo noted.

Currently, the association has nine member banks employing around 7,500 people across the globe, as per its website. The grouping represents the business interests of privately-owned Swiss banks that specialise in wealth management.

According to data from the Swiss National Bank, the funds held by Indians with banks in Switzerland fell by CHF 596.42 million to CHF 1,217.6 million at the end of 2015.

It was the lowest amount of funds held by Indians in the Swiss banks ever since the Alpine nation began making the data public in 1997 and marked the second straight year of decline.

The funds held by Indians with Swiss banks stood at a record high of CHF 6.5 billion (Rs 23,000 crore) at 2006-end.

However, the quantum of these funds has been falling since then, except for in 2011 and in 2013 when Indians money had risen by over 12% and 42%, respectively.

India will have to ensure strict confidentiality of information about its citizens Swiss bank accounts received through the new automatic exchange window, failing which the Alpine nation will stop sharing the data.

Switzerland and its banks will also keep a close watch on the data protection measures taken by India regarding the details received from other jurisdictions and want all other global financial centres to implement the global framework for automatic exchange of information (AEOI) on financial matters.

On Friday, the Swiss Federal Council ratified the AEOI with India and 40 other jurisdictions to facilitate immediate sharing of details about suspected black money.

The pact with India would not be subject to referendum and is planned for implementation in 2018, with the first set of data to be exchanged in 2019.

Bankers in Switzerland said this rollout plan will give them enough time to study the implementation by other global financial centres and the adherence to confidentiality and data protection requirements by India and other recipients.

They also clarified this exercise would be followed not just for India, but all countries with which Switzerland will share banking information under the automatic route.

Officials from the Switzerland government and leading groupings of Swiss banks told PTI that data protection and a level playing field need to be ensured by India and other jurisdictions with whom the AEOI regime would be implemented.

The Association of Swiss Private Banks said the main concerns with respect to AEOI relate to data protection and level playing field.

We would like to ensure that bank data that will be transmitted in 2019 is used for tax verification purposes only... if data received from another country has been misused in a jurisdiction, Switzerland is unlikely to send data to that jurisdiction, the groupings manager Jan Langlo told PTI from Geneva.
I dont mind being typecast, till the cheque is coming in Sunil Grovers name and not Gutthis, says stand-up comedian Sunil Grover, who rose to fame as Gutthi with the televison show Comedy Nights with Kapil.

In Chandigarh to inaugurate a three-day astro show Urja, Grover landed in the City Beautiful straight from Kerala where he was shooting for his upcoming film Baaghi, which also stars Shraddha Kapoor and Tiger Shroff.

The comedian, basking in the glory of his recent Hindi film Gabbar Is Back, wants to remain tight-lipped about his role in the film and says, All you need to know is that I will do it seriously.

Claiming to be in a comfortable space, a day before the release of contemporary Kapil Sharmas Bollywood debut Kis Kisko Pyaar Karu, Grover says he is getting meatier roles with a variety of scripts.

The 38-year-old actor says, My role of Gutthi is not a joke on the female gender but a tribute to them. Gutthi is in fact just like any other woman I came across while growing up in my native village. I feel I could have romanced a girl like Gutthi. I sometimes feel I may turn into a girl one day, acting like Gutthi, wearing salwar suit adding, I am okay with most kinds of humour but I dont like jokes that reek of racism and gender bias, when asked what puts off the funny man.

He further adds, I am known for my work and the fact that I make so many people laugh gives me satisfaction. Referring to the failure of his show Mad In India, Grover was quick enough to admit that it was a bad show. He adds, I gave my 100 per cent but then flops make you learn a lot in life.

Grover, who is here to promote an astro show, mockingly says, I will call their bluff. I have come to test all - the astrologers, numerologist, palmist, Tarot card readers. I believe in luck but do not depend on luck, adding, But for actors who come from small towns, its mostly luck rather than just hard work and persistence.

Referring to his rapport with Kapil Sharma, Grover says, We have never had ego clashes. I just moved out of the show because some uncomfortable clauses in the agreement. It is not easy to be a comedian and sometimes I feel disheartened that we are not given our due. I may get another role in another show, but people will always remember me as Gutthi.

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Despite a short House session, the Congress had been able to turn the heat on the ruling benches. But that was till the opposition decided to score a self-goal.

In an unprecedented show of solidarity for an opposition MLA, ministers and MLAs from the ruling Akali-BJP alliance stood up to fight for the "dignity" of Congress MLA Ashwani Sekhri, who had on Wednesday accused a few Congress MLAs of "abusing and insulting" him inside the House.



Led by Punjab revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia, the ruling benches hijacked the entire agenda of the Congress for the zero hour by asking assembly speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal to take action against those who "misbehaved" with Sekhri.

Dramatising the episode, Majithia said Sekhri's life was under threat and he was worried as the Batala MLA, like him, hailed from the Majha region.

Though reluctant, Sekhri stood up and complained about the incident, saying, "I even went to the speaker's chamber to register my complaint. I am speaking for privilege of all members of the House and dignity of all its members."

Left red-faced, the Congress tried to avoid further blushes by deflecting the debate. Amid the din and slogans of "shame-shame" by the ruling benches, leader of the opposition Sunil Jakhar mocked Majithia by saying that those who themselves hurled abuses at opposition members not long time ago were now talking about the dignity of the members, referring to an earlier incident of Majithia hurling expletives at Congress MLA Rana Gurjit Singh.

To defeat the treasury benches' design of provoking Sekhri, Jakhar said he appreciated Akali-BJP MLAs' undue concern for their (Congress) member but they would sort out the issue themselves. "Don't worry. Mian-biwi toh vi vadia raazi kar diyange (we will resolve the discord and they will agree even more than a husband and wife). You should be more worried about farmers who are committing suicides in the state," said Jakhar.

Congress MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa tried to highlight media reports on former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala seeking transfer to a Bathinda jail. But the ruling benches were in no mood to give up what came as a godsend. Parliamentary affairs minister Madan Mohan Mittal of the BJP said the House was concerned about the MLA's complaint and it should be taken up.

Speaker Atwal again said he could not take action till the MLA gave names. After the nudging by the speaker, Sekhri went on to name MLAs Ramanjit Sikki and Sangat Singh Gilzian as the ones who abused him and tore the copy of the resolution. The speaker was quick to refer the matter to the privilege committee.

The self-goal forced the Congress to go into a huddle to broker truce between its warring MLAs. Jakhar, accompanied by senior leaders Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa and several other MLAs, trooped to the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) office to coax Sekhri to bury the hatchet. Jakhar emerged from the meeting saying that the matter had been resolved and it was a "non-issue" now.

Sekhri, who followed Jakhar, however, told the media that the two MLAs had "apologised for their misbehavior" and he had decided to drop the complaint. Asked if the ruling benches showing solidarity for him was not an embarrassment for his party, Sekhri said, "Irrespective of the party, an MLA is an MLA. I thank Majithia and other MLAs for standing up for the dignity of a MLA. I am also thankful to Jakhar and Bhattal for sorting out the issue."

Gilzian, on his part, said he had just asked Sekhri to remove his name from the list of signatories to the resolution, while Sikki refused to comment, saying that it was the party's internal matter and had been resolved.



Rift wide open

Amid all the action and drama, the rift in the Congress ranks was out in the open. Sekhri dismissed allegations that he was trying to score brownie points before the party high command by bringing the resolution outside the forum of the CLP, saying that he was not a contender for the posts of either the state Congress president or the CLP leader. "I am loyal to my party. In the Congress, there is a tradition of passing a resolution whenever the party is in a crisis by stating that we are united under the leadership of the high command. I was just following that tradition by proposing a resolution," he said.

But MLA Tarlochan Singh, a loyalist of former CM and Amritsar MP Captain Amarinder Singh, was unsparing in his criticism of Sekhri. "Why was he trying to show individual loyalty to the party? We are with the party high command. Is my loyalty not with my party? Maybe, I am more loyal than he is. It was just a cheap publicity stunt," he said.

With inputs from Manpreet Randhawa

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Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Thursday said anyone found guilty of supplying spurious pesticides to the cotton cultivators in the state would not be spared at any cost.

Winding up the discussion on the resolution moved by parliamentary affairs minister Madan Mohan Mittal on current agrarian crisis in the state here at Punjab Vidhan Sabha, the chief minister said he had already asked the special secretary, agriculture, to submit a detailed report on this contentious matter by September 30.

To get to the bottom of the case, he had already ordered an inquiry to fix the responsibility of the erring officials and dealers involved in the sale of spurious pesticides by a special investigation team (SIT) of police, comprising three inspectors general of police (IGPs) under the direct supervision of additional director general of police (ADGP), crime.

Badal said since the inquiry was in progress, it would be unfair on his part to comment on the matter at this point of time. However, he said that exemplary punishment would be ensured to the culprits who were involved in this immoral act, which would serve as a deterrent for such unscrupulous elements so that they should not dare to commit such offence in future.

Joint expert group to recommend future strategy on pest attacks

The CM said in order to prevent the recurrence of such pest attacks in future a joint expert group of Punjab and Haryana has been formed to recommend future strategy. He said this expert group, comprising vice chancellors (VCs) and directors, research, PAU and HAU, deputy director general cotton, ICAR and director, Cotton Research Station, Sirsa as members, has been asked to suggest ways and means to tackle such problem effectively in future.

Reiterating the firm commitment to fully compensate the cotton growers affected by the attack of whitefly, the CM said a special Girdawari was being done by the state government to ascertain the loss, which would be completed by the end of this month. He said the problem of whitefly had aggravated due to deficient rain during this season, resulting in harsh attack from whitefly on the cotton crop.

Badal said they had already released Rs 10 crore for the payment of compensation to the farmers, who had already ploughed back their cotton crop extensively damaged due to attack from whitefly in an area of 11,780 acres, spreading over six districts of Malwa belt.

CM urges Centre to present separate Agriculture Budget

Commending the adoption of this resolution unanimously to the Speaker, the CM urged the Government of India (GoI) to present a separate Agriculture Budget on the pattern of the Railway Budget, as majority of the nations population was dependent on agriculture. He said it was the need of hour to bail out farmers from current agrarian crisis.

Badal said the Union government should also announce a farmer-friendly crop insurance scheme based on plot or field as a unit for assessing damage to the crop besides ensuring remunerative minimum support price (MSP) to the farmers for their produce.

The CM also urged the GoI to evolve a mechanism of purchasing the alternate crops like maize and cotton at MSP so that farmers could be immensely benefitted from it. Badal said that provisions must be made by the Centre to ensure compensation of actual loss and include horticulture and livestock in the Calamity Relief Fund. I hope that the Union government will take a call on these issues to bail out the beleaguered farmer from the agrarian crisis, he added.

Slams Cong govt for breaking backbone of peasantry in Punjab

Slamming the successive Congress governments at the Centre for breaking the backbone of the peasantry of the state, the chief minister said due to the regressive policies of these governments, the farmers were reeling under a whopping debt of Rs 3,2000 crore. On the other hand, he said the SAD-BJP government has taken bold steps to get the farmers out of this crisis. He said during the last more than eight years the state government has provided free power to farmers worth Rs 28,000 crore, otherwise their problems would have accentuated manifolds on account of tube well bills.

Likewise, the chief minister said during drought-like situation in 2014paddy season, the state government purchased additional power worth Rs 1,400 crore to meet increased demand of farmers. Badal said when the wheat crop of the farmers was damaged due to untimely rains in April 2015, the state government ensured that every grain was lifted. The state government took every step to resolve the impending sugarcane crisis by ensuring the payment of arrears to the farmers from private and cooperative sugar mills, he said.

Listing the steps taken by the state government to safeguard the interests of farming community on one hand and supplement their income on the other, the chief minister said due to the strenuous efforts made by the state, Post Graduate Institute for Horticultural Research and Education was coming up at Amritsar. Likewise, he said prestigious institutes like Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) in collaboration with CIMMYT, Mexico Indian Institute of Maize Research at Ladowal, Centre of Excellence on Vegetables & Citrus, Potatoes and Cotton have been set up at Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar and Bathinda. Badal said three mega food parks, two modern wood markets, seven maize dryers, besides 1,554 agro service centres have been set in the state.

The chief minister said the state government has enhanced the compensation from Rs 2 to Rs 3 lakh under the farmers suicide policy. Likewise, he said that due to concerted efforts of the state government, the NDA government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi had increased relief for loss from Rs 3,600 per acre to Rs 8,000 per acre. Badal said due to the endeavours of state government, the Union government has for the first time agreed to include loss of farm crop due to hailstorms, frost and pest attack in the category of natural calamities.

Future plans to bail out the farmers from distress

Spelling out the future plans to bail out the farmers from distress, the chief minister said after spending Rs 4,000 crore to strengthen the canal network in the state, the SAD-BJP alliance government was now spending Rs 2,175 crore for lining of Rajasthan and Sirhind feeder. He said head to tail concrete rejuvenation of Bist-Doab Canal would be done at Rs 320 crore, which would enhance the irrigation capacity of lifeline of Doaba six times, from existing 3,5000 hectares to 2 lakh hectares, adding that the work on this ambitious project would start from coming October. Likewise, he said the work on Kandi Canal would be completed by April 2016.

The chief minister said it was a matter of great pride for them that under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana, Rs 1,371 crore has been approved for lining of water courses, underground pipes and drip irrigation in Jalandhar (Bist Doab canal), Hoshiarpur (Kandi canal) and Moga (Sidhwan canal). We are committed for the welfare of the hard working and resilient farmers of the state and all these pro-farmer initiatives will certainly help the farmers in bailing out from the current agrarian crisis he added.
The Nakodar city police on Wednesday night arrested a woman doctor of a private hospital on the charge of causing death due to negligence. Station house officer Subash Arora said that the doctor has been identified as Sunita Bhalla of Bhalla hospital here.

Gurpreet Singh, a resident of Talwandi Bharo village, complained to the police that his sister Kuldeep Kaur, a resident of Khokhewal village in Phillaur, was admitted at the hospital for delivery on September 21. He said the victim delivered a male child following a minor operation conducted by doctor Sunita Bhalla with another woman doctor.

Singh said in his complaint that his sister started bleeding profusely after delivery. He said his sister was referred to the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences (PINS) Jalandhar along with an attendant, but she was denied admission at the institute.

Narrating the incident, he said Kuldeep Kaur was rushed to the DMC Ludhiana where she succumbed to her injuries on Wednesday. He said he lost his sister due to sheer negligence on the part of doctor Sunita.

The SHO said a case under section 304-A (causing death by negligence) of the IPC has been registered against the accused who was released on bail. The body of the deceased was handed over to the family after post-mortem.

Earlier, on Wednesday family members and relatives of the deceased had demonstrated in front of the hospital demanding registration of a case against the woman doctor.


On March 14, 2007, when 14 farmers died in a clash between villagers and police forces in Nandigram of West Bengal over acquisition of land for an industrial project, few had imagined it would mark a turning point in the states politics. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of the then ruling Left Front in West Bengal had just stormed to power on the promise of reviving the industrial glory of the state, but Nandigram proved to be his nemesis. Overnight, farmers across the state turned hostile; the Opposition closed ranks; the intelligentsia distanced itself from the bhadralok chief minister and eventually, the Left lost the plot in a state it had ruled for 34 years.

Cut to 2017, the nation is perhaps staring at another Nandigram moment. The killing of six farmers in a police crackdown in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh earlier this month has put the spotlight on Indias worsening farm crisis. The farmers unrest that has since spread to other parts of Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere in India is a wake-up call. For it is a result of years of neglect of agriculture, something that still provides livelihood to two-thirds of the Indias 1.3 billion people.

Burden of farming outweighs rewards

At the core of the problem lies a growing mismatch between what it takes to grow food and what a farmer fetches for his produce in the marketplace. Economists explain this using the phrase terms of trade for agriculture, which improved for a brief period in the 1990s before turning unfavourable for most part of the new millennium.

Sample this: In 1992, a typical farmer in Punjab paid Rs 6 per litre for diesel to keep his generator sets running, bought a sack of diammonium phosphate (DAP) for Rs 200 and hired labour at a daily wage of Rs 40-50. Twenty-five years on, diesel costs 10 times more, DAP prices have increased more than five times and farm wages are 10 times higher. In contrast, the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat, which is what most of Punjab grows, has increased only five-fold during this period  Rs 330 per quintal to Rs 1,625 per quintal.

Moreover, farmers in the past rarely spent much money on pesticides, to protect their crop. They do now, and pesticide prices have spiked more than the cost of any other input. Twenty-five years ago, farmers didnt have to bore deeper every year to pump water into the fields. They do now, because water tables are dropping at an alarming rate.

In other words, the burden of farming has grown much faster than the rewards it brings. Demonetisation made it worse. As my journalist colleague Harish Damodaran wrote, Weve entered deflation territory in farm produce, whose proximate trigger clearly has been demonetisation. Much of the trade in farm goods is cash-based and financed through a chain of intermediaries  wholesale buyers, processors and retailers. Demonetisation crippled this network of informal credit, causing a free fall in the prices of farm goods across the board.

Like everywhere else, Mandsaur farmers were agitating after they were forced into distress selling. The prices are well below what they fetched in 2016: Onion for Rs 1 as against Rs 7, turmeric for Rs 50, half the price in 2016, soya bean at 33% lesser than the rate in 2016 and so on.

A bountiful harvest, which helped the broader economy post a somewhat impressive growth of 7.1% in 2016-17 despite a demonetisation-driven slump in manufacturing, had turned into a curse. What could have been an occasion for celebrations has turned into a season of mourning for deaths triggered by a glut in farm produce and their plunging prices.

As someone said, it is the worst time to be a farmer. A five-part series  Being A Farmer Now -- that will appear in this newspaper, starting Monday, brings out the depth of the despair that is sweeping farmlands across India.

Years of neglect

The imbalance between input costs and remunerative prices, however, is just one explanation for the growing farmers unrest. From sluggish infrastructure to lack of research breakthroughs, Indias farm sector faces many challenges. For most crops, yield per acre grew at a slower pace over the past one-and-a-half decades compared to the 1980s and 1990s. So did the expansion of the irrigation network. Successive governments have paid little attention to building research and institutional support to the farming community. As we speak the most premiere agricultural research institution, IARI, is into its third year without a full-time director.

The share of government spending in agricultural research and education in the gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen by almost half in the past 15 years  from about 0.5% to under 0.3%. Developed countries, which depend much less on agriculture, spend 2% of their GDP on agriculture. The figure is at least twice higher for even countries like China and Brazil.

The neglect of agricultural research has had a bearing on growth in farm productivity. In a well-researched article published recently in the Economic and Political Weekly, economist Shantanu De Roy demonstrates how, for most crops, yield per acre grew at a slower pace over the past one-and-a-half decades compared to the 1980s and 1990s. So did the expansion of the irrigation network.

Public investment in agriculture has been stagnant for nearly a decade, while private capital flows have not picked up enough to provide the stimulus that the sector needs.

From my reporting days in the late 1990s, I remember how the government built a narrative to defend its failure to invest enough in the farm sector. Foreign-returned economists, many of whom occupy positions of power, would twist data to show how private sector investment could more than fill up the gaps in public investment. It never happened. We know that now.

As a result, growth in agriculture has decelerated from an annual pace of 2.8% in 1990s to 2.4% through the decade of 2001-10 and to 2.1 % in the first half of the current decade.

What Indias farm sector desperately needs is a radical policy overhaul based on a new imagination. Interventions such as loan waivers or MSP revisions can at best offer temporary succour. At worst, they deflect attention from the real issues behind the crisis that has been in the making for long  India is reaping what it sowed as it scripted a story of economic transformation that left the farmers out.

Rajesh Mahapatra is the chief content officer, Hindustan Times. He tweets at @RajeshMahapatra

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Do you know Danish Ahmed? If you dont you should. He needs to be applauded. While studying at an engineering college in Dehradun, through social media he came in contact with some terrorists in south Kashmir. Hearing provocative statements and reading incendiary literature made him anxious. Leaving behind his happy dream to be an engineer, Ahmed decided to return to Kashmir and become a jihadi instead.

Once he returned to the Valley he realised that the jihad was just an eye wash. Many of the youngsters enrolled in his batch of jihadis were disillusioned and looking for ways to return to the mainstream. He also discovered that this was a battle being waged not by Islam but by Pakistan. Many of those who called themselves separatists were involved in extortion and loot. Not just this, disputes between villagers were being resolved at gunpoint and money being sought in return. He became disenchanted. Ahmed had returned to become a fighter, not a criminal.

When he discussed this with his associates he was shocked to realise that a majority of them were similarly disgruntled. They felt that they should be handling keyboards and not Kalashnikovs. But they were helpless in overcoming two obstacles: First, the police may harass them if they returned to the mainstream. Second, other terrorists may inflict harm on them and their loved ones.

Many such scary examples were fresh in their mind. For instance, the house of the south Kashmir family that the extremists suspected informed the armed forces about Burhan Wani before he was killed was set on fire. The young daughter was defamed and the family rendered homeless. Like Kashmiri Pandits, they are now forced to lead a life of nameless refugees in their own land.

The police and intelligence agencies were aware of this discontent. They were keeping a close watch on Ahmed and his associates. Gauging what was on his mind, the armed forces also took the initiative. He became part of the group of people who had returned to the correct path after being misled. Among the things that Ahmed told the armed forces was something that took them by surprise: Many of his associates had embarked on the path to militancy just to impress girls. The colourful tales of Burhan Wanis life are something that fascinate the younger generation.

Before Ahmed, other youngsters had displayed similar courage. If you recall, a few youngsters from Mumbai had escaped from Isis terror camps. They had revealed that in these camps, jihadis from India are treated badly. They are fortunate if they get an opportunity to go to the frontline. Indians were assigned less significant tasks such as supplies and maintenance, where cleaning soiled toilets is considered an important job.

The government, civil society and the media should felicitate these youngsters whove returned to the mainstream and unmasked non-State actors. Their stories will always prove useful to prevent youngsters from getting misled. A matter of relief is that a large number of other youth are vying to join the army, the police and paramilitary forces in Jammu and Kashmir. Girls form music bands and students from the state compete to succeed in the countrys toughest exam for the civil services.

This is the best way to fight terror in a constructive fashion. It is a trend that should be welcomed as much as possible because guns can just hope to bring a temporary truce and not lasting peace. The road to peace always passes through prosperity. Fighting individual poverty and adverse circumstances, these youngsters are busy paving the way for others.

With the wind blowing in the other direction, the leaders of these militants are worried. In a recent video, dreaded militant Zakir Musa is heard calling Indian Muslims shameless, since they are not helping the terrorists in the siege of India. Youngsters such as Danish Ahmed have demonstrated that they dont need a certificate of being Muslims from hollow and two-faced terrorists.

This is the quality that makes Indian Muslims stand out. It is for good reason that home minister Rajnath Singh keeps reiterating that our strongest partners in the fight against terror are Indian Muslims. We should appreciate and applaud them.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan

letters@hindustantimes.com
Bouncing rice balls have really got food safety officials in different parts of the country into a tizzy. Because every time a consumer bounces a rice ball and cries plastic rice, the officials are forced to take samples to check them for that elusive plastic!

Last week, for example, consumers at a bus depot in Chennai started throwing large rice balls at passing buses, alleging that the government canteen there was serving plastic rice, compelling food safety officials to collect nine samples of rice from the canteen for testing. In Delhi too, food safety officials have had to take a close look at bouncing balls in restaurants. In fact while at an eating joint, if you suddenly see someone getting up and bouncing a big ball of rice against a wall, dont get shocked. Most likely, the person is trying to check whether the rice being served is real or plastic.

Rumours of plastic rice making the rounds on social media have created such a panic among rice eaters that in the last few weeks the state food safety officials are being flooded with complaints of plastic rice being sold by retailers or being served at restaurants. In Chennai, the officials said they inspected 74 outlets across the city and tested 14 samples and they all turned out to be real rice. The food safety department in Coimbatore inspected 200 shops across the district and tested 19 samples and the only non-rice particles that they found were stones.

In Delhi too, the food safety department said following consumer complaints, they lifted 20 samples of raw rice from different markets and seven samples of cooked rice from hotels and restaurants. Tests found no plastic content in any sample. In Bengaluru, elaborate tests by the University of Agricultural Sciences too found no trace of plastic in any of the samples complained about. In Andhra Pradesh, Civil Supplies minister Prathipati Pulla Rao held a press conference to rubbish the fears of plastic rice as totally unfounded and even announced a prize of Rs 50,000 to anyone who gave a lead to finding such a rice.

At the root of this fear of plastic rice lie online videos (which have gone viral) of rice balls bouncing like rubber balls. Now experts say that it is not a peculiar phenomenon, given the composition of rice. Dr Nagappa G Malleshi, former head of Grains, Science and Technology, Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, explains that rice is 80% starch, which contains amylose and amylo pectin. When you cook rice, these swell and leach out and make the rice sticky. And when you mash and make them into a ball, they stick together, but they also entrap air and therefore bounce. How bouncy the ball is depends on the amylose content of the rice. Higher the amylose content, greater the bounce, he says, explaining why some bounce more than others. He also points out that the whole idea of plastic rice grains is ridiculous because if you try to cook it, obviously the plastic cannot absorb water nor can it cook. It will only melt and burn.

Dr VP Singh, former head, Division of genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute-IARI, also de-mystifies the ball bouncing phenomenon on YouTube. Rice, he says, has got adhesive and cohesive properties because of the high percentage (80%) of starch in it. So the ball formation is on account of this adhesiveness. And when you throw this ball, it is bound to bounce on account of its volume expansion and air entrapment, he says, dismissing fears of the plastic content in the rice causing the bouncing effect.

So hopefully, we will stop bouncing rice balls and wasting all that good rice.

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DEHRADUN: That the BJP milks the cow to its benefit is no secret. But for once, the Trivendra Singh Rawat government has no qualms in milking the liquor business for revenue.

The Pauri Garhwal administration wants a cowshed run by some functionaries of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a right-wing outfit, to move elsewhere and make way for a liquor shop in the area. Not surprisingly, the government decision snowballed into a controversy in Srinagar town, 150 km from here.

In May, the Uttarakhand government unveiled its new excise policy with a revenue target of over Rs 2,000 crore for the fiscal 2017-18, up from the previous years collection of Rs 1,905 crore.

This was done despite restricting sales from nine to six hours in hill districts and liquor shops facing stiff opposition from the people, especially women. The district magistrates are directed to ensure liquor shops run without any hurdle. Shops are provided police protection but the protests continue across Uttarakhand.

The liquor shop in Srinagar town also faced stiff objection. Ironically, the owner was alloted a new plot close to the Gotheerthashram (cow shed). Women are protesting against the shops opening. Citing rule, the district administration has now asked the cowshed caretakers to leave for a new location.

We have some 80 odd cows in the shelter house. The municipal council has alloted land to operate. Locals will help to operate the place, and now we have been given marching orders, Navin Nautiyal, one of the functionaries of the cowshed, says.

Srinagar sub divisional magistrate Mayadutta Joshi says the cowshed is creating problems to the traffic. Therefore, we have asked the management to move to another place.

All India Students Association former president Indresh Maikhuri, who is involved in holding anti-liquor protests in Srinagar and Karnaprayag, accuses the BJP government of playing in the hands of liquor traders. No one is for cows. It is an issue raised only for politics.

BJP state president Ajay Bhatt defends the government, saying liquor is not priority for the government. I will have a word with the chief minister. It is strange that a cowshed was asked to move to make way for a liquor shop, he says.

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Political protest cutting across party lines has erupted after the Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA) conducted a massive anti-encroachment drive on Saturday.

Even Dehraduns influential traders body has come out in protest and has threatened to hold Doon Bandh if the government authorities did not stop harassing traders.

During the biggest ever anti-encroachment drive held by the MDDA, its teams had demolished total 156 temporary and permanent encroachments including 15 shops, 21 walls, 45 tin sheds and 52 hutments among others in Doons Transport Nagar area on Saturday with the help of police.

BJP leader Umesh Aggarwal, who had reached the spot to register protest against the drive, said he was not against removal of encroachments but was certainly against forced removal by authorities.

Traders are already a harried lot due to impending implementation of the GST (Goods and Services Tax) and this unannounced activity has only added to their woes...many traders were trying to remove encroachments on their own but even they were not spared, said Aggarwal, who is the BJPs Dehradun city unit president and also the patron of the Doon Udyog Vyapar Mandal (Dehradun traders association).

Aggarwal said the city traders association had sought time from urban development minister Madan Kaushik till June 20 to remove any type of encroachments.

But the authorities still went ahead with this activity...they should have given enough time to traders to remove (encroachments) on their own, he told Hindustan Times.

The Doon traders association, with which over 130 traders units across the city are affiliated, has now threatened to launch a stir to protest against the drive.

Congress leader Suryakant Dhasmana, who had also reached the site to protest, alleged that the drive was conducted with bias towards people with certain political affiliation.

He also protested against the lack of basic services in Transport Nagar area.

Im not in favour of encroachments but I objected to the pick-and-choose manner in which the drive was held. Also, an even bigger concern is that the MDDA has never addressed the real problems of transporters like roads, washing area, public toilets, shelter homes for drivers/cleaners so far.

The authorities have totally overlooked their real problems in the past two decades but jumped to use the bulldozer within one week of issuing notices, Dhasmana, who is the patron of transporters, said, while referring to the MDDAs claims that the encroachers had been given a weeks notice before the activity.

MDDA secretary Prakash Chandra Dumka said people tried to create political pressure on us but we went ahead with the drive as planned.

We will continue to hold more such anti-encroachment drives over the coming days in association with the district administration and other agencies like Dehradun municipal corporation, police and public works department without entertaining any kind of pressure, he said.

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In a bizarre incident, a newborn, which the staff of city hospital had presumed dead and handed over to its parents, moved when the family reached home.

The incident happened on Sunday morning at the government-run Safdarjung Hospital, when Shanti Devi, 28, delivered a baby boy around 5am.

It was a preterm delivery as the foetus was just 24 weeks old  a full-term healthy pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks  and weighed 460 gms.

The hospital staff found no movement in the newborn, after making several attempts to revive him declared him dead and handed him over in a sealed pack, the family alleged.

After the family reached home, they found the boy moving and brought him back to Safdarjung.

I wouldnt have opened the polythene if it werent for the ladies of the family; they insisted on seeing the boys face. When we opened the cover we found he was moving his hands and feet, said newborns father, Rohit Kumar, 33, who is a daily wage labourer.

The hospital admitted lapse and has ordered an inquiry.

We do admit there has been a lapse on our part; as it appears the staff on duty did not consult the doctor and presumed the baby dead as it had no signs of life and weighed 460 gms, which isnt even viable as per standards. Such foetuses hardly survive, said Dr AK Rai, medical superintendent, Safdarjung Hospital.

The newborn has been admitted in the hospital and is in a critical condition. I am told he was gasping when brought to us and is critical, said Dr Rai.

The hospital has formed an inquiry committee that includes heads of gynaecology and paediatric departments.

I have ordered an inquiry, and I am expecting a report on exactly what happened within a week, he said.

The hospital in the past has had been criticized for similar lapses. In June this year, a 25-year-old woman had alleged that she had given birth to a boy but was handed over a girl child.

In January, Delhi Commission for Women had a notice to the hospital, after one of a pair of twins allegedly went missing soon after the birth.

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The full body scanner might be back for the third time at Delhi airport for another round of trial run, probably by August.

During the last trial, in December 2016, the security agency raised concerns over the body scanner not being able to adapt to the Indian way of dressing and giving false alarm whenever a woman wearing a saree goes through it.

The Bureau for Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), the aviation security regulator, had then visited Delhi airports Terminal 3 for technical assessment of the American full-body scanner.

Certain issues were raised by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which manages security at the airport. We have asked the manufacturer if they can address the issue. Once the issue is resolved, there will be another round of trial run, said a BCAS official.

The most prominent issue raised by CISF was the scanner raising an alarm if a woman is wearing a saree or men have folded shirt sleeves. Sources said that it failed to go through with layers of clothes.

During the last trial run, the machine failed to notice a pen, a wallet and a handkerchief in 10,000 scans conducted over a month. Among the passengers scanned at the trials, 30% were women.

We will have meetings with the manufacturer so that the machine can be fine-tuned as per the requirement. Right now, it is gathering dust, so there should be some use of it, the official said.

The BCAS has asked manufacturers to configure the machines in a way that the images dont reveal body parts, after objections were raised by passengers over X-ray images that scanners produce at airports across the world.

The scanner produces mannequin-like images. The scanner with millimetre wave technology is lying at Terminal 3 and will be used for domestic travellers at that terminal.

A few years ago, a similar trial run was conducted at the Delhi airport and a US-based company had installed the body scanner that can detect contraband and explosives hidden inside the body of a person.

A survey conducted during the first phase of trial run revealed that while 90% of the passengers felt the new technology will be helpful, only 40% of them volunteered to go through the scanner.

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A 56-year-old man was arrested at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport in New Delhi for allegedly sexually harassing a woman passenger onboard an IndiGo flight, police said on Sunday.

The incident took place on Saturday evening on the flight from Hyderabad to Delhi.

Ramesh Chand, a resident of Rohini Sector 3, was arrested soon after the flight landed, after which he was taken to the Domestic Airport police station.

According to the police complaint, the woman, a resident of Hyderabad, said that when the flight was taking off, she saw Chand, who was seated next to her, unzip his pants and start a lewd gesture.

She lodged a formal complaint as soon as the flight landed at the IGI airport.

The woman immediately informed an air hostess about it and her seat was changed. When the flight landed, we received a complaint from the woman, a police officer said.

Chand was arrested under sections 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 345A (sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code.
Delhi University is home to best minds not only from Delhi, but also from all across the country.

This year, out of 2,21,309 applications that DU received, 1,24,626 applicants are from Delhi. This means that over 43% of the applicants are outstation students, who aspire to be a part of the central university. Though most of these outstation applicants are from neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, many students also come from distant southern, north-eastern and western states.

Last year, out of the 57,739 students who were admitted to DU colleges, 28,731 students were from Delhi, said Ashutosh Bhardwaj, officer on special duty, admissions. The obvious corollary was that over half of the students at DU were from outside Delhi, he said.

Hindustan Times spoke to some outstation students, applicants and their parents to figure out what are the major concerns and questions they have when seeking admission at DU colleges.

SAFETY

Safety is one of the major concerns that most parents have. The image of Delhi, especially for those who are not from the city, is that it is a dangerous place. However, we try to explain that as long as students stay close to the campus, there isnt much to worry about. Especially at the North Campus, there are police officers, college security guards, and night watchmen around, making it safer, said Rizwan PS, a final year BA (Hon) student at Hindu College, who comes from Kerala and doubles up as the admin of a WhatsApp group initiated by a student organisation called Yuva Samiti.

It helps outstation students, who may not be able to visit the campus or have easy access to relevant information, clear their doubts.

Such WhatsApp groups have helped many outstation students and their parents. Ishara Ahmed from Karnataka, whose daughter is applying to DU, were at a loss for information as the Information Bulletin was uploaded much later this year.

Some parents, however, added that the reputation of the college and the opportunities their kids will be afforded trumps such concerns.

DU has an international reputation, and our aim was to provide my daughter with the best education. I have spoken to my daughter and have explained how she needs to take care of herself and how she will need to be responsible for her own safety. She needs to be aware of where she is going, with whom, at what time, said Riju (name changed on request) from Kerala whose daughter is trying for admission to an Economics programme at a DU college.

ACCOMMODATION

Finding an accommodation was the most difficult task I faced. Hostels didnt have enough beds and finding a PG that was safe was a hard and exhausting job for both of my parents, said Lolakshi Rajlakshmi, a Daulat Ram College student who comes from Mumbai.

Rajlakshmi is not alone in her concerns. DU has maximum 8,000-9,000 hostel seats, and fewer for girls, said a DU official.

So, a lot of these outstation students rely on privately rented and sometimes expensive, paying guest facilities while studying in DU colleges. In the South Campus, students may be able to find places that charge anywhere between Rs 6,000 and Rs 20,000 a month, based on whether they have an A/C, are provided meals, and how many people share the room. In the North Campus, it can cost anywhere between Rs 4,000 and Rs 30,000 a month.

FOOD, SOCIAL INTEGRATION

Another question that plagues many students is that of how they will adapt to a new city, the changed food habits, and meeting new people.

Food may be easily managed, as students may be able to find delicacies from back home, in different parts of the city. Some even provide tiffin services, said a DU official.

Some students have also raised concerns about travelling within the city. I was unaware about the areas when I first came to Delhi and got lost many times. Auto drivers usually sense that we are not from the city and try charging more, said Kamal Arora, a St Stephens student from Haryana.

However, DU officials have said these questions can be laid to rest. It takes at least a month for even students coming from the city to adjust to a new college... People in Delhi can be very welcoming. Students adapt well and soon, said a DU official who works with student welfare.
Questions on Goods and Services Tax (GST), benami transactions and schemes run by the central government were asked in the civil services preliminary examination held on Sunday.

The aspirants were also asked questions related to National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), Vidyanjali Yojana and Smart India Hackathon, all of which are the NDA governments initiatives.

Lakhs of aspirants appeared in the preliminary examination held across the country.

What is/are the most likely advantages of implementing Goods and Services Tax? reads a question.

The option for students to choose the correct answers included it will enormously increase the row and size of economy of India and will enable it to overtake China in the near future.

The second option was It will drastically reduce the Current Account Deficit (CAD) of India and will enable it to increase its foreign exchange reserve.

The third option given in the first paper of the test was It will replace multiple taxes collected by multiple authorities and will thus create a single market in India.

The civil services examination is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) annually in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- to select candidates for the prestigious Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.

The preliminary exam consisting of two papers (Paper I and Paper II) of two hours duration each was held without any reported incidents of protests, official sources said.

The first paper began at 9:30 am and second one started at 2:30 pm.

The candidates were also asked questions with reference to Benami Property Transaction Act, 1988.

With a view to providing effective regime to check the benami transactions, the 1988 Act was last year changed through the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amended Act, 2016.

The amended law empowers the specified authorities to provisionally attach benami properties which can eventually be confiscated. It has penal provisions for the defaulters.

There were questions on the NSQF, a competency-based framework that organises all qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge, skills and aptitude to ultimately help an individual to get a job or start his own work, asked in the exam.

Paper I also had a question on the governments Smart India Hackathon, the worlds biggest ever open innovation model to find digital solutions to the problems of state and union territories.

Another question was on the Vidyanjali scheme, an initiative to enhance community and private sector involvement in government-run elementary schools across the country.

Through this initiative, people from the Indian diaspora, retired teachers, former government officials and defence personnel, professionals and women who are home makers can volunteer at a school that requests for one.

There were questions on GST and benami and since I know about these initiatives, I hope to have answered them correctly, said Ashish, who took the test.

The UPSC did not make public the total number of candidates who applied for the test and those who actually sat for it.

About 11.35 lakh candidates had applied for the last years prelims exam. Of these, 4,59,659 had appeared in the test held on August 7, 2016.

As many as 15,452 candidates qualified for appearance in the written examination held in December last year. Of them, 2,961 candidates qualified for the personality test or interview conducted in March-May, this year.

A total of 1,099 candidates (846 men and 253 women) qualified the exam, result of which was declared on May 31.
College days are all about friends, feelings, pranks, and countless happy moments, but the best memories are stitched together not inside classrooms, but at popular spots on and outside campuses. From shopping for trendy accessories, to eating out, the north campus area offers a variety of places that students frequently visit. Here are eight spots you must visit:

Vilayati kikar tree at Kamla Nehru Ridge in New Delhi. (Ravi Choudhary/HT PHOTO)

1.The Ridge: Away from the blaring horns, continuous traffic and the unending rush of Delhi lies The Ridge, also doubling up as Green Lungs of the city. Lush with greenery, beautiful flowers and very peaceful, its the best place for students to escape to from the hustle and bustle of the campus, for lovers to go on long walks and for friends to get together for gupshup. Khooni jheel, a water body which fills up in the monsoons does not have any traces of blood but venturing out there is not safe, so dont go unless you are a part of a big group.

2.Big Yellow Doo (BYD): Located opposite the NDPL office, BYD is famous for snacks and shakes, including butter chicken pizza and kit-kat shake and definitely the palatable tipsy-licious pasta. Its not too heavy on the pocket and is a small place with usually long waiting queues.This, however, is one cafe you can never get bored of

3.Central Perk: It is not exactly a replica of the cafe in popular TV serial Friends, but it manages to recapitulate all the memories of the journey. With the iconic orange couch as the centrepiece and walls full of the shows artwork, the best thing about the place is the vibrant atmosphere. The items on the menu are named after the characters and certain elements from the show (like Gunthers Love and the signature song, Ill be there for you). The overall ambience is sure to make you nostalgic for Joey and company.

4.Kamla Nagar Market: An all-time favourite with students, popularly known as K Nags. The market is suitable for shopping and eating good food, both. Chache-di-hatti is much-loved for its mouth-watering chhole bhature for over 75 years.Right in front of it is a 15-year old shikanji (lemonade) stall, your salvation after eating the spicy chhole bhature.

For Mexican wave pizza and more, visit Phonebooth (Sourced)

5.Phonebooth Cafe: This is indeed one of the best cafes in Hudson Lane. The ambience is really nice with cozy corners and dim lights. Specialities include Mexican wave pizza and piri-piri chicken, which are amazing and inexpensive.

Students can enjoy walks, bante wala drinks and more at north campus. (Sourced)

6.Vishwavidyalaya Metro Station: The place full of constant chatter, countless stories, and plenty of street food. The station is more happening than any other spot in north campus. One problem? The noisy e-rikshaw drivers.

Apart from these places, you can visit the canteens, several bhel puri and banta sellers and of course the Maggi (noodle) points.

Inputs from Malvika Singh, Ramsha Khan, Sagar Dawar, Sehba Mohit, Shivam Jha , HT Campus journalists, Batch of 2017.
Heres another reason for you to quit smoking, as a study has warned that snus, a type of moist powdered tobacco, typically held in the mouth between the lips and gums, is 95 percent safer than smoking.

With the potential to stop 3,20,000 premature deaths across Europe each year, the researchers demonstrate the potential of snus in reducing the impact of tobacco related disease and death in Europe. The latest evidence was presented by Peter Lee, epidemiologist.

Snus researcher Lars Ramstrom in Sweden showed that if snus were made available in Europe - where it is currently banned with the exception of Sweden - then many premature deaths could be avoided among men every year. While 46 percent of deaths due to smoking result from respiratory diseases such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia, there is no evidence that risk of these diseases is increased by using snus. Nor does snus appear to increase the risk of other smoking related diseases, including heart disease, stroke and a range of cancers.

Gerry Stimson, Chair of the NNA stated said that snus is a tobacco product that has consistently been proven to be less harmful to health than cigarettes. The ban on snus limits smokers choices of safer alternatives and has a significant negative impact on public health. The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats, killing more than seven million people a year. There are currently one billion smokers worldwide, with nearly 80 percent of them living in low and middle income countries, where the burden of tobacco-related illness is greatest, the researchers stated.

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To reverse the depleting population of sparrows in the region, the Haryana government has started work on an artificial sparrow breeding centre in Bhondsi.

The breeding project follows the inauguration of a 100-acre nature camp by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Saturday. The camp has been developed with an aim of spreading public awareness about the states wildlife and nature. The sparrow breeding project was formally announced during the inauguration event.

Officials of Haryana Forest Development Corporation cited the loss of habitat as the reason why the sparrows were not being able to set up nests at their usual sites and said the government project will go a long way in arresting the slide in the population of the species and help them breed.

Sparrows once used to be one of the commonly sighted birds in the state, but their population has declined alarmingly in the recent times. While a study is being conducted by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) on the depleting count of sparrows, we have observed that they are being unable to set up their nests at parks and in residential areas, Subhash Yadav, a member of Haryana Forest Development Corporation, said.

The plan is to develop a 2-acre sparrow breeding centre inside Bhondsi Bharat Yatra Kendra. More than 50 nesting boxes will be installed for the sparrows.

Members of BNHS and NGOs, which is engaged in conservation effort and biodiversity research and are supporting the breeding project with technical inputs ad assistance, said the centre would not only boost the count of sparrows in the region but also support the conservation effort.

The study conducted in 2010 on sparrows in Delhi/NCR by BNHS pointed to a rapid decline in the population of sparrows in the region.

The Bhonsdi Sparrow breeding centre aims to provide a platform for people to come together and spread awareness on the need for conserving common biodiversity or species of lower conservation status,Bibhu Prakash, director, BNHS, said.

Read I Bird watching festival to be held at Sultanpur National Park in Gurgaon

Haryana has already been running a Jatayu Conservation Programme near Pinjore to encourage captive breeding of vultures.

However, bird enthusiasts are of opinion that the sparrows are not yet in the list of species facing extinction and the government should do more to conserve endangered species.

The government should undertake similar efforts to conserve other species of birds as well. Sparrows are still abundantly found in rural areas,Pankaj Gupta, a member of Delhi Bird Society, said.

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The stretch connecting Hero Honda Chowk and Kherki Daula turns into a commuters nightmare during monsoon, as it literally goes under water and grounds traffic on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, a low-lying area.

In July, last year, seasonal rain, coupled by breaches in the Badshahpur drain, resulted in a 48-hour traffic gridlock that forced authorities to come up with a solution to the perennial problem.

Following an aerial survey, the civic authorities realized that the drain, flowing through Khandsa village and located nearly 2km away from Hero Honda Chowk, was clogged resulting in a backflow of water towards National Highway-8.

To unclog the drain and reduce the backflow of water, civic authorities approved a drain widening project.

However, nearly a year later, the project remains in limbo.

The 40km drain is 30 metres wide at most stretches, but its width narrows to 10m at Khandsa village. The Haryana urban development authority (Huda) had proposed to expand the drain on both sides, in two phases.

In the first phase, the drain had to be widened by another 10 metres, starting from the expressway till the end of the village, a 600-metre stretch.

However, the project hit a wall over the issue of displacement of 35 families housed in 80 houses in Khandsa village, who refused to shift till they were assured of proper rehabilitation and compensation.

The civic authorities, till date, have failed to overcome this hurdle.

The Huda has not been able to convince the landowners facing displacement to shift to the proposed alternative location in Sector 37, as they claimed the area lacks basic amenities.

Similarly, Hudas file to the state government for enhancing the compensation amount from 3.4 crore to 8 crore also awaits approval.

We are laying infrastructure at Sector 37 to lure landowners into accepting the reallocation offer and also started the process of giving compensation to those who have agreed to shift. We are confident of a resolution in the near future and hope to start the drain widening project at the earliest, Yashpal Yadav, Huda administrator, said.

Last year in August, officials of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) carried out an aerial survey of the Badshapur drain with the help of drones. On reviewing the contours of the map, the MCG engineers realised that the drain had been encroached on by Khandsa villagers.

Read I Ensure Hero Honda Chowk is free of waterlogging: Chief secretary to Gurgaon officials

The engineers identified that the encroachment had led to clogged drains and blocked sewer networks after reviewing the map contours. This was hindering the natural flow of drain water.

While officials failed to carry out large scale anti-encroachment drives, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) constructed a culvert that became operational last week to enable diversion of rainwater from Hero Honda Chowk and ensure that the critical junction is free from waterlogging.

The culvert has ben built along the existing drain and will clear out water from Hero Honda Chowk till Badshahpur drain (ahead of Khandsa village).

However,with the drain-widening project hanging fire, it remains to be seen whether the culvert will be able to stop rainwater from overflowing into the stretch this monsoon.
It seems like fans are in for a real treat with Deadpool 2. Ryan Rynolds, who portrays the character of foul-mouthed superhero Deadpool whipped fans into a frenzy when he tweeted a photo of him in the superheros costume, hanging out and in front of the X-Mansion.

Actor Ryan Reynolds takes the stage to be honoured as Hasty Pudding Theatricals Man of the Year at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on February 3, 2017. (REUTERS)

The 40-year-old actor took to Twitter to share the photo and captioned it as, Dropped by the X-Mansion. Big f***ing surprise. No ones home. The picture shows the superhero in full repose as he lies down in front of the opulent house with one leg crossed over the other. The tweet has more than 40,000 re-tweets and 1,32,000 likes.

Dropped by the X-Mansion. Big fucking surprise. No one's home. pic.twitter.com/svbUMEdKbb  Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) June 17, 2017

Deadpool, of course, visited the mansion in the original 2016 hit film about the Marvel Comics anti-hero.

In the first movie, Reynolds played Wade, a happy-go-lucky guy who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. The rogue experiment that cures Wade leaves him with accelerated healing powers and a twisted sense of humour.

Recently, Josh Brolin shared his look all over social media of his transformation into Cable.

You know, just meditating. #deadpool2 #clostraphobiarocks #ryanreyondsismybitch #umguys A post shared by Josh Brolin (@joshbrolin) on Apr 18, 2017 at 12:53pm PDT

The first Deadpool movie was a great success at the box-office, as the movie went on to gross over 783 million USD globally, on a production budget of 58 million USD.

Deadpool 2 is slated for June 1, 2018 release.

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By recommending the dissolution of Shia and Sunni Waqf Boards, the Yogi Adityanath government seems to be following in the footsteps of the Samajwadi Party government.

In 2012, the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had dissolved the Shia Waqf Board on similar corruption charges by invoking provisions of sections 99 of the Waqf Act.

The order was challenged by the Board and the Supreme Court stayed the decision on December 2, 2014.

History only seems to be repeating itself for Syed Wasim Rizvi, who had challenged the SP governments move as chairman of the Shia Waqf Board, and continues to be at its helm.

I was re-elected as the chairman in 2015 for a five-year term. The government cannot dissolve the board on its whims and fancies; a basic requirement for doing so is to issue a show cause notice. I have not received any notice so far, said Rizvi when contacted by HT.

The governments move could escalate its ongoing turf war with the Samajwadi Party over the control of Waqf boards in UP. This is because both Sunni Waqf Board chairman Zufar Ahmed Farooqui and Shia Waqf Board chief Wasim Rizvi are known for their proximity to senior SP leaders. Rizvi is regarded as a protege of senior SP leader Azam Khan, who was the minority welfare minister then.

Rizvi was last elected chairman of the Shia Board for the fourth consecutive term in May 2015.

The present regime in UP seems to be acting on the pressure mounted by the Central Waqf Council under the union minority welfare ministry headed by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

In its inquiry report on the functioning of both the boards, the council has levelled serious charges of fraud and corruption against their office-bearers including illegal sale of prime Waqf land/properties. The report has also indicted Khan, blamed for acquiring Waqf land for his Jauhar University in Rampur.

Denying the charges, Khan said, he had no control over the boards, which functioned as an independent entity.

He, however, clarified that he was not afraid of any inquiry.

Prominent Shia cleric in Lucknow Maulana Kalbe Jawad and Faisal Lala, a Congress leader from Rampur, have also opened front against Khan demanding an inquiry into the Waqf land deals under the SP government.

The 46-page council report was prepared by Waqf council member Syed Ejaz Abbas during his four-day stay in UP in May during which he visited both Waqf boards offices. Council secretary, BM Jamal has already shot off a letter to principal secretary, minority welfare UP, SP Singh asking him to dissolve the boards.

Read more: UP announces dissolution of Shia, Sunni Waqf boards, CBI probe into irregularities

The chairmen of the boards have exceeded their briefs and misused their authorities by facilitating illegal transfer and sale of Waqf properties resulting in loss, jamal wrote in the letter.

Several criminal cases have been registered in different police stations in the state in which the chairman of the Shia Waqf board has been named as accused.

As such the state government exercising its power under section 99 of the Waqf Act 1995, should supersede the boards, order a CBI inquiry and appoint an administrator till the reconstitution of new boards, says the two-page letter a copy of which has also been sent to UP chief secretary Rahul Bhatnagar.

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An umbrella organisation seeking statehood for areas inhabited by Bodo tribal people has extended its support to the Gorkhaland movement led by Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) in the Darjeeling hills of West Bengal.

A movement to divide Assam fifty-fifty has been on intermittently since 1967. It eventually led to the creation of the Bodoland Autonomous Council in 2003 but activists now want a Bodoland state.

The All Bodo Students Union is spearheading the Bodoland statehood movement by Peoples Joint Action Committee of Bodoland Movement (PJACBM), the umbrella body.

In a statement on Saturday, the PJACBM said: The outburst of tension in Darjeeling area is nothing but an unwarranted outcome of the autocratic rule of the Bengal government as well as government of Indias utter negligence towards the problem.

Condemning the unprovoked atrocities on the part of the Bengal police and their indiscriminate torture on unarmed civilians on the streets of Darjeeling, the organisation said: Recovery of so-called lethal weapons from the office of GJM as shown in the media footage is nothing but a plant of Bengal police. The torching of media vehicles is a part of conspiracy hatched by Bengal police to blame the GJM.

The PJACBM expressed solidarity towards the Gorkhaland movement as a member of the National Federation for New States. But at the same time it urged the GJM leadership to lead the movement through democratic, peaceful and non-violent means.

We hereby appeal both the agitating leadership and the Bengal administration to restrain from violence and maintain peace in the area. We also urge Government of Indias immediate intervention in the matter and concede Gorkha peoples demand for a Gorkhaland for restoring permanent peace in the region, the Assam-based organisation stated.

The PJACBM further said that movements for creating separate states had been active in different parts of India after the previous UPA government had created Telangana state in 2009.

Telangana state was created in 2014 but the government of India has maintained deliberate indifference and discrimination towards peoples aspirations for separate state in other parts of the country.

In order to establish their historical prerogative, to ensure their political and land right, to assert their distinct identity with language and culture and also to eradicate the regional disparity of socio-economic development, the demand for creating Bodoland, Gorkhaland, Vidarbh, Bundelkhand, Twipraland, Purbanchal, Harid Pradesh, etc., started some considerable decades back and are still restive, the organisation said.

Their demands are historically and constitutionally legitimate, correct and justified. But the Government of India is apathetic towards the movement and is unwilling to resolve the problem, it said.

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He is a born frequent flier -- a baby boy, born 35,000 feet above sea level on a Jet Airways plane from Saudi Arabia to India on Sunday, has received a free lifetime pass from the airline as his first birthday gift.

Jet Airways flight 9W 569 took off from Dammam for Kochi at 2.55 am on Sunday and when an expectant mother travelling onboard went into premature labour the crew declared a medical emergency and diverted the flight to Mumbai.

While the Boeing 737 with 162 passengers on board was still over the Arabian Sea, the cabin crew requested on the public announcement system for a doctor to come forward. But since there was none a female nurse travelling to Kerala, named Wilson, volunteered to help deliver the child along with the airline staff.

After the plane landed in Mumbai, both the mother and the baby were rushed to a hospital and were said to be doing well, according to the airline.

Being the first baby to be born in-flight for the airline, Jet Airways is pleased to offer the newly-born a free lifetime pass for all his travel on Jet Airways, the airline said in a statement.

The plane later resumed its onward journey to Kochi and reached its destination at 12.45 pm after a delay of 90 minutes.
President Pranab Mukherjee rejected two mercy petitions in the last week of May, just two months before he completes his tenure.

The cases are of rapes and murders -- one of a four-year-old girl by three men in Indore in 2012, and of a 22-year-old woman by two men in Pune in 2007.

The two pleas were received in the Presidents secretariat in April and May.

The convicts urged the President to commute the death penalty awarded to them by local courts concerned and upheld by respective high courts and finally by the Supreme Court.

In the gruesome rape and murder case of Indore, Jitendra alias Jeetu, Babu alias Ketan and Sanni alias Devendra were handed down death sentence by a city court a year after the crime was committed.

The sentence was upheld by the Madhya Pradesh high court in 2014 and by the apex court on January 6, 2015.

Mukherjee rejected their mercy petition on May 25, a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said.

The convicts had kidnapped the child from outside her relatives house in Nehru Nagar area of Indore. They then sexually assaulted, strangled her to death and dumped the body in a drain.

In the Pune case, the convicts -- cab driver Purushottam Dashrath Borate and his accomplice Pradeep Yeshwant Kokade -- had raped and murdered the woman.

The woman, who was on her way to office for a night shift, was picked up by the cab. She was abducted, raped and killed by the driver and his aide -- the two convicts.

The trial court had awarded death penalty to the duo which was confirmed by the Bombay high court and upheld by the Supreme Court on May 8, 2015.

Their mercy petition was rejected by the President on May 26.

With these two cases, the total number of mercy petitions rejected by Mukherjee during his tenure has gone up to 30. As per rules, there is no fixed time limit for the president to decide on a mercy petition.

President Mukherjee completes his five-year tenure on July 24.
Mobilised by the Bhim Army, a large number of Dalit youths hit the streets of Delhi on Sunday, for the second time in less than a month, protesting caste violence in Uttar Pradesh and demanding the release of Chandrashekhar Azad, the outfits chief.

The spirited gathering, of around 2,500 as estimated by the police, saw the presence of Chandrashekhars mother Kamlesh Devi and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Rams sister Swarn Kaur among others.

The stretch between the Parliament Street police station and the New Delhi Municipal Council convention centre turned into a sea of blue, the colour of Dalit resistance, and pulsated with the cries of Jai Bheem as protesters from UP, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab trooped in, from around 10 am.

I will protest, sit on dharna and also stage indefinite fast till my son is not released. We will fight. I have no expectation from the Narendra Modi government or the Uttar Pradesh government, especially since the violence has been triggered by the very rise of Yogi Adityanath, Kamlesh Devi told PTI.

Like the previous gathering on May 21, which had seen a bigger turnout, speaker after speaker laid emphasis on keeping the social movement away from politics and mainstream political parties professing the Dalit cause like the BSP.

(BSP supremo) Mayawati built her entire career on my brothers work. This is a new movement spearheaded by the youth. Whenever theres injustice, the youth will rise, Kaur said.

However, sharp divisions within the ranks of the emerging outfit came to the fore during the demonstration with the organisers pushing down a member from the dais, accusing him of attempting to hijack the movement, triggering chaos and confusion.

The organisers also raised funds for the victims of the clash during the demonstration and people were given slots to speak based on the amount donated by them.

It is apparent that Bhim Army lacks discipline. But it comprises largely of youths and they will learn with time, Ummed Singh Gautam, the chief patron of the Samta Sainik Dal, founded by BR Ambedkar in 1926, said.

Chandrashekhar, a lawyer by profession, was arrested on June 8 by the Uttar Pradesh Task force from Himachal Pradeshs Dalhousie in connection with his alleged role in the Thakur- Dalit clash in Saharanpur. His brothers, Bhagat Singh and Kamal Kishor were also present at the rally.

Two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after a person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village on May 5.
Patna Bihars revenue collection dipped by Rs 1,738 crore in 2016-17 as compared to 2015-16  a year after it was declared a dry state on April 5 last year.

Against the states revenue collection of Rs 25,449 crore in 2015-16, Bihar could generate Rs 23,711 in 2016-17. Notwithstanding the decline in revenue, it has set an ambitious target of mopping up Rs 32,000 crore this fiscal (2017-18).

The decline in overall revenue was contrary to public perception that the slide would be Rs 5,000 crore post liquor ban, especially when excise revenue plummeted from Rs 3,141 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 29 crore in 2016-17.

Finance minister Abdul Bari Siddiqui said the trends were positive. Internal revenue has not fallen as drastically as we had anticipated. This is a positive signal for us. We are now confident of mopping up additional revenue from other sources, he said.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar had said at a recent public event that the states revenue shortfall would not be as big as people apprehended. He claimed that people were investing more on consumables and goods, offsetting the loss in excise revenue and contributing more through other buys.

The state has done well to compensate the loss in excise revenue from other sources. The four sectors, which have performed well, are commercial taxes, vehicle registration, land revenue and registration of land.

Data shows, the state earned Rs 18,502 crore from commercial taxes in 2016-17 as against Rs17,121 crore in 2015-16  a jump of Rs 1,381 crore. The increase in VAT on diesel and petrol, apart from large number of packaged items and sweets above Rs 500 per kg, has helped the state mop up additional revenue from commercial taxes.

Fee collected from land and flat registration yielded Rs 2,981 crore in 2016-17 as against Rs 3,408 crore in 2015-16, indicating a slight decline in volume of registration of land and flats in the state, more due to rise in circle rate of land or MVR (minimum value register).

Transport sector has done well, with registration of vehicles fetching Rs 1,226 crore in 2016-17 as compared to Rs 1081 crore in 2015-16. Land revenue (in terms of land rent or mutation fee) yielded Rs 971 crore last year as against Rs 695 crore in 2015-16.

Incidentally, collections from other sources like fine against traffic violations, sale of forms and other fees has also increased from Rs 1,214 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 1,320 crore in 2016-17.

Compensating the loss from liquor is a big challenge but we are trying to tap all potential sources to mop up revenue to keep our fiscal health robust. Things will improve once GST is implemented, said a senior officer in the finance department.

BLURB

Compensating the loss from liquor is a big challenge but we are trying to tap all potential sources to keep our fiscal health robust. Things will improve once GST is implemented

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A civilian was shot dead by suspected militants in Jammu and Kashmirs Pulwama district, police said. This was the third civilian killed in firing incidents this week.

Aijaz Ahmad Malik, 27, was shot at and critically injured by militants outside his residence at Arrubugh in Pulwama around 10.30pm, a police official said.

Malik sustained a bullet injury to his abdomen and was rushed to a hospital in Srinagar for treatment but succumbed to injuries, the official added.

It was not immediately known why the militants targeted him, the official said.

Earlier this week, two civilians were killed in Jammu and Kashmir in firing incidents.

One civilian was killed on Thursday in Srinagars Rangreth area after Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel allegedly opened fire to disperse stone-pelters.

Another one lost his life on Friday during an encounter between security forces and militants in Arwani village in south Kashmirs Bijbehara area.
Union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh has accused the Congress of instigating the protesters who took to streets against the killing of five farmers in police firing in Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur earlier this month. Just like the Congress was punished post demonetisation, farmers will penalise the party for hurting their interests, he said in an interview to HT.

Excerpts:

How worried are you about the farmers agitation in Madhya Pradesh and also in other states such as Rajasthan and Maharashtra?

What happened in MP was unfortunate but you must have seen how Congress legislators and leaders are fuelling it. This kind of politics is not in farmers interest. Since Modi government took over, it has invested a lot in empowering farmers. As results of the Centres initiatives are becoming visible, our opponents have become worried that their shops would be closed.

Are you suggesting that farmers have no grouse and your political adversaries are entirely behind these agitations?

They (adversaries) tried to instigate the poor over demonetisation but they (the poor) saw through their game and punished them. Similarly, if they do politics with farmers to serve their political interests, the farmers will punish them. The (Central) government has done a lot for farmers, to increase their income by bringing down input costs. Be it the introduction of soil health cards and neem-coated urea, encouragement to organic farming, micro-irrigation and allied activities such as animal husbandry, pisciculture and bee-keeping, Modi government has invested a lot to empower them. Due to soil health cards, there has been 3.59 % reduction in the consumption of fertilizers in 2016-17 as against last year.

Do you consider farm loan waivers, as announced in UP and Maharashtra, as part of this empowerment? This has put BJP governments in other states on a sticky wicket.

Our focus is to empower farmers and we are investing a lot in schemes that will bring down their input cost and increase their income.

The Centres decision to ban sale of cattle for slaughter at animal markets is likely to affect the farmers adversely. They cannot sell them even after they stop producing milk. Whats your stance on it?

We are taking steps to ensure that farmers get money from cow urine and cow dung after it stops giving milk. For instance, under the Rashtriya Gokul Mission, we have set up 14 gokul grams in states to conserve and develop indigenous breeds of cows, make organic manure and vermin-compost and use cow urine to make medicines.

How do you propose to fulfil your promise to double farmers income by 2022?

We have constituted a committee to suggest measures to achieve it. We have already received some reports and we are acting on them. We are focusing on irrigation and making provision for quality seeds and nutrients based on soil status. We are making investments in cold chains and focusing on water use efficiency. We have also prepared a three-year road map for development of agriculture sector to double the income of farmers. We are focusing on marketing, storage and development of post-production infrastructure. The coverage of crop insurance will also be increased from 30% of gross cropped area to 40% in 2017-18 and 50% in 2018-19. Various schemes related to animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries have been started to increase productivity of these sectors and to ensure remunerative prices of the produce.
Normal life was affected in the Darjeeling hills for the fourth consecutive day, as the indefinite bandh called by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) continued on Sunday amid a protest rally.

The GJM called the protest rally with bodies of three of its supporters who were killed allegedly in police firing on Saturday.

Thousands of Gorkhaland supporters occupy the 1.5km stretch between Darjeeling railway station and old supermarket, where the bodies of the three supporters killed on Saturday are to arrive.

A large contingent of the army, paramilitary and the police stood guard at some distance.

Vehicles were off the roads and shops and business establishments in the picturesque hill station downed their shutters.

The 12-hour bandh called in the adjoining Dooars region to protest the alleged police attrocities, however, had partial impact.

Bimal Gurung, the chief of the GJM which rules the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, in a video statement released on Saturday evening from his hideout urged people from all over the hills and the adjoining areas to gather at Chawkbazar to pay tributes to the three martyrs.

Police, however, declined permission to hold the rally. A senior police official was quoted by PTI as saying, No one has been given permission to hold a rally in the hills.

Police, who are on high alert after Saturdays violence and arson, conducted route marches with the army in several parts of the hills.

Police pickets and barricades were placed in front of government and GTA offices, and various entry-exit points of the hills. Several woman police personnel were also deployed.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee earlier refuted the GJMs claim that the three persons died in police firing, terming the ongoing agitation in the Darjeeling hills a deep-rooted conspiracy supported by insurgent groups of the northeast and some foreign countries.

Meanwhile, a few hundred members from the Muslim community took out a peace rally in the town on Sunday morning, supporting the demand for Gorkhaland and condemning the alleged police atrocities.

We never faced any discrimination from the Gorkha community. We feel their demand is just, said Mushtaq Ahmed, trader, a fourth-generation Darjeeling resident.

They called for peace talks between the state government and the Gorkha leadership, who are spearheading the agitation, sparked by fears of Bengali being imposed in schools in the GJM-administered areas where majority of the people speak Nepali.

Though the government clarified that Bengali will be an optional subject, the GJM refused to back down and instead revived the almost 100-year-old demand for a separate Gorkhaland.

On Saturday night, GJM supporters set two more panchayat offices on fire, at Alay and Dalim in Gorubathan block in Kalimpong.

Bimal Gurung, who is in hiding, in his second video statement, appealed to the Trinamool Congress workers in the hills to join the Gorkhaland movement.

(With PTI inputs)

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The Centre on Sunday appealed for calm in Darjeeling but put the onus on the Mamata Banerjee government for possible tripartite talks with Gorkha protesters demanding a separate state.

All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment, Union home minister Rajnath Singh tweeted, a day after violent clashes between police and supporters of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) left four people dead.

One India Reserve Battalion officer was also stabbed in the clashes which also left 35 other security personnel injured.

Sources said Singh spoke to Banerjee on Sunday morning, for the third time in as many days, to explore if she was open to examine the separate state demand. Banerjee has ruled out bifurcation of Bengal.

The current agitation started off as protests against an alleged move by the Trinamool government to impose Bengali in schools in the hills where most people speak Nepali.

The GJM, which administers the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, revived the 110-year-old demand for a separate state after a police raid on the office of its chief Bimal Gurung.

The GJM, an ally of the BJP, has refused to talk to the state government and insisted on tripartite negotiations on statehood.

The initiative to examine the statehood demand has to come from the state government, a senior home ministry official told HT. We have limited role to play.

BJP parliamentarian from Darjeeling SS Ahluwalia, also a Union minister, wrote to the home minister last week demanding a committee to examine the long-pending demands of Gorkhas, Adivasis and others.

The crisis has deepened the BJPs dilemma, torn between pressure from its ally and its own aspiration to increase foothold in West Bengal. The BJPs state unit feels it can not sacrifice the partys interest in 41 Lok Sabha seats to serve the purpose of just Darjeeling.

The Trinamool faced the first political fallout of the agitation when one of its leaders, Gaulan Lepcha, resigned from the party in support of a separate state.

Lepcha, a three-time former MLA of Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), had joined Trinamool just a couple of months before the creation of a separate Kalimpong district in February 2016.

The state government cut off the internet in the hills on Saturday night, apparently to stop sharing of protest videos through social media and messaging apps.

Officials said a police vehicle in Kalimpong was set on fire by GJM activists on Sunday while an attempt to burn a government library was foiled as fire service personnel doused the flames.

The GJM took out a rally with the body of one of its activists who was killed in police firing on Saturday.

There was mixed response to a 12-hour shutdown called by GJM in the plains of the Dooars in protest against the police firing.

GJM and other pro-Gorkhaland activists also staged rallies at Kalimpong and Mirik.
As Darjeeling remained on the boil over a separate statehood agitation, Union home minister Rajnath Singh appealed to protesters on Sunday not to resort to violence and, instead, hold dialogue to resolve any issue.

He said resorting to violence would never help them in finding a solution and asked the people living there to remain calm and peaceful.

All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment, Singh said.

In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution, he said, emphasising that every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue.

I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence, the home minister said in a series of tweets.

Singh also spoke to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday and discussed with her the situation prevailing there.

She (Banerjee) has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling, he said.

Singh had on Saturday also spoken to Banerjee and asked her to take all possible steps so that peace is restored in the picturesque hill station where people are protesting against imposition of Bengali in schools by making the language mandatory.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which is in power in the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, is spearheading the agitation there demanding a separate state -- Gorkhaland.

Darjeeling remained on the edge on Sunday as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a GJM activist, who was killed during clashes with police, and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.

Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and police were witnessed on Saturday.

The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari. Police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.

This was the first death since violent protests returned to Darjeeling on June 8, after a gap of a few years.
Seven people, including a minor, were killed after torrential rainfall caused a landslide in Meghalaya's Ri-Bhoi district early Saturday morning. The victims were mostly labourers.

Officials said the missing have been presumed dead after a day of searching for their bodies proved futile.

The death toll rose to seven following the recovery of the body of a missing woman from the debris on Sunday morning in Tharia area in Ri-Bhoi district, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) official Merinpole Sangma told IANS.

The latest disaster caused by heavy rainfall has taken the landslide-related death toll in the Northeast this week to 17. Five others have either drowned or were electrocuted in flooded area in Assam.

Relief and rescue officials said 30 workers of a plywood factory at Tharia village, some 20 km from state capital Shillong, were living dangerously in sheds by the roadside. The workers were from Assam.

"The bodies of four were recovered from the debris while the search for two others missing is on. The injured have been taken to hospitals in Shillong, " Ri-Bhoi deputy commissioner Chinmay Pundlikrao Gotmare told HT.

Heavy rainfall continued to lash large swathes of the Northeast for three days after a brief sunny break. Many areas of Imphal valley have been flooded as are eight districts of Assam displacing at least 35,000 people.

(With IANS inputs)

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Police have arrested a man in Bihars Lakhisarai district for allegedly gangraping a Class 10 student, forcing her to board a train and then throwing her off it.

The alleged crime occurred late on Thursday and local residents found the girl in a critical condition near the railway track at Jamui railway station early on Friday. The victim is undergoing treatment at the Patna medical college hospital. A case in connection with the incident has been registered.

Pankaj Kumar, sub-divisional police officer (SDPO), Lakhisarai, said authorities were hunting for a second accused. The victim and her family members told police that she was picked up by the accused from close to her house on June 15 when she was out relieving herself.

After they allegedly gangraped her, she was taken forced to board a train and subsequently pushed out of it when the train was approaching the Lakhisarai station, SDPO Kumar said.

The SDPO said the culprits, who had been identified by the victim, were neighbours of the girl. A police special investigation team (SIT) had been constituted to arrest of the culprits. Besides, constitution of a medical board had been recommended for medical examination of the victim, the SDPO added.

Earlier, in January this year, a 12-year-old mentally challenged girl, was allegedly gang-raped by three teachers and the headmaster of a government school in Bihars Jehanabad district.

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Amidst a political crisis, shutdown continued in Darjeeling for the fourth day on Sunday as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leadership called to hold a protest rally.

The fight for control between the GJM, which is an ally of BJP, and the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government, has turned the popular hill station into a battleground.

Here are 10 points about the crisis:

 GJM supporters hurled petrol bombs, stones and bottles at the police on Saturday and the security forces retaliated with teargas shells, resorting to baton-charge to disperse the mobs. The army was deployed to control the situation as GJM held flag marches in several areas of the district.

 The present crisis in Darjeeling was sparked by fears of Bengali being imposed in schools in the GJM-administered areas where a majority of the people are Nepali-speaking Gorkhas. (Nepali is the official language in the hills of Bengal, recognised as an official language of Bengal in 1961. In 1992, Nepali was recognised as one of the official languages of India.)

Though the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government clarified that Bengali will be an optional subject, the GJM refused to back down.

 GJM then revived an almost 100-year-old demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland. Its chief Bimal Gurung, from an undisclosed location, asked supporters to fight a final battle.

 Experts see the agitation as the GJMs efforts to revive its political fortunes after the ruling Trinamool Congress made history by registering its first victory in a hill municipality in Mirik.

 Having signed a tripartite agreement with the Centre and the state, and settled for an autonomous administrative council instead of full-fledged statehood, Gurung was just months ago faced with the possibility of losing both the plot and personal popularity. The latest controversy, however, has given him a fresh lifeline.

 On June 11-12, GJM supporters allegedly set fire to government offices in Bijanbari and Darjeeling. On June 15, police raided GJM office in Patlebas, about five km from Darjeeling, seizing weapons such as bows and arrows, axe, scythes and cash. The raid fanned further anger. GJM said at least four of its men were killed in police action, a claim denied by the forces and the government. A police officer was reported to be in critical condition while several others are injured.

 The GJM has ruled out any possibility of talks with the Trinamool Congress government, saying it will only negotiate with the Centre. The BJP is an ally of the GJM.

An injured cop is helped by colleagues during clashes with supporters of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) group in Darjeeling. (AFP Photo)

 Ahead of the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had, in a bid to win Darjeeling seat, promised to create a separate Gorkhaland. Its SS Ahluwalia won the seat in 2014 and is the current representative of the constituency.

 Mamata offered to hold a dialogue if the GJM called off the shutdown, that has paralysed the regions money-spinner tourism industry. She also accused the GJM of having links with militant outfits based in in north-eastern states and neighbouring countries.

 So many bombs and arms cannot be gathered in a day... These have been gathered for a long time. From where are they (GJM) getting their support? Their advantage is it (Darjeeling) is a hill area and there are borders with other states and international borders, she said.

 Tourism industry has taken a hit as hundreds of visitors have left the hills and thousands have been asked to leave Darjeeling and surrounding areas. Police and paramilitary forces are escorting them to safer zones.
The Delhi wakf commissioner should take a final call on the ownership rights of the 123 prime wakf properties in the national capital, a government-appointed committee has recommended.

The panels suggestion is seen as a temporary setback to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) that approached the Delhi high court challenging the UPA governments decision to de-notify the properties in March 2014, two months before its term ended.

The VHP had raised the issue with the NDA government shortly after it came to power.

The urban development ministry set up the one-member committee under retired judicial officer JR Aryan in May last year to review the UPA decision that resulted in the ownership rights of these 123 properties getting transferred to Delhi Wakf Board from the government.

A majority of these properties are mired in controversy over their ownership rights. Located in prime real estate such as Connaught Place, Janpath, Ashoka Road, Pandara Road and Jangpura, the properties are estimated to be worth crores of rupees in current market value.

Had the panel taken a call on the ownership of properties and not left it to the waqf commissioner, the NDA government could have struck down the UPAs decision, an official source said.

The issue could now hang fire as its resolution will involve Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government, which appoints the waqf commissioner. The post is vacant after the last incumbent Azimul Haque was transferred to Arunachal Pradesh last October. The then Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung had also dissolved the Delhi Wakf Board last October. The new board is yet to be constituted.

The commissioner, a bureaucrat appointed by the Delhi government, plays the role of an arbitrator in disputes related to waqf properties. The Aryan committee has recommended that the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the urban development (UD) ministry should approach the Delhi wakf commissioner for a solution in the politically sensitive case, sources said.

In its petition, the VHP accused the UPA government of showing undue favour towards the Muslim community for showing them that the government was gifting them away 123 prime properties in Delhi.

In August 2014, the high court while disposing the petition, had asked the Union government to take an appropriate decision after hearing all stakeholders.

Before the de-notification, ownership rights of 61 of the 123 properties vested with the land and development office under the UD ministry while 62 was with DDA.

Revenue from wakf properties is used for carrying out welfare activity for Muslims but government officials said many of these properties are being used for commercial purpose by individuals and organisations.

The Aryan panel report has not gone down well with the government, which is yet to take a decision on the report.

The committee sat for over a year but failed to look into the core issue of whether the properties belong to wakf board or have been encroached upon by illegal occupants, said an official.

Set up in May last year for a six-month period, the committee was mandated with seeking the views of all stakeholders.

Besides, it had to examine statements given by all stakeholders and submit its report along with recommendations. The committee was given a six-month extension last November. It had sought an extension again this May, which was rejected by the government.

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The government is considering modifying undergraduate curricula to incorporate certain elements of modern medicine into traditional medicine and vice versa in a likely step to promote integrative medicine and research in a big way.

Various departments are working on this idea, including the Medical Council of India (MCI)  the medical education regulator in the country.

A group of secretaries is reported to have suggested the idea of additions in syllabus to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a recent meeting.

However, sources in the Union health ministry say no decision has been taken on this so far.

Change of syllabus is a long-drawn process. There is a thought at the moment, said a senior health ministry official, requesting anonymity.

We are in talks with the MCI to see how medical curricula will be cross-cutting, with certain elements of allopathy flown in to Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) courses and of certain AYUSH elements into allopathy courses.

The move is a part of larger plan to promote holistic wellbeing and make experts from both the systems of medicine open to the idea of working in tandem.

Around one lakh subcentres in the country will be transformed into wellness centers, and 2500 have already been selected for a pilot, health minister JP Nadda had said during World Health Day earlier this year.

Last year, New Delhis All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) started The Centre for Integrative Medicine and Research which is a state-of-the-art research centre, where top experts from various disciplines of contemporary medicine will collaborate with Yoga and Ayurveda specialists, both for disease treatment, and for preventive healthcare.

Both the systems can supplement each other well. It is not only about curing a problem but also help deal with the symptoms, says AYUSH minister Shripad Yesso Naik.

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SONEPUR On Saturday, RJD chief Lalu Prasads son and Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav visited the much venerated Hariharnath temple at Sonepur in north Bihar to perform the rudrabhishek of Lord Shiva, the ritual bathing of the lingam believed for its efficaciousness in warding off enemies, negativity and all things evil.

On Sunday, a day after an oil marketing company ordered the cancellation of a petrol pump allotted at Patna in his name (stayed by a court, subsequently), it was the turn of Tejashwis elder brother, Bihar health minister Tej Pratap Yadav, to seek sanctuary in the protective benevolence of Lord Shiva.

Tej Pratap, younger son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, reached the Hariharnath temple from Patna after crossing the Digha-Sonepur road bridge across the Ganga, inaugurated just a few days ago (June 11) to coincide with the 70th birthday of his father.

Accepting greetings from his assembled supporters, he straightway, went inside the temple, where he was received by the temple trust committee secretary Vijay Singh alias Lalla.

Sporting a bhasma tilak on his forehead and red and black threads around his right wrist, Tej Pratap, placed a white gamcha on his head as he sat on the outer platform of shivling at the temple, which represents a merger of Lord Vishnu (Hari) and Lord Shiva (Har).

As he sat there in reverence in the temple sanctum sanctorum and the priests started reciting the mantras, Tej Prataps fingers were noticeable for a number of rings round them bearing gemstones such as ruby, munga, panna and an iron ring.

The priests,led by Sushil Chandra Shastri, chanted Vedic mantras as long as the rudrabhiskhek with honey, milk, curd, the gangajal and other items continued..

Tej pratap, who is regarded as most religious among Lalus children, has been doing his bit to propitiate the gods since BJP leader Sushil Modi made a number of revelations about Lalus family members, including sons Tej and Tejashwi and daughters Misa and Hema, coming into ownership of vast properties, the sources of which appeared unexplained.

Tej was recently in the news for organising a mega spiritual ritual at his residence, allegedly to combat negative influences. He had also gone on a religious sojourn to Vrindavan, where he spent two days worshipping Banke-Bihari (Lord Krishna), of whom, he is said to be an ardent devotee.
India on Sunday said it looks forward to strengthen its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China as the two sides held talks in Beijing amid differences over a host of issues including the USD 50 billion CPEC and Indias NSG membership bid.

Minister of state for external affairs VK Singh met foreign minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the BRICS foreign ministers meeting being held here to finalise the agenda for this years BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit to be held in September in Chinas Xiamen city.

They discussed steps to strengthen strategic relations on the directions laid down by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting at Astana recently.

Wang referred to the fruitful and constructive meeting between Xi and Modi on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on June 8-9 at Astana.

In his opening remarks, Singh said that external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj wanted to visit Beijing but health and other restrictions did not permit her.

She is looking forward to meet you, he said.

Xi and Modi have laid down directions for us and both the countries to proceed with a path of mutual respect, mutual cooperation on how to improve the existing mechanisms so that more trade, commerce and people to people contacts can take place, Singh said.

We both are Asian neighbours, two growing economies, people with ancient relations, we mark the path others to follow. India looks forward to strengthening and deepening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China, he said, adding he looks forward for many interactions with Wang.

Singh avoided making any reference to differences between the two countries including Indias sovereignty concerns over the controversial China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Beijing blocking Indias entry into the strategic Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) besides a UN ban on Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) leader Masood Azhar.

India last month skipped Chinas high profile Belt and Road Forum (BRF) under which CPEC comes.

Beijing also opposed the visit of the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh which it considered as part of Tibet.

Officials said that both the governments are keen to find common ground on the contentious issues.

Singh later attended a banquet hosted by Wang for the foreign ministers of BRICS countries.

All the foreign ministers from the BRICS who would also call on Xi.

During the foreign ministers meet, China is expected to outline the agenda for this years BRICS summit which included efforts to seek common ground against terrorism.

The meeting is a precursor to chain of meetings of BRICS officials including the National Security Advisors (NSAs) meeting to be held later next month ahead of the summit.

China took over the rotating presidency of the BRICS from India after last years Goa summit of the group of emerging countries.

China is also expected to outline its proposals for the BRICS summit.

At the Goa summit, India invited heads of the members of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) excluding Pakistan from the region.

Incidentally, this is the first time that the foreign ministers meeting has been called by a host country holding the BRICS Summit.
India is keen to strengthen its strategic partnership with China, minister of state for external affairs VK Singh said on Sunday, a day ahead of the first BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) foreign ministers meeting in Beijing.

At a bilateral meeting with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, Singh said: I am very happy to be here and look forward to many more interactions and see how we can take things forward... India looks forward to strengthening and deepening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue.

Singhs visit comes days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The minister said the two leaders have laid down directions for us and for both the countries to mutual respect and mutual cooperation, (on) how to improve already existing mechanism, more trade , more commerce, (and) more people to people contact.

This is the first time the foreign ministers meet has been called by the country hosting the BRICS Summit. China took over the rotating presidency of the BRICS from India and will host the summit in Xiamen province in September.
The Jammu and Kashmir government will support the family of Feroz Ahmed Dar  the police officer killed in an ambush by militants along with five other cops on Friday  and also provide free education to his children.

Deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh visited Dars home at Sangam in south Kashmirs Anantnag and offered condolences to the bereaved family, an official spokesman said in Srinagar on Sunday.

Expressing sympathies, Singh assured the slain station house officers father Abdul Rasheed Dar that the government will take care of the family and provide free education to the children.

The deputy chief minister also directed officials to dedicate a landmark like a public health centre in the name of the police officer.

Director general of police SP Vaid was further directed to expedite the case of jobs for the next of kin, the spokesman said.

The deputy chief minister said the nation will always remain indebted to Dar, who was the SHO Achabal, for his supreme sacrifice and devotion to duty.

Vaid, IGP-Kashmir Munir Khan, and other senior officials from police and administration also accompanied the deputy chief minister.

J&K cops to donate a days salary for kin of policemen killed

J&K police personnel will donate a days salary for the families of the cops who were killed in the line of duty in the state this year. Fourteen police personnel and two special police officers (SPOs) have sacrificed their lives in various militancy-related incidents during the year, according to a police spokesman.

Police personnel will donate one day salary for the families of the martyrs who have sacrificed their precious lives in the line of duty, the spokesman said.

To show solidarity and their concern for the bereaved families of these martyrs, J&K police personnel will donate one day salary of the current month, he added.
A 60-year old farmer allegedly hanged himself on Sunday from the branch of a tree in his field in Neemuch district, 402 kms from Bhopal, taking the total number of agriculture-related suicides in Madhya Pradesh to 13 since the June 6 violent protests in Mandsaur.

Pyare Lal Oud of Pipiliya Vyas village, nearly 15 kms from the district headquarters, had taken a loan of Rs 2.5 lakh from a bank and was also tense over his daughters second marriage, sources said.

Pyare Lal s son Dev Karan Oud said the bank loan was one of his main worries.

Sarpanch of the village Kishan Lal Patidar said Pyare Lal Oud committed suicide as he was in distress over loan repayment issues.

Hitesh Patil, town inspector (TI) Neemuch city told HT that the body of the farmer Pyare Lal Oud was sent for post mortem. We have started investigation into why this farmer hanged himself in his field, he said.

Read more: Mandsaur is a flashpoint: Indias farm crisis has been in the making for years

The farm distress in Madhya Pradesh has been under spotlight since June 6, when five farmers died in police firing during demonstrations to demand a loan waiver and better crop prices.

The spate of farmer suicides continues in Madhya Pradesh since the violent protests erupted in Mandsaur.

So far 13 farmers have ended their lives.

On Friday night, a 40-year-old farmer Jagdish Mori died after consuming insecticide in Dhar district as he was unable to repay a loan taken against his fathers property. Under pressure from moneylenders, a 40-year-old farmer Babulal Verma from Hoshangabad district attempted self immolation on Saturday early morning. Verma, with 60% burns, was referred to Bhopal. In Shivpuri district, a 45-year old debt-ridden farmer Kalla Kevat hanged himself from a tree on Thursday as he was in distress due to mounting loan burden.
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal has devised a two- pronged strategy to quell the ongoing crisis in Darjeeling hills and to isolate the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which is spearheading the agitation.

The first part of the strategy entails creating a rift among the agitators by using representatives of all the 15 development boards set up for different communities in the hills.

Secondly, the state government wants to use the ongoing GJM agitation to cut off the hills ration supply line from the plains in a bid to push the agitators on the back- foot. This, the state government believes will isolate GJM from the other hill communities and will eventually force them to surrender and come to the negotiating table.

A veiled hint about the possibility of cutting off the ration supply was given by the chief minister herself on Saturday afternoon when she said if the unrest continues then sending rations or essential commodities to hills from the plains will become difficult.

I wonder how the supply line will get normal if trouble persists. So, I request all to stop this violence and call off the strike. Once the strike is called off, we are ready for talks, she said.

As part of the first part of the strategy, office bearers of the development boards will be asked to persuade their followers to break away from the ongoing GJM-led agitation for a separate Gorkhaland state.

The strategy was chalked out at a high-level meeting at the state secretariat, Nabanna, on Saturday afternoon. The meeting was chaired by the chief minister and attended by the head of the 15 development boards, senior members of cabinet, top bureaucrats and police officers.

A senior bureaucrat said that since the hills are dependent on the plains for ration and other essential commodities, it will not be possible for the GJM to continue with their strike for an indefinite period.

Once the supply is dried up, he said, They will have no other option but to call of the strike and come for negotiation.

The fresh agitation in the hills has been sparked by fears of Bengali being imposed in schools in the GJM-administered areas where a majority of the people are Nepali-speaking.

Though the government clarified that Bengali will be an optional subject, the GJM refused to back down and instead revived the almost 100-year-old demand for a separate Gorkhaland.

The official said the situation in the hills aggravated as many non-Gorkhas who claim allegiance to the development boards constituted for their communities, joined hands with the GJM.

Heads of these development boards have been asked to persuade their people to disassociate from the agitation and violence, the official said, Once the number of agitators starts dwindling, the protest is bound to subside.

Tamsang Lepcha, head of Mayel Lyang Lepcha Development Board, biggest and most influential among the 15 bodies, told HT that a committee comprising members of these boards, constituted to restore peace in the hills, will speak to people and persuade them to shun violence and call off strike.

We will explain to people how their lives have changed for better following the formation of these development boards, which took up lots of welfare activities, he said.

The committee will convey to the people chief ministers message that the government is willing to sit for talks once the strike is called off, he added.

Apart from the Lepchas, developments boards have been created for Bhutias, Limbus, Mangars, Khambu Rais, Kamis, Sarkis, Damais, Newars, Bhujels, Gurungs, Tamangs and Sherpas, among others.

GJM president Bimal Gurung had often criticised chief minister over this creation of the development boards terming it a divisive tactics to divide the people of the hills.

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The ruling National Democratic Alliances candidate for the July 17 presidential election will file his nomination papers before June 24, and the opposition parties would be informed of the name before the papers are filed.

BJP sources said the nomination will be filed before Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves on his three-nation foreign tour. Modi is slated to visit Portugal on June 24, before his trip to the US on June 26 and the Netherlands on June 27.

Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday held discussions with Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who heads the Lok Janshakti Party, on the July 17 presidential election.

Naidu also held discussions with Samajwadi Partys Ram Gopal Yadav and Naresh Agrawal.

Paswan said his party will stand by the Prime Ministers decision while the Samajwadi Party is understood to have favoured a politician as the new President.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, part of the three-meber panel set up by Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah to evolve a consensus among ruling and opposition parties on the presidential choice, has spoken to leaders of the Trinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal.

Informed sources said Naidu briefed Shah about his discussions.

Shah on Sunday met ally and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aditya in Mumbai to ensure the Senas crucial support in the presidential election.
In a new twist to the Kerala bobbitisation case, the woman, who allegedly chopped off genitals of a godman while resisting his rape attempt, demanded a CBI probe into the incident, accusing police of forcing her to give statements against the accused.

The bizarre case, which grabbed headlines, has witnessed a few twists and turns since the incident took place on May 18.

The 23-year-old law student had initially told the police that she cut off genitals of 52-year-old G Theerthapada alias Sreehari (godman) in self-defence when he made sexual advances towards her.

Many including Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had lauded her act.

The woman had told police that the self-styled godman had been raping her since she was a minor.

The swami, however, had told doctors that he himself had tried to sever his penis.

After retracting her earlier statement, the woman on Saturday submitted a fresh petition before the special court dealing with cases under the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act), demanding the CBI probe as she lost faith in the state police.

However, police suspect a foul play saying she was forced to retract her earlier statement under pressure.

The investigating team has also approached the court seeking a lie-detection test and brain-mapping tests on her. Her frequent change of statements has put the investigation team in a fix.

Earlier, the woman in a letter to the defence lawyer claimed that she had never attacked the godman and blamed three former aides of Theerthapada of hatching a conspiracy.

She alleged that one of the three aides, Ayyappadas, had attacked the so-called godman.

She also claimed that she was forced to sign a statement prepared by the police and she was not aware of its content.

Since the lower court has no jurisdiction to order a CBI probe, the case is likely to be referred to a high court.

Women activists said she was forced to change her initial statement to protect the godman.

The first twist in the case came last month when the womans mother, in a letter to Kerala Police, said her daughter was not of sound mental health and that the swami had never harassed her.

The case has attracted national attention and there was uproar when police tried to register a case against the woman for attacking the godman.

Congress MP and author Shashi Tharoor was trolled for suggesting that the woman should have approached the police instead of taking law into her hands.
More than three decades after his father strayed across the Pakistan border while grazing cattle, 36-year-old Hasam Khan still waits for his return.

Khan was just five-year-old in 1986 when his father, Jamaldeen, inadvertently stepped into Pakistani territory from the neighbouring Bandha Village in this district and was put behind bars in the Karachi Jail on charges of spying.

As the world celebrates Fathers Day, Khan struggles to hold back his tears as he recalls his childhood with Jamaldeen who used take him for long walks near the international border.

Whenever I see him in old photographs, I sleep with the hope that he will return home safely and we will be a happy family once again, Khan says.

The escalation of tension between India and Pakistan and the death sentence to Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav worry him.

We continued to receive his letters till 1990 when he was lodged in Karachi jail. His letters kept me and my mother in high spirits. But, its been 17 years now and there is no information about his whereabouts, he said.

Khan expresses disappointment that political leaders and government officials did not bother about his plight.

The Kulbushan Jadhav death sentence has revived my fear that all is not well. I met top officials in Jaipur and New Delhi and ran from pillar to post for years but unfortunately all attempts went in vain, he said expressing hope that the government will take up his fathers case as seriously as it has taken Jadhavs.
Around 92,000 prison inmates would participate in parallel yoga sessions in various jails in Uttar Pradesh along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and thousands across the globe would be performing asanas during the International Yoga Day celebrations on Jun 21.

The authorities are already holding training sessions for them.

Nearly 92,000 inmates lodged in various jails of the state will be participating in the International Yoga Day celebrations from the jail premises itself. The main motive behind is that by undertaking regular Yoga, jail inmates will remain medically fit, and it will also inculcate a dose of positivity in their mindset, UP minister of state for jails Jai Kumar Singh Jaiki told PTI.

Their concentration power will gradually increase, and thoughts of ending life or committing suicide, which cross their mind will disappear, the minister said.

The inmates will perform Yoga under the supervision of an expert Yoga trainer, Jaiki said.

Meanwhile in Pratapgarh, at least 200 farmers are likely to perform Yoga at the same time.

Around 200 farmers will perfor Yoga in Pratapgarh. A television will be installed at the programme venue, so that the farmers can not only follow the aasan being performed, but also seek inspiration from the Prime Minister, said Janki Sharan Pandey, the event organiser.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) will be celebrating the International Yoga Day with cycle yatras across Uttar Pradesh to spread the message of environment conservation.

SP national president Akhilesh Yadav has asked all the district presidents and office-bearers of the party to undertake cycle yatras on Yoga Day to spread the message of environment and health awareness, SP spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury said.

The leaders of the party will perform Yoga at the district headquarters and the workers will ride bicycles in their constituencies, he added.

The move is being seen as a counter to the BJPs International Yoga Day programme in Lucknow. When the SP was in power in the state, it had shunned the International Yoga Day celebrations.

Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to invite the leaders of all the political parties, including former chief ministers Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, to the International Yoga Day function on June 21.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed officials to send invitation to the leaders of all the political parties, former chief ministers and Assembly speakers, a senior government official said.

The main function on June 21 will be held at the sprawling Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan in the state capital. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Adityanath will lead around 55,000 yoga enthusiasts in performing asanas (yoga postures) at the maidan, he added.

The programme, which is being organised by the AYUSH ministry, is also likely to be attended by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and other Union and state ministers, said the official.
Amid choppy relations between the two parties, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at the latters residence in Mumbai on Sunday morning to build consensus on the National Democratic Alliances (NDA) candidate for the presidential election next month.

The closed-door meeting at Matoshree lasted nearly an hour and a half. Besides Thackeray and Shah, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Yuva Sena Chief Aaditya Thackeray were also present.

The Shiv Sena had earlier suggested Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwats name as its first preference for President.

Thackeray urged the BJP to consider agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan for the post if it has any reservations about Bhagwat, Shiv Sena sources said.

Earlier in a press conference in Mumbai on Saturday evening, Shah had said the BJP was unfairly getting flak over next months presidential polls even when the party is trying to build an all-party consensus by taking into account everyones suggestions rather than declaring a candidate right at the outset.

The BJP and the Shiv Sena have been running an uneasy coalition in Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena has been giving its ally grief by backing the recent farmers stir in the state for a loan waiver, taking to the streets to protest against its own government, joining the opposition in bitterly criticizing the government and issuing veiled threats of withdrawing support.
Breaking her silence on the lynching of social activist Zafar Hussein in Pratapgarh on Friday, Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje on Sunday tweeted that the demise was extremely unfortunate.

However, she also indicated that the death was not a murder by re-tweeting a tweet posted by inspector general (IG) Udaipur that scientific evidence did not point to murder.

A group of government officials allegedly beat to death 55-year-old Zafar Hussein, a social activist and CPI-ML member, for trying to stop them from photographing women defecating in public in a Rajasthan town on Friday. His name in his Aadhar card, however, was spelt as Jafar Khan.

Commenting on the incident, Raje tweeted Sunday morning, the demise of Zafar Khan ji in Pratapgarh is extremely unfortunate. Investigation is on - justice shall prevail.

The demise of Zafar Khan ji in Pratapgarh is extremely unfortunate. Investigation is on - justice shall prevail. https://t.co/1V9DmV26KY  Vasundhara Raje (@VasundharaBJP) June 18, 2017

But the CMs choice of words in the tweet drew a couple of sharp reactions.

Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot took a swipe at Rajes tweet by re-tweeting that killed would have been a far more appropriate word, and going by previous lynching incidents, justice is unlikely to prevail.

"Killed"would have been far too appropriate a word to use for theCM.And going by previous lynching instances,justice is unlikely to prevail https://t.co/eQiMGfaICU  Sachin Pilot (@SachinPilot) June 18, 2017

Senior journalist Shekhar Gupta also hit out at the CM tweeting, when a lawfully elected chief minister, sworn to rule based on the Constitution, cant call a murder a murder, its time to cry.

"Demise." When a lawfully elected Chief Minister, sworn to rule based on the Constitution, can't call a murder a murder, it's time to cry https://t.co/YBzvfKBw6i  Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) June 18, 2017

Five municipal council officials  including the commissioner were out on a morning round in a slum to photograph people defecating in open when Zaffar objected, local residents said.

Police have registered a case of murder against the five officials. We are investigating the case and no arrests have been made so far, said Pratapgarh station house office Mangilal Bishnoi.

Read more: Rajasthan man lynched for objecting to officials clicking photos of women defecating was a pillar of support

The Pratapgarh assembly seat is held by the BJP.

Police havent arrested anyone for the alleged assault but has named four civic officials  including commissioner Ashok Jain  in the FIR.

Zafar, who ran a small grocery shop and worked for rights of labourers, had repeatedly petitioned the municipal councilor to release money for the construction of toilets in the homes, the villagers say.

The photographing of people defecating in the open is part of the governments Swachh Bharat scheme to shame and discourage public defecation. But many experts say such naming-and-shaming doesnt work because poor and backward communities have scant access to functional toilets or funds to build their own facilities.

The incident in Pratapgarh  around 400 km from state capital Jaipur  is the latest in a string of cases of lynching across India. In April, a Muslim dairy farmer was killed by alleged cow protection vigilantes while legally transporting cattle.

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Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday maintained his partys aggressive stance on the issue of the Presidential polls at the much awaited meeting with BJP President Amit Shah here on Sunday.

Though the Bharatiya Janata Party chief did not disclose the names of any candidate for the post of President, he sought Thackerays support for the NDA nominee who would be announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, Thackeray reiterated his pet names for the top post - RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and agro-scientist M.S. Swaminathan. The BJP has remained non-committal to the names though it has said it is open to discussions.

Thackeray is also understood to have informed Shah that the BJP must announce first its candidate for Presidency before his party can take a decision on whether to support the nominee.

On record, both parties kept mum on the deliberations at the Shah-Thackeray meet though the BJP termed it as a courtesy call where talks were held in a cordial atmosphere.

For the Sena, Thackeray and his son Aditya took part in the talks while Shah and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis represented the BJP.

Other Sena leaders and BJP state President Raosaheb Patil-Danve stayed out of the 75-minute meeting.

The meeting was part of the BJPs strategy to evolve a consensus among all political parties over the Presidential polls and to ensure the support of its oldest ally, the Shiv Sena, for the NDA nominee.

In the Presidential polls of 2007 and 2012, the Sena deviated from the NDA to vote for the Congress nominees: Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee respectively.

Shah later drew the curtains on his three-day visit to Mumbai by meeting NDA constituents like Republican Party of India-A President Ramdas Athawale, who is Union Minister for Social Justice, Rashtriya Samaj Party chief Mahadeo Jankar, Shiv Sangram Party chief Vinayak Mete and Jansurajya Party chief Vinay Kore among others.

However, he could not meet Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana President Raju Shetti, who led the recent farmers agitation in the state.
Twenty three-year-old Sunil Rai was the youngest among the three youths who died when police allegedly opened fire on stone pelting Gorkha Janmukti Morcha supporters in Darjeeling on Saturday. And, like Mahesh Gurung (25) and Bimal Shashanker (28), Sunil, too, was the breadwinner in his family.

Sunil used to live in village No 8 in Kaijalay bustee near Bijanbari, about 35 km from Darjeeling. A driver by profession, Sunil married two years ago and left behind a 10-month-old son, his wife and ailing parents. Since one of his elder brothers is unemployed, Sunil virtually became the guardian of his two nephews as well. Aita Singh Thani, Sunils uncle said he was present when during the post mortem.

Sunil was shot twice in the head, Singh told Hindustan Times.

Mahesh Gurung (25), who died while he was being taken to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri on Saturday hailed from Relling bustee in Bijanbari, about 35 km from Darjeeling.

Read more: Darjeeling unrest: 3 killed in GJM protests, Mamata blames terrorist links

He used to work in Jaipur and came home about a month ago. He is survived by his parents, brother and sister. He was the only earning member of the family, said Raju Gurung, the victims uncle. A bachelor, Mahesh was reportedly shot in the arm, local people claimed. His body was supposed to be brought to Darjeeling on Sunday evening and GJM supporters were planning to take out a procession.

A farmer, 28-year-old Bimal Shashanker, was shot while he and other GJM members were moving towards Singamari. He used to live in Kajmer bustee in Goke, about 20 km from Darjeeling.

He was by my side when we were moving towards Singamari. The police started lobbing tear gas shells without any provocation. The agitators responded with stones. Suddenly, Bimal fell down. He was shot, said Raja Lohagan, Bimals cousin. The familys winner, Bimal is survived by his 8-year-old son, wife and ailing parents.

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Change, they say, is a constant in life and it particularly holds true for Uttar Pradesh. More than two months after the people of the state overwhelmingly voted for change and replaced the Samajwadi Party (SP)-led government with one headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the new administration of chief minister Yogi Adityanath is busy changing the names of schemes and projects to stamp its authority.

Last week, the state government decided to rename the civilian terminal of the Indian Air Force (IAF) airport in Gorakhpur after Mahayogi Gorakhnath, the founder of the influential Nath monastic movement.

Chief minister Adityanath  who is a follower of the same movement  is a four-time MP from Gorakhhpur and is the mahant (head priest) of the famous Gorakhnath temple.

The government has also proposed to rename the IAFs Agra airport after BJP ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay.

A senior official said the proposal to rename the two terminals have been sent to the Centre after the state cabinet passed such a resolution.

The government also decided to change the name of the Mughalsarai station near Varanasi after Upadhyay. The cabinet has already petitioned the Centre for the change.

Upadhyay, who died while travelling in a train near Mughalsarai in 1968 is a former president of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the parent organisation of the BJP. Mughalsarai is one of the busiest railway stations on the Eastern Railway network.

The plan to rename the airports and railway station comes after the new chief minister ordered officials to drop the prefix Samajwadi from the names of all ongoing government schemes and projects. Samajwadi Poorvanchal Expressway, the eight-lane highway to connect Lucknow with Ballia via Azamgarh, has already become Poorvanchal Expressway.

Similarly, Samajwadi Ambulance Service  a pet project of previous chief minister Akhilesh Yadav - has become just Ambulance Service.

The new chief minister, officials say, want the prefix of Samajwadi to be replaced with Mukhya Mantri. The Samajwadi Pension Scheme aimed at senior citizens below the poverty line has already become Mukhya Mantri Pension Scheme. Various other departments are currently looking to change the names of their projects and schemes according to the wishes of the CM.

Similar decisions have been made at the Centre, where the Narendra Modi government faces charges of making cosmetic changes to nomenclature of many schemes started by previous governments. Critics say the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana has been renamed as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana.

The name-change exercise has brought about both amusement and derision in Uttar Pradesh. Residents have been found to be animatedly speculating which projects could be the next to acquire new identities. If rumours are to be believed, the Lohia Samagra Gram Vikas Yojana named after the late Socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia and the Janeswar Mishra Gram Yojana could be the next to undergo a name change. Mishra, incidentally, was a senior SP leader in his lifetime.

Not many are impressed with the cosmetic changes. If a government of any political party names schemes and projects after great leaders, the names should not be changed by the government of other party. The political parties should not take a parochial view, says SK Dwivedi, a political analyst.

But Uttar Pradesh has always had a history of playing with names. When Bahujan Samaj Partys Mayawati became the chief minister, she too had resorted to large-scale name changes. Among the things she renamed after icons her party associated with were the names of eight districts. Amethi became Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar, Sambhal became Bheem Nagar and Hathras became Mahamaya Nagar.

Once she lost power in 2012, the new SP government got the names changed back. So Amethi once again became Amethi and Hathras reverted to Hathras.

Officials say the latest round of name-change could also be transient. Wait for a new government and who knows whether the names will stay or not, pointed out an official who wanted to remain anonymous. Change, after all, is the way of governance in Uttar Pradesh.

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Nine persons were injured, with most of them being passersby, after unidentified miscreants from Imlipura beat them up and pelted stones at them on Thursday afternoon. They also set three motorcycles on fire.

According to police, trouble started when two groups belonging to the same community started fighting under suspicion that one group had complained to the police against them.

For the last two days, police had seized about 283 cattle from the area, as they had been kept in inhuman conditions. Blaming each other for the police action, the groups fought each other at first and started attacking passers-by.

Madan Mohan, an eye-witness, said at around 4 pm when he was going back to Rajur, his village, some people stopped him at Imlipura, beat him up and snatched his motorcycle key.

Imroz Qureshi, a resident of Pardeshipura at the spot, said that at the beginning, only a few persons were involved in the clash. Later, others joined in and beat up passersby, including a journalist.

All the shops in the area downed their shutters as tension increased.

Khandwa district superintendent of police MS Sikarwar said the situation was under control as additional force, including quick response force, had been deployed in the area.

SP Sikarwar said, During preliminary investigation, initially two groups from the same community entered into the brawl claiming that other group informed police, which led to the cattle being seized by the police. Later, the violence spread and passers-by were also beaten and injured. Sikarwar denied stone pelting in the area.

Meanwhile, police has launched a search operation in Imlipura and are looking for CCTV footage to identify the miscreants.

BJP MLA from Khandwa's Harsud constituency, Vijay Shah later visited the victims at the hospital.
The state police will now use drones for aerial surveillance and maintaining law and order in Rajasthan. Under its modernisation process, the police have purchased 10 drones and propose to buy 30 more soon.

Drones have already been dispatched to different police ranges in Rajasthan, Rajasthan director general of police (DGP) Manoj Bhatt told HT. He said the decision to purchase drones was taken following successful use of hired drones at a few event including public fairs in the past. It (use of drones) proved to be very effective, Bhatt said.

Sharing details about the drones, additional DGP, police modernisation and welfare, Bhupendra Duk said that out of the 10 drones, six are big and four are small. The drones were procured through tender process at 2.25 crore, he said. Proposals to buy another 30 drones have been sent to the Government of India via Rajasthan government, so that drones could be used extensively across Rajasthan, he added.

Duk said the big drones have been sent to Jaipur Commissionerate, police ranges of Jodhpur, Bikaner and Kota and sensitive districts. Police personnel have been trained to use these drones and their use have started at some places. Some districts like Bhilwara have started using the drones, he said.

He said the drones will be used for aerial surveillance. Drones have installed cameras through which crowd during festivals, rallies and demonstrations, traffic regulation, rescue operations during disaster, law and order situation and communal violence can be monitored, as drones provide easy access to the places where police cannot reach due to difficult terrains and locations, said Duk. Also, drones can chase down criminals and also follow vehicles, he added.

These police drones are better equipped than normal drones, as they can operate in day and night time and also have better flying time and battery life. While the bigger drones can fly up to the height of 400 metres for around 40 to 45 minutes, the smaller one can fly up to 200 to 300-metre height for 25-30 minutes, said Duk.

Inspector general, Kota police range, Vishal Bansal said that such drones can return from their point of launch if the battery indicates depletion. Additional SP, headquarters, Kota City, Umesh Ojha said that some police personnel have been trained to use the drones and they will be used as and when required.
Breaking her silence on the lynching of social activist Zafar Hussein in Pratapgarh on Friday, Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje on Sunday tweeted that the demise was extremely unfortunate.

However, she also indicated that the death was not a murder by re-tweeting a tweet posted by inspector general (IG) Udaipur which said that scientific evidence did not point to a murder.

A group of government officials allegedly beat to death 55-year-old Zafar Hussein, a social activist and CPI-ML member, for trying to stop them from photographing women defecating in the open at Jagwas Kachchi Basti of Pratapgarh district on Friday.

Commenting on the incident, Raje tweeted, the demise of Zafar Khan ji in Pratapgarh is extremely unfortunate. Investigation is on - justice shall prevail.

Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot took a dig at the CMs tweet by re-tweeting that killed would have been a far more appropriate word, and going by previous lynching incidents, justice is unlikely to prevail.

Senior journalist Shekhar Gupta also took a swipe at the CM tweeting, when a lawfully elected chief minister, sworn to rule based on the Constitution, cant call a murder a murder, its time to cry.

Five municipal council officials  including the commissioner  were out on a morning round in a slum to photograph people defecating in the open when Zaffar objected, local residents said.

Police have registered a case of murder against the five officials. We are investigating the case and no arrests have been made so far, said Pratapgarh station house office Mangilal Bishnoi.

The Pratapgarh assembly seat is held by the BJP.

The Udaipur IG Twitter account has been created recently with the profile page noting that it was created in June 2017. Pratapgarh falls in Udaipur division.

Police havent arrested anyone for the alleged assault but have named four civic officials  including commissioner Ashok Jain  in the FIR.

Zafar, who ran a small grocery shop and worked for rights of labourers, had repeatedly petitioned the municipal councillor to release money for construction of toilets in the homes, the villagers said.

The photographing of people defecating in the open is part of the governments Swachh Bharat scheme to shame and discourage public defecation. But many experts say such naming-and-shaming doesnt work because poor and backward communities have scant access to functional toilets or funds to build their own facilities.

The incident in Pratapgarh  around 400 kilometres from state capital Jaipur  is the latest in a string of cases of lynching across India. In April, a Muslim dairy farmer was killed by alleged cow protection vigilantes while legally transporting cattle.

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Three cows were tied up at the entrance to the Bombay Stock Exchange on Sunday morning, as delegates attended a National Conference on Indian cow on the buildings first floor.

At the centre of the discussions, organised by Virat Hindustan Sangam, were the cattle and the need to protect them from the slaughter industry. Bharatiya Janata Party legislator, Subramanian Swamy, who was present at the meeting, said there was nothing in the legislation than can stop a ban on beef eating in India. A national law banning cow slaughter can be enacted, and every state will have to obey, he said.

On March 25, Swamy had introduced a Private Members Bill in the Rajya Sabha that seeks death penalty for those who slaughter cows. Cows are considered purifiers in our tradition and are a fundamental part of our culture. People who live in India must accommodate its tradition in their life, Swamy said at the talk, which was attended by over 200 people.

Swamy said that Gaurakshaks are doing a great service, and soon they shall have national cadre called Gaurakshaks of Hindustan, amidst reports of rising cattle vigilantism across states. He dismissed concerns around the governments recent ban on sale of cattle for slaughter, which is likely to affect millions of farmers and the export industry.

Instead of slaughtering, we can make money by exporting cow milk. The money made by the famer by doing this, can be saved in a fixed deposit and used later to build a gaushala for old cattle which no longer yield milk, said Swamy.

HT had earlier reported that the move will crimp supplies to countrys Rs1 lakh crore meat and allied industries, that source about 90% of their requirements from animal markets.

Meanwhile, Ahir Hansraj, union Minister of state for home, also present at the meet, proposed that there should be a national sanctuary for cow protection, just like there are for tigers. Union minister Prakash Javadekar has already forwarded the file for this proposal, he said.

Another topic widely discussed at the conference was the medicinal benefits of cow products, especially cow urine. Sunil Mansinghka, member of the animal welfare board, an advisory body to the government, claimed that research conducted by him at Go Vigyana Anusadhan Kendra in Nagpur has shown that concoction of cow dung, urine, milk, buttermilk and ghee can cure epilepsy.

Towards the end, a mobile application called cow connect was launched, to connect cow lovers, shed owners protectors, researchers through their phones. We should connect people with cows every day through this application, said Govinda Das, a spiritualist.
Farmers outfits pushing for a loan waiver have decided to oppose the parameters finalised by the government for disbursing quick loans of Rs 10,000 for kharip sowing.

Before a meeting with the a group of ministers scheduled on Monday, the organisations opposed the governments decision exclude farmers who own a four-wheeler or have a family member with a government job.

The core committee of the farmers organisation will first meet to discuss its stand over the parameters fixed by the government on Monday before its meeting with the ministerial group.

The state government issued a resolution a few days ago, asking district central cooperative banks and nationalised banks to disburse the quick loans to eligible farmers, so that they can continue with kharip sowing. But it also has put riders that exclude farmers who are better off financially. It announced that the waiver benefits would not be extended to farmers who pay income tax, own a four-wheeler, have a family member in government services, are elected representatives to any constitutional body or are registered government contractors.

It is unfair to exclude the farmers with four wheelers as they generally maintain old cars transport the agricultural produce. The government has also announced that it will not extend the benefit to families with a member in government services. The status of such families will be ascertained from their ration cards. In fact, many families have joint ration cards and agricultural cards even though they have been nuclear for years. It is unfair to deprive such families from the waiver, said Ajit Nawale, convenor of the committee.

According to the officials from the cooperation department, which deals with the loans, the parameters are likely to remain the same for the actual loan waiver, to be declared before July 26.

The farmers organisations have raised objections saying that the parameters had been fixed without taking them into confidence. The parameters were finalised without any discussion. The resolution does not stand as the DCCs or nationalised banks will not be in a position to disburse fresh loans unless their old outstanding of Rs30,000 crore is cleared by the government. For us, the resolution stands null and void as not a single bank has been able to loan money to farmers since it was issued, said Vishwas Utagi, one of the committee members and an expert from the banking sector.

DCC banks have been turning down farmers flocking at their branches for want of directives from their governing authorities. Utagi said that the banks would not be in a position to oblige farmers unless the government completed the process of clearing their outstanding.

Fadnavis says state will complete all irrigation projects by 2019

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, in his monthly interaction on television Mee Mukhyamantri Boltoy (This is the chief minister speaking), said on Sunday that almost all irrigation projects in the state will be completed by 2019.

This will help about 40 lakh hectares of agricultural land.

Fadnavis said that about 100 irrigation projects have been lying incomplete for the past 15 years and the irrigation of one lakh hectare of land was tapped as a result. We are concentrating on the completing 23 big projects, besides 140 projects which will be completed in the next two years, he said.

The CM said that with the completion of the irrigation projects and implementation of the Jalyukta Shivar, the water conservation programme, the government could make 1,190 villages free of tankers in the past one year. He said that the target was to free 5,000 more villages, which got its water from tankers during the summer in 2016. He was replying to questions by citizens sent through emails, SMS and other social media platforms.

Fadnavis said that the government had also undertaken a programme to strengthen about 41,000 water sources across the state. He said this will help the government free villages from the water scarcity.

Latur has been the classic example of water neutrality as citizens and citizen groups came forward to develop its own water sources with the help of water conservation and management initiatives, he said.

.

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This holiday season, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport saw fewer cases of gold smuggling owing to costly flight tickets and marginal difference in gold prices between foreign countries and India, said Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) officials.

On an average, gold seizures in a month come down to 35 kgs. These reduced to 25 kgs in the past two months, said a senior official, AIU.

The officials attributed this decrease to holidays and marginal difference in gold prices. The carriers which are hired to smuggle drugs rely on instant bookings but during vacations flight tickets are expensive, which is a demotivates smugglers, said another senior AIU official. Also, flyers arriving from Dubai, Bangkok and Sri Lanka are being closely watched.

However, the AIU officials said the cases will see a rise as holidays will soon be over. With the onset of festive season the cases will increase. During Diwali there will be a lot of demand for gold in the country which smugglers would want to cash-in on, said the official.

Although several cases have been reported at many ports in the country, the air route is still preferred for smuggling. Since it takes a month to smuggle gold via sea route, appointing carriers is still preferred, said the official. Gold prices are increasing gradually and so smugglers want to quickly deliver gold, which is possible by air.

AIU has stepped up the vigil after four passengers who had flown in from Saudi Arabia were arrested for allegedly smuggling gold worth Rs29 lakh.

The last time the amount of gold seized at the Mumbai airport plummeted was at the end of 2016, owing to demonetisation. The cash crunch in the country had a direct impact on the smuggling module. However, the effect started to gradually wear off when the new currency was regulated.

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The University of Mumbais (MUs) Institute of Distance and Open Learning (IDOL) is an exception among higher education institutes as it has more women than men on its rolls.

Of 76,495 students enrolled at the institute, 45,559 or 60% are women. In the past eight years, the percentage of female students has steadily been increasing from 52% in 2008-09.

The female students outnumber men by a wide margin in most of the post-graduation courses offered at IDOL, including MA (Education), MSc (Mathematics), MCom and MA. They are in majority even in MSc (Information Technology) and MSc (Computer Science)  the technical courses otherwise dominated by male students.

On the other hand, the enrolment figures in undergraduate courses mirror the trend: there are more men in Commerce and Science and more women in Humanities.

However, the picture is not all rosy. Many women leave their courses mid-way, citing responsibilities at home. Often women find it difficult to pursue regular education after they get married and instead opt for distance learning, says Ambuja Salgaonkar, director of IDOL. But she also lauds the women for daring to enrol themselves at the institute.

In the past eight years, the percentage of female students has steadily been increasing from 52% in 2008-09. (HT)

According to experts, the rise in the enrolment shows that the distance learning has become a viable alternative for women juggling between their work and responsibilities at home, especially after their graduation.

Many girls from smaller towns such as Palghar and Ratnagiri and even distant suburbs of Mumbai opt for distance learning as these places have few degree colleges and inadequate transport facilities.

Many parents dont let their daughters travel long distance to college, laments Salgaonkar.

The distance learning institute, which started as Directorate of Correspondence Courses at MU in 1972-72, attracts students from all age groups, including a handful of senior citizens. Most of the students at IDOL have daytime jobs and are looking to add another qualification to their resume.

Ex-principal brings education to village students doorsteps

Bankot, a coastal village in Ratnagiri district in the Konkan, has two high schools and a junior college. It, however, doesnt have a degree college.

The nearest colleges are 30km away, situated in the talukas headquarter, Mandangad, and Ambadawe village.

Boys from Bankot who want to pursue higher education must undertake an hour-long journey in a state transport (ST) bus.

Most girls in the village drop out after Class 12 as their parents do not allow them to travel.

When Shagufta Parkar, a city-based retired school principal from Bankot, found out about this, she took it upon herself to help the girls pursue higher education in the village itself.

It was disheartening to see them drop out despite performing well in school and junior college. So when the villagers asked me to do something, I decided to open a study centre in Bankot, she said.

The study centre, started two years ago, is a small room equipped with computers, high-speed internet and audio-visual aids.

Parkar convinced a few girls, and their parents, to enrol at the University of Mumbais (MUs) Institute of Distance and Open Learning (IDOL), which offers around 15 undergraduate and post-graduate correspondence courses.

She tied-up with Kunjbihari S Goyal Online Academy for Learning and Development (GOLD), a city-based institute to provide video lectures, which are also live-streamed at the centre. Every week or so, she invites guest lecturers from the city to clarify the students doubts.

Currently, there are 18 girls enrolled at Parkars study centre, some of whom have already cleared their first year of graduation. They pay a monthly fee of Rs1,000. The centre is funded by Mullah Ahmed Parkar Trust of Burhan Yusuf Parkar, a philanthropist from Bankot.

Shagufta said the experiment has been a success.

Girls who attend the lectures regularly perform well in the examinations. Their parents are happy with the outcome, she added.

She now plans to expand her reach to other parts of Konkan. I will soon start a centre for Marathi-medium students. We will also put up hoardings in nearby villages to publicise our centre, she said.

But, can distance learning replace regular education? Parker believes it can, provided students get the facilities offered at her centre.

Ambuja Salgaonkar, director of IDOL, agrees. Distance learning programmes, in their current form, cannot replace regular education. But, if these programmes are coupled with other learning aids such as video lectures, regular practicals and simulation programmes, they will be on par with regular courses, she said.

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Its that time of the year when students line up outside colleges for admissions, and colleges are busy putting their best foot forward in order to ensure they attract students to their institutes.

Earlier, colleges spent time updating their admission brochures and websites to attract more students, but of late, institutes have started reaching out their targets through a mode of communication the younger generation is more familiar with: social networking websites.

Recently, Kandivali Education Societys Shroff College hired an agency to work on and regularly update their page on Facebook, Instagram as well as LinkedIn in order to give the most recent information to interested students. Everything from animated videos with information on ongoing admission process, important dates to remember, dos and donts for parents, etc, makes its way to their page on the various social networking websites.

The timely guidance on the admission process is likely to help students and their parents in completing the necessary formalities in time and without any hassel, said principal Lily Bhushan. She added that the information includes last dates, payment methods, documents required and steps involved. This has greatly reduced the burden on the front desk and main gates where students keep asking for the same information. The posts are also a big hit on Instagram, and being shared on WhatsApp, she added.

Using social networking sites to announce new features and important information about the college has been used by various colleges, especially for annual cultural festivals. Introducing information about admissions on these pages is a recent trend. We have a web committee consisting of students and headed by a faculty to look into all the updates on our social networking pages. It is a fun way to introduce students to ground work by making them responsible for what goes into these pages and how to keep it updated, said Sobhana Vasudevan, principal of R A Podar College in Matunga.

Most colleges have informal pages on Facebook, usually started by students of the institute and run without any permission of the respective institute. Every batch tends to start their own page on Facebook and thats usually for informal discussions amongst the batch. But being given the responsibility of running a page for the institute is big and we learn a lot about administration work, which comes handy in future. Social media marketing is very much in demand now, said Saroj Malik (20), a TYBMM student.

Some colleges have also used social media to inform students about interesting and new academic programs. These include information on certificate courses as well as other such details.

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The Maharashtra governments decision to de-freeze taxi and auto rickshaw permits in Mumbai and other key cities has brought cheers to not only operators, but even passengers who say this will level the playing field and improve transport services.

Experts, however, are apprehensive about the increasing number of vehicles in the city leading to parking woes.

Following the Union governments directive, the state had capped the number of taxis and autorickshaw permits alloted to cities with more than 10 lakh residents. Permits in cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik were restricted from November 1997. On Saturday, the state said it would lift the freeze on permits and issue them without any caps. This was done to curb permits being sold on the black market.

Now, drivers can get taxi and autorickshaw permits easily, provided they fulfil certain terms and conditions. Earlier, they had to hire or buy permits, which were expensive.

We are happy as our four-year-long struggle has paid off, said Shashank Rao, leader of Mumbai Autorickshaw Mens Taximen Union. He said the decision will allow several drivers, who were driving their colleagues vehicles as they did not have permits, to drive their own vehicles.

Transport experts and regional transport office officials said the governments decision will help passengers as fares will reduce owing to the increase in the number of vehicles plying in the city. The government should have taken this decision much earlier, said AV Shenoy, transport expert.

Citizens, however, were worried the increasing number of vehicles will lead to traffic snarls and congested roads. Parking problems are set to worsen in the space-starved city.

While some transport experts and officials said there was a need for certain restrictions to be put in place, others said traffic would remain unaffected. Autorickshaw and taxi fares will come down. As the prices of app-based cabs surge, more people will opt for conventional taxis and autorickshaws. This will help keep the number of vehicles in check, said Shenoy.

Transport expert Ashok Datar said the government should regulate where such vehicles are parked. Autorickshaw and taxi drivers should not be allowed to park wherever there is space. They should be charged, but given some concessions, he said. He added that more electric vehicles should be introduced.

Transport experts and RTO officials said taxis and autos should settle on an app-based platform to improve the quality of services. Local buses should also be given strong financial, managerial and technical support by the government to ensure that public transport improves, said a senior RTO official.

Currently, Maharashtra has around 1.5 lakh taxis and more than 7.5 lakh autorickshaws. Of theses, about 50 lakh taxis and 1.25 lakh auto rickshaws ply on Mumbais roads, alongside 40,000 app-based taxis. The number of vehicles in the city has increased over the past two years.

During this time, the state has re-issued thousands of cancelled taxis and auto rickshaw permits.

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The Bandra-Kurla Complex police recently arrested three people for allegedly trafficking two minors  a boy and a girl  to the United States on passports and visas of two other kids.

In the same case, the BKC police had earlier arrested a couple  Nirmala Qureshi, 35, and her husband Azhar Qureshi, 42  who are part of the five-member gang. The police said the gang used to send people abroad on forged documents in exchange for money.

Azhar had submitted fake certificate of a private company in the US consulate to get a work visa to the country, said the police. After he got the visa, he used it to apply for three tourist visas for Nirmala and his two children  a 12-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son. Soon after they got the tourist visas, his work visa was cancelled, which is what the gang expected. But the tourist visas were still valid.

The couple and the other three arrested accused  Zakir Shaikh, 41, Vicky alias Feroze Shaikh, 47, and Riyaz Nagpurwala, 40  took money from another family who wanted to send their kids to the US. Instead of her kids, Nirmala took the other two children on her sons and daughters visas and passports.

She left the country on April 25 and returned on April 28 after leaving the two kids there. The US immigration authorities smelt the rat and wrote to the BKC police station through the US consulate. The cops then visited Nirmalas residence and found her kids there.

All five of them have been booked for cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and human trafficking under the Indian Penal Code. They have been sent to police custody.
Two of four teenagers who went out to swim in a canal near Vasundhara on Sunday afternoon drowned.

They were spotted by locals when they slipped into the deeper end of the canal and a search was launched immediately to fish them out. The victims were identified as Shivam, 17, and Gunjan, 16. They were from Daulatpura locality that is adjacent to GT Road in Ghaziabad. They ventured out nearly 10km to Vasundhara, where they drowned.

Two others, Rahul, 15, and Asmat, 16, had also gone to the canal around 2.30pm on Sunday. Shivam and Rahul were brothers. The police said that around 3pm, one of the teenagers started drowning, following which Shivam and Gunjan dived into the water to save him.

The boy who was initially drowning managed to pull himself out but Gunjan and Shivam went to the deeper side and started to drown. One of the boys called the police and locals for help.

After nearly 40 minutes of search, the two boys were pulled out of the canal. They were rushed to a hospital but died during treatment. Their families were also informed, PK Tripathi, station house officer, Indirapuram, said.

The police said that both victims were students of class 12 and studied together. Since it was a Sunday, they decided to go to the canal for a bath. The toxic water in the canal could have caused their death, the police said.

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In the run-up to the upcoming International Day of Yoga on June 21, residents of Noida attended a practice class organised by Brahma Kumaris, in association with the ministry of Ayush, on Sunday.

The session, also an advance celebration of the occasion, was held in Noidas Sector 21 Stadium. Around 900 people attended the yoga camp at 7am.

People from all age groups attended the camp. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government have been promoting yoga to encourage a healthy lifestyle.

Through such camps, we want to encourage the maximum number of people to lead a healthy and peaceful life. Yoga is good for people of all ages. We organised this ahead of the upcoming International Yoga Day. On June 21, we are organising a yoga event at Red Fort for around 50,000 people. Todays (Sunday) event was especially for Noida residents, said Neeraj Goyal, a programme coordinator.

Yoga poses recommended by the government were practised in the camp in preparation for the June 21 event. Several organisations are planning to hold yoga camps on June 21 and residents, in large numbers, are showing their enthusiasm for the event.

In every area, you can find yoga classes taking place in parks. People are getting conscious about their health and this is a good sign. I started performing yoga a few years ago and it brought me multiple health benefits. I encourage everyone to start doing yoga. Meditation is very important to manage the stressful lives we lead, said Yogesh Sharma of Sector 21.

Anita Gupta, of Sector 18, also attended the session with her family. I have come with my husband and children to learn yoga. We came to know about this event through a friend and we decided to attend. I want my children to learn yoga to attain the health benefits, Gupta said.

While addressing the 69th session of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on September 27, 2014, Modi had urged the world to adopt an International Day of Yoga. On December 11, 2014, 193 members UNGA approved the proposal by consensus with 177 co-sponsoring countries the resolution to establish June 21 as International Day of Yoga.
In a first of its kind public grievance hearing, Jan Sunwai was held in Noida on Sunday morning, which was attended by senior administration, police and authority officials along with MPs and MLAs from the district.

The event was organised by union culture and tourism minister Mahesh Sharma to discuss problems of Noida and Greater Noida residents and brainstorm solutions. Sharma, the MP from Gautam Budh Nagar, had been receiving several requests from the Noida public to organise a meeting between residents and officials since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was elected to power.

We have all assembled today to discuss our problems and brainstorm solutions. Noida is growing rapidly by the day. It is, therefore, necessary to strike a balance with development so that people from all walks of life can benefit from it, said Sharma.

Besides Sharma, the event was attended by MLAs from Noida, Dadri and Jewar, Pankaj Singh, Tejpal Nagar and Thakur Dhirendra Singh, respectively, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Love Kumar, superintendent of police (city) AK Singh, SP (rural) Suniti, Noida authority chief executive officer Amit Mohan Prasad, Greater Noida authority CEO Debasish Panda, district magistrate BN Singh, chief medical officer Dr Anurag Bhargav, members of the Federation of Noida Residents Welfare Association (FONRWA), and the superintending engineer of discom, Mukul Singhal.

Residents voiced their concerns over a number of issues that included law and order, sanitation, waste disposal, encroachment, electricity supply, students welfare and homebuyers woes.

Noida must have a separate line for drinking water supply as only 10% of the water supplied can be used for drinking at present. Also, for waste management, we can follow the Ambikapur model, wherein more than 800 people were employed and generated a revenue of over Rs15 lakh from scrap collected, said Mahesh Saxena, founder of Noida Lok Manch.

I propose constant monitoring of citizens charter section in Noida authority to introduce transparency and accountability. Moreover, 24-hour electricity supply must be provided to all small-scale industries in Noida, said Subhash Chugh, president of Noida Small Industries Association.

Sushil Agarwal, founder-member of FONRWA, said,Our city is growing but the resources are depleting. Therefore, the need is to create a fund to which citizens can contribute. It can be used to avail of resources in the future.

Many residents also spoke about the need for cultural development in Noida.

Noida has not seen any cultural development in the past and there is no progress of cultural organisations. We can develop a cultural centre on the lines of India Habitat Centre in New Delhi, Ashok Srivastava, a citizen-activist, said.

Residents also demanded the immediate intervention of the authorities to improve the citys water level.

Noidas water level is depleting every day and not much effort is being made to improve it. Water harvesting should be promoted in all government offices, educational institutes and community centres. A policy should be formulated with regard to using groundwater, said PS Jain, president, the Confederation of NCR residents welfare association.

MP Mahesh Sharma and MLA Pankaj Singh assured the people that the administration will act on all complaints and recommendations will be considered.

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A 36-year-old woman was held after her husband allegedly shot at two persons over the height of a speed breaker in Gadhpura village under Dadri on Saturday.

The police have identified the two persons as Satveer, 35 and Manveer 32, brothers, and the accused as Narendra Kumar, who is absconding, and Babita.

The police said that a road is being constructed in the vicinity of the couples residence and they had decided to get a speed breaker constructed outside their house.

The two brothers were going on a bike towards Dadri when they got into an altercation. Ram Sen Singh, station house officer of Dadri police station said, The two brothers faced a hurdle and asked the couple to get the height of the speed breaker reduced. However, Narendra did not listen to them and asked them to leave, which irked them.

The police said that the duo and Narendra got into an argument, which later turned into a scuffle. Narendra asked Babita to bring him his countrymade pistol and then allegedly opened fire at the brothers.

Satveer suffered a bullet injury on his right hand while Manveer sustained a bullet injury to his leg, said Sen. Both of them were rushed to a hospital in Dadri and later shifted to Ghaziabad.

The victims family filed a complaint with the police and a case of attempt to murder was registered. However, the couple had fled by the time the police reached their house.

A police team arrested Babita from the village early Sunday after conducting a raid. The police suspect a personal rivalry between the two parties could have led to the incident.

Babita was produced in court and sent to judicial custody, the police said.

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There is scope for intelligent speculation when the government is scouting for talent on the promise of assembling a consensus on the candidature for the top constitutional office  the Republics President.

Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Venkaiah Naidu have met, among others, Congress president Sonia Gandhi to convey the desirability of a bipartisan candidate. But they desisted putting a name or a face to the principle behind the move.

Its true the Congress did not consult the BJP on Patibha Patils 2012 candidature, which led to an unedifying campaign for the office. The saddest part was that Patil succeeded APJ Abdul Kalam, who was the National Democratic Alliance-I and the Congress consensus choice. A tango is doable even now. Utopian though it may seem in our divided polity, the objective should be to get the best person for the job. Theres no paucity of people whose competence compliments their acceptability. Take the case of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. Shes political and partisan to the BJP. But there can be convergence on her name.

The possibility of her candidature is open. Unlike Naidu, who was initially counted among the aspirants, she hasnt been drafted for talks with the Opposition. That keeps her in the reckoning, also ruling out the other two interlocutors: Rajnath and Arun Jaitley.

Swarajs prospects acquire special value if the NDA is honestly seeking a consensus on the next president. She has a rapport with Ms Gandhi and the prime minister knows that. In December last year, he had assigned her to separately brief the ailing Congress leader on the armys surgical strike across the Line of Control. Thats not to suggest that the Sonia-Swaraj equation will automatically translate into Congress support. Shed have to contest and win. But the Opposition will be divided and the battle one-sided. Others in the BJP stable such as Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik or Odishas Draupadi Murmu dont measure up to the office at stake. That brings one to the non-political side. Names that at first glance qualify as potential consensus candidates are in public domain: E Sreedharan, Azim Premji, NR Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani.

Ones inclined to add to the list geneticist MS Swaminathan, albeit not for the reasons the Shiv Sena did. At 92, age is against him. But the protagonist of the Green Revolution is presidential grade. Hes active and is mentally agile. One cannot but also take note of intellectual-diplomat Gopalkrishna Gandhi who was secretary to President KR Narayanan. He has the lineage and scholarship to match the office. But ideologically he may not be acceptable to the BJP.

Two recent presidencies are cited by advocates of domain expertise in Rashtrapati Bhawan: Narayanan, an administrator-diplomat with experience of electoral politics; Abdul Kalam a rocket scientist of repute. Their overlapping presidencies had their share of run-ins with AB Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. But they conducted themselves with the dignity befitting their constitutional mandate.

Narayanan had a role in the deployment of army to check the 2002 Gujarat riots. He broke precedent to become the first sitting-President to vote in a general election (1999) and kept pending Vajpayees proposal to confer Bharat Ratna on Veer Savarkar.

A student of Harold Laski, the politically savvy Narayanan had a keen sense of history. Kalam was less endowed on either count. So he signed, while on a visit to Moscow, a proclamation sent by the UPA to dissolve the Bihar assembly. Kalam wanted to resign when the action was held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Had he not allowed himself to be persuaded to continue, Singhs government would have fallen, what with the president owning up responsibility for following the Cabinets advice?

Looking back, their disagreements with the executive were principled, not political or temperamental. They did not work at cross-purposes with elected regimes. They only sought to work the oath they took: To preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Thats the way the presidency hasnt always been. But needs to be: Honest, upright and unattached.

The author tweets as @vinodsharmaview

vinodsharma@hindustantimes.com
On a recent visit to Darbhanga, the honble chief minister of Indias largest state and considered by many  and certainly by its own prodigious population  to be the crucible of Indias culture, declared that the Taj Mahal had no connection with Bharats culture. Yet as we celebrate the 70th year of our freedom accompanied as it tragically was by the most bloody partition in all human history, we would do well to remember what todays Bharat is.

India, as Bharat is known to the world today, represents an unprecedented experiment in nation building after centuries of being part of empires that have laid the foundations of its economic, social and geographic boundaries. This experiment is unprecedented because it differs radically from the idea of the nation state stemming from the European experience which based national boundaries on the strength of ethnic, linguistic and religious commonalities. Tiny Switzerland indeed presents a successful European experiment in building on ethnic diversity, but that is restricted to holding three nationalities together in a form of State based on maximum autonomy in a minuscule geographic expanse.

The concept of nation was no doubt disseminated across the world in an age of colonialism, when subject people looked with envy upon the European concept that had fuelled such domination. US President Wilsons insistence at the time of drafting the Treaty of Versailles that the concept be respected gave a formal basis to such an approach. And so small states, emerging from colonial rule, often ethnically diverse, with these diversities sometimes hostile, were sought to be molded into nation states, with, as we can now see, lasting resentments or, in breaking the yoke of colonial power, seeking themselves to build nations.

Yet South Asia with its sustained engagement with every continent has built a unique identity both for itself and for Indias Islam which carries significance for a world moving into an era of globalization. In this region, an unhappy consequence of colonial rule was the birth of Pakistan, seeking to build a nation on grounds of religion. Malaysia sought to build a secular State, with a bias towards the bhoomiputra (indigenous Malays, overwhelmingly Muslim) in a nation with two dominant ethnic communities. The Philippines and Indonesia, ethnically more homogeneous but with differences in religion have also sought, with varying degrees of success, to build their nations by recourse alternating between democratic and dictatorial means.

India on the other hand, has been a cultural and economic multi-ethnic entity for centuries, in a convergence of which the Taj Mahal can be described as apotheosis. A mausoleum is a concept not in keeping with orthodox Islam. Witness today the chagrin of much of the worlds Muslim community at the demolition of centuries old mausoleums by the Wahabi government of Saudi Arabia. The Islamic concept of burial is similar to the rite of cremation, simply a return of human remains to nature.

The Taj was indeed built by a Muslim emperor, but Shah Jehan was son of Jagat Gosain, Rathore princess of Marwar, with a paternal grandmother who was from the Kuchwaha house of Jaipur, married to Mughal emperor Akbar with the title of Mariam Zamani. And the Rajput influences in the design and ornamentation of the Taj will be obvious to any amateur observer of the traditional architecture of the great cities of Rajasthan, leading some to claim that the Taj is in itself a Rajput palace. If it requires to be labelled, then of course the Taj Mahal, given the ancestry described, so is. To add to this diversity is the fact that this was a monument built to celebrate the Sunni Emperors Shia Empress. And if the building of mausoleums to Emperors is frowned upon by Muslim orthodoxy, a mausoleum for queens is almost unique to India. Here you have the tomb of Noor Jehan in Lahore, the Bibi ka Maqbara in Aurangabad built by then prince Mohammed Muazzam for his mother Dilras Bano Begum and a mausoleum to Qudsia Begum, wife of Mohammed Shah in Delhis present day Jor Bagh. There is also in Delhi the tomb of the great Hindi poet Abdul Rahim Khan Khanan, which is in fact a tomb built by him for his wife Mah Banu, wherein he was interred, located in the present Nizamuddin neighbourhood.

But without doubt the most magnificent of these tombs in India or anywhere is the Taj Mahal built as a temple to the empress Mumtaz Mahal using the tradition of Indias temple architecture. Hence it is located on an elevated plinth as are the temples of Khajuraho, and is built of marble from the Sind-Rajasthan region, decorated with semi-precious stones from the farthest reaches of a vast Empire, already embracing the area of the Solasa Mahajanapad, the sixteen great states extending from the Kabul Valley in the north to the Godavari in the South that constituted Bharat in the 6th century BC, yet to reach its zenith. These were patterned into mosaic on its walls and ceiling and sculpted into its facade by artisans drawn from Indias rich crafts tradition in gems, stonework and sculpture, silver and gold smithy, mostly Hindu, bordered by Islamic calligraphy of majestic proportion, all coalescing into what is the highest achievement of Indian artistry. The dome, an architectural innovation initiated by the Pantheon of ancient Rome, and a contribution of the Turks to Indias architectural array, is crowned with a gold plated finial; rising from an inverted lotus  the lotus is the party symbol of the honble CMs own party  on its summit, surmounted by an Islamic crescent topping a pinnacle reminiscent of the Hindu Shiva trident kalash.

This is surely among the worlds most perfect domes. The Victoria Memorial of Kolkata, built by Viceroy Canning after the war of 1857 to surpass the Taj, is today not even talked of as a comparison. And so, just as every class of Indian society was over the centuries assigned a place in its professional economic hierarchy, which was both a social security and a guarantee of continuity, each class, the ruler, the priest, the skilled, the artisan, the labourer finds expression in the Taj, a supreme expression of Indias architectural achievement, described movingly by Indias poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore and composer of our national anthem as a teardrop on the cheek of time

But where did this convergence start and where did it break? Why indeed did a separate state of Pakistan based on what were perceived as exclusive national rights of a vital element of Indian society emerge as detritus of the British Indian Empire? In framing its Constitution, India, describing itself as a Union of States gave to itself a Federal Constitution with a strong unitary bias. Emerging from a bloody Partition amidst doubts, most famously voiced by former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill that India was even a nation, India sought to weave itself together, while acknowledging diversities, particularly of religion, education, culture and language, into a cultural fabric with political autonomy to ethnic diversities. The Taj Mahal is an expression of that tapestry, which is India.

(Wajahat Habibullah is a former chairman of the National Commission for Minorities and former chief information commissioner)
PATNA Bihar hopes to join the league of top performing states like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, as it strives to achieve the target of electrification of all households in three of its total 38 districts by September-end.

To begin with, the state is targeting full electrification of households in Munger in south-eastern Bihar, Kishanganj in north-eastern Bihar and Sheikhpura, also in south-eastern Bihar, in its endeavour to electrify all households in the state by December 2018.

We have laid the power infrastructure and electrified all villages in these three districts. We are now energising every household, energy secretary and chairman-cum-managing director, Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited (BSPHCL), Pratyaya Amrit, told the Hindustan Times.

We have completed energising all BPL (below poverty line) households and are now concentrating on APL (above poverty line) households, he added.

The BSPHCL has set itself a challenging target to achieve full electrification of the three districts by September. As on date, 59,000 households still remain to be electrified in the three districts.

Giving a break-up, managing director, South Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited, R Lakshmanan, said: We have electrified 2,10,000 households in Kishanganj and 30,000 remain to be done. In Munger, we have completed 1,72,000 households while 13,000 remain to be energised. In Sheikhpura, only 16,000 households now remain to be electrified after energising 62,000.

Exuding confidence of achieving the target, Lakshmanan said Going ahead from here, we should be electrifying around 2 lakh households every month.

Bihar has set aside financial assistance of Rs 1,891 crore for electrification of APL households under the Mukhyamantri Vidyut Sambadh Nischay Yojana, which is part of the seven resolves adopted by the grand alliance government as policy of governance after coming to power in November 2015.

Besides engaging 14 private agencies to electrify households on turnkey basis, Bihar has also hired two project management agencies for quality check and certification. While the executing agency gets 70% payment after energising a household, 30% is released only after generation of first energy bill to the consumer.

The power firm is using mobile app for collecting applications for new energy connection. While Aadhaar is a prerequisite, consumers have to sign a declaration form as the applicable charges of a new service connection are adjusted against their energy bills in 10 equal instalments.

BLURB

BSPHCL has set itself a challenging target to achieve full electrification of the three districts by September. As on date, 59,000 households still remain to be electrified in the three districts

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Pakistan on Sunday said two officers from its consulate in Afghanistans Jalalabad province have gone missing while returning to their home country by road.

Two officials of our Consulate General Jalalabad are missing since June 16, 2017 while commuting to Pakistan by road, foreign office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said.

Pakistan has requested the Afghan government that all efforts may be made to ensure early recovery of its officials and bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.

The Afghan authorities have informed that all efforts were in hand to probe the incident and three distinct investigating groups have been constituted to ensure safe recovery of the officials, Zakaria said.

We are in constant touch with the Afghan authorities, according to the spokesman.

Jalalabad is the regional hub in eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan. The Taliban and militants linked to the ISIS both operate in eastern Afghanistan.
At least 24 civilians were killed in an air raid Sunday on a market in northern Yemen, a medical official and witnesses said, blaming the Saudi-led coalition battling Yemeni rebels.

Most of the casualties worked in the Mashnaq market in the rebel-controlled Saada province on the Saudi border, an official at a nearby hospital told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Witnesses said the market was a centre for trafficking in qat, a leafy stimulant plant that is widely used in Yemen but illegal in Saudi Arabia.

One of the witnesses said some of the casualties had just returned from a trip across the border.

The Saudi-led Arab military coalition has been accused of air strikes in Yemen for more than two years against areas controlled by the Shiite Huthi rebels.

Saada itself has come under heavy bombing since 2015, when the coalition intervened to support the government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in its fight against the Iran-backed Huthis.

The coalition claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on the rebel-held capital Sanaa in October 2016 which targeted a gathering of mourners at a funeral ceremony, killing more than 140 people.

The Huthis have also accused the Saudi-led coalition of a raid last month that killed 23 civilians, including women and children, in the southwestern city of Taez.

The Saudi-led coalition -- which accused the rebels of using civilians as human shields -- has not claimed responsibility for that attack.

The rebels, who control a string of strategic ports along the Red Sea coastline and the norther highlands that border Saudi Arabia, have sporadically launched rocket attacks across the border.

In late January, the Huthis attacked a Saudi warship in the Red Sea, killing two sailors.

More than 8,000 people have been killed in the past two years and tens of thousands wounded in the war in Yemen, according to the World Health Organization.

The UN has called Yemen the largest humanitarian crisis in the world and warns that 17 million people, or two-thirds of the population, face a serious threat of famine this year.

More than 900 people have died of cholera in recent weeks in the second outbreak of the deadly infection in less than a year in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world long before the war.
At least five Afghan policemen were killed and 15 people injured in a suicide bomb and gun attack by Taliban insurgents on the police headquarters in an eastern city Sunday, authorities said.

The assault on the headquarters in Gardez, which was still continuing, was launched at 6:00am, said the regional police commander, Asadullah Shirzad.

Five civilians were among the wounded.

One of the five attackers was still holding out more than five hours after the coordinated assault began, Shirzad said.

The first attacker blew up his vehicle at the entrance to the headquarters, opening the way for two others who opened fire on security forces, and another suicide bomber was shot dead, he said.

The head of the police hospital, Dr Shir Mohammad, confirmed the casualty toll.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement.

Since the beginning of their spring offensive in late April, the Taliban have been mounting lethal attacks on the positions of the Afghan army and police, who have lost several dozen men in recent weeks.

Foreign forces assisting the Afghans have also been targeted. Seven US soldiers were wounded Saturday in an insider attack at a military base by an Afghan soldier described as a patriot by the Taliban.

They are battling to topple the government of President Ashraf Ghani and oust the Western forces that support him.
US-backed Iraqi troops pushed into the last Islamic State stronghold in Mosul on Sunday, an Iraqi commander said, formally launching the final major battle of an eight-month campaign to drive the militants from Iraqs second largest city.

The IS group captured Mosul when it swept across northern and central Iraq in the summer of 2014. Iraq launched a massive operation to retake the city last October, and has driven the militants from all but a handful of neighborhoods.

The extremists are expected to make their last stand in the Old City, a densely populated quarter with narrow, winding alleys.

Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah, who commands army operations in Ninevah province, said Iraqi special forces, the regular army and Federal Police are taking part in the operation to retake the Old City, which began Sunday at dawn.

Iraq state TV aired live footage showing thick black smoke rising from the Old City, with the sound of gunfire rattling inside. It said leaflets were distributed urging civilians to leave through five safe corridors.

Gen. Abdel Ghani al-Asadi, the head of Iraqs special forces, told state TV he expects the extremists to put up a vicious and tough fight. Al-Asadi said the troops will be very careful to protect the civilians in the densely populated area.

The International Rescue Committee called on Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition to do everything in their power to keep civilians safe during these final stages of the battle for Mosul.

With its narrow and winding streets, Iraqi forces will be even more reliant on airstrikes despite the difficulty in identifying civilians sheltering in buildings and the increased risk of civilians being used as human shields by ISIS fighters, said Nora Love, the aid groups acting country director, using another acronym for IS.

Love warned that the assault could lead to even more civilian deaths than the hundreds killed so far in airstrikes across the rest of the city, as the buildings of the old town are particularly vulnerable to collapse even if they arent directly targeted.

Those who try fleeing to government-controlled areas risk being caught in the crossfire or targeted by IS snipers, Love added.

The Old City is home to the centuries-old al-Nuri mosque, where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivered a Friday sermon in 2014 as his group declared an Islamic caliphate in the areas it controlled in Syria and Iraq. The militants have lost much of that territory over the last three years, and Mosul is their last urban bastion in Iraq.

Up to 150,000 civilians are believed to be trapped in the Old City, where the militants are using them as human shields, U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande told The Associated Press on Friday. She said conditions are desperate, with little food and no clean water.
Southeast Asias jihadis who fought by the hundreds for the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria now have a different battle closer to home in the southern Philippines. Its a scenario raising significant alarm in Washington.

The recent assault by IS-aligned fighters on the Philippine city of Marawi has left more than 300 people dead, exposing the shortcomings of local security forces and the extremist groups spreading reach in a region where counterterrorism gains are coming undone.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress last week a long-running U.S. military operation to help Philippine forces contain extremist fighters was canceled prematurely three years ago. Small numbers of U.S. special forces remain in an advise and assist role, and the U.S. is providing aerial surveillance to help the Philippines retake Marawi, an inland city of more than 200,000 people.

But lawmakers, including from President Donald Trumps Republican Party, want a bigger U.S. role, short of boots on the ground. They fear the area is becoming a new hub for Islamist fighters from Southeast Asia and beyond.

I dont know that ISIS are directing operations there but they are certainly trying to get fighters into that region, said Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, using another acronym for the group. We need to address the situation. It should not get out of control.

U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials note that IS has publicly accepted pledges from various groups in the Philippines. In a June 2016 video, it called on followers in Southeast Asia to go to the Philippines if they cannot reach Syria.

About 40 foreigners, mostly from neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia, have been among 500 involved in fighting in Marawi, the Philippine military says. Reports indicate at least one Saudi, a Chechen and a Yemeni killed. In all, more than 200 militants have died in the standoff, now in its fourth week.

Video obtained by The Associated Press from the Philippine military indicates an alliance of local Muslim fighters, aligned with IS, are coordinating complex attacks. They include the Islamic States purported leader in Southeast Asia: Isnilon Hapilon, a Filipino on Washingtons list of most-wanted terrorists, with a $5 million bounty on his head.

U.S. officials are assessing whether any of the estimated 1,000 Southeast Asians who traveled to Iraq and Syria in recent years are fighting in Catholic-majority Philippines. They fear ungoverned areas in the mostly Muslim region around Marawi could make the area a terror hub as in the 1990s.

Then, the Philippines was a base of operations for al-Qaida leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Yousef, who plotted in 1994-95 to blow up airliners over the Pacific. The plot was foiled. But the same men were instrumental in the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Other nations share the fear. Singapore recently warned of IS exerting a radicalizing influence well beyond what that of al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah ever mustered. Jemaah Islamiyah carried out major terror attacks around the region in the 2000s. IS already has been linked to attacks in Indonesia and Malaysia, and foiled plots in Singapore, this past year.

This month, Mattis told the regions defense chiefs that together we must act now to prevent this threat from growing. In Congress this past week, he stressed intelligence sharing and nations like Singapore sharing the burden, rather than deploying U.S. troops.

More than 500 U.S. special forces were based in the Mindanao region from 2002 to 2014, advising and training Filipino forces against the Abu Sayyaf, a group notorious for bombings and kidnappings. When it ended, Philippine and U.S. officials voiced concern the U.S. withdrawal could lead to a resurgence of a renewed terrorist threat, the RAND Corp. later reported. Months before the withdrawal, Abu Sayyaf pledged support to IS.

Supporting the Philippines isnt straightforward in Washington. President Rodrigo Duterte is accused of overlooking and even condoning indiscriminate killings by his forces in a war on drugs. Thousands have died. But that campaign has involved mainly police and anti-narcotic forces, not the military leading the anti-IS fight.

Still, the Philippine government is partly to blame for Marawis violence, said Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia expert at the National War College. He said the root cause was the governments failure to fulfill a 2014 peace agreement with the nations largest Muslim insurgency, which fueled recruitment for IS-inspired groups.

Ernst, who chairs a Senate panel on emerging threats, wants the U.S. military to restart a higher-profile, named operation helping the Philippines counter IS. The Pentagon retains between 50 and 100 special forces in the region. At the request of the Philippine military, it has deployed a P3 Orion plane to surveil Marawi. It gave more than 600 assault firearms to Filipino counterterrorism forces last week.

Duterte has retreated from threats to expel U.S. forces from the Philippines as he seeks better ties with China. He said recently he hadnt sought more U.S. help, but was thankful for what he was getting.

Theyre there to save lives, Duterte said.
Russias foreign ministry on Sunday said it regretted US President Donald Trumps policy reversal on Cuba, calling it reminiscent of the Cold War era.

The new line towards Cuba announced by US President Donald Trump takes us back to already half-forgotten rhetoric in the style of the Cold War, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Trump vowed Friday to overhaul his predecessor Barack Obamas deal to restore ties with Cuba, promising instead to support the Cuban people against Raul Castros government.

Moscow said Trumps policy changes showed that anti-Cuban discourse is still widely in demand. This cannot but cause regret.

It said that easing of sanctions under Obama was a well-thought-out political decision in which there were no losers except marginal Castro opponents.

Russia said it was reaffirming its unshakeable solidarity with Cuba.

Cuban President Raul Castro visited Russia in 2015 while President Vladimir Putin visited the island on a tour of Latin America in 2014, meeting both the president and the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who died last year.
A dog in the US got the retirement party of a lifetime after nearly five years of dedicated service at an airport in the country.

Gema, who worked at Orlando International Airport, was given the party last week.

She was treated to an over-sized doggie treat and a pink tiara, which the airport called her retirement crown.

There she is! K-9 Gema is ready to party. She's retiring after almost 5 years at MCO with handler Eddie. #HappyRetirementGema pic.twitter.com/4PUsHP4rmX  Orlando Intl Airport (@MCO) June 8, 2017

The pup was surrounded by her furry friends, according to the airport which documented the party on social media.

Were celebrating the retirement of one of our most loyal and dedicated employees - & were sending her off in style, the Florida airport wrote on Twitter.
US vice-president Mike Pence has lauded the contribution of Sikhs in America and asked them to continue to give back by serving in the military and public offices at local, state and federal levels.

The Sikh community and its issues are always close to my heart and I always admire the contribution of Sikhs in Indiana and across the US, he told a Sikh delegation in Indianapolis.

Hate crime incidents against Sikhs have seen a spurt in America recently. A 39-year-old Sikh man was shot in the arm outside his home in Kent, Washington in March by a partially-masked gunman who shouted go back to your own country.

During the meeting with the Sikhs Political Action Committee (SikhsPAC) led by Gurinder Singh Khalsa, Pence said that he was fully aware of Sikh awareness issues since his days as Governor, a SikhsPAC media release said.

Main topic of discussion with the delegation was Sikh awareness and introduction of Sikh history in curriculum through federal department of education.

The 58-year-old leader also admired the efforts of SikhsPAC for encouraging Sikh Community for its participation in the main stream politics, the statement said.

During the meeting, Pence reaffirmed his commitment to the Sikh community and encouraged it to continue to give back in the form of serving in the military and public offices at local, state and federal levels, it said.

Early this week, Khalsa visited Washington DC and met about two dozen US Senator and Congressmen.

He also attended US Global Leadership Collision where about 500 world faith leaders, veterans and elected leaders participated to influence the American foreign aid policies.

Pence was the first sitting governor who attended Sikh parade and bestowed highest civil award to a Sikh in 2015.

The US state of Indiana has passed a resolution recognising Sikhs significant contributions to America.
A 33-year-old Sikh convert was handcuffed and arrested in the US for carrying a kirpan after a customer at a grocery store called police.

Harpreet Singh Khalsa, who was born as Justin Smith, has worn the ceremonial knife known as a kirpan every day since he converted to Sikhism nine years ago.

Khalsa, who owns a catering business, was quoted by The Baltimore Sun as saying that he has been stopped multiple times by police, and was arrested again last week outside a grocery store in Catonsville, Maryland, after a customer called police.

Khalsa said he explained to the officers that the knife is part of his religion, but they frisked him, took the kirpan, placed him in handcuffs and drove him to the local precinct.

Khalsa was later released without charges, after police confirmed that the knife was a kirpan and part of his religion, and not a threat to the community, Baltimore County Officer Jennifer Peach was quoted as saying.

The officer did follow all Maryland and county laws properly in this incident. There is no known exception to the deadly weapons laws at this time, Peach said.

She said the department is providing education and guidance to its officers about Sikhs and their culture.

This incident clearly illustrates that this is an increasingly diverse county, and BCoPD (Baltimore County Police Department) works hard to understand and respect the many cultures that call Baltimore County home, Peach said.

Stressing on the importance of the kirpan, Khalsa said, We dont consider it a knife, but a visual reminder to stand up to justice.

The kirpan obligates a Sikh to the ideals of generosity, compassion and service to humanity, Harsimran Kaur, legal director of the New York-based Sikh Coalition, was quoted as saying.

It acts as a reminder to its bearer of a Sikhs solemn duty to protect others and promote justice for all, she said.

Khalsa said he was shopping on Monday when police approached him, walked him out of the store and took his kirpan.

Rachel Bereson Lachow, a witness to the incident, captured the arrest on video and posted it to her Facebook page. The 54-second video has been shared 1.6 million times and received hundreds of comments.

Lachow said she watched Khalsa leave the store with police. She said the officers told him to keep his hands away from the knife until they removed it from him.

Lachow said Khalsa continued to tell the officers he was a Sikh and showed the officers his five articles of faith. Lachow said she hopes the video will raise awareness.
A 21-year-old Pakistan-origin Muslim man in the UK allegedly faced racial slurs from a woman while walking down a road after breaking his Ramzan fast, according to media reports.

The woman was sitting in a doorway in Huddersfield, a large market town in West Yorkshire, when she began swearing at the man on Friday.

Do you wanna know why Im being racist? In my own country? Because its your race thats blowing up our f***ing nation, the woman yelled.

She then screamed: What are you going to do? Ill s*** in your face...

Her outrageous outburst was targeted at the man walking down Kirkgate after breaking his fast when the woman began her unprovoked tirade of abuse, The Sun reported.

The victim, who did not want to be named, took out his phone to record her slurs. The womans face has not been blurred so people can help identify her.

The man said he did not provoke the woman in any way.

I was minding my own business. She just started having a go at me. I asked her what her problem was and she just carried on. I could tell she had a bit to drink but there is no excuse for it, he said.

I am a 21-year-old British-Pakistani born and raised in Huddersfield and I have never been in this situation before. After this I seriously dont feel safe in my own country!, he added.

The victim has reported the incident to police.

A representative for West Yorkshire Police said a hate crime has been recorded and enquiries are ongoing.
O nce something of a shabby backwater, these days Pimlico Road, SW1 is undeniably posh.

Its a short street full of independent shops with fronts in fashionably muted shades and bearing the names of an intriguing variety of interior designers, makers and antiques dealers. Some stores you can only enter after pressing the bell. It can be intimidating  but stick with it.

In shady Orange Square, aka Mozart Square, the Saturday morning farmers market has colourful stalls of fruit, fresh pasta, free-range eggs, meat, fish, artisan breads and cheeses. It closes at 1pm and on Saturdays many of the shops are closed, too. Just a few stay open to show off the authentic British craft techniques used when making reproductions of popular originals.

Meet Chistopher Howe at No93 whose hand-carved Irish Pawfoot Bench, his first foray from art into antiques/furniture 30 years ago, is an enduring success  the benches are in the National Gallery.

Other copies of classic chairs evoke Chippendale, Strawberry Hill Gothic, Arts & Crafts and Victorian/Edwardian upholstery.

New downstairs is a kitchen by Plain English in Suffolk handmade in mellow, chunky rescued pitch pine with antique knobs and pulls. Laden with Royal Staffordshire ceramics is "possibly the longest dresser ever".

Off the wall: Will Fishers Jamb at 95-97 Pimlico Road has quirky furniture, lanterns, mirrors and stuffed penguins

Next door, behind a life-size 18th century horse, is Jamb (95-97 Pimlico Road), a wide and surprisingly deep antique shop which owner Will Fisher has filled with quirky furniture, lanterns, mirrors, urns, busts and even a couple of stuffed penguins. He can also copy his unique cache of antique fireplaces in ancient marbles, hand-finished to look as old as you like. Or go for a more sober stone, from quarries the Romans used, such as Bath and Portland.

Plate-glass double doors and a handsome sweep of windows mark Linley of London, where David Linley, Earl of Snowdon, shows off furniture in fine veneers, with a fitted kitchen in the basement (60 Pimlico Road). The beautiful London Skyline marquetry panel is a must-see, with 20,000 individual pieces, priced 75,000. For less than 100, buy photo frames, door wedges or whisky tumblers.

At Soane Britain, newly "refreshed" by founder/owner Lulu Lytle, find inspiring arrangements of furniture and fabrics (50-52 Pimlico Road).

Designer showcases

An august line-up of interior decorators includes long-established Jane Churchill. More recently arrived is Robert Kime, the "royal decorator". At 89-91 Pimlico Road is Sibyl Colefax and John Fowler, arbiter of "country house" style, where exquisite antique and modern cameos are set against rich wall finishes and handsome curtains.

Rather than "shops", these are showcases or studios for the designers within. However, interior designer Paolo Moschino (trading as nicholashaslam.com at 202 Ebury Street) has open doors at his corner shop with very special lamps and classic silk lamp shades, plus stylish furniture, gifts galore and a nifty line in Belgian handmade shoes. His separate fabric shop is at 10-14 Holbein Place for reliably chic designs.

New to Pimlico: furniture maker Russell Pinchs Bourne Street shop

Furniture-maker Russell Pinch is a newbie, at 46 Bourne Street. It's lined with perfect scale models of his work, with its "pared-back" aesthetic.

Also new is Cox London, where sculptors Nicola and Christopher Cox have channelled their artistry into furniture and lighting, hand cast in their own foundry (194 Ebury Street).

Fab for fabrics

Luke Irwin sells handmade rugs fairly made in Nepal, based on Roman mosaics (see the Mosaic collection at 20-22 Pimlico Road) .

Bennison (16 Holbein Place) screen prints about 500 designs from 175 a metre, from the archive of founder Geoffrey Bennison (19211984).

Christopher Howe's other little shop at 36 Bourne Street does authentic mini-prints on cotton or linen, with matching papers, while de Le Cuona at 24 Pimlico Road excels in weaves in well-coloured natural fibres.

Floral: screen prints at Bennison in Holbein Place

Specialists galore

Brass door furniture is downstairs at Anthony Outred, 74 Pimlico Road. Dale Rogers at 77-79 Pimlico Road does fossils and crystals.

Hilary Batstone (8 Holbein Place) has a soft-edged edit of antique furniture. Nearby, her daughter Rose Uniacke has a burgeoning collection of her own interiors editions. Her signature slender bronze bamboo shoots appear on bar stools, coat hangers, and even balusters to the basement (76 Pimlico Road).
The world isn't waiting for Paris.

In the past three years, carbon emissions have risen at the slowest pace worldwide since the early 1980s, a development bolstered last year by declining coal consumption, rapidly growing renewable power and an energy bust that slowed oil and gas development, according to the British oil major BP.

In an annual report on energy trends, BP said carbon emissions were essentially unchanged in 2016 from the previous year, marking the third year in a row in which emissions fell or stayed flat and the lowest three-year average since 1981 to 1983.

In the U.S., the world's second-largest emitter after China, carbon emission have fallen from a recent peak of 6.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2007 to 5.4 billion last year, amid a surge in natural gas production and a dramatic decline in coal at power plants. China put out 9.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide last year, down from a recent high of 9.2 billion in 2014.

The trends began before the international accord on climate change, known as the Paris agreement, was signed at the end of 2015 by nearly 200 nations that endorsed the goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius. The U.S. was among the signatories, but President Donald Trump recently withdrew the nation from the pact.

More Information The tally Share of global energy consumption by fuel Oil: 33.2% Natural Gas:24.1% Coal: 28.1% Nuclear: 4.4% Hydro: 7% Renewables: 3.1 Source: BP See More Collapse

The BP report, however, shows that the market is moving toward a lower-carbon environment. But whether that can be sustained remains to be seen. BP attributed the slowing pace of carbon emissions to weak energy demand, a transient development that could change amid faster economic growth. OPEC said Tuesday it expects oil demand to rise by 2 million barrels a day this year.

"While welcome, it is not yet clear how much of this break from the past is structural and will persist," BP CEO Bob Dudley said in a statement. "We need to keep up our focus and efforts on reducing carbon emissions."

But changing technologies and energy sources are contributing to carbon reductions, too. Last year, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar surged compared to fossil fuels. Oil and gas production was essentially flat, while coal demand fell for the second year in a row, down 1.7 percent as the U.S. and China curbed the use of the fuel.

Coal dropped to its lowest percentage of the global energy mix since 2004, at 28.1 percent of the world's fuel sources. Global oil output rose at its slowest pace since 2009, at 0.5 percent, as production outside OPEC dropped by the most in 25 years.

Meanwhile, the supply of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources grew by a combined 12 percent last year, rising to 3 percent of the global energy mix. Wind grew 16 percent; solar, 30 percent. China surpassed the U.S. last year as the world's biggest renewable power producer, BP said.

Even oil companies are pouring money into renewables. Energy research firm Wood Mackenzie said in a report that major oil companies, already increasing their holdings of natural gas, could shift as much as one-fifth of their drilling investments to wind, solar and other renewable projects over the next two decades.

BP said it hopes Trump will follow through on his suggestions he would be open to an alternative pact.
Actress Carrie Fisher was unabashedly vocal about her lifelong battles with mental illness and drug abuse. She once defiantly told ABC News, "I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that, I'm still surviving it. But bring it on."

Her candor inspired a generation of women. If a cool and funny Hollywood icon could be so open about getting help for her struggles, then so could they.

But a disorder that ultimately contributed to Fisher's death was something she hadn't publicly said much about: sleep apnea.

Fisher died Dec. 27, four days after she had a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles.

In a news release Friday, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office said sleep apnea - where a person repeatedly stops breathing during sleep, sometimes more than 100 times a night - was a contributing factor in her death, according to The Associated Press.

The medical examiner still listed the cause of Fisher's death as "undetermined," according to the AP. Other contributing factors were her ingestion of multiple unspecified drugs and a buildup of fatty tissue in her arteries.

But that the 60-year-old dealt with sleep apnea wasn't widely known. It's unclear if Fisher even knew she had it.

Grace Pien, a sleep specialist with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said that silence is something Fisher has in common with the legion of female sufferers of sleep apnea.

More than 18 million Americans have been diagnosed with sleep apnea, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Doctors cannot detect the disorder during a routine examination and it is the leading cause of daytime fatigue, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Symptoms include snoring and gasping for breath in one's sleep. Untreated, sleep apnea could increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and heart failure, according to the National Institutes of Health. And one study found that properly treating sleep apnea with a CPAP machine can alleviate issues with the heart and blood sugar.

"What you die of is not the sleep apnea," John Bouzis, a dentist who works with sleep specialists to help apneic patients, told The Washington Post. "You die of the cardiovascular disease. You die of the stroke. You die of the pulmonary problems . . . Sleep apnea is a time bomb."

Women, particularly older ones, have a greater chance of never being diagnosed with sleep apnea - and never being treated for it. Female patients are also more likely to play down the symptoms, Pien said.

Pien told the National Sleep Foundation that women with sleep apnea are diagnosed less frequently than men. By some counts, as many as nine men are diagnosed with sleep apnea for every woman, although studies have shown that the ratios are much closer.

Part of the problem, Pien told The Washington Post, is that physicians have a stereotype of sleep apnea sufferers - namely middle-aged, overweight or obese men.

In women, the incidence of sleep apnea increases after menopause, which means people with the ailment may believe their sudden lethargy is due to other changes.

"Especially if women don't have a regular bed partner," she said. "They may not know some of the overnight symptoms of apnea. They may feel just more tired during the day."

"Women tend to be less forthcoming about having some of the symptoms like snoring just because they are more embarrassed about that," she said.

Bouzis said doctors can miss out on the chance to have a conversation with female patients if they are too polite.

"It's not a comfortable conversation for a physician to have with a woman," he told The Post. "We're likely to say to a man you need to lose some weight. It's not a conversation we have with a lot of women. I catch myself wanting to bring it up, hoping that they bring it up so that we can easily have that conversation."

What remained unclear on Saturday was what role the unspecified drug use played in Fisher's death.

In a statement to People Magazine, Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd, alluded to her mother's struggles with addiction:

"My mom battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life. She ultimately died of it. She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases.

"She talked about the shame that torments people and their families confronted by these diseases. I know my Mom, she'd want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles. Seek help, fight for government funding for mental health programs. Shame and those social stigmas are the enemies of progress to solutions and ultimately a cure. Love you Momby."

At the time of her death, Fisher had wrapped up her role in the latest installment of the "Star Wars" movie series, but she also had recurring roles on the online comedy "Catastrophe" and on Fox's "Family Guy," according to Variety.
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A few months ago, Daniel Florek climbed the steps of the Houston Police Officers Memorial and ran his finger over Richard K. Martin's name.

He prayed, asking the fallen officer for a blessing he could not seek in person: His only daughter's hand in marriage.

"It's a tricky thing," said Daniel, 28. "Her dad is literally a superhero.  So I feel I have to work every day to ensure I'm the kind of man her dad would approve of, the kind of man her dad would trust to spend the rest of her life with."

Daniel Florek and Cynthia Martin married at the memorial Saturday morning, surrounded by dozens of HPD officers standing in for Richard Martin, who was killed just over two years ago as he laid spike strips to stop a carjacker fleeing police.

His fellow officers have supported the family of the 47-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran ever since. They escorted his body back to his native Oklahoma. They stood guard at the funeral.

"They have not left us to this day," said Martin's wife Kim.

On Saturday, Houston police assembled again, the happy occasion made bittersweet by Richard's absence.

The officers arrived early in the morning, lining up 40 white folding chairs near an ivy-covered trellis at the foot of the granite stepped memorial.

Around 10 a.m., the rumble of 32 motorcycles pierced the sticky air. Caravans ferried dozens of officers and cadets to the site.

"It's a blessing to be here," one officer said.

BBB

Cynthia, 24, met Daniel 11 months ago.

They were at an AA meeting, confronting addiction and determined to stay sober. She complimented his socks. They found each other on Facebook later that day and chatted into the night.

He wasn't looking for a relationship, but her joy captivated him - even more so when he learned about her dad.

"For her to be able to laugh as hard as she can after being through the experiences she's been through - this is the strongest person I've met in entire life," Daniel said.

After he prayed at the memorial, he called Kim to ask for her blessing. "He was so excited, he cried with me," she said. "It just let us know how much he loved her."

The ring came weeks later. He wanted to make a grand gesture, but couldn't wait. Cynthia was getting ready to take a shower and noticed him standing around, fretting.

Then, he blurted it out.

BBB

The memorial seemed like the natural place for the wedding.

"In honor of my father," Cynthia said, "because he can't be there."

Her family hoped many officers would attend.

Her dad's colleagues went far beyond that. They secured the permit to hold the wedding at the memorial.

They put a call out to officers to show up Saturday. They hauled dozens of chairs, directed traffic and assembled in their finest.

"Cynthia has a lot of dads who wear uniforms," the chaplain said.

Daniel waited in anxious excitement beneath the ivy-covered trellis. The groom was dressed in a black suit with a blue and purple striped tie.

Cynthia had been preparing for hours. She was wearing her mom's wedding dress, its hem shortened to fit her 4'11 frame.

Blue and purple roses dotted the circlet on her head and filled her bouquet. She carried one made of the light blue cloth of her father's uniform.

A miniature version of her dad's badge, #5413, hung from her neck. She never takes it off.

She thinks of him often, and what he would say if he were alive. She has been sober for a year. She works at a sober-living facility helping others walk the same path, as does Daniel.

She's getting married and has a baby on the way. On Monday, they'll learn whether it's a boy or girl.

"He would be proud," she said.

Moments before the ceremony, more than 100 officers and cadets formed two lines facing each other on the slope down to the memorial.

Cynthia and Daniel's relatives sat at its base. Her 14-year-old brother, Tyler, waited with their rings. Several curious onlookers huddled beneath the pink crepe myrtles that circle the memorial, their Saturday morning workouts forgotten.

At 10:29 a.m., Cynthia walked into view, an officer at her side.

"She's ready!" someone called.

The lines snapped to attention.

The bride stepped forward.
"I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris," President Donald Trump bragged as he announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord - a plan meant to fight climate change. How sadly ironic. He was boasting about representing people in one of the most polluted cities in the country.

As Trump moves to reverse plans to curb global warming and reduce air pollution, such as lifting a moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands and rolling back fuel economy standards for cars, a troubling and deadly history threatens to repeat itself in some of the very states that voted him into office, like Pennsylvania and Texas.

Long considered a proud member of "coal country," with five coal-fired plants nearby, the Pittsburgh area has consistently been rated as one of the top 10 U.S. cities with the dirtiest air, according to the American Lung Association's 2017 "State of the Air" report.

Pennsylvania has gravitated away from coal and toward natural gas, a cheaper and more abundant fuel source, but the air is still dangerous. And as history shows, under the right weather conditions polluted air can turn deadly.

On Oct. 27, 1948, the mill town of Donora, Penn., sat under an anticyclone - a temperature inversion of high atmospheric pressure, sealing a lid over the town and trapping the pollution from a nearby zinc plant and steel smelting plant. Donora's toxic smog lasted for five days, killed 20 people and sickened thousands. But this was not a lone event.

Four years later, there was another devastating smog, this time in London. Some may remember it from an episode of the Netflix series "The Crown." As many as 12,000 people died from the choking five-day toxic fog also caused by coal, as well as diesel pollution from London's vaunted double-decker bus fleet. Millions more suffered from respiratory issues that shortened their lives. The Great Smog of 1952 was the world's deadliest air pollution disaster - a human-made catastrophe that has never been surpassed.

The world has since made tremendous progress in how we generate energy, and the air is much cleaner thanks in no small part to the air-quality laws passed in the United Kingdom in 1956 and the United States in 1970 - both in direct response to those disasters. But America is now at risk of backsliding. This year, Pittsburgh's county, Allegheny, received a failing grade from the American Lung Association for air quality. Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso were in the top 20 cities with the highest levels of ozone.

Texas and Pennsylvania aren't the only states in danger. Coal mining hubs in Kentucky and West Virginia topped the list for worst air quality. Those states also voted overwhelmingly for Trump. But even blue states such as California aren't immune. Almost 40 percent of the nation lives in areas with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution, deadly poisons that can shorten lives.

When Trump loosens energy regulations, air quality will only worsen - and major cities like Houston, Dallas and Pittsburgh are at risk. Lifting regulations on fossil fuel production and rolling back vehicle emission standards will contribute to poor health, even premature deaths. And Trump will likely eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement branch. There will be dire health consequences for all Americans without cops on the beat, enforcers who punish companies that emit excess pollutants. There will no longer be someone there to tell violators "no."

Trump's decisions about the environment endanger our health. Americans must elect state legislators who will refuse to cut funds to agencies that protect environmental quality - something that happened in Texas in April. Voters must support the almost 200 mayors who pledged to honor the Paris Agreement. And Americans have to hold federal lawmakers accountable during next year's midterm elections.

The lessons of London's Great Smog of 1952 and Donora, Pennsylvania, should not be forgotten. Pollution threatens our air - and our lives.

Dawson is a senior lecturer of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. Her forthcoming book "Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City" is due out Oct. 17.
Both qualitatively and quantitatively, those of us who do business in the Lone Star State have long appreciated the welcome mat of a thriving Texas economy in launching and growing our businesses. If you look at the numbers, Texas has been "Top of the Tops" in business over the last 10 years, according to CNBC, which has scored all 50 states for the last decade on measures such as workforce, cost of doing business and infrastructure. Forbes in 2016 ranked Texas and its $1.6 trillion economy in the No. 1 spot for overall economic climate.

When business does well, in general, Texans do well, and that has been the guiding principle in creating a political and regulatory climate allowing the state to economically outperform the nation as a whole. However, if the current performance of the Texas Legislature and its agenda is an indicator of future results, the Texas miracle is in danger of being snuffed out.

Lawmakers ended their most recent regular session pushing through controversial issues like Senate Bill 4, which beyond entangling the state in a likely lengthy legal battle can have disastrous effects on the immigrant workforce vital to the Texas economy. It would be foolish to assume that mass deportations of workers in the shadows - who often are gainfully employed in agriculture, manufacturing or construction, and contributing to the Texas economy - would have minimal impact on the state's GDP.

Such policies are especially foolhardy considering the demographic winter that is rolling through the developed world - including the United States. The U.S. birth rate is now 1.9 births per female, well below replacement level. Adding to the domestic workforce shortage, 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day.

Instead of promoting policies that inhibit or reverse the flow of human capital, such as Senate Bill 4, we should be looking for ways to protect and promote the workforce of the future.

Additionally, national debate continues to focus on the construction of a costly border wall while ignoring more cost-efficient, effective and business-friendly solutions from people who live and work along the border, and those who protect it. Texas and the nation need an immigration policy that addresses America's need for workers.

States that press forward with business-crippling initiatives while subordinating legislation business leaders deem important, like property tax reform, do so at their own peril. Arizona, for example, with its controversial "Papers Please" law passed in 2010 experienced millions of dollars in lost tourism as trade groups and others canceled scheduled conventions in the state. Agriculture and construction companies struggled to find needed labor. Some estimates indicate that more than 200,000 immigrants left Arizona, and like a rock thrown in the middle of a calm pond, ripple effects reverberated across the state. Suddenly, fewer people were buying food, clothes and gas or going out and socializing. Businesses of every type felt the impact.

In Texas, lawmakers also put their energy into legislation on social issues like transgender bathroom access and abortion, and similar laws already are being challenged in other states. When state leaders tackle these national attention-grabbing issues, it negatively impacts the Lone Star State's perception as businesses make start-up or relocation decisions based on whether Texas is inclusive enough to allow them to attract the broadest range of workers. Worse, they're expending political capital on these divisive issues at the expense of policies that actually promote economic growth.

Even in highlighting the state's Top of the Tops ranking, CNBC noted concerns about Texas' "quality of life" score, which includes factors like inclusiveness and removing barriers that stymie the attraction of skilled workers. SB4 does nothing to improve that.

Lawmakers have an opportunity to do more harm - or redeem themselves - during a special session that will begin in July. They can continue to trifle with divisive issues that put the Texas economy in peril, or they can focus on an agenda that places Texas business priorities and economic growth front and center. The eyes of the business community are on Austin, and the Texas miracle is at stake.

Nixon is chief executive of International Bancshares Corp. and International Bank of Commerce in Laredo.
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This is the eulogy I read at my dad's funeral a few weeks ago. Happy Father's Day Dad!

First thing Dad, more people have turned up to your funeral than my wedding so you did well there! Rest assured that I'll make sure that in future people will always say 1,000 people came to Marcus' funeral and Robbie Williams sang 'Angels'. You know what I mean dad.

I want to thank my family and friends, who have supported me recently, in particular Sandie without whom I could not have managed to do it all over the past few weeks. The bad times definitely show you who really cares.

Ironically you were one of the only people I knew who didn't have a Facebook account, yet there is a group with 170 members dedicated to you.

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It is a testament to the man you were that so many people have sent messages and raised money for today. Special mention to the WOMAD crew, WOMAD which turns out is not only the World Of Music and Dance but also the world of friendship, love and generosity. We are forever grateful.

I want to quote a few of the notes left on the Facebook page (I've edited them a bit) because the world needs to know what a man you were. One thing is for sure, you were definitely one of the boys:

1."You were a true friend; a rascal; a good laugh in the good times; dignified when times got tough. You were never slow to tell anyone who gave you the opportunity how much you loved your family and how proud you were of them and their achievements. You often wore your heart on your sleeve, which brought you gentle ribbing from your friends and family, but NEVER derision or dismissal. You were - and still are - a truly unique individual who enriched our lives, and will be sorely missed. Thank you for having been MARCUS; a larger than life figure who I'm proud to have known."

2."a WOMAD legend gone, clearly he will be greatly missed"

3."a true legend, who had a lot of fun. I learnt a lot from Marcus, most importantly always wear sunscreen"

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4."Raise your glasses for an amazing man, we will miss you madly thank you for all the good times and exceptional company RIP mon ami"

5."In a festival world full of characters you sir were a giant. Always on hand for a chat, a joke a 4am call out across site or fist if needed. Old school rock n roller and a real gentleman. The world is a poorer place without you Marcus. I am sure campfires will echo with tales of your exploits for years to come. Rest easy man. "

6."WOMAD will never be the same"

Nothing will ever be the same to be honest.

How many people have the honour of knowing their dad was a legend, so unique and so unforgettable? Lana, George, Max and Tallulah, we had our extraordinary dad, I know he wasn't perfect but man he tried. And Lana Banana, you did him proud, you were there til the end, something I couldn't do and that's because you're an Armstrong, we all are and man am I glad I never changed my name. George and Max, you have clearly inherited his physical abilities and strength, George you look more like him every day (in a good way!). Max, whenever I would ask how you were, he would say "Max is lovely". Tallulah, one of the only full size pictures he kept was of you, he was so proud of you and always told me how well you were doing at school.

He loved us all so much, may you never doubt that.

Dad kept two cards: a fathers' day card from Tallulah and Michael Eavis' invitation to his 70th birthday at Worthy farm. These were the loves of your life, your family and your festival family

Dad, this is what I am thankful for, why I was proud of you and what I promise.

I THANK YOU:

For taking us to festivals and opening our eyes to what an amazing world it is out there

For giving us all a love of music from Dire Straits to Burning Spear to Tracy Chapman and Tom Petty.

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For a non-conventional childhood

For introducing us to such a wide variety of people

For not being a dad like any other dad

Showing me what passion means, your passion was working at festivals and you made it happen

I thank you for teaching me that if you walk in somewhere like you own the place, they'll let you in

For not judging me and just being there when I needed you a few years ago

For coming to Berlin to my 21st Birthday party, you made up for forgetting my 18th birthday! Of course, in true Marcus fashion, you made one of the waitresses give me their staff t-shirt as a souvenir

For instilling in me this strong will to live life to the full. Carpe Diem

For all the laughs and fun times: for example when we went to Twickenham to watch England and every time you got up to get another beer they scored so you missed all their tries. For having a mouse stuck in your leather trousers. For shouting out loud at my graduation when someone was receiving a degree in medieval grammar or something "I bet he's fun at a party". Man you were fun at a party dad

Thank you for offering to take care of Arabella on Xmas day when she was only one month old and just wouldn't stop crying. Not everyone would take that on, I'll always be grateful for you coming in my room where you heard me struggling and offering to help

For giving me health and safety advice when I was stuck in a hotel during Hurricane Sandie. If there was one person I would have been happy to be with at that time, it was you because you would have made me feel safe. Nothing scared you. You were a true man

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For some of the most magical moments of my life like standing in the crowd at Glastonbury when Robbie Williams sang 'Angels', that's a big deal for a 16-year-old

My friend recently told me, "you're amazing Adele and it's partly thanks to your dad". What else is there to say

I always tell the story how one of the only times in my life when I've been really irresponsible was when I decided to have a party in my hotel room in Abu Dhabi. Tony P told me "your dad would be proud of you", I knew this meant it would end badly! But man, was it fun. Story of your life basically.

Now this is the hard bit for me. I know you never thought I was proud of you but I really was dad and this is why. I would not have changed you for a thing, you made us strong.

I AM PROUD OF YOU:

for taking me to buy my first bra at John Lewis, I ended up with a lacy red thing that probably wasn't appropriate for a 14-year-old but you tried your best

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for having the strength to drive Lana and I back to Heathrow and put us on a plane to France so many times. That can't have been easy, you were a better man for it

all your certificates that used to hang in Brenda's at WOMAD

For being able to walk into any pub and make friends at the bar. The dodgier the better. From Rastafarians to Hell's Angels, you had friends from all walks of life

For giving me the courage to walk around my school in France wearing my England rugby shirt that I am wearing today whether England had beaten or lost to France at the weekend. You didn't care what people thought, I'll never forget when you came to visit me in Berlin and wore your "fast as fuck" hoodie

Once at Glastonbury I watched you with my own eyes avoid a massive crowd crush by climbing on the top of a bridge and redirecting 10s of thousands of people

Most importantly I am proud of you for showing us what to live authentically means. Very few people manage this and if I can live even half as authentically and true to myself as you did dad, I will be proud. Needless to say "work hard, play hard" was invented with you in mind.

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I PROMISE TO

always have smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on Christmas morning

drink pints in your honour

try and make you even more proud of me than you were

dance in the mud all night at Glastonbury (talking of which if anybody has ticket, come and talk to me), to take Arabella to WOMAD and, by the way she wanted to say she loves you Granddad

make sure all your children stay in touch with each other

to put my happiness first as you told me to do

go to New Orleans where you always wanted to go

watch every France versus England rugby game religiously for the rest of my life

To not look back and to be happy

And I finally I promise to be one of those people, who has stories, just like you did because sensible can be wrong sometimes

Very few people can say "if I die tomorrow, I'll die a happy man because I've done so much in my life", you said that and you meant it. It gives me great relief to know you died happy and typically under your own terms. As per Mark Twain (thank you Adrian): "The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time"
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On Friday 2nd June, to mark the beginning of Pride month, Ivanka Trump tweeted: "I am proud to support my LGBTQ friends and the LGBTQ Americans who have made immense contributions to our society and economy."

It is exactly the kind of statement we have come to expect from Ivanka; bland and inoffensive on the surface, but worrisome the moment you actually think about it. What is she saying here? That an LGBTQ American is only worthy if they are contributing to the economy? That the disproportionate number of LGBTQ Americans who are homeless, or living in poverty, don't warrant support?

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I can imagine the kind of message Ivanka was trying to convey. As the daughter of the most notorious capitalist on the planet, she probably thought that praising the LGBTQ community's economic contributions is akin to waving a rainbow flag and singing "I Am What I Am." (It is not.)

What's ironic is that while LGBTQ people may indeed be contributing to the United States economy, Ivanka, with her nebulous position in the White House, is complicit in actually holding queer people back from thriving and further boosting the country's economic growth.

I'm not talking about the mythical "pink pound" here, but basic common sense. In a study of 39 developed and developing countries, the Williams Institute found a positive correlation between increased rights for LGBTQ people and increased GDP. And while there are all sorts of factors at play here, there's logic to this.

A nation's position on the rights of LGBT people has a direct impact on their economic potential. It determines where they live, where they work, their access to education and healthcare, and whether or not they are protected by the law from persecution. This means that a nation's position on LGBT people also has a direct impact on their academic performance, employment prospects, earning potential, and even life expectancy -- all of which are essential to a citizen's ability to function within a society and contribute to the economy.

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Discrimination at school or in the workplace has a very real cost; it amounts to failed exams and lost labour hours, both of which are a waste of human capital. Which means that protecting the rights of LGBT people is not just a human rights issue, but an economic one.

When a trans citizen is unable to use the bathroom at school or at work, they are essentially excluded from participating in civic life. Every time somebody is fired from their job for their sexuality, as is still legal in over half of the United States, it equates to heat loss in the nation's economy.

If there's one nation which can't afford to lose any more heat, economically speaking, it's the United Kingdom. Right now, our Conservative government looks to be set on a course towards a coalition with the DUP, notorious for its regressive policies regarding LGBTQ and women's rights. This alliance, we are told, will strengthen Britain's chances of getting a good deal in Brexit, bolstering our economy. What the Tories are apparently failing to consider is that jumping into bed with a party which makes no secret of its climate change denial, homophobia, transphobia, or pre-war views on abortion, could lead to an economic and social death by a thousand cuts.

And this is all without even getting into the argument that businesses who discriminate are more likely to face boycotts from the woke millennial consumer. According to research from Cone Communications and Ebiquity, 90 per cent of people are wiling to boycott a brand if they don't feel it embodies the values that are important to them.

Conversely, 88 per cent of consumers will be more loyal to a brand which actively supports progressive social issues, and stats from the Economist Intelligence Unit suggest that businesses which embrace LGBTQ inclusion can be up to 30 per cent more productive.

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There's some scepticism right now in the LGBTQ community towards the corporations who choose to participate in Pride. Do the banks and supermarkets adorning their logos with rainbow colours truly support their LGBTQ customers and employees, or are they simply, cynically, after an easy PR win? Who knows.
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The talks taking place between the Conservative Party and the DUP to thrash out a voting deal, place Brexit in an unusual situation. Despite a general election called in pursuit of a mandate to negotiate a 'hard Brexit' by the Prime Minister, we now find ourselves in a situation where free movement could be a necessary by-product of any deal to form a UK government.

While Leave voters in the referendum might have seen the ending of free movement as one of their key concerns, the realities now presented by the surprise general election result make this much more complex.

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With the long standing history of troubles between unionists and republicans, the DUP are understandably reticent to see hard borders and check points between Northern Ireland the Republic. But not introducing a hard border would make free movement almost impossible to prevent.

A soft border between the two, could mean a soft border between the UK and the EU. Citizens would be able to travel to the Republic on EU passports and pass into the UK through Northern Ireland. At the very least it would imply continued membership of the EU Customs Union. Not quite the 'control of our borders' which Theresa May promised in April.

So for an agreement to be reached between the two parties something will have to give. Introduce a hard border and risk aggravating troubles in Northern Ireland or relax an approach to free movement which May has to date presented as 'the will of the people'.

Free movement of citizens from the European Union was one of the most discussed topics in the referendum campaign period. We heard an array of arguments and counter arguments about the impact on UK citizens, our connection to the economy, the importance of EU workers to the NHS and of course a multitude of migration statistics.

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Theresa May approached the topic robustly, announcing that Britain would leave the Single Market with the ending of free movement an integral part of that process.

It's not difficult to see why she may have taken that approach. A YouGov poll in the run up to the referendum found that the public believed immigration would be better addressed with a Leave vote. And the rise in proportion of the UKIP vote was one of the major triggers for David Cameron calling the referendum in the first place - and theirs was a campaign very much wedded to the prevention of free movement from the EU.

The general election was very much the next step on this journey. An attempt to gain the mandate that would help define what Brexit is, and end opposition to withdrawal from the Single Market. But the result may have unexpectedly thrown up a very different definition. Not only did it suggest a more nuanced public view on Brexit, but the Conservatives now find themselves with an unlikely bedfellow. One for which free movement may well be a deal breaker.

So May faces a very difficult balancing act. Continue to focus on what was seen as the major issue leading to the Leave vote and end free movement - while risking scuppering a deal with the DUP. Or accept the softer approach to ensure a deal can be reached and Northern Ireland maintains a soft border with the Republic - regardless of the knock on effects.

In any event, either option could well see a breakdown of the government and a return to the polls, something that many pundits now predict could happen within months. And a buoyant Labour opposition under the new-found acceptance of Jeremy Corbyn as Leader are continuing to operate in campaign mode, having improved their standing in the electorate, particularly with young people.

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The building was completed in 1919 as the home for Margaret Vanderbilt.

Former Fox Hollow School Mansion To Be Renovated Into Luxury Rentals



Some 22 acres of George Westinghouse's Erskine Park are still connected with various housing options in different portions of the land. LENOX, Mass.  As the building approaches its 100th birthday, the former Fox Hollow School is being reborn as luxury apartments.

Developer David Carver has managed the sprawling 222 acres off Route 7 for years and recently closed on the purchase of the historic mansion.

Now he's received his permits and is finishing the design to turn the home, built by the Vanderbilt family in 1919, into high-end apartments.

"We are in the process of renovating this into 11 apartments. We have finished our permitted with the town of Lee and Lenox  the town line goes right through this building so we had to get permits from both towns. We just finished getting those permits at the end of last month," Carver said.

"Now we have to finish construction drawings and start construction sometime late summer."

The property's history starts as Erskine Park, which was owned by George Westinghouse, an inventor and pioneer in the electrical industry. He built a mansion on what was then some 300 acres of land. He sold it in the early 1900s to the Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt family, which had the mansion was razed as Margaret Vanderbilt designed a new home.

"This was done in a different style. Before that it was all Victorian architectural. All of these cottages were in the big, giant Victorian style. There was one here called Erskine Park and that was a beautiful example of Victorian architecture," Carver said.

The Vanderbilt mansion was sold in 1939 to Aileen Farrell, headmistress of Fox Hollow School for Girls that operated until 1976. A New York developer owned the property for 10 years, and had built out condominium units, known as the Lakeside Condos, and Fox Hollow Ponds timeshare units.

"By the time he left, he had built Lakeside. He had built the Ponds. And this [mansion] was intended to be the center for the complex," Carver said.

Kripalu moved to the mansion for a decade before expanding and relocating, then EnlightenNext occupied the property until 2011. That's when Carver became the trustee, under Scarafoni Associates Nominee Trust. Through Scarafoni's property management arm, CT Management Group, he has been maintaining the grounds for the two associations  the Ponds and Lakeside  which have land leases.

During the first two years of ownership, the company built an apartment complex with 40 units. Last year, Carver purchased the mansion itself. The plan is to turn the 25,000 square-foot mansion into 11 high-end rentals.

"This is very unique and very special because a lot of conversions around here, especially in the southern part of the county, tend to go in the condo direction. This is going to be different. We're going to build this as a luxury rental residence for people who want to enjoy the Berkshires, be part of the Berkshires, but don't necessarily want the risk of owning," Craig Barnum, who heads commercial and residential leasing for the company, said.

The idea is to find a niche between traditional apartment rentals and condominiums. Barnum said there are a lot of people who will rent homes for just a few months a year because they don't want to own a condominium. He hopes this will provide a high-end option with similar amenities but without the overhead of having to purchase the space. The units will be between 1,400 square feet and 2,600 square feet.

"The location here, relative to the cultural enclave features the Berkshires offers is fantastic. You are minutes to Stockbridge, minutes to Tanglewood, minutes to a lot of these theatrical benefits," Barnum said.

Carver added it would also fit a lot of local retirees who don't want to have the maintenance of owning a house, or who travel to Florida or elsewhere during the winter. The leases can be as short as one-year and can extend for lengthier periods of time, he said.

Work will begin late this summer. An addition in the back will be demolished and rebuilt at an angle to take more advantage of the view of Laurel Lake. Another addition on the south side of the building has made it asymmetrical, so that section will be restored back to the original balconies. The outside will also be painted white with black shutters, hearkening back to photos Carver has of the mansion in the past.

"At one point, we considered clearing the hillside and doing a new building. But we decided at the 11th hour to keep it," Carver said. "We think it is better to be working with some history than building a new building, which is nothing special. We think this is something special."

A line of garages for each apartment will be constructed alongside the mansion. It is estimated that the renovation will be completed in a year, but Carver said he isn't trying to "set any speed records" so it could take longer. Nonetheless, the mansion with a storied history is set to begin another chapter.
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When Rahsaan Williams was buying his last car four years ago, he asked a lot of questions at the dealership about whether each model he looked at was kid-friendly. How easily could a car seat be installed? Were the seat belts adjustable so they wouldn't choke a child once she was big enough to ride without a car seat?

"I think that they assumed there was a baby on the way," Williams, who works for the federal government, told me recently.

He doesn't have kids, but he does have a goddaughter, Anabel, with whom he spends a lot of time. (Hence all the car seat questions.) He also wants children of his own. At age 38, he thought he'd be a father by now, or at least heading in that direction with a wife or girlfriend. Instead, he finds himself single with a growing sense that time is running out to have a child with someone.

His eagerness to be a dad began as a low hum nearly a decade ago, when Anabel  whose mother is a close childhood friend  was a newborn, curled into a ball and asleep against his chest. It grew stronger about a year ago when he realised he wanted "to be part of taking care of a child. Or part of something bigger than just me."

Recommended How the biological clock is ticking for men as well as women

Commentators have long pointed to the famous examples of elderly fatherhood  Charlie Chaplin fathered a child at age 73, Pablo Picasso at 68, Clint Eastwood at 66  as evidence that men don't have biological clocks. Even the US president is part of the old-dads club: Donald Trump first became a father at age 31, and his fifth child, Barron, was born when Trump was 59.

When the term "biological clock" as it applies to fertility was coined in The Washington Post, it was applied exclusively to women. "This is where liberation ends," Richard Cohen wrote in a 1978 column. "There are some things [men] never had to worry about. Like the ticking of the biological clock." ("It's just a biological fact," Cohen said when I asked him about it last year. "I didn't invent it.")

August 1954, Vallauris: Pablo Picasso was 68 when he fathered his son Claude, seen here during a bullfight (Getty)

But nearly 40 years after that column was published, men arguably have more reasons than ever before to pay attention to their own biological clocks. One factor is that couples are getting married later. (Most births still take place within marriage.) In 1960, the median age for a first marriage in the United States was 20 for women and 23 for men; today, it's 27 for women and 29 for men. And for the first time in US history, women in their thirties are now having more babies than younger women, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month. That shorter window of post-marriage fertility obviously affects their husbands' chances of having kids, too.

This is especially true in a workaholic, focus-on-your-career-in-your-20s place such as Washington, DC, where people marry even later. Plus, there is virtually no marriage age gap in Washington between women and men: according to 2015 US Census data, the median age for first marriage here is 30.6 for women and 30.7 for men. That suggests women's and men's biological clocks are  or should be  in very close sync.

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These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

Travis Pittman, a 34-year-old lawyer who lives in Kensington, Maryland, whom I spoke to in March when his wife was pregnant, recognises that he was watching his wife's biological clock "for her, but definitely not talking about it out loud, because I didn't want her to feel like I was asking her to not go to grad school or something like that." (She's also in her early thirties. Their daughter was born in April.) "But I realised," he says, that "if we wait until she's in her late thirties or early forties, this is going to be a lot harder, potentially a lot more expensive."

Pittman has seen examples of what it's like to have kids as an older father: His dad remarried and had another son in his fifties. "My dad was like 70 at my little brother's high school graduation," Pittman says. "I kind of wanted to be in my fifties when my kid was graduating from high school."

Many of today's men want  and are expected  to be more involved than fathers were in the 1970s or 1980s. Which means they need to worry about keeping up with their kids if they become fathers too late. "It's not necessarily whether or not my sperm will be viable, it's whether I will be viable as a human, able to walk and play with that kid," says Nikhil Baviskar, a 30-year-old single health IT worker who wants to be a father someday.

As a teenager, Baviskar says, he once questioned his dad over waiting until his thirties to have kids: "I had a minor crisis when I was 16 and my dad turned 50. First off, 50 sounded extremely old when I was 16. At 16, I was like: Who is this old man, and why is he my dad? And then I got mad at him, asking: 'Why did you wait until you were 34 to have me? This isn't normal.' Which is hilarious, because I'm basically on my way to having a child at 34."

Men are not trained by the medical establishment, or by their bodies' rhythms, to be constantly thinking about fertility. Still, the recent focus on men's health in general may have increased their interest in their own reproductive health. Paul Shin, a urologist at Shady Grove Fertility, says he sees about one or two male patients a week who come to check their sperm count and motility  sometimes before there's even a partner in the picture, or before there's any sign of a problem.

"I see a lot of guys who come in who are recently married or who just want to know what their fertility numbers are, because this generation kind of gets it. They take their health care seriously. They look at fertility and family-building as it should be looked at  as a joint effort as opposed to on the shoulders of women only. That's a marked cultural shift that I've seen since I've been in practice," says Shin, who started out 13 years ago. "There's a lot more men that just want to know where they stand, because they understand that men can be the problem."

But even as men have plenty of reasons to listen to their biological clocks, they also have new reasons to forgo acknowledging it  to themselves or others. The culprit: the "Can I have it all?" complex that women have become all too familiar with.

"There is so much pressure on men to have achieved something, to have crossed a certain threshold in terms of finances or job security or the right house or all of these things before they're willing to say, 'We're ready for these fictional children'," says Stacey Notaras Murphy, a psychotherapist. ''That really shows up in couples therapy as 'I'm not interested in this', when they really are interested in kids." This is markedly different from earlier generations, who expected to struggle as they raised a family.

Clock is ticking: men are not trained to think about fertility but these days they are much more in tune with their reproductive health

"Now, we just have this belief that we're supposed to have it all together," Notaras Murphy says. "The men I've worked with tend to have a pass-fail mentality: 'I'm either going to do this totally right or totally wrong'. "

That pass-fail mentality could be partially due to the fact that there are far more absent fathers than absent mothers. As Stephen Marche writes in The Unmade Bed: The MessyTruth About Men and Women in the 21st century: "Men want to be fathers more than ever before. They also fail at fatherhood more than ever before. The increased symbolic value of fatherhood has arrived in the middle of an accelerating crisis of fatherlessness. The number of American families without fathers grew from 10.3 percent in 1970 to 24.6 percent in 2013."

Meanwhile, for men who want kids but don't end up having them, the risks could be substantial. While there is little research on the desire for fatherhood, a 2013 study in Britain found that men and women had similar levels of yearning for children. However, when they remain child-free, the report concluded, men experience higher levels of anger, depression, sadness, jealousy and isolation than women do.

Williams has nieces and nephews, but it was his consistent relationship with Anabel, now 9, that made him realise the kind of joy having a child could bring to his life.

"You're spoiling her," Chhouky Ang, Anabel's mother, says to Williams on a recent Saturday morning as they meet for breakfast at a pancake house in Falls Church. As usual, Williams has come bearing gifts: a sketchbook, coloured pencils and a kids' sewing kit that Ang says will have to wait until their next visit. Anabel works on her newest masterpiece  a page full of animals, flowers and crayon-drawn emoji  as she waits for her Nutella crepe to arrive.

"Have you started on any of those Choose Your Own Adventure books I brought you?" Williams asks Anabel as breakfast is winding down.

"No," she answers. She didn't understand them, she says, what with the stories jumping all over the place.

"We'll go through one when I get back from vacation," he tells her.

"I have a play date with my best friend!" Anabel exclaims.

"Since you told me last night that I'm your best friend, that hurts me," Williams says, sticking his lips out in an exaggerated pout.

"I meant my best friend at my school," Anabel qualifies.

"You know this is going to get hung up in my office like the last one," Williams says, changing the subject to her drawing.

When Williams was Anabel's age, hanging out with Ang just a few blocks from the pancake house in the neighbourhood where they grew up, he probably didn't foresee this development in the story of his life. The Tinder plot twist means that there are endless possibilities to meet someone, and yet, with each swipe, his standards for a good partner inch ever higher. He can see a near future, perhaps five years or so from now, if he is still single, in which he adopts a child on his own. He doesn't want to wait forever, as if his dating life is a Choose Your Own Adventure book that never ends.

 Washington Post
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Police have launched a murder investigation after a teenager was found dead in Orrell Water Park in Wigan following a "brutal attack".

The 18-year-old woman was reported missing by her family at 7.20pm on Friday, when she failed to return from college.

Her friends said she had last been near the reservoirs.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) searched the area and at around 2.30am on Saturday discovered a body.

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Detective Superintendent Howard Millington, form GMP's Major Incident Team, said: "First of all my thoughts are with the woman's family at this devastating time.

"This was a brutal attack on a young woman [of a] type rarely seen in Greater Manchester.

"We have a full investigation team working on finding out what exactly happened to her and to try and find the person who did this."

The student, who had sustained head injuries, is yet to be formally identified.

Mr Millington added: "I understand that there will be many people in the community extremely worried, things like this dont happen in Orrell, but I would like to reassure them that we are working as hard as we possibly can to get the answers to all of the questions.

"There will be a large police presence in the area for some time as we investigate and also on the streets surrounding the area as a precaution. If you have any concerns, please speak to our officers.

"This is very much an ongoing investigation, we will leave no stone unturned and myself and my team will not stop until we have found out exactly what happened and have brought whoever did this to justice."
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Jeremy Corbyn has attacked Kensington and Chelsea Council over its response to the Grenfell Tower disaster, saying it appeared to lack the resources to deal with the fire despite being the wealthiest local authority in the country.

The fire in the tower block, which including council and privately owned flats, killed at least 58 people.

The borough and the Government, Theresa May in particular, have faced criticism over the response.

In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Show all 51 1 /51 In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police have released images from inside the tower where at least 58 people have died Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by polices what appears to be a stationary bicycle sitting among the ashes In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by police shows the remnants of a burnt-out bathroom In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Picture showing the lifts on an unknown floor Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency crews outside the front entrance to the tower Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Fire crews inspecting flats in the burnt out tower London Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Grenfell Tower is seen in the distance PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A drone flies near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire 'Theresa May Stay Away' message written on the messages of support at Latymer Community Church for those affected by the fire Ray Tang/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire An aerial view of the area surrounding Grenfall tower Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Donated shoes sit in the Westway Sports Centre near to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of support for those affected by the massive fire in Grenfell Tower are displayed on a well near the tower in London AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A local resident stands on her balcony by the gutted Grenfell Tower in Latimer Road Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of condolence are left at a relief centre close to the scene of the fire that broke out at Grenfell Tower, EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A police officer stands by a security cordon outside Latimer Road station Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firemen examine the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London on a huge ladder AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A search dog is led through the rubble of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn comforts a local resident (name not given) at St Clement's Church in west London where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hugs councillor Mushtaq Lasharie as he arrives at St Clement's Church in Latimer Road, where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn meeting staff and volunteers at St Clementis Church in Latimer Road David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firefighters with a dog walk around the base of the Grenfell Tower REUTERS/Peter Nicholls In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emotions run high as people attend a candle lit vigil outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near the 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Debris hangs from the blackened exterior of Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman speaks to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman holds a missing person posters near the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Sadiq Khan speaking with a resident James Gourley/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Ken Livingstone walks near the scene of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is confronted by Kai Ramos, 7, near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks to a woman outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers distribute aid near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People gather to observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People light candles as they observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man distributes food from the back of a van near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A firefighter is cheered near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A T-shirt with a written message from the London Fire Brigade hangs from a fence near The Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A young girl on her way to lay flowers near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire The remains of residential tower block Grenfell Tower are seen from Dixon House a nearby tower block Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers prepare supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block which was destroyed in a fire REUTERS/Neil Hall In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers move a car to make space for a lorry picking up supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People distribute boxes of food near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower bloc REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman touches a missing poster for 12-year-old Jessica Urbano on a tribute wall after laying flowers on the side of Latymer Community Church next to the fire-gutted Grenfell Tower AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man looks at messages written on a wall near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Candles and messages of condolence near where the fire broke out at Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry a stretcher towards Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency services at Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry out a body from Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Rick Findler/PA Wire

The Labour leader told ITVs Peston on Sunday programme that local people and the emergency services had been incredible".

But he added: What was less effective was the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, because they seemed to lack the resources to deal with a crisis of this magnitude in their borough and yet they are the country's wealthiest borough.

Mr Corbyn defended his call for empty flats bought as an investment to be requisitioned to give people made homeless by the fire a place to stay.

Every day at Heathrow, planes get delayed, hundreds of people get stranded ... and hotels are found for them immediately, they are sorted out, he said.

Four hundred or so people [made homeless by the Grenfell fire] still, most of them, have not got somewhere decent or safe and secure to stay in.

Somehow it seems to be beyond the wit of the public services to deal with a crisis facing a relatively small number of people in a country of 65 million.

The answer, Mr Corbyn suggested, was simple: There are a large number of deliberately kept empty, vacant flats and properties all over London. Its called land banking, he said.

People with a lot of money buy a house, buy a flat, and keep it empty.

Such properties should be used to help people in their time of need, he said, suggesting there were different ways of enabling this to happen.

Occupy it, compulsory purchase it, requisition it. Theres a lot of things you can do, Mr Corbyn said.

Cannot we as a society just think, all of us ... its all very well putting our arms around people during the crisis, but homelessness is rising and the housing crisis is getting worse.

My point was quite a simple one. In an emergency we have to bring all assets to the table in order to deal with that crisis and that is what I think we should be doing in this case.

At one point in the interview, he appeared to defend Ms May against criticisms that she had failed to show sympathy towards those affected by the crisis.

"I think everybody cares to an extent, some to a deeper extent and some show empathy in a different way to others," the Labour leader said.

"But the real issue is not about what we as individuals feel, Theresa May, me, anybody else, it's what those people are going through."

Kensington and Chelsea council did not respond to a request for comment, but its leader later defended the authority's response to the disaster, saying it had been "effective".

The Press Association contributed to this report
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A young girl evacuated amid the Grenfell Tower fire and a man saved from the 19th floor of the burning building moved the Prime Minister to "well up" as she listened to their harrowing accounts.

Theresa May met survivors of the disaster and others who helped get people out as the fire raged, prompting her to release a strongly-worded statement saying support for victims in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity "was not good enough".

Those she met on Friday evening near the site in west London were invited to Downing Street on Saturday to "continue the conversation" after Mrs May had to be rushed away from the scene due to angry protests, the Area Dean of Kensington said.

The Rev Mark O'Donoghue, who attended the meeting alongside Bishop of Kensington Dr Graham Tomlin and people from the area, said the country's leader had not been the "caricature" expected.

Stories of incredible survival moved Mrs May to become emotional, he said.

"The first guy who spoke was somebody who had been rescued from the 19th floor and he told this harrowing tale about a wall of smoke and not being able to see his hand, and an arm grabbed him and he couldn't see who it was who was rescuing him.

"He was led with a towel over his head, having to leave his dog. And you could just see her welling up. And that's not the caricature (of the Prime Minister) is it?"

Ms May was able to offer answers to their questions about how people would be cared for and practicalities addressed, Mr O'Donoghue said.

He recalled a young girl, who he believed to be no older than 10, who had been evacuated from a nearby block, telling the Prime Minister: "Children saw things that no child should ever have to see."

 Grenfell Fire: Community breaks into song at Sunday service

He said it was "another kind of welling-up moment on the part of the Prime Minister".

Less than 24 hours after hearing the comment Mr O'Donoghue said Mrs May told the group she was "really struck" by what the child had said, adding: "So we've decided there will be long-term counselling support for all the schools in the area."

Mr O'Donoghue said: "Somebody else said there was a mother in a coma who would wake up to be told that her baby had died in the fire - what was going to happen to her, how was she going to be cared for?

"This is the kind of question yesterday, today the solution is NHS London are providing counsellors in all the hospitals for all the patients (affected by the fire)."

In the course of both days Mrs May spent around two-and-a-half hours with the residents, mostly listening to their concerns, Mr O'Donoghue said.

Dr Tomlin said Saturday's meeting had been a chance for people to voice their concerns and frustrations directly to the Prime Minister.

He said: "That's why I'm positive about it, because I think in the past local residents here have not always been listened to."

He said that feeling of being ignored was a source of much "deep frustration", and told how people had been left feeling "that decisions are taken about their lives and their homes that they are not party to".

In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Show all 51 1 /51 In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police have released images from inside the tower where at least 58 people have died Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by polices what appears to be a stationary bicycle sitting among the ashes In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by police shows the remnants of a burnt-out bathroom In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Picture showing the lifts on an unknown floor Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency crews outside the front entrance to the tower Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Fire crews inspecting flats in the burnt out tower London Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Grenfell Tower is seen in the distance PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A drone flies near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire 'Theresa May Stay Away' message written on the messages of support at Latymer Community Church for those affected by the fire Ray Tang/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire An aerial view of the area surrounding Grenfall tower Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Donated shoes sit in the Westway Sports Centre near to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of support for those affected by the massive fire in Grenfell Tower are displayed on a well near the tower in London AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A local resident stands on her balcony by the gutted Grenfell Tower in Latimer Road Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of condolence are left at a relief centre close to the scene of the fire that broke out at Grenfell Tower, EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A police officer stands by a security cordon outside Latimer Road station Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firemen examine the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London on a huge ladder AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A search dog is led through the rubble of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn comforts a local resident (name not given) at St Clement's Church in west London where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hugs councillor Mushtaq Lasharie as he arrives at St Clement's Church in Latimer Road, where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn meeting staff and volunteers at St Clementis Church in Latimer Road David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firefighters with a dog walk around the base of the Grenfell Tower REUTERS/Peter Nicholls In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emotions run high as people attend a candle lit vigil outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near the 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Debris hangs from the blackened exterior of Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman speaks to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman holds a missing person posters near the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Sadiq Khan speaking with a resident James Gourley/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Ken Livingstone walks near the scene of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is confronted by Kai Ramos, 7, near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks to a woman outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers distribute aid near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People gather to observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People light candles as they observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man distributes food from the back of a van near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A firefighter is cheered near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A T-shirt with a written message from the London Fire Brigade hangs from a fence near The Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A young girl on her way to lay flowers near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire The remains of residential tower block Grenfell Tower are seen from Dixon House a nearby tower block Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers prepare supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block which was destroyed in a fire REUTERS/Neil Hall In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers move a car to make space for a lorry picking up supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People distribute boxes of food near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower bloc REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman touches a missing poster for 12-year-old Jessica Urbano on a tribute wall after laying flowers on the side of Latymer Community Church next to the fire-gutted Grenfell Tower AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man looks at messages written on a wall near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Candles and messages of condolence near where the fire broke out at Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry a stretcher towards Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency services at Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry out a body from Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Rick Findler/PA Wire

Dr Tomlin said the residents had gone from living normal lives before the tragedy to sitting around the Cabinet table as they addressed the very top of government.

He said: "Clearly it's quite unprecedented for 16 very ordinary people, who this time last week were walking their dogs or talking to each other in the streets around here and north Kensington, actually to be in 10 Downing Street talking face-to-face with the Prime Minister.

"I think it was a good thing to do."

Asked if there were angry exchanges, he said: "We tried to hold it well as a meeting. There was passion, there was anger, but there was good, hard, reasoned argument used by the residents."

Dr Tomlin said he believed people left the meeting feeling "reassured that they were listened to", but added: "Time will tell as to whether it makes a difference.

"We wait to see what action will come from it, but they were reassured that they were listened to."
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Two women feared dead in the Grenfell Tower tragedy were allegedly threatened with legal action after they campaigned for improved fire safety.

Mariem Elgwahry, 27, and Nadia Choucair, 33, reportedly received letters ordering them to stop their campaign for improved safety.

Both women were fighting the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation for building improvements, with help from the Radical Housing Network, The Mirror reports.

Pilgrim Tucker, who works for the group, told the paper: The TMOs response was to threaten tenants with legal action and send out letters. Nadia and Mariem would have received them too.

 Grenfell fire: Police say 58 missing and presumed dead

They both just wanted to do their best for their neighbours and keep everyone safe. Things had got so bad they knew a disaster like this was inevitable, but if there was a chance of stopping it they were up for the fight. But no one listened and now this community is devastated. We have to get justice for them. The TMO treated tenants disgracefully and with disdain.

They bullied them and persecuted those like Nadia and Mariem who were brave enough to speak out, branding them troublemakers.

Their job was to listen to the tenants and make sure homes were safe and they didnt do that. If they had then this would never have happened.

He said Ms Elgwahry and Ms Choucair organised a petition and a protest outside the TMOs management offices.

 Footage from inside Grenfell Tower shows 'indescribable' extent of damage from fire

KCTMO has said it is fully cooperating with investigations and could not comment on the alleged legal threats.

The Independent has contacted KCTMO for comment.

In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Show all 51 1 /51 In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police have released images from inside the tower where at least 58 people have died Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by polices what appears to be a stationary bicycle sitting among the ashes In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by police shows the remnants of a burnt-out bathroom In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Picture showing the lifts on an unknown floor Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency crews outside the front entrance to the tower Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Fire crews inspecting flats in the burnt out tower London Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Grenfell Tower is seen in the distance PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A drone flies near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire 'Theresa May Stay Away' message written on the messages of support at Latymer Community Church for those affected by the fire Ray Tang/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire An aerial view of the area surrounding Grenfall tower Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Donated shoes sit in the Westway Sports Centre near to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of support for those affected by the massive fire in Grenfell Tower are displayed on a well near the tower in London AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A local resident stands on her balcony by the gutted Grenfell Tower in Latimer Road Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of condolence are left at a relief centre close to the scene of the fire that broke out at Grenfell Tower, EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A police officer stands by a security cordon outside Latimer Road station Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firemen examine the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London on a huge ladder AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A search dog is led through the rubble of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn comforts a local resident (name not given) at St Clement's Church in west London where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hugs councillor Mushtaq Lasharie as he arrives at St Clement's Church in Latimer Road, where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn meeting staff and volunteers at St Clementis Church in Latimer Road David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firefighters with a dog walk around the base of the Grenfell Tower REUTERS/Peter Nicholls In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emotions run high as people attend a candle lit vigil outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near the 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Debris hangs from the blackened exterior of Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman speaks to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman holds a missing person posters near the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Sadiq Khan speaking with a resident James Gourley/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Ken Livingstone walks near the scene of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is confronted by Kai Ramos, 7, near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks to a woman outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers distribute aid near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People gather to observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People light candles as they observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man distributes food from the back of a van near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A firefighter is cheered near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A T-shirt with a written message from the London Fire Brigade hangs from a fence near The Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A young girl on her way to lay flowers near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire The remains of residential tower block Grenfell Tower are seen from Dixon House a nearby tower block Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers prepare supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block which was destroyed in a fire REUTERS/Neil Hall In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers move a car to make space for a lorry picking up supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People distribute boxes of food near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower bloc REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman touches a missing poster for 12-year-old Jessica Urbano on a tribute wall after laying flowers on the side of Latymer Community Church next to the fire-gutted Grenfell Tower AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man looks at messages written on a wall near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Candles and messages of condolence near where the fire broke out at Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry a stretcher towards Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency services at Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry out a body from Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Rick Findler/PA Wire

Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police warned the death toll could rise further, with 58 people missing, presumed dead.

This would make the Grenfell Tower blaze the deadliest in the capital since the Second World War.
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Sadiq Khan has praised the heroism of Christians, Muslims and others in looking after people affected by the Grenfell Tower disaster.

The Mayor of London arrived at St Clement's church in north Kensington as worshippers gathered to remember those who lost their lives and those who remain missing after the devastating fire.

Flowers and missing persons posters were taped to the gates of the church, while bags of donations were piled outside the door.

After having spoken to many members of the congregation as well as others who came in after the service to see him, Mr Khan paid tribute to the local community for its resilience but said a feeling of anger remains.

In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Show all 51 1 /51 In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police have released images from inside the tower where at least 58 people have died Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by polices what appears to be a stationary bicycle sitting among the ashes In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by police shows the remnants of a burnt-out bathroom In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Picture showing the lifts on an unknown floor Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency crews outside the front entrance to the tower Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Fire crews inspecting flats in the burnt out tower London Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Grenfell Tower is seen in the distance PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A drone flies near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire 'Theresa May Stay Away' message written on the messages of support at Latymer Community Church for those affected by the fire Ray Tang/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire An aerial view of the area surrounding Grenfall tower Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Donated shoes sit in the Westway Sports Centre near to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of support for those affected by the massive fire in Grenfell Tower are displayed on a well near the tower in London AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A local resident stands on her balcony by the gutted Grenfell Tower in Latimer Road Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of condolence are left at a relief centre close to the scene of the fire that broke out at Grenfell Tower, EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A police officer stands by a security cordon outside Latimer Road station Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firemen examine the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London on a huge ladder AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A search dog is led through the rubble of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn comforts a local resident (name not given) at St Clement's Church in west London where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hugs councillor Mushtaq Lasharie as he arrives at St Clement's Church in Latimer Road, where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn meeting staff and volunteers at St Clementis Church in Latimer Road David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firefighters with a dog walk around the base of the Grenfell Tower REUTERS/Peter Nicholls In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emotions run high as people attend a candle lit vigil outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near the 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Debris hangs from the blackened exterior of Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman speaks to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman holds a missing person posters near the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Sadiq Khan speaking with a resident James Gourley/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Ken Livingstone walks near the scene of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is confronted by Kai Ramos, 7, near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks to a woman outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers distribute aid near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People gather to observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People light candles as they observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man distributes food from the back of a van near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A firefighter is cheered near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A T-shirt with a written message from the London Fire Brigade hangs from a fence near The Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A young girl on her way to lay flowers near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire The remains of residential tower block Grenfell Tower are seen from Dixon House a nearby tower block Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers prepare supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block which was destroyed in a fire REUTERS/Neil Hall In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers move a car to make space for a lorry picking up supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People distribute boxes of food near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower bloc REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman touches a missing poster for 12-year-old Jessica Urbano on a tribute wall after laying flowers on the side of Latymer Community Church next to the fire-gutted Grenfell Tower AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man looks at messages written on a wall near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Candles and messages of condolence near where the fire broke out at Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry a stretcher towards Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency services at Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry out a body from Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Rick Findler/PA Wire

Speaking as he left the church with his wife Saadiya, Mr Khan said: "I've spent time with the local community, not just the Christian congregation, but members of all faiths here at the church, grieving, sharing their stories.

"And I've got to say some of the stories that I've heard will stay with me forever.

"I've heard stories of heroism, from Christians, from Muslims and from others, looking after their brothers and sisters, their neighbours and doing the job that we expect from this brilliant community because of the fantastic community that is here in this part of London."

He said people were "angry not simply at the poor response in the days afterwards from the council and the Government, but the years of neglect from the council and successive governments".

He said there was a feeling among people they have been treated badly and not understood by the council because some of them are "poor, some may come from deprived backgrounds, some may be asylum seekers and refugees".

"There's a feeling that the council and successive Governments don't understand their concerns and frankly don't care."

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, leaves St Clement'ss Church after a service in honour of those affected by the Grenfell Tower Fire in north Kensington, London (EPA/WILL OLIVER) (EPA)

He added: "To those who think rules, regulations, health and safety, investment, are a bad thing, I say come to Grenfell Tower.

"Come and meet the wonderful people that I've met. Or remember those who have lost their lives in a preventable accident that didn't need to happen.

"The tragedy we're seeing is because of the consequences of mistakes and neglect from politicians, from the council, and from the Government."

A woman touches a missing poster for 12-year-old Jessica Urbano next to the fire-gutted Grenfell Tower (AP)

Families who have lost their homes must be supported, he said, grieving people must be helped and lessons must be learned following the tragedy, including ensuring it is not "so hard" for those who need help to find it.

He said: "As the mayor of London I will do my bit to be the advocate, to be the fighter, and to be the champion of these people."
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The family of a Syrian refugee who was killed in the Grenfell Tower fire are being assisted by the Home Office in making arrangements to travel to the UK for his funeral.

Mohammad Alhajali, 23, was the first victim of the horrific blaze to be formally identified by police.

More than 92,000 people have signed a petition calling for his parents to be granted visas for the UK so they can attend his funeral.

"We made contact with Mr Alhajali's family yesterday and assisted them in making arrangements for their travel to the UK in these terribly sad circumstances," a Home Office spokesman said on Saturday.

 Grenfell victim's last phone call to brother: 'Why did you leave me?'

The petition was set up by family friend Mirna Suleiman, 26, who had been ringing around numerous hospitals, rest centres and the casualty helpline for news of his fate before discovering he had not made it out alive.

She chose to launch the campaign because as someone with Syrian family herself, she knows how difficult it is to obtain a visa for visits.

The Syria Solidarity Campaign posted on Facebook: "We're very pleased to announce that the family of Mohammad Alhajali received visas to come to the UK for Mohammad's funeral.

"It's not the kind of reunion anyone would have wanted, but we know it will be comforting for the family as they grieve for the loss of Mohammad together."

Mr Alhajali's family said in a statement: "Mohammad was a very amazing and kind person. He gave love to everyone. He came to the UK because he had ambitions and aims for his life and for his family.

"Our whole family will miss Mohammad dearly and he will never be forgotten.

"To God we belong and to him we return."

Describing his friend as kind, charitable and full of passion for his family, Abdulaziz Almashi, co-founder of the Syria Solidarity Campaign, said: He survived Assad, he survived the war, only to be killed in a tower block in London.

In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Show all 51 1 /51 In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police have released images from inside the tower where at least 58 people have died Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by polices what appears to be a stationary bicycle sitting among the ashes In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by police shows the remnants of a burnt-out bathroom In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Picture showing the lifts on an unknown floor Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency crews outside the front entrance to the tower Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Fire crews inspecting flats in the burnt out tower London Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Grenfell Tower is seen in the distance PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A drone flies near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire 'Theresa May Stay Away' message written on the messages of support at Latymer Community Church for those affected by the fire Ray Tang/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire An aerial view of the area surrounding Grenfall tower Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Donated shoes sit in the Westway Sports Centre near to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of support for those affected by the massive fire in Grenfell Tower are displayed on a well near the tower in London AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A local resident stands on her balcony by the gutted Grenfell Tower in Latimer Road Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of condolence are left at a relief centre close to the scene of the fire that broke out at Grenfell Tower, EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A police officer stands by a security cordon outside Latimer Road station Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firemen examine the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London on a huge ladder AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A search dog is led through the rubble of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn comforts a local resident (name not given) at St Clement's Church in west London where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hugs councillor Mushtaq Lasharie as he arrives at St Clement's Church in Latimer Road, where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn meeting staff and volunteers at St Clementis Church in Latimer Road David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firefighters with a dog walk around the base of the Grenfell Tower REUTERS/Peter Nicholls In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emotions run high as people attend a candle lit vigil outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near the 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Debris hangs from the blackened exterior of Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman speaks to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman holds a missing person posters near the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Sadiq Khan speaking with a resident James Gourley/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Ken Livingstone walks near the scene of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is confronted by Kai Ramos, 7, near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks to a woman outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers distribute aid near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People gather to observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People light candles as they observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man distributes food from the back of a van near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A firefighter is cheered near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A T-shirt with a written message from the London Fire Brigade hangs from a fence near The Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A young girl on her way to lay flowers near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire The remains of residential tower block Grenfell Tower are seen from Dixon House a nearby tower block Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers prepare supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block which was destroyed in a fire REUTERS/Neil Hall In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers move a car to make space for a lorry picking up supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People distribute boxes of food near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower bloc REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman touches a missing poster for 12-year-old Jessica Urbano on a tribute wall after laying flowers on the side of Latymer Community Church next to the fire-gutted Grenfell Tower AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man looks at messages written on a wall near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Candles and messages of condolence near where the fire broke out at Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry a stretcher towards Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency services at Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry out a body from Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Rick Findler/PA Wire

Mr Alhajali's older brother Omar - who was with him in the flat - survived the fire after they were separated on the way out.

The civil engineering student perished as he was besieged by billowing smoke after he tried to follow Omar, 25, down the stairs of the burning north Kensington building.

In a final text to his older brother after the two were separated, he wrote: The smoke is getting in, the smoke is getting in, we are going to die, we are going to die.

Describing his final call with Mohammad, Omar said: "I called him, I said where are you, he said: 'I'm in the flat.'

"I said why didn't you come, they brought us outside, I thought you were with us, he said: 'No one brought me outside.'"

Breaking into tears, he added: "He said: 'Why you left me?'"

Mohammad Alhajali's family described him as 'a very amazing and kind person' (Metropolitan Police)

The brothers came to Britain to seek a "better life" after escaping from their home city of Daraa, the birthplace of the Syrian revolution. They were granted asylum in the UK.

We were doing well, we were settling down in the UK, but then suddenly, everything just collapsed," Omar said. "I dont think we can cope as we did before.

My mum has cried lots of tears when she heard. She said: Ive been waiting to see him for four years and then he died. At least I can see his grave, his body before they bury him. I want to kiss him, I want to see everything that belongs to Mohammad.

The percentage of rejected visa applications for visits from Syria has soared after the country's devastating civil war began in 2011.

But the Home Office has established processes which allow it to consider visa applications outside the Immigration Rules on compassionate grounds.
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Pamela Anderson has launched into a scathing attack on Theresa May and branded her the worst Prime Minister in living history.

The former Playboy model and Baywatch star argued Ms May was on her last legs in the wake of the Grenfell Tower catastrophe which is now thought to have killed at least 58 people.

Anderson described Ms Mays performance in the recent general election, which saw the Tories haemorrhage seats to Labour and lose their overall Commons majority, as pyrrhic. By this, she meant a victory seized at too greater cost to have been worthwhile for the winner.

Writing in a blog post, Anderson did not hold back on her criticism of Ms May: Theresa May, who is on her last legs. Theresa May of the Pyhrric victory.

Theresa May, who wont shake the hand of the victims of the Grenfell fire. Who doesnt care about poor people. Who doesnt care about justice or peace  The worst Prime Minister in living memory.

Andersons comments follow a torrent of criticism directed at the Conservative leader over how she handled the inferno which wrecked the 24-storey block in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Ms May was widely condemned for failing to meet with victims at the scene and accused of misreading the public mood in response to the deadly blaze.

Sorrow over the fire quickly transformed into rage as it became clear the fatalities had been radically understated and the catastrophe could have been prevented. Over the weekend, Ms May was subject to chants of cowards as she left a church, which is being used as a support space for victims of the fire, and demonstrators chanted May must go as they marched from the Home Office to Downing Street.

In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Show all 51 1 /51 In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police have released images from inside the tower where at least 58 people have died Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by polices what appears to be a stationary bicycle sitting among the ashes In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by police shows the remnants of a burnt-out bathroom In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Picture showing the lifts on an unknown floor Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency crews outside the front entrance to the tower Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Fire crews inspecting flats in the burnt out tower London Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Grenfell Tower is seen in the distance PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A drone flies near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire 'Theresa May Stay Away' message written on the messages of support at Latymer Community Church for those affected by the fire Ray Tang/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire An aerial view of the area surrounding Grenfall tower Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Donated shoes sit in the Westway Sports Centre near to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of support for those affected by the massive fire in Grenfell Tower are displayed on a well near the tower in London AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A local resident stands on her balcony by the gutted Grenfell Tower in Latimer Road Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of condolence are left at a relief centre close to the scene of the fire that broke out at Grenfell Tower, EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A police officer stands by a security cordon outside Latimer Road station Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firemen examine the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London on a huge ladder AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A search dog is led through the rubble of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn comforts a local resident (name not given) at St Clement's Church in west London where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hugs councillor Mushtaq Lasharie as he arrives at St Clement's Church in Latimer Road, where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn meeting staff and volunteers at St Clementis Church in Latimer Road David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firefighters with a dog walk around the base of the Grenfell Tower REUTERS/Peter Nicholls In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emotions run high as people attend a candle lit vigil outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near the 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Debris hangs from the blackened exterior of Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman speaks to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman holds a missing person posters near the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Sadiq Khan speaking with a resident James Gourley/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Ken Livingstone walks near the scene of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is confronted by Kai Ramos, 7, near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks to a woman outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers distribute aid near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People gather to observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People light candles as they observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man distributes food from the back of a van near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A firefighter is cheered near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A T-shirt with a written message from the London Fire Brigade hangs from a fence near The Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A young girl on her way to lay flowers near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire The remains of residential tower block Grenfell Tower are seen from Dixon House a nearby tower block Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers prepare supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block which was destroyed in a fire REUTERS/Neil Hall In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers move a car to make space for a lorry picking up supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People distribute boxes of food near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower bloc REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman touches a missing poster for 12-year-old Jessica Urbano on a tribute wall after laying flowers on the side of Latymer Community Church next to the fire-gutted Grenfell Tower AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man looks at messages written on a wall near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Candles and messages of condolence near where the fire broke out at Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry a stretcher towards Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency services at Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry out a body from Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Rick Findler/PA Wire

Anderson, who is now a leading animal rights campaigner, made the remarks about Ms May as part of an emotionally charged plea for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be freed from the threat of prosecution.

But Theresa May - who kept him imprisoned in the embassy for five years - refuses to allow him to leave, she said.

Anderson was spotted delivering lunch to Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London last year and then again in February of this year, saying she was concerned about both his health and his family.

The 49-year-old has reinvented herself as a political agitator and outspoken voice in recent years. Her issues include everything from warning porn addiction is leading to sexual violence against women and child abuse to publicly rebuking President Donald Trumps pussy grabbing comments to her campaign against the use of fur with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Anderson first turned her attentions to political causes some 20 years ago on a Baywatch promotional tour when she wrote a letter to PETA.
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Britains longest married couple, who still hold hands every day, have been reunited so they could celebrate their 80th wedding anniversary.

Ken Harris, who is the ripe old age of 102, enjoyed his anniversary with Margaret, 99, after the couple were separated for the first time since the Second World War.

The devoted duo, who got married two years before the War, feared they would not only potentially miss their anniversary after Mr Harris was taken to hospital with a broken hip but maybe never see each other again.

But fortunately, the pair have been reunited at a nursing home in Llangynidr, near Crickhowell, in Wales.

The couple, who are from Llanhilleth and have two children, lived deeply intertwined lives until Mr Harris was deployed to Burma in the Second World War.

While they spent every single day together since his return, this changed after Ms Harris was diagnosed with dementia and forced to move into a care home.

Just weeks before their anniversary, Mr Harris was taken to hospital after breaking his hip, making him fearful he would never see his cherished wife again.

Nevertheless, the two peas in a pod have now been gleefully reunited, with Mr Harris being given a room in the same care home as his wife in the Brecon Beacons after he spent a month in hospital.

Their daughter-in-law, Pat Harris, who is 75, told the BBC: They hold hands every day now because of the memory of being separated in the war.

Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures Julie Houts Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures Julie Houts Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures Julie Houts Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures Julie Houts Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures Julie Houts Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures Julie Houts Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures "When u on a #tinder date and he's pretending he knows a lot about wine." Julie Houts Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures "The one where i practiced balancing olives on my nose while he went outside for a 40 minute conference call. " Julie Houts Julie Houts on modern love - In pictures Julie Houts

She added: Ken went to war and Margaret stayed home working as a doctors secretary but he always had her photo in his wallet.

When Ken went into hospital he didnt think he would ever see her again. It is so fortunate that a room became available at Margarets home. It has been a real battle trying to keep them together. Ken gave his life for his country and he deserves to be able to be with his wife.

They are a very loving couple and we are so proud to have celebrated their 80th anniversary with them.
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The majority of Britons now want a second referendum on the UK quitting the European Union (EU), according to a new survey.

Fifty-three per cent of people would back a vote on whether to accept the terms of the final Brexit deal, with 47 per cent opposed, a Survation poll found.

When the same question was asked in April, a majority of 54 per cent were against a second referendum.

The survey results suggest there is increasing opposition among the public to a hard Brexit.

Recommended Brexit has made other Europeans more favourable towards EU

Only 35 per cent agreed with Theresa May that no deal is better than a bad deal in EU negotiations, the research for The Mail on Sunday found.

Some 69 per cent of people were against Britain leaving the EU customs union  a key issue in the talks.

It comes amid speculation over increasing tension among the Prime Ministers cabinet over Brexit.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond will reportedly argue for the UK to stay in the customs union in a bid to soften the break and alter Mrs Mays approach.

The PM outlined her vision of a hard Brexit in January, saying she wanted Britain to be able to make its own trade deals while maintaining trade with Europe that was as frictionless as possible.

Meanwhile, another poll has found Labour voters overwhelmingly support the softest possible deal.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the 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Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. 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Supporters of Jeremy Corbyn's party prioritise unrestricted trade over immigration controls by a margin of 64 per cent to 19 per cent, according to the YouGov study.

Of the 35 per cent of Labour supporters who said quitting the EU motivated their vote in the general election, 47 per cent explicitly said they wanted a soft Brexit compared with 4 per cent who wanted a hard exit, while 27 per cent were opposed to Britain leaving at all.

But the research, commissioned by the Global Future think tank, found 60 per cent of Tory voters put migration curbs first compared to 27 per cent for trade.

Global Future chief executive Gurnek Bains said: The overwhelming majority of Labour voters want an open, outward-looking country which could mean staying in the single market like Norway and Switzerland already do from outside the EU. If political leaders insist on  or enable  an extreme form of Brexit that prioritises immigration controls by taking Britain out of the single market and the customs union, they risk being on the wrong side of the electorate.
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David Lammy has accused the Government of failing to provide adequate support for Grenfell Tower victims and argued the dearth of provision shares parallels with Victorian England.

The Labour MP for Tottenham said charities were being forced to plug the gap created by insufficient and incompetent local government support in the wake of the horrific fire which is now believed to have killed at least 58 people. The council of Kensington and Chelsea is said to be giving survivors just 10 when they arrive in hotels and failing to channel donations into proper on-the-ground help.

Launching into a scathing attack on Theresa Mays Government on Peston on Sunday, Mr Lammy said: I met people yesterday who had been given 10. They have lost everything.

Why are we behaving like this is Victorian England, where charity steps in, people step in, but we dont have local government able to coordinate?

Let me say, we know how to do this. We did it after the riots, we do it after floods. You have got to ask why these people in Kensington and Chelsea are not getting it. Whats different to them than exists in the rest of the country? Its an outrage, its a scandal, its appalling.

In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Show all 51 1 /51 In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police have released images from inside the tower where at least 58 people have died Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by polices what appears to be a stationary bicycle sitting among the ashes In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by police shows the remnants of a burnt-out bathroom In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Picture showing the lifts on an unknown floor Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency crews outside the front entrance to the tower Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Fire crews inspecting flats in the burnt out tower London Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Grenfell Tower is seen in the distance PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A drone flies near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire 'Theresa May Stay Away' message written on the messages of support at Latymer Community Church for those affected by the fire Ray Tang/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire An aerial view of the area surrounding Grenfall tower Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Donated shoes sit in the Westway Sports Centre near to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of support for those affected by the massive fire in Grenfell Tower are displayed on a well near the tower in London AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A local resident stands on her balcony by the gutted Grenfell Tower in Latimer Road Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of condolence are left at a relief centre close to the scene of the fire that broke out at Grenfell Tower, EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A police officer stands by a security cordon outside Latimer Road station Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firemen examine the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London on a huge ladder AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A search dog is led through the rubble of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn comforts a local resident (name not given) at St Clement's Church in west London where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hugs councillor Mushtaq Lasharie as he arrives at St Clement's Church in Latimer Road, where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn meeting staff and volunteers at St Clementis Church in Latimer Road David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firefighters with a dog walk around the base of the Grenfell Tower REUTERS/Peter Nicholls In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emotions run high as people attend a candle lit vigil outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near the 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Debris hangs from the blackened exterior of Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman speaks to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman holds a missing person posters near the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Sadiq Khan speaking with a resident James Gourley/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Ken Livingstone walks near the scene of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is confronted by Kai Ramos, 7, near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks to a woman outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers distribute aid near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People gather to observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People light candles as they observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man distributes food from the back of a van near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A firefighter is cheered near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A T-shirt with a written message from the London Fire Brigade hangs from a fence near The Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A young girl on her way to lay flowers near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire The remains of residential tower block Grenfell Tower are seen from Dixon House a nearby tower block Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers prepare supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block which was destroyed in a fire REUTERS/Neil Hall In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers move a car to make space for a lorry picking up supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People distribute boxes of food near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower bloc REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman touches a missing poster for 12-year-old Jessica Urbano on a tribute wall after laying flowers on the side of Latymer Community Church next to the fire-gutted Grenfell Tower AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man looks at messages written on a wall near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Candles and messages of condolence near where the fire broke out at Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry a stretcher towards Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency services at Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry out a body from Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Rick Findler/PA Wire

The council has received continued criticism for their response to the fire. There is said to be a complete lack of coordination from both the Government and the council, with local residents association representatives saying some families are still sleeping on floors in local centres four days after the deadly inferno. Whats more, a volunteer helping with relief efforts said the council has yet to respond to more than 130 offers to rehouse people who were forced to flee the burning building.

Nisha Parti, a film producer who has been a leading volunteer, said: Kensington and Chelsea are giving 10 to the survivors when they go to the hotels  a tenner  there is money pouring in from all these amazing volunteers. We cant get access to this money.

As Londoners grief has turned into anger and protests have erupted, Mr Lammy has remained one of the most openly critical and damning politicians to respond to the devastating fire which ravaged the 24-storey west London tower block in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The politician first spoke out to say a dear friend who lived in the burning building was missing. Khadija Saye, a 24-year-old photographer who was a mentee of the MPs wife, has now been confirmed dead.

Mr Lammy broke down in tears while talking about her death in an interview. Ms Saye shared a 20th floor flat with her Gambian mother Mary Mendy who is still missing after the blaze.

My friend who lost her life was a talented artist, but she was a young, black woman making her way in this country and she absolutely had no power, or locus, or agency. She had not yet achieved that in her life, he said.

Shed done amazing things: gone to university, the best in her life. But shes died with her mother on the 22nd floor of a building. And it breaks my heart that thats happening in Britain in 2017. Breaks my heart.

This is a tale of two cities. This is what Dickens was writing about in the century before last, and its still here in 2017.

Mr Lammy has called on Theresa May and the Metropolitan Police to immediately seize all pertinent Grenfell Tower documents.

The politician explained that after speaking to residents, he became aware fear of a cover-up is rising, and it is imperative the Prime Minister and investigators ensure all relevant documents are safeguarded.

Within the community, trust in the authorities is falling through the floor and a suspicion of a cover-up is rising, he said.

The Prime Minister needs to act immediately to ensure that all evidence is protected so that everyone culpable for what happened at Grenfell Tower is held to account and feels the full force of the law.

We need urgent action now to make sure that all records and documents relating to the refurbishment and management of Grenfell Tower are protected.

He argued that justice can only be achieved if all records  emails, minutes of meetings, correspondence with contractors, safety assessments, specifications and reports  are kept safe.

When the truth comes out about this tragedy we may find that there is blood on the hands of a number of organisations, he added. At this stage, it is my grave concern that the families of Grenfell Tower will not get justice if documents are being quietly destroyed and shredded and emails are being deleted.

While police hold the power to seize all documents, Section 35 of the Public Inquiry Act which turns the destruction of any documents into a criminal offence, does not apply until a chairman is appointed and the terms of reference are established.

Police say 58 people are still missing after the devastating fire and are presumed dead. Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police warned the death toll could increase yet further.

At 58 casualties, it would make the Grenfell Tower blaze the deadliest in the capital since World War II.
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Chancellor Philip Hammond has said that leaving the EU without any deal on trade would be a very, very bad outcome but maintained that there are other outcomes that could be worse.

On BBC1s Andrew Marr Show, he said it would be better to leave with no deal than to accept a deal deliberately structured to suck the lifeblood out of the UK economy over a long period of time.

Negotiations with Brussels begin tomorrow, despite the Prime Minister losing her majority in an election she had said was specifically about acquiring a mandate for her Brexit policy.

Mr Hammond said the UK would definitely be leaving both the EU single market and the customs union, but said that a transitional deal to enable a smooth exit from both was highly desirable.

Its a statement of common sense that if we are going to radically change the way we work together, we need to get there via a slope, not a cliff edge, he said.

Appearing on same programme, Labour's Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer said Britain would definitely leave the EU, and that doing so would prevent it continuing as a full member of the single market. He said membership of the customs union should remain on the table. Membership of the customs union makes it impossible for countries to sign free trade deals with other, non-EU countries, whose products may not meet European standards.

Sir Keir added: "I think the Prime Minister has got us into a complete mess. Shes got no mandate here and she's got no authority abroad and the negotiation starts tomorrow."

The Chancellor also said he would have liked to have been allowed to play a bigger part in the general election campaign, and that the campaign should have had a much greater focus on the economy.

The Chancellor was barely visible during the disastrous seven-week campaign, and was expected to be sacked had Theresa May won the large majority she was anticipating.

He told the BBCs Andrew Marr: "It's true that my role [in the campaign] was not the one I would have liked it to be.

The end result is that in my judgement we did not talk about the economy as much we should have done.

He said more time should have been spent taking apart Labours economic plans, the consequences of which he said would be catastrophic.

Mr Hammond made only two public appearances throughout the seven-week campaign. Since the election result, Nick Timothy, Sir Lynton Crosby and other senior campaign officials have sought to blame one another for the absence of leading Conservatives from the campaign.

Asked how long Mrs May had left in No 10, Mr Hammond replied: "I think what the country needs now is a period of calm while we get on with the job at hand."
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Philip Hammond dodged a question about Theresa May's future following claims the Prime Minister could face a leadership challenge.

The Chancellor refused to say how long he believes the Conservative leader will remain in Number 10 as he criticised the way the party's election campaign was run.

Mr Hammond admitted his role in the in the run-up the General Election, in which the Tories lost their Parliamentary majority, had not been the "one I would have liked it to be".

He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "Yes, it's true that my role in the election campaign was not the one I would have liked it to be.

Recommended Philip Hammond rules out summer Budget

"I did a lot of travelling around the country. I met lots of very interesting people, I heard lots of interesting stories.

"I would have liked to have made much more of our economic record, which I think is an excellent one, creating 2.9 million new jobs, getting the deficit down by three quarters."

Asked if Mrs May's former aides Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill had kept him off the airwaves, he replied: "I'm not going to speculate about what happened inside the campaign leadership team.

"The end result is, in my judgment, we didn't talk about the economy as much as we should have done.

"We didn't put enough energy into dismantling Jeremy Corbyn's economic proposals and his spending plans, which would be catastrophic for this country and we will now do that."

A former minister warned on Sunday that Mrs May had only 10 days to put together a Queens Speech that will satisfy supporters of both hard and soft Brexit if she is to avoid a leadership challenge.

The PM has faced a barrage of criticism for her lacklustre response to the Grenfell Tower disaster, having already been under pressure over her fateful decision to call a snap election.

Asked how long Mrs May "has got" in number 10, the Chancellor replied: "I think what the country needs now is a period of calm while we get on with the job at hand. We've got some very serious issues to address including the Brexit negotiations just starting.

"Theresa is leading the Government and I think the Government needs to get on with its job. And do you know what, I think that's most people in this country will think - that the Government just needs to get on with the day job of government."

During an awkward campaign appearance with Mrs May, the PM refused to say Mr Hammond would remain in his post as he stood by her side.

 Theresa May refuses to say she won't sack Philip Hammond as Chancellor after the election

The press conference at Canary Wharf had been staged to allow the Conservatives to attack Labour's economic plans, but after weeks of rumours that Mrs May was planning to sack the Chancellor, the pair face questions about their working relationship.

He remained low-profile for the rest of the campaign.

Mr Hammond insisted he had had been "not quite in a cupboard" over the course of the election.

He told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "I think it was a mistake of the campaign not to focus more on an area where we have a great story to tell; our record on the economy since the great recession."
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Philip Hammond has said fitting sprinklers may not always be the best technical way of ensuring fire safety in a building.

Asked on BBC1s The Andrew Marr Show whether the Government had acted on safety recommendations after a fire at Lakanal House in Camberwell, south London, in 2009, the Chancellor said the Government would wait for the public inquiry before making changes in regulation.

The Prime Minister, Theresa May, is under pressure after the devastating fire in Grenfell Tower trapped people in their beds and killed 58 people last week.

Opposition politicians say the Government ignored recommendations from a 2013 review after the fire at Lakanal House killed six people.

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We have looked, obviously, at those recommendations and what has happened to them, Mr Hammond said. My assessment is that we have responded correctly and appropriately to those recommendations.

When he was asked whether the Government should launch an urgent campaign to install sprinklers in tower blocks, schools and other public buildings, Mr Hammond said: If the conclusion of a proper technical evaluation is that that is the best way to deal with the problem, then of course.

My understanding is that the best expert advice is that retrofitting sprinklers may not always be the best technical way of ensuring fire safety in a building. Now if it is, it should be done.

But lets get the technical advice properly evaluated by a public inquiry and then let's decide how to go forward.

But let me be clear, if there's something that needs to be done to make buildings safe then it will be done.

At least 58 people died, or are missing, presumed dead, in the Grenfell Tower tragedy (AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

When Andrew Marr said we don't need technical expertise to tell us sprinklers put out fires, citing the Fire Brigades Union pointing out no one has died in a fire where sprinklers have been fitted, Mr Hammond replied: These are technical questions. Let's leave it to the inquiry.

Mr Marr pushed the Chancellor further, reiterating that we don't need experts to tell us sprinklers put out fires.

Mr Hammond said: What I'm hearing from the leading fire safety experts is that it isn't necessarily necessary to retrofit sprinklers to make a building fire safe. Now I don't want to call that judgement because I'm not an expert.

When the inquiry produces its findings. We will act on them.

The rescue efforts at Grenfell Tower (PA)

The Chancellor also said he understood the cladding used at Grenfell Tower, which is banned in Germany and the US, is also banned in the UK.

Recommended Tory minister warned against including sprinklers in fire regulations

He said this raises two questions: One is are our regulations correct, do they permit the right kind of materials and ban the wrong kind of materials?

The second question is, were they correctly complied with? That will be a subject that the inquiry will look at, it's also be a subject that the separate criminal investigation will be looking at."

Asked about the former Tory housing minister Brandon Lewis, who boasted about getting rid of regulations, Mr Hammond said people should be proud of how the Government cleared out unnecessary health and safety regulations.

Getting rid of regulations in order to do regulation properly, smart regulation, effective regulation ... we did have a jungle of legacy regulations in this country and I think we should be proud of the way we cleared out a lot of the unnecessary regulation to make life easier, particularly for small businesses, but nobody wants to compromise on critical safety regulations, that's not the case at all."

He added: Regulation isn't always bad. Good regulation is what we need.
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Theresa May has got about 10 days to put together a Queens Speech that will satisfy enough supporters of hard and soft Brexit alike or she will face a leadership challenge, a former minister has warned.

After her fateful decision to call a snap election saw the Conservatives lose their narrow majority, the Prime Minister has come under fire for her lacklustre response to the Grenfell Tower disaster.

Ms May is now caught between both sides of the Brexit debate.

Conservative Eurosceptics warned any backsliding on hard Brexit would result in a leadership challenge, but Ms Mays new friends in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) may require a softer departure from the EU if they are to supply the parliamentary votes needed for the Queens Speech to pass.

Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, and David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, are being touted as potential Tory leaders in the hard Brexit mould, while Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, has emerged as the champion of a softer approach.

The Queens Speech should decide whether Ms May can remain as Prime Minister, according to a former minister who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Times.

Shes going to have to go sooner rather than later. The critical moment is June 28 and 29, when there are votes on the Queens speech, the politician said.

Recommended Theresa May will start Brexit talks in an embarrassingly weak position

If it looks like they will be lost, you have to strike.

A cabinet minister questioned whether Ms May still had the will for the fight ahead, reportedly telling friends he was worried about her state of mind.

A senior backbencher also spoke of coming under pressure to back a vote of no confidence in Ms Mays leadership.

Ive got serious members in my constituency texting me saying: Youve got to get rid of her quickly, because every time she appears shes making the party more toxic, the MP told The Times.

Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned  forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA  because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty

Eurosceptics will scrutinise the Queens Speech for any suggestion Ms May is heeding calls from business leaders and people within her own party to strike a deal with the EU that still means the UK has access to the single market  which would almost certainly mean freedom of movement is retained and that Britain would have to abide by European court rulings.

Two former ministers told The Sunday Telegraph this would cause chaos in the party and threaten her leadership.

If we had a strong signal that she were backsliding, I think she would be in major difficulty, one said.

The other added: If she weakened on Brexit, the world would fall in... all hell would break loose.

The paper said a hard Brexit stalking horse candidate could make the first challenge in an attempt to force Ms May to resign, allowing the more serious contenders to avoid ousting a sitting Prime Minister in person.

However, there is serious concern in Northern Ireland that a hard Brexit could lead to a hard border between Ulster and the Irish Republic and potentially risk the Good Friday peace agreement.

Arlene Foster, the leader of the DUP, has said she wants a sensible Brexit that works for the UK and Ireland.

Reuters contributed to this report
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Vladimir Putin i has been in the US news lately due to -- among other things -- an investigation into President Donald Trump's campaign, tensions around Syria, and the US Senate conversations around imposing new sanctions on the Russia.

The former KGB agent served as Russia's prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012. From 2000 to 2008 and 2012 to the present day, he has held the office of the presidency. While some praised his partial reversal of Russia's economic fortunes, his tenure has sent the country sliding back into authoritarianism, according to the Economist's Democracy Index.

Here are some quotes that provide some insight into how Putin sees the world:

'I am not a woman, so I don't have bad days.'

The Russian president has a history of making sexist comments. He let another one fly while speaking to Oliver Stone for his upcoming documentary -- which has been criticized for "pandering" to the strongman.

Source: USA Today

'The task of the government is not only to pour honey into a cup, but sometimes to give bitter medicine.'

After announcing his intention to run for the presidency in 2012, the strongman said that the Russian government would need to take controversial steps to deal with the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

Source: NBC

'It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.'

Putin scoffed at the idea of American exceptionalism in his 2013 New York Times op-ed.

Source: The New York Times

'It sank.'

Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, used the annual question and answer session to talk to voters about key issues ahead of next year's presidential election

In 2000, Russia's Kursk submarine sank in the Barents Sea, killing all 118 people aboard. Putin's government went on to release confusing statements about what went wrong. During an appearance on Larry King's talk show, Putin provided a terse, two word answer about what happened to the submarine. When the mother of one of the victims confronted him during a meeting with family members, she was violently sedated, as the New York Post reported.

Source: The Telegraph

'Sometimes it is necessary to be lonely in order to prove that you are right.'

At the 2014 G-8 Summit, Putin clashed with other world leaders, including US President Barack Obama, over the issue of providing support to Syrian rebels. After the tense talks, he defended his opposition to the move.

Source: Time

'We will chase terrorists everywhere. If in an airport, then in the airport. So if we find them in the toilet, excuse me, we'll rub them out in the outhouse. And that's it, case closed.'

In 1999, while responding to a reporter's question about Russia's war with Chechenya, Putin outlined this colorful and controversial description of his counter-terrorism strategy. He apologized for the statement in 2011.

Source: The Telegraph

'The more I know about people, the more I like dogs. I simply like animals.'

Putin is a famous dog-lover. He owns a 15-year-old black Labrador named Konni, an Akita Inu named Yume, and a Karakachan Dog named Buffy.

Source: The Telegraph

'I am the wealthiest man, not just in Europe, but in the whole world. I collect emotions.'

(Getty Images ) (Getty Images)

It's unclear how much Putin is actually worth. Estimates range around $40 billion, according to Fortune. However, "The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin" quotes Putin as saying his "greatest wealth" is being elected to lead Russia.

Source: Fortune

'Everything will probably never be okay. But we have to try for it.'

In 2013, Putin hosted a televised Q&A session that lasted for a staggering four hours and 47 minutes. During that time, the Russian president was asked: "When will everything be okay?" His response was bleak.

Source: The Guardian

Read more:

 The 5 Conservative MPs most likely to replace Theresa May as Tory leader

 May is essentially being forced to either reverse Article 50 or seal a 'soft Brexit' deal for Britain

 These 4 things could trigger the next crisis in Europe

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2017. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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Donald Trump has claimed his approval rating is higher than that of Barack Obama  despite the data he is referring to suggesting the opposite is true.

The new Rasmussen Poll, one of the most accurate in the 2016 election, just out with a Trump 50 per cent approval rating. Thats higher than Os #s! he wrote in an early morning tweet.

Last week, the President had tweeted an image of a Rasmussen Reports poll that put his approval rating at 50 per cent  the first time it had been above 50 per cent since April.

His approval rating has ranged from a high of 59 per cent in late January shortly after he took office, to a low of 42 per cent in early April, said the polling company.

 Donald Trump tried to say 'Little Havana' and people were disturbed

On Sunday, Mr Trump sought to double down on the positive news by claiming his numbers were higher than those of his predecessor, Barack Obama.

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, data from the same polling company suggests that is not true. Mr Obama entered office on 20 January 2009 with an approval rating of 67 per cent. At this same stage of his presidency, his rating had slipped to 55 per cent, a level that was still a clear five points higher than that of Mr Trump.

Mr Obamas lowest approval rating, as measured by Rasmussen, was in June 2010 when it fell to 42 per cent. His final score, on 17 January 2017, was 62 per cent.

Other polling companies have given Mr Trump, currently being investigated by a special prosecutor for possible obstruction of justice, a considerably lower rating.

Real Clear Politics, a site which collates data from the major national polls, estimated Mr Trumps approval rating to be 39.9 per cent from May 30 to June 15. The Huffington Posts latest average puts the Presidents approval rating at 38.8 per cent.
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One of Donald Trumps personal lawyers has insisted he is not being investigated  two days after the President claimed that he was.

Mr Trump has in recent days repeatedly hit out at the so-called legal witch hunt he says is pursuing his investigation. In one tweet, he said: I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt.

But in a series of televised interviews, Jay Sekulow, a lawyer who is part of a team hired by Mr Trump to help deal with allegations of collusion by his campaign with Moscow, said he was not being personally investigated.

The fact of the matter is the President has not been and is not under investigation, Mr Sekulow said on CBS Face the Nation, one of four political shows where he appeared on Sunday.

There has been no notification from the special counsels office that the President is under investigation.

The pushback from Mr Trumps legal team came days after a report in the Washington Post said Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor heading the federal probe into possible collusion with Russia, was preparing to interview senior intelligence officials as he looked into whether the President had obstructed justice. The report said the development  which represented a dramatic shift in the course of the probe  came after Mr Trump had fired James Comey from his position as FBI Director.

Mr Trump had previously cited Mr Comeys testimony, who had told congressional investigators that the President was not personally under investigation.

 Trump says a America has 'rejected the Cuban people's oppressors'

Pressed as to why Mr Trump had said he was under investigation, if he was not, Mr Sekulow, said Mr Trump was indeed reacting to the Post story. But in comments that added nothing but confusion to the issue, he said the President was not referring to an actual investigation in his message, but rather to a news report about one.

The tweet from the president was in response to the five anonymous sources purportedly leaking information to the Washington Post, he said.

Asked why he appeared afraid of an investigation if he had nothing to hide, Mr Sekulow, chief counsel for the conservative American Centre for Law and Justice, said: Hes not afraid of the investigation  there is no investigation  There is not an investigation of the President of the United States, period.

Many commentators have said Mr Trump has created repeated problems for himself by his seemingly spontaneous use of social media. However, Mr Sekulow defended his tweets, saying hes responding to what hes seeing in the media in a way in which he thinks is appropriate to talk to those people that put him in office.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Mr Mueller, himself a former FBI Director, is investigating whether anyone associated with Mr Trump or his campaign had any illegal dealings with Russian officials or others with ties to the Kremlin.

He is also looking at whether, if any potential offences were committed, the President or anyone else attempted to cover them up or obstruct the investigation into them.

Mr Trump, who spent the weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat, also tweeted again on Sunday, saying: The Make America Great Again agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt.

Florida senator Marco Rubio, who had challenged Mr Trump in the Republican primary for the presidency, said he felt it would be better for both the President, and the entire country, if a full, independent investigation were to proceed.

This is is going to move forward, Mr Rubio, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is carrying out its own investigation into Russia, told NBC.

We are going to get the full truth out there. I believe this is the thing that could happen for the President.
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After discovering a number of bodies in flooded compartments, including sleeping quarters, the US Navy ended search and rescue efforts for the seven sailors missing after their destroyer collided with a merchant ship in waters off Japan.

Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin wouldn't say how many bodies were recovered, pending notification of next of kin.

The USS Fitzgerald sustained significant damage after a collision with a Philippine-flagged merchant ship.

Vice Admiral Aucion paid tribute to the crew's efforts to save their ship, saying they prevented it from sinking.

The bodies were found by Navy divers Sunday, a day after it returned to the base in Yokosuka with the help of tug boats.

Vice Admiral Aucoin said 116 crew members were in two berthing rooms, most of them likely resting at the time of the collision.

The skipper, who was injured in the head and airlifted to shore, was also in his room resting, he said, adding that he was lucky to have survived.

The Navy said earlier the ship had about 300 crew on board.

Apart from the berthing spaces, a machinery room and the radio room also were damaged and began taking in water after the destroyer was rammed mid-right side. Aucoin said the crash left a big hole below the water line.

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

Those who did not survive might have killed by the impact of the crash or drowned by the flooding, said Navy spokesman Lt. Paul Newell, who led reporters for a first look at the mangled vessel.

US President Donald Trump had earlier tweeted about the incident.

"Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families," he said. "Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance,"
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Pope Francis encouraged her to work to preserve the historic Paris climate accord despite the US withdrawal from it and shared her goal to bring down walls between countries, not build them.

Ms Merkel and Francis met for about 40 minutes Saturday in the Apostolic Palace, focusing on the Group of 20 summit that Germany is hosting in Hamburg on 7 and 8 July.

The Vatican said the talks centred on the need for the international community to combat poverty, hunger, terrorism and climate change.

Ms Merkel told reporters she briefed the pope on Germany's G-20 agenda, which she said assumes that we are a world in which we want to work together multilaterally, a world in which we don't want to build walls but bring down walls.

Francis has consistently called on nations to build bridges not walls  including in reference to the border wall that the Trump administration wants to build along the US border with Mexico.

Ms Merkel said Francis encouraged her to fight for international agreements, including the 2015 Paris climate accord, which aims to curb heat-trapping emissions.

We know that, regrettably, the United States is leaving this accord, she said.

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

As he did when President Donald Trump visited last month, Francis gave Ms Merkel a copy of his environmental encyclical, Praise Be, which casts fighting climate change and caring for the environment as an urgent moral obligation.

Francis issued the encyclical ahead of the Paris climate deal in hopes of urging a global consensus on the need to change perverse development models that he said had enriched the wealthy at the expense of the poor and turned God's creation into an immense pile of filth.

Francis appeared in unusually good cheer Saturday during the meeting, smiling broadly and laughing during both the formal portrait and the casual banter with Ms Merkel. In contrast, Francis often looks glum during many formal state visits, including when Trump and his family visited.

The audience began with Francis expressing his condolences over the death of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In his formal note, Francis called Mr Kohl a great statesman and convinced European who worked tirelessly for the unity of his homeland and the European continent.

Francis said he was praying that the Lord gives Mr Kohl the gift of eternal joy and life in heaven.

AP
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Emmanuel Macron won his bet. His party, En Marche!, which did not exist a year ago, has obtained an absolute majority in the French parliament.

With almost all the votes counted, the interior ministry said the Presidents party had won 43 per cent of the vote, gaining 301 out of 577 seats in the National Assembly. Adding in the tally of En Marche!'s ally MoDem, and Mr Macron can command an impressive 350 seats.

At the En Marche! party's headquarters in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, the mood is not the same joyful celebration that greeted Mr Macron's own presidential election victory six weeks ago.

Turnout hit a record low of around 42 per cent, betraying a climate of fatigue and political disillusionment among the French people. It meant there were no screams of joy here on Sunday night, only subdued applause welcomed the results as they were broadcast on TV screens.

It's not a political landslide, but it's balanced, said Alexandra Laffitte, an En Marche! substitute candidate in the 9th district of Paris.

The activists are few, certainly compared to the journalists here to snatch their statements and document the denouement of this extraordinary political story.

Nina Halimi, a 27-year-old law student, hailed victory in the second-round vote: This is a very good result, when not long ago it was predicted that Mr Macron would be unable to win a majority in the Assembly. It is a fair Assembly that respects democracy.

Jonathan Kemma, a 28-year-old digital communication worker, said: We have the majority to work and the opposition also exists, that's good news, he says, convinced that if the majority had been too overwhelming, it would have been held against them.

Catherine Barbaroux, who replaced Mr Macron as the leader of the party, said they must move forward with an attitude characterised by three words: lucidity, responsibility and humility.

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

The abstention rate reflects the work ahead of us, she said. Party leaders are under no illusions - Sylvain Maillard, a 45-year-old businessman elected by an absolute majority from the first round in Paris, admitted that they won because they are the Presidents candidates, adding: The French have backed the project of Emmanuel Macron. We must not deceive them, they voted for us because they expect change.

Many Frenchmen have turned away from political life, he said, a sentiment reflected by the turnout. To remedy it, it is necessary to reform.

Alexandra Laffitte said obtaining a majority of deputies inferred a huge responsibility on En Marche! Our responsibility is enormous because many French people are disappointed, she said. We must now talk to all those who are fed up with it and who no longer want to listen to us.

Activists all agreed that they must get to work as quickly as possible. Ms Laffitte declared: We have to be effective, it is an important parliamentary group, completely new, which we will have to organise very quickly.

Frances Prime Minister said voters have given a clear majority to Mr Macron and his government.

 Macron set for landslide victory in French parliamentary elections

Edouard Philippe, a centre-right politician who has joined En Marche!, said through their vote, a wide majority of the French have chosen hope over anger.

The elections saw far-right leader Marine Le Pen win her first parliamentary seat. The Front National (FN) leader claimed she won around 58 per cent of the vote in Henin-Beaumont in northern France, and her party looked on course to take eight seats in the French parliament in total.

Ms Le Pen said her party's representatives will fight with all necessary means the harmful projects of the government, despite falling well short of its target of a 15-strong parliamentary group.

She said they will especially fight against what she called Mr Macron's pro-European, pro-migrant policies.

The Conservative Republicains came a distant second with 22 per cent of the vote and 113 seats, while the head of the Socialistes quit after his party suffered a horrendous defeat. The party won just 6 per cent of the vote and 29 seats.

Jean-Christophe Cambadelis said that Emmanuel Macron's triumph is uncontestable, the defeat of the left is unavoidable, and the defeat of the Socialist party is irrevocable.

He added that the party needs to change its ideas and its organisation and that a collective leadership is going to replace him.
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A Muslim "peace march" against terrorism has been held in the German city of Cologne.

The DPA news agency reported that a few hundred people gathered for the demonstration Saturday, with placards such as "Together against terror" and "Hatred makes the earth hell," and the crowd later grew to over 1,000.

The organisers of the "Not With Us" march had expected several thousand protesters.

Recommended Muslim community hosts sunset meal on street for people affected

Marchers held banners including one that said: "Love for all, hatred for none," and another reading: "A Muslim protects lives and does not take them".

The country's biggest Islamic association had refused to take part in the march, which was led by groups representing the Ahmadi sect.

The Turkish-Islamic Union argued it would send the wrong signal by suggesting that international terrorism is mainly a Muslim problem.

It also said Muslims observing the Ramadan fast could not be expected to march for hours in summer temperatures.

That stance drew criticism from the government, which welcomed the march.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The protest comes in the wake of recent terror attacks in the UK and around the world.

"The attacks by people who justify their acts by invoking Islam, without justification, are becoming more frequent," protest organisers wrote ahead of the rally.

They added: "Our faith is being abused, defiled, insulted and distorted into something unrecognisable by this. Let us put a powerful sign against violence and terror."

Additional reporting by AP
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An Afghan soldier opened fire on American soldiers on Saturday, injuring at least seven, the US military said. It was the second such insider attack by an Afghan soldier in the past week.

Abdul Qahar Araam, spokesman for the 209th Army corps, confirmed that an insider attack took place at a camp in Mazar-e Sharif. Mr Araam said the soldiers returned fire and killed the attacker.

General Dawlat Waziri, spokesman for the Afghan Defence Ministry, also confirmed the attack.

Recommended Trump gives Pentagon total authority over troop levels in Afghanistan

The Resolute Support mission announced on its Twitter feed that seven US service members were wounded but said there were no US fatalities. It said one Afghan soldier was killed and one wounded.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid praised the attack in a statement sent to the media but he did not claim Taliban responsibility.

Last week three US soldiers were killed by an Afghan soldier in eastern Nangarhar province. In that case Mujahid claimed that the shooter was a Taliban loyalist who infiltrated the army specifically to seek out opportunities to attack foreign soldiers.

It is unclear whether the Afghan soldier killed was the attacker. There is a lengthy history of "green on blue" insider attacks in Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of several Nato soldiers since the US invasion in 2001.

AP
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American forces have shot down a Syrian government fighter jet accused of attacking Kurdish-led troops, prompting a furious response from Damascus as tensions increase.

US Central Command said the SU-22 dropped bombs near the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are being supported by the US-led coalition as they advance on the terrorist stronghold of Raqqa.

In accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defence of Coalition partnered forces, it was immediately shot down by a US F/A-18E Super Hornet, a statement said.

The Coalition's mission is to defeat Isis in Iraq and Syria. The Coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime, Russian, or pro-regime forces partnered with them, but will not hesitate to defend Coalition or partner forces from any threat.

The Coalition presence in Syria addresses the imminent threat Isis in Syria poses globally. The demonstrated hostile intent and actions of pro-regime forces toward Coalition and partner forces in Syria conducting legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated.

It was the most significant US attack on Bashar al-Assad's forces since April, when Donald Trump ordered missile strikes on a government airbase that launched a chemical attack.

Smoke rises from the al-Mishlab district at Raqqas southeastern outskirts on 7 June (Reuters)

American forces also attacked pro-government troops last month, then it bombed hostile units near an SDF training base in An Tanf.

Commanders from the anti-Isis mission codenamed Operation Inherent Resolve said the SDF-held town of Jadin, near Tabqa on the outskirts of Raqqa, came under attack from pro-regime forces on Sunday afternoon.

The attack started at 4.30pm local time (2.30pm BST), wounding a number of SDF fighters and forcing them to flee the strategic town.

Planes from the US-led coalition conducted a show of force that stopped the initial advance by pro-Assad troops, a statement said, adding: The Coalition [then ]contacted its Russian counterparts by telephone via an established 'de-confliction line' to de-escalate the situation and stop the firing.

But at 6.43pm local time (4.30pm BST), the Syrian regime SU-22 dropped bombs near SDF fighters south of Tabqah and the US shot it down.

The account was contested by Syrian army commanders, who said the plane was bombing nearby Isis positions, rather than the SDF.

A statement carried by the state-owned Syrian Arab News Agency accused the US of supporting terrorism by attacking Assad's forces.

The attack stresses coordination between the US and Isis, and it reveals the evil intentions of the US in administrating terrorism and investing it to pass the US-Zionist project in the region," the agency quoted general command as saying.

 Syrian army 'crosses into Raqqa province'

Majd Fahd, a correspondent for website al-Masdar News, claimed the pilot was his cousin and a father-of-three. You American bastards just shot down my cousin's aircraft (Ali) while taking out the scumbags of Isis in the area," he tweeted. Your kids are waiting for you. Please come back safe and very soon.

The outlet later reported clashes between the Syrian Arab Army and SDF in the area, after pro-regime troops reportedly attempted to cross the front line to recover the pilot.

American officials said Ja'din sits approximately a mile north of an established de-confliction zone between the SDF to the north and Syrian regime to the south.

The Coalition calls on all parties to focus their efforts on the defeat of Isis, which is our common enemy and the greatest threat to regional and worldwide peace and security, a spokesperson for US Central Command added.

The battle to drive Isis out of swathes of territory in northern Syria has brought opposing local and international actors into fresh conflict in the countrys six-year-long civil war.

The SDF, which incorporates the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), has been declared a terrorist group by Turkey and come under attack from rebels backed by Ankara, which perceives Kurdish gains along its border as a threat.

Assads forces have predominantly been fighting anti-government rebels and Islamist extremists including al-Qaeda linked groups, but are expected to increasingly turn their fire on the SDF as other targets wane.

Russia is supporting the Syrian government alongside Iran, while its rival Saudi Arabia is part of the US-led coalition bombing Isis.

British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria Show all 10 1 /10 British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria A Tornado jet takes off from RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, as RAF Tornado jets carried out the first British bombing runs over Syria British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria Pilots and ground crew prepare combat aircraft Panavia Tornados at RAF Marham at RAF Marham, UK Getty British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria A Eurofighter Typhoon jet takes off from RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, as RAF Tornado jets carried out the first British bombing runs over Syria British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria A RAF Tornado arrives at RAF Akrotiri to begin operations in Akrotiri British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria A Tornado jet ahead of taking off from RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, as RAF Tornado jets carried out the first British bombing runs over Syria, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. The air strikes were carried out within hours of a vote by MPs in the Commons to back extending operations against Isis from neighbouring Iraq British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria Personnel work on a British Tornado after it returned from a mission at RAF Akrotiri in southern Cyprus British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria Two RAF Tornado GR4's, both with remaining weapons ordnance, approach RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, as they return to the base after carrying out some of the first British bombing runs over Syria British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria A RAF Tornado takes off from RAF Akrotiri, on the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria A Tornado jet leaving RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland British jets prepare for air strikes in Syria AKA RAF Tornado arrives at RAF Akrotiri to begin operations in Akrotiri, Cyprus. The RAF has sent two further Tornado aircraft and six Typhoons to bolster aircraft now flying sorties to both Iraq and Syria

The coalition is supporting the SDFs advance on Isis de-facto capital of Raqqa with air strikes, while members have also given training and support to selected anti-Isis groups, and American and British special forces are on the ground.

The UN warned this week that the bombing campaign is killing a staggering number of civilians in Isis-held territory, with air strikes continuing to intensify.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it launched its own air strikes against Isis on Sunday, in response to terror attacks on the parliament building and a shrine on Tehran.

Tehran said surface-to-surface medium range missiles hit Deir Ezzor province, where militants fleeing the advance on Raqqa are fortifying their positions.

A statement said they were launched from Iran's Kurdistan and Kermanshah provinces, where footage shared on social media appeared to show the missiles rise in an orange glow before heading over Iraq towards their targets.

The Revolutionary Guard said many terrorists were killed and their weapons had been destroyed in the strike but the account could not be independently confirmed.

A statement warned Isis militants and their regional and international supporters of further attacks in retaliation to any future atrocities in Iran.

Additional reporting by AP
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Iraqi forces began storming the Isis-held Old City of Mosul, an assault they hope will be the last in the eight-month campaign to seize the militants' stronghold.

The historic district is the last still under control of the militants in the city which used to be their capital in Iraq.

It is a densely-populated maze of narrow alleyways where fighting is often conducted house by house.

About 100,000 civilians remain trapped there in harrowing conditions, with little food, water and medicine and limited access to hospitals, according to the United Nations.

"This will be a terrifying time for around 100,000 people still trapped in Mosul's Old City ... now at risk of getting caught up in the fierce street fighting to come," the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said in a statement.

"This is the final chapter" in the offensive to take Mosul, said Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, commander of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) elite units spearheading the assault.

A US-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the campaign.

Several air strikes during the day hit a medical complex located just north of the Old City, alongside the western bank of the Tigris river, a Reuters TV reporter said.

Armoured vehicles were heading toward the frontline north of the Old City as shelling and gunfire could be heard.

The medical complex, housing the two biggest hospitals of Mosul, is still held in part by the militants who are using its buildings as sniper outposts.

 Children of Mosul describe life under Islamic State

Isis' security services chief in the Old City, Kanaan Jiyad Abdullah aka Abu Amna, was killed in the morning clashes, Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises several Middle East governments on Islamic State affairs.

The Iraqi government initially hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign took longer as militants dug in the middle of civilians to fight back.

The Islamist group is also using suicide car and motorbike bombs, booby traps and sniper and mortar fire against the troops.

"The buildings of the old town are particularly vulnerable to collapse even if they aren't directly targeted, which could lead to even more civilian deaths than the hundreds killed so far in air strikes across the rest of the city," the IRC said.

"We are trying to be very careful, using only light and medium weapons ... to avoid casualties among civilians," CTS commander Major General Maan Saadi told Iraqi state TV.

Hundred of civilians were killed near the frontlines in the past three weeks while fleeing the Old City, as Iraqi forces couldn't fully secure exit corridors.

"We expect thousands of families to escape from the Old City; we made all preparations to evacuate them from the frontlines," said army colonel Salam Faraj.

Isis snipers are shooting at families trying to flee on foot or by boat across the Tigris River, as part of a tactic to keep civilians as human shields, the U.N. said on Friday.

The Iraqi army thinks the number of opposition fighters in the Old City doesn't exceed 300, down from nearly 6,000 when the battle of Mosul started, on Oct. 17.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

"The operation now is about street fighting, air and artillery strikes will be limited because the area is heavily populated and the buildings fragile," CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numan told al-Hadath TV in Dubai.

Iraqi government forces regained eastern Mosul in January, then a month later began the offensive on the side located west of the Tigris, which includes the Old City.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" that Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in a speech from an historic mosque in the Old City three years ago, covering parts of Iraq and Syria.

The group is also retreating in Syria, mainly in the face of a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition. Its capital there, Raqqa, is being besieged.

Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul and Raqqa to field commanders, to become effectively a fugitive focused on his own survival in the border area between Iraq and Syria.

US air strikes have killed several commanders of the group over the past two years, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, a top military commander, chief propagandist Abu Mohammed al-Adani, and Abu Ali al-Anbari, the former top civilian administrator.

About 200,000 people were estimated to be trapped behind Islamic State lines in Mosul in May, but the number has declined as government forces have thrust further into the city.

About 850,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of the northern Iraqi city, have fled, seeking refuge with friends and relatives or in camps, according to aid groups.
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Raging forest fires in central Portugal have killed at least 72 people, many of them trapped in their cars as flames swept over a road, in what the Prime Minister of Portugal called the biggest tragedy the country has experienced in years.

The country has declared three days of national mourning for the victims in the blaze, which has caused an irreparable loss of human life, according to a government statement.

A lightning strike is believed to have sparked the blaze in the Pedrogao Grande area after investigators found a tree that was hit during a dry thunderstorm, the head of the national judicial police told Portuguese media. Dry thunderstorms are frequent when falling water evaporates before reaching the ground because of high temperatures. Portugal, like most southern European countries, is prone to forest fires in the dry summer months.

This is a region that has had fires because of its forests, but we cannot remember a tragedy of these proportions, said Valdemar Alves, Mayor of Pedrogao Grande. I am completely stunned by the number of deaths.

Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes said that 60 people died from the flames and suffocating smoke, while another two people perished in a traffic accident related to the fires. Another 54 people were injured, including four firefighters and a seriously injured minor, Mr Gomes told state broadcaster RTP.

Authorities had previously said that 40C (104F) heat in recent days might have played a part in the inferno about 150km (95 miles) northeast of Lisbon. More than 350 soldiers joined the 700 firefighters who were struggling to put out the blaze, the government said.

A huge wall of thick smoke and bright red flames towered over the top of trees near houses in the wooded region. Local resident Isabel Brandao told The Associated Press that she had feared for her life.

We saw the fire but thought it was very far. I never thought it would come to this side, she said. At 3.30am, my mother-in-law woke me up quickly and we never went to sleep again. We were afraid the fire would reach us.

RTP showed terrifying images of several people on a road trying to escape the intense smoke that had reduced visibility to a question of a few metres. A young man shared a bottle of water with a distraught woman as she stumbled down the road.

Gomes said that at least 30 people were killed when their vehicles were engulfed by flames on a road between the towns of Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera, and three others died from smoke inhalation in Figueiro dos Vinhos. The remaining bodies were found outside of the cars or in the forest, the official said.

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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The official also said that firefighting crews were having difficulties in battling the fire, which was very violent in at least two of its four fronts.

The EU said it had activated its civil protection efforts responding to a call for assistance by Portuguese authorities. EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides expressed his condolences for the victims in a statement, saying the EU is fully ready to help.

As a result, a Spanish firefighting aircraft assisted yesterday morning with another expected. France also sent three aircrafts.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa said that firefighting crews were having difficulties in approaching the area because the fire was very intense.

Mr Costa also tweeted his deepest regret for the victims... and a word of encouragement and strength for all who help combat this scourge.

The loss of life due to a forest fire was the largest in memory in Portugal. It has been more than 50 years since 25 Portuguese soldiers were killed fighting wildfires in 1966.

We are most likely facing the biggest tragedy of human life that we have known, Costa said.

Last August, an outbreak of fires across Portugal killed four people, including three on the island of Madeira, and destroyed huge areas of forest.

Portugals civil protection agency, which coordinates firefighting efforts, issued a warning of the increased risk for forest fires on Friday. Citing the high temperatures, it said that all outdoor fire-lighting was prohibited.

Many world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressed solidarity with Portugal.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tweeted that he is overwhelmed by the tragedy at Pedrogao Grande. The Portuguese people can count on our solidarity, support and care.
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The best place to wait for rides is at the police checkpoints a few kilometres out of the towns, recommends one of the rare travel guides to Mali. Tell the police where you want to go, and they will sometimes stop vehicles on your behalf.

The Bradt guide to Mali was written after the Tuareg rebellion ended in 1995, and before the 2012 coup in the vast West African nation. Even though democracy was restored the following year after a Franco-African military intervention, an upsurge in Islamist terrorism since means the number of Westerners hitch-hiking through Mali has dwindled almost to nothing.

The country has intense appeal to adventurous travellers, with the Niger river at its heart. Slow boats connect the capital, Bamako, with the storied city of Timbuktu. The cliff villages of the Dogon people, clinging precariously to the Bandiagara escarpment, provide intrigue for hikers. And Mali has perhaps the richest culture in Africa; Timbuktu is twinned with Hay-on-Wye because of their strong literary traditions, while musically the nation is on the world stage  though the Festival in the Desert is currently suspended.

Recommended At least two killed in terror attack at Mali holiday resort

Also suspended indefinitely: Malis attraction to Western tourists. The Foreign Office assigns the northern two-thirds of the country, including Timbuktu, with its highest warning level  advising against all travel. The lower one-third is covered by a slightly softer warning, urging against all but essential travel. Visiting a region in either category invalidates standard travel insurance policies, making a visit highly risky for British travellers.

The targets of the Le Campement Resort attack, and the hostage-taking at the Radisson Blu in Bamako in 2015, were Westerners  but not ordinary holidaymakers. Le Campement appeals to expatriates, many working for NGOs and mining firms in Mali. They are given extra security, but even so the US Embassy in Bamako last week warned Americans to Avoid vulnerable locations with poor security measures in place, including hotels, restaurants, and churches.

The Australian government adds, for the benefit of its citizens: Given the prevailing security environment, avoid public transport. Road travel should only be considered if adequate security precautions are deployed. Driving at night is particularly dangerous as most roads are in poor condition.

Global Affairs Canada has the most comprehensive warning: Northern Mali remains a safe haven for terrorist groups. Since 2015, the threat has spread to the rest of the country.

Terrorist groups in the region are intent on increasing their attacks and kidnappings targeting Westerners.

"Terrorist targets could include government buildings, public areas such as bars, restaurants, tourist sites, large public gatherings and events (including music festivals), and Western interests.

The warning concludes: Citizens of countries supporting the military intervention are at particular risk.

The claim by the nations tourist office that Mali is characterised by political stability, social peace and a liberal economic system looks hollow.

The backpackers will return to Mali one day, blazing a trail for better-heeled holidaymakers, but for now the tourist industry looks a write-off.
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Jeremy Corbyn is a populist: that seems to be the emerging consensus across the political spectrum.

Corbyn was the torchbearer of British populism, writes Freddy Gray in the Tory-supporting Spectator, who goes on to liken the Labour leader to Donald Trump. Conservative MPs are reportedly thinking of swapping Theresa May with Boris Johnson on the grounds that to beat a populist, you need a populist.

Corbyn fans seem pretty comfortable with the idea of their leader as a populist too. His lieutenants are said to have embraced the concept last year. Corbyn has presented a positive version of populism, one of his supporters wrote for The Independent last week.

But its wrong. Which is to say, this is a terminology thats, at best, empty of content and, at worst, dangerously misleading.

What theory of populism are those who describe Corbyn as a populist using? How would they define it? That populists enjoy mass support? Any successful politician has that. Its the objective of democratic politics, after all, to win the most votes, to whip up the most enthusiasm. That populists are charismatic and inspire an unusual level of devotion? Again, this is what all politicians hope to achieve.

 Grenfell Tower resident: Corbyn has done so well "because he's one of us"

That populists pose as political outsiders and insurgents, decrying economic elites and the political establishment? Such rhetoric is the staple of many mainstream campaigns. US presidential candidates almost always promise to shake up Washington. And when was the last time any political party adopted a platform (rhetorically at least) of looking after the establishment?

Is it that populists pledge to divert money from the well-off to the common man? This doesnt really work. Was New Labour, which performed considerable redistribution, a populist movement? Was the welfare state founder Clement Attlee a populist? Was the former French President Francois Hollande, who put up taxes for the highest earners, a populist?

That populists offer simplistic solutions to complex economic and social problems and make incredible promises that are bound to disappoint? The sad reality is that all politicians do this to some extent or other, particularly during election campaigns.

To get a serious, rigorous, theory of populism its necessary to consult an expert. Professor Jan-Werner Mueller of Princeton University, synthesising the consensus of political science, says modern populists have two essential characteristics.

First, they conceive of the people as a unified and morally pure whole  and claim for themselves the exclusive right to speak for this group. Second, they are intrinsically anti-pluralist, meaning that they dont recognise opposition as legitimate and have little respect for democratic norms.

They act as if those who are not part of the people, as defined by them, are corrupt enemies to be vanquished rather than reasonable citizens to be persuaded. If they fail to prevail in elections its never because they have lost the peoples confidence but because they have been thwarted by nefarious elite conspiracies.

 Theresa May appears to be using Jeremy Corbyn's slogans now

Neither characteristic is sufficient on its own. Stalinists and religiously inspired authoritarians dont respect democratic norms or democratic opposition, but that doesnt make them populists because they dont claim to speak on behalf of a morally pure people.

And Corbyn doesnt satisfy the latter condition. Yes, he inveighs against elites, complains about a rigged system and places a heavy emphasis on his own definition of an oppressed British majority. For the many not the few, as the partys election slogan put it.

But hes never threatened to lock up Theresa May. He doesnt claim that its illegitimate for the Liberal Democrats or the Greens, for instance, to challenge him. He doesnt hint at armed revolt in the face of electoral setbacks. Indeed, Corbyns final Twitter message on election night was the benign observation: Whatever the final result, our positive campaign has changed politics for the better.

Boris Johnson, of course, isnt a populist either by this rigorous definition. But someone like Nigel Farage, with his sinister talk of the real people of Britain, his intolerance towards any opposition to Brexit, his weakness for conspiracy theories and his dark allusions to impending popular violence can fairly be so described.

Farages friend Donald Trump is plainly a populist for all the same reasons. Think specifically of Trumps pledge to prosecute Hillary Clinton if he won the presidential election and his refusal to say whether he would respect the result if he had lost. Contrast that behaviour with that of Bernie Sanders, the Democratic primary challenger to Hillary Clinton who, despite often being described as a populist, respected the result and even urged his supporters later to vote for Clinton.

This isnt a left-right distinction. The left-wing Five Star Movement in Italy has the characteristics of a populist movement under its demagogic leader Beppe Grillo. The late Hugo Chavez, in Venezuela, was plainly a populist, consistently seeking to shut down opposition. The Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey is manifestly a populist, as is the secular Viktor Orban in Hungary and also Marine Le Pen in France.

The crucial point is that populism is a profoundly anti-liberal political style, not a specific economic or social programme. Populism is a description of how political actors conduct themselves, not the nature, or breadth, of their support base.

Depending on your judgement, one can legitimately call Corbyn an existential threat to the economy, a socialist saviour, or a bog-standard European-style social democrat who is likely to prove a crashing failure if he ever accedes to power. But populist isnt right, because populism is a very specific category, a distinct threat.

Democracy provides a framework for peaceful power struggles between vigorously competing parties with divergent views of the good society. The values of pluralism and tolerance lie at the systems heart. Disagreement over the appropriate distribution of economic resources is the normal substance of democratic political debate.

But populism is something different. It is a political virus that attacks the very core of the system. A danger to democracy is how Professor Mueller sums it up. Definitions matter. Open societies need to have an unclouded view of their true enemies.
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When Her Britannic Majesty addresses Parliament on Wednesday, she will read out the emptiest Queens Speech ever heard. In the absence of anything that can be called a government in more than the narrowest technical sense, it could not be anything else.

But it might make history in a second way. This could be the last Queens Speech delivered by a queen that anybody alive today will ever hear. If the alleged Prime Ministers cancellation of next years speech isnt reversed by a new Tory leader or a new Labour government (and much like if Brexit happens, that is a gargantuan if), Her Maj would be 93 by the next one.

We all hope she emulates her mother by living long enough to send herself a telegram, but you neednt be a leading actuary to appreciate the uncertainty that she will be alive in two years, or be up to it if she is.

So in 2019, it could be either a Queens Speech read for her by the Prince of Wales, or his first Kings Speech. With William and George next in a line of succession stretching the best part of a century ahead, we must try to savour Wednesdays speech in case we never hear a female voice read one again.

 Philip Hammond refuses to answer question of how long Theresa May has got as PM

The obvious way for Her Maj to make her potential swansong unforgettable is by binning whatever gibberish she is given to recite, and speak off the cuff on the following lines.

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons, one has been doing this for a very long time  and, frankly, as my Windsor cousin Dame Barbara might put it, Ive bleedin ad it and no mistake.

So on the understanding that this may be ones last Queens Speech, I will keep it short and sweet.

A few hours ago, I was handed a document containing my governments exciting plans and important pledges. That piece of paper was worth as much as the one Mr Chamberlain waved about on returning from Munich in 1938, when I was a slip of a gal yet to properly hit puberty.

So, having used it for the only purpose to which one felt it ideally suited  cleaning up after one of the corgis  one has little choice but to riff.

My government will engage in a game of competitive buck-passing over the Grenfell Tower tragedy. It will seek to avoid a Tory party civil war over Brexit (good luck with that one!). And it will do all it can, up to and beyond risking the peace in Northern Ireland by inserting itself in the colon of the DUP, to avoid the general election the country needs if this present paralysis is to pass.

And, er, if one might conclude by borrowing from the Private Eye obituarist EJ Thribb, thats it. Im DJ Sovereign, Im out, and may God have mercy on yall.

 Theresa May criticised for 'inhuman' Newsnight interview

If that alternative text overstates how far she has gone to adapt to modernity, she proved she has come a long way with her visit to the blackened husk of a tower block in north Kensington.

Twenty years ago, when a resident of a different part of that royal borough died in shocking circumstances, her archaic refusal to react emotionally threatened the monarchy. A few days later, her survivalist instincts kicked in, and she raced to London from Balmoral to give the live broadcast about Diana that killed the surge in republican sentiment. She learned the lesson, and changed. Two decades on, she radiated empathy last week.

Theresa Mays inability to learn that lesson  that a central function of the modern figurehead is to empathise in times of tragedy  seems to leave her weeks, days or hours from resigning, voluntarily or otherwise.

It hardly needs stating that any soothsaying from the likes of me is as reliable a guide to future events as Chamberlains peacenik piece of paper. But I tentatively predict this. Any Tory MPs yet to grasp that keeping her does them greater long-term damage than ditching her possibly could, however chaotic the immediate fall-out, will grasp it very soon.

The Tories may deserve the Stupid Party nickname, but the punters are not dupes. They know it when a political party insults their intelligence and damages the country by keeping a PM on life support to play for time. They do not forget and will not forgive.

There comes a tipping point when a leader morphs from severely wounded to human punchbag, and becomes ritually blamed for almost literally everything. It happened to John Major after the ERM disaster of 1992, and to Gordon Brown when a sequence of fiascos followed the election that never was in 2007.

Both limped on because those best placed to remove them (Michael Portillo and David Miliband) were too fearful of the axiom about the assassin never wearing the crown. The Tories were punished in 1997, and Labour in 2010.

Theresa May reached that tipping point last week.

She will now be blamed for everything, from the nihilistic pointlessness of tomorrows Brexit talks (she might as well send a David Davis cardboard cut-out, or a shoe) to Ant of Ant-and-Decs struggle with painkiller addiction.

If Andy Murray loses at Wimbledon to the world number 714 from Kyrgyzstan, it will be her fault. A tornado battering Kansas will be as much down to her as an outbreak of cholera in Munchkinland.

Boris, Davis and anyone else hungrily eyeing her job may think it suits them to keep her as a lightning rod. But even if the paralysis endures for only a fortnight, their collusion in lumbering Britain with a vegetative state PM when the Brexit talks began will be remembered.

As for the Queen, gawd bless her for pitching up on Wednesday to commit a kind of parliamentary perjury with the phrase my government. It isnt her government. It isnt yours or mine, and it certainly isnt Theresa Mays. Since it cannot begin to govern, it isnt a government at all.
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The number one priority for any government has to be keeping its citizens safe, and the events of the last few months have rightly refocused minds on the question of Britains security. From undermining the integrity of online tools like WhatsApp to armed police on every street corner, the Conservative Government has jumped from one idea to the other in an effort to look tough on terror.

Watching these debates, one cannot escape a powerful sense of irony: as ministers talk of the need to modernise our defences against terrorism, the most archaic of all our security systems, Trident, remains untouched. This despite it being wholly unfit as a response to the cyber attacks, climate change and weaponised cars and lorries that have proven themselves to be the biggest threats to our safety today.

Politicians attachment to Trident is much more about emotion than it is about rational debate. Fear and a distorted sense of nationalism stoke the fires of those who would like us to renew and upgrade our nuclear arsenal.

Not so, thankfully, in the majority of nations. This week, more than 120 countries are gathered at the United Nations to agree a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Theresa May, true to form, has not even bothered to turn up and the UK will, shamefully, have no official representative. Global parliamentarians and representatives of civil society are here at the UN though and, as chair of Parliamentary CND, I am proud to represent my party and those MPs with a passionate commitment to the cause of nuclear disarmament.

 Shadow Defence Secretary says colleague Emily Thornberry is wrong over Trident

The prospects for this treaty seem good. It has already passed some significant hurdles. The negotiations taking place were voted for by 113 nations back in December. Already some nuclear weapon states have softened their opposition to the idea of a ban: China, India, and Pakistan all abstained from the vote last winter.

In working towards a ban, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons  a coalition of peace campaigns united across 90 countries  is following a well trodden path. Chemical and biological weapons, cluster munitions, and landmines were all banned before full-scale decommissioning and disarmament began. History has taught us that stigmatising the weapons themselves, rather than the obvious hypocrisy of nuclear states lecturing non-nuclear nations, is the most effective way to prevent their proliferation.

Back here in Britain, I sense a shifting of the sands.

A recent poll found that three in four people think the UK should attend the UN disarmament talks and three in four also agree that Britains unethical foreign policy is making us less safe. With three terror attacks in three months, it is becoming harder to maintain the illusion that a simple ramping up of our existing defence policies is likely to bring results. Thinking the previously unthinkable might now be our only option.

 Fallon fails to deny that Trident submarines run on Windows XP

And yet I know that we still have a long way to go. While the number of Tories backing disarmament are few and far between, many of us have held out hope that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn might become a cheerleader for disarmament. Sadly, those hopes were dashed last month when their manifesto committed them to the renewal of Trident. However, I continue along our own manifesto promises with optimism.

I expect that my resolve will be strengthened even further after being at the UN. Meeting campaigners and ambassadors from the across the globe, each bound by a shared vision for a safer world and committed to change, will, I have no doubt, be infectious. On my return, I hope to share some of that energy with my colleagues in parliament and do all I can to help prevent Britain becoming chained to a defence strategy that is as destructive as it is illogical.

Caroline Lucas is co-leader of the Green Party and MP for Brighton Pavilion
Inventions such as the iPhone show how much technology can change the world around us  Irelands exporters will need to change with the demands of brexit. Stock image

Where do we go from here? Brexit is real and it's happening Ireland is at risk and we find ourselves trying to work out what are we going to be after all this has happened. Our ability to identify with the UK is strong and there has always been a link, it's just part of who we are and we found ourselves in this position. Yet we are different.

On a recent trip to Bakewell, Derbyshire, I learned one fact about our difference.

Not one that applies to anything important, yet this fact was fascinating - there are no moles and snakes in Ireland - though there are in the UK. All my life I just assumed that the reason I hadn't seen a mole was because they are underground and nocturnal.

How could I not have learned there are no moles in Ireland? For those interested in why we have no moles, 15,000 years ago Ireland was covered by ice - a mile high. As that ice melted, the sea levels rose again and the moles and snakes never made it across - fact.

So, if that's what a fact looks like - let's have a look at fiction. There is a book called Sapiens in which I read that what makes humans so special is the ability to "invent fiction".

The list of our invented fictions includes law, religion, education, banking, and insurance. None of these things are tangible items we can hold and touch, yet we live within them and are defined by them.

Over the past 100 years we have seen things move from fiction to fact. An iPhone - the knowledge of a billion people at the touch of a button - looks like magic when held by somebody who has never seen any technology. Just 120 years ago, we had no airplanes.

It was our ability to imagine and create them that turned flights of fantasy into flying facts.

So, why do moles, snakes and invented fiction matter? It matters because now, more than ever, it's important to make decisions based on facts while also trying to make invented fiction work in our favour.

Let's look at the facts. Ireland finds itself it a unique position in our history - we are a global leader at many things.

Attracting inward investment. Being one of the world's biggest exporters of pharmaceuticals. Being ranked consistently as being among world leaders in fields as diverse as working conditions, aviation financing, foreign aid, competitiveness as well as being ranked as the world's best for economic, press and political freedom.

We're really good at a lot of things.

In 2016 we exported 117bn a year and 88pc of this was made up of exports by foreign companies - not Irish companies.

Some Irish exports are still based in real and tangible areas, such as food and agriculture - and these are under real threat with Brexit. Irish indigenous companies export 46.2pc to the UK, unlike foreign-owned companies where the UK accounts for only 9.2pc of exports, while the US, at 25.7pc, is the largest market for them.

Our Brexit negotiations will need to protect all of our exports - especially growing ones, like services. Ireland already exports 50pc more software than food.

Trade has changed hugely over the past 100 years. We have turned fiction to fact and traded it to create wealth.

Looking out the window 150 years ago you would have seen every man with a hat and a horse.

You would have believed that investing in hats and horses were a safe bet until Henry Ford came to Ireland and built the first cars.

Our own business is testament to the changes that are occurring around us.

Eleven years ago, we set up a directory enquiry business providing one of the oldest services to telecoms for whom operators have been needed for over 100 years. In this new world of invented fiction digital has replaced the need to call for a number.

In response to this decline in directory enquiry business we invented a new service which, four years later, now trades internationally.

Using new technology, our agents in the call centre now read the internet for large banks and semi-states.

In real time, we assess risks and content and then pass those on to the people who need to action them. This couldn't have been done 10 years ago because it wasn't required.

You can't touch this service - you can see it on paper and screens but the work that's been done is invisible.

Every risk from upset customers, systems failures, employees and reputation is analysed and collated.

We now get paid to assess risks. We invented this service, created software which we built from our thoughts. In return, we get money through a banking system that delivers numbers seamlessly to our bank account. We then pay employees electronically - who use that money to consume real products and services.

So, to review the facts - Ireland is very similar to the UK - but different in important ways. Brexit is happening.

We are world leaders at exports. Our future exports are just fictions. We are experts at converting fiction to fact and selling them. We need to protect our exports - especially those that are new and growing.

If unmanaged, Brexit poses huge risks to our existing exports especially if everybody is solely focused on protecting what we currently have. We will only thrive if we look forward.

We need to imagine our children selling their imagined fiction and services to other people, all around the world. We need to make sure that our future is protected too.

The future is going to as great as we can imagine it to be. We'll need talent to make that become fact.

We've never been better placed to do that.

Nicola Byrne, the founder of icloud90.ie, is the incoming President of the Irish Exporters Association
"It is five days, nine hours and four minutes to the end of my Leaving Cert and the start of my summer holidays."

So my student daughter told me as she lifted a pale face from her books to glance at the stopwatch on her phone counting down the time to the end of this nightmare. Over the last few months I've been somewhat perplexed by people's reaction when they hear I have child doing the Leaving. Many would grab my arm, look into my eyes and say: "Oh my God, you have a Leaving Cert in the house; how is she, and how are you?"

I was beginning to get worried that I should be more worried and that perhaps my young student should be equally bothered. Was there something we were doing right or wrong in the face of this infernal life-defining test?

I must admit that in the last few weeks, as the time for the starting pistol approached, vulnerability and fragility wore a path between 'the room', the stairs and the kitchen while the churning nervous stomach could only be calmed with pounds of chocolate and jellies.

It is an awful time, the sheer terror of the experience is almost as mind altering as a dose of LSD, not that I would know anything about that.

While it is hard to blame Leaving Cert students for hoping time will pass swiftly, in general the practice of wishing time away is one of life's great pities.

In my current trade, where the deadline is the absolute lord and master, wishing tomorrow would come is an occupational hazard; 'life will be great once this edition is put to bed'. Likewise for farmers - 'if only I can get the silage out of the way, I can relax', ' I can't wait for the harvest to be over and everything will be fine'.

But is it ever fine? Do we ever relax, isn't there always something else? The buzz word these days is mindfulness, living in the moment, making the most of right now.

But it is very hard to live in the moment when you're worried sick as to whether John Donne, John Keats or Eavan Boland will feature on tomorrow's exam.

It is nigh impossible to live in the moment when the silage harvester is stuck in a gate while a black cloud sits overhead ready to relieve itself all over your beautiful meadow. These are moments you hope won't last.

I remember as a young man being told by a prominent ecclesiastic that I would never be happy, that happiness is an illusion and striving for it is a fool's pursuit. Many would agree. So, in the meantime, what is left to recharge the life-force and keep us going? Unexpected moments of contentment, perhaps?

Such nuggets of time are found where the 'now' is brimming with life and exhilaration. Like the moment when you leave the exam hall with your last paper done and throwing your rulers and pens in the air and you scream with the delight and relief of the now.

Or that morning after the contractors leave the yard and you look at the covered pit or the stacks of round bales and decide: "We'll go to Lahinch." As you walk the shore, the wild Atlantic breeze billows your jacket, blows the wisps of grass from your hair and you don't care if a blade of silage is never cut again. At these moments 'now' is all that matters, and life can savoured in all its joy.

Are these the nuggets we live for while the much more substantial stretches of life are simply tolerated? Small and brief as they might be, it is good to have these short bursts of life, when every fibre of your being tells you you're in the right place and doing the right thing.

For most of us these periods of time are rare and come upon us by chance. However, Brazilian writer and thinker, Paolo Coelho, says that the choices and decisions we make can string these moments together to form a good, wholesome life. We cannot overestimate the bearing our choices have on the quality of our existence. According to Coelho, when you make a right life decision the universe lines up to support you.

The image might be somewhat fanciful but the notion is solid.

Those moments when our lives are completely our own are the ones with the greatest joy; like when the exam is over and we take our lives back, when nobody is telling us what we should be doing or what we should be thinking.

These are little oases of pure freedom and deep contentment. A good life is a life where such moments are plentiful and constant.

As my young, pale-faced student comes to the finish line in this all-consuming test I hope she will never have to endure anything like it again.

I hope the moment of exhilaration when she hands up the last paper and gets her life back is one of many such moments that will be strung together into a thing of joy that can be called a life.
The expected cost of remediation work at the Beacon South Quarter apartment complex in Dublin's Sandyford has doubled to 20m, it is understood.

The work under way at the huge south Dublin apartment complex to fix fire safety, water ingress and other structural defects is still at an exploratory phase but it is believed that the cladding that covers the outside of the huge complex will need to be removed.

The management company was informed in recent days by engineers that the price of the work had doubled from previously reported estimates. Residents of the development - where apartments once sold for as much as 1.1m - are still unclear as to exactly how much they will have to pay towards the essential refurbishment work, although estimates suggest that it could be up to 15,000 per apartment. It is expected that insurance will cover a portion of the bill but not all of it, according to sources.

Neither property managers Aramark Properties, nor Nama-appointed receivers Mazars, which controls the complex, took the opportunity to comment after being contacted by this newspaper.

In March it was revealed that apartment owners at the complex, which was built in 2005 by developer Paddy Shovlin's Landmark Enterprises, were facing legal action from Dublin Fire Brigade if they did not undertake fire safety works. Property company I-Res Reit, the State's largest private landlord, owns a quarter of the apartments at the complex.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that up to 20 people are staying at a Dublin premises which has been described in the High Court as a potential fire danger and a risk to the general public as well as those living there. The people have been staying at the 24 Mountjoy Square property, which incorporates the premises known as 24 Charles Lane, over which a fire safety notice was issued last August.
Booming sales of luxury goods at Dublin's Brown Thomas suggest the good times are back, at least for those prepared to spend big on the latest 'must have' shoes and dresses of the summer.

The Grafton Street store received delivery in late May of 12 Valentino dresses from the designer's pre-autumn collection.

Two weeks later, all 12 dresses by the luxurious French brand - costing around 2,000 apiece - had been sold.

The rapid sale of the dozen luxurious dresses was not the only recent sign that the wallets of big spenders are back out when it comes to designer labels.

The store also took delivery of a similarly high-end range of black patent Christian Dior kitten heel slingbacks. Already there is a waiting list for the "must have" shoe of the summer, which cost 730.

"To have a collection come in and to be sold out in two weeks feeds you a lot of good information," said Shelly Corkery, fashion director at the Brown Thomas Group.

"From a fashion point of view, people want wonderful luxury pieces still. The waiting list for the Dior kitten heel is proof that people know what they want," said Corkery.

She confirmed that half of their latest drop of Pre-Fall from Dolce & Gabbana is sold, with particular interest in the 'Ortensia' pieces featuring a print of green-and-white hydrangeas.

The buy-to-wear pieces were made up in everything from T-shirts to jackets, trousers to silky maxis and while BT's have items from 695 to 3,000, interest in the 2,250 pencil dress peaked after Monaco's Princess Charlotte Casiraghi was pictured wearing it at a wedding in Rome.

Corkery said "it is the want, need and requirement for newness" that is driving this shopping zeal. This desire for newness is underlined by the customer practice of requesting one-offs, Corkery said, adding that "85pc of our business is local and we are very close to our customers. People are watching the collections online, they see the collections from brands and make orders for specific things before we go to buy".

On the handbag front, Fendi are being introduced to BTs on July 4, joining Hermes, Chanel and Louis Vuitton in the accessories hall, which got a 9m facelift as part of the store's three-year 24m investment programme.

French brand Chloe is building a boutique within the ground floor accessories hall which opens on August 5.
Tower crane drivers working in Dublin's docklands and other booming construction areas around the country voted overwhelmingly for industrial action last week in a dispute over pay. Stock photo: Bloomberg

Nearly all of Ireland's major building sites face shutdown later this month as the so-called "crane flu" dispute escalates.

Tower crane drivers working in Dublin's docklands and other booming construction areas around the country voted overwhelmingly for industrial action last week in a dispute over pay.

The vote for strike action will come as a blow to an industry that has begun to recover strongly as the country deals with a housing shortage and as the commercial property sector attempts to capitalise on London's possible Brexit exodus.

The move to ballot for strike action followed a mass one-day absenteeism by crane drivers at building sites earlier this month, which sources blamed on an outbreak of "crane flu".

"Will pickets be mounted? We'll see," said Unite regional officer Tom Fitzgerald, which now represents the vast bulk of crane operators in the country after they quit Siptu en masse in recent weeks.

"If the employers engage with us there won't be strike action but this dispute could hit the majority of the big sites with tower cranes," he said.

The trade union official said that it was likely that any strike would be organised to hit building sites in a sporadic way initially.

But he did not rule out the prospect that it could move to all out strike that could potentially shut building sites entirely.

The dispute comes at an unfortunate time for the industry, with new figures last week showing that activity in the sector jumped to a 15-month high and as many as 70 tower cranes visible in Dublin city centre alone. Crane drivers are key to the operation of major building sites and their absence can bring nearly all work to a halt.

They are understood to be seeking a pay rate of 27 an hour to replace a registered agreement that was abandoned by the construction sector in 2011. "We believe that crane operators should have their own specific agreement because of the specialised nature of the job that they do," said Fitzgerald.

The dispute will be heard at the Workplace Relations Commission later this week but employers have already been served with notice of industrial action, which could commence on June 27.

Trade union Unite, which represents more than 90pc of the country's tower crane drivers, balloted the crane operators. The ballot had a 77pc turnout among the country's 200 drivers and was passed by 93pc of the drivers.

The dispute also threatens to open up a serious rift between two of the country's biggest trade unions.

Sources in Unite said that they had major concerns about Siptu continuing to meet with employer representatives to discuss the crane driver dispute despite the fact that Liberty Hall no longer represents the vast bulk of those workers.

The crane drivers walked away from Siptu after it refused to lodge the pay claim on their behalf and other members of Siptu's construction branch are also understood to be considering a similar move, it is understood.

That led to a massive jump in absenteeism among crane drivers, reported last week in this newspaper, which some sources described as being similar to the infamous "blue flu" protest staged by Gardai almost two decades ago.

Other members of Siptu's construction sector are also understood to be considering a similar move, which would come as a blow to the trade union.

Banksmen -workers who direct crane drivers via radio from the ground - are now also in discussions about their own wage levels and union representation, according to sources.
Peter Wood is retiring from his position as senior managing director of State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) Ireland after over 30 years with the business. Getty Images/iStockphoto

The head of financial services giant State Street's Irish operation has stood down, the Sunday Independent has learned.

Peter Wood is retiring from his position as senior managing director of State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) Ireland after over 30 years with the business.

Wood is to be replaced by Ann Prendergast as head of the business in Ireland, State Street confirmed.

Prendergast is currently head of the Irish relationship management team and joined SSGA in 2000.

She will take over next month following the retirement of Wood, who was appointed head of SSGA Ireland in 2011.

His appointment followed the sale that year, as the banking crisis raged in Ireland, of Bank of Ireland Asset Management (BIAM), where he had served as chief operating officer, by Bank of Ireland to State Street for 57m.

State Street, which is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, employs more than 2,500 staff in Ireland and has its Irish headquarters on Dublin's Sir John Rogerson's Quay. From there the financial giant runs a major Europe, Middle East and African operation, which is headed up by Susan Dargan, a job previously held by Willie Slattery. It also has regional offices in Naas, Drogheda and Kilkenny.

"I'd like to wish Peter health and success in what I know will be a busy retirement of new opportunities and projects," said Prendergast. "With its acquisition of BIAM in 2011, State Street Global Advisors recently marked 50 years in Ireland and I look forward to building on the strong foundations that Peter was instrumental in laying.

"As we look ahead, we find that clients are increasingly looking for more sustainable ways to meet investment goals, and create long-term value. There's a real appreciation that good governance translates into better managed companies, and better investments.

"Environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria are central to what we do, and our clients have access to a powerful asset stewardship platform and portfolio solutions that align with their values and beliefs.

"The recent installation of SSGA's 'Fearless Girl' on Wall St was a visible manifestation of our commitment to the power of good governance. It's an exciting time for our business."

A University of Limerick graduate, Prendergast is a member of the ACCA and a Director of the Irish Association of Pension Funds. Before joining SSGA Ireland, Prendergast worked with Bank of Ireland in their fund administration and private banking divisions.

Globally the bank has more than $2trn of investment assets under management and a further $28trn of assets under custody and administration.
Mining giant Teck is in talks to sell its stake in a Limerick joint venture with John Teeling's Connemara Mining. Stock photo: Thinkstock

Mining giant Teck is in talks to sell its stake in a Limerick joint venture with John Teeling's Connemara Mining.

The company is in talks to sell out to Group Eleven Resources, a newly-established Irish firm backed by former Davy corporate finance boss Hugh McCutcheon, pictured, the Sunday Independent understands.

Group Eleven, set up in 2015 and run by former Davy Stockbrokers equity analyst Bart Jaworski, has also been backed by Vancouver-headquartered MAG Silver, which develops silver mines in Mexico and has a market capitalisation of almost CAD $1.3bn (880m).

A spokesperson for Teck said it is the company's policy not to comment on "market rumours or speculation". Jaworski did not respond to a request for comment.

The project in question is the Stonepark prospect, located near the Pallas Green prospect on which mining giant Glencore has recently resumed drilling.

Over US$9m has been invested in developing Stonepark, in which Teeling's Connemara Mining has a 23.5pc working interest according to its website.

The news emerges on foot of a significant uptick in activity in the Irish zinc sector, after the metal's price has soared over the last 18 months.

Glencore had put its work in Pallas Green in abeyance for a number of years but recently moved eight rigs onto the site "to better understand certain aspects of the deposit".

A spokesman added that any decision about building a fully-fledged mine at the site was "a long way down the road".

Stonepark is located 5km away from Pallas Green.

Glencore said in 2013 that the site could potentially have as much as 42 million tonnes of recoverable resources.

Lead and zinc are present there. If that figure proves accurate, a mine there would be the second-largest in Ireland after the famous Tara mine near Navan in Meath, Europe's biggest zinc mine.

That mine is owned by Swedish company Boliden, which said earlier this year that it was investing 44m to deepen the mine and boost its lifespan by six years.

An industry source said that there are enough resources to boost the mine's lifetime by decades, but that it will depend on how the price of zinc performs over that period.

Group Eleven already has interests in the Limerick region.

Canadian-listed Hannan Metals has started drilling at a prospect in Kilbricken in Co Clare.

"Our team has worked hard to extract as much information as possible from the extensive project and regional databases that took previous explorers more than 16m to acquire ... we are wasting no time in getting a drill rig turning at this highly prospective base metal property," Hannan chief executive and chairman Michael Hudson told the market earlier this month.

In addition, Irish minerals explorer Unicorn Mineral Resources has told shareholders that it is in talks to sell itself to a Canadian-listed company, in a deal that could value it at some 7m.

It is also considering listing in Canada via a reverse takeover of a cash shell.
Q: I own a couple of apartments in Dublin city centre which I am renting out to tenants. I was hoping to use the dwelling house exemption so that those apartments could be passed onto my sons tax-free. The tenants are due to move out of the apartments soon and my sons were planning to move into an apartment each so that they would qualify for the exemption. I've heard the rules around the exemption have changed though. Will it still be possible for my sons to claim it? Martin, Drumcondra, Dublin 3

Unfortunately, the exemption that you were hoping to avail of was severely restricted last year. It now applies only to inheritances, and even then, only where the dwelling was the only or main residence of the deceased at the date of death. So it can't apply here.

Under the tax-free thresholds for Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT - also known as gift or inheritance tax), if your sons have not had any gifts from you or your wife to date, they can get gifts of up to 310,000 each from you without gift tax applying. Therefore, if each apartment is worth less than 310,000, you can still give the properties tax-free to your sons. If the apartments are worth more, the tax applies only on the excess. The current rate of gift tax is 33pc. The Finance Minister indicated that this 310,000 threshold figure will likely rise in the years ahead, so it may be worth waiting to see if this happens.

If you gift the apartments (as opposed to leaving them in your will), Capital Gains Tax (CGT) can also apply if the apartments have increased in value since they were bought. The current rate is 33pc. In this case it's worth getting expert advice.

Can we cut inheritance bill?

Q: My husband and I own a valuable family pub and farm. We're concerned about the inheritance tax bills which we could leave behind when we pass on the business and farm. In order to limit such bills, what tax reliefs should we be aware of when planning our will? Sarah, Co Kerry

There are four particularly important tax reliefs. The first two apply generally irrespective of whether there is a farm or business or not.

The first tax relief is very simple and important. Any assets left to the spouse of a deceased person are exempt from Irish inheritance tax (also known as Capital Acquisitions Tax or CAT).

The second important tax relief is the tax-free threshold for CAT - which is available to anyone who gets an inheritance. The amount one can inherit tax-free under the CAT tax-free threshold will depend on the relationship between the parties. For children inheriting or getting gifts from their parents, the amount that can be inherited tax-free is 310,000 over their lifetime. The Minister for Finance said last year that this figure might increase in future years. For inheritances between other relatives, much less can be inherited tax-free. For example, a sister can only inherit up to 32,500 tax-free from a sibling.

For farmers, a very important relief is agricultural relief. Many conditions apply to this and when they can be met, agricultural property can be valued at 10pc of its real market value for tax purposes. So a farm worth 500,000 can be taxed as if it were worth only 50,000. Also, a farmhouse or mansion house which is "of a character appropriate to the property" can be treated as agricultural property as can farm machinery and livestock.

Finally, for businesses generally, there is a relief called business property relief. This is similar to agricultural relief in that the business can be valued for tax purposes at only 10pc of its real value. Like agricultural relief, many conditions apply to this tax break. Businesses which don't qualify for the relief include those which consist wholly or mainly of one or more of the following: the making or holding of investments; or the dealing of currencies, securities, stocks or shares, land or buildings. However, unlike agricultural relief, shares in a company that owns the business can qualify for tax relief.

Is bequest liable for CGT?

Q: Do I need to be concerned about Capital Gains Tax when leaving something to someone in a will? Ed, Co Donegal

Capital Gains Tax (CGT) does not apply where assets are passed on as part of an inheritance. The person inheriting the asset is treated as if they acquired the asset at its up-to-date value.

So assets inherited can often be sold straight away and there will be no CGT. However, CGT can arise where there are delays in administering the estate and distributing the assets.

The administration of estates can sometimes takes years, and if assets have gone up in value in the meantime, a CGT bill could arise on the distribution of them. Similarly, where assets are held in companies and trusts, these entities might be subject to CGT.

Is a trust a good idea?

My husband and I run a large family business. We want to ensure we don't trigger any major family rifts when we pass on the business. Is a discretionary trust a good idea? Catherine, Athlone, Co Meath

A discretionary trust is where one or more individuals, trustees, take over temporary control of the business until a decision can be made as to who should ultimately own and control it. It is sometimes the right answer - but not always.

For instance, in your case, where you are both involved in running the business, the most obvious solution is for you to take full control and ownership if your husband dies and similarly for him to take control and ownership if you were to die. You can provide for this in your wills.

In the hopefully remote event that you both die prematurely, that's when it gets complicated.

The first problem is deciding who should own and run the business. There may be an obvious successor, maybe a grown- up child, and in that case, the recommendation would be to pass the ownership and control to that successor.

If there are other children, ideally they could be given other assets so they get their fair share of the overall estate. If there are no other assets, so that the business needs to be shared between a number of descendants, it is preferable to specify who runs it and how decisions should be taken in the event of a disagreement. If there are no obvious successors who can run the business (for example if both parents die and the children are not involved or are still small), then a discretionary trust is often used.

You have to pick one or more trusted individuals who will, as trustees, take control of the estate after the owners' death. It is safer to pick three individuals than one or two (for stability and balanced decision making).

The trustees should not have any ownership or potential ownership in the business. Their job is to mind the business and take whatever decisions are necessary in the best interests of those who will inherit the assets. Ultimately they may pass control to one or more of the beneficiaries or maybe even sell the business and distribute the proceeds.

Normally the trustees take guidance from a "letter of wishes" written by the deceased.

That letter will acknowledge that the trustees have the discretion to do what is best, but might suggest some general ideas such as that all children are treated equally, or that if after some time there is still no child interested in running the business, then it is to be sold.
'Whose pockets could be hardest hit by Britain's move to leave the EU - and what can you do to shield your finances from Brexit?'

Brexit will have a more permanent impact on Ireland than the financial crisis which rocked the country in 2008, a top economist has warned.

"The shock from Brexit won't be as deep as the 2008 financial crisis - but it will be more permanent," said Alan Ahearne, director of the Whitaker Institute in NUI Galway, and a former special adviser to the late Finance Minister Brian Lenihan. "Some people will be severely affected by Brexit while others will be relatively affected."

So whose pockets could be hardest hit by Britain's move to leave the EU - and what can you do to shield your finances from Brexit?

The workers

For most people, the biggest threat to their ability to make ends meet is the loss of a job. Now could be a good time to upskill or consider a career change - if your job is vulnerable to Brexit. Those working in agri-food and agriculture are likely to be hardest hit by Brexit, according to Ahearne.

"A lot will depend on the trade deal between the EU and the UK post-Brexit," said Ahearne. "It's possible that the barriers to trade post-Brexit will be highest in the agri-food and agriculture sectors. People in these sectors are working for businesses selling to the UK - if there were very high trade barriers or tariffs under Brexit, it would be harder for those sectors to continue to sell to Britain. So you could see a lot of layoffs and wage cuts in those businesses as a result."

Those working in traditional manufacturing jobs (such as metal products and industrial machinery) are also vulnerable to Brexit because such businesses are very dependent on Britain, according to Ahearne. Workers in agri-food, agriculture and traditional manufacturing could be in a similar position as construction workers were during the property crash, he said.

Jobs could also be lost in the trickle-down effect. "There are towns around Ireland where businesses and other activities depend a lot on people working in agri-food and agriculture," said Ahearne. "Although the people who work in shops in those towns are not selling to the UK, they are selling to people working in businesses that export to the UK - so you'll get a trickle-down effect here. During the boom, shops were selling tonnes of breakfast rolls to construction workers - so when the property downturn happened, many shops had to lay off some staff."

It's not all bad news on the jobs front though: there are likely to be more job opportunities and possibilities of better pay in financial services and IT. This is because Brexit has prompted a some big financial services companies to start relocating to Ireland - and others are expected to follow suit.

CPL Resources recently reported a big jump in the number of jobs advertised in the finance sector.

"This [increase in jobs] may well push up wages in financial services - as businesses will be competing for staff," said Ahearne.

The jobs boon however will be "very much Dublin-based", warned Ahearne. "The effects of Brexit will be very sectoral and very regional. Be wise: the more skills you have, the less you will be at risk of Brexit. There will be a huge shortage of workers in financial services and ICT - however, an individual who doesn't have skills for those jobs, or who has skills for jobs exposed to the UK, could suffer."

The pensioners

Irish residents who hold a British pension could be among the most vulnerable to Brexit. As sterling has dived since the Brexit vote, the British pensions held by Irish residents are likely to be worth less when they're converted into euro - unless sterling recovers by the time those pensions are drawn down. There are many Irish people who have a British pension because they worked - or continue to work - in Britain. About 135,000 Irish residents receive a British state pension, according to the latest available figures. It's estimated that about 70,000 of these also have a British company pension.

Should you have a British work pension which you will rely heavily on in your retirement, get advice from an independent financial adviser about what you should do with your pension.

"You may need to look at whether you should transfer your British company pension over to Ireland," said Jerry Moriarty, ceo of the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF). "A financial adviser will show you what kind of an impact a fall in sterling could have on your pension fund. Your adviser should also be able to tell you if there are any euro-based investments that would be worth transferring your money into."

Even those with Irish company pensions could see their pension income hit by Brexit - if their pension fund has a lot of exposure to British stock markets and assets. "If Britain ends up with a bad deal under Brexit and that impacts its economy, any investment which an Irish pension fund has in British stock markets could be vulnerable," said Moriarty.

Most Irish work pensions are likely to only have a small part of their pension fund in British investments - as they would typically invest in eurozone assets, according to Moriarty. Even so, if you have a company pension, ask the trustees of that scheme if the fund is exposed to British investments - and by how much.

Should you have a defined contribution scheme and only have a few years to go until you retire, it is particularly important to check where your pension savings are invested - and if necessary, to switch your money into funds or investments that are less vulnerable to Brexit.

"It's also worth asking the trustees what they're doing about the exposure to British investments - and if they're monitoring the situation," said Moriarty.

You don't have much, if any, say on how your pension is invested if you have a defined benefit (DB) scheme, as it is the trustees, in conjunction with the scheme's investment manager, who decide how the money is invested. It's still worth finding out how much exposure your DB scheme has to British investments though: poor investment could be one of the reasons a DB scheme runs out of money.

The investors

Britain's vote to leave has sent sterling into freefall since last June - and so many Irish investors with sterling-based investments have seen the value of those investments dive. Investors in British property funds have been among the worst hit as the British property market has come under pressure since Brexit. The stockbrokers Davy expects there to be more falls in the value of British residential and commercial property in the coming years.

"House prices in London are coming off significantly," said Brian O'Reilly, head of global investment strategy with Davy. "The share price of British Land [one of the largest publicly-listed British property development companies] is down about 25pc (in euro terms) since Brexit, while European equities are up 25pc."

Irish investors who are living in Ireland or elsewhere in the eurozone should have no more than 5pc to 10pc of their portfolio in sterling-based investments - whether that be stocks or property, advised O'Reilly.

"We're likely to see quite a lot of volatility in sterling in the coming years," said O'Reilly. "It's not inconceivable that we could get another significant fall in sterling in the next two years."

Having a well-diversified investment portfolio - where your money is invested in various types of investments - can also help to shield your investments from Brexit. "By holding a mix of assets like equities and bonds, investors can help insulate their investments against any negative events such as a hard Brexit," said O'Reilly.

Although investors in international shares should monitor the impact of Brexit on stock markets, such investors may not to be too badly hit by Brexit.

"Brexit won't be the primary driver of equity returns on global markets," said O'Reilly. "Ultimately, the British stock market is less than 10pc of global markets. It is the performance of the US economy - and how that performance translates into profit growth for US companies, which will have more of an impact on global stock markets. We are seeing quite a strong rebound in US and European corporate profits - and we envisage that will continue."

At risk of brexit

Tax cuts

Brexit could postpone - or put an end to -Government plans to continue to cut taxes and increase public spending. "If there's a severe or hard Brexit, the Government may not be in a position to cut taxes or increase expenditure as much as it wanted to," said the economist Alan Ahearne. "After the collapse of the property market in 2008, the Government took a lot of money out of people's pockets through tax increases. The Government's budget is not as exposed to Brexit as it was Irish construction. So while it's unlikely we'd see increases in taxation, there may be some fiscal tightening with Brexit."

Cheaper groceries

Although Irish grocery prices have fallen slightly since the Brexit vote, the weekly shop could get more expensive once Brexit goes through - depending on the trade deal negotiated by Britain with the EU. "If there's no trade deal done, you would tend to see higher tariffs on food products and clothing coming into Ireland from the UK," said Ahearne. "Customs charges would also be passed on. We'll likely see increases in the prices of food and clothes coming in from the UK as a result of such tariffs and charges." The huge competition between the Irish supermarkets could help to limit the extent to which prices might increase however. "A lot of the products we get from the UK come in through supermarket chains - so there may be pressure on supermarkets to absorb some of the costs," said Ahearne. "Supermarkets are also big enough to move suppliers - so they mind find alternative suppliers to the UK within the EU."

Consumer rights

Irish people are entitled to a raft of consumer rights when travelling within the EU. These include the right not to be charged anymore to withdraw money from an ATM machine - or to use your mobile phone - when travelling in the EU as you would at home, the right to compensation if your flight is cancelled or delayed, and the right to free or cheaper public healthcare under the European Health Insurance Card. There are concerns that consumers across Europe could see such rights diminished.

This all depends on the details of the trade negotiations. Should the EU's consumer protection rules not be carried over under Brexit, Irish people could face higher charges to use their mobile phone, and debit and credit cards, when travelling in Britain. Irish holidaymakers could also find themselves out of pocket if they are travelling in Britain and their flight is delayed or cancelled - or if they become ill or injured."

If, after Brexit, an Irish consumer returns from Britain with a non-EU airline and the flight is delayed or cancelled, he might not have rights to financial compensation anymore," said Johannes Kleis, a spokesman for the European consumer's organisation, BEUC. "At this stage, it is impossible to say if this will occur. The EU and Britain might conclude an agreement to maintain the rights which are enshrined in the existing air passenger rights regulation. There will be no changes until the UK has left the EU on March 30, 2019. But without an agreement before the end of the negotiations, existing EU consumer protections and rights might cease to exist in the UK."
Senator Lynn Ruane was elected to Seanad Eireann last year at the age of 31. She is a former president of Trinity College Dublin's Students' Union and a single mother of two from the Dublin suburb of Tallaght.

Ruane is also an ambassador for the Women for Election's crowdfunding campaign. The campaign, which has just been launched, aims to raise 50,000 to subsidise the training of 300 women to stand for election. For more information on the campaign - and how to support it, visit www.womenforelection.ie/indiegogo-campaign.

What's the most important lesson about money which your career as a senator has taught you?

I'm earning more as a senator than I've ever earned before. I've learned the advantage that such an income gives when it comes to progressing your children in education. I now have the money to invest in the likes of grinds for my eldest daughter. I feel a bit guilty about the access to education that a higher wage can buy.

What's the most expensive country you ever visited?

Of the countries I've visited, South Africa and Mexico were the most expensive to get to, while Italy - I was in Rome and Milan - was the most expensive on the ground.

What's your favourite Irish coin?

I loved the old 20p with the horse on it. I think I always wanted to have a horse when growing up. A lot of people had horses in Tallaght then.

Are you better off than your parents?

My mum and dad were both manual factory workers so I'm better off than them in terms of income. However, my parents were better off than me with property. They bought their house between 25 and 30 years ago. However, house prices today are too high for me to be able to get a mortgage to buy one.

What's the most expensive thing you have ever bought?

Either my car - which is a Ford Focus, or my laser eye surgery - which cost about 3,000.

What was your worst job?

I worked in Burger King for a summer when I was a teenager.

What was your biggest financial mistake?

Taking out a credit card when I was 21. I moved into an apartment then and, at that time, people were giving out credit cards like they were sweets. It was a big mistake to get a credit card when I didn't have the maturity to manage one.

What was your best financial killing?

I don't think I've ever had a big financial win. I won a few hundred on the Grand National a few times but never that much.

What's the most expensive thing about being a parent?

For my youngest daughter, it was childcare. For my eldest daughter, this year's grinds are expensive, and her freestyle dancing lessons and costumes were also a huge cost.

Android or iPhone?

iPhone. I like the iPhone because I have access to everything I need with it. However, I don't like its battery life.

Have you ever made an insurance claim?

Yes - after my iPhone was damaged.

iTunes or Spotify?

Spotify. I listen to music a lot when driving.

What was the last thing you bought online?

A new dress for my cousin's wedding.

Would you buy Irish property now?

I would like to, given my age and my family circumstances. I'm saving for property now.

Cash or card?

Card mostly. I like the convenience of it.

Do you ever haggle?

I'm terrible at haggling. I get embarrassed doing it!
Q: I am a senior manager in a telecommunications business and have decided to take the plunge and move careers. I am excited but a bit nervous. My last interview was 20 years ago, as I was headhunted for my current position. I am concerned that - as a person in my late 40s - I am going to stand out among the younger candidates for the role. Do you have any advice on how I should prepare?

A: I agree that you could stand out at interviews, as employers might consider you too experienced or expensive - even a little out of touch. However, don't lose sight of the things you do have that others might not - including excellent work experience, a valuable skill set, a strong network of contacts and a solid track record. The secret is to be prepared for all those issues that might be considered weaknesses and could be brought up during the interview process.

You are experienced enough to know how to create a good business case for yourself and highlight how you can move your skill set. Demonstrate your willingness to learn, to keep growing and take risks. Many candidates I meet have the same fear about their age - but I always say age should never be a factor. Focus on your strengths around your work experience and qualifications. Ask yourself truthfully 'What value can I bring to this new role' and 'Can I sell myself as an expert'?

Will they think I have less energy? We all slow down as we age. However, in the workplace, sometimes the less-experienced person can waste energy on finding a solution when a more seasoned performer may be able to offer solutions immediately. Efficiency is key, so you need to give examples of where you were able to sustain your energy levels for major projects and deliver the results.

Am I less productive? Advancing years does not mean declining work productivity. Clearly you need to demonstrate that you are innovative, you are driven and have led projects to enhance productivity. Give examples of where you have brought improvements or suggested changes to the table that had a positive impact.

Am I overqualified? If you feel they may question that fact that you are overqualified and may be using this as a stop-gap, then you may consider offering to take the role on a contract basis to bring your expertise and see how that contract works out before a permanent role is offered.

Will I work with a younger team? This is a question that you will have to feel comfortable with. Along with the idea of you reporting into someone younger, they also have to get their heads around having someone nearly as old as their parents reporting to them. The important thing to remember is that success will come from your experience and technical skills rather than the age demographic of the team.

Is my salary too high? I would not apologise for the fact that your salary now reflects the experience you have and the market demand for your particular skills. I have experienced employers asking candidates to justify the increased spend when it comes to remuneration. Ensure you can show the benefit you can bring by taking on additional responsibility, increase productivity, increase sales and drive improved results.

Will I deal with change? Some employers may think you could resist change. But you can put the case that as a more mature employee you have already adapted to many change situations successfully, eg coping through previous downturns, implementing major system changes, making a complete career transition, etc.

How will I dress? Your professional appearance is so important and you should not be trying to look half your age, as that could go against you. Look smart in up-to-date office attire.

Am I out of touch? You need to ensure that you are on top of new technology. Be active on social media and build your brand on LinkedIn, use webinars in your field of expertise and be ready to discuss new trends and tech in the market, using current vocabulary in your industry. If the interviewer is younger, try not to sound condescending when referring to your experience.

Be positive about your age and experience. Use it to your advantage, but be mindful how you approach the questions. Be sure to use contacts to open doors, give advice for your career move, or bounce ideas around for interview preparation.

Michelle Murphy is director of Collins McNicholas, Recruitment & HR Services Group, which has offices in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Sligo, Athlone and Limerick
It was just about the worst case of mistaken identity you could imagine. Some weeks ago, a man called David Murray found himself surrounded by a mob in Kildare town Monasterevin.

"I was confronted by a vigilante mob accusing me of being a convicted, notorious paedophile," he said. "I was pursued on the footpath by the people and a couple driving a car, hurling abuse at me and trying to involve other people on the street in the activity against me."

What had happened was that someone had stuck his photo up on the Facebook page of 'Kildare Now', claiming it was the face of a convicted sex offender called Anthony Luckwill. When he found out what had happened, he contacted Facebook to have the photo removed - it took him hours to get the picture pulled.

The case was widely reported, with the role of Facebook identified as a key accelerant of the damage done. The viral capacity of the service, together with the lack of apparent checks on such false information, has led to calls that services such as Facebook need to be regulated in a stricter fashion.

One person calling for such a move is the Press Ombudsman, Peter Feeney.

"Under the current arrangements the vast majority of the press is subject to independent regulation and broadcasting is subject to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland," he said last week. "Social media are, however, subject to no regulation, independent or otherwise. They should be required to develop an independent regulatory body that would offer a fair means of redress for people who believe that information about themselves posted on social media is inaccurate or misleading. If social media cannot or will not put in place such structures they should be made subject to national or international governmental oversight."

There is a kernel of common sense to what Feeney is saying. Facebook is now far, far more important and pervasive in people's lives than any media source. It has unparalleled influence in what people read, hear and see. But some of what is disseminated there is ignorant, defamatory bile. It seems somehow wrong that this power is not checked in the same apparent ways as smaller, increasingly impoverished media companies.

Thus, many are now calling for the tech giant to be reclassified - from a regulatory standpoint - in the same way as other publishers. The motion is particularly seductive to those in the media and advertising industries because they are smarting hardest from the duopoly of Facebook and Google in media advertising's new world order.

But do we really want to accord media status to companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Google?

I find this prospect a little odd.

Should YouTube get a chunk of public service broadcasting revenue? Should 'influencers' on Instagram be given seats at press conferences? Moreover, do radio and TV stations really want Facebook and Google to officially be classified on a Television Audience Measurement (TAMs) or Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) basis?

I don't mean to be facetious here. I'm merely trying to think through the logical consequences of treating Facebook as a media company. After all, it would hardly be just in enforcement or compliance terms. It's worth noting, too, this isn't really a new debate.

Rupert Murdoch and Axel Springer fumed over social media firms raiding the basis of their businesses for years. But they have eased off considerably of late because they have figured out that Facebook, Google and the rest of the internet is here to stay.

The internet is a distribution platform with scale that comes at an infinitesimal cost in comparison to traditional media workflows. That is a bedrock of today's reality: it can't be regulated away.

Unfortunately for us caught in 'legacy' media infrastructure, that is an anvil around our necks. Up to 90pc of all new digital media ad money is going to Google or Facebook this year, according to multiple industry data.

That means hollowed-out newsrooms, less time and resources for really worthwhile investigative journalism and lots of other negative effects.

There is a strong case to be made that this is not healthy, either for media or for society.

Because even though we in the 'old' media are sometimes accused of being shameless and driven by motives other than absolute objectivity, the majority of practitioners still have some sense of duty toward accuracy or an idea of society. (Even if that idea of society is not the one you or I necessarily agree with.) By contrast, Facebook is by nature apolitical, being initially based on a don't-care-either-way-as-long-as-people-see-the-ads foundation. Its reach and influence means that this is changing, with lots of announcements about measures adopted to tackle extremist content and 'fake news'. But justice or purpose were never primary motivators in its existence. This means that the same checks and balances aren't hardwired into the company's DNA, because it's not what it was set up to do.

Thus, 'fake news' might be described as a problem Facebook is trying (hard) to solve for tactical and political reasons rather than existential ones. That said, the problem for those calling for stricter regulation on Facebook is that the damage hasn't yet been overwhelmingly demonstrated. Put simply, it is still premature to convincingly argue that Mark Zuckerberg constitutes a more malign influence to society than Paul Dacre.

This is not to minimise what happened to David Murray in Kildare in any way. He deserves significant recourse in some way for his pain. But if I were him, I might feel more justice from a quicker, more accessible defamation system than some new regulatory mechanism.

That, though, may be just as unpalatable to journalists, especially given how hamstrung many feel they are by existing defamation laws.

Ultimately, firms like Facebook need to achieve (and maintain) a high degree of cultural citizenship. It's not clear that this will be delivered with regulatory solutions from a 20th century playbook.
Businessman Terry Clune is in negotiations with a number of major US banks about a new product that could revolutionise the international money-transfer market.

TransferMate, a subsidiary of Clune's Taxback Group, has already transferred more than 10bn for a range of large corporate and university clients since it was set up five years ago, he told the Sunday Independent.

It has just invested 20m in securing global licences around the world and in every US state, as well as in technology to establish a new payment product aimed at major corporate clients.

The new service will cut out expensive interbank transfers by using TransferMate bank accounts in each country.

Clune financed the investment from his own resources and has ruled out any need for a flotation or other equity raising by the Taxback Group. The companies that make up the group are growing at, on average, 25pc to 35pc per annum.

TransferMate, co-founded by former PwC employee Sinead Fitzmaurice, is currently partnering with a range of international banks.

The new partnerships with the rapidly-growing Irish company will cut the cost of international payments for customers, make often lengthy transactions instant and provide banks with a new revenue stream, he said.

"There's two schools of thought in fintech, one is to be a total disrupter, the other is to partner," said Clune. "We're in early-stage partnership talks with banks around the world, including one significant domestic Irish bank, several in the UK and three top 20 US banks."
Desmond FitzGerald, the father of former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, himself a poet, called on James Joyce in Paris after the publication of Joyce's Ulysses. He promised Joyce that he would propose to the Irish government, of which he was a member, that it should nominate Joyce for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Joyce later commented to his brother Stanislaus that such a proposal could lead to FitzGerald losing his portfolio - and in fact, Joyce was never nominated for the Nobel Prize.

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Some cemeteries around the world have become major tourist centres due to the graves of famous people. One thinks of Oscar Wilde at Pere-Lachaise, Paris, or Shakespeare in Stratford, England.

Glasnevin Cemetery, in Dublin, is making great strides to become such a centre. However, it lacks what is termed in the business as a gold-plated grave which would immediately be recognised worldwide.

There is one such grave in Ireland - that of WB Yeats, at Drumcliffe, Co Sligo. Ironically, when Yeats's body was repatriated to Ireland from France in 1948, an opportunity arose for a brief period, to repatriate the remains of an even more famous Irish writer back to Glasnevin cemetery - those of James Joyce.

When Joyce died in Zurich in January 1941, his family had to borrow the price of his funeral - in a small grave which could accommodate only one coffin.

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Sean Lester, the Geneva-based secretary-general of the League of Nations (who had a long meeting with Joyce just a month before his death), asked Frank Cremin, the Irish charge d'affaires in Zurich, to represent Ireland at the funeral. He did not attend - apparently under instruction from de Valera's government - and Lord Derwent, the British minister in Berne, was the main speaker at Joyce's graveside in Fluntern cemetery.

Derwent said: "George Moore is gone; Yeats is gone; and now Joyce. But of one thing I am sure - whatever be the rights and wrongs of the relations between England and Ireland, I know Ireland will continue to take the finest and most ironical revenge on us; she will go on giving us great men of letters."

When the story of Yeats's repatriation to Ireland became public in 1948, Joyce's wife Nora hoped that her husband's body might also be repatriated to the Joyce family grave in Glasnevin. But the opportunity was allowed to pass.

Sean MacBride was Minister of External Affairs and had close personal and familial relationships with Yeats. He represented his mother Maud Gonne MacBride, at the service in Drumcliffe.

Joyce, despite spending his life writing about Dublin and Dubliners, was still infra dig in Ireland as the writer of immoral books.

This was in spite of his close relationship with one of the founders of the modern Irish State, Arthur Griffith, who had defended Joyce against censorship and who, in recognition of their dual mission to free the Irish people spiritually, politically and economically, was featured throughout Joyce's magnum opus Ulysses.

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The opportunity of repatriation passed - and left a sense of bitterness with Nora Joyce and her family.

Another loss resulted when one of Joyce's most famous manuscripts Finnegans Wake was lost to the British Museum. The manuscript was sent by Joyce to his patron Harriet Weaver in various stages over many years. She was appointed his executor after his death.

Speaking of the vast number of pages of manuscript she had accumulated over the years, Miss Weaver said: "There was no arrangement whatever between Mr Joyce and myself about this. He just took to sending them and I kept safely whatever came to me."

She intended to present the manuscript to the National Library of Ireland.

Sean MacBride, still Minister of External Affairs, was moved to write an ingratiating letter to Nora Joyce telling her that the Irish government was proud to call James Joyce one of the greatest Europeans of all time and also a son of Ireland.

This cut little ice with the recipient.

In fact, when Nora Joyce heard of the intention to donate the manuscript to the National Library of Ireland, she objected and insisted that it be given to the British Museum.

This has since become one of the most famous objet d'arts in the world, drawing vast numbers of visitors to the British Museum each year.

Luckily for Ireland, Miss Weaver was adamant that the National Library of Ireland would receive the manuscript of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

She wrote to Dr RJ Hayes, director of the National Library, thus: "I did not discuss with Mrs Joyce the disposal of the manuscript of A Portrait which Mr Joyce gave to me a long time ago.

I should like to give this to the National Library of Ireland, if you would care to have it. It really is a fair copy made for the typist and without corrections.

"I should also be pleased to give you for the library - and I think Lucia Joyce would be pleased too - the wonderful illuminated initial letters she made (urged on by her father) for the Chaucer ABC."

Miss Weaver presented the manuscript of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to the Irish Ambassador in London, FH Boland (himself the father of another poet, Eavan Boland) for transmission to the National Library, in Dublin.

Anthony J Jordan's new biography, James Joyce Unplugged, is published by westportbooks@yahoo.co.ie
Simon Delaney has said his late mother would have loved to see him make his debut on Manchester-based soap opera Coronation Street, as she was one of the programme's biggest fans.

The Irish actor took up a role in Corrie earlier this summer and appeared on our screens last week.

However, Delaney, who plays jewellery salesman Phil on the soap, said it would have been a very proud moment for his mum Margaret.

The actor lost his mum 28 years ago.

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Speaking to The Irish Sun, Delaney said: "My mother, God bless her, she loved Corrie. I think she would have cried for a week after seeing me on it. She died in 1989 before I'd even done Oklahoma in the local school hall.

"My dad died seven years later. I know they'd both be so happy about me being on Corrie."

Earlier this week, the actor said he is enjoying his time in Weatherfield but said he hopes writers don't pair his character up with disaster-stricken Gail Platt.

"I draw the line at some things. A chef I'll play, but Gail Tilsley's lover? Nah."
A free press is something we often take for granted in Ireland. The media should always hold power to account. Sometimes, that makes life uncomfortable for governments, for politicians and for corporations. So they should. Power needs to be held to account. To do so, we need a vibrant and thriving democracy, regulations to outlaw wrongdoing, and a healthy and free media. The media, at its best, serves as a watchdog for the public - that is why freedom of expression matters.

When the courts award enormous damages against a publication, this can have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

In 2004, this is what we saw happen. A serious defamation published back then resulted in an award of more than 1.8m to Monica Leech in the High Court. An appeal to the Supreme Court saw this reduced to 1.25m - still an enormous sum.

Now, nobody argues that a wrong was not done to Monica Leech. She was subjected to, as the European Court of Human Rights has found, an "unusually salacious campaign". She won her defamation case, and good luck to her.

What is at issue though, is the amount she was awarded. The award in this case seems to have set a new high-water mark for defamation awards. And it might have had an upward pull effect on other cases - dragging awards in Irish courts out of line with those across Europe, and potentially making our media more cautious. While that might initially sound attractive to some of us, in truth that is the last thing we need.

The law was substantially reformed since 2004, by the Defamation Act 2009. The aim of this Act was to update Irish defamation law, taking account of the relevant domestic and European Convention jurisprudence.

It was also the bizarre moment at which Fianna Fail decided that it needed to legislate against blasphemy, as if that were a pressing crime that we needed fresh legislation in relation to.

There were welcome aspects to the new Defamation Act. It changed the law to allow the parties in a defamation case to make submissions to the court in relation to damages. And it also permitted the trial judge to give directions to the jury in relation to damages. Had this Act been in force before to the Monica Leech case, it is unlikely that Independent News & Media would have found itself having to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

But the 2009 Act didn't fix all our problems in practice. Many argue that judges still do not give sufficiently detailed directions in relation to damages to juries. We might at least hope that the decision of the European Court earlier this week will bring about some change to that practice. And the award in that case is no longer likely to feature in guidance to juries on future cases. But the unpredictability of awards remains another concern. Publishers in Ireland find themselves in a position that they don't, and can't, know what amounts they might be found liable to pay. Even to the level of whether an award might run to thousands, or whether it might run to hundreds of thousands.

Under the European Convention on Human Rights Act, which the Oireachtas passed in 2003, our domestic laws must be interpreted and applied in a manner consistent with our obligations under the European Convention. So, this week's decision from the European Court is a binding part of the jurisprudence that must be applied by our courts in future cases. But that may not be enough. We may need to demonstrate as a country that we have taken specific and concrete steps to protect freedom of expression in Ireland.

Last November, the Department of Justice started a long-delayed review of the 2009 Act. The outcome of that review is going to provide our best opportunity to make it clear that freedom of expression is a value that we cherish as a nation.

We should be looking at better ways to deal with more cases outside the court system; whether we need a cap on general damages in defamation cases; and the application of laws dating from the era of print media to the online world.

Above all else, the review needs to make sure that the watchdog keeps watching us. The public depends on it.

Brendan Howlin is the Leader of the Labour Party
When police officers investigating the sale of fake goods swooped on an open-air market in the North, they were quickly drawn to a modest stall selling cosmetics by the luxury French brand Clarins.

They arrested the stallholder because they thought the goods, which were being sold at hard-to-believe prices, were counterfeits.

The officers called in an expert from the Paris-headquartered firm to test the products, which retail for up to 100 per item, and were told that the goods were actually the real thing, so the PSNI did not proceed with a prosecution. However, the investigation in the North led to further inquiries by gardai south of the border over the source of the Clarins stock.

Last Thursday Dublin man Joseph Walshe (49) was sentenced to two-and-half years in prison, with the final year suspended, after it emerged he stole the Clarins products from his employer Nevinar Cosmetics and sold them on.

Gardai were led to him after they discovered Nevinar had the exclusive distribution rights in Ireland for Clarins products, the court heard.

Walshe, a businessman and socialite also known as Jody, was the general manager responsible for stock control at Nevinar when he stole the goods between November 2009 and December 2011.

In total, the stolen goods had a retail value of 725,000.

Nevinar is a major cosmetics distributor that was set up in Ireland 30 years ago by Jerry Hickey (87), who was the main witness in Walshe's trial.

Prosecuting barrister Anne Rowland told the court Walshe, of Carrickmines Dale, Carrickmines Wood, Dublin, had been convicted of 10 counts of theft in April.

The court heard Walshe ordered certain amounts of stock to be released from the warehouse and sold this to a UK-based wholesaler, who believed Walshe was acting on behalf of Nevinar.

The buyer paid for the products by transferring money into what turned out to be Walshe's personal bank account.

Walshe had ordered the products to be released under procedures used to liberate stock for marketing or training purposes, or for the removal of faulty items.

The court heard he made orders that were significantly in excess of normal levels.

The 10 counts on which Walshe was convicted saw him receive just over 200,000 for products with a retail value of more than 725,000. The company had paid 181,582 for the products.

Walshe, who is married with four children, was supported by his family, friends and colleagues at his sentencing at Dublin's Circuit Criminal Court. Many of them were in tears when the verdict was delivered.

In a letter to the court, Walshe's wife described him as a "wonderful and supportive husband", an "amazing father" and a man of "passion, honesty, trust and integrity".

More than 40 people, many of whom attended the sentencing hearing, provided testimonials in his favour.

Walshe has worked at a firm giving support to people with complex health needs since he quit his Nevinar job.

Defence barrister John D Fitzgerald said his client accepted the verdict.

Mr Fitzgerald added that Walshe, who volunteers extensively with charities, had expressed guilt and shame and offered to pay Mr Hickey the 181,582 in full.

Mr Hickey indicated that he did not wish to receive the money but Judge Pauline Codd ruled Walshe must repay his former boss.

Judge Codd added that Mr Hickey could nominate a charity to receive the money but if he does not wish to do so, then it will go to the St Vincent de Paul Society.
The European Court of Human Rights is an unusual beast. At a guess, many people might think it has something to do with the EU, but find it difficult to say exactly what it does, or how important it is. Some people would probably consider it to be a bit like the European Court of Justice, but with more soul.

In fact, the European Court of Human Rights is not an EU body, but an international court with a very specific function; it protects and promotes adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty drawn up more than 60 years ago by European countries still recovering from the ravages of World War II. Human rights were still a fairly new concept back then, and the idea was to create a court where people could find protection if their rights were being trampled on by their state. Upholding the convention was seen as vital to reviving and strengthening democracy across Europe, after a conflict in which democratic norms had been so violently uprooted.

The link between human rights and preserving democratic processes runs right through the decisions of the European Court on Human Rights, especially when it comes to consider how journalism functions in European countries. In the era of fake news, cooked up twitterstorms and dodgy partisan news websites, the need for a reasoned view on whether real journalism is allowed to be practised has never been greater.

The decision last week by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Independent Newspapers v Ireland is a milestone on the long road toward libel reform in Ireland.

The case arose from a series of articles in the Evening Herald about Monica Leech, a public relations consultant who worked for the then environment minister Martin Cullen. She said the articles defamed her.

In 2009, a High Court jury agreed and awarded her 1.87m in damages - the largest award to that date. On appeal, the Supreme Court reduced the award to 1.25m. In the Supreme Court, Judge Elizabeth Dunne said it was a very serious defamation, but added: "I do not think it could be classed as one of the most serious libels to come before the courts."

These were dramatic words for everyone in the news-publishing business. If 1.25m could be awarded for a libel that was "not one of the most serious libels", where on earth was the top of the scale?

Part of the problem has been that while laws should always be predictable, in practice the result of a libel case is impossible to forecast in Ireland because a jury decides not just the verdict, but also the level of damages. This difficulty has long been known; in 1970s Britain the jury foreman in a case brought by the Kojak actor Telly Savalas said he and his fellow jurors went into the jury room "with not the remotest idea what compensation is paid for anything except perhaps a dented boot and wing; haloes are outside our normal terms of reference. Apparently that is why we were asked". Nor did the law permit much guidance from the judge, as has been the case here, too.

In a later case involving Elton John, the judge felt sorry for jurors trying to figure out awards, saying "they were in the position of sheep loosed on an unfenced common, with no shepherd". English law later took away the automatic right to a jury.

After the Supreme Court awarded Ms Leech 1.25m the newspaper group appealed the amount of the award to the European Court of Human Rights, on the basis that a legal regime which permitted inordinately large and unpredictable payouts to successful plaintiffs must be in breach of Article 10 of the European Convention, which protects freedom of expression.

In practical terms, the unpredictability of jury awards had a strong and continuous chilling effect on news media, the group argued, and this was especially true in Ireland because many news outlets were small and could be put out of business by a big award.

The vibrancy of democracy was at risk if this happened. In addition, such substantial awards were out of kilter with the norms elsewhere, such as the ceiling of about 275,000 (315,000) for serious libels in Britain. (Even this is a relatively high figure: according to the International Press Institute, libel awards in the Netherlands reach up to 5,000 and plaintiffs in Sweden can expect no more than 15,000, while a cap of some 50,000 applies in Austria, and Portugal's largest award was 75,000.)

Defending the regime, the Irish Government argued that the effect of the defamation on Ms Leech and her family had been enormous (and in breach of the convention's guarantee of respect for private and family life) and that the media should know that such libels would lead to big awards.

Genuine public-interest journalism was well protected by the law, the Government said. As to whether awards in the High Court should be set by a jury, the Government pointed out that the Defamation Act of 2009 retained this feature, so this must reflect the recent view of the Dail on the issue.

In its judgment, the court said it accepted as a matter of principle that large awards could have a chilling effect on journalism. It went on to consider whether the Irish system had safeguards in place to prevent unjustified interference with freedom of expression. The way the trial judge had sought to guide the jury on damages, by telling them to bear in mind the cost of living and to be fair but not too generous, was in line with what was permitted at the time but left him making vague generic comments and was obviously an ineffective safeguard, the court said. It would be better to give clear and specific directions, it said, and it was pleased to hear that more detailed directions were permissible under the 2009 Act.

As to whether the Supreme Court appeal could be called an effective safeguard, the European court saw a real problem here: the Supreme Court had not really explained how it arrived at a figure of 1.25m (one of its judges had even said 1m should be enough). It would have been better to give comprehensive reasons, the European court said, so that the judgment could serve as a benchmark in future cases.

Ultimately, the European court found that the Irish libel regime did breach the convention's Article 10 guarantee of freedom of expression. It offered the newspaper group only 20,000 towards legal costs, however. The court argued - somewhat thinly - that it did not want to get involved in awarding compensation because this would mean second-guessing what the damages figure might have been if proper safeguards had been in place.

Nonetheless, the decision must be seen as a significant development in Irish libel law. In effect, the Irish Government's arguments failed to persuade Europe's human rights watchdog that freedom of expression has been properly protected in this country.

Coming as it does during a period when the Department of Justice is reviewing the Defamation Act 2009, the decision will be an important influence on the thinking that goes into the planned reforms of that legislation.

John Maher is a barrister specialising in media law.
It's an experience that many dream of having, but what is it really like to go inside the millionaire's room at National Lottery HQ?

Each year, dozens of people walk in the door of National Lottery HQ, Abbey Street, only to emerge a short time later with a fortune of thousands or even millions under their belt, and the knowledge that their lives have changed forever.

The millionaire's room, also known as the winner's room, is located on the third floor of the building. Upon arrival, the winner is taken to the room after ringing to say they'll be stopping by. They're then treated to champagne, tea, coffee or whatever refreshment they choose, while celebrating with friends and family - or sometimes on their own.

While in the room, which is decorated with cream leather couches and features a spotlight ceiling, the winner is shown a video presented by Craig Doyle, advising them on how to handle their new fortune.

PR and Communications Manager with Premier Lotteries Ireland, Miriam Donohue told Independent.ie some of the stories that have stuck with her over the past year, including one of a Dublin woman who got her winning sum very wrong.

Watch the full video below to experience the room (hopefully not for the only time) and hear some of Ms Donohue's best stories.
An unconscious teenager had to be airlifted out of the water this afternoon.

The boy was plucked from the water in Youghal, Co. Cork this afternoon in a medical emergency.

A spokesman for The Irish Coast Guard confirmed to Independent.ie that Waterford Rescue Helicopter 117 was alerted to the incident at 1:45pm.

The teen was rushed to Cork University Hospital and his condition is unknown.
Newly appointed Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty has given the first clear indication that she intends to fight for an increase in the old age pension during this year's budget negotiations.

Ms Doherty told the Sunday Independent her priority in the new ministry was to protect the interest of pensioners who "invested in the State and have us where we are today".

"The crucial thing for me is that they can't get a part-time job on a Saturday. They get their weekly pension and that's it. The only people who can make their lives better is the State," the minister added.

The Sunday Independent last year revealed how Fianna Fail intended to force the Government to increase the pension by at least 5 a week.

The pension was increased by 5 but the payment only came into effect in March, so pensioners missed out on the pension hike for two months.

Yesterday, Fianna Fail's social protection spokesman Willie O'Dea said he would again be pushing for an increase in the weekly pension when budget negotiations started later this year.

Expand Close Willie O'Dea is a Fianna Fail TD for Limerick city. Photo: Tom Burke / Facebook

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Whatsapp Willie O'Dea is a Fianna Fail TD for Limerick city. Photo: Tom Burke

"Fine Gael has a commitment in their election manifesto to increase the pension by up to 30 a week during their term in Government, so there will have to be further real increases for pensioners this year," Mr O'Dea told the Sunday Independent.

The Limerick TD said the increase last year amounted to around 3.75 a week over the year because the then social protection minister, Leo Varadkar, insisted on delaying the payment until March to allow increases in other benefits.

"The blows pensioners have suffered since the savage cuts from 2011 to 2016 haven't been even nearly addressed - they have only barely scratched the surface," Mr O'Dea added.

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Ms Doherty said our ageing population means her department would need additional budget funding even before pension increases couldn't be considered, but insisted she was anxious to protect the interests of older people.

"The most important job is to make sure I look after the vulnerable people of Ireland who have nobody to look after them except me or the department.

"I need more money and the department needs more money in order to invest in those vulnerable people.

"I definitely need to look after the people who have invested in this State and who have fixed-rate incomes and they are our old age pensioners," she added.

"There are very vulnerable sections of our community. There are people who are on illness and disability pensions as well as those on non-contributory old age pensioner and contributory old age pensioners.

"They do need to be minded because they have no other income.

"Other people in that bracket who receive maternity benefit or children's allowance or any other social welfare have the opportunity to increase their weekly income. The people I'm talking about have no opportunity.

"If you are on an illness benefit pension you are never going to work one day a week.

"If you're on disability, you are not going to work. They are the vulnerable people who have no recourse to work to increase their income," she said.

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In March, the State pension was increased by 5 to 227 per week. All other social welfare payments, including the job seeker's allowance, were also increased following tough budget negotiations between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

The Christmas bonus payment for social welfare recipients was restored to 85pc. All these measures cost the State around 300m.

The 880m public sector pay deal recently agreed by Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has greatly reduced the amount of funding available for investment in other areas or for tax cuts.
The Press Council of Ireland called for the introduction of a regulatory system for social media after an innocent man was falsely accused of being a sex offender on Facebook.

Last month a member of the public posted a photograph of David Murray on the KildareNow Facebook page and said that the image was that of Anthony Luckwell, a man convicted of sexual offences against children.

As a result Mr Murray was forced to hide in a pub until gardai could escort him away.

Mr Murray approached the KildareNow Facebook page to seek a retraction of the post, which was later removed. Tthe Press Council condemned the 'appalling treatment' of Mr Murray. Although Mr Murray decided not to pursue defamation proceedings against KildareNow, he did want to make a formal complaint about the publication.

Membership of the Press Council is voluntary - although all national newspapers, local newspapers and a range of magazines and news websites are members. KildareNow is not a member, therefore the council could not investigate the complaint. Facebook and other social media sites don't fall under the principles of the Press Council.

The council called for the introduction of a regulatory system for social media, saying such sites "should be required to develop an independent regulatory body that would offer a fair means of redress for people who believe that information about themselves posted on social media is inaccurate or misleading. "If social media cannot or will not put in place such structures, they should be made subject to national and/or international governmental oversight".
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Thirty babies were born in the small village of Rathmullan in Co. Donegal

More than 30 children were born in the small Donegal village Rathmullan in 2016 (North West Newspix)

A seaside village in Donegal with just 550 residents is celebrating the incredible arrival of 30 babies born within the space of just a year.

Residents of Rathmullan are perplexed at the baby boom experienced by the village in 2016, which saw 15 baby boys and 15 baby girls born between February and December.

Expand Close Six month old Carter McKinley and his mum Kelly with some of the other parents who had babies in 2016 in the small Donegal town of Rathmullan. Carter was born on 22nd December. (North West Newspix) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Six month old Carter McKinley and his mum Kelly with some of the other parents who had babies in 2016 in the small Donegal town of Rathmullan. Carter was born on 22nd December. (North West Newspix)

Ten of the tots were welcomed in July and August, which has left the community speculating as to whether the long winter nights could have something to do with the influx of babies, while others believe "there must be something in the water".

Village administrator Katrina Tasker said the new arrivals have really boosted the community.

"It must have been all those dark, winter nights and the celebrations at Christmas because five babies were born in July and five more in August."

"Last year we just noticed that there were so many bumps appearing around town. When we sat down and thought about it, we decided to count them all up, and actually discovered that 30 babies had been born between February and December which is amazing because it's such a small place," she said.

Expand Close Thirty babies were born in the small village of Rathmullan in Co. Donegal / Facebook

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Whatsapp Thirty babies were born in the small village of Rathmullan in Co. Donegal

The village welcomed two babies in February, one in March, one in April, two in May, two in June, five in July, five in August, three in September, one in October, three in November, and five in December.

Mum Laura Edwards, who gave birth to her third child Kate in November, said she was the 26th woman to announce her pregnancy in the village between June 2015 and March 2016.

The mum, who is originally from Dublin, said: "It's all a bit mad! When I told one of my friends at my son's school that I was pregnant, she said 'You're the 26th person this year.' I'd say there might have been something in the water. Two of my friends and I had our babies within three weeks of each other. We all had boys in the past, but the three of us had girls this time around which was funny."

A special ceremony was held on Father's Day to mark the unusual baby boom, and all thirty children gathered together with their parents for a Vintage Tea Party in the village's District Resort Centre.

Expand Close Some of the fathers and their babies who were all born in 2016 in the small Donegal town of Rathmullan. (North West Newspix) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Some of the fathers and their babies who were all born in 2016 in the small Donegal town of Rathmullan. (North West Newspix)

"It was such a lovely afternoon but the babies all got a little tired at the end. The whole thing is just hilarious," said mum Laura.
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Brendan OConnor Opinion The jig is up as Feis fixing has former winners like me reeling

As the holder of the Marie Cranny Perpetual cup for Extempore and Public Speaking (Under 15s) in Feis Maitiu in, of all years, 1984, I would like to use this platform to say this feis-fixing scandal has sullied my legacy, and that of all other holders of the cup down the years (you had to give it back at the end of the year).
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Dan O'Brien Opinion While we catastrophise about Covid, we ignore risk of running out of cash

We Irish view the world in an increasingly strange and unhealthy way. We catastrophise about Covid in a way other European countries do not. We focus on how bad the effects of the virus could get, on how many more restrictions might be imposed by Government and how helpless we are in the face of the virus.
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Gene Kerrigan Opinion Fr Sean Sheehy is the voice of Irelands dead and unmourned past

At first, it seemed a bit mad. A bishop and a priest squaring up for a bout of ecclesiastical fisticuffs. A turbulent priest in Listowel, Co Kerry, took to the altar and spouted out of him about gays, contraception, abortion and transgender matters. He left us in no doubt that he alone has the courage to denounce this sinful carry-on.
In 20 years of reporting on the formation of governments, I have yet to witness an occasion when all have been entirely pleased with the choices made by any Taoiseach.

It is similar on this occasion, after Leo Varadkar opted not for wholesale but for piecemeal changes which reflected caution, some would say a responsible attitude, to retain the experienced Frances Fitzgerald and Charlie Flanagan, two capable ministers, albeit in different departments at a time when younger TDs expected advancement.

I must admit to having some foresight into the new Taoiseach's thinking. After his election as Fine Gael leader, he told me that it was "not the right time (just yet) for wholescale generational change", it being only a year into the Government.

Of course, Varadkar had also individually promised to retain most of the outgoing Cabinet in return for support in the leadership contest. In doing so, he won that contest but has also limited his room for manoeuvre.

Will he rue the day? He has implicitly held out the promise of generational change after the next election, but it may be that Varadkar has missed an opportunity to present a fresh Government in keeping with his projected image as a leader in the 'new European centre' and that Micheal Martin will get to form the next Government.

That's politics. Certainly my Fianna Fail sources were more relieved than expected after the Cabinet was announced.

*******

Whether by accident or design, the likelihood is the former, the appointment of Mary Mitchell O'Connor to Cabinet with responsibility for higher education, I would argue, is a signal that Varadkar intends to develop that new centre.

When she calms down, Mitchell O'Connor will come to realise she has been presented with a wonderful opportunity. There was surprise when Enda Kenny appointed her Minister for Enterprise and Jobs, with her having a background in education. There is less surprise that she has now been demoted to a position more in keeping with her experience.

However, should Varadkar be true to his stated intention to develop a "new" centre, he must resist his instincts and commit to the pursuit of ethos and excellence in education, where the formation of character and culture should be more primary than a sole focus on social mobility so beloved of liberals. A good start might be a close examination of the Technical Universities Bill to safeguard the traditionally broader missions of Institutes of Technology which are widely regarded to have a lesser status than universities.

*******

In the absence of any real excitement on the election of Varadkar and his Cabinet, one of the more interesting aspects of the week was Martin's description of Enda Kenny as an "Irish patriot" upon his resignation as Taoiseach.

The description raised a few eyebrows in the Dail, not least among certain Fianna Fail TDs who recalled Eamon Gilmore's charge of "economic treason" against Brian Cowen, from which he subsequently somewhat resiled but not entirely.

I am given to understand that Martin's intention was also to highlight what he regards to be the misappropriation of the term "patriot" by Sinn Fein. True to form, as he spoke in the Dail, the Sinn Fein TD John Brady tweeted: "Micheal Martin has described Enda Kenny as an Irish Patriot. Surely he meant to say Irish Parrot, as he ain't a patriot."

Martin returned to this the next day to which Brady again tweeted: "Micheal Martin not happy with me for disagreeing with him thinking Enda is an Irish Patriot. Tone, Pearse, Farrell, Sands were, Enda isn't."

The Farrell referred to is, presumably, Mairead Farrell, the twice-jailed Provo who met her death on 'active service' in Gibraltar and who in 1981 stood for election to the Dail in Cork North Central, polling 6pc of the vote, a relatively meagre return given the emotionally charged atmosphere at the time related to the H Block hunger strikes.

Farrell was subsequently described thus by the New York Times: "To the people of Falls Road, she was a patriot. To the British, she was a terrorist. To her family, she was a victim of Irish history."

It raises an interesting question as to what is a patriot. The standard dictionary definition reads "love of one's country", which nobody can deny of Kenny. Less narrow definitions include: a special affection for one's own country; a sense of personal identification with the country; special concern for the well-being of the country and a willingness to sacrifice to promote the country's good.

At issue here is that many fail to distinguish between the term "nationalist" and "patriot", a distinction which begs serious moral questions, a failing we might ascribe to John Brady.

Personally, I am inclined to go with George Orwell, who contrasted the two in terms of 'aggressive' versus 'defensive' attitudes.

According to Orwell, nationalism is about power: its adherent wants to acquire as much power and prestige as possible for his nation, in which he submerges his individuality.

While nationalism is accordingly aggressive, patriotism is defensive: it is a devotion to a particular place and a way of life one thinks best, but has no wish to impose on others.

To answer the question then, and in response to a recent correspondent from Co Mayo, by the standard of George Orwell, I could not take issue with the assessment of Martin that Kenny was a patriot.

Nor do I believe the word "treason" should be remotely associated with Brian Cowen.

*******

Patriot or not, Kenny was also a flawed politician. The final moments of his departure betrayed his flaws.

As he walked out of the door, he could not resist the urge to pull one more stroke, the proposed appointment of his Attorney General Maire Whelan to the Court of Appeal. She is now under pressure to stand aside, or Stepaside as Shane Ross might say. Kenny and Whelan were both part of the sequence of events in the shabby affair that surrounded Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan and, subsequently, Alan Shatter. Curiously, Kenny reappointed this "alarmist" Labour lawyer for his second term, a decision that raised eyebrows in the Dail and Law Library, particularly as she was reappointed in the face of the findings of the Fennelly Commission, her evidence to which she had modified.

They say that all Taoisigh and Attorneys General develop a loyal relationship. This seems particularly so in the case of Kenny and Whelan. The wonder is why. As for Ross, the man who built two careers on the argument that legal cronyism is as bad as political cronyism of the kind he used to rail against: He doth protest too much. The re-opening of Stepaside Garda station brings to an end all that. To quote from his website: "Irish public life is cursed by crony politics..." To which we can only add, the prophet of political correctness stands exposed.

*******

Much has been said and written since the outcome of the election in the UK, but few have assessed the result as interestingly as The Guardian journalist Paul Mason who can be regarded, I suppose, as something of a latter day Orwell.

These days Mason describes himself as a "radical Social Democrat", having moved to an extent from his Trotskyist past. He remains a strong advocate of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. Last week he wrote: "The hard Brexit path creates a permanent crisis, permanent austerity and a permanent set of enemies - namely Brussels and social democracy. It is the perfect petri dish for the fungus of financial speculation to grow. But the British people saw through it. Corbyn's advance was not simply a result of energising the Labour vote. It was delivered by an alliance of ex-Ukip voters, Greens, first-time voters and tactical voting by the liberal centrist salariat."

His reference to liberal, centrist, salaried, white-collar workers is relevant. In general, much of what has been said about the resurgence of old Labour under Corbyn is wide of the mark. He was still a significant 70 seats short of a majority, and without support in the centre ground, he will never bridge that chasm.

That said, I agree with the assessment that Theresa May's hard Brexit strategy, which would recast Britain as the global Singapore, persuaded the liberal centrist salariat to tactically abandon the Tories. It is doubtful they will stay with Corbyn, however.

Indeed, I believe there is now an opportunity, or at least a possibility, that a new political movement can emerge in the UK, not unlike Macron's En Marche in France, comprising red Conservatives and blue Labour, perhaps with a few Liberal Democrats thrown in, an eventual outcome that may bring something of a much-needed settlement to politics there.

Meanwhile, Varadkar has the makings of a crisis on his desk, thanks to Kenny and his special relationship with Whelan. Who will rid him of these turbulent priests?
Catherine, 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 June 17, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Prince George of Cambridge looks on from the balcony ahead of the annual Trooping The Colour parade at the Mall on June 17, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage)

Catherine, 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 June 17, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge look on from the balcony during the annual Trooping The Colour parade

Princess Charlotte of Cambridge and Prince George of Cambridge look on from the balcony during the annual Trooping The Colour parade at the Mall on June 17, 2017 in London, England.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Catherine, 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 June 17, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Catherine, 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 June 17, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Prince William looks cranky on the balcony of Buckingham Palace following Trooping the Colour on June 1, 1988 in London, England.

Queen Elizabeth II with (from left) Princess Margaret, Princess Alexandra, Lord Frederick Windsor, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Lady Gabriella Windsor, Prince Phillip, Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, in front are Prince Harry and Prince William, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace at the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London on June 11, 1988. (Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images)

Diana, Princess Of Wales, Holding A Young Prince Harry In Her Arms As She Watches Trooping The Colour With Prince William

The old photos show cheeky Prince Harry sticking his tongue out at the event

Princess Charlotte seems to have inherited her smiles from her uncle Prince Harry, pictured here in 1988

Prince William (left) pictured in 1988 at the RAF flypast; Prince George (right) pictured on Saturday

Poor Prince George looked like he'd rather have been anywhere else on Saturday as he appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, but it turns out he isn't the first royal to be unimpressed with the Royal Air Force proceedings.

Amusing images of Prince William from 1988's celebration emerged following Saturday's event and it seems clear that young Prince George might have inherited his impatience from his dear old dad.

Expand Close Prince William (left) pictured in 1988 at the RAF flypast with his mum Princess Diana and brother Prince Harry; Prince George (right) pictured on Saturday with his mum the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge / Facebook

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Whatsapp Prince William (left) pictured in 1988 at the RAF flypast with his mum Princess Diana and brother Prince Harry; Prince George (right) pictured on Saturday with his mum the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

In the old photos, Prince William is holding his head in his hands as he awaits the RAF flypast to begin, a pose replicated by his eldest son 29 years on.

In the images, the Duke of Cambridge is joined by his brother Prince Harry, and his parents Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and of course his grandparents Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

Princess Charlotte seemed to be in better spirits than her older brother at Saturdays celebrations, smiling for the crowd assembled at Buckingham Palace. The two-year-old princess seems to have inherited her smiles from her uncle Prince Harry.

On Saturday, Prince George and Princess Charlotte stole the attention away from their great-granny Queen Elizabeth during a celebration of her 91st birthday, as the pair appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to mark the occasion.

Expand Close Princess Charlotte seems to have inherited her smiles from her uncle Prince Harry, pictured here in 1988 / Facebook

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Whatsapp Princess Charlotte seems to have inherited her smiles from her uncle Prince Harry, pictured here in 1988

The royal siblings joined their mum and dad, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, their great grandparents Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth, and their uncle Harry to watch the annual Royal Air Force 'Trooping for Colour' flypast from the balcony on Saturday.

The siblings' mum, the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton wore a pink Alexander McQueen dress to the event, while the Queen turned out in a blue Stewart Parvin outfit.

Expand Close The old photos show cheeky Prince Harry sticking his tongue out at the event / Facebook

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Whatsapp The old photos show cheeky Prince Harry sticking his tongue out at the event

The celebration was also attended by the wider royal family including Prince George and Princess Charlotte's granddad Prince Charles and Camilla as well as Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice of York.

Earlier in the afternoon, the Queen paid tribute to the victims of the recent Manchester and London terrorist attacks, as well as those who lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower tragedy this week. A minute's silence was held as a mark of respect.

Expand Close Catherine, 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 June 17, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Catherine, 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 June 17, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

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The RAF celebration in honour of the Queen's birthday comes two months after the monarch turned 91 on April 21.
Portugal has declared three days of national mourning after 61 people were killed in r aging forest fires.

Many of those killed died while trapped in their cars as huge flames swept over a road amid intense fires Prime Minister Antonio Costa described as the "the biggest tragedy" the country has experienced in years.

A lightning strike is believed to have sparked the initial blaze in the Pedrogao Grande area after investigators found a tree that was hit during a "dry thunderstorm".

Such storms are frequent when falling water evaporates before reaching the ground because of high temperatures.

Authorities had previously said that temperatures which have soared to 40C in recent days might have played a part in the inferno, centred about 95 miles north-east of the capital Lisbon.

Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes said 59 people died from the flames and suffocating smoke, while another two people perished in a traffic accident related to the fires.

Another 54 people have been injured, including four firefighters and a child with serious injuries.

More than 350 soldiers have joined the 700 firefighters who have been struggling to put out the flames since Saturday.

A huge wall of thick smoke and bright red flames could at one point be seen towering over the top of trees near houses in the wooded region.

Local television showed terrifying images of several people on a road trying to escape the intense smoke that had reduced visibility to just a few metres.

Mr Gomes said at least 30 of those killed were in vehicles engulfed by flames on a road between the towns of Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera.

He added that firefighting crews are having difficulties battling the flames, which are "very violent" in at least two of the four fronts.

A Spanish firefighting aircraft is assisting and another is expected to arrive later on Sunday, while France is also sending three aircraft.

In a tweet on Sunday, Mr Costa sent his "deepest regret for the victims... and a word of encouragement and strength for all who help combat this scourge".

The loss of life due to a forest fire is the biggest in memory in Portugal. It has been over 50 years since 25 Portuguese soldiers perished fighting wildfires in 1966.

"We are most likely facing the biggest tragedy of human life that we have known," Mr Costa added.

Valdemar Alves, mayor of Pedrogao Grande, said: "This is a region that has had fires because of its forests, but we cannot remember a tragedy of these proportions.

"I am completely stunned by the number of deaths."

Many world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have expressed solidarity with Portugal.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tweeted that he is "overwhelmed by the tragedy at Pedrogao Grande. The Portuguese people can count on our solidarity, support and care".
Portugal has declared three days of national mourning after at least 62 people were killed in raging forest fires.

Many of those killed died while trapped in their cars as huge flames swept over a road amid intense fires Prime Minister Antonio Costa described as the the biggest tragedy the country has experienced in years.

A lightning strike is believed to have sparked the initial blaze in the Pedrogao Grande area after investigators found a tree that was hit during a dry thunderstorm.

Such storms are frequent when falling water evaporates before reaching the ground because of high temperatures.

Authorities had previously said that temperatures which have soared to 40C in recent days might have played a part in the inferno, centred about 95 miles north-east of the capital Lisbon.

Two Britons were injured in the fires, and were treated for burns and smoke inhalation. Theyve been discharged from hospital.

Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes said 60 people died from the flames and suffocating smoke, while another two people perished in a traffic accident related to the fires.

Another 54 people have been injured, including four firefighters and a child with serious injuries.

More than 350 soldiers have joined the 700 firefighters who have been struggling to put out the flames since Saturday.
A search and rescue mission to find seven US sailors missing after an American destroyer collided with a merchant ship in waters off Japan has ended after bodies were found.

Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, commander of the US Navy's 7th Fleet, told reporters at a base in Yokosuka, Japan, that a number of bodies had been recovered, though he would not say how many.

The USS Fitzgerald sustained significant damage in the collision with Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal on Saturday at around 2.20am local time.

The bodies were found in flooded compartments on Sunday after the Fitzgerald returned to the base in Yokosuka with the help of tug boats.

Searchers gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision and brought the remains to the Naval Hospital Yokosuka, where they will be identified.

The navy said families are being notified and provided with support during "this difficult time".

The container ship has berthed at Tokyo's Oi wharf, where officials have begun questioning crew members about the cause of the crash.

Mr Aucoin said 116 crew members on the Fitzgerald were in two berthing rooms, most of them resting at the time of the collision.

The captain, Commander Bryce Benson, suffered a head injury and was airlifted to shore, and Mr Aucoin said he is lucky to have survived.

Two other crew members were injured in the crash, which damaged two berthing spaces, a machinery room and the radio room and exposed a mangled mid-right side of the ship.

On Twitter, US President Donald Trump said: "Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families.

"Thank-you to our Japanese allies for their assistance."

The ACX Crystal weighs 29,060 tons and is 730ft, the coastguard said, much larger than the 8,315-ton destroyer.

The container ship's left bow was dented and scraped, but it did not appear to have sustained any major structural damage.

All crew members on board the ACX Crystal were unharmed.

Conditions were clear at the time of the collision, though the Japanese coastguard said the area was particularly busy with sea traffic.

Mr Aucoin paid tribute to the crew's efforts to save their ship, saying they prevented it from sinking.

He added: "You can't see most of the damage, the damage is mostly underneath the waterline, and it's a large gash near the keel of the ship so the water flow was tremendous, and so there wasn't a lot of time in those spaces that were open to the sea.

"And as you can see now the ship is still listing, so they had to fight the ship to keep it above the surface. It was traumatic."
EMPATHY: Jeremy Corbyn, after visiting the horrific London tower block fire, again showed he is a natural communicator, with an ease with people that helps him to connect on a personal level. Picture: PA

Jeremy Corbyn has renewed calls for empty homes to be taken over by the Government to house victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The Labour leader also criticised the official response to the tragedy, saying people should have been offered immediate accommodation similar to travellers who are offered hotels when their planes are delayed.

He urged the Government to consider requisitioning or using compulsory purchase orders for flats that are deliberately kept vacant, in a process known as land-banking.

Mr Corbyn told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "Occupy it, compulsory purchase it, requisition it - there's a lot of things you can do.

"But can't we as a society just think, all of us, it's all very well putting our arms around people during the crisis but homelessness is rising, the housing crisis is getting worse and my point was quite a simple one.

"In an emergency, you have to bring all assets to the table in order to deal with that crisis and that's what I think we should be doing in this case."

Expand Close WAKING TO A NIGHTMARE: Fire-fighters attempts to damp down the blaze were to no effect as the flames engulfed Grenfell Tower in west London. Photo: Rick Finder/PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp WAKING TO A NIGHTMARE: Fire-fighters attempts to damp down the blaze were to no effect as the flames engulfed Grenfell Tower in west London. Photo: Rick Finder/PA

He questioned why people had been left stranded when airlines are able to find accommodation for delayed travellers.

Mr Corbyn said: "Every day at Heathrow, planes get delayed. Hundreds of people get stranded at airports all over the world.

"Hotels are found for them immediately, they are sorted out.

"400 or so people, still most of them have not got somewhere decent, safe or secure to stay in.

"Somehow or other, it seems to be beyond the wit of the public services to deal with the crisis facing a relatively small number of people in a country of 65 million."

Read More

Mr Corbyn also defended Theresa May, who has come under criticism for her response to the tragedy, saying: "I think everybody cares to an extent, some to a deeper extent and some show empathy in a different way to others.

"But the real issue is not about what we as individuals feel, Theresa May, me, anybody else, it's what those people are going through."

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell backed calls for requisitioning, saying he would have done "whatever necessary" to house families displaced by the fire.

Speaking to Sky News' Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Mr McDonnell said: "People would not be living in high-rise blocks, unsafe conditions and some of them very poor quality, if we didn't have the housing crisis and part of that housing crisis is as a result of allowing housing particularly in London for use for speculative gain rather than for housing need.

"Now what Jeremy said is if we've got a crisis like that, we need urgent measures and if there are empty properties nearby, they should be used and councils have the power to do that already."

Mr McDonnell dismissed the suggestion that hotel rooms would be cheaper and quicker for families, as he said people were sometimes placed in "inappropriate and unsuitable" settings.

He added: "I'll tell you, I would have done whatever necessary, whatever necessary to house those families what they'd been through and if that needed requisitioning of local properties, yes if necessary because they have suffered so much."

Read More

Shadow communities secretary Andrew Gwynne denied suggestions that Labour is stirring up emotions.

He told BBC One's Sunday Politics: "I don't think that we are stirring it up. I would hope that we have been fully responsible in reflecting the concerns, the anxieties, the hurt and the worry or those residents in Kensington."

Asked about former shadow cabinet minister Clive Lewis's tweet stating "burn neoliberalism, not people", Mr Gwynne told the programme: "I think it is really important that we are measured in our approach.

"We need to calm things down."
An airline passenger has been filmed shouting and crying for help after being slapped and later allegedly prevented from travelling.

Video from the Turkish Airlines flight from London Heathrow and Istanbul on Saturday shows a man being slapped and his head pushed forcibly against his seat before take-off.

The clip was filmed by passenger Ahtzaz Ali, 27, an office manager from Birmingham, who was travelling to help Syrian refugees.

He told the Press Association he believed the man was an asylum seeker and the scenes left fellow passengers "disturbed".

He said: "There was a man who was clearly upset on board the plane but wasn't being abusive to the crew or anybody else.

"All of a sudden, someone who seemed like they were an immigration officer came and started physically abusing the man by slapping him and pushing his face down whilst he was crying and shouting that he wouldn't be safe going back to Afghanistan.

"The journey after he was taken off the plane was very upsetting as passengers were in tears, clearly disturbed by what they had seen.

"It was a violation of this man's human rights and shocking to see how he was being treated."

A Home Office spokesman said it did not comment on individual cases, but added: "If people are in the country illegally and refuse to leave voluntarily we will take action to remove them.

"Whilst it is regrettable that some people become disruptive on removal, we do our utmost to try and minimise any potential impact on the rest of the passengers.

"Any use of force must be fully justified and proportionate and is used only as a last resort for the shortest time possible."
GRIM TASK: Members of the emergency services work on the middle floors of the charred remains of the Grenfell Tower block in Kensington, west London, following the devastating fire. Photo: Tolga Akmen/Getty

At least 58 people are likely to have been killed in the fire that engulfed Grenfell Tower last week, police in Britain said yesterday.

If that death toll is confirmed, it would make the west London blaze the deadliest in the English capital since World War II.

"Sadly at this time, there are 58 people who we have been told were in Grenfell Tower on the night that are missing and therefore sadly I have to assume that they are dead," Commander Stuart Cundy told reporters.

Cundy added that the figure could change. Police had previously put the death toll at 30.

"The figure of 30 that I gave yesterday is the number that I know, sadly, have, at least, died. So that 58 would include that 30," he said.

British health authorities said they were still treating 19 patients, 10 of whom remained in a critical condition in hospital.

Prime Minister Theresa May's government earlier sought to quell anger over the fire, pledging to support the victims of the blaze after protesters jeered her when she visited local residents. May was rushed away from a meeting with residents last Friday under heavy police guard as protesters shouted "Shame on you" and hundreds stormed a local town hall calling for justice.

After a botched snap election that lost her party its majority in parliament, May is facing criticism for her response to the blaze which engulfed the 24-storey apartment block of social housing last Wednesday.

Residents of the destroyed tower said May was far too slow to visit the stricken community, that the building had been unsafe and that officials had failed to give enough information and support to those who had lost relatives and their homes.

Asked repeatedly whether she had misread the public mood, May did not answer directly but said the focus was on providing support to the victims.

"What I'm now absolutely focused on is ensuring that we get that support on the ground," May said in a BBC interview. "Government is making money available, we're ensuring that we're going to get to the bottom of what's happened, we will ensure that people are rehoused. But we need to make sure that that actually happens."

Yesterday May chaired a meeting on the government's response to the fire. She also met victims in Downing Street. Alongside both police and fire investigations into the blaze, she has promised to set up a public inquiry. She also announced a 6m emergency fund for the victims.

More than 3.75m has been raised privately for victims of the fire. Londoners and others have also donated huge amounts of food, water and clothing, and shelter, to survivors.

Three appeals on the JustGiving website have helped to raise the 3.75m and London's Evening Standard newspaper has launched a separate appeal that had raised at least 1.8m by yesterday morning.

A London Underground track which lies in the shadow of the tower block was closed yesterday.

London Fire Brigade requested that two Tube lines - the Circle line and the Hammersmith and City line - be partially suspended.

The underground is actually above ground in this part of London and Latimer Road station lies a stone's throw away from Grenfell Tower.

Among the more shocking facts to emerge so far from the disaster is that flame-retardant cladding could have been fitted to Grenfell Tower for just an extra 6,000.

The revelation came as Kensington and Chelsea council was accused of carrying out a cut-price regeneration project. The contract to improve insulation and replace heating and water systems in the block was supposed to be carried out by the building company Leadbitter, but the contractor said it could not do the work for less than 11.27m - 1.6m more than the council's budget.

The Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, which maintains the council housing stock, put the contract back out to tender and construction firm Rydon said it could do the work for 8.7m, even though the plans did not change.

But throughout the regeneration work, residents at Grenfell complained about slapdash workmanship, posting images of exposed pipes laid across residents' carpets and voicing concerns that boilers had been fitted in the middle of hallways, near fuse boxes.

They accused workmen of "cutting corners" and said damage to their flats had not been repaired while rubbish was allowed to pile up in communal corridors, blocking emergency exits. Relations with Rydon broke down so completely that Grenfell residents pinned posters to their doors warning workmen not to enter their homes.

Last Friday, Omnis Exteriors said it had been asked to supply cheaper cladding to installer Harley Facades which did not meet strict fire-retardant specifications. The safer sheets were just 2 a square metre more expensive - meaning that for an extra 5,000 the building could have been encased in a material that may have resisted the fire for longer.

The cut-price version is banned from use in the US and Germany on tall buildings.

Of course, the true impact of the fire cannot be measured in money, but in the impact it will have on people's lives.

Consider Maria Jafari.

Maria cannot forgive herself for leaving her father Ali behind while she went downstairs to investigate the commotion she heard as the fire began.

By the time she realised the severity of the situation, firefighters refused to let her go back into the burning building for her own safety. Now her father is among those feared killed after the blaze consumed the 24-storey tower.

By a miracle her sister Nadia survived the blaze after she managed to stumble out of the building.

Last night Maria said: "I wish I could have saved my father. But I didn't know. If I'd known the fire was this big I would have taken him with me. But I thought he'd be safe. I just closed the window and let him sleep."

Hers is one of dozens of heart-rending stories to emerge from this tragedy.

For the Jafari family it began when Maria noticed something was happening below their 11th-floor flat in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

"I saw the shadow of the fire on the street, and police and people running. I said to my mother: 'Let's go downstairs to see what's going on'. My father - he was sleeping; I didn't want to disturb him," Maria said last night.

Ms Jafari shut the windows in the flat and together with her mother the pair descended to the ground floor in the lift, which just seconds later would become a death trap.

"When I went downstairs I looked up and saw the fire on the 10th floor," she said. "I thought it's going to go to my floor. I called my sister - I wanted to say, 'Come out, there's a fire', but the phone didn't work.

"I was shouting, 'I'm going back to take my father out', but the firefighters said, 'You can't go back upstairs'."

Ms Jafari told the emergency crews her 82-year-old father was a heart patient and gave them the keys to her flat. In the meantime, upstairs, Mr Jafari and Nadia (27) were struggling the escape the growing inferno.

Shortly after Maria had left the flat, Nadia realised she had to get her father out, so she took him into the corridor.

The elderly man was so terrified of the exposed gas pipes that had been installed in the stairwells in the refurbishment of the building last year that he tried to escape with his daughter by using the lift. But after descending just one floor it filled with choking smoke.

"They both said, 'Let's go in the lift - it will go quickly'," Maria said. Because the gas pipes had been installed in the stairwell, "they were planning for our death", she said, attacking the building's manager, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO).

What happened next is unclear in the fog of disaster - but it is believed Nadia was rescued by a firefighter, while her father lost consciousness either in the lift or else just a few paces from it. "They couldn't breathe," said Maria. "If normal people couldn't breathe, how could my father? He's a heart patient."

Fighting against the choking smoke, Nadia managed to stumble out of the building, but her father has not been seen since.

Around five or 10 harrowing minutes later, Maria was reunited with Nadia, as she emerged from the tower, coughing and with a blackened face. She managed to splutter just seven words to her sister: "I lost my father in the lift."

Nadia was treated in hospital but has since been discharged.

Maria yesterday condemned what she said was the shoddy way Grenfell had been repaired and refurbished.

"We are really angry. There was no fire alarm. No water. They don't think about our safety," she said, criticising KCTMO for "buying cheap material" with which to clad the building. "Money is not important. Life is important. No one can bring the life back."

There were growing fears last night that the flames that claimed Maria's father might also have killed as many as 15 children who attended a nursery on the ground floor.

Grenfell Creche Under Threes Centre confirmed that several young children who attend the creche and live in the block were unaccounted for, but would not say how many.

Nursery manager Shirley Sylvester said: "We're completely devastated. These are babies and three-year-olds. It's tragic."

Mimi Delson last night told how she feared her 67-year-old aunt Marjorie Vital and her cousin Ernie, 43, had also been killed in the fire.

"Ernie was staying with his mother - they were on the 16th floor," said Ms Delson, 45, who lives near the tower. "We've been to all the hospitals to look for them. Marjorie has lived in the flat almost since it was built. She moved over here from Dominica when she was a girl."

Ms Delson said that her own children were classmates at Kensington Academy with several children from Grenfell Tower. "My children have lost a lot of their friends," she said.

In the meantime more than 50,000 people have signed a petition to bring the parents of a Syrian refugee killed in the fire to the UK for his funeral.

Mohammed Alhajali (23), a Syrian refugee, was the first confirmed victim of the blaze, while his older brother Omar - who was with him in the flat - survived after they were separated on the way out.

Mirna Suleiman (26) a family friend, launched the petition because of the difficulties Syrians face in travelling to Britain.

The UK Home Office has indicated that it will now allow Mr Alhajali's family to travel to Britain on compassionate grounds.

Telegraph
A pair of hapless thieves were caught after boxes containing stolen GPS tracking equipment led police straight to them.

Two thieves broke into the offices of Santa Clara, California company Roambee just over two weeks ago and stole $18,000 (16,000) worth of goods, including a 3D printer, two 4K monitors and two boxes filled with Roambee Trackers.

Used by the company to help clients track the location of their goods while being shipped, the boxes of roughly 100 tracking devices led to the pairs arrest just hours after they left the offices.

Roambee co-founder Vidya Sumbramanian said that a police officer had told him one of the thieves thought they were just mobile phone chargers.

These devices kind of look like cell phone chargers, so they probably thought they had some kind of street value, Mr. Subramanian told NBC News.

The moment we realized they had a box of trackers, we went into recovery mode. We notified the police and equipped them to track the devices, and in about 5 or 6 hours, it was done.

The trackers were used by local police to find the stolen goods approximately 40 miles away in a storage locker in Alameda, California.

Police also discovered other stolen goods from other break-ins the thieves are believed to have carried out, including photographs and clippings from a World War II veteran given to his son.

Speaking to NBC News, Roambees co-founder believes that the incident may now give the company good publicity for their business.

What this has done is show our customers that our product not only works, Mr Subramanian said. It was picture perfect.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald launches a missile during a March training exercise to improve operational partnership between US and Japanese forces (US Navy/AP)

US and Japanese rescuers are searching for seven American sailors who went missing after their Navy destroyer collided with a container ship four times its size off the coast of Japan.

The USS Fitzgerald has returned to its home port in Yokosuka Naval Base south of Tokyo following the collision with the Philippine-flagged container ship.

Officials are now questioning the freighter's crew at Tokyo's Oi wharf over the cause of the night-time crash.

After helping stabilise the USS Fitzgerald, the destroyer USS Dewey joined other American and Japanese vessels and aircraft in the search for the missing sailors.

At least three other Navy sailors were injured in the incident.

Family members are frantically seeking news, appealing via social media for sailors aboard the ship to get in touch.

The US 7th Fleet said in a statement that the crash damaged two berthing spaces, a machinery room and the radio room.

Most of the more than 200 sailors aboard would have been asleep in their berths at the time of the pre-dawn crash.

Water is being pumped out of flooded areas and it is unclear how long it would take to get into the crushed mid-right side of the ship once it is at the pier in Yokosuka.

Vice Admiral Joseph P Aucoin, the commander of the 7th Fleet, said: "This has been a difficult day.

"I am humbled by the bravery and tenacity of the Fitzgerald crew. Now that the ship is in Yokosuka, I ask that you help the families by maintaining their privacy as we continue the search for our shipmates."

The USS Fitzgerald's captain, Commander Bryce Benson, was airlifted to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka after the collision and is in stable condition with a head injury, the Navy said.

Two other crew members suffered cuts and bruises and were evacuated. It is unclear how many others may have been hurt.

The Navy said that the collision occurred 56 nautical miles south-west of Yokosuka, home to the 7th Fleet.

Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, said: "Right now we are focused on two things: the safety of the ship and the well-being of the sailors."

The Japanese coast guard said it received an emergency call from the container ship, the ACX Crystal, reporting the collision at around 6.20pm BST on Friday.

It was questioning crew members of the ACX Crystal, which is operated by the Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen KK, and is treating the incident as a case of possible professional negligence, said Masayuki Obara, a regional coast guard official.

US president Donald Trump said on Twitter: "Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families.

"Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance."

The ACX Crystal weighs 29,060 tonnes and is 730ft long, the coast guard said, much larger than the 8,315-ton Navy destroyer.

The container ship's left bow was dented and scraped, but it did not appear to have sustained any major structural damage.

Nippon Yusen said all of the ACX Crystal's 20-member Filipino crew members are safe.

Conditions were clear at the time of the collision, though Yutaka Saito of the coast guard said the area is particularly busy with sea traffic.

The names of the missing sailors are being withheld pending notification of their families. US Navy personnel set up support and counselling services to help families as they sought updates on crew members.
Suspected terrorists have attacked a resort in Mali, a UN official says

At least two people have been killed after suspected jihadists attacked a popular tourist resort on the outskirts of Mali's capital.

The interior ministry said that one of the victims was a dual French-Gabonese citizen but the identity of the other person killed was not immediately known.

One of the extremists was wounded but managed to escape. A Malian military spokesman had said there were believed to be several people inside the Campement Kangaba near Bamako.

Malian government officials said about 30 people managed to escape.
A US military jet has shot down a Syrian Air Force fighter plane that bombed local forces aligned with the Americans in the fight against Islamic State militants.

The US-led coalition headquarters in Iraq said that a US F-18 Super Hornet shot down a Syrian government SU-22 after it dropped bombs near the Syrian Democratic Forces near the town of Tabqa.

The move appears to mark a new escalation of the conflict.

The US military said it acted in "collective self defence" of its partner forces and the US does not seek a fight with the Syrian government or its Russian supporters.

US forces tangled earlier this month with Syria-allied aircraft in the region.

On June 8, US officials reported that a drone probably connected to Iranian-supported Hezbollah forces fired on US-backed troops and was shot down by an American fighter jet.

The incident took place in southern Syria near a base where the US-led coalition was training Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State group.

An Army spokesman at the Pentagon said at the time that the drone carried more weapons and was considered a direct threat, prompting the shooting.

Just hours earlier, the US bombed Syrian government and allied troops inside a protected zone in that area, and marked a sharp escalation in the skirmishes between the coalition and pro-Syrian government forces there.

AP
A pair of young Mooresville sisters, born joined at the head, are apparently recovering well from surgery to separate them.

The operation on twins Erin and Abby Delaney, 10 months old, was performed June 6 at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. The girls were born conjoined at the top of their heads, a condition called craniopagus, the least common type of conjoined twins, the hospital said in news release Thursday night.

A medical team led by neurosurgeon Gregory Heuer, MD, PhD, and plastic surgeon Jesse Taylor, MD, performed the separation, which lasted about 11 hours.

Separating conjoined twins is a very complex surgery followed by a long and complicated recovery, but we are very hopeful for a positive outcome, said Taylor. Erin and Abby are now recovering in our Pediatric Intensive Care Unit under close monitoring by our expert teams, he added.

THE SEPARATION SURGERY

In its news release, the hospital said:

The surgery and reconstruction climaxed months of comprehensive planning and preparation by a large team from many areas of the hospital. It is the 23rd time that surgeons at CHOP have separated a pair of conjoined twins, the first craniopagus pair.

During the separation surgery, our team first meticulously separated the infants shared blood vessels and dura, the tough protective membrane surrounding both brains, then moved on to separate the sagittal sinus, the most difficult portion of the operation, said Heuer. Finally, we divided our team into two halves, one for each of the girls, and finished the reconstruction portion of the surgery.

On the morning of surgery, a team of anesthesiologists led by Alison Reed Perate, MD, and Matthew Pearsall, MD, managed the surgical preparation for the tightly orchestrated, complex procedure, and then continued to monitor the twins vital signs and administer their anesthesia throughout the operation. The two sets of monitors and equipment in the room were marked with green or purple tape, one color for each of the girls.

Parents Heather and Riley Delaney first learned that Heather was carrying conjoined twins about 11 weeks into her pregnancy, early in 2016. At this point it was too soon to tell whether the twins would be candidates for separation surgery, but on their specialists recommendation, the family made their initial contact with the Center for Fetal Diagnosis & Treatment at CHOP.

After their ultrasound at week 19 of Heathers pregnancy, the family traveled to Philadelphia for evaluation at CHOP, including prenatal imaging: high-resolution fetal ultrasound, fetal MRI and a fetal echocardiogram.

After a succession of visits with a multidisciplinary team of CHOP specialists and clinicians, Heather returned home, but traveled back to CHOP every two weeks for prenatal appointments. At 26 weeks, the medical team recommended that Heather stay in Philadelphia for the remainder of her pregnancy. She came to CHOPs Garbose Family Special Delivery Unit (SDU), a dedicated facility where mothers carrying fetuses prenatally diagnosed with birth defects receive state-of-the-art care.

10 WEEKS PREMATURE

Abby and Erin were born by C-section on July 24, 2016, 10 weeks premature, each weighing 2 pounds and 1 ounce. They received care in the hospitals Newborn/Infant Intensive Care Unit (N/IICU) for their first seven months, where physical, occupational and speech therapy teams developed innovative treatments and exercises for the infants, still connected at their heads. Surgeons and physicians formulated a comprehensive plan for their full separation. In February of this year, Erin and Abby left the N/IICU for another unit at CHOP where they stayed while awaiting their full separation.

For the first time in their lives, Erin and Abby now lie side by side, in separate beds. As the separated infants recover from their surgery, they will be closely followed in the coming months by their surgeons, nutritionists, developmental pediatricians, and other specialists to ensure that they receive the best clinical care to enable them to thrive and grow. They will also likely undergo one or more additional surgeries.

Sometime later this year, Heather and Riley look forward to bringing Erin and Abby home for the first time. When we go home, its going to be a big party, says Heather. Welcome home, baby shower, first birthday.

The hospital said the Rileys are not issuing any additional public statements at this time.
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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.
Kaun hai yeh, jisne dobaara murke mujhe nahin dekha? Who is he?

Who doesnt remember Poo from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, the iconic character who reflected the epitome of self-obsession?! Kareena Kapoor, who was comparatively new to the industry at that time had aced the role so much that even after having done several worth-applauding roles, she is still remembered for the character of Poo. We all love Poo, dont we?

Twitter

But do you remember the naughty younger version of Poo who would always tease her friend Rohan? The child actress who has played the role of young Poo is all grown up now, and she is all set to return to the world of films.

The granddaughter of actor Jagdish Raj and also the niece of actress Anita Raaj is making a debut in an adult character in the Telugu film titled Jayadev, which is releasing on June 30.

Malvika Raaj is quite excited to return to the big screen after almost 16 years.

I am really excited for my launch. Its like a dream come true to do debut with director Jayanth. He is so senior and awesome, and I am really waiting for the response.

quoracdn.net

Her naughtiness was the reason why she was away from the big screen for so long.

After Kabhi Khushi since I was a very young and a naughty child My dad did not want me to pursue acting anymore as it would have distracted me from studies. Even as a child actor, I got many proposals to work, but my dad did not allow me.

1.bp.blogspot.com

Ask her whos her inspiration from the current age of Bollywood actresses, and she says, Deepika Padukone.

We kind of expected Kareena Kapoors name, didnt we?!
Of all the evil that is there in this world, we presume that school, a temple of knowledge will disseminate the merit that we need in our society. However, in the past couple of years, it is the school that's been the biggest nightmare there is.

Two young girls were allegedly stripped of their school uniform by a private school in Bihar's Begusarai district and forced to walk down home in a semi-naked condition on Friday because they could not pay the school fees.

In video footage that captures their humiliating journey through the village lanes, the two sisters are seen taking baby steps. Somewhere down the road, a villager took the girls in and gave them some clothes to cover themselves.

#WATCH: 2 minor girls stripped, tortured & humiliated by school authorities for not paying the school fee in Begusarai in Bihar pic.twitter.com/iZ7i7n0r6l  TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) June 18, 2017

One of them was a nursery student; the elder one was in Class I.

The shocking incident took place 125 km east of state capital Patna on Friday. The girls hailed from a poor family that wanted them to get a good education.

But this time, their poor father had reportedly missed several deadlines to bring in the money for the uniforms and school fees. He had asked the private school for some more time; his request was rejected.

Reuters

Three persons have been arrested by the police including the school principal and teacher. In his complaint to the police, a Press Trust of India report said, the father Chunchun Sah was asked to meet a teacher when he went to pick up his daughters from school.

She demanded that he deposit the fee for the school uniform. Mr Shah wanted some time to arrange the money but the teacher allegedly would have none of it. Eventually, the teacher took off the uniform worn by his daughters in front of everyone and threw the girls out of the school.

There have been several instances over the last few years where children have been humiliated, in some cases also driven to suicide, for their inability to pay for their education in a private institute.
Months before his second major conviction in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case, gangster Abu Salem (48) petitioned the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for his return to Portugal.

BCCL

He has alleged his presence and trial in India have been rendered illegal following the termination of his extradition order as upheld in 2014 by Portugal's court of appeal.

While permitting his extradition in 2005, the Portugal court had said that Salem cannot be given the death sentence.

In 2014, a year before he was convicted in builder Pradip Jain's murder case, Lisbon court held that his 2003 extradition order stood terminated as Salem had pleaded he was being tried for charges that attract the death sentence.

But the court held that his return to Portugal is the responsibility of the Portuguese government.

Now, Salem has moved the ECHR against Portugal. He wants the ECHR to ensure that the Portugese government takes steps for his return to serve out his sentence there.

His January 2017 application to the ECHR is also an attempt to suspend the prosecution against him in India.

The ECHR sought a response from the Portugese government and it responded in March. The European court asked Salem to specify if he had made applications to any other courts and tribunals.

In response to ECHR in February, Salem's European lawyer outlined the instances as to why his return to Portugal be ordered.

ALSO READ: Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Four Others Convicted In 1993 Mumbai Blast Case, Hearing On Sentence To Begin On Monday

PTI

Taraq Sayed, Salem's Mumbai-based advocate in the matter, said Salem's case before the ECHR is that despite termination of extradition order, no diplomatic efforts have been taken to implement the order which is "final and binding in his favour".

Earlier this month, ECHR sought a few additional documents regarding the charges he was facing in the 1993 blasts case. But following the guilty verdict in the case on Friday, Sayyed said, "We will now take steps to seek an early hearing."

Salem has continually appealed to both Indian and Portuguese courts to permit his return to Portugal. His latest application to the ECHR outlines that these applications had been rejected by the Indian court despite the Portuguese court terminating the extradition order.

The termination of extradition was first allowed by the high court of Lisbon after Salem challenged the violation of specialty rule in 2011.

He said his prosecution in Indian courts has been for additional charges, not included in the extradition order.

ALSO READ: Gangster Abu Salem Who Is In Mumbai Jail Wanted To Vote In UP Polls, Couldnt Afford Bail Bond!

PTI

Salem, who is housed in Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai, alleged that solitary confinement for long periods was nothing short of torture as described by the European Convention on Human Rights.

He said he has "avoided death several times in prison". In July 2010, in Mumbai Central prison, a co-inmate and co-accused Mustafa Dossa, a rival gang member, attacked him with a cutter. He cited two more attempts in 2011 and in 2013.

His application invokes Article 3 of ECHR by complaining that he has been subject to "inhuman conditions" during his incarceration. Salem said he has been kept "in a cell which doesn't have any source of natural light or air." The detention in isolation has affected his mental and physical health, it said.
The claims of PM Modi about curbing production of fake currency after demonetisation seem to be falling flat as counterfeit currency detection instances in the banking channels have seen an all time increase in the last eight years at over 3.53 lakh instances, according to the latest government report.

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According to reports, all banks, either public sector, private or foreign banks in the country, are mandated to report such instances to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under anti-money laundering law provisions.

"The number of counterfeit currency reports (CCRs) increased from a mere 8,580 in 2007-08 to 35,730 in 2008-09 and 3,53,837 in 2014-15," the report, accessed by PTI, said.

However, the amount of fake currency detected has not been specified.

CCR is defined as the usage of a forged or counterfeit currency note or bank note as genuine or where any forgery of a valuable security or a document has taken place during a cash transaction at a bank.

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As per the data complied since 2007-08, when the government first mandated the FIU to receive such reports under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) from banks, the year 2009-10 saw reportage of 1,27,781 CCR, in 2010-11 it was 2,51,448, in 2011-12 it was 3,27,382, in 2012-13 they were 3,62,371 and in 2013-14 a total of 3,01,804 such instances were reported.

The data for 2010-11 to 2014-15 shows that the major chunk of these reports, at over 90 per cent, were filed by private Indian banks and a majority of them pertain to usage of fake Indian currency notes (FICN) and not any other valuable security as defined under the CCR terminology.

"The private Indian banks contribute the majority of CCRs. The compliance levels of the public sector banks continued to be low despite the matter having been taken up with the RBI," the report said.

It added that during the "review" of public sector banks on this issue, the best practices of private Indian banks in detection and reporting of counterfeit currency notes were highlighted.

A senior Finance Ministry official put the figures in perspective: "CCRs are meant to check the menace and extent of FICN entering the banking system which forms a very important part of the functioning of the economy.

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"While the figures of the eight years, since the regime of reportage of such incidents first began, have shown an increasing trend, it is good that the banks are increasingly able to detect them and report to the FIU," the official said.

The FIU under the Union finance ministry, acts as the national agency to provide financial intelligence to law enforcement agencies for safeguarding the economy from abuses of money laundering, terrorist financing and other offences, further disseminates this data to investigative agencies to ascertain the source of the FICN and undertake legal action under criminal laws aimed to check money laundering and black money.

The report, however, did not talk about the results after the CCRs were handed over to probe agencies like the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and others.

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The report said the FIU, during 2014-15 also received a total of 58,646 suspicious transaction reports (STRs) from all types of banks, financial institutions like insurance companies, intermediaries like stock brokers and additional non-financial businesses and professions like casinos and private locker operators.

The STRs in the latest data compiled year of 2014-15 were the second highest after 61,953 such reports were received by the FIU in 2013-14.

A suspicious transaction, under PMLA, is defined as any transaction that either indicates that it has been made in circumstances of unusual or unjustified complexity or appears to have no economic rationale or bonafide purpose.

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The definition is also applicable to those transactions that give rise to a reasonable ground of suspicion that it may involve financing of the activities relating to terrorism.

As per data, the maximum STRs are reported to the FIU by banks as compared to any other financial intermediary mandated to do so in the country.

Acting on these STRs, the report said, "the CBDT (Income Tax Department) detected unaccounted income of Rs 4,471.65 crore while it seized assets worth Rs 65 crore, the Customs and Service Tax department detected tax evasion to the tune of Rs 21.59 crore and the Enforcement Directorate detected and seized proceeds of crime to the tune of Rs 25 crore during 2014-15."

The agency also received over 3.4 lakh cross-border wire transfer reports (CBWTR) during the said time period.

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A CBWTR pertains to any money transfer of Rs 5 lakh and above or its equivalent in foreign currency where either the origin or destination of fund is India.

The central financial intelligence agency first started getting these reports from February, 2014.

The FIU, the report said, possesses information of about 2.5 crore unique persons with average relationship of nearly 8.5 per person and thirteen transactions for each account.
A 33-year-old Sikh man was arrested and handcuffed in the US for carrying a kirpan. A customer at a grocery called up the police and reported about the man.

Harpreet Singh, born as Justin Smith, converted to Sikhism nine years ago. He has worn the ceremonial knife known as a kirpan every day since.

search sikhism

Khalsa, who owns a catering business, was quoted by The Baltimore Sun as saying that he has been stopped multiple times by police, and was arrested again last week outside a grocery store in Catonsville, Maryland, after a customer called police.

Khalsa said he explained to the officers that the knife is part of his religion, but they frisked him, took the kirpan, placed him in handcuffs and drove him to the local precinct.

Khalsa was later released without charges, after police "confirmed that the knife was a kirpan and part of his religion, and not a threat to the community," Baltimore County Officer Jennifer Peach was quoted as saying.

She said the department is providing education and guidance to its officers about Sikhs and their culture.
The Supreme Court said that Indian women often comply with their parents and sacrifice their love and relationship instead. The court said this in a judgement after setting aside the conviction and life sentence of a man, who had survived a pact with a woman to commit suicide immediately after secretly getting married.

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While the 23-year-old woman could not be saved in the incident of 1995, the man was convicted for allegedly killing her and awarded life term by a trial court and the verdict was subsequently upheld by the Rajasthan High Court.

The top court noted that the woman might have first "unwillingly" agreed to accept her parents' wish but later she apparently changed her mind which appeared from the scene of the incident where garlands, bangles and vermilion were found.

The woman might have told her lover that due to resistance from her family, she would not marry him, the court said. "Such a reaction on the part of a girl to sacrifice her love and accept a decision of her parents, even though unwillingly, is a common phenomenon in this country," a bench of Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said.

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The court noted that the victim and the accused were in love and the woman's father had testified in the court that due to caste differences, they had objected to their alliance.

The man had told the trial court that after resistance from their families, they decided to commit suicide and consumed Copper Sulphate at a house in an under-construction building in Jaipur. He had said that the quantity of the chemical consumed by him was less as compared to the woman after which her health deteriorated and he went out to seek help from neighbours. When he returned, he found the woman hanging. She died at a hospital later.

The man's version of the incident was held as "plausible" by the top court which noted that as per his statement, the woman was physically abused by her family and was mercilessly beaten even on the day of incident in November 1995.

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"When she was madly in love with the appellant (man) and wanted to marry him, there is a possibility that after receiving such kind of shabbily treatment at the hands of her parents, in anguish she may have decided to revolt and, therefore, proposed to the appellant that they should get married for which they chose a secluded place," the bench noted in its order.

It observed that there may be a possibility that when a man is not able to get a woman he wants, he may go to the extent of killing her as he does not want to see her alliance with any other person. "This might be the motive in the mind of the appellant (man). However, whether events turned in this way is anybody's guess as no evidence of this nature has surfaced. It is not even possible for the prosecution to state any such things as whatever actually happened was only known to two persons, one of whom is dead and other is in dock," it said.

The bench observed that criminal cases cannot be decided on the basis of hypothesis and acquitted the man holding that the prosecution has not been able to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
On Father's Day, a father met his daughter for the first time. The 63-year-old, Al Annunziata, didn't know he had a 40-year-old daughter, Jyll Justamond.

"I'm never going to let you go, ever," ABC News quoted Annunziata as telling his daughter during the meeting.

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Justamond of Littleton, Colorado, said that she found Annunziata after tracking him down on Facebook on April 3 - her 40th birthday.

She started searching for her biological father years after learning that people she thought were her parents were actually her grandparents.

"My biological mother was 18 when she had me and for whatever the reason, felt that she wasn't capable or old enough to raise me," Justamond said. "She asked her stepfather and mother to raise me and I didn't know I wasn't their child. I found out when I was 10. It turns out that the person I thought was my half-sister was actually my mom," she said.

Justamond said she approached her biological mother, Linda to ask about her father. "She told me it could be this guy Al and she said, 'When I met him, he was bartending at this bar called Neary's and it was essentially a one night stand. A first name and the bar he worked in - that was all I had to go on. That, and he was Italian."

In April, Justamond posted in a Facebook group dedicated to natives of Palisades Park, New Jersey, where the bar Neary's was located in the 1970s. One user asked her to speak with Don Neary, the owner of the former bar.

"I said, 'I know this is crazy, but do you happen to know a guy named Al that worked or you in 1976, 1977?'" Justamond asked. "He said, 'Oh, you mean Al Annunziata.'"

Justamond found and reached out to Annunziata on Facebook. Justamond and Annunziata exchanged messages via Facebook and on April 24, Annunziata took a paternity test. The results were 99.9966 probability that he is Justamond's biological father.

Annunziata said he and his daughter have a lot in common and the pair are already close. The father-daughter duo now plan to spend Christmas together in Las Vegas, where Justamond will meet her aunt.
Everything that has a beginning must surely have an end, this was the final abduction carried out by the Evans gang on February 14 this year proved to be a fatal error as the captured businessman, Donatus Dunu, became the gangs nemesis.

Dunu is a pharmacist and the owner of Maydon Pharmaceutical Company, Ilupeju, Lagos.

He had barely left his office on the evening of 14 February, the lovers day, when he was blocked by a vehicle. Before he knew it, Evans gun-wielding men had stepped out and bundled the pharmacist into their vehicle. They sped off to 21, Prophet Asaye Close, New Igando, a Lagos suburb where he was kept for three months.

While looking for the money, Dunus wife, who is also a director of the company, staff members organised prayers for the safe return of their boss. One of the workers said: We did not only pray but engaged in fasting too. Who will not pray and fast if his or her boss was in such condition? It was really traumatic for us.

Unknown to Dunus wife and the workers, the person who gave the information leading to Dunus abduction was one of the staff members of the company, identified as Emeka, who was employed about five years ago.

At the gangs den in New Igando, where Dunu was kept, Dunu had given up hope on the possibility of regaining his freedom. But he had a big break in the early hours of Friday, May 12, 2017, while his captors were deep asleep.

Dunu managed to wriggle out of the leg manacles. He was only wearing a pair of shorts and white singlet. A perimeter fence with broken bottles atop was to become a major obstacle to his escape, but the victim found a way. He clambered atop and jumped into freedom.

Evans subsequently demanded the payment of one million euro as ransom. Despite pleas by the family of Dunu to make Evans reduce the ransom, even after N100 million had been paid to him, he was adamant. He insisted on the one million euro or Dunus life.

It was learnt that when he landed into an adjoining building, he was mistaken for a fleeing robber or cultist. Security guards raised the alarm which attracted neighbours to the scene and it was providence that saved him from being lynched by a mob.

One of the security guards who asked not to be named said: I just came to my duty post that day when I started hearing the shout of thief! Thief! I came out and saw this fair-complexioned man running towards me. I stopped him near that mini-tanker (he pointed at a decrepit stationary tanker). He was wearing only his boxer with his white singlet placed on his shoulder. There was fear in his eyes and he looked sick and traumatised. His body was blood-stained and there were injuries on his legs probably because he had been cuffed on his legs for a long time.

Some people were unwilling to listen to him and they wanted to take him away. I said no, they should leave him here and instead call the elders of the community. I took him to the front of that Foursquare Church and told him to sit at the entrance of the church. I then asked how much the kidnappers were demanding from him and how much he had paid and he said they were demanding N500m and he had paid about N100m. I was shocked. We then took him to the Igando Divisional Police Station. Later that afternoon, the operatives of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) returned with him to the street, but he was so tired and sick; he did not even come out of the vehicle. They broke into the compound but the kidnappers had escaped. So many things were discovered in the compound, including guns, a white bus and a power bike. I had never seen any power bike on this street before then.

House 21 Prophet Asaye Close is a bungalow and sits at the end of the road. The floor of the compound is covered with interlocking stones. Carved on the gate is the sentence Jesus is Alive. There is a doorbell on the left side of the gate.

Asked about the activities in the compound, our source said: They (abductors) kept to themselves. The guy there, whenever he was driving in from outside, the gate would have been opened before he got to the gate. In addition, loud music was always wafting from the bungalow. This always muffled every noise coming from there. This happened mostly in the day time. In the night, of course, the generating set would take over. So, we (neighbours) could never have known what went on there.

With the escape of Dunu, he was able to make useful statements to the police about his kidnap. The next day, May 13, SARS operatives in four patrol vans stormed Franzaki Street, Bucknor Estate, off Isheri Osun Road. It was the rented home of one of the workers of Maydon Pharmaceutical, identified as Emeka, a pharmacist. He is from Oguta, Imo State, and in his late 30s or early 40s; he has a wife and a child, according to the residents, who were rattled by the early morning raid.

Emeka was whisked away from his house by the police. Since then, the residents said he has not returned.

It was on the basis of this breakthrough that the Lagos Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, four days after Emekas arrest on May 16 declared a certain faceless Evans wanted.

He said: We are encouraging Nigerians to blow the whistle on this kidnapper. Whoever blows the whistle will get N30 million rewards as stated by the Inspector General of Police

Evans has been on the wanted list of the Police in Anambra, Edo and Lagos states for years. The suspects arrested have given us valuable information, which the command is working on to ensure that he is apprehended by all means.

Operatives of the Inspector General of Polices anti-kidnapping team went into action and with the aid of high-tech equipment, they were able to track key members of the kidnap syndicate, rounded them up and then set the stage for the final arrest of Evans. This came last Saturday when Evans was demystified by the police.

Mood at the victims firm

At the headquarters of Maydon Pharmaceutical Company Limited at 15 Wilmer Street, Ilupeju, Lagos, the atmosphere was subdued. The workers discussed in a low tone. There were several innuendoes about a certain Emeka from Oguta. Both Mr Donatus Dunu, the chairman of the company, and his wife, the managing director, were not available.

However, one of the male workers said they had been warned not to discuss their boss harrowing experience with pressmen and that it was only the boss or his wife that can speak on the matter. Pressed further, he described his boss escape as miraculous. When shown the picture of the compound where Dunu was kept with the inscription Jesus is alive, he exclaimed indeed, Jesus is alive!

Source: ( PM News )
President Muhammadu Buhari has been given a note of warning by the Founder of the Omega Fire Ministries, Apostle Johnson Suleman over a very important national issue.

Founder of the Omega Fire Ministries, Apostle Johnson Suleman, has expressed outrage at the removal of Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) as a subject of study from the secondary school curriculum, describing it as a move by President Muhammadu Buhari to Islamise Nigeria.

According to DailyPost, the man of God made his view public in a statement issued on Sunday by Phrank Shaibu, spokesman of the church.

Apostle Suleman, stated that the decision to scrap CRK as a subject in the curriculum but only to be studied as a theme in civic education while leaving Islamic/Arabic studies as a subject to be studied in the secondary school curriculum, is a deliberate plot by the Buhari administration, among other schemes, eliminate Christianity or at best reduce it to insignificance in Nigeria.

The new curriculum which is the brain-child of the Nigerian Educational Research Council and which is mischievously crafted to force Islamic Studies down the throat of non adherents is unjust, discriminatory, a subtle attempt at islamization, and therefore unacceptable, the statement said.

This is a well orchestrated and articulated plot. Let nobody try to fool Nigerians that it was a mistake or a coincidence. Why is it that CRK would be removed as a subject to be studied from the secondary school school curriculum while Islamic/Arabic studies is retained? This is a plan from hell and it shall not stand, he declared.

Apostle Suleman also noted that the policy has been introduced at a time when Fulani herdsmen are on rampage in parts of the country and just before so called Arewa youths gave Igbo people living in the North to quit before October 1.

Over 7000 people have been killed by these Fulani herdsmen with our security forces unable to stop the bloodshed. So called Arewa youths backed by some discredited elders have also issued a treasonable ultimatum to Igbo people without any reprisals from the Buhari government. So, is it a coincidence that Christian Religious Knowledge has been expunged from the school curriculum? he queried.

Apostle Suleman called on the Federal Government to reverse the offensive policy and immediately restore Christian Religious Knowledge to the curriculum while commending the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for being at the forefront of seeking to redress the anomaly.

This evil policy must be reversed immediately. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Christain Religious Knowledge (CRK) must be restored to the school curriculum. And Im happy that the CAN has taken up the battle to ensure that those who seek to banish our faith do not succeed. We will continue to speak out until satan and his agents are put to shame, he declared.

Similarly, he called on the government to stem the tide of consistent attacks by Fulani herdsmen as well as deal with those giving ultimatum to people from an ethnic group to vacate the north.

For long, Fulani herdsmen continue to kill, rape and burn peoples homes without restraint. In the event that the safety of an ethnic group cannot be guaranteed in any part of the country, then Nigerians should know that it is not a coincidence. And my God shall not fold arms while the devil and his children seek to destroy the destiny of Nigeria, he declared.

We have the strength of character, the courage and the conviction to mount a sustained campaign in defence of justice, and in defence of our religion. We will not give up our religious practice because of someone else. Nigeria belongs to us all and not for a few bigots who currently occupy positions of authority, the cleric added.

It would be recalled that the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) had earlier complained about the development during its meeting with Acting President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The delegation led by its President, Rev Dr Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, also listed demands on the matter and other burning issues in a letter delivered to Osinbajo.

Source: Tori
In the latest confession of Billionaire kidnapper Chukwudubem Onwuamadike a.k.a. Evans said he ran inside his house to commit suicide when he saw policemen at the gate of his Magodo mansion but was pursued and arrested before he could kill himself.

I want to die. I cant stand this humiliation he emotionally said in a chat with Saturday Vanguard a few days after his arrest.

Being overcome by emotion was the least thing anyone would expect from someone, who lived in his own world with a larger than life image. But for notorious kidnap kingpin, Chukwudubem Onwuamadike, aka, Evans, who was arrested last Saturday at his Magodo Estate mansion, Lagos, the end is not just near but had come.

The 36-year-old suspect, who is a native of Akamili in Umudim Quarters, Nnewi, Anambra State, disclosed at the Lagos State Police Command, amidst tears, that he was being humiliated beyond limits, noting that he preferred dying than to continue living in pains.

I knew Policell not be fair to me

Evans said he knew the Police would not treat him fairly when he was caught, given the kind of atrocities he committed over the years.

It was based on this assumption that he told Saturday Vanguard that he made up his mind to end his life the moment the Police gained access to his house.

He stated that the Police officer who pursued him as he ran into his house when he sighted them at his gate, prevented him from completing his mission.

Regretting that he was not able to end his life that moment, he looked at this reporter and asked: What am I living for? When I saw the policemen dash towards me I ran inside. I was not running to escape. I ran to see if I could end it before they could take me. But time was short. They followed me into the room.

I want the government to train and educate my children.

Not done, he added thus: I have seen it all, I want to die and have some rest. The only thing I want now is for the government to take care of my children, educate them and dont allow them to become criminals. I have begged Abba Kyari, to do this for me and he assured me that the Lagos State government would take them to an orphanage home where they would grow to become better persons in the society. I have been diagnosed with Colon Cancer and I wish I could die now.

Asked about the exact location of his wife and children, Evans said he sent them to Ghana four days before he was arrested, adding that they had planned to relocate to Canada, where he said he wanted his children to school.

He further disclosed that he gave his wife the sum of N20million for her upkeep, stating that he did not know their location at the moment since the day he was arrested.

Evans also revealed that his wife, who he has been married to for 11 years only knew he was a kidnapper a few days before his arrest.

How my wife knew I am a kidnapper

He said: My wife didnt know I am a kidnapper. I kept all my kidnapping activities away from her and she thought I made my billions from importation and illicit drug dealings. We didnt allow visitors to visit our house for any reason. If she must receive any visitor, I usually ask her to take them to a hotel.

But a few days before I was arrested she discovered I was worried and restless. My blood pressure went very high and she asked what was happening. I opened up to her and also told her that security agents were everywhere looking for me. Initially, I thought it was the Department of State Security, DSS, that was hunting for me.

I also told her to be very careful with her phones and to be mindful of the people who call her. I also told her to always switch off her mobile phones. While I was still contemplating on what to do, I got information that one of my girlfriends known as Ijeoma had been arrested and taken to SARS, Ikeja. That was when I knew that the people hunting me were policemen.

I called my second in command, Felix and warned him to be careful that the Police were closing in on us, but before I knew what was happening, I learnt that Felix had been arrested in Ojota.

I sold my cars, stopped my children from going to school

I immediately moved my family out of my house and we relocated to a hotel in Agidingbi Ikeja. My children stopped going to school, then I started making preparation for them to travel to Ghana where I have three houses.

A few days later, I got news again that my younger sister, Nzube had also been arrested by the Police. I heard they were trying to use her to lure me. I then sent words to one of my friends in Nnewi to take my mother to Bayelsa State where I felt locating her will be difficult. Then I sold three of my cars, leaving just a Grand Cherokee SUV.

Four days before my arrest, I sent my wife and children to Ghana and I paid the sum of N20 million to the account of a bureau de change operator in Ghana. She collected the money in Cedi. I was planning to join them the day I was arrested.

Source: ( PM News )
A Lagos State Magistrates Court in Igbosere has ordered that the lawmaker representing Edu /Moro/Patigi constituency of Kwara State at the House of Representatives, Aliyu Pategi, be remanded in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The court, presided over by Mrs. Afolashade Botoku, made the remand order on Friday following an application to that effect by the EFCC.

The EFCC had told the judge that Pategi stood surety for a former Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, Oloye Jumoke Akinjide, who has a pending criminal charge against her before the Federal High Court in Ibadan.

The EFCC charged Akinjinde with money laundering, alleging that she collected N650m out of the $115m doled out by a former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezaani Alison-Madueke, to compromise the 2015 general election.

Pategi was said to have, on August 10, 2016, entered a bail bond of N650m to secure an administrative bail for Akinjinde, but the former minister was said to have jumped the bail.

The EFCC said Akinjides non-appearance had stalled her arraignment in the charge marked FHC/IB/26C/2017 before the Federal High Court in Ibadan with the court threatening to strike out the charge should the EFCC fail to produce her.

On Friday, the anti-graft agency dragged Pategi before the magistrate court in Lagos, asking him to show cause why he should not forfeit the N650m to the Federal Government.

Counsel for the EFCC, Rotimi Oyedepo, said the motion on notice seeking forfeiture of Aliyus N650m was filed pursuant to Section 6(6) of the constitution and Section 132 (1) -(3) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act.

In a six-paragraph affidavit filed in support of the motion on notice, an operative of the EFCC, Danladi Daniel, said That an intelligent report was received sometime in 2016 that Oloye Jumoke Akinjide and others benefited the total some of N650m from the proceeds of gratification received by the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, from various oil marketers such as Northern Belt Oil and Gas Company; Actus Integrated Investment Limited; Midwestern Oil and Gas Company Limited and Adesanya Leno Olaitan which money were kept with Fidelity Bank.

I know, as a fact, that in the course of our investigation and based on discoveries made against Oloye Jumoke Akinjide of her involvement in the crime, it became imperative to invite her to come and shed more light on her role and involvement in the crime, an invitation which she honoured and during which she volunteered her statement.

That on the 9th of August, 2016, the respondent herein (Aliyu) approached our office with a written application seeking for the bail of Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide with the undertaking to produce her whenever her attention is needed.

Daniel said Aliyus application for Akinjides bail was approved and he entered a bail bond of N650m stating that he would forfeit the sum should Akinjide jump the bail.

He said upon conclusion of investigation, the EFCC filed a charge marked FHC/IB/26c/2017 against Akinjide and two others.

They were charged with 24 counts bordering on money laundering.

He, however, said, all efforts made by officers of the application (EFCC) to get Oloye Jumoke Akinjide to come and stand her criminal trial proved abortive and we have contacted the respondent herein (Aliyu) who stood as her surety to produce Oloye Jumoke Akinjide in accordance with the terms of the bond but he has woefully failed to do so.

The applicant (EFCC) has now brought this application seeking the forfeiture of the recognisance entered by the respondent (Aliyu) on behalf of Oloye Jumoke Akinjide.

After hearing the application on Friday, the magistrate, Botoku, adjourned till June 20, 2017 for ruling.

Aliyus counsel, Adenrele Adegborioye, made an oral application for the release of his client, urging the court to note his status of as a federal lawmaker.

But the magistrate, who insisted that the bail application had to be formally made, ordered that Aliyu should be remanded in the custody of the EFCC.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
A self-styled Evangelist has found himself in serious trouble after he mobilized some people and attacked some alleged witches in his community.

A Magistrate Court sitting in Bolgatanga area of Ghana, has remanded into prison custody a self-styled Evangelist, and four others for accusing and detaining three accused witches in Duusi, a suburb of Tongo in the Talensi district of the Upper East Region of North Ghana.

This comes after four members of the same family were on Wednesday remanded for the lynching of an alleged witch at Yenboka Kenna, a town in Pelungu, Ghana.

The five suspects identified as Evangelist Akwesi Ali Baba 29, Douk Sapark 30, Messiah Somlate 25, Mba Gurang 40, Malpayah Mbayin 27 and one Tarabon, currently at large were arrested and subsequently arraigned on Thursday, 15th June 2017.

They accused Bayeta Kiimbey, Ateensage Ziyaaba and Sagteg Yamboreya of witchcraft.

The court held that on 6th June 2017, the Evangelist Akwesi Ali Baba accused the complainants of being witches and based on that, the accused persons were attacked and threatened with death by some irate persons led by Tarebon.

The accused persons managed to escape and reported the matter to the chief of Gaare, Naab Yamboreya Gbmere.

The chief Naab Yamboreya, kept the accused persons at his palace for safety for three days, before calling on the police to rescue them.

Following the chiefs decision, the four suspects including the one at large unlawfully entered the rooms of the accused persons and destroyed properties in search of supposed witch-pots and other items they believed were used to bewitch people as claimed by the evangelist.

They were later arrested by the police and arraigned.

The state prosecutor, Mr. Gilbert Boateng Addae, prayed the court to remand the suspects into prison custody to enable police complete investigations for their trial.

The presiding judge of the Bolgatanga Magistrate Court, His Worship Osman Abdul-Hakin, granted the request of the prosecutor and remanded the suspects into prison custody.

According to Citi News, they are to appear in court on the 30th of June 2017.
On Thursday 15th June 2017,some suspected fraudsters were apprehended along osogbo-ilesa road,owo-Eba Area at around 8:05am.

The Nigeria security and civil defence Corps osun command arraigned one self acclaimed chief Eleye ojo (male 56)who confessed to be the chief priest.other accomplices in his team include his wife omolara Alabi,Faleye Tobilola(male 19)and Babatunde Adedeji Akeem (male 35).

They admitted of being involved in fraudulent practices and obtaining money under pretence of performing rituals.

The herbalist confessed how he used to dupe people and the boy he used as osanyin to be telling them fake prophecy

Further investigation revealed that they have an office in ibokun town which serve as shrine. Items found in their custody include the following:cowries,local charms, and other accessories meants to trick their unsuspecting victims.

The corps hereby warns citizens to be careful in their dealings with others especially those who may promise them El Dorado and mouthwatering surprises.

When speaking with Amiloaded correspondent,DSC Babawale Afolabi therefore appeals to the good people of the state to always give prompt security information to the corps so as to curb this trend fraudulent malpractices when you see something say something.lets be out brothers keeper

More :

Source: Naijaloaded
Nollywood Actor, Jude Orhorha popularly known for his role in Fuji House of Commotion sat down with Saturday Beats, and he disclosed that he regrets aborting his first child.

Heres what he said;

I am regretting the fact that if I had my first baby when I was about 22 years old, I would know how old the child would be now. A girl who got pregnant for me in 1992 aborted the child. Back then, there was no GSM so she stayed away from me. After the abortion, she then came back to meet me to tell me that her mother said she should not keep it and when I asked her what she meant, she opened up to me. She is Igbo but I am from Urhobo.

She said that her mother said she should not keep the baby because I did not have money. Back then, it was the Igbo marketers who were selling spare parts that were making waves. They were the ones who had money. In the late 80s and early 90s, there was nothing like Nollywood but only those that were selling electronics.

It was the guys that sold spare parts that were making money and they dated all the Igbo girls, both the ones in school and the ones at home. So if you were not selling spare parts, you were not regarded as a rich person. The girl left me because her mother told her not to date me anymore.

Unfortunately, there was nothing like mobile phones; if not I am sure she would have called me. She just left for about two months. When she told me, I broke up with her immediately because I am a Catholic just like my mother, he said.
The notorious billionaire kidnapper, Chukwudi Dumeme Onuamadike aka Evans has taken policemen to his infamous detention camp where victims are hidden from the public.

Lagos-based kidnap kingpin, Chukwudi Dumeme Onuamadike, a.k.a Evans, has led a team of Policemen from the Federal Anti-kidnapping Unit to what used to be his detention camps for people he abducted, according to Channelstv.

The separate buildings, located in Igando and Ikotun in Lagos, are usually where the kidnap victims are kept for days or months while negotiation for ransom are made.

The report revealed that Evans told journalists that his arrest signals the beginning of the end of kidnapping in Nigeria, claiming that his gang applied the best sophistication ever which no gang may be able to equal.

Evans was arrested on June 10, along with six suspected top members of his gang at Magodo Estate in Lagos after an intense gun battle with the Joint Special Forces led by the Intelligence Response Team, the Lagos State Police Commands Anti-Kidnapping Unit and Technical and Intelligent Unit of the Force under the supervision of the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State.

They were paraded at the headquarters of the Lagos State Police Command by the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Jimoh Moshood.

Police sources said the 36-year-old suspect, who had been on their watch-list for about seven years, is reputed to be the most notorious and richest kidnapper in Nigeria.

He is believed to have received millions of dollars in ransom payment.

According to the police, he has two mansions in Magodo GRA Phase 2 worth about N300m and two houses in the Highbrow area of Accra City in Ghana among many other properties such as exotic cars, expensive watches, and jewellery, among other things.
Soon to be married Media personalty/actress, Stephanie Coker, has in a new interview, confirmed that love is found in unexpected places.

According to Stephanie, she met her fiance at a restaurant where she had gone to have a business meeting. Explaining how she met in an interview with SCHICK Magazine, the actress confessed that heeding a waitress advice ensured that she got her man.

Hes a property developer and we dated for three years before getting engaged. He saw me sitting alone while waiting to meet with someone who never showed up, so he sent a waitress over to ask if I wanted anything to eat. I declined because I was there to work and I just wanted to have my meeting. The waitress cheekily suggested I should accept his offer, so I ended up getting takeaway and giving him my business card. He gave me a call and the rest is history (by the way, when he tells this story, he says I was staring at him  I wasnt!), she said.

She also shed some light on her women empowerment programme, The Future Is Her. She said that all she wants to achieve with the project was to use her platform to help talented, young women in Nigeria go up the career ladder. Fame is great, money is great, but there is no point to it all, if youre not making an impact in peoples lives, she added.

Source: SCHICK Magazine
Nigerian artiste Ayoleyi Hanniel Solomon, known in showbiz as Reekado Banks, has appealed to Ghanaian musicians to promote their music internationally for adequate recognition.

The Mavin Records signee is challenging Ghanaian musicians to embark on pro-bono trips for the sake of their work.

Travel more, travel more not for money benefit but just for the sake of the work. Try and get your music out there, he urged

When JoyNews MzGee asked if the practice was the norm with Nigerian musicians, Reekado Banks answered in the affirmative.

Many times, we dont even have a show here [in Ghana] we just come through for interviews. It is not that bad now, $200 [and] you are in Nigeria, he added.

In this interview Reekado who was in Ghana to shoot the video of Bisa Kdeis track Feeling, which he featured on, talks about his journey to becoming a Mavin artiste, his boss Don Jazzy, the state of his feud with Olamide, Ghana/Nigeria jollof and more.

Source: Joy News
The Benin Zonal Command of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) have arrested a 33-year-old man, Monday Ugbo, for human trafficking.

Three victims were also rescued from his residence located at number 72 Osayande Street, Upper Sakponba Road, Benin City, Edo State.

According to the operatives of the agency, they have been on his trail for several weeks, following regular mention of his name in a number of human trafficking cases being handled by the Zonal Command.

Following intelligence reports that he was harbouring some girls in his house preparatory to their being trafficked abroad, the operative swooped on him in the early hours of Friday and caught him in the process of receiving a registration fee of N50,000 he had demanded from a prospective victim.

Preliminary investigations revealed that he was also preparing to take the three girls to a river that morning for oath taking before they could embark on the journey to Europe.

Mr. Ugbo who claimed to be a bricklayer, according to investigations by the agency, has been in the business of human trafficking for a long time and operates with another woman who is at large now. Mr. Ugbo, who is in the agencys custody, is making useful statements.

Reacting to this breakthrough, the Director-General, Julie Okah-Donli, commended the operatives and stated that there is no hiding place for human traffickers anymore in Nigeria as the agency and her partners have resolved to collaborate more appropriately in stopping further trafficking of Nigerians both within and outside of Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Immigrations Service, NIS, has handed over 21 rescued victims of human trafficking to NAPTIP. The age range of the victims is between 18 and 34 years.

One suspect was also handed over. Twelve of the victims comprising five males and seven females were handed over to the Kano Zonal Command of the agency by the NIS after they were intercepted at Babamutum border area of Katsina State by the NIS Border patrol as they were being moved outside the country.

Another nine, all females were handed over to the NAPTIP headquarters, Abuja by the NIS headquarters while attempting to procure International passports to travel out.

All the victims are at present with the agency which is profiling and counselling them while the suspect is making useful statements.

Source: ( PM News )
A nurse is enjoying her new found fame after her eye-popping modeling photos showing her endowed bum surfaced online.

Ebony Lavette is a registered nurse but enjoys baring her massive and well shaped bum for the camera. Lavette is not just a nurse, she is also a model that has amassed a respectable number of followers on Instagram where she flaunts her sexy body for people.

In numerous photos she shared on her Instagram page, the nurse/model could be seen posing seductively in different shots while showing off her huge bum.

She also has twerk videos with many people going gaga for her. Merely seeing her in uniform, no one could ever think of her other lifestyle.
The operatives of Runuolumeni Police Divisional Headquarters in Obio/Akpor LGA have arrested a Pentecostal pastor in Rivers State, Legitom Doctor, for defiling and impregnating an 11-year-old girl.

The Pastor, who is the head of Greater Grace and Mercy Church in Rumuolumeni, had, on December 2016, allegedly forced his victim to bed and impregnated her.

The victim stated that Doctor raped her the day her father travelled home to bury his mother, adding that he gave her N2,000 to abort the baby.

She said, He is our close neighbour. In December 2016, I went to his house to take our needle and thread that his sister-in-law collected from me. When I got there, he came out of his room and I told him that I came to collect the needle and thread his sister-in-law took from me. He asked me to come in. I went in. He grabbed me and slept with me.

When he finished and I was crying, he told me that if I tell anybody, I will die the way my mother died. I was afraid. I did not tell anybody until June when my father discovered that I was pregnant.

I did not know what was happening to me. I met him (Doctor) and told him that I had not seen my period since the incident; he told me that I should not be afraid and that I should remember his warning. Later that day, after we came back from the church, he gave his sister-in-law money to take me to a place to abort the baby, but when we got there, the doctor said he would not do it because I would die. I did not tell my father because I was afraid.

The suspect admitted to sleeping with the girl, claiming he did not know what had come over him.

Doctor said, I had carnal knowledge of her on December 29, 2016. Around May ending, she told me that she was pregnant. I am a pastor. When I finished it, I wept. I know I am responsible. I want to take care of her until she puts to bed. I will train her.

However, the father of the victim, identified simply as Uduak, said he would only drop the case upon the payment of N5m by the suspect to take care of his pregnant daughter.

The Divisional Police Officer of Rumuolumeni Police Division, Mr. Kingsley Chukwueggu, said the suspect would be arraigned in court at the end of the investigation.

Also, the spokesperson for the police in the state, Mr. Nnamdi Omoni, said the state police command was aware of the matter, adding that investigation was ongoing.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Eight vehicles were revovered from a robbery syndicate from the Oyo State Police Command.

The arrested suspects were Badejo Festus, aka Otinan, 22; Owaidiegwu Felix; and Nasiru Olanihun, 21.

Festus was released from Agodi prison in May.

The state Commissioner of Police, Abiodun Odude, while parading the suspects at the state police headquarters in Ibadan, said their arrest was made possible after a receiver of one of the stolen vehicles was arrested in Sango area of Ibadan on June 8.

Odude said, A syndicate that specialised in stealing vehicles from where they were parked has been smashed by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the command. The arrest of three members of the syndicate at about 8 pm on June 8, 2017 was made possible following intelligence received about the nefarious activities of the gang.

One of the criminal receivers was arrested by the Sango Police Division on June 8, 2017, while he was trying to sell a car, which was earlier stolen from where it was parked at Agbaje area, Ibadan on May 26, 2017. Further investigation coupled with credible intelligence carried out by the special squad led to the arrest of the kingpin in Ibadan.

The vehicles recovered from the gang included: Toyota Corolla with number plate EKY920AZ; Toyota Camry with chassis number 4T1BG12KTU755773; Toyota Camry with chassis number 4TIBG22KIYU694485; Toyota Camry car with chassis number 4TIBG28K6WU193693; Honda CRV with number plate KTU491ES and chassis number JALRD185XVC042878; an unregistered Land Rover with chassis number SAL1NABG114594727; Honda CRV with number plate KSF11BJ and chassis number JHLRE487X8CO15233DSD; and Toyota Camry with number plate MG751KJA.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
The Presidency on Saturday expressed disappointment, over 50 trucks in every 100 trucks of food sent to the North-East to cater for those displaced by the Boko Haram sect were being diverted.

It said the ugly development was being addressed with the implementation of the Special Relief Intervention an initiative launched by the Federal Government in Maiduguri on June 8.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Acting President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, disclosed this in a statement made available to journalists.

Akande said an update report on the implementation was presented to the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, during a meeting he had with National Assembly members from the North-East at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Friday.

He quoted the report presented to Osinbajo as revealing that the initiative is now delivering assorted grains to Internally Displaced Persons through over 1000 trucks and already have reached 12, 691 households in Borno State since it was inaugurated.

He said, According to the update presented by the implementation team, the diversion of relief materials including food and related matters which has dogged food delivery to the IDPs would be significantly curbed under the new distribution matrix adopted under the initiative.

For instance, over 1000 trucks of assorted grains are now on course, delivering the grains intact to beneficiaries since the commencement of the present programme as against the reported diversion of over 50 trucks in every 100 trucks sent to the North-East.

Akande disclosed that under the new arrangement, 656 armed policemen would be involved in the movement of assorted grains from various reserves across the country to designated warehouses of the National Emergency Management Agency in the North-East for onward distribution to beneficiaries.

He added that another 1,376 military personnel would escort the grains to some IDPs in the hinterlands across the affected states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.

He quoted Osinbajo as describing the initiative as a unique operation that promises to deliver on a well laid out plan.

He said the Acting President assured all stakeholders that the process would remain transparent and the objectives fully actualised.

According to him, Osinbajo also disclosed that apart from the emergency food distribution, the Federal Government will also deliver on a holistic plan that includes empowerment because empowerment is an important feature of the relief intervention.

He said although the problems were immense, especially when compared to available resources, the Federal Government remains determined to deliver humanitarian aid through a process that is transparent and effective.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
The Ikeja, Lagos residence of former Chief of General Staff, retired Lt. General Oladipo Diya, has been gutted by fire.

A thick smoke was seen bellowing from the residence being guarded by military men. Fire fighters battled for hours to put out the fire.

The exact cause of the fire was not immediately known. It was also not clear if the retired general was in the house at the time of the incident or if there was any casualty.

Source: ( PM News )
One of the victims of Notorious Kidnapper, Evans who paid about $1.2 million to regain his freedom has narrated his ordeal in the hands of the kidnapper. Vanguard reports.

He narrated how Evans and his gang operates, their feeding pattern, what led to his release and more. Read Below;

The day of the kidnap:

On September, 2015, as I was coming back from my factory in Agbara to my home in Festac, arriving Seventh Avenue, I saw four gun men. They stopped in front of my vehicle and started shooting while I was with my two drivers in my Hilux pickup. I was sitting at the back, thinking they were policemen. I was wondering why they were shooting and charging at us not knowing that they were kidnappers. In the process, they shot us, me and two of my drivers but luckily, nobody died. I still have a bullet in my body. By the time I realized they were kidnappers, they dragged me out of my vehicle to their own Lexus 470 Jeep. Inside their Jeep, there were lots of arms and ammunition inside a box. They had another box at the back where they put me in. Four guys were inside that Jeep, well-armed, even the driver had his own AK-47 riffle. They drove past Festac Link Bridge to Amowu-Odofin, around 4:30pm as if they were going to Okota. Later, they came out to Oshodi -Apapa Expressway. By this time, they had not blindfolded me but they pushed my head down, lying bare on the floor of the car. One of them just held me as I was seriously bleeding. I never knew I would survive this. I couldnt remember the places they took me to because I was lying down. After a long journey, they stopped at a particular area, those guys jumped down and another group came on board and zoomed off again. As we were going, we got to one house, they called the security guard who came and opened the gate, and they brought me out, gathered water, changed their cloths and called one doctor, whether he was quack or not, I do not know. They told the doctor they had emergency. The doctor came, washed me and treated my wound. That was the first thing they did. Though, when we were about to get to where they wanted to take me to, they blind folded me. They were administering two injections on me daily. When I asked them the kind of injection they were giving me, they said it was anti tetanus injection and pain reliever. They refused to give me water saying that if you have bullet in your body, you dont drink water. The second day, Evans came there with the doctor and said to me that, he came there because of me. Yet, I did not set my eyes on him. Maybe, the person that asked them to kidnap me told them that they should not let me die. I said this because of the kind of treatment they were giving me or maybe, it could be because of my wound. But, I was seriously bleeding. At a point, they were thinking of exchanging me. They called my brother to come and let me go out and treat myself of the bullet wound. My elder brother accepted to come but backed out at the end because those people, you never know what they planned. May be their plan was to capture the two of us before they would kill us. It was an ugly situation. They injected me for seven good days. From that Monday till the next Sunday, every two days, there was a particular guy that came there to treat my wounds, dress it and put the bandage again. After some days, Evans called.

How they operate

How they operate is that, they keep a hostage keeper, which is someone that would be guiding kidnap victims so that any time their boss wants to call, he would call that person. When he calls the person, the person would bring the phone to the victim and hold the phone for you talk to him. They were always communicating. They did not maltreat me because of my condition but I heard them maltreating the victim in the other room with hot iron and the person would be crying. Before they start that, they would go and put on their generator so that their neighbours would not be hearing. That guy was a terror.

Feeding pattern

They were feeding me with one useless Indomie. I was just managing to eat to keep my life moving. They asked what kind of drugs I was taking but I told them I was not on drugs. I did not make trouble with them but there was a day I tried to escape. I was scared whether all the neighbours were their gang members or not. Again, even if I would have escaped, I would have been naked because before you go to the bathroom, they take away your boxers. When you finished, you knocked at the door and turned your face to the wall as they gave you your boxer to wear. They would blind fold you and put you in chains again. Early morning I used to hear siren and I thought, that it was police that were coming to rescue me. At the end nothing would happen. They would go. What were they coming to do there around 4:00 am to 5:00 am? I noticed that five times and I asked myself, what the police are coming there to do?. I also noticed there was a construction site nearby where people were working. One particular day, one boy came in and asked mummy, who is this uncle?. I was listening and waited to hear what the woman would say but she did not say anything. So, that couple that was paraded were there. I was praying every minute of the day, waiting for anything that would happen the next day. It was traumatising . So many things happened. I knew that, nothing would happen to me but they would charge me more money. You know, I paid $1.2 million. We paid it in three instalments. We paid two hundred thousand dollars, eight hundred thousand dollars and another two hundred thousand dollars. He claimed that, the first two hundred dollars we paid had been cancelled because we set them up by inviting security agents to be tracking them. Thats how we were accused and that the payment had been rubbished. He bargains with the victims, he doesnt bargain with the families. Whatever he asked for that is what the family would pay. A person that is under chain, what would he say? Anything they asked you to do, you just had to do it because of your life. That was not joke, they meant business. If you refused to co-operate, they would kill you. I am sure; they have killed some people there. I stayed there for six weeks. I was abducted on the 7th of September and I was released on the 19th of October, 2015.

What led to my release?

After I had finished paying the ransom, they still kept me for another eight days. My people were worried, and I was worried too because I did not know what was going on outside. They had cut off communication with everybody. Immediately, he collected his ransom, he travelled abroad. He goes outside to keep his ill-gotten wealth, which was obvious. I now asked the hostage keeper, how long it takes them to release a hostage. He said four days, I now asked again, but why am I still here? He then said I should not worry, that the chairman travelled and that I would be released as soon as he returned. He said that I should see myself as a free man and relax. The man was a greedy man. Of all the money we paid him, he didnt feed us well. His duty, I observed, was to collect money and drop victims. When he came back to Nigeria, he came to me where I was detained by his men and said to me that, today, you will go. He ordered his boys to bring all my belongings. My Rolex watch, my bag, my golden ring and my sandals were nowhere to be found. Not to talk of cash because all of them were criminals. All other valuables were gone. They only brought my cloths, bank cheque books and seals and a polythene bag. And for my sandals, they bought one bathroom slippers for me. Just imagine someone coming back from his office. Then, he asked me to hold on till the road was free; it was about 5:00 pm.

How Evans promised to attend my thanksgiving in church

As I was waiting, he came back and called me, Nnwa which is my title name. Any time he wanted to talk to me he first called me Nnwa. When he saw my wound, he said, I was a lucky man. That, my God is a great God. He said that, I would live up to hundred years for surviving that gunshot. I asked him why they were shooting us like that. He said in war all was fair. I then asked you and who were fighting?. Did I have gun with me?. Evans now asked who was the person in front of my car. That was when they thought I was a policeman. In fact they would have killed my driver if he were a policeman. When he came down and they asked him, he told them he was just an ordinary driver. That was when they left him. He advised me to buy a lot of drinks because many people would be coming to sympathize with me. He stressed that people were already waiting for my arrival. He said: Any day you are going to do thanksgiving, we are going to be there. I now asked him, how would I know you will be there? He replied that, I shouldnt worry; he would come and follow me to thank God. Nnwa, but your God is great oh. All these things he was talking, my mind was not there because I knew he was wicked. That evening, he brought ten thousand naira that I should take it. That if, they drop me anywhere, I should use it to enter taxi to my house. Or if I wanted, they could drop me in a nearby hotel so that, I could call my people to come and carry me. But I told him to just drop my anywhere he wanted. When it became dark everywhere, they took me out of that house and moved me round the city before finally dropping me around Lagos State University (LASU, side in Iyana Oba. Even to walk was a problem because, I had been in chains for long and all my bones had grown weak. I almost fell down while trying to cross the road because of my wobbling legs. I lost so much energy that, I became weak, lean and tired. Suya was the first thing I ate after my release from captivity. I called a motorcyclist to take me to any nearby bus stop, which he did. When I turned the other side, I saw one man selling roasted meat (Suya), I went to him and bought the meat for one thousand naira and started eating. My action was to soften the ground for me to start asking question that would let me know exactly where I was as by this time I never knew where I was exactly. I asked the man, how I could get to Mile 2, and he said before you get to Mile 2, you first of all get to LASU. I asked again, how I could I get to LASU, he told me to cross the road to the other side and enter any bus that was going that way. As soon as I entered the bus, I switched on my phones and there was no single credit on my phones except the one we used as a company group. That one doesnt need credit because we pay once in a month. I now used it to call one of my managers. Immediately he saw my call, he knew I was out and asked me where I was so that he could come and carry me. I told him to come to LASU, I got there and was waiting for him. He was coming from Agbara axis. While there, I strolled down a bit to buy orange, one man just came to me that I should give him money in spite of my tattered appearance. I took two thousand out of the ten thousand Evans gave to me and gave to him. I was kind of hiding so that people who knew me before would not notice me until I got home. When my manager came, he took me straight to the house after that, I went to report officially to the police. Even the commissioner of police came to my house after that. After that incident, I requested for police protection which I was later provided with. I was so happy when I heard that, the guy has been arrested. I thank the Nigeria police for doing a great job. That shows that, if the police want to work, they could work.

Source: Yabaleftonline
Raw Sugar (SB) Reclaims 61.8% Fib Retrace of Apr-Sep Slide Tradable Patterns - Thu Nov 10, 10:40PM CST Raw Sugar (SBH23) edged higher yesterday, gaining for the 9th straight day and closing above the 61.8% Fib retrace of the April to September slide. SB is now comfortably above the October high, downchannel... SBH23 : 19.41s (+0.15%) SGG : 61.02 (+0.64%)

Hog Futures Weaken on Thursday Barchart - Thu Nov 10, 4:46PM CST Front month lean hog prices closed the Thursday session with 32 to 82 cent losses, but are still in the black on net for the week due to the Monday strength. The USDA National Average Base Hog Price was... HEZ22 : 84.875s (-0.47%) HEJ23 : 94.225s (-0.42%) KMZ22 : 95.500s (+0.05%)

Mixed Close for Thursday Cotton Barchart - Thu Nov 10, 4:46PM CST Cotton futures worked both sides of UNCH on Thursday, and settled the day mixed. December traded in a 251 point range on the day to close 12 points red. May 23 through the new crop futures were higher,... CTZ22 : 86.99 (+0.71%) CTH23 : 85.21 (+0.77%) CTK23 : 84.57 (+0.71%)

Cattle Rise on Weaker Grains Barchart - Thu Nov 10, 4:46PM CST Live cattle futures firmed up after a red midweek trade, erasing yesterdays action and going home back up by $0.72 to $1.50 in the front months. USDA reported cash sales from $149 to $150 in the South... LEZ22 : 153.075s (+0.99%) LEG23 : 155.025s (+0.57%) LEJ23 : 158.500s (+0.46%) GFX22 : 178.625s (+0.51%) GFF23 : 181.700s (+1.14%)

Wheat Holds Relatively Firm Barchart - Thu Nov 10, 4:46PM CST As corn and soybean futures fell 1-2% on Thursday, wheat markets were relatively firm on 1 1/2 to 8 cent losses across the complex. MGE wheat faired the worse of the domestic classes, and went home 6 3/4... ZWZ22 : 812-2 (+1.09%) ZWH23 : 833-2 (+0.91%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.3619 (-0.41%) KEZ22 : 933-0 (+0.84%) KEPAWS.CM : 8.8355 (-0.51%) MWZ22 : 938-4 (+0.75%)

Double Digit Drop in Corn Market Barchart - Thu Nov 10, 4:46PM CST Corn futures faded the Thursday session with double digit losses and closed near the low. December dropped the most on an 11 1/4 cent pullback to lows not seen since mid/late August. USDA announced a... ZCZ22 : 657-6 (+0.69%) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.5135 (-1.71%) ZCH23 : 663-6 (+0.64%) ZCK23 : 663-4 (+0.61%)
Plattsmouth residents woke up Saturday morning to the sound of chainsaws buzzing downed trees and tree limbs following a storm system that brought hurricane level winds as high as 100-miles an hour to southeast Nebraska.

Plattsmouth Mayor Paul Lambert said he declared Plattsmouth a disaster area following the storm, which hit the town at about 8:15 p.m. June 17.

Plattsmouth Police Department, Plattsmouth Volunteer Fire Department members joined by Elmwood Fire and Rescue, Murray Fire and Rescue and Cass County Emergency Management Agency and paramedic services in cordoning off the city into quarter sections. These volunteers searched for people injured or trapped in their homes, downed utility wires and potential fire hazards.

If they saw damage on a house, they checked to see if everybody was Ok, Lambert said. All the police department came back on duty. They were patrolling and stopping vehicles and controlling traffic. They did a great job of patrolling the area. State troopers also came to keep people from driving around.

The fire department rescued two people from Schilling Wildlife Management Area. They had to use a front loader form the city and cut some trees down with chainsaws to get to them. One patient was life-flighted out and the other suffered minor injuries, Lambert said.

Lambert said City Hall was opened Friday night until remained so until 3 p.m. Saturday, pending an emergency management situation.

American Red Cross opened a shelter at the Plattsmouth High School. It was open until 5 p.m. Saturday. Several people were there Friday night because they were without air-conditioning and power.

Nebraska Public Power District sent crews from South Sioux City, Kearney and York. Those crews were backed up with a large crew from Norfolk, Lambert said.

Plattsmouth Fire Chief Mike Wilson said firefighters were very concerned when the power came back on Saturday morning that there were downed wires going live and start fires. We had multiple power lines down that were sparking. We divided up each truck and sent them to different areas. They primarily searched around the area and then we brought everyone back here for a briefing with city officials, street department crews and law enforcement, Wilson said.

The storm knocked down all the power lines on Bay Road from Highway 75 past Buccaneer Bay. Omaha Public power District is out and about repairing damage along Bay Road. They say it will be four or five days before the road opens back up, Wilson said.

A building owned by Roger Schmidt suffered significant damage.

Wilson said the high winds hit Linder Lakes very hard. They had a lot of tree damage. Recreational vehicles were overturned or on their tops. Right now (3 p.m. June 17), it remains a restricted area, Wilson said.

Wilson said he spent much of the time in the rural response areas. Saturday morning, we worked another search making sure everyone is OK and not trapped in their houses. For what we had, it was a very smooth operation.

Wilson said he had no idea how many calls they responded to after the storm. We were running all the way up to 2:30 a.m. and we started at 8:20 p.m. or 8:30 p.m. when the initial storm hit. It wasnt here that long, but when it was here it let you know it was here, Wilson said.

More information on the storm will be posted on The Journals website and in its June 22 print issue.
Sunday, June 18th, 2017 (10:56 am) - Score 2,738

The incumbent telecoms and broadband provider for Hull in East Yorkshire, KCOM, is reportedly aiming to be one of the first cities in the UK to switch-off their ageing copper telephone lines. Instead theyd become reliant upon their new full fibre (FTTP/H) network for communication services.

So far KCOM has already deployed their Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) network to over 100,000 homes and businesses in their footprint and they aim to cover 150,000 premises by December 2017, which equates to 75% of their overall network in Hull and East Yorkshire (a roll-out plan for tackling the final 25% is expected to follow). Take-up is also strong with around 45,000 customers choosing to subscribe.

However the FT (paywall) claims that KCOMs CEO, Bill Halbert, is now beginning to plan for a future that would decommission their old copper telephone network and they intend to be the first to do it. This is hardly surprising given that no other UK city has the same level of FTTP coverage as Hull.

Bill Halbert said: Copper cannot handle the future. It has to be fibre all the way. Thats one of the big national challenges for our economy.

At this point wed highlight that completely removing copper would still be a very awkward challenge for KCOM, not least since around 8% of their Lightstream roll-out of fibre optic based broadband technology consists of 75Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) technology (thats a mix of both cable types).

Decommissioning FTTC would thus require KCOM to go back a second time and upgrade areas with FTTP, which theyll have to do eventually anyway but the question is when and how much will it cost? Sadly theres no mention of any timetable for such a switch-off, which means that it could still be someway off in the future.

On top of that virtually all of KCOMs customers would need to be swapped to FTTP lines before they could pull the plug on copper, which is another complicated problem as some people dont like being forced to change. We suspect that such a switch-off may require quite a long-winded phase-out process.

The FT article also talks a lot about phone lines, although its important to distinguish between the phone / voice side of that service and the physical copper line underneath. For example, BT hopes to migrate users off their traditional phone (PSTN) network by 2025 and switch them to IP-based voice services (e.g. VoIP). Crucially this doesnt mean that BT is going to remove their copper lines, theyre just changing what happens over those same lines.

Likewise the swap to IP-based voice comms doesnt mean that old analogue handsets need to stop working. Its entirely possible to buy an analogue telephone adapter and some routers already include sockets for these, which allow you to connect analogue phones and essentially use them for calling over VoIP via a broadband connection.

Given the advent of hybrid-fibre G.fast and follow-on broadband technologies, we suspect that operators like BT will be using their copper lines for a long time to come. Regulation is another complicated barrier to overcome and at some point Ofcom may need to consider further changes in order to fully support both the removal of old PSTN services and the retirement of copper lines.

We recently covered some other aspects of this subject as part of our February 2017 editorial  The Changing Face of UK Home Phone Lines and Broadband Provision.
This Week in Review

A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more.
Stephen Furst, the actor who played the hapless, beanie-wearing frat boy Flounder in the 1978 movie "Animal House," has died at age 63, his son, Nathan Furst, told CNN on Saturday.

"It was from complications from diabetes," Nathan Furst said. "Over the last several years it was getting worse a little bit. Sort of the typical things that tend to happen when you have diabetes a long time."

Furst appeared on TV in "St. Elsewhere" and "Babylon 5," but he was best remembered for his role as the innocent freshman Kent Dorfman in "National Lampoon's Animal House," which ushered in a brand of raunchy comedy.

His character was rejected by other fraternities at the fictional Faber College but got into the hard-partying, rule-breaking frat nicknamed Animal House. Bluto -- the house wild man played by John Belushi in his own breakout role -- gave Dorfman the nickname Flounder. A series of mishaps and humiliations followed.

Flounder accidentally killed a horse -- apparently by inducing fright -- by firing a pistol loaded with blanks into the air during a midnight prank in Dean Vernon Wormer's office.

He was also the recipient of one of the movie's most famous lines, delivered by Wormer: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

Furst was born May 8, 1955, in Norfolk, Virginia, as Stephen Fuerstein, according to the Internet Movie Database. He was orphaned at 16 and raised by an aunt, the Turner Classic Movies archives said.

He started acting in high school, partly because he was self-conscious about his weight, he said in a 1985 interview with the Chicago Tribune.

"I'm one of the most insecure people in the world, always have been, and when you're a fat kid, you try to make the fat jokes before other people make them," he said.

"I went to high school in Virginia Beach, Va., and we had these guys, they were surfers. They didn't like me, never talked to me. And if they didn't like you, they threw toothpicks at you. After I did a play, it was different. I found out I was pretty good at something."

He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University and delivered pizzas in Hollywood, giving himself publicity by putting his picture and resume inside the pizza boxes, IMDb said. Producer Matty Simmons discovered him and put Furst into "Animal House."

After "Animal House," he kept getting Flounder-like parts and reprised the role in "Delta House," an ABC sitcom based on the movie, according to the Turner Classic Movies archives.

Furst had a more serious role playing Dr. Elliot Axelrod on the NBC series "St. Elsewhere" from 1983 to 1988. His character fought questions about his competency and obesity -- a real-life struggle for Furst, who weighed more than 300 pounds at times.

He played an alien ambassadorial aide in "Babylon 5," which ran on TNT from 1994 to 1998, and found roles on shows like "Have Faith" on ABC. He had a recurring role on "Melrose Place" in the 1990s.

Furst directed "Baby Huey's Great Easter Adventure" in 1999 and "Magic Kid 2" in 1994.

After he was diagnosed with diabetes in 1996, Furst dropped more than 85 pounds and appeared in an educational video produced by the American Diabetes Association.
Davidson County Community College has joined the Community College Equity Assessment Lab National Consortium on College Men of Color, which is the first consortium dedicated to advancing success of men of color in community colleges.

Participation in the NCCMC will enhance our commitment to improving the success of historically underrepresented and underserved students, including men of color, said Margaret Annunziata, the colleges vice president of academic affairs.

Despite programs designed to enhance outcomes for men of color, in the United States only 17 percent and 15 percent of black and Latino men earn a certificate, degree or transfer from a community college to a four-year institution in six years, the college said in a news release.

To combat this achievement gap, the consortium facilitates an exchange of ideas between community colleges across the nation on how best to serve men of color in community colleges, the college said. Participating institutions convene to share their efforts and learn about new strategies for enhancing the success of men of color.

French economist

to speak at DCCC

THOMASVILLE  Davidson Community College will hold a public lecture Thursday featuring Olivier Peyre, a Business Administration faculty member at Nicolas Bremontier Technical College in Bordeaux, France

Peyre will speak at 6 p.m. in room 110 in the Rittling Conference Center. His talk will cover topics including the Greek crisis, Brexit, the increase of migrants, the Common European Defense Project, the rise in populism and other changes in the European Union, the college said in a news release. Peyre will also offer commentary on Frances recent election and its global impact on society and culture.

Peyre will lead the audience through shared connections between the United States and the world by focusing the similarity of issues being faced in the U.S. and abroad.
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Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] on Thursday called on [press release] the government of Nigeria to conduct an investigation into the actions of the military that occurred during and throughout the conflict with Boko Haram. AI issued a comprehensive report [PDF] in 2015 detailing the alleged abuses thousands have suffered by the hand of the Nigerian military due to the conflict, and the most recent call to action is in response to an investigative panel the Nigeria government put together that AI claims is neither independent nor impartial. Responding to a report the panel submitted, AI said:

We stand by the findings of our research and our call for an investigation that is independent, impartial and thorough; criteria that this panel clearly does not meet. We maintain that the nine senior commanders named in our report should be the subject of an effective and independent investigation. To this end we welcome the panels recommendation that there should be a Presidential Commission of Inquiry into these allegations of horrific war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in north east Nigeria.

The Boko Haram/Nigerian conflict has been ongoing for several years and has led to the deaths of thousands; Boko Haram [BBC backgrounder] is a militant Islamic group, whose name means Western Education is a Sin, and has been fighting in the interest of creating an Islamist state. In January, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Cecilia Jimenez-Damary, sharply condemned [JURIST report] the bombing of refugee camps as a means of counter insurgency against Boko Haram. In April 2016, the UN urged [JURIST report] the Nigeria government to escalate efforts to locate and rescue people abducted by Boko Haram. In February 2016 UN human rights advocates asked [JURIST report] the Nigeria government to guarantee the safety of areas liberated from Boko Haram through military maneuvers. In October 2015 AI announced it was setting up an office in Nigeria [JURIST report] to investigate human rights abuses. In a showing of solidarity with the victims of human rights violations, AI has established a permanent base in Abuja that will serve as the main base for the global movements research, campaign and communications work for the nation.
The Cuban government on Saturday responded to President Donald Trumps decision to reverse steps taken by the Obama administration to thaw relations between Cuba and the US. Last Friday, Trump announced that travel and commerce between the countries will be restricted until Cuba resolves its human rights abuses. According to Trump, the Cuban government is guilty of various abuses such as the imprisoning of civilians, harboring of criminals, and support of human trafficking, forced labor and exploitation.The Cuban government responded by criticizing the US position on human rights as a double standard. The country cited deep concerns by the respect and the guaranties of the human rights in that country, where there is a large number of cases of murder, brutality and police abuse, particularly against the African Americans; the right to live is violated as a result of deaths by firearms. Cuba called Trumps decision a significant backward step that uses old methods of coercion to strengthen the embargo between the nations.

This decision halts two years of progress normalizing relations between the US and Cuba. For a country accused of significant human right abuses, Cuba took a significant step to open itself to the world on human rights in April. An agreement was made between the United Nations and Cuba to allow a UN investigator to visit [JURIST report] the island nation for the first time in over 10 years. The executive order [materials] by Donald Trump only effects certain relations originally crated by Obama. One area unaffected by the order is the immigration policy, which ended a longstanding immigration [JURIST report] policy in January.
A special anti-terrorism court in Mumbai, India found six men guilty yesterday [Indian Express report] for the 1993 terrorist bombings in Mumbai [BBC backgrounder], then called Bombay, where almost 300 people were killed and hundreds more were injured. The special court was formed under the order of the Terrorism and Disruptive Activities Act(TADA) [official text], a controversial law that has allegedly led to the violation of human rights. The court has scheduled a proceeding for later this month to determine the sentences for the bombers. All of the individuals were charged with waging war against the nation, and five of the accused were convicted under both the TADA and for conspiracy while the sixth was found guilty only under the TADA.

Mumbai has been dealing with the aftermath of the 1993 bombings and the subsequent attacks in 2003, 2006, 2008, and 2011 for almost a quarter of a century. Earlier this year Pakistan authorities placed militant leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed under house arrest [JURIST report] for his connection to the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Saeed has been accused of orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai attacks [CNN backgrounder]. In 2009 three individuals who were convicted of the 2003 bombings were sentenced to death [JURIST report]. Later that year the trial of the only gunmen to have survived the 2008 mass shooting at a hotel continued even though the man confessed his guilt [JURIST report] in the midst of trial proceedings. The government responded to the slew of terrorist bombings by reconsidering an anti-terror law that had been previously repealed [JURIST report] and by creating special courts like the one involved with TADA to speed up the judicial process [JURIST report].
Istanbul turns into a more attractive shopping destination as the city prepares for the 7th edition of Istanbul Shopping Fest (ISF).

Taking place between July 1 - 16, ISF will offer discounts of up to 50%. Moreover, Istanbul's both modern and traditional shopping centers will host many activities during the fest.

"Visitors to Istanbul come not only to see the city but also to discover the culture and art of the city. There will be design contests, where the best designs will be selected, awarded by Turkey's Trademark Association. All the events will be held in nine different shopping malls," said Istanbul Chamber of Commerce Chairman Ibrahim Caglar.

Caglar added that approximately 200 local and foreign designers will participate in the shopping fest. He noted that 15 artists will hold exhibitions and around 150 workshops and more than 30 music and dance performances will add joy to the shopping fest.

Designated "Design ISF" areas will be located at major shopping malls including Akasya, Capitol, Emaar Square, Forum Istanbul, Istinye Park, Kanyon, Palladium, Venezia Mega Outlet and Zorlu Center. These areas will provide an opportunity for visitors to meet famous designers like Bahar Korcan, Arzu Kaprol and Gamze Saracoglu and experience special design products including jewelry, accessories, furniture, ceramics, graphics, fabrics, books, stationery, glass, lighting and organic food.

The Uninvited Jazz Band, Tango Rojo, Can Turkkan, Arbil Celen, Julide Hatay, Deniz Gungor and Ali Deniz Kardelen will perform during the shopping fest.

See best hotel offers in Istanbul
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stands during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, June 14, 2017. The Trudeau government plans to cap the spring sitting of Parliament with long-awaited legislation on Access to Information and national security  bills unlikely to be debated by MPs in a serious way until the fall. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
FILE - In this May 30, 2017, file photo, Philippines government troops prepare to head to the frontline as fighting with Muslim militants in Marawi city enters its second week in southern Philippines. The Philippine government said Sunday, June 18 that it would suspend offensives against communist guerrillas to reciprocate a similar plan by the insurgents and allow troops to focus on quelling a bloody siege by Islamic State group-aligned militants that has dragged on for nearly a month in the southern city. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)
The National Tour Association has responded to President Donald Trumps decision to change the policy affecting the parameters under which U.S. citizens are able to travel to Cuba.

President Trumps signed directive will cancel the Obama administrations move to ease sanctions on Cuba, but there will be few immediate changes. The policy will enforce the 12 authorized categories allowing American citizens to travel to Cuba, more specifically, curbing one known as people-to-people trips. Educational trips still qualify, but they must be part of a group trip led by a guide.

According to Engage Cuba, rolling back current Cuba policy could cost U.S. businesses and taxpayers $6.6 billion and affect 12,200 jobs during President Trumps first term.

We are committed to supporting our member tour operators, hotels, cruise lines and other businesses that have invested in bringing tourism to Cuba, said NTA President Pam Inman. We want to do everything we can to protect those investments, while encouraging open travel that builds cultural bridges.

The interest in travel to Cuba has grown since restrictions were eased beginning in 2014, which produced economic benefits for both nations.

While stopping short of a full reversal, President Trump said he would like for Cuba to come back to the table with a new agreement. None of these changes will go into effect until the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments issue new regulations that conform with the administrations policy.

NTA tour operator member Academic Travel Abroad is an experienced provider of people-to-people trips to Cuba. Kate Simpson, president of the Washington, D.C.-based company said, We are equipped to continue operating our Cuba programs in full compliance with new federal regulations. We do not foresee any interruption, and we look forward to operating all trips with our usual impeccable standards, creative approach and focus on engagement.

Simpson said that people-to-people or educational exchanges are still permitted as long as they are through a licensed organization and comply with a full-time schedule of meaningful interaction with Cubans. Self-directed people-to-people travel is no longer permitted, Simpson added.















LONDON, June 18 (Reuters) - The chairman of Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will leave the organisation at the end of his term on March 31 next year, the FCA said in a statement on Sunday.

John Griffith-Jones, who is also the chairman of the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), will leave both bodies. He took on the role at the FCA in April 2013.

"John Griffith-Jones has provided strong leadership to both Boards during his tenure, helping to establish them as key parts of the UK financial regulatory system," finance minister Philip Hammond said in a statement.

The finance ministry will now begin recruiting Griffith-Jones' successor at the FCA, which oversees markets to protect the financial system.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas; editing by Andrew Roche)
"Swag or Die: Naive Lady" by Kim Hyun-jung / Courtesy of the artist



Artist Kim Hyun-jung challenges convention



By Kwon Mee-yoo

Artist Kim Hyun-jung, 28, paints women in "hanbok," or Korean traditional costumes. The term hanbok might sound old-fashioned and staid, but Kim's hanbok-clad models are far from traditional or obedient. Instead, they carry luxury bags and drink more-expensive-than-the-meal coffee out, but eat instant noodles they cook in the skillet at home. Kim catches this peculiar duplicity of contemporary society with her women in hanbok.

"There were controversies over the painting, but it's just me. I like cheap instant food such as noodles and hamburgers. But at the same time, I go to the cafe and drink expensive coffee after having instant noodles for a meal. It's just the culture of our generation, no judgment," Kim said during an interview with The Korea Times at her studio.

Kim is the only Korean artist to be listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2017, which presents promising young innovators and entrepreneurs of the region. The magazine described Kim as an artist who defies convention and challenges conservatism by revealing the female body silhouetted beneath hanbok.

Now the figures have faces similar to Kim and the artist says it is her self-portrait, or the self-portrait of the generation. However, the series depicted people Kim hates in the beginning.

"I don't like people who have their tongues in their cheek. I was hurt by people talking behind my back and my wounded heart caused me much depression. At first it was part of art therapy and I tried to capture people I don't like. However, when I saw the finished product, the figures were so like me. Maybe I hated them because they resembled me," Kim confessed.





Artist Kim Hyun-jung



The keyword embracing Kim's works is "naesung," a Korean term for looking docile to the eye, but wily inside. The word is suggestive of certain behavior in Korea, but is hard to translate into other languages.

"There is no direct equivalent of naesung in English and when I exhibit overseas, I have to describe the situation instead of translating it into a word. The description often goes deeper into the Confucian culture prevalent in Korean society."

She tried different expressions such as coy, prudishness and pretending to be innocent and settled down for "feign" as the title of her works. But feigning is just not enough either.

"Naesung in my paintings regards appearances that do not match what's inside to fulfill expectations or conventional judgment. I don't think naesung is a phenomenon particular to Korea, but it is rather a universal concept," Kim said. "So now I introduce my works as the Korean genre painting of the 21st century."

Kim thinks wearing elegant clothes and doing vulgar actions is also an example of naesung. "Hanbok is a very elegant costume. These days, we wear hanbok on special occasions and we behave modestly in hanbok  no binge drinking or swearing. So I painted the coy women in hanbok."





"Feign: You Move Me" by Kim Hyun-jung



Kim mainly works on large canvases and paints nearly life-size figures wearing hanbok.

"There is a certain aura coming from the size. I felt that sort of overwhelming when I saw large paintings of water lilies by Claude Monet," Kim said. "I don't draw based on imagination because it lacks reality. I only draw and paint what I experience. The presence from reality and the human scale give my works distinction."

The unique subtleness in her painting comes from multi-step processes to give the figure depth, both visibly and invisibly. Kim first draws the body, lightly colors see-through skirts and puts on a layer of "hanji" (traditional Korean mulberry paper) to express the texture of hanbok.

"It was difficult to paint the crisp texture of hanbok so I tried various methods. Now I dye thin hanji and paste it on the underdrawing," Kim explained. "It takes about two to six months to complete a painting. It might look easy, but I ponder composition and color and research hanbok. I also use traditional methods and paint with ink colors over and over to portray darker colors."

Artist-entrepreneur

"I follow a 9-to-5 schedule at my studio and sometimes work overtime at night, just like ordinary office workers. I aim to be prolific as I want to live as fiercely as possible," Kim said.

This practice comes from Kim's academic background, as she double-majored in Oriental painting and business administration at Seoul National University.

"Artworks are expensive, but artists are poor. I took business administration courses as an attempt to understand the art market," she said.

She now runs the Kim Hyun-jung Art Center, systematically organizing her works from creating artworks and signing deals of collaboration with companies as well as managing more than a dozen social network service accounts.

Kim uses these social network services as her online gallery to reach a larger audience as well as to communicate with the public. "People leave comments after seeing the work. Sometimes they interpret the painting better than I do and inspire me with new ideas. It's like collective intelligence," the artist said.





"Feign: Narcissism" by Kim Hyun-jung



Her works are also often exhibited overseas as they present the people of Korea nowadays in a symbolic way.

"Kimchi and bulgogi are not enough to represent Korea. Those who exuberate over K-pop and hallyu like what Korea has now and my works show the life of Koreans now," she said.

The boundary of Kim's work has expanded to media art and 3D-printed sculptures, but still she is rooted deeply in Oriental painting. "I am thinking about my identity. Should I call myself an Asian pop artist? Does the term genre painting of the 21st century best describe my work?" she said. "I have worked on over 300 pieces of the naesung series and I know the preferences of people. But I will not settle for what people like. I want to be honest in my work and explore more possibilities through other media such as photography and installations."

Visit kimhyunjung.kr for more information about the artist.




It remains to be seen whether Lagarde will meet President Moon



By Yoon Ja-young





International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde speaks during a press conference in this 2013 photo. She visited Korea for the launch of the Global Climate Fund (GCF) here. She is scheduled to visit Seoul in early September for the second time as IMF chief. / Korea Times file

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will visit Korea in early September.

According to sources, Lagarde will give a congratulatory speech at an international conference in Seoul on Sept. 7. The former French finance minister, who successfully led the French economy out of the global financial crisis, has been heading the IMF since 2011, being re-elected for a second five-year term last year.

She broke many glass ceilings, becoming the first female head of the international law firm Baker & McKenzie, the first female finance minister of France, and the first female head of the IMF. She is also known as a fashionista, recognized by a number of fashion magazines like Vogue and Vanity Fair.

The two-day conference running until Sept. 8 is jointly organized by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the Bank of Korea, the IMF, and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, under the theme of Asia's sustainable growth.

Finance ministers and central bank governors of major Asian countries will be participating along with high-level officials of the IMF and other international organizations to share their insights on financial and economic policies.

It dates back to last August, when then-Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho and IMF's Asia and Pacific Department director Rhee Chang-yong agreed to hold a high-level conference in Seoul to discuss effective policy options to enhance Asia's growth.

When contacted, the finance ministry confirmed Lagarde is scheduled to visit Korea Sept. 5 to 7. It would be her second visit to Korea as IMF chief. She took a flight to Seoul in late 2013 when the Global Climate Fund launched here.

She also came here in 2010 for the G20 meeting. But back then, she represented France as its chief financial decision maker.

It remains to be seen whether Lagarde would meet President Moon Jae-in. If the two meet, the date is expected to be Sept. 6. The presidential house refused to confirm the schedule of the new leader.

Of note is that many Koreans have mixed feelings about the IMF because of its bailout of Asia's fourth-biggest economy in 1997 when the Asian financial crisis hit hard the country.

In return, the international institute proposed very stringent economic measures, which many Koreans believe led to a prolonged slump causing massive layoffs and failures of manufacturers.
Presidential adviser's comment causes controversy before summit

By Yi Whan-woo





Moon Chung-in

Controversy is growing over the remark of President Moon Jae-in's security adviser that South Korea and the United States may consider scaling down U.S strategic assets on the Korean Peninsula if North Korea halts its nuclear provocations.

As the stance is different from that which the U.S. has taken so far and the two allies have not talked about such issues yet, concerns are rising that the two nations may have difficulty coming up with a unified opinion about North Korea at the first summit between Moon and U.S. President Donald Trump slated for June 29-30.

Speaking at a seminar in Washington, D.C, Saturday, Moon Chung-in, the President's special adviser on unification, foreign affairs and national security, said U.S. strategic assets could be scaled down if North Korea suspended its nuclear and missile activities.

He also said the annual military exercises between South Korea and the U.S., such as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, could be downsized under the same conditions.

"It's unnecessary to deploy a super-carrier and a nuclear submarine during the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises," the adviser said during a meeting with South Korean correspondents at the Wilson Center.

"The tension on the peninsula may be eased if those U.S. strategic assets are scaled down to the level they were before 2010," the adviser said.

He is visiting the U.S. until June 21 to discuss Seoul's foreign and inter-Korean policies with American opinion leaders ahead of the summit.

He said the U.S. had increasingly maintained nuclear deterrence since North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010. A U.S. Navy strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson stayed in South Korean waters after the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises ended in the spring.

The Kim Jong-un regime called the two joint exercises a U.S. rehearsal for an invasion of North Korea.

Moon said it was Pyongyang's responsibility to at least halt its nuclear tests and ballistic missile program.

His remark was one step forward from President Moon's offer, Thursday, to resume inter-Korean dialogue "unconditionally" if the Kim regime suspended its nuclear and missile provocations.

Moon Chung-in said his remarks were his personal idea as a scholar, but criticism rose that it was inappropriate that he, as a presidential adviser, talk about such sensitive issues before the South Korea and the U.S. governments discuss it and agree on an official stance.

A Cheong Wa Dae official said many parts of the comments were Moon Chung-in's personal opinion as a scholar and were not Cheong Wa Dae's official stance.

"Such issues (scaling down U.S strategic assets) require the two governments' agreement," he said.

In addition, public opinion in the U.S. toward any engagement with North Korea has become negative especially after Otto Warmbier, a college student, returned from North Korea in a coma last week after being imprisoned there for 17 months.

Regarding the dispute over a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery deployed here, the presidential adviser dismissed concerns that the row would affect the Seoul-Washington alliance.

"There is speculation that our alliance will break up if THAAD-related issues are not resolved," he said. "I wonder if such relations can be really considered an alliance. It's hard to accept that THAAD is everything about the alliance."

In late May, President Moon ordered a full-scale environmental assessment of the battery system, citing procedural flaws in deploying it during the former Park Geun-hye administration.

The order consequently delayed full deployment of an additional four THAAD launchers, but Seoul said the assessment did not mean a reversal of the deployment itself, although the entire survey would take about a year.
University of Siena Rector Francesco Frati, second from left, poses with Incheon National University President Cho Dong-sung, third from left, at a lunch event for a joint master program at the Korean university in Incheon on June 8./ Courtesy of Embassy of Ital





By Rachel Lee

The Embassy of Italy has announced a partnership with Korea in the education sector.

Incheon National University and the Institute for Global Health of the University of Siena launched a new master's program on June 8 in public health, biotechnology and pharmaceutical clinical development with support from the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) based in Seoul.

"The new joint bio-focused master's program is a unique partnership between industry and academia in Korea," the embassy said.

"Most of the costs of each student's education will be covered by industrial sponsors that will get in return knowledge on how to apply innovative and cutting-edge technologies to the discovery, assessment, development and production of biologics, and to overcome challenges in manufacturing."

In its inaugural year, the degree will accept 10 to 20 students and classes will begin in September. The curriculum, including numerous courses and seminars, is organized into five modules totaling over 360 hours of lectures. Institutions such as, Oxford, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Imperial College, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, IVI, the Sabin Institute and industry partners will participate in teaching activities, the embassy said.

"The new course will be part of one of the strategic projects of the Santa Chiara Lab in Siena, the Institute for Global Health," the embassy said.

Italy-Korea cooperation in science and technology has a long tradition and has grown in recent years.

"Health-related research has quickly emerged as a priority, not only because of Italy's traditional excellence in medicine and Korea's focus on health-related services, but also because biomedical translational research is increasingly becoming a shared goal in both our countries," the embassy said.

As a result, bio-robotics, biochemistry and industrial relationships on pharma-biotech are recognized as themes for common Italian-Korean initiatives led by the embassy. Four symposiums have been organized through its Science Office, together with Korean partners. A symposium on neuroscience was held a few weeks ago while a forum on precision medicine was held in April.
Portuguese Vice Minister for Internationalization Jorge Costa Oliveira, center, poses with Portuguese Ambassador to Korea Antonio Quinteiro Nobre, left, and Joana Neves, head of mission for trade and investment at the embassy, at the Portuguese Wine & Food Tasting at Cabo da Roca Wine Cafe in Seoul on June 13. / Korea Times photo by Rachel Lee





By Rachel Lee

Portugal is ready to entice Korean consumers with its quality wines.

At the Portuguese Wine & Food Tasting at Cabo da Roca Wine Cafe in Seoul on June 13, the Embassy of Portugal introduced some of Casca Wines' products along with Portuguese food.

The event was organized to coincide with Portuguese Vice Minister for Internationalization Jorge Costa Oliveira's visit to Seoul June 12 to 15.

"We do not produce in large quantities, and we will never do it as others do," the vice minister told The Korea Times. But he said Portugal was continuing to increase the value and quality of its wines.

Cabo da Roca Wine Cafe, launched on April 25, exclusively features wines from Casca Wines at the venue in Gwangak-gu, southern Seoul.

"Casca Wines is a project developed by revolutionary Portuguese winemaker Helder Cunha and Portuguese wine specialist Alexandre Tirano who, with no vineyards or estates, decided to produce unique wines," said Joana Neves, head of mission for trade and investment at the embassy.

"The project works with Portugal's most particular grape growers and the best grapes and tries to renew Portugal's unique tradition in winemaking."

At the bar, customers can try Monte Cascas wines from Portugal's top vineyards. And there are wines from Portugal's iconic regions such as Douro, Alentejo, Tejo and Dao, Colares. There also are Cabo da Roca wines  wines of Atlantic influence  that come from Portuguese coastal wine regions such as Vinho Verde, Bairrada, Lisboa and Setubal.

Cabo da Roca Wine Cafe owner Kim Oh-sung said positive reviews have come from wine experts and customers.

"Portuguese wines sound unfamiliar to most Koreans, but once you try it, you will come back and want more for the quality it gives," Kim said.

With the launch of the bar, Kim aims to increase the awareness of the brand and market share of Portuguese wines.

Wine prices range from about 25,000 won to 100,000 won.

The vice minister, who was on his second visit to Korea, brought representatives of six companies in the fields of home textiles, furniture design, luxury ceramics and pharmaceuticals. During the stay, they participated in business meetings and joint initiatives with the Korea International Trade Association and the Korea Importers' Association.

"Korea is a very important market, but still quite unknown to Portuguese companies," Oliveira said. "There is still a misconception that Korea is a very protective market like Japan, which is quite wrong."

"There are already some businesses going slowly in Korea. But once Portuguese companies discover Korea, they will come and start doing business."

For more information about Cabo da Roca Wine Cafe, call 070-4147-3852 or email kossung@outlook.kr.
By Rachel Lee



Internet of Things (IoT) experts from Thailand and Korea will gather in Bangkok to discuss the utilization of IoT platforms and devices and foster business partnerships.



At the "Trade Facilitation Workshop for Thai Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME)" on June 20 to 23, representatives from Korean IoT companies will meet their Thai counterparts and gain up-to-date Thai industry information through a Digital Economy Promotion Agency briefing.



The ASEAN-Korea Centre, the Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP) of Thailand and the Korea IoT Association organized the workshop with the theme "Enhancing Competitiveness of the Thai Internet of Things Industry."



"To propel Thailand towards a value-based economy, the Thai government adopted the Thailand 4.0 initiative as a new economic model," ASEAN-Korea Centre Secretary General Kim Young-sun said.



Thailand also developed the National Digital Economy Master Plan (2016-2020) that points out focus areas to drive digitalization of its economy, Kim said.



"To achieve this, Thailand seeks to further enhance the competitiveness of its MSMEs so that they can reap the full benefits of new trade opportunities in the global digital economy," he said. "Therefore, I hope this workshop provides a platform for Thailand and Korea to develop valuable networks and to work together toward value co-creation."



The trade facilitation workshop will be held at the DITP where Korean experts will share their expertise. Their presentations will cover topics such as "Converging IoT Devices and Platforms for Business Success," "Utilizing IoT Platforms for Value-Added Business Models," "Industrial IoT and Smart Factory," "Korea's IoT Industry and Product Development Cases of Korea" and "Industrial Trends and Policy Directions for IoT Development."



Kim, the Korean Ambassador to Thailand Noh Kwang-il and DITP officials are expected to attend the opening ceremony, the ASEAN-Korea Centre said.



The ASEAN-Korea Centre is an intergovernmental organization established in 2009 to promote exchanges among Korea and the 10 ASEAN member states.












By Lee Kyung-min







A total of 101 judges nationwide will attend a meeting today to discuss measures about the "blacklist of judges."



The list was allegedly created by the Supreme Court to deny promotion of those critical of its chief Justice Yang Sung-tae.



During the single six-year term, the top justice exercises enormous power over personnel affairs of about 3,000 judges and 15,000 judicial employees including 12 Supreme Court justices.



Promotions of judges are reportedly determined to a considerable degree by the political inclinations of the rulings they made on socially and ideologically contentious cases. Yang, appointed by former President Lee Myung-bak, a known conservative, has less than three months until his retirement in September.



The meeting, scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. at the Judicial Research and Training Institute in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, comes four months after the allegation about the list first emerged.



It was alleged that the Office of Court Administration under the Supreme Court, sought to scale down a judges-only academic symposium. Since August 2015, the meeting raised questions about whether the judges are able to make independent rulings free of pressure from a Supreme Court justice or other personnel affairs. Judicial reform was another key agenda item.



The allegation grew larger after the chief of the study group, only identified by his surname Lee, revealed that he was offered a promotion to the Office of Court Administration in what he said was an exchange of his commitment to scale down such "anti-conformist" activities in a phone conversation with Lim Chong-heon, the second-in-command at the office. The chief offered to resign and his promotion was withdrawn.



Following the allegation, Lim, alongside Office of Court Administration head Ko Young-han and Lee Kyu-jin, a standing committee member at the Sentencing Commission under the Supreme Court, resigned amid an allegation they were in charge of such efforts to suppress critical voices within the judiciary.



The Supreme Court then asked Judicial Research and Training Institute professor emeritus Lee In-bok to conduct an internal investigation into the allegation in an effort to allay the fury by the judges, but the outrage was further fueled after his conclusion that there was no such list.



Most judges found it questionable, especially because Lee was unable to examine the computer hard drive where the pass code-locked list was allegedly stored.



The Office of Court Administration refused Lee's request to go over the files in the computer saying no documents were to be reviewed by individuals other than those who wrote them. It also cited security breach issues in general.



Such an absurd response prompted the Seoul High Court, the most senior and relatively conservative group of judges, to demand the reopening of an internal investigation into the allegation.



According to a study conducted by the symposium, known as a human rights study group, of 502 judges nationwide, almost 90 percent, or 443, said they feared punitive personnel actions if they expressed criticism of the Supreme Court chief justice or court heads.



Almost half, or 45 percent, said they also feared punitive actions if they rule against the administration in power or certain political groups.



Meanwhile, the collective convention of judges is the first in eight years since 2009 when a similar number of judges organized a meeting to protest former Supreme Court chief justice Shin Young-chul.



The meeting was held to demand the resignation of Shin, following the revelation that he, then the Seoul Central District Court head and a major Supreme Court justice candidate in 2008, called and sent emails to judges at the district court who presided over cases involving candlelit street protestors about the import of U.S. beef to promptly rule against them.



The rulings that greatly suited the then President Lee Myung-bak eventually helped Lee appoint Shin as the top judge in Korea. Shin finished his term in full in February 2015.




Foreign minister nominee Kang Kyung-wha returns to her seat during a confirmation hearing at the National Assembly on June 7. / Yonhap



President Moon Jae-in appointed his new foreign minister Sunday despite strong objections from opposition parties.



The appointment came after the opposition-led parliament failed to issue a report on the outcome of its confirmation hearing for the new top diplomat, Kang Kyung-wha.



Moon earlier stressed a need to have a foreign minister before his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump later this month, as well as the Group of 20 summit in Germany in early July.



Initially, the parliament had until Wednesday to publish a report on Kang's confirmation hearing held June 7.

Moon gave the parliament an additional period after the initial deadline expired.



The president is required by law to offer a second chance of up to 10 days for the parliament to publish a report on a confirmation hearing.



Moon had offered an additional three days, The second deadline expired Saturday.



The president does not need parliamentary approval to appoint new ministers. However, his appointment of Kang is widely expected to put strains on his already shaky ties with the opposition-led parliament.



The main opposition Liberty Korea Party earlier threatened to boycott the ongoing parliamentary session should the president appoint the new foreign minister without its blessing.



Such a boycott, if it takes place, may effectively prevent appointments of at least 10 minister designates waiting to be reviewed and confirmed by the National Assembly.



It may also cripple government efforts to secure an 11.2 trillion-won (US$10 billion) extra budget that is designed to boost the local economy and also create up to 110,000 new jobs in the public sector.



The main opposition party controls 107 seats in the 300-seat National Assembly. The ruling Democratic Party controls 120 seats, the largest number of seats held by any single party in the unicameral parliament but still far short of a house majority.



Kang, a former UN official, was accused of various past wrongdoings, including alleged tax evasion and false registration of address for her daughter, which is a crime punishable by a jail term of up to three years or a maximum fine of 10 million won.



More importantly, they are part of five corruptive crimes the president had once said should keep their violators away from any high government offices.



Following the controversy over past wrongdoings of Kang and other minister designates, the president insisted his nominees must be evaluated for their abilities and their past wrongdoings in the context of when and why they were committed.



"Kang is a confident and great woman," he said earlier. "She has been recognized and praised for her abilities as a diplomat in the United Nations and the international community. As they say, she is a global figure. I believe it is about time we had such a global figure as our foreign minister." (Yonhap)
Senior secretary for civil affairs Cho Kuk, left, talks with senior secretary for personnel affairs Cho Hyun-ock before a meeting of secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae, Thursday. / Yonhap



Moon partially admits fault in screening

By Kim Rahn

Opposition parties have intensified their offensive against the controversy over what they call the Moon Jae-in government's failure in personnel affairs, as minister nominees are embroiled in alleged past misdeeds.

They are even calling for the resignation of senior secretary for civil affairs Cho Kuk and senior secretary for personnel affairs Cho Hyun-ock to take responsibility for the poor screenings.

Their offensive has strengthened after Justice Minister nominee Ahn Kyong-whan withdrew his nomination Friday amid multiple allegations, including secretly filing a marriage certificate without the consent of the unwitting bride, who later filed for annulment with a court and won the case.

"Cho Kuk and Cho Hyun-ock should step down to take the responsibility for their failure in personnel screening," Rep. Lee Yong-ho of the minor opposition People's Party said in a press briefing in Seoul, Sunday.

"President Moon also has to apologize to the public for nominating flawed people and then must completely overhaul the screening system," he said.

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) joined the offensive, especially about Ahn's withdrawal.

"When the presidential office of civil affairs screens Cabinet member nominees, it is a must to check records of their family affairs and lawsuits. So it is very likely for the office to have been aware of the issue," Jung Joon-gil, a spokesman of the LKP, said Saturday.

Cheong Wa Dae officials said they had not been aware of the marriage allegation until media reports emerged, but Ahn said during a press briefing on Friday morning that the presidential office had asked him about the allegation about a week ago.

"Moon promised he would make public who recommends which nominee. So he should disclose who recommended Ahn and hold the person accountable for the failure," Jung said.

The opposition bloc also said the National Assembly needs to convene a meeting of the House Steering Committee, which deals with issues surrounding presidential secretaries' offices, and call in the two senior secretaries to hold them responsible for the poor screening.

"People are dumbfounded that Cheong Wa Dae failed to check allegations which it was supposed to know about," said Rep. Choi Myung-ghil, a spokesman of the People's Party. "In the committee meeting, we should hold Cho Kuk and Cho Hyun-ock accountable."

Regarding the row, Moon expressed regret over Ahn's withdrawal, but partially admitted the screening had problems.

"We may have taken the screening lightly while prioritizing our goal (of reform), so we have to renew our determination," the President said Sunday after appointing Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, another disputed figure.

Presidential spokesman Park Soo-hyun also said, "If the Assembly and the public uncover allegations which Cheong Wa Dae failed to check, the President, who has the power to appoint Cabinet members, can retract or keep the nomination according to how serious the allegations are and what people think about them. In Ahn's case, the President accepted the criticism."

But the parties said other minister nominees are involved in various allegations and unqualified for their named posts.

Kim Sang-kon, the nominee of deputy prime minister for social affairs and education minister, is one of them who face tough confirmation hearings, over his alleged academic plagiarism.

Minor opposition Bareun Party floor leader Joo Ho-young said, "Kim is the most unqualified among the nominees. It is a big problem for an education minister nominee to have committed plagiarism."

Kim allegedly committed plagiarism on his Ph.D. dissertation in the 1980s, and published two papers in academic journals as original in 1991 by only changing a few parts of the dissertation.

What is ironic is that in 2006 when he was the head of the Korea Professors' Union, Kim demanded the resignation of then Education Minister Kim Byong-joon over suspicions of plagiarism. Amid criticism for the suspicions, Kim Byong-joon eventually stepped down 18 days after being appointed. The People's Party is considering calling him as a witness at Kim Sang-kon's confirmation hearing.

Another nominee facing tough scrutiny is Labor Minister nominee Cho Dae-yop.

The Korea University professor, who was caught drunk driving in 2007, said he drank while consoling student activists who were ousted for their progressive movement. But the students denied his explanation, and now he faces another allegation of "lying" in addition to drunk driving.
By Kim Jae-kyoung



Global economists have called on President Moon Jae-in to re-examine his jobs creation policy because it could become a heavy social burden in the long term and undermine the nation's economic growth potential.



They urged Moon and his policymakers to look closely into the efficiency and productivity of the public sector jobs they seek to create in order to avoid serious pitfalls.



Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis said Moon's plan for youth unemployment is a "step backwards."



"What Korea needs is to build a vibrant private sector that can innovate and create jobs no matter the consequences of robotization and AI on job creation not only in Korea but globally," she told The Korea Times.



She pointed out public sector jobs should only be created if they are needed and productive enough for their cost.



"If not productive enough, it will only drag down Korea's productivity and, thereby, potential growth," she said.



"Furthermore, it will increase fiscal expenditures so higher taxes will need to be raised. The end consequence, based on Europe's experience, is that young talent will leave Korea and only the less talented will remain for those public sector jobs."



Moon has pledged to create 810,000 jobs over the next five years in the public sector, including 174,000 civil service positions in national security and public safety and 340,000 in social services.



He also seeks to convert 300,000 irregular public sector workers into permanent employees.



James Rooney, vice chairman of the Seoul Financial Forum and chairman of Advanced Capital Partners, echoed Garcia-Herrero, saying Moon's plan is unlikely to produce the intended outcome.



"Although it is well-intentioned and presumably actionable, I do not count most of those actions as real job creation," Rooney said.



"Instead, many of them simply increase the fixed cost of government and thereby increase the social burden without creating any new productive economic output."



Economists, in particular, believe the Moon administration should come up with policies based on sophisticated analysis of the economic situation.



"Keynesian economists believe that pump-priming such as the creation of public sector jobs would kick-start the economy leading to more consumption and investment," said Sohn Sung-won, professor of economics at California State University.



"I would like to think Keynesian stimulus should be used when the economy and the job market are very depressed. Clearly this was the case during the Great Depression. Is Korea at such a dire point?" he said.



Sohn also said another point that should be cleared is where the money will come from.



"One could argue that if the government spends money by borrowing or through taxes, it takes money away from the private sector, hurting private sector job growth," he said.



"In short, it is not just job creation through pump priming _ its effects on deficits and private sector incentives should be considered as well."



Against this backdrop, experts recommend the government make more efforts to encourage private firms to hire more young people by easing regulations, offering financial incentives and ensuring a flexible labor market instead of creating more jobs in the public sector.



Also, they urged the government to place more emphasis on skills creation and human resources development, including expanded vocational education and training for young jobseekers.



"If we create skilled human resources with the characteristics and capabilities needed for the future, there will naturally be jobs available for them and demand for those people from employers," Rooney said.



"There needs to be a major effort to upgrade the skills, training and capabilities of Korea's precious human capital to match the needs of a more advanced economy and a work environment where very different skills will be creating the real economic value."



He pointed out the high number of unfilled jobs at present because employers cannot find workers with the necessary skills and experience.



"If we cannot supply those skills in Korea then employers will be forced to go overseas to other countries to find those workers," he said.



"This means the value-added and economic contribution occurs in that other country and not here in Korea, even if the employer is originally a Korean company."




The Kori 1 nuclear reactor in Gijang County in Busan, right, halted operations, Saturday. / Yonhap



By Kim Bo-eun

Korea's first commercial nuclear reactor, Kori 1 in Busan's Gijang County, shut down at midnight Sunday, 40 years after it went online.

The reactor, which began temporary operations in 1977 and started commercial operations in 1978, has been shut down due to safety issues due to frequent breakdowns.

The reactor's operations were halted at 6p.m., Saturday. Its power supply line has been cut off and the reactor is undergoing a cooling process.

The reactor's 30-year design life expired in 2007, but it received a 10-year extension in operations from the government until June 18 this year.

The Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) had been attempting to push for a second 10-year extension since 2015, but faced a fierce backlash from local residents and civic groups, which raised safety concerns.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy subsequently advised a permanent shutdown of the reactor in June 2015, and the KHNP withdrew its plan for another extension.

The shutdown was finalized after the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission voted for an approval on June 9.












President seeks advice from religious leaders to help nation heal wounds from Itaewon tragedy
The second meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) ended on Jeju Sunday. It has been a success for the global bank striving for more recognition and clout, and host Korea, the fifth-largest stakeholder.



The China-initiated creation has gained three new members _ Argentina, Madagascar and Tonga _ to bring the number of member states to 80, making the bank truly international. Notable exceptions are the United States and Japan.



Holding the second gathering on Korea's scenic island, after its inaugural meeting in China, has added to its international flavor _ something the bank has been eager to gain. More than 2,000 people representing the global community of businesses, finances and governments participated in the three-day gathering.



From host Korea's point of view, the meeting has strengthened its standing in the bank, once battered by the unhappy scandal involving the appointment of an unqualified Korean executive. President Moon Jae-in hit the right note, saying in a congratulatory speech that Korea and the AIIB pursue the same development direction, saying it was joining as the second after China in the bank's new project preparation special fund. Governments, infrastructure builders and financers from around the world engaged in 150 one-on-one meetings.



Korea also had an opportunity to promote its "smart city," carbon-free and other green energy projects. For that, President Moon vowed to stick to its goal of boosting green energy's share to 20 percent by 2030. This shows Korea's commitment despite the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement to the consternation of the rest of the world.



Now the bank is squarely on track after its 2016 inauguration, preparing to carry out its goal of financing a global network of infrastructure to make possible sustainable growth around the world. Korea as its key member expects to lead this global trend as well as find business opportunities in the One-Belt One-Way initiative, an infrastructure endeavor of epic scale that eventually will link the world.




Top Moon adviser rebuts hardline US approach on NK



If half the recent assertions made by Moon Chung-in, top adviser of President Moon Jae-in, translated into reality, the Korea-U.S. alliance could easily tumble to the lowest point. The incredulous U.S. State Department commented it could not be the new Seoul government's official position.



Considering the two Moons' close relationship (they are not related) _ the adviser served as "tutor" for Moon's mentor and friend, former late President Roh Moo-hyun _ the State Department's comment would easily turn out to be wishful thinking. Especially as Moon's Washington summit with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump is around the corner, the likelihood is that Moon in advance told what his boss wanted to tell Trump on June 29 to 30.



First, Moon, the architect of Roh's policy of equidistance between China and the U.S. _ negated the importance of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, observing that its withdrawal would not break up the alliance.



"It is hard to accept that THAAD is all about the alliance," he was quoted as saying. This runs contrary to the Washington atmosphere in which Trump and his top lieutenants have increasingly seen it as a test of the alliance's strength.



Now President Moon has put on hold the deployment, saying it needs an environmental impact assessment. Adviser Moon said this would take a year, pouring cold water on U.S. eagerness for early deployment. He spoke during the Wilson Center seminar as part of a familiarization tour for the President's foreign policy.



He dropped another bombshell _ the new government feels uncomfortable with the deployment of U.S. strategic assets such as aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and long-range bombers.



Trump's favorite tactic to deal with the North is to call in a series of carrier battle groups close to the Korean Peninsula or conduct flyovers by strategic bombers in a show of force. Now Moon has made it clear Seoul does not want this, insisting the primary purpose of the North Korean policy should be to reduce tension.



Then he alluded to the possibility of scaling down joint exercises that are aimed at boosting the interoperability of the two militaries and preparing for their combined strategy _ stopping invading North Korean forces until reinforcements arrive from the U.S. mainland.



China's proposal for scaled-down exercises in return for the North's freeze on its asymmetric weapons tests have been largely ignored by Seoul and Washington.



He suggested bringing about the peace regime to replace the current truce, an idea that Beijing has pushed but which the U.S. is not enthusiastic about. This is also anathema to conservatives here who believe it could lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops.



Moon said he spoke in his private capacity but it would not be wrong to see him speak on his boss' s behalf, considering the President was bequeathed the reconciliatory policy by Roh and the late former President Kim Dae-jung. Already, experts predict a tough summit because the two leaders are poles apart on many issues and Trump's domestic standing has been considerably weakened amid a scandal over his alleged Russian ties. Moon's assertions may only presage trouble to come.




By Tong Kim





President Moon's meeting with President Trump in Washington at the end of this month will determine whether the United States and the Republic of Korea can work together more effectively to deal with North Korean nuclear and missile threats. As reported, their agenda will focus on the alliance, the North Korean issue, and bilateral trade issues.

The two countries share a common interest in a strong alliance and a peaceful resolution of the North Korean threats. The alliance is for deterrence and defense against the North. However, Trump does not feel the trade relationship is fair to the U.S.

It will be easy for both leaders to agree to build a stronger alliance. On trade, there have been suggestions that Moon should offer an economic package of investment and import of more American goods that will create jobs in the U.S., a Trump priority in line with "America First." The trade issue can and should be manageable, without renegotiating the free trade agreement.

On the North Korean issue, it will be difficult to agree beyond a common approach in principle. On June 15, Moon reaffirmed his pursuit of engagement with the North, "If North Korea suspends additional nuclear or missile provocations, we will engage them without conditions." Trump and his advisors have also expressed their preference of a negotiated settlement, although they are not ready for talks now.

Reportedly, THAAD is not included in the topics for summit discussion. But, the unpredictable, impulsive Trump might bring it up to press Moon for rapid completion of operational readiness of a THAAD battery by positioning four remaining launchers at its base in Seongju.

THAAD is a complicated issue beyond a military rationale. It is a political issue fraught with domestic politics and a geopolitical controversy. The THAAD system already deployed to Korea is likely to stay after going through the domestic legal procedures of an environment survey and a parliamentary review.

Trump is unlikely to ask Moon to pay for the THAAD. Nor is it likely that the delay with THAAD or the perception of Moon's reluctance to cooperate on THAAD would lead to the weakening of the alliance or the withdrawal of American troops from Korea.

North Korea is urged to make the right strategic choice: to suspend its path toward a functional nuclear/ICBM capability and freeze its programs at the current level, sufficient for its defense. Pyongyang knows the United States does not prefer a military solution.

Although the U.S. does not seem to have a plan to wage a preventive strike at the present time, it may be forced to take that option at some point, if the North keeps ratcheting up its threats. Defense Secretary Mattis told Congress on June 12 that a war with the North "would be a war like nothing we have seen since 1953, and the U.S. would have to deal with it with whatever force is necessary." This is if diplomacy fails to make a difference.

On June 13, North Korea released Otto Warmbier, an American student, who was sentenced to serve 15 years of hard labor in prison. It was shocking to learn that the detainee was in a coma when he was released. We don't know how long he was in a coma during the 17 months of his detention in the North. If Warmbier had been released in good health, it could have bodewell for diplomacy.

During the transition period for the Trump administration, there was an aborted effort by a former Republican Congressman, who tried to visit Pyongyang to obtain the detainee's release. He organized an unofficial delegation of individuals well known to the North, including an advisor to President-elect Trump for a visit to Pyongyang. The group hoped the release could contribute to a beginning of a new relationship between Washington and Pyongyang. At the end, the North did not invite the group, against recommendations from their own missions in New York and Beijing.

Kim Jong-un has stabilized his regime against external pressure and sanctions. The food situation has improved, private markets work, more buildings go up, and the economy grows, albeit minimal. There are no open civil disturbances. Now he needs an international assurance of respect for his dynasty. This can only be achieved by diplomacy, not by nuclear weapons. What's your take?

Tong Kim is a Washington correspondent and columnist for The Korea Times. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Korean-American Studies. He can be contacted at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.
By Oh Young-jin





The controversy over President Moon Jae-in's June 6 Memorial Day speech once again forces the nation to face another dark chapter in its history  its involvement in the Vietnam War. To heal this open wound, the nation should confront what it did wrong and apologize for it if necessary.



President Moon in his speech praised Vietnam War veterans for "an act of patriotism" to help vitalize the nation's economy, promising proper compensation for their suffering.



Vietnam's Foreign Ministry criticized the presidential speech, telling Seoul to refrain from hurting Vietnam's national feelings. Public resentment in Vietnam had risen against Korea, leading the Korean government to clarify Moon's reference to the veterans' "personal" sacrifices.



The row was patched up but as if hidden in plain sight, few bothered to point out the ridiculousness by which a patriotic act was overnight relegated to personal sacrifice. Can Korea and Vietnam afford to live any longer in the mutual agreement to look away from their uncomfortable part of history?



No. Korea should stop avoiding defining its participation in the Vietnam conflict. So far, its policy is turning away from any responsibility  no apology and no compensation  when it can, and making perfunctory references when confronted. It was a war that everybody wants to forget  the nation's young being commandeered for somebody else's war.



The latest case captures the ambivalence of Moon and the rest of the nation.



From 1965 to 1973, an aggregate number of 313,000 ROK soldiers made their tours with Korea's presence surging once to 50,000 at one point. Over 5,000 were killed with over 150,000 suffering from exposure from U.S.-sprayed defoliant chemicals. In contrast, reports have about 9,000 Vietnamese civilians killed by Korean soldiers but Korea has not admitted to any civilian massacres.



Although there can be no extenuating circumstances  Korea was then a poor country in dire need of resources so it jumped on the invitation from the United States to help join in the conflict. Also Korea depended on the U.S. for its defense against the communist North Korea far more then than it does now. Korea was financially rewarded by the U.S. in return, building the Seoul-Busan Expressway and other infrastructure that was pivotal to the nation's industrialization.



But now it has become big enough to step out of its excuse for fighting somebody else's war for its own survival. Now, it is time to come clean with its misdeeds, confront them and offer apologies and compensation where needed.

Korea's honest and responsible attitude will set an example for other countries engaged in conflicts to follow. Under different circumstances, Korea is itself a victim country that was occupied by imperial Japan for 36 years  its young girls sexually enslaved and its people commandeered and resources expropriated for Japan's war effort. Korea wants Japan to reflect on its colonial misdeeds and apologize but Japan under its nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has refused to comply.



If Korea can't sympathize with the victims of its actions, its stance on Japan can't but be weakened.



There are mental barriers to overcome. First, why should Korea apologize, when the U.S. doesn't? In the Vietnam conflict, Korea fought for the U.S. Now the war is over and Korea is on its own so initiating a reconciliatory process is the way to gaining the nation a clean conscience and get on with the relationship with one of the most rapidly developing economies in the world. For the future, this would help Korea apply a more clear set of criteria in deciding about its involvement in foreign conflicts.



Second, Vietnam is also reluctant to reopen its war wounds because its government insists that it was the victor that vanquished the United States. Korea being its important investor adds to its reluctance. Therefore, settling this painful part of history should be a bilateral effort that Korea and Vietnam can start modestly and move on further.



At the end of this road would be a Korea-Vietnam relationship on healthier footing; Korea's leadership in the global peace effort and, most of them, the lifting of the stigma on tens of thousands of old veterans who are still criticized as mercenaries, although all they did was rise up to the nation's call. Despite the Memorial Day fumble, President Moon could be the most suitable leader as former human rights lawyer to start this reconciliation effort  between Vietnam and Korea, and between Korea's future and its past.





Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times' chief editorial writer. Contact foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.
By Park Jae-hyuk



A growing number of Korean consumers complains about the quality and service of luxury and well-known watch brands such as Swatch, Armani and Seiko, according to data of a local consumer group, Sunday.



In particular, Swatch Group seems to be the main target as its after-sales service here has been under fire for years without improvement.



The Korea Consumer Agency announced that it received 550 complaints about watches from 2014 to 2016.



It got 158 and 156 reports in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Then, the figure rose to 236 last year.



Among the total, 32 complaints were about Swatch products.



Armani, Seiko, Gucci, Burberry and Tissot watches followed, with 26, 22, 18, 11 and 11, respectively. Tissot is the mid-range watch brand of the Swatch Group.



A total of 81 cases were about luxury watches costing more than 2 million won ($1,764). The overall prices disgruntled consumers paid for these watches amounted to 374 million won.



Consumers mostly took issue with the watchmakers' service and product qualities such as keeping time, water resistance and endurance.



In most cases, the watches not keeping time prompted most complaints about quality. Consumers claimed that the defects of their expensive watches caused the problems but companies countered that consumers are responsible.



In the past, people were more tolerant of watches not keeping accurate time but that is no longer the case because their smartphones keep accurate time. Plus, they seem to be running out of patience because they paid so much for the watches.



The watchmakers also charged buyers for expensive repairs even before the warranties ended. Some of them even refused to repair the watches.



"We urged government institutions and watchmakers to improve instruction manuals and to actively respond to consumer complaints," a Korea Consumer Agency official said.



Swatch, which topped the list causing the most complaints, has been notorious for years in this country, as the Swiss watchmaker has demanded customers pay the repair costs or buy new watches.



"The Swatch Group Quality Management team ensures the quality, reliability and security of the Group's products," the group wrote on its official website. "Swatch Group accords great importance to customer satisfaction, and has reinforced its commitment by creating a division dedicated entirely to customer service."



However, consumers have long criticized its service policies as there is only one local service center in Seoul and it is very difficult to contact. Moreover, the center did not accept complaints about its signature Swatch brand. Consumers had to contact stores for repairs.



In addition, the world's largest watchmaker has caused controversy for breaching commitments to its employees.



While the company highlights the welfare of its employees on its official website, the local affiliate was accused in 2014 of paying its employees less than two-thirds of the average wage paid by Korean firms hiring more than 300 people.



The watchmaker's Korean branch has also been criticized as it hardly makes any donations here. But it appears to be loyal to its shareholders. Swatch Group Korea paid 17 billion won in dividends in 2015, when it posted a 19.3 billion won operating profit.




Sue Finley, 80, has worked at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge for more than 50 years. She was first hired in 1958 as a computer, an employee who calculated mathematical equations, such as rocket or spacecraft trajectories, by hand. She has worked on a number of projects throughout her career, including the Venus Balloon Project, Mars Exploration Rover missions and the Juno mission. Today, she is a subsystem and test engineer for NASAs Deep Space Network.

A knack for numbers

Finley was born in downtown Los Angeles and later moved with her family to Fresno at age 6. She came back to Southern California to attend Scripps College in Claremont and intended to learn art. But Finley left school before her last year after realizing that you cant learn art and that she wouldnt be able to do a senior thesis on the subject.

She decided that she couldnt waste her mothers money, and instead scanned newspaper ads for jobs. Finley eventually came across an opening for a file clerk at aircraft maker Convair in Pomona. She applied, took a typing test and was told the next day that the position had already been filled. But Finley was asked if she liked numbers.

I said, Oh, I love numbers, much better than letters,  she said. So they put me to work as a computer.

Closer commute

Sue Finley, as photographed in 1957. (Sue Finley) (None / Sue Finley)

Finley used a Frieden calculator  a typewriter-sized electronic machine  to solve equations for the engineers in Convairs thermodynamics section for about a year. She got married in 1957 and moved to San Gabriel.

During one particularly foggy commute to Pomona, she decided that it would be better to get a job closer to home. Her husband, a recent Caltech grad, suggested that she inquire at the universitys lab at the top of the arroyo  the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which was then sponsored by the U.S. Army. NASA had not yet been established.

JPL needed a computer, and Finley was hired. Three days later, the U.S. space program took a giant leap forward by launching its first satellite, Explorer 1, which was designed, built and operated by JPL.

What I remember was this great big sheet cake that we all got, Finley said. And there werent that many people working at JPL [at the time] that they could use just one sheet cake.

Programming experience

Finley worked at JPL for 2 years until she and her husband moved to Riverside so he could attend graduate school at the UC. Jobs were scarce during the recession of 1960 to 1961, so a posting on a college bulletin board caught her eye: a free weeklong class in Fortran programming.

After her husband finished his masters program, they moved to Pasadena and Finley returned to JPL in 1962, armed with her new knowledge. She was one of just a few people at the lab who knew Fortran. Today, one of the programs that Finley wrote to help navigate spacecraft is still being used at JPL, though with a bit of an upgrade.

Oh, I love numbers, much better than letters.  Sue Finley

Camaraderie at JPL

Finley left JPL once more in 1963 to take care of her two sons, but returned six years later for good. By her third turn, there were more women at the lab and the human computers had largely transitioned into roles as computer programmers. The women forged close ties, and Finley said they were all very good friends, and still are.

By the 1970s, the women who were computers had left their separate all-female office and were integrated into various mission teams.

The men always, from the very beginning, treated us as equals, Finley said. We were doing something they couldnt do and that they needed to go forward with what they were doing.

Most memorable mission

In 1980, Finley began working on NASAs Deep Space Network  a system of giant radio antennas around the world that connects with spacecraft on interplanetary missions, as well as some spacecraft that orbit Earth.

One of those missions was the Venus Balloon Project, during which two Russian space probes, on their way to Halleys Comet, deployed two balloons into Venus atmosphere in 1985 to collect data about the environment. Although the project was a joint Soviet-French mission, the JPL-operated DSN, as its known, was tracking the spacecraft.

Finley was responsible for writing a program that automated movement commands for a DSN antenna. The antenna needed to be pointed exactly at the spacecraft to receive any data from it.

I can remember when we saw the first signal in the darkroom, I actually jumped up and down because I was so happy, Finley said.

Tuning up

Finley helped design the tones for the Juno spacecraft, a model of which is on display at JPL. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Finley helped design the tones  special sets of radio frequencies emitted by a spacecraft that correspond with actions taken, such as a valve opening  for the Juno mission, which entered Jupiters orbit last year. NASA relied on the tones to get real-time status updates on Juno when the spacecraft was pointed away from the Earth and could not send regular telemetry because the signal was too weak.

That was really fun, Finley said.

Current work

Today Finley is helping to design and test a new, pizza box-sized receiver for the DSN. She is also working on a concept that would allow small satellites to transmit data by intercepting the beam of a larger spacecrafts antenna.

She has no plans to retire. I love coming to work, Finley said. You learn something new every day.

Personal

Finley lives in Arcadia and likes going to the symphony, the ballet and seeing plays at the theater. She also enjoys traveling and visiting her four grandchildren, who live in St. Louis and Andover, Mass.

Finley, 80, shown next to a model of the Voyager 1 space probe. She worked on Voyager in the 1970s. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

samantha.masunaga@latimes.com

Twitter: @smasunaga
Hero Theatre organized a festival last year in celebration of Cuban American playwright Maria Irene Fornes, a key figure in the off-off-Broadway theater movement who has had an influence on contemporary American drama that far exceeds her modest fame.

Attendees of the festival had the opportunity to vote on which play should receive a full production. The Conduct of Life, one of Fornes compact masterpieces, was selected. The play is now being presented at the Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts in L.A. through June 25. For me, it was an irresistible chance to see a work that appears more often on theater syllabi than on season brochures.

The mercurial theater aesthetic of Fornes is tricky to figure out in performance. Her dramas are at once painterly and playful, poetic and political, didactic and open-minded, emotionally grounded and stylistically oblique. She reconciles Theatre of the Absurd loopiness with Brechtian alienation in plays that stand in solidarity with the oppressed and disenfranchised. Zaniness coexists with brutality.

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Driving past the pitiful ad-hoc shelters of the homeless population on the blocks surrounding Inner-City Arts, I was reminded that the experience of Nena (Antonia Cruz-Kent), the young girl in The Conduct of Life who is held captive by Orlando (Nick Caballero) to satisfy his lust, is as relevant to our society as it is to the unspecified Latin American autocracy in which the play is set. Nena, who is tied up in a warehouse at the beginning of the drama, eventually shares with us her history of living on the streets with her senile grandfather, who one day wandered off, leaving her more vulnerable to the predations of men like Orlando.

In director Jose Luis Valenzuelas stage plan, the warehouse is situated on a raised platform at the back of Francois-Pierre Coutures set. The domestic scenes are arranged downstage, as specified in Fornes elaborate stage directions, which have had to be modified. The various areas of the home Orlando shares with his wife, Leticia (Adriana Sevahn Nichols), and their servant, Olimpia (Elisa Bocanegra), arent always precisely differentiated, but the way in which Orlando tries to separate his violent outside life with his bourgeois comforts is perfectly clear.

When we first meet Orlando, he is a 33-year-old lieutenant who is determined to rise in the military dictatorship. We know he means business by the intensity of his jumping jacks and self-exhortations. Even his trusted colleague Alejo (Jonathan Medina) seems wary of his ferocious ambition.

Dialogue in The Conduct of Life is subordinate to the monologues the characters deliver about their lives. These speeches are composed in a stage language that is more of a distillation of values, dreams, thoughts and fears than a realistic rendition of how such characters might actually talk.

The actors are challenged to provide a convincing outline of their characters while being flexible enough to go along with the demands of a playwright who found most forms of naturalism unnatural. I have yet to see a production of The Conduct of Life that figures this out. (I missed the authors own staging of the plays 1985 premiere.) Valenzuela has intermittent success, but the value of the staging is in the research notes it provides to future adventurers in the Fornes canon.

Bocanegra, Heros producing artistic director and a disciple of Fornes who has helped raise money to support the playwright during her long battle with Alzheimers, makes a lasting impression as Olimpia, the willful housekeeper with a speech impediment who understands the power Leticia has over her terrifying husband better than Leticia herself. In her performance, plebeian fury and defiant sisterhood join forces against a brutalizing patriarchy that believes rape and torture are simply part of a days work.

Fornes drama lays bare the suffering of the poor, the hypocrisy of the rich and the everyday violence men inflict on women. But its the irrepressible resilience of her characters, the spontaneous patty-cake between Olimpia and Nena after Orlando brings the girl home, that has made Fornes such a seminal figure in contemporary playwriting. No matter how her characters are coerced and confined, their frolicsome resistance lights a path beyond ideology to freedom.

         

The Conduct of Life

Where: Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts, 720 Kohler St., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays; ends June 25

Tickets: $25

Info: www.herotheatre.org

Running time: 1 hour

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Hello! Im Mark Olsen, and welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

Are you feeling extra anxious lately? Do you have that vaguely untethered, end-of-the-world feeling? You are not alone. The Times Jeffrey Fleishman published an essay on depictions of doomsday dystopias in fiction and what they might have to say about our actual reality. From Soylent Green or Waterworld to Mad Max: Fury Road and Interstellar, what does apocalyptic fiction mean in the face of, say, President Trumps decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord?

Perhaps more than any other moment in his presidency, Trumps action highlighted a Darwinian worldview in which the planet is less a community than an unforgiving marketplace for countries to compete and barter, said Fleishman. But exiting the climate pact has raised larger existential questions at a time of rising seas, droughts and melting ice caps.

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The screening event we had last week was one of the most exciting weve put on in some time, with Kumail Nanjiani, Emily V. Gordon, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter and Ray Romano talking about The Big Sick. Weve got some more movies in the hopper for July, so for updates on future events, go to events.latimes.com.

Dawson City: Frozen Time

Bill Morrisons documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time explores the discovery in 1978 of a trove of rare nitrate films that includes footage of the 1917 and infamous 1919 World Series. Morrisons film transforms that find into an exploration of history and memory and the bigger issues that that stash of rare film pointed toward.

Reviewing the movie, The Times Kenneth Turan said it is [a]n aesthetic knockout thats crammed with wild tales, amazing facts and unconventional personalities, a documentary thats also a detective story, a history of a particular place that turns into an examination of an art form as well as a gloss on the political history of the 20th century.

The Times Kevin Crust spoke to Morrison, who said, I want you to have that sensation of having lived through the century, that you went through all the decades, that you worked up to that point. The minutiae is really the point of it. What gets saved, what gets lost, what gets forgotten, what gets remembered.

In the New Yorker, Richard Brody noted: In Dawson City, Morrison offers a fiercely precise and discerning look at movies themselves as embodiments of history. In the process, he retunes our relationship with the ubiquitous cinematic archive  with the fresh batch of images that get delivered through the electronic pipeline by the minute  and with the very question of whats contained, or whats hidden, in the seemingly smooth and seamless flow of a movie.

In the New York Times, Glenn Kenny added that the films rediscovered in the movie suggest a vast unknown film history. They also remind any film scholar that no matter how seemingly voluminous your knowledge of movie history, it is likely to be only a fraction of a fraction of the entirety. In any event, Dawson City now enters that time line as an instantaneously recognizable masterpiece.

Maudie

Directed by Aisling Walsh and written by Sherry White, Maudie is the fact-based story of folk artist Maud Lewis, who suffered from severe arthritis from an early age. Sally Hawkins gives a deeply committed performance as Lewis, while Ethan Hawke plays the man who marries her in this unsparing portrait of an artists life.

In his review for The Times, Robert Abele noted, Sally Hawkins turns a crumpled misfit into an affecting figure of fortitude and optimism in Maudie, a portrait of the artist as a hermit wife that overcomes some clunky early brushstrokes to achieve a genuine grace and considerable poignancy.

Jeffrey Fleishman spent time with Ethan Hawke in New York. For 20 years, Hawke said, I was a first-person actor. Then slowly Ive been exploring having a whole other interest in different kinds of characters. Its made acting so much more interesting.

In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote, Mostly, it is a life that emerges through the contrapuntal performances of Ms. Hawkins and Mr. Hawke, who, with bobbing heads, mutter and murmur, bringing you into the private world of two outsiders isolated by geography, poverty, disability, temperament and habit. Its easy, especially, to admire Ms. Hawkinss technical skill  the private smiles and halting, crooked walk  but the beauty of her performance is that soon you see only Maud.

Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe

Author Stefan Zweig is best known to some audiences as the spiritual influence of Wes Andersons The Grand Budapest Hotel. Directed and co-written by Maria Schrader, the movie Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe explores the life of the author, who achieved extreme fame in his day.

In his review for The Times, Kenneth Turan called the film intellectually involving and strikingly made, adding that director Schrader came to the film armed with clear ideas of what she wanted to convey and how she wanted to convey it and that shes made a movie that allows its actors to fully inhabit their characters in a potent but low-key way.

In Variety, Guy Lodge wrote, Schrader is as fascinated by the international response to Zweig as she is by Zweig himself: Much of the film is spent observing the pomp and ceremony, some of it absurd, that trails his travels.

Email me if you have questions, comments or suggestions, and follow me on Twitter @IndieFocus.

SIGN UP for the free Indie Focus movies newsletter 
Like a lot of trees on the Cal Poly campus here, the Cook pine was tall and beautiful but not especially remarkable.

At least not at first glance.



For the record: The lead image on an earlier version of this report was mistakenly distorted.

But as Matt Ritter and I got a little closer, it became obvious that there was something odd about this tree. It was bent. It actually bowed slightly toward the south.

Not only that, but Ritter, a Cal Poly biology professor, has recently discovered that all Cook pines, which are native to New Caledonia, a blip in the South Pacific, lean toward the equator no matter where they grow.

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This has never before been seen in plants, said Ritter, 42, a botanist who specializes in trees. But once he started looking at Cook pines, he saw them leaning everywhere, he said.

And I thought, you know, thats weird. No trees lean to the south. It doesnt make sense.

Botanist Matt Ritter on his Cook pine discovery: The amount of attention that we have gotten is amazing, Theres an Italian article about me that I dont even understand. (Robin Abcarian /Los Angeles Times)

He called a colleague in Australia, an arborist named Dean Nicolle, and asked whether Nicolle had noticed the leaning pines. Indeed, he had. In Australia, Nicolle said, they always lean north.

That was my aha moment, Ritter said. Is it possible they all could be leaning toward the equator?

Two hundred fifty-six Cook pines on five continents later, Ritter had an answer: Yes.

In a paper published in the science journal Ecology, Ritter and three co-authors (including Nicolle) announced that they had identified a novel hemisphere-dependent leaning habit. Not only that, the scientists also discovered that the further a Cook pine gets from the equator, the more pronounced its list.

This natural history mystery has ignited the interest and imaginations of people around the world.

The amount of attention that we have gotten is amazing, said Ritter, sitting in his second-floor office, which has curved walls and feels, come to think of it, a bit like a treehouse. Theres an Italian article about me that I dont even understand.

There are, of course, theories about why Cook pines lean. But before I tell you about them, and about how the tree got here, allow me to digress for a moment about California trees in general, and the eucalyptus in particular, because Ritter knows more about the eucalyptus than just about anyone.

::

When I walked into Ritters office, I was holding a copy of Trees in Paradise, a remarkable 2013 book about four iconic California trees by historian Jared Farmer.

Farmer examines the palm, the orange, the redwood and the eucalyptus. Of those, the redwood is the true native. (Well, and one kind of palm  the California fan palm.) The others were imported for industry, agriculture or aesthetics. But like so many immigrants who have put down roots in California, they may as well be considered as native as the coast live oak.

Not all tree lovers feel that way. A couple of years ago, Ritter told me, he invited Farmer to give a talk about eucalyptus to a gathering of the California Native Plant Society.

Eucalyptus, Ritter said, is the most controversial plant in California.

A Cook pine tree on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus leans south, toward the equator. (Robin Abcarian / Los Angeles Times)

Apparently things got a little heated. Some of the more ardent fans of native California plants were not willing to concede that the eucalyptus, technically an interloper, has earned a solid place in the cultural history of California.

People booed him, Ritter said. It was awesome.

In some ways, the eucalyptus is a perfect example of the California get-rich-quick mindset. It was imported from Australia in great numbers after the Gold Rush, when oaks and redwoods were being decimated for fuel and construction.

You have to remember, this was pre-fossil fuel, Ritter said. Everybody thought there was going to be this timber drought in California. So this tree came from Australia  this miracle  this fast-growing tree that was going to save everyone. You could plant it on your least arable land. But fast-growing trees and good wood tend to be inversely proportional. It was a bad idea.

The eucalyptus is disliked for many reasons, and not just because it falls over in high winds. (Native oaks, as it happens, tip over or lose branches more often than eucalyptus, according to the California Tree Failure Report.) The tree, which produces a great deal of leaf and bark debris, was blamed for exacerbating the catastrophic 1991 Berkeley Hills fire.

Local newspapers portrayed eucalyptus as murderous and villainous, wrote Farmer, the story of the California Dream gone awry.

That rap seems a bit over the top.

Theyre beautiful trees, said Ritter, who has written a nifty book called A Californians Guide to the Trees Among Us. They grow where other trees will not, and they are part of our California natural history, whether you like it or not.

Now, about those listing pines.

::

Cook pines arrived in California via Hawaii after they were discovered in New Caledonia by Capt. James Cook, the 18th-century British explorer and navigator. He brought seeds to Hawaii, where they are propagated to this day.

They only come to California through this weird nursery trade from Hawaii, Ritter said. People buy them at Christmastime as little plants in red tinfoil  theyre often called star pines. Then they get too big and people plant them in their yards.

Its possible that Cook accidentally selected only leaning trees, thus creating what botanists call a genetic bottleneck. That notion will be tested in a Cal Poly lab, where genetics from the wild population will be compared with Cook pines from around the world.

Or perhaps the trees are responding to some kind of force  magnetism, or some as-yet-unidentified annual incidence of light. Maybe the leaning has to do with the Coriolis effect, which is why water swirls in different directions in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

Maybe the tendency to lean has something to do with the way certain spinning enzymes react to the various forces.

When I mentioned to Ritter that some laymen have theorized the Cook pine simply wants to go home, he just looked at me like the pathetic non-scientist that I am.

Plants dont want anything, he said. They have no central nervous system. They have no purpose or intention.

And yet, they demand that their mysteries be solved.

More columns 

For more on politics 

robin.abcarian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AbcarianLAT

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Timoteo Arevalos never imagined hed end up here, loitering for hours on a bench at Hollenbeck Park in Boyle Heights, using his backpack as his pillow.

He used to have a government job, but the recession hit and he was laid off. He then tried to scrape by as a dishwasher, but last fall his hours were cut and he couldnt pay his rent.

Now, he is part of a rising number of Latinos who are living homeless in Los Angeles. Recent figures released by the county show that Latino homelessness shot up by 63% in the past year, a staggering number in a county that saw its overall homeless population soar by 23%, despite increasing efforts to get people off the street.

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Nearly every demographic, including youth, families and veterans, showed increases in homelessness, but Latinos delivered one of the sharpest rises, adding more than 7,000 people to the surge.

I would say its a whole new phenomenon, said County Supervisor Hilda Solis, whose district saw Latino homelessness go up by 84%. We have to put it on the radar and really think outside the box when we consider how to help this population.

Homeless officials and outreach groups say Los Angeles rising rents and stale wages are the main drivers pushing many out of their homes.

According to a study released by the Homeless Services Authority, renters living in Los Angeles are the most cost-burdened nationwide. More than 2 million households in L.A. and Orange counties have housing costs that exceed 30% of their income.

Latinos are particularly at risk, with many working up to two to three low-paying jobs to make ends meet. Those lacking legal status are more vulnerable these days as they struggle to find work and avoid public assistance, which they fear could flag them for eventual deportation.

Its like they live with one foot on a banana peel and the other one step from homelessness, said Rose Rios, who runs Cover the Homeless Ministry, a South Los Angeles non-profit that feeds people in the streets, many of them Latino.

After Arevalos lost his government job, he lived off his $70,000 savings. When that dried up, he struggled to find a good-paying job. Eventually he settled for a dish washing gig, but when the restaurant cut back his hours last fall, he lost his Pico Rivera studio apartment.

Now, he receives $900 in unemployment, enough for food and clothes, but not quite to cover rent and bills. Most days, he sleeps in a secluded alley in Pico Rivera, not far from the roar of passing trains and cargo trucks. To bathe, he goes to Roosevelt High Schools public pool.

Im frustrated and sad, Arevalos said. Having to go up and down and starting over takes a lot out of you.

Countywide, an estimated 20% of Latinos live below the poverty level. Their average household income is about $47,000.

Homeless men, most of them undocumented Latinos, have a meal at a facility that also offers shelter in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

This is a population thats already living under very difficult circumstances, said USC sociology professor Manuel Pastor. When you increase rents, you really start to see a bigger impact.

In 2016, Latinos made up 27% of the countys homeless population; that number has rocketed to 35% in the last year. Latinos make up about 48% of the countys overall population. The percentage of white homeless people declined 2% in that time.

African Americans saw a slight increase in the number of homeless, but while they make up 9% of L.A. Countys overall population, they still represent a disproportionate 40% of the countys homeless.

This years homeless count, conducted in January, showed significant increases in the newly homeless, homeless youth and homeless living in cars. These figures seem to support the idea that the surge in Latino homelessness is made up of working poor who might have been priced out by the market, Pastor said.

Solis has noticed the difference as she drives around her district in East Los Angeles and parts of the San Gabriel Valley. She has seen more Latinos who apparently live in the riverbeds and freeway underpasses.

The supervisor said she hopes that the needs of homeless Latinos are taken into account as funds from Proposition HHH and Measure H are allocated over the next decade. The ballot measures approved by Los Angeles voters in November are expected to provide several billion dollars in housing, rent subsidies and services to the homeless.

A lot of Latinos tend to come from tight-knit communities and dont like talking about how theyre struggling, Solis said.

Many tend to not seek help from shelters and homeless outreach centers, such as the ones located in downtown L.A.s skid row. They try to subsist, relying on relatives, friends, churches, clinics, all while living out of their car or in the street.

We need service providers who reflect the community, who provide competent, culturally sensitive information in Spanish, Solis said.

At a church east of the Los Angeles River on a recent evening, nearly three dozen men sat around the courtyard, waiting for a warm meal and a place to spend the night. Most sleep in cots that line the church temple, near the altar and by the doors.

The men, all Latinos and some of them lacking legal status, have been coming here for nearly 30 years to seek emergency shelter.

Among them was Mario Martinez, 48, from Guatemala. He came to the U.S. when he was 17 years old.

He worked in factories and construction sites, eventually landing a job as a manager of a fabric and textile warehouse. He made $18 an hour.

Martinez and his girlfriend and their two children, ages 4 and 10, used to rent an apartment in Montebello for $1,400 a month.

I had started from the bottom and worked my way up, he said.

But life took a turn and he and his girlfriend separated. Five years ago, he lost his job.

Work since then has been tough to come by and its paid much less. When Martinez depleted his $15,000 in savings a few months ago, he ended up in the street.

He hopes part-time work through an employment agency will help him get back into an apartment soon.

Im the kind of person who takes life as it comes, Martinez said. As long as youre healthy and able to work and get sleep, youre able to get back up.

The church also provides similar assistance to Latinas.

In other parts of the city, several districts that have experienced gentrification saw Latino homelessness rise. That includes Councilman Gil Cedillos 1st District, where there was a 79% increase.

Gelacio Barraza, 42, prepares to bed down for the night at a facility that offers shelter to the homeless in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

District 1 includes densely populated neighborhoods such as Pico-Union and Westlake, where many poor families crowd into high-rise apartments. The areas proximity to downtown has made it enticing for developers in recent years, pushing rents up for many people.

At the center of Westlake, MacArthur Park has become a go-to destination for homeless from across the region. Their tents are spread across the 32-acre park, creating an endless cycle that doesnt ease despite weekly outreach efforts conducted by Cedillos office and numerous organizations.

The problem is a lack of sufficient housing stock, Cedillo said. People are very compassionate and concerned about the homeless, but what we need to do is get out of the developers way and begin to create a process so people can build and neighbors need to embrace this.

In Highland Park, another area represented by Cedillo, gentrification has vastly spiked housing prices. Two-bedroom homes sell for more than $600,000.

In 2009, Rebecca Prine founded Recycled Resources for the Homeless, a nonprofit outreach group that connects the homeless to housing and provides basic services, such as free laundry on Wednesday nights.

In the winters, the organization opens a shelter, the only one in the neighborhood. This past year, Prine said the shelter was filled mostly with Latinos. Many of them held down full-time jobs. But they couldnt afford the rents. Others were older residents with fixed incomes.

From one year to the next, Prine said, the face of homelessness changed for us.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

esmeralda.bermudez@latimes.com

@LATBermudez

ruben.vives@latimes.com

@LATVives

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By the time Elizabeth Valenzuela entered her senior year at Lynwood High School, she had taken seven Advanced Placement tests and earned potential college credit on five of them. It was an impressive accomplishment, made more impressive still by the fact that in her small school district she wasnt one of a kind.

Increasing numbers of students from low-income Latino and black families are taking advanced courses and passing AP exams in Lynwood Unified School District, south of downtown Los Angeles.

To make this happen, the district of 15,000 students provided incentives and assistance and eliminated prerequisite courses and grade requirements that used to limit who enrolled.

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Middling grades in English? Thats OK. A student still can sign up for AP English Literature.

If they want to challenge themselves, who are we to say no before they even try, said Lynwood Supt. Gudiel R. Crosthwaite. We want our kids to believe in themselves so that they can envision themselves continuing their education.

The skills to be covered in AP courses are developed by the College Board, a New York nonprofit, with the goal of providing high school students with consistently rigorous coursework. Students own high school teachers decide how theyll cover the material and grade the coursework. At the end of a course, students can choose to take an AP exam, which is sent off to the College Board to be scored on a scale of 1 to 5. A 3 or better is considered passing, and some colleges give credit for passing AP scores, which can help students jump right into advanced college courses or move through college more quickly, saving money.

This year, Lynwood became one of two L.A. County school systems named to the College Boards honor roll for significantly increasing their number of students taking and passing AP exams. (The other was comparatively prosperous Arcadia Unified School District.)

Before the change in thinking, advanced high school courses in Lynwood largely were reserved for the unofficial elite, such as students whod been identified in elementary school as gifted. Each student also needed a letter of recommendation and a written commitment from a parent.

The idea was to make teens understand the courses academic seriousness, but the result was too exclusionary, said Crosthwaite, who joined the school system in 2010 as director of the pre-high school program.

We had students doing well academically, but they couldnt get into the AP program, he said.

In 2013, 427 students at the districts two comprehensive high schools took a total of 849 AP tests. This year, 823 students took 1,554 tests.

The scores arent yet in for this year, but the student pass rate has improved somewhat over the first seven years of the effort, from 20% to 25%. The average pass rate in the United States is 22%.

The school districts hope is that the challenging AP courses inspire students to go straight from high school to college and help them do better when they get there. Research suggests that students who take more difficult high school classes fare better in college.

With the jump-start of a $1.4 million U.S. Department of Education grant, the district trained teachers to lead AP classes, and counselors and administrators worked to create a master schedule that let more students enroll in advanced courses. The school system also set aside some funds to pay teachers for the additional hours they spend on their AP courses and students outside of class time and during the summer, but it could not fund as much time as teachers decided on their own to devote to the task.

The $93 cost of each test also was removed as an obstacle. Outside aid programs cut the cost to $5 apiece for low-income students, which Lynwood picked up.

Valenzuela, whose parents educations stopped at sixth grade, said her teachers  including Jonathon King for biology and Zohereh Sheibanifar for calculus  worked before and after school and on weekends to help students prepare for AP tests.

College counselors such as Kaytan Shah also did their part. My friend did not want to take an AP class because she wasnt sure she would pass the class or do well, Valenzuela said, but Shah told her she should try.

The Lynwood effort remains a work in progress. According to state tests, 47% of Lynwood 11th-graders met or exceeded academic goals in English, and 11% did so in math. And though the percentage of students taking AP tests doubled between 2013 and 2016, about 7 in 10 students in grades 10 and higher did not take an AP test this year.

Also, some of the districts success has to do with native Spanish speakers taking the AP Spanish test. Five times as many students passed the Spanish test as any other exam. The next highest number of passing scores was in AP Spanish Literature. Take away the Spanish tests, and the districts passing rate falls to 8%.

Still, students made gains in many of the tests, including calculus. In 2010, 29 students took the AP Calculus AB test, and not one earned a passing score. In 2015, 143 students took the test, and 17 passed.

Valenzuela struggled with Calculus AB last year and did not earn a passing AP score. This year, she kept at it and took the more difficult Calculus BC test along with other AP exams.

Shes on her way to Columbia University on a full scholarship. She hopes to be a pediatric oncologist. And she has learned with the help of her most difficult classes that she thrives when pushed.

I really enjoy learning, Valenzuela said. I had the opportunity to take a challenging class and see what I was capable of.

howard.blume@latimes.com

@howardblume
A woman was hospitalized with multiple stings after a swarm of bees attacked her in Huntington Beach on Saturday morning, authorities said.

The Huntington Beach Fire Department received a call shortly after 9 a.m. and arrived to find bees swarming all over the woman, said Capt. Robert Culhane.

They were really aggressive. As soon as we came on, they started coming after us, Culhane said. He suspected the insects were Africanized honeybees because of their size and aggression. Instead of stinging immediately, the bees would fly into the victim, firefighters or other targets repeatedly, he said.

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Firefighters tried to deter the bees with a water-foam mixture  the foam strips the bees of their ability to fly, Culhane said. When they were able to approach the victim, they found even more bees meshed into the hair, he said.

The firefighter operating the hose was stung twice but did not need medical attention, Culhane said.

Ive never been on a call like that before, said Culhane, a 28-year firefighting veteran. They seemed more aggressive than what I was used to.

The woman was in her 40s, and her condition was unknown, said Huntington Beach Fire Capt. Steve Teasdale.

A Public Works employee examined the area after the attack and didnt find any bees, Culhane said. People who are swarmed should stay calm, and call 911 if in need of medical attention.

Reach Sonali Kohli at Sonali.Kohli@latimes.com or on Twitter @Sonali_Kohli.

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When the bag of feces arrived at the LGBT Center Orange County, Laura Kanter knew immediately what to do.

She picked up the phone and called the Orange County Human Relations Council to talk with Don Han, who deals with hate crimes.

Kanter, as director of policy advocacy and youth services for the LGBT Center in Santa Ana, recently recalled the disturbing incident that occurred in May. She said that the council provides an important service in the community.

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We can call the police and I did, and theyll just take a report, she said. But I knew we had someone to turn to and thats what these folks do best. They look at the bigger picture to create understanding between communities.

Hans nonprofit organization was founded in 1991 in part to raise money and develop programs overseen by the Orange County Human Relations Commission. The council and commission works with law enforcement agencies, compile an annual hate crime report and provide mediation and violence prevention programs in partnerships with schools, corporations, cities, foundations and individuals.

We try to be a voice of reason and listen, Han said, and were committed to getting people from all sides to come together.

The council has raised about $30 million in the last 25 years to support the county commissions work, according to its website. But until recently the council was in danger of losing the funding that pays for three members of its staff, including Han.

For months, county supervisors debated back and forth, threatening to cut the $252,000 needed to pay for the councils personnel, while the group received an eviction notice to vacate the county building where it has operated, rent-free, by July 1.

Meanwhile, the number of reported hate crimes increased  50 in 2016, compared with 44 the year before  with African Americans and the LGBT population as the two most frequently targeted communities across the county, according to the groups newest report. This trend, coupled with the fear that Orange County could lose its human relations advocates, prompted more than 300 supporters to swarm supervisors meetings this month, pushing to allow the two groups to continue their partnership.

Among the proponents praising the groups anti-bullying, interfaith and mediation campaigns was Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, who said there is a lot of fear in our immigrant and LGBTQ communities. This is an important public safety and quality of life issue for us.

The board voted 4 to 1 last week, with Supervisor Michelle Steel as the lone dissenter, to continue funding the council for at least another year. But the panel also urged the council and commission to stop co-mingling, with one supervisor noting that some commission staff members report to the councils director.

Supervisor Andrew Do, the most vocal opponent before the vote, criticized the confusion between the operations of the council and commission, saying it raises questions about accountability and leaves the board vulnerable to violations of state public meeting laws.

The public has to be clear on the two entities, he said. Right now, theyre so intertwined, people dont know whos responsible for what and as supervisors, we dont know whats going on at the council while were the ones overseeing the commission that works with them.

On June 6, supervisors deadlocked 2 to 2, with one member absent, on the personnel funding for the council. Supervisor Todd Spitzer proposed another vote a week later with the full board present. Do ended up voting to allocate the money because the work is still viable, he said. People around the county still need a voice.

Spitzer blamed the county for initially pressuring the nonprofit to raise funds for commission programs during a time when Orange County faced financial hardship, including a bankruptcy scandal. He said the board must choose if it wants to give money to programs and control its delivery  or allow the nonprofit to continue finding revenue.

Commission and council members promised to meet with county officials to find a way to separate our administration and still be effective, said Rusty Kennedy, the councils chief executive. Were ecstatic to be able to continue.

anh.do@latimes.com

Twitter: @newsterrier
The dozen jurors in the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial spanned a diverse demographic range: white men in their 20s and 30s, middle-aged African Americans, elderly white women.

But with that diversity also came deadlock. After five long days of deliberations, the jury found itself unable to render a verdict  like so much of this country, unable to find consensus on charged questions of race, age, power and gender.

Cosby will now face a new trial as soon as October, the judge said in declaring a mistrial Saturday morning. The prosecutor said that he hopes to settle the matter by pressing ahead with the same three counts of aggravated indecent assault. The accuser, Andrea Constand, will take the stand again to testify that Cosby drugged and molested her.

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But the jurors inability to reach a verdict, after more than 100 hours of testimony and deliberations in this suburban Philadelphia courtroom, brought home how divided opinions are about Cosby  and about a lot more. (The jurors did not speak with reporters.)

To many, the former sitcom dad and stand-up icon is an avatar of privilege and misogyny that must be torn down in an enlightened 21st century. The facts of the case  Cosby invited Constand to his home, provided her pills he didnt identify and then penetrated her with his fingers  speak for themselves, they say. This was sex without consent. And they want a public reckoning.

The jury worked hard, and I have respect for everyones opinion, Linda Kirkpatrick, a bakery owner from Costa Mesa who alleged Cosby assaulted her in 1981, told The Times outside the courtroom Saturday afternoon. But my experience trumps your opinion.

Attorney Gloria Allred, who represents many of the Cosby accusers, added that the entertainers fame carried its own power. We can never overestimate the blinding power of celebrity, she said after the mistrial was declared

To others, though, the facts do not necessarily add up to assault. And regardless, they believe, Cosby is a symbol: a victim of an overly litigious culture that unfairly targeted him in the name of political correctness.

We know why were here. Lets be real, said Cosby lawyer Brian McMonagle, giving voice to that school in his closing argument. Were not here because of Andrea Constand. He pointed dramatically to a group of outspoken sexual assault activists in the back of the room, including Kirkpatrick. Were here because of them.

.Certainly the facts were complicated in their own right.

Constand described how, on a night at Cosbys home in 2004, she began to lose her mental capacities after ingesting three pills that Cosby had offered her. He told her, she said, that they were herbal. Little friends, he called them.

He assisted me over to the couch and just said, Relax, just lay down here, you need to relax, she testified. I was laying on my left side and he placed some kind of pillow [under me]. I have no real recollection except later I was jolted awake, she said, going on to describe how he used his hand to violate her. (Many women have accused Cosby of similar conduct, but only Constands case has gone to trial.)

Over the last 13 days, jurors considered the entertainers defense that the encounter was consensual, while Constand, taking the stand and facing Cosby, testified that he had robbed her of the ability to consent. Had he been found guilty, the 79-year-old would have faced a maximum of 10 years in prison on each count.

Constand maintained contact with Cosby after the attack  a point emphasized by the defense  but the district attorney, Kevin Steele, brought in expert witnesses who said such behavior is common among people who have been sexually assaulted by someone they know. The state also tried to fortify its case with testimony from Constands mother and another Cosby accuser, former Hollywood agent assistant Kelly Johnson, who testified she was the victim of a similar assault by Cosby.

Cosbys lawyers countered by pointing out inconsistencies in Constands story, and noted she had taken the pills willingly. They also put forth the idea that the two had been sharing a romance.

The arguments raised plenty of questions in the jury room. After returning to ask for large portions of the testimony to be re-read, on Friday the jurors came back with a simple query for the judge:

What is reasonable doubt? (The definition.)

That one or more jurors were unwilling to believe in Cosbys guilt is a hard reality to accept for those who feel strongly about sexual assault; they say its a similar reluctance that has allowed a culture of concealment to fester around these crimes.

In a country where sexual attacks still go underreported, they argue, Bill Cosby epitomizes exactly what needs to be done away with  the idea that privilege can shield predators. That is true in everyday spaces, such as the workplace and college campuses.

And it is especially true in realms such as Hollywood and the military, with their clear chain-of-command cultures.

A conviction Saturday, they say, would have made a resounding statement about all of that. It doesnt matter what you look like or who you are, Steele said to reporters after the mistrial about the message of his prosecution. Nobodys above the law.

Kirkpatrick noted that only 2% of accused rapists go to jail and 98% walk free, and that number needs to be reversed.

Yet not everyone saw this case as cut-and-dried  either legally or culturally.

Outside the courthouse, throughout the trial, a small group of demonstrators had gathered, bearing signs with such messages as Free Bill Cosby and 100% innocent. While the auspices of this group remained murky  members wouldnt answer who had sent them or whether they were paid  they nonetheless spoke for a population that has alleged Cosby was more victim than perpetrator.

An aide to Cosby, Ebonee Benson, read his wifes statement articulating this belief outside the courtroom Saturday, while Cosby stood silent alongside here. Camille Cosby decried an overtly arrogant judge, a totally unethical D.A. and a blatantly vicious media. This whole trial was an attempt at a take-down, she suggested, by people who had already made up their minds about  or even had an ax to grind with  her famous husband.

Andrew Wyatt, Cosbys spokesman, suggested this mistrial was a triumph for black America as well.

Johnnie Cochran is looking down smiling, Wyatt told reporters after the mistrial, referencing Cosbys late friend and star defense attorney for O.J. Simpson. It was one of several invocations of Cochran that Wyatt had made to reporters throughout the last two weeks, and it was not an accident. Cosbys team, at least, saw this case through a we-defeated-the-rigged-system lens as many African Americans viewed Simpsons 1995 verdict.

But notions of race were was also hard to avoid from the accusers side. Cosby was able to perpetrate his crimes, they said, in part because of his skin color.

I had the utmost respect and admiration for him based on what millions of other Americans, especially African American folks, thought of him, said Johnson, who is black, of why she initially began to trust the entertainer.

Cosbys age also played a role in winning over his alleged victims, they said. Constand underscored how he was in his 60s while she was not yet 30 when they began getting to know each other.

He was a Temple friend, somebody I trusted, a mentor, an older figure to me, Constand testified, in describing how she came to trust him.

As the defense looked to sow doubt, it emphasized what it said was a romance, a May-December affair that Constand willingly signed onto, with the night in question a consensual part of that. But victims say that there isnt sufficient social awareness about how such a power differential can be used to an attackers advantage, particularly when it comes to persuading them to abandon their judgment.

With its lack of resolution and finality, with its muddied message and do-over mentality, the Cosby mistrial has left us as confused about where the country stands on these issues. The embodiment of this might come in the form of Lili Bernard.

A guest actress on The Cosby Show, Bernard had accused Cosby of violating her decades ago. She had been outspoken over the last two weeks about what this trial meant for her and the larger culture of sexual assault reporting, often giving long and eloquent disquisitions on the courthouse steps upon the conclusion of proceedings.

But on Saturday afternoon she staggered out of the court looking dazed and pained. Her vital expression had melted, and she wandered around the courthouse plaza in stunned silence.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

steve.zeitchik@latimes.com

Twitter: @ZeitchikLAT

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When President Trump scaled back President Obamas pact that broadened relations with Cuba, he said he was completely canceling a terrible and misguided deal.

There was a time in Florida when the Cuban American community would have reacted to such an announcement with almost uniform approval.

But a paradigm shift has occurred over the last 20 years. Younger generations of Cuban Americans have been looking for opportunities to capitalize on trade and business with Cuba. According to a 2016 poll by Florida International Universitys Cuban Research Institute, a majority of Cuban Americans oppose the U.S. embargo on the island and want better relations.

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Not surprisingly, Trumps announcement, made in Miamis Little Havana, left some cheering but many in the business community disappointed.

Vicente Amor, vice president of ASC International USA, a Florida-based commercial travel agency specializing in executive-service trips to Cuba, said that aside from the drop in business expected from the Trump doctrine on Cuba, the presidents action signaled another issue.

The problem is not only the impact of the changes, he said. When the Obama administration forged the pact to improve U.S.-Cuban relations, the work was done without input from U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and what Amor called the Miami extremists. This time, he said, they were at the center of the deal, along with the Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control. For Amor, thats a bad development.

Contrary to Trumps sweeping statements, he did not completely gut the Obama administration agreement. However, it will affect a large community of entrepreneurs  both in the U.S. and in Cuba  that had been at the forefront of establishing economic ties between the two nations, according to the Washington, D.C.-based group, Engage Cuba, a coalition of pro-Cuban business companies that includes P&G, Viacom, Honeywell and Choice Hotels.

We are encouraged that the Trump administration wants to help Cubas private sector, but unfortunately, the people who will be most negatively impacted by this directive are Cuban entrepreneurs, Madeleine Russak, spokeswoman for Engage Cuba, said Saturday.

The confusion that will surround this policy will undoubtedly stifle U.S. demand to travel to the island, she said. Additionally, by requiring Americans to travel in tour groups, the administration is not only making it more expensive for everyday Americans to travel to the island, but it pushes them away from staying in private homes, which are unable to accommodate large tour groups, and into state run hotels.

Albert Fox, a Cuban American from Tampa, which has a generations-old Cuban community descended from the war for independence at the turn of the last century, said that although commercial flights might continue under the new policy, Trumps decision will hurt American and foreign businesses.

Overnight hes eliminating hundreds and hundreds of people that were going there on a daily basis, said Fox, who serves as president of the Tampa-based Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation. Do you think Southwest could cancel flights eventually for a lack of passengers?

On Saturday, Southwest Airlines responded to that very question.

Southwest is now reviewing the presidents statements made in South Florida and is assessing [the] impact any proposed changes could have on our current scheduled service to Cuba, airline spokesman Dan Landson said by email Saturday.

Amor, the travel industry executive, said the trade embargo is patronizing.

I dont like President Trumps policy, he said. It treats Cuba like a colony and fails to recognize Cuba as a sovereign nation.

Trump had pledged during the presidential campaign to roll back Obamas Cuban initiative, and Rubio had lobbied Trump intensely to keep that promise. Among other things, the new rules prohibit Americans from spending money on businesses controlled by the military.

Economic practices that benefit the Cuban military at the expense of the Cuban people will soon be coming to an end #BetterDealforCuba, Rubio tweeted.

But in the Cuban community, the pact drew diverse opinions from Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona. On Saturday he tweeted, Whatever the intent, new Cuba regs help Cuban Govt and hurt Cuban entrepreneurs.

A day earlier, he suggested on Twitter that the Senate weigh in on U.S.-Cuba ties: There is overwhelming support in the US Senate to allow all Americans the freedom to travel to Cuba. Lets vote!

Despite the generation shift, many in Floridas Cuban American community resist any engagement with the Cuban communist government.

The Obama administrations policy towards Cuba consisted of a slew of unconditional and unilateral concessions that placed business interests over human rights and democracy, said Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat, co-founder and spokesman for the Cuban Democratic Directorate, a Miami-based resistance group to the Castro government. These unilateral concessions to the Castro regime actually emboldened them to increase their repression against the Cuban people. ... Only [the] rule of law in Cuba would guarantee American investment and protect the Cuban people.

Neuhaus is a special correspondent.

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In David Michods lacerating new movie War Machine, Brad Pitt plays Gen. Glen McMahon, the latest in a long line of generals to preside over Americas war in Afghanistan. As he prepares to assume command, McMahon declares his firm intention to win this thing.

Wars exist to be won and generals exist to do the winning. McMahon (a thinly fictionalized version of real-life Gen. Stanley McChrystal) fervently adheres to this quaint view. So too, do many ordinary Americans. Faith in generals provides an excuse to avoid thinking seriously about war.

Count President Trump among those who apparently share in that faith. As a business executive (and reality show host), Trump cultivated an image of being unambiguously the guy in charge. Now as commander in chief, he is opting for a more detached approach. When it comes to war, he functions less as full-time CEO than as part-time board chairman.

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This represents a sharp departure from established American practice. Ever since President Truman and Gen. Douglas MacArthur butted heads over who should run the Korean War, presidents have played an assertive, at times even intrusive, role in managing military matters. Not Trump, however. Although nominally the boss, Trump appears content to let his generals run things.

The savvy Mattis must suspect that he is the designated fall guy.

For weeks, his administration has been mulling over a request from Gen. John Nicholson, current commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, to increase the number of U.S. troops committed to that war, which began back when todays young recruits were still in diapers. To break what he optimistically described as a stalemate, Nicholson was asking for a few thousand reinforcements.

Rather than ruling on Nicholsons request, pending since early February, Trump has passed the buck to the general he has put in charge of the Pentagon, James N. Mattis. Having himself served as senior Marine officer in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Mattis today pretty much owns both of those wars along with lesser ongoing campaigns in Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

That Nicholson will get more troops appears certain  on Friday, the AP reported an addition of 4,000, although the Pentagon said no determination had been made. In any case, Trump is leaving it to Mattis to decide how many and, by extension, to explain why they are needed and how they are to be employed. Thus far, no such explanation has been forthcoming.

On Tuesday, when Mattis appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) needled him about the absence of a persuasive rationale. Were now six months into this administration, McCain complained. We still havent got a strategy for Afghanistan.

The Defense secretarys response was both forthright and evasive. We are not winning in Afghanistan right now, he conceded, while promising that we will correct this as soon as possible. Mattis then unleashed a cloud of blather, promising a change in our approach so as to do things differently and devise a more regional strategy involving across-the-board whole of government collaboration. He offered no specifics.

The fact is that every couple of years since 2001, policymakers in Washington and commanders in the field (including McChrystal) have trotted out plans to do things differently in Afghanistan. Those plans have come in a multitude of colors and a variety of sizes. None have come anywhere close to winning.

Trump surely knows this. We cannot say for certain why the president has chosen to distance himself from this war that he inherited. But one possibility is this: Having learned through painful experience to recognize a losing proposition, he has no intention of being left holding the bag for this one.

The savvy Mattis must suspect that he is the designated fall guy. If not, he will discover it next year or the year after when Trump relieves himself of responsibility for a still unwon war and looks to pin the blame on someone else.

Until then, in his spare moments, Mattis would be well-served to reflect on the fate of Glen McMahon. The creators of War Machine might have called their movie The Education of a General. The film serves as a tutorial of sorts, schooling McMahon and with him the rest of us in all that war consists of beyond mere generalship: politics and culture, fear and human frailty, waste and corruption, and not least of all the role of chance, which lately has done our commanders so few favors.

Things end badly for McMahon, who not only fails to win it, but also suffers the humiliation of getting himself fired. As the movie ends, another gung-ho general immediately steps up to take his place, of course, so the war machine continues churning without interruption.

Whether Mattis will suffer a similar fate is impossible to say. For now we await the general with the courage to say: Some wars cant be won. Afghanistan falls in that category. To persist further is madness.

Andrew J. Bacevich is the author most recently of Americas War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook
Mingled with the many fond memories I have of my father, Richard H. Bowden, is the vein in his neck that swelled whenever he flushed with fury at my obstinacy. This was in my teenage years when we disagreed about  everything.

These differences peaked in arguments over the then-raging Vietnam War. He supported the war; I was against it. Neither of us knew enough, frankly, to hold a strong opinion on the matter, but strong opinions we had. The disputes ran deeper than the war itself. I belonged to a privileged, spoiled, rebellious generation; he belonged to one that had fought in World War II and the Korean War and which believed firmly in the rightness and might of the United States of America.

In that sense, our clashes were tribal. A big part of my dads fury was the recognition that I, his third child and second son, lovingly nurtured and raised in the comfortable suburban home he provided, somehow seemed no longer one of his kind.

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He was a smart man, college educated; a successful businessman; a devout Catholic; and a man of great decency. I am now the age he was when he died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism in 1992. To this day, when Im faced with a difficult situation I first try to imagine what he would have done. I have raised five children and have been through my own battles with rambunctious teenagers, so I have lived on both sides of that tribal divide.

Like all of the best people, my dad never stopped learning. He was always prepared to change his mind.

Our fights over the war lasted for about five years, through my high school and into my college years. They usually began at the dinner table, much to the distress and annoyance of the rest of the family. My mom would urge both of us to back down or shut up or both. I remember one of my exasperated younger brothers telling me at one point, Why bother arguing with him? Just agree with him. Youll never change his mind anyway. But Im glad I didnt. For better or worse, as I grew older, my dad always knew where I stood and, more important, that I was leveling with him. There was a hard-purchased mutual honesty there.

And those teenage clashes sent me down a path that I might otherwise never have considered. My dad would frequently confront my certainty with, How do you know that? Where did that idea come from? Why do you believe its true? These questions started me reading the newspaper every day. I subscribed, as a sophomore in high school, to Time Magazine, and devoured it every week. My trips to the library with my mom, where I had formerly plucked books off the shelf at random, became more focused. I read whatever I could find about the war. Eventually my efforts led to Frances Fitzgeralds landmark Fire in the Lake, David Halberstams brilliant The Best and the Brightest and Norman Mailers darkly hilarious Armies of the Night. I was prepping myself for bouts with my dad, but I was also  as it turned out  taking my first steps toward a career in journalism that has now spanned a half-century.

One thing being a reporter teaches you is how little you actually know. Ultimately, it is only worth holding a strong opinion about something you have either lived or rigorously investigated. For six years I have been researching the Vietnam War, interviewing fighters and survivors and deeply investigating the subject of my old dispute with my father. My respect for those who fought  both Americans and Vietnamese  has deepened, but so has my disgust for how badly those on both sides were betrayed by the stubborn and ill-informed decisions of their leaders.

If my dad were alive, I believe we would agree on that. If he knew then what I now know, I find it hard to believe that we ever would have differed. In fact, I am certain of it.

Like all of the best people, my dad never stopped learning. He was always prepared to change his mind. Just a few years before we lost him, on a visit to my house, he admitted that in our battles he had been wrong about a few things. About me never being able to make a living as a writer, for example  he believed law school was a safer bet. I was wrong about Nixon, he said. I was wrong about Vietnam. And I was wrong about the Beatles.

Ive lived long enough now to have been mistaken about a lot of things myself. I keep a list of them, just as he did. And I make sure my children know.

Mark Bowden is a national correspondent for the Atlantic and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. His latest book is Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook
Here is one scenario that explains Donald Trumps relationship with Russia.

When the Manhattan businessman announced his presidential bid in the summer of 2015, Moscow perked up its ears. Here was a candidate arguing against Americas traditional world leadership role, who attacked American allies as scroungers, who wanted to make America first and whose amoral, transactional worldview rendered him an outlier among a crop of Reaganites. Here was a reality television show host whose outbursts made American politics  and, by extension, America  look like a foolish country. And here was a businessman who had dealings with some minor Russian oligarchs, whose understanding of Russia was limited to the glitz and glam on offer for big spenders in Moscow.

Combined with Russian President Vladimir Putins personal loathing of Hillary Clinton (owing mostly to his paranoid belief that she orchestrated protests against him in 2011), all these factors convinced the Kremlin to intervene on Trumps behalf through a combination of hacks, leaks and disinformation.

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Trump is likely to be found guilty of nothing more than being an unscrupulous jerk.

This is essentially what the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded in a declassified report issued earlier this year, and it is worth keeping in mind as a series of government investigations into Russian meddling proceed apace. Many liberals and Democrats appear convinced that theyre just on the cusp of uncovering evidence that Trump knowingly collaborated with Russian agents during his campaign, the key word being collusion. Were such evidence to be produced, it would make Trump guilty of treason  obvious grounds for impeachment.

Yet Trump is likely to be found guilty of nothing more than being an unscrupulous jerk.

To be sure, Trumps behavior  namely, pressuring FBI Director James Comey to drop an investigation into his former national security advisor Mike Flynn, and then firing Comey for refusing  lends credence to suspicions that the president has something to hide. But its just as likely that Trumps impulsiveness, and not his fear of being exposed as a secret Russian agent, led him to fire Comey. An avid cable news watcher, the president loathed hearing about the Russia thing with Trump and Russia, as he put it. Trump was annoyed with Comey for being a showboat, since as everyone in Washington knows, theres only room for one showboat in that town.

Look at it from Trumps perspective: The president is genuinely mystified at the hullabaloo surrounding the Russia story because, as far as hes aware, there really is nothing to it. While Trump ultimately fired Flynn for misstatements he made to the vice president about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador, it has since emerged that Flynns unacknowledged ties with the Turkish government were significantly more substantive and morally problematic than his relationship with Moscow. As for Carter Page, a central figure in the Trump-as-Manchurian-candidate hypothesis, he never even met Trump, and is not so much a sinister agent of influence as a familiar Washington, D.C., type: a bumbling social climber of dubious ethics who greatly exaggerates his importance.

Like Richard Nixon, who probably wasnt aware of the Watergate break-in before it happened, Trump is getting into serious trouble not because of his involvement in some cockamamie Russian plot to steal the American presidency, but rather his high-handed attempts at squashing an independent investigation. Its not the crime that gets you, Nixon himself said. Its the cover-up. Had Trump simply left well enough alone with Comey, he wouldnt be in the hole hes dug, with another former FBI director, Robert Mueller, carrying on not only the bureaus investigation into Russian meddling but now also Trumps possible obstruction of justice.

In a sense, it would be more reassuring for the robustness of Americas civic health were investigators to expose Trump as the recipient of laundered Russian money, or of colluding with Russian officials, or as having been recruited by the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, as one of the wilder conspiracy theories claims. Any of these would at least supply a grubby, opportunistic explanation for Trumps pro-Russian rhetoric; and Americans who voted for him would have an excuse, of sorts, for their folly  namely, ignorance as to what was really going on.

The likely reality, though, is that the full extent of Trumps morally objectionable views and behavior were wide out in the open throughout the presidential campaign. Trump repeatedly praised a Russian dictator and paid no political price. Theres no denying that he also retailed the products of Russian hacking, called upon the Russians to hack his opponents email, and peddled Russian-generated disinformation. The American people simply didnt care.

When the dust settles, when the special investigations conclude and the politicians have their say, American political institutions will strengthen their cybersecurity measures and schools will teach students media literacy to dampen the impact of fake news. But there is no way to stop a shameless narcissist from exploiting public anger. No way to stop a ratings-obsessed media from offering him a platform. And no way to force an apathetic populace to care about a foreign adversarys war on truth.

Donald Trump isnt guilty of being anything other than an unscrupulous, unpatriotic demagogue. Were guilty of letting him get away with it.

James Kirchick is author of The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues and the Coming Dark Age. He is filling in for Doyle McManus.

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Gov. Jerry Brown doubles down on California measure changing recall process, calling it eminently reasonable By Christine Mai-Duc State Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Compton), left, and Gov. Jerry Brown talk about funding for projects under the state transportation bill, SB1, at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson. (Christian K. Lee/ Los Angeles Times) The partisan volleys have continued this week in the effort to recall state Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) over his vote to pass an increase in the gas tax. Those seeking to recall Newman submitted more than enough signatures needed to qualify the measure for the ballot, if theyre all deemed valid. Newman supporters looking to halt the recall filed a lawsuit Thursday, claiming signature gatherers had misled voters. And Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that makes changes to long-standing recall rules, an effort that Republicans have decried as an attempt by Democrats to rig the system to protect one of their own. Brown seemed to double down on that measure Friday at a press conference at Cal State Dominguez Hills, where he discussed the new gas tax, calling the new recall process eminently reasonable. The measure allows voters up to 30 days to remove their signature from a recall petition and creates a new process to review costs associated with a recall election. Brown said the bill provides an opportunity for people who have been hoodwinked to change their mind. Its all about truth and giving people the opportunity to make sure that their vote and their signature is knowingly given, Brown. The only people who would be against that are people who wanted to fool people and dont want to test it in court or in the light of day. .@JerryBrownGov responds to GOP criticism of budget trailer he signed that could make Newman recall harder. Calls it "eminently reasonable." pic.twitter.com/hSsmIPiHtP  Christine Mai-Duc (@cmaiduc) June 30, 2017 Browns comments came after a roundtable discussion in which he and state Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Compton) spoke about the importance of directing transportation dollars raised by the gas tax increase to businesses owned by women, minorities and people who are disabled. Brown cast it as part of a larger question of equality and opportunity in America. But the discussion took place even as Brown mused about efforts to repeal the controversial tax package, which is expected to raise $52 billion over 10 years for road repairs and other transportation projects. If people want to not fund the roads, then they can put something on the ballot and maybe change things, Brown said. But I think most people in California want to fix the roads. Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach), who is running for governor, has filed a ballot measure to repeal the gas tax. Brown dismissed a recent poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, which said that a majority of registered voters oppose the gas tax increases Brown and legislators recently approved. That was a poll that said, Do you want to raise a tax? Brown said. Of course people are going to say no. Brown added that when voters are given concrete situations like education and roads, theyre more likely to support tax increases. I think Californians are always leery of taxes. Im leery of taxes, Brown said. You want to drive around on gravel roads? Ive got a gravel road out in front of my house in the country. Its not bad. But I dont think thats what people want. I think they want real, paved roads  and to have paved roads youve got to spend real money. Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report. Facebook

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San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer says he wont run for governor, dashing hopes of GOP leaders By Phil Willon San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer speaks during a news conference about the San Diego Chargers in 2015. (Gregory Bull / AP) Republican San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who has been lobbied intensely by GOP leaders to run for California governor, on Friday rejected the idea and vowed to serve out his second term at city hall. Both House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and state Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte had urged Faulconer to run. A fiscal conservative and social moderate who has demonstrated crossover appeal by winning over Democrats, Faulconer has been seen as the GOPs strongest potential gubernatorial candidate, and one who could help Republicans in down-ballot races if he was at the top of the ticket in 2018. But Falconer nixed the idea of a gubernatorial bid in a Facebook post Friday afternoon, saying he was deeply honored by so many encouraging him to run. Its a testament to the people of San Diego, and the progress weve made to create a fiscally responsible, prosperous city that is moving in the right direction. I made a pledge last year to serve out my second term as mayor, and thats exactly what Im going to do, Faulconer said in the post. He was facing pressure to enter the race and GOP insiders who were familiar with his thinking believed he was leaning toward running. Faulconer ultimately decided not to run because he did not see a certain path to victory, according to a top state party official who did not want to be identified because they were not authorized to speak for the San Diego mayor. The last time a GOP candidate won a statewide race was in 2006. The governors race already has attracted a handful of Republican candidates, but none with Faulconers political stature. They include conservative Orange County Assemblyman Travis Allen and Rancho Santa Fe venture capitalist John Cox. Speculation is mounting that former state Assemblyman David Hadley plans to announce a run. The Democratic heavyweights in the race include Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Treasurer John Chiang. A strong GOP top-of-the-ticket candidate would be expected to increase Republican turnout next fall. Faulconers decision not to run could impact some hotly contested congressional races in California, and potentially affect Republican efforts to retain control of the House of Representatives. If a Republican gubernatorial candidate fails to make the general election, creating a Democrat-on-Democrat race in November 2018, that could depress GOP turnout and affect those targeted congressional races. It leaves the Republicans without an obvious front-runner that the donors would have confidence in, said GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, who previously advised former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and 2010 GOP nominee Meg Whitman. But it still depends on the nature of the race next November. Its too early to say. Update 4:21 p.m.: This story was updated with reaction about Faulconers decision and more information about the 2018 election. This story was originally published at 3:30 p.m. Facebook

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Assembly Democrats denounce threats made after single-payer healthcare bill was sidelined Facebook

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Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom blasts National Rifle Assn. recruitment video, saying it could lead to violence By Seema Mehta (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom called on the National Rifle Assn. to take down a controversial new video that he argued villanizes political rivals and could lead to violence. Come after politicians. Come after policy makers. Come after ME, Newsom wrote on his Facebook page Thursday. But do not implicitly call for demonstrations of force against your fellow Americans in a country that is already reeling. You are powerful. People are listening to you. And your message could lead to tragedy. The NRA video, which urges people to join the organization, was posted earlier this month and features conservative commentator Dana Loesch talking about political rivals who she argues use the media, schools and Hollywood for sinister purposes. The video features footage of police clashing with protesters and a bloodied Trump supporter, and flashes images such as the Hollywood sign, Disney Hall and the Los Angeles Times building as Loesch repeatedly invokes an unnamed opponent she refers to as they. Loeschs concluding remarks in the minute-long video have drawn the most ire. The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth, Loesch said. Im the National Rifle Assn. of America, and Im freedoms safest place. Newsom is a longtime foe of the NRA. He was a primary sponsor of Proposition 63, a ballot measure voters approved in November that requires background checks to purchase ammunition, bans possession of high-capacity magazines and other gun-safety efforts. On Thursday, the NRA claimed victory when a federal judge, at their attorneys request, granted a preliminary injunction blocking a related law that would have required Californians to get rid of large-capacity magazines by Saturday or face fines and potential jail time. Newsom, the states lieutenant governor, wrote that he felt a chill down my spine when he watched the video. He said while he and the NRA have long disagreed, the video crosses the line of appropriate political debate. He described it as dangerous because it tells viewers that our fellow Americans are to be feared  and even worse. How does this video advance debate? How does it bring people together for common ideals? How does it do anything but cast Americans as enemies to be defeated in a cynical ploy to sell as many weapons as possible? he wrote. Facebook

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Tired of exporting campaign cash, these politicos are putting California first By Mark Z. Barabak Air Force One leaves California after another fundraising foray. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) California feeds the world with its bounty, fuels the economy with its innovation, fires the imagination with its creativity. There is one export, though, that is far less celebrated: the unceasing torrent of outbound campaign cash. For political fundraisers, California has long been the Big Rock Candy Mountain, excavated, mined and, ultimately, shafted by candidates of both parties who use the boodle to run for president in Iowa or New Hampshire, or Congress in East Podunk. Now, Democratic efforts are underway to put California first, directing more campaign cash from whence it came by focusing on seven targeted House districts in the Central Valley and southern part of the state. Read More Facebook

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Federal judge blocks California gun law By Patrick McGreevy A handgun is displayed with 10- and 15-shot magazines. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A federal judge Thursday granted a request by attorneys for the National Rifle Assn. to block a law that requires Californians to dispose of large-capacity ammunition magazines by Saturday or face fines and possible jail time. U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez wrote in San Diego that the rights of voters who approved Proposition 63 in November have to be balanced against the rights of gun owners. If this injunction does not issue, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of otherwise law-abiding citizens will have an untenable choice: become an outlaw or dispossess ones self of lawfully acquired property, Benitez wrote. That is a choice they should not have to make. C.D. Michel, an attorney for the NRA and state gun owners, welcomed the decision, which allows a lawsuit to be decided on its merits before the law takes effect. My clients are pleased the Court affirmed that the Second Amendment is not a second class right, and that law abiding gun owners have a right to choose to have these magazines to help them defend themselves and their families, Michel said in a statement. Read More Facebook

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Two California Democrats join with House Republicans to vote for Kates Law By Sarah D. Wire There would be tougher penalties for people repeatedly caught crossing the border illegally, and millions of dollars less in federal funds for so-called sanctuary jurisdictions such as Los Angeles under two House immigration bills approved Thursday. Both bills would fulfill President Trumps campaign promises if they became law, but the Senate has killed similar legislation and is unlikely to be able to reach the 60-vote requirement to pass the bills. The House voted 257 to 167, with 24 Democrats crossing party lines, to pass Kates Law, which would create harsher mandatory minimum prison sentences for people who repeatedly enter the U.S. illegally. It is named after Kathryn Steinle, who allegedly was shot and killed in San Francisco in 2015 by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a Mexican immigrant who had repeatedly entered the country illegally and was released from jail by sheriffs officials despite a request by immigration officials to keep him behind bars. Two California Democrats, Reps. Jackie Speier of Hillsborough and Eric Swalwell of Dublin, joined Republicans in voting for the bill. Swalwell grew up with Steinle and is still in touch with her family, he said. This bill is not perfect, and its shameful that the Republicans did not allow any debate. But it does improve our ability to punish individuals who repeatedly break the law and to deter those who may do so, he Swalwell said in a statement. Read More Facebook

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Committee unexpectedly opens door to Rep. Barbara Lees push to end military force authorization By Sarah D. Wire (Paul Morigi/Getty Images) In September 2001, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) was the only member of Congress to object to an Authorization for the Use of Military Force, a resolution in response to the terrorist attacks that paved the way for the war in Afghanistan. In the 16 years since, the resolution has been used by President George W. Bush, President Obama and now President Trump as justification for more than 35 military actions in nearly 20 countries around the world -- which means those presidents have not gone back to Congress for new permission to send troops into harms way. On Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee opened the door to ending that 2001 authorization when it added Lees amendment to a Defense Department measure. Congress would have 240 days to debate a new authorization. At the end of that time the 2001 authorization would be repealed. Lee has lobbied hard just to get to this first step, which was approved by a voice vote in the Republican led committee. Ive been working on this for years and years and years. Im just really pleased that Republicans and Democrats today really understood what Ive been saying and Ive been explaining for the last 16 years, and that is, this resolution is a blank check for perpetual war, Lee said. Committee members broke into applause after the unexpected vote. Lee said Thursday she plans to personally call Speaker Paul Ryan and make the case for keeping her amendment in the bill when it gets to the House floor. The public wants to see a debate, Lee said. Our young men and women in harms way need to know their Congress is supporting them and backing them up, or not. Facebook

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Volkswagen submits revised plan for installing charging stations as part of emission-cheating settlement By Chris Megerian (Markus Schreiber / Associated Press) Volkswagen would build more electric vehicle charging stations in disadvantaged communities under an updated plan being submitted to state regulators on Thursday. The companys subsidiary, Electrify America, revised its proposal after an earlier version was rejected as inadequate by the California Air Resources Board. The proposal is the first phase of an $800-million investment in the state, one piece of a much larger settlement over Volkswagens cheating on vehicle emission rules. Although the money is expected to yield hundreds of new charging stations and boost Californias efforts to foster the market for electric cars, its also been a source of controversy. State regulators want 35% of the money to be spent in disadvantaged communities, a target endorsed by the Legislature as well. Electrify America CEO Mark McNabb said, We will strive hard to hit it. The updated plan adds Fresno to the list of metropolitan areas, which already included Los Angeles and Sacramento, where charging stations would be installed. It made sense to get out into the Central Valley, McNabb said. We thought that was an improvement we could make to the plan. Facebook

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Californias top elections officer to Trumps voting fraud panel: No By John Myers (Dylan Stewart / HS Insider) President Trumps voter fraud commission will not be getting the names and addresses of Californias registered voters. The panels request was denied on Thursday by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who said it would only legitimize false claims of massive election cheating last fall. Padilla refused to hand over data, including the names, addresses, political party and voting history of Californias 19.4 million voters. Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas who serves as vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, sent letters to all 50 states on Wednesday for information he said would help the group examine rules that either enhance or undermine the American peoples confidence in the integrity of federal elections processes. Padilla, though, suggested the effort is little more than a ruse. I will not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally, he said in a written statement. Californias participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, the Vice President, and Mr. Kobach. Last November, Trump tweeted that California was one of three states where serious voter fraud took place in the general election. No state or local elections official has found any evidence to back up the presidents assertion. Kobachs request says the panel seeks only publicly available information. Basic information about California voters is routinely shared with journalists, political campaigns and researchers after a written request and payment of a fee. The letter asks for data including information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information. Padilla also criticized the selection of Kobach to help lead Trumps commission, accusing the Kansas official of past efforts at racial profiling and suppressing voter turnout. His role as vice chair is proof that the ultimate goal of the commission is to enact policies that will result in the disenfranchisement of American citizens, Padilla said. The presidential commissions first meeting is scheduled for July 19. Facebook

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Supporters of state Sen. Josh Newman sue to stop effort to recall him, alleging voters have been misled By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) faces a recall. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Supporters of state Sen. Josh Newman filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to stop a recall campaign against the lawmaker, alleging that signature gatherers have misled voters and the petition contains false information. The Democratic legislator from Fullerton faces a recall funded by the California Republican Party for voting with other lawmakers to increase the states gas tax and vehicle fees to raise $5.2 billion annually for road repairs. On Tuesday, the state party announced it had submitted 84,988 signatures to election officials, some 20,000 more signatures than would be needed if officials determine they are valid. The lawsuit against Secretary of State Alex Padilla was filed in Sacramento Superior Court by three residents of Newmans Senate district and paid for by the campaign against the recall. It alleges that signature gatherers misled voters to sign the petitions by saying they would repeal the car tax. The petition gathering campaign has misrepresented the nature of the petition by informing voters that it will Stop the Gas Tax when it will not, the lawsuit says. These statements are intentionally misleading statements of fact that are false beyond dispute and mislead voters The legal complaint, which also names several signature gatherers, alleges that the notice of intent to file the petition is inaccurate in saying that the tax bill provides billions of dollars for mass transit in Northern California without Newmans district benefiting from the revenue. The bill itself does not earmark where money will go, but the intent of lawmakers was that Newmans district would benefit, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit asks that the circulation of the petition be stopped and the recall effort, using the petition as drafted, be halted. This suit is about nothing less than the integrity of our election process; a recall election simply should not be certified when signatures were gathered based on lies to voters, said James Harrison, an attorney who filed the lawsuit. Former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, an organizer of the recall, said the lawsuit is without merit. Josh Newman refuses to accept accountability for his disastrous vote to raise the car and gas tax and instead has chosen to blame others for the recall against him with lies and frivolous lawsuits, DeMaio said. Facebook

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State to pay $2.9 million to three men wrongfully convicted in Los Angeles cases By Patrick McGreevy Kash Delano Register outside a Los Angeles restaurant in November 2013 after his release from prison. (Christina House / For The Times) The state Senate has approved payment of $2.96 million to settle three claims by men who were wrongly convicted for crimes in Los Angeles and served time in prison before they were exonerated. The approval of the payments, amounting to $140 for each day served behind bars, next goes to Gov. Jerry Brown. The largest payment  $1.7 million  goes to Kash Delano Register, who said he was wrongfully convicted of a 1979 murder because of a flawed LAPD investigation. He served 34 years in prison. In 2013, the Los Angeles County Superior Court ordered that Register be released from prison after it found he had been denied due process of law and a fair trial because material exculpatory information and evidence was not disclosed. The court acted after lawyers and students from Loyola Law School cast doubt on the testimony of a key prosecution witness. The Los Angeles County district attorneys office later dismissed the charges, and Register was found by the court to be factually innocent. The Senate payment for 12,427 days served in custody is in addition to a $16.7-million settlement paid to Register by the city of Los Angeles. The Senate also voted Thursday to pay $886,760 to Luis Vargas, who spent more than 17 years in custody before a court ruled him factually innocent of a 1998 rape. In 2012, DNA evidence from one of the victims showed that a suspect known as the Teardrop Rapist, not Vargas, was the perpetrator of the rape. The third payment, $340,620, goes to Reggie Cole, who was found factually innocent after serving time in prison for the shooting death of a man outside a South Los Angeles house of prostitution in 1995. Facebook

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Public affairs strategist Fiona Hutton hosts fundraiser for Antonio Villaraigosa By Phil Willon Antonio Villaraigosa in July (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles public affairs strategist Fiona Hutton is hosting a San Fernando Valley fundraiser for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa in July. Hutton, who has worked on a number of statewide campaigns, also raised money for Villaraigosa during his successful campaign for mayor of Los Angeles in 2005. The July 25 fundraiser is being held at Huttons office in Studio City. Tickets run $1,000 apiece. To be a co-host, itll cost $10,000. Along with serving as president of her company, Fiona Hutton & Associates, Hutton sits on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Facebook

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California joins other states asking the Trump administration for information on how its enforcing immigration law By Patrick McGreevy Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra wants more information on federal enforcement of immigration laws. ( Andrew Harnik / Associated Press) A group of nine state attorneys general, including California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday seeking records that would clarify how the Trump administration is enforcing federal immigration law. The request seeks the number of immigration detentions, deportations and detainer requests, and the rationale for each, as well as clarifying information on whether Trump is following through on comments that he will not target young people who were brought to the country illegally by their parents. The attorneys general also want to know whether immigrants in the country illegally have been detained at schools, hospitals and places of worship, which the state officials feel should be off-limits for enforcement. Mixed messages from the Trump Administration on immigration enforcement are sowing confusion and increasing anxiety among immigrants, Becerra said in a statement. Today we ask the Administration to tell us what it is doing in this area. The data could be used in a barrage of legal challenges the states have filed against federal immigration policies. Becerra noted that immigration-related arrests have increased nearly 40% since Trump became president, and there is concern that some of the arrests have included young people who were given a deferral from deportation under the Obama administration. The Presidents Executive Orders, and the steps taken by the Department of Homeland Security to implement those orders, have generated new fears and uncertainties in immigrant communities across the country, the attorneys general wrote in the request for information. The other states represented in the request are New York, Illinois, Washington, Massachusetts, Iowa, Maryland, Oregon and Hawaii. Facebook

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This is why Californias Legislature cant fix the states housing problems By Liam Dillon An apartment complex in Hollywood (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) For 50 years, California has had a law that aims to encourage developers to build housing. But the law has failed at helping stem the statewide shortage of homes that drives Californias affordability problems. The reason? The law requires cities and counties to produce prodigious reports to plan for housing  but it doesnt hold them accountable for any resulting home building. Cities and counties resent the law. To avoid complying, theyve asked the state to let prison beds count toward their low-income housing goals, among other things. And despite knowing about the laws weaknesses for decades, state lawmakers have provided no incentive, such as a greater share of tax dollars, for cities and counties to meet their housing goals. Read More Facebook

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Californias attorney general joins the fight against President Trumps sanctuary city order By Patrick McGreevy Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra led a group of 10 states Wednesday in filing an court brief supporting San Francisco and other California communities that challenged President Trumps executive order to withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions. After the local governments won a preliminary injunction against the order, the Trump administration asked the courts to dismiss the cities lawsuit. The brief filed by Becerra argues that public safety is improved when local law enforcement agencies focus on crime prevention instead of helping federal authorities enforce immigration laws. The Trump Administration does not have the right to coerce states, counties or municipalities to do the federal governments job, Becerra said in a statement. Californias state and local law enforcement officials are in the business of public safety, not of deportation. Threatening public safety funding to compel localities to do immigration work is a dangerous game that undermines public safety. Facebook

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California Supreme Court leaves in place decision upholding cap-and-trade system By Chris Megerian Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the Air Resources Board, oversees the cap-and-trade program. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) After more than four years, a legal challenge to Californias cap-and-trade program has reached an unsuccessful conclusion. The end came on Wednesday when the California Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal from business groups who consider the program to be an unconstitutional tax. The program requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases, a system intended to provide a financial incentive to reduce emissions. The law that provided the programs foundation was not passed with a two-thirds vote in the Legislature, the legal threshold for new taxes, sparking lawsuits from the California Chamber of Commerce and the Pacific Legal Foundation. A state appeals court rejected their arguments in April, but they appealed. Business groups were also concerned the decision was too broad and could open the door to additional taxes. Despite the states victory in court, there are other legal questions around cap and trade. Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing lawmakers to extend the program past 2020 with new legislation. With this Supreme Court victory, now its up to us to take action extending Californias cap-and-trade system on a more permanent basis, Brown said in a statement. This story has been updated with a statement from the governor. Facebook

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Rohrabacher on meeting with Manafort while he was a foreign agent: It was a nice little dinner By Sarah D. Wire (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) When former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort belatedly filed as a foreign agent on behalf of a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party this week, he listed a meeting with just one U.S. politician  Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach. Manaforts years-late filing with the Justice Department details $17 million in political consulting work he did between 2012 and 2014 for the Party of Regions, a Ukrainian party considered friendly with the Kremlin. Rohrabacher told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday that the March 2013 meeting happened over dinner at the Capitol Hill Club, a popular Washington Republican social club. He said Manafort billed it as a chance to get reacquainted decades after they worked together in the 1970s on President Reagans campaign. Still, he assumed Manafort had an agenda. I assume when old friends call me up and are wanting to get reacquainted and stuff I always assume they are in some way under contract with somebody, Rohrabacher said. Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, has long been known for encouraging improved relations with Russia, something thats made him an outlier in the Republican Party. He said Russia and the Baltic states probably came up during dinner, but it wasnt the focus of their conversation. We discussed a myriad of things, a lot of personal stuff, a lot of different analysis of the politics of the day, Rohrabacher said. It was a nice little dinner. Three days later, Manafort contributed $1,000 to Rohrabachers reelection campaign. Manaforts modest donation didnt stand out, Rohrabacher said. Ongoing FBI and congressional investigations into Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 election, and how the Trump campaign may have been involved, have heightened interest in any connections American politicians may have had with the Russian government or its proxies. Rohrabachers opponents immediately began fundraising off the revelation that Manafort met with the congressman while serving as a foreign agent. Democrat Harley Rouda, whos running for Rohrabachers seat in 2018, called it embarrassing in a solicitation email Tuesday. We need someone who cares more about Orange County and America than supporting Russia and Putin, Roudas email stated. Facebook

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Democrats block Republican legislators proposal for forensic audit of UC Office of President By Patrick McGreevy Two months after a state audit found mismanagement at the University of California, Democratic state lawmakers on Wednesday blocked a Republican legislators proposal to have auditors go back in and look deeper at spending, this time with an eye for possible criminal activity. Assemblyman Dante Acosta (R-Santa Clarita) said the follow-up examination was justified after an audit in April found the UC Office of the President had failed to disclose a $175-million budget surplus to the Board of Regents and the public, was paying excessive salaries and expenses and had inadequate financial safeguards in place to prevent abuse. The lack of controls, the audit concluded, was putting millions of dollars at risk of abuse. I am fighting to return trust in the institution of the UC Office of the President for students, parents, faculty and staff, Acosta said. Only complete transparency can accomplish that goal. However, no Democratic lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted to authorize a new audit, so the motion failed. Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) said the university administration should be given time to address the recommendations of its recent audit. I believe this request is premature, he said. State Auditor Elaine Howle said Wednesday in response to a legislators question that she did not find any evidence of misuse of funds. We didnt see anything nefarious, Howle told the panel. UC President Janet Napolitano said funds were not hidden, but she has agreed to adopt policies to make the budget process more transparent. Monica Lozano, chairwoman of the UC Board of Regents, told the legislative committee Wednesday that a new audit is unnecessary and may interfere with the systems implementation of recommendations from the last audit, including the hiring of an accountant to look at UC spending. Facebook

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Single-payer healthcare advocates protest at Capitol with a message for Californias Assembly speaker: Shame on you! By Melanie Mason View Twitter post Backers of a measure to establish a single-payer healthcare system in California rallied at the Capitol on Wednesday to renounce Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount), who shelved the bill last week. Several hundred demonstrators, many affiliated with the California Nurses Assn., the legislations sponsor, convened in the Capitol rotunda, where they unfurled a banner that blared Inaction = Death, before handing off signs with written complaints to a member of Rendons staff. The rally, on the heels of a smaller demonstration at Rendons district office on Tuesday, is a sign of how single-payer backers continue to seethe after the bill, SB 562, stalled on Friday. Patty Estefes, a retired nurse from San Jose, said the campaign for single-payer heathcare, in which the government would cover all residents healthcare costs, was her passion. Rendon sabotaged SB 562 and we want to take the knife out, said Estefes, explaining her sign, which had an image of the California grizzly bear stabbed in the back with a blade labeled Rendon. The image has become popular among supporters of the bill, although other Democrats have said the violence of the image makes them uneasy. View Twitter post A depiction of violence in any form is unacceptable and inappropriate. #StandwithRendon #StrongerTogether #DeathThreatsUnacceptable pic.twitter.com/KLF8nNvxdZ  Rudy Salas Jr (@rudysalasjr) June 27, 2017 Meanwhile, another union leader, Robbie Hunter of the powerful State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, chimed in Wednesday with support for the state Assembly speaker. Working people have real fights, and they are not with a labor champion like Anthony Rendon, said Hunter, who denounced the criticism from single-payer advocates as unfair and unwarranted attacks. Facebook

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Garcetti and Schwarzenegger urge cities and states to lead fight against climate change in Trump era By Michael Finnegan Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Wednesday called on cities and states to lead the nations fight against global warming as the federal government begins to reverse its climate change policies. The Republican former film star  who signed a landmark 2006 law to reduce Californias carbon emissions  and the Democratic mayor spoke out against President Trumps denial of climate science at a forum at Creative Artists Agency in Century City. Both argued that steps taken by cities and states to promote renewable energy could largely make up for the Trump administrations withdrawal from the worldwide Paris agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Facebook

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California voters could decide in 2020 whether to remove mandatory punishment for falsifying U.S. citizenship records By Jazmine Ulloa A proposed California law would let state voters decide in November 2020 whether to remove the mandatory punishment for a person who falsifies citizenship documents. The legislation by Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra (D-Pacoima) would make the crime a wobbler, meaning prosecutors would have the discretion to charge suspects in such cases with either felony offenses or lower-level misdemeanors. That, supporters say, would bring the penalties in line with those for similar crimes committed by legal residents who falsify government records, such as drivers licenses. Assembly Bill 222 moved out of the Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday with a 5-2 vote along party lines. An amendment added Tuesday places the issue on the ballot in November 2020. Bocangera said the measure was introduced as a response to President Trumps hard-line stance on immigration and would reverse part of Proposition 187, a 1994 California ballot measure to deny public services to immigrants in the country illegally. The bill would repeal provisions in the penal code that require a person to serve an automatic five-year mandatory prison sentence or pay a $75,000 fine if they are convicted on charges of manufacturing, distributing or selling false documents to conceal someone elses citizenship or residency status. It has the support of the Los Angeles County district attorneys office, which says there are far more serious crimes that carry substantially lower penalties. Today, if an underage college student uses a fake ID to purchase a six-pack of beer, he or she can be charged with a misdemeanor, Bocanegra said in a statement. However, if an immigrant is caught using that same fake ID, he or she is automatically charged with a felony and is subject to five years in prison. Facebook

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Its all good: Gov. Jerry Brown (again) signs a budget without any vetoed spending By John Myers Gov. Jerry Brown, signs bills in his Capitol office on Oct. 9, 2015. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Gov. Jerry Brown holds two unique records when it comes to state budgets. No governor has signed more of them, and none in modern times have been as hesitant to veto items they dont like. In the budget he signed on Monday, Brown made no changes. Its not the first time. This was Browns second consecutive budget in which he took no veto actions, and his third veto-free budget since 1982. Governors have line-item veto power to erase budget expenditures, decisions that arent subject to review by the Legislature. Previous chief executives have used their unilateral power far more often, a way to trim spending from a variety of state budget-related programs. State documents show former Gov. George Deukmejian holds the modern record for the most budget changes, issuing 367 line-item vetoes on July 21, 1983. In total amount of spending, the record belongs to former Gov. Pete Wilson, whose budget vetoes in 1998 added up to more than $1.9 million. Brown also has the distinction of issuing fewer vetoes of stand-alone legislation of any governor in the last half-century, suggesting its a sign of respect for the legislative branch of government. The governors signature on the latest state budget sets in place $183.2-billion in spending, covering a wide range of programs and services while setting aside more in cash reserves than ever before. Read More Facebook

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Campaign to recall freshman state senator submits more than enough signatures to qualify for the ballot By Patrick McGreevy State Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) at the Capitol on April 20. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) The campaign against state Sen. Josh Newman has turned in more than enough signatures to force the freshman Democrat from Fullerton into a recall election. Republican Carl DeMaio, a lead organizer of the effort, said the group submitted 84,988 signatures on Tuesday. More signatures are being collected but only 63,500 registered voters in the 29th Senate District are needed to put the recall question on the ballot. It shows that there is an unbelievable grass roots movement to fire Josh Newman for his disasterous vote to support an increase in the gas tax, said DeMaio, a conservative radio talk show host from San Diego. The recall drive was complicated by recently enacted legislation that allows voters to ask that their signatures not be included in the recall petitions if they felt they were misled. Elections officials in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties must now determine whether there are sufficient valid signatures to qualify the recall. Mike Roth, a spokesman for the campaign against the recall, said special interests including Chevron have helped fuel a misleading petition drive. The recall petition is a costly power grab by out-of-district special interests that wont save taxpayers a dime and wont solve any problem voters care about, Roth said. What it will do is cost up to $3 million in tax dollars that would be better spent on our schools and public safety. Facebook

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In massive shake-up, Gov. Jerry Brown breaks up Californias scandal-plagued tax collection agency By Patrick McGreevy In a move that triggers the most dramatic shake-up of the California Board of Equalization in its 138-year history, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Tuesday that strips the embattled state tax collection agency of most of its powers and duties as officials scramble to create an entirely new department by July 1. The board is the target of an investigation by the state Department of Justice, and its employees and members have been accused by auditors of mismanagement, including putting $350 million in sales taxes in the wrong accounts and improperly interfering with decisions to open field offices and transfer staff. The governor signed a bill that pares the state board from an agency with 4,800 workers to one of 400 employees, shifting the other staff engaged in the collection of sales and excise taxes to a new California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. The elected, five-member Board of Equalization will also give up its role hearing taxpayer appeals to a new Office of Tax Appeals, leaving the board to advocate for taxpayers and continue setting rates for gas taxes and pipeline levies, and making sure counties fairly assess property taxes. Anticipating the governors action, officials had already started work to create a new state department by July 1. Its a short period, acknowledged Marybel Batjer, secretary of the California Government Operations Agency, who is coordinating the changes. The new department will be headed by a director appointed by the governor and requiring state Senate approval. Brown will also appoint a chief deputy and chief counsel. The recruitment is underway for those positions, Batjer said, adding that the transition will continue after July 1, obviously. Not every i will be dotted and t crossed between now and July 1. We will do our mighty best to do the most important things before July 1. Learn more on the history of the state board and whats next. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown approves a $183-billion state budget, though a few details are unfinished By John Myers (Justin Sullivan/Getty) Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed into law a $183.2-billion budget, a spending plan with significant boosts for public schools and a variety of programs to help Californias most needy residents. While the blueprint depends on a series of other related bills that havent reached his desk, Browns action largely ratifies the plan approved by the Legislature and ensures the state will have a budget in place for the new fiscal year that begins Saturday. This budget provides money to repair our roads and bridges, pay down debt, invest in schools, fund the earned income tax credit and provide Medi-Cal health care for millions of Californians, Brown said in a written statement released by his office. The budget boosts total state and local spending on K-12 education and community colleges to $74.5 billion, roughly $11,000 per pupil in the coming school year. It also increases funding for the University of California and Cal State University systems, and provides additional money for preschool and child care programs. Brown and lawmakers agreed to devote a portion of new tobacco tax dollars to higher payments for doctors and dentists that treat patients in Medi-Cal, the states healthcare program for the poor. Divvying up the dollars generated by last falls Proposition 56 was among one of the most contentious issues during spring budget negotiations. The budget sets aside additional money in the states rainy-day reserve fund, growing the contingency account to $8.5 billion. Brown, who rarely uses his line-item veto power in trimming budgets, left entirely intact the plan ratified by the Legislature on June 15. While the governor signed 15 budget-related bills Tuesday, a handful of other related bills have yet to make their way to his desk. Those include a plan to make an extra $6-billion payment to the California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, borrowing the money from surplus state revenues. The plan was approved by the state Senate on Monday. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown says GOP healthcare bill cuts right into the heart of what is already a divided nation By Sarah D. Wire Californias senators, Kamala Harris, left, and Dianne Feinstein. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) One in three California residents are covered by Medicaid, and California is thought to have the most to lose if Republicans gather enough votes to roll back major aspects of the Affordable Care Act. California would see the nations biggest increase in uninsured people by next year and face a $24-billion budget shortfall by 2026 because of reduced Medicaid funding, Californias Democratic senators and Gov. Jerry Brown warned during a call with reporters on Tuesday. The Californians call was just one of dozens of events House and Senate Democrats held Tuesday to try to stir up anger over the bill. Brown called the bill divisive, saying it puts tax cuts for the wealthy above healthcare for the poor. This is such a political bill, he said. This bill will be the most divisive maneuver, cutting right into the heart of what is already a divided nation. The bill would increase the number of people without health coverage by 22 million and push up medical costs for millions of other poor and sick Americans, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. After pledging to pass the bill this week, Senate Republicans abruptly delayed a vote until after the July Fourth recess. A handful of Republicans have announced they are leery of the bill, saying it either goes too far or doesnt go far enough, and the White House is lobbying them to get on board. Every major medical association has come out against the bill, which was written by a small group of senators behind closed doors. Sen. Kamala Harris said the bill is being rushed to the Senate floor without hearings, debate or much time for senators to review it. Its absolutely wrong, it is harmful and it is unconscionable. The bill would restructure our nations entire health care system, she said. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said its not enough to amend the existing GOP bill, and Congress needs to start over instead. She said 10 or 12 Republican senators need to defect so the bill is not revived after a few changes, as a similar bill was in the House. I am optimistic that it is doable to kill it, Feinstein said. Its the most indefensible bill Ive actually seen in 24 years in the Senate. Facebook

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National Republicans target California water needs in new ads against House Democrats By Sarah D. Wire The National Republican Congressional Committee is going after five California Democrats for votes on a water issue. The online ads are identical except for one line tailored to target each Democrat: Reps. John Garamendi of Walnut Grove, Ami Bera of Elk Grove, Salud Carbajal of Santa Barbara, Raul Ruiz of Palm Desert and Scott Peters of San Diego. They specifically are about the Democrats voting against a bill to funnel dam permits through a single federal agency in an effort to speed up new water storage projects. Tell Congressman Garamendi to stop letting politics get in the way of our water, one ad says. Sponsored by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove), the bill passed the House last week, with a 233-180 largely partisan vote. Democrats need 24 seats to regain control of the House, and are expected to focus their attention in the midterms on tying Republicans to President Trump. Their list of seats they need to flip includes 9 of the 14 California seats held by Republicans. The ads, which will run online for the next week, could be the first glimpse of an NRCC strategy of trying to keep the focus on local issues in the 2018 election. California Democrats want to help radical environmentalists more than their drought-stricken constituents. If Democrats continue to sit on their hands and let this chance to capture much-needed water float on by, the NRCC will hold them accountable, said spokesman Jack Pandol. Facebook

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Only a few California counties may use the new state law for sending every voter a ballot in the mail By John Myers A broad effort to close thousands of California neighborhood polling places in favor of absentee ballots and multi-purpose vote centers has yet to find traction beyond a handful of counties. Data collected by Secretary of State Alex Padillas office concludes only two counties have a plan in place to implement the sweeping change in state election law enacted last year. As many as 14 counties can do so in 2018, with Los Angeles County and others able to switch to the system in 2020. Change is hard, said Jill LaVine, registrar of voters in Sacramento County, one of the counties that has already approved adoption of the system to swap polling places for a limited number of vote centers offering several different election services. Meanwhile, leaders in the county that has done the most planning to move toward changing its election system -- Orange County -- have rejected the new law for 2018. Read More Facebook

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Nurses union uses the image of a California bear stabbed in the back after single-payer bill is blocked Facebook

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Rep. Grace Napolitano to miss House votes for several weeks while husband receives cancer treatment By Sarah D. Wire Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk) will miss House votes while her husband, Frank Napolitano, undergoes chemotherapy and radiation to treat esophageal cancer, her spokesman said. The congresswoman, 80, easily beat out former Democratic state Assemblyman Roger Hernandez of West Covina in the November election. She said in April that she would seek reelection in 2018, and her husbands health does not change her plan to seek an 11th term, spokesman Jerry ODonnell said. Napolitano has missed the last two weeks of House votes, though shes working some from the district, and is expected to remain in California for several more weeks to care for her husband during the treatment, ODonnell said. He did not know for sure how long Napolitano would be gone, but it is possible she might make it back for some votes during the seven-week-long treatment, he said. Napolitano said by phone she will try to return if the House votes again on the GOP health care bill. I intend to be back at work soon, Napolitano said. The House leaves Friday for a one-week break and leaves again at the end of July for the August recess. Napolitano suffered a minor stroke in 2016 that affected her ability to write and slightly slowed her walk. For the record, 8:47 a.m.: An earlier version of this post identified the type of cancer Napolitanos husband has as lung cancer. It is esophageal cancer. 8:47 a.m., June 27: This post has been updated with a quote from Napolitano. 2:45 p.m. This post has been updated to correct how many terms the congresswoman has served. 2:26 p.m. This post has been updated with more details about when Napolitano might return. This post was originally published at 2:06 p.m. Facebook

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After a career in the majority, Jimmy Gomez prepares for life in the minority in Washington By Sarah D. Wire (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) Congressman-elect Jimmy Gomez has spent his entire political career as a member of the majority party. When hes sworn in as central and northeast Los Angeles newest member of Congress in the coming weeks, hell be the most junior Democrat  194th out of 194  in Congress. Hell have to find a path forward in a Congress dominated by the opposing party. Even if Democrats win back control, hell have hundreds of more senior and just as eager colleagues ahead of him in line. Read More Facebook

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Rep. Maxine Waters focuses on GOP healthcare bill at packed town hall By Andrea Castillo (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times) Rep. Maxine Waters, who spoke Saturday at a packed town hall meeting in Gardena, said she worries some Americans will be forced to do what her family did if the Republican healthcare bill passes. Senate Republicans have pledged to pass a bill before the July Fourth holiday. To illustrate why she believes everyone should have access to comprehensive healthcare, the Los Angeles Democrat said she and her 12 siblings never saw a physician or a dentist their entire childhood. I was born at home in St. Louis back in the day when it was hard for minorities to get into hospitals, she said. Read More Facebook

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This former Jeff Denham challenger wont run again, but hes launching a committee to elect Democrats By Christine Mai-Duc Two-time congressional challenger Michael Eggman says he wont try for a third campaign against Republican Rep. Jeff Denham (Turlock), but hes hoping to help Democrats running against the him. Eggman, a beekeeper and farmer, announced Monday that hes starting a political action committee to help oust Republicans in seven seats, including Denhams in the Central Valley, which Democrats have targeted for 2018. The committee, Red to Blue California, filed papers with the Federal Election Commission in March but so far hasnt reported raising any money. Andrew Feldman, a spokesman for the PAC, said the group has taken in about $50,000 and its goal is to raise at least $7 million in the 2018 cycle. Eggman will serve as chair of the committee. In a statement, Eggman said that while he lost last year, I learned a heck of a lot on the way. Now as Donald Trump threatens to upend the very fabric of what makes our country great, Im doing my part to join the resistance. In addition to Denhams seat, the committee will target Republican Reps. Steve Knight (Palmdale), David Valadao (Hanford), Ed Royce (Fullerton), Mimi Walters (Irvine), Dana Rohrabacher (Huntington Beach) and Darrell Issa (Vista). All seven were reelected in districts won by Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. The committee also plans to use some of the money to promote down-ballot candidates in each of the districts as a way of building a base of Democratic candidates. Eggman, a beekeeper and farmer who received a rare endorsement from Barack Obama in the Democrats unsuccessful quest to take back the House last year, lost to Denham by 5% in November. Spending in that race topped $14 million. Six Democrats have already filed to run in Denhams 10th Congressional District, including Josh Harder, a venture capital executive whose campaign manager worked for Eggman in 2016. Facebook

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California Politics Podcast: Theres a powerful new ally of those who support a sanctuary state By John Myers Supporters of an ambitious California effort to limit law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities begin the week with a prominent new ally. On this weeks California Politics Podcast, we take a look at the impact of Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck endorsing the sanctuary state bill thats now under consideration in Sacramento. We also discuss the decision by Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) to run for governor, and how his conservative politics could have a big effect on how Republican voters view their choices in 2018. Im joined by Times staff writer Melanie Mason and Marisa Lagos of KQED News. Facebook

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California wont be passing a single-payer healthcare system any time soon  the plan is dead for this year By Melanie Mason View Twitter post A high-profile effort to establish a single-payer healthcare system in California sputtered on Friday when Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) decided to shelve the proposal. Rendon announced late Friday afternoon that the bill, SB 562 by state Sens. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) and Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), would not advance to a policy hearing in his house, dampening the measures prospect for swift passage this year. SB 562 was sent to the Assembly woefully incomplete, Rendon said in a statement. Even senators who voted for SB 562 noted there are potentially fatal flaws in the bill, including the fact it does not address many serious issues, such as financing, delivery of care, cost controls, or the realities of needed action by the Trump Administration and voters to make SB 562 a genuine piece of legislation. Rendon took pains to note that his action does not kill the bill entirely  because it is the first year of a two-year session, it could be revived next year. But the move is nonetheless a major setback for legislation that has electrified the Democratic partys progressive flank. The California Nurses Assn., the bills sponsors and the states most vocal advocates for single-payer, blasted Rendons decision as cowardly. Acting in secret in the interests of the profiteering insurance companies late Friday afternoon abandons all those people already threatened by Congress and the Trump administration, Deborah Burger, the unions co-president, said in a statement. Burger continued: The people of California are counting on the Legislature to protect them now, not sometime next year, and as polls have shown Californians support this proposal by a wide majority. A solution to this health care emergency could be at hand; Speaker Rendon is standing in opposition. In a joint statement, Lara and Atkins, the measures authors, said they were disappointed the robust debate about healthcare for all that started in the California Senate will not continue in the Assembly this year. This issue is not going away, they added. Gov. Jerry Brown, who had signaled wariness about the proposals costs, said in a statement that Rendon made the case that theres clearly more work to do before anyone is in a position to vote on revamping Californias healthcare system. I recognize the tremendous excitement behind the measure, but basic and fundamental questions remain unanswered, Brown said. Updated at 6:44 p.m.: This article was updated with a comment from Gov. Jerry Brown. Updated at 5:38 p.m.: This article was updated to include comments from the California Nurses Assn. and the measures authors. This article was originally published at 4:38 p.m. Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report. Read More Facebook

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California politicians are in Dallas despite new ban on state employees traveling to Texas By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Ricardo Lara (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A day after California banned state employees from going to Texas on official business, a group of politicians from the Golden State was in Dallas on Friday for a major conference. California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra on Thursday announced he was prohibiting state employees from traveling at state expense to Texas and three other states that he determined have approved laws that discriminate against gay and transgender people. Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), who is openly gay, is among those attending the annual gathering of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). A spokesman said he is using his own money, not taxpayer funds. Lara voted for the bill that enacted the travel ban. Lara felt participating in a panel discussion on immigration was important amid debate over Gov. Greg Abbotts signage of a controversial immigration law that bans sanctuary cities for immigrants in the country illegally, spokesman Michael Soller said. Texas just passed one of the nations most anti-immigrant laws with Senate Bill 4, and California went down this road with Proposition 187 more than 20 years ago, Lara said in a statement. With LGBT and immigrant rights under assault across the country, I thought it was important to join other Latino leaders and show Californias example. Like Lara, West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tem John Duran made plans to attend the Dallas convention well before Becerra announced the travel ban, which does not apply to non-state employees. Duran is the national chairman of NALEO and said the conference was scheduled for Dallas three years ago. I dont know about the LGBT laws in Texas or AG Becerras call for a boycott -- I am not only LGBT but also Latino, Duran said in an email, adding he is very angry over Texas SB 4, which requires law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration officials in enforcing immigration laws. I am here supporting my elected official colleagues in Texas from Austin, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas who are joining together to sue the state of Texas, Duran said. Being a Californian who worked against Gov. Pete Wilsons Prop 187 -- I have experiences and strategies to share with them. Facebook

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Texas responds to California LGBT travel ban, saying Golden State firms fleeing over taxation and regulation By Patrick McGreevy A day after California officials said they are banning state workers from traveling to Texas on official business, an aide to Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott returned a verbal volley claiming mistreatment of businesses. On Thursday, California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said Texas and three other states were being put on a list of states that had adopted laws seen by Becerra as discriminatory to the LGBT community and therefore were off-limits for state-sponsored travel. That drew a response Friday from John Wittman, Abbotts press secretary. California may be able to stop their state employees, but they cant stop all the businesses that are fleeing over taxation and regulation and relocating to Texas, Wittman said. Becerra put Texas on the travel-ban list after the governor signed HB 3859 last week. The new law allows foster care agencies to deny adoptions and services to children and parents based on sincerely held religious beliefs. Becerra said the measure allows agencies to discriminate against children in foster care and potentially disqualify LGBT families from the states foster and adoption system. A spokesman for Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin also criticized California officials. It is fascinating that the very same West Coast liberals who rail against the Presidents executive order, that protects our nation from foreign terrorists, have now contrived their own travel ban aimed at punishing states who dont fall in lockstep with their far-left political ideology, said Woody Maglinger, Bevins press secretary. Updated at 1:35 pm to include comment from Woody Maglinger. Facebook

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Rep. Tom McClintocks bill to streamline dam permits passes House largely on party lines By Sarah D. Wire Dam permits would be funneled through a single federal agency in an effort to speed up new water storage projects under a bill that passed the House on Thursday. Sponsored by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove), the 233-180 vote was largely along partisan lines. Reps. Jim Costa (D-Fresno), Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) and six other Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the bill. McClintock said the various local, state and federal agencies that must sign off on new projects dont have to communicate or set deadlines, and often require redundant information from permit applicants, which can make the application process drag on for years and drive up costs. Dam applications can go on endlessly, McClintock said after the vote. A lot of these projects become cost prohibitive. He pointed to a dam project proposed by the town of Foresthill in his district as an example. Conflicting demands from several federal agencies about a plan to install a spillway gate on the dam at the Sugar Pine Reservoir have driven up the cost, he said. The project application is still under review. So a $2-million project that was a heavy lift for a little community, but within reach, becomes an $11-million cost-prohibitive boondoggle, McClintock said. Under the bill, the Bureau of Reclamation would coordinate with other federal agencies on all aspects of a dam application and set deadlines for deciding whether to approve a project. Democrats who voted against the bill said the bureau would be able to set arbitrary deadlines for the at-times lengthy environmental reviews required for water projects, which could undermine reviews required by laws like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. Fixing the process isnt just about saving some headaches or a few hours of time. This is about making sure millions of people in California and across America have the water they need and deserve, said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield). Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has filed similar legislation in the Senate, and McClintock said he is cautiously optimistic it will pass. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown says Senate healthcare bill has same stench as House version Facebook

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Travis Allen, a conservative and controversial Orange County lawmaker, jumps into California governors race By Phil Willon Conservative Orange County Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) is jumping into Californias 2018 race for governor, a move that could splinter the GOP vote in what promises to be a crowded and competitive race. Travis, elected to the Legislature in 2012, said he decided to run because of the years of wasteful spending and dictatorial policies pushed by Jerry Brown and the Sacramento Democrats. I am running to be the next governor of California to take back our state for the forgotten ordinary citizens of California, who will no longer tolerate the squandering of our incredible natural abundance of people, economy, and resources by limousine liberals beholden to ravenous public sector union bosses and extremist environmentalists, Travis said in a statement announcing his campaign. Outspoken and controversial, Travis has filed a ballot measure to repeal the recently approved gas tax and sponsored legislation requiring voters to show photo ID. Allen has faced criticism for claiming that a new law that barred police from arresting people under 18 for soliciting sex or loitering with intent to commit prostitution was an effort to legalize child prostitution. The purpose of the law was to treat minors as victims of sex trafficking rather than offenders. Allen, 43, worked as a certified financial planner before he ran for the Legislature. His Assembly district includes all or portions of Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Garden Grove. Allen will face stiff competition from fellow Republican John Cox, a Rancho Santa Fe venture capitalist who already has put $3 million of his own money into his campaign. Former GOP Assemblyman David Hadley of Manhattan Beach also is exploring a run, and former Los Angeles Rams football player Rosey Grier announced plans to jump into the race but thus far has not established an official campaign. The race also has attracted a cadre of Democratic heavyweights, including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Treasurer John Chiang. Delaine Eastin, a former state legislator and state schools chief, is also running. In California, Democrats hold a 19-percentage point advantage over Republicans in voter registration, a strong head wind against GOP candidates running for statewide office. Because of the large field of Democrats in the race, a Republican could have a good shot of finishing in the top two in the June 2018 primary if they can put together GOP support. But Allens entry into the race could divide Republican voters, reducing the odds of a GOP candidate making it to the November general election. The first- and second-place finishers in the primary advance to the general election regardless of their party. Facebook

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Coastal panel spawned by 1930s oil scandal now a player in governors race By Michael Finnegan (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times) When John Chiang joined the State Lands Commission, it quickly became a platform to showcase his environmental record, starting with his 2007 vote to block construction of a shipping terminal for liquefied natural gas in Ventura County. The commission has served the same purpose for Gavin Newsom, who often uses his seat on the panel to remind Californians that he opposes offshore oil drilling. Now that both Chiang and Newsom are running for governor, they are drawing rare attention to the little-known but powerful State Lands Commission, which oversees 4 million acres of land beneath California waters. Read More Facebook

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Ballot measure to expand L.A. County Board of Supervisors advances By Patrick McGreevy State Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, wants to expand the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from five to seven members. Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press ( Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors would be expanded from five to seven members and an elected chief executive post would be created under a measure recommended Wednesday by a state Senate panel despite opposition from the county. Two members of the countys 2015-16 civil grand jury testified that the group felt the current government is inadequate for a county of more than 10 million residents. They said that if the county was a state, it would be the eighth-largest state in the country based on population. The board is too small to adequately serve the diverse needs of county residents, grand jury member Molly Milligan told the Senate Governance and Finance Committee, before its 5-1 vote to recommend Senate Constitutional Amendment 12. The proposed statewide ballot measure was introduced by Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia). The proposal was opposed by Phyllis Marshall, the chief legislative representative for Los Angeles County, who noted that the proposal would allow voters statewide to decide the governance structure for one county. Voters in other counties do not have sufficient knowledge to vote on a constitutional amendment to change the governing structure of Los Angeles County, Marshall told the panel before the measure was sent to another policy panel on its way to a possible full Senate vote. Facebook

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Kimberly Ellis blames Democratic Party hacks for losses in Tuesdays congressional races By Phil Willon Kimberly Ellis (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Kimberly Ellis, who has challenged the results of the California Democratic Party leadership election she lost, blamed party establishment hacks who are the worst in the biz for losses in congressional races in Georgia and South Carolina on Tuesday. Ellis, a progressive Bay Area Democrat who tapped into a wellspring of disaffected Bernie Sanders backers, on Tuesday night sent a tweet saying that it was time for a new coalition. That drew a sharp rebuke from veteran Democratic operative Bob Mulholland, who has criticized Ellis for not conceding. Ellis blamed her narrow May loss to Eric Bauman for state Democratic Party chairperson on voting irregularities. Ellis, who lost the race by 62 votes,has called on the party to conduct an independent audit of the election. Bauman rejected that request, saying the party already has a process in place to review contested elections. The partys compliance review commission, made up of six members who were appointed during former chairman John Burtons tenure, is currently reviewing the election. On Friday, Bauman announced that the party hired the law firm of Olson Hagel & Fishburn LLC to oversee, advise and counsel the commission during the inquiry. Let's thank Jon Ossoff, his staff and the thousands of volunteers for their effort. Let's ignore Trump and Kimberly Ellis attacks on Ossoff.  Bob Mulholland (@Chico_Bob) June 21, 2017 Facebook

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These legislators are trying to make sure Jimmy Gomezs replacement in the Assembly is a woman By Christine Mai-Duc As soon as Congressman-elect Jimmy Gomez announced he was running for Congress, his Assembly colleague Cristina Garcia got to work. Garcia, a legislator from Bell Gardens who became chair of the Womens Legislative Caucus in December, called Gomez, other Assembly members, and labor and environmental groups to make it clear: If Gomez won the 34th Congressional District and vacated his Assembly seat, her priority would be electing a woman in his place. With Gomez headed to Washington after his June 6 win, Garcia said its time to put her groups plan into action. Its simple, said Garcia in a recent interview. As long as we dont have parity, were going to fight at every opportunity to try to get another woman in office. Women hold 17 out of 80 seats in the state Assembly and nine of 40 of the state Senate seats. On Wednesday morning, the Democratic arm of the womens legislative caucus announced it was endorsing Wendy Carrillo, a Democrat who ran in the 34th District primary against Gomez, and who is the only woman running to replace him so far. I am impressed by her ongoing activism for environmental justice, womens rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants and social justice movements that are the bedrocks of a progressive democracy and welcome the tenacity she will bring to further promote these issues in the state Legislature with a womans perspective, Garcia said in a statement. Eight other candidates have filed to run for or have announced campaigns for Gomezs 51st Assembly District. The election date and its accompanying filing deadlines have not yet been set, mainly because Gomez has not stepped down, so another woman could still jump in. But Garcia is hoping her caucus announcement will head that off. If the 34th Congressional District race is going to teach us any lessons, its that we dont have the luxury of having multiple women split the field, Garcia said. More than a dozen women ran in the crowded primary to replace Xavier Becerra in the central Los Angeles District. None of them won more than 10% of the vote. So Garcia and her colleagues havent just been talking about their mission; theyve been trying to shape the field of candidates, too. Garcia said she reached out to former 34th District hopefuls to gauge their interest, solicited names of potential female candidates from interest groups, and had conversations with half a dozen women who were considering jumping in. Garcia said she didnt discourage any women, but was up front with them about the challenges each might face. Shes also encouraged women who expressed interest to work it out among themselves in hopes that they could unite behind one female candidate. Its a somewhat new tactic for the womens caucus, which has struggled to unite on political endorsements in the past and is hoping to flex more muscle in Sacramento. We are being more strategic now, Garcia said. It cant just be like, I like you and you have a great heart. Thats not good enough. You have to put in the work and be able to build a coalition and win. Carrillo said it was unfortunate that none of the women in the 34th District race made it past the primary. But, she added: Men dont get asked the question of whether theyre worried about splitting the vote. The outcome in the congressional primary, Carrillo said, had more to do with a lack of money flowing to many of the womens campaigns, something she hopes to remedy. Ive learned a lot ... [about] just what it takes to build coalitions and how best to move forward in terms of having a strategy to win, Carrillo said. Ultimately, the voters are going to decide based on issues, Carrillo said. I think that I bring a very unique perspective, having grown up in the district, in terms of advocating for labor and for education and for healthcare and all the issues that residents care for. ------------ FOR THE RECORD June 21, 2:53 p.m.: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Cristina Garcia became chair of the Womens Legislative Caucus in January. She took over the position in December. ------------ Facebook

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Prompted by San Bernardino shooting, House passes bill to require reports to Congress after terrorist attacks By Sarah D. Wire Evacuated workers pray on the fairway of the San Bernardino Golf Club shortly after the 2015 mass shooting at the nearby Inland Regional Center. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) Intelligence agencies would have to make recommendations to Congress on how to stop the next domestic terrorist attack under a bill inspired by the 2015 San Bernardino shooting. The bill, which passed the House on Tuesday without opposition, requires the Homeland Security secretary to submit a report to Congress within one year of a terrorist attack in the U.S. The report, which would be unclassified, must include details of what happened and recommendations for laws or policies that can be changed to prevent a similar attack. It would also include input from the attorney general, FBI director and the head of the National Counterterrorism Center. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands), who represents San Bernardino, filed the bill about a year after the Dec. 2, 2015, shooting in which 14 people were killed and 22 were wounded by a married couple at the Inland Regional Center. Aguilar told The Times that individual members of Congress shouldnt have to press agencies for details about what happened after an attack. By nature every terrorist event is unique, and so we need something to prod the agencies to tell us why its unique and what we can do better, Aguilar said. There is no current requirement for the agencies to submit a report to Congress after a terrorist event. We think that it makes sense to do that and that it will help us learn from these events and become smarter about it. After the San Bernardino attack, the Justice Department worked with the Police Foundation, a Washington-based research group, to create a report, but it was aimed at training law enforcement on responding to an attack. We think there are more lessons to be learned, but that only happens when those agencies work with Congress on what we can change, Aguilar said. The bipartisan bill was backed by nine other Californians: Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Corona), Paul Cook (R-Yucca Valley), Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), Nanette Barragan (D-San Pedro), David Valadao (R-Hanford), Jeff Denham (R-Turlock), Steve Knight (R-Palmdale), Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine). Aguilar said he is still working to line up a sponsor for the bill in the Senate. Facebook

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New super PAC targets seven California Republicans By Phil Willon Former Northern California Rep. Ellen Tauscher has launched a new super PAC targeting seven vulnerable Republicans in the states congressional delegation, hoping to aid the Democratic effort to win control of the House of Representatives in 2018. Each Republican represents a district that backed Hillary Clinton in the November election. On the Fight Back California PACs list are Reps. Jeff Denham of Turlock; David Valadao of Hanford; Steve Knight of Palmdale; Ed Royce of Fullerton; Mimi Walters of Irvine; Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach and Darrell Issa of Vista. Of those, the former congresswoman served with Issa, Royce and Rohrabacher. This isnt personal, Tauscher said. But the fact is that Im a Californian, and they dont vote in the interest of my state. Tauscher represented Northern Californias 10th Congressional District for 14 years before becoming undersecretary of State during the Obama administration in 2009. Katie Merrill, the PACs political strategist, said the campaign will target the Republicans records on issues that directly affect voters in the district, such as the GOPs efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We intend to soften the ground. So when the Democratic nominee emerges ... they are facing a significantly weakened incumbent, Merrill said. Updated at 4:02 p.m.: This story was updated to include a comment from Tauscher. Facebook

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Overhaul of Californias state tax board plagued by confusion, members say By Patrick McGreevy Board of Equalization Chairwoman Diane Harkey says there is confusion around the reorganization of the board. (Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times) State tax board members on Tuesday said there remain a lot of unanswered questions about how their agency will transfer many of its duties to two new offices, a reorganization approved last week by the state Legislature in response to problems with the panel. About 4,400 of the state Board of Equalizations 4,800 employees will be transferred to a new California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, which will take over collection of sales and excise taxes, and an office of administrative law judges who will take over taxpayer appeals. The change was outlined by the boards executive director, David Gau, at a meeting with the panel Tuesday. I dont think anything is easy, Board Chairwoman Diane Harkey said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. I think its going to be expensive. There is a lot of confusion. Board member George Runner said there are questions about whether he can continue to hold educational events for taxpayers, while board member Jerome Horton said he wants to know whether he can continue to advocate for taxpayers. There are still some issues they need to work out, Horton said. Harkey said new bills will have to be approved with clarifying language on some issues. For instance, the newly approved legislation takes away the boards power to hear appeals after July 1 even though lawmakers want the board to continue handling the hearings until the new administrative law judges are operating Jan. 1. In addition, the board employs civil service workers who are trained for jobs that will no longer exist with the board, she said, adding that the new department is supposed to begin operating July 1. This is all still in flux. Its a huge step to take in a couple of weeks, Harkey said. Marybel Batjer, secretary of the California Government Operations Agency, has addressed the board employees, assuring them that they will be able to shift to jobs in the new department. She told The Times on Tuesday that planning has already begun for the new department, including the early stages of recruitment of its administrative staff. Meanwhile, board representatives, including Harkey, confirmed that investigators from the state attorney generals office have begun interviewing agency employees after Gov. Jerry Brown called for a probe into whether staff and resources were mishandled by the agency. Were just hearing that they are around, Harkey said of investigators. I think it scares everybody. Facebook

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Californias Clean Air Act waiver should be yanked, Trumps former environmental advisor says By Chris Megerian (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) The head of President Trumps Environmental Protection Agency may not be prepared to battle California over air regulations, but the man who led Trumps transition team for the department is ready. Myron Ebell, who works at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington and helped devise Trumps environmental agenda, said California should not be allowed to set its own standards for greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes. The state has that authority under a Clean Air Act waiver granted by President Obama, one of dozens that have been issued over the years. The waiver has to go, in my view, Ebell told journalists on Monday at a training program organized by the National Press Foundation. The problem, he said, is that the California regulations are a backdoor attempt to regulate fuel economy, a power thats reserved for the federal government. California said it would push forward on greenhouse gas rules earlier this year even though the Trump administration has opened the door to rolling them back on the federal level. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had previously suggested that the Trump administration could try to revoke Californias waiver, but during a recent Capitol Hill hearing he said it wasnt currently under review. Ebell has denied mainstream science on global warming. But apart from the waiver he wants to see revoked, he told journalists that he didnt have a problem with California trying to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions. I believe in competitive federalism, he said. The only problem, Ebell said, is whether Gov. Jerry Brown tries to conduct his own foreign policy and sign international treaties. Facebook

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A new audit says some California agencies sidestepped competitive bidding rules on contracts By Patrick McGreevy Two California agencies in charge of high-tech projects failed to provide proper oversight for billions of dollars in contracts awarded without competitive bidding, according to a state audit released Tuesday. State law requires the Department of General Services and the California Department of Technology (CDT) to use the competitive bidding process whenever possible to ensure fair competition and eliminate favoritism, fraud, and corruption, State Auditor Elaine Howle wrote in a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown. The investigation examined a sample of those contracts and found nine noncompetitive requests valued at almost $1 billion that agencies likely could have avoided had they engaged in sufficient planning, Howle wrote. The auditors cited approval of a request by the California High-Speed Rail Authority for a $3-million noncompetitive contract amendment to provide financial consulting services. The proposal was submitted 17 days before the existing contract was set to expire. When justifying its noncompetitive request, High-Speed Rail stated that the financial consulting services were critical to its mission and that the vendors skills were specialized and not widely available. However, it did not provide a valid reason why this vendor alone could meet the states needs, as financial consulting services are not unique, the audit found. In all, auditors estimated that the state awarded at least $44 billion in noncompetitive contracts of more than $1 million each during the five fiscal years ending June 30, 2016. The two agencies have the power to enforce contract rules but they rarely employed them, allowing agencies to continue inappropriately using noncompetitive requests, the audit concluded. State workers also allegedly wrote reports in ways that misled about which projects were competitively bid. In one case, a $3-million contract was identified as competitively bid, to which an additional $31 million in noncompetitive contracts was added through nine amendments. Amy Tong, director of the California Deptartment of Technology, agreed with the auditors recommendations, saying the agency believes that the recommendations will strengthen CDTs oversight of information technology and telecommunication procurements, especially those acquired through the noncompetitive request process. Daniel C. Kim, director of the Department of General Services, also agreed to improve the process, writing to auditors that his agency will take appropriate action to address the issues presented in the report. Facebook

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Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer has a big decision to make By Phil Willon Tom Steyer at a Los Angeles high school in 2014. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press) For months, billionaire Democratic donor and environmental activist Tom Steyer has been acting like a candidate running for governor  hobnobbing with Democratic loyalists, putting out a position paper on income inequality and continuing his aggressive efforts to combat climate change. Steyer says hes still considering jumping into the race. But he may have another target on his radar. Steyer has starting mounting his own challenge to President Trump, going so far as to call for impeachment and use his nonprofit, NextGen Climate, to encourage citizens to lobby their congressional representatives for it. Read More Facebook

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Lobbying firm fined $4,000 for violating gift limit buying dinner for former state Sen. Ronald Calderon By Patrick McGreevy Ron Calderon, shown in while still in the senate in 2014, was treated to a dinner by a lobbying firm that violated a gift limit. ( (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)) Mercury Public Affairs has agreed to pay $4,000 in fines to Californias ethics watchdog agency for violating the $10 gift limit on lobbying firms when it provided dinners worth $200 to former state Sen. Ronald Calderon and his wife. In October, Calderon was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty in a public corruption case unrelated to the Mercury dinner. The fines proposed against Mercury by the enforcement staff of the state Fair Political Practices Commission stem from violating the $10 gift limit and failing to report that Calderons wife also received a dinner, according to the investigative report. Calderon and his wife attended an April 2013 dinner paid for by Mercury at Mastros in Beverly Hills. Also present was former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a non-lobbyist partner of Mercury, and four other unidentified people. The violation of the state Political Reform Act was found by a random audit by the state Franchise Tax Board. Mercurys $200 gift to Sen. Calderon, while not extravagant, significantly exceeded the gift limit, the investigative report said. A central purpose of the act is to prevent improper influence by lobbyists and the acts strict gift limit on lobbying firms is intended to effectuate that purpose. The commission will vote on the fines on June 29. Facebook

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California bill aims to revive broadband privacy rules that were killed by Trump and Congress By Melanie Mason A woman works on her laptop in the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library. ( Mark Lennihan / Associated Press) Several months ago, President Trump signed into law a repeal of sweeping privacy regulations limiting what broadband providers can do with customer data. Now, an Assembly Democrat is trying to resuscitate those rules for Californians. Assemblyman Ed Chau (D-Monterey Park) unveiled a measure on Monday that would largely enshrine the sputtered federal regulations into California state law. The bill would require Internet service providers, such as Verizon, Comcast and AT&T, to get permission from customers before using, selling or permitting access to data about their browsing history. Such restrictions were crafted by the Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration. But the FCC under Trump sought to roll back those rules before they went into effect. Congress approved the repeal in March, and the president signed it. Congress and the administration went against the will of the vast majority of Americans when they revoked the FCC rules, Chau said at a news conference, adding that with his measure, AB 375, California is goi
Its been nearly four decades since a 25-year-old Frank Lindsay landed on Californias sex offender registry after he pleaded no contest to improperly touching a girl under 14.

He has not committed another crime since then, but state law requires Lindsays name to remain on the registry, which the public can see on government websites, for the rest of his life.

The listing cost him a business and sustainable livelihood, subjected him to death threats, prevented him from visiting his daughters school and resulted in injuries when he was attacked by an angry, hammer-wielding stranger who broke into his home after seeing his name on the registry, according Lindsay, news accounts at the time and his attorney, Janice Bellucci.

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You cant work where you want. You cant live where you want. It makes it virtually impossible to live a normal life. It can make you bitter, said Lindsay, now 64 and a resident of Grover Beach in San Luis Obispo County.

Now, with more than 105,000 people on Californias registry, some criminal justice leaders, including Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, are looking to overhaul the system.

They recently won state Senate approval of a proposal that would allow the names of those who committed lower-level, nonviolent sex crimes or are judged low risks to reoffend to be removed from the registry after 10 or 20 years.

The states sex offender registry has lost significant value over time because it contains so many low-risk offenders with decades-old offenses, Lacey said. Our bill will improve public safety by creating a tiered system that will allow investigators to focus on those offenders who pose the greatest risk.

The proposal has stirred up deep emotions in a state where voters have, in the past, approved initiatives that are tough on sex offenders.

Opponents of the bill include Erin Runnion, who in 2002 founded the Joyful Child Foundation, an Orange County advocacy group for victims, after the abduction, molestation and murder of her 5-year old daughter, Samantha.

Californians should be able to find out if someone they met is a convicted sex offender before leaving a child in their care, or going with them on a date, or agreeing to tutor them, etc., Runnion said in an email.

California is one of only four states that require lifetime registration of sex offenders. The others are Alabama, South Carolina and Florida.

Current law requires people convicted of specific sex offenses in California to register for life when they leave prison, providing addresses, the names of employers, fingerprints, photos and license plate numbers. The law requires the state Department of Justice to make information on most registered sex offenders available to the public on its website. The website does not include the name of juvenile offenders or those convicted of incest to protect the identity of relatives who are victims.

Sex offenders in California are required to re-register annually, filling out extensive paperwork on their activities and locations because there are rules prohibiting them from being close to schools, parks and other locations where children congregate.

Local authorities spend large amounts of time processing the paperwork, much of it from people who have not committed a crime for years and dont pose a risk, said state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who introduced the new proposal to reform the system, Senate Bill 421.

Right now, the sex offender registry is broken and it undermines public safety, Wiener said, citing the time spent on paperwork for low-risk offenders and the huge list of names that makes it harder for police investigating new crimes to find potential offenders.

He said many early offenders landed on the list because of discrimination by police who targeted gay men who were having sex in parks or in cars during the 1950s and 60s.

Whether you are a sexual predator or an 80-year-old gay man caught having sex in a park in 1958, you are treated the same. You are on that registry the rest of your life, Wiener told his colleagues during the recent floor debate on his bill.

The law also affects 18-year-olds convicted of statutory rape for having consensual sex with 17-year-olds, he said.

He said those on the registry face barriers to stable housing and employment, often leading to drug addiction and mental illness.

The legislation would create three tiers for how sexual crimes are treated by the registry.

The first tier, where offenders are eligible for removal from the registry after 10 years, includes those convicted of misdemeanor indecent exposure, felony possession of child pornography with intent to distribute and misdemeanor sexual battery among other crimes.

Updates from Sacramento 

The second tier, which would allow removal from the registry after 20 years, includes those convicted of rape, forceable sodomy and lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under 14, the crime Lindsay committed.

Lifetime registration would still be required in the third tier, for those convicted of repeat felony child molestation, a second offense of a violent and serious sexual crime, kidnapping with intent to commit specific sexual crimes and those deemed sexually violent predators.

The latter determination is made by state officials when felons have been convicted of a violent sex offense against one or more victims and are diagnosed with a mental disorder that makes the person a danger to others.

The bill would create a process for sex offenders in the lower tiers to petition for removal from the registry when they became eligible, with cases reviewed by prosecutors.

The measure automatically clears from the registry the names of offenders in the 10- and 20-year tiers if their convictions are 30 years or older, which would include Lindsay.

The bill has drawn bipartisan opposition.

Democratic Sens. Steve Glazer of Stockton and Josh Newman of Fullerton joined eight Republicans in voting against the measure.

I agree with the goal of the bill to better differentiate the type of offenders, but didnt feel comfortable reducing the registration requirement for some of the more serious crimes in Tier 2, Glazer said.

Republican Sen. Jeff Stone of Murrieta opposed any early removal from the registry, saying it is important for residents to know when sex offenders live in their neighborhood.

Lets protect victims of sexual predators and maintain the list of sexual registrants to protect the public, Stone said.

In addition to Lacey, others who support the change include the American Civil Liberties Union of California, the Assn. of Deputy District Attorneys, the California Police Chiefs Assn., the Los Angeles Police Protective League and Equality California, a gay rights group.

By creating a path off for people who are rehabilitated, SB 421 will make our system fairer and more just, Wiener said.

Lindsay said he paid his debt to society by serving six months in jail for a crime he committed as a young man while he was drunk. He admits he crossed the line with the female victim but declined to provide more details.

He is hopeful that the Legislature will end what he said has been the nightmare of being kept on the registry for nearly four decades.

Thats not who I am. Its what I did approaching 40 years ago, Lindsay said.

Having his name removed from the list would be awesome, he added. I would be really excited to be able to take my passport and go on a journey somewhere in the world without having to worry about being tagged as a sex offender.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Twitter: @mcgreevy99

ALSO

More parole agent caseloads exceed limits under new sex offender rules

Debate over sex offenders moves to court as California undertakes prison parole overhaul

Updates from Sacramento
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Author and photographer Lawrence DAttilio will show images and discuss his book, The Soul of Vietnam.

When, where: 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena.

Admission, info: Free. RSVP to (626) 449-3220.

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Experts will discuss the essentials of camping in California, including gear and equipment, regional resources and areas to camp.

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When, where: 7 p.m. Monday at the REI store in Santa Monica, 402 Santa Monica Blvd.

Admission, info: Free. (310) 458-4370

Please email announcements at least three weeks before the event to travel@latimes.com.
Here. What do you think this is? Genes Salema, our guide for the day, crushed a handful of green leaves in his hands and held them out to us.

We leaned down and inhaled. The scent was bracing, piquant, familiar. Pumpkin pie? Spiced cider? But what spice? We started guessing. Cinnamon? Nutmeg?

Salema smiled with each wrong answer.

Clove, he said, and pointed to an adjacent grove. These trees are more than 70 years old, and they give us two harvests a year.

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He clipped off a small branch and showed us a clump of flower buds at the tip, which, when dried, will be exported to kitchens far and wide.

It turned out we werent just smelling cloves, but the scent of history and the scent of Zanzibar, also known as the worlds foremost Spice Island.

It was in early March and my wife, Jody Jaffe, and I were on a tour at the Kizimbani Spice Farm, a government-run research area on Unguja, the largest island in the small Zanzibar archipelago thats been part of Tanzania since 1964.

During our leisurely three-hour amble through groves and lush fields, we encountered a spice drawer of tropical condiments, including clove, nutmeg, pepper, ginger, lemon grass, cinnamon, turmeric, cardamom and vanilla.

Between rounds of the what does this smell like? game, Salema discussed Zanzibars spice-trade history and gave us a taste of local lore.

Each spice, it seemed, had a story to tell.

Guide Genes Salema holds out a kernel of nutmeg, left, the bright red covering, when dried becomes the spice mace. A display of local spices at Stone Town in central Zanzibar, Tanzania. (John Muncie left; Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images right)

On nutmeg: If you drink a soda or fruit drink with grated nutmeg, he told us, then you have sexy eyes. Like Viagra for women.

On the power of cloves: The toothache remedy, he said. Thats a painkiller to allow you to go to sleep, then in the morning you go to the doctor.

Also, this is the spice if the meat is too gamey  it makes it gameless.

On fast-growing pepper vines: They say if you stand up this way, the vine will grow on you, he said, legs apart, arms outstretched.

MORE AFRICA: In Zambia, a safari means going with the flow 

On the home use of lemon grass: If you put dried lemon grass on the fire, it gets rid of all mosquitoes and it smells like lemon.

Salema also gave us a quick lesson on local agriculture. Cassava, he said pointing to a field of knee-high plants at a small private farm. It is very important during fasting time, lots of calories.

Fasting time in Zanzibar means Ramadan, the holy month of Islam, a time when believers dont eat during daylight hours. Mainland Tanzania is predominantly Christian; Zanzibar is overwhelmingly Muslim.

Occupied by Arab merchants for centuries and then by the Portuguese, Zanzibar was at first a stop on a complex trading route from East Africa to the Mideast and beyond.

Many of its spices were introduced to the archipelago from India, Indonesia and Malaysia.

But in 1840 Sultan Seyyid Said moved his capital from Oman to Zanzibar and, with the help of an army of slaves, established vast clove plantations and made the island the clove capital of the world.

The Spice Island was born.

Although Zanzibar no longer dominates the clove trade, it still does a brisk business in spices and spice tourism. A walk down Shangani Street or Kenyatta Road in Stone Town, the historic labyrinthine heart of Zanzibar City, will take you past more than a dozen tourist agencies offering spice tours.

During our morning in Kizimbani we encountered at least five other tour groups, several with eight to 10 people. We went with Indian Ocean Magic Tours, a Zanzibar-based company established in 2003.

Spice tours can last from two hours to most of a day. We saw prices as low as $12 per person  depending on whether it was a group or private tour, or whether lunch was included  and some tours are twice that. Some tack on stops at a local beach or an excursion to Prison Island just off Zanzibars east coast.

We began our spice day with a 30-minute morning drive from Zanzibar City into a countryside of small farms and roadside shops. As we neared Kizimbani, the route became lined with open-air, thatched-roofed spice shops.

Our tour mixed botany  for instance, we learned that the bright red covering of the nutmeg kernel becomes mace when dried and ground  with a bit of Borscht Belt.

The next-to-last stop was at a coconut palm grove where, along with a group of Ukranian tourists, we drank milk from freshly slice coconuts and watched a harvester climb one of the 50-foot trees while singing the Kenyan pop song Jambo Bwana and joking with the audience below.

One of the spices we encountered on the farm was yellow ginger, better known as turmeric. Its Jodys biggest spice crush; she uses it for everything: cooking, drinking and medicating.

The most useful plant in the galaxy, she said.

Salema sliced into a turmeric root, revealed its bright ocher interior, and Jody rubbed it on a swollen bug bite.

The next morning at breakfast in our Stone Town hotel, I noticed that Jodys fingers were still stained turmeric yellow after more than 20 hours and two showers.

The stain finally faded a day later, but weve retained more tangible memories.

Our final stop was at one of those thatched-roof spice shops. You cant come to Spice Island without buying spices. And, yes, the Zanzibar curry chicken we had the other night at home was not only delicious but also a fast trip back to Africas spice capital.

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
At the Thursday morning fruit and vegetable market at Saint Marceau, a suburb of the historic French city of Orleans, Dr. Stephanie Rist stood under a clutch of colorful balloons talking to locals about their problems.

Just a couple of weeks ago, few would have known who she was. But now, Rist, a rheumatologist at the citys public hospital, is en route to becoming their most powerful ally.

This 43-year-old medic is one of President Emmanuel Macrons amateur army of would-be lawmakers seeking a place in the countrys lower house of Parliament, the National Assembly.

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Just three days to the second-round vote on Sunday, Rist was upbeat; justifiably so given the polls predicting a landslide for Macrons fledgling centrist party La Republique En Marche, or LREM. Political analysts predict it is on track to win an absolute majority of well over 400 in the 577-seat house. Pollsters Opinionway say the figure for LREM and its centrist partner party MoDem could be as high as 470 seats, crushing all opposition.

The one damper is the estimated 53% of voters not expected to bother to turn out, which would be a historically high level.

Of all the candidates LREM fielded in the two-round vote, half are women and half drawn from civil society having never held any elected public office. Their average age is 46.

Rist is typical of the young, professional, middle-class novices surfing the wave of optimism that has followed Macrons election last month.

Until last year, when Macron set up his En Marche! (Onward!) movement, she had never felt strongly enough to join a political party or support local or national candidates on the stump.

The daughter of a chef and a secretary, Rist excelled at school, and enjoyed helping out in the bar of her fathers Paris bistro during vacations.

I was useless as a cook so I couldnt be in the kitchen, she said.

After completing her medical internship at Orleans hospital, southwest of Paris, Rist finished her studies at the celebrated Necker Childrens Hospital in the French capital. To pay her way she took various temporary hospital jobs.

I worked in all positions in the hospital, from secretary, to health assistant to nurse. It seemed important not only to earn money while I was studying but to find out how the hospital worked at every level, she said.

Clutching her medical qualification, Rist returned to Orleans on the Loire River to work at the citys main public hospital.

In 2016, when Macron set up his En Marche! movement, he launched a nationwide consultative process involving experts and ordinary supporters across the country to draw up the basis of a new political program.

Rist was immediately sucked into Macrons peoples movement, run on a shoestring, funded by public donations, staffed by volunteers and with little real expectation at that time of becoming more than a well-meaning lobbying group.

When Macron won the presidential vote in May and began looking for people to support him in Parliament, Rist applied to become a candidate.

I may have no political experience but I have real experience of whats going on in society. The vote shows people want those who are not the same old experienced politicians. We have new vision, we want to make politics different, she said.

In the Loire Valley, where Romans, Attila the Hun and the English marauded through history, and whose most famous resident was Joan of Arc, Rists constituency includes part of the city, as well as peri-urban and agriculture-dependent areas around it. Local problems are those hitting most of rural France: unemployment, a crisis in health and social provision, dwindling public transportation services, unreliable cellphone coverage and a lack of high-speed Internet.

Out electioneering, the mother of three says voters are glad to see new faces and not the same old politicians seeking reelection.

Theres real enthusiasm and a sense of hope. Its the idea that we are building something new with their participation that is really exciting We are going forward together, she said.

Not all are happy with the prospect of a Macron electoral landslide, however, as witnessed by low turnout in the first round vote; more than half the electorate appears not to have bought into the new presidents renewal program.

Many voters feel orphaned by the destruction of the traditional right and left parties. While the center-right Republicans are expected to form the biggest group in Parliament after LREM, the Socialist Party is facing a wipeout.

Laurent Joffrin, the director of the left-leaning Liberation newspaper, wrote that Frances left were like the last of the Mohicans.

Gilles Finchelstein, director of the socialist think-tank the Jean-Jaures Foundation, told the right-leaning Le Figaro newspaper: The Socialist Party is in danger of extinction. It had a leader, an organization, a strategy  the union of the left, an ideology  rupture with capitalism. None of that exists anymore.

The PS [Socialist Party] is very clearly dead, former member of Parliament Jean-Marie Le Guen said after the first-round vote June 11 when it became clear the party would struggle to gain 30 seats.

Sitting in a Paris bar discussing politics with friends this month, Philippe, a retired company executive who did not want to give his full name, said he would vote on Sunday even though there doesnt seem to be much point.

Ive the impression LREM could field a chimpanzee as a candidate supported by Emmanuel Macron as it says on the election posters, and they would win, he said.

Rivals have accused inexperienced LREM candidates of being too scared to take part in public debates.

I dont even know if the LREM candidates are capable of defending Macrons program, Eric Coquerel, a candidate for the hard left France Insoumise (Unbowed France) party told journalists this month.

Political scientist Dominique Reynie, a professor at the respected Sciences-Po university in Paris and director of the progressive think-tank Fondapol, said probably about 70% of the National Assembly would be new faces after Sundays vote, compared with around 20% in most general elections.

He warned that Macron was becoming the first hyper president accumulating a level of power that might be considered worrying.

He will face opposition. If not in Parliament then the opposition will be outside, Reynie said, suggesting voters who did not feel represented by LREM could well take to the streets in protest.

Back in Saint Marceau on a sunny market day, there are no clouds on Stephanie Rists horizon. She won 44.67% of the first-round vote, well ahead of her nearest Republican rival, who polled 18.44%.

Rist is almost certain to take up a seat in the National Assembly after Sundays second-round vote. Her role, she says, will be to represent local interests and concerns and to make health policy but also to be realistic and manage expectations.

I feel an enormous responsibility. I have to listen to people who tell me their problems but I also have to explain what can and what cannot be done. I have to explain that we cannot solve all their problems, she says.

Before putting her name forward as one of Macrons new recruits, she consulted her husband, who runs a small tech company, and children, ages 16, 14 and 10. She says they fully support her.

My children understand that I may not be around for them, but even now Im at the hospital long hours, so we have quality rather than quantity time.

She said she intends to find time to see patients at the Orleans hospital half a day every week to keep my feet on the ground.

Its really a dream and Im so excited. But politics is not a career. I wont be doing this all my life. When Ive done what I have to do, Ill go back to my old job or find a new one, she said.

Bruno Jeanbart, a director at pollsters Opinionway told the Anglo-American Press Assn. in Paris that if LREM won more than 400 seats on Sunday it would be a majority rarely seen since the end of World War II.

Winning a crushing majority with an army of mostly independent political amateurs, however, does not guarantee things will go Macrons way once they take up their seats.

En Marche! has drawn from a very large spectrum of candidates, from both the left and right, and it remains to be seen if they can stay united when voting on things like labor reform or taxing Frances wealthiest earners, Jerome Fourquet, the director of opinion pollsters Ifop said.

The biggest challenges are yet to come.

Willsher is a special correspondent.
As predicted, French President Emmanuel Macrons new party won a majority in Parliament in a second round of voting on Sunday, giving him commanding control of the countrys political system.

The results, however, did not bring the crushing landslide almost every poll had forecast.

The new leaders party, La Republique En Marche (the Republic on the Move), needed 289 seats to take control of the 577-seat National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament. With 97% of the vote counted early Monday, the interior minister said Macrons party and its ally in government, the centrist Democratic Movement, or MoDem party, had won 342 seats.

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The clear majority will give the president a free hand to push through his plans to shake up France with a more business-friendly administration.

The conservative Republicans took 113 seats.

The returns bore out an anticipated catastrophe for the Socialist Party, which ran the country until Macrons election in May. The Socialists took just 29 seats.

The far-left Unbowed France, led by firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, won 17 seats, a triumph for a party created only 16 months ago, and the far-right National Front claimed eight seats, up from two.

Parties need at least 15 seats to form an official political group in the house and be eligible for speaking time and funding.

Officials count votes after the closing of the polling station in Gardouch, France, during the second round of the French parliamentary elections on June 18, 2017. (Eric Cabanis / AFP/Getty Images)

Macrons victory was tempered by the fact that only 43% of voters bothered to turn out, one of the highest rates of abstention ever recorded.

His recently nominated prime minister, Edouard Philippe, a member of the Republicans, said Sundays result was a clear majority, but acknowledged that the low turnout was a worry. Abstention is never good news for democracy, Philippe said, but voters gave his government an ardent obligation to succeed.

The French people have chosen hope over anger, optimism over pessimism and confidence over turning in on themselves, he added.

Christophe Castaner, Macrons government spokesman, said voters had shown there was a will for things to change.

The French people have given us a clear majority, but they didnt want to give us a blank check, Castaner said.

It was an astonishing double victory for the centrist Macron, a 39-year-old former banker who is relatively new to politics, and is the youngest president in French history.

Just over a year ago, he was the leader of a movement of amateur activists operating with volunteers and public donations. In 12 months, the political outsider came from behind to overtake a packed field of established candidates to win the keys to the Elysee Palace. On Sunday, he consolidated his leadership triumph by wresting absolute control of the lower house of Parliament from the traditional right and left parties.

Macron promised to renew French politics in an out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new program that pledged to ease strict labor laws, introduce flexibility for businesses and clean up French public life after a series of fraud and corruption scandals.

After his presidential win, he followed up on his stance to be neither left nor right by appointing a government from across the mainstream political spectrum.

The Socialists general secretary, Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, immediately announced he was stepping down as party head. He said Macrons triumph was incontestable.

The voters wanted to give the new president a chance. They left no chances for his opponents, Cambadelis said in a televised news conference. He warned that Macron now had absolute power.

Frances far-right National Front leader and parliamentary candidate Marine Le Pen, center, speaks in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, after the polls closed during the second round of the French parliamentary elections on June 18, 2017. (Denis Charlet / AFP/Getty Images)

Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Front, was elected to Parliament for the first time after four failed attempts. She will represent the northern rust-belt town of Henin-Beaumont.

Last-minute polls before electioneering ended at midnight on Friday suggested Macrons party and MoDem could have up to 470 seats in the National Assembly. But they fell far short of that.

La Republique En Marche is only a few weeks old. The party had chosen 526 candidates to run; half were women, and half were political novices. Only 19 of those fielded failed to win in the first- round vote.

Low-voter turnout was blamed on the party primaries, presidential and parliamentary elections over the last seven months leading to voter fatigue as well as disillusionment with the traditional parties on the right and left, the Socialists and Republicans.

Melenchon, the far-left candidate, said the historic abstention rate suggested people had gone on a civic general strike. He warned Macron that his labor law reforms would be contested and that not a meter of ground ... will be given up without a fight.

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Willsher is a special correspondent.

UPDATES:

5:47 p.m.: This article has been updated with 97% of votes counted, quotes and background information.

This article was originally posted at 12:40 p.m.
Days after Islamic State blitzed through northern Iraq and snatched the city of Mosul in mid-2014, it made a powerful statement of conquest: a bulldozer punched a hole through the sand berm marking the line between Iraq and Syria, an event captured in a polished propaganda video titled Kasr al Hudood  Breaking of the Borders.

The demolition, set to the strains of a rousing nasheed, or Islamic chant, and attended by the groups top commanders, underscored Islamic States claim of creating a caliphate based on religion, not national borders.

It also marked the merging of the wars raging through Syria and Iraq and granted the group a sanctuary where it could lick its wounds before mounting fresh attacks on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border.

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That hole in the berm is now blocked, the militants (at least on the Iraqi side) chased away. In their stead, fighters with the Shiite-dominated auxiliary force known as the Hashd al Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Units, maintain a lonely vigil over this desolate corner of the desert, their weapons trained upon Islamic State positions on the very edge of Syria.

Islamic States one-time crossing between Iraq and Syria, now blocked. (Nabih Bulos / For The Times)

Their operation to secure the 372-mile border, they say, is an essential component in the fight against the jihadists. Capturing the site that Islamic State bulldozed with such fanfare is an achievement, but it raises other delicate issues: bickering has broken out among the local forces that have united against Islamic State. Also, the presence of the Hashd has irked Washington and its regional allies, who view the Hashd as a stand-in force for Iran.

Last month, the Hashd launched an offensive against Islamic States supply lines west of Mosul and was able to claw back part of the surrounding Nineveh province from Islamic States dwindling caliphate. The Hashd also captured the town of Baaj, a sand-swept outpost 81 miles southwest of Mosul thought to be the hideout of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi. (The Russian military said Friday it was investigating whether an airstrike in the Syrian desert killed Baghdadi in May.)

The Hashd fighters then grabbed more areas near the border, occasionally pursuing the militants into Syrian territory, reports said, before returning to the Iraqi side of the berm.

Along the berm, Hashd positions  fluorescent swaths of color from pup tents set up near battered military vehicles  broke the endless desert brown every 200 yards or so.

Last week, the fighters had reached the crossing was where Islamic State had filmed its infamous video.The symbolism was not lost on the irregulars, including Abdul Wahad Ibrahim, a blue-eyed 60-year-old Hashd fighter resting on the berm.

The Hashd has broken the banner of Daesh here, and well continue and do the same over the rest of the border, said Ibrahim, using an Arabic acronym, considered perjorative, for Islamic State. This will cut its breathing space.

But the militants are still close by. As the fighters were plugging the hole in the berm, Ibrahim said, Islamic State attacked their bulldozers with a rocket launched from a row of squat, white buildings less than a mile away in Syrian territory.

The Hashd also found signs of Islamic State in the berm itself. Armed with sniper rifles and heavy machine guns, the fighters had also dug holes in the berm to hide from Iraqi helicopters running sorties.

The Hashds arrival was the first time pro-government forces had reached this area since Islamic State overran northern Iraq more than three years ago.

Though the towns and villages now stand abandoned, vestiges of the groups presence could still be seen: A poster asking militants families to renew their information to receive payments; a road sign directing drivers on a dirt road toward Sham, a reference to Syria; colorful graffiti exhorting people to pray.

This area has been part of the headquarters for the Daesh. If we dont clean it up, it will come back, said Yazan Meshan Juboori, the Hashds political advisor, adding that the operation was launched with the blessing of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi.

Once the border is secured, Juboori said, it will be handed over to Iraqs border guards. (The U.S., according to coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon, has trained about 5,000 border guards and will supply them in the coming months with police in a box units, prefabricated outposts that come equipped with weapons and uniforms.)

But, Juboori continued, Hashd fighters will remain in place and support the border guards as long as Syria remains unstable.

That plan has stoked fears of a so-called Shiite crescent extending from Iran to Lebanon. Critics say it would give a powerful boost to Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose battered army has relied on Iranian-supported Shiite irregulars, including a number of factions from the Hashd.

This month, the Syrian army and a number of pro-government militias raced from central Syria across the desert and linked up with the Hashd, in what the Syrian armys General Command called a strategic turning point in the war on terror in a statement on Saturday.

This will tighten the noose on what remains of the groupings of Daesh in the area and cuts the supply lines of the organization in more than one direction, the statement said.

But U.S.-backed Kurdish groups on both sides of the border have been less welcoming.

If Hashd forces attempt to enter our areas, our forces will fight them, said Talal Sillo, spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, in an interview with media outlet Kurdistan24 last month.

The SDF is a U.S.-backed coalition composed of Kurdish and Arab militiamen who dominate northeastern Syria. They are involved in a large-scale offensive on Islamic States de facto Syrian capital, Raqqah.

The Kurds and Iraqi government have long been at odds, but Kurdish fighting forces known as the peshmerga participated in the run-up to the Mosul offensive on the basis of a vague agreement with Baghdad. As the Kurds see it, some of the border areas in northwestern Iraq now controlled by Hashd would someday come under the administration of the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, and would presumably be included in any future Kurdish state.

The Hashds advance pushed Kurdish President Massoud Barzani to complain in a meeting with the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, this month that the Hashd shouldnt take control of the area  and that its presence goes against the spirit of the agreement the Kurds helped craft in Baghdad.

Fighters with the Hashd al Shaabi keep vigil on the berm between Iraq and Syria. (Nabih Bulos / For The Times)

Others question how the Hashd will behave once those local populations uprooted by its offensive return. Many fear the Shiite fighters will engage in sectarian-fueled vengeance against Sunni communities, who were thought to give at least tacit support to Islamic State.

First they remove the military-age males from the environment, and then they set the price for them to come back, said Michael Knights, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Will they have to join the PMUs [Popular Mobilization Units]? Do you get a Sunni Hashd there? Do they have to pay compensation? Do they have to hand over a certain number of their sons for summary judgment?

Left unchecked, the tensions will lead to Islamic State (or its future iteration) to take advantage of the lack of cooperation to rise again, said Renad Mansour, an Iraq expert with the U.K.-based Chatham House think tank.

Now everyone is attacking ISIS on both sides of the border so it cant regroup. But in two or three years? said Mansour in a phone interview.

Even if jihadist forces are driven out of the border region, the underlying beliefs and tensions that gave to Islamic State might still remain  and the border will remain a volatile place.

Ive ask all the political leaders in [northern Iraq], Are the roots that led to ISIS gone? Mansour said.

Everyone says they havent even been addressed.

@nabihbulos

twitter:@nabihbulos

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Iraqi forces battled their way into Mosuls Old City on Sunday, starting a difficult fight for the last neighborhoods still in the hands of Islamic State.

As the sun rose, a massive barrage shrouded parts of the Old City in smoke. It was a prelude to the arrival of black Humvees from Iraqs Counter-Terrorism Service, an elite U.S.-trained force that was attacking from the districts western flank.

Smoke billows from Mosuls Old City on June 18, 2017, during the offensive by Iraqi forces to retake the last district still held by Islamic State. (Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP/Getty Images)

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The jihadis have steadily lost ground over the eight months of the Mosul offensive. They are now contained in one square mile of what was once Islamic States Iraqi capital, which the group took in a blitz offensive more than three years ago.

The groups defeat in Mosul is more than symbolic. Not only will it have lost all of its major urban centers in Iraq, but the loss also would signify the beginning of the end of its crumbling caliphate.

But the battle promises to be a hard one.

Iraqi forces will have to abandon their armored vehicles as they storm the Old Citys narrow walkways, while struggling to distinguish friend from foe among the estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people still trapped in the area.

The districts structures are also thought to be frail, forcing military planners to avoid using heavy ordnance for fear of having buildings collapse onto civilians hiding inside.

Meanwhile, surrounded and with no chance to escape, the militants are expected to give no quarter in what is their last stand in the city.

The ferocity of their resistance could already be seen on Sunday.

Overhead, warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition lobbed bombs on Islamic State positions as troops stacked up for the initial thrust.

But the moment bulldozers began breaching Islamic State barricades at the Old Citys outskirts, the jihadis countered with heavy machine gun fire. Then the telltale whistles of mortar shells could be heard, seconds before they landed on the Iraqi troops rear lines with powerful crashes.

Iraqi forces take a position on a rooftop as they advance toward Mosuls Old City on June 18, 2017. (Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP/Getty Images)

Its raining mortars, joked one soldier after the fourth shell had fallen, the explosions rattling the blown-out windows of an abandoned flour mill.

Before noon, at a medical station two miles from the front line, the first casualties began to trickle in; all were soldiers so far.

Yet it is the civilians trapped inside who are expected to bear the brunt of the hostilities, aid organizations warn.

In recent days, Islamic State snipers have cut down hundreds of residents fleeing the carnage around them, even as terrified families struggle to dodge airstrikes and artillery fire.

This will be a terrifying time for ... people still trapped in Mosuls Old City and now at risk of getting caught up in the fierce street fighting to come, Nora Love, acting Iraq director for the International Rescue Committee, said in a statement on Sunday.

Both coalition and Iraqi forces must do everything in their power to keep civilians safe during these final stages of the battle for Mosul, she said.

@nabihbulos

twitter:@nabihbulos
Its a policy change President Trump insists will correct what he called a terrible and misguided deal by his predecessor.

Trumps recent announcement on new travel and trade restrictions with Cuba aim to fulfill a campaign promise.

"Easing of restrictions on travel and trade does not help the Cuban people, he said at an event in Miami on Friday. They only enrich the Cuban regime."

But while Trumps policy backtracks on some of President Obama s efforts to engage with the island, key directives will remain in place.

Heres a look at Trumps policy toward Cuba.

First, what did Obamas reforms with Cuba do?

In December 2014, Obama announced a historic deal to gradually rebuild the economic and diplomatic relationships between the two countries.

As a part of the deal forged with Cuban President Raul Castro, Obama eased economic and trade restrictions that dated back to the U.S. embargo on Cuba that began in the 1960s. As part of the agreement, the two countries reopened embassies in each others capitals.

Restrictions on American agricultural and telecommunications equipment to Cuba were eased, and it became much easier for Americans to travel to Cuba as regular air travel between the countries was restored.

In turn, airlines and U.S. hotel chains began investing resources in Cuba, while chicken, grain and other agricultural producers from the U.S. exported tons of products to Cuba. Cubans, who had little access to the Internet, also found themselves able to browse online.

Moreover, Obamas efforts allowed Americans to use credit and debit cards in the country and to send money to relatives in Cuba from the United States. Last year, Obama traveled to Cuba, becoming the first U.S. president in nearly a century to visit the island.

What did Trump say about it?

As a private citizen, Trump criticized the effort.

This flowed over into last years campaign, with Trump vowing to terminate the agreement. In the weeks after his election victory, Trump forcefully hinted at his plans for Cuba.

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, he tweeted.

Easing of restrictions on travel and trade does not help the Cuban people President Trump, speaking in Miami

Whats new about Trumps recently announced Cuba policy? Can people still travel to the country?

Well, for starters, none of Trumps reforms take effect immediately. (They could take up to 90 days.)

Trumps primary objective is to keep money out of the hands of Cubas military and intelligence services.

The new rules include prohibitions on Americans spending money on businesses controlled by the military, which has a wide reach in the Cuban economy. This is likely to affect pending hotel projects with Cuban companies that have ties to the military.

Trump also will reimpose the requirement that "people-to-people" travelers can only come to Cuba with heavily regulated tour groups. The ability of Americans to travel freely on vacation to the country will be scrapped.

America is prepared to outstretch its hand and work with the people of Cuba, but we will not, we will not empower their oppressors, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who helped craft the new regulations, said at Fridays event with Trump. (Rubio and many Republican members of Congress had assailed Obamas directive with Cuba, saying Cubas Communist government and military were benefiting.)

What remains in place from Obamas policy?

Trump will not close the U.S. Embassy in Havana, and commercial flights and cruise ships will still be allowed.

Moreover, it appears theres a willingness to keep in place Obamas efforts to communicate with Cuba.

In a memo from the Trump administration, it notes any further improvements in the United States-Cuba relationship will depend entirely on the Cuban governments willingness to improve the lives of the Cuban people, and also mandates regular reporting of progress toward this objective.

Whats been the response to Trumps efforts?

Republicans like Rubio, who is Cuban and a native of South Florida, lauded the effort.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) also lauded Trump for keeping a campaign promise.

You have not betrayed us. You kept your promise; you stand in solidarity with the Cuban people and freedom-loving people everywhere; and you are putting American values and U.S. national security interests first, he said.

But groups both here in the United States and the Cuban government expressed some reservations.

In a statement, Myron Brilliant, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the new rules limit the possibility for positive change on the island and risk ceding growth opportunities to other countries that, frankly, may not share Americas interest in a free and democratic Cuba that respects human rights.

Responding to Trumps announcement, the Cuban government said in a statement that American attempts to fundamentally change the island were unlikely to succeed.

The statement said a strategy aimed at changing the political, economic and social system in Cuba, whether it seeks to achieve it through pressures and impositions, or by employing more subtle methods, will be doomed to failure.
Bergassio Quinonez knew he had to get his family out of Venezuela when his wife and two young daughters went without eating for four days.

Their home in Mariusa National Park, where Quinonez and his family lived with about 600 other indigenous Warao people, was quickly becoming uninhabitable. Salt water was moving farther up the Orinoco River during the dry season, killing the freshwater fish they ate, and Venezuelas political and economic crisis meant that store-bought food was also becoming scarce.

Even if there was food on the shelves, nobody could afford it, said Quinonez, a teacher of the Warao language and culture, sitting with his legs crossed on a single, uncovered mattress in the corner of a room his family now shares with several other Warao from the same village.

He ran through the math: He earned the equivalent of $20 a month. A bag of rice was $7 and a bag of sugar was $12.50. Then the water became salty and left us with no fish. Our children could only drink water when it rained, he said.

So Quinonez and his family joined an exodus of more than 400 Warao who left their homes in northeastern Venezuela beginning in December to make the long, arduous journey to Brazil to settle in the Amazonian capital of Manaus.

Bergassio Quinonez traveled with his wife and two daughters to Manaus, Brazil, when food became scarce in Venezuela. (Victor Moriyama / For The Times) (Victor Moriyama / For The Times)

The Warao are among tens of thousands of Venezuelans who have fled the violence and hunger that have subsumed their country under the unpopular president, Nicolas Maduro , putting immense stress on countries throughout Latin America. More than 12,000 Venezuelans have moved to neighboring Brazil since 2014, according to Human Rights Watch, straining that countrys social safety net.

The Warao are one of the regions oldest indigenous groups, with most of their total population of 20,000 living in Venezuela, while other, smaller groups have settled in neighboring Guyana and Suriname. The word Warao translates to "boat people," a reference to their historical connection to the water, in particular the Orinoco River. They have deep roots in the swamplands where the Orinoco drains into the Atlantic Ocean; now they are abandoning it in order to survive.

More Warao are arriving in Manaus every day, pushing the number of those settling in the city steadily higher. Although the trip is expensive and long for the Warao  it can take multiple boat and bus rides and several weeks to reach the Brazilian city  those who have made the journey say it was worth it just to see their children eat.

Hundreds of Venezuelans from the Warao indigenous group have started settling in the streets of the northern Brazilian city of Manaus to escape the turmoil that has overtaken Venezuela.

Quinonez and his family left Mariusa in January and descended the Orinoco by boat for one week before arriving in Tucupita, the hot and humid capital of Venezuelas Delta Amacuro state. His mother had already gone ahead with a previous group of Warao in an attempt to find food, and he heard by word of mouth that she had arrived in Brazil.

In Tucupita, Quinonez, his wife and their two daughters slept on the streets for a week while attempting to sell a freezer his mother had left behind so her son could pay for his familys bus tickets to Santa Elena de Uairen, a town that borders the northern Brazilian state of Roraima.

Once in Santa Elena, they built a makeshift shelter under a tree, where they lived for one month while Quinonez worked as a shoe shiner in order to buy chicken and flour to feed his family, and to save enough money to cross the border and get to Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima. Because the children had no ID, they decided not to risk the usual border crossing, instead taking a long detour on foot and in the rain to avoid the Brazilian federal police. After making it across the border, they paid the equivalent of $46 to be driven 3  hours to Boa Vista.

During the month he and his family spent there before moving on to Manaus, where they heard conditions were better, Quinonez returned to Tucupita to collect more artisanal products to sell  hammocks, woven hats, bows and arrows. He also picked up ticks, which he ended up passing to the other members of his family and have left him scarred across his shoulder and chest.

As arduous as the journey is, Quinonez and others say its worth it. Still, life in Brazil is far from easy.

Although they are happy to be in Manaus, where meals are regularly handed out by nongovernmental organizations, some are living under the sweltering sun and regular rain in a grassy area next to a bus terminal. Here, they have erected makeshift tents made from tarps and other leftover materials.

Others are housed in a cluster of grungy and stiflingly hot buildings in downtown Manaus that used to be storefronts and gritty hotels, rented for them by the Catholic organization Caritas. They bathe out of buckets on the side of the road or on rooftops, and cook on hotplates hooked up to gas cylinders.

A Warao man bathes on a rooftop in Manaus, Brazil. About 350 Warao Indians live in public squares and old mansions in central Manaus. (Victor Moriyama / For The Times) (Victor Moriyama / For The Times)

The municipal and state governments are working on renovating a building for the migrants living alongside the bus station. But the leader of the indigenous group, Anibal Jose Perez Cardona, who was a social worker in Venezuela and whose father is the chief of their village, said it has low ceilings and is unbearably hot.

We are sad because our situation is very hard, Cardona said, his 3-year-old son Naru sleeping in his arms. And were in another country now, so we cant complain. Theres just no solution in sight.

Manaus Mayor Arthur Virgilio Neto recognizes that the obstacles his city is facing wont be overcome without all levels of government being involved. He also said the participation of the United Nations is essential.

I know we have to act quickly, but this is a task that is beyond me, Virgilio said. Weve already taken in as many as we can. [More would be] putting a lot of extra weight on someone who has other responsibilities. We cant let services for Brazilians deteriorate too.

Cardona had just registered Naru to start school in Mariusa when the family had to leave because of a lack of food. Both he and Quinonez want their children to be integrated into the education system in their new city, while Quinonez also hopes they can work with Brazilians to better understand each others languages and cultures, which have been the biggest barriers for the Warao since arriving in Manaus.

Most of the Warao speak only their own language. The few who speak Spanish translate for them when speaking to Brazilians, whose native language is Portuguese. While Spanish and Portuguese are close enough that Spanish speakers can get by on basics, they generally have to find a Brazilian who speaks Spanish to be able to communicate well with the people in their new country.

Even though they have received donations of food and clothing, the Warao still have to make ends meet by selling their artisanal products on the streets and at traffic lights, a task mostly taken on by women. When they run out of items to sell, they resort to begging for change, something the Warao say they wouldnt do if they had other options. The municipal government has told them they need to stop.

Weve told them that all we want to do is work, Quinonez said of his conversations with government officials. Nobody understands the size of the problem in Venezuela. Im very sad to have nothing to do here.

In Manaus, respiratory and skin infections  such as Quinonez tick problem  have become the most prevalent health issues facing the Warao. Public health nurses, doctors and dentists have been visiting the camp and buildings where they live, giving them vaccinations and medications to prevent disease and fight illnesses they may have contracted during their journey to Brazil. The language barrier and cultural differences often make it difficult to explain the importance of these treatments, although interpreters have been helping.

The prefecture of Manaus has set up a health clinic so Warao Indians can get medical examinations. (Victor Moriyama / For The Times) (Victor Moriyama / For The Times)

Two small children died of pneumonia before the medical visits began, including 10-month-old Fernanda Rattia, who was in Manaus just one week before being hospitalized for two days.

The doctor said she was already in a bad state, said her father, Simon Rattia, slowly squeezing his eyes shut as he leaned on the doorframe of the room he now shares with his wife, their 10-year-old daughter, his brother and nephew.

His wife, he said, was inconsolable when their baby died, but just three days later she was back out on the street, trying to sell the few items they have left to sustain themselves in Brazil. She knows its the only way for them to survive in Manaus, and the family doesnt expect to go back to Venezuela anytime soon.

Nothing will ever get better in Venezuela, Rattia said.

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Langlois is a special correspondent.
His shop has become a haunt for Syrian troops, Russian soldiers, visiting journalists and the few others who make it to this now-forlorn remnant of a town in the Syrian desert.

Impromptu gatherings at a plastic table outside Issa Khateebs store provide a glimpse of the animated hub that Palmyra used to be, when tourists from across the globe flocked here to visit the legendary, Roman-era ruins nearby. Its mostly a ghost town now. His store is the only one open.

Palmyra, once home to 70,000 people, previously had a cosmopolitan feel: Tens of thousands of visitors frequented its tea shops, restaurants and Internet cafes. But after enduring two occupations by Islamic State, the city is now eerily quiet, a dusty grid of empty buildings and deserted streets, where the thud of distant artillery detonations occasionally breaks the silence.

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The signs of shelling and street battles are evident on bullet-pocked structures lacking windows and doors, with crumbling walls and facades  and occasionally pancaked from aerial bombardment. A row of destroyed hotels and restaurants  and the looted remains of City Hall and the museum  line the main drag to the archaeological park.

Even so, Khateeb says, he had to come back.

I believe in Palmyra, says Khateeb, 50, one of only a few dozen residents who have returned to the war-ravaged town. This is my home.

Fighting between Islamic State and forces from Syria and Russia have left much of Palmyra in ruins. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times)

Khateeb, a bear of a man and father of five, managed to escape Palmyra with his family before Islamic State militants initially overran the town in May 2015. The Khateebs were among tens of thousands who fled the city, which, apart from its archaeological significance, is situated near natural gas fields and major routes leading to Damascus, the Iraqi border and other strategic areas.

Islamic State held Palmyra until March 2016, when the militants were driven out by Syrian and Russian forces. The jihadists recaptured the city in a counter-offensive blitz last December, forcing some residents who had returned to flee once again. Finally, in March, the Syrians and Russians once again forced Islamic State to abandon the city.

Khateeb returned soon thereafter and rebuilt his plundered shop, investing his remaining life savings, he says. He lives in a flat upstairs. His wife and five children have yet to come back to the forsaken town. Khateeb, a native of Palmyra, exudes an upbeat air, but conversations here inevitably take a dark turn as the memories come back.

His shop is a short jaunt from the former site of Islamic States Sharia court, where militant jurists in a carpeted and cushioned room handed down judgments on matters from the mundane to life-and-death. One woman was sentenced to be executed by stoning for adultery, according to a document found in the ruins of the court.

The shop is six blocks or so from so-called Vegetable Square, once a teeming open market, later a site favored by the militants for public beheadings of apostates and gory displays of the bodies of execution victims. While his family escaped the militant occupation unscathed, he, like others, suffered the loss of many friends and associates during Syrias ruinous war, now in its seventh year.

ISIS beheaded my business partners son, recalled Khateeb, 50, speaking matter-of-factly from behind the counter of his store, where a Syrian flag underscores the fact that government control has returned to Palmyra. His name was Hassan Ali, Khateeb continues, referring to the late son of his business partner. He was 17. They said he was a [government] collaborator. His father has not recovered from the loss.

The shops now well-stocked shelves feature essentials like coffee, tea, sugar, paper products and canned goods, as well as soft drinks and cigarettes, along with souvenirs, including icon-like images of the Virgin Mary, popular with Russian troops. A trickle of clients, mostly military men, comes and goes.

During the militant reign here, merchants had to abide by a strict code of conduct, which, among other bans, proscribed the sale of cigarettes  a big-ticket item for shop-owners in a region where sipping sweet tea and smoking is a time-honored ritual. ISIS viewed smoking as un-Islamic.

Asked if Palmyra now seemed haunted, Khateeb rejected the notion, but allowed that its a wrenching experience to see his once-animated home town transformed into a dystopian expanse of bullet-riddled buildings and rubble-strewn streets. Yet while Islamic State blew up several major archaeological monuments, denouncing the structures as idolatry, the ancient city and its colonnaded main avenue are still recognizable, still majestic.

Haunted, no, but yes, I think of all the people, how Palmyra used to be, how happy we were then, he says, seated at the plastic table outside, while several Syrian soldiers nod in agreement. How can one describe such a thing? Everyone who used to live here, to work here   he adds, trailing off in a bid to articulate a sense of loss that is beyond words.

Thats the way a lot of Syrians feel these days about a war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, forced millions from their homes and left scores of towns and cities with the hollowed-out feel of todays Palmyra. People in Syria often ask: How did it happen?

All sides in the appalling conflict offer geopolitical rationalizations and toss out volleys of blame. But the incomprehensible scale of the destruction leaves many bewildered and despondent.

Islamic State forces remain within striking range of Palmyra. Syrian troops, backed by allied militias and Russian air power, are pushing east toward the Iraqi border and the city of Deir Ezzour, long besieged by ISIS gunmen. Khateeb and his customers vow that the militants have seen the last of Palmyra.

The sinister legacy of Islamic State, he proclaims, will not define a legendary caravan oasis that endured sackings by the armies of Rome and of Tamerlane, saw centuries of decline from its once illustrious peak, and yet to this day remains a monument that inspires awe in those fortunate enough to behold its grandeur.

Palmyra is a treasure for all humanity, he says. Palmyra represents the origins of civilization, a bridge between East and West. We will rebuild. Palmyra will return to its greatness.

patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

twitter: @mcdneville

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A bomb made of ammonium nitrate was placed in a women's bathroom at one of the busiest shopping centers in Bogota this Saturday. Police confirmed 3 dead, including a French woman and 9 injured.

President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos wrote on twitter "This vile, cruel and cowardly act will not go unpunished."

Witnesses told local media they were evacuated from stores and movie theaters after the blast. According to the police, it was a potent explosive.

Este domingo realizaremos Consejo de Seguridad para evaluar pasos adicionales que permitan garantizar la tranquilidad de Bogota. pic.twitter.com/AChqbUhcfA  Juan Manuel Santos (@JuanManSantos) June 18, 2017

"We won't let terrorism frighten us," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said to the media and tweeted that Colombians should "continue life as normal" in the face of attacks.

Attention immediately has been focused in the National Liberation Army, also known as ELN, a group that has carried bombings in the past. Since then the group has denied its involvement and claimed they do not target civilians.

Los que quieren aguar la fiesta de paz no lo van a conseguir. A los enemigos de la paz los perseguiremos sin tregua ni cuartel. pic.twitter.com/ig3cdeIMKd  Juan Manuel Santos (@JuanManSantos) June 18, 2017

ELN is currently negotiating a peace deal with the Colombian government.

"The best answer to cowardly terrorism is to not let it unnerve us," Santos said at a news conference. "The French know perfectly how to respond to these terrorist attacks and we Colombians too have the will not to let ourselves be intimidated."
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' belief that "good people don't smoke marijuana" isn't just archaic. It's fueling what could become an all-out assault by the Justice Department to close dispensaries and turn back the marijuana clock in states that have legalized its recreational use.

And what of the many thousands of sick people who use medical marijuana?

What of the children who can't control their seizures with prescription medicine, but find relief in a non-smokable, non-euphoric form of cannabis?

What of veterans coping with post traumatic stress disorder, who find themselves at legal odds with the nation they defended?

What of people suffering from a wasting syndrome, the side effects of chemotherapy, or the sight-robbing effects of glaucoma?

Are they bad people?

The American people know the answer to this. By huge margins (94 percent, in a recent Quinnipiac poll) they support legalization of medical marijuana, and by lesser but significant majorities (61 percent, in a recent CBS poll), for recreational use. The numbers go higher when pollsters ask if the federal government should force Colorado, Washington, California and other states to abandon their regulated pot programs.

Sessions wants to enforce the federal law that recognizes marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, on a par with heroin and cocaine. Last week it was disclosed that he has medical marijuana in his sights, too.

In a month-old letter made public Monday, Sessions asked Senate and House leaders to revoke the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, a 2014 measure that prohibits the federal government from clamping down on states that passed laws legalizing medical marijuana.

The rationale?

"The (Justice) department must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug traffickers who threaten American lives," Sessions said, noting that medical marijuana use coincides with a deadly drug crisis and what he foresees as an increase in drug-related crime.

This is the point where readers may ask: What is our attorney general smoking?

The addiction/overdose epidemic gripping the nation has everything to do with the supply of prescription painkillers and heroin. Not marijuana. The nation's top law enforcement officer knows that violent crime in the U.S. has been steadily declining for years.

It's fair to ask why Congress hasn't done more to curtail the flow of legal opioid painkillers and make more programs available to treat addiction, to keep drug users out of the criminal court system.

On this issue, states are light-years ahead of Washington -- not just in seeing "what works" in evaluating the curative powers of a weed, but in burying the myths of a failed drug war in trying to get a handle on the opioid crisis.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey have limited, fairly restrictive medical marijuana programs. Both states also have initiated campaigns to counter an opioid plague. On these issues, at least, there is a consensus that transcends deep partisan divides.

Except in the Trump administration. While candidate Donald Trump expressed a willingness to let states do their own thing on marijuana, President Trump seems ready to sign off on a drug war between the federal government and the states.

After he learned of the attorney general's intent, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf fired off a letter to Sessions, defending Pennsylvania's medical marijuana program and threatening to sue if the federal government intervenes.

Regardless of what anyone thinks about marijuana, undoing the advances on legalization -- as decided by voters and legislatures -- is an invitation to accelerate a cultural war already cleaving the nation. In the case of medical marijuana, it would be an act of cruelty.

Members of Congress need to uphold the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, keep Uncle Sam out of the states' marijuana reforms -- and let the weight of history and millions of ruined lives provide the direction.
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Health bosses have again apologised for the death of a six-year-old boy at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

They say that following an investigation improvements have been made to reduce the risk of something similar happening again.

It follows the death of Jack Adcock, from Glen Parva, in February 2011. The youngster, who had Down's syndrome and a heart condition, died hours after being admitted with sickness and vomiting.

Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba, of Watkin Road, Leicester, and agency nurse Isobel Amaro, from Manchester, were each given a two-year sentence suspended for two years in November 2015 after being found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence .

Amaro has been struck off the Nursing and Midwifery Council register. However, at a hearing before the Medical Practitioners' Tribunal Service this week, Dr Bawa-Garba was suspended from the medical register for a year, but not struck off .

(Image: Raymonds Press)

Stuart Denney, counsel for the General Medical Council, argued the doctor should be struck off.

However, Julian Woodbridge, counsel for the doctor, said the events leading to her conviction "did not take place in isolation, but rather in combination with failings of other staff, including the nurses and consultants working in the children's assessment unit that day and in context of multiple systems failures".

The tribunal heard from Dr Jonathan Cusack, from Leicester's hospitals, of "multiple systemic failures".

He said these included "failings on the part of the nurses and consultants, medical and nursing staff shortages, IT system failures which led to abnormal laboratory test results not being highlighted, the deficiencies in handover, accessibility of the data at the bedside and the absence of a mechanism for an automatic consultant review".

Suspending Dr Bawa-Garba from the medical register, panel chairman Miran Uddin said: "While your actions fell short of the standards expected and were a causative factor in the early death of Patient A (Jack Adcock), they took place in the context of wider failings.

"The tribunal was of the view that a fully informed and reasonable member of the public would view suspension as an appropriate sanction, given all the circumstances of your case. Although your actions resulted in the early death of Patient A you do not present a continuing risk to patients."

Mr Uddin said that while the doctor's actions contributed to Jack's early death "and which continues to cause great distress to the family" the tribunal found no evidence the actions were "deliberate or reckless".

(Image: Will Johnston)

After the hearing, Andrew Furlong, medical director at Leicester's hospitals, said: "We know the event of February 18, 2011, subsequent trial and now this hearing have taken their toll on Jack's family and we want to reiterate how deeply sorry we are for the death of their son. This draws to a close the legal process but we recognise that the family will continue to mourn Jack's loss."

He added: "Following Jack's death we carried out a full investigation and have implemented a number of improvements to our systems which have reduced the risk of such events occurring again.

"For example, we have increased dedicated consultant presence on the children's assessment unit and our systems for the early detection and management of patients with sepsis have changed, are routinely monitored and performance reported to the trust board."
MASON CITY | A Hospice massage therapist was visiting an elderly man in his home and asked if there was anything he wanted.

The man thought for a moment and asked if he could look in a mirror. When the therapist accommodated him, he thanked the therapist and said, "That's the first time I've seen my face in two years."

Sometimes the little things mean a lot, said Connie Bleile, executive director of Hospice of North Iowa. She said her staff and a legion of volunteers frequently have experiences like the man and the mirror.

While Hospice provides a wide range of services to the patients it serves and to their families, an important part of it all is giving them dignity, said Bleile.

"Many times, it's little things of dignity," she said.

North Iowa volunteers finish Hospice training MASON CITY | Eleven individuals recently completed training to serve as volunteers with Hosp

Hospice has provided compassionate end-of-life care in North Iowa for 35 years and its in-patient unit at 232 Second St. S.E. was the first one to open in Iowa, 25 years ago this month.

Hospice provides an array of services to patients and their families  medical care both in the home and at the in-patient unit; complementary services including massage and music therapy; working relationships with physicians, nursing homes and hospitals; and grief support for families for as long as a year after the patient's death.

The in-patient unit has six beds. The staff and volunteers also serve about 100 people in their homes, providing help to the patients and to their care-givers.

"It can be as simple as having someone stay with the patient so the caregiver can go out and have a cup of coffee with a friend, just to get away for a few minutes," said Bleile.

"We ease burdens," she said. "Caregivers have soldiered the burden for so long."

Hospice nurses, chaplains and volunteers are on call 24 hours a day.

"One of the things we hear a lot from people is they wished they had called us sooner," said Bleile.

Ann MacGregor and Dr. Mark Johnson of Mason City spearheaded the efforts to start Hospice care in Mason City.

"In 1981, Dr. Johnson and I were talking and he asked me 'what do you think about this new program called Hospice'," said MacGregor. "I told him I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread."

Together, they worked with others to get a Hospice in-home program started in 1982. MacGregor became involved with the Iowa Hospice organization and eventually was elected to the national Hospice board.

"I was at a board meeting in Colorado where I first saw a free-standing, in-patient unit," she said. "I came back to Mason City and said 'why not here'?"

It opened in 1992 with MacGregor as executive director. Johnson served as medical director for many years.

He said he first came across Hospice when he was doing a residency in Nebraska and told MacGregor about it.

"There were a lot of people involved at the beginning but Ann took the ball and ran with it," said Johnson.

"One of the things Hospice provides is control," he said. "When you've lost control of everything in your life, it's a lonely feeling.

"Hospice is there to share the load, to let you know you're not alone," he said.

Jerry Mondahl was a Hospice volunteer for several years. "What a rewarding experience it was to help with patients and to provide a little relief for the families," he said.

"It's a difficult time for everyone and Hospice tries to make it less difficult," he said.

Many people have been involved but the role of Hospice has not changed over the years  dispensing of care, comfort and "the little things of dignity."
The HSE has team up with the Men's Sheds network in Laois and across the country to promote mens health.

The Irish Mens Sheds Association has put together a male-specific health and wellbeing initiative called Sheds For Life.,

It aims to support men who want to improve their physical and mental health within the comfortable, familiar environment of their own shed.

It was launched recently in nearby Belmont Mens Shed, Co. Offaly, by Minister Corcoran Kennedy TD, Minister of State for Health Promotion.

Men's Sheds health & wellbeing coordinator is Edel Byrne. She said the branches in Laois will help develop the project.

Through Sheds for Life, we can offer our sheds tailored programmes and resources that match their needs.

The initiative will be developed in full partnership with the sheds themselves, she said.

Ms Byre also welcomed the involvement of the HSE.

The main Sheds for Life website can be accessed at htwww.menssheds.ie/ shedsforlife.
THE IDA remains optimistic for Limericks future growth, following the creation of 1,451 jobs in the region last year, with an additional 400 jobs announced at Northern Trust this week.

Niall OCallaghan, Mid-West regional development manager of the IDA, said they are anticipating employment levels in Limerick to rise further, with over 10,000 people employed in Limerick last year.

This was up from over 6,500 employed in Limerick in 2011, and their target is to grow this by a further 40% up to 2019.

The creation of small pools of jobs in Limerick should never be taken for granted, the outgoing Minister for Finance Michael Noonan urged this week, citing the example of Northern Trust.

From seedling beginnings in 2007 when the US financial services company opened in Limerick with 19 staff, it now employs 1,000 people across its two sites in Limerick at Hamilton House and City East Plaza.

This Mondays announcement that the company is to create a further 400 jobs over the next five years is a further sign that the city has shaken off the shackles of its past, said Mr Noonan.

Minister for Jobs, Innovation & Enterprise, Mary Mitchell OConnor, said 400 lives and families will be positively impacted by the announcement.

Clive Bellows, country head of Northern Trust, Ireland, said the creation of these jobs underlines Northern Trusts commitment to Ireland.

We have seen growth in the scale and operation of our Irish business over the years and the continued expansion of our office in Limerick reflect this, said Mr Bellows.

Acknowledging the support of IDA Ireland, the University of Limerick and the Limerick Institute of Technology, he said half their staff are graduates of those two institutions, and it was due to their presence that they chose Limerick as one of their main bases.

He sees no reason we cannot grow closer to 2,000 people over a ten year period.

Martin Shanahan, head of IDA Ireland, said the companys commitment to Limerick and the country has been exemplary.

Labour deputy Jan OSullivan said this jobs boost is another welcome vote of confidence in Limerick.

At a time when people are worried about a concentration of new jobs on the east coast, it is most welcome to see a big boost like this for Limerick over the next five years, said deputy OSullivan.

Sinn Fein deputy Maurice Quinlivan said the announcement highlights the potential of the city and the region to become a hub for global companies looking for an Irish location.

Mayor Kieran OHanlon said:The company has been in Limerick for 10 years and is constantly expanding its operations in the Limerick city region, to a place where they are one of the regions biggest employers.
MEDICAL experts from across the globe will visit Limerick in the coming weeks to gain valuable insights into the new 24m emergency department, a top consultant has said.

This Monday, the state-of-the-art facility was launched at University Hospital Limericks new clinical education research centre, by Health Minister Simon Harris and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.

Speaking at the ministerial launch, emergency consultant Dr Fergal Cummins told a packed audience of staff, politicians and patrons, that interested experts from Abu Dhabi, Toronto and Sydney will visit UHL over the next six weeks.

Dr Cummins said that their particular focus will be on the world first resuscitation simulation room, which features a CAT scan. This unique and exclusive feature will mean seriously-ill patients can receive scans and be resuscitated in the same room, largely reducing patient movement within A&E.

He aded that there is nowhere in the world that has this, but over the next few months, everybody will want one of these.

Before recruitment, there were 119 staff in the old ED. Now, there are 207, with five emergency consultants and four registrars expected to be appointed by 2018.

UL Hospitals chief executive, Prof Colette Cowan said that despite the cynicism surrounding the recruitment campaign, it was a tremendous success.

At a later press conference, Dr Cummins said that the issue of overcrowding will not go away until the capacity problem is sorted.

This is why the UL Hospitals Group has sought funding from the HSE to construct a new 96-bed block in Dooradoyle.

Though the 1m design process is close to commencement, Minister Simon Harris has given no clear idea of when the Government will invest in the construction of the project, estimated at 25m.

During the launch, Dr Cummins turned to both Ministers, and said that they should look to Limerick for future medical projects.

Unfortunately, we are still going to have trolleys. And this is where I say to both Ministers that, we know we have solutions. Yes, there is some capital cost, but knowing that this team brought this project on time and on budget, exactly as per plan five years ago, I would suggest that both Ministers that it is a time to look to Limerick for when you need a pilot project.

Prof Cowan said that the ED will be a huge advancement for unscheduled care.

The new environment will also allow us to introduce new ways of working and the latest thinking on patient flow has been integrated into every joint and contour of this department. Our ED consultants have adopted concepts from industry from all over the world and brought that thinking back to Limerick for the benefit of our patients, to make their journey through the ED as smooth as possible and their experience as pleasant as possible.

She commended the outgoing Finance Minister for his continuous support for UHLs many projects.

And turning to the political stalwart, she quipped: Nobody here would greatly object if you wanted to sign the cheque for a 96-bed block, prompting a roar of laughter from those in the crowd.

Minister Noonan said that his first experience with the Dooradoyle A&E was in 1957, when he fractured his wrist after a bike fall on his way to school in Glin. He said that, since the opening of the hospital in 1955, the complex has seen major developments, adding that it was very easy for him to get involved, as Health Minister and Finance Minister.

Agreeing with Minister Noonan that more needs to be done at UHL, Minister Harris acknowledged that there is a deficit of beds in the hospital. Though unclear about the 96-bed block, he said that the co-location of University Maternity Hospital Limerick was high on his agenda for the next round of capital funding.

Minister Harris admitted that he was genuinely shook when he visited the old emergency department in October 2016, but added that launching the new facility was one of the happiest days.

He said that this is the start of a new journey and the start of a new chapter in UHLs development.

Special features in the department include separate triage facilities for paediatrics, adults, minor, and major injuries; and segregated resuscitation cubicles. Some 4m was spent on 2,780 pieces of equipment during the ED fit-out.
ONCE upon a time, children would have dreamed about building and battling robots  and calling it education.

But now its a reality, as more than 60 primary school students learned this past weekend, when they pitted their creations against each other at the Analog Devices Primary School Robotics competition, which took place in Mungret College.

Teams from 20 schools across Limerick city and county participated in the day-long competition on June 10, which was organised by Analog Devices for the third year in a row.

After a day of engineering and battling, sixth class pupils Ali Gardiner, Ally Griffin and Kyle Molloy from Janesboros Our Lady Queen of Peace primary school were crowned the 2017 Analog Devices Primary School Robotics Champions.

Its a huge boost to the entire school community. Theyre a great example to their classmates, said principal of Our Lady Queen of Peace, Michael Ryan.

There was huge excitement. They will soon go on to secondary school. Hopefully they will go on to third level, and perhaps they might study engineering.

This competition is about creativity and building, and they are all very bright, intelligent young people. It would be my wish to see them go on and carve out very successful careers for themselves, added Mr Ryan.

The aim of the competition is to promote Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) by encouraging and promoting teamwork as well as the learning of STEM principles in a fun environment.

It was great to see so many school children excited about building robots. This competition helps demonstrate the importance of collaboration and teamwork to accomplish goals, said Leo McHugh, vice president of Instrumentation Products for Analog Devices.

I hope the skills they have learned today and the enjoyment from utilising those skills will encourage them to explore all things science, technology, engineering and maths related, added Mr McHugh.

Working in teams, the students first participated in an advanced robotics workshop during which they designed and built their own innovative robots for a sumo wrestling style competition.

The teams then pitted their robots against each other in a series of tense and exciting elimination rounds in the competitive finale.
M. Nadene Schlawin

May 15, 1930-June 16, 2017

FOREST CITY | Mardgy Nadene (Hocum) Schlawin peacefully passed away with her family at her side on Friday, June 16, 2017 at Muse Norris Hospice Inpatient Unit in Mason City, following a short journey with cancer. Nadene will be remembered by her family and friends in many ways -- as a loving and dedicated daughter, sister, cousin, friend, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, homemaker, employee, and long-time Forest City business woman. More than anything else, she was a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

Born May 15, 1930 in the family farmhouse near David, Iowa (Mitchell County), to Mahlon A. Hocum and Anna M. (Dockstader) Hocum, she joined her brother Milford K. Hocum.

The family moved to Forest City in 1933 and Nadene graduated from Forest City High School in 1948. During high school, she worked in Mangan's Pharmacy and after graduation as an assistant in the office of Dr. E.W. Alder.

On April 18, 1952, Nadene and Virgil R. Schlawin were married in the home of her brother in Forest City. The couple moved several times due to Virgil's service in the U.S. Air Force. When he was deployed to Okinawa, she returned to her parent's home in Forest City. Upon his discharge, the young family lived in southeastern South Dakota for several years, moving back to Forest City in late 1959.

In 1966, they acquired a Montgomery Ward sales agency, which Nadene solely managed until Virgil joined her in the business operation in approximately 1972. They owned this business on Forest City's main street until the company ceased catalog sales operations in 1985. One year later, the couple became the managers of Forest City Granite Works. When Virgil passed away in 1994, Nadene continued in the business, working there until just a few weeks before her death, totaling over 31 years of service. For many years, Nadene also sold Home Interiors products.

At an early age, she accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Savior, participating in youth activities at American Baptist Church (Calvary Baptist). As an adult, she was very active through the years teaching Sunday School, singing in choirs, leading AWANA and other youth groups, serving as custodian, and participating in Mission Circle and the XYZ group.

She is preceded in death by her parents, her brother and sister-in-law, and her husband. She is survived by her sons: Craig (Carolyn) Schlawin of Kingston, Minn., and Kent (Shelly) Schlawin of Johnston, Iowa; five grandchildren: Lyn (Jeff) Kienholz of Waconia, Minn., Chad (Gina) Schlawin of Minnetrista, Minn., and Cody (Jess) Schlawin of Otsego, Minn., Blake (Katie) Schlawin of Johnston, Iowa, and Blaine Schlawin of Johnston, Iowa.; nine great-grandchildren; a cousin, Phyllis Helgeson of Rose Creek, Minn.; and many nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be at Cataldo Schott Funeral Home in Forest City from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 21. Funeral services will be at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 22 at Calvary Baptist Church in Forest City with Rev. Doug Farrell officiating. Pall bearers will be her sons and grandsons. Interment will be in Madison Township Cemetery, Forest City.

Memorials may be given in memory of Nadene Schlawin to Hospice of North Iowa and Calvary Baptist Church, Forest City.
ALL the trappings of an old fireplace including a black hanging kettle, bellows, and basket of turf form part of an elaborate mural which is the focal point of the newly unveiled Fitzgerald Cottage in Bruff.

The official opening of the cottage, which is located in the Thomas Fitzgerald Centre, was performed this Tuesday by Cllr Eddie Ryan, chairman of Cappamore-Kilmallock municipal district.

Also in attendance were local councillors and members of the public.

Proceedings were opened by Paul Dennehy, chairman of Bruff Heritage Group who gave a history on the centre and the background on the new development.

Mr Dennehy expressed his gratitude to the elected members of Cappamore-Kilmallock municipal district for approving funding for the project.

As well as the eye-catching mural by Neil ODwyer which surrounds a real fireplace, there are also a number of display dressers which are home to original memorabilia which highlight the strong connections between Bruff and the Fitzgerald Kennedy family.

There are fantastic items on display including gifts sent by Rose Fitzgerald to her cousins in Bruff, said Cllr Bill ODonnell.

In 1852 a young Thomas Fitzgerald left Bruff for the US. He settled in Boston. He married Rosanna Cox and they had 12 children. One of them John Francis (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald went on to become Mayor of Boston and was a member of the US House of Representatives. His eldest daughter Rose, married Joseph P Kennedy, they had several children including John F Kennedy, the future president of the United States.

A fortnight ago, on the week in which John F Kennedy would have turned 100, the special occasion was marked in Bruff.

Limerick City and County Council held a special meeting in the town to mark the centenary of the birth of the 35th President of the United States.

A replica of the original scroll awarded to John F Kennedy on being granted Freeman of Limerick on June 29, 1963 was then presented to the Thomas Fitzgerald Centre by Limerick City and County Council to mark the occasion.

Meanwhile, to coincide with the anniversary, artist former St Munchins College student, Michael Hanrahan unveiled the final four paintings from a series of fine paintings he painted in 2013. These have gone on display at his gallery on Main Street, Ennistymon.

Michael wrote to Caroline Kennedy back in 2013 requesting images of the historic visit of the president to Ireland in 1963. The Kennedy Library sent him archival photos of the visit and he was able to base the paintings from these images.

The Kennedy Library selected the painting of JFK in Cork and Aer Lingus flew Michael and the painting to Boston where the painting was presented to Tom McNaught, chief executive of the Kennedy Foundation in the private Kennedy room. In 2013 the painting of JFK speaking in New Ross was presented to Caroline Kennedy in New Ross during the 50th anniversary celebrations of the visit to Ireland. It is Michael's wish that the final four paintings would be kept and displayed together for historical reasons.
THE TRAGIC death of a man from Hospital who died after being struck by a car has been described as an unavoidable accident at Limericks Coroners Court.

Coroner John McNamara said that the circumstances of this incident were very traumatic for the family of the late Owen Ryan, 66, and the driver of the vehicle.

Mr Ryan, who was originally from Pallasgreen, was only a few minutes away from where he resided at Castlefarm on the Herbertstown side of Hospital town when the accident occurred in the early hours of September 9, 2016.

The court heard a testimony from one of Mr Ryans friends, who had been drinking with him that night, and recalled him leaving a bar in Hospital after midnight.

The driver of the vehicle was leaving work from a hotel in the city and was driving home to Hospital.

He told the court that he was travelling at a speed in the region of 50km/hr on the R513, and it was a dry night.

He said he has always been a careful driver and is conscious of anyone crossing the road.

I braked, but I could not stop in time, he said.

Garda Deano Wilkinson of Bruff garda station said he received the call at approximately 1am from the central control room to attend the scene of an accident, and arrived there at 1.15am.

Garda Wilkinson said the victim had suffered serious injuries, while the driver was in an extremely distressed state and was visibly emotional.

He was pronounced dead at 3am, and after 4am Garda Wilkinson called his relatives.

It was outlined that there would be no prosecution by gardai arising from the accident.

Forensic collision investigators examined the grey Peugeot 207, which found no fault in the vehicle.

It was noted that Mr Ryan had been wearing dark, non-reflective clothing at the time, which would have made it harder to see him, particularly as the incident occurred in an area which street lighting didnt extend to.

An autopsy report showed that the deceased had suffered multiple skull fractures, as well as injuries to the chest.

A relatively high level of alcohol was detected in his blood.

The jury recorded a verdict of accidental death, and sympathies were extended to the family on this terrible tragedy.
PLANS are being drawn up to extend the 30kph speed zones to up to 150 additional housing estates across the city and county.

The first of the new 30kph zones came into effect on December 28 last as part of a national road safety initiative unveiled by the Minister for Transport more than two years ago.

As part of the initial roll-out in Limerick, 15 housing estates were identified within the Metropolitan District while five were identified in each of the three municipal districts.

Details of the likely expansion of the so-called slow zones, which could cost in the region of 100,000, emerged on Monday at a meeting of Limerick City and County Councils Travel and Transport SPC.

Briefing members of the committee, senior executive engineer Vincent Murray said the roll-out of the new slow zones at the end of 2016 had been a success and that the local authority is keen to extend the scheme further.

He indicated that further details of the expansion could be put before members as early as September and the by-laws enacted shortly after that.

Separately, a general review of speed limits on all roads across the city and county is ongoing.

As part of the process, the local authority has carried out a public consulation process and is currently engaging with a number of other State agencies and bodies such as An Garda Siochana and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII).

Mr Murray confimed a number of workshops will be held for elected members of the council in the near future and that they will be further public consultation in relation to any proposed changes.
Born and raised in Dublin, it should come as no surprise that I am still living there.

After attending primary and secondary schools, near me, on the Northside, I graduated from Trinity College with a degree in Politics and Philosophy. Everybody in my family read and love books. I was, also, lucky to have had teachers in primary and secondary school, who gave me a lot of encouragement with reading and writing.

That said, I didnt think that I would ever be a writer.

It seemed like too much of a dream, something that happened to other people, not young ones from Coolock in Dublin. Being from a very working class background, money was always tight, so teachers used to lend me books. They knew that I had read pretty much everything in our local library. They encouraged me to write as well, and not just novels. Any sort of career that involved writing was for me, and my job for a long time, involved writing speeches, legislation and even press statements. I was a political advisor on the economy to Pearse Doherty. It was a fascinating job, especially during the Troika years, and demanding too. You could be in there until midnight some days. I was, also, the Vice-Chair of the Inter-Trade Ireland business body. When the book deals came, it was only a matter of time before I had to go full-time on that front. I am starting to write for TV now too, (so I am always busy), especially now that I have four kids.

I was a very early reader and took to Enid Blyton when I was only five. Later, when I was a bit older I started scribbling down little stories. Being a reader first lends itself readily to being an enthusiastic writer. When you love stories so much, if you have an imagination yourself, the progression is to start writing, but it takes real determination to become a full-time published author. Any writer will tell you, that typing The End, is just the beginning. There follows a gazillion edits, getting a publisher, an agent, working with the industry, proofing, printing, promoting. It is hard work, but very rewarding.

The mystery and investigation in my books are of more interest to me than the crime itself.

I love a book, or a show, that poses a question right at the beginning, in an unexpected situation and youre left thinking; Who did this?, Why did they do it? and What secrets are being hidden? Then, the reader is slowly, provided with some clues until the big reveal at the end. That is my favourite kind of read/view and it was only natural that I would want to write that material too. I would encourage people to write what they know and love. Pursue your dream, but be prepared to work very hard. Writing is a job. You will no sooner have your first book accepted than the publishers will ask you for a second.

Anybody who has done it will tell you that writing one book is hard but writing two, or more, is the real test of your skills.

I got my first big break by entering a competition. Richard and Judy were running their Search for a Bestseller competition, at the time, and received thousands of entries. My novel was one of seven shortlisted leading to a two-book deal with Quercus publishing. I am on my third contract with Quercus now. Writing is a solitary profession, though. There is no office and you do most of your exchanges via email and telephone. Working from home means that you miss all of the camaraderie that a workplace can bring. Together with other writers, I have a bit of an online office, using social media to connect with authors and to organise events. I, also, do a lot of speaking engagements at libraries, in order to meet readers.

I have just finished my latest, and fourth, Tom Reynolds crime novel and have a standalone thriller coming out next January, called The Confession.

It was great fun to write with a completely new set of characters making for a much grittier read. It is causing big ripples in the publishing world right now, so all the omens are good for its success. Sleeping Beauties, is out next September, and is the third in that Detective Inspectors series. The latter is the head of the Dublin murder investigation squad. The book begins with the discovery of five bodies buried in a ritualistic grave in scenic Glendalough. It is apparent that they are all women who have gone missing over the past few years. Toms team have to track down a serial killer, who keeps his victims captive for months, before sadistically killing them.

Making a career out of writing is extremely difficult.

There are so many books published, meaning that there is a lot of competition to be noticed. The standard is very high, and then, there is the pay. Even if you are lucky enough to get a big deal, the chances are that you will still need your day job. People are always shocked when they discover that authors only get about ten per cent of the royalties on each book sold-the industry standard. Six figure deals make the news because they are the exception- the thousands of book deals done every month are far more modest. I am lucky in that I have managed to sell many books. I wrote two books last year alone, and have done five in total over the past three years. Therefore, if you keep delivering, writing can be a very successful career choice!

For more information, please see: https://www.facebook.com/JoSpainAuthor/ and https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/
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Tell us what you love about Lincolnshire by joining our #LoveLincs campaign which aims to champion everything that is fantastic about our county.

From the kindness of the friendly people, to the hearty food and glorious countryside, we want to celebrate Lincolnshire's greatness.

We will feature your stories in the Lincolnshire Echo and Target Series newspapers and online at Lincolnshire Live.

Here, former Mayor's Officer Joe Cooke and his wife Julie talk about their love of the place.

Mr Cooke, 68, served as Mayor's Officer in Lincoln from 1983 until May this year.

The former Grenadier Guardsman is a font of knowledge about all things Lincoln, having conducted countless visitor tours around the city's historic Guildhall.

Mr Cooke, together with barber Frank Connell, has also raised more than 1 million for local good causes over the past 30 years.

He said: "If you ask me what I love about Lincoln and Lincolnshire it's the people. I moved to Lincoln from Jarrow in the North East in 1966 and my philosophy is that if you can make friends with a Lincoln person you make a friend for life. They are very loyal people."

Mr Cooke retired on May 16 after attending his final mayor making ceremony in his official capacity when Councillor Chris Burke was sworn in as the 811th Mayor of Lincoln.

He and his wife Julie are planning a visit to Canada to meet descendants of Lincoln industrialist William Tritton, credited as the co-inventor of the First World War tank along with Walter Wilson.

Mr Cooke championed the campaign that saw the tank memorial unveiled on the Tritton Road roundabout in 2015 in honour of the city's engineering prowess, and his wife Julie served as secretary to the Lincoln Tank Memorial Group.

Mrs Cooke said: "My family goes back to the Lincolnshire of the 1600s. I love the incredible history, from the Romans to medieval Lincoln, the wolds, the coast and Gibraltar Point."

HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED:

All you need to do is get in touch with us  and we'll get the word out. You can do this by using the hashtag #LoveLincs on Twitter , by messaging us via our Lincolnshire Live page on Facebook or simply emailing us at news@lincolnshireecho.co.uk or news@targetseries.co.uk making it clear that you want to contribute to the #LoveLincs campaign.

Help us shout about what you love about Lincolnshire. We're looking forward to seeing what you send in.
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A rising Lincoln actor has expressed his shock after learning his first television acting role would be as a leading role in the popular BBC programme, Poldark.

Viewers tuning in from all around the world last Sunday, June 11, would have seen 13-year-old, Harry Marcus starring in the first episode of series 3 as Geoffrey Poldark  nephew of the main character, Ross Poldark (Aidan Turner).

But Lincolns newest celebrity is determined not to let fame go to his head and while he could not reveal full details of the plot of the third series, he did give us a hint about what is to come.

When I am with my friends back home I dont like to make too much of it and I like to stay level-headed. They think its really cool, though. I dont seem them a lot when I am filming. I think it is awesome that they get to see what I have been working on.

I cant reveal too much about the series, but I can say that viewers are in for a real treat. It will be very hard-hitting, much more than the previous two series, I think as there are so many new characters.

There will be a fourth series, but no one has been told whether their role will be retained.

The Lincoln Minster student has been filming for the period drama for the last seven months, but can still remember the exact time of day when he received the news that he had been cast in the role.

I was at school when I found out, he said. I remember my teacher telling me I needed to go to reception. My parents were there who then told me I had got the job. It was an amazing feeling, but it is always a surprise when your mum and dad turn up to your school.

The job offer was completely out of the blue. In television you dont tend to hear back if you dont get the part.

It is my first time working in television so I was delighted at getting the job.

I was over the moon and it was such a surreal feeling. The whole process was amazing. I was flabbergasted.

The young performer has already rubbed shoulders with top professionals including Oscar-nominated Andrew Garfield and Harry Potter star Emma Watson.

He will also feature in an unnamed feature film that is set to be released this summer, but the teenager says that he has always found the A-list celebrities to be warming and well-grounded.

He said: In the weeks running up to my first day on set it was all about prepping for the role.

You need to know exactly what the character you are playing is going to be like. You always get a breakdown that tells you how they want your character to act before the process begins.

In early August we had a script read through where you get to meet everyone for the first time.

It is nerve-wracking beforehand because there are some big names you are working with. As it was my first TV role I did think what would happen if I messed up or what would happen if I didnt say my line in the right way. All the crew and cast were really welcoming. I had a lovely time.

I used my experience from working in feature films as a guide of what to expect. I used what I have learned in order to prepare so not looking into the camera and speaking using different acting techniques.

Youd think big names would be like Ive been in this, Ive been in that, but they are all genuinely nice people. They are everyday people who can hang out with. The Poldark cast and I hung around a lot.

The series - which is based on the Winston Graham novels of the same name  broadcast for the first time at the weekend was generally well received by fans and critics.

But for a young Harry, the biggest concern was how his school friends would judge his performance.

It aired on Sunday and I watched it with my mum, dad and sister, he added.

I was nervous as I thought all my friends are going to see this and give their opinions on it. You also have other companies and other critics watching you. All feedback seemed to be positive and I read some really good reviews about the show and my performance.

I am on Twitter as well so I was seeing messages from all over world.
Data Presented as Late Breaking Clinical Trial at EUROPACE 2017

DUBLIN and VIENNA - June 18, 2017 - Continuing its leadership in the detection, reduction, and treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF), Medtronic plc (NYSE: MDT) today announced that its Reactive ATP(TM) therapy slows the progression of AF in patients with implanted cardiac devices. A robust, real-world analysis of nearly 8,800 patients was presented as a late breaking clinical trial at EHRA EUROPACE-CARDIOSTIM 2017.

An unusually fast or quivering rhythm in the heart's upper chambers (atria), AF is a progressive disease that afflicts more than 33 million people worldwide.1 Common among patients with cardiac devices, AF impairs quality of life, and increases the risk of hospitalization, stroke and death. Reactive ATP (atrial-based antitachycardia pacing) is an advanced, painless pacing therapy found exclusively on Medtronic pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices. It repeatedly sends pacing pulses to the atria during abnormally fast rhythms to restore the heart's normal rhythm, thereby slowing the progression of AF.

The retrospective analysis assessed pacemaker, ICD and CRT device data from 8,798 patients followed by the Medtronic CareLink remote monitoring system. Reactive ATP therapy was associated with a statistically significant decrease in AF events compared to a matched control group. Most notably, the Reactive ATP patient group experienced a 38 percent reduction in persistent AF events (lasting greater than seven days) (p<0.0001). This benefit was observed across patient age, sex, and device type.

"Atrial fibrillation can be a debilitating disease that imposes a significant burden upon the entire healthcare community - impacting patients, caregivers, providers and costs of care - especially as the disease progresses," said Giuseppe Boriani, M.D., Ph.D., full professor of cardiology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. "These are the first real-world data on the clinical impact of Reactive ATP therapy and the first in patients with ICDs and CRT devices. These data have important implications for all device patients because of the high prevalence of AF and the correlation of disease progression to worsened patient outcomes."

This study builds upon the MINERVA trial, the first randomized, controlled study of Reactive ATP. It found that Reactive ATP therapy significantly slowed AF disease progression in patients with pacemakers with the therapy, compared to those without it.2 Furthermore, Reactive ATP significantly reduced AF-related hospitalizations, emergency department visits and cardioversions, resulting in payer cost savings.2,3

"Physicians have been asking how the CareLink Network data can be leveraged to gain real-world insights into the benefits of our therapies," said Rob Kowal, M.D., Ph.D., vice president and chief medical officer of the Cardiac Rhythm and Heart Failure Division at Medtronic. "This study does exactly that. It helps us understand how Reactive ATP impacts the burden of persistent atrial fibrillation in a larger and more varied group of patients than we might normally be able to study within the constraints of a controlled trial."

In collaboration with leading clinicians, researchers and scientists worldwide, Medtronic offers the broadest range of innovative medical technology for the interventional and surgical treatment of cardiovascular disease and cardiac arrhythmias. The company strives to offer products and services of the highest quality that deliver clinical and economic value to healthcare consumers and providers around the world.

About Medtronic

Medtronic plc (www.medtronic.com), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is among the world's largest medical technology, services and solutions companies - alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life for millions of people around the world. Medtronic employs more than 88,000 people worldwide, serving physicians, hospitals and patients in approximately 160 countries. The company is focused on collaborating with stakeholders around the world to take healthcare Further, Together.

Any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties such as those described in Medtronic's periodic reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results may differ materially from anticipated results.

-end-

1 Chugh S, Havmoeller R, Narayanan K, et al. Worldwide epidemiology of atrial fibrillation: a global burden of disease 2010 study. Circulation. 2014; 129:837-847.

2 Padeletti, L., Purerfellner, H., Mont, L. et al. New-generation atrial antitachycardia pacing (Reactive ATP) is associated with reduced risk of persistent or permanent atrial fibrillation in patients with bradycardia: Results from the MINERVA randomized multicenter international trial. Heart Rhythm. 2015;12:1717-1725.

3 Boriani G, Manolis AS, Tukkie R et al. Effects of enhanced pacing modalities on health care resource utilization and costs in bradycardia patients: An analysis of the randomized MINERVA trial. Heart Rhythm 2015;12:1192-200.
WARRENSBURG, Mo., June 18, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Eyecare Specialties is encouraging parents to schedule back-to-school eye exams for their children, as studies have shown proper vision is critical to success in the classroom. In fact, nearly 50% of all kids under the age of twelve have never been to the eye doctor or had a comprehensive vision screening.



Summer may be in full swing, but the team at Eyecare Specialties in west central Missouri is already looking forward to the start of school. Their team is encouraging parents to bring their children in for a comprehensive eye exam sooner rather than later, taking advantage of open availability now instead of waiting until the last minute in August.

Now is the best time to have your childs vision tested, as it gives us plenty of time to order glasses or contact lenses before the first day of classes, says optometrist Dr. Jason Lake. That way they are ready to do well and learn right from the start. Plus, theres no need for absences or early release days due to having to be at an appointment during the school day.

Preparing for a positive start to the school year includes much greater things than just new backpacks, clothes, and supplies. Studies have shown that children with vision problems do worse on schoolwork and get far lower grades than those who are able to see clearly. While this may seem like common sensebecause if you cant see the material, you cant learnit is estimated that over 50% of kids under the age of twelve have never been to the eye doctor.

What many parents dont realize is that the screenings they do at school are strictly for near-sighted vision, explains Dr. Lake. They dont take into account any farsightedness, eye coordination problems, or other similar issues. And that is where most kids struggle, because theyve had these problems for years and do not know what it is like to really be able to see well or even make anyone aware they are struggling.

About Eyecare Specialties

With a total of seven total optometrists, Eyecare Specialties is dedicated to helping patients achieve their best sight possible. They offer a full range of eye health services to patients throughout west central Missouri. With locations in Warrensburg, Sedalia, Clinton, and Lees Summit, the team has an office near your neighborhood. For more information or to schedule a comprehensive eye exam for your child, please call (660) 747-2020.

Visit http://eyecarespecialties.biz for more information on the optometry clinic and for a list of all their locations and hours.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, June 18, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sherbrook Animal Hospital has released important summer pet safety information. The veterinary team reminds people that closed vehicles can become much hotter than the outdoor air, so pets must never be left inside them unattended.



Many summer-related pet health tips will mention keeping animals out of closed vehicles during the day, but it turns out that there are many other hazards that pet owners need to watch out for as well. Hot pavement, for example, can burn the feet of both dogs and cats. This is also true of the beds of pickup trucks.

Another important hazard is fireworks. Pet owners should always be sure that their animals are out of the way of the flashy explosives and that they don't come back to sniff the launchers before they cool. Pets who are startled by the sounds may run off and become lost.

"One thing that shocks many people is that not all dogs can swim. Though there is a 'swimming instinct' that many possess, some canines lack it. Rather than find out if a dog can swim the hard way, pet owners should outfit their companions with dog life jackets when taking them on boats. Even good swimmers will eventually get exhausted and drown if they can't get back out of the water," said Dr. Harvinder Hirkewal, veterinarian and owner of Sherbrook Animal Hospital.

The hospital also recommends that pest control be stepped up during the summer months. Prevention is considered to be the best solution, and long-lasting medications are available to prevent infestation of fleas, ticks, heartworms, and other parasites. Existing flea infestations should be taken care of with external pest-killing products.

These are just a few of the many things pet owners should be on the lookout for this summer. To learn more, readers should contact a Winnipeg veterinarian.

About Sherbrook Animal Hospital

Sherbrook Animal Hospital is owned by Dr. Harvinder Hirkewal, who actively practices at the hospital. Its skilled staff provides routine veterinary care and wellness packages to pets in the Winnipeg area.

Visit the website at http://sherbrookanimalhospital.com/ for additional information.
The following items are compiled from recent Texas Parks and Wildlife Department law enforcement reports.

Gone Hog Wild

A game warden was on his way home from work near Bay City when he noticed a pair of four wheelers driving around a private ranch working spotlights. He called another warden for backup and together they gathered up what turned out to be eight individuals and their hog dogs. Allegedly, a neighbor who knew the hunters told them that the ranch owner was out of town and wouldn't be around. The warden contacted the rancher, who indicated that he would be getting with him to file charges on the group once he returned home.

Holy Mackerel, Not Again

A Matagorda County game warden was checking an offshore sport fisherman and found several frozen undersized Spanish mackerel. The fisherman stated that he had purchased the fish for offshore bait from a seafood dealer in Matagorda, who turned out to be the same business owner that received numerous citations for the same violation when wardens inspected his place of business a few weeks ago. The warden contacted the business owner and questioned him about the possible possession of any more undersized mackerel. The dealer admitted to having more and led the warden to a freezer where he had 256 illegal undersized mackerel stored. Citation and approximately $1,700 in civil restitution are pending.

Something Smells Fishy

A Trinity County game warden received a call from a bass fisherman who found a gill net in a creek off the Trinity River. Wardens located three illegal nets the next day and also discovered a fishing camp not far from the net locations. At the camp, several holding baskets and stringers were found with fish inside. Some of the fish were dead and rotten. The wardens located a boat in the water at the camp but were unable to make contact with anyone. Two days later, wardens made contact with three individuals at the camp. A fish shocker was found in the boat. The three fishermen were identified and 17 citations and warnings were issued including no Texas fishing license, fishing by illegal means and methods, running illegal trotlines/jug lines, and failure to keep fish in edible condition.

Speeding While Intoxicated

Game wardens were patrolling the Sabine River when a call came in from a Gladewater fishermen regarding a boat repeatedly driving back and forth at high rates of speed near the city bridge. Wardens notified the Gladewater Police Department and officers were able to locate and shut down the boat until the wardens could arrive to investigate. The operator was identified and later acknowledged consuming "three or four beers" - then stated he was "too drunk to drive a boat." The subject failed field sobriety tests and was arrested by the wardens for boating while intoxicated. The blood test lab results and case are pending.

Loaded to the Gills

Brazoria County game wardens seized a 300-foot gill net found set in Christmas Bay. Approximately 150 fish were caught in the net, as well as a Kemp's Ridley sea turtle. The turtle was released alive.

Out of Control

Tyler County game wardens observed a personal watercraft motoring without any occupants near Rattlesnake Island on Sam Rayburn Lake. The wardens then saw an individual swimming from the watercraft. Wardens were able to stop the watercraft before it crashed into rocks along the island. Wardens identified the operator and, after a short interview, became concerned the man was potentially intoxicated. The man admitted to drinking two beers and later added he also smoked marijuana. The subject was booked into Jasper County Jail on boating while intoxicated charges.

Bad Debt

While on enhanced patrol of Lake Amistad during Memorial Day weekend, a Val Verde County game warden arrested a fisherman for an outstanding warrant for criminal non-payment of child support  he owed $17,000. The subject was booked into the Val Verde County Jail.

Don't Mess With Texas

A Val Verde County game warden stopped a vehicle leaving Lake Amistad that was losing trash from the bed of the truck and arrested the driver for multiple convictions of driving while license suspended.
(EDITORS: This file has been updated to withhold the teen's name to protect his safety. Please use this version of the story,)

---

The black Suburban pulled into the truck-stop parking lot just as dusk settled on Beckley, West Virginia, one June evening. A burly man in sunglasses climbed from behind the wheel and opened the rear door.

Out stepped a slender Honduran teenager with shaggy hair, bright-blue sneakers, a gang past and an uncertain future.

The last time the teen had known freedom was the night 2 1/2 years earlier when he crossed the Rio Grande and turned himself in to the U.S. Border Patrol. Authorities, alarmed by his acknowledged gang history, had held him without a hearing in a Virginia juvenile detention center.

But then a federal judge ruled that his rights had been violated.

So now, a day later, the 17-year-old suddenly found himself hugging the mother who had left him behind in Honduras as a boy and embracing half-siblings he didn't know. He climbed into a waiting car and headed to a home in Kentucky he had never seen.

For immigration advocates, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth K. Dillon's June 1 order was a major legal victory over the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the federal agency charged with caring for children apprehended at the border without their parents. The decision could lead to the release of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of long-detained unaccompanied minors, they said.

The teen's release was remarkable for another reason: Before coming to the United States, he had sold drugs and witnessed murders as a member of MS-13.

The violent street gang is on the rise in the United States, fueled, in part, by the surge in unaccompanied minors. MS-13 has been linked to dozens of recent killings, from the Washington area to Long Island, Boston and Houston. President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have voiced alarm about MS-13 and the way it has taken advantage of the U.S. immigration system.

"If they come as undocumented minors, the federal government transports them wherever in the interior they say they'd like to go," Sessions said in late April. "The bad guys know how this system works, and they have exploited it."

Last month, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., sent a letter to the ORR, demanding to know if it had released any unaccompanied minors with admitted gang ties.

This teen may be the first known case, but he is not the only one. In a statement to The Washington Post, the agency said it had released "a small number" of children with "minimal" gang affiliation to live with relatives.

Advocates liken these youths to child soldiers, who need help recovering from years of violence and abuse. But critics view them as threats to public safety who should be deported.

"When we have credible information that this kid has been involved in criminal activity, is a member of a gang, admits to violent acts in his home country, that's when we should be using the law to the fullest extent possible to avoid problems in the community," said Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, which has pushed for strict immigration policies.

In an interview, the teen said that he had left his gang days behind in Honduras.

"Down there, you have to fight just to stay alive," he said. The Washington Post agreed to withhold his name to protect his safety. "Thank God that I'm here now and can move forward with my life."

His first brush with gang violence came when he was 4 years old. He was buying ice cream from a street vendor when someone shot the man in the back.

"He was serving me a cone when they shot him," the teen recalled. "I watched as blood started coming out of his mouth and his neck. I was just a kid, but it's still so fresh in my mind."

A year after the killing, his mother moved to the United States, and he was left in the care of relatives who physically abused him, according to court records. When he was 11, a member of a local clique of MS-13 defended him from bullies at school.

"He was the first one to tell me I could be in the gang," the teen said, promising "material things, money, women. He told me that I could earn respect."

He began spending more and more time with MS-13.

"It was like the family I couldn't find at home," he said. "I thought nobody loved me. But when I found them, I said, 'This is my family. They love me.' "

Older gang members gave him money, alcohol, marijuana and cocaine. But soon they demanded he sell drugs, too, including heroin and "piedra," or crack.

"I began to see things, like them torturing people," the teen said. "For rent. Because they belonged to another gang. Because they had screwed up somehow."

One day, the torture turned into murder.

"I was in the same room when they killed someone," he said. "When I saw that, I said 'This is not for me.' But I had already seen a lot and knew a lot by that point. I couldn't go back."

The teen said he witnessed multiple murders but never participated. His breaking point came in 2014, when the gang turned on his friend who had protected him from bullies.

"One of them wanted me to kill him, but I said no, and they started to hit me with their fists," he said. "They said if I wouldn't kill (him) then they'd kill me."

Other gang members intervened and spared him, but his friend wasn't so lucky.

"I couldn't do anything to stop them from killing him," he said. "It was like being trapped in hell."

The teen had stayed in touch with his mother, who had found work cleaning hotel rooms in Kentucky, remarried and given birth to three American children. Her husband offered to pay the teen's way to the United States. It was supposed to be a surprise for his mother.

With the help of a coyote, the teen, 14 at the time, traveled north by car and bus through Guatemala and Mexico in late 2014. Unable to swim, he forded the Rio Grande on an inflatable tire.

After turning himself in to authorities, he was photographed, fingerprinted and sent to a government shelter in Chicago.

"I thought the maximum I would spend there was two weeks," he said.

The teen had arrived in the United States during an unprecedented wave of more than 150,000 unaccompanied minors, mostly fellow teens fleeing violence and political upheaval in Central America.

When they are caught, they spend an average of 45 days in government custody before they are released to parents or other relatives while their cases wind their way through a backlogged immigration system.

The teen spent 2  months in the Chicago shelter, where he told a social worker about his time in MS-13.

In addition to selling drugs, "he described to his caseworker his involvement in other significant and serious criminal activity as part of the gang, although months later he recanted those statements," the judge wrote in her ruling. "He has steadfastly maintained since then that he did not engage in the most serious of that conduct."

The teen told The Post that he falsely confessed to participating in his friend's murder "because I was nervous and felt guilty for not doing anything to help him. I felt responsible."

He was sent in shackles to the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center, a more secure facility in Staunton, Virginia.

He began to lash out, getting into seven fights, according to the judge's ruling.

"If somebody disrespected me, I'd hit them," he acknowledged. "I had learned in the gang that violence was the only path."

His mother had immediately applied to be reunited with her son, and a home visit by a government contractor had found that she and her husband "will be positive influences on (the) minor, and that he should be released to their care."

Yet it wasn't until May 2016 - 17 months after the teen was detained - that the ORR informed his mother that her request for reunification had been denied. Her son "poses a safety risk to the community" and "requires an environment with a high level of supervision and structure that [she is] unable to provide at this time," a letter said.

When she asked the agency to reconsider, it refused. That's when the teen's case came to the attention of Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg and Rebecca Wolozin, attorneys at the Legal Aid Justice Center in Falls Church, Virginia, who had recently helped secure the release of another 17-year-old with gang ties after three years in ORR custody.

"It was such a Kafkaesque situation," Wolozin said of the teen's case. "There was just no end in sight."

In March, the two attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus in western Virginia District Court, demanding that the ORR release the teen.

On June 1, Dillon delivered a sweeping opinion. By holding the teen for 29 months without a hearing, the agency had violated his rights to due process and family unity, she said.

The ORR said it could not comment on a specific case but had "revised policies (to) strengthen safeguards" following the ruling. The agency declined to provide statistics on how many children it holds long term, but a spokesman said that it was in the "hundreds."

The teen called his release "the happiest moment of my life."

He was granted asylum shortly before being reunited with his mother. But he also knows his new life with his family in a two-bedroom trailer is precarious. The risk of being pulled back into MS-13 is real. For the teen, the greater threat is being targeted as a traitor.

"Hopefully," he said last week, "God will keep that from happening."
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A 34-year-old mentor accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old boy was arrested Thursday.

Stephanie Carmona faces a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, according to the San Antonio Police Department.

Carmona kept her head down, turning her face away from cameras, as she was led in handcuffs to a police vehicle at the San Antonio Public Safety Headquarters downtown.

A spokesperson for Southwest IDS confirmed Thursday that Carmona is on staff at McNair Middle School. Carmona is listed as a secretary on the school's website.

Thats how the relationship started, said SAPD spokesman Sgt. Jesse Salame. She befriended his mother at some point and it turned into sleepovers where she would have sexual intercourse with him.

Investigators said the boys mother discovered what was occurring when she noticed text messages between him and Carmona.

The allegation just came to light to us in mid-May, he said. When we did this investigation we found out this had been going on for several months.

The Special Victims Unit has reached out to the school and is working to ensure there are no other victims, police said.

Anybody sees her, recognizes her or has information on this case or any other case, were asking that they call us, Salame said.

Carmona was placed on administrative leave by the school.

jbeltran@express-news.net
YOKOSUKA, Japan - In the dark of night the weather was clear, with a swell of about six feet.

Near where the sea lanes converge for the run into Tokyo Bay, the USS Fitzgerald was on a routine mission - though in these waters, mariners say, routine means always taking extra caution.

One of the Navy's most advanced ships, the Aegis guided-missile destroyer was equipped with the latest and most sophisticated radar equipment. Onboard the 8,315-ton vessel was a crew of 300. On the bridge, a full complement of officers and enlisted personnel was on duty. The commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, was in his cabin, on the starboard side. It was about 2 a.m.

Just offshore from Shimoda, a popular beach resort town on a peninsula at the western entrance to the Sagami Sea, a container ship, the Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal, was sailing east from the port of Nagoya toward Tokyo. Four hundred ships a day sail through this gulf toward Japan's biggest port, and the traffic, the scattering of islands, and the lights on land can make navigation extremely difficult. This is a place where vessels - night and day - must take special care to follow the established rules of the road and steer clear of one another.

Early Saturday morning, the Crystal - for reasons that have not been explained - swung around 180 degrees in that busy waterway and doubled back on its course, heading nearly due west.

Minutes later, just before 2:20 a.m., the much larger container ship hit the U.S. warship broadside, just about amidships on the starboard rail, the Navy said. The freighter punched a wide hole into the Fitzgerald, breaching two compartments below the waterline where there were berths for 116 sailors, as well as a machinery room.

However, the timing of the collision is in dispute.

The Japanese shipping company that operates the Crystal, Nippon Yusen K.K., said that the collision happened at 1:30 a.m., an hour before the Navy said it occurred. Marine traffic data showed the Crystal making a sudden U-turn because it went back to check on the destroyer, company spokeswoman Manami Meguro said.

The container ship is now at the port in Yokohama, being unloaded, she said, adding that the company is "fully cooperating with the investigation."

A "tremendous" amount of water flooded through the huge gash, in the words of Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet. Sailors asleep in their berths woke to a powerful torrent of seawater. Seven sailors never made it out.

"There wasn't a lot of time in those spaces that were open to the sea, and as you can see now, the ship is still listing," Aucoin said Sunday at the U.S. naval base at Yokosuka, 50 miles northeast of the collision site. Gesturing to the destroyer, docked behind him with pumps continuing to bring water up out of the hull, he added: "They had to fight this ship to keep it above the surface. It was traumatic."

The collision crumpled parts of the ship above deck, too. Benson received a severe head wound and his cabin was destroyed. "He's lucky to be alive," Aucoin said.

The damage could have sunk the Fitzgerald, he said, but for the quick action of the crew.

Aucoin said the bodies of all seven sailors who died were recovered in the berthing compartment after the wounded ship had been taken into port.

The Navy identified them as Gunner's Mate Seaman Dakota K. Rigsby, 19, of Palmyra, Virginia; Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo A. Douglass, 25, of San Diego; Sonar Technician 3rd Class Ngoc T. Truong Huynh, 25, of Oakville, Connecticut; Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez, 26, of Weslaco, Texas; Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlosvictor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, of Chula Vista, California; Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier A. Martin, 24, of Halethorpe, Maryland; and Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary L. Rehm Jr., 37, of Elyria, Ohio.

When two vessels converge, the one having the other to starboard - to the right - is required to yield. That suggests that the Crystal had the right of way over the Fitzgerald, which was struck on the starboard side, but the details of their collision have not been fully investigated.

The container ship is nearly four times the size of the destroyer, and considerably more cumbersome. The warship is designed to be fast and agile.

"We just don't expect a very capable warship to be so badly damaged in a normal, peacetime environment," said Patrick Cronin, head of the Asia-Pacific program at the Center for a New American Security.

But mariners don't expect heavy freighters to turn around in the middle of a busy seaway, either.

In some ways, Cronin said, it didn't matter who had the right of way in this case. "In my mind, our destroyer is a more capable, agile ship, so regardless of who has right of way, our ship should be able to take evasive action," he said.

Because of the hour when the collision happened, many sailors were sleeping, but a normal bridge crew was on duty, Aucoin said.

There was no indication of any problem with the navigational equipment, he said.

Photos from the scene showed scrapes on the port side of the Crystal's bow. All 20 of the cargo ship's crew members were reported unharmed.

American and Japanese investigations are underway to determine how a technologically advanced U.S. warship was not able to avoid the container ship. Aucoin said he would not speculate on how long they would take to get to the bottom of what happened.

"This was a severe emergency," Aucoin said. "The damage was significant. This was not a small collision."

The destroyer, nicknamed "the Fighting Fitz" within the Navy, is salvageable, but repairs probably will take months, Aucoin said.

A retired naval officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said he understood the collision had damaged some of the Fitzgerald's advanced combat systems and radio equipment.

Benson was the first to be evacuated from the damaged vessel and is being treated at the U.S. naval hospital at Yokosuka. He was awake but not able to answer questions.

Two other sailors were airlifted off the ship and treated in the hospital for lacerations and bruises. The remains of the sailors who died also were taken to the hospital for identification.

Service members and their relatives took to the 7th Fleet's Facebook page to bid the victims "fair winds and following seas, shipmates" - a traditional mariner's farewell.

Collisions at sea have become rare in recent decades as navigational technology has improved.

The current case recalled the collision of the submarine USS Greeneville and a training ship belonging to a Japanese fishery high school off the coast of Hawaii in 2001. The Greeneville suddenly surfaced underneath the Japanese ship, causing it to sink and claiming nine lives, four of them high school students.

"Things like this happen because of human error, sometimes complicated by some technical difficulty," Cronin said, calling it "heroic" that the Fitzgerald's crew was able to get back to port.

"U.S.-Japan cooperation has been fantastic," he said.

Japanese coast guard and military ships assisted with the rescue, and Japanese planes and helicopters searched the waters before the bodies were found.

The Fitzgerald is part of the Yokosuka-based naval group that includes the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, but it was operating independently of the carrier when the collision occurred.

---

The Washington Post's T.M. Gibbons-Neff contributed from Washington.

---

VIDEO

Seven U.S. sailors went missing after a U.S. Navy destroyer collided with a Philippine-flagged merchant ship off the coast of Japan on June 17. A number of the missing sailors were found dead in the destroyer's flooded berthing compartments. (Elyse Samuels, Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

- http://wapo.st/2rIb9av)

--<iframe width='480' height='290' scrolling='no' src='https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/37be3536-5399-11e7-b74e-0d2785d3083d' frameborder='0' webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
The defeat of Tom Perriello, who ran as a populist with the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders in Tuesday's gubernatorial primary in Virginia, marked a loss for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

But the results had more to do with timing and the strength of the state's party apparatus than with ideology, analysts say.

Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, who beat Perriello for the Democratic nomination by 12 percentage points, had the backing of nearly every Virginia Democrat elected to state and federal office - the result of years of cultivating relationships. And he outspent Perriello by $1.4 million on advertising, affording himself a heavy television presence - especially in the costly metropolitan Washington market - in the last weeks before the election.

Perriello, a former one-term congressman, jumped into the race in January hoping to overcome Northam's structural advantage by riding a wave of anti-Trump and national progressive energy, bolstered by endorsements from Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

But it was too little, too late.

"The lesson here was you cannot get in a race very late and underfunded against a candidate who has been raising money and organizing for a long time and who has every meaningful endorsement from the Democratic Party," said Jennifer Duffy, who monitors gubernatorial contests for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "I don't think this has anything to do with progressivism."

Perriello was unable to raise millions of dollars in small donations, even with the help of national progressive groups that sent fundraising pitches to millions of potential donors. He relied on a few wealthy donors to write six-figure checks and lent himself $150,000 in the campaign's final days.

Meanwhile, Northam was airing ads touting his endorsements from unions, abortion rights groups and other progressive organizations, showcasing his background as a doctor and an Army veteran and calling President Trump a "narcissistic maniac."

Perriello's internal polling showed him plunging 12 points in the final week of the campaign, mostly in vote-rich Northern Virginia, after Northam won the endorsement of The Washington Post editorial board and outspent Perriello on advertising by 2 to 1, according to Ian Sams, Perriello's spokesman.

"In what became a high-turnout, low-information election, the spending disparity made a real difference in giving voters just enough information about Ralph to help him win," Sams said. "It was a competitive advantage we couldn't overcome."

Democratic primary voters also seemed disinclined to rebel against the state party establishment. Outgoing Gov. Terry McAuliffe and U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark R. Warner are beloved by Virginia Democrats. And all three backed Northam.

"The real story, at least on the Democratic side . . . is people are generally happy with their leadership," said David Turner, Northam's spokesman.

Perriello's campaign found it an enormous challenge. "It's hard to break through against an entire unified state Democratic Party operation, and we knew that from the beginning," Sams said.

In the primary, Perriello did exceptionally well with rural voters, sweeping the southern and western parts of the state, while Northam claimed the more populated "urban crescent" of Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads. He also did well among African Americans - a key Democratic constituency.

Throughout his campaign, Perriello argued that Virginia Democrats need to retool their approach to attract greater numbers of rural, young and minority voters after squeaker races for governor in 2013 and the U.S. Senate in 2014.

But that message was undercut by the party's winning streak. Democrats hold all five statewide offices and won the state in the past three presidential contests - Virginia was the only Southern state to back Hillary Clinton in the election in November.

Perriello's embrace of the progressive agenda - increased taxes on the wealthy to fund free community college, universal prekindergarten and paid family leave - made him a darling of the movement, as well as a favorite among some mainstream national Democrats. He slammed the corporate influence in politics and refused to accept donations from Dominion Energy, the state's largest political donor and a contributor to Northam.

Northam embraced programs he thinks can win support from Republicans, such asstate funding for technical apprenticeship programs. A pediatric neurologist who championed reproductive rights and gun control, Northam could not be easily cast as an establishment villain.

Because Northam and Perriello held similar views on policy, voters were left with a nuanced choice between styles: pragmatic or aspirational.

"They were both what I would call mainstream progressives. One may have been more progressive on economic issues, [and] one may have been progressive on guns and choice," said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic operative with roots in Virginia.

Perriello's defeat seemed to call into question the power of the Democratic Party's progressive wing, which has been trying to push candidates leftward as the party navigates the Trump era.

Progressive have lost other high-profile races this year, including special congressional elections in Kansas and Montana and contests to chair the Democratic National Committee and California Democratic Party.

"Their bark may be worse than their bite," said Geoffrey Skelley, an analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "They have a lot more work to do if they want the reality of their influence to match what they think their influence is."

Progressive activists say they left a mark, although Northam won.

"There would have been an unquestioned victory for progressives had [Perriello] won," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is aligned with Warren and backed Perriello. "But big-picture, unlike several years ago, it's now very hard to find a Democratic primary where there is not competition to claim the mantle of progressivism and one-up each other on strong positions like $15 minimum wage. And that's what we saw in Virginia."

Perriello supporters seem to be coalescing around Northam, although some environmentalists are withholding support, demanding that he denounce two gas pipeline projects, as Perriello did.

As he goes into the general-election campaign against Republican Ed Gillespie, Northam is Virginia's first Democratic gubernatorial nominee to support measures including the $15 minimum wage, some form of free higher education and driver's licenses for immigrants living in Virginia illegally.

The GOP is already attacking Northam as extreme. A $5 million PAC funded by the Republican Governors Association started spending on digital ads the day after the primary, setting up a website called tooliberalralph.com.

Northam's spokesman disputed that Perriello had nudged the lieutenant governor to the left.

"He has always advocated for an increase in the minimum wage, and he's always advocated for working families," Turner said. "What voters wanted . . . is someone who had a proven record of getting stuff done in Richmond."
Twice in the same week, Lois Wood woke to find ticks crawling over her bare leg in her New Hampshire home. A few nights later, she spotted a mouse running across her bed.

A mother of seven, Wood tries to shrug off her tiny bedfellows. "It's a common rural problem," she says, although she admits that she has "never experienced anything like this in my own bed."

The recent appearance of vermin and pests in Wood's bedroom coincides with the warming temperatures related to climate change. The past three years have been the planet's hottest on record, and it is in this changing climate that many pests thrive, negatively affecting human health.

Forty to 90 percent of white-footed mice carry Borrelia burgdorferi, the spirochete bacterium that causes Lyme disease, and they provide the first blood meals for blacklegged ticks, also known as deer ticks, which can transmit the disease to humans.

White-footed mice are typically considered outdoor animals. But in suburban and rural areas near forested land, they easily squeeze through cracks and holes the size of a dime and often nest inside walls and in garages.

Wood's garage, which is built into a hillside amid old cow pastures that are being reclaimed by young forests, rests directly beneath her bedroom, and it's not uncommon for her to hear the scratching of mice within the walls. Dozens of poppy-seed-size blacklegged tick nymphs could hitch a ride indoors on a single white-footed mouse, then find a blood meal on house mice, other rodents or even members of Wood's family.

"We're diligent about doing tick checks when we come in from outside," Wood says, "but my son and one of our family dogs have had Lyme. It's scary to think that mice might be bringing ticks inside my house."

One hundred fifty miles south of Wood's home, Peggy Siligato, co-owner of Narragansett Pest Control in Rhode Island, has seen more mice over the past five years than during the rest of her 40-year career. "Seventy-five percent of our business is mice," she said, and it had increased about 25 percent "from what it used to be."

Science is offering a possible explanation for what Siligato is witnessing: Warming temperatures and milder winters have increased not only the population of the white-footed mouse but also its range.Sheila Haddad, vice president of sales for Bell Laboratories, which manufactures rodent control technology, agrees: "Rodent pressure is increasing. Mice used to seasonally enter homes primarily in the fall and winter months in New England, but now it's a year-round problem. Warmer winters mean that more mice survive; it never gets cold enough to kill them."

Haddad said she has noticed the same kind of increase in mouse populations as Siligato. In Atlanta, for example, "there's been an increase in reported venomous snakebites, which means that there are more snakes feeding on rodents."

"Everything is changing year after year," Haddad says. "Our rodenticide sales to distributors have increased about 15 percent over the past two years."

Siligato adds: "West Nile virus has killed many birds of prey along the East Coast, meaning there are more mice. To say it's just climate change isn't exactly accurate, but it's probably a part of the story."

The Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, a research and education organization in New York's Dutchess County, has predicted that there will be a rise in reported Lyme disease cases in 2017 along the Eastern Seaboard because there was a bumper crop of acorns in 2015. Acorns are a favorite food of the white-footed mouse, and the population of the species has been shown to increase two years after a surge of the nuts. More mice means more opportunities for tick nymphs to have their first blood meals.

Families such as the Woods, who have a large oak tree that may have dropped up to 10,000 acorns just 100 feet from their home last fall, might notice even more mice around or even inside their homes.

The dangerous trifecta of mice, ticks and Lyme disease might seem like a problem for only rural and suburban areas, but climate change is increasingly making it an issue in cities as well. "We know we're at risk in the country for getting Lyme," Wood says, "although people living in concrete jungles should know that they can get it there, too."

Large city parks provide preferred habitat for white-footed mice: small parcels of land, grassy knolls, shady oak trees, brush for safely making nests, and few natural predators.

Leo Galland, an internist practicing in New York City, says he treated a woman for acute Lyme after she found a blacklegged tick in her Park Avenue apartment. She had not left the city for months, but she often spent hours in nearby Central Park with her young child, and Galland says he believes a tick may have come home with her. "I also treated two other patients with acute Lyme who hadn't left New York City, but they had each spent time in Riverside Park," he says.

The website of the city health department warns that blacklegged ticks have been collected in four of the city's five boroughs, with some of them testing positive for B. burgdorfergi. But how many New Yorkers would think to look at the website to learn about ticks? And even if they did, how many would also consider the mice that transmit Lyme?

In addition to surging populations of white-footed mice and the expected increased prevalence of blacklegged ticks in 2017, rising temperatures may be introducing invasive species that might also transmit disease.

"We're seeing a new species of rodent" in Rhode Island, Siligato says. "Invasive species - perhaps harvester mice, but we're not sure - can now survive here because the year-round temperatures aren't all that different from what they're used to."

Haddad said a few nonnative mice have been found near Cape Cod. "They might have been brought on boats from the tropics, although I haven't heard that tests have conclusively identified the species," she says. "When we're talking about mice, we have to remember that there are hundreds of species."

Humans could suffer grave consequences because of the recent population explosion and spread of the white-footed mouse. And older methods of mouse eradication might not be enough to decrease the growing prevalence of Lyme disease. The Tick Project, a five-year study by the Cary Institute, is examining whether focusing on the elimination of ticks rather than mice might reduce cases of Lyme.

In 2016, the institute identified the neighborhoods in Dutchess County that were hot spots for Lyme disease. This April, two tick-killing methods began to be tested in these areas, and treatments will continue each spring and summer through 2020.

One method uses a small box that attracts mammals such as mice and chipmunks with bait. A wick coated with a chemical called fipronil rubs over the animals' backs as they enter the box, killing any ticks attached to the animal. The second method, a fungus that is sprayed over grass and other vegetation, has been shown to kill ticks waiting to feed. Each method has been shown to be safe to pets, people and the environment.

Time will tell if either method will decrease reported Lyme disease cases, but it stands to reason that if ticks can be killed outside homes, then mice and any other species carrying the Lyme bacteria might be less of a health risk to humans, whether indoors or outdoors.

Although Wood's family isn't a part of the Tick Project, learning that new methods are being developed for controlling tick populations is reassuring to her.

"Climate change means that people aren't safe from Lyme whether they live in the city or the country," she says, "but knowing we can fight the disease means we can live in awareness, not fear."
The Rev. Joseph McMurry Owen, known for his progressive and timely sermons, chipped away at the walls that tend to separate people.

A champion for inclusiveness, in the 1960s, Owen weaved Dr. Martin Luther Kings words into his sermons.

He had a way of sneaking things into the message and making people think about it, his daughter Elaine Leibick said.

Even if he had to stand alone, Owen stood for truth, relatives said.

More Information Joseph McMurry Owen Born: July 11, 1922, Longview Died: June 13, 2017, San Antonio Preceded by: Wife Jane Owen, and son, Joseph McMurry Owen Jr. Survived by: Daughters, Elaine Leibick and son-in-law Sandy Leibick, Alice Owen and son-in-law Sam Farsii, Laura Owen and son-in-law David Leary; six grandchildren; three great-granddaughters; and numerous friends and family Services: Memorial service 3 p.m. Tuesday at University Presbyterian Church, 300 Bushnell Ave. A reception will follow. See More Collapse

A humble, passionate man in a surprisingly tiny package, the Rev. Tom Heger said as he described his friend, He was like the moral arc that bends toward justice ... he never stopped bending.

With a servants heart, Owen died June 13 of complications from a stroke. He was 94.

Owen, a child of The Great Depression, came from a long line of Presbyterian ministers. Pastoring was in his genes, daughter Alice Owen said.

Growing up in sparse times was not easy, but it cemented life lessons, a daughter said.

He came of age during World War II, with the attitude that you do what you are supposed to do because it is right, Elaine Leibick said of her fathers early years.

After graduating high school in Brownwood, Owen went on to receive degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and the Richmond Theological Seminary.

Ordained in 1946, he became the assistant pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Huntington, West Virginia. While there, he met Jane Sprouse who worked with the youth.

The story goes that they were engaged after three months, and married by nine. Laura Owen said of her parents, who would rear three daughters and a son during their 65-year marriage.

Leading churches for nearly four decades, Owen, who retired in 1985, would live to see the harvest ripen when Beacon Hill Presbyterian Church opened its doors in 2010 to Dignity SA, a Roman Catholic LGBT group who was asked to leave their previous place of worship by Catholic hierarchy.

After retirement, Owen worked as an interim pastor for various churches, taught ESL classes for the San Antonio Literacy Council and volunteered for the House of Neighborly Service.

iwilgen@express-news.net
The end of straight-ticket voting in 2020 should bring some much-needed stability to the local justice system.

There has been a constant flow of new judges through the Bexar County courts over the past couple of decades due to partisan political sweeps at the polls. This has left too few tenured judges on the bench.

Many well-respected members of the judiciary have lost their seats to less experienced and under-qualified candidates solely on the basis of party affiliation. Some have managed to make comebacks, but many simply moved on.

Legislation ending straight-ticket voting was signed by Gov. Greg Abbott on June 1. Only nine states still allow a vote for all candidates on the ballot from the same political party with a single marking.

Straight-party voting is the preferred method of voting for many. In 2016, straight-ticket ballots accounted for more than 60 percent of the votes cast in the 10 largest counties in Texas. While it is quick and eliminates long lines at the polls, it has downsides.

An upside, though: this change will mean voters will have to be better informed about the candidates when they go to the polls. And it will also help draw voters to down-ballot races that have never been partisan. Among those are municipal, school board, water district and college district elections.

While the end of straight-party voting should help keep tenured judges on the bench and marginally qualified candidates from gaining office, the judicial selection process warrants further reform.

Judicial elections should be nonpartisan.

State Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, in an address to the 85th Texas Legislature, lamented that when politics is the driving force, and the political climate is as harsh as ours has become, judicial elections make judges more political, and judicial independence is the casualty.

Hecht also made a case for merit selection of judges  jurists chosen on merit by a bipartisan commission, for instance  followed by a nonpartisan retention election.

Both are ideas worth exploring before the next regular session.
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Video shows aftermath of attack on the Gardez police headquarters. Source: Bilal Sarwary.

A Taliban suicide team stormed the provincial police headquarters in the eastern Afghan province of Paktia today, killing at least six policemen before ultimately being gunned down.

The attack on the police headquarters in the provincial capital of Gardez took place in the early morning. The Taliban suicide team used tactics that have been perfected by multiple jihadist groups on numerous battlefields over the past decade and a half.

First, a suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives and detonated his payload at the main gate, opening a breach for the assault team to enter the compound. Then, a heavily armed assault team fanned out to shoot anyone they could before they occupied a building inside the compound. Afghan forces battled the Taliban team throughout the day before killing the last remaining attacker.

In a statement released on Voice of Jihad, the Taliban claimed the strike under the aegis of Operation Mansouri, its most recent spring offensive.

The attack began at 06:22 am local time when a Mujahid from the martyrdon [sic] seeking battalion of Islamic Emirate detonated his explosive-laden vehicle inside the base following which multiple other martyrdom seekers entered the site and began engaging the enemy, the group claimed.

The Taliban later claimed it killed more than 200 members of the Police Special Unit, and named the five attackers. A video published by Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary showed the aftermath of the attack and the destructions of a large area of the police compound.

The suicide assault, or coordinated attack using one or more suicide bombers and an assault team, is a tactic frequently used by the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda and its branches. It is also used by allied groups such as the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Shabaab, and by the rival Islamic State. Suicide assaults are commonly executed by jihadist groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Nigeria.

The Taliban used this tactic to penetrate security at the Afghan National Armys 209th Shaheen Corps Headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif in Balkh province in April. A ten man strong team dressed in Afghan military uniforms killed more than 140 Afghan soldiers using both gun fire and bomb blasts.

In the past, the Taliban has claimed to have thousands of fully armed martyrdom seekers at its disposal to conduct attacks inside Afghanistan and has provided some information on the structure of its martyrdom units, martyrdom-seekers battalion, and suicide groups. These units all fall under the command of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the military commander for the Taliban and one of the groups two deputy emirs.

The Haqqani Network, an integral faction of the Taliban, operates in eastern Afghanistan. This Taliban faction has a significant presence in Paktia province, where todays suicide assault took place.

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.
Prime Minister Theresa May paid tribute to the murdered MP, Jo Cox, at a Great Get Together event earlier today (Saturday).

The event was one of 120,000 organised on the anniversary of the MP for Batley and Spens death that aimed to celebrate the spirit of the 41-year-old. In her maiden speech to Parliament Mrs Cox said: We have more in common that what divides us.

Speaking at Charvil Village Fair, held in her constituency earlier, Mrs May said: I think its highly important.

Jo Cox was an inspirational MP and the Great Get Together is in the spirit of that.

And in light of recent events her message carries even more significance.

The Prime Minister had spent the day chairing a meeting of the Grenfell Tower Recovery Taskforce and meeting with victims of the fire on Wednesday, along with volunteers. She said she had ordered immediate action across the board to help victims relatives and survivors.

I wanted to listen to their concerns and reassure them personally that the Government is there for them  and that everything possible will be done to help them through the hugely difficult days, weeks, months and years to come," she said.

The response of the emergency services, NHS and the community has been heroic.

But, frankly, the support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough.

The Great Get Together was organised by the Jo Cox Foundation, set up in September last year after it became apparent there were lots of people who wanted to pick up where Jo left off.

The foundation exists to channel that energy into practical efforts to advance the causes she championed.

Director of the Jo Cox Foundation, Iona Lawrence helped organise the visit.

The 28-year-old said: The Prime Minister has been very supportive of lots of Jos legacy work and is a regular at the village fair.

At the end of the day its about people and communities coming together, and in that sense its not about what happened to Jo, its about what she believed in.

In spite of tragic events including the recent terror attacks in London and Manchester I think weve seen the power and strength of the community response which proves that closer communities really are worth fighting for.
It's summer, and in addition to people wanting to take advantage of the rooftop bars and free outdoor movies and beaches and nice bike rides and other wonderful things that make up for the hot garbage smell, people want to get a tan. But apparently some people prefer to use Coca-Cola as a self-tanner instead of the sun's natural rays. What a bad idea!

At first, you might think this is a great idea. Coca-Cola is brown, which is close enough to the color you're trying to get to. And given the awesome things it does to your teeth, perhaps the use of Coke as a tanning agent could help strip your skin from your body and give you the sweet release of death and freedom from the news cycle that you desperately crave. Bad news though: the soda tanning method won't strip off your skin and might just give you a really bad sunburn instead.

There may not be that many people doing it, since as Cosmopolitan points out, the idea of pouring disgusting sticky soda on yourself and then sitting out in the sun dates back to the 90s. However, just in case you were planning on doing it, Allure talked to an actual doctor about it, and wow turns out doctors think you shouldn't do this.

Slathering soda all over your skin "may lead to a temporary darkening or staining of the skin, but because sodas are acidic, it may exfoliate dead cells, enhancing the ability of UV light penetrate into the skin," Mount Sinai's Joshua Zeichner told the beauty magazine. "Ultimately, this may increase your risk of a sun burn."

Wow what a terrible idea. Like I said above, there are way better ways to enjoy yourself in the summer that don't involve becoming a walking ant feeding frenzy, so do all of those instead of pouring soda on yourself. Also, this is a great reminder that even if you do forget your sunscreen, the Parks Department is giving it away for free at city beaches this year.

[h/t Grub Street]
WESTFIELD -- At the new Circuit Coffee on Westfield's Park Square Green, some of the coffee counter stools will face out the large windows looking north on Elm Street towards the city's business district. Other seats will be outside on the sidewalk.

"For a city to feel lively and inviting, people need to feel a connection between the street and the sidewalk and what is going on inside the storefronts," said Ted Dobek, owner and creator of Circuit Coffee. "People need a visual connection with what's going on or they won't feel safe."

That's the city planner in Dobek talking. An Agawam native, he has a degree in city planning from Westfield State University.

It's also the businessman talking. Dobek, 24, knows that for Circuit Coffee to thrive, he's going to need to offer more than just a cup of joe.

"I know that Westfield needs a third place" he said, employing a well-known marketing term. "It's not your home. It's not your work. It's a third place where you come together to spend time and connect with friends and family."

Connections are important to Dobek's business plan. That's why he named the place Circuit Coffee. A circuit in electronics is a thing that makes a connection, completes a loop, he said.

Circuit Coffee will open in July at 22 Elm Street. It's the storefront at the corner of School and Elm streets where Routes 10, 202 and 20 all come together.

He's not worried about parking, pointing to municipal lots further west on School Street and Church Street.

The space was the Teapot Gallery. Before that, it was Barney's lunch counter for many years.

Dobek has a line of credit from the federal Small Business Administration and a $2,000 grant through the city of Westfield that paid his first and last months rent. He also plans to rent the upstairs apartment and live on site.

Peter J. Miller, the city's community development director, said the grant comes from Westfield's share of the federal Community Development Block Grant program and its meant to help businesses repair downtown spaces and get storefronts occupied.

Besides Circuit Coffee, Blue Umbrella Books, which also fronts Park Square, and Optimum Health on Elm Street have also received $2,000 grants. Grants are pending for the Good Table on School Street, Skyline Trading bakery and home brewing supply store on Elm Street and Santiago's Restaurant on Franklin Street.

Miller said the city plans to invest $50,000 in the grant program in the coming fiscal year if the CDBG program survives the federal budget process.

Dobek said he is required to hire a few part-time employees under the grant program besides creating his own full-time job.

Look for Circuit Coffee to be a family affair. He and his fiancee, Jessica Ruge, plan to get married in the fall.

"I know I'm gong to be here all day," he said. "It will be a lot of work."

He worked at coffee shops in East Hartford and at Share in Amherst where he trained on how to run his own shop. He also ran Circuit Coffee as a mobile cart at farmers markets in Connecticut.

The cart, which he'll use in the store, serves cold coffee through a beer tap with nitrogen, like how Guinness is served, so it comes out with a creamy smooth frothy head.

He's purchased his espresso machine from a Boston dealer. Made in the Netherlands, it's art deco design is based on Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis.

He's planning on a mix of old and new.

New in that he'll do a Kickstarter online fundraising campaign to get investors. The top tier of Kickstarter finders get rewarded with a party catered at their site using the cart.

New in that he's talking about trendy menu items. The famous millennial-pleasing avocado toast could be coming to Westfield.

"People in the west are doing amazing things with toast," he said. "Really good toast. Its so versatile."

He plans to offer pastries and baked goods.

Old in that he's got a Westfield-built Columbia bicycle that he plans to display.

And that coffee bar? He's getting it built from reclaimed bowling alleys salvaged from the old Romani's around the corner.

He'd wanted to get his hands on some of that wood for a long time, but was told by the city, which will demolish the candle-pin lanes later this summer as part of a redevelopment project, the place was already gutted.

Disappointed, he went on Craigslist looking for bowling alley lanes. He found them. And the seller said they came out of Romani's.
Tom Westerholm | twesterh@masslive.com

The Boston Celtics agreed to terms to trade the No. 1 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft to the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday, gifting the Sixers a chance to select Washington guard Markelle Fultz.

The reaction on Celtics social media was less than enthusiastic. Here were some of the responses.

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The 2018 Lakers pick to BOS has protections on top and bottom that could keep it in Philly, and if so, then 2019 Kings' pick goes to Boston. https://t.co/l38PneUMdh  Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 18, 2017

The Details

Via Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, let's first take a look at the parameters of the deal. If this doesn't make your head spin, you are on top of things.

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The Celtics' overflowing backcourt also factored into their decision to pass on Fultz, sources say.  Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) June 18, 2017

This should go over well!

When you have a Terry Rozier, why would you need a Markelle Fultz?

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Technically this trade is very good value and I hate it somewhat irrationally very passionately.  TheAlwaysLovedMarcusMorrisGuy (@SamSheehan) June 18, 2017

The trade's value

Acquiring the No. 3 pick and a very favorably protected future first is good value on paper. Still, Celtics fans had very mixed feelings.

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  Kelly Olynyk (@KellyOlynyk) June 18, 2017

Kelly Olynyk

Like the rest of us, Olynyk seemed unsure why the Celtics keep pushing assets like this back.

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Did Fultz's reputation play a role?

If so, you can bet that large swaths of the fanbase are going to have some serious questions.

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Both Celtics and Sixers fan bases think they just committed highway robbery against the other.

I am here for this.  Kawob Leonard (@WorldWideWob) June 18, 2017

Who robbed whom?

This was immediately after the trade when it looked like the Celtics were getting both the Lakers' and the Kings picks.

Safe to say that Philadelphia probably feels victorious after the rest of the information leaked.

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Every Celtics fan that's had a Markelle Fultz avi for a month pic.twitter.com/uVDCzQ7L0H  Sports Illustrated (@SInow) June 18, 2017

Fultz AVIs

Might be time to dust off your favorite Jayson Tatum photoshop!

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Multiple NBA sources believe Celtics are working on another deal. One told me: "Who cares about the protections? They aren't keeping them."  Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) June 18, 2017

This will only fan the flames

So will the Celtics use the No. 3 pick? Or next year's Lakers pick? Or will they package these assets into a star? That's the big question over the next few days.

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#Celtics now have the assets to land Jimmy Garoppolo  Joe Giza (@JoeGiza) June 18, 2017

Maybe the Celtics want a quarterback?

Maybe Bill Belichick kept coming to Celtics postseason games because he was scouting?

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Trust The Process pic.twitter.com/LLNzDiBWpc  Joel Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) June 17, 2017

Joel Embiid saw it coming

This picture was taken well before the official news broke. The Sixers players were ready to GO.

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Stages of #Celtics trades under Danny Ainge



Anger

Confusion

Acceptance

Finding happiness

Brace for next trade  Andrew Hammond (@ahammTNT) June 16, 2017

This is actually pretty accurate

We'll see how fast Celtics fans advance through the various cycles.

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Another trade is coming...



...someday.



Life as a Celtics fan.  CelticsBlog (@celticsblog) June 18, 2017

These are stressful times

The Celtics could certainly flip some of the assets and turn them into a star, but that requires patience, and patience is difficult to come by around the draft.

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And if it goes horribly wrong looking at picture on the left will be just as painful as one on the right #Celtics #Celticstalk @CelticsCSN pic.twitter.com/crCVxFTnaH  Jim Aberdale (@JimAberdale) June 18, 2017

The Celtics had a chance to get this guy too

Hopefully the picture of Fultz doesn't age quite as painfully as the one of Kobe.

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Sixers get: #1



Celtics get: #3, Saric, Lakers 1st, Kings 1st, Paul George, Gordon Hayward, Anthony Davis



Works in the trade machine  Michael Dyer (@Mike_Dyer13) June 16, 2017

Celtics fans probably would have agreed to this deal

"No protections on the deal even if Anthony Davis gets hurt? I GUESS."

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If #Lakers take Ball, I think the pick comes down to Jackson or Tatum. If the #Lakers pass on Ball, then things get interesting. #Celtics  gary washburn (@GwashburnGlobe) June 18, 2017

The pick is probably Tatum or Jackson ... or Ball?

How would Celtics fans react if they ended up taking Lonzo (and, by proxy, Lavar) Ball?

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the Sixers will either:

-keep the 2018 Lakers pick if it's #1 or after pick #6

OR

-the unprotected 2019 Kings pick.



this is good.  Michael Levin (@Michael_Levin) June 18, 2017

76ers fans are ecstatic

When you look at the package and the prospect they are getting in return, quite frankly, they should be.

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For anyone who thought we've been annoying for the last four years, you might want to stay off the internet for a few years.  Spike Eskin (@SpikeEskin) June 18, 2017

No seriously, they are ECSTATIC

Good luck dealing with the process-era 76ers, and extra good luck dealing with the process-era 76ers' fans.

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After all is said and done, the Sixers will get Markelle Fultz, in exchange for Michael Carter Williams, and a future first.  Jon Johnson (@jonjohnsonwip) June 18, 2017

Some impressive maneuvering

Give credit where credit is due: Sam Hinkie's work put the Sixers in a pretty great situation.

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When in doubt, blame Russia

Really makes you think.

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Fam. The NBA has mastered the offseason news cycle.  David Dennis Jr. (@DavidDTSS) June 18, 2017

At least there's always something to discuss

The Celtics broke Twitter on Saturday. The date was June 17. The NBA Finals concluded less than a week ago, and it feels like years.

This will be a long, eventful offseason.
If you watched the Philadelphia 76ers livestream Markelle Fultz's workout with the team on Periscope and Twitter, you may have noticed him missing a whole bunch of 3-pointers.

If you didn't notice, that's okay. Plenty of other people did.

Markelle Fultz not exactly impressing with his shooting so far  Bob Cooney (@BobCooney76) June 18, 2017

Fultz struggled to hit his 3-point shots consistently in drill. Have to wonder if he's feeling effects of the trip here.  Jessica Camerato (@JessicaCamerato) June 18, 2017

Fultz just went 4-for-18 shooting 3s in around-the-world format.  Tom Moore (@TomMoorePhilly) June 18, 2017

Man, with a workout like that, it's tough to see how the 76ers could ever see their way to drafting him.

The 76ers are (of course) trying like crazy to acquire the No. 1 overall pick, and if they do, they will (of course) take Fultz, who is the consensus top pick for a reason. The Sixers need a point-guard prospect, especially one who can shoot and potentially play off the ball when they have Ben Simmons running the show. Fultz is a perfect fit on both fronts, and a poor shooting performance at the end of a long day of travel and rumors is in no way going to dissuade them from taking him.

Value of today's workout was about 80% medical reports, 18% interview, 1% performance, and 1% miscellaneous. Don't worry about his shooting.  Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) June 18, 2017

Still, if Celtics fans are upset about potentially dealing a chance to draft Fultz and are looking for some straws to grasp, here they are.

It might be worth noting exactly how available the 76ers made Fultz at his workout. The team's Twitter account sent out five tweets announcing his presence, including a photo of Fultz with Simmons, Robert Covington and Joel Embiid. They also live-streamed his workout and made him available to the media afterward.

All of this points to a very done deal, but if it somehow ends up falling through, the Sixers organization is going to look mighty silly.
Three kids from New Hampshire are facing assault charges after police say they attacked, ripped off the mask and yelled racial slurs at Boston's infamous "Keytar Bear" as he played music near Faneuil Hall.

The musician, known to play music and collect tips at popular spots in Boston, was attacked sometime around 4:40 p.m. Saturday, Boston police said.

Officers were called to the area of Congress and State streets for a report of an assault. The "Keytar Bear" was surrounded by a group of young males in what appeared to be a fight.

The males ran when an officer approached in his cruiser with the lights and sirens on. Police said the males tried to escape by climbing up scaffolding.

"The officer was directed by witnesses and bystanders as he pursued the suspects on Water Street toward Devonshire Street, where he ultimately observed three of the suspects climb up the building scaffolding then lay down on a platform in an attempt to hide from police," Boston Police said in a news release. "The officer ordered them from the scaffolding platform, and the suspects complied."

Recognize these people? Shortly after this picture taken, this (drunk) group tackles Keytar, damages amp, takes his money. pic.twitter.com/HOikriI3TS  welcome to dot (@WelcomeToDot) June 17, 2017

The three juvenile males from New Hampshire are accused of attacking the musician and ripping off his mask. They allegedly struck him several times and yelled out racial slurs, police said.

"When witnesses attempted to intervene the suspects, hurled racial epithets at them before fleeing from the police," authorities said.

The musician identified all three of his attackers, police said. The males were charged with assault and battery, affray and disorderly conduct. One of the males was also charged with being a minor in possession of alcohol when a small bottle of vodka was found in his pocket, police said.

The Boston Police Civil Rights Unit continues to investigate.

The "Keytar Bear" was also attacked in 2014. Two people were arrested at that time.
More than 50 vessels sailed into Boston Harbor on Saturday for the city's first Grand Parade of Sail in 17 years. A range of ships hailing from ports near and far berthed in locations across the harbor following a two-hour delay due to heavy fog Saturday morning. Hours after landing in their temporary Boston ports, crews from around the world began welcoming visitors to board their ships.

Long lines fanned along Fish Pier late Saturday afternoon as visitors waited to board the Tall Ships that will stay docked in Boston for the next five days.

At Fish Pier, across from the World Trade Center, ships like the "Picton Castle" from Nova Scotia, "Guayas" from Ecuador and "Oliver Hazard Perry" from Newport, Rhode Island welcomed guests to inspect their polished decks and mysterious interiors down below.

The "Oliver Hazard Perry" is named for the native son of Rhode Island who became a war hero during the War of 1812. Crew experts said the vessel's steel hull was unusual for a Tall Ship, which is typically modeled after boats in the pre-industrial era; the innovative feature helps Perry navigate steadily through rocky waters.

The full-rigged ship set sail just recently in 2016, after eight years of building. Like many of the other vessels that participated in the Tall Ships Festival and 2017 Rendez-Vous Regatta race across the Atlantic, the mission of the Oliver Hazard Perry is to provide education-at-sea programs for youth.

The Tall Ships festival runs until Thursday, June 22. Ships will be open to the public at various times until the festival ends. See the full schedule here.
Apparently it only takes about two months to go from opening a niche restaurant that's an instant viral hit to planning an expansion into a fast-casual chain. Avocaderia, the "world's first" avocado bar, only opened back in April, but ownership already has plans to open another location in Manhattan, with an eye towards turning the avocado-only concept into a replicable one with more than just two locations.

Founder Francesco Brachetti spoke with QSR Magazinean industry publication for restaurantsabout their quick success and how it's motivating him and his business partners to scout out locations outside of their initial Industry City home.

If you can prove your concept here, you can do it anywhere, he says, acknowledging that he hopes Avocaderias first location, which he believes is the worlds first avocado-only cafe, will be the incubator for a fast-casual chain.

There's precedent for his confidence: the restaurant opened with just two employees and has now expanded to a dozen to staff the small cafe, which blows through 650 pounds of avocados per week. "It ran out of avocados on the first day. On Memorial Day weekend, 1,000 hungry customers swarmed the restaurant," QSR reports. "A video went viral and increased business by 80 percent."

[h/t Eater NY]
The Gallatin Valley Farm to School program http://gvfarmtoschool.org/ was selected to receive a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The federal program hands out 65 grants a year to programs around the country aimed at increasing the amount of local food in schools.

Farm to School Executive Director Sam Blomquist found out Monday it had won the grant.

"We are really excited. Its certainly a big accomplishment for us," Blomquist said. "To get a federal grant of that size is a vote of confidence in what you are doing and an investment in Montana."

By Claire Chandler Chronicle Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/education/farm-to-school-receives-grant-looks-to-expand-programs/article_caf9840b-2265-5e0d-af4c-aff74c6716a7.html
They burned through their $20,000 grant. The pitch rounds to show off their nifty, patented solar device were greeted with polite pity. And a lunch with a rival clued them in to just how far off target they were with their business plan.

So where did a couple of young guys  technically on leave from Stanford University in 2013 but dropouts in the eyes of some family members  turn?

A blank white board.

Full Story: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/17/startup-success-for-stanford-students-yields-riches-and-a-return-to-the-dorms/
I hope you're sitting down, because I have shocking news for all of you. MTA data shows that the subway, New York City's bastion of reliability and sanity, is inundated with delays across the system, with only two lines escaping frequent tardiness. I know, shocking.

The latest MTA data that looked at on time performance through March of this year showed something that you might have been suspecting anyway, which is that almost none of the subway lines across the entire system manage to meet the transit agency's standard or 75% on-time service. The only full lines that manage to hit the 75% on-time or above standard are the L train (with 92.2% of trains showing up on time this year) and the G (with 75.8% of trains running on time through the year). In addition to those two full lines, the MTA's three shuttle trains (Times Square, Franklin Av and Rockaway) run on time over 90% of the time.

Other than that though, it's bad news all around. System-wide, only 63.2% of trains are arriving on time through the end of March this year. As for individual bad lines, the 2 take the Bad Gold medal by running on time only 30.6% of the time, the 4 train took the Bad Silver medal by running on time only 32.7% of the time and the 5 train took the Bad Bronze by arriving on time 32.8% of the time.

The F train, which has recently been subject to both fire and a harrowing instance of subway riders caught underground for 40 minutes in a train that lost power, ran 48.6% of the time, and the 7 train managed to just miss the MTA's standards by running on time 73.6% of the time. But hey, Governor Cuomo is running a contest looking for geniuses with ideas to fix the subway, so that should help.
The National Endowment for the Arts has announced nearly $1 million in grant money for Montana arts projects and organizations.

Its the second round of funding announcements for the fiscal year from the agency, which has been marked for elimination in President Donald Trumps budget.

The Montana Arts Council received the largest grant of those announced last week: $779,700, marked for an NEA-approved state strategic plan. The council is a state government agency with a wide range of programs and services, that in one way or another, funds arts activities in every county in the state.

The annual NEA grant is "a large chunk of our current and future funding," said Kristin Han Burgoyne, one of the councils interim co-directors.

CORY WALSH [email protected]

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_8a55e2c9-6344-55e6-9cce-03e6b7fed6f8.html
Most people think of entrepreneurship as being the "productive" kind, as Baumol referred to it, where the companies that founders launch commercialize something new or better, benefiting society and themselves in the process. A sizable body of research establishes that these "Schumpeterian" entrepreneurs, those that are "creatively destroying" the old in favor of the new, are critical for breakthrough innovations and rapid advances in productivity and standards of living.

What about the other kind of entrepreneurship? Do we also see a rise in unproductive entrepreneurship, as Baumol theorized?

Robert E. Litan and Ian Hathaway

Full Story: https://hbr.org/2017/06/is-america-encouraging-the-wrong-kind-of-entrepreneurship?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date&spMailingID=17446524&spUserID=MTM4NDQ0NTA1NTkS1&spJobID=1041023171&spReportId=MTA0MTAyMzE3MQS2
Kids reading and math skills can improve dramatically when teachers and parents work together on the same team.

Two Hyalite School teachers delivered that message recently to the Bozeman School Board, explaining a new approach called "Academic Parent-Teacher Teams."

First-grade teacher Gia LaForge and Deb Persons, an intervention teacher who works with struggling students, said that after trying the parent-partnership idea for two years, theyve seen great results. Theyd like to see the idea spread to more Bozeman classrooms.

By Gail Schontzler Chronicle Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/education/kids-learn-better-when-bozeman-teachers-make-parents-part-of/article_1e0e9607-ace7-59b6-a9d2-b52db9691b0a.html
Montanas incoming congressman called for civility in politics on Friday, four days after his conviction for assaulting a reporter who asked him a question about health care.

Gianforte spoke to The Associated Press at his Bozeman home in his first national interview since winning the May 25 special congressional election.

The Republican technology entrepreneur has largely stayed away from the public eye since assaulting Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs on the eve of the election until he pleaded guilty Monday to the misdemeanor charge.

Gianforte will be sworn in by House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday, and he is keenly aware he will carry with him for a while the distinction of being the congressman who beat up the reporter.

CBS News

Full Story: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/greg-gianforte-calls-for-civil-politics-after-assaulting-journalist/

***

Montana Republican Gianforte goes from wary Trump backer to all-in

Now Gianforte is an ebullient booster of the president.

Montana is true Trump country, Luntz said. Im not surprised this guy would embrace Trump.

by: MATT VOLZ and NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Pres

Full Story: http://www.wpxi.com/news/montana-republican-goes-from-wary-trump-backer-to-allin/524704515

***

GUESS which state has the highest interest in impeaching President Trump. Its Montana. Montana? http://www.matr.net/article-77559.html
(Gianfortes allies included the Karl Childers of the US House of Representatives, Texas Republican Louie Gohmert who said at the time, "we didnt have a course on bodyslamming when I went to school. I missed that course. Im sorry I missed it."

Gianforte, who opposes abortion, sanctuary cities, raising the minimum wage, same-sex marriage and the theory of evolution, was of course, elected. He was sentenced to 40 hours of community service, 20 hours of anger management, 180-day deferred sentence, and a $300 fine along with an $85 court fee. And of course, two years in Congress.

Joe Seldner, Contributor

Full Story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sort-of-crimes-kind-of-punishments_us_594572f4e4b024b7e0df4c99
Good luck and best wishes, Mr. Gianforte. You will need it and so will we. Pat Williams, Missoula



Montana, I am disappointed that we have just elected another rich man to represent us in Congress.



Mr. Greg Gianforte has won the special election for the sole Montana House seat in the U.S. Congress. His 6 percent margin over the Democratic nominee, Rob Quist, earned our congratulations and best wishes.



Full Story: http://www.dailyinterlake.com/article/20170618/ARTICLE/170619887

***

Sort of Crimes, Kind of Punishments http://www.matr.net/article-77569.html

GUESS which state has the highest interest in impeaching President Trump. Its Montana. Montana? http://www.matr.net/article-77559.html
The Helena SCUBA club held a silent auction and diving competition at Canyon Ferry on Saturday to raise money for veterans to work toward a diving certification.

President Dan Redford said the club hopes to raise enough money to train three veterans for job opportunities around the world, including search and rescue jobs or guiding at resorts. Redford said it takes about 100 hours and costs $3,000 to become a dive master. The club is also in the process of working with Veteran Affairs to allow the GI Bill to pay for the cost of SCUBA courses.

Until then, fundraising is a good start to get a few veterans diving, Redford said. The Helena SCUBA club offers open water classes for beginners all the way to the highest rating a diver can get without being classified as a professional.

Divers met at Yacht Basin on Saturday and paid a fee to complete an underwater course navigated with a compass. Yacht Basin waived the regular fee to use the lake access point to support Helena SCUBAs cause, Redford said. The club also hosted courtesy dives on Cemetery Island all day. For safety, Rocky Mountain Search and Recovery was monitoring the event with divers from Ruby Valley and the 1590 dive teams.

Learning how to use a compass underwater prevents disorientation and anxiety when visibility is bad. And Redford said visibility is often poor at Canyon Ferry.

Visibility is pretty poor here, he said. If you can dive here in Montana, you can pretty much dive anywhere.

Redford said almost anyone can dive. Because a person weighs about five pounds in the water, people with injuries and disabilities are often able to learn.

Ive seen someone paralyzed from the waist down and still be able to dive, he said.

While the clubs goal is to provide job opportunities for veterans, Redford said being under water can be therapeutic as well.

For me its very stress relieving, he said. You can get underwater and it all goes away.

In addition to getting veterans interested in diving, the club is also encouraging women to dive. It is hosting a women-only dive on July 15.
A new study brings some good news for all the doodlers out there: researchers have found that making art activates the reward pathway of the brain to produce feelings of pleasure, even in the absence of artistic skill. Share on Pinterest Researchers say that art-making, and especially doodling, boosts activity in the brains reward pathway. Study leader Girija Kaimal, of the College of Nursing and Health Professions at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, and colleagues recently published their findings in The Arts in Psychotherapy. Previous studies have shown that producing art may have significant benefits for psychological well-being. Last year, for example, Medical News Today reported on a study that found that just 45 minutes of drawing or other types of art creation can help to reduce stress. Such findings have helped fuel an increase in art creation among adults; who could forget the adult coloring book trend that took hold in 2015? But what other factors make art creation so appealing? The new study from Kaimal and team suggests that it may be down to how it affects brain activity.

Art-making boosts blood flow in the prefrontal cortex The research involved 26 healthy adults aged between 18 and 70 years, eight of whom were artists. For the study, all subjects were required to engage in three different art-making tasks  coloring, doodling, or free drawing  lasting 3 minutes each, with a rest period in between. During each task, participants had their brain activity monitored using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, which is an imaging technique that measures the blood flow in certain brain regions. The researchers found that all three art-making tasks led to an increase in blood flow in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, but during rest periods, blood flow in this brain region returned to normal. The prefrontal cortex forms a part of the brains reward pathway, and it also plays a role in the regulation of emotions. According to the researchers, increased blood flow in the prefrontal cortex during art-making indicates that the activity likely triggers feelings of pleasure and reward. The researchers found that doodling led to the greatest blood flow increase in the prefrontal cortex, followed by free-drawing, then coloring. However, the team says that the differing effects of each activity were not statistically significant. There were some emergent differences but we did not have a large enough sample in this initial study to draw any definitive conclusions, says Kaimal.
Many women in the United States are unhappy with how their body looks. But new research suggests that a single bout of physical exercise can make us feel stronger, thinner, and happier overall with our bodies.

Share on Pinterest A new study explores the impact of a single 30-minute exercise session on body image.

A Gender and Body Image study from 2013 reports that only 11 percent of adult U.S. women over the age of 45 are satisfied with the appearance of their body. Body image dissatisfaction is a major risk factor for eating disorders and other types of unhealthy behavior.

Body image dissatisfaction is thought to mainly affect women, but some studies have shown that normative discontent  that is, the idea that people are not happy with how their bodies look as a result of societal beauty norms  affects both men and women to a comparable extent.

A new study carried out by researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Okanagan, Canada, looks into the potential of physical activity to improve body image.

Specifically, Kathleen Martin Ginis, a professor in UBC Okanagans School of Health and Exercise Sciences, together with her graduate student Lauren Salci, set out to investigate the effect of a single 30-minute bout of exercise on womens bodily self-perception.

The findings were published in the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise.

Women, in general, have a tendency to feel negatively about their bodies, says Prof. Ginis. This is a concern because poor body image can have harmful implications for a womans psychological and physical health including increased risk for low self-esteem, depression, and for eating disorders.
Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a rare blood disorder affecting the normal production of hemoglobin. Two copies of the SCD mutation gene HbS result in sickle cell (SS) disease. The disease leads to production of abnormal hemoglobin in the shape of a sickle. This also leads to ' sickling ' or sticking together of cells blocking the flow of blood in blood vessels. This condition is extremely painful and can be fatal if adequate treatment is not given on time.

World Sickle Cell Day aims at raising awareness about the worlds most common genetic blood disorder.

World Sickle Cell Day 2017



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World Sickle Cell Day 2017 is being celebrated across the globe in partnership with patient organizations, advocacy cells, hospitals, health care providers and well-wishers. This day is particularly significant as it aims to make the public aware of the public health concern of a rapidly increasing genetic blood disorder. It is essential that the governments of all nations take note of this concern, and put in place programs to enable timely diagnostics, treatment, prevention and control.



Concerns in SCD also involve the availability and access to safe and tested blood. Blood-borne viruses like HIV, HBV and HCV are a real threat to patients with SCD and it is imperative for all patients to access quality blood. In many countries, even access to basic transfusion facilities is not available, and this needs to be addressed by respective governments. Other facilities including genetic counseling, availability of drugs and other therapeutic procedures, lab tests and psycho-social support are essential for a person with SCD to thrive in life.



World Sickle Cell Day is a proactive platform for patients and families to express their concerns to the government and policy makers. It also raises awareness among the public who may be encouraged to go in for carrier screening to avoid further incidences of SCD. Fund-raisers, walkathons, street plays and other events are usually held to create a public campaign for SCD.



Future Hopes



While gene therapy holds out positive hopes for the future, until it actually arrives it is important for patients to comply with current treatment and stay healthy. Gene therapy is a final curative and can drastically alter the quality of lives of patients, eliminating the need for blood transfusions and other therapies. Clinical trials across various phases are still on, in North America and Europe, with initial results indicating great promise. It may be another 5-8 years before the treatment reaches people. Till then, it is essential for patients to stay positive and optimistic and take care of their health to qualify for gene therapy treatment.



References : 3rd World Sickle Cell Day - (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/all-events/?tx_browser_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=4087) World Sickle Cell Day 2017 - (http://www.moh.gov.sa/en/HealthAwareness/healthDay/2015/Pages/HealthDay-2015-06-19.aspx) Sickle cell disease - (https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/sickle-cell-disease) Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia - (http://sicklecellga.org/worldday/) World Sickle Cell Day 2017 - (http://www.conqueringthecurve.org/events/worldsicklecellday2017) Support Group Meeting - (http://www.cscfkids.org/) Did Gene Therapy Cure Sickle Cell Disease? - (http://www.acsh.org/news/2017/03/07/did-gene-therapy-cure-sickle-cell-disease-10950) Sickle Cell Anemia Is On The Rise Worldwide - (http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/07/17/202628070/sickle-cell-anemia-is-on-the-rise-worldwide) Hoban, Megan D., Stuart H. Orkin, and Daniel E. Bauer. "Genetic treatment of a molecular disorder: gene therapy approaches to sickle cell disease." Blood (2016): blood-2015.



Source: Medindia The major health organizations globally, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN), have recognized the need to tackle SCD on a war footing. It is essential to put in place robust prevention and control programs including counseling, antenatal testing and prenatal screening to prevent further live births.World Sickle Cell Day 2017 is being celebrated across the globe in partnership with patient organizations, advocacy cells, hospitals, health care providers and well-wishers. This day is particularly significant as it aims to make the public aware of the public health concern of a rapidly increasing genetic blood disorder. It is essential that the governments of all nations take note of this concern, and put in place programs to enable timely diagnostics, treatment, prevention and control.Concerns in SCD also involve the availability and access to safe and tested blood. Blood-borne viruses like HIV, HBV and HCV are a real threat to patients with SCD and it is imperative for all patients to access quality blood. In many countries, even access to basic transfusion facilities is not available, and this needs to be addressed by respective governments. Other facilities including genetic counseling, availability of drugs and other therapeutic procedures, lab tests and psycho-social support are essential for a person with SCD to thrive in life.World Sickle Cell Day is a proactive platform for patients and families to express their concerns to the government and policy makers. It also raises awareness among the public who may be encouraged to go in for carrier screening to avoid further incidences of SCD. Fund-raisers, walkathons, street plays and other events are usually held to create a public campaign for SCD.While gene therapy holds out positive hopes for the future, until it actually arrives it is important for patients to comply with current treatment and stay healthy. Gene therapy is a final curative and can drastically alter the quality of lives of patients, eliminating the need for blood transfusions and other therapies. Clinical trials across various phases are still on, in North America and Europe, with initial results indicating great promise. It may be another 5-8 years before the treatment reaches people. Till then, it is essential for patients to stay positive and optimistic and take care of their health to qualify for gene therapy treatment.Source: Medindia

Citations Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report: APA Dr. Namitha Kumar. (2017, June 18). World Sickle Cell Day 2017 . Medindia. Retrieved on Nov 11, 2022 from https://www.medindia.net/news/healthwatch/world-sickle-cell-day-2017-170957-1.htm.

MLA Dr. Namitha Kumar. "World Sickle Cell Day 2017". Medindia. Nov 11, 2022. <https://www.medindia.net/news/healthwatch/world-sickle-cell-day-2017-170957-1.htm>.

Chicago Dr. Namitha Kumar. "World Sickle Cell Day 2017". Medindia. https://www.medindia.net/news/healthwatch/world-sickle-cell-day-2017-170957-1.htm. (accessed Nov 11, 2022).

Harvard Dr. Namitha Kumar. 2021. World Sickle Cell Day 2017. Medindia, viewed Nov 11, 2022, https://www.medindia.net/news/healthwatch/world-sickle-cell-day-2017-170957-1.htm.

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Currently, the only treatment available for SCD is regular blood transfusions, hydroxy urea tablets and anti-coagulant therapies. The only known cure is bone marrow transplant with a 6/6 HLA match. Gene therapy clinical trials have been very successful so far for SCD with one patient being completely cured (case study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 2017). Gene therapy involves the replacement of the faulty gene with the normal globin gene producing normal hemoglobin.World Sickle Cell Awareness Day is marked on 19June each year. In 2008, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution to consider sickle cell disease (SCD) as a serious public health concern. SCD is one of the most prevalent genetic disorders across the globe. It is mostly concentrated in the four continents of Africa, Asia, North and South America. It is also present in Southern Europe in Italy and Greece. Apathy and lack of prevention and control programs have led to a serious rise in prevalence and incidence of SCD. According to the journal PLOS Medicine, around 30% of the globe will be affected by SCD with the highest numbers in Sub-Saharan Africa and India.
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At the point of renal failure, patients are usually left with only extreme and invasive treatment options, such as dialysis or transplantation."MCKD1 is caused by a single mutation in MUC1 gene discovered in 2013," he continued.The mutation is located in a region of the gene that includes GC-rich variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR). This, explains Kaimori, makes it very difficult to analyze."The standard technique to analyze is next-generation sequencing. VNTR have a tertiary structure that makes it very difficult to analyze by next-generation sequencing. Even finding the mutation took immense time and effort," he said.In his latest research study, Kaimori and his colleagues used whole-exome sequencing to analyze the gene and found a second mutation outside the VNTR."The mutation was a deletion of just two base pairs, but that was enough to change the protein structure."The original MUC1 mutation was found by a collaboration of scientists from U.S. and European institutes. When asked why his group found the mutation but the international collaboration did not, Kaimori frankly replied, "It was an unexpected discovery."Unlike the first mutation, the location of the new mutation allowed the scientists to study the effects of the mutated protein further. Experiments suggested that the mutation disrupts the function of MUC1 and changes its location inside cells. This last observation excited Kaimori, because it suggested a potential biomarker to diagnose patients before renal failure."We found patients had high levels of mutant MUC1 in urinary exosomes, but healthy people had normal MUC1 in urinary exosomes. These results suggest we can use urinary exosomes for non-genetic testing to evaluate the risk of MCKD1".Source: Eurekalert
TOWNSEND  The Missouri River, high and muddy, rolls just outside of John Stoners home near town as he talks about history.

This isnt just any history but that of his home for these past 32 years that interests him and enough so that hes been a member of the board for the local museum for nearly half of those years.

The museum belongs to the Broadwater County Historical Society as do its contents that come from local families and relatives. Museum officials estimate their collection of artifacts at 10,000. This years exhibits include one of Radersburg, Stoner said, that is celebrating its 150th year.

Stoner, 86, and other of the museums board members are there to help, and this includes lending a hand with displays and other duties as needed. Building repairs are contracted out and the countys maintenance staff handles the minor work, he said.

The museum is open from mid-May to mid-September, closed July 4, and sees visitors from across the nation and others who are visiting the United States. Some seek out small museums. Others hear about them from visitors who stopped in. Still others find them by chance.

People in Townsend appreciate that local history is available at the museum although others, like any place, Stoner noted, have never stopped in.

I think that they would all agree, most of them will agree certainly, that its definitely a benefit.

The museum is just not a storage house for a bunch of stuff, Stoner said. Its more than that. Weve got a lot of neat stuff to look at but really our big focus is on our research end of it.

A vast amount of information helps families with research, he said and explained that the museum encourages people to bring in old family photos for either copying or donation of the originals.

Those photographs where people and events are identified are truly cherished by the museum, Stoner added.

When the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through here in 1805, William Clark was on the west side of the Missouri River. Stoner said he likes to imagine that Clark walked through the area where his house now stands.

The 16-foot dugout canoe in the museum, a half scale of those used by the famed explorers, is the product of a winters labor by him and another man who worked on it with historic tools as time allowed.

Stoner is originally from San Diego but came to appreciate Montana from his summer visits to his grandparents ranch, Grandview, to see his grandmother. His grandparents homesteaded in Toole County in about 1910. Montana became his home in 1956.

Stoner moved to Broadwater County from Lothair on the Hi-Line, west of Chester, to take a job as a deputy sheriff after having been a Liberty County deputy sheriff for about 10 years. He also farmed there. His wife at that time, Barbara, who is deceased, ran the post office at Toston after having handled that duty in Lothair.

After a year as a Broadwater County deputy, he worked at a sawmill before joining the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks where he worked at Canyon Ferry for the parks department, he said. He retired in 1994.

I just always have been interested in history wherever I lived, he said. Ive been a collector of artifacts.

An old wooden prop from a biplane adorns a living room wall in his home, and a couple of old pots sit on a shelf. Rocks that hes collected over the years, including marble from a local quarry, decorate a table.

He has also been collecting facts about local events that might otherwise go unnoticed and assembling them into narratives of the past.

I just got interested in all kinds of things, he said.

Few might ever recall of plans for a railroad to Radersburg that never materialized and the 13-mile long flume that brought water to the placer mining districts of Indian Creek, were it not for his manuscripts.

I want to record the history so people in the future can understand what was here, how it developed, Stoner said of the roughly two dozen manuscripts hes assembled from newspapers published in the county over the years and census data.

Its just collecting history that a lot of people dont know.

A fun thing to do, he calls it.

Its just my desire to leave as much recorded history, in either in actual artifacts or written history for people in the future, to pick up and have to enjoy and to learn what it was like.

It doesnt have to be something thats 12,000 years old like some of our Indian artifacts  the time doesnt have to be all that important. Its just to record what has happened. Hopefully somewhere along the line someone will be interested enough to check out one of my manuscripts and be able to do something.
MISSOULA  The National Endowment for the Arts has announced nearly $1 million in grant money for Montana arts projects and organizations.

It's the second round of funding announcements for the fiscal year from the agency, which has been marked for elimination in President Donald Trump's budget.

Montana Arts Council

The Helena-based Montana Arts Council received the largest grant of those announced last week: $779,700, marked for an NEA-approved state strategic plan. The council is a state government agency with a wide range of programs and services, that in one way or another, funds arts activities in every county in the state.

The annual NEA grant is "a large chunk of our current and future funding," said Kristin Han Burgoyne, one of the council's interim co-directors.

Eliminating the endowments would have "a significantly higher impact on a rural state like Montana than it would on a state that has a more urban population center," she said.

Big Sky Film Institute

In Missoula, $20,000 will go to the Big Sky Film Institute for its annual DocShop conference, held during the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

At DocShop, upcoming filmmakers can attend workshops and panels with visiting professionals and pitch projects. At February's conference, local filmmakers successfully earned $20,000 from Tribeca Film Institute in New York for a project on refugees' new lives here in Missoula.

Missoula Writing Collaborative

The Missoula Writing Collaborative will receive $25,000 for "Main Streets to the Mountains: Mapping Missoula in Poetry." The project combines poetry and art by local children, digital interactive elements and a public art display.

Missoula Children's Theatre

MCT Inc. will get $30,000 to bring its Missoula Children's Theatre productions to small, arts-deprived communities and U.S. military bases, where local kids will spend a week staging and starring in a play.

Some grants are statewide with results that will be seen or felt in the Missoula area.

Shakespeare in the Parks

Montana State University, on behalf of Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, received $25,000 for the annual summer tour. This year, a troupe will bring the Bard's "Macbeth" and George Bernard Shaw's "You Never Can Tell" to communities around the state and region for free performances, many outdoors. (Here in Missoula, that means the popular staging on the Oval at the University of Montana in September.)

Other recipients

The state Office of Public Instruction got $30,000 for a project with the arts council to help teachers "integrate arts into the curriculum" at a summer institute, and networking. Candidates can apply through an open process, and organizers will reach out to rural, geographically isolated schools and schools with a majority American Indian population on the Flathead Reservation.

The 2017 Montana Folk Festival in Butte received $30,000 to fund its 10th gathering, which will bring music from around the world to Montana on July 7-9. The free event draws thousands of people each year.

The Art Mobile of Montana will get $20,000 for its traveling exhibition of contemporary artwork by Montanans. The bus, and accompanying artist presentations, travels around the state and to the reservations.

Last, an arts group in Bozeman called Haven is marked for $10,000 to produce a theater performance based on real stories of victims of domestic violence.

Trump's proposed 2018 budget

Trump's proposed 2018 budget aims to eliminate many federal agencies, including the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The budget includes funds for the "orderly closeout" of the agencies, beginning at the start of fiscal year 2018, which begins this October.

The NEA has noted on its website that the request is "a first step in a very long budget process" and the agency continues to accept grant applications for the coming fiscal year and will "continue to operate as usual until a new budget is enacted by Congress."

Previous efforts to shutter the NEA and the NEH were not successful, in part because of backlash from constituents over the loss of programs, which are more noticeable in rural states where privately funded arts aren't as common.
A U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down a Syrian Su-22 on Sunday after the Soviet-era fighter-bomber dropped munitions near U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces fighters, U.S. Central Command officials confirmed.

The strike was believed to be the U.S. military's first air-to-air kill involving manned aircraft in nearly two decades. The last known such instance was when a U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon shot down a Serbian MiG-29 in 1999 during the Kosovo campaign.

"A Syrian regime SU-22 dropped bombs near SDF fighters south of Tabqah and, in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of Coalition partnered forces, was immediately shot down by a U.S. F/A-18E Super Hornet," the command said in a release.

The attack comes after pro-Syrian forces attacked SDF fighters in Ja'Din, wounding a number of SDF fighters, officials said. The town is south of Tabqah and a known area where U.S. works with Russia to deconflict the airspace.

Related content:

"Coalition aircraft conducted a show of force and stopped the initial pro-regime advance toward the SDF-controlled town," the release said.

Following the advance on the SDF, the coalition alerted Russian counterparts to de-escalate the situation. However the forces -- backed by President Bashar al-Assad -- did not appear to back down, with the Su-22 entering the area, CentCom said.

"The coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime, Russian, or pro-regime forces partnered with them, but will not hesitate to defend coalition or partner forces from any threat," the command said.

While Central Command said its mission is to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the strike against the pro-Syrian regime forces marks the fourth strike in recent weeks by the coalition.

Drone Shootdown

Most recently, a U.S. F-15E on June 8 shot down an unidentified drone deemed hostile toward coalition forces in At Tanf.

The drone, similar in size to a U.S. MQ-1 Predator, was suspected to be "pro-regime" and was struck down after it was observed dropping a munition near coalition personnel training partner forces in the fight against the Islamic State, according to Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Army Col. Ryan Dillon.

The drone strike marked the first time that forces supporting the Syrian government have attacked inside a so-called "deconfliction" zone near At Tanf, close to the Jordanian border, Dillon said.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said the pro-Syrian forces are backed by Iran, and have been knowingly operating "inside an established and agreed-upon deconfliction zone." They are believed to be a threat to coalition forces in the region, he has said.

The deconfliction zone is an area in which U.S. and Russian forces have agreed not to operate. The zone previously applied to airspace but now includes ground territory, a defense official told Military.com last month.

First Kill

The last air-to-air kill for the F/A-18 was during the Gulf War when two F/A-18s shot down two Iraqi MiG-21s during a brief dogfight. The kill over Syria, however, is believed to be the first air-to-air kill for the E model.

The F/A-18s are flying the most combat missions in Operation Inherent Resolve, the Pentagon's name for operations against the Islamic State, according to recent statistics provided to Military.com.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Su-22 -- a variant of the Sukhoi 17 and Su-20 and heavily used throughout the Arab-Israeli conflicts and the 1982 Lebanon War -- have been involved in the Assad's Syrian war since roughly mid-2012.

The Su-22s were believed to be the aircraft behind the nerve agent attack in April against the town of Khan Sheikhoun in northwestern Syria's Idlib governorate.

Days later, President Donald Trump ordered two Navy destroyers to launch more than 50 Tomahawk missiles on Al Shayrat base north of Damascus, where the SU-22s launched from.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
Story by Jessica Haynes | jhaynes1@mlive.com

It was the first year for Tech Talk, a TED-styled event organized by Ann Arbor SPARK, featuring presentations and question-and-answer sessions with some of Ann Arbors top business executive and entrepreneurs. The event is part of Tech Trek, where 80 technology companies open their doors to curious visitors throughout downtown Ann Arbor.

Tech Talk topics ranged from innovation, artificial intelligence, neurology and pie. Yes, you read that right, pie. See what speakers had to say during the inaugural event held at the Michigan Theater, 603 E. Liberty.

Don't Edit

Hunter Dyke | hdyke@mlive.com

"The only way you can study the brain is to dedicate your life to do that."

Greg Gage, cofounder and chief executive officer of Backyard Brains, led a demonstration on stage with an educational tool that helps children understand how the brain works. Two volunteers showed how simple tools that can move hands, create music and allow users to hear what is happening inside the body.

Gage is a neuroscientist and a senior fellow at TED, the organization that has made a name with insightful and thought-provoking presentations that connect experts with a broad audience.

Don't Edit

Hunter Dyke | hdyke@mlive.com

"Robots are going to change the world. We have to think about what the human pressures are for the direction of that change."

As a technical service engineer at Universal Robots, Daniel Moore is familiar with the positives and negatives of robots being part of the workforce. His company, headquartered in Denmark, is working to make robots an accessible technology that can help build businesses.

Moore responded to a question about growing concerns over artificial intelligence from the audience, saying technology can oppress or lift people up depending on who is creating and controlling it.

We have to the change the human character and then use technology to help people, Moore said. Unless you fix the human side of the equation, the tech doesnt matter.

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"The first thing that goes out the window when a child is hospitalized is play."

SpellBound is an augmented reality company founded by Christina York, who also serves as its chief executive officer. The company works with hospitals and teachers to create therapy-like experiences for children.

The mobile app and publishing platform can help occupy young patients during lengthy surgeries or appointments and provide distraction during painful procedures. Children need a creative and imaginative play outlet when they are stuck inside a hospital room or bed, York said.

Augmented reality imbues the real world with qualities it otherwise wouldnt have, York said. Its like having superpowers.

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"We believe that conflict is important; we actually encourage productive conflict. We have conflict because we have humans."

James Goebel, founding partner of Menlo Innovations, discussed how the custom software building company went from a start-up to scaling up in the community of Ann Arbor. He told the audience that in a small business, "everyone helps everybody."

Menlo is an experiment that takes that idea of starting a small entrepreneurial company and scaling it while keeping it around the dining room table, Goebel said. Its very much about building a community where people are worried about each other.

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"I'm not here to talk to you about Barracuda today. What I do want to talk about is how we make priorities as easy as pie."

Alon Yaffe, vice president of product management and data protection at Barracuda Networks, took a humorous approach to his Tech Talk. He has more than 20 years of experience in software development, something a data protection company like Barracuda finds valuable in combatting cyber threats.

He talked with the audience about how to understand and evaluate priorities. Make that pie-orities-Yaffe used a scale of visually questionable, sometimes tasty pies as comparison.

The problem I found during the years is sometimes its hard to decide what exactly gets what priority, Yaffe said. We have to make decisions about whats more important than what.

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"We're the folks guarding the global internet. We make sure banks and gaming sites and retails and government are online. And we do that from right down the street."

Lon Lowen, senior director of engineering operations at Arbor Networks, is responsible for divisions of the company involving beta programs, security assessments and sustainment engineering.

During his presentation, Lowen said cyber security is a growing problem that people are just now becoming aware of.

It is surprising how much is going on behind the scenes that most people dont know about, Lowen said.

He also told the audience the best thing they can do at home to protect their identities and technology is to change your default passwords and learn about internet cameras.

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"If you're on the internet and you can send an email, you can break into any organization out there."

Jon Oberheide, co-founder and chief technical officer of Duo Security, works with customers like Facebook, Etsy and Kayak to protect online information online using cloud-based security. Their mission is to solve what Oberheide called the largest problems on a geopolitical scale: cyber security.

It seems every company in the modern day is subject to an attack or a data breach, Oberheide said. In reality, these are really simple attacks.

He gave credit to a Midwest work ethic for why Ann Arbor has been successful with new venture longevity, and said it was a blue collar start-up versus Silicon Valley model.

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"What do you want to be when you grow up? I implore you to take the time to write that down, five years, ten years, as far out as you can. It's important to write it down, not just think about it."

That question was asked by Chris Schneider, senior vice president of engineering at LLamasoft, during Tech Talk as part of his presentation on figuring out company values and hiring the right people. LLamasoft is expanding, and looking to add 100 more people in 2017.

LLamasoft looks for people who talk about their passions during an interview, who can display how they work with others and what makes them tick, Schneider said. It also helps to have good communications skills.

It would be criminal for us as we add this many jobs over the years, if people leave because they feel they didnt have an opportunity with LLamasoft, Schneider said.

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"We're a growing company and we got a great product but there's so much more we want to do."

A software engineer and designer, Andrew Sardone is also vice president of engineering at Nutshell where he builds new products aimed at customer relationship management. It's a problem he said that grows once people start working on a team.

We really help them on the small details on all of their contacts, Sardone said. We do all this with a keen focus on design. We focus on making sure the software is powerful without making things too cumbersome.

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"If you're going to make this transition into tech, it can be a little bit daunting so forgive yourself as you're going through this process."

That's the advice of Emily Drier, the local chapter leader for Girl Develop It. The organization provides affordable programs for adult women who are interested in learning web and software development, according to its website.

Not every path into technology is a traditional one, Drier told the audience. One of the biggest challenges for women in tech is what Drier calls the imposter syndrome.

Youre always going to feel like you arent the smartest person in the room, said Drier, adding that feeling is usually not true and should not get in the way of networking and making business connections.

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Ann Arbor's first TechTalk at #a2techtrek was well attended. Here is a page from my notes: pic.twitter.com/LISsUQJ4wl  Mike Bell (@MikeBellCre8) June 16, 2017

More than 700 people attended Tech Talk from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, June 16 before heading out around town for Tech Trek. Participants tried out virtual reality software, played foosball with software engineers and witnessed drone demonstrations during the four-hour event.

Ann Arbor SPARK's Tech Trek 2017 has a new twist

Ann Arbor's LLamasoft lands major investment, hiring 100 people in 2017

Ann Arbor chef leaves Zingerman's to start new bistro-style restaurant
ANN ARBOR, MI - The Washtenaw Intermediate School District has hired Manchester Community Schools Superintendent Cherie Vannatter as an assistant superintendent.

On Tuesday, June 13, the WISD board of education approved a new assistant superintendent of achievement and systems position, which will be filled by Naomi Norman, who is currently an assistant superintendent for the WISD.

Vannatter will fill Norman's current position as assistant superintendent of achievement and students services, and that role now will encompass special education and early childhood development. Vannatter will begin that position on July 17, overseeing a staff of more than 240.

"Cherie brings many qualifications to the position," said WISD Superintendent Scott Menzel, in a press release. "She has a solid background in special education and early childhood education, she has worked on several countywide initiatives that impact special education, and she has a great rapport with the local superintendents and special education directors."

The new assistant superintendent position was created due to increasing responsibilities Norman has taken on, especially since the WISD did not fill the open executive director for instructional services position, according to information provided to the school board.

Norman's base salary will remain the same, said WISD communications specialist Emma Jackson, which was $124,088 in the 2015-16 school year. Vannatter was hired at a base salary of $135,077, Jackson said. The WISD also employs an assistant superintendent of administrative and support services, and that position had a base salary of $124,933 in 2015-16.

Vannatter has an extensive background in special education. She has worked as a teacher, teacher consultant and director of special education in Saline Area Schools. Before being named superintendent of Manchester Community Schools in 2011, she also served the district as an elementary school principal.

She has a bachelor's degree in special education from the University of Michigan, a master's in early childhood education from Eastern Michigan University and a special education supervisor certification from Grand Valley State University.

"I have enjoyed working with the staff, students and families in Manchester," Vannatter said in a press release. "This close-knit community embraced and trusted me with the education of their children, and I will cherish the experience. I look forward to bringing voice and influence on the county and state level for the benefit of all students in Washtenaw County."

Manchester Schools board of education president Chris Fegan could not be reached for comment on a timeline for the district's superintendent search.
FLAT ROCK, MI - The man behind the Detroit Gambler 500, the Detroit Mower Gang and extreme pumpkin carving is planning to start another new oddball tradition that's sure to turn heads.

The "Detroit Gambler Float - You Can't Poop or Litter In The River" event has more than 200 people showing interest on Facebook.

Organizer Tom Nardone is urging participants to show up on Saturday, July 29 at an undisclosed launch location on the Detroit River with "stuff" to float on.

In fact, the weirder the "stuff" the better, he writes.

"Whatever you want actually," he said. "I don't exactly know what I'm doing yet, but here's what I got."

It'll be a free event starting in Flat Rock and aims to tap the theme and spirit of the Detroit Gambler 500 - which gathered eccentric clunker car owners for a wild cruise across the state last month - and take it to the water.

Nardone is a Detroit-area entrepreneur who owns PriveCo, which sells sex toys and other forms of "the world's most embarrassing products."

His company Priveco once offered all federal employees free sex toys while they were on furlough in 2013.

A similar, but probably less oddity-focused Michigan float event takes place every year in the Port Huron area on St. Clair River.

The Port Huron Float Down regularly raises the ire of shipowners who complain they lose thousands of dollars because floaters in the loosely organized event get in their way.

Last year, strong winds sent around 1,500 people on inflatable rafts and boats across the St. Clair River's international border, into Canadian waters. Canadian authorities had to help bring them back to Michigan from Sarnia, Ontario.

This year's Port Huron Float Down is scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 20.

Nardone has a short list of rules for his event, Canadians and angry ship captains notwithstanding. A significant item - No. 1 on the list - is "don't be a d---."

Rule No. 9 is the most important, though.

"My new friend the (Department of Natural Resources) officer says, 'you can pee in the river, but you can't get out of the river and expose yourself to pee,'" Nardone said on Facebook.

"'You also can't poop or litter in the river.' I said 'Cool, I think we can handle that.'"

It's still early, but 36 Facebook users said they were down to float. Another 217 saying they were interested in the prospect of floating on weird stuff down the Detroit River.

One user on the discussion page said:

"Since you can't (expletive) in the river, I want to make a big floating turd. Who's with me? I have mad welding skills."
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - So, the speed limit has gone up to 75 mph on some expressways.

What's that mean, 85 mph's OK? 90?

State police Lt. Rob Davis takes a look at the change in this week's Ask a Trooper. He also takes a follow-up question to last week's column on vehicle window tinting.

Have a traffic question? Email Lt. Davis and the troopers at the Lakeview and Rockford posts at MSP-AskTpr@michigan.gov

Here's Lt. Rob Davis: Hello again. I hope everyone is successfully enduring the heat wave, the one benefit for me is a burned up lawn:)

Here is a good comment from John reference last week's article on window tinting:

John: I am concerned about all the cars I am seeing with darkly tinted front windows. I see this as a big safety issue. When I'm driving, pulling out in traffic, passing, turning, advancing at a 4-way stop, etc I find that being able to discern that the other driver has seen and acknowledged me and is paying attention makes for increased safety for all drivers. With tinted front windows it is impossible to make eye contact with another driver. I think the law against tinted windows should be strictly enforced for everyone's good.

Lt. Davis: I think John's right on this, there is a lot of non-verbal communication that goes on between drivers that we don't think about until that communication is blocked.

Speed Limit

Lt. Davis: So the speed limit on some designated stretches of expressway in Michigan is now up to 75. This change has prompted numerous comments including this one from Jim.

Jim: Honestly, I wonder why they bother putting them up anywhere. I often feel I'm more of a hazard if I'm doing the speed limit, especially in a 60-mph construction zone. I'd rather the posted speed limit be the actual limit instead of having to guess what's allowed for any particular section where I don't often drive. Is it something like 5 over allowed except when there's a dead deer nearby, in which case 10 over is fine? All kidding aside, is a posted speed limit a legal limit or a suggested limit?

Lt. Davis: This speeding issue continues to be my leading complaint from readers, here's a comment from Robert that I received just a couple of days ago:

Robert: It seems an ever-increasing number of cars fly by me on the freeway going 90+ mph. Why aren't speeding laws enforced more rigidly? I would think the potential revenue from speeding tickets could pay for the salaries of a lot of traffic police.

Lt. Davis: If you can relate to Jim and Robert, then you're probably wondering what the point was to raising the speed limit. Well, I guess it's a benefit to those of us who try to obey the limit; it gives us another 5 mph. It would also seeming benefit those that were already driving 75, as long as they keep it there now.

Jim and Robert would probably counter that the new law just gives speeders an excuse to increase their already excessive speed. This argument goes directly to Jim's comments about what is allowed.

The posted speed limit is the actual limit, there is no amount over that is allowed.

Jim and Robert's perception then is based on what they see as a lack of enforcement. They are right to the extent that we don't have a police officer for every speeding driver.

Therefore the resources we do have are targeted at the most flagrant violators. The important thing to keep in mind is that the definition (flagrant violators) changes based on road conditions, time of day, traffic volume, etc.

One day it might be 5 over and the next 15 over. I've stopped and ticketed many people who truly believed they were going with the flow of traffic at 5 or 10 over. The speed limits are not based on the "flow of traffic" and you therefore risk a ticket at any speed above what is posed.

One final thing to keep in mind as it relates to enforcement, is that one person's perspective as they travel a stretch of road isn't always in line with the facts. I drove back and forth from Grand Rapids to Lansing over the Memorial Day Holiday weekend and didn't see one police officer.

But I know they were out there because our department alone made 25,000 traffic stops, wrote 9,500 tickets, arrested 206 drunk drivers, and took into custody 1,000 fugitives during that same time period.

I realize it's satisfying when you're actually able to witness that speeder get a ticket, but just because you don't see us, doesn't mean we're not out there.

Thanks and have a safe 4th of July!
WYOMING, MI -- After an hours-long standoff at a small Wyoming recording studio Saturday, police took four people into custody for questioning after a shooting that injured a 27-year-old man.

The 27-year-old stumbled into the Walgreens store at 44th Street and Division Avenue about 12:30 p.m. Saturday, June 17 with a gunshot wound to his abdomen.

Police quickly learned the shooting may have happened at a nearby business, described as a recording studio, at Farnham Street and Division Avenue.

Officers in tactical gear surrounded the building and one person quickly came out. Later, after hours of police using a loudspeaker to order others out, two other men and a woman came out of the building.

The standoff started about 12:30 p.m. and ended at approximately 5:30 p.m.

Wyoming police Lt. Mark Easterly said none of the four have been named suspects in the shooting. He did not know if a weapon was recovered.

Police shut down Division Avenue south of 44th Street for hours Saturday during the standoff. Police brought in military style vehicles and eventually used a robot to enter the building before officers went inside.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A couple hundred people from all walks of life chanted, marched and cheered on June 17 during the Pre-Pride Rally Saturday morning to cap off the last day of the Grand Rapids Pride Festival.

"I come from a very small town so for me it's nice to be in a space like this where I can celebrate with my brothers and sisters of the community," said Travis Hodder.

This is his second year attending the Grand Rapids Pride celebration, he said.

The rally, titled Hand-in-Hand, was led by David Watt, founder of Mr. Friendly, an organization that works to reduce stigma of HIV, encourage testing and improve quality of life for those living with HIV.

Watt brought the crowd together in chanting empowering phrases like "hand-in-hand, together we stand."

The group met in Ah-Nab-Awen Park to embark on a short march downtown to booths set up at Calder Plaza, located at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW. Live music will be performed Saturday until midnight for an $8 entrance fee.

Proceeds raised during the event go toward youth programming at the Grand Rapids Pride Center, said Larry DeShane, operations manager at the center.

"This is about celebrating our community and how far we've come, even though there is still a long way to go," DeShane said. "This week has been a celebration, but the community center exists all year long, and has been open for 29 years."

Besides offering a celebration for LGBTQ individuals to come together, informational booths at the Calder Plaza on Saturday also provided attendees with resources and ways to get involved in the community.

For rainbow lipstick-wearing Yiset Boza, this was exactly what she was looking for. The Cuban native has been in Grand Rapids for three months, and is eager to get involved and volunteer for an LGBTQ organization, she said.

"I'm bisexual, so this is a good event for me, and I've attended similar events in my country too," Boza said. "This is my first Pride here in Grand Rapids. I want to find a way to work with these people."
DECATUR -- Funeral services for Clara Louise Clark, a longtime resident of Decatur, will be held at Macon County Memorial Park, Harristown, Illinois, at 2 P. M. on June 24, 2017. Clara passed away in Clovis, New Mexico, on August 1, 2016. She will be interred with her husband, Ralph Vaughn Clark. Family and friends will meet at Pats Place, 4335 W. Main St, Decatur, IL 62522 afterwards.
WYOMING, MI -- Police say no one is in custody this morning after a five-hour standoff Saturday at a recording studio following a shooting.

Wyoming police Lt. Mark Easterly on Saturday, June 17 said police took four people to the Wyoming Department of Public Safety building to be questioned after they exited the recording studio following a standoff.

But Sunday morning, Easterly said police had developed no good suspects and no one was arrested or in custody after the questioning.

The victim -- a 27-year-old man who stumbled into the Walgreens at 44th Street and Division Avenue with a gunshot wound to his abdomen -- was not fully cooperating with police.

Easterly said witnesses also were not fully cooperating.

The wounded man came into the Walgreens about 12:30 p.m. Saturday, June 17 with the gunshot wound and sought help.

Police soon surrounded a nearby business, described as a recording studio, at Farnham Street and Division Avenue.

One person quickly came out of the business. Later, after several hours, three other people came out with their hands up.

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Silent Observer at 616-774-2345 or Wyoming police at 530-7300.
WATERVLIET TOWNSHIP, MI -- Two passengers were seriously injured when a small airplane crashed the evening of June 17 near Watervliet Municipal Airport.

A small aircraft departing from Watervliet Municipal Airport failed to gain necessary altitude, and crashed at 7:21 p.m. into a wooded ravine area near an airport runway, according to a release from Berrien County Sheriff's Department.

Edward Maloney, 27, of Fruitport and Jonathan Amundsen, 36, of Winterhaven, Florida, were both seriously injured, but able to pull themselves from the crash, police said.

They were the only passengers on the plane, and were taken to Lakeland Hospital by Pride Care Ambulance.

Deputies were assisted at the scene by the Watervliet Township Fire Department and three other police departments.

This crash remains under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration.
CHICAGO -- In just two years, Jim Stelter is delivering on his promises to quickly grow West Elm Workspace.

"It's getting really successful, says Stelter, president of the West Elm Workspace with Inscape, partnership of the retail behemoth West Elm and the Canadian office furniture-maker Inscape. "We are up 280 percent over last year. We hope to be up 100 percent this year."

The company, launched in 2015 on the idea of bringing retailer West Elm residential-style furniture to the workplace, is is on track to be a major competitor in the office furniture industry.

Last week, West Elm Workspace took part in its third NeoCon trade show in Chicago, and collected four industry awards for its latest products.

The Grand Rapids-based company is owned by Williams-Sonoma, the San Francisco, Calif.-based specialty home goods retailer.

"West Elm continues to gain traction in the commercial furniture market with West Elm workspace," said Laura Alber, Williams-Sonoma CEO, during a May 24 earnings call with analysts.

Since January, the brand has opened dealer showrooms in several major markets including San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Minneapolis.

"We remain very optimistic about West Elm's potential to be a leader in the office furniture industry," Alber said.

Revenue figures aren't available for the new office furniture company. But parent brand West Elm's revenues grew at 6.5 percent in fiscal 2016, marking the highest growth rate of the company's brands, including Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn.

With furniture collections and a dealer network in place, West Elm Workspace has moved past the startup phase. Dealers have expanded to 21 from five last year. Stelter says the company has surpassed its dealership goal, and is on target with production goals.

"We have built showrooms all over North America," said Stelter. "That's really the key to getting it done -- our dealer distribution network."

In the past month, the firm added five employees, and expects to hire another 10 to 15 more staffers. The positions are in engineering, sales resource, buyers, quality control and warehousing.

The firm will relocate to larger quarters by the Gerald R. Ford International airport later this year. Stelter says the new space is three times the size of its current facility, at 549 Ionia Ave SW, near downtown Grand Rapids.

Van Eerden Foodservice has signed a contract to lease the building, he added.

Leaving the downtown area may be the hardest aspect of the move. Stelter sold West Elm on locating the Workscape business in West Michigan after showcasing downtown Grand Rapids.

That experience includes staying at the JW Marriott hotel, and then hitting places like the Downtown Market and the high-end cocktail spot, Sidebar.

"When the folks from New York come in, we take them to places like that, they just fall in love," Stelter said. "Part of it is the surprise. They don't expect it."

Stelter, who became CEO of Inscape in 2014, has turned all this attention to West Elm. In the last year, the firm spun off from Toronto-based Inscape to become its own entity.

"This is the growth engine," said Stelter of West Elm Workspace with Inscape.

He also sold off his education furniture firm, Vanerum Stelter, to MooreCo Inc., a Temple, Texas-based office furniture manufacturer in November. Before the deal, the companies agreed to a strategic partnership in April 2016. Stelter stepped down from Vanerum Stelter in 2014 to helm Inscape.

The longtime furniture executive is beloved in the industry. During an interview in the West Elm Workspace showroom in Chicago, it's hard for Stelter to have conversation without being interrupted. He good-naturedly stops to answer designers' questions or to warmly greet his industry colleagues, who often give him hugs.

Launching the company in Grand Rapids is the reason it has been able to ramp up so quickly. It plugged into the West Michigan network that supplies industry giants Steelcase, Herman Miller and Haworth.

"There is no way we would have done this product in eight months without the supply chain that existed," said Stelter, referring to the company's collaboration with Gensler, a top design firm.

The result is the Conduit System, a desk system that can be easily reconfigured from a branching to a traditional benching system. It won a Best of NeoCon gold award at NeoCon. The Chicago trade show ran June 12-14.

Stelter can tick off the West Michigan companies that had a hand in creating the Conduit System, from Zeeland-based Broadview Product Development engineering the furniture to Grand Rapids-based Wolverine Wood Products making the table tops.

"This is totally made in Michigan," said Stelter. "It's sourced in Michigan, engineered in Michigan, designed in Michigan."
LANSING, MI -- On the cusp of what's expected to be another sizable summer algae bloom in Lake Erie, the state of Michigan has released a plan for improving the lake that critics say doesn't do enough to reduce nutrient-laden runoff from farms.

The state calls the 23-page Domestic Action Plan for Lake Erie released June 13 a roadmap to help Michigan meet its joint pledge with Ohio and Canada to reduce phosphorus entering the lake by 40 percent over the next eight years.

Phosphorus runoff from farms, sewage plants and other sources of nutrient pollution is fueling disgusting and dangerous algae growth in the lake's western end each summer. A toxin inside the blue-green algae can cause rashes, nausea, headaches and organ damage.

Michigan is one of several states in the lake's watershed issuing action plans the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expects to roll into a broader strategy to curb the harmful algal blooms, which turn the water green, slimy and toxic.

The 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the U.S. and Canada requires national plans be completed by February 2018. Ohio, which has the most land in the western basin watershed and the most coastline impacted by the annual blooms, is expecting to release its plan in October.

Michigan's plan notes the possibility of new laws -- if the legislature will pass them -- that could improve the lake's health by adjusting the state drain code, developing a statewide septic system rules and other changes to "create a more integrated, watershed-based system for managing water at the landscape level."

The plan was developed jointly between the state departments of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Natural Resources (DNR) and Agriculture & Rural Development (MDARD).

Public comment on the plan ends July 14. A public meeting is scheduled Wednesday, June 28 at 6:30 p.m. in the Baer Auditorium at Adrian College.

The plan drew praise from the Michigan Farm Bureau because it doesn't recommend any new regulation on agriculture, which scientists who've studied the blooms say is the largest source of nutrient runoff feeding the algae with available phosphorus.

The plan drew measured criticism from environmental groups in Michigan and Ohio for the same reason. Instead of calling for new rules on how farms use fertilizer, the plan emphasizes reliance on voluntary programs like the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP), which incentivizes farms to install environmentally friendly features like soil buffer strips, windbreak trees and subsurface tile drain filters.

"At the end of the day, it's dependent on voluntary engagement," said Tom Zimnicki, agriculture policy director at Michigan Environmental Council. "It depends on the producer stepping up, for whatever reason, and saying 'this is important.'"

"Relying on voluntary actions alone is not going to get us to where we need to be."

Jim Johnson, director of environmental stewardship at MDARD, said the voluntary programs is labor intensive and involves working with each farm to develop a plan to manage runoff.

Johnson said there's still a lot of research happening around understanding how dissolved phosphorus migrates off farm fields and gets into lake tributaries. Until more is known, new laws "may be requiring something in statute that completely misses the mark."

The state is nearing an agreement with Michigan State University and the U.S. Geological Survey to study nutrient runoff and develop methods to keep fertilizer in the field, Johnson said.

"I don't know if we know enough today to know what the goals are."

Zimnicki still sees a disconnect in the state's approach. Voluntary measures have been effective in some local communities, but haven't had landscape-wide impact.

"There's a big difference when it comes to monitoring and evaluating success in terms of what you can accomplish at the edge of a field versus in-stream water quality," he said. "We're using at times two different measuring sticks."

He argued that applying fertilizers at appropriate rates, not applying manure on saturated or frozen ground and finding ways to get nutrients as close to the plant root zone as possible are among a "suite of practices" needed to make a difference.

"There isn't just one management practice that controls soluble reactive phosphorous," he said. "There is no silver bullet to this."

This summer, federal scientists project the bloom to be on par with the one in 2014, when algal toxins poisoned the Toledo drinking water supply for several days.

Tim Davis, a biologist with National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, said on a 1 to 10 severity scale, the bloom this year is projected to reach between a 6 and 8.

This year isn't expected to be as severe as record-setting blooms in 2011 and 2015, but it won't be as small as the one last year. Overall toxicity of the bloom can't be forecast yet.

"Not record setting," Davis said. But "not small."

Bloom severity is driven by the amount of bioavailable phosphorus, particularly from the Maumee River, which enters Lake Erie at Toledo. "Bioavailable" phosphorus is a combination of phosphorus attached to dirt and dissolved, or soluble, phosphorus that can be directly absorbed by plant cells. Because May was a rainy month, that resulted in a lot of phosphorus runoff in the Maumee watershed.

Although phosphorus comes from other rivers in Michigan and Ohio, particularly the Detroit River, the Environmental Protection Agency says spring phosphorus loading in the Maumee basin is the controlling factor in Lake Erie algal production. Farms dominate the Maumee watershed, which includes fertile drained lands of the Great Black Swamp. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency says nonpoint sources (runoff) make up almost 90 percent of the phosphorus and nitrogen entering the watershed.

Michigan's portion of the Maumee watershed is relatively small, approximately 300,000 acres in Monroe, Hillsdale and Lenawee counties; about seven percent of the total watershed land area. Agriculture is the primary land use in Michigan's portion of the watershed. There are eight Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) under a pollution discharge permit in that area, according to the DEQ.

Those eight CAFOs apply manure on about 21,000 acres, which represents about seven percent of the Michigan portion of the Maumee watershed.

Farms under 1,000 "animal units" don't require a discharge permit in Michigan. Those units are a measure of manure producing capacity, not a total animal count. Whereas Ohio stopped allowing farms to apply manure on snow-covered, frozen or saturated soil, Michigan's rules only prohibit such applications in certain conditions.

Laura Campbell, a program director at the Michigan Farm Bureau, said Michigan's draft report "maintains good regulatory management of larger livestock farms."

Voluntary programs like MAEAP have helped curb the amount of phosphorus entering Lake Erie via the River Raison, and "the fact that this plan calls for more of that I think is the right way to go." She'd like to see the program replicated in Ohio.

On the other side, Ohio Environmental Council natural resources director Kristy Meyer says "common sense" regulations are a better approach than voluntary measures. Her group thinks farmers should have to test their soil to ensure they aren't using too much fertilizer.

The OEC wants to see tighter regulations on large farms that fall just under the animal unit threshold to require a discharge permit.

Nonetheless, she's pessimistic Ohio will call for new regulations.

"I think what you'll see is no state offering up additional regulations," Meyer said. While that could be seen as a non-starter under the Trump administration, "to be fair, it was a non-starter under the Obama administration, too."

"Nobody wants to touch agriculture because they believe it's political death," she said.
SPRINGFIELD  A statewide task force considering changes in how Illinois tracks sex offenders reached consensus this week on some key points, but agreement on reforms to several politically sensitive measures that could make it easier for offenders to start over after a conviction will require more deliberation.

The Sex Offenses and Sex Offender Registration Task Force was formed in 2016 to review how sex offenders are placed on the public registry, current research of sex offenders and how the registration process impacts those convicted of sex crimes.

The task force of more than two dozen members includes representatives from the criminal justice system and advocates for victims and offenders. The group has held several meetings in an effort to compile recommendations for state lawmakers on potential changes to the existing registration system that puts offenders on a public registry for a term of 10 years or life.

During a teleconference last week, members looked for common ground on four major policy issues. By the end of the four-hour session, it was clear that wide gaps remain on how the law could be restructured to address challenges facing almost 30,000 registered sex offenders in Illinois and the agencies that monitor them.

The majority of members agreed that assessments should be used to determine an person's risk to re-offend. The assessment could be used to determine how long a person should remain on the registry. A new system could add 5-, 10- and 15-year increments to the registry based on risk, with high-risk defendants still earning a registration for life.

As a member of the task force, McLean County State's Attorney Jason Chambers opposes the view of some members that the public registry does more harm than good and should be eliminated.

"You don't need a study to tell you the registry is helpful," said Chambers, citing the need to keep track of those who may look for more victims, including children, if left unmonitored.

Greg Sullivan, executive director of the Illinois Sheriff's Association, questioned how the state would fund new offender assessments.

"Where is the funding going to come from? I hope we won't take it from what we already need," said Sullivan, adding the state is already behind in funding the cost of the registry.

Illinois has an obligation to pay for the assessments that could have a significant impact on a person's future, said Lynne Johnson, policy director at Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation.

"We're saying this is the linchpin of what the state is going to do to you," said Johnson.

The panel also agreed that more resources should be provided to the Sex Offender Management Board for a director trained in sex offender assessment and treatment.

John Maki, director of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, urged members to craft changes that are likely to be approved by lawmakers.

"We need to look at what gets us to a better place" with reform efforts, Maki told the group.

Following the meeting, Chambers said he supports revisions to the registry to more accurately reflect a person's risk to the community. The so-called Romeo and Juliet offenses that involve sex between a young adult and a teen "should be labeled differently" than the current "sexual predator" label, said Chambers.

He expects heated discussion on possible changes to the law that allows the state to put sex offenders back on the registry if they are charged with any new criminal offense, not just those relating to sex. Some crimes, such as stalking and residential burglary, could be sexually motivated and should be seriously considered for a return to the registry, Chambers said.

Also, expert testimony provided to the task force on recidivism rates for sex offenders should be recognized in future talks on the varying risk posed by offenders, Chambers said.

"There's significant data that shows there are different levels of risk. My ultimate goal is to make sure we are utilizing the right amount of resources for each level," Chambers said.

The task force plans to schedule another meeting this summer to review the remaining proposals and set a public hearing in September. A final report with recommendations is due Jan. 1.
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The Securities and Exchanges Board of India is in the process of appointing a forensic auditor to determine the profits made by stockbrokers, clients and software providers in the NSE co-location case.

Sources have told Moneycontrol that the regulator has initiated comprehensive investigation of NSE employees, brokers and any other entities seen to be involved in the case that relates to giving preferential access to some of the exchanges clients.

SEBI is in the process of appointing forensic auditor against brokers who were named in report of the technical advisory committee and in Deloittes forensic audit report.

In a letter to MP Kirit Somaiya dated June 14 (Moneycontrol has seen a copy of this letter) who has raised this issue, SEBI chairman Ajay Tyagi has confirmed that appointment of a forensic auditor is underway.

The regulator has already captured data and e-mail records of these brokers, and is analysing these records, dating from a period of 2010 to 2015. SEBI is also investigating software providers and clients of these brokers.

SEBI sources told Moneycontrol analyzing data would be easy for the forensic auditor as brokers have to maintain records of past years transactions, as per regulation. It is believed that the wife of one NSE employee, which had received a showcause notice from SEBI previously, was also providing assistance to some brokers.

In his reply, SEBI chief Tyagi also talked about the showcause notice that has been served previously and said that SEBI would not close the case before analyzing transaction data from broker. He added that the regulator would comprehensively investigate charges of collusion between exchange officials and brokers.

There were reports previously that NSE had decided to pursue consent mechanism in the case.

This is a severe case. We will come to know the full gravity of the case when the full profit figure comes out from the investigation, an ex-SEBI official and currently a practicing laywer told Moneycontrol.
Colonel Shaibal Kumar posted in Planning and Engineering branch of the Kolkata-based Army's Eastern Command is arrested by the CBI for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 50,000 from Pune-based Xtech Equipment Pvt Ltd for supply of rock splitting equipment.

The probe agency arrested three officials of the company - Sharat Nath, Managing Director, Vijay Naidu, a Director in the company and Amit Roy, a company representative were arrested by the CBI.

"It was alleged that the Colonel had demanded a bribe of Rs 1.80 lakh from the Managing Director of the company in connection with the supply of power pack rock splitters, which are used by various field formations of the Army," CBI Spokesperson R K Gaur said here today.

He said that the army officer, in February this year, received a bribe of Rs 50,000 and as part of the second installment, the Colonel has now accepted Rs 50,000 from the accused company.

"The CBI tracked the Director of said private company who came from Pune to deliver the bribe to Colonel and nabbed him after the payment of bribe to the army officer. The CBI caught the Colonel and recovered the bribe amount from his residence," he said.

Searches have been conducted in four premises at Pune and two premises at Kolkata.
Amid the fresh agitation for Gorkhaland in the Darjeeling hills, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today accused the Modi government of encouraging the stir and claimed there was a "deep-rooted" conspiracy" behind it.

She, however, did not directly blame the BJP for the violent agitation, which she claimed was supported by insurgent groups of the northeast and some foreign countries.

Her remarks drew a derisive response from BJP chief Amit Shah, who said she saw "conspiracy in everything".

Banerjee said the kind of "hooliganism and vandalism," being seen during the unrest in the hills, can only be done if there is a "terrorist brain" behind it, and the Centre should extend full help to the state to contain it.

"What is happening today is a deep-rooted conspiracy. So many bombs and arms cannot be gathered in a day... These have been gathered for a long time.

"From where are they (GJM) are getting their support? Their advantage is it (Darjeeling) is a hill area and there are borders with other states and international borders.

"They are using the national flag for vandalism, which they cannot do. I will request the Central government not to encourage them to behave like this. If anything happens to any foreigner (tourist) it will bring bad name to the country," Banerjee said.

"There is a terrorist brain behind this hooliganism and vandalism. Only a terrorist and not a common man can do this. We have got clues that this has terrorist connections. They (GJM) have connections with underground insurgent groups of the northeast ... I request them (insurgent groups) not to extend any support to the GJM," Banerjee told reporters in Kolkata.

She said the GJM was being helped by some other countries too but did not elaborate.

Responding to the charge, BJP chief Amit Shah took potshots at Banerjee in Mumbai, saying she smelt "conspiracy in everything".

"Mamata sees conspiracy in everything. She had made similar allegations against the Indian Army as well," Shah told a press conference when asked about Banerjee dubbing the ongoing agitation in Darjeeling "a deep-rooted conspiracy".

Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which controls the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) is an ally of BJP whose S S Ahluwalia represents Darjeeling in the Lok Sabha.

When asked about Ahluwalia backing the agitation and whether BJP supported it, Shah said,"It is true that we are in favour of small states. Once we decide something about it, we will announce it." He, however, did not say if the party wanted a separate state of Gorkhaland carved out of West Bengal.

Shah's comment about smaller states comes ahead of his meeting with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray tomorrow.

Thackeray has been consistently opposing the demand for formation of a separate Vidarbha state carved out of Maharashtra. The current Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had also backed it when his party was in the opposition.
An aerial view showing the town half-submerged in floodwaters following landslides triggered by heavy rain in Khagrachari, Bangladesh, in this still frame taken from video June 13, 2017. REUTERS/REUTERS TV - RTS16XDD

The death toll on Sunday rose to 163 in Bangladesh's landslides as five more persons, including three children, were killed due to incessant rains in two districts.

The fresh landslides occurred in the wee hours in Khagrachhari and Moulvibazar districts.

Three children died in Bangladesh's south-eastern Khagrachhari district, Dhaka Tribune reported.

"The incident took place due to the torrential rain early on Sunday. The death toll might increase," a police official was quoted as saying by daily.

A woman and her daughter were killed in a landslide in north-eastern Moulvibazar district this morning, the report said.

Afia Begum, 50, from Moddhodimai village and her daughter Fahmida Begum, 13, were killed after their house was crushed under a landslide mass from a hillock, a local official said.

Locals recovered the dead bodies of the duo removing the landslide mass.

It has been raining hard in the district since yesterday submerging most of the roads.

With the addition of these two new landslides, the death toll from landslides in the country has risen to 163.

Earlier last week, the southeastern Rangmathi, Chittagong and Bandarban hill districts were worst affected regions in Bangladesh where incessant monsoon rains have triggered a series a landslides and caused water-logging in many parts, besides submerging a number of villages.

The disaster-hit Rangmathi district, which borders Mizoram and Tripura, is the worst hit among other district sand has alone seen 116 deaths.

The death toll from the landslide stands at 32 in Chittagong, six in Bandarban, two in Cox's Bazar and one in Khagrachhari, according to the disaster management ministry.

Densely populated Bangladesh is battered by storms, floods and landslides every rainy season but this year's rain is the worst since 2007 when landslides killed 127 people in the port city.

Experts and environmentalists attribute the latest spell of landslides to illegal hill cuts exposing the sandy hills to quick erosion during protracted rains.

The landslides triggered by the monsoon rains came two weeks after Cyclone Mora hit Bangladesh, leaving eight people dead and damaging hundreds of homes.
Nagpur: Police detain NCP farmers during a protest as part of their Maharashtra bandh over various demands, in Nagpur on Monday. PTI Photo (PTI6_5_2017_000249B)

A committee set up by the Maharashtra government to finalise criteria for farm loan waiver will meet here on Monday.

Leaders of all farmers' organisations will come to the megapolis to attend the meeting, to be chaired by the state Revenue minister Chandrakant Patil.

An official release about this meeting was issued this evening by the state government.

On June 11, the Maharashtra government had announced a loan waiver for farmers and decided to form a committee to decide the criteria of debt relief.

Members of the committee are Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatna's Raju Shetti, independent MLA Bacchu Kadu, farmer leader Raghunath Patil and coordinator of steering committee of farmers Ajit Navale among others.
Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh today met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussed improvement of bilateral relations.

Singh met Wang on the sidelines of the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting being held here to finalise the agenda for this year's BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit to be held in September in China's Xiamen city.

In his opening remarks, Singh said India would like to strengthen strategic cooperative relationship with China.

The BRICS foreign ministers' meeting is a precursor to the chain of meetings of BRICS officials including the National Security Advisors (NSAs) meeting to be held later next month ahead of the Summit.

Incidentally, this is the first time the foreign ministers meeting has been called by a host country holding the BRICS Summit.

China took over the rotating presidency of the BRICS from India after last year's Goa Summit.
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,
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Dear Abby: I've never written to you before, but I'm having a disagreement with my husband. We are taking our daughter out of state to drop her off at college in August. Our twin 15-year-old boys will be starting high school at the same time.

My husband thinks we can leave them home alone together for the five days and four nights we'll be gone; I feel we should arrange to have them stay with friends. He says we can trust them, and he's worried we'll be putting a burden on our friends. I'd like to ask two different families to take them for two nights each.

They are pretty responsible boys. I do trust them, but I still feel it's a bad idea to leave them home alone for that period of time. What do you think?

-- Home alone in California

Dear Home Alone: I agree with YOU. Your sons may be angels, but to leave two minors who are not yet in high school alone for that length of time would be irresponsible. Don't do it.

Drinking co-worker

Dear Abby: My co-worker, "Sara," comes to work drunk. After I reported it to my supervisor, "Ben," Sara stopped for a while, but now she has started again. Sara has not been doing her job correctly. Ben is now asking me to sign a statement about it. She is my best friend, and I don't want to get her in trouble. But I'm scared that she's going to get hurt at work or while driving. Please help!

-- Danger in the workplace

Dear Danger: Your friend needs some kind of intervention. Some companies have an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which might enable Sara to get the professional help she needs. An EAP is a voluntary, work-based program that offers free and confidential assessments, short-term counseling, referrals and follow-ups to employees who have personal and/or work-related problems.

Before you sign the statement, find out if your company offers this program and if your supervisor will make it available to Sara. Do not worry about getting her in trouble. She's already in trouble, and this may be the solution.

Compliment her smile

Dear Abby: A couple times a year I have lunch with an old friend. I recently ran into her at the store and noticed she now has very white teeth. They look great; however, they almost do not look like real teeth. We're having lunch together next week, and I would like to compliment her on her beautiful teeth but, if she now wears dentures or has implants, I don't want to embarrass her. Would it be OK if I tell her I think her teeth look beautiful and pearly white, or should I keep quiet?

-- Pearly Whites in Arizona

Dear Pearly Whites: Your friend may have gotten dentures or implants, but she also could have simply had her teeth brightened by her dentist. If you want to compliment her, be a little more subtle than to mention her teeth. All you need to say is, "You know what? You've got a great smile!" If she wants to respond by giving you all the details, she will. If not, you will not have encroached upon her privacy.

***

Dear Readers: Allow me to wish a Happy Father's Day to fathers everywhere -- birth fathers, stepfathers, adoptive and foster fathers, grandfathers, and all of those caring men who mentor children and fill the role of absent dads. I applaud you all.

P.S. And once again, a big shout-out to dual-role moms. -- LOVE, ABBY

To receive a collection of Abby's most memorable -- and most frequently requested -- poems and essays, send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $7 to: Dear Abby -- Keepers Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. Shipping and handling are included in the price.
June 18, 2017

When AP Spreads #Fakenews - A Forensic Appraisal

Non factual, false news reporting has political consequences. This especially when it is picked up by partisan propagandists to push their agenda. It is often not easy to forensically follow the trail of fake news but here is a recent example "caught in the wild".

The Associated Press is a nonprofit and political neutral news agency financed by U.S. newspapers and other media outlets of various political stripes. Its wide range of customers (mostly) prevents it from partisan domestic reporting. It takes on international issues are different. The selection of the news items it reports on is driven by customer interests and thereby slanted in its selection. But the factual reporting on news items is generally straight forward - or supposed to be such. Political decisions are sometimes based on its reports. It is therefore causing concern when it spreads obviously fake news.

Yesterday the AP pushed out this item:

The Associated Press Verified account @AP

Russia claims it has killed IS leader al-Baghdadi. https://apnews.com/...

7:51 AM - 16 Jun 2017

NY Daily news, FOX News, Politico and many, many other outlets reedited and/or republished that AP piece. The Politico version reads:

Russia claimed Friday it killed the leader of the Islamic State group in an airstrike targeting a meeting of IS leaders just outside the group's de facto capital in Syria. The Russian Defense Ministry said Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a Russian strike in late May along with other senior group commanders.

The AP item seemed wrong to me. Russia is usually very cautious with such claims and tends not to make such absolute statements. ( The U.S. military though ...)

I checked with the official Russian agency TASS and it indeed reported something different: IS top leader may have been killed by Russian airstrike in Syria

MOSCOW, June 16. /TASS/. Russias Defense Ministry has said it is verifying reports that the Islamic State terrorist groups leader Ibrahim Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed by a Russian airstrike on the southern suburb of Syrias Raqqa in late May.

Other Russian news-sources reported likewise. The Russian Defense Ministry never claimed that its forces killed Baghdadi. It only said that it is looking into such claims. The NY Times, with its own reporter in Moscow, also reported more carefully: Russian Military Says It Might Have Killed ISIS Leader

MOSCOW  Russias military said on Friday that it was looking into whether one of its airstrikes in the Syrian desert had killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of the Islamic State. In a statement, the Defense Ministry said that the Russian Air Force struck a meeting of Islamic State leaders on May 28 outside Raqqa, Syria, the groups de facto capital, possibly killing Mr. Baghdadi.

Obviously the Associated Press report, distributed widely, was factually wrong. I was concerned that this false reporting would have consequences:

Moon of Alabama @MoonofA

Moon of Alabama Retweeted The Associated Press

Tass says Russia only investigating such a claim. @AP exaggerating here? Blame Russia when claim turns out false?

http://tass.com/world/951708

8:43 AM - 16 Jun 2017

My concern for a "blame Russia" slant turned out to be justified when hacks started to use the false AP report to push their political agenda.

Paul Cruickshank is a:

Editor-in-Chief CTC Sentinel  CNN Terrorism Analyst  Co-author international bestseller Agent Storm ~ Guardian's Top Ten Spy Books of all time

Cruickshank immediately followed up on the false AP story without having checked its veracity:

Paul Cruickshank Verified account @CruickshankPaul

Five reasons why we should be deeply sceptical of the Russian Baghdadi claim.

9:47 AM - 16 Jun 2017

Russia never made the claim Cruickshank thought it had made but he uses the false AP item to push his own false narrative:

Paul Cruickshank Verified account @CruickshankPaul

5. It's coming from the Russians who have every interest in being seen as taking fight to ISIS (when most of focus elsewhere)

9:54 AM - 16 Jun 2017

For the record: Russia (and Syria and its other allies) have fought ISIS whenever and wherever they possibly could. It was the U.S. that did not fight ISIS but used and uses it for its own purpose. Obama and Kerry publicly admitted such (scroll down for their quotes). Only after Russia pointed out that thousands of tanker trucks moved oil from ISIS areas to Turkey without U.S. interference did the U.S. join in to destroy them. Cruickshank is using the fake news from AP to spread his own false claim that Russia and Syria did not and do not fight ISIS.

Another such hack is the Gulf paid promoter of Takfiri "rebels" in Syria, Charles Lister: Russia's Baghdadi Claim Needs Verification

By Charles Lister

Russias claim to have killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an airstrike in Raqqa on May 28 should be taken with a heavy grain of salt.

...

Russia has a long track record of issuing fake claims and deliberate misinformation during its campaign in Syria.

...

Beyond Russia's likely bogus claim, ...

Cruickshank and Lister both spread factless propaganda sold as conclusion of the news content of an AP report. But the AP report was fake news.

If there was a need to take the report "with a heavy grain of salt" why not go back and check the original reporting in the first place? Lister and Cruickshank obviously did not do that.

The Associated Press has meanwhile corrected its false original reporting. It now headlines under the same link: Uncertainty over Islamic State leaders fate after airstrike. (The link to the piece still says "Russia-claims-it-has-killed ..".)

BEIRUT (AP)  Uncertainty and confusion surrounded the fate of the head of the Islamic State group Friday as Russia announced it may have killed him ...

...

Apart from Moscows claim that he may have been killed in the May 28 airstrike along with more than 300 militants, there was not much else to back it up. The Russian Defense Ministry said the information about his death was still being verified through various channels.

While AP corrected its report neither its original tweet nor other media reports derived from the original AP one received any correction. The hacks that made their false political points based on the fake news will certainly not update and correct their claims.

Fake news can be dangerous. But it is not the fake news from some blog or little read partisan outlet that is a danger to the public. It is fake news spread by mainstream media and big news agencies that is of real concern.

Note that the original AP report, seen in the AP screenshot above, has "Moscow" as the dateline. The corrected one is datelined from "Beirut". The original author of the AP fake news was its Moscow correspondent Vladimir Isachenkov. It is certainly fair to say that Isachenkov's other reporting from Moscow is rarely sympathetic to the Russian viewpoint on the issues in question. His reporting is always a reflection the unquestioned predominant U.S. view - be that right or wrong. The Russian standpoint is never analyzed for its own value but always in relation to the U.S. position which is a-priori taken as the ultimate truth.

One wonders how it is serving the knowledge and judgement of the U.S. public and its policy makers to have its premier news agency deliver such slanted, if not fake, news reporting from Moscow.

Posted by b on June 18, 2017 at 8:14 UTC | Permalink

Comments
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Thunderstorms. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 74F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph, becoming NNW and increasing to 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Windy. Cloudy skies will become partly cloudy overnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 39F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph.
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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 []
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The thermometer inched above 100 at the Dairy Queen in Antioch on Sunday, which you would think would be a good thing if you happen to be in the business of selling New York Cheesecake Blizzards in Antioch.

But even in the ice cream racket, it turns out that there is such thing as too much hot air, according to Dennis Kim, who manages the DQ on East 18th Street.

Its not too busy, Kim said at about 4 p.m. I like the temperature between 85 and 95. When it is over 100, people stay home.

All over the Bay Area Sunday, folks were adjusting to unusually hot weather, which ranged from the 100s inland to the low 70s along the San Francisco coast. In San Francisco, that meant leaving the sweater at home. In Oakland, that meant an emergency trip to the hardware store.

How many fans walked out the door today? Id say at least 20, said Mario Chavez, a salesman at Markus Supply Ace Hardware, at 625 Third St. in Oakland. I got a few left, not many, but more coming tomorrow. The heat is just starting. Its going to be hot for a while, boss.

By 10 a.m. Sunday, the temperatures hovered around 80 degrees in San Francisco  about 20 degrees above average for a morning in June. Temperatures kept rising in the Bay Area throughout the day. Record highs of 97 were recorded at airports in both San Francisco and Oakland, while Livermore and San Jose also smashed previous milestones. San Jose hit 103 and Livermore 106.

This whole heat event will be the most substantial heat wave weve had this season, said Charles Bell, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Monterey.

San Francisco hit 88 degrees Sunday, beating the record set in 1993 for June 18, but Bell said the existing record for the day is not really that high. Saturdays historic high is 95, while Mondays is 92.

Breaking any records Monday is very unlikely, Bell said. Sundays heat is probably the peak for the entire event, although the heat wave is expected to last well into the week. By Friday, Bell said the high pressure system lingering overhead will move toward the east, allowing cooler weather to work its way back in.

Its not an unprecedented heat wave, Bell said. We typically will have several periods every year where well get very warm to hot weather. ... Usually well get this two to three times a year.

But just because its happened before doesnt mean the weather-weary Bay Area residents are prepared.

Be careful about leaving children and pets in cars, and please be aware that the vehicle will heat up to a dangerous level very fast, he said. Take plenty of breaks, and drink water.

There were cases and cases of cold water Sunday afternoon at the Gene Friend Rec Center in San Franciscos South of Market neighborhood, where about 100 congregants from the City Life Church on Sixth Street gathered to eat chicken and ribs after the 11:30 service.

Just kicking it with the family on Fathers Day, said the Rev. Marquez Gray. We brought in extra tents because of the heat  most people are sitting in the shade. But its not bad  San Francisco has a nice cool breeze, unlike the East Bay.

Around the corner on Sixth Street, where there are a lot more places to buy cold beer than ice cream, double-scoop bowls of Mitchells Grasshopper Pie were in high demand at Icu Market Deli. We are the only place on Sixth Street with Mitchells ice cream, said manager Willie Jay. There are places in the mall with ice cream, but they dont got Mitchells. Weve been getting groups coming in all day  a lot of couples.

A Spare the Air alert was in effect for the Bay Area on Sunday as the combination of high temperatures and traffic exhaust threatened to create unhealthy air quality. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection also issued a red flag warning for the Central Sacramento Valley, which means the areas hot and dry conditions made it vulnerable to wildfires.

The heat, and the increased reliance on air conditioning that came with it, also taxed the Bay Areas power grid. As of 8:30 p.m., more than 43,000 PG&E customers were without power, including 18,131 in the East Bay and 13,551 in the South Bay.

Trisha Thadani and J.K. Dineen are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com, jkdineen@sfchroncile.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani, @sfjkdineen
Daleyza Avila-Hernandez walked into a Stockton dentist office Monday to have two teeth capped and two teeth removed. She died later that day, reports CBS, and family members of the 3-year-old are seeking answers.

While her daughter was undergoing the procedure at the Children's Dental Surgery Center in Stockton, Araveli Avila told Fox40 that she saw an ambulance pull into the lot. A nurse reportedly told Avila that Daleyza's heart had stopped.
As the law school dean at UC Berkeley from 1992 to 2000, Herma Hill Kay was the first woman to lead any of the nations elite legal academies.

Beyond that  as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a friend for nearly a half century, put it  law teacher and scholar nonpareil, Herma has spearheaded countless endeavors to shape the legal academy and the legal profession to serve all the people law exists (or should exist) to serve, and to make law genuinely protective of womens capacity to chart their own lifes course.

Ms. Kay died in her sleep June 10 at age 82. She taught Berkeley law classes for nearly 57 years after becoming the schools second-ever female law professor in 1960. At the time of her appointment, only 14 women had previously gained tenure at U.S. law schools, and they were the subject of a book she had nearly completed at the time of her death.

Ms. Kays mentoring of women law students and young faculty opened the door to legal careers that simply did not exist before she and other women of her generation began to imagine them, law Professor Eleanor Swift said in a 2016 law review article.

One of those she mentored, as both a student and a teacher, described Ms. Kay as wonderful and somewhat terrifying.

She set tremendously high standards for her students, said Catherine Albiston, who Ms. Kay hired as a research assistant in the 1990s and is now a Berkeley law professor. We succeeded because Herma told us we could do this, at a time when there were not many women in law school.

She also worked to change the law, particularly in family relations.

As a member of Gov. Pat Browns Commission on the Family, Ms. Kay helped to draft Californias pioneering 1969 law establishing no-fault divorce, allowing couples to end their marriage voluntarily without having to prove that one spouse or the other had committed adultery or another culpable action. She then took a leading role in drafting a model no-fault law that was eventually adopted in some form by every other state, the last being New York in 2010.

She literally transformed the legal landscape of American family life, said Melissa Murray, the interim law dean at Berkeley.

The no-fault law was never undertaken to achieve equality between men and women, Ms. Kay told an interviewer in 2008. It was undertaken to try to get the blackmail out of divorce, and I think it has accomplished that.

With co-authors who included future Justice Ginsburg, Ms. Kay also produced a 1974 text on Sex Discrimination in the Law, the first published law book on the subject. The two had met at a conference on Women and the Law in 1971, and Ginsburg, in a 2015 tribute, said Ms. Kay had remained my wise, brave and cherished friend.

Born in South Carolina, Ms. Kay said her career path was influenced by a sixth-grade teacher, who told her after a classroom debate on the Civil War, If you were my daughter, Id send you to law school.

She attended Southern Methodist University and the University of Chicago Law School, where she edited the law review and graduated in 1959. After serving as a law clerk to California Supreme Court Justice Roger Traynor, she began her teaching career at Berkeleys Boalt Hall.

As the schools dean in the 1990s, she established the Center for Clinical Education, which helped students learn legal skills outside the classroom while providing legal aid for the needy.

Her insight was that Boalt was not going to survive as a top 10 school if it did not develop a clinical program, said Swift, who was the schools associate dean from 1998 to 2000. She was hiring a cadre of clinical professors ... and creating clinics that would serve the public interest, eventually including clinics on environmental law, legal issues in technology, and the death penalty.

When Gov. Pete Wilson led UC regents to ban race-based admissions in 1995, and California voters took the same step for all state and local government programs in 1996, Ms. Kay launched programs to try to maintain campus diversity without considering students race.

Swift said Ms. Kay and the schools admissions director began scouring the country for talented students of all backgrounds, and were able to attract a substantial minority enrollment without affirmative action.

Ms. Kay also served as chair of UC Berkeleys Academic Senate and as president of the American Academy of Law Schools, which in 2015 honored her for Lifetime Service to Legal Education and the Law, the first woman to receive the award.

She was also a pilot and an accomplished gardener.

Her husband, Carroll Brodsky, died in 2014. She is survived by three sons, Michael, John and Tom, and by four grandchildren.

A memorial service is being planned. The university said contributions to funds in Ms. Kays honor can be arranged by contacting alumni@law.berkeley.edu.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
Modesto Police Department

Officers were investigating a grisly triple-homicide in northwest Modesto that left a woman and two young children dead, police said Sunday.

Police were called to the 1600 block of Bay Meadows Drive just after 7 p.m. Saturday when a caller reported an assault, according to the Modesto Police Department.
Connecticut Fund for the Environment and the Sierra Club have joined a lawsuit against the federal Environmental Protection Agency intended to force regulators to curb pollution that wafts into the state from Midwestern coal plants and factories.

The lawsuits are similar to legal action recently brought by state Attorney General George Jepsen to force the EPA to take action to stop pollution from Brunner Island power plant in Pennsylvania that affects Connecticut air quality. Pollutants emitted by the coal-fired plant are carried by air currents to Connecticut, where they contribute to ozone non-compliance and air pollution-related health problems such as asthma.
1 Wildfires: Southern California crews battled Sunday to beat back wildfires that broke out amid a heat wave. Angeles National Forest spokesman Nathan Judy said a blaze in a remote area near Lake Castaic (Los Angeles County) charred about 1,000 acres and was 10 percent contained Sunday. No homes were threatened. Residents who had to flee a small fire in the mountain community of Wrightwood (San Bernardino County) were allowed to return home. Judy said the 11-acre fire was 20 percent contained Sunday. About 35 homes were briefly threatened by the flames.

2 Homeland Security: The Department of Homeland Security says Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke is no longer a candidate for a position. The conservative firebrand said last month he was taking a job as an assistant secretary at the agency. Craig Peterson, a political adviser to Clarke, said in a statement that the sheriff notified Secretary John Kelly late Friday that he had rescinded his acceptance of the agencys offer to join the Department of Homeland Security. The tough-talking Clarke, who is known for his provocative social media presence, is an outspoken supporter of President Trump.
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Gerry Martin isn't sure he will ever tell a police officer during a traffic stop that he has a concealed-weapon permit  and possibly a weapon  on him.

The acquittal of a Minnesota officer in the death of a licensed gun owner who volunteered that he had a gun seconds before being fatally shot during a traffic stop adds to the worries of African-American gun owners about how they are treated by police and society.

Acknowledging that they have a weapon, they said, can open them up to violence from police, who can then claim they feared for their lives simply because of the presence of a gun, even a legal one.

"As soon as you say, 'I'm a concealed carry holder. This is my license,' they automatically are reaching for their gun thinking you're going to draw your gun on them, once again not realizing you're a good guy," said Martin, who lives in Glenside, Pa.

Philando Castile was fatally shot by the officer July 6 in a St. Paul suburb seconds after he told the officer he was armed. Officer Jeronimo Yanez, who is Latino, was acquitted Friday of manslaughter and two lesser charges.

During the stop, Castile volunteered, "Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me."

Yanez told Castile, "OK, don't reach for it then" and "Don't pull it out."

On the squad-car video, Castile can be heard saying, "I'm not pulling it out," as Yanez opened fire. Prosecutors said Castile's last words were, "I wasn't reaching for it."

The verdict "tells African-Americans across the country that they can be killed by police officers with impunity, even when they are following the law," said Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana Democrat who is chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The verdict also tells blacks that "the Second Amendment does not apply to them" because Castile "was honest with the officer about having a weapon in the car, and there is no evidence that he attempted to or intended to use the weapon against the officer," the Louisiana Democrat said.

Outside the courthouse, Castile's mother said Yanez got away with murder. Her son was wearing a seatbelt and in a car with his girlfriend and her then-4-year-old daughter when he was shot.

"I am so very, very, very ... disappointed in the system here in the state of Minnesota," Valerie Castile said.

Licensed gun owner and open-carry advocate Rick Ector of Detroit said stereotypes can cloud the minds of some officers when dealing with black gun owners. Officers may have had previous encounters with people carrying guns illegally  especially young black men. And that experience can carry over, Ector said.

Once they find out that a black American has a gun permit, "they are not necessarily going to relax, but they now have an idea about your character," Ector said.

Phillip Smith, head of the National African American Gun Association, said police need additional training to remind them that Second Amendment rights apply to black gun owners as much as anyone else.

Like several similar cases, Castile's death was shared worldwide on social media. His girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, livestreamed the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook because, she said, she wanted to make sure the truth was known.

But videos of black people dying at the hands of police have led to few convictions.

"I'm sure people of color are going to say, and rightfully so, what is the burden of proof for an officer to be" convicted? asked Dwayne Crawford, the executive director of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

Eric Garner died in July 2014 in New York City after a white officer placed him in a chokehold during an arrest for selling loose cigarettes. Garner complained that he couldn't breathe on video captured by onlookers. A grand jury declined to indict that officer or any others involved in the arrest.

Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy with a pellet gun tucked into his waistband, was fatally shot by a white Cleveland police officer in November 2014. But a grand jury declined to indict patrolman Timothy Loehmann, who fired the fatal shot, or training officer Frank Garmback. The city settled Rice's family's lawsuit for $6 million.

Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, was fatally shot by a white officer, Darren Wilson, in August 2014 in Ferguson, Mo. Their confrontation was not captured on video. A grand jury declined to indict Wilson, and the Justice Department opted against civil rights charges. Wilson later resigned.

Only one police officer in recent publicized cases is facing jail time.

South Carolina officer Michael Slager, who is white, shot black motorist Walter Scott in the back as he fled from a traffic stop. Slager pleaded guilty in May to a federal charge of violating Scott's civil rights, and a judge will determine his sentence, which could range from probation to life in prison without parole.

Scott's shooting in April 2015 was captured on cellphone video seen worldwide. It contradicted Slager's original statement that Scott had attempted to grab his Taser.
Helmut Kohl, the West German political leader who became an unlikely international statesman when he helped unite Communist East Germany with the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and served as chancellor of a unified Germany for much of the 1990s, died Friday at his home in Ludwigshafen. He was 87.

After succeeding the worldly Helmut Schmidt as chancellor in 1982, Kohl was sometimes perceived as a clumsy politician with an uninspiring speaking style and a penchant for public relations gaffes, such as his insistence that President Ronald Reagan visit the German military cemetery in Bitburg, where members of the Waffen-SS were buried.

Kohl's legacy seemed to change overnight with the collapse of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989. For 28 years, the wall had stood as one of the most visible symbols of separation between Western Europe and the Communist bloc of eastern European countries. Kohl seized the opportunity to transform himself into a leader of international stature.

Many Germans on both sides of the wall that divided the nation during the Cold War found Kohl's shambling, diffident manner a comforting relief from the charismatic style of politician that had become nearly taboo in the post-Hitler period.

When Kohl made a dramatic appearance before 50,000 East Germans in Dresden just six weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he was greeted with tears and chants of "our chancellor." He drew roaring approval from East German residents by saying, "When the historic moment allows it, let us have the unity of our country."

He added, "We won't leave our countrymen in the lurch."

Kohl made good on that promise by welcoming East Germans into the West with an expensive but powerful gift  agreeing to let East Germans exchange their virtually worthless Communist marks for West Germany's valuable Deutsche marks on a one-to-one basis. Economists argued that he was risking his country's most cherished asset, but the bet paid off in political calm and stability. Kohl was elected chancellor four times and held Germany's top political office until 1998.

He was careful to position his country's expansion and reunification in the postwar structures of the European Union and NATO, devoting much of his energy to reassuring France, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union that Germany still knew its place.

"We are not a world power, and I consider it foolish to dream world-power dreams," he said immediately after Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev gave his surprise endorsement of German unity in 1990.
WASHINGTON - The array of legal and political threats hanging over the Trump presidency have compounded the White House's struggles to fill out the top ranks of the government.

Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey last month and the escalating probe into Russian interference in the presidential election have made hiring even more difficult, say former federal officials, party activists, lobbyists and candidates who Trump officials have tried to recruit.

Republicans say they are turning down job offers to work for a chief executive whose volatile temperament makes them nervous. They are asking head-hunters if their reputations could suffer permanent damage, according to 27 people The Washington Post interviewed to assess what is becoming a debilitating factor in recruiting political appointees.

The hiring challenge complicates the already slow pace at which Trump is filling senior leadership jobs across government.

The White House disputed the notion that the administration has a hiring problem and noted that its candidates must be vetted by the FBI and the Office of Government Ethics before being announced publicly, which might contribute to the perception that there is a delay in filing key posts.

"I have people knocking down my door to talk to the presidential personnel office," said White House press secretary Sean Spicer. "There is a huge demand to join this administration."

The White House picked up the hiring pace in May and the first half of June, particularly for positions needing confirmation. It has advanced 92 candidates for Senate confirmation, compared with 59 between Trump's inauguration and the end of April.

But the Senate has just 25 working days until it breaks for the August recess. At this point, Trump has 43 confirmed appointees to senior posts, compared with the 151 top political appointees confirmed by mid-June in President Barack Obama's first term and the 130 under President George W. Bush, according to data tracked by The Post and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service's Center for Presidential Transition.

For Cabinet posts, the median wait between nomination and Senate vote for Trump was 25 days, according to data collected by The Post. By contrast, Obama's nominees faced a median wait of two days, George W. Bush had a median wait of zero days and Bill Clinton had a median wait of one day.

A White House official said about 200 people are being vetted for senior-level posts.

Story continues below.

Potential candidates are watching Trump's behavior and monitoring his treatment of senior officials. "Trump is becoming radioactive, and it's accelerating," said Bill Valdez, a former senior Energy Department official who is now president of the Senior Executives Association, which represents 6,000 top federal leaders.

"He just threw Jeff Sessions under the bus," Valdez said, referring to recent reports that the president is furious at the attorney general for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. "If you're working with a boss who doesn't have your back, you have no confidence in working with that individual."

Although Trump has blamed Senate Democrats for blocking his nominees, the personnel situation has many causes. After Trump's November victory, hiring got off to a slow start during the transition, and some important positions have run into screening delays as names pass through several White House aides who must give approval. Some prominent private-sector recruits backed off because they would face a five-year post-employment ban on lobbying.

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, who was being considered for an assistant secretary position at the Department of Homeland Security, was the latest to withdraw his name from consideration on Saturday. A person close to the administration who is familiar with the matter said long delays contributed to Clarke's decision.

The Trump team has not faced the same issues with mid- and entry-level jobs. It has hired hundreds of young Republican staffers into positions that are resume-builders - and has filled some senior posts that do not require Senate approval.

Other candidates told The Post they would eagerly serve but are simply waiting for offers.

But as the president continues to sow doubts about his loyalty to those who work for him, most recently with his tweets on Friday that appeared to attack Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a number of qualified candidates say they see little upside to joining government at this time. They include eight Republicans who said they turned down job offers out of concern that working for this administration could damage their reputation.

Republicans have become so alarmed by the personnel shortfall that in the past week a coalition of conservatives complained to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

"We remain very concerned over the lack of secondary and tertiary executive-level appointments," they said in a letter signed by 25 prominent conservatives called the Coalitions for America, describing their concern that the leadership vacuum will create "mischief and malfeasance" by civil servants loyal to Obama.

The letter culminated weeks of private urging by top conservatives, said Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, who helped lead the effort. "They're sensitive about it, and they're trying to do better."

Fitton said that some candidates have faced inexplicable delays on job offers. "People are waiting to hear back. Promises are made but not kept. People are left stranded. Positions are implied, and people are left hanging."

In a town where the long hours and financial sacrifice of working in government are outweighed by the prestige of a White House or agency job, the sacrifice is beginning to look less appealing.

Potential candidates question whether they could make a lasting contribution in an administration whose policies often change directions. They worry that anyone in the White House, even in a mid-level post, faces the possibility of sizable legal bills serving on a team that is under investigation. And then there are the tweets.

"You can count me out," said an attorney who served in the George W. Bush administration and has turned down senior-level legal posts at several agencies, including the Justice Department. This attorney, like others who talked candidly about job offers from the administration, spoke on the condition of anonymity, either because their employers do business with the government or they fear retribution from Republican leaders.

The attorney described an "equally incoherent and unclear leadership" at many agencies, in particular at the Justice Department, where the attorney characterized Sessions's push for stricter sentences for drug crimes as "1982 thinking" that the Republican Party has largely abandoned.

Another person in line for a senior legal post who pulled out after Comey's firing said, "I decided, 'What am I doing this for?' "

He described a disorganized paperwork process that threatened to leave him unprepared for Senate confirmation, and said he was disgusted that Rosenstein was "hung out to dry" as the president claimed at first that the deputy attorney general orchestrated Comey's firing.

"You sit on the tarmac for quite some time, you see smoke coming out of the engine and you say, 'I'm going back to the gate,' " he said.

In recent weeks, several high-profile D.C. attorneys and law firms have turned down offers to represent Trump in the ongoing Russia probe, some of them citing a reluctance to work with a client who notoriously flouts his lawyers' legal advice.

And the White House's top communications job has been vacant since Mike Dubke resigned in May.

Lawyers and candidates for White House jobs are particularly wary now, several people said.

"What they're running into now is, for any job near the White House, people are going to wonder, 'Am I going to have to lawyer up right away?' " said Eliot Cohen, a top official in George W. Bush's State Department and a leading voice of opposition to Trump among former Republican national security officials during the campaign.

"They're saying, 'Tell me about professional liability insurance.' "

A longtime GOP activist and former Bush appointee said he rejected offers for several Senate-confirmed jobs because of his policy differences with Trump.

"There are a number of people who are loyal Republicans but who don't feel comfortable with either [the administration's] trade positions, or the Muslim [travel] ban or the overall volatility of this administration. We just don't feel it's very professional."

One prominent Bush-era Republican had a more measured view.

"Everybody's trying to draw cosmic conclusions about the Trump administration, and my view is it's still too soon to know what we're working with," said a former high-ranking Bush national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. He said a chief executive such as Trump "who comes in as head of a political insurgency" needs time to hire at least some people to his team who have not served in government before.

Others, though, say they have already seen signs of change that make them uneasy.

"How do you draw people to the State Department when they're cutting the budget by 30 percent?" asked Elliot Abrams, a national security veteran of the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations who was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's first pick for deputy secretary before the White House rejected him for criticizing Trump during the campaign. Abrams also cited the president's last-minute decision to remove language from a speech in Brussels in May that affirms the United States' commitment to NATO allies' mutual defense.

"It's much harder to recruit people now," Abrams said.

- - -

The Washington Post's Greg Jaffe contributed to this report.
The facts aren't in dispute.

On Friday, a small group of assailants launched an attack near Jerusalem's Old City. Wielding guns and knives, they killed a female police officer and wounded three other people.

What happened next, though, is a source of controversy. Just hours later, the Islamic State claimed credit for the assault, saying its "soldiers of the caliphate" launched a "blessed operation ... on a gathering of Jews." The terrorist organization promised more of the same in Israel.

Minutes later, however, Hamas rejected that assertion. One of the attackers, the militant group said, was a member. The other two belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Both are Palestinian militant groups fighting what they call an Israeli occupation. "The three hero martyrs who executed the Jerusalem operation have no connection to Daesh (Islamic State), they are affiliated with the PFLP and Hamas," Hamas official Izzat El-Reshiq wrote on Twitter.

The Israeli military said their investigation showed the three attackers, killed at the scene, were residents of the West Bank. Two (both teenagers) came from a village near Ramallah, officials said.

The competing claims of responsibility highlight a major challenge in the era of global terrorism: When tragedy strikes, how do countries figure out who's really responsible?

Determining responsibility matters because militant groups use attacks like these to spur on followers and spark fear.

Claiming attacks is a key tactic of the Islamic State. Often, the terror group will say it's perpetrated assaults that aren't directed by the leadership or even centrally coordinated. "It creates the perception that ISIS is expanding, even though it's under attack on multiple fronts in both Iraq and Syria," Kamran Bokhari, a fellow at George Washington University and senior lecturer at the University of Ottawa, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "That creates this sort of panic, and that works to the advantage of ISIS."

"The PR's important," added Scott Stewart, vice president of tactical analysis for Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm based in the United States. "There are two battlefields: You have the physical battlefield and kind of the ideological or the media battlefield."

Stewart explained that the Islamic State will claim two kinds of attacks: the small number directed by the Islamic State's core in Iraq and Syria, and a much larger collection committed by "grass-roots jihadis" who act largely on their own, but proclaim their loyalty to the group.

That's not to say that the claims are all lies. Experts say that when the Islamic State claims credit for an attack, there is some tie back to the organization.

In Israel, the politics of an Islamic State claim are particularly fraught. As the Associated Press explains:

"Israeli intelligence officers have said they believe that the group has been focusing their main efforts on attacking Arab states in the region, but cautioned that a successful attack on Israelis would add to the organization's prestige in the Arab world."

That's part of the reason why countries do their own reporting after an attack. To suss out responsibility, investigators use many tools: They pore through social-media accounts. Trace the steps of the perpetrators, trying to figure out where their money came from and who they were in contact with. And they look at where the suspects traveled and whom they talked to on their cellphones.

In some cases, the attack itself offers important clues. Chunks of a bomb, for example, can reveal a bombmaker's signature. "You're ripping into the identity of the attackers," Stewart told the CBC. "That's going to let you know basically ... who they were working with and for."
An extended shutdown of the nation's only scientific laboratory for producing and testing the plutonium cores for its nuclear weapons has taken a toll on America's arsenal, with key work postponed and delays looming in the production of components for new nuclear warheads, according to government documents and officials.

The unique research and production facility is located at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, the birthplace of the U.S. atomic arsenal. The lab's director ordered the shutdown in 2013 after the Washington, D.C., official in charge of America's warhead production expressed worries that the facility was ill-equipped to prevent an accident that would kill its workers and potentially others nearby.

Parts of the facility began renewed operations last year, but with only partial success. And workers there last year were still violating safety rules for handling plutonium, the unstable man-made metal that serves as the sparkplug of the thermonuclear explosions that American bombs are designed to create.

Los Alamos' persistent shortcomings in plutonium safety have been cited in more than 40 reports by government oversight agencies, teams of nuclear safety experts and the lab's own employees over the past 11 years. Some of these reports say that safety takes a back seat to meeting specific goals for nuclear warhead maintenance and production by private contractors running the labs. Nuclear workers and experts say the contractors have been chasing lucrative government bonuses tied to those goals.

With key work at Los Alamos deferred due to safety problems, officials and experts say the United States risks falling behind on an ambitious $1 trillion update of its nuclear arsenal, which former President Barack Obama supported and President Donald Trump has said he wants to "greatly strengthen and expand."

During the hiatus, Los Alamos has had to forego 29 planned tests of the safety and reliability of plutonium cores in warheads now deployed atop U.S. submarine-launched and land-based missiles and in bombs carried by aircraft. The facility also hasn't been able to make new plutonium cores to replace those regularly withdrawn from the nuclear arsenal for testing or to be fit into warheads, which are being modernized for those missiles and bombers at a projected cost of billions of dollars.

"The laboratory shut down an important facility doing important work," said James McConnell, the associate administrator for safety, infrastructure and operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semiautonomous arm of the Energy Department, in a recent interview at the agency's Washington headquarters. "What we didn't have was the quality program that we want."

Ernest Moniz, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist who served almost four years as Obama's energy secretary, said in a separate interview that "we were obviously quite concerned about" the shutdown at Los Alamos. Moniz said he considered the situation there a "mess" and the testing interruption "significant."

"I don't think it has, at this stage, in any way seriously compromised" the nuclear arsenal, Moniz said. But he added that it was still his conviction that "obviously we've got to get back to that" work as soon as possible. A mock plutonium core was made at Los Alamos last year in a demonstration timed to coincide with a visit by Ashton Carter, then secretary of defense.

At a public hearing in Santa Fe on June 7, McConnell said that while Los Alamos is making progress, it is still unable to resolve the safety issue that provoked its shutdown four years ago, namely an acute shortage of engineers who are trained in keeping the plutonium at the facility from becoming "critical" and fissioning uncontrollably. "They're not where we need them yet," he said of the lab and its managers.

A February report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent safety advisory group chartered by Congress, detailed the magnitude of the gap. It said Los Alamos needs 27 fully qualified safety engineers specialized in keeping the plutonium for fissioning out of control. The lab has 10.

Some of the reports obtained by the Center for Public Integrity described flimsy workplace safety policies that left workers ignorant of proper procedures as well as incidents where plutonium was packed hundreds of times into dangerously close quarters or without the shielding needed to block a serious accident. The safety risks at the Los Alamos plutonium facility, which is known as PF-4, were alarmingly highlighted in August 2011, when a "criticality accident," as it's known, was narrowly averted, one of several factors prompting many safety officials there to quit.

A criticality accident is an uncontrolled chain reaction involving a fissionable material like plutonium that releases energy and generates a deadly burst of radiation. Its prevention has been an important challenge for the nuclear weapons program since the 1940s. Criticality accidents have occurred 60 times at various nuclear sites in the last half-century, causing a total of 21 agonizing deaths.

Three workers at Los Alamos died in preventable criticality accidents in the 1940s and 1950s. The most recent criticality-related deaths elsewhere occurred in 1999 at a factory north of Tokyo, where Japanese technicians accidentally mixed too much highly enriched uranium into some wide-mouth buckets. A burst of radiation - and its resulting characteristic blue glow - provoked school and road closures and the evacuation of those living nearby, plus a Japanese government order for 310,000 others to shelter in place.

The problems at Los Alamos were revealed by a year-long investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, which also found several unpublicized accidents at other privately run U.S. nuclear facilities. The investigation, which can be read in full at the Center for Public Integrity's website, also showed that the penalties imposed by the government for these errors were typically small, relative to the tens of millions of dollars the NNSA gives to each of the contractors annually in pure profit. Some contractors involved in repeated workplace safety incidents were also awarded contract extensions and renewals by officials in Washington.

Asked about the Los Alamos facility's record, NNSA spokesman Gregory Wolf responded that "we expect our contractors to perform work in a safe and secure manner that protects our employees, our facilities, and the public. When accidents do occur, our focus is to determine causes, identify corrective actions and prevent recurrences."

Kevin Roark, the spokesman for the consortium of firms hired by the government to run the lab, said in an email that he would defer to the NNSA's response. Charles McMillan, the Los Alamos lab's director since 2011, who receives government-funded compensation exceeding $1 million a year, declined to be interviewed about its safety records or the national security consequences of the shutdown. But he said in a 2015 promotional video that "the only way" the lab can accomplish its vital national security mission "is by doing it safely."

Los Alamos' handling of plutonium was the target of internal and external criticism a decade ago, around the time of its takeover by three profit-making firms - Bechtel National Inc., URS (now AECOM), and BWXT Government Group Inc. - in an alliance with the University of California. "We couldn't prove we were safe," said Douglas Bowen, a nuclear engineer on the laboratory's criticality safety staff at the time, "not even close."

In September 2007, the facility in question - technically known as PF-4 for Plutonium Facility Four and located in a highly secure part of the Los Alamos campus in the mountains above Santa Fe - was shut for a month while managers conducted new training and created an internal safety board to fix its problems. But in 2010, when the Energy Department did a checkup, it found "no official notes or records" the board had ever met, according to a report at the time.

Alarms were sounded more loudly after a nuclear technician positioned eight plutonium rods dangerously close together inside what is called a glovebox - a sealed container meant to contain the cancer-causing plutonium particles - on the afternoon of Aug. 11, 2011, to take a photograph for senior managers. Doing so posed the risk that neutrons emitted routinely by the metal in the rods would collide with the atoms of other particles, causing them to fission enough to provoke more collisions and begin an uncontrolled chain reaction of atom splitting.

As luck had it, a supervisor returned from her lunch break and noticed the dangerous configuration. But she then ordered the technician to reach into the box and move the rods apart, and a more senior lab official ordered others present to keep working. Both decisions increased, rather than diminished, the likelihood of an accident, because bodies - and even hands - contain water that can reflect and slow the neutrons, increasing the likelihood of a criticality and its resulting radiation burst.

"The weird thing about criticality safety is it's not intuitive," Don Nichols, a former chief for defense nuclear safety at NNSA, said in an interview. The calculations involved in avoiding criticality - which take account of the shape, size, form, quantity and geometric configuration of the plutonium as it moves through more than a dozen messy industrial processes - are so complex that it takes 18 months of training for an engineer to become qualified, and as many as five years to become proficient.

That's why the consequences of the 2011 incident were so severe, even though a criticality did not occur. Virtually all the criticality specialists responsible for helping to keep workers safe at Los Alamos decided to quit, having become frustrated by the sloppy work demonstrated in the incident and what they considered the lab management's callousness about nuclear risks when higher profits were at stake, according to interviews and government reports.

Bowen recalled frequently hearing an official with one of the private contractors running PF-4 say "we don't even need a criticality-safety program," and that the work was costing the contractor too much money. Former NNSA official Nichols confirmed the exodus of trained experts, saying that due to "some mismanagement, people voted with their feet. They left." The attrition rate was around 100 percent, according to a "lessons-learned" report completed last month by the lab's current criticality safety chief and the lone NNSA expert assigned to that issue in the agency's Los Alamos oversight office.

The lab's inability to fend off a deadly accident eventually became apparent to Washington.

Four NNSA staff members briefed Neile Miller, the agency's acting administrator in 2013, in an anteroom of her office overlooking the Mall that year, Miller recalled. The precise risks did not need an explanation, she said. She said that criticality is "one of those trigger words" that should immediately get the attention of anyone responsible for preventing a nuclear weapons disaster.

With two of the four experts remaining in her office, Miller picked up the phone that day and called McMillan at the Los Alamos complex, which is financed by a federal payment exceeding $2 billion a year. She recommended that the key plutonium lab inside PF-4 be shut down, immediately, while the safety deficiencies were fixed.

McMillan responded that he had believed the problems could be solved while that lab kept operating, Miller said. He was "reluctant" to shut it down, she recalled. But as the telephone conversation proceeded, he became open to her view that the risks were too high, she added. So on McMillan's order, the lab was shut within a day, with little public notice.

The exact cost to taxpayers of idling the facility is unclear, but an internal Los Alamos report estimated in 2013 that shutting down the facility where such work is conducted costs the government as much as $1.36 million a day in lost productivity.

Initially, McMillan promised the staff that a "pause" lasting less than a year wouldn't cause "any significant impact to mission deliverables." But at the end of 2013, a new group of safety experts commissioned by the lab declared in an internal report that "management has not yet fully embraced its commitment to criticality safety." It listed nine weaknesses in the lab's safety culture that were rooted in a "production focus" to meet deadlines. Workers say these deadlines are typically linked to managers' financial bonuses.

Los Alamos' leaders, the report said, had made the right promises, but failed to alter the underlying safety culture. "The focus appears to remain short-term and compliance-oriented rather than based on a strategic plan," it said.

Shortfalls persisted in 2015, and new ones were discovered while the facility, still mostly shut down, was used for test runs. On May 6, 2015, for example, the NNSA sent Los Alamos's managing contractors a letter again criticizing the lab for being slow to fix criticality risks. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said the letter cited "more than 60 unresolved infractions," many present for months "or even years."

In January and again in April 2015, workers discovered tubes of liquids containing plutonium in seldom-used rooms at PF-4, with labels that made it hard to know how much plutonium the tubes held or where they'd come from, the safety board said. In May, workers packed a drum of nuclear waste with too much plutonium, posing a criticality risk, and in the ensuing probe, it became clear that they were relying on inaccurate and confusing documentation. Safety experts had miscalculated how much plutonium the drum could safely hold.

"These issues are very similar to the issues that contributed to the LANL Director's decision to pause operations in June of 2013," safety board inspectors wrote.

In 2016, for the third straight year, the Energy Department and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board each listed criticality safety at Los Alamos as one of the most pressing problems facing the nuclear weapons program, in their annual reports to Congress. "Required improvements to the Criticality Safety program are moving at an unacceptably slow pace," the most recent NNSA performance evaluation of Los Alamos, released in Nov. 2016, said.

Hazardous operations at PF-4 slowly started to resume in 2016, but problems continued. In June, after technicians working in a glovebox spilled about 7 tablespoons of a liquid containing plutonium, workers violated safety rules by sopping up the spill with organic cheesecloth and throwing it in waste bins with other nuclear materials, posing the risk of a chemical reaction and fire, according to an internal Los Alamos report. A similar chemical reaction stemming from the sloppy disposal of Los Alamos's nuclear waste in 2014 provoked the shutdown of a deep-underground storage site in New Mexico for the waste for more than two years, a Department of Energy accident investigation concluded. That incident cost the government more than a billion dollars in cleanup and other expenses

Frank Klotz, the NNSA director, has tried to be upbeat. In March, he told hundreds of nuclear contractors packed into a Washington hotel ballroom for an industry gathering that PF-4 was fully back in business, having "safely resumed all plutonium activities there after a three-year pause."

Klotz said the updated nuclear weapons would be delivered "on time and on budget."

But a subsequent analysis by the Government Accountability Office clashed with Klotz's description. In an April report on costs associated with the NNSA's ongoing weapons modernization, the GAO disclosed the existence of an internal NNSA report forecasting that PF-4 will be unable to meet the plutonium-pit production deadlines.

Moreover, late last year when Los Alamos conducted its first scheduled invasive test of a plutonium pit since the shutdown of PF-4 more than three years ago, it did not produce the needed results, according to NNSA's annual evaluation of Los Alamos' performance last year. The test involved the core of a refurbished warhead scheduled to be delivered to the Navy by the end of 2019 for use atop the Trident missiles carried by U.S. submarines. A second attempt involving a different warhead was canceled because the safety analysis was incomplete, NNSA's evaluation said.

The purpose of such stockpile surveillance tests, as Vice President Joe Biden said in a 2010 National Defense University speech, is to "anticipate potential problems and reduce their impact on our arsenal." Weapons designers say these tests are akin to what car owners would do if they were storing a vehicle for years while still expecting the engine to start and the vehicle to speed down the road at the sudden turn of a key.

At the public hearing in Santa Fe on June 7, NNSA's McConnell said the agency is studying whether to keep plutonium-pit operations at Los Alamos. Options being considered include upgrading the facilities there or "adding capabilities or leveraging existing capabilities elsewhere in the country, at other sites where plutonium is already present or has been used."

Active NNSA sites that fit that description include the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Pantex plant in Texas and the Nevada National Security Site. The NNSA expects to complete its analysis by late summer.

---

This article is from the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative media organization in Washington, D.C.
Portugal declared three days of national mourning on Sunday after a forest fire triggered by thunderstorms in the north of the country killed more than 60 people, many of them fleeing in their cars.

At least 30 people died in vehicles, with more bodies found near cars on the side of a road and others in rural areas near Pedrogao Grande, Secretary of State for Internal Administration Jorge Gomes said in comments broadcast Sunday by RTP. According to an initial analysis by the Judicial Police, the fire was caused by a dry thunderstorm, Gomes said. Government officials said an assessment will be made of the cause.
The speculation began within minutes of when President Trump, speaking in Waukesha and alluding to negotiations with an unspecified company, told Gov. Scott Walker he might get a very happy surprise very soon.

That surprise may well be Foxconn, a Taiwanese giant that assembles Apples iPhones and other electronics. No one will say for sure, but the Associated Press reported Thursday it had off-the-record confirmation that Foxconn is talking with Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. never comments on pending or potential opportunities  which is appropriate given how fragile and competitive such talks can be  so the potential surprise is still tightly wrapped inside a box awaiting a party that may never come.

This much is known, however. Foxconn is best known as one of Apples iPhone and iPad manufacturing partners. The company is likely to build a plant in the United States that would be used to build displays for everything from Internet of Things products to Apple devices.

As DigiTimes reported earlier this year, Foxconn would use a U.S. facility to manufacture small to medium displays for IoT applications, including automotive, medical care and mobile terminal displays. It could also be used to develop new screens for existing Apple products and televisions.

Foxconn CEO and Chairman Terry Gou said in January the company was planning to invest $7 billion in a U.S. facility, and company executive visited the White House a month or so ago.

Why would a company so large that entire cities have sprung up around its global factories have an interest in the United States and Wisconsin?

For starters, building a huge screen plant in the United States would fit well with Trumps push to create more domestic jobs. Trump has criticized foreign and domestic companies alike for not creating or keeping American manufacturing jobs, and he has threatened to increase tariffs on imports from countries that dont take heed.

The interest goes beyond politics, however. Foxconn would like to secure a larger share of American markets, particularly for products such as Sharp, a recently acquired subsidiary. Localizing screen production could help the company save on transport costs. The resulting publicity could also help sell more high-end Sharp-branded sets in the United States, the worlds second-biggest television market.

Those factors apply anywhere in the United States where Foxconn chooses to build. So, why Wisconsin?

The state has a manufacturing tradition that extends to electronic devices, equipment and components. In fact, electrical machinery of all types accounted for 9.4 percent of Wisconsin exports in the most recent year  about $2 billion in total. Power electronics and controls has been a Wisconsin specialty for a century or more.

Wisconsin is a state plugged into the Internet of Things through major companies such as GE Healthcare, Johnson Controls, Rockwell Automation and more. The Internet of Things is a term that describes using the internet to connect computing devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receive data via WiFi, cellular connections or other networks. It includes anything from your Fitbit wristband to coffeemakers and garage openers you can control through a smartphone, to smart buildings, connected cars and much more. Wisconsin companies large and small have been increasingly good at figuring it out.

The state has the foundation to produce skilled workers through the Wisconsin Technical College System and the UW System. The Department of Computer Sciences at the UW-Madison is one of the leading academic departments in the country, usually ranking in the top 12. There are strong engineering colleges in Madison, Milwaukee, Menomonie and Platteville.

There are logical plant sites available and an infrastructure in place that would enable a company the size of Foxconn to deliver its products to market.

Other states are reportedly in the hunt, most notably Michigan, which has a similar footprint to Wisconsin. Some states may be able to dig deeper into their own pockets to provide cash incentives. That means the presidents surprise could fizzle like a candle on a birthday cake.
Havana

The American traveler in Cuba  sweating, disoriented and probably a bit woozy from the rum drinks  is once more at the heart of the struggle for the island's future.

Central to President Donald Trump's plans to peel back his predecessor's detente with Cuba is the idea that there is "good" and "bad" U.S. travel. The United States, Trump believes, can tightly regulate American vacations to deprive the Castro government of dollars and redirect the money to the island's growing class of entrepreneurs.

But it will be difficult to pick winners in Cuba's state-controlled economy, where government businesses and the private sector are thoroughly intertwined. And even harder will be determining what sort of travel constitutes the kind of "people-to-people" interactions the Trump administration says it wants to preserve.

By reinstating restrictions on independent travelers, the Trump administration's new policy will hurt Cuba's emerging private sector that caters to American visitors, critics insist.

Instead, the new rules will herd Americans back toward the kind of prepackaged, predictable group tourism that the Cuban government actually prefers  and earns more revenue from.

"I think if you come here on a package tour, you see what the Cuban government wants you to see," said Andrew Sleyko, 36, a food scientist from Chicago who was visiting the island for the first time as Trump announced his new policy.

Sleyko and a friend had booked rooms through Airbnb and were spending their days walking around the city in the muggy heat.

"We're talking to people wherever we go," he said. "Isn't that the idea of people-to-people?"

The Trump plan, announced Friday in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, asserts that the Obama-era rules facilitated what the White House called "illegal" tourism by allowing U.S. travelers to rent rooms in Cuban homes through sites such as Airbnb.

Americans will generally still be allowed to visit Cuba if they come on cruise ships, for instance, or book with U.S.-approved tour agencies that ensure travel itineraries do not include too much unstructured time.

The complication for Trump's rules, however, is that large tour groups are too big for smaller bed-and-breakfast rentals, and their government-appointed guides tend to ply the well-trodden routes that bypass the new galleries, restaurants and night spots opened by enterprising Cubans and others after the openings spurred by Obama.

That, in turn, will cause a ripple effect.

"If independent American travel is cut off, you won't only hurt the bed-and-breakfasts. It's also the construction crews, the private tour guides, the taxi drivers, the restaurants and the artists selling handicrafts," said Andrea Gallina, an Italian entrepreneur who last year opened a high-end boutique hotel, Paseo 206, with his Cuban spouse.

The 1934 mansion has an Italian restaurant on the ground floor, and Gallina estimates two-thirds of his guests are American, booking rooms through Airbnb, Expedia and other U.S. sites.

"To be honest, Americans don't have time to go to the beach, because they get absorbed into the city," he said. "Independent travelers have more contact with real Cubans."

Gallina employs 22 Cuban workers. If his bookings decline because of a travel crackdown, he said, he will probably turn to the European market and "tighten our belts."

American travel to Cuba has been a political battleground since the early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union left the island's communist government starved for hard currency.

As its resort industry grew and more foreign visitors arrived, the Castro government's enemies in Miami and in the halls of Congress fought to restrict Americans from going  knowing their dollars could undermine efforts to choke the Cuban economy.

Instead, Cuba's tourism industry grew on euros and Canadian dollars.

But that's beginning to change.

The government says it received more than 4 million tourists last year  a record number  of which about 615,000 were U.S. visitors. That includes 330,000 Cuban Americans visiting relatives on the island, but many of the rest were Americans taking advantage of Obama's landmark moves to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba.

Travel by non-Cuban Americans has been on pace to double this year, according to the latest government data.

But Trump's rollback is expected to put a brake on that growth. U.S. officials say the new restrictions have yet to be written and will not take effect until then, and Americans who have already booked Cuba travel won't have to cancel.

Limited economic reforms by Cuban leader Raul Castro, 86, have allowed Cuban entrepreneurs to buy and sell property and run small businesses, but it was Obama's normalization measures that kicked the process into overdrive.

In Old Havana's tourist quarter, entire city blocks of crumbling century-old buildings are being renovated and turned into boutique hostels and chic cafes.

The work is being almost entirely carried out by private sector tradesman and contractors.

"I've never been this busy," said Roberto Claro, a dust-covered construction foreman in Old Havana, whose crew was busy converting a ruined, century-old building into a seafood restaurant. There were two other buildings on the same block also getting an overhaul.

The new rules aim to ban or limit Americans from patronizing military-linked businesses including Cuba's gargantuan GAESA conglomerate, which is estimated to control more than half of the island's tourist economy.

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control said Friday it will provide Americans with a list of prohibited hotels and other businesses linked to the company so American travelers can steer clear.

U.S. travelers will need to keep detailed records and receipts from their Cuba trips in case of an audit by Treasury Department officials, and that alone could be a deterrent if aggressively enforced.
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A man was shot in the back Saturday night in a north Houston drive-by shooting.

A group of people was hanging out around the pool of an apartment complex near Bammel North Houston and Veterans Memorial just after 11 p.m. when a car sped through the parking lot and someone inside opened fire.

Two people were hit in the burst of bullets, according to authorities. One man was shot in the back, but it's unclear where the other victim was hit.

Both victims were rushed to the hospital in serious but stable condition.

The suspects fled the scene and authorities were not immediately able to offer any description of the shooter.
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As volunteers from Haven for Hope sanded and primed his home Saturday, 74-year-old Miguel Calzada was visbly moved.

No education, no money and yet all these people came to my rescue, Calzada said, his voice cracking with emotion. Its got to be a miracle.

Calzadas house in the Beacon Hill neighborhood was slated for demolition by the citys Building Standards Board in 2014, then neighbors and friends rallied to save the structure.

RELATED: Volunteers work to save home from demolition by city

Haven for Hope, a homeless shelter and rehabilitation center, stepped in to help with renovations necessary to keep the wrecking ball at bay, along with other organizations.

The work is part of the shelter's ambassador program, said Michael Mercado, the organization's community initiative manager. The program has been around since 2012 and allows Haven for Hope to do work in the community while also training its residents for later employment.

Its a win-win for the community and for Haven, Mercado said. Haven for Hope was recently announced as a winner of the Governors Volunteer Award for community leadership.

There is still a demolition order against the house, said Bob Comeaux, 69, who has been helping Calzada since 2014. Comeaux said he has to give regular reports to the city to keep them from tearing down the home, which is in the 1100 block of West French Place, just east of I-10.

Calzadas supporters rely on the generosity of others to keep the work going. Merced Housing Texas has supplied a lot of the funding for the project, including foundation work, and local labor unions have offered their skills to outfit the house with new plumbing and wiring, Comeaux said.

RELATED: Changes to prevent hasty demolitions

Comeaux also repeatedly praised the work ethic of the Haven for Hope volunteers.

We want to represent Haven, first and foremost, said Daniel Torres, 35, one of the volunteers. And show them its a good environment. Its a good, sober environment.

The next stage of renovations will be putting a new metal roof on the house. For now, Calzada alternates living with his son and a friend. His wife, Guadalupe, died in 2015 and he wears a photo of her on a chain around his neck. Saturday, her smiling would peek out occasionally from beneath his green jacket as he watched the workers and talked with visitors.

jpound@express-news.net
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Led by blaring horns from the Sam Houston High School marching band, a squadron of Buffalo Soldier re-enactors on horseback and a cavalcade of Bexar County sheriffs patrol cars, San Antonios annual Juneteenth Freedom Parade rolled across the East Side on Saturday.

Juneteenth marks the day when some 200,000 enslaved Texans were told they were free and independent. President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, but the news didnt reach the Lone Star State until June 19, 1865.

Byron Miller, Juneteenth San Antonio commissioner, is an Edwards Aquifer Authority board member whos run the citys Juneteenth festivities for more than 20 years. He was quick to move the conversation from 1865 to 2017.

This celebration is not a snapshot, Miller said. This event is about an evolution  its about taking a look at how far everybody has come since emancipation.

The celebration of Juneteenth experienced a resurgence in Texas during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and it became an official state holiday in 1980. San Antonio, in turn, has hosted festivities since the day of the announcement in 1865, Miller explained.

Saturdays parade wound for nearly 3 miles in the blistering afternoon heat along W.W. White Road, starting from Sam Houston High School and ending at the cool confines of Comanche Park, where hundreds of visitors enjoyed smooth music, barbecue and the chance to visit with other members of the community.

Newly elected District 2 Councilman William Cruz Shaw, who stood under a shaded pavilion along with several members of the Juneteenth Freedom Parade commission, said he was pleased with the turnout.

This event brings together families, neighbors, church members from all across the community  its a great occasion, Shaw said. Its good to see our young folks out here, being involved, being engaged  its just a blessing to be out here.

As classic-R&B band The Fonics warmed up on a nearby stage, a group of event commissioners took time to reminisce: Aristide Brown, 86, a retired pastor at Tree Mount Temple Baptist Church, and his sons Michael Brown, 46, pastor at True Vision Church, and Ray Brown, 51, pastor at Resurrection Baptist Church and Redland Oaks Community Church. The father was this years grand marshal of the parade.

This is priceless, Michael Brown said. Weve celebrated in the past, and well do it in the future, because we always need to remember, and celebrate, the freedoms that we have.

Ray Brown was focused on the future of the Juneteenth celebration.

Weve been doing this for years, ever since I was growing up, Brown said. Now were just (focusing) on passing the legacy down to the other generations  so more cultures can understand what Juneteenth is all about.

Aristide Brown, nodding as the other two spoke, said Juneteenth was also an opportunity to remind the community to stay vocal  and stay active.

This is wonderful, the elder Brown said. But now is more about getting everybody organized  thats the main thing.

As visitors milled among the information booths, tables and tents, Miller paused to take in the sight. The crowd was mostly African-American but included several Hispanic and Anglo attendees, and it buzzed with a friendly, relaxed rhythm.

A lot of people hear Juneteenth and they think this is an African-American holiday, Miller said. But the Emancipation Proclamation, the 14th and 15th amendments, these laws didnt just free slaves. They freed slave owners, too.

These laws removed them from being a part of that institution any longer, he said. These laws also freed abolitionists, who were working so hard to (overturn) slavery.

When you think about it that way, this is everybodys celebration.

jgerlach@express-news.net
Delma Baker, 98, raised six children, still balances her own checkbook and has apparently been so good with her money that, as her daughter, Alice Natvig, put it, companies get nosebleeds when checking her credit rating, it is so high.

Still, neither woman could sort out why AT&T was charging Baker, who is hard of hearing, for a second line she uses for closed-captioning on her telephone calls, or why it was so quick to send her account to collections when she didnt pay a bill she didnt know she had to pay.

Frankly, SOS doesnt quite understand where the telecommunications giants lines got crossed, either, but the good news is that Bakers charges have been wiped out.

Natvig says she did her due diligence before AT&T installed a second line at her mothers Waunakee home on April 3; she contacted AT&Ts disability department and consulted the Wisconsin Public Service Commission for details of a state program that reimburses phone companies for the costs of a closed-captioning line.

That didnt stop a $190.73 bill for installation and service from arriving in Bakers mailbox later in April, Natvig said, or one in May for $237.17 consisting of the now-overdue charges from April plus the $27 monthly cost of the second line and taxes and fees. Natvig said that after her mother received the first bill, Natvig was told by an AT&T representative not to pay it until the company could get things sorted out.

The bills were somewhat understandable, given that the PSCs Jeff Richter said AT&T stopped participating in the state reimbursement program in March.

But Richter also said the company never asked for reimbursement when it was in the program, and that the company told him it would continue to waive charges related to closed-captioning lines, just to be a good corporate citizen.

On May 12, Baker received a collection call from AT&T, Natvig said, which upset her greatly. But over the course of the confusion, Baker made two payments of $10 each on her bill, as a sign of good faith, Natvig said.

May 12 was also the date SOS first contacted AT&T and explained that basically, Baker wanted to pay her bill, but didnt know what she was supposed to be paying and wanted to make sure she was getting any credits she was supposed to get for her closed-captioning line.

Twelve days later, a manager in the AT&T Office of the President wrote a letter to Baker  which Natvig shared with SOS  saying that we have been able to correct the charge that was associated with your closed captioning line and there is no longer a charge.

The letter goes on to say that Bakers past bills for the line were wiped out and her account currently had a $20 credit  presumably the total of those good faith payments.
Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

In one of his first acts as mayor, Ron Nirenberg will join hundreds of other mayors across the country who have committed their cities to do their best to cut greenhouse gas emissions and limit human impact on climate change.

The movement has arisen in response to President Donald Trumps regrettable decision to withdraw the U.S., the worlds second-biggest carbon emitter, from the Paris agreement to reduce emissions. Not only is that decision bad for the planet, its bad for U.S. leadership. We are turning our backs on the world and our moral responsibility to mitigate climate change, and we are creating a leadership vacuum for China to fill.
Im sure Sens. Mitch McConnell and Richard Burr are aware women in the U.S. have equal rights. I think its time they were informed of the fact that shushing women is also passe.

I must borrow from Sen. McConnell: Senators, youve been warned. Youve been given an explanation. Nevertheless, you persist. So will we women, who have minds and who refuse to let small men tell us what to do. Women fought too hard for the privilege to speak. You will never again stop us.

Valerie Overstreet

Yes men for hire

Re: Different men with different motivations, Michael Gerson, Other Views, June 13:

President Donald Trump demands sycophancy, and hires yes men and toadies who do his bidding and cannot or will not think for themselves, according to Michael Gerson.

What colossal rubbish! A 30-second review of the presidents Cabinet puts his scurrilous charges into the same category as that of a spoiled childs temper tantrum.

In what universe does a successful, accomplished leader hire strong, principled men and women, then expect them to behave like sheep? Gerson must be thinking of the last administration.

And his logic is so colored by his personal animus and bias toward the president, describing him as a disturbing and needy man, that he has forfeited his credential to publish a believable, political opinion column.

R.B. Jenkins

Courage earned win

Re: Uncomfortable reasons behind upsets in runoff, Brian Chasnoff, June 13:

We enjoy reading Brian Chasnoffs column. This one was interesting, but it missed a few reasons why people voted for John Courage in the District 9 race. We live in District 9. We voted for Courage not because of his liberalism, Bernie Sanders or race.

Courages supporters were the only group coming to our door and asking for our vote.

Marco Barros, meanwhile, relied on thousands of signs to get his name out. Im sure Barros has a solid business background, but Courages involvement in educational and literacy programs is a major issue in our community. Courage worked for our votes. Barros did not.

Mike Horridge

Colonel maligned

Re: Former banker leading revolt of military retirees, Gilbert Garcia, May 26:

I was extremely disappointed in the one-sided reporting that inaccurately portrays Col. Mary Garr both personally and professionally.

This is not the Mary Garr I have known since she entered active duty with the Army.

Besides Marys 30 stellar years in the military, she has given much to our local community, including being on the boards of Boy Scouts of America, Military Civilian Club, Lighthouse for the Blind, University of the Incarnate Word (masters of health administration program), Leading Age of Texas, etc.

Mary does not deserve this one-sided reporting, and I thought a columnist of this caliber would have quoted her or at least reported some of her contributions to the nation and state. I hope he will now take the time to investigate Marys superb qualities, integrity and contributions, giving readers a more representative picture of a maligned individual.

Retired Army Col. James Vinci, Universal City
Michigan International Speedway Manufacturers Trophy

The Michigan Heritage Recognizes Winning Automobile Manufacturer

The Michigan Heritage trophy is a recognition and celebration of the automobile and its importance to the race track and manufacturers competing in NASCAR. The trophy is presented to the winning manufacturer in each Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway.





Joey Logano held off rookie sensation Chase Elliott to win the FireKeepers Casino 400 in June 2016. Logano kept his car straight as other cars were sideways coming out of turns throughout the day to claim his second victory at Michigan International Speedway.The victory also meant Ford Performance won the coveted Michigan Heritage for the second time since its inception in 2013.





With 10 laps to go in the 2016 Pure Michigan 400, Kyle Larson found himself side-by-side with race leader Elliott on a restart. Both drivers spun their tires as they tried to gain position only adding to the drama. Larson held off Elliott during the final laps in order to secure his first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win in 99 starts.





The victory also meant Chevrolet won the coveted Michigan Heritage for the fourth time since its inception in 2013. As part of the Michigan Heritage presentation, each contending manufacturer as well as MIS, committed $10,000 to be given to a youthfocused and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-related charity in Michigan.





In 2016, the three manufacturers and MIS awarded $40,000 to DRIVE One Detroit. The program instills at-risk youth with valuable trade skills required in todays workforce. The program educates students in fields such as automotive technology, welding-fabrication, machine-operating, and other areas with employment opportunities so that they can seek a greater life. DRIVE also provides students with free tutoring services to achieve current academic success, as well as additional assistance in gaining employment, internships, and scholarship opportunities to stimulate growth beyond high school graduation.





The Michigan Heritage, inspired by the iconic Stanley Cup, will recognize the winning manufacturer  Ford, Toyota or Chevrolet  after each Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win at MIS.





The trophy was designed by Fortress Studios artists Steven Kuypers and Steven McShane, both graduates of Detroits College for Creative Studies. The Michigan Heritage trophy is three feet tall, weighs about 30 pounds and features an original sculpture similar to Greek goddess of victory Nike, also inspiration for classic cars hood ornaments from Cadillac, Rolls-Royce and Packard. The original bronze artwork sits atop a wooden base similar to the architecture of Detroit landmarks such as the Fisher Building and Guardian Building.





Manufacturers are important to MIS. The track annually recognizes NASCARs manufacturers, asking fans in the grandstands to cheer on their favorite during a fun poll conducted over the PA system during pre-race ceremonies.













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Oakpark has won a gold medal at the prestigious annual Grocer Own Label Food and Drink awards which recently took place in London.

The company which is based in Cahir, is part of the Brett Group.

The event awards the most outstanding products in the own label category which are on sale in UK supermarkets. Oakpark won the top award in the chilled bacon category for its Thick Cut Honey Cure Rashers, produced under the Brannans range for ALDI UK and Ireland. It beat entries from all major UK retailers including Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsburys, ASDA, and Tesco.

Thousands of own label products were entered in the competition, which is organized by the Grocer magazine and Oakparks rashers have received the prestigious gold medal for the second year in a row and the third time in the last four years. The judges acknowledged the unique flavor and the premium packaging, describing it as hard to resist for consumers.

Oakpark Managing Director, Jimmy Brett, said the award will be of huge benefit to the companys presence in Britain where it has already established itself as a key supplier of own label bacon products to UK retailers. We produce private label products for Morrisons, ALDI, LIDL, and Farmfoods in the UK and this award is a major endorsement of our credentials in what is a very competitive market place, he said.

Oakpark Foods is located in Cahir and is the Brett Groups flagship food processing business, employing 125 people. Bretts are involved in Animal feeds, Agronomy and Agritrading throughout the South East.
(Natural News) Women who experience debilitating menstrual cramps could soon be allowed to take marijuana for relief, at least in the state of New York where lawmakers are currently mulling the approval of including dysmenorrhea (menstrual cramps) as one of the health conditions that allow medical marijuana. However, gynecologists say that more research needs to be done to recommend marijuana as a cure for menstrual cramps, the DailyMail.co.uk reported.

Patients ask me about it all the time. It could be that in five years its the first thing I recommend. But right now we need a trial into it. There simply isnt enough research to say one way or the other, gynecologist Dr. Lauren Streicher said in the report.

Cannabidiol or CBD is the non-psychoactive component in marijuana that is suggested to work against menstrual cramps. The component has relaxing properties that could help ease muscle contractions in the uterus that cause the pain.

There are already a handful of marijuana products on the market made specifically to combat menstrual pain. Many of these products do not just contain CBD but also THC, marijuanas psychoactive component that causes the high feeling experienced by those who consume the herb.

Most of the marijuana products for menstrual pain have not yet been approved by the FDA, and medical experts have expressed their concern over using the product. General practitioner Dr. Helen Webberly urged caution and, like Streicher, doubted such products because of the lack of research about them.

I would be very worried about women using this product before it has been fully evaluated, she was quoted as saying in the report.

However, the women who have actually tried marijuana for their period pain attest to the herbs efficiency when it comes to providing relief.

In an article on Bustle.com, writer Marley Russell tried seven different marijuana products to see which worked best with her severe menstrual cramps. The products that Russell tried came in different forms, including tampon-like suppositories inserted into the vagina, tinctures dropped on the tongue, body balms scooped into the vagina, and even marijuana-infused cacao taken as hot chocolate. The products had varying levels of THC and CBD.

While Russell felt significant relief and relaxation with all of the products she tried, she ranked vaginal suppositories by Foria and cannabidiol CBD tincture by Magnolia Wellness as the best. The former was more THC-heavy at 60 mg THC and 10 mg of CBD, though as Russell said, using it did not make her high. Instead, she felt relief within minutes of inserting the suppository into her vagina.

It was like all my pelvis muscles had been holding their breath and suddenly let it out, all at once. It was magicIt was like mainlining medicine straight to my uterus muscles, she wrote.

Meanwhile, the cannabidiol CBD tincture had a higher CBD ratio, containing 13.39 mg of CBD and just 2.53 mg of THC per milliliter. Russell said that the product worked almost instantaneously, and while she took it orally with two drops of the tincture under her tongue, she felt completely functional and normal  not at all high.

If you live in a place where medical or recreational marijuana is legal, your cramps are getting your down, and other painkiller options arent working, I would recommend checking out any of these products, Russell wrote.

In states where medical marijuana is legal, the controversial herb has been approved as a treatment for a variety of health conditions, many of them painful and debilitating. These diseases include HIV, Alzheimers disease, ALS, multiple sclerosis, and even cancer.

Get more news about medical marijuana on CannabisCures.news.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

Bustle.com
The nation's oldest U.S. senator looks like she's sticking around.

California's Dianne Feinstein turns 84 on Thursday and is displaying signs that she's headed for a re-election campaign, not a retirement party.

While the Democrat has been coy when asked about seeking a fifth full term next year, her political committee, unambiguously titled Feinstein for Senate 2018, raised more than $650,000 in the first three months of this year in a cue she is looking ahead.

Feinstein plays a marquee role for Democrats on Capitol Hill, where she has queried Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former FBI Director James Comey about their interactions with President Donald Trump, amid probes tied to Russian influence and the 2016 presidential campaign.

On Friday, she warned that Trump might attempt to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible obstruction of justice. "The message the president is sending through his tweets is that he believes the rule of law doesn't apply to him," she said.

She's the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the circumstances behind Trump's dismissal of Comey. She also sits on the Intelligence Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into Russia's election meddling and whether there was any collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign.

With another term in Washington, Feinstein could be in the Senate into her 90s.

Questions about her age circulated in 2012, when at 78 she was easily re-elected over token Republican opposition. She had a pacemaker installed in January, and a voter survey earlier this year suggested her support could be dinged by her advancing years.

But even in youth-obsessed California, where about four in 10 people are under 30, Feinstein's age didn't concern Los Angeles screenwriter Marie Stone, providing the senator remains in good health. Stone said she likes the balance between Feinstein's long experience and the baby-boom pedigree of Sen. Kamala Harris, the state's junior senator who is a comparatively youthful 52.

"As long as she's standing up and defending California's rights, that's what's important," said Stone, a Democrat.

Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's political committee recently wrote a $1,000 check to Feinstein's campaign. "I've encouraged her" to run, he said in an email.

A former San Francisco mayor, Feinstein has long been among California's most popular political figures, and she would be a strong favorite to keep the seat in a state where Democrats hold every statewide office and control both chambers of the Legislature by hefty margins.

But her centrist credentials and lack of enthusiasm for universal health care have made the grande dame of state Democrats a target within the party's restless liberal wing.

She's had protesters outside her home, and has been criticized by some for appearing too temperate in remarks about Trump's White House.

After Trump fired Comey, her initial statement said, "The next FBI director must be strong and independent and will receive a fair hearing in the Judiciary Committee." Within a day, she changed course and was questioning if Comey was fired to stifle the FBI's Russia investigation.

The break between the party's establishment and liberal branches played out during last year's Democratic presidential primary. And at a state Democratic convention this year, liberals inspired by Bernie Sanders nearly captured the party's top job.

"The split is obviously between the new breed and the old guard. It's not likely to heal if Dianne Feinstein runs for re-election," said Michael Thaller, who heads the state party's Progressive Caucus.

For many liberals, "it's time to get some new blood in there  some new, more progressive blood," he added.

Feinstein is quick to defend her record, and she has deep credentials on issues that drive the left-leaning state electorate, including environmental protection and reproductive rights.

Her role on Senate committees has given her an important perch in a state that is at the center of the so-called Trump resistance  Hillary Clinton carried California by over 4 million votes in the general election.

She's a regular on the Sunday TV political circuit and has made frequent use of Twitter. "Release the tapes, Mr. President! What are you afraid of?" she tweeted on June 11, referring to the possibility that the president's conversations with Comey were recorded at the White House. She has called Trump's decision to withdraw from a global climate agreement "shameful, disastrous."

Veteran Democratic consultant Roger Salazar noted Feinstein was back on the job shortly after the pacemaker procedure. "That's the signal of somebody who isn't going off into the sunset," he said.

Feinstein's political roots go back to the Vietnam era, long before millions of younger voters were born. Over half of new voter registrations through October were millennials  younger people who tend to be more liberal than older Californians.

Computer consultant Manuel Moreno said her age shouldn't be a concern. The 67-year-old Los Angeles Democrat doesn't always agree with Feinstein  he said she drifts "to the right of my political views."

But Moreno credited her with sharp questioning of Sessions and Comey in Senate hearings.

"I wasn't disappointed," he said.
The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, delivered the keynote address at the 2017 commencement ceremony at the University of California San Diego on Saturday, urging new graduates to keep humanity top of mind as they carry into the future.

These people are the future of our humanity, he said, addressing students and spectators gathered at the all-campus commencement ceremony at RIMAC Field.

You have the opportunity and also responsibility to create a better world, the Dalai Lama told the new graduates. Please, think humanity.

Dressed in a graduation gown and colorful purple flower lei, the Dalai Lama started the address by taking off his graduation cap and, instead, putting on a blue visor emblazoned with the UC San Diego logo.

I prefer this hat, he said, as the crowd laughed.

In his 22-minute speech, the Dalai Lama went on to talk about the importance of finding inner peace and happiness in life. He told graduates that, while education is important, their knowledge should be used to better the world in peaceful ways.

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, delivered the keynote address at the 2017 commencement ceremony at the University of California San Diego on Saturday. In this portion of his speech, he talked about finding inner peace, and how to be happy. This knowledge should not be solved through the creation of problems, he said. This knowledge now should be resourced...

This knowledge should not be [the] source of [the] creation of problems, he said. This knowledge now should be the source of peace; peace in oneself as a peaceful, happy individual. Warm-heartedness is very, very essential.

The Dalai Lama told graduates that, as they begin their journey into adulthood, they should focus on living with determination, will power and optimism.

But, he said, it wont be easy.

Now you begin to enter the life. You start work; [its] not easy, he said. Because of a complicated society, life will not be easy.

The Dalai Lama said those who focus on living with warm-heartedness would develop self-confidence.

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, delivered the keynote address at the 2017 commencement ceremony at the University of California San Diego on Saturday. In this portion of his speech, he talked about the importance of determination, will power and optimism, as graduates begin their adult lives. He said if you live with warm-heartedness you will develop self-confidence.

So, the determination will power, optimism is very essential. These things are important. According to my experience, these things become very, very helpful, he said.

Saturday marked the second day of speeches for the Dalai Lama in San Diego.

[G] Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso Speaks at UC San Diego

On Friday, he delivered a public address, also at UC San Diego, in which he talked about spreading love and kindness, and the plight the world faces today due to what he referred to as man-made problems.

For a look at the Dalai Lamas public address, scroll through our photo essay here.

Dalai Lama spoke at UC San Diego Friday, touching on several topics, including happiness. "Everyone wants a happy life -- and that's alright," he said. "[The] very purpose of our life is for happiness," he added.
A wounded U.S Marine veteran, distinguished with a Purple Heart, was one of the newest officers to join the ranks of the Chula Vista Police Department (CVPD), Friday.

Christopher Lawrence, 30, originally from Milwaukee, is a decorated combat veteran who overcame severe war injuries and a rejected admission into another police department before finally graduating at the top of his class from the Southwestern Community College Police Academy on June 10.

In 2007, Lawrence served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. As he crossed a bridge to the mainland, insurgents watched from a distance and detonated an IED placed beneath it.

Chula Vista police said he suffered life-threatening injuries in the explosion, badly damaging his arms and legs. His comrades said the blast tossed him into the air as high as a palm tree.

In the U.S., doctors initially worked to save both his legs, but said he'd always need to use a walker.

In 2008, Lawrence made the decision to have one leg replaced with a prosthetic, in the hope of prolonging his military career.



After dozens of surgeries, Lawrence was told he would never walk again without assistance or have normal use of his arm, according to Chula Vista police. But he never stopped working to rehabilitate himself.

Lawrence honorably retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 2010. In the end, his decision to remove one leg actually helped secure his career in police work.



Despite a few rejections in the application process to different police agencies, Lawrence decided to enroll in the Southwestern Police Academy to prove that he could physically do the job, said Chula Vista police. Word of his courage, physical ability and personal character spread, and soon multiple agencies competed to hire him.

"I have never met a more abled-body person in my life, said Chula Vista Police Chief Roxana Kennedy said of Laurence, The power of his attitude and character and the strength in his heart easily overcome the physical challenges. His life and the challenges he has overcome are an inspiration to others."

On Friday Laurence was sworn in with his academy classmate, Stephanie Campolo, as the two became the newest Chula Vista Police Officers.

He's the first to admit his childhood didn't resemble that of a boy scout. Lawrence grew up living in and out of various foster homes in Milwaukee's inner city. But he believes his back story will help him succeed and connect with different people.



"I could understand what some people are going through and they could maybe appreciate what I've gone through, and we can connect on another level," said Lawrence. "You needed someone to look past the story, exactly, to look past the injuries, to say the injuries don't really hold me back," explained Lawrence.

"I couldn't be more proud to have Christopher become part of the Chula Vista Police Department family," said Chief Kennedy.

In addition to the Purple Heart, Lawrence has received multiple military awards, including the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, Combat Action Ribbon (Iraq), Iraq Campaign Medal with one campaign star, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the National Defense Service Medal.
All eastbound lanes of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge reopened Sunday morning following a multi-vehicle crash and police shooting investigation that closed all Oakland-bound lanes of traffic for several hours, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Traffic came to a standstill around 3:25 a.m. before returning to normal roughly 5.5 hours later, according to officials.

Police were investigating a collision roughly one mile west of the Toll Plaza around 3:45 a.m. when officers spotted a car driving at them along the bridge's right shoulder, according to the CHP. Officers demanded that the driver stop, but the driver continued in their direction.

One officer "felt threatened as the vehicle continued coming towards him" and proceeded to open fire, according to the CHP. The shots struck the driver and the car came to a stop.

The driver was treated and transported to a local hospital with undisclosed injuries, according to the CHP. The other people in the car were not injured, but they were detained for questioning.

Just after 8:30 a.m., the CHP announced that the two left lanes of eastbound traffic were being reopened. All lanes reopened approximately 45 minutes later.

An investigation into the incident is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact the CHP at 415-557-1094.
Two men shot to death in separate West Side incidents early Monday were part of a deadly weekend in Chicago that saw eight people killed and 49 others wounded in gun violence between Friday evening and Monday morning.

More than 240 people have been shot so far this month. And more than 1,600 have been shot this year, according to Chicago Sun-Times data. Of those victims, 279 have died. Last year, more than 700 people were shot to death in the city.

With 57 people shot, this weekends carnage outpaced the same weekend last year. From June 17, 2016, to June 20, 2016, at least 56 people were shot, 13 of them fatally.

The weekends latest fatal shooting happened about 2:30 a.m. Monday in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side. Officers responding to a call of a person shot in the 1000 block of North Lawndale found a 33-year-old man lying face down on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound to the back, according to Chicago Police. He was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The Cook County medical examiners office has not released information on the fatality.

About 1:45 a.m. Monday, 25-year-old Joseph Henderson was gunned down in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the Southwest Side. He was in the 1800 block of South Kildare when a black car pulled up and someone inside fired shots in his direction, police and the medical examiners office said. Henderson, who lived in the South Chicago neighborhood, was shot in the back and pronounced dead at the scene at 2:11 a.m.

At 7:23 p.m. Sunday, a teenage boy was killed in a drive-by shooting in another North Lawndale neighborhood attack. Jaquarius Davis, 16, was standing outside when a red four-door car drove up in the 1200 block of South Avers and someone inside fired shots, authorities said. Davis was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:56 p.m. He lived in the same neighborhood as the shooting.

A few hours earlier, road rage turned into a fatal shooting when a 27-year-old man was shot in the head in the South Side Chatham neighborhood. About 3:45 p.m., the man was traveling in a vehicle in the 600 block of East 82nd Street when someone in another vehicle took out a gun and fired shots. He was shot in the head and taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead at 4:23 p.m., police and the medical examiners office said. His name has not been released. Police said the shooter was taken into custody and charges were pending Monday morning.

A teenage girl died Sunday afternoon, more than 12 hours after she and a man were shot in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side. Tiara Viramontes, 17, and the 30-year-old man were in the back of a building at 4:48 a.m. in the 3500 block of West Huron when someone opened fire. Viramontes, who lived in the same neighborhood, was shot in the back of the head and taken to Stroger Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 5:24 p.m., authorities said. The man suffered a gunshot wound to the upper right leg and was also taken to Stroger, where he was listed in critical condition.

Raven Lemons, 25, was shot to death at 2:40 a.m. Sunday in the Gold Coast neighborhood on the Near North Side. She was standing with an acquaintance in the 500 block of East Ohio when someone fired shots, striking her in the head. Lemons, who lived in North Lawndale, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she died at 3:13 a.m., authorities said.

About 6:25 p.m. Saturday, 32-year-old Dario Balderrama was fatally shot in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side, authorities said. He had just parked his car and was crossing the street in the 4800 block of South Racine when a dark vehicle approached and two people got out and fired shots. Balderrama, who lived in the same neighborhood as the shooting, suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 25-year-old man was killed and two other men were wounded in the first fatal shooting of the weekend, which happened about 11:45 p.m. Friday in the South Side Englewood neighborhood. The men, ages 23, 25 and 29, were standing in front of a home in the 5900 block of South Union when three gunmen walked up and opened fire, authorities said. The 25-year-old man was shot repeatedly and died at the scene. His name has not been released. The youngest man was shot in the chest and taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, while the oldest man was shot in the right leg and taken to St. Bernard Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.

In the weekends latest spate of nonfatal shootings, 10 people were wounded in six separate incidents  three of which happened on the Near West Side  in less than 90 minutes.

About 12:20 a.m. Monday, two men, ages 20 and 32, were standing outside when someone fired shots from a gray Nissan driving north in the 6400 block of South Talman in the Marquette Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side, police said. The Nissan struck two parked vehicles before it sped away. The younger man suffered gunshot wounds to both legs, while the older man was shot in the buttocks. They were both taken to Christ Medical Center, where their conditions were stabilized.

At 12:05 a.m., a 25-year-old man was shot in the right leg in the 8500 block of South Halsted in the South Side Gresham neighborhood, police said. He showed up at Trinity Hospital, where he was listed in good condition.

Three people were wounded in a shooting about 11:50 p.m. Sunday on the Near West Side. The group was gathered in the street in the 200 block of South Western when a white vehicle pulled up and someone inside fired shots in their direction, police said. A 17-year-old boy was shot in the back and taken in serious condition to Stroger Hospital. A 22-year-old man was shot in the left hand and also taken to Stroger, where his condition was stabilized. An 18-year-old man suffered a graze wound to the right leg and refused medical attention.

At 11:10 p.m., a 29-year-old man was shot in the left foot in the 2300 block of West Adams on the Near West Side, police said. He walked into Rush University Medical Center, where he was listed in good condition. The man was not cooperating with investigators.

About that same time, two men, ages 25 and 32, heard gunfire and felt pain while they were standing outside in the 2500 block of West Jackson on the Near West Side, police said. The younger man was shot in the left arm and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, while older man was shot in the left leg and taken to Stroger Hospital. Both of their conditions were stabilized.

A 30-year-old man was shot in the left leg about 11 p.m. in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side. He told investigators he was involved in an argument with another male in the 8100 block of South Calumet when the male pulled out a gun and fired shots, police said. The man showed up at University of Chicago Medical Center, and was later transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital, where his condition was stabilized. He was not cooperating with investigators.

At least 36 more people were wounded in shootings across the city between 5 p.m. Friday and 5 a.m. Monday.
DURAND  In the driveway of a two-story house on a dairy farm in western Wisconsin, five men focused on a unique construction project. Using a drill, hammer and nails, plywood and rope, they worked together in the afternoon sun to erect a structure that resembles a makeshift corral in the bed of a Honda pickup.

Luisa Tepole, 25, carried a suitcase or packaged appliance out of the house, handing it to her husband, Miguel Hernandez, 36.

By the end of the night, the back of the truck was piled high with bags of clothes and shoes, TV sets in boxes and a bucket of childrens toys, ready for the 2,300-mile drive to Veracruz, Mexico.

Farm owners Doug and Toni Knoepke watched Hernandez and the other workers from a few feet away as they loaded their two-truck caravan. It looked like a scene from The Grapes of Wrath, Doug Knoepke remarked, referring to the movie about the mass migration from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California in the 1930s.

Only this time, it was in reverse: The migrants were leaving a land abundant with economic opportunity for an uncertain future in their homeland.

Hernandez worked on the Knoepkes farm in Pepin County for 16 years. He shared that home with his wife and two young sons, Thomas, 5, and Liam, 4.

That day, at Thomas last day at Noahs Ark Preschool, he cried as he told his classmates that he will not be starting kindergarten with them in the fall. He had never been to Mexico.

Earlier this month, Hernandez and four other men, who for years had milked and cared for cows on dairy farms among the hills of western Wisconsin, drove away in the direction of their mountainous hometown of Texhuacan. A few days later, Tepole and the children flew out of Chicago.

The Hernandez family left, in part, because of the threat of deportation  which could ban them from returning to the United States for 10 years  and what they described as increasingly harsh rhetoric by President Donald Trump and others toward immigrants, especially those here illegally.

They moved here to Americas Dairyland, the nations top cheese state and No. 2 milk producer, attracted by a dairy industry dependent on undocumented immigrant labor to keep cows milked three times a day, year-round. They have raised their children in communities where American workers stopped answering help wanted ads for cow milkers long ago.

And now, they have gone home.

Miguel has been our right hand, Knoepke said. He treated (the farm) like he owned it. Were really saddened, scared. I dont know. Its sad.

In Wisconsin, farmers like Knoepke depend heavily on workers like Hernandez. Seeing him and the other workers leave worried this first-generation farmer with 650 cows.

I dont know where the industry would be without (immigrant labor) right now, Knoepke says.

There are temporary visas for seasonal agricultural workers, but year-round workers who make up the vast majority of the labor force on Wisconsins large dairies have no special protections, and many are in the country illegally. Knoepke says Congress better do something  because (workers) are leaving. You see it right here. Theyre packin up.

Hernandezs brother, Damaso, who also works at a western Wisconsin dairy farm, says many workers he knows plan to leave because, Theyre scared of the government.

Its strange, its difficult because all the Hispanic people knew the Americans here in Wisconsin were supporting Donald Trump. I think they made a mistake, because a lot of people are fleeing for precisely that reason.

Arrests up in the Midwest

Federal figures show immigration-related arrests in the six-state Midwestern region, including Wisconsin, have risen since Trump took office.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement reports that arrests in the Chicago region rose to 2,599 between Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, through April 29, the first 100 days of the Trump administration. That figure exceeds arrest totals from the same time period in the previous two years under President Barack Obama. However, it is lower than the same time period in 2014, when there were 3,033 arrests.

Nationwide, ICE arrests totaled 41,898, about 35 percent higher than last year but lower than the 2014 figure of 54,584.

Implementation memos issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security earlier this year expanded ICEs target from individuals convicted of serious crimes to those charged with even low-level offenses. The memos also direct that no one in the country illegally is exempt from deportation.

As rumors circulated that ICE had visited Durand, four other dairy workers joined Hernandez, whose reasons for leaving included returning to see his ill father. He and his friends determined it was best to go now  organized, relaxed and with a plan.

Its better to go back home because of the laws  theyre coming after us, says Luis Mendez, 32.

If you are deported, he said, You take the clothes youre wearing  and thats it. But with a planned departure, Mendez said, immigrants can keep their belongings and money.

Still others, like Hernandezs brother Damaso  who has lived in the United States for 17 years  are staying, but the situation could change at any moment. He thinks about the effect of leaving on his four children, who were raised in Wisconsin.

My kids are very accustomed to life here, Damaso Hernandez says. The truth is, I dont know what type of life they would have over there.

Working until the last day

It is 7:15 in the morning on May 31. As the sun peeks over the hills to the east, workers are in action. One drives a tractor through the fields while another steers a feed truck between two rows of cows. All the while, men in the milking parlor never stop moving. Some have been working since 11 p.m. and are just finishing their shifts.

At this hour, everyone on the farm is an immigrant from Mexico.

For Hernandez, today is just like any other workday over the past 16 years, except that it is his last. He does not want to work today, but his bosses say they really need the help. He opens and closes metal gates, shoo-ing cows in and out of the milking parlor, and sweeps piles of manure and feed off the floor of the barn.

Tepole is excited. She has not been back home in the 11 years since she first came to the United States. Her parents have never met their grandchildren, and her mother is happy they are coming home.

Hernandez knows his decision to raise his children in Mexico will affect their future.

Its a huge difference in school here compared to the school in Mexico. I think we are a lot behind in Mexico, but  it is what it is, Hernandez says, shrugging his shoulders.

Four or five people have applied for Hernandezs job, but none have worked out, according to herd manager Henry Yoder. Knoepke says he probably will need to promote from within.

Hernandez says the farm owners want him to come back legally if that ever becomes possible.

They are waiting for the government to do something  so they can bring people with papers or with visa, but they are just waiting, he says.
As the FBI investigates the alleged kidnapping of a Chinese honor student at the University of Illinois, her father is heading to Champaign in search of answers.

Her father, who arrived in Chicago on Saturday, was immediately contacted by authorities, who provided him with an update on the case.

We have no record of where shes at, Dr. Kim Tee, a family friend, said. Shes very reserved, and she doesnt know anyone else besides her boyfriend and a few other classmates and teachers.

That missing student is 26-year-old Yingying Zhang, who had just arrived at the University in early April. She was last seen eight days ago getting into a black Saturn. Surveillance footage at the school captured the moment when she got into the car, and police shared the image earlier this week.

According to her father, Zhang was heading out to sign an apartment lease when she went missing, and the FBI, who joined the investigation on Thursday, is looking into it as a kidnapping.

Zhang stands 5-foot-4 and weighs 110 pounds, and anyone with more information on her whereabouts is encouraged to call the FBI.
After the FBI joined the investigation into a missing University of Illinois student, a $10,000 reward is being offered for information in the case.

The FBI is treating the disappearance as a kidnapping, and the bureau is investigating. They are offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the students whereabouts.

26-year-old Yingying Zhang was reported missing on June 9 after she went to sign a lease on an apartment in the Champaign area. Zhang, who travelled from China to the schools campus in April, was last seen entering a black Saturn Astra on the college campus, and University police released a video of her getting into the car.

According to police, the car was driven by an unidentified white male.

Zhangs father arrived in the United States on Saturday to join in the search for his daughter. Family friend Dr. Kim Tee called Zhang very reserved and that the family has no record of where shes at.

Anyone with information on the disappearance or the whereabouts of Zhang can contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, or by calling Champaign County Crime Stoppers at 217-373-TIPS.

The University of Illinois Community Credit Union has also set up a GoFundMe account to help cover the living expenses of Zhangs family while they are in the United States.
A 25-year-old woman was shot and killed in the Streeterville neighborhood on Chicago's Near North Side early Sunday, according to police.

Raven Lemons was standing on the street in the 500 block of E. Ohio St. with an acquaintance at around 2:40 a.m. when an unknown offender opened fire, authorities said.

She was shot in the head and taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where she was pronounced dead, according to police.

Lemons lived in the the 1500 block of S. Avers Ave. in the city's Lawndale neighborhood, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office.

Witnesses recalled hearing at least five shots ring out, with residents saying they were stunned by the incident in their normally quiet neighborhood, just steps from Navy Pier and Lake Shore Drive.

"Its very shocking," said Vishal Broker, who has lived in the area for the last ten years. "Surprising, because I live like a block away and this is the first time Im hearing of a shooting in my neighborhood, so kind of scary."



No one is in custody in connection with the shooting as authorities continue to investigate.
The inaugural West Hartford Wine and Food Festival took place at Kingswood Oxford school Saturday. Nearly 30 restaurants and 35 wine tables featured local cuisine and beverages all for a good cause.

Among the restaurants featured at the event were Millwright's Restaurant, Grants Restaurant and Bar, INDIA, Firebox Restaurant, Zohara Mediterranean Kitchen, and Chango Rosa tacos. More than 250 different wines were featured.

The event benefitted the town's Independent Schools, including Kingswood Oxford, The American School for the Deaf, The Intensive Education Academy, Renbrook School, The Watkinson School, Northwest Catholic, and St. Brigid-St. Augustine Partnership School.

"People usually don't think Independent Schools need the funds but they actually do because they give a lot of scholarships," said Lindsay Perkins, Director of Culinary for Camp KO at Kingswood Oxford.

The Intensive Education Academy is a local K-12 special needs school that will benefit from the event.

"We're getting the kids out into field trips and things like that that bring them beyond the curriculum and really supplement their education in a way that they need," said Christiana Connery from IEA. "We're a nonprofit school so we're constantly fundraising for ourselves, so someone helping us do that fundraising is all the better."



The festival's charity focus helped draw some of the region's top chefs. Chef David Borselle, co-owner of Park and Oak Restaurant, said his restaurant wanted to help give back to local students in the community.

Park and Oak chose to be here to support the school systems in the area and the programs they have going on, which are fantastic helping with diversity, helping kids get into the schools who otherwise couldnt, Borselle said.

There was a lot of buzz at the event surrounding the growth of West Hartford's food scene.

"West Hartford is definitely becoming a mecca for food and wine," said Jeannette Dardenne, from Eat IN Connecticut, which put on the event. "We really felt like this was the right time to bring it and there would be a lot of support from the community. This gives an opportunity for people to see the restaurants, the caliber of what they can do, and their cooking.

Saturday's event was a long time in the making.

Weve wanted to do a culinary event for 10 years, said Brian D. Whitney of sponsor Maximum Bevarge.

Whitney said it was all about finding the right supporter to host such a large event.

"Kingswood has been an incredible host for this event," Whitney said. "Its a big event. We expect over 1,000 people and its a lot of wear and tear on the property but [Kingswood Oxford] has been terrific.

The event also included a blind tasting and a Wine 101 tutorial.
A new low-cost airline has arrived at Bradley International Airport.

Now you can jet off to Europe on Norwegian Air for as low as $99 one way this summer.

The discount carrier is offering nonstop service between Bradley and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Both of our families have roots in Scotland, weve always wanted to go, Stephanie Purington of South Deerfield, Mass., said.

On Saturday people checked in for the inaugural flight.

With food and tax and everything, 505 roundtrip. I cant even go to Florida in the wintertime for 505, Tom Evanko of New Britain, said.

Norwegian is quickly expanding at smaller airports in the Northeast. Providence and Hartford came online this week.

The airline hopes to win over customers with its offer of an international destination and prices that are normally found at larger airports.

Its really serving a community that really doesnt have those options, Danielle Manegio, Norwegian account manager, said.

The launch follows the start of Aer Lingus in September with flights to Dublin, Ireland.

It offered the first trans-Atlantic flight from Bradley in eight years.

Now with a second route underway, the airport is hopeful more international travelers will chose the convenience of Bradley over a major airport.

Its a huge time saver particularly for our businesses that are located here in Connecticut, Kevin Dillon, Connecticut Airport Authority executive director, said.

The airport says airlines throughout the region are looking at their fares with the arrival of Norwegian.

Now the lowest fares at Norwegian do come with a catch.

There are fees for checked luggage, seat assignments, and onboard food and drinks, including non-alcoholic beverages.
President Donald Trump confirmed Friday he is under federal investigation and appeared to single out a senior Justice Department official for criticism, underscoring his growing frustration with the persistent focus on Russia's involvement in the 2016 election and possibly his campaign.

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt," the president wrote.

The morning missive appeared to refer to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. Last month, Rosenstein sent a memo to Trump raising concerns over FBI Director James Comey  concerns the White House then cited as a central reason for Comey's firing.

Days after Comey was abruptly ousted, Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Mueller also has expansive powers to investigate any matters that develop from his initial investigation.

It was unclear whether the president's comment confirming he was under investigation was based on direct knowledge or media reports by NBC News and others that Mueller is examining whether the president obstructed justice by firing Comey. Still, the snowballing investigation has deeply angered Trump, who denies he has any nefarious ties to Russia. He's increasingly focused his anger at both Rosenstein and Mueller, according to advisers and confidants, viewing the two as part of a biased effort to undermine his presidency.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she was "increasingly concerned" that Trump will fire both Mueller and Rosenstein.

"The message the president is sending through his tweets is that he believes the rule of law doesn't apply to him and that anyone who thinks otherwise will be fired," Feinstein said. "That's undemocratic on its face and a blatant violation of the president's oath of office."

Rosenstein took over the Russia probe soon after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself. But Rosenstein, too, may ultimately have to hand off oversight of the probe given his own role in Comey's firing.

Earlier this month, Rosenstein told The Associated Press that "if anything that I did winds up being relevant to his investigation then, as Director Mueller and I discussed, if there's a need from me to recuse, I will."

Trump's tweets come after the top lawyer for his transition team warned the organization's officials to preserve all records and other materials related to the Russia probe. An official of Trump's transition confirmed the lawyer's internal order, which was sent Thursday.

The transition official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss post-election decisions publicly.

The order by the general counsel for the transition team casts a wide net on documents that could shed light on ties between Trump's presidential campaign and representatives of Russia's government. The order also covers separate inquiries into several key Trump associates including former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, campaign adviser Paul Manafort, foreign policy aide Carter Page and outside adviser Roger Stone.

The White House has directed questions for details to outside legal counsel, which has not responded.

Vice President Mike Pence has also hired a private lawyer to represent his interests in the expanding probe. Pence headed the Trump transition until Inauguration Day.

The transition official said the organization has also separately asked the General Services Administration to preserve records from the Trump transition that were transferred to its facilities after the inauguration. The transition, a nonprofit structurally separate from the Trump campaign, continues to operate with a small staff.

The memo sent Thursday asks for records related to foreign travel, contacts with Russian "officials, agents or nationals" and background investigations into the top Trump associates now targeted by Mueller's probe. The memo asks for preservation of electronic communications and data, telephone logs, audio recordings, videos, calendars and other items.

Friday's tweets are the latest in a week of angry social media responses by the president after a report by The Washington Post, NBC News and others that Mueller was looking into whether Trump obstructed justice.

"Why is that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?" he asked at one point.

"They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice," Trump wrote in his first tweet. "You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA."

__

Associated Press writers Stephen Braun and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
A round of strong thunderstorms on Monday may bring strong winds, flash flooding and even the threat of a tornado to parts of southern New England. The highest severe weather threat appears to be in western Connecticut.

Loads of moisture coupled with the development of powerful winds (over 60 mph) several thousand feet above our heads has us concerned about the severe weather threat on Monday. This is a model sounding from the NAM model showing the potential for rotating thunderstorms given the strength of low level wind shear. The rapid increase and turning of wind with height is known as wind shear and this is a critical ingredient for tornado development.

While only a low risk - tornadoes are possible in this kind of environment. Whether or not they form is a question and the highest threat appears as if it will set up just west of Connecticut. Any storm that starts rotating also has the potential to produce damaging straight line winds.

The timing of storms remains a bit uncertain. The highest threat will be late afternoon and early evening as a line of thunderstorms approaches but we cannot rule out storms developing ahead of the line as early as 1 or 2 p.m. We call these discrete storms. Additionally, as the mid level winds will be out of the southwest and parallel to the front, there is the potential for very heavy rain. A flash flood threat exists in western Connecticut.

Stay weather aware Monday!
Sanger police and Denton County Sheriff's Deputies are investigating what appears to be a double homicide-suicide in Denton County.

Police and sheriff's deputies went to the 2500 block of Wichita Trail at about 9:45 p.m. Saturday.

According to the sheriff's office, an elderly couple was found dead along with a younger white man who had taken his own life.

"There is no other suspect involved in this investigation," the sheriff's office said in a release. "This is not a random act and the citizens of Sanger, Texas and Denton County are safe."

The suspect and victims have not been identified at this time.
Famed architect Michael Arad, designer of the National September 11 Memorial in New York, will create a piece to honor the victims of the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, NBC News reported.

Rev. Eric Manning, Emanuel AME pastor, said that the memorial will serve as a representation of the historically black churchs strength and called it the oldest African Methodist Episcopal church south of Baltimore.

"I will do my utmost to honor the memory of the deceased and give voice to the injured, the grieving families, and the community," Arad said in a statement.

Exactly two years ago, Dylann Roof sat through a Bible study class and then fired more than 70 shots at attendees.
It's being called a major rollback in United States policy toward Cuba.

President Donald Trump on Friday shifted from President Barack Obama's policies with the communist country.

"Effective immediately I am canceling the last administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba," Trump said Friday.

Bay Area Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said it puts the relations back decades.

The change will make it harder to travel to and do business with Cuba. Though it is not a complete reversal of Obama's policy, Lee said the change will hurt both countries.

"It doesn't make any sense," Lee said. "Why would you go back to a policy that has failed for 55 years?"

Lee is disappointed the president followed through with a campaign promise and rolled back policies she has fought hard for as a member of the Congressional Cuba Working Group.

"Given whatever difficulties we have and they have, we should be able to work it out through normal diplomatic dialogue and trade relations," Lee said.

Trump said his policy is designed to isolate the Cuban Castro regime.

"We will not be silent in the face of communist oppression any longer," Trump said.

Tourists will still be able to travel to Cuba, but it will be harder and restricted compared to the Obama policies. Americans will be prohibited from spending money at businesses or hotels owned by the Cuban military, which are common in the country.

Lee said it will hurt American jobs created through eased restrictions and private Cuban businesses.

"We're pushing back, but we need the public to push back," Lee said. "As we say, 'stay woke,' this is a time to be vigilant, stay woke, and have your members of Congress sign onto our bills."

But Florida Senator Marco Rubio, applauding the changes, tweeted: "If Cuban people are hurt it will be because the Castro government doesn't allow them to own their own business, not because of the new policy."

The policies are not expected to take effect for three months, and could take longer. Lee said she will be working on legislation to block it, which may be difficult in a Republican-led Congress.
LAKE GENEVA  Words can mean different things in Washington, D.C., than they do here in Wisconsin.

For example, temporary in the Badger State implies a short period of time. The temporary tags that came on my new car were good for 30 days. I went straight to the Division of Motor Vehicles for permanent ones.

With the federal government, its a different story. The so-called temporary takeover of our nations two primary home-loan guarantors has now stretched into its ninth year. And there is little sign of impending change.

Thats a problem. Taxpayers already spent $187 billion to bail out these private entities, known by their colloquial names Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And were just one downturn away from being on the hook for up to $250 billion more.

And while these government-sponsored enterprises are behaving safely today, the system isnt serving our local housing market as it should. Like much of the country, Wisconsin is seeing housing prices hit an all-time high while affordable housing dwindles. First-time and modest-income residents are having trouble buying in, and rentals at reasonable prices are getting hard to find.

We need to support homeownership and construction of affordable rentals in a safe and sustainable manner. Fortunately, the Mortgage Bankers Association has stepped up with detailed recommendations to unleash the credit required.

Our organizations plan lays out how to transform a two-company, government-sanctioned monopoly into a more stable and competitive free market. Key to success will be permanently ending the corporate cronyism that let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gain market share by offering incentivized deals to certain large market players. In place of this tilted and dangerous system, the United States must structure a level playing field to bring new, private entities into the business of buying, repackaging and reselling affordable-housing mortgages.

This will inject significant domestic and global capital and empower independent mortgage banks, community banks, credit unions and co-ops to offer more loans to people with modest incomes, as well as to protect the standard 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage. These new institutions also will be able to support the market for developing more rental units for middle- and working-class people.

The market must be designed to entice conservative, dividend-seeking investors  not those attracted by high-wire financial antics. For that, the MBA plan looks to utilities and similar sectors that have uneventfully engaged private investment in public services for decades.

Finally, the United States can draw on the lessons of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which backs Americans savings and checking accounts. Financial institutions pay for the insurance, and it instills consumer confidence.

When applied to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac successors, the FDIC model makes sense. Investors can absorb their own losses. But in the case of another unexpected economic calamity, taxpayers and global stability will be protected through this insurance fund.

With this solid plan to build on, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, and colleagues such as Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wausau, who chairs the House subcommittee that oversees Fannie and Freddie, can craft legislation to lessen the taxpayer risk associated with the governments role in the housing market.

This must be done without delay. Unity in Washington, a supportive and savvy Treasury secretary, and increasing citizen pressure for action dont come around every day. Plus, finishing this last bit of repair from the 2008 economic crisis would be a big win for Congress and for average Americans who need a roof over their heads.
A possible marijuana "honey oil" extraction operation left two people and a dog burned and caused approximately $80,000 in damage after a motel caught fire Sunday morning, police said.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Temple Station deputies and LA County Fire Department personnel responded to a Motel 6 on the 1200 block of Durfee Avenue in South El Monte around 12:37 a.m. after receiving a call regarding a structure fire, Sheriff's Information Bureau Deputy Lisa Jansen said in a news release.

Upon arrival, deputies and firefighters found "several" motel rooms on fire, Jansen said. One neighbor told police he had heard an explosion and came out to see other neighbors running out of the building, said Scott Schulze, a detective with the Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force (LA IMPACT).

After firefighters extinguished the flames, detectives from the LASD Arson Explosives Detail recovered evidence and determined that there was a possible honey oil laboratory at the location, Jansen said. Detectives also found "police related equipment" at the location, she said.

"It wasn't the biggest, but it had more sophisticated equipment than some of the others," Schulze said of the laboratory.

Two suspects were detained at the scene and transported to a hospital to treat their burns, Jansen said. A dog also suffered burns and was taken to a veterinarian for treatment. A second animal that was in the suspects' room was uninjured and was taken by animal control, Schulze said.

Investigators think a third suspect, possibly suffering from burns, may have fled the scene before officers arrived, Jansen said.

Detectives from the LA IMPACT Clandestine Laboratory Team are collecting evidence. Anyone with information is asked to call LA IMPACT at 323-869-6874. Those wishing to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.
A Miami-Dade police cruiser in pursuit of a suspect was involved in a fiery three-car crash in Miami Gardens on Sunday morning that left an officer hospitalized.

Investigators say that the pursuit began as the result of an assault to a police officer that occurred on Northwest 119th Street and Northwest 7th Avenue.



The police cruiser was traveling southbound on Northwest 7th Avenue and a black Infiniti was traveling westbound on Northwest 171st Street when they collided. As a result of the crash, the police vehicle veered into a black Cadillac nearby.

The impact caused the police vehicle and the Cadillac to catch fire. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue responded and extinguished the flames.

The police officer was transported to Memorial Hospital, and the driver of the Infiniti to Jackson Memorial Hospital North. They were both listed in stable condition and the officer was released from the hospital Monday morning.

The suspect, later identified as 38-year-old Bradys Balcinde, was taken into custody without incident within blocks of the crash.

"Once the police unit and the other vehicle collided it redirected the police unit onto the vehicle that was parked and stationary at the light at that point both vehicles caught on fire," said Miami-Dade Police Detective Argemis Colome.

Balcindehas been charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and fleeing. Attorney information wasn't available.



This is a developing story; check back with NBC 6 for updates.
Surveillance video captured the moment when a Sarasota, Florida, homeowner fought off would-be robbers, one of which can be seen carrying a shot-gun, with a machete Thursday morning.

Police responded to a call at 4:45 a.m. about a man with a shotgun showing up at a home. The homeowner had disarmed the suspect and was holding him by the time police arrived.

The homeowner told police two other robbers escaped. The two suspects and two others were eventually found at a nearby gas station.

Suspect Alen Beltran-Vasquez is charged with two counts of armed robbery and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Ronier Jauregi-Lorente and Angel Cabrera-Basulto are charged with two counts each of armed robbery. Jorge Valido-Leyva and Roberto Selcedo-Balanza are each charged with two counts of principal armed robbery.

All five men are being held at the Sarasota County Jail without bond and the investigation is ongoing.
Local

Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
Temperatures will creep up to near triple digits in parts of San Diego County on Monday as a five-day heat wave continues to bake San Diego.

The heat wave has arrived a bit earlier than usual in the soon-to-be summer season.

This is a weather pattern that would typically occur in late June or early July, NBC 7 meteorologist Jodi Kodesh explained. This year, its early. Temperatures over the next several days will be 10 to 20 degrees above average.

To that end, the National Weather Service (NWS) has issued a heat advisory for San Diego County, in effect from 11 a.m. Saturday to 9 p.m. Wednesday.

The NWS said temperatures could reach a high of 98 to 106 degrees on Sunday and increase to 100 to 110 degrees Monday through Wednesday.

The multi-day heat wave will bring with it the potential for heat-related illnesses.



"The excessively hot weather will pose a danger to human health," said James Brotherton, National Weather Service Meteorologist. "We're concerned about people who are outside for extended periods of time and day after day after day the heat builds up and our bodies can't tolerate that extreme heat."

Kodesh said that people need to exercise caution when they are outside this week. Mountain areas are expected to hit the high 90s and deserts could reach 118 degress.

Kodesh said that heat exhaustion and stroke could be caused by thinking a fan is adequete for cooling when it isn't.

People can go from feeling hot to heat stroke, without much time passing at all," she said. "It is imperative to keep an eye on those that are susceptible, like children, elderly, or people that are sick.

Here are some tips on how to beat the #heat! #cawx pic.twitter.com/wlO2QFFfcK  NWS San Diego (@NWSSanDiego) June 15, 2017

For times of extreme heat like this, San Diego's designated "cool zones," often established at local libraries or recreation centers, provide respite. Here's a current list of cool zones operating across the county.

The NWS said the heat wave might continue beyond Wednesday  maybe even through the end of next week. The NWS said there would also be an excessive heat warning for San Diegos deserts, including areas like Borrego Springs and Banning, in effect from 11 a.m. Friday until 9 p.m. Wednesday.

"Temperatures will peak Tuesday and Wednesday, then we may see a slight dip in temperatures in the latter part of next week," said Zabala.

These conditions also increase the risk of wildfire danger across the county.

The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) said Friday that the department would increase the number of on-duty firefighting crews, staff and fire apparatus in San Diego due to the hot weather forecast.

Several years of drought coupled with heavy rains this past winter created significant fuel in the form of underbrush and grass, the SDFD said. This fuel, combined with hot temperatures and low humidity, create conditions which are conducive to easily ignited fast-burning wildfires.

The SDFD said five brush engines carrying four personnel and one water tender would be staffed on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. These engines carry between 600 and 1,500 gallons of water. SDFD water tenders carry 3,000 gallons of water and provide water supply to engines at vegetation fires, officials said.

Also, the Metro Zone Emergency Command & Data Center (ECDC) and Air Operations Section staffing will also be increased over the course of the heat wave.

SDFD Fire Chief Brian Fennessy said officials believe this will be a very busy summer of fires, and increased staffing is an important part of the fire departments plan to combat fire season. This guide offers tips on keeping your family and home safe from fires.

Several communities lost power Sunday, including more than 3,000 people in El Cajon and 4,100 customers in Encinitas earlier in the day. More than 1,300 peope in the Alpine area were without power as of 6 p.m. The estimated restoration time is 9:30 p.m., according to SDG&E.
A homicide suspect has been arrested in Arlington County, Virginia, police say.

Arlington County police said 23-year-old Daejon Tyrie Jones was wanted for murder for his role in a man's killing on Friday night. Jones was arrested Saturday evening.

About 11:20 p.m., police repsonded to a shooting in the 2400 block of S. Lowell Street and found a man suffering from a gunshot wound.

The man, 35-year-old Adonis Wright, of D.C., was taken to George Washington University Hospital, where he died of his injuries.
Three people have been charged with killing two Maryland teens who were found dead the night before their high school graduation, and police said they believe the slayings were revenge for a robbery that one of the teens was rumored to have committed.

The three are charged in the deaths of Shadi Adi Najjar, 17, and Artem Ziberov, 18, said Montgomery County police Chief J. Thomas Manger at a news conference late Saturday.

The suspects were identified as Jose Canales-Yanez, 25, Roger Garcia, 19, and Edgar Garcia-Gaona, 24. Manger said each is being charged with two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. He said Garcia and Garcia-Gaona are brothers.

Manger said investigators learned from friends of Najjar that he was rumored to have robbed Canales-Yanez's girlfriend last December and was killed in retaliation. He said, "We're unsure right now if there was a motive to kill Ziberov as well or if he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Najjar and Ziberov were found shot to death on June 5 in a blue Honda Civic in Montgomery Village, the night before they were supposed to graduate from Northwest High School.

Manger said Najjar had been shot four times and Ziberov 10 times. Amid the shattered window glass police found numerous shell casings, including some Glaser .40-caliber shells.

"We believe there were 30 rounds fired," he said.

Manger said investigators learned that Najjar was rumored to have committed a robbery in late 2016. They linked the rumor to a report filed by Canales-Yanez's then-girlfriend who told police on Dec. 14 that the passenger in a blue Honda Civic had grabbed her iPad and dragged her about 50 feet with the car. He said an informant told investigators Najjar was killed in revenge for that robbery.

He said an informant identified the three suspects to investigators.

He also said that just before Najjar died, he texted someone saying he was going to sell a graduation ticket to Roger Garcia, who was identified as a Northwest High School student.

"We're certainly working on the strong possibility that this was a ruse to get the two victims to that location," Manger said.

He said a partial box of Glaser .40-caliber ammunition was found at Garcia-Gaona's house. He also said the suspects took Najjar's cellphone.

He said the investigation is ongoing and said he hoped the release of the suspects' names would spur others with knowledge of the case to come forward.

"We think there's more information that folks out in the community have that can move us even further along with this case," he said.

"I am glad they caught them and I hope they rot in hell," Najjar's father, Adi Najjar, told News4 after news of the arrests.



No family members were at the news conference Saturday night, and they had not been told the details about the arrests before the news conference.

CORRECTION: (June 16, 2017): An earlier version of this article said the teens were shot "last Monday." The teens were shot on June 5. Also, the story said the rumored robbery happened in "late 2017." The rumored robbery happened in "late 2016."
A Maryland mother was found 60 miles away from where she left her daughter with another couple in an Atlanta, Georgia, airport, according to Atlanta police.

Maranda Harvey, 29, from Odenton, Maryland, was located in Athens, Georgia, about 60 miles away from Atlanta on Saturday morning. She was found alone in a room at the Graduate Athens Hotel.

Atlanta police said Harvey was unharmed but somewhat confused about what occurred the last 24 hours. They said she was being evaluated by a health care provider.

Police were searching for her after she and her daughter, 4, drove from Maryland to the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Friday.

Police said after the mother and girl got to the airport, Harvey asked a couple to watch the girl while she went shopping. Investigators said Harvey never returned, but they discovered she rented another vehicle at the airport.

Police said the girl was reunited with family members while they searched for Harvey.
Rhode Island's Teacher of the Year is drawing attention for his display of LGBT pride in a photo-op with President Donald Trump.

The photo from Nikos Giannopoulos' visit to the Oval Office in April shows the teacher wearing a rainbow pin on his suit jacket and he is casually waving a lacey black fan alongside Trump, who is smiling and seated at his desk, and a standing first lady.

Giannopoulos posted the photo to his Facebook page on Thursday. By Friday afternoon it had been shared thousands of times on social media.

His caption for the photo included three rainbow emojis and said "Rhode Island Teacher of the Year 2017 meets the 45th President of the United States. That's all."

In a previous post, Giannopoulos said he wore the pin "to represent my gratitude for the LGBTQ community" and brought the fan "to celebrate the joy and freedom of gender nonconformity."

"Taking pride in queer identity means rejecting the shame imposed upon us by a harsh society," he wrote. "It means opening yourself up to a lifetime of criticism and misunderstanding, but knowing that it's worth it to be able to live authentically."

Giannopoulos is a special-education teacher at the Beacon Charter High School for the Arts in Woonsocket, according to the Rhode Island Department of Education.

Trump met with Teacher of the Year winners on April 26 at their traditional White House visit.
Weve heard a lot about Russians attackers attempting to hack the US election, but another hacking group also allegedly wanted to interfere with the election; they attempted to pivot from compromised school districts to state voting systems.

The Miami Herald reported that MoRo, a group of hackers based in Morocco, penetrated at least four Florida school district networks and purportedly searched for a way to slip into other sensitive government systems, including state voting systems.

According to United Data Technologies (UDT), the firm which investigated the breaches incidents, the hackers successfully phished people working in the school districts, tricking them into clicking on an image in email which allowed malware into the system. The article does note that the hackers also targeted an unnamed Florida city network with a similar attack.

After the school district systems were infected with malware, the hacking group turned off the logs recording who accessed the systems. UDT analysts had a hard time figuring out for sure what all the hackers had done. Turning off the logs was called a sophisticated maneuver that UDT had never seen before. (Silly me, I thought disabling logging was fairly common if a hacker doesnt wanted busted immediately.)

Despite the lack of logs, UDT determined the hackers were in the system for three months, mapping them out and testing their defenses. At one point, they even posted photos of someone dressed as an ISIS fighter on two school district websites.

At first, the hackers had purportedly hoped to steal the personal information of hundreds of thousands of students. Miami-Dade, which is the largest school district in Florida, was the only one of the four compromised school districts which was named.

Yet it wasnt just sensitive student information the hackers could have accessed. The article points out that Miami-Dade, which is the fourth largest school district in the US, also handles the personal information, including Social Security numbers, of hundreds of thousands of current and former students, along with data on thousands of employees and parents.

Before you get worked up, the article claims the hacking group failed to steal student information or access voting systems. In fact, the hacking is referred to as attempted seven different times. Yet, if the hackers remained inside the systems for at least three months, that seems to be more than an attempted hack. Attempted, perhaps, pertains to stealing the personal information of hundreds of thousands of students and then selling the Social Security numbers on the dark web.

Even though the hackers put ISIS-inspired photos on a school district website, Miami-Dade didnt find any evidence of malware or access to its computer systems. Paul Smith, Miami-Dades school district director of data security, said, I would say if anything it was an attempted hack. But it was raised up to law enforcement and we did go through all the systems.

The article says the attack started in the fall. In November, a photo of someone who appeared to be one of the hackers dressed as an ISIS fighter went up on a school district website. It stayed there for about 24 hours. The following month, the same photo flickered onto another school districts website. There are no details about the type of malware or even how it was ascertained that the photo might be of one of the hackers.

UDT claimed that the hackers wanted more than kids names and Social Security numbers; mapping the network revealed that the school district systems had some connections to different county and city systems. The Moroccan hackers were allegedly searching for a backdoor to other government systems.

Michael Kaiser, the executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, told the Miami Herald that is very common for a school district network to be attached to other networks in the town or city or even the state, depending on how the network is set up.

Attackers would love to steal the login for a system admin who has credentials to access other government networks, Kaiser explained, or to gain access to the admins email account and use it to phish government employees.

UDT claimed the hackers bragged about their exploits online, saying they were attempting to get into voting systems hosted by Diebold voting platforms. They wanted to bring down what they thought were state voting systems. This, however, happened in December  which is about a month too late to hack the vote.

Regarding the hack, or attempted hack as it is continually referred to by the Miami Herald, UDT contacted the FBI and re-engineered the malware so it was no longer a threat. The analysts found no evidence that any data had been taken. The FBI declined to comment on the incidents or on cybercrimes in general.

The point of the hack attacks article, it seems, was to raise awareness of how vulnerable Florida school districts are to cyber thugs. Raising overall security awareness for school districts seems like a wise thing, considering that another phishing scam in Florida resulted in compromising the financial information of more than 7,700 Manatee County School District employees. A school district employee received an email which appeared to be from the school superintendent and handed over the requested W2s of all the districts employees.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Mobilised by the Bhim Army, a large number of Dalit youths today hit the streets of Delhi, for the second time in less than a month, protesting caste violence in Uttar Pradesh and demanding the release of Chandrashekhar Azad, the outfit's chief.

The spirited gathering, of around 2,500 as estimated by the police, saw the presence of Chandrashekhar's mother Kamlesh Devi and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Ram's sister Swarn Kaur among others.

The stretch between the Parliament Street police station and the New Delhi Municipal Council convention centre turned into a sea of blue, the colour of Dalit resistance, and pulsated with the cries of 'Jai Bheem' as protesters from UP, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab trooped in, from around 10 am.

"I will protest, sit on dharna and also stage indefinite fast till my son is not released. We will fight. I have no expectation from the Narendra Modi government or the Uttar Pradesh government, especially since the violence has been triggered by the very rise of Yogi Adityanath," Kamlesh Devi told PTI.

Like the previous gathering on May 21, which had seen a bigger turnout, speaker after speaker laid emphasis on keeping the "social movement" away from politics and mainstream political parties professing the Dalit cause like the BSP.

"(BSP supremo) Mayawati built her entire career on my brother's work. This is a new movement spearheaded by the youth. Whenever there's injustice, the youth will rise," Kaur said.

However, sharp divisions within the ranks of the emerging outfit came to the fore during the demonstration with the organisers pushing down a member from the dais, accusing him of attempting to "hijack" the movement, triggering chaos and confusion.

The organisers also raised funds for the victims of the clash during the demonstration and people were given slots to speak based on the amount donated by them.

"It is apparent that Bhim Army lacks discipline. But it comprises largely of youths and they will learn with time,"

Ummed Singh Gautam, the chief patron of the Samta Sainik Dal, founded by BR Ambedkar in 1926, said.

Chandrashekhar, a lawyer by profession, was arrested on June 8 by the Uttar Pradesh Task force from Himachal Pradesh's Dalhousie in connection with his alleged role in the ThakurDalit clash in Saharanpur.

His brothers, Bhagat Singh and Kamal Kishor were also present at the rally.

Two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after a person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village on May 5.

NEW DELHI: Mobilised by the Bhim Army, a large number of Dalit youths today hit the streets of Delhi, for the second time in less than a month, protesting caste violence in Uttar Pradesh and demanding the release of Chandrashekhar Azad, the outfit's chief. The spirited gathering, of around 2,500 as estimated by the police, saw the presence of Chandrashekhar's mother Kamlesh Devi and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Ram's sister Swarn Kaur among others. The stretch between the Parliament Street police station and the New Delhi Municipal Council convention centre turned into a sea of blue, the colour of Dalit resistance, and pulsated with the cries of 'Jai Bheem' as protesters from UP, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab trooped in, from around 10 am. "I will protest, sit on dharna and also stage indefinite fast till my son is not released. We will fight. I have no expectation from the Narendra Modi government or the Uttar Pradesh government, especially since the violence has been triggered by the very rise of Yogi Adityanath," Kamlesh Devi told PTI. Like the previous gathering on May 21, which had seen a bigger turnout, speaker after speaker laid emphasis on keeping the "social movement" away from politics and mainstream political parties professing the Dalit cause like the BSP. "(BSP supremo) Mayawati built her entire career on my brother's work. This is a new movement spearheaded by the youth. Whenever there's injustice, the youth will rise," Kaur said. However, sharp divisions within the ranks of the emerging outfit came to the fore during the demonstration with the organisers pushing down a member from the dais, accusing him of attempting to "hijack" the movement, triggering chaos and confusion. The organisers also raised funds for the victims of the clash during the demonstration and people were given slots to speak based on the amount donated by them. "It is apparent that Bhim Army lacks discipline. But it comprises largely of youths and they will learn with time," Ummed Singh Gautam, the chief patron of the Samta Sainik Dal, founded by BR Ambedkar in 1926, said. Chandrashekhar, a lawyer by profession, was arrested on June 8 by the Uttar Pradesh Task force from Himachal Pradesh's Dalhousie in connection with his alleged role in the ThakurDalit clash in Saharanpur. His brothers, Bhagat Singh and Kamal Kishor were also present at the rally. Two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after a person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village on May 5.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has rejected a suspected ISIS operative's plea seeking nod to inspect the documents, submitted by the NIA to a trial court in a case relating to the alleged charges of recruiting and financing people to join the terror group.

A bench of justices G S Sistani and Vinod Goel said that the case was related to the "larger conspiracy" by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and further investigation in the matter was going on.

The court also said that a charge sheet has already been filed in the case and the material relied upon by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) would be part of the final report filed by the investigators.

Delhi-based Islamic scholar Mufti Abdus Sami Qasmi had approached the high court challenging a special court's December order by which he was denied the copy of documents submitted by the NIA in sealed covers.

Upholding the special court order, the bench referred to the agency's affidavit before it which said that during the investigation, credible intelligence inputs were received that a module for ISIS was active in different parts of the country and is engaged in recruiting Muslim youth for the banned terror group.

"The input was developed and raids were conducted in different cities at different locations. Eighteen accused persons were arrested in the instant case and incriminating literature, material to fabricate IEDs, electronic devices and money received through hawala channels were seized from the possession of the accused," the bench noted in its order.

According to the NIA, Qasmi was the first cleric to be arrested in the case from Uttar Pradesh's Hardoi district on February 5, 2016.

The NIA claimed that he was "delivering provocative and inflammatory speeches and was instigating youths for antinational activities".

The agency, in its affidavit, has also claimed that Qasmi "in the guise of a religious preacher was inciting, motivating and abetting Muslim youths, who sought his guidance in waging violent jihad and supporting and joining the ISIS".

The charge sheet was filed for the alleged offences under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The agency had filed an FIR in the matter on December 9, 2015 against unknown and unidentified persons involved in the activities of ISIS in India and Asian powers in peace with India on inputs received from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

On October 5, 2015, 23-year-old accused Naser Packeer was apprehended by Sudani authorities for concealing his identity and trying to join ISIS in Syria. Later, he was deported to India on December 10, 2015.

The accused persons against whom the agency had filed the charge sheet include Mohd Aleem, Mohd Obaidullah Khan, Nafees Khan, Mohd Shareef Moinuddin Khan, Asif Ali, Najmul Huda, Mudabbir Mushtaq Shaikh, Mohd Abdul Ahad, Suhail Ahmed, Syed Mujahid, Mohd Hussain Khan, Mohd Afzal, Imran and Abu Anas.

They were arrested from different parts of the country for allegedly recruiting and financing people to join the terror organisation.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has rejected a suspected ISIS operative's plea seeking nod to inspect the documents, submitted by the NIA to a trial court in a case relating to the alleged charges of recruiting and financing people to join the terror group. A bench of justices G S Sistani and Vinod Goel said that the case was related to the "larger conspiracy" by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and further investigation in the matter was going on. The court also said that a charge sheet has already been filed in the case and the material relied upon by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) would be part of the final report filed by the investigators. Delhi-based Islamic scholar Mufti Abdus Sami Qasmi had approached the high court challenging a special court's December order by which he was denied the copy of documents submitted by the NIA in sealed covers. Upholding the special court order, the bench referred to the agency's affidavit before it which said that during the investigation, credible intelligence inputs were received that a module for ISIS was active in different parts of the country and is engaged in recruiting Muslim youth for the banned terror group. "The input was developed and raids were conducted in different cities at different locations. Eighteen accused persons were arrested in the instant case and incriminating literature, material to fabricate IEDs, electronic devices and money received through hawala channels were seized from the possession of the accused," the bench noted in its order. According to the NIA, Qasmi was the first cleric to be arrested in the case from Uttar Pradesh's Hardoi district on February 5, 2016. The NIA claimed that he was "delivering provocative and inflammatory speeches and was instigating youths for antinational activities". The agency, in its affidavit, has also claimed that Qasmi "in the guise of a religious preacher was inciting, motivating and abetting Muslim youths, who sought his guidance in waging violent jihad and supporting and joining the ISIS". The charge sheet was filed for the alleged offences under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The agency had filed an FIR in the matter on December 9, 2015 against unknown and unidentified persons involved in the activities of ISIS in India and Asian powers in peace with India on inputs received from the Ministry of Home Affairs. On October 5, 2015, 23-year-old accused Naser Packeer was apprehended by Sudani authorities for concealing his identity and trying to join ISIS in Syria. Later, he was deported to India on December 10, 2015. The accused persons against whom the agency had filed the charge sheet include Mohd Aleem, Mohd Obaidullah Khan, Nafees Khan, Mohd Shareef Moinuddin Khan, Asif Ali, Najmul Huda, Mudabbir Mushtaq Shaikh, Mohd Abdul Ahad, Suhail Ahmed, Syed Mujahid, Mohd Hussain Khan, Mohd Afzal, Imran and Abu Anas. They were arrested from different parts of the country for allegedly recruiting and financing people to join the terror organisation.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: The Kochi Metro looks set to offer a new travel culture. As a first step to integrate the existing transport network in Greater Kochi, the KMRL and Axis bank jointly launched Kochi1, Indias first open loop, EMV, contactless metro card expected to make travel convenient and hassle free.



The commuter will receive a completely personalised (with name) KMRL Axis Bank Kochi1 card across the counter in a matter of minutes. The smart card, costing Rs 150, will be issued and loaded at KMRL issuance counters; it can also be re-charged online through the ticket vending machines at stations or through a soon-to-be launched Kochi1 app.



The card will ensure exact debit of the ride fare while exiting from the metro station. The commuter can easily top up the card through cash, debit or credit card. The prepaid card has integrated benefits; while it cannot be used for ATM transactions, it can be used for shopping at merchant outlets and for payment of utility bills. The mobile app, which will soon be available on Playstore, can be used by commuters to manage their card and get QR tickets on the go for travel on the metro.

This is one of the most innovative PPPs in the world and the Kochi1 card and app are much more than a travel instrument. We are confident these products will be immensely popular and this model will surely be emulated in other cities too, said KMRL managing director Elias George.



Axis Bank CEO and MD Shikha Sharma said, The Kochi1 card marks a significant milestone in our efforts to further expand the use of electronic payments which are more efficient, secure and inclusive. The metro card will give commuters further encouragement as India makes rapid strides towards becoming a less-cash economy.

KOCHI: The Kochi Metro looks set to offer a new travel culture. As a first step to integrate the existing transport network in Greater Kochi, the KMRL and Axis bank jointly launched Kochi1, Indias first open loop, EMV, contactless metro card expected to make travel convenient and hassle free. The commuter will receive a completely personalised (with name) KMRL Axis Bank Kochi1 card across the counter in a matter of minutes. The smart card, costing Rs 150, will be issued and loaded at KMRL issuance counters; it can also be re-charged online through the ticket vending machines at stations or through a soon-to-be launched Kochi1 app. The card will ensure exact debit of the ride fare while exiting from the metro station. The commuter can easily top up the card through cash, debit or credit card. The prepaid card has integrated benefits; while it cannot be used for ATM transactions, it can be used for shopping at merchant outlets and for payment of utility bills. The mobile app, which will soon be available on Playstore, can be used by commuters to manage their card and get QR tickets on the go for travel on the metro. This is one of the most innovative PPPs in the world and the Kochi1 card and app are much more than a travel instrument. We are confident these products will be immensely popular and this model will surely be emulated in other cities too, said KMRL managing director Elias George. Axis Bank CEO and MD Shikha Sharma said, The Kochi1 card marks a significant milestone in our efforts to further expand the use of electronic payments which are more efficient, secure and inclusive. The metro card will give commuters further encouragement as India makes rapid strides towards becoming a less-cash economy.
By Express News Service

LUCKNOW: Apparently, in a case of highway horror, a newly-married couple from Chennai was shot at by two unidentified bike-borne miscreants on National Highway 58 in Muzaffarnagar disitrict of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.

Aditya Kumar, 31, and Vijaya Lakshmi, 28, of Ramapuram in Chennai, were on their way back to New Delhi from the holy city of Haridwar on a motorbike when they were shot at around 4 pm on NH 58 in a stretch which fell under Nai Mandi police station in Muzaffarnagar district.

According to police sources, the couple, accompanied by a person Shyam Teja, were on a vacation to Uttarakhand.

Believably, the trio had hired two Royal Enfield bikes in Delhi and embarked upon a journey to Uttarakhand.

The couple and the friend were on their way back to Delhi on motorbikes, as Aditya and Vijaya had to catch a flight to Chennai on Sunday from the national capital, said SHO Madan Singh of Nai Mandi police station.

On nature and reason, SHO Singh said that it could be anything  a case of mistaken identity, a robbery bid or road rage.

As the miscreants fired, Aditya lost control and crashed to the road along with wife Vijaya. While Aditya got the shot in his neck while Vijaya was also hit grievously.

In the mean time, Teja informed the police about the incident. The injured couple was rushed to a hospital, which referred the couple to a Delhi hospital. They are fine now.

LUCKNOW: Apparently, in a case of highway horror, a newly-married couple from Chennai was shot at by two unidentified bike-borne miscreants on National Highway 58 in Muzaffarnagar disitrict of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday. Aditya Kumar, 31, and Vijaya Lakshmi, 28, of Ramapuram in Chennai, were on their way back to New Delhi from the holy city of Haridwar on a motorbike when they were shot at around 4 pm on NH 58 in a stretch which fell under Nai Mandi police station in Muzaffarnagar district. According to police sources, the couple, accompanied by a person Shyam Teja, were on a vacation to Uttarakhand. Believably, the trio had hired two Royal Enfield bikes in Delhi and embarked upon a journey to Uttarakhand. The couple and the friend were on their way back to Delhi on motorbikes, as Aditya and Vijaya had to catch a flight to Chennai on Sunday from the national capital, said SHO Madan Singh of Nai Mandi police station. On nature and reason, SHO Singh said that it could be anything  a case of mistaken identity, a robbery bid or road rage. As the miscreants fired, Aditya lost control and crashed to the road along with wife Vijaya. While Aditya got the shot in his neck while Vijaya was also hit grievously. In the mean time, Teja informed the police about the incident. The injured couple was rushed to a hospital, which referred the couple to a Delhi hospital. They are fine now.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: As Darjeeling remained on the boil over a separate statehood agitation, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today appealed to protesters not to resort to violence and, instead, hold dialogue to resolve any issue.

He said resorting to violence would never help them in finding a solution and asked the people living there to remain calm and peaceful.

"All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment," Singh said.

In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution, he said, emphasising that "every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue".

"I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence," the home minister said in a series of tweets.

Singh also spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today and discussed with her the situation prevailing there.

"She (Banerjee) has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling," he said.

Singh had yesterday also spoken to Banerjee and asked her to take all possible steps so that peace is restored in the picturesque hill station where people are protesting against "imposition" of Bengali in schools by making the language mandatory.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which is in power in the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, is spearheading the agitation there demanding a separate state Gorkhaland.

Darjeeling remained on the edge today as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a GJM activist, who was killed during clashes with police, and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.

Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and the police were witnessed yesterday.

The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari yesterday. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.

This was the first death since violent protests returned to Darjeeling on June 8, after a gap of a few years.

NEW DELHI: As Darjeeling remained on the boil over a separate statehood agitation, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today appealed to protesters not to resort to violence and, instead, hold dialogue to resolve any issue. He said resorting to violence would never help them in finding a solution and asked the people living there to remain calm and peaceful. "All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment," Singh said. In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution, he said, emphasising that "every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue". "I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence," the home minister said in a series of tweets. Singh also spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today and discussed with her the situation prevailing there. "She (Banerjee) has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling," he said. Singh had yesterday also spoken to Banerjee and asked her to take all possible steps so that peace is restored in the picturesque hill station where people are protesting against "imposition" of Bengali in schools by making the language mandatory. The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which is in power in the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, is spearheading the agitation there demanding a separate state Gorkhaland. Darjeeling remained on the edge today as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a GJM activist, who was killed during clashes with police, and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland. Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and the police were witnessed yesterday. The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari yesterday. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes. This was the first death since violent protests returned to Darjeeling on June 8, after a gap of a few years.
Santwana Bhattacharya By

Express News Service

Rahuls sudden flights

The release of Jairam Rameshs book Indira Gandhi  A Life in Nature saw a rather exclusive gathering at the Safdarjung Road memorial. Apart from close confidants of the Gandhi family, only two Congress leaders were invited, Manmohan Singh and Karan Singh. In the midst of the small group of old friends, Sonia Gandhi was far less guarded than her usual self. She even chatted about how Rahul called her just as she was about to come for the event.

The Congress VP was to be present at the release of Rameshs book on Indiras commitment to nature and its preservation, but he suddenly took off for Harmandir Sahib. It appeared to those present that Priyanka Vadra was standing in for her brother. Rahul had similarly represented an ailing Sonia and read out her speech at the release of Anand Sharmas book on Indira at Teen Murti Bhawan, a week ago. Rahuls impromptu travel plans have often left the Congress and its leadership red-faced, like his flight to Italy right after his visit to Mandsaur farmers.

In search of a President

The capitals air is thick with speculation over who would be the BJP/NDAs presidential candidate. Having exhausted all possible analysis around Sumitra Mahajan and Draupadi Murmu (the PM was apparently curious about the latters unusual name), the Lutyens circles attention has now shifted to Sushma Swaraj and Thawar Chand Gehlot. Speculation is rife that it could be a toss-up between the two although Swaraj has cleared the air.

Well, once the suspense is over, the level of the Sanghs influence behind the choice would become apparent. It seems the PM has not imposed his wishes over Nagpurs yetand the top-brass there would prefer a person from the ideological fold with some stature, and not mere political-social engineering. Meanwhile, from the opposition camp, Sharad Yadav is rather keen. He has been personally approaching other leaders, expressing his wish to join the race.

Maharaj vs new Raja!

A team of CPI-Ms farm-unionists led by former Lok Sabha member Hanan Mollah managed to reach the ground zero in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, where five young farmers died in police firing. They drove through dirt roads from Rajasthan with the help of locals, mostly undetected; while other opposition bigwigs, including MP heavyweight Jyotiraditya Scindia, failed make headway.

Mollahs team not only recorded the farmers version of what happened, they also picked up video footage of how the agitation for MSP (not loan waiver) turned violent under police hostility. In contrast, Scindia had to come back from the district border after a scuffle with the worried local cops. While leaving, he quipped that he was no longer the maharaja, but a mere praja of the new raja in Bhopal. Shivraj Singh Chauhan, no doubt!

Tenure of PS

Much has been made of prominent Revenue Service Officer Seemanchal Dashs shift from Finance Ministers office as his private secretary to CBDT as OSD. But those in the know say that theres no way Dash could be given an extension as the service rules do not allow a joint secretary-level official to remain a PS to a minister.

That an exception was made for him earlier showed the ministers clout then. Usually PSs are supposed to be picked up from a pool of under-secretaries or director-level officials. Manmohan Singh had similarly put his foot down when his Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh had asked for a joint secretary close to him, to be appointed his PS.

Santwana Bhattacharya

The author is Political Editor, TNIE. Email: santwana@ newindianexpress.com

Rahuls sudden flights The release of Jairam Rameshs book Indira Gandhi  A Life in Nature saw a rather exclusive gathering at the Safdarjung Road memorial. Apart from close confidants of the Gandhi family, only two Congress leaders were invited, Manmohan Singh and Karan Singh. In the midst of the small group of old friends, Sonia Gandhi was far less guarded than her usual self. She even chatted about how Rahul called her just as she was about to come for the event. The Congress VP was to be present at the release of Rameshs book on Indiras commitment to nature and its preservation, but he suddenly took off for Harmandir Sahib. It appeared to those present that Priyanka Vadra was standing in for her brother. Rahul had similarly represented an ailing Sonia and read out her speech at the release of Anand Sharmas book on Indira at Teen Murti Bhawan, a week ago. Rahuls impromptu travel plans have often left the Congress and its leadership red-faced, like his flight to Italy right after his visit to Mandsaur farmers. In search of a President The capitals air is thick with speculation over who would be the BJP/NDAs presidential candidate. Having exhausted all possible analysis around Sumitra Mahajan and Draupadi Murmu (the PM was apparently curious about the latters unusual name), the Lutyens circles attention has now shifted to Sushma Swaraj and Thawar Chand Gehlot. Speculation is rife that it could be a toss-up between the two although Swaraj has cleared the air. Well, once the suspense is over, the level of the Sanghs influence behind the choice would become apparent. It seems the PM has not imposed his wishes over Nagpurs yetand the top-brass there would prefer a person from the ideological fold with some stature, and not mere political-social engineering. Meanwhile, from the opposition camp, Sharad Yadav is rather keen. He has been personally approaching other leaders, expressing his wish to join the race. Maharaj vs new Raja! A team of CPI-Ms farm-unionists led by former Lok Sabha member Hanan Mollah managed to reach the ground zero in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, where five young farmers died in police firing. They drove through dirt roads from Rajasthan with the help of locals, mostly undetected; while other opposition bigwigs, including MP heavyweight Jyotiraditya Scindia, failed make headway. Mollahs team not only recorded the farmers version of what happened, they also picked up video footage of how the agitation for MSP (not loan waiver) turned violent under police hostility. In contrast, Scindia had to come back from the district border after a scuffle with the worried local cops. While leaving, he quipped that he was no longer the maharaja, but a mere praja of the new raja in Bhopal. Shivraj Singh Chauhan, no doubt! Tenure of PS Much has been made of prominent Revenue Service Officer Seemanchal Dashs shift from Finance Ministers office as his private secretary to CBDT as OSD. But those in the know say that theres no way Dash could be given an extension as the service rules do not allow a joint secretary-level official to remain a PS to a minister. That an exception was made for him earlier showed the ministers clout then. Usually PSs are supposed to be picked up from a pool of under-secretaries or director-level officials. Manmohan Singh had similarly put his foot down when his Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh had asked for a joint secretary close to him, to be appointed his PS. Santwana Bhattacharya The author is Political Editor, TNIE. Email: santwana@ newindianexpress.com
In 2006, I had the pleasure to tour the Middle East as part of the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS) annual tour. I was attending the programme as a representative of the Indian Army. For the annual international tour, I was a volunteer and was to visit Latin America to take in the delights of Brazil, Argentina and Chile. To my horror, I was pulled out of it because the RCDS Commandant, a retired four-star Admiral of the Royal Navy, wished to have an Islamic advisor with him on the Middle East tour which he was leading. You cant argue with that when you realise that as an Indian Muslim you can be quite unique in getting an Israeli visa.

RCDS, being a globally-respected defence institution, gets access at the highest levels, and I enjoyed that experience in Israel, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan. In the latter part, I put a question to Prince Feisal, younger brother of King Abdullah of Jordan, requesting him to tell me why Jordan could not take the lead to win back the moderate street of Islam from the radicals. Although pleased with my question, he asked me to reserve the same question for King Abdullah to answer.

Three hours later, we were at the Kings beautiful palace. I had done my homework well. King Abdullah had been a cadet at the UKs iconic pre-commission training institution, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He had been commissioned into the 13/18 Royal Hussars, an old and respected cavalry unit of the British Army, where he served for some years before returning to Jordan. The Royal Hussars has an affiliation with the Indian Armys Skinners Horse (SH), a leading cavalry unit. Well before the introductions and handshakes, I knew that the King would ask me about the SH.

I wasnt wrong, and we proceeded to chat a bit about the Indian cavalry. Thats when I learnt about the Kings upcoming visit to India and as well as SH. He wanted my opinion on whether it would be possible. Thats the only time my opinion was sought by a royalty, and it was something to do with my army. So I could only say yes, yes and yes! I, actually, said it thrice as I thought that advice to royalty must be given emphatically.

I dare say, the King did visit Jodhpur and had a day with the SHs which I am sure he must have enjoyed. Introductions and the Kings queries apart, I had my own lingering question passed from the Prince to the King. After a well-articulated 20-minute talk on how he viewed the world in 2006 and the Middle East in particular, came our turn to question.

Prince Feisal was as good as his word. He spoke up and mentioned to the King that the Indian Brigadier had an interesting query for him. The King nodded and looked at me. I then slowly placed the same question with a little more detail. I related to him how the large Muslim population in India was one of the most moderate segments of Islamic people around the world. I also told him that many people believed that the Kings multi-faith approach, education and tolerance empowered him to lead the charge of the Moderate Street of Islam, and that he needed to take the initiative.



King Abdullah was pleased and asked me if I had read The Amman Message. Frankly, I had not. I wasnt even aware of it, and you do not fib to royalty. He immediately asked his aide for a copy of The Amman Message and while it was being sought from the office, he went on to explain us how he had launched an initiative to get Islamic scholars and clergy from all sects of Islam to Amman, Jordans capital, to discuss just what I had in mind.



It is not possible to recount details of The Amman Message, but Wikipedia describes it as a 2004 Ramadan sermon by Chief Justice Sheikh Iz-al-Din al-Tamimi in the presence of King Abdullah II and a number of Muslim scholars. According to a report issued by the International Crisis Group, The sermon stressed the need to re-emphasise Islams core values of compassion, mutual respect, tolerance, acceptance and freedom of religion.

The next year, in July 2005, an Islamic convention brought together 200 Muslim scholars from over 50 countries and issued a three-point declaration. It may be of interest for readers to google The Amman Message and see an initiative, which could have been the core message to empower the moderate elements of Islam.



Jordan gave the Islamic world The Amman Message. Unfortunately, it also gave the world Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of Al Qaeda in Iraq which ultimately became the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.



Lt Gen (retd) Syed Ata Hasnain Former Commander, Srinagar-based 15 Corps

atahasnain@gmail.com

In 2006, I had the pleasure to tour the Middle East as part of the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS) annual tour. I was attending the programme as a representative of the Indian Army. For the annual international tour, I was a volunteer and was to visit Latin America to take in the delights of Brazil, Argentina and Chile. To my horror, I was pulled out of it because the RCDS Commandant, a retired four-star Admiral of the Royal Navy, wished to have an Islamic advisor with him on the Middle East tour which he was leading. You cant argue with that when you realise that as an Indian Muslim you can be quite unique in getting an Israeli visa. RCDS, being a globally-respected defence institution, gets access at the highest levels, and I enjoyed that experience in Israel, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan. In the latter part, I put a question to Prince Feisal, younger brother of King Abdullah of Jordan, requesting him to tell me why Jordan could not take the lead to win back the moderate street of Islam from the radicals. Although pleased with my question, he asked me to reserve the same question for King Abdullah to answer. Three hours later, we were at the Kings beautiful palace. I had done my homework well. King Abdullah had been a cadet at the UKs iconic pre-commission training institution, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He had been commissioned into the 13/18 Royal Hussars, an old and respected cavalry unit of the British Army, where he served for some years before returning to Jordan. The Royal Hussars has an affiliation with the Indian Armys Skinners Horse (SH), a leading cavalry unit. Well before the introductions and handshakes, I knew that the King would ask me about the SH. I wasnt wrong, and we proceeded to chat a bit about the Indian cavalry. Thats when I learnt about the Kings upcoming visit to India and as well as SH. He wanted my opinion on whether it would be possible. Thats the only time my opinion was sought by a royalty, and it was something to do with my army. So I could only say yes, yes and yes! I, actually, said it thrice as I thought that advice to royalty must be given emphatically. I dare say, the King did visit Jodhpur and had a day with the SHs which I am sure he must have enjoyed. Introductions and the Kings queries apart, I had my own lingering question passed from the Prince to the King. After a well-articulated 20-minute talk on how he viewed the world in 2006 and the Middle East in particular, came our turn to question. Prince Feisal was as good as his word. He spoke up and mentioned to the King that the Indian Brigadier had an interesting query for him. The King nodded and looked at me. I then slowly placed the same question with a little more detail. I related to him how the large Muslim population in India was one of the most moderate segments of Islamic people around the world. I also told him that many people believed that the Kings multi-faith approach, education and tolerance empowered him to lead the charge of the Moderate Street of Islam, and that he needed to take the initiative. King Abdullah was pleased and asked me if I had read The Amman Message. Frankly, I had not. I wasnt even aware of it, and you do not fib to royalty. He immediately asked his aide for a copy of The Amman Message and while it was being sought from the office, he went on to explain us how he had launched an initiative to get Islamic scholars and clergy from all sects of Islam to Amman, Jordans capital, to discuss just what I had in mind. It is not possible to recount details of The Amman Message, but Wikipedia describes it as a 2004 Ramadan sermon by Chief Justice Sheikh Iz-al-Din al-Tamimi in the presence of King Abdullah II and a number of Muslim scholars. According to a report issued by the International Crisis Group, The sermon stressed the need to re-emphasise Islams core values of compassion, mutual respect, tolerance, acceptance and freedom of religion. The next year, in July 2005, an Islamic convention brought together 200 Muslim scholars from over 50 countries and issued a three-point declaration. It may be of interest for readers to google The Amman Message and see an initiative, which could have been the core message to empower the moderate elements of Islam. Jordan gave the Islamic world The Amman Message. Unfortunately, it also gave the world Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of Al Qaeda in Iraq which ultimately became the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Lt Gen (retd) Syed Ata Hasnain Former Commander, Srinagar-based 15 Corps atahasnain@gmail.com
Prabhu Chawla By

Size doesnt matter. Not on Raisina Hill. Or else, the might of the President of India would have towered over the Prime Minister in the architecture of power. The Rashtrapatis realm is 330 acres of verdant spaces and manicured lawns, with five acres housing only the homes and offices on the Presidential Estate. Its specs are magnificent: 11.5 miles of corridors, 340 rooms of which 63 are living rooms, 227 columns, 35 loggias and 37 fountains.

In contrast, the Prime Minister works out of a corner room measuring less than 500 square feet in South Block, just a few hundred metres away from Lutyens imperial vision. His official residential complex consists of five bungalows on Race Course Road, spread over just 20 acres. All the bungalows put together have less than 50 rooms.

Democracy presupposes the cyclical nature of power even as it rationalises the inherent contradictions. Hence, irrespective of real estate standards, the Prime Minister, who occupies less geographical area than the President, dictates the choice of the President who in turn appoints the Prime Minister. Trust is directly proportionate to power; while the ruling party candidate has won every Presidential election till date, 10 of the 13 previous incumbents have either been direct nominees of Prime Ministers or enjoyed their total support. Since such precedence dictates the President, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will decide who will be the Rashtrapati Bhavans next occupant.

Since the Constitution bequeaths absolute power on the Prime Minister and the ruling party, debate, dialogue or discussion on the names for Indias 14th President is just a formality. Last week, the BJP began the process of formally consulting opposition parties to build a consensus in favour of its candidatethough in keeping with Modis penchant for mystery, the name would be proposed only later. Predictably, they emphasised that the nominee should uphold both the letter and spirit of the Indian Constitution, which provides for a secular and socialist Republic.

Socialism has been given a quiet burial. And in reality, a conflict between the letter and the spirit is unavoidable in such matters. The law embodies wisdom and clarity; the spirit varies according to individual perceptions. The spirit, according to the Opposition, is vastly different from Modis concept. Since a democratic government is of the people, by the people and for the people, its Prime Ministers and not Presidents who have asserted that the spirit of the Constitution is translated as The Will of the Prime Minister Shall Prevail.

The inflexible contours of current political alignments leave little scope for a consensus candidate for president. History shows 12 of the 13 battles for the presidency since 1952 were contests between the government and the Opposition. The only exception was Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, the Janata Party candidate who was elected unopposed in 1977. His route had its twists and turns, which reflected the growing clout of the Prime Minister in presidential matters. In 1969, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi opposed the official Congress candidate because she felt that an unsympathetic face in Rashtrapati Bhavan will pose roadblocks to her agenda.

She selected V V Giri to oppose Reddy, who was a proxy for the Morarji Desai-led Syndicate. Reddy lost. But five years later when Morarji became PM, he got sweet revenge by anointing Reddy as president. From 1969 onwards, the power of Prime Ministers to influence the choice of the head of state has only expanded. After Giri retired in 1974, Indira made a non-entity named Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed the President.

He has gone down in history as a caricatured sycophant who signed the proclamation of the infamous Emergency without demur. In 1982, she chose staunch loyalist Giani Zail Singh for the job. Since then, the qualifications of a presidential candidate have undergone significant changes. From being a statesman or a scholar like Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr S Radhakrishnan and Dr Zakir Husain, the primary eligibility for the post today is loyalty first to the Prime Minister or the party president; to the Constitution later. P V Narasimha Rao chose Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma because of their mutual proximity over decades.

Sonia Gandhi picked political parvenu Pratibha Patil for being a family loyalist. Only Atal Bihari Vajpayee reverted to the extinct practice of installing a reputed personality like Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in Raisina Hill. His persuasive powers and democratic credentials enabled him to cajole most Opposition parties to support Kalam. Pranab Mukherjee enjoyed the support of not only Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but also of a multitude of leaders across parties.

Ironically, the fear of Prime Ministers of an independent-minded or a biased president obstructing their agenda has shrunk the stature of the Indian presidency. History is replete with conflicts between both heads over the interpretation of the Constitution. While Presidents have insisted on total adherence to the letter of the Constitution, Prime Ministers have laid emphasis on its spirit.

 Jawaharlal Nehru was upset when Rajendra Prasad gave his consent to the Hindu Code Bill and for attending the inaugural function of the Somnath temple, though Nehru himself visited Deoband.

 In 1987, when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister, President Giani Zail Singh returned the Post Office Bill, 1987, passed by the Parliament, because it allowed the government to intercept all postal communications. (Thankfully, no Internet then).

 In 1991, President R Venkataraman withheld the MPs Salary Bill, passed by Lok Sabha, because it did not have his prior recommendation.

 K R Narayanan refused to accept the advice of the BJP government in 1998 to dismiss the Uttar Pradesh government.

 APJ Abdul Kalam used his veto in 2006 to return Office of Profit Bill (Prevention of Disqualification Act, 1959).

A fiercely independent leader like Narendra Modi with his singular vision is aware of the puddles and pitfalls on his road to 2019. He is unlikely to take risks in the smooth implementation of his mission. He has the numbers and the political clout to decide who will crest the hill upon which stands the sandstone edifice, which just symbolises the might of the Indian presidency. It will be one who places a premium on the spirit of the Constitution and not the letter. In spirit, a directly elected leader will have his say in all matters of governance. The letter, however, belongs in the Thesaurus of interpretations in a democracy governed by conventions and not innovations.

Prabhu Chawla

prabhuchawla@ newindianexpress.com

Follow him on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Size doesnt matter. Not on Raisina Hill. Or else, the might of the President of India would have towered over the Prime Minister in the architecture of power. The Rashtrapatis realm is 330 acres of verdant spaces and manicured lawns, with five acres housing only the homes and offices on the Presidential Estate. Its specs are magnificent: 11.5 miles of corridors, 340 rooms of which 63 are living rooms, 227 columns, 35 loggias and 37 fountains. In contrast, the Prime Minister works out of a corner room measuring less than 500 square feet in South Block, just a few hundred metres away from Lutyens imperial vision. His official residential complex consists of five bungalows on Race Course Road, spread over just 20 acres. All the bungalows put together have less than 50 rooms. Democracy presupposes the cyclical nature of power even as it rationalises the inherent contradictions. Hence, irrespective of real estate standards, the Prime Minister, who occupies less geographical area than the President, dictates the choice of the President who in turn appoints the Prime Minister. Trust is directly proportionate to power; while the ruling party candidate has won every Presidential election till date, 10 of the 13 previous incumbents have either been direct nominees of Prime Ministers or enjoyed their total support. Since such precedence dictates the President, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will decide who will be the Rashtrapati Bhavans next occupant. Since the Constitution bequeaths absolute power on the Prime Minister and the ruling party, debate, dialogue or discussion on the names for Indias 14th President is just a formality. Last week, the BJP began the process of formally consulting opposition parties to build a consensus in favour of its candidatethough in keeping with Modis penchant for mystery, the name would be proposed only later. Predictably, they emphasised that the nominee should uphold both the letter and spirit of the Indian Constitution, which provides for a secular and socialist Republic. Socialism has been given a quiet burial. And in reality, a conflict between the letter and the spirit is unavoidable in such matters. The law embodies wisdom and clarity; the spirit varies according to individual perceptions. The spirit, according to the Opposition, is vastly different from Modis concept. Since a democratic government is of the people, by the people and for the people, its Prime Ministers and not Presidents who have asserted that the spirit of the Constitution is translated as The Will of the Prime Minister Shall Prevail. The inflexible contours of current political alignments leave little scope for a consensus candidate for president. History shows 12 of the 13 battles for the presidency since 1952 were contests between the government and the Opposition. The only exception was Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, the Janata Party candidate who was elected unopposed in 1977. His route had its twists and turns, which reflected the growing clout of the Prime Minister in presidential matters. In 1969, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi opposed the official Congress candidate because she felt that an unsympathetic face in Rashtrapati Bhavan will pose roadblocks to her agenda. She selected V V Giri to oppose Reddy, who was a proxy for the Morarji Desai-led Syndicate. Reddy lost. But five years later when Morarji became PM, he got sweet revenge by anointing Reddy as president. From 1969 onwards, the power of Prime Ministers to influence the choice of the head of state has only expanded. After Giri retired in 1974, Indira made a non-entity named Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed the President. He has gone down in history as a caricatured sycophant who signed the proclamation of the infamous Emergency without demur. In 1982, she chose staunch loyalist Giani Zail Singh for the job. Since then, the qualifications of a presidential candidate have undergone significant changes. From being a statesman or a scholar like Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr S Radhakrishnan and Dr Zakir Husain, the primary eligibility for the post today is loyalty first to the Prime Minister or the party president; to the Constitution later. P V Narasimha Rao chose Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma because of their mutual proximity over decades. Sonia Gandhi picked political parvenu Pratibha Patil for being a family loyalist. Only Atal Bihari Vajpayee reverted to the extinct practice of installing a reputed personality like Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in Raisina Hill. His persuasive powers and democratic credentials enabled him to cajole most Opposition parties to support Kalam. Pranab Mukherjee enjoyed the support of not only Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but also of a multitude of leaders across parties. Ironically, the fear of Prime Ministers of an independent-minded or a biased president obstructing their agenda has shrunk the stature of the Indian presidency. History is replete with conflicts between both heads over the interpretation of the Constitution. While Presidents have insisted on total adherence to the letter of the Constitution, Prime Ministers have laid emphasis on its spirit.  Jawaharlal Nehru was upset when Rajendra Prasad gave his consent to the Hindu Code Bill and for attending the inaugural function of the Somnath temple, though Nehru himself visited Deoband.  In 1987, when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister, President Giani Zail Singh returned the Post Office Bill, 1987, passed by the Parliament, because it allowed the government to intercept all postal communications. (Thankfully, no Internet then).  In 1991, President R Venkataraman withheld the MPs Salary Bill, passed by Lok Sabha, because it did not have his prior recommendation.  K R Narayanan refused to accept the advice of the BJP government in 1998 to dismiss the Uttar Pradesh government.  APJ Abdul Kalam used his veto in 2006 to return Office of Profit Bill (Prevention of Disqualification Act, 1959). A fiercely independent leader like Narendra Modi with his singular vision is aware of the puddles and pitfalls on his road to 2019. He is unlikely to take risks in the smooth implementation of his mission. He has the numbers and the political clout to decide who will crest the hill upon which stands the sandstone edifice, which just symbolises the might of the Indian presidency. It will be one who places a premium on the spirit of the Constitution and not the letter. In spirit, a directly elected leader will have his say in all matters of governance. The letter, however, belongs in the Thesaurus of interpretations in a democracy governed by conventions and not innovations. Prabhu Chawla prabhuchawla@ newindianexpress.com Follow him on Twitter @PrabhuChawla
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Total of 30,410 candidates from Andhra Pradesh would appear for the UPSC Preliminary examination on Sunday. In AP, the examination is going to be held in Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Anantapur. Over 9 lakh candidates across the country would appear for the examination. In Vijayawada, 11,567 candidates will take the examination in 25 centres.

For each centre, one liaison officer has been appointed and facilities like medical units and security staff have been arranged. Arrangements have been made for operating special buses from 7 am to 9 am from Pandit Nehru Bus Station in the city to various places for the benefit of candidates.

The first paper would start from 9:30 am and end at 11:30 am. Paper 2 would be held from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm. The examination for the selection of candidates for the UPSC Main Examination, will be objective type.

Candidates who qualify the exam would have to apply again for the main exam, which is likely to be held in October, in a detailed application form.

Any mistake in filling up details in the OMR answer sheet with regard to roll number and test booklet series code could render the answer sheet liable for rejection. Candidates are advised to carry a photo ID proof along with them to the examination hall.

Electronic gadgets like mobile phones, any other devices for communication, laptop, bluetooth device and calculator are not permitted inside the examination hall. Candidates should enter the exam hall 20 minutes before the scheduled time of exam. Candidates would not be permitted inside the hall 10 minutes after the commencement of exam.

VIJAYAWADA: Total of 30,410 candidates from Andhra Pradesh would appear for the UPSC Preliminary examination on Sunday. In AP, the examination is going to be held in Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Anantapur. Over 9 lakh candidates across the country would appear for the examination. In Vijayawada, 11,567 candidates will take the examination in 25 centres. For each centre, one liaison officer has been appointed and facilities like medical units and security staff have been arranged. Arrangements have been made for operating special buses from 7 am to 9 am from Pandit Nehru Bus Station in the city to various places for the benefit of candidates. The first paper would start from 9:30 am and end at 11:30 am. Paper 2 would be held from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm. The examination for the selection of candidates for the UPSC Main Examination, will be objective type. Candidates who qualify the exam would have to apply again for the main exam, which is likely to be held in October, in a detailed application form. Any mistake in filling up details in the OMR answer sheet with regard to roll number and test booklet series code could render the answer sheet liable for rejection. Candidates are advised to carry a photo ID proof along with them to the examination hall. Electronic gadgets like mobile phones, any other devices for communication, laptop, bluetooth device and calculator are not permitted inside the examination hall. Candidates should enter the exam hall 20 minutes before the scheduled time of exam. Candidates would not be permitted inside the hall 10 minutes after the commencement of exam.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: A day after Anantapur MP J C Diwakar Reddy created a ruckus at Visakhapatnam airport, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday expressed displeasure over the parliamentarians unruly behaviour.

When the staff of the Indigo Airlines at the airport refused to issue a boarding pass to the MP as he was late, Reddy lost his cool and threw tantrums.

He also damaged a printer at the airlines counter. His act was recorded by CCTV cameras and the footage of the MPs act evoked outrage across the country. But the Telugu Desam leadership chose not to react on Friday.

At a meeting of Anantapur TDP leaders at his residence in Undavalli near here on Saturday, the Chief Minister reportedly let out his annoyance. He is understood to have said that of all the parties, the TDP lawmakers should exercise more restraint since we are in power. He said acts of this nature would do irreparable damage to the partys image.

He is quoted as having said: When we are striving for development of the State and reaching the goals overcoming the bifurcation blues, the unruly behaviour of party leaders will have a retrogressive impact.



Banned MP flies to Paris

Meanwhile, Diwakar Reddy, who was banned by several domestic airline operators, flew to Paris on Friday night itself and he is expected to spend about a week abroad. Tadipatri MLA J C Prabhakar Reddy, younger brother of the MP, said that there was no connection between the airport incident and his brothers trip abroad as it is an annual practice.

VIJAYAWADA: A day after Anantapur MP J C Diwakar Reddy created a ruckus at Visakhapatnam airport, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday expressed displeasure over the parliamentarians unruly behaviour. When the staff of the Indigo Airlines at the airport refused to issue a boarding pass to the MP as he was late, Reddy lost his cool and threw tantrums. He also damaged a printer at the airlines counter. His act was recorded by CCTV cameras and the footage of the MPs act evoked outrage across the country. But the Telugu Desam leadership chose not to react on Friday. At a meeting of Anantapur TDP leaders at his residence in Undavalli near here on Saturday, the Chief Minister reportedly let out his annoyance. He is understood to have said that of all the parties, the TDP lawmakers should exercise more restraint since we are in power. He said acts of this nature would do irreparable damage to the partys image. He is quoted as having said: When we are striving for development of the State and reaching the goals overcoming the bifurcation blues, the unruly behaviour of party leaders will have a retrogressive impact. Banned MP flies to Paris Meanwhile, Diwakar Reddy, who was banned by several domestic airline operators, flew to Paris on Friday night itself and he is expected to spend about a week abroad. Tadipatri MLA J C Prabhakar Reddy, younger brother of the MP, said that there was no connection between the airport incident and his brothers trip abroad as it is an annual practice.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Upset over the embarrassment caused to the party after its no-confidence motion against the Legislative Council Chairman was defeated on Thursday, some Congress leaders have demanded action against their party MLC V S Ugrappa and others who had issued the notice.

MLAs S T Somashekar, K N Rajanna, D G Shanthana Gowda and others have complained to KPCC president G Parameshwara that the defeat of the motion and the behaviour of the MLCs concerned had caused severe embarrassment to the party.

This behaviour has hurt the prospects of the Congress party in the coming Assembly elections and it has also increased the prospect of other parties entering into an alliance among themselves. We demand action against Ugrappa and others who are responsible for this and also demand that it be brought to the notice of the high command, the leaders urged.

Speaking to reporters, Parameshwara said that it would be discussed internally. I will discuss it with the Chief Minister. Already Congress has suffered a setback. The leaders have expressed their unhappiness and we have to ensure such things do not happen in the future. But we are disappointed with the JD(S) which decided to support BJP, though they had assured us of their support, he said.

Ugrappa said they had moved the motion only after the go-ahead given by the Chief Minister and Parameshwara. This is not a loss to us, but showed how the BJP representative has degraded the post and the unholy alliance of the JD(S), Ugrappa said.

BENGALURU: Upset over the embarrassment caused to the party after its no-confidence motion against the Legislative Council Chairman was defeated on Thursday, some Congress leaders have demanded action against their party MLC V S Ugrappa and others who had issued the notice. MLAs S T Somashekar, K N Rajanna, D G Shanthana Gowda and others have complained to KPCC president G Parameshwara that the defeat of the motion and the behaviour of the MLCs concerned had caused severe embarrassment to the party. This behaviour has hurt the prospects of the Congress party in the coming Assembly elections and it has also increased the prospect of other parties entering into an alliance among themselves. We demand action against Ugrappa and others who are responsible for this and also demand that it be brought to the notice of the high command, the leaders urged. Speaking to reporters, Parameshwara said that it would be discussed internally. I will discuss it with the Chief Minister. Already Congress has suffered a setback. The leaders have expressed their unhappiness and we have to ensure such things do not happen in the future. But we are disappointed with the JD(S) which decided to support BJP, though they had assured us of their support, he said. Ugrappa said they had moved the motion only after the go-ahead given by the Chief Minister and Parameshwara. This is not a loss to us, but showed how the BJP representative has degraded the post and the unholy alliance of the JD(S), Ugrappa said.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: The ongoing stir by local residents against IOC's LPG terminal at Puthuvype turned violent after ten people were seriously injured on Sunday when police resorted to lathicharge protestors, including women and children.

The injured were shifted to the Ernakulam General Hospital and Kalamassery Govt Medical College Hospital. A section of local residents have been agitating against the proposed IOC terminal for the past four months.

Meanwhile, the Congress has called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Puthuvype while the Welfare Party of India declared a hartal in Ernakulam district, both on Monday.

According to police officers, the protesters attempted to barge into the plant and pelted stones at the site, which had received clearance from the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The Kerala High Court had also given an order against disruption of work.

Ernakulam district collector K Mohammed Y Safirulla, in an order last week, had asked the police to add a security cover to the LPG terminal site. Following this, they resorted to lathi charge in order to disperse the agitators.

As many as 100 protesters were taken into custody and shifted from the spot, including women. The arrested protesters included Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Kerala convener C R Neelakandan.

A large posse of police have been deployed in the area to avoid any untoward incidents.

Prior to this, 204 protesters were arrested and removed from Puthuvype and were booked under sections 188, 283, 143, 145 147 and 149 of the IPC. They were later released on bail.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has called a meeting of all stakeholders at his office in Thiruvanthapuram to discuss the issue, and reach an amicable solution.

Ernakulam district collector Safirulla, in a statement here, said IOC has informed t deferring the work in light of CM Vijayans meeting on Wednesday.

"Work will be deferred till then to facilitate the talks. As the ground for further protest does not exist, the protesters are asked to immediately withdraw," the collector said.

KOCHI: The ongoing stir by local residents against IOC's LPG terminal at Puthuvype turned violent after ten people were seriously injured on Sunday when police resorted to lathicharge protestors, including women and children. The injured were shifted to the Ernakulam General Hospital and Kalamassery Govt Medical College Hospital. A section of local residents have been agitating against the proposed IOC terminal for the past four months. Meanwhile, the Congress has called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Puthuvype while the Welfare Party of India declared a hartal in Ernakulam district, both on Monday. According to police officers, the protesters attempted to barge into the plant and pelted stones at the site, which had received clearance from the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The Kerala High Court had also given an order against disruption of work. Ernakulam district collector K Mohammed Y Safirulla, in an order last week, had asked the police to add a security cover to the LPG terminal site. Following this, they resorted to lathi charge in order to disperse the agitators. As many as 100 protesters were taken into custody and shifted from the spot, including women. The arrested protesters included Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Kerala convener C R Neelakandan. A large posse of police have been deployed in the area to avoid any untoward incidents. Prior to this, 204 protesters were arrested and removed from Puthuvype and were booked under sections 188, 283, 143, 145 147 and 149 of the IPC. They were later released on bail. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has called a meeting of all stakeholders at his office in Thiruvanthapuram to discuss the issue, and reach an amicable solution. Ernakulam district collector Safirulla, in a statement here, said IOC has informed t deferring the work in light of CM Vijayans meeting on Wednesday. "Work will be deferred till then to facilitate the talks. As the ground for further protest does not exist, the protesters are asked to immediately withdraw," the collector said.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the reading and library movement witnessed by Kerala has to be spread to the entire country. After inaugurating the reading month celebration organised by the P N Panicker Foundation at St Teresas College, he said Kerala has been a torch-bearer and inspiration to the nation in the field of literacy and the focus on digital literacy is the need of the hour.

I would like to see such a reading and library movement in the entire country. The movement should not be limited to making people literate. It should try to achieve the real goal of bringing social and economic change. The foundation of good knowledge should be followed by a super-structure of a better society, he said.

There can be no joy greater than reading and no strength greater than knowledge, he said. P N Panicker, who was the driving spirit behind the library movement in Kerala, did this through Kerala Grandhasala Sangham set up by him in 1945 with 47 rural libraries.

I had started a similar movement named Vanche Gujarat (Gujarat Reads) when I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. I had visited a public library to motivate people to read. The movement targeted the young generation, in particular. I also requested citizens to think about building a Granth-Mandir - a temple of books - in their villages. This could be started with 50 or 100 books. I also appealed to people to give a book instead of bouquet as a greeting. Such a move can make a big difference, he said.

It is said one literate woman can educate two families and Kerala has set an example worthy of emulation in this regard, he said.

I believe reading and knowledge should not be limited only to work related aspects. It should help develop habits of social responsibility, service to the nation and service to humanity. It should cure the evils in society and the nation. It should spread the idea of peace along with respect for unity and integrity of the nation, said Modi.

I am happy to see the P N Panicker Foundation is now focusing on digital literacy. This is the need of the hour. I believe in peoples power. It has the capacity to make a better society and nation. I urge every young person in the audience to take a pledge of reading. And enable everyone to do so. Together, we can once again make India a land of wisdom and knowledge, he said.

The Prime Minister lauded Kerala for enabling the first 100 per cent literate city and first 100 per cent literate district - Kottayam- and also for being the first state to attain 100 per cent primary education. Some of the oldest colleges, schools and libraries in the country are also in Kerala.

He said the Centre has provided support to the activities of the Foundation and a sum of Rs 1.20 crore has been given to the foundation.

Focus on Day of Reading

Reading and library movement to bring social and economic change

One literate woman can educate two families, Kerala an example

Spread idea of peace and respect for unity and integrity of the nation

Young people to take pledge of reading to make India a land of wisdom and knowledge

KOCHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the reading and library movement witnessed by Kerala has to be spread to the entire country. After inaugurating the reading month celebration organised by the P N Panicker Foundation at St Teresas College, he said Kerala has been a torch-bearer and inspiration to the nation in the field of literacy and the focus on digital literacy is the need of the hour. I would like to see such a reading and library movement in the entire country. The movement should not be limited to making people literate. It should try to achieve the real goal of bringing social and economic change. The foundation of good knowledge should be followed by a super-structure of a better society, he said. There can be no joy greater than reading and no strength greater than knowledge, he said. P N Panicker, who was the driving spirit behind the library movement in Kerala, did this through Kerala Grandhasala Sangham set up by him in 1945 with 47 rural libraries. I had started a similar movement named Vanche Gujarat (Gujarat Reads) when I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. I had visited a public library to motivate people to read. The movement targeted the young generation, in particular. I also requested citizens to think about building a Granth-Mandir - a temple of books - in their villages. This could be started with 50 or 100 books. I also appealed to people to give a book instead of bouquet as a greeting. Such a move can make a big difference, he said. It is said one literate woman can educate two families and Kerala has set an example worthy of emulation in this regard, he said. I believe reading and knowledge should not be limited only to work related aspects. It should help develop habits of social responsibility, service to the nation and service to humanity. It should cure the evils in society and the nation. It should spread the idea of peace along with respect for unity and integrity of the nation, said Modi. I am happy to see the P N Panicker Foundation is now focusing on digital literacy. This is the need of the hour. I believe in peoples power. It has the capacity to make a better society and nation. I urge every young person in the audience to take a pledge of reading. And enable everyone to do so. Together, we can once again make India a land of wisdom and knowledge, he said. The Prime Minister lauded Kerala for enabling the first 100 per cent literate city and first 100 per cent literate district - Kottayam- and also for being the first state to attain 100 per cent primary education. Some of the oldest colleges, schools and libraries in the country are also in Kerala. He said the Centre has provided support to the activities of the Foundation and a sum of Rs 1.20 crore has been given to the foundation. Focus on Day of Reading Reading and library movement to bring social and economic change One literate woman can educate two families, Kerala an example Spread idea of peace and respect for unity and integrity of the nation Young people to take pledge of reading to make India a land of wisdom and knowledge
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Amed Hafidh, a 6-month-old baby from Zanzibar, Tanzania who was detected with jaundice and irreversible damage of the liver due to peculiar disease of the bile ducts, underwent liver transplant at Miot Hospital recently.

The Director, Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary & Solid Organ Transplant, Dr R Surendran said that after just 15 days of birth, the baby was detected with jaundice and bleeding resulting in fluid accumulation in the belly and poor growth. Also, the liver damage was too advanced for any corrective surgery. Hence, transplant was the only cure.

The procedure of liver transplant is challenging in any child due to tiny blood vessels. Moreover, even smaller portion of the liver that the childs mother donated was too big to fit inside the tiny abdomen cavity of the child, he said.

I feel extremely happy as he is completely cured now.

He is able to eat and digest his food, which was hard for him earlier, said Hasina Hamed Ali, mother of Amed.

In another case, Grace, a two-year-old girl from Seychelles, was diagnosed with a condition called biliary atresia, underwent corrective surgery within six weeks of birth in Sir Lanka, but the treatment did not yield results.

Even though mothers liver was a perfect fit, the surgery was specially challenging due to the dense and severe adhesion that developed after the previous surgery, which made removing the damaged liver and poorly developed blood vessels tedious. However, the surgery was successful and as it is a first liver transplant case from Seychelles, it is very motivating, the doctor said.

CHENNAI: Amed Hafidh, a 6-month-old baby from Zanzibar, Tanzania who was detected with jaundice and irreversible damage of the liver due to peculiar disease of the bile ducts, underwent liver transplant at Miot Hospital recently. The Director, Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary & Solid Organ Transplant, Dr R Surendran said that after just 15 days of birth, the baby was detected with jaundice and bleeding resulting in fluid accumulation in the belly and poor growth. Also, the liver damage was too advanced for any corrective surgery. Hence, transplant was the only cure. The procedure of liver transplant is challenging in any child due to tiny blood vessels. Moreover, even smaller portion of the liver that the childs mother donated was too big to fit inside the tiny abdomen cavity of the child, he said. I feel extremely happy as he is completely cured now. He is able to eat and digest his food, which was hard for him earlier, said Hasina Hamed Ali, mother of Amed. In another case, Grace, a two-year-old girl from Seychelles, was diagnosed with a condition called biliary atresia, underwent corrective surgery within six weeks of birth in Sir Lanka, but the treatment did not yield results. Even though mothers liver was a perfect fit, the surgery was specially challenging due to the dense and severe adhesion that developed after the previous surgery, which made removing the damaged liver and poorly developed blood vessels tedious. However, the surgery was successful and as it is a first liver transplant case from Seychelles, it is very motivating, the doctor said.
By Express News Service

WARANGAL: The second day of indefinite strike by coal mine workers and employees of Singareni Collieries Company Limited, demanding revival of Dependent Employment Scheme, saw only 40 pc of 67,000 employees reporting to work. About 60 leaders and workers were arrested in Ramagundem area when they tried to stage dharna and the workers demanded release of their colleagues.

In Khammam too, about 30 leaders and workers were arrested and in Adilabad, police arrested leaders and implemented Sec 144 near all mines. The union leaders have given a call for bandh on Saturday to protest against the arrests.Police forces were deployed in the vicinity of the coal mines. Management had made all arrangements for miners to attend their duty and also provided lunch and snacks at the site.



According to sources, there was very attendance at underground mines, whereas in the open cost mines, officials put efforts to increase production. SCCL management said that on Thursday, the power production by the power plants in state was not affected at all and asked employees to call of the strike.

Coal production increased on first day of strike

Hyderabad: SCCL claimed on Friday that the ongoing strike by its employees failed to have any impact on its coal production. Rather, the SCCL said in a media release that there was an increase in production of coal on the first day of strike, which was Thursday. SCCL said that a 13 pc increase was noted in its coal production which increased from an average of 1,52,186 tonnes daily to 1,72,261 tonnes on Thursday.

It also said that on the first day of strike the amount of coal transported to power plants from SCCL increased from the average value of 1,64,000 tonnes to 1,85,000 tonnes. It said that the amount of coal transported to TSGENCO on a daily basis increased from 8-9 rakes per day on an average to 15 rakes on Thursday.

Same was the case with the amount of coal transported to the NTPC power plant in Ramagundam, which increased from the average daily value of 24,000 tonnes to 34,000 tonnes.

SCCL also said that against the average of 25 rakes of coal transported on a daily basis by railway to power plants in the month of June, it transported 28 rakes on Thursday.

WARANGAL: The second day of indefinite strike by coal mine workers and employees of Singareni Collieries Company Limited, demanding revival of Dependent Employment Scheme, saw only 40 pc of 67,000 employees reporting to work. About 60 leaders and workers were arrested in Ramagundem area when they tried to stage dharna and the workers demanded release of their colleagues. In Khammam too, about 30 leaders and workers were arrested and in Adilabad, police arrested leaders and implemented Sec 144 near all mines. The union leaders have given a call for bandh on Saturday to protest against the arrests.Police forces were deployed in the vicinity of the coal mines. Management had made all arrangements for miners to attend their duty and also provided lunch and snacks at the site. According to sources, there was very attendance at underground mines, whereas in the open cost mines, officials put efforts to increase production. SCCL management said that on Thursday, the power production by the power plants in state was not affected at all and asked employees to call of the strike. Coal production increased on first day of strike Hyderabad: SCCL claimed on Friday that the ongoing strike by its employees failed to have any impact on its coal production. Rather, the SCCL said in a media release that there was an increase in production of coal on the first day of strike, which was Thursday. SCCL said that a 13 pc increase was noted in its coal production which increased from an average of 1,52,186 tonnes daily to 1,72,261 tonnes on Thursday. It also said that on the first day of strike the amount of coal transported to power plants from SCCL increased from the average value of 1,64,000 tonnes to 1,85,000 tonnes. It said that the amount of coal transported to TSGENCO on a daily basis increased from 8-9 rakes per day on an average to 15 rakes on Thursday. Same was the case with the amount of coal transported to the NTPC power plant in Ramagundam, which increased from the average daily value of 24,000 tonnes to 34,000 tonnes. SCCL also said that against the average of 25 rakes of coal transported on a daily basis by railway to power plants in the month of June, it transported 28 rakes on Thursday.
Yatish Yadav By

NEW DELHI: India has rebuffed the claims made by a Chinese NGO at the United Nations alleging that the country has a long record of prosecution of human rights defenders.

The submission made by Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) attacked Indian judiciary during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in May alleging that like judiciary, prosecutors are deeply corrupt and demand bribes for opposing or not opposing bail applications, to undertake trial and to present evidence in the court. It also alleged widespread use of torture by the Indian authorities. Indian authorities are preparing to send a detailed response.

Some other NGOs raised the issues related to securities of religious minorities, Ghar Wapsi, Armed Forces Special Powers Act, enforced disappearance, extra-judicial killings and arbitrary arrests and torture.

The UPR is a process to review human rights records of member-states. Some foreign-funded NGOs such as Amnesty International gave a different shade to Indias undertrials alleging that two-thirds of the countrys prison population awaiting trials are Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims.

World Evangelical Alliance made allegations against persecution of minorities, claiming worsening situation of freedom of religion. An Indian NGO noted the grave insecurities of religious minorities from anti-conversion laws and harsher beef ban law enacted after 2014. Some others alleged targeted violence against Muslims in Uttar Pradesh.

An umbrella of 12 NGOs has targeted Indian security forces at the United Nations. It alleged about rape and sexual assault complaints against security forces from conflict areas such as Jammu & Kashmir, the north-eastern states and central Indian states.

These are baseless allegations and have no substance whatsoever. The NGOs are trying to undermine the development agenda that is being appreciated across the globe and on various international platform. It is very evident from the allegations that such comments were made with ulterior motives, a top government official from security establishment said.

India is preparing to send a detailed response. On June 7, when government officials from various ministries met on the suggestion of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the discussion was centred on the national development agenda and recommendations made by the various countries on Indias UPR. The recommendations made by the countries are not binding on India, and different ministry officials were called to deliberate whether to accept these recommendations or not. For example, China, during the review of Indias UPR in May, recommended that India should promote sustainable economic and social development, and raise the living standard of its people so as to lay down a firm basis for the enjoyment of human rights by its people.

The government officials confirmed that Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is examining the recommendations made by China and an appropriate response will be prepared. Bolivias recommendation was to strengthen the policies in favour of the rights of peasants and other persons working in rural areas. Germany asked India to implement a human rights-based, holistic approach to ensure access to adequate housing as well as water and sanitation for marginalised groups, including Dalits, scheduled tribe, homeless, landless, religious and ethnic minorities.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation would draft a suitable response highlighting Indias achievement on this particular issue. Myanmar wants India to further strengthen efforts towards socio-economic development and poverty eradication.

According to the government sources, the MEA had convened the first inter-ministerial meeting on June 1 to carry out the consultations with the concerned ministries.

NEW DELHI: India has rebuffed the claims made by a Chinese NGO at the United Nations alleging that the country has a long record of prosecution of human rights defenders. The submission made by Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) attacked Indian judiciary during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in May alleging that like judiciary, prosecutors are deeply corrupt and demand bribes for opposing or not opposing bail applications, to undertake trial and to present evidence in the court. It also alleged widespread use of torture by the Indian authorities. Indian authorities are preparing to send a detailed response. Some other NGOs raised the issues related to securities of religious minorities, Ghar Wapsi, Armed Forces Special Powers Act, enforced disappearance, extra-judicial killings and arbitrary arrests and torture. The UPR is a process to review human rights records of member-states. Some foreign-funded NGOs such as Amnesty International gave a different shade to Indias undertrials alleging that two-thirds of the countrys prison population awaiting trials are Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims. World Evangelical Alliance made allegations against persecution of minorities, claiming worsening situation of freedom of religion. An Indian NGO noted the grave insecurities of religious minorities from anti-conversion laws and harsher beef ban law enacted after 2014. Some others alleged targeted violence against Muslims in Uttar Pradesh. An umbrella of 12 NGOs has targeted Indian security forces at the United Nations. It alleged about rape and sexual assault complaints against security forces from conflict areas such as Jammu & Kashmir, the north-eastern states and central Indian states. These are baseless allegations and have no substance whatsoever. The NGOs are trying to undermine the development agenda that is being appreciated across the globe and on various international platform. It is very evident from the allegations that such comments were made with ulterior motives, a top government official from security establishment said. India is preparing to send a detailed response. On June 7, when government officials from various ministries met on the suggestion of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the discussion was centred on the national development agenda and recommendations made by the various countries on Indias UPR. The recommendations made by the countries are not binding on India, and different ministry officials were called to deliberate whether to accept these recommendations or not. For example, China, during the review of Indias UPR in May, recommended that India should promote sustainable economic and social development, and raise the living standard of its people so as to lay down a firm basis for the enjoyment of human rights by its people. The government officials confirmed that Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is examining the recommendations made by China and an appropriate response will be prepared. Bolivias recommendation was to strengthen the policies in favour of the rights of peasants and other persons working in rural areas. Germany asked India to implement a human rights-based, holistic approach to ensure access to adequate housing as well as water and sanitation for marginalised groups, including Dalits, scheduled tribe, homeless, landless, religious and ethnic minorities. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation would draft a suitable response highlighting Indias achievement on this particular issue. Myanmar wants India to further strengthen efforts towards socio-economic development and poverty eradication. According to the government sources, the MEA had convened the first inter-ministerial meeting on June 1 to carry out the consultations with the concerned ministries.
Rakesh K Singh By

NEW DELHI: Triggering a blamegame, an internal CRPF report held the Intelligence Bureau (IB) responsible for the lack of specific Intelligence inputs which led to an ambush on a company of 74 Battalion at Burkapal in Sukma on April 24 in which 25 paramilitary personnel were killed and seven others injured.

The report also admits its own failure in reading the telltale signs in the run up to the attack as the Maoists reconnoitred on the troops even 50 minutes before the attack that was executed on the fateful day from 12.50 pm to 1.45 pm.The report has also highlighted that the BSNL towers in the area stopped functioning 24 hours before the attack and they came to life after the ambush was over.

Analysing the ambush, the report also underscores meticulous planning by the ultras for hitting the CRPF personnel.

CRPF personnel in action

To cut the flow of information, they (Maoists) killed ex-sarpanch, Dula, branding him a police informer and warned others against talking to CRPF. People of Bukapal stopped giving any information to CRPF. Maoists began to send their cadre in civvies/mufti in the area where the CRPF was doing Road Security Operation (RSO) to see their numerical strength, weaponry, positions, routes taken to go and return, and to do reconnaissance.

As the Maoists became sure of the tactical positions of the CRPF and its numerical strength, they prepared accordingly on the nafri (strength) of their own cadre and supporting Jan Militia and Sangham members. About 70 to 80 Maoists and about 150 Jan Militia prepared for the ambush, a North Block official said, quoting from the report.

Two inputs by Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB)one on April 20 and another on April 22were received by the 74 Battalion but their contents were generalised in nature, eight to eleven kilometre from the areas flagged in the Intelligence report. Also, following these two inputs, respective units of the CRPF and CoBRA acted upon them but could not find anything on the ground.

The intelligence inputs were generalised in nature. Such inputs come daily. There was no specific intelligence input on attack on the RSO or any party of Burkapal camp (of CRPF), added the report.

Admitting that the CRPF troops failed to read the telltale signs, the report further said, Local information (humint) to the coys (companies) at Burkapal dried up after Maoists abducted (ex sarpanch) Dula Madvi on 09/03/2017 and murdered him. People of Burkapal got scared and stopped talking to the CRPF and coming to the camp. For the last several days before 24/04/2017, many unknown people were seen by villagers in the area doing recce. Villagers of Burkapal knew about it. But CRPF troops were not aware. Thus, there was an information vacuum.

NEW DELHI: Triggering a blamegame, an internal CRPF report held the Intelligence Bureau (IB) responsible for the lack of specific Intelligence inputs which led to an ambush on a company of 74 Battalion at Burkapal in Sukma on April 24 in which 25 paramilitary personnel were killed and seven others injured. The report also admits its own failure in reading the telltale signs in the run up to the attack as the Maoists reconnoitred on the troops even 50 minutes before the attack that was executed on the fateful day from 12.50 pm to 1.45 pm.The report has also highlighted that the BSNL towers in the area stopped functioning 24 hours before the attack and they came to life after the ambush was over. Analysing the ambush, the report also underscores meticulous planning by the ultras for hitting the CRPF personnel. CRPF personnel in actionTo cut the flow of information, they (Maoists) killed ex-sarpanch, Dula, branding him a police informer and warned others against talking to CRPF. People of Bukapal stopped giving any information to CRPF. Maoists began to send their cadre in civvies/mufti in the area where the CRPF was doing Road Security Operation (RSO) to see their numerical strength, weaponry, positions, routes taken to go and return, and to do reconnaissance. As the Maoists became sure of the tactical positions of the CRPF and its numerical strength, they prepared accordingly on the nafri (strength) of their own cadre and supporting Jan Militia and Sangham members. About 70 to 80 Maoists and about 150 Jan Militia prepared for the ambush, a North Block official said, quoting from the report. Two inputs by Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB)one on April 20 and another on April 22were received by the 74 Battalion but their contents were generalised in nature, eight to eleven kilometre from the areas flagged in the Intelligence report. Also, following these two inputs, respective units of the CRPF and CoBRA acted upon them but could not find anything on the ground. The intelligence inputs were generalised in nature. Such inputs come daily. There was no specific intelligence input on attack on the RSO or any party of Burkapal camp (of CRPF), added the report. Admitting that the CRPF troops failed to read the telltale signs, the report further said, Local information (humint) to the coys (companies) at Burkapal dried up after Maoists abducted (ex sarpanch) Dula Madvi on 09/03/2017 and murdered him. People of Burkapal got scared and stopped talking to the CRPF and coming to the camp. For the last several days before 24/04/2017, many unknown people were seen by villagers in the area doing recce. Villagers of Burkapal knew about it. But CRPF troops were not aware. Thus, there was an information vacuum.
By Associated Press

SAO PAULO: Embattled President Michel Temer exchanged furious denunciations of corruption Saturday with a leading businessman who alleges Brazil's leader was behind the bribes paid by business executives to politicians and government authorities in exchange for political favors.

Meatpacking billionaire Joesley Batista, who is himself under investigation for fraud, claimed in an interview published in the newsmagazine Epoca that "Temer leads Brazil's largest and most dangerous criminal organization." He provided no specifics to back up his charge.

Temer's office fired back with a statement describing Batista as "the most notorious and successful bandit in Brazil's history" and it promised to file criminal and civil lawsuits against him.

Batista is now a key witness in corruption investigations that threaten to force Temer out of office before his term ends in December 2018. Prosecutors have said they are considering charging the president with receiving bribes and with trying to obstruct the investigation into a colossal corruption scheme at the state-run oil company that involved huge kickbacks to politicians in return for inflated contracts. Dozens of politicians and business executives already have been convicted in the Petrobras case.

A key part of the evidence against Temer comes from plea bargain agreements with prosecutors signed by Batista and his brother Wesley that allow the two men to remain free. Under investigation in a pension fund fraud, they have said they paid kickbacks to more than 1,800 politicians to win favors for their JBS meatpacking company.

JBS is the world's biggest meat processing company and operates more than 100 industrial units around the world, including in the United states.

Their revelations include a recording of a March meeting between Batista and Temer in which the president appears to condone the payment of hush money to imprisoned former Speaker of the House Eduardo Cunha, who is serving a 15-year corruption sentence.

Prosecutors have said that in the recording Temer is heard authorizing Batista to pay Cunha the equivalent of about $150,000 a week for not reaching a plea bargain deal.

SAO PAULO: Embattled President Michel Temer exchanged furious denunciations of corruption Saturday with a leading businessman who alleges Brazil's leader was behind the bribes paid by business executives to politicians and government authorities in exchange for political favors. Meatpacking billionaire Joesley Batista, who is himself under investigation for fraud, claimed in an interview published in the newsmagazine Epoca that "Temer leads Brazil's largest and most dangerous criminal organization." He provided no specifics to back up his charge. Temer's office fired back with a statement describing Batista as "the most notorious and successful bandit in Brazil's history" and it promised to file criminal and civil lawsuits against him. Batista is now a key witness in corruption investigations that threaten to force Temer out of office before his term ends in December 2018. Prosecutors have said they are considering charging the president with receiving bribes and with trying to obstruct the investigation into a colossal corruption scheme at the state-run oil company that involved huge kickbacks to politicians in return for inflated contracts. Dozens of politicians and business executives already have been convicted in the Petrobras case. A key part of the evidence against Temer comes from plea bargain agreements with prosecutors signed by Batista and his brother Wesley that allow the two men to remain free. Under investigation in a pension fund fraud, they have said they paid kickbacks to more than 1,800 politicians to win favors for their JBS meatpacking company. JBS is the world's biggest meat processing company and operates more than 100 industrial units around the world, including in the United states. Their revelations include a recording of a March meeting between Batista and Temer in which the president appears to condone the payment of hush money to imprisoned former Speaker of the House Eduardo Cunha, who is serving a 15-year corruption sentence. Prosecutors have said that in the recording Temer is heard authorizing Batista to pay Cunha the equivalent of about $150,000 a week for not reaching a plea bargain deal.
By Associated Press

MIAMI: Haiti's president plans to ask for a yearlong extension of U.S. immigration privileges granted to Haitians after a 2010 earthquake.

The Department of Homeland Security has said more than 50,000 Haitians legally living and working in the U.S. to plan to return home when their employment and residency benefits expire in January.

The Miami Herald reports (http://hrld.us/2sET16t ) that at the Little Haiti Cultural Center on Friday, Haitian President Jovenel Moise said Haitians worried about losing their "temporary protected status" should "calm down," since his government will request a 12-month extension.

Moise said he raised the issue with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at a security conference Thursday, and he said the deportations of tens of thousands of Haitians was "not what they have in mind."

MIAMI: Haiti's president plans to ask for a yearlong extension of U.S. immigration privileges granted to Haitians after a 2010 earthquake. The Department of Homeland Security has said more than 50,000 Haitians legally living and working in the U.S. to plan to return home when their employment and residency benefits expire in January. The Miami Herald reports (http://hrld.us/2sET16t ) that at the Little Haiti Cultural Center on Friday, Haitian President Jovenel Moise said Haitians worried about losing their "temporary protected status" should "calm down," since his government will request a 12-month extension. Moise said he raised the issue with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at a security conference Thursday, and he said the deportations of tens of thousands of Haitians was "not what they have in mind."
By Associated Press

MADRID: Protesters marched in Spain's capital Saturday to demand the conservative government fulfill its pledge to give shelter to refugees from war-torn countries like Syria.

Braving temperatures that reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), several thousand marchers followed a huge banner reading: "We Want To Welcome Them Now! Enough Excuses, No More Barriers." They marched along the city's Gran Via street.

Spain has taken in less than 10 percent of the refugees it had pledged to accept by last September. It has relocated or resettled 1,304 refugees, while it promised in September 2015 to take in 17,337 people  15,888 from camps in Italy and Greece and 1,449 from Turkey and Libya.

In February, at least 160,000 people marched in Barcelona to demand the Spanish government fulfill its commitment on refugees.

MADRID: Protesters marched in Spain's capital Saturday to demand the conservative government fulfill its pledge to give shelter to refugees from war-torn countries like Syria. Braving temperatures that reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), several thousand marchers followed a huge banner reading: "We Want To Welcome Them Now! Enough Excuses, No More Barriers." They marched along the city's Gran Via street. Spain has taken in less than 10 percent of the refugees it had pledged to accept by last September. It has relocated or resettled 1,304 refugees, while it promised in September 2015 to take in 17,337 people  15,888 from camps in Italy and Greece and 1,449 from Turkey and Libya. In February, at least 160,000 people marched in Barcelona to demand the Spanish government fulfill its commitment on refugees.
By PTI

GOMA: A soldier and 12 militants have been killed in clashes in DR Congo's restive eastern North-Kivu province, the army said.

"Twelve Mai-Mai and an officer from the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo died in fighting that last nearly all of Saturday for control of the Kabasha area," army spokesman Lieutenant Jules Tshikudi told AFP.

The Mai-Mai are vigilante groups that run along ethnic lines. During the brutal Second Congo War between 1998 and 2003, numerous groups were armed by the government to fight against Ugandan or Rwandan forces, and some of them never disarmed.

Yesterday's clashes broke out when Mai-Mai fighters attacked the army's position in Kabasha, Tshikudi said, without indicating their ethnicity. The army is now in control of the area, which civilians have fled, he added.

Kabasha lies 24 kilometres (15 miles) south of Beni, a city that has suffered a wave of violence since 2014 with nearly 700 civilians killed, many of them hacked to death.

Those killings have been blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces, a shadowy rebel group dominated by hardline Ugandan Muslims who were initially focused on overthrowing Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni.

Six days ago, more than 900 inmates escaped during an attack on Beni's central prison by armed assailants who have yet to be identified by authorities.

The eastern DR Congo has been rocked by more than 20 years of armed conflict among both domestic and foreign armed groups, fuelled by struggle for control of lucrative mineral resources as well as ethnic and property disputes.

GOMA: A soldier and 12 militants have been killed in clashes in DR Congo's restive eastern North-Kivu province, the army said. "Twelve Mai-Mai and an officer from the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo died in fighting that last nearly all of Saturday for control of the Kabasha area," army spokesman Lieutenant Jules Tshikudi told AFP. The Mai-Mai are vigilante groups that run along ethnic lines. During the brutal Second Congo War between 1998 and 2003, numerous groups were armed by the government to fight against Ugandan or Rwandan forces, and some of them never disarmed. Yesterday's clashes broke out when Mai-Mai fighters attacked the army's position in Kabasha, Tshikudi said, without indicating their ethnicity. The army is now in control of the area, which civilians have fled, he added. Kabasha lies 24 kilometres (15 miles) south of Beni, a city that has suffered a wave of violence since 2014 with nearly 700 civilians killed, many of them hacked to death. Those killings have been blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces, a shadowy rebel group dominated by hardline Ugandan Muslims who were initially focused on overthrowing Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni. Six days ago, more than 900 inmates escaped during an attack on Beni's central prison by armed assailants who have yet to be identified by authorities. The eastern DR Congo has been rocked by more than 20 years of armed conflict among both domestic and foreign armed groups, fuelled by struggle for control of lucrative mineral resources as well as ethnic and property disputes.
President Donald Trump repeatedly talks tough about reining in the pharmaceutical industry, but his administration's efforts to lower drug prices are shrouded in secrecy.

Senior administrative officials met Friday to discuss an executive order on the cost of pharmaceuticals, a roundtable informed by Trump's "Drug Pricing and Innovation Working Group." Kaiser Health News examined documents that shed light on the workings of this working group.

The documents reveal behind-the-scenes discussions influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. Joe Grogan, associate director of health programs for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has led the group. Until March, Grogan served as a lobbyist for Gilead Sciences, the pharmaceutical company that priced its hepatitis C drugs at $1,000 per pill.

To solve the crisis of high drug prices, the group discussed strengthening the monopoly rights of pharmaceuticals overseas, ending discounts for low-income hospitals and accelerating drug approvals by the Food and Drug Administration. The White House declined to comment on the working group.

The group initially met May 4 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and has since met every two weeks. In addition to OMB, the working group includes officials from the White House National Economic Council, Domestic Policy Council, Health and Human Services, the FDA, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Commerce, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Department of Justice.

According to the documents  the latest of which is dated June 1 the working group focused on the following "principles" and "talking points":

Extending the patent life of drugs in foreign markets to "provide for protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights." This will ensure "that American consumers do not unfairly subsidize research and development for people throughout the globe."

Extending monopoly protections for drugs overseas has been one of the pharmaceutical industrys top priorities since the Trans-Pacific Partnership was defeated last year.

That policy would push up global drug prices, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Promoting competition in the U.S. drug market  both by "modernizing our regulatory and reimbursement systems" and limiting barrier to entry, including the cost of research and development," according to the documents.

The working group also discussed two broad policy ideas that have been championed by the pharmaceutical industry, according to sources familiar with the process:

Value-based pricing, when pharmaceutical companies keep the list prices of drugs unchanged but offer rebates if patients don't improve. It's unclear who would audit the effectiveness of the drugs, what criteria they would use to evaluate them and who would receive the rebates. Grogan invited Robert Shapiro  an adviser for Gilead and former secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton  to brief the working group on value-based pricing on May 18. Shapiro is the chairman and co-founder of Sonecon LLC, a Washington, D.C., firm that consulted with Gilead, Amgen and PhRMA, according to his curriculum vitae.

Grogan and Shapiro also discussed issuing 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds to drug manufacturers to pay for expensive, hepatitis C drugs like Sovaldi and Harvoni under Medicare and Medicaid, to avoid rationing drugs to the sickest patients. The 2015 Senate investigation, for example, found that though Medicaid spent more than $1 billion on Sovaldi, just 2.4 percent of Medicaid patients with hepatitis C were treated.

After the working group's first meeting on May 4, Grogan distributed detailed policy recommendations on expediting generic drug approvals, creating a new tax credit "of up to 50 percent" for investments in generic drug manufacturing, distribution and research and development. The documents also propose scaling back the 340B program, which requires drug manufacturers to provide some medicines at a discount to hospitals that treat low-income patients.

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Most of these policies would not ease patient costs, and at least one would increase prices, say experts who reviewed the documents at the request of Kaiser Health News.

"This six-page document contains the kind of solutions to the cost-of-drugs problem that you would get if you gathered together all the executives of pharma and asked them What sort of token gestures can we do? " said Vinay Prasad, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Sciences University who studies the costs of cancer drugs.

The pharma-friendly recommendations appear to clash with earlier press reports indicating that OMB Director Mick Mulvaney was considering requiring drugmakers to pay rebates to Medicare patients, a measure the pharmaceutical lobby fiercely opposes.

Brand-name drug prices  which account for 72 percent of drug spending  go untouched in the handouts, said Fiona Scott Morton, a Yale economics professor and former attorney with the Justice Department's antitrust division.

"The changes to generic markets to promote competition look helpful, but there need to be some more ideas to create more competition for branded drugs or consumers aren't really going to notice this," Scott Morton said.

Some of the text in the document is cribbed directly from policy papers published by the pharmaceutical industrys powerful lobby  Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA).

Under the subtitle, "Encourage Use of 21st Century Tools for Drug Evaluation, Review and Approval," one handout proposes the FDA use less rigorous clinical trial standards to speed drug approvals.

The handout cites a PhRMA paper from March 2016 that includes an identical subtitle, "Encourage Use of 21st Century Tools for Drug Evaluation, Review and Approval," and recommends the FDA implement less rigorous clinical trial standards.

These recommendations would not lower drug prices, experts say.

Such measures "would be like a firefighter spraying gasoline on your burning garage," Prasad said.

Another section  which recommends giving the FDA more discretion to evaluate generic copies of complex drugs  closely resembles a National Law Review article written by two lobbyists in the pharmaceutical division of Foley & Lardner, whose clients include generic drugmakers.

The handouts further recommend allowing drugmakers to supply data and off-label information to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers during the clinical trial period, before they secure FDA approval.

That's a "terrible idea," said Jerry Avorn, a professor at Harvard Medical School and the chief of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "Thats why we have the whole approval process, to determine whats actually true," he said.
Renault Kwid (Image Courtesy: Renault India)

This Sunday, June 18, 2017 the world will celebrate the Worlds Father Day. We have a compiled a list of top 3 cars to gift to your father on this Fathers Day. (Its time for the payback). The list includes a car each from Hatchback segement, Sedan segment and SUV segment.We have kept the upper cap for the bugdet to Rs 15 lakhs. Dont just wait now and go out for shopping! Heres our list to make your father happy!The entry level hatchback from the house of French Automaker is one of the most loved product in the recent times. The Renault Kwid was launched with a single aim  to be the choice of first-time car buyers in India, a market long captured by Maruti Suzuki Alto. Yes, the Alto still rules the roost, but Kwid has managed to catch the fancy of many buyers in the country.Reason being, the Kwid offers a perfect mix of space, gadgets, price, mileage and looks. Thats why, we have chose the car to be The Gift for your dad. It will be a hassle-free ownership experience for him. We would recommend to go for the AMT version of the Kwid  the Kwid 1.0 Easy-R. It will get the unnecessary fuss of changing the gears out of the equation.Next up is the car for someone who is looking to gift a sedan to his father, and cant buy a mid-size or premium sedan. The sub 4-metre category, otherwise known as the compact sedan category is the perfect segment for such buyers and what better than the all-new Maruti Suzuki Dzire to serve as a Fathers Day gift to your dad.The Maruti Suzuki Dzire gets the industry-leading mileage of 28.4 kmpl, standard safety equipments like ABS with EBD and airbags, latest-gen equipments like infotainment system and more and a lot of space, apart from Marutis trusted brand value. Its also priced competitively, which gives it an upper edge over rivals.Last on our list is the compact SUV  the Hyundai Creta, a perfect gift for your dad, if he that SUV person. The compact SUV segment is flooded with a lot of offerings in the past couple of years, all worthy of a gift to your dad. But none could match the road presence and other abilities of the Hyundai Creta SUV, if your budget is around Rs 10 Lakhs.The Hyundai Creta compact SUV comes with an automatic gearbox, a must for your father, if ease-of-driving is on his mind. The SUV also looks good and has the typical Hyundai-ish interiors, which is the best in the industry. Go for the diesel version, if you are looking for mileage with creature comfort.
Mumbai: Organised retailers do not expect the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to impact their sales despite general fears that it could disrupt businesses, and hope to be fully ready for the uniform tax regime in the next few weeks.



"As GST will be rolled out from July 1, we have to be prepared. It will lead to better compliance and an organised way of doing things," Ashwin Khasgiwala, chief financial officer at Reliance Retail told PTI.



"We are not anticipating any sales disruptions. Nobody has expressed concerns on that...For retailers, benefits will come as and when manufacturer change the prices, which we in turn will pass it on to consumers," he added.



July onwards, large retail companies, including Reliance Retail, Future Group, Trent HyperCity and DMart, among others, are looking at aggressive price reductions.



The common objective of all retailers is also that margins should be protected, while ensuring that prices remain under check.



"We will reduce prices by 2 to 20 per cent on various consumer products," said Kishore Biyani, chief executive of Future Group, which also sells lots of private labels.



"GST will create a level-playing field for modern trade," he added, explaining that the biggest challenge is to see that customers are not unhappy.



"I believe tax rates should not be so complex as to create variations that adversely affect consumers," he said.



While there maybe temporary procedural hiccups, most retailers believe that the new taxation structure is about simplification and ease of doing business.



Retailers are in talks with FMCG companies to align with their businesses, and ensure that margins for modern trade is not compromised, while continuing momentum of consumer sales.



"We are ensuring that our systems like IT are in place and are also working to educate the value chain," Trent HyperCity MD Jamshed Daboo said.



"Also, most large retailers are in talks individually with FMCG companies to ensure that their margins are retained, while ensuring lower prices to consumers," he added.



Companies like denim retailer Pepe Jeans said it has been preparing for GST since January.



"Since January, we have been placing orders with only those vendors who are GST-compliant. There are some challenges that will arise, though, but those can be sorted out over time. We are 90-per cent ready now," Pepe Jeans CEO & MD said.



Most retailers are awaiting more clarity on various issues, including input tax credit and e-way bills.



Several retail stores have announced big discounts especially in the consumer electronics segment ahead of the GST rollout, in a bid to to clear inventories and to avoid implementation issues.
New Delhi: He is a born frequent flier -- a baby boy, born on Sunday 35,000 feet above sea level on a Jet Airways plane from Saudi Arabia to India, has received a free lifetime pass from the airline as his first birthday gift.



Jet Airways flight 9W 569 took off from Dammam for Kochi at 2.55 am today and when an expectant mother travelling onboard went into premature labour the crew declared a medical emergency and diverted the flight to Mumbai.



While the Boeing 737 with 162 passengers on board was still over the Arabian Sea, the cabin crew requested on the public announcement system for a doctor to come forward. But since there was none a female nurse travelling to Kerala, named Wilson, volunteered to help deliver the child along with the airline staff.



After the plane landed in Mumbai, both the mother and the baby were rushed to a hospital and were said to be doing well, according to the airline.



"Being the first baby to be born in-flight for the airline, Jet Airways is pleasedto offer the newly-born a free lifetime passfor all his travel on Jet Airways," the airline said in a statement.



The plane later resumed its onward journey to Kochi and reached its destination at 12.45 pm after a delay of 90 minutes.




New Delhi: Mobilised by the Bhim Army, a large number of Dalit youths on Sunday hit the streets of Delhi, for the second time in less than a month, protesting caste violence in Uttar Pradesh and demanding the release of Chandrashekhar Azad, the outfit's chief.



The spirited gathering, of around 2,500 as estimated by the police, saw the presence of Chandrashekhar's mother Kamlesh Devi and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Ram's sister Swarn Kaur among others.



The stretch between the Parliament Street police station and the New Delhi Municipal Council convention centre turned into a sea of blue, the colour of Dalit resistance, and pulsated with the cries of 'Jai Bheem' as protesters from UP, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab trooped in, from around 10 am.



"I will protest, sit on dharna and also stage indefinite fast till my son is not released. We will fight. I have no expectation from the Narendra Modi government or the Uttar Pradesh government, especially since the violence has been triggered by the very rise of Yogi Adityanath," Kamlesh Devi told PTI.



Like the previous gathering on May 21, which had seen a bigger turnout, speaker after speaker laid emphasis on keeping the "social movement" away from politics and mainstream political parties professing the Dalit cause like the BSP.



"(BSP supremo) Mayawati built her entire career on my brother's work. This is a new movement spearheaded by the youth. Whenever there's injustice, the youth will rise," Kaur said.



However, sharp divisions within the ranks of the emerging outfit came to the fore during the demonstration with the organisers pushing down a member from the dais, accusing him of attempting to "hijack" the movement, triggering chaos and confusion.



The organisers also raised funds for the victims of the clash during the demonstration and people were given slots to speak based on the amount donated by them.



"It is apparent that Bhim Army lacks discipline. But it comprises largely of youths and they will learn with time," Ummed Singh Gautam, the chief patron of the Samta Sainik Dal, founded by BR Ambedkar in 1926, said.



Chandrashekhar, a lawyer by profession, was arrested on June 8 by the Uttar Pradesh Task force from Himachal Pradesh's Dalhousie in connection with his alleged role in the Thakur- Dalit clash in Saharanpur.



His brothers, Bhagat Singh and Kamal Kishor were also present at the rally.



Two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after a person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village on May 5.


Patna: Bodies missing from a Hindu graveyard have the police in Bihars Purnia district on their toes.



The graveyard in Raziganj village is the only Hindu burial ground used by those who cannot afford to cremate the dead.



"We cannot afford the wood required to cremate our loved ones. So we started burying the dead here. It has since become a ritual, said Kundan Chaudhary, a local resident.



When the villagers went for a burial on Thursday, they noticed the dug-up graves. "We saw that many bodies had been exhumed. I could not see any human remains. Hair was scattered near a grave. It was scary," Kundan said.



Another villager, Badri Prasad, said this wasnt the first time bodies were missing from the area. "Three graves were found open in the nearby Kasba village two years ago," he said.



Police said an investigation has been launched. Prime Facie evidence suggests the bodies may have been stolen for some tantrik rituals or for bone trafficking, said Deputy Superintendent of Police, Rajkumar Shah.






Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday arrested Colonel Shaibal Kumar, posted in Kolkata's Eastern Commands Planning & Engineering Branch, along with three senior officials of a private company on the charges of taking bribe.



The others who were booked by the CBI are Sharat Nath, Managing Director, Vijay Naidu, Director and Amit Roy Kolkata representative of M/s Xtech Equipment Pvt Ltd, Pune.



On June 17, the CBI had registered a case against Colonel and three others of Pune-based private company u/s 120 B of IPC and section 7, 12 & 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of PC Act 1988. It was alleged that the Colonel had demanded a bribe of Rs. 1.80 lakh from Managing Director of the aforesaid company in connection with the supply of Power Pack Rock Splitters, which are used by various field formations of the Army, the CBI statement reads.



The Colonel was alleged to have already demanded and accepted a bribe of Rs.50,000 in February 2017 and as part of the second instalment of the bribe, the Colonel has accepted Rs.50,000 from the accused company. CBI tracked the Director of said private company who came from Pune to deliver the bribe to Colonel and nabbed him after the payment of the bribe to the Colonel. CBI caught the Colonel and recovered the bribe from his residence, it further reads.



Searches have been conducted on four premises in Pune and two premises in Kolkata. The accused were produced in a city court and remanded in custody for further investigation.


New Delhi: The number of Class 12 students applying for verification of marks this year is unprecedented. Students have been complaining of abysmally low marks in certain subjects, which were then rectified by an even more incredible margin.



According to former CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly, the Board could have saved itself the embarrassment if the traditional or old system was followed. We have our old and traditional system called Outlier system to keep such embarrassment at bay," he told News18.



Explaining further, Ganguly said that under the Outlier system, which had been in use for 20 years, if a student had scored high marks in four or five subjects but considerably less in one or two others, it meant there was something extraordinarily wrong, thus alerting those concerned.



Similarly, if a student had low marks in four or five subjects but high marks in the remaining ones, it means those copies needed to be checked again.



"We have to re-check copies to correct glaring errors, he added.



"We would delay the results to check such cases  as it meant there was something wrong. Those copies were brought out and evaluated again. We would find 80% of copies were subject to correction," he said.



It requires a system that questions when someone with high marks in five subjects get low marks in others. Or how someone with low marks in five subjects can get high in remaining ones?



A good moderation and Outlier system, with patience to sit over copies for 72 hours can avoid such embarrassment. I delayed results to check such cases under the outlier system.



There has been no official response from the CBSE over the re-totalling confusion yet.




Patna: A Class 10 girl was allegedly gangraped by a group of six people, and thrown from a moving train before it reached Bihar's Kiul junction. The condition of the girl was said to be critical and a team of doctors was continuously monitoring her health at Patna Medical College and Hospital(PMCH).



Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has assured the girl of punishment to the perpetrators of this horrific crime.



The girl hails from Lakhochak village in Lakhisarai district. She stepped out on Thursday night to answer the nature's call and was captured by a group of six people.



"I could recognise Santosh Kumar and Mrityunjay Kumar. They forced them upon me and soon, I fell unconscious," the girl said in her statement.



The accused took her to Vanshipur Railway station and boarded a local train. As the Kiul Junction approached, they threw her from the moving train in the wee hours of Friday. Locals took the girl to a local medical centre where her parents reached in the afternoon.



With her condition continuously deteriorating, the doctors referred her to the Patna Medical College and Hospital where she was initially denied a bed.



She was administered proper treatment only when media took notice of her plight.



Superintendent of Police, Lakhisarai, told ETV that the prime accused, Santosh had already been arrested. However, he denied this being a case involving gangrape. "We have come to know that the victim was having an affair with Santosh. We can't say why she was attacked and raped until the investigation is finished."



A team, led by Lakhisarai DSP Pankaj Kumar, has been formed to investigate the matter.




The controversial $50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is part of Chinas second scientific expedition to the 4,000-metre-high Qinghai-Tibet plateau to study changes in climate, biodiversity and environment in the region.The expedition will also take scientists to a pass linking to south Asia, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.The $50-billion CPEC passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), over which India has conveyed its protests to China. The area covers Karakoram mountain ranges, including the Siachen glacier.The last expedition of similar scale in Qinghai-Tibet plateau, regarded as roof of the world, was conducted in the 1970s.This time, the expedition will last five to 10 years and the first stop will be Serling Tso, a 2,391-square-km lake that was confirmed to have replaced the Buddhist holy lake Namtso as Tibet's largest in 2014.In the coming months, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) will take more than 100 scientists to the lake area and the origin of the Yangtze, China's longest river. They will be divided into four groups and make a comprehensive survey of the plateau glaciers, climate change, biodiversity and ecological changes, Yao Tandong, an academician with the CAS, was quoted as saying by the report."Great changes have taken place in the plateau's resources and environment since the first scientific expedition," said Yao, director of the CAS Institute of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Research. "We need further research to find out ways to cope with these changes."China's first comprehensive scientific expedition to the Tibet plateau began in the 1970s and covered more than 50 disciplines, including geologic structure, prehistoric life, geophysics, climate, zoology and botany, PTI reported."The scientists reported major discoveries and filled many gaps in plateau research," Yao said. The new round of research, he said, will focus on changes.Zhu Liping, a CAS researcher leading the lake observation team, said the surface of Serling Tso Lake, for example, had expanded 40 per cent between 1976 and 2009. Since 1990, water in the plateau's 1,000 lakes has increased by 100 billion cubic meters."The volume is equal to three times the water in Three Gorges Dam," Zhu said. The study will measure the impact on the ecology and its potential link to flooding and drought in the low-lying eastern monsoon region.Zhu said data will be collected by scientists using automatic boats for the first time and a topographic map will be drawn."The plateau climate is becoming warmer and more humid," said Xu Baiqing, who is leading another team to the glaciers. The team will drill ice cores at three major plateau glacier groups. Buried in the cold interiors of glaciers, ice cores contain well-preserved and detailed records of climate change in a century.The impact of climatic changes would be assessed and proposals for conservation and rational development of resources formulated.On the archaeological front, scientists will look for evidence that can prove an earlier archaeological discovery of a Paleolithic ruins in the Serling Tso suggesting that humans might have been lived on this part of the world since some 30,000 years ago.Archaeologists will try to answer why humans came to this plateau, where did they come from, and how did they adapt to high altitude living, according to team leader Deng Tao, deputy director of Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, under CAS.A fourth team will research the biological diversity on the plateau and draw up a habitat map for preservation and tourism purposes.A national park might be set up in Serling Tso, the report said.(With PTI inputs)
"During May 2017, the MCA21 system was subjected to WannaCry ransomware attack. The attack was in the nature of a 'zero day attack' and was first noticed on May 7," the document said.

"There is no major impact in India unlike other countries. We are keeping a close watch. As per the information received so far, there have been isolated incidents in limited areas in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh," Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said on May 15.

: The corporate affairs ministry's key portal for making filings by companies -- MCA21 -- came under WannaCry ransomware attack last month, affecting certain services.The attack was "presumably" the first on a central government portal and prompt measures were taken to contain the impact, according to an official document.Last month, the WannaCry ransomware cyber attack impacted computer systems and networks in more than 150 countries, including India.MCA21, which is managed by IT major Infosys, provides for making electronic filings related to compliances under the Companies Act and Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008.Generally, zero day attack refers to hackers exploiting a flaw in a software system that is not known to the vendor itself."The attack was presumably one of the first such attacks on a Government of India portal," the document stated.While some document related to front office and back office services were initially affected, technical teams took prompt measures to contain the impact and informed the CERT-In immediately, it added.CERT-In is the government's cyber security arm. As per the document, the system servers were re-formatted and the systems were re-deployed."The prompt measures helped all services being restored fully without any loss by May 12," it said.Contacted for comments on the matter, an Infosys spokesperson said, "We recommend a conversation with the (corporate affairs) ministry on this matter."The query sent to Corporate Affairs Secretary Tapan Ray remained unanswered.An e-governance initiative of the ministry, MCA21 enables secure access of the services to corporate entities, professionals and citizens of India.On an average, at least 8,000 filings are made throughthe portal daily.Last month, the government had said there was no serious impact on the country from a global ransomware cyber attack, except for a few isolated incidents in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, and that steps were being taken to deal with any future threat.The WannaCry attack is reported to have impacted over two lakh computers in more than 150 countries.Hackers were believed to have used techniques stolen from the US National Security Agency to encrypt files within affected computers, making them inaccessible, and demanded USD 300 ransom.
New Delhi: Three people, including a minor, were arrested for allegedly beating and stabbing an 18-year-old boy to death after he refused to lend them his scooter in northeast Delhi's Nand Nagri area, police said.



Gulfam was killed on June 15 in a park after he was forcibly taken there from his house, police said. He was shifted to a hospital where he was declared brought dead, Devender Arya, additional deputy commissioner of police (Northeast) told PTI.



His sister told police that Karan, Sunny and the juvenile, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, took her brother to a park. Karan and Sunny caught hold of Gulfam while the juvenile attacked him with a knife, said the police officer.



Karan and Sunny were arrested on Friday and later the juvenile was also apprehended.



During interrogation, Karan and Sunny told police that Gulfam and Sunny were friends. Few months ago, the juvenile had asked Gulfam for his scooter. However, Gulfam denied and slapped the juvenile, said the officer.



The juvenile was nursing a grudge against Gulfam and had even gone to the latter's house to threaten him of dire consequences, he said.



Karan and Sunny decided to help the juvenile since they were friends with him. On June 15, they hatched a plan to kill Gulfam, police said.



(With PTI inputs)
: Iraqi forces began storming the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul on Sunday, an assault they hope will be the last in the eight-month campaign to seize the militants' stronghold.The historic district is the last still under control of the militants in the city which used to be their capital in Iraq.It is a densely-populated maze of narrow alleyways where fighting is often conducted house by house.About 100,000 civilians remain trapped there in harrowing conditions, with little food, water and medicine and limited access to hospitals, according to the United Nations."This will be a terrifying time for around 100,000 people still trapped in Mosul's Old City ... now at risk of getting caught up in the fierce street fighting to come," the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said in a statement."This is the final chapter" in the offensive to take Mosul, said Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, commander of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) elite units spearheading the assault.A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the campaign.Several air strikes during the day hit a medical complex located just north of the Old City, alongside the western bank of the Tigris river, a Reuters TV reporter said.Armoured vehicles were heading toward the frontline north of the Old City as shelling and gunfire could be heard.The medical complex, housing the two biggest hospitals of Mosul, is still held in part by the militants who are using its buildings as sniper outposts.Islamic State's security services chief in the Old City, Kanaan Jiyad Abdullah aka Abu Amna, was killed in the morning clashes, Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises several Middle East governments on Islamic State affairs, told Reuters.The Iraqi government initially hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign took longer as militants dug in the middle of civilians to fight back.Islamic State is also using suicide car and motorbike bombs, booby traps and sniper and mortar fire against the troops."The buildings of the old town are particularly vulnerable to collapse even if they aren't directly targeted, which could lead to even more civilian deaths than the hundreds killed so far in air strikes across the rest of the city," the IRC said."We are trying to be very careful, using only light and medium weapons ... to avoid casualties among civilians," CTS commander Major General Maan Saadi told Iraqi state TV.Displaced Egyptian Wasfa Ahmed, a resident of Mosul, holds her two-month-old baby, as two of her children stand next to her, after fleeing her home due to fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, near the Old City in western Mosul on June 17, 2017. (Hundred of civilians were killed near the frontlines in the past three weeks while fleeing the Old City, as Iraqi forces couldn't fully secure exit corridors."We expect thousands of families to escape from the Old City; we made all preparations to evacuate them from the frontlines," army colonel Salam Faraj told Reuters.Islamic State snipers are shooting at families trying to flee on foot or by boat across the Tigris River, as part of a tactic to keep civilians as human shields, the U.N. said on Friday.The Iraqi army thinks the number of Islamic State fighters in the Old City doesn't exceed 300, down from nearly 6,000 when the battle of Mosul started, on Oct. 17."The operation now is about street fighting, air and artillery strikes will be limited because the area is heavily populated and the buildings fragile," CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numan told al-Hadath TV in Dubai.Iraqi government forces regained eastern Mosul in January, then a month later began the offensive on the side located west of the Tigris, which includes the Old City.The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in a speech from an historic mosque in the Old City three years ago, covering parts of Iraq and Syria.The group is also retreating in Syria, mainly in the face of a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition. Its capital there, Raqqa, is being besieged.Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul and Raqqa to field commanders, to become effectively a fugitive focused on his own survival in the border area between Iraq and Syria.U.S. air strikes have killed several commanders of the group over the past two years, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, a top military commander, chief propagandist Abu Mohammed al-Adani, and Abu Ali al-Anbari, the former top civilian administrator.About 200,000 people were estimated to be trapped behind Islamic State lines in Mosul in May, but the number has declined as government forces have thrust further into the city.About 850,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of the northern Iraqi city, have fled, seeking refuge with friends and relatives or in camps, according to aid groups.
New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee rejected two mercy petitions in the last week of May, just two months before he completes his tenure.



With these two cases, the total number of mercy petitions rejected by Mukherjee during his tenure has gone up to 30.



Both cases are of rape and murder of a 4-year-old girl by three men in Indore in 2012, and of a 22-year-old woman by two men in Pune in 2007. reported PTI.



The two pleas were received in the President's secretariat in April and May.



The convicts had urged the President to commute the death penalty awarded to them by local courts concerned and upheld by respective high courts and finally by the Supreme Court.



In the gruesome rape and murder case of Indore, Jitendra alias Jeetu, Babu alias Ketan and Sanni alias Devendra were handed down death sentence by a city court a year after the crime was committed.



The sentence was upheld by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2014 and by the apex court on January 6, 2015.



Mukherjee rejected their mercy petition on May 25, a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said.



The convicts had kidnapped the child from outside her relative's house in Nehru Nagar area of Indore. They then sexually assaulted, strangled her to death and dumped the body in a drain.



In the Pune case, the convicts -- cab driver Purushottam Dashrath Borate and his accomplice Pradeep Yeshwant Kokade -- had raped and murdered the woman.



The woman, who was on her way to office for a night shift, was picked up by the cab. She was abducted, raped and killed by the driver and his aide -- the two convicts.



The trial court had awarded death penalty to the duo which was confirmed by the Bombay High Court and upheld by the Supreme Court on May 8, 2015.



Their mercy petition was rejected by the president on May 26.



As per rules, there is no fixed time limit for the president to decide on a mercy petition.



President Pranab Mukherjee completes his five-year tenure on July 24.
Chennai: Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth on Sunday met a delegation of 16 farmers led by P Ayyakannu and assured them his support for their plea to interlink rivers.



Weeks after asking his fans to prepare for war, hinting that he might consider joining politics, the Kabali star told the visiting farmers that their plea to link up rivers will be represented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and pledged Rs 1 crore for the cause.



Rajini told us that he will take steps to facilitate interlinking rivers, he said first (Peninsular) rivers like Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Palaru, and Cauvery should be linked," Ayyakannu said after meeting the top star.



In 2002, Rajinikanth had famously offered Rs 1 crore towards interlinking Himalayan and Peninsular Rivers after a fast on the Cauvery issue.



"Rajinkanth offered to give us Rs 1 crore immediately towards river linking, however, we requested him to hand it over to PM Modi for a project in this connection," the farmer leader who kicked up a storm with his recent multiple forms of protest in Delhi said.



He said, we wanted Rajinikanth to help make a beginning (pillayar suzhi) for this river link-up effort and he said he will do it."



The farmer leader said the top star who is shooting for his upcoming flick 'Kaala' told them that he will represent the issue to PM Modi "though he did not specifically say that he will personally meet Modi in this regard."



Ayyakannu, president of National South Indian Rivers Inter-Linking Farmers Association said Rajinikanth assured support to farmers on all issues faced by them.



Rajinikanth while addressing his fans last month had asked them to be ready for war when it comes, asserting the "system is rotten" and that it needs to be changed.



While DMK working president M K Stalin had said that it was Rajinikanth's wish "whether or not to join politics," others including pro-Tamil leader Seeman opposed it even as others like BJP welcomed the actor's remarks.



All India Mahila Congress General Secretary and actress Nagma had said days before Rajini addressed his cadres that the top star will be successful if he chose to come to politics.



She had paired with Rajinikanth in the blockbuster 1995 movie Baasha.
Kolkata: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday appealed to protesters demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland not to resort to violence and to maintain peace in Darjeeling, which has been on the boil for the last week.



All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment, Singh said.



In a series of tweets, the Home Minister said that in a democracy like India, resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution. The appeal for peace came after West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee apprised him of the situation over the phone.



Every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue. I appealed that all concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment, he said.



But the Home Ministers message did not go down well with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, which has been spearheading the agitation for a separate state.



GJM leaders said the MHA should have communicated with them directly. They said that Centre does not want to take any chance by going against the states, including West Bengal, ahead of Presidential polls.



The outfits members said that their general secretary Roshan Giri is in Delhi to meet the government, so the timing of Singhs appeal came as a surprise. Roshan called up Darjeeling MP SS Ahluwalia in the evening and asked him to explain about MHAs statement, said a party leader.



Speaking to News18, Roshan Giri said, We welcome the idea of dialogue. Only the Gorkhaland statehood demand should be discussed.



However, a close aide of Giri said that the statement issued by MHA will certainly create a political rift between the BJP and JGM. Already some of the GJM leaders are very angry with central government for sending forces who are beating Gorkhas who support BJP in the Hills, the aide said.



GJM chief Bimal Gurung slammed Banerjee for spreading lies by claiming pro-Gorkhaland supporters are linked with North Eastern Insurgency Groups.



There allegations are baseless. She is trying to mislead people. Our demand has nothing to with the insurgency groups. It is a fight for our own identity. We will not stop until and unless we achieved Gorkhaland, he said.



Meanwhile, the agitation spread to plains in Dooars on Sunday as Morcha supporters took our rallies at several places. They also called a 12-hour bandh on Sunday.



At Chowkbazar in Darjeeling, they took out a silent rally with the bodies of GJM supporters who were killed in Sundays violence. Senior police officer Kiran Tamang, who was stabbed in the clash, is critical.



Protesters carried black flags and Tricolour at Chowk bazar and raised slogans demanding immediate removal of police and security personnel from Darjeeling.
It has been a weary while but the memory is still etched in his mind like it was yesterday  the day when he held your tiny hands and helped you take your first steps. Since then there has been no looking back  he has been there for you, all along. He had your back through thick and thin growing up, all these years. Now, its your turn to rise to the occasion!



Celebrate this Fathers Day with your superhero, your first friend, life-long philosopher, and guide. Spend quality time and bond with him over fitness with these easy-to-do exercises at home, as suggested by Reebok Master Trainer, Abbas Ali.



Abbas, with an experience of over two decades, has trained the likes of Shahid Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty, Sonakshi Sinha and Zareen Khan amongst many others.



So, this father's day, show love for your dad by pushing him to be stronger and fitter!



Namaskar (Hindu Pushup):



The starting position of a Hindu push-up requires you to create a V with your body. Lower your body bringing your arms to the floor keeping your elbows tucked in. Your legs should be straight and the angle of your hips should remain the same. Bring your body parallel to the floor; your hands should be in level with your waist as you begin to push up with your arms. Straighten your arms and contract your glutes and lower back muscles to come up with a Raised Cobra position. Push your hips forward to increase this stretch; hold, & head back to the first position. The benefit of this form is that it helps to work almost every major muscle group of the body.



Breathing Technique: While doing the Hindu Push-up you must inhale at the start of the rep and exhale at the mid-point when youre down in the push-up position. You must repeat the same technique from the midpoint to the start point.

Rep Speed: One must maintain the same speed while doing the entire rep.



Squats:



Squats are a compound/power movement that primarily focuses on the muscles of the lower body like the quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings. While performing a squat take a slightly wider stance to the hip width. It starts from a standing position, thereon squat travels below the knee level and then set back to the upright position.



Breathing technique: Inhale and inflate your lungs before your start the rep, and exhale once youre done with the rep.

Rep Speed: Slow on your way down squatting, fast and explosive but in control on your way up to the upright position.



Push-ups:



Start on your hands and knees. Place your hands underneath your shoulders but slightly wider than them. Come on to the balls of your feet and the heels of your hands, and then walk back until youre in the plank position. Keep your hips lifted to avoid the lower back bowing, so the belly sags towards the ground. Begin to bend your elbows, lowering your body towards the floor. Keep your elbows slightly close to your body, this way the enhance is divided to all 3 working muscles- chest, shoulder, and triceps and it's less taxing to the shoulder joint.



Breathing technique: Inhale and inflate your lungs before your start the rep, and exhale once youre done with the rep.

Rep Speed: Slow on your way down, fast and explosive but in control on your way up to the upright position.



Sit-ups:



It begins with lying down on the floor with a straight back, knees bent and feet planted on the ground firmly. Exhale and sit up till your upper body is upright and your chest is touching your thigh. Slowly get back to your start position by going back to the floor inhaling.



Breathing technique: Exhale and sit up, inhale while going back to the floor.

Rep Speed: Fast but controlled while sitting up and slowly while going down to the start position.
Los Angeles: Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher died of sleep apnea and a number of other factors, Los Angeles County coroner's officials said.



However the official could not come to a definitive cause of death after an examination, they said on Friday, reports variety.com.



Fisher died on December 27 last year at the age of 60. The examination by the Los Angeles County of Medical Examiner-Coroner also cited "multiple drug intake" and atherosclerotic heart disease, but did not specify further.



"The manner of death has been ruled undetermined," said the release.



Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd, issued a statement to people.com addressing the "drug use" portion after the release of the report.



"My mom battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life. She ultimately died of it," Lourd said.



She added: "She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases."



The statement further read: "She talked about the shame that torments people and their families confronted by these diseases. I know my Mom, she'd want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles.



"Seek help, fight for government funding for mental health programs. Shame and those social stigmas are the enemies of progress to solutions and ultimately a cure. Love you Momby."



Fisher had publicly discussed her struggles with bipolar disorder and drug use, saying in a 2001 interview with Psychology Today that "drugs made me feel more normal."



"They contained me," she said.



She noted in other interviews that she had used cocaine on the set of The Empire Strikes Back, and struggled with addictions to prescription medication.



Fisher had a heart attack December 23 while on a flight from London to here and died several days after. Her mother, Debbie Reynolds, died the next day after suffering a stroke.



The autopsy report will be released on Monday.
WIth the Gorkhaland issue set to drag on, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) is planning to revive its "peacekeeping" wing, the Gorkhaland Personnel (GLP) to help in its stir against the West Bengal government.The GLP, a brain child of GJM chief Bimal Gurung, came during the 2008 agitation for Gorkhaland. Gurung proposed that the party recruit youths from the hills and set up a force to ensure peace.The outfit was first named Gorkhaland Police, but after opposition from various quarters it was renamed Gorkhaland Personnel (GLP).In 2008, Gurung had then held a meeting with former army personnel and officers from the hills and requested them to take charge of selection, recruitment and training of the youths.The criteria for a place in this force was education upto standard eight and of course physical fitness and agility. After initial selection, nearly 3000 youths were trained for joining GLP.The force in 2009 enforced bandhs called by GJM, ensured that locals wear traditional Nepali attire at least thrice a week, seize and destroy liquor and provide protection to Gurung and top GJM leaders.Paid only a paltry allowance, the GLP youths were promised to be absorbed into the police force after the creation of Gorkhaland. However, GLP took a back seat and most of its trained youths were absorbed into GJM youth wing instead following the formation of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration in 2011."The situation is getting worse with each passing day. We feel that a head-on collision is just a matter of time. So we need to prepare ourselves to counter the state government democratically," GJM central committee member and former in-charge of GLP Colonel (retd) Ramesh Alley told PTI."We (GJM) will revive and recruit more youths in GLP our own peacekeeping force. We are not into any kind of violence nor is GLP into this. But we have to prepare ourselves," he said.GJM, Alley said, wants to raise an 8000-strong force in Darjeeling hills which will be well prepared to tackle "any kind of situation"."During GTA, the state government had promised that these youths would be absorbed in the state police force but nothing of the sort happened. Now we no longer have any expectation from the state government. We are Indians and we hope that the Centre will take action to resolve the crisis in the hills," Alley said.After Bimal Gurung's office and other premises of GJM were raided in this latest round of agitation, the party leadership decided to revive the force to counter the alleged police atrocities.Alley and other GJM leaders pointed out they are not for any armed struggle as that would mean taking up arms against the Centre."We have been soldiers all our life. We can never think of armed struggle against the Centre. We love our motherland India, but we want a separate state. It is a fight for our own identity," Alley said.Darjeeling has been on the boil for the past ten days and indefinite shutdown is on by GJM in support of its separate Gorkhaland demand.Reacting to GJM's decision to revive GLP, senior TMC leader and minister Gautam Deb said "We all know that GJM is a separatist force. So it is expected that they well set up a militant organisation. But we will not allow such separatist forces to grow."The police said they are keeping a close watch on all the activities of GJM and will do the needful.(With inputs from PTI)
Unrest continues to haunt Darjeeling with fresh clashes between security personnel and GJM supporters demanding a separate Gorkhaland. The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has ruled out talks with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who claimed there was a deep-rooted conspiracy behind the unrest.

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Mumbai: BJP national president Amit Shah said on Saturday that Union Labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya did not take into account details of job creation through tourism and aviation sectors while making comments on economic growth and employment.



Dattatreya had on May 31 in Mumbai conceded that the growth of the economy was not translating into more employment.



He had also said that a task force has been set up to compile figures of jobs generated in the last three years.



"The investment made in various sectors, including through programmes like Make in India, is bringing in more funds and would create jobs," Shah told reporters here.



"In case of labour minister's remarks, the data he had did not have details of job creation through tourism and aviation sector," he added.



Shah also gave a reference of Mudra bank, which at national level has helped seven crore youth get different types of jobs.



"As many as 7.64 crore youth have got employment through Mudra bank. The loan amount that is disbursed by the bank varies from Rs 10,000 to Rs 10 lakh. These people turned from job seekers to job-generators," he said.



It was said that nationalisation of banks then (during former prime minister Indira Gandhi's regime) would help the poor but it never worked out.



On the other hand, the BJP-led government has extended loan to people without any guarantee through Mudra bank, Shah said.
: Things seemed to be heating up for the Presidential elections as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley spoke to the top brass at Trinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal on Sunday.With pressure mounting, sources close to BJP told News18 that the BJP Parliamentary board is likely to meet on June 20th and a name could be announced. The NDA nominee is likely to file nomination on the 23rd, keeping it well timed before Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves for the United States of America on June 24th.The source added that Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav and Naresh Agarwal met Union minister Venkaiah Naidu and are understood to have communicated that they would want a political person in the Raisina hills. Last week, Rajnath Singh and Venkaiah Naidu had met Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Left Leaders Sitaram Yechury, S.Sudhakar Reddy and D.Raja. Naidu also held a detailed discussion with Sharad Pawar over the phone on Saturday.In a separate development, BJP president Amit Shah on Sunday held a close-door meeting with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray as part of the ruling party's efforts to ensure support of allies in the Presidential election. According to a source in the Shiv Sena, Shah told Thackeray that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would decide the NDA's candidate for the highest constitutional post.However, sources in the government said that approaching the opposition parties without a single name might not be appropriate.External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj emerged the lead contender to become NDA's candidate to succeed Pranab Mukherjee as the next President of India, three top sources from the BJP and RSS have told News18. Names of Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Jharkhand Governor Draupadi Murmu have also been doing the rounds for the top post.
"Every time we think we have a grip on things and the workers get enthused, the man of the hour leaves. It's okay for him to visit his family, but he could have postponed his visit by a few days," said one of the leaders present at the discreet meeting.

"Rajiv Gandhi too had drawn criticism with his annual holidays to Kanha, Ranthambore, Andaman, and Lakshwadeep. His son's timing of holidays is worse because it coincides with his birthday on 19th June. So many might think this holiday is more like a birthday party. But at a time when the presidential polls are around the corner and the farmer agitation is only getting worse, he'll be mocked for his time off,' said political analyst Rasheed Kidwai, adding that he should try and club his holidays with events and functions abroad, to put opposition jibes at bay.

: On June 9, 2017, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi storms into Mandsaur, blames Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the mounting farm distress, and eventually gets detained. His colleagues cry foul and hail the young politician for talking about issues that matter.Cut to June 13, 2017, Rahul tweets: "Will be travelling to meet my grandmother & family for a few days. Looking forward to spending time with them!" Twitter is buzzing, and so are the power corridors of the national capital. His colleagues, who hailed his Mandsaur move earlier, now have their faces in their hands, exasperated.Gandhi's summer vacation comes at a time when he has been pitching himself as the messiah of the less privileged, who, according to him, have been given a raw deal by the ruling BJP. His little break has put his claims on uncertain grounds, especially for those who did see some promise in his words. That included his own party men.Soon after Gandhi left, a group of Congress leaders met at a plush restaurant on Lodhi Road to discuss how the party was to react to their leader's holiday at a time when the country was going through a major crisis, especially in the absence of a strong opposition.The Congress leaders discussed how BJP would now tear into them. They fear BJP calling Gandhi incapable of seeing his vision through or of carrying his campaign to its fruitful end.The party, soon, scuttled to save the situation. Senior leader Randeep Surjewala issued a statement saying Gandhi was always there to lead the party on issues that matter to the people of India. Two days later, in what seemed like a cue, Gandhi took to Twitter: "Startup India, Stand up India, Right turn India: but no jobs for the youth of India!"Soon, we saw his close aide Jyotiraditya Scindia retracing his steps in Mandsaur, and eventually getting arrested. The party tried to make a point: with or without Gandhi's physical presence, Congress would continue to work on things, under his guidance.The timing of his vacation, however, is still being seen with prying eyes, even within the party circle. While sources close to the leader said Gandhi's grandmother was very ill and had insisted Gandhi come and see her, there are many others who think that the he could have waited.While placing family over politics, Gandhi may have given his rivals the occasion to rake up a his previous 'holidays'. This time around, too, the saffron party was quick to take a jibe at him and say that Gandhi was off on a summer vacation.The incident is a stark reminder of the 50-day sabbatical that Gandhi took after the party's drubbing in 2014. The mystery of his then vacation still remains. The only thing that people were sure of was his renewed energy and revived aggression in terms of attacks on the Modi government. Jibes like suit boot ki Sarkar rang in the ears of everyone and the party was enthused. But, soon, the party faced another humiliating defeat in the Uttar Pradesh elections and Gandhi just stood there smiling.His mother, Sonia, meanwhile has taken it upon herself to rally the opposition together and put a strong face for the presidential polls. Her efforts, however, may not be enough."If Rahul Gandhi is set to become the chief, he must act a bit more sharply. Taking holidays and breaks at a timing of his choice will not work. Political ambition will go for a toss if he continues this," said a party insider, on condition of anonymity.Despite continuous tweets slamming government action or inaction over issues, Gandhi's holiday has put into question his skills as a leader and many in the party are in knots on how to react. BJP chief Amit Shah's speeches and road trips ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, which are still two years from now, have further forced the Congress leaders to chew their nails."We are still waiting for him to come up with a roadmap. We're far from hitting the road in the first place," said the source.While the Gandhi scion enjoys his family time, how well his party fares in keeping things together in the face of a strong and raging saffron party is yet to be seen.
Sao Paulo: Embattled President Michel Temer exchanged furious denunciations of corruption with a leading businessman who alleges Brazil's leader was behind the bribes paid by business executives to politicians and government authorities in exchange for political favours.



Meatpacking billionaire Joesley Batista, who is himself under investigation for fraud, claimed in an interview published in the news magazine Epoca that "Temer leads Brazil's largest and most dangerous criminal organisation." He provided no specifics to back up his charge.



Temer's office fired back on Saturday with a statement describing Batista as "the most notorious and successful bandit in Brazil's history" and it promised to file criminal and civil lawsuits against him.



Batista is now a key witness in corruption investigations that threaten to force Temer out of office before his term ends in December 2018.



Prosecutors have said they are considering charging the president with receiving bribes and with trying to obstruct the investigation into a colossal corruption scheme at the state-run oil company that involved huge kickbacks to politicians in return for inflated contracts.



Dozens of politicians and business executives already have been convicted in the Petrobras case.



A key part of the evidence against Temer comes from plea bargain agreements with prosecutors signed by Batista and his brother Wesley that allow the two men to remain free. Under investigation in a pension fund fraud, they have said they paid kickbacks to more than 1,800 politicians to win favours for their JBS meatpacking company.

JBS is the world's biggest meat processing company and operates more than 100 industrial units around the world, including in the United States.



Their revelations include a recording of a March meeting between Batista and Temer in which the president appears to condone the payment of hush money to imprisoned former Speaker of the House Eduardo Cunha, who is serving a 15-year corruption sentence.



Prosecutors have said that in the recording Temer is heard authorising Batista to pay Cunha the equivalent of about $150,000 a week for not reaching a plea bargain deal.
Paris: French voters went to the polls on Sunday for parliamentary elections set to hand a landslide victory to the centrist party of President Emmanuel Macron which would complete his stunning reset of national politics.



The new assembly is due to be transformed with a new generation of lawmakers -- younger, more female and more ethnically diverse -- winning seats in the afterglow of Macron's success in presidential elections last month.



The scale of the change is forecast to be so large that some observers have compared the overhaul to 1958, the start of the present presidential system, or even the post-war rebirth of French democracy in 1945.



It is also entirely unexpected: Macron was unknown three years ago and initially given little chance of emerging as president, but he and his 15-month-old Republic on the Move (REM) party have tapped into widespread desire for change.



"It's like a science fiction movie for me," REM candidate Beatrice Failles, a weapons inspector, writer and community activist, told AFP this week during campaigning in Paris.



REM and its allies are forecast to win 400-470 seats in the 577-strong parliament, one of the biggest majorities post-war that would give the pro-EU Macron a free hand to implement his business-friendly programme.



Sunday's voting is the decisive second round of the election after a first round last weekend which was topped by REM.



If confirmed, the victory will come at the expense of France's traditional parties, the rightwing Republicans and Socialists, but also the far-right National Front which faces major disappointment.



The Socialists are set to be the biggest victim of voters' desire to reject establishment figures associated with years of high unemployment, terror attacks and lost national confidence.



Pollsters predict the party faces financial ruin with its strength in parliament falling from nearly 300 seats to around 20 after their five years in power under president Francois Hollande.



Low turnout?



The main concern for observers and critics is the likely absence of any political counterweight to Macron, leading some to forecast that opposition could be led through street protests or in the media.



"Desperately seeking an opposition," said the front page of Le Parisien newspaper on Saturday.



Turnout will be closely watched after it hit a nearly 60-year low for the first round of voting, leading some to warn Macron his mandate is not as strong as he thinks.



"Go and vote!" Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Thursday. "It's the same message here as everywhere else: no one should abstain. In France voting is not obligatory... it is a right and a responsibility."



In the first round, REM won 32 percent of the total number of votes cast, but this represented only about 15 percent of the total number of registered voters.



Around half of REM's candidates are virtual unknowns drawn from diverse fields of academia, business or local activism. They include a mathematician, a bullfighter and a former Rwandan orphan.



"You could take a goat and give it Macron's endorsement and it would have good chance of being elected," political analyst Christophe Barbier joked recently.



In some areas of Paris, the comment has led to a guerrilla campaign to replace the photographs of REM candidates with a picture of a goat on their posters outside voting stations.



The other half of Macron's loyalists are a mix of centrists and moderate left- and right-wing politicians drawn from established parties including ally MoDem.



Le Pen in action



Key battles on Sunday include far-right leader Marine Le Pen's attempt to win her first seat in parliament from the northeastern former coal mining town of Henin-Beaumont.



Her victory would be a rare bright spot for Le Pen's nationalist and anti-EU party which was once hoping to emerge as the principal opposition to Macron in parliament.



The firebrand and influential leader of new far-left party France Unbowed, Jean-Luc Melenchon, is also seeking a seat from the southern port of Marseille.



Macron's programme includes radical labour market reforms, measures to deepen European integration and an overhaul of the social security system.



He has vowed to take on French unions by creating a system of "flexi-security" inspired by Scandinavian countries which combines a solid state-funded safety net with company-friendly legislation.



His confident start at home, where he has concentrated on trying to restore the lost prestige of the president, and his decisive action on the international stage has led to a host of positive headlines.



The European front cover of The Economist magazine this week asks whether Macron is "Europe's saviour" and depicts him walking on water.
Dubai: At least 25 Yemenis were killed when Saudi-led coalition aircraft struck a market in the northern Saada province, a local health official said on Sunday, the latest in a string of deadly incidents in the 27-month-old conflict.



Officials from the Saudi-led coalition could not immediately be reached for a comment on the report.



Yemen has been torn by a civil war in which the exiled government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, is trying to roll back gains made by the Iran-aligned Houthi group which controls most of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.



The director of the Houthi-run Health Department office in Saada said the aircraft conducted two raids on al-Mashnaq market in Shada district, which is close to the Saudi border, on Saturday, killing 25 people and wounding at least one.



"Rescue teams were unable to reach the area for some time for fear of being hit by artillery shelling of the area," the official, Dr Abdelilah al-Azzi, told Reuters by telephone.



Reuters could not independently confirm the report because the area is located very close to the frontline, but several Yemeni online news outlets carried a similar report.



A Saudi-led coalition air strike killed 22 people and wounded dozens when it struck a market in western Yemen near the Red Sea fishing town of Khoukha in March.



Khoukha and the nearby city of Hodeidah are controlled by the Houthis who overran Sanaa in 2014 and moved south to Aden in 2015 forcing Hadi and his administration to flee into exile.



The Yemen war has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced more than three million and ruined much of the impoverished country's infrastructure.



The Saudi-led coalition was formed in 2015 to fight the Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh who have fired missiles into neighboring Saudi Arabia.



In December, the coalition acknowledged it had made "limited use" of British-made cluster bombs, but said it had stopped using them.



Nearly half of Yemen's 22 provinces are on the verge of famine, according to the UN World Food Programme.
Islamabad: Two Pakistani diplomats based in a consulate office in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad have been missing since Friday, when they set off by road back to their homeland, Pakistan's foreign office said on Sunday.



Islamabad did not speculate who may be behind the disappearances but various Afghanistan-based Islamist groups have targeted diplomats in the past.



"Pakistan has requested the Afghan Government that all efforts may be made to ensure early recovery of our officials and bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice," the foreign ministry said in a statement



Islamabad said Afghanistan had formed three different investigating groups to probe the incident.



Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have been tense in recent years, with both countries accusing each other of not doing enough to tackle Pakistani and Afghan Taliban militants.



Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of turning a blind eye to Afghan Taliban commanders based within its borders and of supporting the militant group, something Islamabad denies.



Islamabad has claimed that Kabul is not doing enough to tackle Pakistani Taliban militants who have been driven out of Pakistan, but who still carry out attacks across the border.



Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Nangarhar province, is a busy trading hub about 70 kilometres (43 miles) from the main border crossing with Pakistan, from which landlocked Afghanistan imports much of its goods.



The province is home to various Islamist groups, including Pakistani and Afghan Taliban. In recent years the Islamic State has also established a presence Nangarhar.
A FATHER TO ALL

Roman Catholic priest Father Wilfred John, who is presently serving in the San Fernando parish, has witnessed it all while maintaining a deep spiritual faith which has comforted him following the death of his wife of 25 years.

John, writing in the Catholic News on the occasion of Fathers Day, described himself as a widower- priest who is the father of three children, and a grandfather of five (one being a step-grand). He and his wife had two girls and a boy (whose names he did not want to disclose).

Interviewed yesterday, John, 76, also commented on what he described as the father wound afflicting students from single-parent homes and which he encountered during his days as a teacher at Williamsville Junior Secondary School.

To understand this complex man who never strays far from his faith is to start at the beginning when, while still attending Presentation College, San Fernando had decided that his lifes calling was that of a monk.

When I was in Presentation College, I was attracted to the religious life and there I had interactions with Father Suite and Father Maingot and they were Benedictine monks, and I admired their ministry and the way they operated. So, I suppose that may have prompted me to follow that path, he said.

In 1961, I entered the monastery hoping to be a monk and I remained there for seven years, and during that time I had a desire to be a missionary.

It was a bit difficult to get in touch with missionary organizations based in Africa at the time, so after trying for one or two years I just gave up the idea. He then left the monastery and re-entered the world of work. Sometime afterwards (later confessing that re-entering the dating game had proven challenging), he met a nurse, Gloria Henry, who became his wife.I saw my marriage as a chance which God had given me to show y different from any other marriage, John said. I subsequently got married and remained so for 25 years. Three children were born during these years. As I reflect and remember, I had to get up at nights to change diapers (and later on pampers).

One child cried almost incessantly, while another showed more mercy to my shattered eardrums.

My three children were a source of joy as I was determined to cherish, love and support them. I received training in child care from my wife who was a nurse. Because of my experience, I exhort all fathers to be patient with small children. John said, My former priestly training ensured that no-one left home without a blessing. Shared prayers at night were marked by parents blessing children and children blessing parents. I urge all parents to imitate this simple gesture of faith and bonding.

Holidays and education are immensely important. Holidays were spent discovering new places in Trinidad and Tobago and sometimes visiting family abroad. Education was challenging but the spirit of encouragement overcame some awkward moments, he said.Nowadays, families are different, now, maybe fathers and parents (now) are very rushed and pressured, and they may be. If they practice family prayer, which I advise that they do, it is sometimes kept in the background because they have to go and do a job and face the challenges of the world. John said these challenges were translated to the children, which he experienced first-hand while working as a teacher both at St Benedicts College and at Williamsville Junior Secondary School where he taught English and Religious Knowledge.

I had to have a different perspective when it came to dealing with children, not merely as people who came to learn but people who had to be loved by God, and they were accepted even though so many of them came from broken homes. But my role, most times, was a fathers role, a surrogate father. In the recess time, I had no recess time for the years that I was there, because as soon as break-time came, children came and they assembled in my room, and they would tell me things like I dont know my father, I havent seen my mother, and I realised the father wound especially was really deep in the lives of many of them, boys and girls, John recounted.

So my job was to make them feel accepted and affirmed and loved so, like my class in junior sec, we started with a prayer and I remember one occasion I forgot to start with a prayer and the children reminded me, sir you forgetting something, and then we prayed. If they are given a chance to unburden themselves especially to feel wanted and accepted and cherished and encourage then they, in my opinion, become better students, he said. He taught at Williamsville Junior Secondary School from 1979 to 2001. John said his faith was tested when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.

That was a real eye-opening experience for me. I never knew what cancer patients went through. I read about cancer in books but when it struck home it was traumatic, he said. The medical procedures like biopsy, chemotherapy, radiation and surgery: that is a shattering experience for somebody who suffers from cancer, he said,And it is essential people journey with them, and since my wife died and after I became a priest I still journey with cancer patients. Asked whether his faith was challenged, he said, Certainly, it was. When my wife got the devastating news that it had spread, I asked why God allowed this to happen to her and none of my theological answers could satisfy, and gradually I had to try to soothe and console and that was a challenge. When my wife died and my children, they were teenagers, they couldnt face this, it was a challenge to their faith. They also wanted to know why God had allowed that to happen, and it took time for them to believe, he said.

When they had grown up, I decided to continue priestly training at the seminary. I am now a father in two senses: I am still a father to my family but also a spiritual father to those who come under my care.

My own experience tells me how important it is for fathers to be inspirational guides to their children.
Labours grim view of Govt

In fact, the union leaders, displeased with how it is handling key matters in the labour sector, have established a score card on Governments overall performance and the state of the economy since it assumed office in September 2015.

The results will be announced at the rally after the march to Charlie King Junction, Fyzabad, said president of the Seamen and Waterfront Workers Trade Union (SWWTU ) Michael Annisette.

There will then be some critical pronouncements from the labour leaders on the score sheet, he told Sunday Newsday.

Annisette predicted tomorrows march, which celebrates the 80th anniversary of the 1937 Butler Riots, will be the largest in recent years. Labour Day was declared a public holiday in 1973.

Three federations (Joint Trade Union Movement, National Trade Union Centre and Federation of Independent Trade Unions) will be marching under one banner. That is an historic day for Trinidad and Tobago.

The leaders have seen the wisdom in coming together in order for the labour movement and the workers in Trinidad and Tobago to survive given all that is happening in the country. The march will include the Public Services Association, bridging a rift that divided the movement. However, the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers Trade Union has decided not to participate in the Fyzabad march but will instead host its own Labour Day celebrations at Rienzi Complex in Couva following a walk from Esperanza Recreation Ground.

On the Fyzabad agenda, Annisette said a range of issues will be covered, including visionary governance, economic diversification, food security, crime and the growing disparity between the haves and the have nots in society.

Of the latter, he said: There appears to be a contradiction about this recession when you look at the amount of massive profits that are being announced by the various entities. It tells me that the economic structure in place does not have an all-inclusive economic and social structure to allow for the distribution of wealth in a way that everybody can benefit.

The wealth of the country must not be skewed in such a way that only a few people benefit immensely and the other groups of people like the workers, pensioners, disadvantaged and others are on the ground fighting for the crumbs. He argued that the existing socio-political system was not underpinned by fairness in the distribution of wealth.

We talk about it but the reality is totally different, said Annisette.

If you look at the contract that is being given out year in, year out in the context of whoever is in political power, there is a certain group of people who benefit. Claiming Government has failed to address labour issues, president of the Communications Workers Union (CWU) John Julien said the Dr Keith Rowley-led administration has shown little regard for the working class.

Recently, I looked at an ad saying that there would not have been any job losses, new taxes and they have reneged on all of those promises, he said. It is something that the trade union movement is going to be looking at on the platform come Labour Day. Citing the recent retrenchment of workers at the Government Information Services Limited (GISL) and On the Job Training programme, Julien described as absolutely frightening the fact that the laying off of workers has continued unabated.

He also regarded Jennifer Baptiste- Primus stewardship as Labour Minister, thus far, as disappointing given the fact that she emerged from the trade union movement. Baptiste-Primus was a PSA president.

The Labour Minister made it quite clear after the swearing-in ceremony at Queens Hall that the Government was trying its best to do away with contract labour to make people permanent. Of Baptiste-Primus statement on that occasion, Julien said: We were jumping for joy because we have been clamouring for years now about the fact that persons that are on rotating contracts could not get a proper job letter, loans or be able to take out things on higher purchase. There was no security of tenure.

So, when we heard that this Government said that their aim is to make people permanent as opposed to having people on contract. We were all for that. He added: Only now, to come in 2017 and see that most of the organisations where you have contract persons, they are now closing down the organisations, telling them that their contract has come to an end. FITUN president Joseph Remy has been at the forefront of efforts to prevent workers at the Tourism Development Company (TDC) from going on the breadline after the implementation of Governments proposed regulatory tourism authority.

Urging the State to let good sense prevail, Remy feared the situation, if poorly managed, could see the end of the tourism sector at a time when the focus should be on diversifying the economy in the face of fluctuating oil and gas prices.

He said the layoffs threatened to destabilise the country and urged Government to meet urgently with union leaders to resolve the problem.

The crux of Remys argument was that Government had never engaged the trade union fraternity about its plans to retrench workers in certain entities.

We believe that the Government needs to stop all those layoffs, to engage the trade union movement immediately so that we could put on the table our solutions to the problems that we have found ourselves in, said Remy, who is also CWU general secretary.

According to Remy, Government has erred in not giving the trade union movement, a genuine tripartite partner, a true picture of the state of the economy.

He said since union leaders decided to suspend their participation in the National Tripartite Advisory Council over the TDC issue, they have had no communication from the councils head, Planning Minister Camille Robinson-Regis.

Remy said as such, Government appeared to have given up on the tripartite process.

You cant be meaningful in your engagement if while you are engaging in tripartite talks, you are disrespecting the movement and you are also acting with a level of contempt for the fraternity. Remy added that the retrenchment of workers at GISL, Caroni Greens and other entities were never discussed with labour leaders As such, we believe that they have engaged in a level of disrespect by not talking about these challenging economic situations that they have found themselves in, he said.

You are affecting employees, which is the heartbeat of the trade union movement and you have not engaged them whatsoever. And while we are talking tripartism, you are doing something else. Julien stated the labour movement will not resume its position on the advisory committee until proper discussions are held about the TDC.

At the end of the day, these are persons who have families and must support them and the Government continues to make some callous statements, he said.

We have withdrawn until that situation is dealt with in its entirety and it not what the Minister of Labour is saying, that we said that once we meet on TDC that we will come back.

Labour will not be going back until and unless that situation with TDC is resolved.

As a recognised majority union, you have to show us the respect to meet and treat. Remy added: We believe that there is no need for this mass layoff that we are seeing taking place, and we believe that if they had followed some of the advice from the trade union movement in terms of rejuvenating and stimulating the economy, we would have not found ourselves in this situation. Accusing Government of operating on the basis of panic, Remy said it had no new ideas on how to stimulate the economy.

Moving ahead, Julien said Government needed to be honest with the population.

The Government is not caring when it comes to the well-being and lives of many workers, he said.

Many of those workers that are being retrenched are persons that would have been employed not in the last regime.

The last PNM regime created all of these special purpose companies in the public sector and, therefore, they need to come clean and have a caring attitude and sit down with the labour movement and find a way to save the jobs. Julien argued that if jobs were not saved, the economy could not grow because no money was being circulated.

The people that circulated the money in the economy are the normal working class people because the other classes shop online and outside of the country. Remy, too, called for honesty on the part of the Government.

Transparency and honesty should be the plan moving ahead, recognising the significance and value of the trade union movement to any economic resuscitation effort.

That is critically important.

They cannot do it alone, he said.

The Government has been attempting to do it alone, without the input of those stakeholders who have a critical role to play in the economy.
TT not on cyclone watch

It said, however, that citizens should brace for more heavy rains in the ensuing days.

In a bulletin, meteorologist Bagwandeen Ramdatt said at about 8 am, yesterday, a broad area of disturbed weather developed approximately 2,560 km east-southeast of TT. He said as of yesterday there was a 40 per cent chance of the weather developing into a tropical cyclone over the next 24 to 48 hours and a 70 per cent chance over the next three to four days.

Ramdatt said although there was no immediate threat, the system was being monitored as it moves across the Atlantic Ocean. At this time, this is an area of disturbed weather for which the Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Service (TTMS) will be investigating and monitoring, paying particular attention to the likelihood of tropical cyclone development, Ramdatt said. The Met Office advised all interests to pay close attention to information being issued by the TTMS through its website, www.metoffice.

gov.tt or by downloading its mobile app (search: TT Met Office). It said citizens should also be mindful of the fact the region is in the hurricane season and as such, adequate preparation was advised. Bulletins will be issued within 24 hours.

Accuweather senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski, meanwhile, said in a bulletin yesterday that the area of concern in the Atlantic basin was a tropical system that has been tracking westward from the coast of Africa over the past few days.

If this system can remain south of a zone of strong westerly winds aloft and the zone of dry air near the sea surface, then it has an opportunity to develop over the next few days, Accuweather hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski was quoted as saying.

Kottlowski said, however, that tropical development in this part of the Atlantic during June was rare. He said should ths system strengthen into a tropical storm before June 22, it would be the earliest named storm to form in this part of the Atlantic since official records were kept in 1851
TT wins 7 culinary medals

These include a silver for team of the year, chef of the year, and chef (beef competition), and gold for bartender of the year, best vodka drink, pastry chef of the year and junior chef of the year, as well as an honourable mention for chef (seafood competition).

Brian Frontin, CEO of Trinidad Hotels, Restaurants and Tourism Association (THRTA), expressed his pride in the team and their success, especially as they departed from the traditional curry and stew tastes and explored other aspects of the countrys culture.

The team of the year competition was a three-course offering with the Trini Syrian appetiser, the French Creole main course, and the British desert. The Trini Syrian comprised a tamarind glazed shadon beni and ginger infused pork kofta, cardamom scented pork cushion, cardamon a jus, accompanied by a green fig, tomato and mint salad, roasted eggplant puree, and sada crisp.

The French Creole was a pan seared spiced rubbed CAB beef skirt steak, classic beef stew sauce, roasted Trini seasoned chicken ballontiine, creole tomato sauce, waffle shaped coo-coo, callaloo pistou, chicken crackling, and vegetable slaw dressed in a citrus vinaigrette.

The British included a toolum sticky pudding, Angostura rum creme anglaise, salted cashew caramel, passion fruit jub-jub, pineapple and candied red bell pepper fool, and a sorrel sauce. I am very very proud of the team and their efforts because the range of medals across several categories, including team of the year. I think the team is highly enthused to return next year to again showcase the range of offerings that we have, and perhaps tweak the effusions to ensure we maintain the TT tastes to which we are accustomed, said Frontin.

I think that is a really good demonstration that TT as a country is not limited to our Indo and creole tastes. This wider profile, including our Syrian, Lebanese, British and French Creole influences, means we can appeal to different segments of travellers. All of this is developmental for youths, yes, but it is about introducing tourists to our tastes, or food, our cosmopolitan Trinidad and Tobago. In fact, he said the judges complemented the team for going outside of their comfort zone, and thanked the members for educating them about TT culture.

Frontin said two members were currently completing their studies at the TT Hospitality and Tourism Institute (TTHTI), of which THRTA was the owner and manager since 1996. The nexus there is that the industry helps guide the curriculum and what the training outcome should be for the industry so that when graduates are produced they are fit for work. The THRTA started sending culinary teams to Miami in 1997 but was absent from the competition in 2014 and 2015. However, they returned in 2016 and won Caribbean national team of the year, and a number of medals.

This year, the competition took place at the Hyatt Regency, in Miami, Florida from June 2 to 6.

The team included captain Adrian Cumberbatch; bartender Clinton Ramdhan; pastry chef Anasuya Jackson; junior chef Rondell Thompson; senior chef, Brandon Maharaj; beef chef Ridge Juman; and seafood chef Aswad Forde.

Frontin said there was a lot of crowd support with people, including participants from other countries, requesting samples of their plates and giving positive feedback.

However, there were some challenges.

The main one was the loss of the teams main and alternate bartenders, Tyrone Benjamin and Kanesha Shana Rajahram, who trained for three months, individually and with the culinary team, and developed drink concepts for the competition. Frontin said about two weeks before the competition, their US visa applications were declined. However, last years bartender of the year, Clinton Ramdhan, was also travelling to Miami to support the team and he stepped in as the team bartender. In addition to winning a gold medal in the category, he also won best vodka drink. They were distraught. It was a very emotional moment for the team. But I want to commend Clinton for using some of the concepts that were developed by Tyrone and Shana over the period in recognition of their efforts throughout the period. The win was a shared one. Frontin encouraged Benjamin and Rajahram to continue in the bartending fraternity and to participate in Making the Cut, the local competition used to chose the national team members, next year.
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They're already used by international spies and nosy neighbors. And one day in the future, drones may be used to save lives, Reuters reports. Sweden scientists tested whether a drone could be used to rush defibrillators to people suffering heart attacks. The Karolinska Institute study found that drones beat ambulance time by about 16 minutes. Researchers sent drones to 18 locations within a 6.2-mile radius in Stockholm where EMTs had responded to cardiac arrests between 2006 and 2013; the ambulance vs. drone arrival times were then compared. The idea is that bystanders would act as life-savers and grab the defibrillators. While no actual heart attack patients participated in the study, defibrillators are commonly found in public places and are "easier to use than a fire extinguisher," Jacob Hollenberg at Karolinska tells the Guardian.

Cardiac arrest is a leading killer worldwide, with only one in 10 people surviving an attack outside a hospital, per Reuters. "Every second is crucial," Hollenberg tells the Guardian. The results published in JAMA show that dispatchers got a drone in the air within a median time of 3 seconds of the emergency call, compared to 3 minutes for an ambulance; the median drone arrival time was 5 minutes, 21 seconds from time of call, versus 22 minutes for the ambulance. Larger-scale tests are needed, but Hollenberg predicts drone defibrillators could be aloft in Sweden within two years. Researchers are eyeing them for remote areas, too, though current laws in Sweden and elsewhere require them to be operated within sight, per the Guardian. (UPS is among the companies testing a drone-delivery service.)
I have learned the hard way not to put my personal life on the Internet. But suffice it to say that, God willing, things should be pretty much back to norm...

4 weeks ago
The British and the Aborigines first crossed paths in 1770, when famed English explorer James Cook landed in what is now Sydney. It was a violent meeting, and Cook departed with some of the Gweagal's spearsand the UK's Cambridge University says it won't give up the four it owns. The request for their return came by way of an Australian man who claims to have personal ties to the artifacts. Reuters reports Rodney Kelly issued a formal repatriation request for the spears displayed at Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in November. He claims he is a direct descendant of Cooman, the Gweagal warrior Kelly alleges was injured by Cook's party during that bloody first encounter, in which two Gweagal men tried to halt the newcomers from landing.

"We lost so much that day. Culture, language families, land, and knowledge," says Kelly in an interview with Cambridge News. "My family [was] the first to be in contact and when you come to my tribe you really see what has happened and what has been lost since the British invasion of 1770." A rep for the museum says that removing parts of the Cook collection will harm and deprive it "of its integrity," and that Kelly's proposal did not say how the artifacts would be properly housed or conserved. The museum also claims Kelly's ties to the artifacts are tenuous but says it would listen to requests from "accredited representatives of the Gweagal people." Kelly says he will continue to fight; the Australian Senate and state parliament of New South Wales are in favor of repatriation. (Read more Aboriginal stories.)
In a profession with little room for error, Ivan Fandino made one that cost him his life on Saturday: The 36-year-old Spanish bullfighter tripped on his cape while in the ring in France, sending him to the ground, where a bull gored him in the chest, reports Sky News. Fandino's lung was injured, and he suffered a heart attack on the way to the hospital, reports the BBC. His death is the second of a matador in the past year; Victor Barrio was gored to death on live television in July, an incident which raised renewed calls to end an ancient sport many view as barbaric. Though known for its roots in Spain, bullfighting was legalized in France in 2012; the AFP noted at the time that around 1,000 bulls are killed annually in France. Fandino, who was performing at a festival near the Spanish border, is only the second matador to die in France in nearly a century. (Read more matador stories.)
The search for a Colorado pastor continues in northern New Mexico four days after Paris Wallace was reported missing while hunting for the elusive Forrest Fenn treasure. The Daily Sentinel reports tips from fellow treasure hunters, including Wallace's friend Wendell Smith, helped police locate the Chevrolet Tahoe Wallace was driving. There police found a receipt for equipment, including rope, that was purchased locally. Per an earlier Sentinel report, authorities also located a rope believed to belong to Wallace tied to a rock leading across the Rio Pueblo, a tributary of the Rio Grande. Wallaces backpack was found floating miles downstream in the Rio Grande. A state police officer was able to confirm with Wallace's family that the pastor was looking for Fenns treasure and hadnt been heard from since Tuesday.

The treasure, said to be a chest holding gold and jewels worth $2 million, was apparently hidden in the Rocky Mountains by art dealer Forrest Fenn. Fenn first published clues to the stashs location in his self-published 2010 autobiography, The Thrill of the Chase, and periodically releases more hints to his following of adventure-seekers. Five search and rescue teams using trained dogs and a police helicopter are on the lookout for Wallace, along with dive teams navigating the perilously high waterways. (The body of a man hunting for Fenn's treasure was found in the Rio Grande in 2016). Smith, who says the amiable pastor would likely share the treasure upon finding it, was surprised to discover Wallace was seeking the treasure, as he himself has done some 19 times. "He never said anything to me about it. Hopefully Ill get to talk to him soon about it." (Read more treasure hunters stories.)
Bill Cosby, the comedian once known as "America's Dad" for his TV role as paternal Dr. Cliff Huxtable, is declaring victory this Father's Day after a jury deliberated 52 hours without reaching consensus on charges he drugged and molested a woman in 2004. District Attorney Kevin Steele vowed to try the 79-year-old Cosby a second time following the mistrial, saying accuser Andrea Constand supported the decision. "She has shown such courage through this, and we are in awe of what she has done. She's entitled to a verdict in this case." (Prosecutors get four months to decide whether they want to retry Cosby or drop the charges.) Cosby's team declared victory, however temporary, and immediately went on the attack.

Camille Cosby, the entertainer's wife of 53 years, slammed prosecutors for bringing the case to court, calling Steele "heinously ... ambitious." She had harsh words for Judge Steven O'Neill, too, calling him "overtly arrogant, collaborating with the district attorney." O'Neill, for his part, reminded prosecutors and the defense that "a mistrial is neither vindication nor victory for anybody." It wasn't immediately known how many jurors wanted to convict and how many wanted to acquit, reports the AP. None of the jurors have commented. Former federal prosecutor David Weinstein says Cosby's celebrity almost certainly played a role in the jury's deliberations, perhaps to convince "two or three jurors that it's impossible to convict Dr. Huxtable, to convict Fat Albert ... that he couldn't have done this horrible thing." (Cosby's lawyers are still fighting 10 civil suits against him.)
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Chennai:

A R Rahman has offered condolences to the families of the victims of the deadly blaze that took many lives in the Grenfell Tower in London.



According to the latest figure, 30 people are confirmed to have died in the devastating fire on Wednesday.



"Dear residents of Grenfell Tower. We are extremely sorry to hear about the loss of homes and lives in the tragic fire. Our heart goes out to you... From the entire concert team of 'Netru Indru Nalai'," Rahman posted on Twitter.



Rahman will celebrate the 25 years of his timeless musical journey with a concert titled "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow" ('Netru Indru Nalai') on July 8 at SSE Arena Wembley in London.

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New Delhi:

Actor Rana Daggubati will now host a chat show for a programme which would invite his industry friends for a candid conversation.



The show is titled 'No 1 Yaari' and will be in Telugu language. The show aims to indulge in personal life conversations, camaraderie and Tollywood's prominent stars' life.



"Thank you for all the love on No 1 Yaari...Truly overwhelming, hope to do my best and keep you guys entertained," Rana said in a statement.

'Baahubali' star will be hosting a chat show for the first time.



The show will start from June 26 and will be aired on Gemini TV and Viu, a video-on-demand service.

(With PTI inputs)

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New Delhi:

The norms for no-fly list to rein in unruly passengers are expected to be ready early next month, the government said on Sunday amid a parliamentarian being barred by domestic airlines for allegedly creating a ruckus.

A revised Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) is being finalised after receiving comments from the stakeholders.

The civil aviation ministry has already come out with draft rules for a national no-fly list of unruly passengers for all domestic carriers, under which the flying ban could extend from at least three months to an indefinite period.

The CAR related to the no-fly list is expected to be notified in the first week of July, Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey told PTI.

Lok Sabha member from TDP J C Diwakar Reddy is barred by major airlines from taking their flights following allegedly creating the ruckus at Vizag airport last week as he was denied boarding by IndiGo. Reddy belongs to the same party as that of Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju.

This is the second incident involving a Lok Sabha member after Shiv Senas Ravindra Gaikwad was banned by carriers for some time after he had assaulted an Air India staffer a few months ago.

Also Read: TDP MP Diwakar Reddy banned from IndiGo, Air India flights

As per the draft norms, the national no-fly list will include names of passengers identified as unruly after an inquiry by a committee constituted by a particular airline. A person identified as a threat by security agencies would also be included in this list.

While the list is characterised as national and would have data on disruptive passengers from all airlines, the ban recommended by the committee is not mandatory for all airlines to follow.

The government had recommended three levels of unruly behaviours, each with a corresponding duration of flying ban.

The first level of misdemeanour includes disruptive behaviour such as physical gestures, verbal harassment and unruly behaviour because of inebriation. This level of offence would carry a flying ban of three months.

The second level relates to physically abusive behaviour such as pushing, hitting, grabbing, inappropriate touching or sexual harassment. Such actions could attract a six-month ban.

The third category pertains to life-threatening behaviour such as damage to aircraft operating system, physical violence and attempted breach of flight crew compartment. In such instances, the ban could be for two years or an indefinite period.

If a passenger repeats the same degree of offence, he or she would be banned for twice the period of the previous ban.

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New Delhi:

Mobilised by the Bhim Army, a large number of Dalit youths on Sunday hit the streets of Delhi, for the second time in less than a month, protesting caste violence in Uttar Pradesh and demanding the release of Chandrashekhar Azad, the outfits chief.

The spirited gathering, of around 2,500 as estimated by the police, saw the presence of Chandrashekhars mother Kamlesh Devi and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Rams sister Swarn Kaur among others.

The stretch between the Parliament Street police station and the New Delhi Municipal Council convention centre turned into a sea of blue, the colour of Dalit resistance, and pulsated with the cries of Jai Bheem as protesters from UP, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab trooped in, from around 10 am.

I will protest, sit on dharna and also stage indefinite fast till my son is not released. We will fight. I have no expectation from the Narendra Modi government or the Uttar Pradesh government, especially since the violence has been triggered by the very rise of Yogi Adityanath, Kamlesh Devi told PTI.

Like the previous gathering on May 21, which had seen a bigger turnout, speaker after speaker laid emphasis on keeping the social movement away from politics and mainstream political parties professing the Dalit cause like the BSP.

(BSP supremo) Mayawati built her entire career on my brothers work. This is a new movement spearheaded by the youth. Whenever theres injustice, the youth will rise, Kaur said.

Also Read: UP Police arrests Bhim Sena chief Chandrashekhar from Dalhousie; Internet services suspended for 2 days

However, sharp divisions within the ranks of the emerging outfit came to the fore during the demonstration with the organisers pushing down a member from the dais, accusing him of attempting to hijack the movement, triggering chaos and confusion.

The organisers also raised funds for the victims of the clash during the demonstration and people were given slots to speak based on the amount donated by them.

It is apparent that Bhim Army lacks discipline. But it comprises largely of youths and they will learn with time, Ummed Singh Gautam, the chief patron of the Samta Sainik Dal, founded by BR Ambedkar in 1926, said.

Chandrashekhar, a lawyer by profession, was arrested on June 8 by the Uttar Pradesh Task force from Himachal Pradeshs Dalhousie in connection with his alleged role in the Thakur-Dalit clash in Saharanpur.

His brothers, Bhagat Singh and Kamal Kishor were also present at the rally.

Two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after a person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village on May 5.

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New Delhi:

Ex-gratia compensation for paramilitary personnel, injured in action leading to 100 per cent disability, has been increased from Rs 9 lakh to Rs 20 lakh.



The enhanced compensation will be applicable to all central paramilitary personnel whose disability is attributed to or aggravated in service on or after January 1, 2016, the home ministry said in an office memorandum recently.



It has been decided to revise rate of ex-gratia lump sum compensation from Rs 9 lakh to Rs 20 lakh with effect from January 1, 2016 for 100 per cent disability to CAPF and Assam Rifles on the basis of recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission, it stated.

ALSO READ | Nagaland: Encounter breaks out between terrorists and security forces; 3 militants gunned down, 1 jawan martyred



For cases with less than 100 per cent disability, the amount of ex-gratia compensation may be reduced in proportion to the degree of disability. About 10 lakh personnel in eight forces come under the home ministry.



They are: Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force (ITBP), Assam Rifles (AR), National Security Guards (NSG), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).



Paramilitary personnel are deployed in some of the most hostile environments and face some of the toughest fights. These include battling terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern region, anti-Naxal operations and other law and order duties.



They are also deployed along the inhospitable India-Pakistan border and the icy heights of the Sino-Indian border.

ALSO READ | Srinagar: Army pays tribute to jawans martyred in Kulgam attack

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New Delhi:

GJM chief Bimal Gurung on Sunday said that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been spreading lies that the agitation in Darjeeling hills was supported by insurgent groups.

Gurung also asserted that the fight for a separate Gorkhaland would only be intensified.

Terming the agitation as deep-rooted conspiracy, the Chief Minister on Saturday said that the GJM-led agitation in Darjeeling hills is supported by insurgent groups of Northeast states and some other countries.

ALSO READ: Darjeeling braces for another shutdown as Gorkha Janmukti Morcha decides to hold protest rally

In an audio-visual statement, Gurung said, The allegations are baseless, Mamata Banerjee is trying to mislead people. It is not a political fight but a fight for our own identity. We will not stop until and unless Gorkhaland is achieved. The struggle will intensify in the hills.



The agitation has been taking place in the state for the past 10 days and Darjeeling on Saturday witnessed some widespread clashes between GJM activists and the police. In the clashes, one person was killed and 35 security personnel were injured.

With inputs from PTI.

ALSO READ: Darjeeling's Gorkhaland stir: Rajnath Singh speaks to Mamata Banerjee

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Lucknow:

Eleventh hour preparations were underway to organise the third International Yoga Day event in Lucknow on June 21 in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead some 55,000 people in performing 'asanas' (yogic postures) at the Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan here.

An elaborate security will be in place with commandoes and para-military forces keeping a close watch in and around the venue.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will lead a rehearsal of IYD function at the programme venue on Monday and is himself monitoring all arrangements.

"Police chiefs of adjoining districts of Lucknow have also been alerted to take preventive measures, especially in the wake of call given by Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) to stage dharna on highways", a police official said.

Spokesperson of the Bhartiya Kisan Union Rakesh Tikait said, "Our party office bearers along with farmers will be performing yoga on the streets in various cities across the state. This will be our way to lodge protest against the government's attitude towards farmers."

Read more: Worlds 2nd biggest Yoga Day celebrations to be held in China

BKU General Secretary Dharmendra Malik said that BKU supporters will perform 'Sheersashan'.

Officials of the Lucknow administration said that more than 400 CCTV cameras will be installed.

"Participants of the programme have been allowed to enter the venue from 2:00 AM to 5:30 AM. Giant LED TV screens will be installed at the programme venue to enable them to have a close look at the yogic postures", Additional District Magistrate (Lucknow East) Virendra Pandey said.

"Apart from this, we will instal LED TV screens in 11 parks in Lucknow so that the public and morning walkers, who are not able to enter the Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan, may also simultaneously participate", Pandey told PTI.

The main programme will begin at around 6:30 AM, for which the state government has sent invites to senior political leaders including former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (of Samajwadi Party), BSP supremo Mayawati, and former chief ministers and governors.

Samajwadi Party (SP), on its part, has organised cycle yatras across Uttar Pradesh to spread the message of environment conservation.

"SP national president Akhilesh Yadav has asked all the district presidents and office-bearers of the party to undertake cycle yatras on Yoga Day to spread the message of environment and health awareness", SP spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury said.

"The leaders of the party will perform Yoga at the district headquarters and the workers will ride bicycles in their constituencies", he said.

When the SP was in power in the state, it had shunned the International Yoga Day celebrations.

On May 14, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and the chief minister reviewed preparations in the presence of Union Ayush minister Shripad Yesso Naik.

To ensure that the Day was a grand success, the chief minister had issued directions to hold a 28-day workshop for the participants, which had begun last month.

While Modi will be performing various 'asanas' here, around 92,000 inmates living in various jails of Uttar Pradesh will also be participating in parallel sessions from the confines of the prisons itself.

Read more: Baba Ramdev plans to launch 10,000 Patanjali Health Centres globally

"Nearly 92,000 inmates lodged in various jails of the state will be participating in the International Yoga Day celebrations from the jail premises itself", UP minister of state for jail Jai Kumar Singh told PTI.

He explained that the main purpose was that by doing yoga regularly, the jail inmates will remain medically fit and think positive, shunning thoughts of committing crime or suicide.

Meanwhile in Pratapgarh, at least 200 farmers are likely to perform yoga simultaneously with the Prime Minister.

"A television will be installed at the venue so that the farmers can not only follow the asanas being performed, but also take inspiration from the prime minister", event organiser Janki Sharan Pandey said.

Pandey also said that farmers on this occasion will take a pledge to spend at least half an hour daily on yoga.

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Srinagar:

In a kind gesture, Jammu and Kashmir police personnel will donate a days salary for the families of the cops who were killed in the line of duty in the state this year.

Fourteen police personnel and two special police officers (SPOs) have sacrificed their lives in various militancy-related incidents during the year, according to a police spokesman.

Police personnel will donate one day salary for the families of the martyrs who have sacrificed their precious lives in the line of duty, the spokesman said.

To show solidarity and their concern for the bereaved families of these martyrs, J&K police personnel will donate one day salary of the current month, he added.

Suggested Read: J&K: Terrorists fire upon Army vehicle near Bijbehara in Anantnag; no injuries reported

Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir government will support the family of Feroz Ahmed Dar, the police officer killed in an ambush by militants along with five other cops - and also provide free education to his children.





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Mumbai:

A Jet Airways plane flying from Saudi Arabia to India had an unexpected guest today when a baby was born mid-flight.

Jet Airways 9W 569 took off from Dammam for Kochi at 2.55 am today and when an expectant mother travelling onboard went into labour the crew declared a medical emergency and diverted the flight to Mumbai.

While the plane was still over the Arabian Sea she was helped by crew members and a nurse travelling to Kerala to deliver a baby.

The plane landed in Mumbai and both the mother and the newborn were rushed to a hospital.

The plane then resumed its onward journey to Kochi and reached its destination at 12.45 pm after a delay of 90 minutes.

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New Delhi:

A civilian was shot dead by militants in South Kashmirs Pulwama district on Saturday night, police said.



Aijaz Ahmad Malik, 27 was critically injured when shot by militants outside his residence in Pulwamas Arrubugh at around 10:30 pm, a police official said.



Malik succumbed to injuries after he was rushed to a local hospital, the official further added. It was not immediately known why the militants targeted the civilian, he said.

ALSO READ | J&K: 3 simultaneous grenade attacks by terrorists on CRPF camps, police station rock Pulwama district

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Thiruvananthapuram:

Kerala government on Sunday appealed to the people to join the government's mass sanitation drive on a war footing due to the alarming concerns with over 100 deaths being reported since January due to various types of fevers.

According to Health Department sources here, as many as 103 people, including women and children, have succumbed to various types of fevers including H1N1, leptospirosis and dengue from January till date.

Of the total 103 deaths, 53 people have died of H1N1 and 13 due to dengue, the sources said.

Breeding of mosquitoes due to piling of waste was considered to be prime reason for the spread of fever and other communicable diseases, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said, adding social hygiene was essential to keep diseases at bay.

Read more: Kerala Doctors remove 70mm-long worm from womans eye

"Political party activists, representatives of local self-government institutions and members of socio-cultural outfits and clubs should take part in the sanitation drive on warfooting", he said in a statement.

Stating that the government had already stepped up its sanitation drive with the support of local people, Vijayan said fever cases have reduced in those places where waste management and mosquito control measures have been implemented effectively.

He said the government had ensured enough stock of essential medicines and the service of doctors in all government hospitals.

Meanwhile, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala visited Vijayan at his official residence on Sunday and submitted a memorandum with some suggestions to tackle the crisis.

He alleged that 117 people had died due to fever in the state since January.

At least an average of 20,000 persons are arriving at state hospitals seeking treatment for fever.

"Youngsters and children are succumbing to viral fever and there was emergency situation", he said.

Read more: Security at Kerala House stepped up amid rumours of beef fest

Chennithala also said the health department had failed miserably in containing the fever and blamed state Health Minister K K Shylaja for not rising to the occasion.

Refuting the charges, the Health Minister said the opposition was trying to take political mileage over the situation. A united effort is needed to overcome the situation, she said in Kochi.

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Bhopal:

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has decided to put off his six-day visit to Russia, starting on Sunday.

Chouhans six-day visit to Russia from today stands cancelled, said SK Mishra, principal secretary to the chief minister.

The chief ministers visit was aimed at branding and marketing Madhya Pradesh in Russia primarily to attract investments, Mishra told PTI On Sunday.

The development assumes significance as it has come at a time when Congress is gunning for Chouhans head and backing the farmers who are angry at the state government.

Congress has staged an impressive 72-hour Satyagraha supporting farmers demands, which include loan waiver, satisfactory prices for farm produces among other things.

Also Read: BJP 'back-stabbed' farmers by not implementing Swaminathan Commission report: Arvind Kejriwal

The Satyagraha started in Bhopal and ended in Dhar on Saturday.

Farmers agitation in Madhya Pradesh had turned violent and police firing had left five farmers dead and six injured on June 6 in Mandsaur district.

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New Delhi:

A fire was reported at Radisson Blu hotel in Ghaziabads Kaushambi in the wee hours of Sunday morning. However, it was put under control without any delay.

Earlier, a massive fire broke out at the fifth floor of Sales Tax office in Lucknow on June 14. Five fire tenders were rushed to the spot to control the blaze. A massive fire broke out at the fifth floor of Sales Tax office in Lucknow on Wednesday. Five fire tenders were rushed to the spot to control the blaze.

ALSO READ: Fire breaks out at Sales Tax office in Lucknow

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New Delhi:

Darjeeling remained on the edge on Sunday as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a GJM activist, who was killed during clashes with police and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.



Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and the police were witnessed on Saturday.



The protesters, also carrying black flags and the Tricolour, assembled at the Chowkbazar. They shouted slogans demanding that the police and security personnel be immediately removed from Darjeeling.



We think the police and security personnel should be immediately removed from Darjeeling to create conducive environment for talks. The government should allow us to carry out peaceful and democratic agitation, Darjeeling MLA Amar Rai of the GJM told reporters.



Here are the highlights of the events on the ground:





#1:00 PM: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh appeals for peace

Rajnath Singh on Sunday appealed to people of affected region to remain calm and maintain peace.



"In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution. Every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue." He added, "I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence."



Spoke to West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee this morning. She has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling, he said.

From Saturday: Demand of Gorkhaland turns Darjeeling into battleground: Civilian killed, 35 securitymen injured



#12:35 PM: Examine Gorkhaland issue from people's point of view: TRS MP



Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha on Sunday said a dialogue must be initiated with those demanding a separate Gorkhaland state and the issue thoroughly examined, and that it should not be kept lingering for long. A key leader of the ruling TRS, Kavitha, however, did not state if the demand was legitimate or otherwise.



West Bengals Darjeeling district has been on the boil over a separate state demand and witnessed widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha activists and the police. One person was killed in the violent protests that returned to Darjeeling on June 8, after a gap of a few years.



Kavitha said even during the agitation for creation of Telangana, which was formed three years ago after bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, there were movements pushing for Vidarbha and Gorkhaland states, and the TRS always held the view that every demand had to be treated and looked at separately.



We said (at that time) kindly examine the merits of the case individually. So, I believe now also the Gorkhaland issue has to be examined properly from its peoples point of view, the MP from Nizamabad in Telangana told PTI.

Read | Darjeeling braces for another shutdown as Gorkha Janmukti Morcha decides to hold protest rally



#12:30 PM: Mamata spreading lies, misleading people: Gurung



GJM chief Bimal Gurung on Sunday termed as white lies Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees claim that the agitation in Darjeeling hills was supported by insurgent groups, and asserted the struggle for a separate Gorkhaland state would be intensified.



Banerjee had yesterday said that the GJM-led agitation in Darjeeling hills is a deep-rooted conspiracy supported by the insurgent groups of the Northeast and some foreign countries.



The allegations are baseless, Mamata Banerjee is trying to mislead people. It is not a political fight but a fight for our own identity. We will not stop until and unless Gorkhaland is achieved. The struggle will intensify in the hills, Gurung said in an audio-visual statement.



On the boil for the past 10 days over a separate state demand, Darjeeling had yesterday witnessed widespread clashes between GJM activists and the police in which one person was killed and 35 security personnel were injured, including an India Reserve Battalion (IRB) officer. (read full story here)



#12:00 PM: GJM regathering Gorkhaland Personnel  peacekeeping wing



With GJM gearing up for a prolonged confrontation with West Bengal government over the Gorkhaland statehood issue, the partys leadership is planning to revive Gorkhaland Personnel(GLP) - its peacekeeping wing. The situation is getting worse with each passing day. We feel that a head-on collision is just a matter of time. So we need to prepare ourselves to counter the state government democratically, GJM central committee member and former in-charge of GLP Colonel (retd) Ramesh Alley told PTI.



We (GJM) will revive and recruit more youths in GLP our own peacekeeping force. We are not into any kind of violence nor is GLP into this. But we have to prepare ourselves, he said. GJM, Alley said, wants to raise a 8000-strong force in Darjeeling hills which will be well prepared to tackle any kind of situation.



The idea of setting by GLP by recruiting youths from the hills was first mooted by Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) supremo Bimal Gurung during the Gorkhaland agitation of 2008. Gurung had then held a meeting with former army personnel and officers from the hills and requested them to take charge of selection, recruitment and training of the youths. The outfit was first named Gorkhaland Police, but after opposition from various quarters it was renamed Gorkhaland Personnel (GLP).



The criteria for a place in this force was education upto standard eight and of course physical fitness and agility. After the initial selection, nearly 3000 youths were trained for joining GLP.



#12:00 PM: We are Indians and can never think of armed struggle against the Centre: GJM



We are Indians and we hope that the Centre will take action to resolve the crisis in the hills, Alley said. We have been soldiers all our life. We can never think of armed struggle against the Centre. We love our motherland India, but we want a separate state. It is a fight for our own identity, Alley said. Darjeeling has been on the boil for the past ten days and indefinite shutdown is on by GJM in support of its separate Gorkhaland demand.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Bogota:

One of the busiest shopping malls in Colombias capital was rocked by a strong explosion that killed one woman and injured 11 others, the authorities said on Sunday.



Witnesses told of being evacuated from movie theaters and stores after a blast in a second-floor bathroom. Ambulances and firetrucks rushed to the scene and the injured were taken to a hospital.



Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa condemned on Twitter what he called a cowardly terrorist bombing at the upscale Centro Andino in the heart of Bogotas tourist district. There were no other details.



Authorities attention immediately focused on the countrys largest still active rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, which in February claimed responsibility for a bombing near Bogotas bullring that killed one police officer and injured 20 other people.

ALSO READ: China kindergarten blast leaves at least 7 dead, more than 50 injured



The government last year reached a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which was much bigger than the ELN. The ELN is also engaged in peace talks but has so far refused for its fighters to lay down their weapons.



Some analysts attribute an uptick in violence in Colombian cities to the groups desire to wrest concessions from the government at the negotiating table.



Bogota has seen dramatic improvement in security over the past decade as the countrys long-running conflict has wound down. But the capital remains vulnerable to attacks as residents let down their guard.



Still, the Andino shopping center would seem a difficult target. All vehicles entering the parking garage are screened by bomb-sniffing dogs and security guards are present throughout the mall.



President Juan Manuel Santos ordered the head of Colombias police to lead the investigation and keep him regularly updated. In a message posted on Twitter he expressed his solidarity with the victims.

ALSO READ | Afghanistan: Huge explosion rocks Jam-e-Mosque in western Herat province; 7 dead, 15 injured

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
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STAMFORD  Jon Litt takes an elevator down from his seventh-floor offices at the downtown Landmark Square complex and walks a few steps to visit the citys shopping mall.

At the Stamford Town Center, the founder and chief investment officer of hedge fund Land and Buildings enjoys visiting establishments such as the Apple store and Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5TH.

But Litt sees much more than a place to go shopping.

In the past year, Land and Buildings has waged a vocal campaign to shake up the board and management of the Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based Taubman Centers, the company that owns and operates the mall. Litt describes Taubman as an enterprise beset by poor governance, but one that still owns top-class properties in a challenged, but promising industry.

We think the mall portfolio has extraordinary value and opportunity, Litt said in an interview last week in Land and Buildings offices. And wed really like to work with this board and management to unlock that value.

Pushing for change

Litt, 52, who lives in Greenwich, has followed Taubman since its IPO in 1992. He founded Land and Buildings in 2008, a fund with some $400 million in assets that specializes in publicly traded real estate and real estate-related securities. Previously, he worked as an analyst and investor focused on REITs.

A conference Litt attended in March 2016 in Hollywood, Fla., sparked his current round of activism. Taubman CEO Robert Taubman gave a speech there announcing the companys need to invest $500 million in its Beverly Center in Beverly Hills, Calif., according to Litt. A lack of details from Taubman about the investments expected returns sparked concerns among investors, Litt said.

Subsequent slides in the value of Taubmans shares led to Land and Buildings buying Taubman stock. In the second quarter of 2016, the firm mainly acquired the shares comprising its 1.5 percent ownership stake in the company.

Land and Buildings took an assertive approach as a shareholder, with outreach to the company that included meetings with Robert Taubman to offer input on corporate governance and management.

Many of Litts misgivings with Taubman focus on the companys power structure. The Taubman family is exercising voting powers equivalent to a 30 percent ownership stake, when their share should be limited to about 8 percent to conform with the companys charter, according to Litt. Litigation filed last month by Land and Buildings in a Michigan court seeks to impose the 8 percent limit.

The Taubman familys disproportionate voting rights stymie turnover on the companys board and accountability to shareholders, and have translated into poor management and underperforming earnings, Litt said.

Taubman shares traded last week at about $60, down from a 52-week high of about $82. Litt argues they could trade at $106 if the value of the companys assets was realized.

The root of the problem is governance, and the manifestation is building malls and getting really poor returns, Litt said. Its operating your malls the way you want to operate them, but not operating with best-in-class policies and procedures. Its deciding you want to invest in (properties in) Asia when all your shareholders say We dont want you in Asia.

Taubman officials were not available for an interview last week. In a statement sent to Hearst Connecticut Media, they said the company has made significant improvements in the past year to its governance based on in-depth discussions with shareholders.

The Taubman board and management team are committed to serving the best interests of all our shareholders, they said in the statement. We look forward to continued, constructive engagement with them as we execute on these initiatives to ensure our board is best positioned to extend Taubmans track record of value creation.

But Litt said Taubman was not receptive to his firms recommendations, including its desire to bring in new board members. As a result, Land and Buildings decided to wage a proxy contest to prompt change. Litt and Charles Elson, a finance professor who leads a corporate governance center at the University of Delaware, ran as Land and Buildings candidates in Taubmans 2017 board election.

Our objective is always to work collaboratively with the company to find solutions to maximize value for all shareholders, Litt said. Running a proxy contest is really a last resort when the management of the board just say no.

Litt and Elson lost to Taubmans slate, which included Robert Taubman, who is board chairman. They said they would have won if the 8 percent voting limit for Taubman had been enacted and pointed to their reported majority support among shareholders outside the Taubman family.

Undeterred by the election, Litt and his colleagues are pressing on with their campaign. They have called for Taubman to institute annual elections, the directors elected earlier this month to voluntarily stand for election next year and the company to make three board changes before the 2018 election.

Land and Buildings also wants to organize a special meeting of shareholders to take advisory votes on its recommendations.

Ive been doing this for 25 years; Im not going anywhere, Litt said. While we might not have a voice from inside the board room, I think we will continue to have a voice with the board because we will continue to be proactive as we were during the proxy contest.

In their statement, Taubman officials said they remain focused on enhancing our governance policies through initiatives to accelerate board refreshment and declassify our board.

Land and Buildings strategy did not surprise hedge fund observers.

Activists probably target companies more in troubled industries, but not necessarily only in those industries, said Namho Kang, an assistant professor of finance in the University of Connecticuts business school. Activists like to target firms with potential for improvement and companies that are likely to be improved with some changes. They dont want to go into companies that have no possibility of turning around.

Faith in retail

A strong belief in Taubmans portfolio of 21 malls in the U.S. underpins Litts efforts to reform Taubman. Despite widespread closings by the likes of Macys and Sears and the rise of e-commerce, he sees an abiding desire among customers to venture outside their homes to do their shopping.

Other retail experts agree. Retailers will aim to consolidate their stores in top-tier class A properties like Taubmans, which generate more than $600 in annual sales per square foot, said Garrick Brown, vice president of retail research in the Americas for commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.

People are thinking retail is getting killed, but what retail is doing is it is separating the wheat from the chaff, Brown said. We were grossly overbuilt in the retail world. The class A mall world certainly is not bulletproof  it has plenty of challenges  but thats the one sector where I dont think youll see any failed malls.

Like Stamford Town Center, the Danbury Fair mall and Westfield mall in Trumbull also rank as class A shopping complexes. Their status shielded all three from the 68 Macys store closings announced this year.

The best of the best malls should survive, Litt said. If Macys goes out in a highly productive mall, youre going to be able to put another tenant in that space.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott
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As U.S. regulators approved last week the $130 billion merger between Dow and DuPont, a new agricultural spinoff is on the cusp of moving forward with a DuPont unit that promises to change the world with a pioneering technology designed to improve crops, both in yields and quality.

The big question is whether food activists will yield to the new engineering, after attempting to erect warning signs in Connecticut and nationally in the first wave of genetically modified foods.

In 2013, Connecticut passed a law that would require labeling of foods made with genetically modified organisms  but only if neighboring states did so, as well. With Vermont following suit in 2016, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed federal legislation a year ago preempting states from requiring GMO labeling in favor of a national standard. Fed up with waiting, opponents derisively termed the law the DARK Act as an acronym for Deny Americans the Right to Know.

As the federal law worked through Capitol Hill, back in Hartford activists had taken another crack last year at GMO labeling in Connecticut, with a bill that would have mandated GMO disclosure for baby formulas and foods. Unlike 2013, the bill did not make it to a vote.

In advance of the 2016 debate the previous November, the Food & Drug Administration issued guidance on how companies should label GMO-based foods if they choose to do so, with the FDA continuing to hone final regulations mandated by the federal law.

Among the Connecticut-based manufacturers to adopt GMO labeling on a voluntary basis included the Norwalk-based Pepperidge Farm subsidiary of Campbell Soup.

The Non-GMO Project keeps a running database online of the foodmakers who have had their products verified as GMO-free, with more than 43,600 products listed as of June  in Connecticut to include Saffron Road in Stamford, Barefoot and Chocolate in Norwalk, and Reds 100% All Natural in Fairfield.

The new GE in Connecticut and beyond

In the past year, the GMO debate has faded as attention has shifted to the promise of genetically edited foods in which producers trim existing DNA in foods rather than introducing new DNA, as the case in GMO-based genetic engineering.

DuPont has emerged as a major innovation in genetic editing with a new unit called CRISPR-Cas, designed to improve seeds without incorporating DNA from other species. DuPont describes the innovation as a continuation of what people have been doing since plants were first domesticated  selecting for characteristics such as better yields, resistance to diseases, shelf life and nutritional qualities.

Research on CRISPR  and acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats  is being extended to mice used by Jackson Laboratory in Farmington and Maine for medical research, with one staffer calling the technology a tremendously versatile tool in engineering genetic alterations. In March, Jackson Lab received a $450,000 federal grant to improve genome editing for research, drug testing and potential future therapies.

It is one thing to tinker with DNA for medicine, it is another to do it for everyday food people put on their table. To date, genetic editing has yet to spark the universal outcry that Monsanto incurred with its early efforts to produce GMO foods, with activists still absorbing the implications of the emerging technology.

Leading the charge for both Connecticut bills was Tara Cook-Littman, who has worked to marshal support via the lobbying groups Citizens for GMO Free Labeling and GMO Free CT.

Cook-Littman told Connecticut legislators last year that her group agreed in 2013 only reluctantly to the trigger clause compromise that shifted the enabling of Connecticuts GMO labeling law to companion laws in other states. She added that in the run-up to Vermont creating its own GMO law, companies voluntarily changed their labeling there  and with sales not impacted by the move.

If Vermont can do it  why cant we? Cook Littman asked at the time.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; www.twitter.com/casoulman
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Three-time Grammy winner Brian Setzers Rockabilly Riot comes to Ives Concert Park on Sunday, June 25. Setzer is a songwriter and vocalist who is considered among the worlds greatest guitarists.

Founder and leader of the Stray Cats, hes especially known for taking chances with innovative and daring musical styles, while resurrecting two forgotten genres (rockabilly in the 1980s and swing in the 1990s), according to a news release. Along the way, hes scored chart-topping hits and sold 13 million records.

Setzer, 58, shared why he has a thing for rockabilly in a Huffington Post interview with Mike Ragogna. He said, It was invented by guys who were just getting back after the war and they were experimenting. Guys from the country were mixing up that kind of music with the blues, there were jazz players who were experimenting with it, it was kind of a mish-mash. It seems like a big ball of energy to me, I guess thats whats always attracted me to it.

Born in Massapequa, N.Y., this iconic performer is a recipient of the Orville H. Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award. Hes also known for his 19-piece Brian Setzer Orchestra, and as a solo artist. In addition, he has a best-selling line of elite Gretsch guitars that bear his name.

Setzer portrayed rockabilly pioneer Eddie Cochran in the 1987 film, La Bamba. In 2002, he appeared as an animated character on an episode of The Simpsons. That same year he was chosen to induct Chet Atkins into the 17th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

More recently, in 2006, he was invited to perform at the White House. And in 2014 he was asked by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. to donate a replica of his original 1959 Gretsch 6120 Stray Cat guitar, so it could be part of a treasured collection there.

Sundays outdoor show is presented by WMConcerts and Ives Concert Park.

Ives Concert Park, 43 Lake Ave Ext., Danbury. Sunday, June 25. Doors open 5 p.m., show 7 p.m. $79.50 - $29.50 plus taxes and fees. 877-987-6487.
BROOKFIELD - A local teacher was selected from a pool of more than 300 applicants to participate in a program through the Library of Congress later this month.

Jennifer Rocca, a Brookfield High School teacher, will attend the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Summer Teacher Institute from June 26 to June 30.
Don't believe the critics: The future of advertising technology is bright. Companies spent over $500 billion spent globally on advertising in 2016, and there's a wealth of ad tech companies uncovering innovative ways to reach modern consumers.

Here are six ad tech companies to look out for in 2017. Although advertising trends tend to be short-lived, each of these companies understands the need to evolve and meet the needs of today's publishers and consumers alike.

1. Perion

Perion understands the challenges of capturing consumers microscopic attention spans by emphasizing bold advertising solutions -- particularly on mobile, where the majority of its campaigns are focused.

The company acquired Undertone in late 2015 and has since worked with major brands like Microsoft and social powerhouse Cycle.

Related: 8 Reasons a Powerful Personal Brand Will Make You Successful

2. AppNexus

Already a major name in the ad tech space, AppNexus boasts as many as 9.3 billion impressions transacted daily and represents over 500 clients. Combining machine learning with endless arrays of data, the company emphasizes consistent updates and ongoing flexibility for ad publishers.

But given its current dominance within the industry, whats AppNexus doing to build buzz?

Well, the companys recent announcement to team up with fellow ad tech players to tackle Google and Facebook head-on is certainly making waves. After all, anything that spells greater competition in the world of ad tech is a plus given that those two titans are responsible for one-fifth of ad revenue. All eyes will be on AppNexus crusade in the near future as the company looks to loosen Googles and Facebooks stranglehold on todays ad dollars.

3. MediaMath

Another name involved in AppNexus consortium, MediaMath takes an unconventional approach to advertising. Its focus is on creating a conversation, not being the loudest voice in the room.

According to MediaMath, publishers face two core challenges: making the most of each impression and using audience data to maximize sales. Through the companys omnichannel platform and machine learning, MediaMath helps advertisers and publishers deliver relevant ads to their respective audiences.

Specifically, the companys predictive audiences feature aggregates anonymized data from audiences to help marketers understand their most valuable customers. This ultimately provides advertisers a more comprehensive overview of their audiences, which is necessary to make meaningful conversations with their customers.

Related: How to Start a Business With (Almost) No Money

4. LiveRamp

LiveRamps mission is to deliver relevant and personalized ads to consumers with an emphasis on security. As there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for publishers leveraging ad tech, person-level data is at the core of LiveRamps platform to help meet the needs of consumers on a human level.

Currently, LiveRamp is touting the concept of a united identifier, or single cookie, which could follow consumers across devices. As the product is not yet ready, though, the public will have to wait and see whether or not such an identifier becomes a reality.

5. AdRoll

Speaking of cookies and following customers from Point A to Point B, AdRolls AdRolls retargeting solution has access to over 500 ad exchanges, including Facebook and Google. That strategy has helped major clients such as Clinique cite a 8.5x ROI and 265 percent increase in sales thanks to AdRolls platform.

Beyond retargeting, AdRoll also offers advertisers with prospecting solutions based on consumer behavior on-site. Through this information, advertisers can understand new potential audiences to pursue based on the actions of existing customers. AdRoll notes that its platform has a reach of over 1.2 digital profiles, which allows for prospecting on just about any vertical -- not just Facebooks Lookalike Audiences or Googles Similar Audiences.

Related: 5 Habits of the Wealthy That Helped Them Get Rich

6. StartApp

As mobile ad spending skyrockets, publishers and advertisers alike are on the hunt for fresh ways to reach consumers on the go. StartApp works on the development side with publishers to produce killer mobile ads with in-depth analytics.

Working to be an ad tech pioneer through VR and 360-degree ads, StartApp claims its native advertisements fit seamlessly into any app. Through smart targeting, StartApp also has a keen understanding of user experience.

As advertisers continue to fight for the precious attention of consumers, the future of ad tech is fascinating. From new mobile engagement options for publishers to smaller companies taking on big names such as Facebook and Google, this year is poised to be a massive one.

Related:



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TORONTO, June 18, 2017 /CNW/ - Based on information from Environment Canada, Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, has terminated the Heat Warning for Toronto as of today.

More information is available at http://www.toronto.ca/health.

Information to help residents prepare for extreme weather and weatherproof their homes is available at http://www.toronto.ca/extremeweatherready.

Toronto is Canada's largest city, the fourth largest in North America, and home to a diverse population of about 2.8 million people. It is a global centre for business, finance, arts and culture and is consistently ranked one of the world's most livable cities. In 2017, Toronto will honour Canada's 150th birthday with "TO Canada with Love," a year-long program of celebrations, commemorations and exhibitions. For information on non-emergency City services and programs, Toronto residents, businesses and visitors can visit http://www.toronto.ca, call 311, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/TorontoComms and on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/cityofto.

SOURCE City of Toronto

For further information: Media contact: Lenore Bromley, Toronto Public Health, 416-338-7974, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.toronto.ca


OTTAWA, June 17, 2017 /CNW/ - Health Canada is informing Canadians of the current shortage of injectable sodium bicarbonate product in Canada. Sodium bicarbonate is used in the treatment of a wide range of conditions including metabolic acidosis (buildup of acid in the blood), in open heart surgery, as an antidote to certain poisons, in cases of organ failure, and in some types of cancer chemotherapy. It is administered by health care professionals, usually in a health setting.

On June 14, 2017, Pfizer Canada informed Health Canada that it was voluntarily recalling two lots of 8.4% sodium bicarbonate injection, USP, 50 mL vials, because of possible microbial contamination in the manufacturing process. While Pfizer estimates that the likelihood of contaminated product reaching the patient is low, the risk was sufficient to recall all vials from these two lots. The recall does not affect the pre-filled syringe format.

The global supply of the vials has been tight since late May due to manufacturing delays. The recall means that the product is now in shortage in Canada and around the world.

There are two injectable sodium bicarbonate drugs authorized in Canada, both supplied by Pfizer: vial format and pre-filled syringes.

Pfizer has informed Health Canada that it will be issuing an updated communication to customers about the recall and supply situation early next week. Information is also available on DrugShortagesCanada.ca. Health care professionals can also contact the company directly.

The health and safety of Canadians is Health Canada's first priority. We recognize that these products can play a critical role in patient care. We are working closely with the company, the provinces and territories as well as other partners and stakeholders to reduce the impact of the shortage on Canadian patients. We are gathering information about the supply situation and possible mitigation strategies, including alternative sources of supply. Locating alternative supply may be challenging in an international shortage situation. We are in contact with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding the shortage experienced in its jurisdiction and to share information on possible risk mitigation measures. We are also monitoring the recall.

Pfizer has advised Health Canada that it is implementing a strict allocation strategy to prioritize the available supply of pre-filled syringes, which can be used as an alternative to the vials. The company has reported that additional supply of the pre-filled syringes is anticipated in late July or the first week of August. Until the supply situation is resolved, Pfizer has asked hospitals to restrict their inventory and future orders to life-saving procedures and critical emergency use only.

Patients with questions or concerns about the shortage should speak to their health care professional, and are encouraged to report health product adverse events or complaints to Health Canada.

Addressing drug shortages is a multi-stakeholder responsibility requiring collaborative action from provinces and territories, manufacturers, distributors, practitioners, and the federal government. Health Canada works closely and collaboratively with these stakeholders to prevent drug shortages wherever possible, mitigate the effects of national drug shortages when they occur, and help to keep Canadians informed of the details and status of shortages so that they have sufficient time to adapt. We will continue to monitor this situation closely and work within the health system to minimize its effects on patient care.

Stay connected with Health Canada and receive the latest advisories and product recalls using social media tools.

Egalement disponible en francais

SOURCE Health Canada

For further information: Media Inquiries: Health Canada, (613) 957-2983; Public Inquiries: (613) 957-2991, 1-866 225-0709
By Olivier Ferret 18 June 2017 - 09:45





Max Verstappen

Baku in my opinion is quite a special street circuit, its really unique in terms of having quite wide sections but also some of the tightest parts of track on the calendar. Sector 2 is tighter than parts of Monaco which has always been regarded as really narrow and challenging. When you drive up into the old town and past the castle it is fun and tricky but also amazing to watch as a spectator. That section of the track is my favourite, the straight is quick but seems to go on for a long time and gives you a chance to relax a bit.

As the hotel is really nice and new as well as being situated right next to the paddock I didnt manage to get out and have a look around last year. The old town is fun to drive so I think I should try and get up there one evening this year and see what else it has in store.

Daniel Ricciardo

This year I want to try and see the city more and get out to explore. Our hotel is so convenient being basically on the circuit but it means you dont go out of that area too much and become a bit complacent. The view from the top of our hotel was awesome, from the gym you could see the entire city and track which is pretty unique.

The track was fun so Im looking forward to having another go on it. Another street circuit is exciting for me as I really enjoy those types of tracks, it doesnt suit our car that much but there are a lot of opportunities for things to happen. I think the circuit is definitely as tight as it looks and has a lot of corners unlike any others on the calendar. There are a few interesting lines past the castle which adds to the toughness and is definitely a section of track like no other. The straight is so long that it gives you time to think, which is nice as the corners are technical and you really need to concentrate.
A soldier in Afghanistan has attacked US troops at a military base, in the northern Balkh province on Saturday, wounding seven.

The US soldiers were evacuated after the insider attack a spokesman for the US military command said.The Nato-led Resolute Support mission said one Afghan soldier was killed and another injured in the incident at Camp Shaheen, in Mazar-e Sharif city.However, earlier reports of American soldiers being killed were dismissed. But It is not clear whether the Afghan killed was also the attacker.The Taliban have said the shooting was carried out by a man loyal to them, according to Reuters.Resolute Support said the attack, which took place at about 14:00 local time (09:30 GMT), was under investigation.It comes a week after an Afghan army commando shot dead three US special forces soldiers in eastern Afghanistan.
Nigerians have been given a note of warning to beware of energy drinks as it could prove very dangerous to their health.



Energy drinks

Dr Salomi Mathew, a lecturer at the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai says that the in take of energy drinks is detrimental to ones well-being.

Mathew, of the Department of Human Kinetics and Health Education made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lapai, Niger State on Saturday.

He cautioned youths against indulging in the act.

According to him, it is natural to feel fatigue after a tedious job or exercise, and thereafter, the individual should take a rest.

When that happens, one should obey the call of nature and rest or sleep. By so doing, vitality is restored.





Taking energy drinks to stimulate you to continue to be active instead of resting, relaxing or sleeping is detrimental to ones general well-being as this takes its toll on the brain and heart, Mathew said.

He reiterated the need for a rest, adding that it was a natural source of restoring lost energy hence, taking energy drinks was wrong as it affects the body physiology.





This can cause systolic and diastolic blood pressure and this can be detrimental to the heart. It can make the heart collapse, he said.

-NAN
At least 58 people were likely killed in a fire which engulfed a London tower block earlier this week, police said on Saturday.

At least 58 people were likely killed in a fire which engulfed a London tower block earlier this week, police said on Saturday.If that death toll is confirmed, it would make the Grenfell Tower blaze the deadliest in London since World War Two, Reuters reported.Sadly at this time, there are 58 people who we have been told were in Grenfell Tower on the night that are missing and therefore sadly I have to assume that they are dead, Commander Stuart Cundy told journalists.Cundy added that the figure could change. Police had previously put the death toll at 30.The figure of 30 that I gave yesterday is the number that I know, sadly, have, at least, died. So that 58 would include that 30, he said.Prime Minister Theresa Mays government earlier sought to quell anger over the fire, pledging to support the victims of the blaze after protesters jeered her when she visited local residents.May was rushed away from a meeting with residents on Friday under heavy police guard as protesters shouted Shame on you and hundreds stormed a local town hall calling for justice.
Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich, has sanctioned 70m bid f or Manchester United target, Alvaro Morata.Morata, 24, has been heavily linked with a move to Old Trafford after Jose Mourinho identified him as his replacement for Zlatan Ibrahimovic.United have already had a 52.4m approach knocked back by Real Madrid.Mirror reports that with Diego Costa set to leave Stamford Bridge after revealing he is no longer in Antonio Contes plans, Chelsea have strengthened their bid for Morata.Real doled out around 25m to re-sign the Spain international last summer.But he struggled for regular game time on his return to the club, starting just 14 league matches all season.Meanwhile, Abramovich is said to be considering a move for Christiano Ronaldo.The Russian billionaire declared interest after Ronaldo said he will leave Spain over tax fraud allegations.Reports say Abramovich is not bothered by the world record bounty needed to lure the Portugese superstar r to Stamford Bridge.
Two prominent members of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption in Abuja on Saturday picked holes in governments handling of the anti-corruption war.Speaking in Abuja at a programme organised by the National Association of Seadogs (the Pyrates Confraternity), the Chairman of the panel, Professor Itse Sagay (SAN), and member, Professor Femi Odekunle, attributed recent setbacks suffered by the administration in the prosecution of corruption cases to the fraudulent activities of compromised elements in the judiciary and legislature, and a lack of diligence on the part of some senior government officials.The Chairman of the committee, Prof. Itse Sagay, said the President and his team must come up with new ideas to fight corruption.He said the judiciary was concentrating more on technicalities rather than the spirit of the law and justice.Sagay said, The Federal Government, particularly the President and Vice-President, who were elected into office principally to eliminate corruption, must go back to their drawing board, search and scan the constitution and other laws to draw the requisite irresistible power to deal firmly with this terrible scourge of our times  otherwise we are all dead.The senior advocate said the National Judicial Council was not equipped to look into corruption cases against judges. He said the primary duty of the NJC was to address judicial misdemeanour.The PACAC chairman said before 1999, Nigeria had many incorruptible judges like Justice Kayode Eso, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, Justice Mohammed Bello, Justice Chike Idigbe, Justice Adetunji Adefarasin, Justice Mason Begho and othersSagay, however, said corruption pervaded the judicial system after the return to democracy in 1999, when judges started hearing election petition cases.He noted that many senior advocates had corrupted and compromised judges to the extent that some of the advocates now pay the school fees of children of judges.Sagay added, Today, some judges actually solicit for money. They dont even wait to be offered money. One of the judges that has been asked by the NJC to go back to work is a constant solicitor of money. He writes to counsel, my mother died yesterday, I need money to bury her.Two months later, my daughter is getting married next month, I need money to organise a wedding: Another month, the same judge will write, my uncle has just been made a chief and I need to make a contribution, send money.This is written to lawyers and the lawyers gladly contribute. In fact, there is a long list of lawyers now who have to go to the EFCC at least once a month to explain why they had to send so much money to the account of one judge or the other who demanded money.Some lawyers do it out of a sense of obligation while some lawyers do it for consideration of future favours. It just shows you how (low) our judges have sunk.Sagay said his committee had drafted a bill for the Forfeiture of Assets and Properties, procured by unlawful activity (proceeds of crimes) which will empower courts to order forfeiture of properties by a person without the person being convicted.The senior advocate said he had advised anti-graft agencies to use non-conviction based assets recovery system to fight graft in some peculiar cases.He said in such a situation, anybody who was found in possession of huge sums of money, whose source he or she could not explain, would be made to explain themselves in court.Sagay said this approach was used by the EFCC in the case against Patience, the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, whose $15m has been forfeited to the Federal Government and is now battling to save the $5m found in her bank account.The PACAC chairman added, If you are seen to be living beyond your means of livelihood, the anti-graft agencies could apply for temporary forfeiture of funds and properties and you would then be made to appear in court to explain yourself.That bill is already before the National Assembly but we are not even waiting for it to be passed. A part of the EFCC Act empowers the agency to do this and it is already being done in the case of Patience Jonathans $15m.You will recall recently that when $5m which she owns was frozen in her account but was later unfrozen due to technical issues, the EFCC went back to court to apply through this non-conviction based forfeiture and got it frozen again. Now she has to come to court to explain how she got it.Also speaking, Odekunle, in particular, questioned the commitment of the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), to the anti-graft war and also raised a doubt about the integrity of the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Mr. Danladi Umar, who discharged and acquitted Senate President Bukola Saraki of all 18 charges levelled against him, on Wednesday.The professor of criminology also questioned the resolve of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, to help the Federal Government in the fight against corruption.The event titled, Feast of Barracuda, had Critical Review of the Anti-Corruption War in Nigeria: Strategies, Challenges and Prospects, as its theme.While exploring the theme, Odekunle, raised eight salient questions which he said members of the public must answer in order to put the recent failures of the anti-graft war in proper perspective.He asked, Does the Presidency realise that routine crime prevention and methodology, instruments and processes are not adequate in fighting corruption in this country? That is, does the Presidency realise that fighting corruption must be a rofo rofo fight? That it is not a question of due process, long process, fair hearing and all those that will give you technical justice instead of real justice?It is said that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. In this regard, I ask, what were the details and the resolution of the EFCC matter on Danladi Umars bribery case? I dont know, Im just asking. Does the DSS possess any information about Danladi Umar on the use or abuse of hard drugs?Is there any record that Danladi Umar had been driving and crashing his car under the influence? These are questions that I dont know the answers to but I want you to investigate.Is the Attorney-General of the Federation, who is to lead the anti-corruption fight, going by the way things have been going in the past two years, as committed as others who could have done the job better?I have no answers but I believe if they are answered, it will give us an insight into the cause of our current dilemma in the fight against corruption.Odekunle urged the Federal Government to use unconventional methods in the fight against corruption, saying it would never win if it continued to use what he described as conventional methods.He said since the corrupt elite controlled the judiciary and the legislature, this group of people would continue to protect its own.Odekunle added, So, all this arrangee between the judiciary, the legislators, and people are saying, We dont want the APC to be destroyed, Saraki is our own, let us settle our own, party supremacy is better, we must moderate that.
Confusion on Twitter as #FreeEvans campaign started on Saturday begging for mercy for the arrested billionaire kidnapper, Chukwudubem On...

The suspected criminal was arrested on June 10 at one of his houses on Magodo Estate, Lagos State.Following his arrest and confessions, a Twitter user with the handle @Diranaire (Diran) had on June 12 posted a tweet, #FreeEvans #JusticeForEvans. Igbos are being victimised. Thats how deeply some Nigerians are brainwashed.Three days after that tweet, another Twitter handle, @TAJUDEEOLAJID, posted, For me, I dont see any difference between Saraki and Evans  theyre both hustling for dollars, please #freeEvans. If saraki can be freed I think we should start trending #freeEvans the kidnapper.Similarly, on June 16, another Twitter handle, @justemdee, said, Now that @BukolaSaraki is discharged and declared innocent. We should expect Evans, the kidnapper, to be discharged too. Please #FREEEvans.Expressing shock over the Twitter campaign to free Evans, a Twitter user with the handle @Omodayo2 wrote, I woke up to a #FreeEvans campaign. Lord Jesus, when are you coming back? There are more mad humans roaming the earth now, save us.Another user, @lordtannertalks, said, Are you people asking for #freeEvans mad? Free what? All you people pushing this #freeEvans matter, may God punish you all for a long time.A tweet by @sheysheykushey said, I sincerely pray that the loved ones of those behind the #FreeEvans campaign fall victim to other kidnappers out there. This I solemnly pray.In the same vein, @cicceroUNO said, The thunder that will fire the advocates of #FreeEvans will come like a doctors prescription: 2 morning, 1 afternoon and 2 in the night.Showing similar indignation @PrimeBaba stated, All the exponents of #FreeEvans are human beings who have chosen to function by animal code simply. No gainsaying they are all deranged!Those who are behind the #FreeEvans stuff; may kidnappers locate and kidnap you; bunch of inhumane beings! a Twitter user with the handle @geotaha stated.Then on Saturday, another Twitter user with the handle, @CarxSan, said in a series of tweets that drew the ire of other users, So if you all can look the other way when the politicians get cleared of wrongdoings and get mad at the #FreeEvans tag, then we should do more. Insults were enormous and my mentions were a storm but you are all missing something important. #FreeEvans.Some of you went as far as mentioning the police handles and asking for my head. Lol #FreeEvans. First attempt at making you all mad and it worked.
Evans Billionaire kidnapper Chukwudubem Onwuamadike a.k.a. Evans said he ran inside his house to commit suicide when he saw policemen ...

Evans

Precious pleading on behalf of her husband

Billionaire kidnapper Chukwudubem Onwuamadike a.k.a. Evans said he ran inside his house to commit suicide when he saw policemen at the gate of his Magodo mansion but was pursued and arrested before he could kill himself.I want to die. I cant stand this humiliation he emotionally said in a chat with newsmen a few days after his arrest.Being overcome by emotion was the least thing anyone would expect from someone, who lived in his own world with a larger than life image. But for notorious kidnap kingpin, Chukwudubem Onwuamadike, aka, Evans, who was arrested last Saturday at his Magodo Estate mansion, Lagos, the end is not just near but had come.The 36-year-old suspect, who is a native of Akamili in Umudim Quarters, Nnewi, Anambra State, disclosed at the Lagos State Police Command, amidst tears, that he was being humiliated beyond limits, noting that he preferred dying than to continue living in pains.Evans said he knew the Police would not treat him fairly when he was caught, given the kind of atrocities he committed over the years.It was based on this assumption that he told Saturday Vanguard that he made up his mind to end his life the moment the Police gained access to his house.He stated that the Police officer who pursued him as he ran into his house when he sighted them at his gate, prevented him from completing his mission.Regretting that he was not able to end his life that moment, he looked at this reporter and asked: What am I living for? When I saw the policemen dash towards me I ran inside. I was not running to escape. I ran to see if I could end it before they could take me. But time was short. They followed me into the room.I want the government to train and educate my children.Not done, he added thus: I have seen it all, I want to die and have some rest. The only thing I want now is for the government to take care of my children, educate them and dont allow them to become criminals. I have begged Abba Kyari, to do this for me and he assured me that the Lagos State government would take them to an orphanage home where they would grow to become better persons in the society. I have been diagnosed with Colon Cancer and I wish I could die now.Asked about the exact location of his wife and children, Evans said he sent them to Ghana four days before he was arrested, adding that they had planned to relocate to Canada, where he said he wanted his children to school.He further disclosed that he gave his wife the sum of N20million for her upkeep, stating that he did not know their location at the moment since the day he was arrested.Evans also revealed that his wife, who he has been married to for 11 years only knew he was a kidnapper a few days before his arrest.He said: My wife didnt know I am a kidnapper. I kept all my kidnapping activities away from her and she thought I made my billions from importation and illicit drug dealings. We didnt allow visitors to visit our house for any reason. If she must receive any visitor, I usually ask her to take them to a hotel.But a few days before I was arrested she discovered I was worried and restless. My blood pressure went very high and she asked what was happening. I opened up to her and also told her that security agents were everywhere looking for me. Initially, I thought it was the Department of State Security, DSS, that was hunting for me.I also told her to be very careful with her phones and to be mindful of the people who call her. I also told her to always switch off her mobile phones. While I was still contemplating on what to do, I got information that one of my girlfriends known as Ijeoma had been arrested and taken to SARS, Ikeja. That was when I knew that the people hunting me were policemen.I called my second in command, Felix and warned him to be careful that the Police were closing in on us, but before I knew what was happening, I learnt that Felix had been arrested in Ojota.I sold my cars, stopped my children from going to schoolI immediately moved my family out of my house and we relocated to a hotel in Agidingbi Ikeja. My children stopped going to school, then I started making preparation for them to travel to Ghana where I have three houses.A few days later, I got news again that my younger sister, Nzube had also been arrested by the Police. I heard they were trying to use her to lure me. I then sent words to one of my friends in Nnewi to take my mother to Bayelsa State where I felt locating her will be difficult. Then I sold three of my cars, leaving just a Grand Cherokee SUV.Four days before my arrest, I sent my wife and children to Ghana and I paid the sum of N20 million to the account of a bureau de change operator in Ghana. She collected the money in Cedi. I was planning to join them the day I was arrested.
The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has approved the special promotion of policemen who participated in the arrest of Lagos mos...

The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has approved the special promotion of policemen who participated in the arrest of Lagos most wanted kidnapper, Duneme Onwuamadike otherwise known as Evans.





Evans, who is believed to be the richest kidnapper in Nigeria was arrested in Lagos on Saturday, June 10 by policemen while he prepared to travel out of the country by the Intelligence Response Team (IRT), led by ACP Abba Kyari.

The IGP, who has been receiving encomiums from the Presidency for the arrest decided to motivate his men to do more exploits.

It was gathered that 35 operatives from the IRT, 11 from the Technical Intelligence Unit (TIU) and one person from the IGP monitoring section, were involved in the elevation.
A suspected female kidnapper was apprehended on Remilekun Ayangade Street, Olayemi Estate, Agbele Area of Ikorodu today June 17th.

A suspected female kidnapper was apprehended on Remilekun Ayangade Street, Olayemi Estate, Agbele Area of Ikorodu today June 17th.

Although the details surrounding the matter is still sketchy, the lady has been locked up in the home of one of the chiefs of the community who is keeping her until the police arrive as members of the community were clamoring for jungle justice.They are gathered in front of the chief's house demanding for the release of the woman. See the photos after the cut...








From his recuperation room in London, President Muhammadu Buhari, has reportedly been resisting attempts by some government officials, in...

From his recuperation room in London, President Muhammadu Buhari, has reportedly been resisting attempts by some government officials, including ministers to undermine Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.He has refused to see such officials who sneak to the United Kingdom with files for his signature, it was gathered yesterday.Buhari, authoritative government sources said, rejected the files and asked the affected government functionaries to take all documents and issues to Acting President Osinbajo.He has also refused to grant audience to ministers and some presidential aides who indicated interest to see him.But the President met with First Lady Aisha during her recent trip to London, contrary to social media reports.Sources said the President insisted that his administration runs one Presidency and since there is an Acting President in place, any attempt to create a division by anyone will not be tolerated.It was gathered that one of the delegations that went on a futile trip to see Buhari returned to Abuja on Wednesday a few hours to the signing of the 2017 Budget by the Acting President.It was learnt that during the failed trips, some files and documents were taken to the President ostensibly for his perusal and approval, but he refused to act on them.In line with his belief in due process, the President directed that all files and documents be made available to the Acting President.A top source said: Despite the fact that he is fast recuperating, the President has tried as much as possible to stick to one presidency.He has refused to see some government officials who went to London to see him instead of being at their desks to work. He also returned all files and documents to those who brought them to London.The President gave stern instructions that all files, documents and issues needing decisions should be taken to the Acting President. He does not want a divided government. Buhari is living up to his Spartan discipline.He has restricted audience to two or three personal aides with him in London. This is why there are no leaks associated with his first medical trip this time around.The source added: Those involved in taking files and documents to London had their ego deflated. Since their return from the various shuttles, they have been trying to curry the favour of the Acting President or cooperate with him. They did not know that intelligence report had exposed their antics.And the truth is that the President has been speaking with the Acting President.On the controversy surrounding the visit of the First Lady to London, the source said: As a matter of fact, the First Lady, met with the President without any encumbrances.Any story to the contrary is false. There is enough evidence to prove that she met with her husband. No one prevented her.Some people came out with the rumour because the President has limited contact with them this time around because of leaks during his last trip.Some of those who visited the President during the initial shuttle for medical care turned out to feed Nigerians with false information on his health.It became necessary to restrict access to two of three aides. Not everyone with the President in London is allowed to see or meet with him. Ministers and government officials have been shut out too.The declaration of the First Lady that the President was pleased with the conduct and performance of the Acting President was at the prompting of her husband to checkmate those who indulge in flying to London for unnecessary consultations and approvals.The Director of Information to the Wife of the President, Suleiman Haruna yesterday insisted that Hajiya Aisha met and spent some time with the President. I even issued a statement on this.Harunas statement had read in part: Wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari returned from the UK, where she went to visit her husband, who is on medical leave.Mrs. Buhari, on arrival, conveyed the appreciation of the President to Nigerians over their constant prayers and said he will soon be with them as he is recuperating fast.Mrs. Buhari called on Nigerians to continue to be strong in the face of challenges and to support the Federal Government in implementing the agenda for which they were elected.Mr. President thanked the acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo for his loyalty and called on Nigerians to continue to support the acting President in his effort to actualize the mandate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), she said.
A suspected Boko Haram terrorist, Aliyu Ahmed, alias Aliko is now in army custody following his arrest in Bauchi State.

A suspected Boko Haram terrorist, Aliyu Ahmed, alias Aliko is now in army custody following his arrest in Bauchi State.Army spokesman, Brigadier General Sani Usman, confirmed yesterday that Ahmed was arrested on Friday by troops of 33 Brigade, following a tip-off in Yuga village in Toro Local Government Area of the state, where he has been in hiding.The army also said it intercepted four child traffickers and 19 under aged children in Yobe State.He was found to be in possession of one single barrel gun and one Dane gun.During preliminary interrogation, he confessed that he actively participated in several Boko Haram terrorists attacks and also owned an AK-47 Rifle which he lost during one of the attacks they carried out in 2016. His interrogation continued, Usman said.He said the four traffickers, who were arrested by troops of Bravo Company, 120 Battalion at Katarko, were conveying 19 children from Potiskum to Garin Tuwo, Bungai and Buni Yadi in Gujba Local Government Area of Yobe and Galarabala in Biu Local Government Area of Borno.Both the suspected traffickers and their victims have been moved to the Brigade Headquarters for transfer to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, the army spokesman said.
EVESHAM TWP. -- Smash and grab burglars hit six Evesham shops in one night, according to police.

On June 14, at around 2 a.m., Evesham Police officers responded to the Ragazzi Restaurant on Rt. 70 for an activated burglar alarm. After arriving to the scene, officers said they found that the front glass door was smashed. They reported that suspects ransacked the business and stole cash from the register.

The second alleged burglary was at the Lucky 7 Deli on Maple Avenue. Later that morning, officers said they discovered four more businesses that had been broken into -- Gaetano's, Dominos Pizza, China I Restaurant, and EV Nail Salon.

All of the shops had the front door smashed and cash stolen from the registers.

Anyone with information about the identity of these suspects are asked to contact the Evesham Police Department at 856-983-1116, the Confidential Tip Line at 856-983-4699 or email at Facebook@Eveshampd.org. Anonymous tips text ETPDTIP to 847411.

Caitlyn Stulpin may be reached at cstulpin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitstulpin. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
(Pixabay | Stock Photo)

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By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

TRENTON  Democratic lawmakers last week unveiled a school funding proposal that would affect most New Jersey districts' state aid for the upcoming school year.

The plan, billed as a potential first step to solving the state's school funding problems, has its winners, losers and plenty of school districts that wouldn't see much of a difference either way.

Here are the Democratic plan's 20 biggest losers for the upcoming school year based on the percentage a district's state aid would change compared to Gov. Chris Christie's budget proposal.

The plan would need Christie's approval before taking effect.

Note: The list does not include non-operating school districts that send all students to other districts and receive little state aid.

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Biggest losers

The most controversial element of the proposal is the reduction of funding to some districts. These districts previously received so-called "hold harmless" funding, money that was given to them even if enrollment declined, solely to prevent the districts from getting a reduction in state aid, according to lawmakers.

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Stone Harbor (Lori M. Nichols | NJ.com)

20. Stone Harbor | 6.9 percent decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $53,971

Democratic proposal: $50,266

Potential decrease: $3,705

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19. Eatontown | 7.6% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $3.85 million

Democratic proposal: $3.56 million

Potential decrease: $291,574

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18. Hoboken | 7.7% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $10.68 million

Democratic proposal: $9.86 million

Potential decrease: $825,793

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17. Kingwood Township | 7.9% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $1.32 million

Democratic proposal: $1.22 million

Potential decrease: $103,845

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14 (tie). Weehawken | 8% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $2.72 million

Democratic proposal: $2.5 million

Potential decrease: $216,977

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14 (tie). Hardyston | 8% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $2.20 million

Democratic proposal: $2.02 million

Potential decrease: $175,603

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Lower Alloways Creek (Star-Ledger file photo)

14 (tie). Lower Alloways Creek | 8.1% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $888,093

Democratic proposal: $817,272

Potential decrease: $70,821

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12 (tie). Frankford Township | 8.1% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $1.97 million

Democratic proposal: $1.8 million

Potential decrease: $158,634

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12 (tie). Hampton Township | 8.1% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $1.28 million

Democratic proposal: $1.18 million

Potential decrease: 103,787

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11. Henry Hudson Regional | 8.2% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $800,630

Democratic proposal: $735,355

Potential decrease: $65,275

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10. White Township School District | 8.3% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $1.75 million

Democratic proposal: $1.6 million

Potential decrease: $144,531

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9. Southampton Township School District | 9.3% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $2.14 million

Democratic proposal: $1.94 million

Potential decrease: $197,686

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8. Mannington Township School District| 9.4% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $561,159

Democratic proposal: $508,214

Potential decrease: $52,945

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7. Brigantine Public Schools| 9.7% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $2.3 millon

Democratic proposal: $2.07 million

Potential decrease: $222,245

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6. Andover Regional School District | 9.8% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $2.36 million

Democratic proposal: $2.13 million

Potential decrease: $230,363

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3 (tie). Highlands School District | 9.9% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $642,233

Democratic proposal: $578,759

Potential decrease: $63,474

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(File photo)

3 (tie). Linwood Public Schools | 9.9% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $1.58 million

Democratic proposal: $1.42 million

Potential decrease: $155,967

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3 (tie). Bradley Beach School District | 9.9% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $1.07 million

Democratic proposal: $964,906

Potential decrease: $106,541

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2. Monmouth Regional High School District | 10.1% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $3.37 million

Democratic proposal: $3.03 million

Potential decrease: $339,078

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1. North Wildwood School District | 10.8% decrease

Christie's budget proposal: $672,524

Democratic proposal: $600,101

Potential decrease: $72,423

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Which districts would lose the most dollars?

Another way to consider winners and losers is the most money gained or lost if the proposal is approved. Here are the districts that would see the largest decrease in state dollars.

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Jersey City skyline (Frances Micklow | Star-Ledger file photo)

Biggest dollar losers:

1. Jersey City

Potential decrease: $8.5 million, down 2 percent from $418.8 million

2. Toms River Regional

Potential decrease: $3.3 million, down 4.9 percent from $68.3 million

3. East Orange

Potential decrease: $3.1 million, down 1.9 percent from $178.3 million

4. Brick

Potential decrease: $2.2 million, down 6 percent from $36 million

5. Washington Township (Gloucester County)

Potential decrease: $2.1 million, down 4.1 percent from $50.1 million

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6. Vineland Public Schools

Potential decrease: $2 million, down 1.5 percent from $134.8 million

7. Pemberton Township Schools

Potential decrease: $1.6 million, down 1.9 percent from $82 million

8. Neptune Township School District

Potential decrease: $1.3 million, down 4 percent from $31.4 million

9. Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District

Potential decrease: $1.2 million, down 6.3 percent from $18.6 million

10. Middletown Township Public Schools

Potential decrease: $1.2 million, down 6.6 percent from $16.7 million

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Read more about N.J. schools

These 30 towns have the highest school tax bills in N.J.

The 51 N.J. high schools with the best SAT scores

These are N.J.'s top 25 high schools, U.S. News says

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Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
It's Father's Day, which means that you need to get a Father's Day gift for him. It also means your dad gets to decide where he wants to have Father's Day dinner. To help him make a decision, here is a list of places offering great Father's Day dining deals for Father's Day 2017. Many of these national chains have multiple New Jersey locations.

Ruth Chris' Steak House: Take your dad to Ruth's Chris on Father's Day and he gets a $25 gift card for a future visit. New Jersey locations include Weehawken, Parsippany, Princeton and Atlantic City.

Hooters: What dad doesn't love wings? Hooters is offering dads 10 boneless wings with the purchase of any 10 wings and a beverage on Father's Day. Hooters has New Jersey locations in Lawrenceville, East Brunswick, Somerset, Atlantic City, Wayne and Hackensack.

Chili's: Grab a 3-course meal for $10 at Chili's. There are 26 Chili's in New Jersey where you can celebrate Father's Day.

Firehouse Subs: Show this coupon on Father's Day and get a free medium sub after purchasing another medium or large sub, as well as a side and a drink. Firehouse has New Jersey locations in Florham Park, Totowa, Lawrenceville, Wayne and West Nyack.

Treat dad to a free pint at BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse in Teterboro. Deal is available June 17 and June 18.

Bertucci's: Bertucci's, which has six New Jersey locations, snap a photo of your father and tell Berucci's how he inspires you to get a certificate for a small pizza.

Denny's: Click here for a coupon for a free build-your-own sundae at Denny's with purchase of two entrees on June 17 and June 18.

Boston Market: For a meal to feed the whole family, head to one of Boston Market's four New Jersey locations (Edison, East Brunswick, Union and Avenel) with this Father's Day coupon for a $29.99 family meal. Meal includes one whole chicken, half a rack of ribs, four sides and four pieces of cornbread.

Ruby Tuesday: Ruby Tuesday is offering a Father's Day menu, including a limited time cocktail dubbed "The Perfect Drink for Dad."

Joe Atmonavage may be reached at jatmonavage@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @jatmonavageNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook
NUTLEY -- Three firefighters were injured after a fire truck overturned in Nutley Saturday night, according to a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor's Office.

The prosecutor's office was responding to investigate, agency spokeswoman Katherine Carter said late Saturday. The extent of the injuries was not immediately clear.

The township fire department ladder truck was on its side on Chestnut Street, on a small bridge near Park Drive, as of 10:45 p.m. The incident occurred a short distance from the Nutley fire headquarters.

Police closed Chestnut Street at Passaic Avenue. Authorities could not immediately provide more information late Saturday.

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc and on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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MONROE TWP. -- It took Army Private First Class Walter Frank Piper 66 years to get home.

In January 1951, at the age of 21, Piper said goodbye to his family and set out for Korea. A month later he was taken as a prisoner of war and died in June after sustaining injuries as captive.

It wasn't until the 1990s that Piper's body returned to the United States. In April, his remains were identified. And now, Piper finally rests home.

Hundreds gathered to honor, give thanks and say goodbye to Piper on June 17 at the Farnelli Funeral home in his hometown of Williamstown. Few family, some classmates, but mostly strangers welcomed the soldier home.

"I'm holding a picture of a man I never saw," said Piper's Niece, Jo Ann Piper Harrod, who traveled from Gonzales, Texas to attend the funeral.

"Here he is a little boy," she said, pointing to a black and white photo of child in a big white hat and loose fitting clothes.

"Here he is now," she said, touching Piper's casket. "We never knew where he was."

Now he's home.

For her and the few other nieces that join her at the service, this day is filled with joy, gratitude and peace.

All of Piper's immediate family -- his parents, step-mother and siblings died before Piper made it back home, leaving only a few relatives, some of which had never met -- to connect at the service. Nieces Carol Branda, Jay Bevis, and Sherry Bumm attended the funeral.

The search for Piper began in 1996 with a photo.

Ralph Delaney, Williamstown resident and determined classmate of Piper's, began the effort to identify Piper's remains after visiting the Korean War memorial in Washington, D.C. and noticing that Piper's photo was not posted.

Delaney gained that picture and the role of Piper's point of contact since Piper had no known relatives.

For twenty years, Delaney never thought his classmate would return.

It's incredible "to finally see it come to fruition after all this time. I never expected to get that phone call to start with," let alone make the arrangements for Piper's burial, Delaney said.

Delaney chose to bury Piper in the Gloucester County Veterans Memorial Cemetery rather than the historic Arlington National Cemetery.

"I decided to bring him back home. I just think it's the place where he should be," said Delaney.

Equally surprising was the overwhelming turnout for a man so many never knew, he said.

The crowded visitation room seemed more like a celebration than a funeral with laughter, smiles and a few tears filling the room.

Veterans, local residents, the American Legion and Leathernecks motorcycle clubs attended the service to salute the patriot and ride in his honor.

A grey, drizzly morning turned into a sunny afternoon as a police escort and the roar of motorcycles led the way to the cemetery where Piper now rests. Some pedestrians saluted while others held their hearts as they watched the funeral procession ride by.

Piper was buried with full military honors as American flags waved and uniformed veterans saluted him. Shots fired and bag pipes played.

Delaney brought back much more than Piper's picture.

From the crowd of motorcycle colors, a few scattered voices said, "Welcome home, Walt."
OCEAN CITY- Kaitlyn Schoeffel, of Egg Harbor Township, broke into a tearful surrender of joyful release when she was crowned Miss New Jersey 2017 Saturday night at the Ocean City Music Pier.

After her sixth year competing in the pageant as Miss Eastern Shore, Schoeffel will move on to represent New Jersey in the Miss America Pageant on Sept. 10 in Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall.

"I'm just so incredibly thankful," Schoeffel said after her win. "And I'm so ready to be Miss New Jersey and am so excited to get started."

During her year as Miss New Jersey, the 23-year-old Schoeffel said her main goal will be to spread her platform, Operation Empowerment, which helps to expose underprivileged youth to the arts throughout the state of New Jersey. Schoeffel represented her platform while performing her talent as she danced to the song, "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon.

"I think that it's so important that you can see the good that comes from a [platform like this]," said Sally Johnston, executive director of Miss New Jersey. "You have something like this which has a goal to get something done."

Johnston also went on to say how she was impressed with this year's competitors and how she is hopeful that Schoeffel will go on to succeed in Miss America.

As Schoeffel prepares for the Miss America Pageant, the rest of her fellow competitors will be looking to integrate the skills they made into the real world.

The first runner-up, Olivia Micheal, said she plans to get a full-time job after her last year in the pageant.

"Competing and working with the people whom I've met through this organization has made me a better person," Micheal said. "And it's made me want to do bigger things, but in terms of my career it's going to give me skills that I need."

Also making an appearance at the event was New Jersey's Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno who praised those competing the pageant for their tenacity, or as she calls it, "Jersey girl guts."

"This isn't just a pageant, this is a competition, Guadagno said. "And this is a competition that is going to give women something valuable whether they become Miss New Jersey this year or not."

Saturday night also marked the 40-year anniversary since Mary D'Arcy won the Miss New Jersey title in 1977. D'Arcy was the second runner-up in the Miss America Pageant in 1977 and has starred in several films since then. D'Arcy was honored at the event with an award and slideshow showcasing her winning the Miss New Jersey title and her career accomplishments after her win at the pageant. After receiving her award, D'Arcy expanded upon what Guadagno said during a speech, owing most of the important relationships in her life to the Miss New Jersey Program.

"One of the most important things I've gained from being a part of this program are my friends," D'Arcy said. "So many of us have stayed friends for over forty years."

D'Arcy later went on to talk about how proud she is of the girls in this year's competition and how the pageant has changed over the years.

A collection of awards and scholarships were given out to the finalists and non-finalists before the winners were announced.

First runner up to Miss New Jersey was Miss Columbus Day, Olivia Michael, of Bergenfield; Second runner up was Miss Seashoreline, Amanda Rae Ross, of Galloway; Third runner up was Miss South Jersey, Jamie Gialloreto, of Woolwich Township; and fourth runner up was Miss Atlantic Shores, Natalie Ragazzo, of Ocean City.

Other finalists included Miss Ocean County Area, Olivia Suarez, of Mullica Hill; Miss Monmouth County, Jessica Milne, of New Milford; Miss South Shore, Madison Welsh, of Westville; Miss Atlantic County, Jacquline Algarra, of Marlton; Miss Cape Shores, Sandra Hilla, of Williamstown and Miss Costal Shores, Krystle Tomlinson, of Scotch Plains.

Justin Decker may be reached at jdecker@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Justin Decker on Twitter @Justin_A_Decker. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Most museums have signs that read "Do Not Touch the Exhibits" and serious security guards to enforce it. Not the Children's Museum of Manhattan's very popular experience of Muslim culture all over the world.

In "America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far," curators want you to use your senses to look, listen, touch, speak and smell, which is a spicy adventure. There's plenty to do for children and the big kid in all of us.

On a recent Thursday afternoon, about two dozen tots and their parents or guardians engaged in all sorts of interesting activities.

On transportation, for example, a few children were on the deck of an Indian Ocean dhow (boat) while others were loading goods on land. Still others used a pulley to bring them on deck and remove them. Children were decorating a Pakistani truck for a pretend ride through the Western Himalayas. And if you weren't in a hurry, you could sit atop a camel as some of the adults did.

In another section, you could go to market and find faux Indonesian fruits and vegetables and weigh them on a scale or learn about exotic coffees and teas or visit a Zanzibar fish market and select Egyptian spices.

Senegalese fabrics that can be found in New York City could be touched, the weaves of Moroccan rugs examined. Pieces of Turkish tiles are made into a puzzle so you can move them around.

One display has items of clothing and artifacts that can be found in American Muslim houses. Mixed in with blue jeans and sneakers is a hijab, a woman's head covering.



A special section of the exhibit shows paintings of three mosques. Ellen Bari, the exhibit's curator, challenged me to identify their locations and I was surprised to learn that one was from Michigan, which has a large Muslim population.

Then you can enter through a small opening, sit inside at a screen and select an area of the world, and a mosque from that region is displayed on a 21-foot curved screen in front of you.

It took two years, Bari said, to research "America to Zanzibar'' and then four years, her time at the museum, to bring it to reality.

She took me to a musical section with buttons for instruments like ney, oud, rebana, ghijak, and tabla. They brought in musicians who play each to lay down a track and a child can play one, several or all in harmony by pressing a button.

While this display is not religious, per se, it helps children demystify the word "Muslim" and learn about all aspects of Muslim culture. The signage is mostly for the adult companions to explain to their child. As you enter, for example, a sign explains the origin of Islam as a religion and some basic tenets.

The 3,000-square-foot exhibit is the fourth in the museum's Cultural Exhibition Series, following exhibits about Ancient Greece, China and Japan.

Religion was central to "The Monkey King" exhibit, which showed how Buddhism was brought to China, and "Gods, Myths and Mortals," which explained democracy and the origin of Western civilization.

"We prepare children to become successful global citizens by offering fun, age-appropriate, experiences with the people and cultures of New York City and our interconnected world," Deirdre Lurie, director of strategic communications, said.

A fountain in the center of the exhibit explains that wealthy residents often donate these to poorer neighborhoods so they have fresh, running water.

Now take a detour, especially on a hot day, outside to "Dynamic H20," also curated by Bari, as children learn about New York City's amazing water system and the importance of water to us all. They wear cool, waterproof aprons.

As I was leaving, I was reminded of comedian Aziz Ansari's "Saturday Night Live" monologue the day after President Trump was sworn in. He said music from "Homeland" scares people. He then hummed the theme song to "The Benny Hill Show," an old Brit comedy, a better tune to associate with Islam. He ended by saying that people would think, "Man, Islam is one whimsical religion, isn't it?"

This children's exhibit is precisely that - whimsical and fun.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Rev. Alexander Santora is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, 07030, FAX: 201-659-5833; Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; Twitter: @padrehoboken.

If you go ...

"America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far" continues through Dec. 31 at the Children's Museum of Manhattan, The Tisch Building, 212 W. 83rd St., Manhattan; 212-721-1223. Summer hours are Sunday to Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Target Free First Friday Nights, 5-8pm. Child/adult admission, $14; seniors (65+) $11; children under 12 months admitted free!
As the mother of five active boys, Amelia Henry is always on the go. In fact, her life seems to revolve around children, as she is also a child care specialist at Childrens Choice Daycare on the Iowa School for the Deaf campus.

A Council Bluffs native, Amelia loves the citys size and how it somehow has a small-town feel. She is especially appreciative of the support she gets not only through the STARS scholarship, but also through the network of single mothers that it has created. Her advice to those who are considering going back to school is: Try it out  dont keep living with the could haves or what ifs!

Amelia received her associates degree in arts from Iowa Western in December, 2015, and is within nine credit hours of completing a bachelors degree in marketing at Bellevue University.

As she takes her final classes this summer, she knows that all of her hard work will continue to be an example for her boys. She is very much looking forward to using her creativity, drive and perseverance to continue to make her hometown of Council Bluffs a vibrant, creative community.

The STARS Scholarship, designed for low-income adult parents and custodial grandparents, is accepting applications through Friday, June 30. Call 712-322-8800 ext. 7 for more details.

This scholarship program is a part of the Council Bluffs Community Education Foundation and is generously funded by the Iowa West Foundation.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  The downturn in the farm economy makes this a terrible time to slash Farm Bill spending as President Donald Trump has proposed, a Republican lawmaker told an audience Friday at the Federal Reserve bank in Kansas City, Missouri.

It is important that the role of government be a partner, not an adversary, to our farmers and ranchers, said U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Roberts has a leading role in reauthorizing the Farm Bill, the multiyear spending package that includes crop insurance, food stamps, rural development and ag marketing programs  all told, nearly $100 billion a year.

As to cutting crop insurance, Roberts said, We are not going to do that. He described crop insurance as farmers most valuable tool for managing risk.

And Roberts vowed that this Farm Bill wouldnt be delayed for years as the last one was, leaving farmers with uncertainty about the details of programs they rely on.

During these tough times, what is needed is certainty, Roberts said.

Roberts spoke to agribusiness lenders, farmers and others at the Kansas City Feds 2017 Agricultural Symposium, which looked at causes of consolidation in the food and farming industries.

He said the Senate Ag Committee wants to get a Farm Bill written this year, hoping to wrap things up before the drama of the 2018 midterm elections.

Roberts described a circus atmosphere in Washington, but said thats not what farmers are focused on.

In farm country, he said, Nobody even says the word Trump. They talk about the things that directly affect their pocketbook and their futures. And theyre damn tired of the government being an adversary and not a partner.

One reason a Farm Bill is hard to pass: Fiscal conservatives dont like how food stamp spending has ballooned, but including it in the Farm Bill is essential to getting urban votes for farm spending, Roberts said.

And as another speaker at the event pointed out, hunger doesnt end at city limits.

If you think that hunger is someone elses problem, go home and take a look at your own community, said Iowa farmer Pam Johnson. We must all take ownership and, on a policy level, we must learn to build those relationships and coalitions to pass a Farm Bill.

Trump proposed cutting the food stamp program  by far the biggest part of Farm Bill spending  by more than 25 percent. And he wants cuts in crop insurance and in commodity program payments.

Despite Roberts assurances, some farmers are preparing for cuts.

Kip Tom, a large-scale Indiana farmer, said hes in talks with insurance underwriters about creating a pool of farmers to buy insurance on the private market. That would take them out of the system in which the federal government shares in the costs and risk.

Were preparing ourselves for possible cuts and limits in the subsidy, he said.

Tom said the Heritage Foundation, which criticizes what it calls costly and harmful subsidies, doesnt understand the role of crop insurance, or that it gives lenders the assurance needed to invest in farms.

Roberts doesnt expect those who want to cut costs to have the same influence with this Farm Bill as they did with the last, signed in 2014.

Its one thing to make an ideological argument for cutting ag subsidies when prices were good, he said.

Thats not the case now, Roberts said. Were in bad shape.
Humbled.

That was the word Council Bluffs Police Chief Tim Carmody used to describe the efforts of the past 20 years that led to Saturday mornings groundbreaking ceremony for the new police headquarters at 1018 Woodbury Ave.

The new station, which was approved by 62 percent of 4,000 voters in May 2016, will cost $20 million, but Carmody said theyve come about $2 million under budget so far. The department said the bond will cost the average homeowner, based on a $103,000 valuation, an estimated $2.47 per month. The money saved will go back into the project for additions that were originally placed on the backburner, he said.

While the amazing journey began two years ago, its been in the works for 20 years that we needed to make an investment into the community, Carmody said.

Saturday, city and county officials along with several members of law enforcement and their families gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking.

Several groups took the opportunity to take shovels to dirt in front of the cameras, Carmody seeming to relish donning a hardhat for the occasion.

With this, weve created a vision to provide for our citizens and staff the opportunity for long-term growth, Carmody remarked, adding the site holds potential to expand as the years move on and a larger station becomes necessary again.

The proposed 58,000-square-foot headquarters will also have a 4,500-square-foot outbuilding with 170 parking stalls, 150 of which will be for staff. It dwarfs the current headquarters  at 19,000 square feet  attached to the Pottawattamie County Courthouse on South Sixth Street in downtown Council Bluffs. When finished, the old headquarters will be returned back to the county for them to use as they see fit, Carmody said.

Simply put, theres not enough space in the current office. Mayor Matt Walsh, after thanking all involved, said officers in one of the rooms have taken inventory of evidence that at best could be described unsanitary, then have to use the same desk to eat lunch on.

The new headquarters will feature more storage, office space, a cyber crime lab and much more, including a community meeting room so law enforcement can better engage residents through outreach programs.

On Monday, the City Council approved a $12.06 million bid from the Lincoln, Nebraska-based Sampson Construction Company to build the new station.

The design team of the police department, Hoefer Wysocki Architecture of Leawood, Kansas, and Project Advocates of Omaha designed the headquarters.

Eight contractors submitted bids for the construction; all bids were within about $500,000 of each other. Sampson Construction submitted the lowest qualified bid.

The council also approved the renaming of the public right of way giving access to the new headquarters as Ezra Jackson Way. Jackson was a lawman in the city in the late 1800s.

The city understood and championed this cause, Carmody said. They bridged gaps and, by a measure of grace, got the stars to align.

Walsh and Carmody also shared thanks for the 11-person Council Bluffs Law Enforcement Center Community Study Group, which evaluated 10 different sites across the city while providing input on what should be considered for the new building.

We can expand here for the next 50, the next 100 years, Carmody said. We couldnt do it without the citizens.

Construction is expected to be completed late 2018.
Kathy Knott is finding her footing as the Council Bluffs finance director.

Knott took over on April 11 and said shes enjoyed the work so far, bringing her existing skill set to the job while also learning and adapting to new challenges every day.

Im getting on my feet and up to speed on functions that I havent done before, she said, noting the learning process has included dealing with bonds, treasury forms and federal accounting.

Knott said one of her key goals in the job is strategic forecasting and planning for the future.

Looking at revenue streams further into the future, she said. If we know whats coming, we can be less reactionary as we balance spending and revenue.

And through that work, Knott said, shell strive to tackle the task faced by finance directors across the state and beyond.

Its an ongoing balancing act for any municipality, she said. Providing services for citizens without having to raise costs and taxes.

Knott spoke of simple, straightforward reporting for the public and department heads to let people know where things stand, while updating the office to modernize business processes like billing, accounts payable and payroll.

Her role also includes financial planning and analysis, implementing internal controls, improving the citys overall financial standing and conducting required annual reporting and an audit.

Knott said shes working to foster a teach and learn culture in the office to help improve employee skill sets and enhance levels of understanding.

Well learn from each other, Knott said. I believe strongly in a team environment.

Knott is a Council Bluffs native and Lewis Central High School graduate whos been married to husband Paul for 37 years. The pair have two children, Paul II and Beth, with one grandchild and another on the way.

Kathy Knott earned degrees from Iowa Western Community College and Buena Vista Universitys Council Bluffs campus at Iowa Western before entering the accounting world. Knott said she worked at a small firm before spending 10 years at Kiewit and Continental Plastics in Omaha.

From there, she embarked on a 19-year career at Conagra Foods in Omaha. Knott remained for almost a year after the company announced in October of 2015 it would move its headquarters to Chicago.

Through cost reductions, they cut out a number of director positions, Knott said. I was part of that.

Knotts final day with Conagra came in August of 2016.

Sometimes youre getting stale in your job, and you dont realize it, she said. Youre busy with the day-to-day. I realized after that I wanted to try new things.

Knott spent the ensuing months spending time with family, visiting Paul II in Arizona and Beth in Utah.

Her job hunt started after the winter holiday season, and she started with the city in April. The Council Bluffs City Council voted 5-0 to approve hiring Knott at an annual salary around $121,400. She replaced the late Daniel Jordet, who died at the age of 62 in December after a battle with cancer. He had taken over the job in April 2015 after Art Hill retired.

So far its been great, Knott said. I like to constantly have new challenges.
Council Bluffs was recognized Friday for its leadership implementing the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading.

The community won its first All-America City Award at a convention in Denver organized by the campaign and administered by the National Civic League. The award recognizes the top communities in the country and reflects residents, governments, businesses and nonprofits coming together to work on challenges  in this years case, working toward promoting grade-level literacy by the end of third grade.

The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading focuses on school attendance, readiness and summer learning  three areas where Council Bluffs has invested resources, whether its staff time for school officials, charitable dollars through the Iowa West Foundation, collaborations with area businesses and nonprofits or launching the Raise Me to Read initiative in coordination with Iowa West and the United Way of the Midlands.

The award is the culmination of years of work by educators throughout Council Bluffs. The next time you see a teacher, congratulate them for their contributions to making Council Bluffs an All-America City.

And allow us to offer a bravo to the women, men and children that helped make this award possible.

The honor in Denver is also the culmination of the work of outgoing Council Bluffs Community School District Superintendent Martha Bruckner, who was also recognized individually at a luncheon by the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading at the conference.

Bruckner advocated for the campaign in the early days in Council Bluffs, using it to help bring together a network of partners, many of whom were represented in Denver at the All-America City Conference.

We are here to mark progress and certainly to celebrate a whole lot of success, said Ralph Smith, managing director for the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading.

During the announcements, Council Bluffs was the 13th of 15 winners of an All-America City Award out of 27 finalists who made the trip to Denver. Typically, only 10 awards are presented, adding to the suspense for the city. Des Moines and Dubuque also received awards.

The win is especially sweet after the disappointment of 2016. Council Bluffs also was a finalist at last years All-America City Awards, as well as in 2012, the last time the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading was running the show on behalf of the National Civic League. The city hadnt won the award previously.

The award is something all citizens of Council Bluffs should be proud of  were all All-Americans.
Kolkata, June 18 (IBNS): Bollywood actress Kalki Koechlin launched a new product of Gillette Venus, Breeze razor, during her recent visit to Kolkata.

Kalki was accompanied by dermatologist Dr. Rashmi Shetty.

Gillete claimed that Breeze is a razor which enables women to shave without any hesitation and provides glowing skin.

Speaking about the new product, Kalki said: "I think it is a very easy product to use. It is very quick and I really enjoy."{image_1}

Remembering her first experience of shaving, the national award winning actress said: " When I was in boarding (school), I used to buy low cost razors and was very afraid to grow thick hair but it was definitely a myth."

"I stole my dad's razor and probably had cut myself. I used his shaving foam too," she added.

Dr. Shetty busted all myths regarding shaving. "The most common myth is the hair growth will be faster after shaving but in reality, it doesn't. The number of hairs in any given part of the body is genetically and sex determined and not by the tool which we use" she said.{image_2}

"The hair when shaved by the razor, cuts it from the stem so it takes little time to grow giving a feeling of faster growth, unlike other methods where hairs are cut from roots" Dr. Shetty added, explaining the possible reason for the creation of such a myth.

Giving a sigh of relief to all women, she even said that the razor can be used for all forms of waxing including bikini waxing, but need to consult doctor before shaving facial hairs, as it occurs due to hormonal imbalance.

(Reporting by Souvik Ghosh, Images by Avishek Mitra)
Class of 59 to meet for lunch

The North Platte High School class of 1959 no host luncheon will be at 1 p.m. on Wednesday at Merricks Ranch House. Spouses are welcome.

For more information, call Betty Tatman at 308-539-1265.

NARVRE to meet at Moose Lodge

The National Association of Retired and Veteran Railway Employees North Platte Unit No. 14 will meet at 1 p.m. on Wednesday at the Moose Lodge, 1315 E. Fourth.

All retired and working railroad employees are invited to attend.

If unable to attend, minutes, a Legislative report and membership form may be picked up from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at Donnas Office Service in the Professional Financial Advisors Building, 501 S. Jeffers St.

Red Willow rec area to host family fun night

Red Willow State Recreation Area will be hosting a free summer Family Fun Night from 6 to 10 p.m. on Wednesday.

At 6 p.m. there is a family cookout at the Spring Creek tent camping area by the Marina Boat Ramp. Starting at 7 p.m., enjoy kayaking, fishing, archery, scavenger hunts, hiking and biking then smores at the campfire until 10 p.m.

A valid Nebraska Park Entry Permit is required.

For more information, call 308-345-5899.

Additional Family Fun nights will be on July 5, 19, and Aug. 2 at Red Willow SRA.

Red Willow SRA is 11 miles north of McCook on U.S. Highway 83.

Family fishing night will be at Birdwood Lake

A Family Fishing Night will be from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday at the Birdwood Lake Wildlife Management Area in North Platte.

Anyone, regardless of age or skill, and who wants to learn how to fish or get started again, is invited to attend this free event.

Staff from Nebraska Game and Parks will be on hand to assist anglers. Loaner equipment and bait will be available. Fishing permits are required for those 16 and older who want to fish.

Birdwood Lake WMA is west of North Platte. From the Walker Road and Buffalo Bill Avenue interchange, go west to Homestead Road, then turn north.

UP employees club to meet Thursday night

Union Pacific Employees Club No. 8 will have their monthly meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Eagles Club.

Pulled pork will be served, so bring a covered dish to share and table service.

Social time begins at 5:30 p.m. followed by supper and the meeting.

There is a $3 charge at the door.

For more information, call Lynn Steinbeck at 308-530-7653.

Mid-Plains United Way to meet Thursday at Wells Fargo bank

The Mid-Plains United Way Annual Meeting will be at noon Thursday in the second floor boardroom at Wells Fargo Bank, 315 N. Dewey St.

For more information, call 308-532-8870.

Meet a sun scientist during online presentation Wednesday

COZAD  Prepare for the Aug. 21 Solar Eclipse by attending an online presentation at the Wilson Public Library 910 Meridian Ave.,

NASA astronomer Lou Mayo will conduct the online presentation from 4:45-6:15 p.m. on Wednesday at the library,

Hear where and why eclipses happen, eclipse science and how NASA will view the eclipse from the ground, balloons, aircraft, and spacecraft.

A family-friendly activity will enable participants to find out whether the surface of the sun or the Earths core is hotter.

During the event, participants can tweet questions for Mayo to @gsfceducation.

Attendees should wear sunscreen since theyll be going outside before and after the online presentation.

For more information, go to the website at wilsonpubliclibrary.org or call the library 308-784-2019.

Rep. Smith calls for Angels in Adoption award nominations

WASHINGTON, D.C.  Congressman Adrian Smith, R-NE, recently opened nominations for the 2017 Angels in Adoption Award for the Third District of Nebraska.

Angels in Adoption, a project of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, provides members of Congress the opportunity to honor an individual or entity from their districts for extraordinary contributions on behalf of children in need of homes.

Smith said many individuals, families and organizations in the Third District deserve recognition for all that they do to ensure children have safe, loving homes.

I look forward to receiving nominations for the 2017 Angels in Adoption Award to honor those who positively impact young lives through adoption and foster care, he said.

To make a nomination, visit AdrianSmith.house.gov/AngelsinAdoption. Nominations must be received by June 30.

For more information on Angels in Adoption, contact Smiths office in Grand Island at 308-384-3900.
With an estimated 200 floats and a start time an hour earlier than most years, Nebraskaland Days on Parade made its appearance Saturday as the Official Sesquicentennial Grand Parade.

The parade began down Fourth Street at noon, turning onto Dewey Street, and brought people like Gov. Pete Ricketts to North Platte for the states 150th birthday celebration.

Can't see the gallery? Click here.

Parade entries increased from a usual average of 140 but included Nebraskaland Days parade staples like local businesses, law enforcement, school teams, rodeo queens, the new Miss Nebraska and numerous organizations. Horses, decorated parade floats, trucks and wagons were just some means of transportation.

The parade brought longtime fans as well as newcomers to Nebraskaland Days, the official state celebration.

Deb Zeigler Walsh, whose fathers family is from North Platte, visited town this week with her husband. While Walshs father grew up here, he moved away in the 1950s to join the U.S. Air Force, and Walsh had only visited once, at age 14.

I wanted to see the town where Dad grew up, said Walsh, who visited at the suggestion of a cousin who wanted to have a family reunion.

Another cousin set up a viewing area to watch the parade. Walsh enjoyed the horses and historical floats the most, she said. She also collected souvenirs, watched children rush for candy and met one Nebraska politician.

Among the Nebraskaland Days events Walsh has attended was the Mayors Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, where she said she was very impressed by Lt. Gov. Mike Foleys speech, and her husband had his picture taken with rodeo queens. They toured other area sites, including the city cemetery and Fort McPherson National Cemetery, and planned to attend Saturday nights rodeo.

While it wont be Walshs first rodeo, ones she has seen on the East Coast lack the authenticity of the ones out here, she said.

Walsh hopes to return in the next couple of years, but said she had no idea she was visiting for the states 150th birthday.

It just happened, she said.
Miss Rodeo America Lisa Lageschaar was in town Friday, just in time to help sell cakes at the Lunch with the Wild Bunch cake auction, held at Wild Bills Wings and Bowling.

Lageschaar, with the help of Miss Rodeo Nebraska 2017 Laramie Schlichtemeier, Miss Teen Rodeo Nebraska 2016 Taylor Fugate and Miss Nebraska Allison Tietjen, displayed the cakes that were decorated by various businesses at Thursdays decorating contest.

Lageschaar arrived in North Platte about noon Friday, just in time for the event. The former Miss Texas, from Pickton, Texas, was unable to attend the Miss Rodeo Nebraska pageant earlier in the week, having been at the Miss Rodeo Texas pageant, she said.

Still, Lageschaar received a convertible ride and motorcycle escort to lunch from the airport.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, she said. I dont think Ill ever get that welcome again.

Having heard numerous good things about North Platte from rodeo cowboys, other pageant queens and friends who visited, Lageschaar looks forward to her first stay in North Platte and just being with my sash sisters, she said. She added that Schlichtemeier has become a friend in the months since the women were crowned, and she and Fugate were friends on Facebook before meeting in person Friday.

Winners of the cake bake are:

Male greenhorns, first place: NebraskaLand National Bank

Male greenhorns, second place: Visiting members of the U.S. Navy on the USS Nebraska

Male greenhorns, third place: Nebraskaland Days Rookies

Female greenhorns, first, second and third places: Pathology Services PC

Male old timers, first place: Sowers Club

Male old timers, second place: Nebraskaland Days

Mixed genders, old timers, first place: U.S. Cellular

Mixed genders, old timers, second place: Great Western Bank

Mixed genders, old timers, third place: Western Nebraska Bank

Mixed genders, greenhorns, first place: McChesney Martin Sagehorn, P.C.

Mixed genders, greenhorns, second place: KNOP-TV

Mixed genders, greenhorns, third place: American Mortgage Co.
NEW YORK  At a Target in upper Manhattan, shoppers can pick from 19 types of ketchup, including well-known names like Heinz and Hunt's. At the Aldi next door, the three options range from 99 cents to $1.79. All are the chain's own brands, which doesn't seem to bother shoppers attracted by the low prices.

"If you look at the ingredients, it's the same thing. A lot of people don't realize that," said Anabel Rosado, a bank supervisor who was browsing the snack aisle.

Aldi and its European rival Lidl, which opened its first U.S. store last week, are hoping to change the way people shop with their smaller, no-frills stores filled mostly with house brands that tend to cost less.

Whole Foods, which has fought the "Whole Paycheck" reputation, is also moving into the discount sector with an offshoot chain named after its 365 brand. And Amazon has a deal to acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, offering the opportunity to experiment in ways that could revolutionize the way people buy groceries.

The Friday announcement prompted investors to dump the stocks of major retailers, drugstores and even discount chains.

Those chains' strategies, meanwhile, could further pressure grocery giants like Walmart and Kroger, which are already contending with the growth potential of online grocers and have been reining in operational costs so they can keep their prices competitive. Target is also trying to become better known for low prices as it works to boost its struggling grocery business.

"We are certainly aware, paying a lot of attention, have a lot of respect, but we like our strategy," Steve Schmitt, Walmart's vice president of investor relations, said in May about the growth of the European chains.

Aldi, which has 1,650 U.S. locations, has been remodeling stores to have a brighter feel and plans to expand to 2,500 stores in the next five years. The expansion plans were announced as another German discount grocer, Lidl, prepares to open its first 10 U.S. stores on Thursday with plans to have 100 within a year. Already, the discounters have successfully taken market share in the U.K. grocery industry, according to Euromonitor International. There are four 365 by Whole Foods locations and 20 more in development.

Familiar package, unfamiliar name

Walk into an Aldi store, and the products often come in packaging reminiscent of more popular brands. The chain's Millville Raisin Bran is in a purple box similar to the versions made by Kellogg's and Post. Its Benton's cookies are in blue packages that resemble those of Chips Ahoy.

Stocking shelves with store brands is a big part of how discounters keep costs down. Lidl also says it will have a mix of private-label brand names, which will account for 90 percent of the products in its stores. Whole Foods offers its 365 label across a variety of categories, more akin to the approach at Trader Joe's, which has also been steadily expanding its store count in the United States.

The growing popularity of store brands across the grocery industry is expected to help discounters. The trend is partly because supermarkets have stepped up their own private-label offerings in recent years to control costs. Late last year, Kroger said its store brands reached 29 percent of items sold. Diana Sheehan, director of retail insights at consulting firm Kantar Retail, said more people turned to store brands during the recession.

"They have gotten comfortable and started to embrace higher-quality private-label products," she said.

Another difference at Aldi and Lidl: Presentation.

The stores tend to have fewer aisles than usual U.S. supermarkets, and products are often stocked on the shelves in the boxes they arrived in. It's part of how they keep prices down. At Aldi, shoppers are also expected to bring their own bags unless they want to pay 10 cents for a plastic bag or 7 cents for a paper one. Lidl also said it will charge for bags, but hasn't said how much.

Choices, choices

Aldi, Lidl and 365 by Whole Foods challenge the idea that shoppers want the array of choices found at traditional supermarkets.

While a standard Whole Foods may have around 30,000 products, a 365 store has about 8,000, which helps keep down overall operational costs. How wide the selection is can vary by item. Since people tend to be more particular about yogurt, the company says 365 may offer just as many choices as the average Whole Foods store.

Jeff Turnas, head of 365 by Whole Foods, said the stores can cater to people who want to do their shopping more quickly.

"We have tried to make the decision-making faster, easier," Turnas says.

Aldi U.S. CEO Jason Hart also says his chain is deliberate about where it wants to offer more variety. He said people can find whatever products they might get at rival grocers, but there might just be fewer options within each category. He said people prefer that because too many choices "just add confusion."

"Our format of retailing and our format of shopping is becoming more accepted in the mainstream," Hart said.

For now, Kantar Retail estimates that the discounter category, which includes Aldi, Trader Joe's and dollar stores, has 6 percent of U.S. grocery sales. By 2021, it expects that figure to inch up to 8 percent.

Walmart says the scope of its offerings  including its pharmacy and options like in-store pickup for online orders  sets it apart from the competition. The retailer notes it has been working on keeping prices down and that its customer traffic is up.

Kurt Jetta, CEO of consulting firm Tabs Analytics, also said big-box retailers have the advantage of being able to draw a wider swath of shoppers by offering greater variety. Still, he said Aldi and Lidl might have more appeal than dollar stores with middle-income customers, in line with places like Trader Joe's.

"They don't have the stigma attached to them," Jetta said.
Kolkata, June 18 (IBNS): Bandhan-Konnagar, a not-for-profit organization which has been working in the fields of education, health and women empowerment, on Sunday celebrated aDevelopment Daya on completion of 17 years of its existence.

"Since 2001, the organization has transformed the lives of 1.7 million families spreading across 11 states of India -- West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Assam, Tripura, Jharkhand, Chhattishgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan," a statement from the organization claimed.

"So far, its various development programmes have benefited at least 8.5 million people. The organization has 735 branches spread across 10,356 villages; its 2,100 employees are actively involved in welfare of the poor as well as in the fields of education, health and women empowerment," it further said.

The Development Day event witnessed the presence of Bruce Bucknell, British Deputy High Commissioner, Kolkata and Jawhar Sircar, IAS & Ex CEO of Prasar Bharati.

In the key note address at the event, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, Founder & Mentor, Bandhan-Konnagar, said: I am proud to share with you that in past 17 years we have touched lives of around 17 lakh families, in 11 Indian states. The journey of 17 years is dotted with many milestones and a few setbacks. Setbacks motivated us, and success gave us inspiration. Serving the underprivileged is an integral part of our plans to achieve inclusive growth.

Bandhan-Konnagar is registered under the West Bengal Societies Act, 1961. The main objective of the organization is to empower poor people and alleviate poverty. To achieve that, it offers a suite of development programmess in the fields of education, health, livelihood promotion, skills development and financial literacy. The organization constantly strives to widen its scope of services and minimize areas of income leakage in poor families.
At the Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO) and NiSource, employees at all levels walk the walk when it comes to diversity and inclusion.

The Inclusion and Diversity Council at NIPSCO is made up of employees who volunteer to promote the organizational values that help every employee find their comfort level and feel accepted.

Michael Suggs is the Director of Operations Integration and Strategy at NIPSCO, and Denise Conlon is the Manager of Billing. As members of the council, both help employees understand how to embrace diversity in the workplace.

We emphasize to employees and leaders that we value their opinions, and we want them to share their thoughts and feelings with us, Suggs explained. That extends to relationships on the front line, in the lunchroom, and in the office. We want every employee to understand they are valued.

By the end of these discussions, we want to lower the defenses and eliminate the reluctance to share, Conlon added. We want everyone to feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, feelings, fears, and experiences. We want to increase everyones comfort level.

Christopher D. Smith is the Vice President of Human Resources. He stresses that creating an environment of mutual respect results in positive outcomes for both employees and customers.

Our employees need to feel comfortable on the job in order to concentrate on the task at hand, he explained. Safety is paramount. If our workers are distracted for any reason, the result could be serious. So we strive for a high level of comfort for many reasons.

In addition to the Inclusion and Diversity Council, there are six Employee Resource Groups, or ERGs, founded by NIPSCO and NiSource employees. Each group has a mission to live and promote the values of inclusion and diversity with those they come into contact with. The groups are focused on Latinos, women, veterans, African Americans, Asians, and new employees.

The ERGs are not only made up of employees who fit that profile, Smith said. They also have members who want to learn more about that race, culture, or religion. Many group members say they never realized how it felt to be on the other side of the table.

Suggs believes the effort of NIPSCO management has trickled down to employees.

When our front line workers see how we volunteer time and effort to help achieve an inclusive workplace, it makes them want to be involved, he said.

Conlon added that the sharing of personal stories brings employees together.

Some of the stories that are shared are very heartfelt, she said. They provide a different perspective, and that helps people see things from a different angle.
The Clarendale of Schererville senior living community has opened in the Tri-Town area, and it's not your great-grandfather's retirement community  it's filled with modern amenities like a pub, a gym and a movie theater.

Developer Ryan Companies invested $40 million into the 177-room community at 7770 Burr St. About 500 construction workers built the three-story building on a 9-acre site at U.S. 30 and Burr Street in Schererville.

The continuum of care offered at Clarendale works hand-in-hand with engaging activities and high-quality amenities and finishes, said Dave Erickson, Ryan Companies director of Real Estate Development.

Clarendale of Schererville has 85 independent living residences, 38 assisted living residences and 54 memory care residences, ranging from 300 square feet to 1,300 square feet. It reflects a trend in the industry to place independent living, assisted living and memory care under one roof.

The facility features amenities such as granite kitchen countertops in some rooms, living rooms with fireplaces, a bistro, a pub, pool tables, a library, a full-service salon, a gym, a crafts room, a courtyard and a movie theater that will host regular movie nights.

The company has built similar facilities in Mokena and Algonquin in Illinois, and another is under construction in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee.

For more information, visit www.ClarendaleofSchererville.com.
As a travel and food writer for 17 years, Ive spent many a day planning my itinerary around food. Road trips always include side trips to cafes, breweries, markets or gourmet shops, day trips are sometimes focused on proximity of attractions to favorite dinner spots and often a food fest or food-related attraction is the main destination and the rest of the day is planned around it.

Summer is the perfect time to plan a foodie field trip where you can stroll from one destination to another  and walk off a few calories in between the tasting.

Chicago is full of ethnic enclaves and melting-pot neighborhoods where youll find a plethora of delicious establishments to plan a day centered on food. One of those melting pot areas would be Lincoln Park, where little shops and eateries represent a variety of ethnic cuisine amongst trendy bars and upscale chains. On visits to Wrigley Field, Ive often paired a Cubs game with a trip down Clark Street for a bite to eat and a treat to bring home.

Were just a neighborhood filled with lots of cafes, shops, restaurants and pubs and all different kinds of international cuisines  from Italian to Asian to American fusion, said Bryan Biello, marketing and outreach manager with the Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce. There are so many different things youll find here and there are great places to shop while hopping around from restaurants.

Biello also noted that the Green City Market, an outdoor farmers market located at the intersection of Clark and Lincoln across from the Hotel Lincoln, is a big draw throughout the spring, summer and fall with fresh produce available from dozens of local and Midwest farmers on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Theres also an indoor market during the winter at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

And, of course, a day of eating in Lincoln Park matches up well with some time at Lincoln Park Zoo and Lincoln Park Conservatory, both free attractions.

EATING ITINERARY

Start off your day on Diversey Parkway at Yolk, a popular breakfast/brunch destination that originated in Chicagos South Loop in 2006 and has grown to include several more Chicago locations and expanded to the Dallas, Fort Worth and Indianapolis areas. Choose from an extensive menu that includes skillets, omelets, eggs benedicts and French toast. Some of the popular dishes with customers are Chilaquiles Verde, the Croque Madame and West Coast Crepes (a savory veggie-filled version.)

What foodie can resist a stop at Trader Joes? Walk down the street and pop in for a few unique food items, like their Speculoos Cookie Butter, or fresh produce or breads.

Make your next stop KC Chocolatier, where youll be drawn in by the scent of confectionaries at Chicagos premier Belgian chocolate shop. Try out a chocolate bar or get a gift box for a special someone. Then stop at its neighbor, TeaGschwendner, to browse through a large selection of quality loose-leaf teas and accessories and let a knowledgeable employee help you select a good blend of flavors to customize to your tastes.

Next enjoy a plate lunch at Aloha Eats Hawaiian Grill, where you can try barbecue, burgers, curries, musubi and more. A plate lunch starts with a couple scoops of rice and macaroni salad with your choice of meat  and SPAM is among them. The Sriracha Hot Sauce Lollipops are wildly popular.

For an afternoon treat, slip over to Cafe Vienna for some traditional Austrian apple strudel, black forest cake or a variety of other indulgent German pastries and desserts  a hazelnut torre, opera cake or napoleon are a few. Theres also an extensive menu of breakfast and lunch entrees of schnitzels, croissant sandwiches, Belgian waffles and more. Be sure to buy a loaf of freshly baked rye, wheat or Bavarian pretzel bread to take home.

As it nears dinner time, drop in to Toro Sushi. Whether youre in the mood for a simple bowl of miso soup, some maki or some tempura veggies, youll find all of it perfectly prepared along many more options on the menu. The staff is uber friendly and attentive and a visit makes for a fun experience. Dont let it keep you away if sushi isnt your thing. Theres so much more than sushi on the menu.

If youre too stuffed for a dessert, be sure to stop into Mollys Cupcakes anyway. The treat will transport home well for a midnight snack or next-day indulgence. These cupcakes are legendary not just in Chicago, but in New York and Iowa City. Theyve been rated as having one of 10 top cupcakes in the country.

Looking to relax and end your foodie adventure with a leisurely drink (and maybe even some small bar bites) on a patio? Biello suggest stopping at Gaslight Bar & Grille. They have a really nice covered patio for outdoor seating as well as a nice space inside, he said. The food is really good and a lot of folks go there for the late-night drinking crowd.

D.O.C. Wine Bar is another Clark Street spot to visit to finish off the evening with a glass, bottle or flight from wineries around the globe. Its been renovated inside and is great for summer with outdoor seating, but also great in winter with a nice fireplace inside.

If you are more interested in finishing off the night with a brew, stop in to HopCat, the regional chain that originated in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that offers 130 beers on tap and another 200 from around the world in bottles.

Or if you want to hone in on craft brews, head back to Diversey Parkway and hit Compass Bar, known for their list of 200 craft beers and their wood-fired pizzas.
Successful TV actor Andrew Rally struggles with taking on the dream role of Hamlet, while dealing with a girlfriend who is keeping a firm grip on her chastity. To complicate matters, Andrew also plays host to the ghost of the late legendary actor John Barrymore, whos determined to persuade the young star to accept the part, even if he has to do it at sword-point. But when a Hollywood friend shows up offering Andrew a new role in a high-paying television pilot, the young star is conflicted. Will Andrew go for the big pay day or risk the same fate that haunts Barrymore beyond his grave? June 22 through July 2 at Dunes Summer Theatre. 219/879-7509 or www.dunesartsfoundation.org

Visions of Wayne

The Purdue University Northwest CHESS Gallery in Hammond presents Visions of Wayne, featuring original black and white silver print photography by Wayne Thomas Abell through June 31. This month marks the 20-year anniversary of Abells being censored out of a student show at St. Petersburg College. The artists first exhibit in 20 years and his first solo show in the Chicagoland area, Visions of Wayne represents a personal connection with film in the rock and roll era and the use of black and white paint splattered on canvas. The photography featured comes from the depths of Abells collection of individuals who embrace freedom of thought and style. See it at 6725 Kennedy Ave. in the Hessville neighborhood of Hammond. 219/898-2393 or www.facebook.com/chessgalleryPNW

Taking the Long View

South Shore Arts is pleased to present The Longview: Landscape Paintings by Terry Lacy & Dan Annarino through Aug. 27. The focus of the exhibit is the artists unique interpretations of rural Indiana, as depicted through Lacys handmade paper pulp paintings and Annarinos oil paintings. Their work is based on a deep, personal passion for the natural world of rural Indiana in conjunction with their professional backgrounds in graphic design. The representation of natural landscapes through linear, grid-like elements such as crops, roads, electrical poles and buildings creates an intricate and complex mix. The juxtaposition of these natural and man-made elements follows a pattern that inspires the artists, leading to their creative output. 219/836-1839 or www.SouthShoreArtsOnline.org

HOME

This national juried exhibit at the Lubeznik Center for the Arts explores the concept of home in all media. The exhibit includes 16 artists whose work investigates a variety of interpretations, including shelter, family, immigration, homelessness, nostalgia, architecture, domesticity, and the home planet that we all share. HOME is on display through October 14, with an opening reception on Friday, July 7 from 5-8pm, concurrent with Michigan Citys First Friday Arts Walk. 219/874-4900 or www.lubeznikcenter.org
This is a new column by Times health reporter Giles Bruce about raising two young daughters in the modern age.

Hate starts at home. So does love. I choose to teach the latter.

My 3-year-old is one of the most friendly people I know.

She greets every neighbor, every passing stranger. She slows down our busy, impersonal world, forcing people to stop in their tracks, to get out of their heads for a second and say, "Hi." She has inspired her younger sister to be just as gregarious.

Kids her age are innocence personified, blank human slates. It's up to the adults in their lives to shape them.

My daughter is so outgoing it makes me cringe at times, not knowing how people will react. We've become so used to ignoring one another, particularly in the greater Chicago area (I've lived in more neighborly parts of the country), that a random smile can catch you off guard.

I'm mostly nervous they'll give her the cold shoulder. The other day, we were in parking lot when she waved at a teenage boy in a passing car. He stared back at her blankly. I wanted to wring his neck.

We've become so closed off I worry about encroaching on people's space. But maybe I'm just projecting my own standoffishness.

She and I were at a zoo in the Chicago suburbs a few weeks back. Halfway through our visit, she was petting some baby goats when a family approached: two girls  1 and 2  and their mom and dad. My 3-year-old told them all about the animals and their new brood.

When the family went to see a nearby pony, she followed them. When they left the barn, she was right behind them. To her, she was part of the family. The human family.

The whole time I'm anxious at the prospect of them snubbing her. I can handle rejection. I can't handle my kid being rejected.

Slowly, I see the man and woman warm up to their adopted-daughter-for-the-day. They answer her questions. They introduce her to their little ones. They make no effort to lose her.

An hour or two later, the mom was holding my child's hand and posing for pictures with her.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out our differences, because that's an important part of the story.

The family was of south Asian descent. My daughter and I are white. The mom wore a blue-and-gold kurta, a type of Indian dress, with a flowing turquoise shawl.

My 3-year-old didn't seem to notice. If she did, it wouldn't have mattered to her one bit.

I'm not sure I would have paid their ethnicity any mind, either, if not for our current political climate.

Advocacy groups have reported a recent rise in hate group activity, at least in part inspired by the election of a president who has made disparaging statements about Mexican immigrants and called for a ban on Muslims into the United States.

A day before our visit to the zoo, a man on a bus in Portland allegedly hurled anti-Muslim insults at two young women before fatally stabbing two passengers who tried to intervene.

That incident kept popping into my head as this family of strangers and mine walked past cages holding birds of prey and our kids took turns petting a turtle. The divisions in our country went unsaid. But they undoubtedly hung in the air, like humidity without a breeze to whisk it away.

Looking at my daughter, oblivious to race as anything other than a difference in skin tone, I realized that bigotry is a learned trait. Usually taught by parents.

Sure, she notices physical characteristics. She has said things like, "That person is brown," or, "That guy is fat." But she doesn't pass judgments. She observes.

Now, I don't plan to teach my kids to love everyone. I'm not the Dalai Lama. I believe hate is justified in certain cases.

But I'll encourage them to judge people based on their actions, not arbitrary characteristics like skin color or ethnicity.

In other words, I hope my kids stay exactly the way they are.
Several Calumet City Elementary School District 155 employees have gained recognition from the Northeastern District of the Illinois Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.

D.155 Assistant Superintendent Joseph Zotto made that announcement at Thursday's School Board meeting and said D.155 Superintendent Troy Paraday, Wilson Elementary School Principal Deborah Smith, Wentworth Junior High School Principal Ermetra Olawumi and Wentworth Junior High Assistant Principal James Safarik are being named as 2016-2017 administrators of the year "for their continued support of the Physical Education and Health Department district wide."

"Mr. (Mark) Foellmer, our junior high P.E. teacher, is also being honored by the Illinois Association of Health and Physical Education, Recreation and Dance as the Physical Education Teacher of the Year," Zotto said.

Paraday said Foellmer "has been doing a wonderful job as it relates to the curriculum and integrating technology into the curriculum in the P.E. levels."

"And we've been very supportive of him doing those things," Paraday said.

Paraday also thanked administrators present at Thursday's meeting for their work done this year, particularly in regards to revamping curriculum.

"They have put a lot of time in with individuals from the state," Paraday said. "In some areas, we're basically tearing the entire curriculum down and starting from scratch."

Zotto said the district is taking a closer look at all of its curriculum, primarily focusing on reading and math.

"And we're taking a more data-driven approach to developing our curriculum," Zotto said.

Thursday marked the first meeting since the new board was seated last month following the April election, and members have now been assigned to chair the following committees: Janet Oberman, finance; Guy Eveland, buildings and grounds; Barbara Crull, teachers and education; Tonya Davis, policies; and Nick Valle, South Cooperative Organization for Public Education.

Board President Stanley Long was named as the board's representative to the Illinois Association of School Boards.

The board also approved a contract with the Kickert School Bus Co. for 2017-2018.

Paraday said services will remain the same but the contract calls for a 3-percent increase.

District 155 consists of Woodrow Wilson Elementary, Wentworth Intermediate and Wentworth Junior High Schools.
HAMMOND  Police are warning of a possible scam in which a young man may have attempted to gain access into someone's home.

An elderly woman in the 1200 block of 177th Street told police a white man, approximately age 19, and dressed "like a clean cut kid with nice pants and dress shirt," knocked on her side door, according to Hammond police.

The man told her he was "giving away paper towels as a free gift to anyone that would come look at his new (Mustang) Cobra," according to police.

The man was reportedly a passenger in a newer model, red 4-door car, though likely not a Mustang Cobra, police said. She later told police she believed he was attempting to get her to open the door.

The homeowner told police she could not see the driver but could tell someone was in the driver's seat. She told the man she wasn't interested and he left, police said.

A minute later, the boy returned and tried to offer the woman the paper towels for free as a gift, police said. The woman told police the man appeared nervous before he left.

She spoke to other neighbors and nobody had contact with anyone fitting this description, police said.

Hammond police are asking residents to be vigilant and always be aware of your surroundings.

"Call 911 if suspicious subjects make unsolicited contact with you at your residence or in any public place, make strange or unusual requests, offers or even demands," police said.

The incident described here seems to be yet another effort to get people to let a suspect into a residence or force the would-be victim to voluntarily move to a different area where they can be victimized or cannot prevent entry to the residence, police said.
HAMMOND  Three armed robbery suspects from Chicago are in custody in connection with two Northwest Indiana robberies, police announced Saturday.

Donnelle Douglas, 25, and Dareece Dunne, 30, each face two counts of armed robbery for their involvement in recent robberies at a White Castle restaurant in Hammond and 7-11 store in Griffith, according to Hammond police Lt. Steven Kellogg. A woman, Kizzy Jones, 37, was charged with two counts of assisting a criminal in conjunction with both robberies.

At about 5:50 a.m. Saturday, a man entered a White Castle in the 4600 block of Calumet Avenue "pretending to be a customer," Kellogg said. The cashier told police the man pulled out a gun and demanded money before fleeing with the cash, police said.

The cashier described the man as black with dreaded hair pulled back, about 5 feet, 5 inches tall, with a black shirt and black pants. The man also had a tattoo on his right cheek, police said.

Upon searching the area, police officers located a subject in possession of a firearm matching the description on Hudson Street, according to Kellogg. Also during a search of the area, officers located another man crossing Calumet Avenue, so police stopped to identify him as possibly involved, Kellogg said.

Officers then located a woman in the area who was inquiring about the men, Kellogg said.

"The investigation led to officers locating Newport cigarettes and a cash register drawer in the females vehicle. Hammond police then learned of an earlier robbery that occurred at a 7-11 store in the 800 block of Broad Street in Griffith," Kellogg said.

Working with Griffith Police Department detectives, Hammond officers said they determined the Newport cigarettes and cash register drawer were from that robbery earlier in the evening. All three suspects were arrested at the scene, police said.
HAMMOND  Police are investigating after a man says he was robbed at gunpoint about 12:25 a.m. Saturday in the 2100 block of Woodhollow Lane near Tanglewood Apartments.

A 64-year-old man told police a man approached him, pulled out a black semi-automatic handgun, and said "Old man, I dont want to hurt you. I just want your money," according to Hammond police Lt. Steven Kellogg.

The victim told police he gave the suspect $75 and that the suspect took his wallet, police said. The suspect then fled the area in a gray vehicle, possibly a Chrysler with Indiana license plates, the victim told police.

The man was described as black, with a slim build, wearing a gray or brown hoodie and camouflage shorts. He was described as approximately 5 feet, 10 inches tall to 6 feet tall and about 175 pounds, police said.

Anyone with information about this robbery can contact the Hammond Police Detective Bureau at 219-852-2906
Darjeeling, June 18 (IBNS): Amid escalating tension in the hills of West Bengal, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM)'s protests over the demand for a separate state in Darjeeling are set to intensify with party chief Bimal Gurung asking his supporters to defy curfew and assemble at Chowk Bazaar on Sunday, media reports said.

On Saturday, GJM leaders claimed that three of their supporters were killed as police opened fire on them.

The strike by GJM entered its seventh day in Darjeeling on Sunday.

Indefinite strike has hit normal life in Darjeeling for the past six days.

GJM supporters on Saturday morning held four rallies in Darjeeling hills.

Strike supporters engaged in a clash with police force at Singmari and Lebong areas.

GJM activists torched several police vehicles.

Several policeman and strikers were injured in the clash.

ADG (law & order) of WBP, Anuj Sharma, told IBNS: "One Morcha supporters was killed during the clash. But police did not open fire on protesters today. We are investigating how the agitator was killed."

"GJM attacked police today at several areas. They threw bricks, stones, glass bottles, crude bombs and petrol bombs aiming at police force. We also have reports that they fired bullets aiming at security personnel," Sharma said.

A senior police official told IBNS, "One assistant commandant of Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB), Kiran Tamang, was stabbed with a sharp weapon during GJM's attack at Singmari police outpost and he is being currently under treatment in a Siliguri hospital.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said police did not fire a single round.

CM Mamata Banerjee had said, "This is a terrorist movement. We have information that Darjeeling attackers have connections with NE terror groups. Few other countries are also influencing and indulging the insurgency. Police did not fired a single round bullet today."


CROWN POINT  Some politicians usually have little more to offer their petitioners than a hearty handshake.

The Lake County sheriff can rain stars down on his.

Sheriff John Buncich has conferred special deputy commissions on 230 men and women, including politically connected business people, current or former government officials and precinct committee members, according to a list of names Buncich has provided The Times.

Police in Lake County have said privately and not for the record that the existence of special deputies has been an annoyance to uniformed police officers in Northwest Indiana who are required to undergo hours of training in the use of guns, emergency and other law enforcement skills  disciplines not required of special deputies.

Buncich acknowledged to The Times now and in the past that former sheriffs in the 1980s traded deputy sheriff commissions for political contributions, and some holders abused the commissions by harassing members of the public or getting out of traffic tickets.

Buncich said he hated the process as a county police officer and sued to stop the abuses. He said as sheriff all his deputies have passed background checks and he won't give special consideration to precinct committee members or political contributors.

"That has absolutely not occurred," said John Bushemi, legal counsel for the sheriff, and himself a special deputy.

Bushemi said some believe the cards, which bear a gold star and Buncich's signature, carry some authority, but "legally it's just a piece of paper. None convey police powers, and none allow the holder to carry a gun without a permit," Bushemi said.

Buncich said the only deputy sheriff commissions he issues with police powers are to municipal police officers, county jail corrections officers, school and court security officers, bailiffs and some state and federal law enforcement personnel.

He didn't estimate how many of the law enforcement deputy sheriff commissions are in circulation. The Times found there were 1,100 issued to law enforcement in 2001. Buncich said he hasn't issued that many.

Bushemi said state law authorizes all county sheriffs to appoint special deputies. "They are issued in all 92 counties," Bushemi said.

Porter, LaPorte counties

Porter County Sheriff David Reynolds said he has deputized county animal control staff so they can gain access to sensitive police records and some dentists who work crime scenes for his department. But he signs few special deputy commissions, knowing they are an annoyance to trained and uniformed police officers in Northwest Indiana, he said.

"I know I have the power to give them out," Reynolds said. "Last week, I did one for (Chesterton) Town Manager Bernie Doyle. He is a veteran. Mainly, it's so he can put it on his desk, but everyone else knows how I feel, and they don't even ask."

LaPorte County Sheriff John T. Boyd said he will deputize state prison employees to serve court papers, for his office, on state prison inmates, but said, "We no longer give out courtesy commissions."

Robert Deliget said he was a Lake County Sheriff's Department civilian employee and deputy sheriff in the 1970s when he served court papers under the late Sheriff Leslie Pruitt.

Today, at age 75, Deliget is still a deputy sheriff and works for Buncich as an overseer of the county jail "road crew" inmates who perform community services.

Past Lake practices

A high tide of deputizing all comers in Lake County occurred under former Sheriff Rudy Bartolomei during the mid-1980s before he was forced out of office by a U.S. attorney's office public corruption prosecution.

One of Bartolomei's special deputies, Mike Mokol Jr., got into a dispute with a pizza delivery man, flashed his deputy credentials and beat him. The victim sued, and it cost the county thousands of dollars.

Stephen R. "Bob" Stiglich, who succeeded Bartolomei as county sheriff, told The Times in 2001 that "there had been a lot of incidents like that around the county."

He said he made all of Bartolomei's special deputies turn in their credentials and overhauled the applications process to eliminate the "carte blanche" issuance of commissions.

Buncich, who served as sheriff from 1994 to 2002 and returned to office in 2010, said he now requires deputy sheriff applicants to sign an agreement that financially indemnifies Lake County for damages resulting from their negligent exercise of special deputy powers. He can revoke deputy sheriff commissions in cases of misbehavior.

Lake County Attorney John Dull said the county hasn't had to defend any lawsuits caused by deputy sheriffs since the 1980s, so the indemnity agreement is yet to be tested.

Robert Bullock, Gary's 1-6 Democratic precinct committeeman and a Buncich contributor in 2008, said he needed a special deputy commission for protection. "I had a couple of day care centers in a bad neighborhood, but when I got sick, I closed them." He said he has since misplaced his commission card.

Current Lake practices

Hobart City Councilman John Brezik, D-5th; Hammond City Councilman Anthony Higgs, D-3rd; and New Chicago Town Councilwoman Tara Pelfrey, D-4th; said their deputy sheriff commissions are related to their government work.

Pelfrey is the coordinator for the sheriff's sex offender registry. Brezik said he work's part time for the Sheriff's Department. Higgs works for the Lake County Board of Commissioners. He said he wants one in case any emergency arises in the county's Hammond courthouse, where he is an engineer.

Fred Cicco said he received a deputy sheriff commission while doing business with the sheriff's office, providing clothing worn by police and corrections officers beyond their basic uniform.

Gary attorney John Hall said he received one a couple of years ago for personal protection.

Hall said, "I know the sheriff very well from a couple of years ago when the Katie Hall Foundation gave him an award for being an outstanding person in appreciation for his service." The foundation contributed to the sheriff's re-election in 2014. Katie Hall is a former U.S. congresswoman and Gary clerk. John Hall was her husband.

Martine Vagenas said she's had one since she was a Superior Court administrator, a position she retired from seven years ago.

Speros Batistatos, president and CEO of the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority, said he's had one since 1989. "For me it's largely sentimental. My dad was a captain in the deputy sheriff's department, and my grandfather was a deputy sheriff as well."

Wally DeRose, a retired Gary police officer, a federal investigator and a deputy sheriff commission-holder, said, "It's true, some police officers were thinking it was a politician with a badge, which is BS to me.

"I think that changed. The Sheriff's Department decided there were liability issues. We can't have people running around flashing badges. Subsequent sheriffs, including John Buncich, stepped forward and said this makes us look bad, with guys running around drunk with a badge.

"I've had one for 30 years. If I see a police officer who needs assistance, I will show my retirement badge and deputy sheriff commission badge, too, to provide more emphasis to it.

"You work under the direction of the sheriff, but if you are already engaged in law enforcement, it provides a backup to the powers you already have," DeRose said.
It's one of the single-most exciting times in a young adult's life and a moment filling parents and loved ones with pride.

For the past few weeks, The Times has covered and photographed graduation ceremonies at high schools throughout our Region so all could share in the excitement.

As they do every year, the ceremonies provided a moment of prideful reflection for our entire Region.

From Crown Point to Valparaiso and Hammond to Hanover, the photographic galleries of Region graduates in caps and gowns symbolize so much hard work and sacrifice on myriad levels.

Quality Region teachers and educational programs provided the pathway for these graduates to follow.

A Region boasting multiple schools with impressively high test scores and graduation rates continue to make Northwest Indiana a desirable place in which to work and reside.

2016 high school graduation rates of 96 percent in Crown Point, nearly 95 percent in Valparaiso and an impressive 98 percent in Diocese of Gary Catholic schools are but a few of the incredible statistics helping to define quality Region education.

Last weekend, 2017 Lake Central High School graduate Megan Serratore provided a guest column for the Forum section cover that received hundreds of reads and shares online and through social media.

Serratore rightly implored fellow graduates to remember the quality teachers who made a difference in their lives  to consider writing letters of recommendation for those stellar teachers, much like teachers write college acceptance recommendations for their students.

We shouldn't forget the parents who contribute to the success of Region students, either. Often unheralded is the reality that students with caring and engaged parents tend to do much better in their studies.

Meanwhile, students with parents who aren't engaged tend to struggle.

Behind nearly ever graduation tassel for the class of 2017 are caring parents or other guardians.

As they head off to college, trade school or other life endeavors, we implore all Northwest Indiana graduates to remember the dedication shown them by teachers and parents. This is the model by which they should teach and nurture the next generations.

We also encourage them to remember the success they found in our Region and to consider returning here for homes, professional pursuits and creating families of their own.

Hats off to the class of 2017 and all responsible for its success. Your story is just beginning.
Crossing the line separating Indiana and Illinois sometimes means dealing with different laws and customs. Readers are asked to share ideas for this weekly feature. This week: Peak employment.

More Hoosiers were employed last month  3.2 million  than at any time in the 200-year history of the state, according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

May was the fourth month in a row that Indiana set a new record for employed Hoosiers. Though the state's 3.2 percent unemployment rate means 107,663 individuals still are looking for work.

Indiana initially broke through its prior employment peak in August 2015 when 2.6 million Hoosiers were employed. That was 2,000 more jobs than the record set in March 2000.

By contrast, Illinois remains 23,300 jobs below its peak employment reached in September 2000, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

IDES Director Jeff Mays blamed Illinois' hostile business climate for the state's inability, so far, to surpass its prior employment total.

"If Illinois had grown at the national average over that time, the state would have an additional 650,000 jobs," Mays said.
Darjeeling, June 18 (IBNS): Even as shutdown continued in the conflict-torn Darjeeling on Sunday, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) carried out a protest rally on Sunday with bodies of three of its supporters who were killed allegedly in police firing on Saturday, media reports said.

Party Chief Bimal Gurung had earlier asked his supporters to defy the curfew and assemble for Sundays protest.

Meanwhile, the strike by GJM entered its seventh day in Darjeeling on Sunday.

Normal life has been hit for the past six days and on Sunday too shops remained closed while vehicles were off the road.

A large contingent of the army, paramilitary and the police are deployed in the hill state which turned a violence zone since the last few days owing to GJM's protests over the demand for a separate state in Darjeeling.

GJM supporters on Saturday morning held four rallies in Darjeeling hills.

Strike supporters had engaged in a clash with police force at Singmari and Lebong areas.

GJM activists had even torched several police vehicles.

Several policeman and strikers were injured in the clash.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said police did not fire a single round.

Banerjee had stated that: "This is a terrorist movement. We have information that Darjeeling attackers have connections with NE terror groups. Few other countries are also influencing and indulging the insurgency. Police did not fired a single round bullet today."


WASHINGTON  Many across Nebraska and Iowa are watching anxiously to see what Congress does on health care.

Those facing rising premiums in the individual marketplace  or the prospect of no options at all  are demanding action. Those who rely on the Affordable Care Act for coverage are worried what those changes might look like.

Susan Williams of Omaha, for example, says shes scared of what may come. Two of her three children have developmental disabilities. One son in particular has required a variety of services that would be at risk if Medicaid is cut.

Its so important to my sons continued growth, to his health and to our whole family, she said.

The legislation approved by the House includes Medicaid caps and a rollback of the Affordable Care Acts Medicaid expansion.

That would mean hundreds of billions less spent on Medicaid than under current law, reductions that help offset tax cuts that would particularly benefit wealthier Americans.

The legislation would result in 23 million more uninsured Americans by 2026, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

That bill was approved with the support of all five Republican House members from Nebraska and western Iowa. Supporters say the legislation is necessary to restore what is in some states a collapsing individual market. They also say that providing additional flexibility to states should produce lower premiums for many.

Its unclear whether the Senate will go along with the bill, particularly its cuts to Medicaid.

Senate Republicans have a standard response when asked about the merits of the House legislation.

Were looking at our own bill, Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., said repeatedly when asked recently about it recently.

But whats actually in that Senate legislation is anybodys guess at this point  despite reports that GOP leaders would like to vote on it before the upcoming July Fourth recess.

Senate Republicans have struggled to find consensus, and they can afford to lose only two of their own and still pass the bill.

Various news reports indicate the Senate version would reduce Medicaid spending more slowly than the House bill. Others have suggested it will feature a different approach to the tax credits that help individuals purchase insurance.

But good luck finding any of that on paper  even if youre a member of the Senate.

I dont have language, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, told reporters last week, even though shes been discussing the issue as part of an informal working group.

Even the parameters of that working group are unclear. There have been reports that the working group was all-male. But Ernst took issue with the way the group has been portrayed publicly, saying that all Senate Republicans have been welcome to stop by the groups meetings and offer input.

She was among 13 Republican senators  a quarter of the total GOP conference  who headed to the White House on Tuesday to meet with President Donald Trump for a health care discussion.

That meeting featured a productive discussion, she said, in which she shared with the president Iowas challenges with insurers fleeing the market.

Fischer and Ernst, like many of their Republican colleagues, both noted the importance of protecting people with pre-existing conditions and improving the affordability of health insurance, but neither offered any specifics on just how they might accomplish that.

Its a work in progress, Fischer said when asked for details.

Republicans have long criticized the process Democrats used for the Affordable Care Act and mocked then-Speaker Nancy Pelosis comment that lawmakers had to pass that bill to know what was in it.

But the ACA was the subject of numerous hearings and many months of intense public scrutiny before President Barack Obama actually signed it into law in March 2010. Democrats are now howling that Republicans are poised to bring a bill directly to the Senate floor, bypassing the committee process and passing it before the public has enough time to examine it.

Fischer said she has suggested to Republican leaders that they hold a hearing this week, but she doesnt believe it will happen.

Pressed on whether the process represents the kind of transparency Republicans have promised, she noted that Democrats made last-minute changes to whats become known as Obamacare.

She also said the current situation is unsustainable, with one insurer after another pulling out of the individual marketplace.

I think the public wants to see something happen, Fischer said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was the top Republican on the Finance Committee in 2009 and acknowledged that the committee worked on ACA with bipartisan input that summer.

But he echoed Fischer when he noted that Democrats made some changes to the legislation right before it reached the Senate floor.

And he, too, cited the current situation as a reason for lawmakers to move as swiftly as possible, even if that means working behind closed doors.

Theres an urgency for Congress to act because the system is collapsing, he said.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., made repealing and replacing the ACA the cornerstone of his campaign for office, casting himself as an expert who could lead the health care debate and make the case for GOP proposals.

But Sasse has kept a low profile this year, opting not to introduce any comprehensive repeal-and-replace legislation of his own or deliver major floor speeches on the subject. He was not among the senators who visited the White House last week.

Sasse spokesman James Wegmann provided a statement that offered no critique of the ongoing closed-door process and said the senator is involved in multiple health care groups and conversations with the administration and within the Senate.

Sen. Sasse is still focusing on the need for health insurance portability across job and geographic change, Wegmann said.

The big looming question is whether lawmakers will be able to get any legislation over the finish line and to President Trumps desk.

Asked whether theyll be able to do so, Grassley nodded to Republicans long-standing promise to repeal and replace the ACA.

I think, from a political standpoint, that we better deliver on our promises of the last seven years, he said, or just admit we failed.
An organization that opposes the Republican effort to repeal and replace key parts of the Affordable Care Act is pressuring five GOP senators not to vote for the emerging legislation in a new $1.5 million ad campaign that begins Monday, officials with the group told the Washington Post.

Community Catalyst Action Fund, which bills itself as a consumer health organization, is targeting Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nev.) and Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) with television and radio ads urging them to vote no.

The ad campaign comes as other organizations are ramping up opposition to the Senate GOP effort. Last week, a coalition of medical and consumer groups held an event in Cleveland that was billed as the first of a series of gatherings to speak out against a bill that passed the GOP-controlled House and the direction that Republican senators appear to be heading. The coalition  which includes AARP, two hospital associations and four disease-fighting organizations  has said it will convene events in at least three other states in coming weeks, with the next one Wednesday in Reno, Nevada.

The Community Catalyst TV ad, which targets four of the five senators (not Flake), begins with a scene of a young boy wheezing in his bedroom and his mother rushing to get his asthma medication from a bathroom drawer.

"When this happens, she isn't thinking about the health-care bill in Congress," the narrator says. "She isn't thinking that it'll force her to choose between filling his prescriptions or paying their mortgage."

"But our senators should," the narrator later concludes. "So when they vote on the new health-care bill, tell them to think about what's right for our families and vote no."

The ad campaign also includes radio commercials running in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada and West Virginia that argue the GOP effort will negatively affect seniors.

The senators targeted in the ads have expressed some reservations about the emerging Senate legislation or the process and timeline with which GOP leaders are crafting it. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and a small clutch of aides are writing the bill behind closed doors as McConnell consults GOP senators.

He hopes to bring it to the Senate floor by the end of June. But it is not yet clear how or whether he can get the 50 votes he will need to pass the bill. Not a single Democrat supports the effort, meaning McConnell can afford only two GOP defections.

All of the lawmakers singled out by the group except Collins come from states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. That was a significant part of the decision to spend $1.5 million, Community Catalyst Executive Director Robert Restuccia said.

The House GOP bill would phase out Medicaid expansion in 2020. Many Republican senators have pushed for a more gradual phaseout in their bill, as well as preserving certain protections for preexisting conditions under the ACA not maintained in the House bill.

Republicans argue that their legislation will result in lower premiums. Democrats have warned of coverage losses that would occur under a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the House bill would leave 23 million more Americans uninsured by 2026 than under current law. CBO projected that overall premiums would fall under the bill, though people with preexisting conditions would face higher premiums.

The ads were produced by the firm GMMB, which worked for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
New Delhi, June 18 (IBNS): Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday condoled the loss of lives in the forest fire tragedy in Portugal.

Modi tweeted: "Sad to learn of tragic loss of lives in the forest fire in Portugal. Deepest condolences to the Portugese people on this tragedy."

A forest fire incident in Portugal has claimed at least 57 lives so far, media reports said.

The incident has left 59 people injured.

The injured people include firefighters.

Most died while trying to flee the Pedrogao Grande area, 50 km (30 miles) south-east of Coimbra, in their cars, according to the government, BBC reported

Large number of firefighters are currently working to bring the fire under control, reports said.
Patricia Urbanovsky, the Omaha air-travel fraudster who is already serving a federal prison sentence, is scheduled to appear Wednesday in Douglas County District Court for sentencing on state charges of felony theft.

Urbanovsky, whose Creative Creations event-planning company bilked victims out of millions of dollars with promises of cut-rate airline fares, in January was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison on 16 counts of federal wire fraud. Urbanovsky, 32, pleaded guilty in the case and is doing time at Waseca Federal Correctional Institution, a low-security lockup in Minnesota.

But Douglas County officials want in on the action, too. In February, Urbanovsky pleaded no contest to two state charges of felony theft for scamming former employees out of more than $50,000. Douglas County prosecutors say Urbanovsky used the credit cards of employees to pay business expenses and repaid them with bounced checks. One employee was out nearly $28,000; another was out more than $24,000.

With the large number of people affected, it was really a Ponzi scheme, said Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine, speaking of the financial fraud that occurs when a crook takes money from fresh marks to pay off older ones. It had a widespread impact, involved a lot of money and funded a lifestyle she lived with other peoples money.

Each felony theft charge carries a jail sentence of one to 20 years.

As part of her federal sentence, Urbanovsky was ordered to pay nearly $4.7 million in restitution. The Better Business Bureau received 1,600 complaints after Urbanovsky took money good for 36,000 round-trip airline journeys but delivered on only 7,000 of them. Prosecutors say she used most of the money for personal expenses.

Urbanovsky is scheduled to be released from federal custody in August 2021. Her attorney, Steve Lefler, said in an interview last week that he hopes the Douglas County sentence will be for less jail time than was imposed by the federal authorities and that the judge will allow the state and federal sentences to run at the same time.

A less-severe state sentence and such concurrent sentencing would mean Urbanovsky would serve no more time in custody than that imposed by the federal sentence.

I hope  and I have no way of knowing  that the state sentence will be less severe than the federal one, Lefler said.

The Creative Creations website sold vouchers for travel on Southwest Airlines for about $150 that it said were valid for trips anywhere in the United States. Southwest Airlines had no affiliation with Urbanovsky or Creative Creations.
LINCOLN  Legislation revamping the Omaha and Lincoln police and firefighter pension plans never made it out of committee before state lawmakers headed home last month.

But the idea of converting public employee pensions into less costly cash balance plans has not died.

State Sen. Mark Kolterman of Seward, the Nebraska Retirement Systems Committee chairman, said the committee will be studying the possibilities this summer and fall.

They just cant keep going the direction theyre going, he said of the plans. When the public is paying the bulk of the bill, its our obligation to oversee them.

The committees conclusions could alter the kind of life possible for police and firefighters in retirement and determine the amount of money taxpayers will have to shell out.

The conclusions also could affect governments ability to compete for employees.

Kolterman plans to monitor the Omaha School Employees Retirement System, as well, following a report that the plan is only 65 percent funded.

But he said he doesnt foresee a push to move away from the defined benefit, or traditional pension, structure for those educators as long as the plan continues taking steps to improve its finances.

Im a strong supporter of defined benefits plans if theyre funded properly, he said. Its not my goal to take away a good benefit.

The Nebraska State Education Association and the unions representing Omaha and Lincoln public safety employees argue for keeping the existing pension plans, saying changes made in recent years have put them on the right track.

That (plan) is an incentive for them to stay in teaching, said Jason Hayes, public policy director for the NSEA. They just value it very highly.

Traditional pensions remain the norm for the public sector, with well over 80 percent of the 14.7 million state and local government employees covered by such plans.

The picture is far different in the private sector, where the numbers of workers covered by pension plans has dramatically declined. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, based in Washington, D.C., only 13 percent of private-sector workers in 2013 were in a pension plan.

Thats down from 38 percent in 1979.

Private employers that offer benefits increasingly have turned to alternative approaches, particularly defined contribution plans, such as 401(k) accounts. In 2013, some 44 percent of workers were in a defined contribution plan, up from 17 percent in 1979.

Using alternatives for government employee retirement plans is not new in Nebraska or around the country. In fact, Nebraska was among the pioneers in adopting alternatives.

The state opted for defined contribution plans rather than pensions in 1964, when it started providing retirement benefits for state and county employees. It switched to cash balance plans for those employees in 2003.

Phyllis Chambers, director of the Nebraska Public Employees Retirement Systems, said the recent change was made because the defined contribution plans yielded poor results for most people.

You could literally work your whole life and not end up with much, she said.

With traditional pension plans, retirees are guaranteed a certain level of benefits while employers  in this case, the taxpayers  bear the risk of having to make up any losses.

Defined contribution plans, like 401(k) accounts, eliminate taxpayer risk but provide retirees no guarantee of having enough money for retirement.

Hybrid plans, including cash balance plans, limit both employee and taxpayer risk but typically provide less money for retirement than a pension plan.

All three types of plans require that both public employees and their employers pay into the plans.

Currently 15 states have defined contribution or hybrid plans as their main retirement benefit for some or all public employees, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

That number has been climbing, but slowly.

We dont consider it like a wave of changes, said Jean-Pierre Aubry, the centers director of state and local research.

All but Texas and Nebraska adopted those alternatives within the past two decades. One state went the other direction, reverting from a defined contribution plan back to a pension plan.

Before 2008, states moved to alternatives largely to let employees take advantage of a booming stock market.

The seven states that made later changes were driven by the financial crisis of 2008 and the recession that followed, when state and local governments were faced with having to make large infusions of money to keep the plans healthy in the face of investment losses.

That was the case in Omaha, where Mayor Jean Stotherts administration negotiated a switch to a cash balance plan for the citys civilian employees.

The change applied only to workers hired after March 1, 2015, so it did little immediately to cut costs. Nor did it relieve the city of its responsibility to continue putting money into the pension plan to keep it healthy.

But it limited future retirement costs and marked a key step in addressing the citys pension shortfall, estimated then at $825 million for the civilian, police and firefighter plans.

Most state and local governments coped with the recession losses without abandoning the pension structure, according to Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators.

Many increased the amount that employees, employers or both had to pay in. Some cut back on benefits or bumped up the retirement age.

Nebraska took all of those steps to restore the financial health of its three state-administered pension plans.

The plans, which cover teachers and other school employees, judges and State Patrol troopers, are fully funded or on track to get there within 20 years.

Brainard said several differences allowed pensions to survive in government while dwindling in the private sector.

For one, government workers are more likely to be college-educated professionals employed in career positions. Pension benefits help public employers compete for those skilled employees and encourage workers to stay with a job.

Public employees also are more likely to be unionized and able to fight to protect pension benefits.

Meanwhile, governments are stable employers, not likely to close up shop or to worry about how pension payments affect a balance sheet.

In addition, pension regulations differ for the public and private sectors. Finally, unlike in the private sector, nearly all government employees pay into their pension plans.

Among governments that moved away from pensions, those that did so after 2008, like Omaha, have gone to cash balance or other hybrid plans rather than defined contribution plans, Aubry said.

A cash balance plan is a solid and reliable pension plan and much better than a defined contribution plan because employees do not suffer the funding consequences of a volatile market, Kolterman said during a legislative hearing on his proposal to switch the Omaha and Lincoln police and firefighter pensions to cash balance plans.

Previous lawmakers introduced bills to do the same with the school employees, judges and State Patrol pension plans.

Then-Sen. John Nelson of Omaha introduced a pair of bills in 2013.

Because economic downturns are cyclical, our commitment to defined benefit plans is really unsustainable in the long run, he argued.

Those bills met with stiff opposition from the groups affected, including the politically powerful Nebraska State Education Association.

The potential costs of the bills also kept them from advancing. Switching types of plans would not have reduced the pension shortfall that had already accumulated.

This year, Sen. Brett Lindstrom of Omaha introduced a bill to merge the Omaha school employees retirement plan with the state teachers plan.

However, he said he is not looking to do away with the pension structure.

Kolterman said he supports that goal as long as the state does not become liable for the Omaha plans funding shortfall.

Three types of retirement plans, and a look at where the risk falls

 Traditional pension plans put the risks on the employer. Employees and employers both pay into an investment pool managed by a professional. If investments fall short, the employer must add money. Employees are guaranteed a certain level of benefits based on years of service, ending salary and retirement age.

 Defined contribution plans, such as 401(k) accounts, shift the risks to employees. Employees put money into an individual account, with a match from the employer. The employees make their own investment decisions and, at retirement, get whatever amount has accumulated in their own account.

 Cash balance plans are a hybrid of the two. The risk falls on the employer but is limited. The employees have individual accounts, with a match from the employer, but the money is managed by a professional. Employees are guaranteed a certain level of return each year but not a certain benefit. At retirement, they get the money in their account as an annuity or a lump sum.
Two Waterloo volunteer firefighters suffered minor injuries when the firetruck they were riding in rolled on its top Sunday on the way to a fire in Bennington, said Waterloo Fire Chief Travis Harlow.

The rollover happened as the vehicle, holding nearly 3,000 gallons of water, was turning north onto 204th Street from West Maple Road about 5 p.m.

The water sloshing in the back may have helped give the truck the momentum to topple. Harlow said the firefighters had been using seat beats. Otherwise, their injuries might have been much worse.

The firefighters had been on their way to assist Bennington firefighters with a fire at the Douglas County landfill. After the crash, they were taken by ambulance to Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy.

Insurance will help cover cost of the damaged tanker, Marlow said. In the meantime, the Valley fire department will assist Waterloo with a water truck.
New Delhi, June 18 (IBNS): Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday urged people of Darjeeling to remain calm and peaceful.

Darjeeling has been witnessing violence and protests in recent times.

Appealing for peace, the Union Minister tweeted:" I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence."

I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) June 18, 2017

He said violence cannot help in reaching any solution.

"In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution. Every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue," he said.

In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution. Every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) June 18, 2017

Singh further said: "All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment."

All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) June 18, 2017



Even as shutdown continued in the conflict-torn Darjeeling on Sunday, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) carried out a protest rally on Sundaywith bodies of three of its supporters who were killed allegedly in police firing on Saturday, media reports said.

Party Chief Bimal Gurung had earlier asked his supporters to defy the curfew and assemble for Sundays protest.

Meanwhile, the strike by GJM entered its seventh day in Darjeeling on Sunday.

Normal life has been hit for the past six days and on Sunday too shops remained closed while vehicles were off the road.

A large contingent of the army, paramilitary and the police are deployed in the hill state which turned a violence zone since the last few days owing to GJM's protests over the demand for a separate state in Darjeeling.

GJM supporters on Saturday morning held four rallies in Darjeeling hills.

Strike supporters had engaged in a clash with police force at Singmari and Lebong areas.

GJM activists had even torched several police vehicles.

Several policeman and strikers were injured in the clash.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said police did not fire a single round.

Banerjee had stated that: "This is a terrorist movement. We have information that Darjeeling attackers have connections with NE terror groups. Few other countries are also influencing and indulging the insurgency. Police did not fired a single round bullet today."
Patna, June 18 (TheBiharPost/IBNS): A youth in Bihar burnt his girlfriend to death after allegedly raping her, media reports said on Sunday.

The shocking incident took place at Temtha-Karari village under Parbata police station in Kahgaria district on Saturday.



According to reports, the accused, who was having love affairs with the girl, called the victim to his home with all the certificates while promising to marry her in the court.

When she reached his home on Saturday, the accused allegedly raped her and threw her out of his house while taking all her documents in his possession.

Soon after I returned home, the youth intruded into my house, took me in the toilet and set me afire after dousing me with kerosene oil, the victim reportedly told the police shortly before she succumbed to burn injuries at a local hospital.

According to doctors, the victim had suffered 95 percent burn injuries.



The police have registered a case and conducting raids to nab the accused.



(thebiharpost.com/IBNS)
New Delhi, June 18 (IBNS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday condoled the demise of fifteenth president of the Ramakrishna Math- Swami Atmasthananda.

"The demise of Swami Atmasthananda ji is a personal loss for me. I lived with him during a very important period of my life," Modi tweeted.

"Swami Atmasthananda ji was blessed with immense knowledge and wisdom. Generations will remember his exemplary personality," he said.

"Whenever I would visit Kolkata, I would always make it a point to seek the blessings of Swami Atmasthananda ji," the Prime Minister said.

Swami Atmasthananda was the fifteenth president of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission.

The monk was born May 10, 1919 at Sabajpur, near Dhaka.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also mourned the death of the monk and tweeted: "Saddened that Rev. Swami Atmasthanandaji, President, Ramakrishna Math & Mission passed away today at Seva Pratishthan #Kolkata 1/2."

She said: "I paid my last visit to him this afternoon.A life of outstanding social & religious service. This is an irreparable loss to mankind 2/2."

Image: Narendra Modi Twitter page




Mumbai, June 18 (IBNS): Indian music maestro AR Rahman on Sunday offered his prayers to the families of the victims of the London tower fire tragedy.

At least 30 people were killed and 28 people went missing and presumed dead as fire hit Grenfell Tower in London city last week.

"Dear residents of Grenfell Tower. We are extremely sorry to hear about the loss of homes and lives in the tragic fire. Our heart goes out to you... From the entire concert team of 'Netru Indru Nalai'," the Indian music maestro posted on his Twitter page.


Mathura, June 18 (IBNS): Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State (Independent charge) for Culture & Tourism launched the implementation of the a'National Mission on Cultural Mapping of India' at Goverdhan Block, Mathura District, Uttar Pradesh in a day long, Block level mega talent hunt programme (Sanskritik Pratibha Khoj Samaroh) on Saturday.

Srikant Sharma, Energy Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Ministrys Senior officials and various renowned artists including Padma, Sangeet Natak Akademi and State Awardees were present.

This Mission is part of the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat umbrella. Ministry of Culture launched it in the year of commemoration of the birth centenary of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay, who hailed from Mathura.



Artists in large number participated in this Block level event where they also registered themselves following which a registration certificate/slip/code was provided to all the artists who registered. A stage was provided to the registered artists for performance and displaying their talent.

A panel of renowned artists were invited for judging the participants in different art forms. Registration was directly on the portal culturalmappingofindia.nic.in. For those artists who, for some reason, could not register themselves and their art forms, enumeration teams had been sent to all the 47 villages of Goverdhan Block for geo mapping of artists and their art forms. Any person who claims to be an artist can register at the initial level.



Addressing on occasion, Mahesh Sharma said that paving the way for the Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat programme led by the the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the mission aims at converting the vast and widespread cultural canvas of India into an objective cultural map, designing a mechanism to fulfill the aspirations of the whole artist community of the nation and preserving the rich cultural heritage of this country in the form of a cultural repository of artists and art forms.

"This Mission encompasses data mapping, demography building formalising the processes and bringing all the cultural activities under one web based umbrella for better results. The Mission also seeks to open a direct channel of communication of artists with the Government and peer to peer communication among artists for talent honing and handholding of each other," said he.



He informed that immediately after this event in Mathura district, the Ministry of Culture will be organising similar Block level events in other States too so as to kick start the process of scaling up the efforts to cover all the Blocks of the Country. The current round includes Shimoga Block in Shimoga District, Karnataka, Thanesar Block in Kurukshetra District, Haryana, Chauri  Chaura Block in Gorakhpur District in Uttar Pradesh & Saraikela Block in Saraikela - Kharsawan District in Jharkhand.



Sharma said that with a vision that no cultural talent or heritage should remain unattended and if it is talent, it should be nurtured and if it is a heritage, it should be conserved and used as an icon to learn from the past, and also to propagate our cultural talent across all boundaries, the Ministry of Culture has planned to hold talent hunt competitions with various rounds from Block level to National level. The scheme is set to cover all the Blocks of the Country, involving a total of 6.40 Lakh villages over the span of next 3 years.



N. K. Sinha, Secretary, Ministry of Culture in his opening remarks said that the Ministry of Culture is eying to launch massive cultural awareness campaigns so that no artist is left behind. The Artist/Organisations also may register online at www.culturalmapping.nic.in. The Cultural Mapping of India portal will serve as a repository/consolidated database of information about cultural assets and resources i.e. a cultural inventory at one place for essential planning, sustainable economic development and for preserving the scattered and near extinct art forms.




Bamako, Mali, June 19 (IBNS) Suspected jihadists on Sunday attacked a luxury resort in Mali, a landlocked country in West Africa.

According to an UN mission official, the terror attack is underway at the resort area in Mali's capital while the government in Mali said an operation is underway.

According to reports several gunmen have attacked the resort Le Campement, outside capital Bamako. The country has been combating an Islamist insurgency for several years.

Security forces are in place. Campement Kangaba is blocked off and an operation is under way, said Malian security ministry spokesman Baba Cisse, according to The Independent.

According to BBC, residents near the resort heard shots being fired at Le Campement resort in Dougourakoro, which is to the east of Bamako.

Reports said the Malian troops and soldiers from France's Bakhane counter-terrorist force are at the site with no figure of casualty yet known.

Despite progress towards peace in Mali, terrorist attacks remain a major obstacle, the head of the United Nations peacekeeping operation there told the Security Council only this Friday.

Mahamat Saleh Annadif, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission, known by its French acronym, MINUSMA, reported significant progress on implementing the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation over the past months, but agreed that terrorists and extremists were gaining ground as existing tensions threatened to derail achievements.

Mali's central region is a continuing source of concern, said Annadif as he encouraged the Council to focus on the pressing security challenges and to send a strong message that civilian killings must end while considering the renewal of MINUSMA's mandate.

Image: Of the resort from their official website / A UN peacekeeping force image
An innovative treatment holds promise for easing post-traumatic stress disorder by literally retraining traumatized brains.

Nebraskans can take pride that this cutting-edge research is being developed and tested with the help of Nebraska know-how and generosity.

The treatment sounds surprisingly simple. The patient at a video screen is shown photographs of two faces: one person with an angry expression and another with a neutral expression. An arrow appears as the faces fade, and the patient presses a keyboard button that corresponds with the arrow.

Researchers say this game appears to retrain the brain to realize that the angry face, or the perceived threat, is irrelevant.

Talk about dramatic results: Nearly every Iraq and Afghan war veteran with PTSD who completed the first round of trials  conducted in Omaha and Israel  showed lower anxiety levels and was less withdrawn when faced with stress. And their brains looked and acted more like normal brains.

The computer-game treatment takes only hours to complete. By contrast, exposure therapy, the traditional method of treating PTSD, takes months. Exposure therapy involves patients reliving and talking about their trauma, over and over. Its so emotionally painful that some veterans and other sufferers simply quit going to their appointments.

Amy Badura-Brack at Creighton University, lead researcher for the Omaha clinical trials, says the second round of trials will test the treatments effect on other PTSD sufferers, including victims of domestic violence and childhood trauma.

At Ease USA, an Omaha-based nonprofit, has awarded a $1.2 million grant for the new trials, which will involve the Creighton researchers and Dr. Tony Wilsons lab at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Its exciting and laudable that Nebraskans are so involved in research that could bring healing to many who struggle with significant trauma.
Dhaka, June 18 (IBNS): Landslides hit Khagrachhari and Moulvibazar districts of Bangladesh on Sunday and left at least four people killed, media reports said.

According to local media reports, in Khagrachhari, two siblings were killed.

In Moulvibazar, landslides claimed the lives of a woman and her daughter.

In Khagrachhari, two brothers -- Nur Nabi, 13, and Hossain, 7, of Patachhara union were asleep when a huge chunk of mud collapsed on their house at Gudamchhara village around 6:00am, The Daily Star reported quoting police.

The bodies of the two siblings were later recovered.

The other members of the family were safe, a police official was quoted as saying by The Daily Star.

Landslide in Maulvibazar claimed the lives of Achhia Begum, 35, wife of Abdus Sattar of Dimai village, and her daughter Fahmida Begum, 13, reports said.

More than 150 people were killed in Bangladesh last week when landslides hit hilly districts of Rangamati, Chittagong, Bandarban and Coxs Bazar.

Image: Internet Grab
Surely by end of month

With Jaitley away and the preparations for the presidential elections, central government will have to wait a while longer for updates on HRA and higher allowances. However top government sources said that the government wants to complete the matter by the end of this month itself. Jaitley is away in Russia between June 20 and 24. He will be meeting with Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu. The matter will be taken up once he returns.

IB report on employees

Meanwhile various intelligence agencies say that if the matter is delayed further there could be a nation wide unrest. There is already lot of tension and frustration among the employees. The IB has said that if the matter gets delayed any further it could go out of hand. For now the employees are indulging in peaceful protests such as forming human chains. However if the matter gets delayed further, it could go out of control. The government has taken this report seriously and will work on the issue and try resolving by June end.

Higher Allowances

The central government employees will start getting their revised allowances from July itself, sources have said. Various reports state that the government is ready to roll out higher allowances from July 18 2017 itself.

Arrears

While the salaries of central government employees have been hiked as per the 7th Pay Commission, revised higher allowances haven't been paid. The central government employees have demanded arrears on higher allowances as well, but the government neither accepted, nor rejected their demand. Shiv Gopal Mishra, chief of the National Joint Council of Action (NJCA), leading the negotiations with the government, was unsure whether their demands about arrears on higher allowances will be met or not.

HRA

The E-CoS has suggested to keep the HRA rate at 24 percent, 16 percent and 8 percent of the Basic Pay for Class X, Y and Z cities respectively, as recommended by the 7th Pay Commission. The central government employees, however, demanded to retain HRA rate at 30 percent, 20 percent and 10 percent of Basic pay (pay in the pay band plus grade pay). HRA in cities with population above 5 million could be 27 per cent of the basic pay.
Army colonel, 3 others arrested in a bribery case

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Jun 18: A Colonel has been arrested by the CBI for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 50,000 from a Pune-based private company for supply of rock splitting equipment.

The probe agency also arrested three officials of the company. Col. Shaibal Kumar posted in Planning and Engineering branch of the Kolkata-based Army's Eastern Command, Sharat Nath, Managing Director of Pune-based Xtech Equipment Pvt Ltd, Vijay Naidu, a Director in the company and Amit Roy, a company representative were arrested by the CBI.

"It was alleged that the Colonel had demanded a bribe of Rs 1.80 lakh from the Managing Director of the company in connection with the supply of power pack rock splitters, which are used by various field formations of the Army," CBI Spokesperson R K Gaur said on Sunday.

He said it is alleged that the army officer, in February this year, had received a bribe of Rs 50,000 and as part of the second installment, the Colonel has now accepted Rs 50,000 from the accused company.

"The CBI tracked the Director of said private company who came from Pune to deliver the bribe to Colonel and nabbed him after the payment of bribe to the army officer. The CBI caught the Colonel and recovered the bribe amount from his residence," he said.

Searches have been conducted in four premises at Pune and two premises at Kolkata, the CBI said.

PTI
Jet's revival looks bleak as Anil Agarwal pulls out of race for acquiring cash-strapped airline

Baby born at 35000 ft on Jet Airways plane

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Jun 18: A Jet Airways plane flying from Saudi Arabia to India had an unexpected guest on Sunday when a baby was born mid-flight.

Jet Airways 9W 569 took off from Dammam for Kochi at 2.55 am today and when an expectant mother travelling onboard went into labour the crew declared a medical emergency and diverted the flight to Mumbai.

"Guest delivered a baby boy at 35000 ft. Upon landing, both mother & baby were rushed to Holy Spirit Hospital,Mumbai and are stable," Jet Airways said in a statement.

"Pleased to offer newly-born a free lifetime pass for all his travel on Jet Airways," it added.

While the plane was still over the Arabian Sea she was helped by crew members and a nurse travelling to Kerala to deliver a baby.

The plane landed in Mumbai and both the mother and the newborn were rushed to a hospital. The plane then resumed its onward journey to Kochi and reached its destination at 12.45 pm after a delay of 90 minutes.

PTI
CBSE Class 12 result 2017: Grand totaling error of marks, students in lurch

India

oi-Madhuri

CBSE Class 12 result 2017: A big mess is in the offing with several students complaining that there have been huge totaling errors. Several students were shocked to find that there were huge errors in the totaling of marks.

One student learnt that she had scored just 68 in maths in her class 12 exams. She had scored 99 in economics and 95 in accountancy. The maths marks just did not add up.

The Times of India reported that Mohammad Affan, a Mumbai student who scored 80% and above in all his subjects, scored just 50 in maths. After verification, his marks were revised to 90. Another economics student who was 'failed' with 9 marks finally ended up with 45.

A CBSE official admitted that the number of applications for verification of marks has been unprecedented, although he didn't reveal the exact number, the report also stated. CBSE currently only allows verification while re-evaluation is possible only after a court order.

The report further went on to state that a senior official with the CBSE exam branch, while agreeing that there were mistakes in the process, said that the difference could be due to various reasons - mistakes in totaling of marks, incorrect transfer of marks to the title page (the front of the answer books) and detachment of supplementary answer books.

OneIndia News
Darjeeling: GJM indefinite strike continues, Rajnath appeals for calm

India

oi-Madhuri

As the indefinite strike called by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha enters its seventh day in Darjeeling Hills, protests over the demand for a separate state are set to intensify with party chief Bimal Gurung asking his supporters to defy curfew and assemble at Chowk Bazaar on Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday appealed for calm after speaking to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the situation in Darjeeling which has witnessed widespread violence since June 8. Rajnath Singh said all concerned parties should resolve their differences through dialogue in an amicable environment.

On Saturday, Darjeeling had witnessed widespread clashes between GJM activists and the police in which one person was killed and 35 security personnel were injured, including an India Reserve Battalion officer. Meanwhile, Rajnath Singh said the Centre would send more forces "if required" to Darjeeling.

Gurung on Sunday said,''Mamata Banerjee's allegations are baseless. She is trying to mislead people. It is not a political fight but a fight for our own identity. We will not stop until and unless Gorkhaland is achieved. The struggle will intensify in the hills.''

Banerjee had on Saturday said that the GJM-led agitation in Darjeeling hills is a "deep-rooted conspiracy" supported by the insurgent groups of the Northeast and some foreign countries.

OneIndia News
DigiLocker users can now store Ayushman Bharat health records: Here's how to do it

Thick layer of smog with 'very poor' air continues to choke Delhi

Don't have luxury of time to defer GST': Jaitley

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Putting to rest the speculations that the implementation of GST could be deferred, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said the new tax regime would be launched on the midnight of June 30 and July 1 at a function in New Delhi.

Addressing the media, Jaitley said hotel rooms costing Rs 2500-Rs 7500 will be taxed at 18% while those above Rs 7500 will attract levy of 28%.

"GST on restaurants in these hotels will be at par with other air-conditioned restaurants (18%)," news agency ANI quoted the finance minister as saying.

He said state run lotteries will be taxed at 12% of the face value while the state authorised lotteries would attract a tax of 28%.

Business chamber Assocham had earlier asked the central government to defer the implementation of the new GST regime.

Assocham pitched its case by quoting the GSTN (GST Network) CEO, who has said that the network might not be fully operational by July 1, 2017.

Apart from the GSTN issues, Assocham in the letter pointed out that many existing assesses have not entirely migrated to GST.

Hailed as the the country's biggest tax reform since Independence, GST will unify Asia's third largest economy into a common market, eliminating a string of central and state levies.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, June 18, 2017, 18:51 [IST]
J-K: Militants shot dead civilian in Pulwama

India

pti-PTI

Srinagar, Jun 17: Militants shot dead a civilian in Pulwama district of south Kashmir, police said. Aijaz Ahmad Malik (27) was shot at and critically injured by militants outside his residence at Arrubugh in Pulwama around 10.30 PM, a police official said.

Malik was rushed to a hospital here for treatment but succumbed to injuries., the official added. It was not immediately known why the militants targeted the civilian, he said.

On Friday evening, six policemen patrolling in Achabal locality of Anantnag district were attacked by about 10-15 heavily-armed terrorists. The terrorists, after the ambush was over, got into the police vehicle and sprayed bullets at the policemen from point-blank range to disfigure their faces.

PTI
A significant milestone

The completion of Phase I is a significant milestone in the journey of Namma Metro. The network now makes it possible to interchange between the the two corridors. Also, Bengaluru is the second city after Delhi to have a full-fledged Metro.

Eases travel time

The journey from East to West should take 53 minutes; North to South will take 45 minutes. This is half the time taken by other modes of transportation.

Answer to traffic woes in Bengaluru

The Green line that links South Bengaluru is expected to benefit close to 5 lakh commuters and ease the traffic congestion that has become every Bengalureans' nightmare. Areas such as Chickpet become easily accessible as you don't need to worry about the traffic congestion or parking space.

More frequency

At present Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd has 50 trains. At present, the average frequency of the trains is eight minutes. It is likely to touch four minutes during peak hours.

Hike in fare-worth it

Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. has announced a 10% to 15% increase in fares from Sunday. Availability of trains till 11 pm, safe journey and ease of travel worth it.

Metro stations fully equipped to help commuters

Apart from indicators, sign boards all over the stations, customer service centres have been set up to help commuters. The Kempegowda Metro station which also acts as the interchange junction also has a station controller room that monitors every activity in the station.

Bengalureans can't wait to hop on the Green Line

Bengalureans, who used to spend around two hours every day to travel from his home to his office everyday, says they can't wait to board a metro to work. Residents eager to hop on to the first train will be able to do so around 4pm on Sunday, from Nagasandra.

What commuters say?

"Imagine travelling four hours everyday to reach office but thanks to Namma Metro I don't have to go through that anymore. My office is in Baiyappanahalli and metro has come as a boon to me. Thanks to lesser travel time, I have the time to do more important things in life. I am sure Green Line is going to help thousands like me," said Neha, a techie who is a regular metro commuter.

CCTV cameras to keep vigil

CCTV cameras help security personnel keep vigil and well lit metro stations are manned by security personnel all through working hours. Emergency exits, elevators, emergency trip systems and sign boards to help commuters are unmissable.

Work on Phase II going smoothly

The authorities are grearing up to complete the second stretch between Mysore Road and Kanakapura Road before the deadline. The Mysore Road line will go up to Kengeri which has a student population of 20,000. Such possibilities will make a big difference.

Centre to come up with National Metro Policy

Speaking at the inauguration M Venkaiah Naidu, union minister for Urban Development said that "Eight states in India already have Metro projects. While 370-Kms of the Metro line is operational, another 517-Kms of Metro line is under construction and 522-Kms of Metro line is under consideration. With demand for Metro projects growing in many states Centre would shortly come out with a National Metro Policy."
Draupadi Murmu is India's first tribal and youngest President ever

Draupadi Murmu becomes 15th President of India with 64% votes against Yashwant Sinhas 36%

Next President of India: BJP to announce presidential candidate name before June 23

India

oi-Madhuri

Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday said that the name of the presidential candidate would be announced before June 23.

Earlier today, Naidu briefed BJP president Amit Shah on discussions with various parties so far. The BJP Parliamentary Board will meet on Tuesday to announce its Presidential candidate name.

According to sources, Venkaiah Naidu also held discussions with Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan and SP's Ram Gopal Yadav & Naresh Agarwal. According to reports, Paswan said his party stands by PM's decision. According to government sources, SP leaders are understood to have preferred a politician as President. Also, Arun Jaitley spoke to TMC & BJD.

According to reports, the BJP committee is holding discussions with all parties as they are trying to finalise a consensus candidate for presidential poll before Prime Minister Modi departs for foreign tour on June 24.

The election for the next President of India is to be held on July 17 as President Pranab Mukherjee will demit the office on July 25.

The Election Commission of India issued the notification in this regard and the process of the nomination has started that will continue till June 28.

OneIndia News
The joy of our lives: Sushma Swaraj's husband warm birthday wishes for late leader

Remembering Sushma Swaraj on her death anniversary: Facts about Iron Lady of India

Next President of India: Not in race says Sushma

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has rubbished the 'rumours' that she is in the race for the next President of India.

Some sections of the media had earlier reported that Swaraj had become the lead contender for the next President of India.

"These are rumours. I am the External Affairs Minister and you are asking me something which is an internal matter," IANS quoted Swaraj as saying.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA's candidate for the upcoming presidential elections would be announced on June 20, said reports.

[Electoral College: Here is how the next President of India will be elected]

The government formally began its outreach on Friday with the opposition on the presidential election with Union ministers Rajnath Singh and M. Venkaiah Naidu meeting Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The two-member team later met CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat and Brinda Karat to seek the party's support.

While at first the RSS was in favour of choosing Murli Manohar Joshi, the name was dropped due to the ongoing Babri Masjid case before a Lucknow court.

The BJP wants to complete the process before Prime Minister leaves for the United States of America on June 25.

OneIndia News
DigiLocker users can now store Ayushman Bharat health records: Here's how to do it

Thick layer of smog with 'very poor' air continues to choke Delhi

President Mukherjee rejects 2 more mercy pleas before demitting office

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, June 18: President Pranab Mukherjee rejected two mercy petitions in the last week of May, just two months before he completes his tenure.

Both cases are of rape and murder of a 4-year-old girl by three men in Indore in 2012, and of a 22-year-old woman by two men in Pune in 2007. The two pleas were received in the President's secretariat in April and May.

The convicts had urged the President to commute the death penalty awarded to them by local courts concerned and upheld by respective high courts and finally by the Supreme Court.

In the gruesome rape and murder case of Indore, Jitendra alias Jeetu, Babu alias Ketan and Sanni alias Devendra were handed down death sentence by a city court a year after the crime was committed.

The sentence was upheld by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2014 and by the apex court on January 6, 2015.

Mukherjee rejected their mercy petition on May 25, a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said.

The convicts had kidnapped the child from outside her relative's house in Nehru Nagar area of Indore. They then sexually assaulted, strangled her to death and dumped the body in a drain.

In the Pune case, the convicts cab driver Purushottam Dashrath Borate and his accomplice Pradeep Yeshwant Kokade had raped and murdered the woman.

The woman, who was on her way to office for a night shift, was picked up by the cab. She was abducted, raped and killed by the driver and his aide the two convicts.

The trial court had awarded death penalty to the duo which was confirmed by the Bombay High Court and upheld by the Supreme Court on May 8, 2015. Their mercy petition was rejected by the president on May 26.

With these two cases, the total number of mercy petitions rejected by Mukherjee during his tenure has gone up to 30.

As per rules, there is no fixed time limit for the president to decide on a mercy petition.

PTI

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Story first published: Sunday, June 18, 2017, 14:50 [IST]
Is Chhattisgarh govt doing enough about Maoist menace?

The Magadh zone: Why naxals are desperate to revive it?

Two Maoists killed in gunfight with security forces in Bihar

India

pti-PTI

Jamui, June 18: Two Maoists were on Sunday killed in an encounter with security forces in the Kumardari forest, the police said.

Acting on a tip-off, a joint team of CoBRA, the CRPF's specialised unit for jungle warfare, and the police department carried out a combing operation after which an exchange of fire took place between them and the rebels.

Two Maoists were killed on the spot, Assistant Superintendent of Police DN Pandey said.

Two rifles, a magazine and liquor pouches were seized from the spot, the ASP said.

The bodies of the two have been brought to Barhad police station and efforts are on to ascertain their identity, he said.

PTI

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Sunday, June 18, 2017, 15:44 [IST]
In a case of bad karma Taliban outs Pakistan on what India had always said on Azhar

Five Afghan police killed in Taliban attack, injures 15

International

pti-PTI

Kabul, Jun 18: At least five Afghan policemen were killed and 15 people injured in a suicide bomb and gun attack by Taliban insurgents on the police headquarters in an eastern city, authorities said.

The assault on the headquarters in Gardez, which was still continuing, was launched at 6:00 AM, said the regional police commander, Asadullah Shirzad. Five civilians were among the wounded. One of the five attackers was still holding out more than five hours after the coordinated assault began, Shirzad said.

"The first attacker blew up his vehicle at the entrance to the headquarters, opening the way for two others who opened fire on security forces, and another suicide bomber was shot dead," he said. The head of the police hospital, Dr Shir Mohammad, confirmed the casualty toll.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. Since the beginning of their spring offensive in late April, the Taliban have been mounting lethal attacks on the positions of the Afghan army and police, who have lost several dozen men in recent weeks.

Foreign forces assisting the Afghans have also been targeted. Seven US soldiers were wounded yesterday in an insider attack at a military base by an Afghan soldier described as a "patriot" by the Taliban. They are battling to topple the government of President Ashraf Ghani and oust the Western forces that support him.

PTI
Modi-Trump meeting to set tone for India-US bilateral ties: Expert

International

oi-PTI

New York, Jun 18: The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump would set the tone and the framework for the bilateral relationship going forward, a leading expert on India and Asia has said.

"The two leaders will have a chance to get to know each other and to find some common ground on the way they look at the world and a common strategic view that would set the framework on how the two governments pursue the relationship going forward," Senior Fellow for India with the Asia Society Policy Institute Marshall Bouton told PTI.

Bouton, a nationally known expert on India and Asia, said the first meeting between Trump and Modi in Washington on June 26 will be "all about setting the tone and the framework for the relationship going forward" but he does not expect the meeting to be big bang.

"I am not dismissing the possibility, but I am not expecting major breakthrough announcements from this meeting. In some ways those would be the cart before the horse," said Bouton, who is President Emeritus of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

He said that the most positive outcome of the first summit talks between leaders of the world?s largest and oldest democracies would be "a meeting of the minds on the issues that the two leaders want to pursue together."

Bouton had last month authored a comprehensive ASPI paper The Trump Administrations India Opportunity, in which he called for the US administration to move decisively and engage Modi?s government to deepen cooperation and manage potential disputes.

Listing the priority areas for the first Modi-Trump meeting, Bouton said the two leaders must begin by emphasizing the strongest areas of mutual interest, which are clearly security and terrorism issues.

He noted that the Trump administration has not yet articulated with India its role in the broader Asia-Pacific region, importance of the US-India partnership over the next two-three decades of bringing stability and peace to Asia and India?s "absolutely critical" role in accomplishing that.

On terrorism, he said both countries are grappling with the scourge and both are experiencing some growing concerns.

"Another area in the security realm is Pakistan," Bouton said, adding that Modi will want to share with Trump his view and his concerns about Pakistan behaviour vis-a-vis India in their bilateral relationship.

Modi will also be very interested to learn what is the strategy of the Trump administration on Afghanistan.

"What is the US interest in Afghanistan, that is highly relevant to India?s interest. So I am sure that will be a very important subject of conversation. As part of that and also separately what does Prime Minister Modi want to hear from Trump about the US relationship with Pakistan going forward," Bouton said.

Another key issue could be China and what is the Trump administrations strategic view of China going forward, said Bouton, who has previously served as Director for Policy Analysis for Near East, Africa and South Asia in the US Department of Defense and as Special Assistant to the US Ambassador to India.

PTI

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Story first published: Sunday, June 18, 2017, 16:30 [IST]
Yemen: 25 civilians killed in Saudi-led airstrike

International

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Sanaa, June 18: At least 25 people were killed in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike which saw a warplane bomb a popular market in Yemen's northern province of Saada, media reported on Sunday.

The airstrike happened on Saturday evening and targeted al-Mashnak popular market at the centre of Shada district in Saada, Xinhua quoted a Saba news agency report -- which cited an official -- as saying.

The official said the victims were customers and owners of commercial shops. A number of others were critically injured.

The agency gave no further details, but said it will publish pictures of the scene later on Sunday.

Saada is the main stronghold of Shiite Houthi movement and where the group's leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi is based.

This is the latest in a series of airstrikes hitting Yemeni civilians since the war began in March 2015.

Ten days ago, four members of a family were killed when Saudi-led coalition warplanes hit a house in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, according to residents and medics.

Since March 2015, the coalition has been fighting the dominant Houthi rebels, who have seized control of most of northern Yemen, including Sanaa, to restore power to the internationally recognized yet expelled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The war has killed more than 10,000 people, half of them civilians, and displaced over two million others, according to the United Nations' humanitarian agencies.

IANS
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All rights reserved.

One News is a registered trademark

of One News Page Ltd.
Two policemen were killed after suicide bombers attacked the police headquarters of eastern Paktia province in Afghanistan.

By India Today Web Desk: Two policemen were killed after suicide bombers stormed the Paktia Police Headquarters in northern Afghanistan, Afghani media reported.

Tolo News reported that Najibullah Danish, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, confirmed the attack and said two policemen were killed in clashes that are still underway.

One attacker is still engaged in a gunfight with the security forces and four attackers have been killed so far in the encounter, officials were reported to have confirmed.

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However, according to Reuters, a spokesman for the US military command in Kabul denied reports by an Afghan official that Americans had been killed, but confirmed that an unspecified number of soldiers had been wounded at Camp Shaheen, which is the headquarters of the Afghan army's 209th Corps in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Also Read:

Pakistan's ISI behind Kabul blast which killed 90: Afghanistan govt to India Today

Kabul bomb blast death toll hits 80, over 350 others injured in suicide attack near Indian embassy

Also Watch:

Huge blast near Indian embassy in Kabul, many feared killed

--- ENDS ---
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The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid reporting more than 100 police were killed and wounded.

By Reuters: Dozens of people were killed or wounded when as many as five suicide bombers attacked a police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said.

The attack, claimed by the Taliban, began around 6:30 a.m. (0200 GMT) when one bomber detonated a car packed with explosives at the gate of the police headquarters in Gardez city, capital of Paktia province, said Najib Danish, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

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Four more attackers stormed the gate after the blast, with at least two quickly killed by police. The others held out against Afghan special forces that had responded to the attack, he said.

Danish put the toll at two police killed and five wounded.

However, doctors at the city hospital said they had received the bodies of at least five police, as well as at least 30 wounded people, including 20 civilians.

TALIBAN CLAIMS RESPONSIBILTY

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid reporting more than 100 police were killed and wounded. The Islamist group often exaggerates casualty numbers in attacks against government targets and security forces.

Insurgent groups like the Taliban and Islamic State have launched a string of attacks across Afghanistan in recent weeks.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a mosque in Kabul on Thursday.

A massive truck bombing and later suicide attacks left hundreds dead and wounded at the end of May and beginning of June, raising political tensions for the Afghan government, which is struggling to combat rising violence and corruption.

Thousands of international troops remain in the country to train and assist Afghan security forces as well as carry out counterterrorism missions.

American defence officials say in coming weeks they will decide whether to send between 3,000 to 5,000 more troops as requested by military commanders.

Also Read:

Afghanistan: Suicide bombers storm Paktia Police Headquarters, 2 cops killed

At least 20 Afghan police killed in Taliban ambushes: officials

--- ENDS ---
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By India Today Web Desk: This story has expired.

--- ENDS ---
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Anupam Kher, who plays former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in upcoming film The Accidental Prime Minister, says the script hasn't been finalised yet.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Anupam Kher's look as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for The Accidental Prime Minister may have grabbed attention and sparked discussions, but the veteran actor says it's too early for him to comment on the film as they are yet to even lock the script.

An announcement that a film on Sanjaya Baru's controversial book, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, is under works, sparked a buzz about what to expect.

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Baru, who was media adviser to Manmohan Singh from May 2004 to August 2008, had in his 2014 book controversially depicted his former boss as not being in full control of his own cabinet, and being subservient to Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

A first look into the project was a black and white poster showing the side profile of Anupam, dressed as Manmohan Singh -- complete with a white beard and turban -- and the focus was more on the silhouette of a woman -- presumably Congress President Sonia Gandhi -- standing in the corridor of Parliament House.

Given that Anupam wears his political ideology on his sleeve, it would be interesting to see how he will portray Manmohan Singh in the film.

Asked about it, the actor told IANS: "It's too early to talk about it. We have not even finalized the script. They (the makers) wanted to announce the film, so we just worked on that. The shooting is in late December.""The film is based on a book, but the screenplay by Hansal Mehta has to be given to me. My contract has it that I will finalise the screenplay...as in, I have to be happy, otherwise to talk about that film at this stage is too early. It's like any other film, and that's it," he added.

The project is to be directed by debutant Vijay Ratnakar Gutte and produced by Sanjay Bohra.

Meanwhile, Anupam is looking forward to the release of The Big Sick, his 500th film. The American film has been set for release in India on June 30.

ALSO READ | The Accidental Prime Minister: Anupam Kher reveals his first look as Manmohan Singh

ALSO READ | Anupam Kher to play Manmohan Singh in biopic based on The Accidental Prime Minister

ALSO WATCH | Anupam Kher bristles at selective media

--- ENDS ---
The Army Chief strongly defended his force against the charges of handling the situation related to the Major Leetul Gogoi incident, saying that the force "has a very good human rights record."

Asked if the situation was deteriorating in the Valley with each passing day, Rawat said, 'Well, not really.'

By Mail Today Bureau: Misinformation and disinformation campaigns in Jammu and Kashmir are compelling the youth to pick up arms against the security forces, Army chief General Bipin Rawat said on Saturday.

The Army chief also clarified that the incident of using a human shield to protect troops and civilians cannot be taken as a standard operating procedure to deal with situations emerging on ground.

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"There is some misinformation and disinformation being spread among the people of Jammu and Kashmir which is causing this trouble and possibly, I would say, compelling some of the younger generation to pick up arms. But I am quite confident that they will soon understand that any (such) thing that they are doing is not good for their own state and for the people," he said.

Gen Rawat was in Hyderabad to attend the passing out parade of the cadets of Air Force Academy. The Army Chief strongly defended his force against the charges of handling the situation related to the Major Leetul Gogoi incident, saying that the force "has a very good human rights record. We are concerned about human rights and make sure rights of people are not violated."

HOW'S VALLEY? ARMY GEN SAYS NO CAUSE OF WORRY

Commenting on Gogoi, who had tied a stone-pelter to a jeep as a shield against stone pelters, the chief said "everything and every action that we take is considering the nature of task that we are expected to carry out under the circumstances." When asked how Army viewed 'political' comments against it, he said, Armed forces do their work and task. We do not care about other things.

Asked if the situation was deteriorating in the Valley with each passing day, Rawat said, "Well, not really. We are there to make sure the situation is brought under control. Therefore, I think at the present juncture we have to continue with the task in the manner in which we are carrying on.

The Army chief admitted that some parts of south Kashmir are indeed troublesome, but necessary actions are being taken to ensure that the situation is brought under control. "Therefore, I think there should not be any cause for worry for anyone," he said. Gen Rawat said the defence forces in India have an impeccable track record. Today we command respect in all walks of life and that is because we have always successfully served the nation against external threats, internal disorders, during natural calamities and in rescue missions.

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Also read: Next surgical strike against Pakistan will be different: Army Chief Bipin Rawat

Also read: Inside story of Indian Army's daring surgical strikes against Pakistan

Also read: Our army seeks peace along the border but that doesn't mean we are weak: General Bipin Rawat

Also watch: Army chief Bipin Rawat on stone pelting: Need innovative ways to fight 'dirty war' in Kashmir

--- ENDS ---
Manchester United player, Mason Greenwood has been accused of sexual assault and domestic violence by his girlfriend, Harriet Robson.

Harriet Robson Accuses Mason Greenwood Of Assault

In a now-deleted post on Instagram, Robson shared horrific photos and videos of injuries she claims the footballer inflicted on her when he allegedly forced himself on her.

In some of the gory photos she shared, Robson had bruises on her thighs, while another image showed blood flowing from her mouth to her chest.

Robson also shared an audio message in which she accused the 20-year-old English international player of being responsible for the wounds.

Sharing the images, she wrote: To everyone who wants to know what Mason Greenwood actually does to me.

View Graphic Photos Here

Watch Graphic Video Here

Mason Greenwood is yet to react to the allegations, but Manchester United in a statement noted that they have seen the images and do not condone violence.

Greater Manchester Police issued a statement to Mirror Football which did not confirm any names, but said they were looking into the matter.

The statement read: Greater Manchester Police is aware of images and videos circulating on social media. Enquiries are ongoing to establish the full circumstances.

This comes five months after Manchester City defender, Benjamin Mendy was charged with four counts of rape and one count of sexual assault.
Spread the love

Former Niger Delta militant leader Asari Dokubo has described Nnamdi Kanu and his group, IPOB, as worse than terrorists.

He even described the IPOB as a satanic movement, especially because of the sit-at-home order across the southeast.

Speaking on Sunday during a Facebook live, Dokubo said residents of the Southeast obey the order for fear of being killed and not because they love Kanu and IPOB.

IPOB said Igbo people should not go about their businesses; they should not go to school. So, if we Igbos no longer go about our businesses and go to school, what else should we be doing? Thats why all the boys are going into fraud, he said.

IPOB is worse than a terrorist organisation. It is a satanic movement. They tell them to eat the flesh of human beings, and they eat it. It is not because you people are powerful. They dont know you people are nothing.

People are afraid of being killed, thats why theyve continued to sit at home; not because they love Nnamdi Kanu.

IPOB has been declaring, cancelling, and on occasions, enforcing a sit-at-home order across the region on Mondays and other days Kanu will appear in court.

The enforcement has been mostly violent.
Egypt: 4G Rollout And Issuance Of Virtual Fixed Licenses To Significantly Boost Competition

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1157585

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/analysis/1157585

"Egypt: 4G Rollout and Issuance of Virtual Fixed Licenses to Significantly Boost Competition" is a new Country Intelligence Report by GlobalData, provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Egypt today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2021. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband, and mobile, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.The telecom service revenue in Egypt is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.3% during 2016-2021, due to growth in mobile data, fixed Internet and pay-TV segments. Mobile data and fixed Internet growth will be driven by launch and expansion of 4G services and fiber expansion, respectively. Pay-TV operators are expected to face stiff competition from OTT players over the coming years. Vodafone Egypt will continue its dominance during the forecast period. Vendors and investors have an opportunity to benefit from the grant of unified license to all major operators, which now enable them to compete evenly in the fixed and mobile segments.Request To Get The Sample Copy of this report @The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following -- Regional context: telecom market size and trends in Egypt compared with other countries in the region.- Economic, demographic and political context in Egypt.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.- A demand profile: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, and mobile data markets.- Service evolution: a look at changes in the breakdown of overall revenue between the fixed and mobile sectors and between voice, data and video from 2016 to 2021.- The competitive landscape: an examination of key trends in competition and in the performance, revenue market shares and expected moves of service providers over the next 18-24 months.- In-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, and mobile data services: a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by network technology and by operator, as well as of average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period.- Main opportunities: this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in Egypt's telecommunications markets.View More @Scope- The overall telecom service revenue in Egypt will grow at a CAGR of 4.3% during 2016-2021, mainly driven by growth in mobile data, fixed broadband and pay-TV segments.- Mobile revenue will account for 84.6% of the total telecom revenue in 2021; mobile data will witness a CAGR of 6.8% during 2016-2021.- The top two operators, Orange Egypt and Vodafone Egypt, accounted for 57.7% share of overall service revenue in 2016. We expect competition to intensify as operators acquire unified licenses from the NTRA, which allows them to offer both mobile and fixed-line services.- Operators will focus on improved service offerings at competitve prices to maintain their market position.Reasons to buy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of Egypt's telecommunications markets, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying GlobalDatas Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in Egypt's mobile communications, fixed telephony, broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in Egypt's telecommunications markets.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in Egypt.MarketResearchReports.biz supports your business intelligence needs with over 100,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository. Our document database is updated by the hour, which means that you always have access to fresh data spanning over 300 industries and their sub-segments.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
By Press Trust of India: Jammu, June 17 (PTI) Complimenting the troops for demonstrating extraordinary endurance during counter terrorist operations, the chief of the Armys northern command, Lt Gen D Anbu today exhorted jawans to maintain the exalted standards and strive for excellence through professionalism and devotion to duty.

The Northern Command of the Indian Army celebrated its 46th Raising Day today.

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Anbu also lauded the efforts of the troops in guarding the northern frontiers in the most inhospitable weather and the toughest terrains.

On this day, the troops of Dhruva Command rededicated themselves to the service of the nation and re-affirmed their resolve to work for a safe and secure environment in J&K.

At a solemn ceremony at the Dhruva War Memorial, Lt Gen Anbu, on behalf of all ranks, paid floral tributes to the martyrs who lost their lives in the line of duty serving the Nation.

The Northern Command was raised on 17 Jun 1972 and has the unique responsibility of guarding the Nations borders with both Pakistan and China.

Deployed in extremely inhospitable and hazardous environment which includes Siachen, the troops of the Command continue to serve with utmost zeal and enthusiasm, drawing inspiration from the saga of bravery and sacrifice of their predecessors.PTI AB ADS

--- ENDS ---
By Utpal Kumar/Mail Today: Till A few years ago, Arun Shourie was the posterboy of the politically dispossessed and intellectually disoriented Right-wing. He was the voice of the once marginalised millions who currently dictate the shrilling cyberspace, and randomly - and often viciously - invoke Pakistan, Love Jihad and Holy Cow in the same breath. His works were quoted as if they had certain sanctity about them. But now, in the past three years, ironically under a regime which seemed akin to his ideological moorings, Shourie cuts a lonely figure. His dilemma is that the traditionally-dominant Left doesn't trust him, and the newly arrived Right doesn't want to have him!

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As Shourie comes up with his latest book, Two Saints, on Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi, one is tempted to ask if he finds solace in religion to deal with his isolation. Shourie is swift to deny the charge: "My very first book, Hinduism: Essence & Consequences (1982), was religious in nature. So were books like The World of Fatwas." The reason, instead, is personal. And Shourie has never shied away from conceding it.

Also Read: Israeli author David Grossman wins Man Booker prize

He writes in his 1994 book, Missionaries in India, how "since the trauma of the brain injury of our child", Aditya, who is 42 now, "I have been reading and reflecting on the scriptures of all traditions to glean the explanation for suffering." His findings were damning: "Either God doesn't know what is happening here, or he is unable to alter it, or is not suffused with compassion." Twenty-three years later, little has changed in his perception, except that he is a Buddhist today. "Buddhism is one religion that's closest to reason," he explains.

Photo : Mail Today

Two Saints, reminds Shourie, isn't a typical biography. "The book explains what neuroscientists would have said had they encountered the two saints. I have tried to find out if their supernatural experiences could have also occurred in natural circum-stances, and whether these can be artificially induced in a laboratory." He, however, adds that the two were the greatest saints of the last 100 years. "If Ramakrishna touched someone, he would find himself in trance. By now Bengal would have completely Westernised and Christianised but for his presence. Similarly, whenever anyone in Mahatma Gandhi's company felt distraught or disturbed he would send that person to Maharshi's ashram in Arunachala Hill," he says. Such was his influence that C Rajagopalachari never let Gandhi visit Arunachala Hill for the fear of losing him forever to spirituality!

What has been consistent so far turns jarring when Shourie calls organised religion, including Hinduism, "a device of aggression" and goes to the extent of comparing Love Jihad and cow vigilantism with the ISIS/Taliban imposing all kinds of restrictions in the name of the shari'ah! This is not the Shourie we have known.

For, here was the liberal who had over the decades ensured he wouldn't commit the mistakes other liberals had made - of balancing one religious act with another, of being politically correct. By doing so, he seems to be threatening his own legacy which he had built single-handedly in an era when being a jholawalla was fashionable. But Shourie doesn't stop there and questions the democratic credentials of PM Narendra Modi. "What we are witnessing today is a decentralised drift towards Emergency. Indira Gandhi's Emergency was visible on the surface, today it is happening below the surface," says Shourie as he reminds of the recent raids at Prannoy Roy's houses. "These raids remind me of the raids on Ramnath Goenkajee during the 1970s and the 1980s.

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Also Read: Freedom fighter KM Munshi's first novel is now available in English

Shourie doesn't think there's space for people like him in politics anymore. "PM Modi and Amit Shah have, within three years, completed the 'Mayawati-isation' of the party. There used to be internal democracy in the BJP of (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee and (LK) Advani. It's no longer there."

The RSS, too, doesn't come out unscathed. He blames it for allowing things to drift so far, and being content with a few appointments in academic/cultural institutions. "Such appointments have been leased out to the RSS," he alleges, adding the move will end up delegitimising these institutions as the Sangh doesn't have the intellectual bandwidth to fill these spaces on its own. He quotes Paulo Freire's book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, to explain how the oppressed, when they get a chance, do the same thing which their oppressor had done in the past. "The RSS is blindly aping the communists who had monopolised the academic institution in the 1970s with the state support."

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The RSS, too, doesn't come out unscathed. He blames it for allowing things to drift so far, and being content with a few appointments in academic/cultural institutions. "Such appointments have been leased out to the RSS," he alleges, adding the move will end up delegitimising these institutions as the Sangh doesn't have the intellectual bandwidth to fill these spaces on its own. He quotes Paulo Freire's book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, to explain how the oppressed, when they get a chance, do the same thing which their oppressor had done in the past. "The RSS is blindly aping the communists who had monopolised the academic institution in the 1970s with the state support."

--- ENDS ---

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Water main installations at two Midland schools will cause parts of several roads to close next week.

On Monday, water main work at Plymouth Elementary School will close E. Sugnet Road from Baldwin Street to Lancaster Street. Motorists will be detoured around the closure using Washington Street, Wheeler Street, Swede Avenue and St. Andrews Road.
BLOOMINGTON  Growing up in Bloomington-Normal during the Great Depression, Leo Carroll was hungry.

"I'm Catholic, but it was no problem for me not having meat on Fridays because we didn't have meat all week," Leo said. Then he smiled.

But throughout his life, Leo also has been hungry for knowledge and experiences.

That hunger led him to the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, where he earned numerous flying medals, including two Distinguished Flying Crosses; several careers, including meat cutter, small business owner and laborer; organizing the Experimental Aircraft Association in Bloomington-Normal; and surviving prostate, colon and stomach cancer and investigational heart surgery.

He accomplished most of these things while being married to Rose Carroll for 72 years. They raised four children on Bloomington's west side and have lived in the same home for 65 years.

Both are 98 years old.

"He has survived everything," said his daughter, Mary Henson, 65, of Dixon.

"Growing up poor, he was hungry to learn things," Henson said in the Carroll family home last week.

The home will be full on Sunday when many of the Carrolls' children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gather to celebrate Father's Day.

"He's an ordinary man who has led an amazing life," Henson said.

"He is one of those gentlemen who, when you see him, you break into a smile," said John Penn, a longtime friend.

"He's easy to talk with and always has a story to tell," said Penn, international vice president for Laborers International Union of North America. "But when Leo went to work, he did a great job."

Growing up, "We were so poor, we moved around a lot, I think, because we couldn't pay the rent," said Leo Carroll, crediting the sisters at St. Patrick and Trinity grade schools with helping him, including with meals.

Growing up poor fed his quest for knowledge.

"I never had a damn thing when I was young," he said. "I learned all my education outside. When you're poor, you try everything."

He was in the Civilian Conservation Corps for awhile, sending nearly all his money home.

He met Rose when she was a senior at Illinois State Normal University. Carroll was working at a grocery store; they met when she came in to shop.

"I never was crazy about boys, but I liked him," Rose said.

"One day, my boss said, 'Leo, why don't you walk this nice lady home?' I did because I liked her," he recalled.

In 1942, during World War II, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps.

"I figured, 'Why should I walk through this war when I can fly?'" he recalled.

He flew 116 missions over enemy territory in Burma, India and China. He was a liaison pilot, evacuating wounded British soldiers who were fighting the Japanese.

Once, he landed behind enemy lines in Burma when the right side of his landing gear broke. Working with a British doctor, they used bamboo to create a splint and Leo was able to take off before Japanese soldiers got there.

He had several other close calls.

He admits to being scared, "But I didn't tell anybody. I said a lot of 'Our Fathers,' adding, "We lost a lot of good people over there."

Carroll developed his sense of humor during his time in the military.

"You had to have a sense of humor when you were in the service because there was a 98 percent chance that we wouldn't make it," he said. "I learned to watch the smart ones and learn from them. I learned to enjoy everybody."

On June 4, 1945, he returned stateside and he and Rose were married in Spokane, Wash. During the last few months of the war, he was stationed in Montana because the Japanese had sent over thousands of balloons with attached firebombs set to be released over forests of the American Northwest. Some did reach their targets and started fires, but they had no impact on the outcome of the war.

After the war, the couple moved to Detroit where Leo worked in a Cadillac factory. Then he went to meat cutter school, became a meat cutter and they returned to Bloomington-Normal.

He worked for several grocers  including Kroger and A&P  and for several years owned Leo's Grocery Store on Sudduth Road, now College Avenue, in Normal.

In the 1960s, he switched careers and joined Laborers Local 362. Among the buildings he helped to build was ISU's Watterson Towers.

After retiring, he went to work for Stroink Pathology Laboratory, later LabCorp, as a driver. He also got a Realtor Broker license to support Rose, who became a Realtor after retiring from teaching.

Along the way, he got licenses to drive motorcycles and trucks, even though he didn't own any.

"He was always looking for something to accomplish," said his wife. "He was always hungry to learn something new."

Through it all, he beat prostate, colon and stomach cancer.

"I prayed a lot," he said.

Three years ago, Carroll was approved for an investigational heart valve surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago to replace a diseased aortic valve.

Though Leo turned 95 while he was in the hospital, he was a good candidate for the procedure because he was otherwise healthy, said Dr. S. Chris Malaisrie, the cardiac surgeon who performed the surgery. Without it, his life expectancy was a year or less, Malaisrie said.

"We believe Leo is the oldest patient in the trial," said Malaisrie, noting the surgery was a success and the device used in the procedure has since been approved by FDA.

"I am at the same time impressed but not surprised that Leo did well after his open heart surgery," Malaisrie said. "He truly benefited from a minimally invasive procedure ..."

While Leo and Rose get help from medical professionals, their children, grandchildren and neighbors so they can stay in their own home, they also take care of themselves and each other.

"He just makes up his mind that he'll do well," said Rose.

"I pray a lot," said Leo, who is dealing with a recurrence of stomach cancer. "I don't ask Jesus Christ for a lot of favors."

"And they have each other," said their daughter.

"I can't die because I need to take care of her," said Leo, nodding at Rose.

"And I can't die because I need to take care of him," Rose responded.

They both smiled.
AVELAR, Portugal (AP)  Raging forest fires in central Portugal killed at least 62 people, many of them trapped in their cars as flames swept over a road, in what the prime minister on Sunday called "the biggest tragedy" the country has experienced in years.

Portugal has declared three days of national mourning for the victims in the blaze "which has caused an irreparable loss of human life," according to a government statement.

A lightning strike is believed to have sparked the blaze in the Pedrogao Grande area after investigators found a tree that was hit during a "dry thunderstorm," the head of the national judicial police told Portuguese media. Dry thunderstorms are frequent when falling water evaporates before reaching the ground because of high temperatures. Portugal, like most southern European countries, is prone to forest fires in the dry summer months.

"This is a region that has had fires because of its forests, but we cannot remember a tragedy of these proportions," said Valdemar Alves, mayor of Pedrogao Grande. "I am completely stunned by the number of deaths."

Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes said that 60 people died from the flames and suffocating smoke, while another two people perished in a traffic accident related to the fires. Other 54 people were injured, including four firefighters and a seriously injured minor, Gomes told state broadcaster RTP.

Authorities had previously said that 40 C (104 F) heat in recent days might have played a part in the inferno about 150 kilometers (95 miles) northeast of Lisbon. More than 350 soldiers were joining Sunday the 700 firefighters who were struggling to put out the blaze since Saturday, the government said.

A huge wall of thick smoke and bright red flames towered over the top of trees near houses in the wooded region. Local resident Isabel Brandao told The Associated Press that she had feared for her life.

"Yesterday we saw the fire but thought it was very far. I never thought it would come to this side," she said. "At 3:30 a.m., my mother-in-law woke me up quickly and we never went to sleep again. We were afraid the fire would reach us."

RTP showed terrifying images of several people on a road trying to escape the intense smoke that had reduced visibility to a question of a few meters (yards). A young man shared a bottle of water with a distraught woman as she stumbled down the road.

Gomes said that at least 30 people were killed when their vehicles were engulfed by flames on a road between the towns of Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera, and three others died from smoke inhalation in Figueiro dos Vinhos. The rest of the bodies were found outside of the cars or in the forest, the official said.

The official also said that firefighting crews were having difficulties in battling the fire, which was "very violent" in at least two of its four fronts.

The European Union said it had activated its civil protection efforts responding to a call for assistance by Portuguese authorities. EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides expressed his condolences for the victims in a statement, saying the "EU is fully ready to help."

As a result, a Spanish firefighting aircraft was already assisting on Sunday morning and another one was expected to arrive later in the day. France was also sending three aircraft.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa said that firefighting crews were having difficulties in approaching the area because the fire was "very intense."

On Sunday, Costa also tweeted his "deepest regret for the victims... and a word of encouragement and strength for all who help combat this scourge."

The loss of life due to a forest fire was the biggest in memory in Portugal. It has been over 50 years since 25 Portuguese soldiers perished fighting wildfires in 1966.

"We are most likely facing the biggest tragedy of human life that we have known," Costa said.

Last August, an outbreak of fires across Portugal killed four people, including three on the island of Madeira, and destroyed huge areas of forest.

Portugal's civil protection agency, which coordinates firefighting efforts, issued a warning of the increased risk for forest fires in Friday. Citing the high temperatures, it said that all outdoor fires were prohibited.

Many world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressed solidarity with Portugal.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tweeted that he is "overwhelmed by the tragedy at Pedrogao Grande. The Portuguese people can count on our solidarity, support and care."

-- Associated Press writers Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, and Aritz Parra in Madrid, contributed to this report.
Philando Castile was shot by a policeman while he waiting in his car with his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her daughter. Diamond documented Philando's last moments on Facebook Live. Yesterday the cop who killed him was acquitted on all charges.

Today New Yorkers marched in protest of the sentence, beginning their march in Harlem. Last night 1,500 protesters marched in Philando's home city of St. Paul, Minn, where they reportedly shut down a highway.

















The bench in memoriam of #PhilandoCastile at the school where he worked and was beloved. pic.twitter.com/TAJekwhm5w

 Anthony Wright (@aewright) June 17, 2017

H/T The Fader

Header photo via Twitter
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
By Rohit Kumar Singh: The story has expired.

--- ENDS ---
The CIA Coup Against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosadeq: Iran 1953 Covert History Quietly Released

06/17/17

by Steven Aftergood, Federation of American Scientists

The Department of State yesterday released a long-suppressed volume of historical records documenting the role of the United States in the 1953 coup against the Iranian government of Mohammad Mosadeq.



Day of the coup in Tehran



"This retrospective volume focuses on the evolution of U.S. thinking on Iran as well as the U.S. Government covert operation that resulted in Mosadeq's overthrow on August 19, 1953," the Preface says. See Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1952-1954, Iran, 1951-1954.

"This volume includes National Security Council and Presidential materials that document the U.S. decision to proceed with the operation against Mosadeq, and the operational files within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that document the implementation of the operation, codenamed TPAJAX."

Some of the relevant records were destroyed long ago.

"The original CIA cables relating to the implementation of the covert action TPAJAX no longer exist. The original TPAJAX operational cables appear to have been destroyed as part of an office purge undertaken in 1961 or 1962, in anticipation of Near East (NE) Division's move to the Central Intelligence Agency's new headquarters."

However, "Department of State historians obtained hand-typed transcriptions of microfilmed copies of these cables" and "twenty-one are published in this volume and an additional seven are referenced in footnotes."

A small portion of the 1,000-page collection remains classified.

"The declassification review of this volume, which began in 2004 and was completed in 2014, resulted in the decision to withhold 10 documents in full, excise a paragraph or more in 38 documents, and make minor excisions of less than a paragraph in 82 documents," the editors wrote. Without knowing for certain, some of the withheld information may pertain to discussion of British involvement in the operation, as well as technical details such as cryptonyms.



Read related coverage (in Persian) by Iranian daily Ghanoon

Rectifying a "Fraud"

The release of the Iran history volume is the culmination - and apparently the resolution - of decades of controversy that began in 1989 after the Department published a FRUS volume on US-Iran relations between 1951 and 1954 that neglected to mention any covert operation against the Iran government. That earlier volume was widely denounced by US historians and others.

"The omissions combine to make the Iran volume in the period of 1952-54 a fraud," wrote historian Bruce R. Kuniholm in 1990.

"This is 'Hamlet' without the Prince of Denmark - or the ghost," the New York Times editorialized back then.

Over time, the State Department itself came to agree with that critical assessment.

"The Department's self-censorship exemplified, but also obscured, the restrictive impulses toward historical transparency that prevailed throughout the U.S. Government" at the time, according to a candid and thoughtful State Department history of the Foreign Relations series. "FRUS historians could have been more assertive in their efforts to promote greater openness in the 1980s. They should have recognized that the [1989] Iran volume was too incomplete to be published without damaging the series's reputation."

On the plus side, "Academic criticism of the [1989] 'Iran Volume' and the restrictions placed on [advisory committee] access to classified material raised public and congressional awareness of the erosion of transparency in the 1980s."

This in turn led to enactment in 1991 of a new statutory requirement that the FRUS series must provide "a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of major United States foreign policy."

But at the end of the Obama Administration, and as recently as April of this year, release of the Iran retrospective volume seemed to be indefinitely blocked.



Iran Parliament on the day of the coup



In 2016, "the Department of State did not permit publication of the long-delayed Iran Retrospective volume because it judged the political environment too sensitive," the Department's Historical Advisory Committee (HAC) wrote in its latest annual report. "The HAC was unsuccessful in its efforts to meet with [then-]Secretary Kerry to discuss the volume, and now there is no timetable for its release."

And then yesterday, all of a sudden and with minimal notice, it was posted online. The publication was welcomed by the chair of the Historical Advisory Committee, Temple University historian Richard H. Immerman.

"As it expressed in last year's annual report, the HAC was repeatedly frustrated-and disappointed-by Secretary Kerry's refusal to allow the volume's publication," Prof. Immerman said yesterday. "In this regard the change in State's perspective from the Obama to Trump administration is dramatic."

There is no known evidence that Secretary of State Tillerson participated in the decision to permit publication. But, an official said, "there is no question that receiving approval to publish the volume was much less difficult with the change of administrations. Indeed, it encountered remarkably little resistance."



Read related article by Shargh daily



Evidently wishing to downplay its significance, however, the State Department buried an announcement of the new volume at the bottom of a June 15 press release. After listing 16 other publications, it briefly mentioned that the Iran retrospective volume had "also" been released, making no mention of the decades-long controversy leading up to its publication.

Needless to say, the sky has not fallen due to the disclosure, and is not expected to. US relations with Iran will remain as fraught in the near future as they have been in the recent past. (The Senate voted yesterday 98-2 in favor of sanctions on Iran in connection with that country's "ballistic missile program, support for acts of international terrorism, and violations of human rights.")

But a pointless and misleading omission in the historical record has now been rectified.

"The public and scholarly community owes a great debt to not only the remarkable effort and perseverance of literally generations of State Department historians and the [History] Office's leadership, but also their collective commitment to historical accuracy and transparency," said Prof. Immerman.





Related book:

The Coup: 1953, The CIA, and The Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations

by Ervand Abrahamian (July 2015)



About the author:



Steven Aftergood directs the FAS Project on Government Secrecy. The Project works to reduce the scope of national security secrecy and to promote public access to government information. He writes Secrecy News, which reports on new developments in secrecy policy and provides direct access to significant official records that are otherwise unavailable or hard to find. (read full bio)
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.
The former Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board [NACOB] Akrasi Sarpong has admitted that there are hard core drug kingpins in Ghana.



He said their activities are dangerous and they are very influential in our society so its hard to fight them.



Speaking on UTVs morning show, Adekye Nsroma, Akrasi Sarpong noted that the Mahama-led administration was keen in fighting drugs during his tenure.



According to him, his [John Mahamas] effort could not yield much positive results because the drug barons were so powerful.



He alleged that the drug kingpins manipulated NACOBs staff with luxurious gifts that made it impossible to trace their activities.



The drug barons in Ghana buy cars and houses for the NACOB officials. So how can they arrest them? he questioned.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Washman007









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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Samuel George Nartey, Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, has observed that there is a growing sense of insecurity in Ghana at the moment.



This lack of safety, he said, had put fear in Ghanaians and foreign nationals, a situation that led to cancellation of the trip to Ghana by American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jnr, who was billed to be in Ghana yesterday, June 16.



In a post on his Facebook page on Saturday June 17, the lawmaker said: There is a growing sense of insecurity in the country today. Robberies, contract killings, and unexplained deaths litter the news. It is so frightening we are becoming scared of our own shadows.



This fact is amply evidenced by the cancellation of the visit of The Money Man Floyd Mayweather. The Money Team would as part of standard protocols engage the US Embassy in Ghana on the security situation in town. It is safe to conclude that the assessment by the Embassy was one of insecurity, prompting the cancellation.



We need to pray for Ghana. I am reminded of the words of a senior man of God: There is a sinister force on the prowl in our nation. It is a force of impunity. It is a force of treachery. It is a force of evil. To keep silent in such a situation is to allow evil to triumph."



Meanwhile Mayweather has disclosed his visit to Ghana and Nigeria will come off in autumn.



Motherland Africa, Nigeria & Ghana, my Undefeated Africa Tour has been pushed to the fall @RnBAllStarsEnt @ONEbrentTMT 4 more event info.

Source: classfmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has hinted that the office of the proposed special prosecutor will be up and running in six months time.



He said the setting up of the office has become necessary and urgent primarily due to that fact that so much money belonging to the state are finding its way into the pockets of private individual and this needs to be halted.



He said the country could no longer supplement her annual budget with foreign aid while amounts equating to foreign aids are syphoned from the national coffers by certain unscrupulous individuals.



Nana Addo Dankwa was addressing a large crowd of Ghanaians at the Westminster Central Hall in London, United Kingdom as part of this tour of the UK. The event was organized by the Ghana Union UK in conjunction with the Ghana High Commission in the UK.



He said it is unacceptable for unpatriotic people to continue to steal from the national coffers for the nation to continue suffer poverty adding that Ghana is not poor, Ghana is a country of considerable recourses which when put to judicious use will be enough but rather monies belonging to the state are ending up in wrong pockets.



He disclosed that recent investigations in certain areas of the economy have discovered an embezzlement of nearly one point two billion Cedis equivalent to national budgetary allocation to one ministry.



The President said the office will have the mandate to investigate and prosecute acts of corruptions in the public sector. He explained that the decision was arrived at because public opinion in Ghana ceases to have confidence in the Attorney General, being a political officer, to be able to manage such investigations and prosecutions.



He gave the assurance the current sitting of parliament will see the law to this effect being passed and then compilations of corruption issues will start.



President Akufo-Addo observed that, the reason why this has become so important to the nation is that Ghana has to survive beyond foreign aid.



He said Ghana want to be able to mobilize its own resources to tackle the problems of its development.



The President expressed the optimism that when the nations resources are managed intelligently and honestly, there is no limit to where the nation could rise up to.



Nana Akufo Addo indicated that the fight against corruption is real and ongoing. He said corruption is derailing the capacity of the nation to use its own resources for development and this must not happen.



The President remarked: I am going to do my best to stop this.



On the implementation of the Representation of the Peoples Amendment Law (ROPAL), the President reiterated that his government will support the Electoral Commission to implement it during the next general elections.



He questioned why citizens from some West African countries residing abroad could vote outside their home countries and not Ghanaians. He therefore called on the people to make their voices heard in Ghana on this.



Nana Akufo Addo used the occasion to express his gratitude to the people for their support for victory during the 2016 general elections.



Ghanas High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland, Paapa Owusu Ankoma, noted that the NPP government aims at encouraging Ghanaians in the diaspora to actively participate in the current transformation agenda. To this end he noted, the government has devised policies that will ensure the full involvement of the Ghanaian in the diaspora



He therefore asked Ghanaians living in outside the country to join hands during the forth-coming Home Coming Summit slated for July this year to engage with other Ghanaians elsewhere towards national development.

Source: GBC









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The US Embassy in Ghana has denied claims by Ningo Prampram MP, Sam Nartey George, that boxer Floyd Mayweather cancelled his trip to Accra based on advise of insecurity offered 'The Money Man' by the mission.



Mr Nartey George had said on his Facebook page that the lack of security in Ghana had put fear in Ghanaians and foreign nationals, a situation that led to cancellation of the American boxers June 16 trip.



There is a growing sense of insecurity in the country today. Robberies, contract killings, and unexplained deaths litter the news. It is so frightening we are becoming scared of our own shadows.



This fact is amply evidenced by the cancellation of the visit of The Money Man Floyd Mayweather. The Money Team would as part of standard protocols engage the US Embassy in Ghana on the security situation in town. It is safe to conclude that the assessment by the Embassy was one of insecurity, prompting the cancellation.



We need to pray for Ghana. I am reminded of the words of a senior man of God: There is a sinister force on the prowl in our nation. It is a force of impunity. It is a force of treachery. It is a force of evil. To keep silent in such a situation is to allow evil to triumph."



However, the Press Attache to the US Embassy in Ghana, Sara Stealy contacted ClassFMonline.com to deny the allegation.



Meanwhile, Mayweather has disclosed his visit to Ghana and Nigeria will come off in autumn.



Motherland Africa, Nigeria & Ghana, my Undefeated Africa Tour has been pushed to the fall @RnBAllStarsEnt @ONEbrentTMT 4 more event info, he tweeted.

Source: classfmonline.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
Students of the University of Ghana especially residents of Akuafo Hall are demanding enhanced security following the attempted murder of a female student.



This follows the stabbing of a female sandwich diploma student at the Akuafo hall by her alleged boyfriend in the Akuafo Main Hall P Block, Room 12.



The suspect came stabbed his alleged girlfriend several times on the neck until she was unconscious after suspecting she was cheating on him.



The victim, Zara Hussein, sustained a deep cut in the neck after her lover, named Musah, stabbed her with a broken ceramic receptacle.



According to reports, Musah who is not a student after trying tirelessly to reach the victim on phone decided to come to her on campus.



When he arrived, Zara was said to have stopped him from entering the room but he insisted following which she allowed him in, only to find another man in her room.



Suspecting that Zara was cheating on him, Musah attacked the other man following which a heated argument ensued.



Zara is said to have backed the other man which angered Musah. He rushed out of the room and returned with the broken receptacle with which he hit and stabbed Zara.



Students came to her rescue and arrested Musah who tried to escape when he realized that Zara had become unconscious.



Zara was rushed to the University of Ghana Hospital, while Musah was arrested by the University Security and handed over to the Legon police.

Source: kasapa









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 Danquah Akufo- Addo has reiterated his determination to stop the over reliance on foreign partners to finance the country's budget by ensuring that the citizens do so with from their own resources.



"So you will be hearing a great deal about the Ghana that I am seeking with your support that is a Ghana beyond aid. A Ghana that will free itself from a mindset of dependence, of charity, of aid and handouts. The Ghana that is going to mobilise its own resources to develop and confront its own problems," he stated.



The President said this while addressing the Ghanaian community at a Town hall meeting at the New York University (NYU) in New York at the weekend.



This was on the side lines of United Nations High Level Oceans Conference that brought him to the US, for the first time since he became President.



Bubbling with confidence, the Ghanaian Leader maintained that "We are capable of doing it. We have the means to do it".



Even though the country is grateful for the support of her benefactors, he pointed out that "frankly I don't think that is the path Ghanaians should be committed to, that one will depend on others to be able to finance our budget, for others to set our priorities. We have to finance our own budget and set our priorities for ourselves".



President Akufo Addo gave a picture of various efforts and strategies that his administration was using to make the Ghanaian economy a robust one, eliminate corruption and strengthen existing public institutions and to generate employment, especially for the youth.



"The matter of corruption in our society, in our public life cannot be ignored by any of us, if indeed we want to see a more prosperous future for the country, he noted.



Regarding the establishment of the Office of Special Prosecutor, the President said that it would be independent of the Executive, and shall be chosen in a transparent manner and also have security of tenure.



He disclosed that a bill to set up that Special Prosecutor's office would be placed before Parliament before it rise and expressed the hope that it would be passed by the middle of July.



On the declaration of assets by public Office holders, he said Parliament would be asked to consider the possibility of making the assets public.



To forestall the abuse in the public procurement, he said that the issue of sole sourcing was being replaced by competitive bidding, to eliminate corruption.



To this end, he said a Minister of State has been assigned to ensure that there was transparency in the system.



He announced that a National Identification system that would cover all Ghanaians would be re-launched by the end of the year for purposes of planning and information.



Expressing total support for the on-going nationwide campaign against illegal mining (galamsey) that had resulted in polluting the country's rivers and destroyed the environment, President Akufo Addo repeated that that cannot happen or continue to happen in the country.



He said that very soon those engaged in the galamsey would be made to fill the holes created and also to clean the countryside.



President Akufo-Addo said the government was not doing this because



we are against mining, after all the minerals have to be extracted, but what we are not going to allow is compromising the future of our country, drying up of our rivers, pollution of our atmosphere by illegal small scale mining. We are not going to allow that.



The moment the President mentioned Representation of the Peoples Amendment Law (ROPAL), it was greeted with shouts of acceptance but he quickly asked them to intensify their advocacy power to get the Electoral Commission to comply with the law that was passed more than eight years ago.



He said under the 1992 Constitution, it was only the EC that would make it happen.



He also invited the Ghanaian Diaspora to attend the Diaspora Summit scheduled for Accra in July 5 to 8 to map out how to mobilise and utilise their expertise and capital for the development of the country.



Welcoming the President and his entourage, Mrs Martha Pobee, Permanent Representative to the United Nations said the Mission and Consulate General in New York have active engagements with the Ghanaian Diaspora and recognised their dynamic and enterprising potentials for the development of Ghana.

Source: GNA









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The shocking incident took place after the father failed to pay the fee for his daughters' school uniforms.

By India Today Web Desk: Two young girls in Bihar were stripped and thrown out of their school in Begusarai district as their father was unable to pay the fee for their school uniforms on time, police said. One of the girls was a class I student while the elder one was in Class II.

The shocking incident took place on Friday when the father of the students, Chunchun Sah went to pick up his daughters after school, where a teacher asked Sah to bring in the money for the uniforms immediately.

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The school, B R Education Academy, located in Sikraula village in Koriya panchayat, had provided school uniforms to the two girls who were supposed to pay for them.

The father claims that he pleaded for some time to deposit the fee but the teacher stripped his daughters on the spot in front of everyone.

Following the incident, the man went to the police and an FIR was lodged. The principal and a female teacher of the school have been arrested, said Sub-Divisional Police Officer Rajesh Kumar.

State Education Minister Ashok Choudhary termed the incident as insensitive and said that stern action would be taken against the school and the culprits.

(With inputs from PTI)

Also Read:

Shopkeeper strips 2 kids in Thane, shaves heads of boys for allegedly stealing food from his shop

After Indian woman was 'strip-searched' at Frankfurt Airport, Sushma Swaraj seeks report

Also Watch:

Indian woman 'strip-searched' at Frankfurt Airport, Swaraj seeks report

--- ENDS ---
Dr. Wereko-Brobbys inability to measure up to the standards of President Nana Akufo-Addo in any field has accounted for his extreme asocial behavior and enmity towards him, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party has said.



Mr. Antwi-Boasiako explains that Satan has filled the heart of Dr. Wereko-Brobby to the brim with stupid hatred and this makes it impossible for him to see the good side of President Nana Akufo-Addo.



For the record, Wereko-Brobby has inferiority complex issues. He still cant believe Nana Akufo-Addo is better than him. He isnt intelligent like President Nana Akufo-Addo and doesnt possess the knowledge to contribute significantly to the development of Ghana.



He just cant believe God has made Nana the president of Ghana; his sole wish was to see him fall as flagbearer to fuel him to write senseless articles like he did in the past, Mr. Antwi-Boasiako said.



The presidents decision to elevate the late Captain Maxwell Mahama posthumously to the rank of a Major after his gruesome murder, has infuriated Dr. Wereko-Brobby who believes the president might have acted after yielding to an emotional media coverage surrounding the death.



Dr. Wereko-Brobby, a suspended member of the NPP is challenging the state to also give due recognition and attention to the family of Lance Corporal Robert Kumi Ackah, who was tragically shot by his own colleagues.



He is of the firm opinion that President Akufo-Addo was pressured to act because of the attention the media gave to the military commander much to the neglect of the police officer.



But Mr. Bernard Antwi-Boasiako who is also known as Chairman Wontumi, slammed Dr. Wereko-Brobby for the useless accusation warning that he is ready to reply him in equal measure anytime he initiates an unwarranted attack on the president.



Speaking to Peacefmonline.com, Chairman Wontumi noted that it was an open secret that the devil has contracted Dr. Wereko-Brobby to do his bidding and that was to obstruct the president from performing his official duties.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Former Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) has dared the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to bring closure to the Nayele cocaine scandal.



According to him, since the NPP were accusing the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of complicity in the case, they have the responsibility now to ensure that the right thing is done.



Nayele Ametefe was arrested at Heathrow Airport with 12 kg of cocaine and was handed an eight-year jail term by a London court in the United Kingdom (UK).



Subsequently, court ordered the confiscation of her properties; however according to the former NACOB boss, the order has not been followed.



I dare government to continue with the investigation... The investigation is still hanging and for it to continue hanging will be a disgrace to government he told Yaa Konama, host of UTVs Ade Kye Nsroma.

Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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As outrage grows in the community at the senseless deaths caused by the horrific Grenfell Tower fire in London, more details are emerging about what many suspect is the main culprit of the blaze: the external cladding.

The UK Finance Minister, Philip Hammond, told BBC Ones Andrew Marr Show that the cladding on the Grenfell Tower, installed in a 2015 external refurbishment, is in fact illegal to use in Britain.

My understanding is that the cladding in question is also banned here  Philip Hammond on #GrenfellTower https://t.co/HciYAQok9I pic.twitter.com/D0gkFZuntw  BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 18, 2017

He also said that there would be a criminal investigation into whether  and how  building regulations had been breached during the refurbishment.

My understanding is the cladding in question, this flammable cladding which is banned in Europe and the US, is also banned here. So there are two separate questions. One, are our regulations correct, do they permit the right kind of materials and ban the wrong kind of materials? The second question is were they correctly complied with? That will be a subject that the inquiry will look at. It will also be a subject that the criminal investigation will be looking at.

Residents of the area where the tower stands report seeing the cladding go up in flames unbelievably quickly, spreading the fire around the whole building in less than an hour and dripping flaming debris onto the pavement below.

Landlords reportedly ignored their tenants pleas for better fire security, even as they warned the place had all the hallmarks of a deathtrap.

The disasters official death toll stands at 58, but community members believe the number to be much higher, as hundreds who lived in the council housing apartments remain unaccounted for.

Source: 9NEWS.

Image: Leon Neal / Getty.
As shockwaves from the horror of the Grenfell Tower fire in London continue to be felt around the world, a few unlikely heroes have emerged to capture our hearts.

These are the working dogs who assisted the London Fire Brigade during their search and rescue operation.

A picture of the lovely dogs who helped firemen in #GrenfellTower, wearing their heat-proof boots. pic.twitter.com/R9mcivyQuh  Stig Abell (@StigAbell) June 17, 2017

A drone courtesy of @kentfirerescue & specialist search dogs are all part of our operations with @metpoliceuk at #GrenfellTower #999Family pic.twitter.com/3bCWXYmWvC  London Fire Brigade (@LondonFire) June 15, 2017

They wear tiny heatproof booties, and their keen noses and low bodyweight mean they are much better at searching dangerous scenes than their human mates.

Weve used specialist search dogs at #GrenfellTower. Theyre lighter than humans and can cover a large area quickly https://t.co/WVA0PBEKti pic.twitter.com/CRuCqSkYiG  London Fire Brigade (@LondonFire) June 16, 2017

And because theres pretty much nothing better than a dog with a job, people are absolutely loving the crap outta them.

Hands down, 100%, the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life https://t.co/9eecVTjcEc  Mitch (@uknownuffin) June 17, 2017

Dont you just love dogs, awesome creatures ?? #heroicdogs hope they get official recognition. https://t.co/ga5wqUZaaT  doasyouwouldbedoneby (@maudy100) June 17, 2017

PUPPIES WITH RESPONSIBILITIES ?????? https://t.co/LZ6OgIf1Di  Eilish McCausland (@EilishM93) June 17, 2017

Theyre really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, good dogs, brent.  Gnobrin (@Gnobrin) June 16, 2017

Mans best friend in joy and tragedy. If only politicians were as loyal and trustworthy as dogs.??????????????  John Crow (@JohnFortisKrow) June 16, 2017

Heroes dont always have two feet, they often have four https://t.co/Gs2fxjCTrq  Deer Girl (@fawnfield) June 17, 2017

We salute you, search dogs of London. Thank you for your service.

Image: Twitter / @StigAbell.
Red Symons, the former Hey Hey Its Saturday number-scribbler accused of racism after a calamitous interview last week, has apologised for the bizarre incident and its impact.

Following an unedited interview with Its Not A Race podcaster Beverley Wang, in which Symons asked her whats the deal with Asians? and are you yellow?, the ABC Radio Melbourne host this morning copped to the offence he caused.



The plan was to take on a serious topic, race and culture, and talk with Beverley about a range of related issues, Symons told listeners.

I came across as racist and I was wrong in the way I conducted the interview. This is not who I am, but I acknowledge on this occasion I caused offence and hurt, not only to Beverley but also to our listeners.

Symons delivered his sincerest apologies for the incident, now recognising that we need to talk about these issues, but be careful we consider them.



The interview drew near-instant criticism, not only because it was so incredibly tone-deaf, but because it was actually published by the national broadcaster.

After the fact, the podcast segment was removed from the ABC site, and the organisation said itd have a look over the editorial checks and balances that lead to its publication online.

Source: ABC.

Photo: Robert Prezioso / Getty.
Tuula Vintage  a.k.a. Jessica Stein, a.k.a. one of the original Australian fashion bloggers turned global trendsetter  has welcomed a beautiful baby girl with her partner.

Offering a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into her perfectly curated Instagram life, Stein posted a picture of herself, her partner and her 12-week-old baby girl at the Sydney Childrens Hospital.

We have been pinching ourselves all day, every day for the past twelves weeks since our beautiful daughter arrived, she said. I always knew it wouldnt be easy for me to become a mother, but I never thought these first precious months would be so hard for her. Were still living in a hospital a few hours from home and taking each day as it comes, learning from and loving every moment with her.



Couldnt get much happier ???????? A post shared by Jessica Stein (@tuulavintage) on Mar 1, 2017 at 12:14pm PST

Stein had a difficult pregnancy, and was admitted to hospital at 24 weeks after being diagnosed with preterm premature rupture of membranes (a.k.a. broken waters) at 20 weeks.

When she first announced her pregnancy, she explained this was due to ongoing trauma after a serious injury in her teens.

I experienced multiple pelvic and internal injuries after being hit by a car at 16 with ongoing pain and limitations, and was warned of what might never come to be, she wrote at the time.  Ive always wanted to adopt (as my incredible mum was) and my partner and I had been talking about it again just before this unexpected miracle happened.



Floating away any worries after last weeks hospital visits in the city, feeling so lucky to be able to swim and enjoy the last of Sydneys summer ???? A post shared by Jessica Stein (@tuulavintage) on Mar 5, 2017 at 2:08pm PST

Stein didnt reveal the name of her bebe, but did thank her 2.6 million followers for their well wishes and patience.

When I get a moment or need for distraction from hospital life I will be posting some unpublished or favourite photos from old travels, until were all happy and healthy enough for home, then travelling as a family, she said. I would be lying if I didnt admit this is extremely tough, but so is she.



Congrats guys!

We have been pinching ourselves all day, every day for the past twelve weeks since our beautiful daughter arrived. I always knew it wouldnt be easy for me to become a mother, but I never thought these first precious months would be so hard for her. Were still living in hospital a few hours from home and taking each day as it comes, learning from and loving every moment with her. We are hoping to be back home in the coming weeks to settle in and enjoy our new chapter together. Until then, I wanted to thank everyone for your well wishes and patience. When I get a moment or need for distraction from hospital life I will be posting some unpublished or favourite photos from old travels, until were all happy and healthy enough for home, then travelling as a family. I would be lying if I didnt admit this is extremely tough, but so is she ????

A post shared by Jessica Stein (@tuulavintage) on Jun 18, 2017 at 3:48am PDT



Photo: Tuula Vintage / Instagram.
Model, actress and generally fabulous entity Paris Jackson has just landed herself on the cover of Vogue Australias July issue  her first ever international Vogue cover, just quietly  and because shes Paris Jackson, she convinced the magazine to conduct its first ever interview via text message.

Editor-in-chief Edwina McCann gushed about Jackson, calling her the breakthrough name of 2017, and said of the cover story:

When it came to [the] interview, Jackson suggested a text conversation, something we have never before agreed to at Vogue, but which seemed appropriate for someone of her generation. We are all familiar with her famous last name and I hope our interview gives readers a chance to get to know Paris Jackson.

Jackson was photographed by Patrick Demarchelier for the shoot, and in the accompanying interview, talks about using modelling and her position in the public eye to try and make the world of beauty a more inclusive place.

She also froths quite significantly on humble old Oz. My parentals got married there so its for sure on my bucket list to go, she told the magazine. Plus Bluesfest always has the grooviest set list so maybe one year Ill hit it up.

Of her burgeoning career, Jackson said:

I have so many causes that are dear to my heart and fighting for the people, I feel, is my duty. But right now since Im doing the fashion thing, a huge focus  well, mostly what Im putting a lot of effort into  is making sure my own personal creativity shows through whatever Im doing while Im working. I really want to leave a positive imprint in the fashion world, mostly regarding the media and the stereotypical beauty standard that is blasted all over every magazine you see, every article that pops up on your phone screen, every billboard you see while youre driving down the street. I already have many young girls looking up to me and I want to be something their parents are OK with them looking up to.

The Vogue Australia July issue is on sale Monday 26 June 2017.

Source: Vogue Australia.

Photos: Patrick Demarchelier / Vogue Australia.
A new proposal could prevent millions of Pennsylvanians from getting the quality health care on which they depend. We cannot afford for Pennsylvania Senate Bill 600 to become a requirement.



Pennsylvania Medicaid Managed Care Organizations like Health Partners Plans serve populations that grapple with homelessness, food insecurity and other social determinants of health care on a daily basis. The company that is recommended to provide care coordination services to these vulnerable populations as outlined in SB 600 is based in California, which means Pennsylvanians could lose jobs.

Probably most important, most of the work is performed over the phone. Effective health care is local health care. You simply cannot dial in effective care management from several times zones away for people who are largely transient, juggling significant barriers to health care, and may not have regular access to phones or the internet.



We provide our beneficiaries with hands-on personal care, coupled with in-person community outreach. Senate Bill 600 would provide care coordination that Medicaid MCOs are already required by law to give, creating unnecessary duplication and waste.



Bottom line: we need to prevent additional barriers for our Medicaid population to continue to receive the best quality care they deserve.



Denise Croce, executive vice president, clinical and provider management,

Health Partners Plans, Philadelphia
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jun 18 (PTI) German luxury carmaker BMW is investing another Rs 130 crore in India to enhance operations, taking its total investment in the country to Rs 1,250 crore.

The company will launch new version of its locally manufactured 5 Series later this month and 6 Series Gran Turismo (GT) model next year to strengthen its product portfolio in India.

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"Since 2007, we have been consistently investing in India. This year, we are going to increase our investment further to up to Rs 1,250 crore on a cumulative basis," BMW India President Vikram Pawah told PTI.

BMW has invested Rs 1,120 crore in the Indian operations so far.

The new investment will go into BMW group operations, including Motarrad (two-wheeler business) as well as the financial services arm, he added.

With the fresh investments, the total investments on BMW group operations in India will go up to Rs 520 crore and on BMW Financial Services to Rs 730 crore.

The company is looking to expand its dealer network in the country. It currently has 18 partners and is present in 30 cities.

"Besides, we have 63 touch points. Out of these, we have 41 sales outlets. So we want to take these 41 outlets to 50 by 2018," Pawah said.

In other emerging towns, in addition to 30 major cities, the company utilises its Mobile Studios to expand the market further.

This year, the weather proof BMW mobile studio will cover 50 towns, Pawah said.

On new product launches, he said: "As part of our power to lead strategy, product offensive starts. In next two weeks, we will be launching the new 5 Series."

The model has played a big role in the success of BMW in India. Since 2007, the company has sold around 66,000 vehicles in India with 5 Series having contributed close to 30 per cent of the total sales.

"Next year, we will be introducing another model in between 5 and 7 Series, called the 6 GT and that would again define a new segment and create new market for us," Pawah said.

On local manufacturing, Pawah said: "We are locally producing eight of our total 16 models that are available. So as we introduce new models, also the new 5 Series, will be produced in the Chennai plant."

The 6 GT would also be manufactured locally, he added.

"So all our main volume drivers as we call them will also be produced locally. Niche models will continue to come in CBU form. As the volumes increase we will continue to evaluate as what can manufactured locally," Pawah said.

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The companys Chennai plant has an installed capacity of 14,000 units on a single shift basis. It started operations in March 2007 and currently produces BMWs 1 Series, 3 Series, 3 Series Gran Turismo, 5 Series, 7 Series along with SUVs X1, X3 and X5.

When asked about competition with its German rivals Mercedes and Audi to be the number one player in the luxury car market in India, he said BMWs focus is to remain the fastest growing premium car brand in India.

In the January-May period this year, BMW has sold 3,533 units in India at a growth of 8 per cent.

Pawah further said the company would be focusing on its power to lead strategy to grow the entire premium car market.

"The idea is to grow the segment. Currently in India, premium car segment remains less than 2 per cent of the total passenger vehicle market (3 million last fiscal) as compared to 5-10 per cent in various countries," Pawah said.

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The efforts should be to at least make it 5 per cent and and eventually 10 per cent of the PV market, he added.

The premium vehicle segment is estimated to be around 35,000 units per annum currently. PTI MSS RKL MR SRK

--- ENDS ---
Which Michigan bands are leading the airwaves this fall?

Five albums made a splash on the latest Local Spins Hot Top 5 Chart, representing the local and regional releases that received the most radio airplay at Grand Rapids WYCE.


PPGPL is a well-run company and that continues to the present day. It has one of the best safety records in the energy sector and most importantly has never lost money.

TTNGL the Sequel

By Kevin Ramnarine is a former Minister of Energy of Trinidad and Tobago from June 2011 to September 2015.

In 2013, Conoco Phillips informed the Government of T&T they were selling their 39% stake in Phoenix Park Gas Processors Limited (PPGPL). The reason - restructuring aimed at an increased focus on their upstream business. Their departure, on the surface, looked like a loss but it represented an opportunity for T&T.

PPGPL's core business is natural gas processing, natural gas liquid (NGL) aggregation and fractionation. If our country's natural gas infrastructure was a human body, PPGPL would be its heart. PPGPL's revenue is dependent on the volume of natural gas it processes, the amount of liquids that can be removed from that natural gas and the price it gets for its products.

Immediately the NGC set out to acquire Conoco Phillips' 39% stake in PPGPL. The NGC and NEL had already owned 51%. Ten percent (10%) was owned by General Electric. They had acquired it from Pan West Engineers. That 10% was eventually sold to a consortium of UTC, NIB and NEL in late 2014. From the onset, I made it clear to Conoco Phillips that the Government saw the 39% as strategic and wanted it. The NGC participated in a competitive process and eventually its offer of US$ 600 million was accepted by Conoco Phillips.

When I announced the acquisition in August 2013, I said, For too long the energy sector has been divorced from the stock exchange. When one looks at the stock exchange, the stock exchange is not a reflection of the national economy. You see banking. You see manufacturing. You see insurance but there is little or no representation there of the country's main economic driver, and this is something we want to change through this Phoenix Park acquisition. In nominal terms, the acquisition was the largest ever by the Government in the history of the energy sector. The next step was the Initial Public Offering (IPO).

We proceed with the TTNGL IPO against great odds. There were many times it could have been derailed. The FCB IPO, while very successful, was stained by allegations of insider trading which cast a shadow over the TTNGL IPO. There was concern that there could be a repeat of what happened with the FCB IPO. In the end, the Cabinet and the Ministry of Finance were assured that steps were taken to prevent a reoccurrence of what happened at FCB. We learned from that experienced, we made changes and moved forward.

There was also no end of criticism. Dr. Rowley called for it to be aborted. Mr. Imbert said it was a fire sale. In T&T if you're doing something new and progressive expect criticism. If you believe what you're doing is in the best interest of the country  stay the course. We stayed the course.

We proceeded with the launch of the IPO in August 2015 and offered the shares at TT$ 20. That too was criticized as being too high. If you examine how the shares have been trading in the last year between TT$ 21 and TT$ 24 per share, it fair to say we got the offer price right. To date no one has lost money on this IPO. The NGC has lost no money. Investors have seen their capital appreciate and they have gotten good dividends. In fact, TTNGL has a cumulative dividend yield of 15% based on it paying TT$ 3.00 per share since it was listed. Its dividend yield at the end of 2016 was 7.14% which is the best on the stock exchange.

TheTTNGL IPO remains the largest IPO in the history of T&T. It was 1.77 times oversubscribed. It was a success. It ushered in a new era for the T&T stock exchange. It linked the energy sector to the financial sector. It changed the ownership of the energy sector which had hitherto been concentrated in multi-nationals and the State. This was economic democracy.

The PNM Government has continued with the policy of public offerings that was initiated by the PP Government with the FCB IPO and the TTNGL IPO. The 2017 FCB Additional Public Offering (APO) was disappointing for several debatable reasons. The NGC has pressed ahead with its own APO of the remaining 40,248,00 class B shares in TTNGL. I suppose every good movie deserves a sequel.

PPGPL is a well-run company and that continues to the present day. It has one of the best safety records in the energy sector and most importantly has never lost money. In the worst of times when price for its products collapsed, PPGPL still made money. Since the company is run as a business and not an employment agency it has been able over the years to have a low-cost structure.

One other bright spot is the BP Juniper project which will start production early next month. This will see an 18% increase in the country's natural gas output. Why is Juniper relevant to TTNGL and PPGPL? Any increase in natural gas production is good news for PPGPL given its business model as a natural gas processor and liquids aggregator.

It's good to see that the current Government has followed its predecessor and continued with public offerings. The country can only benefit from wider ownership of energy assets.

Kevin Ramnarine / June 12, 2017
When the leaders of the world's two nuclear superpowers met on June 23, 1967, in a town few outside South Jersey had heard of, global tensions were rising, America was becoming divided, and fear of annihilation by the forces of a malevolent ideology haunted our dreams.

Nevertheless, people in Glassboro and at Glassboro State College, which hosted the summit between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Kosygin, together created a hospitable, festive, and patriotic atmosphere that bathed the three-day event in goodwill.

Local folks put up with the disruptions  traffic tie-ups, encounters with the Secret Service, questions from the reporters who were all over the place  with equanimity.

"We were a small town, and people here wanted something good to happen at the summit, We wanted to help the country," recalls Mayor Leo McCabe, 84, then a refinery research manager raising three young children in Glassboro.

"Everybody was on board," says Leila DeEugenio, who graduated from Glassboro High School in 1967; her husband's family changed the name of their venerable Glassboro business to "Summit City Farms" after the LBJ-Kosygin meeting.

Last week, I visited the pleasant Gloucester County borough of 19,000, where the Summit name adorns an assisted-living facility on Route 322, a housing complex being built downtown, and a street in an over-55 community called the Village Grande at Camelot. There's a Summit City Farms and Winery, too.

"The summit put us on the map," says Fred Tartaglione, owner of Tag's Auto Supply on High Street, who is one of many around town who remember when Glassboro briefly became the epicenter of global affairs.

As well as a focus of media attention: Nick L. Petroni's family home was adjacent to Hollybush, the glassworks magnate Thomas Whitney's 19th-century mansion. Hollybush became the site of the summit, and the Petronis' house became the Associated Press operations center.

The AP set up a darkroom in the basement and a newsroom in a first-floor office; Nick Petroni's mother made and served sandwiches to the newshounds.

"I was 18 and the AP asked me if I wanted to be a photo runner," says Petroni, an accountant who has several hefty albums of summit photos and memorabilia in his High Street office.

"I got press credentials on the [spot]. It was surreal," he adds, describing the atmosphere in and around Glassboro on those three days as "hopeful  that something good would come out" of the summit.

"There was a sense of pride that we had been chosen for this," says longtime resident Thomas Gallia, 73, who retired in 2014 after a career of more than 40 years at what is now Rowan University.

"At the time, antiwar protests were going on all over," he recalls. "I didn't see any protests [during the summit], but I did see a sign that said, 'Welcome Grandpa.' LBJ had just become a grandfather."

At Summit City Farms Winery  it did not exist in 1967 but will be among the stops on a tour during the anniversary celebration  a vintage banner proclaiming Glassboro the "Summit Town" hangs in a function room.

"Younger people don't realize how stressful the Cold War was," says manager Jim Johnson, who is 67 and grew up in Glassboro. "We were in the heart of the 'duck and cover' era."

His reference to the self-protection procedure a cartoon turtle taught us boomers when we were growing up in the 1950s and '60s reminds me of how frightened we really were of a nuclear attack.

But while the summit didn't yield a new treaty or a dramatic announcement, the face-to-face conversations between Johnson and Kosygin helped defuse tensions between the two sides.

LBJ himself spoke glowingly of the "spirit of Hollybush"; some historians regard the Glassboro conversations as the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

So it's fitting that the summit's 50th anniversary celebration will be an upbeat affair.

"We're going to have events from noon to 4 on Saturday, June 24," says Lavon Phillips, borough director of public relations and business development.

Tours of Hollybush, "summit stories" by those who were there, a 1960s car display, performances of period music, and, in the evening, a "Spirit of Hollybush" dinner are being jointly presented by the borough and Rowan,

The former Glassboro State College has become a respected university and has grown from 3,500 to 17,000 students in the last half century; Rowan also is a partner in the construction of an impressive cluster of mixed-use developments along Rowan Boulevard and elsewhere in the heart of the borough.

"This was not an [institution] that was on the map in this country" in 1967, university president Ali A. Houshmand says from his campus office. "There is no doubt that the summit had a tremendous amount of influence  long term, incrementally  on the trajectory [that brought] this university to where it is today."

If he had an opportunity to host a summit between President Trump and Vladimir Putin, Houshmand  who grew up in Iran  tells me he would "tell them that the world more than ever before needs [their] leadership to save itself" from destruction, particularly by "non-state actors" involved in terrorism.

"I would say, it is incumbent on the two of you to sit down  because the enemies [on the outside] are far more dangerous to both of us, and it is time to sit down and truly and realistically, for the good of human civilization, figure out ways we can move forward."

Elsewhere on campus, Lori Marshall was having a busy week. The assistant vice president of university relations and unofficial steward of Rowan's extensive collection of photographs, documents, correspondence, film, and memorabilia about the summit, she grew up a block away from Hollybush.

Only 4 in 1967, Marshall says that spending many recent hours in the archives has impressed upon her the wisdom of Johnson's quote about the clarifying impact of looking a person  especially an adversary  in the eye and having a frank discussion.

To a Cold War kid who vividly remembers fallout shelters and mushroom clouds, that alone is reason for Glassboro, Rowan, and the rest of us to celebrate.
Korean War vet Donald Bustard reads a letter on the grave of a war buddy whose death 66 years ago has haunted Bustard all these years. Read more

Donald Bustard carefully lowers himself onto a tombstone next to the grave of his friend Joe. He opens a folded note of things he has wanted to tell him for 66 years, and begins to read.

"First of all, I must talk about your horrendous death. At least it was swift and you didn't suffer," says Bustard, 87, who served in the Korean War with Joe, who was accidentally killed by a fellow soldier while deployed.

"But the cause was so stupid and never should have happened. That incredibly stupid GI who entered the guardhouse, emptying his rifle.  The lone bullet in the chamber fired, ricocheted off the floor, killing you as you were taking a nap after your shift on guard duty."

The tears start. His feelings are all over the place.

There's grief for Joe, who died 10 days shy of his 21st birthday. Anger at how the death was handled by military brass. Relief to finally speak his piece to Joe, with whom he served as a private in the U.S. Army's 1092nd Engineer Battalion, Combat.

There's a well-known saying about returning military veterans  "All gave some; some gave all." Bustard gave some; Joe gave all. Bustard has been haunted by the difference for more than six decades.

He met Joe in January 1951 as their battalion sailed to South Korea, where they would be stationed in Pusan. They were gawky young men, thousands of miles from everything familiar, scared witless. They bonded quickly over their shared roots  Bustard was from Germantown, Joe from South Philly  and spoke about their homes and families as Joe taught Bustard how to play chess.

"He was the sweetest, most cheerful guy," Bustard said. "Having him there made me feel less alone."

Their brief, important friendship ended when Joe was accidentally shot in that guardhouse. Bustard nearly collapsed when he heard the news. He spent 24 hours in his bunk, sobbing.

"It was one of the most traumatic moments of my life," Bustard says. "We were never told what happened to the guy who killed Joe. They got him out of there. We didn't see what happened to Joe' s body, either."

After the war, Bustard was too shattered to search for Joe's family and offer condolences. But he has never stopped thinking about Joe.

Three weeks ago, Bustard contacted me to ask a favor. Would I help him find Joe's family? Perhaps they could lead him to Joe's grave, where Bustard could say the goodbye he had been denied 66 years ago.

The request seemed impossible: Bustard couldn't recall Joe's last name, except that it was Italian. Nor did he know Joe's birth or death dates.

But a few hours digging through military records yielded promise: A Philly soldier with the Italian surname of Ferzetti who had suffered a non-military fatality in Pusan, South Korea, on March 14, 1951. He was a member of Bustard's battalion and died within the precise time frame Bustard described.

I tracked down one of Ferzetti's siblings. He is 83, kind and gracious. He was too modest to allow me to use his own first name in this column, and he was skeptical of a family connection to Bustard: His brother's first name had been Nick, not Joe. And he didn't recall Nick ever playing chess.

Hmmm. Maybe Bustard had confused his war buddy's first name for another soldier  maybe not. Maybe the buddy had learned to play chess while deployed  or maybe not.

More clear-cut, though, would be details of the death

"Can you tell me how Nick died?" I asked Ferzetti's brother.

"They told us that he was killed in a guardhouse when another soldier's gun went off," he answered.

"That's exactly how Mr. Bustard says Joe died," I told him.

He let out a breath.

"Oh, my," he said quietly. "That certainly sounds like it was Nick."

And then he started talking about his brother.

He had been one of nine children  two sisters and seven brothers (six of whom served in the military). With his siblings, he had helped to support the family after their father died young. He was witty, smart, and quick.

"I was closest to him, even though he was seven years older than me," says the man of Ferzetti, who is buried alongside family at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon. "I was devastated when he got killed. I still carry his photo in my wallet. And I still have the last letter he wrote to me. He said 'I'm scared as s and I might not be coming back.'"

Fifteen years ago, members of Ferzetti's family  there are five surviving siblings and scads of nieces and nephews  were upset when his name was not among those to be etched into the Philadelphia Korean War Memorial. Somber and beautiful, it's located on Penn's Landing and includes 10 granite-clad columns and monoliths recognizing casualties of the conflict.

"They told us you had to be killed in action to have your name on there," says the brother. "That didn't sit right with us."

It didn't sit right with Bill Kelly, either. He's president of the memorial, located on Penn's Landing, and says Ferzetti's name deserves to be on the monument.

"As far as we're concerned, if you died in theater, you should be honored," said a puzzled Kelly, whom I called to ask about protocols for inclusion. He promised to add Ferzetti's name to the columns as soon as possible. "I'm so sorry the family was told otherwise."

Bustard hopes to visit the memorial once Ferzetti's name is etched there. But first, he wants to pay respect to him at Holy Cross Cemetery.

"I don't know why I remembered his name as Joe," he'd told me as we walked to Ferzetti's gravesite. "After 66 years, you lose some details, I guess."

He was certain, though, that Ferzetti was the young man who had taught him chess, made him laugh during daily meals, and assuaged his fears so long ago. Any doubt vanished when he saw Ferzetti's picture.

Earlier in the week, I had shown him grainy, Xeroxed news photos of several Philly soldiers, including Ferzetti, who had died in the Korean War. I wanted to see if Bustard would pick out the man he had known as Joe.

"That's him!" he said, pointing to Ferzetti, excitedly. "I remember that smile!"

And now here he is, on a brilliant, breezy Friday afternoon, his gnarled hands gently placing a floral arrangement of red and white carnations  designed to resemble a chessboard  atop Ferzetti's grave marker. In a bag, he has brought the Korean War Service Medal he received upon discharge from the Army in December 1951.

"Nick," he says, using Ferzetti's real name at last, "I've been praying all the time for the protection of my family. And for quite a spell I have felt that you have been my guardian angel."

He asks Ferzetti to remain close, and ends with the farewell he's held inside for 66 years.

"For now, Nick, so long and goodbye," he says, his voice catching in his throat, "until we have that heavenly meal together again."
The Roses in June, having its world premiere at Plays & Players Theatre, was written by Timothy M. Kolman. His credentials are impressive: a posh education in London, prestigious legal and judicial appointments in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and experience as a combat veteran of the Israeli Defense Force. He is a child of German Jewish refugees. Unfortunately, none of these actually equips a person to write a play, even if the play is, as The Roses in June is, about a boy who is the child of German Jewish refugees and attends a posh London school.

The play's subject is anti-Semitism  in 1940s Germany, the 1960s Middle East, and, by implication, any time  so when the pompous, elitist headmaster (Nigel Taplow, shaky in his lines) says, in 1967, of the school's population, "We are seeing a decline in the integrity of British culture," he could be speaking now.

Paul Rose (Tyler Brennan) and Abdul Amin (Jay Romero) are friends and classmates at St. Crispin's. At some point  unexplained and chronologically confused in the plot  Abdul becomes radicalized as a Jew-hating Muslim, much to the horror of his father (Eric Cover). Bullying and physical violence occur at the school, victimizing the Jewish Paul. These acts are presumably triggered by the flashy English literature lecturer (Colin Davies) who, while teaching Dickens' Oliver Twist, makes the case that Dickens' portrait of "Fagin as the archetypal Jew" is evidence of his anti-Semitism. Paul's mother (Kirsten Quinn) and father (Ian Agnew) are appalled that this terror has followed them, 25 years later, as they relive the nightmare they escaped.

We are made to sit through various lectures, chastisements, letters, and school assemblies; almost everything is repeated twice if not thrice, and several scenes seem altogether unnecessary to the plot. The cast, under the direction of Alan Radway, tries to put life into this tedious script, but to no avail.

The Roses in June. Through July 1 at Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey. Tickets: $35-$47. Information: 866-811-4111 or rosesinjune.com.
Melissa Smith doesn't remember much about Oct. 17, 2016.

The 26-year-old called out from her job as a licensed practical nurse in a senior-citizen facility that morning. Her recently estranged husband picked up their two daughters.

Around 6 p.m., her mother, Laurie Lehman, noticed a text message.

"Just wanted to tell all of you I love you," Smith wrote.

Lehman, 45, didn't realize her daughter's father and five adult siblings had gotten the same message.

About an hour later, Smith tapped out a Facebook message to a neighbor in her Maytown, Pa., townhouse complex, 100 miles west of Philadelphia.

"Call 911," Smith wrote. "My door is unlocked, but don't come in."

Responding to the call, Susquehanna Regional Police Officer Mike Kimes was climbing the stairs in Smith's home when he saw a flare in the darkened bedroom ahead and heard an unmistakable sound:

Smith had put a gun to the area just above her eyes and fired.

The hollow-point bullet broke apart on impact, sending fragments of metal and bone into her brain's frontal lobes. The bulk of the bullet zigged to the right, clipping her pituitary gland. Another large fragment kept tearing through her brain until it finally stopped, wedging in her neck.

The force of the blast shattered parts of her right eye socket and cracked her skull.

The bullet could have killed her in so many ways  if it had taken a different, even more destructive course; if infection had set in; if her care had been less speedy or less capable; if she had different luck.

Smith and Lehman are telling her story to encourage others suffering from depression and anxiety to seek help so they will not surrender to despair. Nearly as important, they say, is to bear witness to the role faith has played in Smith's recovery.

"I feel blessed to be alive," Smith said.

Drifting away

For Smith, the dark thoughts began when she was a preteen.

She remembers feeling worthless, "like I didn't matter. Not good enough."

Growing up on a farm in York County, Smith had friends and her big family to support her. When she was younger, her mother had their pastor come over to talk about the feelings she was having. But Smith always resisted sharing what was going on inside.

Smith got pregnant in her senior year of high school, giving birth a few months after graduation. She married her boyfriend shortly after.

"I had postpartum [depression] with my first pretty bad. I don't know how long that lingered," Smith said. "I felt alone."

Her husband traveled a lot for work. Smith was used to a full house, but instead, it was just her and the baby much of the time.

When their first child was about 1, she took "a lot" of prescription-strength naproxen pills that her doctor had given her for back pain. She can't remember how many. She doesn't think she was trying to kill herself.

"I just wanted the pain to go away and to sleep," Smith said.

When her husband, out of town for work, called to say goodnight, she told him about the pills. He called Lehman, who took her daughter to a hospital. Smith spent a couple of weeks in treatment at an inpatient mental-health facility.

For the next several years, her depression waxed and waned.

She went back to school and became a licensed practical nurse. She had another daughter. Sometimes, they even felt like a family. Those were the good times.

"But then I would get down," Smith said.

For about five of those years, she took medication for depression and anxiety, but after a while, she thought it didn't help. She stopped taking it two years ago.

She kept her bad feelings mostly to herself, and began hanging out with people she thought were her friends.

Smith drifted away from her family and faith. Her marriage began to crumble. Then, last spring, she moved into her own townhouse.

Lehman disapproved of her daughter's actions. She told her that couples should work out their differences together.

"You love me, but you don't like me," Lehman remembers her daughter telling her.

Eleven days before her suicide attempt, Smith filed for divorce.

Smith says she can't remember planning her suicide attempt. But when the police released Smith's phone to her family, they saw the signs  messages about death alternated with passages from Scripture. The worst were the photos of her gun, set among flowers.

"It was a dark world for her," Lehman said.

Signs of life

Witnesses have pieced together what happened after Smith pulled the trigger: Kimes, who held her broken head in his hands, imploring her to stay alive. The Lancaster Medical Center staff who stabilized her and controlled the pressure on her brain. Her family members and their pastor who prayed for her. One of her sisters who sang "Amazing Grace" at her bedside. Then the flight to Penn Presbyterian in Philadelphia, where a team of doctors painstakingly worked to give her back her life.

"She's made a remarkable recovery physically," said James Schuster, director of neurotrauma at Penn.

When Smith first arrived at Penn Presbyterian, her prognosis was unclear.

A team worked to further control pressure on her brain, which could have been life-threatening. An endocrinologist handled the pituitary gland injury, which was affecting the balance of electrolytes and water in her blood.

Doctors knew more extensive and detailed surgery was needed, but first they were looking for signs from Smith.

"The damage of the bullet was pretty significant," said Phuong Nguyen, Penn's director of adult craniofacial surgery. "All of us were watching and waiting to see if she had any brain function."

She began to show them  wiggling toes on command, giving thumbs up.

"Miraculously, she started demonstrating purposeful movement and enough brain function that we all said, 'Let's go for it,' " said Nguyen.

Eight days after Smith shot herself, the team went into surgery.

Schuster removed a portion of the front of her skull so he could clear out dead brain tissue and bullet and bone fragments. Dura, the covering that protects the brain, was repaired to prevent leakage of cerebrospinal fluid, which helps cushion the brain and prevents serious infection. The base of her skull had to be rebuilt to separate her brain from her sinuses. Metal plates, screws, and grafts of her own bones were used to put her skull back together.

When Smith arrived at Penn, her right eye socket had been shattered, her eyeball bulging out of her head like that of a B-movie villain. To reconstruct the eye socket, Nguyen used moldable titanium mesh and some of Smith's own inner skull to lessen the likelihood of infection.

Two additional surgeries were needed  including one to treat an infection that threatened her brain.

Who did this?

"Sorry" was the first word Smith blurted out when her feeding and breathing tubes were removed three days after the surgery.

Exactly what was in Smith's mind when she said that word, she doesn't now remember, but about a week after the tubes came out, Lehman asked her daughter if she wanted to see herself. Smith had just been told her injury was from a shooting.

When she looked into the bathroom mirror in her hospital room, Smith asked, "Who did this?"

"I said, 'You did,' " Lehman recalled. "And she just shook her head no."

Her mother told her what had happened. Smith started to cry.

"I said, 'What are you thinking?' She said, 'That my girls could have been without their mom.' "

During Smith's hospital stay, as the doctors and nurses tended to her body, her family sought to bolster her spirit with their prayers. They played soothing hymns at her bedside. Verses of faith adorned her room, such as the Genesis story of how God brings good from evil to those who trust in him.

Words from Matthew came to have special meaning. The morning Smith's parents drove to Penn to be with her after the shooting, Lehman, standing on her porch, saw the sun bursting through the trees in a way she had never seen before. To her, it was a sign. She took a photo and made a poster for her daughter's room: "The people living in Darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of the shadow of death a LIGHT has DAWNED!"

When Smith's bandages were removed, the pattern of the stitches resembled the sunburst.

Smith still has substantial scars, physical and emotional.

She lost the sight in her right eye and hearing in her right ear. She also lost her senses of smell and taste, most likely from damage to her olfactory nerves. Her emotions are muted, and she has headaches every day.

Despite her doctors' best efforts, she will never look quite the same. That bothers her.

In May, Smith had an additional reconstructive surgery; Nguyen took fat from her abdomen to fill out some of the contours of her face. She has at least one more surgery planned to further increase her facial symmetry and reduce the sunburst-like scar on her forehead.

The bullet fragment in her neck, detectable by a light touch, serves as a constant reminder of the day she tried to end her life.

Throughout her treatment, Nguyen has been impressed by Smith's spirit, her strength.

"I've now had perhaps half a dozen patients who had suicide attempts and survived," Nguyen said. "The common theme, regardless of race, age, creed, social status, is they are very happy to have survived."

Imagining a future

Another common thread  those who recover don't do it alone.

"They have a superlative network of unconditional love," Nguyen said. "Sometimes that's not recognized until unfortunate events transpire."

That can also be true of loved ones. Lehman said it was hard for her to get past the guilt she felt over how she had reacted to some of her daughter's choices.

Lehman's advice to other parents: Guide your children, but make sure they know they are loved.

"There's a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not a freight train," Lehman said. "God created each person for a reason. You are not here by mistake. He has big plans for your life. Don't give up. Look up."

Smith says she is doing that. Prayer has become part of her recovery. She is grateful to be here, and she is facing her depression.

She now takes antidepressant medication and sees a therapist weekly. Every other week, she meets with a traumatic brain injury specialist who is helping her learn to cope with how her brain now works. In conversation, Smith is thoughtful and clear. But her short-term memory plays tricks on her. Something she thinks happened days before may have taken place that day.

Smith does allow herself to imagine the future, to dream.

She is trying to arrange vocational therapy to help her go back to work. She looks forward to when she can drive again  she will be able to despite her vision and cognitive compromises  and being as independent as she was before. She currently lives in an apartment attached to her family's farmhouse.

For now, Smith is focusing on reestablishing the routines of life  cooking, cleaning. She spends time with her family and goes out with friends. She helps out in her family's feed store, though she requires more rest than she did before.

And she has her girls, ages 5 and 8. Their father has legal custody, but she sees them a few times each week. Going to their T-ball and softball games is a joy. Smith hopes to establish shared custody in time.

She would also like to go back to college to become a registered nurse. Her hope  "my passion"  is to work with people with dementia and Alzheimer's.

In April, six months after she put a gun to her head, Smith's friends and family threw a surprise 27th birthday party to celebrate her life.

She says she doesn't feel depressed, "which is the first time I can say that in years."

For others who find themselves in the same dark place as she was, her advice is tell somebody, get help.

"People care about you," Smith said. "Even when you feel like they don't, they do. You matter."

How to get help

Every 13 minutes, someone in the United States takes their own life.

Suicides in the U.S. rose 24 percent from 1999 to 2014, according to the most recent figures available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is the 10th leading cause of death.

Males take their lives at almost four times the rate of females and represent nearly 78 percent of suicides. Women are more likely than men to have suicidal thoughts. Men are more likely to use firearms, while women are more likely to use poisoning. In 2015, the most recent year for which data were available, nearly 44,200 people killed themselves.

Depression is common among people who consider suicide. So are feelings of anxiety, irritability, loss of interest, humiliation, and rage.

About 16 million people age 18 or older experience a major depressive episode in a given year, nearly 7 percent of all U.S. adults, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. The lifetime risk for major depression is about 17 percent. A recent study published in Transitional Psychiatry found that by the age of 17, more than 36 percent of girls and almost 14 percent of boys are or have been depressed.

But depression and anxiety are treatable, and suicide can be prevented.

Signs to look out for are isolation from family and friends, withdrawing from favorite activities, sleeping too much or too little, saying goodbyes, and giving away prized possessions.

Resources for help:

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

City of Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services hotline: 215-686-4420

New Jersey Hopeline: 1-855-NJ-HOPELINE (654-6735)
By Press Trust of India: Malda(WB), Jun 18 (PTI) The Border Security Force (BSF) has seized fake Indian currency notes of the face value of Rs 1.96 lakh and apprehended a person, who was carrying the FICN from Sabdalpur border outpost in Malda district.

A BSF team observed a person coming through link road Khumbhira to Gulabganj last evening. The BSF team detained the person and after thorough search of him, one bundle of fake currency notes were recovered from his possession, a BSF release said today.

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On opening the packet, FICN of face value of Rs 1.96 lakh in the denomination of Rs 2000 notes were found, the release said.

On preliminary questioning the apprehended miscreant revealed his identity as Nijamul Haque (20 years), a resident of Ghera Bhagabanpur village in Malda district.

The apprehended person and seized FICN has been handed over to Baishnabnagar police station for further legal action.

The South Bengal Frontier of BSF has seized FICN of face value of Rs 29,92,000 (including this seizure) and apprehended four FICN smugglers and carriers during this year, the release added. PTI COR RG LNS

--- ENDS ---
Atlantic City police said a 7-year-old girl ran off the sidewalk and into the street  and straight into the side of a car being driven by Mayor Don Guardian on Saturday afternoon.

The mayor was driving west on Route 30 in front of the Highgate Apartments when the child and Guardian's rear, passenger-side door connected. The mayor was not injured, but the girl sustained minor injuries and was taken to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center for treatment.

According to police, an investigation was completed.

"Mayor Guardian was not issued a motor vehicle summons due to the accident being unavoidable," police said in a statement.
Hundreds of U.S. Navy officers and sailors have lain for decades under the anonymity of inscrutable gravestones at Mount Moriah, a 19th century cemetery whose 380 acres span Southwest Philadelphia and Yeadon Borough. For many of the dead, time wore away their names. For others, long-ago conflicts stole not only their lives but their identities, rendering them "unknown"  though not, as it turns out, for eternity.

A corps of 250 volunteers invested nearly a thousand hours over the course of four years to identify 718 veterans buried in the Naval Plot, one of two sections within Mount Moriah that are part of the National Cemetery Administration and reserved for those who served in the military and their families.

"These men and women had a name when they went into the service, whether they fought a war or stayed home, whether they served a day or 30 years. They had a name," said Paulette Rhone, board president of the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the graveyard.

Now, nearly two years after the veterans identification project ended, cemetery officials and relatives of those interred there are urging the federal government to replace the old stones with new ones, engraved with the names recovered by the volunteers.

National Cemetery Administration officials say such an effort is in the works, but that it will take time. "We want to make sure we've done our due diligence and insure accuracy," said Gregory Whitney, director of the Washington Crossing National Cemetery, who oversees Mount Moriah's military plots for the Veterans Administration.

The agency's historians are researching burial records and other historic information about the graves. When that task is completed, Whitney said, the VA will replace the stones. Each will reflect the marker's original design, which differs depending on the era in which the veteran died, and could incorporate information combed from cemetery archives by the volunteers, who included members of the Friends group and students from area universities, Whitney said he expects replacement to start next spring.

The veterans identification project got underway in 2012 following an inquiry from the Medal of Honor Historical Society of the United States. The education and research organization was looking for the burial location of a John Smith who received the medal for heroism while serving on the USS Richmond during the Civil War, and had tracked his grave to Mount Moriah.

Samuel Ricks, a board member of the Friends group, tried to help them, but he was stymied. By then, the cemetery's records  300 boxes of everything from perpetual care contracts to financial documents  were packed away at a storage facility, a situation prompted by the cemetery's whirlwind rescue in 2011.

In April of that year, Mount Moriah, once the resting place of Betsy Ross's remains, was closed, having been abandoned by the widow of the last known member of the Mount Moriah Cemetery Association, which owned the property. The graveyard was placed in receivership and the Mount Moriah Cemetery Preservation Corp. was created to organize its records and restore its overgrown grounds. That included the two sections administered by the Veterans Administration: the Naval Plot, where 2,120 Marine and Navy vets are buried, and the Soldiers' Lot, the resting place of 400 Army vets.

Once the receivership was finalized, volunteers began weekly visits to the storage facility  and later, to the City Archives in University City, where the records were moved  to photograph every cemetery document in the 300 boxes.

But by the summer of 2013, no registry had been found with the names and locations of those buried in the cemetery. Unsure that such a list was even in the boxes, but determined to attach a name to every grave, Ricks settled on an even more labor-intensive strategy. He recruited 200 students from Villanova, Drexel, and Temple Universities to walk the rows of the Naval Plot and record the information on its more than 2,000 stones. As they did, they located John Smith's nearly illegible stone. They also found 717 markers that were worn to illegibility, cracked, toppled, moss-covered or inscribed "Unknown."

Ricks entered every stone's piece of information, however small and incomplete, on a computer spreadsheet.

Then, in December 2014, one of the 300 storage boxes gave up Mount Moriah's secrets. Inside were seven large binders containing the elusive burial records. Ricks now had the names and gravesites that he could cross-reference with his own survey. Among the hundreds confirmed were Commodores Jesse Duncan Elliott, a Medal of Honor recipient and hero of the War of 1812, and Peter Turner, commander of the U.S. Naval Asylum in Philadelphia from 1863 to 1868. Elliott was in a grave marked "Unknown." Turner had no stone at all.

Scott Anderson, a house painter from Yardley, had been looking for the grave of his great-great-great-grandfather, Elliott, for 10 years. Several years ago, online research led him to Mount Moriah, and Ricks led him to Elliott's grave, near a monument depicting a Navy anchor.

Elliott's and Turner's graves were identified earlier than others in the project, so their stones are due to be replaced "shortly," Whitney said.

Anderson can't wait.

"We took some pictures" of the grave, he said. "They're supposed to be putting up a new marker. We're looking forward to it, whenever it happens."
WASHINGTON  The array of legal and political threats hanging over the Trump presidency have compounded the White House's struggles to fill out the top ranks of the government.

Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey last month and the escalating probe into Russian interference in the presidential election have made hiring even more difficult, say former federal officials, party activists, lobbyists and candidates who Trump officials have tried to recruit.

Republicans say they are turning down job offers to work for a chief executive whose volatile temperament makes them nervous. They are asking head-hunters if their reputations could suffer permanent damage, according to 27 people The Washington Post interviewed to assess what is becoming a debilitating factor in recruiting political appointees.

The hiring challenge complicates the already slow pace at which Trump is filling senior leadership jobs across government.

The White House disputed the notion that the administration has a hiring problem and noted that its candidates must be vetted by the FBI and the Office of Government Ethics before being announced publicly, which might contribute to the perception that there is a delay in filing key posts.

"I have people knocking down my door to talk to the presidential personnel office," said White House press secretary Sean Spicer. "There is a huge demand to join this administration."

The White House picked up the hiring pace in May and the first half of June, particularly for positions needing confirmation. It has advanced 92 candidates for Senate confirmation, compared with 59 between Trump's inauguration and the end of April.

But the Senate has just 25 working days until it breaks for the August recess. At this point, Trump has 43 confirmed appointees to senior posts, compared with the 151 top political appointees confirmed by mid-June in President Barack Obama's first term and the 130 under President George W. Bush, according to data tracked by the Post and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service's Center for Presidential Transition.

For cabinet posts, the median wait between nomination and Senate vote for Trump was 25 days, according to data collected by the Post. By contrast, Obama's nominees faced a median wait of two days, George W. Bush had a median wait of zero days and Bill Clinton had a median wait of one day.

A White House official said about 200 people are being vetted for senior-level posts.

Potential candidates are watching Trump's behavior and monitoring his treatment of senior officials. "Trump is becoming radioactive, and it's accelerating," said Bill Valdez, a former senior Energy Department official who is now president of the Senior Executives Association, which represents 6,000 top federal leaders.

"He just threw Jeff Sessions under the bus," Valdez said, referring to recent reports that the president is furious at the attorney general for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. "If you're working with a boss who doesn't have your back, you have no confidence in working with that individual."

Although Trump has blamed Senate Democrats for blocking his nominees, the personnel situation has many causes. After Trump's November victory, hiring got off to a slow start during the transition, and some important positions have run into screening delays as names pass through several White House aides who must give approval. Some prominent private-sector recruits backed off because they would face a five-year post-employment ban on lobbying.

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, who was being considered for an assistant secretary position at the Department of Homeland Security, was the latest to withdraw his name from consideration on Saturday. A person close to the administration who is familiar with the matter said long delays contributed to Clarke's decision.

The Trump team has not faced the same issues with mid- and entry-level jobs. It has hired hundreds of young Republican staffers into positions that are resume-builders  and has filled some senior posts that do not require Senate approval.

Other candidates told the Post they would eagerly serve but are simply waiting for offers.

But as the president continues to sow doubts about his loyalty to those who work for him, most recently with his tweets on Friday that appeared to attack Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a number of qualified candidates say they see little upside to joining government at this time. They include eight Republicans who said they turned down job offers out of concern that working for this administration could damage their reputation.

Republicans have become so alarmed by the personnel shortfall that in the past week a coalition of conservatives complained to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

"We remain very concerned over the lack of secondary and tertiary executive-level appointments," they said in a letter signed by 25 prominent conservatives called the Coalitions for America, describing their concern that the leadership vacuum will create "mischief and malfeasance" by civil servants loyal to Obama.

The letter culminated weeks of private urging by top conservatives, said Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, who helped lead the effort. "They're sensitive about it, and they're trying to do better."

Fitton said that some candidates have faced inexplicable delays on job offers. "People are waiting to hear back. Promises are made but not kept. People are left stranded. Positions are implied, and people are left hanging."

In a town where the long hours and financial sacrifice of working in government are outweighed by the prestige of a White House or agency job, the sacrifice is beginning to look less appealing.

Potential candidates question whether they could make a lasting contribution in an administration whose policies often change directions. They worry that anyone in the White House, even in a mid-level post, faces the possibility of sizable legal bills serving on a team that is under investigation. And then there are the tweets.

"You can count me out," said an attorney who served in the George W. Bush administration and has turned down senior-level legal posts at several agencies, including the Justice Department. This attorney, like others who talked candidly about job offers from the administration, spoke on the condition of anonymity, either because their employers do business with the government or they fear retribution from Republican leaders.

The attorney described an "equally incoherent and unclear leadership" at many agencies, in particular at the Justice Department, where the attorney characterized Sessions's push for stricter sentences for drug crimes as "1982 thinking" that the Republican Party has largely abandoned.

Another person in line for a senior legal post who pulled out after Comey's firing said, "I decided, 'What am I doing this for?' "

He described a disorganized paperwork process that threatened to leave him unprepared for Senate confirmation, and said he was disgusted that Rosenstein was "hung out to dry" as the president claimed at first that the deputy attorney general orchestrated Comey's firing.

"You sit on the tarmac for quite some time, you see smoke coming out of the engine and you say, 'I'm going back to the gate,' " he said.

In recent weeks, several high-profile D.C. attorneys and law firms have turned down offers to represent Trump in the ongoing Russia probe, some of them citing a reluctance to work with a client who notoriously flouts his lawyers' legal advice.

And the White House's top communications job has been vacant since Mike Dubke resigned in May.

Lawyers and candidates for White House jobs are particularly wary now, several people said.

"What they're running into now is, for any job near the White House, people are going to wonder, 'Am I going to have to lawyer up right away?' " said Eliot Cohen, a top official in George W. Bush's State Department and a leading voice of opposition to Trump among former Republican national security officials during the campaign.

"They're saying, 'Tell me about professional liability insurance.' "

A longtime GOP activist and former Bush appointee said he rejected offers for several Senate-confirmed jobs because of his policy differences with Trump.

"There are a number of people who are loyal Republicans but who don't feel comfortable with either [the administration's] trade positions, or the Muslim [travel] ban or the overall volatility of this administration. We just don't feel it's very professional."

One prominent Bush-era Republican had a more measured view.

"Everybody's trying to draw cosmic conclusions about the Trump administration, and my view is it's still too soon to know what we're working with," said a former high-ranking Bush national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. He said a chief executive such as Trump "who comes in as head of a political insurgency" needs time to hire at least some people to his team who have not served in government before.

Others, though, say they have already seen signs of change that make them uneasy.

"How do you draw people to the State Department when they're cutting the budget by 30 percent?" asked Elliot Abrams, a national security veteran of the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations who was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's first pick for deputy secretary before the White House rejected him for criticizing Trump during the campaign. Abrams also cited the president's last-minute decision to remove language from a speech in Brussels in May that affirms the United States' commitment to NATO allies' mutual defense.

"It's much harder to recruit people now," Abrams said.

The Washington Post's Greg Jaffe contributed to this report.

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've launched a newsletter to explore just that. You can sign up to get the weekly Trumpadelphia newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday.
DEA agent Gary Tuggle looks at trash, made up of the paper envelopes that contain syringes, in the open-air drug market in Kensington near the Conrail tracks, in February. Read more

What about the Air Bridge?

As usual, Philadelphia has an optimistic expectation of its deal with Conrail to clean up the heroin needle gulch in Kensington and Fairhill ("At last, a deal," Friday). There was no mention of the Air Bridge, the Puerto Rican network that has exported thousands of drug addicts to Philadelphia (and other cities), which fueled this massive humanitarian tragedy.

What is being done to stop this assault on our city that exacerbated the problem that we have to pay to clean up? I am not optimistic.

 Ken Richman, Philadelphia

Millions misuse opioids

The details in in the story, "A denial of misuse" (June 12) were mind-boggling. I was reminded of a famous quote by Albert Einstein: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it yourself."

As an engineer, I cherish details, but we really need to boil down the opioid crisis:

U.S. population: 325 million

Americans (age 12 and older) misusing opioid pain relievers: 12.5 million

One in 26 Americans are misusing opioid pain drugs.

That is easy to understand.

 |Dan Feeney, West Chester

Painkillers have a purpose

Our news is filled with discussions of the serious opioid problem that has expanded in Philadelphia and the suburbs.

While the newspapers create headlines and the politicians create votes, we must be cautious that an unintended consequence does not result.

Throughout my medical career, one of my important obligations was to provide pain relief to those who were suffering as a result of infections, injuries, tumors and postoperative conditions. While nonnarcotic agents are available, they do not replace the need for morphine, oxycodone, and similar drugs.

When you ask for an answer for opioid addiction, consider that you or your family members might one day suffer intolerable, excruciating pain. You will not be pleased when narcotics become unavailable or so expensive that they cannot be obtained.

Once our politicians make a mistake, it is almost impossible to reverse the error.

 Richard G. Smith, M.D., Lansdale, rgrantsmith@lansdale.us

Stance hurts rape survivors

After reading Managing Editor for Opinion Sandra Shea's commentary about columnist Christine Flowers, I can appreciate that Shea is conflicted ("Controversial Cosby column: Christine Flowers' editor speaks," Philly.com, Wednesday). However, she is still giving a platform for a disgusting rape apologist to spread misinformation, lies, and shaming that actively harm rape survivors. This type of rhetoric emboldens those who hate survivors who break their silence. This type of rhetoric gives permission to call all of us liars.

When you enable that type of harm to persist, you don't get any points for being conflicted, but you do get a share of the blame for the harm Flowers does to those of us who have experienced sexual violence.

Please, keep publishing her rape apologist drivel, but don't insult our intelligence any further with the "peace" you've made with it.

Also, maybe find a local rape crisis center and spend a little time helping the people Flowers is harming. You at least owe us that.

 James Landrith, Alexandria, Va., james@jameslandrith.com

Give Penn State its due

NASA recently announced its 2017 class of 12 astronaut candidates from a pool of 18,300 applicants. One of those astronauts is Zena Cardman, a graduate student in geosciences at Penn State. She follows an illustrious path blazed by four astronauts from Penn State, including Guion Bluford Jr., the first African American astronaut. Cardman may very well travel to Mars.

The Inquirer did not report this brilliant achievement.. Instead, it continues to focus on the horrific child sex abuse scandal and the disgraceful behavior of frat boys. How about giving the real students of Penn State their fair share of coverage and highlighting some of this positive news?

 Ashvin Hosangadi, Jamison

Help end Alzheimers

If you have a brain, you can be affected by Alzheimer's, the degenerative brain disease  even as young as 30 years old. As many as 5.5 million people in the United States have it.

Pennsylvania is home to roughly 400,000 people who are living with Alzheimer's or a related disorder. Alzheimer's, the leading cause of dementia, is the nation's sixth-leading cause of death and the only one of the top 10 killers that has no cure and can't be prevented or even slowed.

In 2016, as many as 673,000 Pennsylvanians provided 766 million hours of unpaid dementia care, valued at a staggering $9.6 billion.

We recognize the toll it takes on families. The Alzheimer's Association is commemorating June as Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month, with special events throughout the commonwealth. It culminates with the association's Longest Day on June 21, the summer solstice. Teams across the country will wear their purple and participate in activities to honor those for whom every day is the longest day, while raising funds for Alzheimer's research, care and support.

Anyone can join us. Get together with friends, family, or coworkers and sign up at alz.org/TheLongestDay, or call our 24/7 Helpline, 1-800-272-3900 for information.

 Gail Roddie-Hamlin, president and CEO, Alzheimer's Association Greater Pennsylvania Chapter, Harrisburg, and Wendy L. Campbell, president and CEO, Alzheimer's Association Delaware Valley Chapter, Philadelphia
It was alleged that the Colonel had demanded Rs 1.80 lakh bribe from a Pune-based company in connection with the supply of power pack rock splitters.

By Shivendra Srivastava: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested a Colonel and three others of a Pune-based private company in a case of bribery. It was alleged that Colonel Shaibal Kumar had demanded a bribe of Rs 1.80 lakh from the managing director of the Pune-based company in connection with the supply of power pack rock splitters, which are used by various field formations of the Army.

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The CBI had registered a case against Colonel Kumar and three others including managing director Sharat Nath, director Vijay Naidu and Amit Roy, a Kolkata representative of M/sXtech Equipments Pvt. Ltd., Pune under section 120 B of IPC and section 7, 12 and 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of PC Act 1988 on June 17.

Colonel Shaibal Kumar is serving at the Planning and Engineering Branch of Indian Army, Eastern Command, Kolkata.

It is alleged that Colonel Kumar had alredy accepted Rs 50,000 in February and was taking the second installment of the bribe from the company when he was arrested by the CBI.

The CBI tracked the director of the Pune-based company, who had come from Pune to deliver the bribe amount to Colonel Kumar. The CBI sleuths arrested the manager and the Colonel and recovered Rs 50,000 from the latter's residence.

Searches have been conducted at four premises in Pune and two premises at Kolkata.

The arrested are being produced before the competent court today.

ALSO READ | Mumbai: CBI arrests Income Tax commissioner for accepting bribe

ALSO READ | AIADMK symbol row: Delhi Police grills TTV Dinakaran over bribery allegations

ALSO WATCH | Bribery case: TTV Dinakaran granted 5-day police custody

--- ENDS ---
The Tmall 6.18 Mid-Year Mega Sale Comes to Malaysia!

Good news to all the online shoppers in Malaysia! Alibaba Group announces the official launch of Tmall World and it is available in Malaysia now together with Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. This is their globalization strategy to connect the 100 million strong overseas China market worldwide with 1.2 billion products offered by brands and merchants through Groups flagship social commerce app Mobile Taobao and online platforms such as world.Taobao.com.

What is Tmall?

Launched in April 2008, Tmall.com (www.tmall.com) is dedicated to providing a premium shopping experience for increasingly sophisticated Chinese consumers in search of top-quality branded merchandise. A large number of international and Chinese brands and retailers have established storefronts on Tmall.com. According to iResearch, Tmall.com was Chinas largest third-party platform for brands and retailers in terms of monthly active users in 2015. Tmall.com is a business of Alibaba Group.

What is the difference between Tmall and Taobao?

Taobao is a market place for everyone including consumers to consumers and business to consumers. Tmall is a market place within Taobao for trusted brands and merchants to consumers and thats why you get more premium and quality products from Tmall. Tmall is part of Taobao.com

What is Tmall 6.18 Mid-Year Mega Sale?

To kick start Tmall entry to the Malaysia market with a bang, they offer the Tmall 6.18 Mid-Year Mega sale from 18  20 June 2017. This could be your Hari Raya last minute shopping as the sale will offer discounts of up to 10 billion Chinese Yuan which is around RM 6.27 billion from from more than 180,000 global brands across different product categories such as apparel, home and living, consumer electronics, and mother and baby. The promotion can be accessed through Taobao Marketplace (world.taobao.com) or the Mobile Taobao app, Alibaba Groups flagship mobile shopping app.

The Tmall 6.18 Mid-Year Mega Sale is so awesome, we are checking out Tmall website now for our daily shopping. Along with the Tmall 6.18 Mid-Year Mega Sale attractive deals, other promotional offerings include:

1) Shopping vouchers: Tmall.com will offer cash coupons of RMB20 (RM12.50) each between 13-20 June for shopping during the sale period; and discount coupons of RMB60 (RM38) or RMB100 (RM63) each for purchases up to RMB300 (RM188) and RMB1, 000 (RM628), respectively, during 18-20 June.

2) In-store shopping vouchers: Individual merchants will give out in-store shopping vouchers through their storefronts from 13-20 June for purchases during the sale period.

3) Delivery discount: For orders placed during the sale period, new consumers opting for Taobao Global Consolidated Shipping () can enjoy a delivery coupon of up to RMB24 (RM15) for the first kilogram of their packages.

4) Payment discount: Malaysian shoppers will be able to win a cashback worth RM100 when transactions are made from any of the participating banks from 18 June to 10 July, by Malaysia RevPay.

Taking advantage of the growing demand for large consignment purchases by Malaysian consumers, Tmall and Taobao Marketplace are rolling out a new sea freight option for the Malaysian market, applicable to the Taobao Global Consolidated Shipping option. This delivery alternative offers Malaysians a lower courier fee ranging from RMB9.5 (RM6) per kilogram excluding the 6% GST charges. This offer is applicable for individual consignments of up to 100 kilograms each or consolidated consignments of up to 200 kilograms each.

Tmall Worlds Offline Store at Sunway Giza Malaysia

There is the Tmall Worlds Offline Store happening at Sunway Giza Malaysia right now! We went there to check out some of the furniture available in Tmall. To be frank we were impressed by the design and quality of the furniture offered by the merchants in Tmall.

We took the video of our walkthrough at Tmall Worlds Offline Store in Sunway Giza Mall and you can check it out below.

Since they have the exhibition in Sunway Giza mall, why not you go there to take a look and feel the quality of the furniture. Remember, now they offer shipping to your doorsteps in Malaysia. For those who travelled to China to buy furniture in the past to save money (as it is cheaper there), you can do it online now at Tmall! No more hassle of visiting furniture merchants and contacting shipping companies in China, everything can be done in Tmall now.

Tmall is for everyone

Tmall is for everyone including us as parents. We found quite a number of interesting products to shop in Tmall.

Colorland Multifunctional Mami Bag

As parents, we always wanted the ideal multifunctional bag. The bag that fits everything in which includes items like diaper, flash, water bottle, wet tissue, towel, baby mat, rash cream, snacks, milk bottle, milk powder container and more. This sounds crazy but this are the things we put in a multifunctional bag for parents and we found one at Tmall at https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=43146387318&skuId=74826994859

We also found some of the clothing for our boys such as:

Balabala Childrenswear for Boys (T-shirt)

Link: https://world.tmall.com/item/545135694407.htm?id=545135694407

Balabala Childrenswear for Boys  Denim Fifth Pants

Now this is a cool denim pants for my boys. This is slightly too big for my boys these are quite cool design.

Link: https://world.tmall.com/item/545151255979.htm?id=545151255979

Youbey Childrenswear for Both Boys & Girls  Twinset/ Two-piece Suit

Cute two piece suit for boys and girls. The material for this is slightly expandable which is ideal for kids.

Link: https://world.tmall.com/item/527085867295.htm?id=527085867295

Auby Body-building Rack for Babies

For parents with newborn baby until probably one year old, this item will be a life saver!

Link: https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=43276259048&skuId=85333041470

Peppa Pig  Piggy Pepe Birthday Toy

For the fans of Peppa Pig, this is something cute as birthday gift for the young ones. This is official Peppa Pig merchandise and you can get it at Tmall.

Link: https://world.tmall.com/item/531930044240.htm?id=531930044240&sku_properties=6863381:75473816

L-Liang Waterproof Baby Urine Pad/ Washable Napkin

This is something that parents can consider. You always wanted the get waterproof mat and this is something you can consider. As parents, we usually use this to prevent mattress being wet. The best part about this item is you can wash it and reuse it again.

Link: https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=20849515611&skuId=3535481870815

L-Liang Children Pillow

Like many typical Malaysian parents out there, we prefer to make our baby pillows. Now, you can purchase children pillow from Tmall. This is something you should consider for your children in the long run.

Link: https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=545140170807

Xiaohe Electronic Mosquito Zapper (Mosquito-killing Light)

Dengue fever is common in Malaysia. We usually bought a lot of mosquito patches as well as essential oils for our children. Looking at this product, we are considering getting this as this is something we couldnt find in Malaysia and this looks good in getting rid mosquitoes. Dengue fever is not a joke as we lost our friend due to this a few years ago.

Link: https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a220z.1000880.0.0.fwQ7Gt&id=547387819721

Sometimes as parents we look for quality products like clothing and toys for our children. Tmall is a good marketplace for such products.

What happened if you cant read Chinese?

Well, I cant read Chinese but Rachel can but in the digital world right now, everything can be translated. Just open Tmall website using Google Chrome browser and translate to whole page to English or Malay, everything can be done easily.

Take advantage of Tmall 6.18 Mid-Year Mega Sale from 18  20 June 2017 to shop and save more. Visit Tmall.com for more information!

Wilson Ng A Father and traveler who enjoys to eat, shop, travel and taking pictures with Samsung S22 Ultra and Sony ZV-1. Im a full time blogger, youtuber and father for two. I used to travel around 17 International trips per year but now staying at home. Remember to follow us at www.instagram.com/placesandfoods and www.youtube.com/placesandfoods. For advertisements or features, contact me at [email protected] See author's posts
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James Hodgkinson committed an absolutely heinous act on Wednesday June 14, 2017. As all sensible, non violent Americans do, I pray for a speedy and full recovery from the physical wounds and mental scars this attack left behind. But I am left to wonder, was Hodgkinsons act of terror an isolated incident or a continuance of a tragic trend instigated by a hateful political climate?

Hodgkinsons disdain for the Trump administration has been revealed. Was his attack in response to an atmosphere of anything goes, including domestic terror committed by alt right extremists and political candidates assaulting members of the media only to be elected to office the very next day?

Since the election of Donald Trump America has been besieged by acts of violence, bullying and fervent ignorance in an alarming frequency. Richard Collins III, a University of Maryland student and an Army serviceman was stabbed to death by fellow Maryland student, Sean Urbanski, with ties to an alt right group called Alt Reich Nation. He was murdered for being black at the wrong place at the wrong time. Jeremy Christian stabbed three men, killing two, who came to the defense of two teenaged girls who were the targets of Christians anti Muslim barbs aboard a Portland, Oregon train. These hate crimes were met with a virtual silence from the White House. Now James Hodgkinson has returned fire of sorts. Regrettably these three despicable acts also share a common thread. Hate.

Donald Trump has set forth an agenda thats as dangerous as it is clueless. There is absolutely no sane or democratic basis for Mr. Trump to employ a known White Nationalist as his Chief Strategist. Unless of course Mr.Trump himself shares those views. White Nationalist is a politically correct term for hate group. Americas ideals are in direct contrast to that of White Nationalists. Its unfathomable that our country is in the hands of such an unfit and unqualified demagogue.

James Hodgkinson hunted and attempted to murder members of the GOP who he may have seen as enablers of a morally bereft and corrupt president. His was an act of weakness and depraved cowardice as was those of Jeremy Christian and Sean Urbanski.

There is no justifiable reason to commit these deplorable and sickening crimes but it must be understood that our current government has fostered an atmosphere that encourages and condones mayhem through silence. The hateful rhetoric spewed from POTUS and his backers has given license to fanatical support as well as opposition. This country is tearing apart at the seams and its leaders are the main culprit and cause for our divide.

Americans are faced with losing healthcare, a perceived attack on people of color, a deemphasis on civil rights, government profiteering and outrageous levels of dishonesty on a daily basis. However we cant condone or call for senseless acts of violence to be used as an elixir. Our power resides in our strength in numbers. Our courage, conviction and commitment to change is rooted in our votes. We cannot be driven to criminality. We must hold our government accountable for their collective failure, but we have to do it from a balloting booth and not behind the sights of a firearm.

Sadly I believe that weve not seen the end of carnage and more innocent blood will be spilled. God Bless America. Please.
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Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) confirmed during an interview on ABCs This Week that there is evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and that the President obstructed justice.

Video:

.@RepAdamSchiff to @ThisWeekABC: "I think there is evidence" of collusion, "enough that we ought to be investigating." pic.twitter.com/XwyfsKsPcL  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) June 18, 2017

Transcript via ABCs This Week:

RADDATZ: Well, you said recently you thought there was evidence of collusion. What kind of evidence have you seen? What can you tell us?

SCHIFF: Well, I think there is evidence. I cant go into the particulars of our closed investigation. But I also think there is also evidence of obstruction. But in both cases, I would say, whether there is some evidence doesnt mean there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

The same people that say that theres no evidence of collusion say theres no evidence of obstruction. And that the president, indeed, cannot commit obstruction. I dont buy that. If you look at James Comeys testimony and we were trying this in a court of law, no judge would exclude that. That would all be relevant evidence as to potential obstruction.

And the fact that the president can fire someone for good cause, or can fire someone with no cause, doesnt mean that he can fire someone for malicious cause. The fact that an employer can terminate an employee at will doesnt mean that he can fire an employee because the employee rejected his sexual advances. So I 

Rep. Schiff stated that he is not prepared to call it the kind of proof that could be taken to a jury, but it is the sort of evidence that merits deeper investigation. The problem for Trump is that the legal standards for collusion and obstruction of justice dont apply to a political proceeding like impeachment.

Bill Clinton was impeached for much less than the legal standard in the House.

Schiff has gradually moved his description of the investigation to indicate that the committee is seeing evidence that Trumps campaign colluded with Russia and that the President is obstructing justice. These are small statements that equal big developments. Time is not on the side of Donald Trump, and the more investigators dig, the more they appear to be uncovering about Trump and Russia.
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Although seven American sailors were confirmed dead Sunday morning, their Commander-in-Chief President Trump was obsessing over imaginary witch hunts against himself.

Early Sunday morning Japan time, seven missing sailors from the USS Fitzgerald were found dead following the collision with a merchant vessel.

President Trump chose to focus Sunday morning on the imaginary witch hunt against him:

The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm,..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017

Yes, 24 hours ago, at 10AM Saturday  before the deaths were confirmed  someone running President Trumps account shared an appropriate tweet:

Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families. Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance. https://t.co/d1l5ctjNyB  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2017

But this morning, at the same time as the CNN article was published, Trump was feeling sorry for himself.

If everyone could try to stay focused on what the President SHOULD be doing, and not allow the stunningly poor behavior of President Trump erode their expectations of this President, it would become clear that he is not able to conduct himself appropriately at even the most obvious times.

Seven sailors are found dead and you are the Commander-in-Chief, you tweet about them, you offer their family condolences, you praise their service; you dont tweet about how horribly you are being treated.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is supporting Democrats who are calling for the Senate to be shut down to stop the Republicans from keeping their health care bill a secret.

Video:

Transcript via CBSs Face The Nation:

DICKERSON: Let me move here now to health care. You mentioned some of the policy differences. But there is a procedural debate going on about how this is being handled in the Senate. Some Democrats are suggesting because the- because you dont know whats in the bill and the bills being worked on in secret to just stop all Senate business, to just shut the place down as a way to kind of force play. Are you onboard with that?

SANDERS: John, here is the situation. We know the legislation that passed the House. It was the worst piece of legislation frankly against working class people that I can remember in my political life in the Congress. Throwing 23 million people off of health insurance is beyond belief. Now, in the Senate what you have is you have I believe it is 10 Republicans working behind closed doors to address 1/6th of the American economy. Thats what health care is. Republicans. The average Republican doesnt even know whats in that legislation. My understanding is that it will be brought forth just immediately before we have to vote on it. This is completely unacceptable. I mean, nobody can defend a process which will impact tens of millions of Americans, and nobody even knows whats in the legislation. And, John, the important point here is the reason they dont want to bring it public is that it is a disastrous bill. I suspect similar to what passed in the House. Who is going to defend cutting Medicaid by $800 billion at the same time as you give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent? So they want to keep it secret. They dont want the media involved. They dont want members of Congress involved. And in the last minute, they present it. They push it through. And that is 1/6th of the American economy and millions of people thrown off of health insurance. That is unacceptable. I believe Democrats should do everything they can to oppose that legislation in any way that we can.

The reason why Democrats should shut the Senate down is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants a vote on the bill before the Senates Fourth of July recess. There is no way that McConnell will make his deadline if Democrats shut down the Senate. The Senate should not be open for business until the bill is made public and an open hearing is held on the legislation.

Democracy doesnt work in secret, and Democrats should shut down the Senate until Republicans are ready to govern democratically.
By Press Trust of India: Chandigarh, Jun 17 (PTI) The central government has declined permission to a Sikh delegation to visit Pakistan on the occasion of death anniversary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, an official of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) said today.

"The Centre has declined permission due to security reasons," SGPC secretary Harcharan Singh told PTI over the phone.

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He, however, said that the Centre had told the SGPC that "if anyone wants to visit Pakistan then the Sikh religious body should give an undertaking that he or she is going on its own risk".

"We are yet to decide on it (whether to send the delegation)," he said.

A 251-member Sikh delegation is scheduled to go to Pakistan from June 21 to 29. The SGPC, the Sikh religious body, is facilitating the trip.

Another delegation, which was to visit Pakistan last month for the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev, was also denied visas due to alleged lack of clearance from the Centre. PTI VJ SMN

--- ENDS ---
Charleston, SC (29403)

Today

A few showers early then increasing winds with thundershowers later in the day. High 76F. Winds SSW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. Low 64F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar begs to disagree with President Trumps modest curtailment of Obamas normalization of relations with Cubas Communist regime. CNN gives Klobuchars column the jarring headline Trump, we need Cubas business.

I dont think Senator Klobuchar would ever address the president as Trump. I seriously doubt that the form of address was supplied by her for the headline. Its just not her way. I also dont think we need Cubas business.

Klobuchars column is a throwback of sorts. It harks back to the American capitalists ardor to do deals with the Soviet Union. It is the ardor that supposedly inspired Lenins aphorism The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them.

The implication that President Trump somehow erred by curtailing any of our business with the Cuban regime is the theme of her column: Doing business with Cuba is good for America. Its that simple. American business owners get it.

She strikes a local note in her first example: Take the turkey growers from my home state who are hopeful that income growth among Cubans will lead to higher demand for American poultry. Or the farmers throughout the Midwest who want to export their crops to Cuba.

Klobuchar argues: Nationwide, American businesses export about $300 million in agricultural products to Cuba each year and thats just for humanitarian purposes. If the trade embargo were lifted, the US Department of Agriculture believes that number would be more than three times as much. Klobuchar doesnt link to any source that supports the Department of Agriculture estimate, but she concedes that Minnesota farmers already export turkey to Cuba.

I dont want to get lost in the weeds, but lets pause here for a moment. Minnesota is ranked number one in the United States for turkey production. If you seek turkeys, Minnesotans, look around.

According to Minnesota Turkey Industrial Facts (dated November 2014), only five percent of Minnesotas turkey production is exported to international markets. The top five export markets for United States turkey meat are given as Mexico, Canada, Hong Kong, Russia and South Korea. Klobuchar to the contrary notwithstanding, I doubt the great impact on Minnesotas turkey industry of any change in American policy toward Cuba.

Klobuchars column is presented as a dissent from Trumps policy, but it appears to me that this is highly misleading. Klobuchar disagrees with the United States embargo of Cuba. The embargo remains the law of the land. Klobuchar seeks its repeal.

Klobuchar nowhere acknowledges how Communism has turned Cuba into a slave state or impoverished the island, rendering the Cuban economy a pitiful wreck. In its 2017 Index of Economic Freedom the Heritage Foundation notes, for example: In the absence of significant future oil subsidies from nearly bankrupt Venezuela, Cubas dysfunctional economy is even more dependent on external assistance such as remittances from Cuban emigres.

Klobuchar presents herself as a forceful advocate of American economic interests, putting all other considerations to one side. She doesnt acknowledge that the Castro regime is an enemy of the United States or mention that the Castro regime has provided refuge to American fugitives such as Joanne Chesimard (a/k/a Assata Shakur), whom President Trump called out in his remarks in Miami on Friday.

I had forgotten about Chesimard until I read Bryan Burroughs riveting Days of Rage when it was published two years ago. Chesimard was a member and leader of the cop-killing Black Liberation Army. Burrough quotes others who characterize her as the groups heart and soul. In 1973 she participated in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in which Trooper Werner Foerster was murdered and Trooper James Harper seriously injured. In 1977, she was convicted of the first-degree murder of Foerster and of seven other felonies related to the shootout.

Chesimard escaped from prison in New Jersey and has been on the lam since 1979. She is believed to be holed up in Havana, in the sheltering arms of the Communists who run the asylum and the asylum operation. In 2013 the FBI made Chesimard the first woman to be named to the Most Wanted Terrorists list. She has had a substantial reward out on her capture for several years. Its too bad Klobuchar couldnt find room for any mention of Chesimard in her column.
This is the first major visit from India after Delhi became the only major country to boycott President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road summit.

By Ananth Krishnan: India and China on Sunday looked to bring recently strained relations back on track as they held key bilateral ministerial talks in Beijing, with Minister of State for External Affairs General (retd) VK Singh in China on a three-day visit.

Singh, who will also attend the first BRICS Foreign Ministers' meeting on Monday, told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in bilateral talks at the Diaoyutai state guesthouse in Beijing that "India looks forward to strengthening and deepening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China."

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This is the first major visit from India after Delhi became the only major country to boycott President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road summit on May 14.

A meeting on June 9 between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Astana has helped bring ties back on track, with officials on both sides saying that in the lead up to the September BRICS summit, when PM Modi will visit China, they didn't expect the impact of the the Belt and Road boycott to linger.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had been scheduled to attend Monday's first ever standalone BRICS foreign ministers' meeting - previous interactions among the foreign ministers of the grouping had only been held on the sidelines of other summit - but as General Singh told Wang, "She wanted to come but then health and other restrictions did not permit her. But she was looking forward to meeting you."

MUTUAL RESPECT AND COOPERATION

Singh said that Modi and Xi "have laid down directions for us and both the countries to proceed with a path of mutual respect, mutual cooperation and how to improve already existing mechanisms so that more trade, more commerce and more people to people contacts can take place."

"We both as two Asian neighbours, two growing economies, two people with very ancient relations, can mark the path for others to follow," he said, adding that "India looks forward to strengthening and deepening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China."

BRICS IN SEPTEMBER

The foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will hold their first summit on Monday, as they look to firm up the outcomes leading up to the BRICS Summit in September. They will also call on China's President Xi Jinping.

Xi's government is going all out to ensure the BRICS summit in September, which Xi will host in Xiamen in Fujian province where he was earlier a provincial leader, will be seen as a success, with the Communist Party of China also hosting a key once-in-five-year leadership congress, likely to be held in Beijing the following month.

Also read: Harsh Vardhan in China: India will prove importance of cow through science

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Also read: EXCLUSIVE: China's richest man praises absent India at One Belt, One Road meet

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

--- ENDS ---
The in vacation among some of my liberal neighbors, friends, and relatives is a visit to Cuba. These hypocrites favor boycotts of North Carolina over its bathroom laws and of Ivanka Trumps product lines because, even though she supports gay rights, shes related to the president. Yet they are eager to patronize Cuba, where gays were harshly persecuted for decades (and still are to a lesser degree) and where, worse yet, free expression and economic freedom is aggressively repressed.

I applaud President Trump for cutting back on former President Obamas one-sided deal with Cuba by reinstating some travel and trade restrictions. As Scott says, the idea that the U.S. needs Cubas business is laughable. America may not be what it once was, but we havent fallen so far that we need to trade with pathetic Cuba.

Nor do our tourists need to vacation in Cuba. There are fantastic vacation destinations in the Caribbean, including some that combine fascinating history with great beaches. I recommend the Dominican Republic and the coast of Colombia.

My one criticism of Trumps decision is that it may not have gone far enough. The New York Times reported that after [Trumps] speech, he signed a six-page directive that ordered new travel and commercial restrictions while leaving in place some key Obama-era measures that eased sanctions. (Emphasis added)

The Treasury and Commerce Departments have not written the new travel and commercial regulations that will implement Trumps policy. Thus, we dont have a clear idea of precisely what the policy will be.

As a general matter, though, it looks like the new policy will prohibit any commercial transactions with Cubas military, whose involvements include controlling a major portion of the tourism sector. Apparently, U.S. citizens will be barred from staying in military-owned hotels, although they are free to stay in private homes or nonmilitary-owned lodgings.

The problem is that, in a totalitarian regime like Cubas, it may be all but impossible to separate portions of the economy controlled by the military/government from portions of the economy that arent. As the Washington Post puts it, government businesses and the private sector are thoroughly intertwined. Thus, I would prefer doing away with Obamas policy entirely and perhaps adopting an even more restrictive approach than the one Obama altered.

If theres a serious argument for easing restrictions on Cuba, it isnt turkeys. Rather its the claim that 50-plus years of boycotts and sanctions didnt produce more freedom for Cubans. Obama relied on this argument. He intoned that if a policy hasnt worked for 50 years, its time for a new approach.

But Obamas reversal has, if anything, made Cuba more repressive. The New York Times reports:

Cuban dissidents who had backed Mr. Obamas thaw in the hopes it would lead to greater openness on the island said the opposite had occurred. Among them was Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, head of the Cuban Patriotic Union, the largest opposition group in Cuba, who was among the dissidents Mr. Obama met last year in Cuba. We believe that this is the moment for a maximum reversal of some policies that only benefit the Castro regime and do[] very little or nothing for the oppressed people, Mr. Ferrer wrote in an open letter to Mr. Trump last week. It is time to impose strong sanctions on the regime of Raul Castro.

(Emphasis added)

Moreover, Obamas argument is one he would reject out-of-hand in a different context. Suppose a racially apartheid regime hadnt changed its policy in response to years of sanctions. Would Obama support lightening the sanctions, absent strong guarantees of an end to apartheid? Of course not.

Yet, Obama substantially lightened sanctions on Cuba without any real promises  never mind guarantees  of decreased repression. One suspects that left-wing repression bothers him little, if at all.

Its also worth noting that, although our sanctions havent induced Cuba to become less repressive, this was not their only purpose. Another purpose was to minimize Cuban influence.

There was a time when Cuba inspired revolutionaries in Central and South America and actively attempted to export revolution not only in these regions, but also in Africa. Today, Cuba doesnt inspire anyone except, perhaps, a few Venezuelan thugs and idiot American college students in their Che t-shirts. The Cuban military dominates at home, but is in no position to export revolution.

The main reason for this story of Cuban failure, and concomitant American success, is the lunacy of Communism. But it seems likely, or at least plausible, that our sanctions contributed. In any event, we should be doing whatever we can to make life difficult for the Cuban military. Obamas reversal of policy makes its life easier.

Finally, the Castro era is nearly at an end. Thus, the question isnt so much whether our Castro-era policies lessened repression under the Castros. The more important question is how our policies will affect Cuban policy when Raul Castro dies.

Its difficult to tell. However, the presumption should be in favor of policies that provide Cubans an extra incentive to cast off Communist rule. It seems to me that Trumps approach provides more of an incentive than Obamas, and that the pre-Obama approach provides more than Trumps.
A soldier in Afghanistan has attacked U.S. troops at a military base, in the northern Balkh province on Saturday, wounding seven.

The U.S. soldiers were evacuated after the insider attack a spokesman for the US military command said.

The NATO-led Resolute Support mission said one Afghan soldier was killed and another injured in the incident at Camp Shaheen, in Mazar-e Sharif city.

However, earlier reports of American soldiers being killed were dismissed. But it is not clear whether the Afghan killed was also the attacker.

The Taliban have said the shooting was carried out by a man loyal to them, according to Reuters.

The attack, which took place at about 14:00 local time (09:30 GMT), was under investigation.

It comes a week after an Afghan army commando shot dead three US special forces soldiers in eastern Afghanistan.

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The President of Vanuatu, Baldwin Lonsdale, has died of a heart attack, the Vanuatu Daily Post reported Saturday.

He was 67.

Mr. Lonsdale, who sacked his government two years ago over a massive corruption scandal, passed away in the Pacific island nations capital of Port Vila, the AFP reported.

National Flag is at half-staff early this morning. His body is reportedly at the Vila Central Hospital, the newspaper said.

Former Vanuatu MP, Sela Molisa, told Radio New Zealand that Vanuatu has lost one of its greatest leaders.

Mr. Lonsdale, a civil servant before becoming an Anglican priest, was elected to the presidency in 2014.

Although the role was considered largely ceremonial, Lonsdale became a symbol of hope for Vanuatu when Cyclone Pam caused severe damage in the country in early 2015.

Six months later, he steered the country through a political crisis when half the government of prime minster Sato Kilman was convicted of corruption, making them ineligible for office.

After one of the convicted MPs, then-speaker of parliament Marcellino Pipite, pardoned himself and 13 colleagues in his capacity as acting president while Mr. Lonsdale was overseas, Mr. Lonsdale returned to dissolve parliament and call a snap election which saw Mr. Kilmans government defeated.

He was firm and wouldnt be swayed, Molisa said. Im sure the government and every other  especially at the political level  people would recognise that Vanuatu has lost a very outstanding leader.

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Theresa May is cancelling next years Queens Speech so she can cling to power for a full two years.

It means the Tories can dodge controversial Commons votes which could topple the PM until after Brexit.

Mrs. May is already stripping this Wednesdays Queens Speech of bills she put forward in her election manifesto.

So, the elderly will not now lose their homes if they need care, or their triple lock on pensions or winter fuel allowances.

It also means Mrs. May can concentrate on two years of Brexit negotiations beginning Monday with less chance of being thrown out of Number 10 on her ear.

A two-year legislative programme rather than the usual one also means MPs and peers will get more time to debate Brexit.

Now that Mrs. May has lost her Commons majority shell need the support of MPs and peers from other parties to get Brexit through.

Commons leader Andrea Leadsom said: The UK will spend the next two years preparing for our departure from the EU. This will require substantial amounts of legislation.

We will build the broadest possible consensus for our Brexit plans and that means giving Parliament the maximum amount of time to scrutinise these bills.

Top constitutionalist David Rogers said: Its Mrs. Mays way of clinging to power.

But its not very strong and stable. Theres nothing more constitutionally stable than the Queens Speech.

A Great Repeal Bill to transfer all EU laws to British jurisdiction will be unveiled on Wednesday along with measures to control immigration.

The Queen is being forced to miss Ascot races because Mrs. May delayed the Queens Speech from Monday while she tried to strike a deal with 10 Northern Ireland DUP MPs.

Now she can pencil the event in her diary for next year without any fear it will be rubbed out.

David Cameron was the last PM to cancel a Queens Speech so Parliament could remain in session for two years.

That was during the coalition with the Lib Dems in 2011. But he had two years worth of legislation to put through.

The Mirror reports that Mrs. May now has barely enough to last a few months.

Brexit Secretary David Davis will tell French President Emmanuel Macron  dont try to stop us leaving the EU.

Mr. Davis will be in Brussels to open two years of negotiations with the EU on the terms of Britains withdrawal.

Last week President Macron told Theresa May that Brits could still change their minds about Brexit and the door was open to remain in the EU.

But Mr. Davis will send a clear message tomorrow that the decision to go has been made and will not be reversed.

He said yesterday: There should be no doubt. We are leaving the EU.

Leaving gives us the opportunity to forge a bright new future for the UK  free to control our borders, pass our own laws and do what independent sovereign countries do.

Mr. Davis will have his first formal meeting with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier to thrash out a framework for the talks.

On Wednesday, the Queens Speech at the state opening of the new Parliament will contain plans for the Great Repeal Bill.

This will transfer all EU law into UK law on the day of Brexit.

The plan then is to amend those we want to change gradually in a process that could take years.

But with no majority, Mrs. May will struggle to get her Bill through the Commons unchanged.

The PM will also unveil plans to curb immigration.

Mr. Davis added: Now the hard work begins. We must secure a deal that works for all parts of the UK which will enable us to become a truly global Britain.

These talks will be difficult at points, but we will be approaching them in a constructive way.

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The Nigerian Ports Authority has threatened to sever ties with its joint ventures partners unless they come clean on recently-uncovered allegations of corruption, PREMIUM TIMES has learnt.

The threat was handed down at a meeting Thursday, as ports management officials scrambled to contain the fallout of an audacious bribery scandal that calls the operational ethics of the agency into question.

The suspicious activities of Bonny Channel Management Limited (BCML) were put in the spotlight by a PREMIUM TIMES report which detailed how the technical partners were indicted in Switzerland for bribing former NPA officials to fast-track payments for contract awards.

The Managing Director of the NPA, Hadiza Bala Usman, reprimanded BCML officials and demanded they furnish her with all they knew about the bribery allegations or risk prompt termination of their partnership, two sources with details of the meeting, which held in Lagos, told PREMIUM TIMES.

The BCML runs the Bonny Channel Company (BCC) with the NPA in a joint-venture  public-private partnership.

The BCML is a consortium of technical partners that include Dredging International Services (Cyprus) Ltd, Vinci, IPEM and Dapesa Limited.

The NPA holds 60 per cent stake in the BCC while the BCML controls 40 per cent.

On its website, the BCC said its responsibility was to create and maintain a safe navigational passage for all marine users to and in the Eastern Ports of Bonny Island, Onne, Okrika and Port-Harcourt.

As PREMIUM TIMES reported last week, Swiss prosecutors, in early May, named four former Nigerian government officials in a multinational bribe scandal relating to contract awards at the NPA.

A former Managing Director of the agency, Adebayo Sarumi; a former Managing Director of NPAs Eastern Ports, Felix Ovbude; a former Executive Director of Finance at the NPA, Abba Murtala Mohammed; and Sullivan Nwankpo, ex-President Goodluck Jonathans special adviser on technical matters, were said to have received illicit payments from a firm working for the NPA.

Swiss authorities believe Daniel Afam-Obi, a former executive assistant to Mr. Nwankwo, acted as a front for his principal.

They were indicted alongside Dredging International, one of the technical partners that was sentenced to a fine of one million Swiss Francs and asked to refund 36 million Swiss Francs in illegal profits for allegedly making the illicit payments to the Nigerian officials.

While Messrs Sarumi, Ovbude and Mohammed allegedly collectively received $2.6 million in kickbacks, Mr. Afam-Obi was said to have been paid $157,000 for unknown reasons.

Another $18 million was passed to companies in which some yet unknown Nigerian officials have interests.

Mr. Sarumi, a 72-year-old retired maritime official who led the NPA from October 15, 2003 to May 2007, denied the allegations while Mr. Ovbude claimed ignorance of the matter, even though he was once quizzed by the EFCC over the case, our report said.

In her reaction to the original story, Ms. Bala Usman had said last week that a deeply embarrassed NPA management would open an inquiry into the allegations and bring all culpable individuals to book.

We are reviewing the indictments and we will call for a full-scale investigation as it relates to companies and individuals in Nigeria said to have been involved, Ms. Bala Usman said. This corruption revelation is a helpful development.

Our sources said Ms. Bala Usman informed the BCML officials that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission will be invited to investigate the indictment by Swiss authorities and other suspicious deals.

The NPA will also seek legal clarification from the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, on how to review subsisting terms of the joint-venture.

Mr. Malamis predecessor, Mohammed Bello Adoke, had told Swiss authorities in 2012 that Mr. Sarumi and other Nigerians named in the bribery did no wrong and could not be prosecuted, a claim that shocked authorities of that European country.

Mr. Adoke told the Swiss that he directed the EFCC to investigate the matter, but the anti-graft agency found no evidence of bribery and exonerated all participants.

Yet, an EFCC source familiar with the investigation at the time told PREMIUM TIMES there was no truth in the former AGFs claim, especially since the individuals were public officials at the time the alleged crime took place.

These were public officers and there is no way we could have told the minister they received legitimate consultancy fees, the source said. We only sent him our findings. Sad that he drew inaccurate conclusion.

The NPA is very worried about dealing with joint-venture partners going forward, one of our sources said.

But another source said, in the past, NPA officials would tactically sit on payments due to contractors until they become desperate and offer a percentage of their pay as bribes to the officials.

If the NPA terminates the joint-venture, the BCML could lose up to $70 million worth of yearly contracts from the agency, where it had received preferential business deals in violation of the countrys public procurement laws, officials said.

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Deirdre LaPin is a development expert currently based in the US. She is an also Africanist scholar who has studied Nigeria for over 45 years. She lived in Nigeria for extended periods totalling 18 years and for ten years worked in and on the Niger Delta as a managing advisor on development to the oil industry and later for international agencies. Between 1997 and 2001, she helped Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, establish the first corporate community investment program in Africa, with 180 Nigerian staff. At the time, it represented the largest rural development program in Africa by either private sector or donor agencies. Dr. LaPin co-authored the widely-used report Securing Development and Peace in the Niger Delta published by the Smithsonian Institutions Woodrow Wilson Centre. In 2012, she was a team leader helping the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and UNDP design a new multi-sectoral Niger Delta Action Plan, the first comprehensive blueprint for coordinating and delivering development results to the region. It is now being reviewed with fresh eyes by the Nigerian government and local stakeholders.

She talked to Ladi Olorunyomi about how key features of the Niger Delta Action Plan can help fast-track right now a comprehensive and sustainable development to improve the quality of life for men, women and youth in the region.

PT: Given your background, how did you get involved in a project sponsored by the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs (MNDA)?

Deirdre: Five years ago, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs (MNDA) and its partner, the United Nations Development Program, invited ten development experts to help design a comprehensive plan for intensive development of the region. When the MNDA was created in 2008 by President YarAdua, it was met with high expectations among people of the Niger Delta region, the nation, and by the oil industry and international donors. The ministry needed a blueprint for its work. The majority of the team members were Nigerian. As an American who considers Nigeria her second home, I was happy to serve because I had spent over 40 years in and out of the country and over ten years living, planning and managing development projects in the Niger Delta. The Niger Delta Action Plan (NDAP) was created in 2012 to guide and coordinate a range of development inputs by all stakeholders over a period of five years. They include the three tiers of government, international and private sector donors, civil society, and most important, Niger Delta communities. As the name suggests, the focus of the plan was on ACTION and on delivering RESULTS.

PT: You are aware of previous development plans or programs that have either failed or are stalled. The Niger Delta Master Plan of 2005 is on ice and the NDDC and the MNDA are struggling for their lives. Why are you confident that the Action Plan is any different?

Deirdre: When one speaks of plans most Nigerians recall the Niger Delta Master Plan of 2005. It was initiated by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in 2000. The plan is well remembered because it began with a highly participatory process involving hundreds of individuals and groups for several years. It became a movement. Dozens of teams were formed in all nine Niger Delta states to engage in research, consultation, and to propose recommendations. The weakness of that plan was that it offered little guidance on specific actions or a governance structure to enable NDDC to carry out its objectives. Slowly, the Master Plan was forgotten in all but name. It is now hard to find even a copy of the actual text.

Still, people in the region were waiting for action. President YarAdua proposed a Niger Delta Summit in 2007 to re-boot discussion on future prospects for peace and development in the region. But Niger Delta leaders preferred a hands-on approach which they could manage themselves through a technical committee of experienced local professionals. They elected Ledum Mitee, the respected Ogoni leader, as chairman. Committee members from all nine states combed through impressive body of studies, plans and commission reports already available on the Region. They selected the most viable recommendations on how to tackle the regions yawning development deficit. They also solicited fresh inputs directly from interested parties or via a dedicated website created for the purpose. The passion and dedication of Mitees team, and the generous participation of government, international donors, industry, as well as men and women throughout the region was almost magical. Once again, the process raised great hope. In record time, the committee submitted a thoughtful and thorough report. It is truly regrettable that a promised government White Paper for putting the recommendations into practice was never issued.

In late 2009, following these disappointments, peace returned to the region under the amnesty programme. A group of major donors (DfiD, the EC, UNDP, USAID, the World Bank, and later PIND) and the new MNDA, saw a window of opportunity. The ministry encouraged the donors to collaborate on finding lasting solutions to the problems that plagued the region. The donors recognized that the key to sustainable peace and development was to harness the resilience and good will of all parties and convince them to work in concert. They proposed to the ministry that an overarching framework be created to coordinate the inputs of all public and private actors engaged in regional development. The MNDA issued a concept paper titled Proposed Niger Delta Collaborative Development Framework which laid the rationale, principles, content, and mechanisms to guide a 5-year development plan that would pool $6.5-10 billion in financing from various sources within a coordinated structure.

To fulfil this directive, our team worked for many months to design the Action Plan. The first big difference and the unique trait that sets the NDAP apart from all prior plans, is that it does not merely delineate the changes and projects that are needed, it also puts emphasis on action. During a tour of the region a few weeks ago, former MD of NDDC, Timi Alaibe, challenged leaders to do what we have to do. The NDAP provides an implementation architecture that shows How to do what we have to do. The plan continues the work of the Ledum Mitee committee by taking its salient points and setting them within a clear framework of goals, objectives and outcomes for delivering results. The framework provides clarity on actions for development and peace for everyone involved. Inputs of multiple stakeholders can be coordinated, tracked and measured. Acting President Yemi Osinbajo underscored this results-based approach earlier in the year during his visit to Port Harcourt when he called for a change in service delivery through government, ministries, or parastatals, that they should no longer be entities that share money but organisations that delivers results.

The second big difference is that the Action Plan also strengthens the capacity of institutions to manage and deliver their proposals so that they do not languish. The NDAP itself was left on the shelf and ignored from 2013 until MNDA re-opened discussions on it a year ago. Earlier versions of the plan are now being reviewed and would be updated to match current conditions in the country. The MNDA, as initiator and owner of the Plan, is expected to provide the principal oversight for coordination and implementation with support from a dedicated technical team.

The third and biggest difference between NDAP and earlier plans is Nigerias parlous current socio-economic context. The nation-wide recession caused by drop in the price and production of oil and gas means that ending attacks on oil infrastructure and meeting the legitimate and development demands of the Niger Delta region are no longer an option. Peace and development are now urgent and obligatory. As Emmanuel Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, said recently, $40 billion has been spent in the Niger Delta region in the past four years with little to show for it. Government must act now, and the plan offers a clear framework for coordinated action.

PT: How would you describe the NDAP? Some call it an investment plan, some call it an intensified development plan.

Deirdre: The Action Plan is a conceptual framework for Niger Delta development that focuses on delivering results. It seeks to mobilise and coordinate investments from both the public sector (government and donors) and the private sector (industry and NGOs) to achieve one overarching goal for the people of the Niger Delta: improved quality of life. It should be noted that the Action Plan is a work in progress, its still undergoing update and review. In its original form, the plan envisioned that an investment of $6.5 billion-$10 billion could achieve three top results for the Niger Delta people in five years; namely: (1) improved living standards, (2) sustained economic growth, and (3) a consolidated, continuous peace.

The term investment is not really important in this context since inputs to any development plan are typically viewed as an investment of human and financial resources to benefit a target population. Development investment, like any other investment, should yield a return, whether in the form of improved public asset or sometimes (where local business development is emphasized) for private entrepreneurs. An intensified plan maximises both investment and speed. Both are urgently needed in the Niger Delta.

All investment and activities under the plan support the top results through a hierarchy of outcomes that will change peoples lives for the better. It is clear that the outcomes will depend on three types of investment: social, infrastructural, and institutional. Social activities involve people, such as better basic services, skills and business training, or participation in governance. Infrastructure includes better housing and resource management, transport networks, and restored schools and health centres. Finally, all require better management or institutional capacity at all levels, from community groups to the custodian ministry to ensure strong financial planning, good technical knowledge and support, or better transparency and accountability through regular monitoring and evaluation.

An unusual feature of the plan is what we called Levers of Change. We asked stakeholders what practical and cost-effective inputs will have the highest impact on achieving results? The Levers of Change they suggested include value-added agriculture, skills and enterprise development, sustainable energy, community-level interventions, transportation, ICT, and more. In the plan, all three types of investment will be working together in all projects, whether at community, local, state, or regional level.

PT: The Niger Delta Action Plan is sponsored by Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and its development was supported by UNDP, DfID, the EU, Norwegian government, and other traditional development actors, but it seems a good part of the implementation looks to the private sector. This is a departure from previous trends. What is the rationale for this?

There are two very good reasons for giving the private sector a role in the Niger Delta Action Plan. First, the Plan is conceived as a multi-stakeholder initiative that invites all tiers of government, donors, civil society, and communities  along with private entrepreneurs and above all, the oil and gas industry  to join a coordinated framework for Niger Delta development. Since the 1990s, International Oil Companies (IOCs) input into development in the region has grown substantially. Each year, IOCs commit several hundred million dollars to support projects in education, agriculture, health, water supply, and business development. Before states were awarded the 13 per cent derivation payments on oil production, IOCs and oil service companies were the major development donors in the region. Since their operations depend on peace and a social license to operate, they have always assisted communities in their areas of operations and partnered with states, civil society, the NDDC and others to foster innovative, community-driven development strategies. For these reasons, the private sector brings to the table not only financial inputs but a history of experimentation in cost-effective, value-driven development. These models are welcome to other players in the NDAP.

The second reason for engaging the private sector is that sustained economic growth and development in all sectors is a key result targeted by the Action Plan. Business skills training and entrepreneurial development are expected outputs of the plan and could result in several thousand new or improved micro, small, and medium enterprises for individual entrepreneurs. Historically, the oil and gas industry has been a main business driver in the region through its value chain. Industrys business knowledge can help all sectors. Expanded agricultural production and transformation and marketing of products is an important project strategy highlighted in the Action Plan. Under current economic diversification policies, non-oil sectors are receiving more technical and financial support.

Also, the private sector development strategies proposed by the Action Plan benefits from private sector donors who have direct expertise in business and management.

PT: How, specifically, will the NDAP address the deep-seated distrust between oil companies and host communities? The perception of multinational companies failing in their CSR commitments could detract from public support of the NDAP.

Deirdre: The people of the Niger Delta are right to hold both industry and government to the highest standards. Both have acknowledged that they have made real errors in the past. All parties to a multi-stakeholder Action Plan would quite probably see an uptick in their reputations if men and women see improvement in their quality of life.

Under the present recession, IOC programs for scholarships and health care, together with their ongoing remittance to Community Trusts, are welcome in struggling communities. In addition, the Partnership Initiative for the Niger Delta (PIND) created by Chevron supports skills training and entrepreneurship. Such IOC-funded programs are likely to continue under the framework of the Action Plan.

During our field visits we met a number of truly innovative projects supported by IOCs. SPDC gave the Trust in one community additional technical support to create a very successful community health insurance scheme. This initiative, driven entirely by community members, catalysed improvements through the surrounding area in most government and private health facilities. We also visited the Songhai model farm in Tai/Ogoni, a partnership between industry and the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency which offered training in innovative agricultural technologies for hundreds of local youth and women.

PT: From just reading the Action Plan, one might get the feeling that it is a top-down initiative that assumes a design team can articulate the needs and concerns of Niger Deltans better than they can do themselves. How do you respond to that?

Deirdre: A great deal of consultation with local stakeholders was undertaken before, during, and after the Action Plan design phase. Because a state-of-the-art approach was adopted by the team, it reflected best development planning practices for Africa. It is unfortunate that this methodology was not spelled out in the text, so I will explain the steps in the process involved. The steps include (1) an extensive review of all past regional studies and plans with a thorough distillation of key issues, opportunities, and recommendations; (2) an email survey sent to over 100 key stakeholders (including members of the Ledum Mitee Technical Team) soliciting their views on what activities or approaches should be continued, discontinued, or improved; (3) a 3-week field trip to all nine Niger Delta states involving observation visits to 67 projects and over 50 semi-structured interviews; (4) After the plan was drafted, two verification meetings were held with stakeholders in the region.

Also relevant is that the ten-member design team came with deep development experience in the region. All of them were either indigenes or long-time residents in the area. One member was a principal team leader for the 2005 Master Plan; another had helped design and build model health centres and schools for Rivers State; I had previously created a large multi-sector social investment program for the oil industry; and there were others.

In addition, the priorities expressed by the Niger Deltans were central to our final design. Respondents to our surveys and interviews vigorously insisted on inclusive community participation in both planning and implementation. They strongly favoured an increase in both social and infrastructure projects, especially job creation, local enterprise development (e.g. agri-business, ICT) and rural infrastructure (e.g. power and water). They urged better governance and transparency for all projects, including strict monitoring and evaluation. From these consultations, the team identified the levers of change mentioned previously as critical interventions for rapid development.

Finally, we had many meetings with civil servants and elected officials at all levels. Department heads in the MNDA were keenly interested, as were staff in the presidency, committee chairmen for the Niger Delta in the National Assembly, many governors and ministers in the relevant states, and selected LGA chairmen.

PT: The Action Plan was completed in 2012 about three years after militia groups laid down arms under the terms of the Amnesty Program. Were militants invited to contribute to the plan given the cordial relationship they had with the government then?

During our field trip and community visits, we spoke with a wide range of men, women and youth from all walks of life. Some youth may have been former agitators. All youth expressed similar priorities, and all were bullish about more jobs and development. In one case, a former militant and his LGA chairman were interviewed together about the progress of the Amnesty Programme and jobs-related training.

PT: Job creation and enterprise development is one of the Levers of Change in the social investment portion of the plan. What strategies are proposed?

Jobs, jobs, jobs are, not surprisingly, the development output most keenly sought by Niger Delta stakeholders. The design team originally suggested two approaches to creating jobs. Both of these approaches could figure in an exit strategy for the Amnesty Program by ensuring the economic re-integration of former fighters.

One approach is to put the Niger Delta in Business. This program would provide business and skills training for new and existing micro, small, and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) and expand or launch several thousand agro-technology businesses. Micro-credit or larger revolving loans could be provided. An apprenticeship strategy supported by local mentor business proprietors is also suggested. Mentors will help train young people in new technical and business skills until they can start enterprises of their own. Similarly, contractors in large infrastructure projects could be encouraged through a small financial incentive to hire and professionally train local youth in construction skills. In this way, these local contract staff may find employment when the project is completed.

We called the second approach the Niger Delta Works. This exciting program creates employment while at the same time builds infrastructure and provides basic services. The concept is to create a Niger Delta Development Corps of eligible youth supported by modest stipends. The Corps members would be deployed to communities to help build or refurbish basic infrastructure, teach in primary or secondary schools, provide ICT support, help local residents with enterprise development, and fulfil among other local development tasks. Similar to other job corps programs piloted in Nigeria, the development corps can teach young Niger Deltans useful skills, familiarize them with the region, and give them a sense of pride in contributing to its growth and development.

PT: What infrastructural needs of Niger Delta communities should get immediate attention under the NDAP?

Given its limited budget, the Action Plan would not include big projects such as the East-West or Coastal Roads, an East-West Railroad, or grid-based power supply. Such major infrastructure serving urban economic hubs is included in the existing development plans and budgets of ministries or parastatals. Infrastructure under the Action Plan focuses mainly on rural and remote communities. Under this plan, communities would set their own priorities for infrastructure. Typically, they choose to build or rehabilitate schools, health facilities, water supply systems, or housing. They may also install rural power supply using solar or bio-gas (e.g. from water hyacinth) as local sources of energy.

A clever and rapid approach for implementing infrastructure projects is proposed in the Action Plan. This is called Projects in a Box. It would establish a small projects pipeline that standardises material requirements for each project type. The inputs would be manufactured and/or assembled at a nearby urban centre and shipped in a container to the community. On arrival, the community will set up the project, perhaps with assistance from members of the Niger Delta Development Corps. Projects in a Box could create jobs at both ends of the project pipeline while at the same time meeting basic needs for local infrastructure.

PT: We seem to be at a historic moment where the administration is well-positioned to persuade Niger Delta advocates, including militias and activist groups, to implement an Action Plan. It also seems to have the goodwill of international donors and transnational corporations that can play role in its implementation. How should supporters of the Action Plan go about urging the Buhari administration to act now and act fast?

Deirdre: Indeed. The recent series of interactive engagements by the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has opened a fresh window of opportunity to fill the enormous development gap in the region. In his excellent speech in Port Harcourt, he has reminded us that we have no time to waste. For the Niger Delta, he says The Future is Now. He noted that palliative measures such as amnesty stipends cannot permanently resolve the cycle of discontent in the region which often leads to violence and military response. Instead, he observed, the underlying causes must be forcefully and readily addressed  among them poverty, poor infrastructure and environmental damage. This is precisely the purpose of the Action Plan.

By now, everyone agrees that reducing this huge development deficit in the Niger Delta is no longer an option; it is an immediate imperative. The Acting President himself affirmed this imperative:

It is no doubt at all that a new vision is required for the Niger Delta. But not only new vision, but a fresh commitment, a renewed spirit by all stakeholders including the states, federal agencies and the oil bearing communities. The federal government is committed in going into a partnership with the oil producing states, local governments and the private sector as well as civil society organisations for the rapid development of these communities. There is no way that this new vision will be aborted because it does not depend for execution on the federal government alone. Every stakeholder has a part to play.

This commitment by the federal government is huge and assures the political will needed to implement the Action Plan. Over the past year, a re-launch of the Action Plan has been underway in the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. These discussions included donor representatives, IOC managers, governors of the Niger Delta states, technical consultants, and other stakeholders.

In his speech, the Acting. President also promised in Port Harcourt an intervention meeting planned for the oil communities to [in his words] work out what can be done in the short to medium term together with the long-term possibilities. This offers the MNDA an opportunity to extend its meetings to regional consultations with stakeholders in all nine states.

Conditions have of course changed since the NDAP was first shared in 2012-2013. Reorganisation of the NNDC and MNDA and a commitment to review and tackle uncompleted projects are making these institutions stronger. Dialogues between the government and regional stakeholders are already in progress. In November PANDEF  the Pan Niger Delta Development Forum  proposed a 16-point agenda. A series of Niger Delta dialogues have since June reviewed issues such as the Amnesty and its reorientation from stipends to employment. Meanwhile, Minister of State Emmanuel Kachikwu has elaborated a 20-point blueprint for NNPC that also includes development targets.

Acting President Osinbajos vision resonates perfectly with the coordinated multi-stakeholder development approach proposed in the Niger Delta Action Plan. Stakeholders committed to regional development can urge that meetings be organised with government representatives in each of the nine states. In those meetings, the development framework proposed by the Action Plan can be shared and discussed.

Ideally, from these local meetings, a common vision for the way forward will emerge, guided by the Results Framework and its principles. To move forward the Plan will need (1) commitment by all parties to its goals and primary outcomes; (2) a governance system for flexible implementation with good coordination; and (3) strong oversight, monitoring and evaluation.

PT: What are the urgent steps you would recommend that the Buhari administration take on the NDAP in the short run and what should its long-term strategy be?

Deirdre: Step One, continued consultation with a range of local stakeholders from the Niger Delta is the critical first step to achieve a broad consensus on the expected results of the Action Plan. Step Two, defining the governance framework for the new Niger Delta Development Program. Step Three, prioritizing the most urgent interventions proposed by stakeholders in each state. Throughout, government must work with local stakeholders to mobilise regional support and good will continuously.

Past experience with plans for the Niger Delta has shown that any successful development program requires the following ingredients, and the presidency can work to put them in place:

A committed champion at the highest level  ideally, the Presidency itself

Commitment or a compact by investors and stakeholders

Strong political will from all tiers of government

An institutional home to manage coordination, finance and administration, and monitoring and evaluation  the MNDA

An Internationally recognised and professional Program Coordinator  acceptable to all parties and with a mandate for independent decision-making

A competent technical team

A Board or Oversight Council  Council for the Niger Delta

Above all, consultation, buy-in and participation among the beneficiaries in the Region  via a Stakeholder Forum

A deep engagement with beneficiaries representing all ethnic and socio-economic groups should thus begin at the time the plan is being refined and should continue throughout the implementation.

Communities and local governments should be involved in regular monitoring of planned outputs and they should give feedback on speed and quality of implementation. A monitoring website should be developed. These local views should be channelled into a Stakeholder Forum, which holds meetings with the Project Coordinator and ministry staff as well as donors at least once every year.

Governance is the most critical success factor for the plan. The Action Plan touches on so many development sectors  including basic services, peace building, economic growth, and infrastructure  it has many moving parts. An integrated development program covering nine states requires a governance structure that is extremely robust, similar to the one proposed for the Ogoni Clean-up. That project, housed in the Environment Ministry, has a Governing Council, Board of Trustees, Project Coordination Office led by a specially recruited expert, assisted by a cadre of staff specialists and consultants as required.

The Action Plan proposes reinforcing the institutional capacity of the MNDA to manage the governance structure for coordination, monitoring, and evaluation. Coordination does not mean control. Each donor or state government or oil industry player who invests in Niger Delta Development can be at liberty to execute their projects with guidance from the plans general results framework and its principles of execution. Their activities would create a synergy that multiplies their value, and reduces duplication, when executed together. The stakeholder forum will review and advise progress on the Action Plan. In addition, the plan proposed creating a Multi-Stakeholder Trust Fund with independent management in which traditional donors, industry, even states could pool their funds for the execution of certain complex or innovative projects.

While consultations and building the governance structure are underway, it is meanwhile possible for the government to implement a number of quick win projects to build the confidence and trust of local men and women. The vast number of projects uncompleted by the NDDC and the MNDA are being reviewed. Projects that can be completed in 6 to 12 months should be prioritised and fast-tracked in consultation with regional stakeholders. In addition, as a show of commitment and good will, ongoing federal programs can also prioritise the region in the short term, e.g. micro-credit and business loans, household solar electricity kits, conditional cash transfers to the poor, or the N-Power program for job creation among youth, and so on.

PT: Finally, what should Nigerians in communities outside the Niger Delta, across the country and in the diaspora, do to support the Action Plan?

Deirdre: Over the years public statements of support from outside the region for Niger Delta Development have been impressive. But too often the political will has been missing in State or National Assemblies. Resistance seems to be softening in the current economic crisis. Budgets for the MNDA, NDDC, and the Amnesty Program increased partly as a result of strong advocacy from political constituents throughout Nigeria and abroad. Close attention to institutional reforms and budget performance is needed. More lobbying and advocacy by constituents will help press for adoption of the Action Plan for Niger Delta Development.

Diaspora groups can also become involved in directly developing the region. Many already assist their home town communities by making significant financial contributions. They can help their home towns plan projects under the Action Plan and support their execution. Some diaspora groups even undertake regular direct development or medical missions to the Niger Delta states. Engagement on these visits with the official management of the MNDA, local or state political leaders, or with key donors and stakeholders in the Niger Delta could be valuable support.

I want to say finally that all of us in the international community who have worked in the Niger Delta region have been deeply impressed by the energy, intelligence, and tenacity of its men, women, and especially youth. Inspired by the right leadership, and guided by a plan focused on delivering results, they have proven to be great achievers, willing and able to take the future in their own hands.

As the Acting President reminded us, for the Niger Delta, The Future is Now. Indeed, now is the time for everyone to seize the moment to develop the Niger Delta. This opportunity must not be squandered.

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Ever since she was a child, Sadiya Jubrin has always aspired to become a teacher. Born 24 years ago in Bauchi State, Mrs. Jubrin, determined to fulfil her dream, enrolled at the college of education in Bauchi where she obtained a National Certificate of Education, NCE. A few months after her graduation, she was offered a job by a private primary school.

Though her passion for teaching pushed her to take the job, the N8,000 salary was inadequate for a young woman who could no longer depend on her parents. She, therefore, became desperate to get another job that offered more pay, especially after she got married, she told PREMIUM TIMES.

Mrs. Jubrins case typifies that of several young people who felt underemployed despite their passion for a profession for which Nigeria lacks adequate manpower.

Her friend and old schoolmate, Farida Hassan, also narrated a sadder tale.

Mrs. Hassan, 22, could not get any job after their graduation from the college of education. She lived with her parents for a couple of years until she too got married.

I wanted even a little paid job like Sadiyas but I could not get any. Life became so frustrating for me, as I could not even bear the attendant boredom, she lamented.

However, the story suddenly changed for the friends when the federal government flagged off the Social Investment Programme (SIP) in 2016.

The two women joined thousands of other Nigerian youth in Bauchi State to register for the N-Power programme and were lucky to be selected in the first batch.

With N30,000 as monthly stipend, the scheme at least empowers beneficiaries to meet basic needs.

I am indeed very happy that I have a job that pays well and I can even save some money to possibly further my education, Mrs. Jubrin said.

Though as a human I hope for the best, this has come as a relief to me from those years of waiting until ones parents or husband as the case may be come to ones aid, Mrs. Hassan said.

THE N-POWER

The SIP, which was part of the campaign promises of the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, has four components. These are: the Home Grown School Feeding Programme for public primary schools; the Conditional Cash Transfer to less privileged; N-Power for unemployed graduates; and the Government Enterprises Entrepreneurship Programme, GEEP, to encourage market women, artisans, traders, and others.

The Nigerian government had in 2016 budgeted N500 billion for the SIP. However, as at May 16, only about N41 billion had been expended on the four programmes with the N-Power gulping the largest sum of N26 billion. Under the N-Power component of the SIP, unemployed graduates of tertiary institutions are to be engaged in critical sectors like education, agriculture and health.

Over one million Nigerians applied. But after a clean-up of the application portal, about 701, 000 were enlisted. About 200,000 graduates of tertiary institutions were eventually picked for the first phase. Those selected were to receive stipends for two years under the N-Teach, N-Agro or N-Health sub-components.

However, of the 200,000 selected, 162,024 unemployed graduates have been effectively enrolled and validated-meaning have been cleared to be receiving the N30,000 monthly stipend, Acting President Yemi Osinbajos spokesperson, Laolu Akande, said in a statement in May.

The scheme started in nine states including Borno, Ekiti, Ogun, Oyo, Kogi, Niger, Cross River, Bauchi, and Kwara before spreading to other states.

Premium Times investigated how the N-Power scheme is faring in three states: Bauchi, Kwara and Borno.

BAUCHI

Although, the duo of Mrs. Jubrin and Mrs. Hassan beamed with smiles when they spoke about their experience in N-Power, it was not so for some other beneficiaries of the programme in Bauchi State.

PREMIUM TIMES investigation revealed that as at April, many of them had not been getting their stipends even though they were duly registered and mobilised for their posts.

Abdulrazaq Muhammad is one of the unlucky ones. He has been working since January.

I was deployed to teach Basic Science in Bauchi Central Primary School but N-power has not paid me because, according to them, I have problems of unmatched names on my record, he said.

My full name is Abdulrazaq Dahiru Muhammad but N-POWER only recognized Abdulrazaq Dahiru, so they said my details in the bank do not match what they have on their platform. And since then, they kept saying they were going to resolve it but up till date I have not been paid. I go to work every working day, and I find it difficult coping.

The Bauchi State SIP Focal Person, Manu Mansur, blamed the hitch on the registration process. According to him, most of the applicants had not paid attention and did not give adequate information to the N-Power portal.

They didnt take time to ensure that the information they gave were in conformity with their bank records, Mr. Mansur told this newspaper in Bauchi.

As you know, any payment from the office of the Vice President under the SIP has to go through the NIPS system. And that NIPS platform works in such a way that whenever information for payment are fed into to it, provided such information are contradictory, that payment will stand rejected.

So, that was one of the most significant challenges that we faced.

He, however, said issues associated with payments had been resolved.

From December to date, if any applicant does not receive any payment, that means the problem is with the applicant.

Mr. Mansur said the state N-Power office began mobilising beneficiaries in January and that most of those deployed have been attending their places of assignment.

He however said there was a need to establish a monitoring team to supervise attendance compliance of the beneficiaries.

KWARA

The situation in Kwara appears worse than that of Bauchi. Officials confirmed that all the 5,104 engaged had been mobilised and deployed to their places of primary assignments since December, 2016.

A large number of them who spoke with Premium Times in the first week of May lamented that they had been working without getting their stipends.

Michael Aribisala, a 28-year old NCE holder, who had no job since he left school in 2009, said his initial joy at becoming a government worker under the N-Power scheme has faded because he could not get his stipend.

Mr. Aribisala, who was posted under the N-Teach category, said he was not given any clear reason as to why he could not get his stipend.

No one told me I have any problem with my registration that may have led to me not getting paid. We applied online, where we forwarded our credentials and after that we did test examination online, he said.

It was after all these that we were picked as N-power volunteers. We received text messages that read Congratulation you are one of the beneficiaries of N-power Teach.

I and others that are to work in the teaching line went to the state primary education board where they gave us a form which contains all our details, especially bank details.

After about three weeks, we were asked to come and collect our posting letters and were posted to schools where we began to work as teachers.

I have been teaching in my place of assignment since December but up till now, I have not received any stipend.

They kept saying we had one verification or the other to do. But we have done all that. Even the National Orientation Agency (NOA) had all of us verified. We did all that we were asked to do.

I was posted to a school where I teach Basic Science and I go there every day to teach. I have to pay for my transport with money I collect from my relatives. Sometimes when there is no money, I trek to work.

Sometimes I had to go without food to avoid being late to work. This is very unfair to us. A lot of us had to leave former jobs they were doing in private schools or some organizations that paid less to join N-Power, now we are working without pay.

Salaudeen Abdulfatai, a 33-year old graduate of Computer Engineering from Ilorin South, said he registered for the programme in September last year and did verification in December.

I was deployed in January. But unfortunately, till date I have not been paid, likewise some other volunteers, he told PREMIUM TIMES.

I was posted to Fate Secondary School here in Ilorin, a public school. I resumed immediately I was deployed and I have not defaulted even for a single day.

Mr. Abdulfatai said the most painful aspect was that he was teaching in a private school but had left because

he was earning not up to what the N-Power is paying beneficiaries.

But here, we are stranded for nearly five months without a single kobo in our pocket.

Yusuf Lukman and Abdulbasir Alabi also said they had not been paid.

After we got our deployment letter on December 23rd, 2016, we were deployed to our various places of primary assignment as volunteers for N-Teach, N-Agro and N-Health, Mr. Lukman, a graduate of Mass Communication, told this newspaper.

We were expecting our payment alert in January but it did not come. And when it finally came on the 15th of February, only few got the alert and I was not one of them.

Mr. Alabi, 26, said he was teaching at a private school on N12, 000 a month when he stumbled on the programme on the social media.

We were deployed at the end of January and I went to SUBEB office to collect my letter. I commenced work immediately but since then I have not received any payment.

Even before the payment of the December stipend to some of our colleagues, we were hearing rumours that the Kwara State government would deduct tax off the N30, 000 and so on.

But we even did not mind as we hoped that something would come in at the end of the day. But since then nothing has come to some of us .

In April, the beneficiaries in Kwara State staged a peaceful protest in Ilorin, the state capital, over their pay.

We took a protest to the office of the governor on the 17th of April, 2017 where we were told that the issue would be looked into. But up till now nothing has been done, Mr. Alabi said.

The Kwara State Focal Person for SIP, Solomon Ayobola, who is also the permanent secretary in the state Ministry of Sport, confirmed that about half of the participants were not paid in January.

We had some challenges at the beginning and were unable to pay about 50 percent of the participants in January, he told this newspaper.

When some of them later approached us with complaints over non-payment of stipends, we had to go through their data to see what exactly the problem was. It was then that we noticed that some of them used their first names in place of their surnames. We also discovered some errors in the spelling of names which were tagged as unmatched names.

Some of them did not submit correct account details; some, their BVN number did not match their account number; some used names that are different from what they gave on the N-Power platform; some submitted account numbers that are dormant. So, we tried to correct some of these problems.

Mr. Ayobola said after the corrections they were able to pay about 4,180 of the beneficiaries.

We were left with about 1,000 names which we compelled Abuja to tell us the reasons why they are not being paid. They sent us yet another list especially those of the females who had their husbands names on their N-Power records while it is their fathers names they still bear in their banks. Some could not properly copy their BVN numbers.

He however noted that some of the beneficiaries problems may be difficult to resolve.

According to Mr. Ayobola, those who used their spouses names as their second names in opening bank accounts may not get any payment because of the conflict with their maiden names they used on the N-Power platform.

He said the NIPS payment system used by the SIP National Cash Transfer office does tolerate such discrepancies.

It will be difficult for N-Power to change their names especially now that they have ended the process of verification of the first batch and we are about looking at the N-Power portal to take the balance of 300, 000. And a period of four months was given by N-Power to clear and verify all participants, which we have exhausted.

This group of women beneficiaries would not want to go back to their banks to change their second names from their husbands to their fathers names. And N-Power cannot help them to do that. This group of persons do not constitute (up to) 0.05 percent of those we have registered so far.

Mr. Ayobola said those not on the list of beneficiaries with registration problems had been referred to NOA office in Ilorin where they were re-verified and that a list of about 900 had been sent to Abuja for processing of their payment.

BORNO

In Borno State, the problem has a different complexion. Many of the beneficiaries have been receiving their N30,000 stipends since December, but without working.

There are, however, some who are yet to receive any payment. Muhammed Shettima is one of such.

I was last week (in May) posted under N-Teach to Sanda Kyarimi Primary School, and we hope to resume work by the time schools resume, Mr. Shettima said.

But I have not received any payment like my other colleagues, since December.

Mr. Shettima, however, said the SIP Focal Person in the state, Babazanna Abdulkareem, had assured him that the problem has been rectified and I will start to get my alert by the end of this month (May).

Speaking to PREMIUM TIMES in Maiduguri, the state capital, in April, Mr. Abdulkareem said beneficiaries in the state got their December stipend but confirmed that not all of the over 4,000 had been getting the pay.

As in other states, he too blamed those not receiving payment for not correctly filling their online forms.

The December stipend was like a kind of bonus to all captured beneficiaries even though work has not even started, said Mr.

Abdulkareem.

At some points of payments, transactions were bouncing back as invalid data or unmatched records; which means the information they have in the bank are not in sync with what they had given during the registration for N-Power. There are lots of discrepancies. It gets to tell a lot about our youth. They are very unserious.

He explained further, In the case of the N-Power, I will still like to point out that we are facing the same challenges as in the cash transfer.

We are supposed to make posting of beneficiaries under three key sectors, Education, Agriculture and Health. Now Agriculture has deployed to their various units, and they have given us the soft copy of the postings, which we forwarded to Abuja. And Abuja has notified us of the tendency of stopping payment to those that have not been deployed.

As I am talking to you now, the state Ministry of Health, which even has the least of applicants, and SUBEB with the largest figure of applicants have not deployed. And we have been following it up.

The issue is that the system here does not have the capacity, sometimes they forward to us raw data in hard copy. Sometimes I had to spend sleepless time trying to work myself out in trying to convert raw data to soft copy.

The focal person however said issues associated with payments had been resolved.

These problems cut across the country; there are issue when it comes to setting up the banking platforms for payment.

Mr. Abdulkareem explained that applicants in the state did not initially take the programme serious.

According to him, most of the youth applicants thought it was one of those gimmicks of government, so they just went to the cyber cafe and filled the forms anyhow.

He also said that due to the security challenges in Borno, the state government had to improvise the process of printing hard copies of the online forms to enable those in displaced communities fill the forms and submit them in designated ICT centres for uploading.

At the first instance, the programme was strictly an online thing. But given our circumstances, we just have to think outside the box to find solution to our problem.

In the whole of Borno State, the northern part which has 10 local governments, there is no electricity, let alone internet. In southern Borno, which is made up of nine local governments, there are only two internet cafes in Biu. And in Borno Central, which is the most cosmopolitan, there is so much pressure on basic facilities.

So we had discussion with His Excellency on the need to print the online forms so that our people can enrol in the programme. We did that and distributed well over 27,000 forms; but shockingly we only received about 9000 completed forms. So, these are the issues.

We had to approach the National Orientation Agency (NOA) to help us sensitize the people, especially the youth. We had to go into massive TV and radio publicity with NOA taking the lead.

Mr. Abdulkareem also said he noticed that even those that went to the internet cafes to register, the administrators printed out the forms and were selling to them.

This, according to him, made some applicants to fill the form without attaching much importance to what they were doing.

The guy there at the cafe would only attend to them at his leisure.

And when they have challenges on what was filled in the forms, the applicant is not there to clarify, so they just input whatever comes to their minds. At the end of the day, there are lot of discrepancies in the data that were uploaded.

There are discrepancies between what they have uploaded on the N-Power platform and the data they have in their bank accounts. Some people opened their accounts two or three years ago and they have forgotten the details they gave on those bank accounts.

And overtime, they have continued to change their bio-data, and that have left us with a lot of issues that we are trying to resolve now.

Despite the challenges, Mr. Abdulkareem expressed joy that the N-Power has been enjoying the cooperation of the relevant state ministries.



NATIONAL COORDINATOR REACTS

The National Coordinator of N-Power, Afolabi Imoukhuede, gave several reasons why the some of the beneficiaries were not paid.

Some of these were inefficiency on the part of officials handling the programme in various states, failure or inability of beneficiaries to interact with the N-Power portal, failure to submit themselves for physical verification and supply of wrong bank details and BVN.

When the beneficiaries were applying, while entering their data, we asked them for BVN at that point in time, Mr Imoukhuede told PREMIUM TIMES.

Before we went into selection we had to crosscheck the authenticity of the BVN, and we found out that some did not match the names of the BVN; and we tried to do a general check on the BVN and we found out that a certain percentage of the BVN were actually genuine.

After we had done the 200, 000 beneficiaries list in the first batch, we asked those concerned to go to the portal to put their BVN and bank accounts; that was when we started getting confessions from them.

Some came to confess that oga sorry o, it was my wifes BVN that I used; or I borrowed a friends BVN or that I just put any eleven digits to fill in the space and others even said they used their brothers account because they did not have one.

At that point when they realised how serious the programme is, they wanted us to give them permission to change the wrong BVN, and we said no; still put in your account numbers. I believe at that they will be able to make changes. At that time it was necessary for us to check how many Nigerians that had made claims that were genuine

Mr. Imoukhuede, who is also the special assistant to the vice president on job creation and youth empowerment, said at the time payment began in December last year and January this year, less than 50 per cent of beneficiaries were paid.

He said President Buhari later gave instruction that they should be given a second chance because it was the first time we are doing something transparent because Nigerian are used to systems that allow cutting corners.

Mr. Imoukhuede said, in order to remedy the situation, the N-Power Abuja office sent the lists of those with such problems down to the states, and instructed the state focal persons to help them collate all their updated bank accounts and as well as their BVN printouts.

On the issue of beneficiaries not being paid even though their names were not in the list of those with problems, as in Kwara, the national coordinator said such occurrence was an error on the part of the state focal persons.

He, however, said the problem in Kwara was not a good representation of efficiency of the officials handling the programme.

Going forward, Mr. Imoukhuede said, proper terms of reference and job description for focal persons had been fashioned out to avoid the challenges experienced in the first phase.

The federal govt last week opened the N-Power portal for the second batch of applicants. About 290,000 applicants registered in the first three days, Mr. Imoukhuede said.

As more unemployed and underemployed Nigerians seek to join the N-Power beneficiaries, and despite the challenges faced by many, current beneficiaries like Mrs. Jubrin only have commendations for the Buhari administration.

We cannot thank President Buhari enough for making this happen in our lives, she told PREMIUM TIMES.

This article is a product of a partnership between PREMIUM TIMES and #Buharimeter to fact-check the federal governments N-Power programme.

#Buharimeter is an initiative of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) with support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and the Department for International Department (DFID).

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There is considerable progress in the implementation of the Special Relief Intervention  an initiative launched in Maiduguri by the Federal Government on June 8 to deliver effective and comprehensive humanitarian aid especially food to persons displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east, according to an update report made to Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Friday.

The initiative which is part of a broad plan to address food shortage in the camps and other settlements of displaced persons, is now delivering assorted grains to internally displaced (through over 1000 trucks) and already has reached 12,691 households in Borno State since the flag off by the Acting President on June 8.

According to the update presented by the implementation team, the issue of diversion of relief materials including food and related matters which has dogged food delivery to the IDPs would be significantly curbed under the new distribution matrix adopted under the initiative.

For instance, over 1000 trucks of assorted grains are now on course, delivering the grains intact to beneficiaries since the commencement of the present programme as against the reported diversion of over 50 trucks in every 100 trucks sent to the north-east.

Having listened to a presentation from the team overseeing the Special Relief Intervention, at the Presidential Villa in the company of National Assembly members from the north-east, the acting president described the initiative as a unique operation that promises to deliver on a well laid out plan, assuring all that the process would remain transparent and the objectives fully actualized.

He added that aside the emergency food distribution, Government will deliver on a wholistic plan that includes empowerment because empowerment is an important feature of the relief intervention.

The Acting President said though the problems are immense and huge, especially when the enormity of the problem is compared to available resources, the federal government remains determined to deliver humanitarian aid through a process that is transparent and effective.

Mr. Osinbajo solicited the support of the National Assembly especially members representing the region, to enable government realise its objective of maintaining an effective humanitarian service delivery, led by the Nigerian government.

According to him, we must support this team because a lot of attention is focused on us especially including from the international community.

We need to be responsible and do this efficiently, and monitor performance on a regular basis. It is a good opportunity to prove that we can handle these efforts very well, the law professor added.

A total of 656 armed police personnel would be involved in the movement of assorted grains from various reserves across the country to designated NEMA warehouses in the north-east for onward distribution to beneficiaries.

Another 1,376 military personnel would escort the grains to some IDPs in the hinterlands across the affected states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.

Lawmakers present at the meeting made observations about the mode of intervention and the kind of aid provided to the IDPs.

Some of the lawmakers called for the integration of empowerment and provision of agricultural inputs as part of aid provided to the IDPs, under the present phase of the federal government intervention.

The new distribution matrix would entail moving grains from the reserves to the NEMA warehouses for onward distribution to camp stores and to the beneficiaries door posts.

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For the Nigerian educational sector to receive a major boost from policy makers, the 40th Miss Nigeria, Chioma Obiadi, has advised the Federal Government to compel public office holders to ensure their children attend schools in Nigeria.

Ms. Obiadi told the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos when she led the Miss Nigeria Organisation on a visit that such a policy would reduce the decadence in the nations educational sector.

She said that when children of public and political office holders attend schools in the country, they would be able to feed their parents back on whether such schools were experiencing deficit in teaching and learning infrastructure or adequately equipped with modern teaching aids.

The beauty queen advised that the federal government should formulate a policy that would ban government officials from sending their children abroad for study.

If this law is enacted, it will have a profound effect in terms of development in our educational sector.

Top government officials send their children abroad to get educated because those schools are well equipped and parade high standard of education.

If such Nigerians send their children abroad, then they will be less concerned about whatever is going on in the educational sector in the country since they are not directly affected.

However, if their children attend Nigerian schools, they will be concerned with the standard of education and make efforts to improve it, she said.

The reigning queen said that she was concerned with the need to have improved teaching and learning infrastructure in schools across the country.

She said that the meteorological station of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra, where she is a student at present was suffering from deficit in infrastructure.

I am a 300-level student of the Department of Geography and Meteorology at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University and the meteorology station in my school is not functioning.

This is depriving us, the students, the opportunity to receive better knowledge of how meteorology can be deployed in interpreting and understanding weather conditions.

If a child of a minister or a highly laced government official were in the same department with me, probably, efforts will be made to ensure that this facility functions, she said.

The beauty queen canvassed an improved quality of education for both the children of the rich and the poor because education is important in the development of any nation and its people.

(NAN)

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Governor Abubakar Bagudu, the Chairman, Presidential Task force on Rice and Wheat Production, has condemned the continuous importation of rice into the country, describing it as importation of poison.

Mr. Bagudu, who is also the governor of Kebbi, told journalists on Sunday in Birnin-Kebbi that the imported rice, auctioned by different countries, was no longer good for human consumption.

The chairman, who expressed regret over citizens patronage of foreign rice, said imported rice usually contained preservatives, which are poisonous.

He disclosed that there were three major importers of rice into the country who specialised in importing very cheap, auctioned rice into the country.

The governor said that Thailand in April 2017 auctioned 1.62 million tonnes of rice at about $140 per tonne whereas the market price of it was $700 per tonne.

Countries, particularly Thailand, India, China and Vietnam, buy a lot of paddy from their farmers and keep in storage sometimes, as long as nine years so that by so doing, they are supporting their farmers.

A country like Thailand, for example, may have eight million tonnes of rice in storage; so occasionally, they will auction the ones that are almost going bad that is, the one that is not fit for human consumption.

They sell the paddy as low as 20 per cent less than the international market price.

Those that import rice into Nigeria will go and buy the paddy and clean them up.

Because they do not buy rice at the international price, our local farmers who are offering rice for $500 will not be competitive.

If that importer is to buy fresh rice, he cannot bring it into Nigeria below $700 per tonne.

This is the biggest obstacle to our rice efforts because consumers say local rice is expensive; it is not expensive because we are not comparing it with equivalent rice elsewhere, the chairman explained.

The governor said that out of the 600 million tonnes of rice produced in the world, Nigeria produced about six million tonnes which represented one per cent of the production.

Mr. Bagudu said that rice could grow in the 36 states of the federation and called on stakeholders and citizens to come together to significantly advance rice production.

The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, on June 7, established a National Rice and Wheat Task Force to set up targets that will yield comprehensible and self-evident results in rice and wheat production.

At the inauguration of the task force, Mr. Osinbajo said the federal government was trying to evolve a strategy for the economy, for employment and for feeding the people.

Other members of the Task Force are Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano and his Ebonyi counterpart, David Umahi.

Others are the Minister of State for Agriculture, Lokpobiri Heineken, the President of Rice Farmers Association, Aminu Goronyo and the President, Wheat Farmers Association, Salim Muhammad.

(NAN)

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The ISIS group on June 8 claimed the kidnapping of two young Chinese, initially reported to be language teachers, near Quetta in Balochistan and said it had killed Li Zingyang and Meng Lisi.

By Ananth Krishnan: The abduction and reported killing of two young Chinese in Balochistan has stirred angry calls for retribution among Chinese social media users, even as the Chinese government has played down the incident out of strategic considerations towards its "all weather ally" Pakistan.

Chinese internet users have even demanded action for China to send troops to Pakistan to bring the kidnappers to justice, the South China Morning Post reported on Sunday, even while Beijing has told State media outlets to play down the incident.

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The ISIS group on June 8 claimed the kidnapping of two young Chinese, initially reported to be language teachers, near Quetta in Balochistan and said it had killed Li Zingyang (24) and Meng Lisi (26), although China has said it is still verifying the information with the Pakistani authorities even 10 days later.

To assuage anger, Chinese State media and Pakistani officials have since sought to change the narrative away from the security problems in Pakistan and have claimed Li and Meng may have been preachers.

In fact, Chinese outlets have gone as far as blaming the two young Chinese for their own tragic fate with the Party-run Global Times alleging they were preaching door to door and angering locals, triggering the kidnapping. South Korean officials have denied the claims that the Chinese were missionaries and said they were in fact with a Korean language school.

BEIJING CRITICISED FOR RESPONSE

This attempt to shift the narrative has stirred fresh anger, the SCMP reported. "One user responded with dark humour: 'The Pakistani government said they were told that the two Chinese were missionaries. I was just wondering, who told them?'"

Many comments on the Chinese Twitter equivalent Sina Weibo have demanded action and criticised Beijing's response, the SCMP said.

"How much blood do we still have to spill until the government is willing to take action?" wrote Deng Dabao.

"We shall start a war against IS, killing them on behalf of the two murdered Chinese," SCMP quoted another user Zhou Qi Bei Hou as saying. "It is time to fight violence with violence," added Lingchen99096.

The newspaper said "a significant level of online outrage could be problematic for Chinese leaders who are reluctant to engage in overseas military operations yet are equally reluctant to stir up social unrest ahead of an important Communist Party meeting later this year. Government mainstream media has remained mostly silent on the issue."

Despite the public anger, experts said ultimately China was likely to be guided by its strategic considerations with its "all weather" ally, especially as it is going ahead with billions of dollars worth of projects in Pakistan.

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"Will Beijing follow the request of Chinese social media users and send troops abroad? No, of course not," Wu Xinbo of Fudan University in Shanghai told SCMP, while another expert, Zhang Baohui of Lingnan University in Hong Kong, told the paper, " "Both sides have strong geostrategic reasons to maintain the relationship. It is shaped by the Indian factor. In fact, they are de facto allies against India."

Also Read:

A week on, China says still in the dark over 'killings' of its nationals in Pakistan

Pakistan under pressure as China 'highly concerned' over killings of its nationals

Watch Video: China, Pakistan hold joint military drills in Arabian Sea

--- ENDS ---
The Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) has called for the modification of the public notice issued by the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) in its attempt at enforcing the Executive Order No. 001 of 2017 .

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo had on May 18 signed three far-reaching executive orders to ease business, fast-track budget submission and promote made in Nigeria products.

The participating agencies include the Nigerian Police Force, Directorate of State Security, Quarantine Services, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Nigerian Immigration Services, Nigeria Customs Services, FAAN Aviation Security amongst others.

Vincent Iseghe, Coordinating Director of NAQS, made the call while addressing newsmen in Abuja on Saturday.

The notice addressed to airlines and passengers, itemises and attempts to direct agencies of government on where they should be positioned at the airport during the discharge of their duties.

This is at variance with paragragh 20 of the executive order and it was not addressed to any government agencies.

The public notice by FAAN in an antithesis to the executive order it served and should therefor should be modified especially as it concerns NAQS, Iseghe told reporters.

He said this has led to a situation at the international airports where NAQS officials have been forcefully removed from their posts at the departure and arrival terminals only to be confined to cargo terminal.

The Executive Order says; MDAs at the airports shall within 30 days merge their respective departure and arrival interfaces into a single customer interface, without prejudice to necessary backend procedures.

The order simply implies that all the MDAs should work together to achieve a common goal and not to send officers of the quarantine service away at entrance or departure point at the airports.

Nigeria is a member of the World Trade Organisation and the NAQS remains very prominent in both arrival and departure of any border inspection point at the seaport and land borders.

NAQS is to safeguard any agric produce that is entering and leaving the country. That is why government in its wisdom created quarantine service.

The main function of quarantine service is to prevent the entry of any disease of animals, plants, aquatic resources entry into Nigeria and to ensure food safety, he said.

Mr. Iseghe said: if the Nigeria Quarantine Service is not properly placed, there is no way we can fulfill our obligation of meeting the international community.

My appeal is for the authority of FAAN to be aware of this convention and ensure that the NAQS officers are properly placed where we are supposed to be.

Worldwide, he said, NAQS are present in all the international airports and seaports.

(NAN)

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The Lagos residence of a former Chief of General Staff, Oladipo Diya, was on Saturday gutted by fire.

The fire, which started in the evening, was finally put off at around 7 p.m., PREMIUM TIMES gathered.

The house is located on 31 Adekunle Fajuyi Way, Ikeja GRA, Lagos.

Findings by our correspondent revealed that Mr. Diya was not around at the time of the incident.

Efforts to speak with residents of the building, however, yielded no result as they declined to speak on the immediate cause of the incident.

Officials of the emergency agencies at the scene also declined to comment, ostensibly on the order of the residents.

Fatai Owoseni, Lagos State Commissioner of Police, who was also at the scene did not respond to questions from journalists.

Mr. Diya was deputy to the late Nigerian military head of state, Sani Abacha, before he was removed and jailed by the late dictator for allegedly planning a coup.

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After several weeks of surveillance, operatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) from the Benin Zonal Command have arrested a 33-year-old man, Monday Ugbo, for human trafficking.

Three victims were also rescued from his residence located at number 72 Osayande Street, Upper Sakponba Road, Benin City, Edo State.

Operatives of the agency have been on his trail for several weeks, following regular mention of his name in a number of human trafficking cases being handled by the Zonal Command.

Following intelligence reports that he was harbouring some girls in his house preparatory to their being trafficked abroad, the operative swooped on him in the early hours of Friday and caught him in the process of receiving a registration fee of N50,000 he had demanded from a prospective victim.

Preliminary investigations revealed that he was also preparing to take the three girls to a river that morning for oath taking before they could embark on the journey to Europe.

Mr. Ugbo who claimed to be a bricklayer, according to investigations by the agency, has been in the business of human trafficking for a long time and operates with another woman who is at large now. Mr. Ugbo, who is in the agencys custody, is making useful statements.

Reacting to this breakthrough, the Director-General, Julie Okah-Donli, commended the operatives and stated that there is no hiding place for human traffickers anymore in Nigeria as the agency and her partners have resolved to collaborate more appropriately in stopping further trafficking of Nigerians both within and outside of Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Immigrations Service, NIS, has handed over 21 rescued victims of human trafficking to NAPTIP. The age range of the victims is between 18 and 34 years.

One suspect was also handed over. Twelve of the victims comprising five males and seven females were handed over to the Kano Zonal Command of the agency by the NIS after they were intercepted at Babamutum border area of Katsina State by the NIS Border patrol as they were being moved outside the country.

Another nine, all females were handed over to the NAPTIP headquarters, Abuja by the NIS headquarters while attempting to procure International passports to travel out.

All the victims are at present with the agency which is profiling and counselling them while the suspect is making useful statements.

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The two kidnapped students and lecturer of School of Midwifery, Tudun Wada, Kaduna who were kidnapped on Friday along Kaduna-Birnin Gwari road have regained their freedom.

Samuel Aruwan, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna, disclosed this in a statement.

According to Mr. Aruwan, the two students and the lecturer are in good condition and have since reunited with their families.

The Kaduna State Government commends security agencies and community leaders for the sustained efforts that led to their freedom, he said.

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About two weeks after a coalition of Northern groups gave a three-month ultimatum to Igbos to leave Northern Nigeria, the State Security Service has reacted to the call.

The SSS, which has the statutory mandate of ensuring the internal security of the country, has been criticised by many Nigerians for not acting promptly to arrest those behind the call.

The call by the Northern coalition has been condemned by the Nigerian government, the UN, the Kaduna State government and several others with the government promising to ensure the security of lives and property of all Nigerians.

On Sunday, in a statement distributed by PR Nigeria on behalf of the SSS, the agency said it has watched with keen interest the disturbing trend desperate and mischievous elements have tended to steer the ship of our nationhood to calamity and irretrievable destruction.

The SSS said it is aware of the threat against Igbos as well as similar ones by other ethnic chauvinists.

The agency said it will stop at nothing to deploy all resources at its disposal to identify and deal with all those culpable, as well as maintain peace and order in every length and breadth of the Nation.

Read the full statement by the SSS below.

The Department of State Services (DSS) has watched with keen interest the disturbing trend desperate and mischievous elements have tended to steer the ship of our nationhood to calamity and irretrievable destruction.

Only recently, the Arewa Youths in a press statement called for the relocation of the Igbos from the North.

Unfortunately, this development has been followed by a release from an unknown source styled, Niger Delta Watchdogs, threatening all Northerners to quit Niger Delta region.

Meanwhile, another group went to the extent of harvesting from the internet, a horrific accident scene, for the purpose of making it look like a site of massacre of Igbo ethnic group by Northern youths.

However, the Service has been able to establish that the purported murder scene being depicted as a field of massacre was a high casualty accident scene which occurred along Owo-Akure road, Ondo State, on 3rd March, 2016.

Those involved in these misleading and despicable acts have since been warned to desist from anything capable of causing disaffection and stoking nationwide tensions.

Consequently, the Service, in line with its statutory mandate of ensuring the internal security of the country, wishes to inform the public that it will stop at nothing to deploy all resources at its disposal to identify and deal with all those culpable, as well as maintain peace and order in every length and breadth of the Nation.

To this effect, it warns, in very clear terms, all those who are charting the course of disunity among Nigerians to desist from their divisive actions. The Service is also not oblivious of the efforts of some miscreants to ignite fear and cause ethnic tensions across the country. It strongly condemns in its entirety the call for relocation of anyone to places against their wishes. Such relocation order is not only illegal, but it is strongly viewed to be against the spirit of our Constitution which allows for freedoms of movement and association among others.

The DSS, therefore, frowns at the tendency some ethnic chauvinists easily and cheaply resort to hate speeches, misinformation and total manipulation of information especially on the social media simply to fan the embers of discord and subvert the efforts of government in implementing its policies for the good of everyone.

Well-meaning and law-abiding citizens and residents are enjoined to disregard persuasions by these tribal jingoists to make our beloved country a theatre of the absurd and bloodletting. It is time for us, Nigerians, to show our humanness and patriotism which have been our defining strength as one united indivisible nation.

The Service has already commenced a detailed investigation to get the perpetrators of these hate campaigns as well as their sponsors. At the appropriate time, all those involved in these condemnable acts will be unmasked and decisively dealt with in line with the laws of the land.

The Service wants to reassure the entire populace that it will not leave any stone unturned to ensure that those who are bent on causing a breakdown of law and order are not spared.

Meanwhile, anyone with useful information is also encouraged to volunteer same to the Service or the nearest security agency/formation for prompt action.

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The acquittal of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, at the Code of Conduct Tribunal last week will have negative implication for Nigerias fight against corruption as well as jurisprudence on false asset declaration, the presidency told PREMIUM TIMES on Sunday.

Therefore, the federal government will appeal the ruling, according to the presidential adviser on prosecution, Okoi Obono-Obla, who spoke with our correspondent this morning.

Federal government will definitely appeal because we will not want that to be Nigerias jurisprudence on assets declaration, and so that a bad precedent will not be set, said Mr. Obono-Obla. If we allow that judgement to stand, it is bye bye to the war against corruption.

The CCT had last week Wednesday cleared Mr. Saraki of false asset declaration, charges brought against him by the federal government.

The tribunal chairman, Danladi Umar, ruled that the prosecution failed to establish a prima facie case against Mr. Saraki, thereby upholding a no-case submission made by the defendants counsel, Kanu Agabi.

That ruling was outrageous, Mr. Obono-Obla said, arguing that it was not based on the weight of evidence adduced by the prosecution.

He added that the no-case submission upheld by the tribunal was anachronistic.

Overwhelming evidence was adduced by the prosecution. We saw the best of advocacy from one of the best advocates in the country, Rotimi Jacobs, SAN. Contrary to that, no case submission, which I considered anachronistic, was upheld.

The tribunal should have overruled the no-case submission and called the defendant to defend himself. Standard of proof cannot be the same as ordinary criminal prosecution. You falsely declared your assets, then the onus shifts to the defendant to prove he didnt make false declaration, said Mr. Obono-Obla.

According to him, it is envisaged the federal government will appeal against the acquittal of Mr. Saraki by Wednesday.

We are studying the judgement; we should get the certified true copy by Monday or Tuesday. Then, we will file notice of appeal on Wednesday, he said.

Last week, the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption, Itse Sagay, had expressed shock at the acquittal of Mr. Saraki in an interview he granted PREMIUM TIMES.

He said it was incredible that Mr. Saraki was absolved and, therefore, advised the federal government to appeal against the ruling.

However, Mr. Sarakis colleagues, including his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, and the former Governor of Yobe State, Bukar Ibrahim, have taken turns to congratulate him.

At the last Senate sitting on Thursday, Mr. Ekweremadu raised a point of order to congratulate the Senate President.

Mr. Sarakis trial commenced in September 2015, shortly after he defied the ruling All Progressives Congress to contest and win the National Assembly leadership.

He then explored all avenues, up to the Supreme Court, to avoid trial but failed. However, the trial ended in his favour even without offering any defence.

He filed a no-case submission, after the prosecution had closed its case and called four witnesses.

The submissions of the witnesses were not credible to establish sound evidence against Mr. Saraki, ruled the tribunal chairman, Mr. Umar, whom Mr. Saraki had accused of bias previously.

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Six persons who are alleged to be notorious kidnappers terrorizing Kaduna  Abuja highway have been arrested.

The Kaduna State internal security outfit, known as Operation Yaki, announced the arrests Sunday in Kaduna.

A statement signed by the spokesperson to Governor Nasir El Rufai, Samaila Aruwan, said suspects were picked up on Thursday and Friday last week by Operation Yaki Surveillance Patrol Teams in a joint operation with the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Teams (IRT) and with support from the Technical Intelligence Unit (TIU).

The arrest of the kidnappers is sequel to the massive deployment of more police assets and patrol vehicles in the area in the last one week, the statement said.

It also said the efforts led to the arrests of the suspects including the leader of the gang, Adamu Mamman, a 35-year old of Amana village in Igabi Local Government Area; Ali Rabo, also known as Blakky, of Liman Ibada village in Chikun Local Government Area; and Awwalu Ahmad, aka Mota, of Rijana village in Kachia Local Government Area who is the main informant of the gang of kidnappers along the Abuja-Kaduna highway.

Others arrested are Shehu Shagari, a 27-year old of Gadan Gayan village in IgabiLocal Government Area; and Umar Antijo, also a 27-year-old of Rijana village in Kachia Local Government Area. Also in the net is Babangida Abdullahi of Rijana village in Kachia Local Government Area who is the alleged receiver of stolen cattle, phones and laptops.

Announcing the arrests, Yakubu Yusuf, a retired colonel and Coordinator of Operation Yaki, said that the security operations against kidnappings are being funded by the Kaduna State Government.

He disclosed that Governor El-Rufai has been encouraging and supporting inter-agency cooperation in the fight against crime.

Governor El-Rufai has pressed for a sustained onslaught against kidnapping. The Kaduna State Government is assisting security agencies with operational funds to support these efforts. The governor commends the communities that have been contributing to the security effort reporting suspicious activities, he said.

He also said the suspects were arrested at various locations, including Maraban Jos, Ungwan Pama, Sabon Gayan and Rijana villages respectively, all in Kaduna State.

All the suspects arrested confessed to several kidnappings of motorists along Kaduna  Abuja highway and further confessed that because of the massive deployment of security forces to their area of operations, most of their gang members have started relocating from Rijana village to their respective home towns, he said.

Meanwhile, the suspects and the items recovered from them have been handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the State Police Command for further investigation.

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The Anambra Police Command has described as untrue media reports stating the discovery of arms and ammunition in an articulated vehicle that conveyed yam tubers into Nnewi on June 12.

The Commissioner of Police in Anambra, Sam Okaula, told the News Agency of Nigeria in an interview on Sunday in Awka that nothing of the sort occurred.

What actually happened was that on June 12, a member of vigilance operative went to a pit somewhere in Uruagu, Nnewi, and dug out two rusted old magazines and few ammunition.

The vigilante operative drew the attention of the President-General of the community, Mr Charles Nwonye, who ultimately informed the police and I directed the officer in charge of SARS, Awkuzu to recover the items.

We are surprised that a senseless story is making the round that large cache of ammunition was discovered in a lorry that conveyed yam tubers into the community to cause mayhem.

There is nothing of the sort that happened in this command.

It is falsehood at its height and we begin to wonder who is peddling this type of senseless rumour, the police boss said.

Mr. Okaula also said no one was apprehended as speculated in the rumoured story of arms smuggling, describing it as false in its entirety.

He urged the public, especially those residing in Nnewi, to go about their lawful duty and report information that may lead to the arrest of criminals rather than create tension with false reports.

Corroborating Mr. Okaula, Charles Nwonye, the President-General of Uruagu, said the local security operatives reported that two magazines and ammunition were recovered from where they were buried in the community.

According to him, the items were recovered near a cave after a scavenger brought the information to the security operative and we contacted the police to investigate the matter.

Mr. Nwonye, who was present when Mr. Okaula spoke with NAN, also wondered why people would escalate the discovery into saying it was arms smuggle to destabilise the community.

I dont know where they got the story because there was no scene of a truck where yam was off-loaded and arms were discovered, the community leader added.

Chibueze Okonkwo, the Vigilante Commander at Uruagu, said the media reports were false and that the discovery was nothing to cause tension in the community and the state at large.

(NAN)

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The Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Abia, Donatus Nwankpa, has advised pro-Biafra agitators to shelve their secession plan and negotiate to produce an Igbo president in the country.

Mr. Nwankpa gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Umuahia on Sunday.

The APC chieftain stated that the agitation for a Biafra Republic is not a viable option for the south-east zone of the country.

For the Biafran agitators, I think Ndigbo need two things: One is that they should try and produce a president of Nigeria.

They should try and work hard to see that a president comes from the south-east.

Mr. Nwankpa said a president of Igbo extraction would make the no victor, no vanquished declaration at the end of the 30-month Nigerian civil war more realistic.

He, therefore, urged prominent Igbo politicians to mobilise their resources and contacts to negotiate for an Igbo president.

Mr. Nwankpa further said Ndigbo needed to ensure massive infrastructure and economic development of the zone.

An Igbo man is hardworking, industrious and creative.

He does not need government empowerment, which to me, only makes people lazy.

The Igbo man needs good roads, regular power supply and a conducive economic climate to drive his enterprise to the peak.

Mr. Nwankpa, a one-time state legislator, also spoke on the growing agitation for the restructuring of Nigeria along regional lines.

The agitation for restructuring has to do with the problem of discomfort and suspicion of one another in the country, he said.

He said Nigerians needed to understand and coexist peacefully rather than to tolerate one another.

The APC chair further said there was nothing wrong with the present structure of the country and its constitution.

He said, the Nigerian constitution is one of the best drafted constitutions in the world.

Mr. Nwankpa blamed the underdevelopment of some sections of the country on the excesses and self-aggrandisement of some of the past and present governors.

He alleged that the governors wielded so much power but failed to channel such power toward the development of the country.

Mr. Nwankpa described the three-month ultimatum issued to Ndigbo by some Arewa youth as a wake-up call on Ndigbo to come home and invest and develop their area.

(NAN)

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Two men have been arrested by the police in Ogun for allegedly stealing equipment belonging to troubled telecoms operator, Etisalat.

The thieves allegedly broke into the Isara-Remo site of the communications outfit carting away eight heavy duty batteries valued at N1.2 million, the police said.

The Ogun State Police Command Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, who confirmed the incident to PREMIUM TIMES on Sunday said the suspects were arrested on Saturday following a tip off.

Mr. Oyeyemi explained that the two suspects, Bashiru Jelili and Madu Nwete, were arrested following a tip off about their activities and their hideout.

They have earlier broke into the site of the communication giant where the heavy-duty batteries were stolen and sold to one Obinna who is now at large, he said.

He said investigation revealed that the said Obinna is known for receiving stolen properties in the area.

Mr. Oyeyemi said the arrested suspects have made confessional statements and all the stolen batteries has been recovered.

He said efforts are on to apprehend the fleeing Obinna, adding that the Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Iliyasu, has directed that the suspects be charged to court as soon as investigation is concluded.

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By Press Trust of India: By K J M Varma

Beijing, Jun 18 (PTI) Agitated over killing of two Chinese nationals in Pakistan by ISIS militants, Chinese netizens have been demanding that China should send troops to Pakistan to fight against the dreaded terror group.

The reports about killing of two Chinese nationals in Pakistans restive Balochistan province, has generated a cascade of discussion on Weibo, a Twitter-style Chinese social media platform, with many users calling for revenge, Hong Kong based South China Morning Post reported today.

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Social media users are demanding the Chinese government to send troops to Pakistan to seek "payback" for the killing of the two Chinese nationals, the daily said.

"We shall start a war against ISIS, killing them on behalf of the two murdered Chinese,? said a user going by the name Zhou Qi Bei Hou.

?It is time to fight violence with violence,? another user, Lingchen99096, said.

Pakistan governments claim that the two Chinese nationals were involved in illegal preaching activities has ignited more anger.

"The Pakistani government said they were told that the two Chinese were missionaries. I was just wondering, who told them," the Post quoted one Weibo user as saying.

It is rare that netizens in China could let loose such a barrage of criticism against Pakistan on social media which is controlled by heavy firewalls by Chinese authorities. It is not clear how this barrage of criticism on the social media appeared despite the firewalls.

Chinese Foreign Ministry on June 9 said Beijing was informed by Pakistan officials that a Chinese man and a woman identified as Lee Zingyang, 24, and Meng Lisi, 26, who were kidnapped last month from Quetta may have been killed.

Reports from Pakistan said the two were killed by Islamic State group after being abducted by gunmen dressed as policemen in Quetta in restive Balochistan province last month.

Chinese officials have yet to confirm the deaths, but a spokesman from the Chinese foreign affairs ministry said on Wednesday that Beijing was investigating whether the two were illegally preaching in Pakistan before they were abducted. PTI KJV PMS

--- ENDS ---
The Lagos State Government said it would resume the sales of LAKE Rice at approved retail outlets across the state from Monday, June 19, ahead of the Eid-el-fitr.

The states Commissioner for Agriculture, Oluwatoyin Suarau, said this on Sunday while reviewing the modalities for the distribution of the rice across the state.

Mr. Suarau said that the sales would be part of the state governments commitment to ensure food security and help residents sail through the current economic recession.

According to him, the rice which has been subsidised to ensure affordability is fresh and safe for consumption.

The selling of the rice is auspicious, especially, with regards to the forthcoming Eid-el-fitr.

The ministry will ensure a fair distribution of the rice across the state and ensure that the product is available during the festive period.

The prices of the product have not changed: a 50kg bag will sell for N12,000 while each bag of the 25kg and 10kg are going to be sold for N6,000 and N2,500 respectively, he said.

The commissioner listed the approved sales outlets to include: Lagos State Agric Input Supply Authority Centres at Ojo, Ajah, Odogunyan in Ikorodu, and Epe.

Other will include the secretariats of all the 57 local government and local council development areas in the state.

He said they would also be available at the Agricultural Development Area Complex at Oko-Oba, Agege; LTV8 Complex in Agidingbi; the State Universal Basic Education Board complex at Maryland; the Government Technical College premises at Idimu-Alimosho and the Eko Farmers Mart, in Surulere.

(NAN)

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The Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur hosted the fifth edition of its Annual HR Conclave on the 16th and 17th of June, 2017. The event witnessed the participation of illustrious thought leaders in the field of HR from some of the leading companies across industries. The speakers included Mr. Yogi Sriram - Senior VP of Corporate HR at LNT, Mr. Sandeep Batra  Senior VP and Chief Talent Officer at Vodafone, Mr. Ramesh Shankar S  Executive VP and Head of HR (South Asia) at SIEMENS, Mr. Abhishek Mishra - Head of HR Downstream at Shell India, Mr. A. Thirunavukkarasu  President HR at JK Group, Mrs. Shraddha Pradhan  VP HR at ICICI Lombard, Mr. Sunil Seth  Head HR Dentsu Aegis Network and Mr. T. Karunakar  VP HR at Apollo Hospitals. The umbrella theme of the event Reshaping the HR Perspective comprised of two primary panels  one concerning about ways to break stereotypes surrounding HR and the other involving the transformations in HR practices in a world of extensive digitization and automation.The key-note speaker, Mr. Sriram on his address to the students on the first day of the event highlighted the challenges that HR personnel around the world, and especially in a growing economy like India, are facing owing to rapid changes in the socio-economic environment of the world. His interactive session dealt with several insights from a long corporate career and his anecdotes were great sources of knowledge and inspiration for all present. Hyper-uncertainty is the new normal, said Mr. Sriram. He further talked about the elements that make up a great leader and his leadership style  stability, agility, and humility. He talked about preserving our old fashioned values, and how different leaders in the modern world are changing it with their dynamic leadership styles.The second day of the event kick-started with an address by the Director of IIMU, professor Janat Shah, who enlightened the gathering about the motto and mission of the institute. The first speaker on the dias Mr. Karunakar spoke about how HR can act as a Game-Changer in the modern corporate scenario and the Transformational Role of an HR practitioner in a company.Mr. Thirunavukkarasu spoke next about what is and what isnt HR. A practitioner with years of experience under his belt, he gave many live examples to amplify his points and his speech was indeed an eye-opener for students wanting to make HR a livelihood.Mr. Sunil Seths presentation was extremely entertaining for the audience. Being a man from the advertising domain, his audio-visual presentation left the audience in splits. He also talked about the employee life cycle and the types of HR managers that are required for the future.The three speakers were also part of a panel discussion on the topic of Breaking Stereotypes in the HR Domain where they opinionated on all the major stereotypes surrounding the field  from women being better at it to the perceived notion that HR is only limited to salary and recruitment.The second half of the event started off with Mr. Ramesh Shankar who was of the belief that organisations around the world are hiring less based on knowledge and skills but more on the right mindset. His speech also cantered around pertinent question on how automation and digitization will impact organisations and the role of HR in the changing status quo.Mrs. Pradhan talked about the dos and donts of globalisation and how talent assessment and management needs to be done in such a scenario. She talked about the changing perceptions, markets and demands and how it is becoming even tougher for HR managers.Mr. Batra talked about how HR needs to familiarize itself with the business first to have an idea about what the firm is upto. He also emphasized the importance of analytics and technology in HR for the future.The final speaker of the day was Mr. Mishra who talked about how HR is transforming into a strategic partner for the organisation. He talked about the values of relationship and employee satisfaction in an organisation. He concluded by delving into the modern trends in talent acquisition.The event was well received by the audience who were enthralled and enlightened by the highly capable panel of speakers. A completely student-driven event  right from ideation to delivery, Spandan 2017 was another feather in IIMUs cap.
NORTH WILDWOOD  In 1874  the year the Hereford Inlet Lighthouse was built  this shore town was an uninhabited wilderness except for the fishermen who roamed the coastal waters in search of a catch.

If you went back to when the lighthouse was built, it was like an interstate highway down there in the ocean, said Steve Murray, chairman of lighthouse board of trustees. They had one of the biggest fishing fleets on the East Coast.

Most of that history is gone or forgotten, but the lighthouses Maritime Festival on Saturday and Sunday let visitors step back in time.

The event, in its eighth year, featured authors, historians and artists along with vendors and food stands.

The purpose is to bring South Jersey maritime history to people who arent very aware of South Jersey maritime history, said Les Kammerman, a trustee and one of the festivals organizers.

John Knyff found a piece of maritime history about eight years ago.

Knyff, of Bloody Historical, a Connecticut-based traveling historic education group, pulled in a 3-pound cannon ball while seining Barnegat Bay with a group of children.

At the festival, Bloody Historical had a couple of pirate-themed tables near the lighthouse featuring artifacts including the cannon ball, and gave sewing and cooking demonstrations.

Knyff said, just in case anyone wondered, real pirates never said argh. That was a misinterpretation of the accent of Scottish pirates.

And all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies are wrong, he added.

Nearby, Daniel Lapidow, of Trenton, was hammering a piece of mild steel. The 25-year-old blacksmith, whos also known as the Hebrew Hammer, was forming a spatula.

Lapidow, who said hes one of seven blacksmiths in the state, became interested in the craft after watching a smith work when he was 7 years old.

I got invested in this because I saw someone doing it, so I have to keep that going, he said.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account.
LINWOOD  Who killed April Kauffman? If authorities have a lead, they havent said so in five years. The mystery has haunted her family and friends and caused rampant speculation in the quiet city.

Dr. James Kauffman, 68, has never been named a suspect in the killing of his wife, but that has not stopped suspicion.

Now, Kauffmans arrest on charges of brandishing a handgun as local and federal investigators executed a search warrant at his medical office Tuesday has reignited those suspicions in this small, white-collar city.

Kauffmans attorney, Ed Jacobs, who has maintained his clients innocence, did not respond to a request for comment for this report.

Kauffmans arrest last week was not related to his wifes killing, Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon G. Tyner said. But that, and an earlier request by the Prosecutors Office for a DNA sample from Kauffman, has only fueled talk, while putting an intense focus on the investigation, the city and the unsolved homicide.

People dont go around killing their wives in this area. Its not normal, Sylvia Baker said Thursday outside Linwood Greene Plaza.

Baker, who grew up in Linwood but now lives in Egg Harbor Township, was critical of Kauffmans alleged actions earlier this week.

Who meets law enforcement with a gun? she said. I think its finally waking people up that we need an answer.

Linwood has about 7,000 residents and a median household income of $82,000. Charming homes are situated along the tree-lined streets. Children are often seen riding bikes, and residents frequent the many locally owned shops and restaurants.

Some people make some very radical and strange comments, said Lee Darby, who was a close friend of April Kauffman. Everybody has an opinion and everybodys entitled to it.

Brigantine resident Michele OConnell, who works in Linwood, said she has been following the case, and the fact that it has remained unsolved so long has been stressful on the community.

I think that theres people on both sides of what they think happened. And I think that thats been difficult for the town. I think theres a lot of strong opinions, OConnell said.

Resident David Sparenberg said Linwood is a quiet community.

I only hope that theres an end in sight and that, whichever way it ends, it ends lawfully and for the benefit of Dr. Kauffman and his stepdaughter (Kim Pack), Sparenberg said.

On the morning of May 10, 2012, when Aprils slaying was discovered, Darby said it was Dr. Kauffman who called her to break the news. Darby was in disbelief and immediately went to the house, which was surrounded by police and news media.

She had flashbacks to that scene Tuesday, when Kauffman was arrested.

The Kauffmans massive home sits in a cul de sac at the end of Woodstock Drive. Once an immaculately manicured property, the shrubs are now overgrown and trash litters the lawn. James Kauffman owned the home before he met April.

The Kauffmans were avid gun collectors, reportedly owning about 100 guns. They also went out frequently, Darby said. About a year after Aprils killing, James Kauffman married Carol Weintraub, and the two own an apartment in Philadelphia, although he still owns the Linwood home.

At the other end of the street is the well-traversed Linwood bike path, where a bench and a tree are now dedicated in Aprils honor.

On Thursday, Darby sat carefully on Aprils bench and talked about her longtime friend, sometimes holding back tears as she remembered Kauffmans dedication to the community, selfless attitude and fun-loving spirit.

We raised our daughters together, we traveled together, Darby said of the friendship that began in the 1980s.

April Kauffman, who was 47 when she died, was most well known in the area as a strong advocate for veterans. She was also a radio host, a business owner and a voracious volunteer.

Kauffman had a loud personality, Darby said. She drove a red convertible and had Barbie-blonde hair. Kauffman never shied away from talking to strangers, and Darby said she would make friends wherever she went.

A lot of people felt a closeness with April, and they should, because April loved everybody. She made you feel like you were her best friend, Darby said. I envied that beautiful heart of hers.

April Kauffmans death soon became regional, statewide, then national news when it was featured on the Americas Most Wanted website, which is now defunct.

The Linwood Police Department declined to comment on the impact of the killing on the small community. Mayor Rick DePamphilis and Council President Tim Tighe could not be reached for comment.

The effects of a unexplained or controversial death can have a lasting impact on a community. Mike Voll is the former mayor of Middle Township and recalls a similar case that rocked his small town in the 1990s.

Now a successful and popular dentist in Cape May Court House, Eric Thomas was in the center of scandal in 1997 when his pregnant wife died after her vehicle crashed into a utility pole. The medical examiner said Tracy Thomas death was accidental, but when Thomas tried to sue Ford Motor Co. over the airbag, the company attempted to implicate Thomas in a murder plot. There were accusations of lies and of affairs, and eventually both cases were dropped. However, the dramatic story became fodder for a Lawrence Schiller book, Cape May Court House.

There was a lot of talk. A lot of speculation, a lot of accusations, a lot of hearsay and, of course, as mayor, I had to listen to all of it. I always left it up to the Police Department and the Prosecutors Office (to) come to a conclusion, Voll said.

He said the case put the community in the spotlight, but eventually the light dimmed and things got back to normal.

Life goes on and Dr. Thomas is a successful practicing dentist in Cape May Court House. So everybody can have their own opinion. I relied on law enforcement and the judicial system for their conclusion, and thats where I left it, Voll said.

Rocco Cipparone, a criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor in Haddon Heights, said speculation is normal but should never drive an investigation. He said having a suspect helps the community heal.

Solving a crime always brings a measure of comfort to a community, he said.

Darby, who helps run a website and Facebook page dedicated to April Kauffman, said attempting to try the case in the media is unfair. But she is hopeful for a resolution so that she, and the community, can move on.

It never goes away. It never leaves. It just haunts you all day long, Darby said.
ATLANTIC CITY  The resorts gaming industry could be under another threat from Pennsylvania, this time in the form of slots at bars and the introduction of internet gaming.

Two weeks ago, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed sprawling gambling legislation to expand casino-style gambling to the internet, airports, bars and elsewhere. The legislation still has to pass the Pennsylvania Senate.

The introduction of more slot competition in the region comes as Atlantic Citys slots market is already declining. Overall, slot revenue at properties in the resort is on the decline. In 2015, slot revenue totaled more than $1.73 billion. In 2016, that number had dropped by $19 million to more than $1.71 billion, according to state gaming records.

But gaming experts predict the possible expansion of slots beyond casinos will affect casino properties in Pennsylvania and not Atlantic City.

Neighboring states with gambling compete for every casino dollar, said Robert Ambrose, a gaming industry consultant. Pennsylvania has been looking to expand their model for some time. We are not talking about additional casinos in Pennsylvania, just expanding the publics opportunity to gamble creating more tax revenue for the state.

The bill represents perhaps Pennsylvanias biggest gambling expansion since it legalized casinos in 2004, a law that made it the nations No. 2 commercial casino revenue state.

The discussion over expanding gaming in the Keystone state is nothing new, said Colin Mansfield, director of U.S. corporates at Fitch Ratings.

One of the biggest take aways is that its not a done deal, Mansfield said. The risk is to the current operators in the state. The Atlantic City market took a hit when Pennsylvania first introduced casino gaming but I dont see this being that big an impact.

Under the Pennsylvania bill, a liquor license holder, such as a bar, truck stop, bowling alley, VFW hall or fraternal club, could operate slot machine-style gambling machines, called video gaming terminals. As many as 40,000 terminals would be allowed statewide, with a limit of five at each establishment, 10 at truck stops. Supporters estimated that 7,000 to 8,000 bars and other establishments could be expected to host a terminal, with tax revenue going to the state, the lottery, the establishment and local governments.

Whether the final outcome of the regulations include online, tavern or airport placement I dont see any impact on the AC market, Ambrose said. However there has been concern within the casino operations in PA as well as the lottery in terms of how expanded gaming would impact them.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Israel deserves criticism

Early June was the 50th anniversary of Israels victory in the Six-Day War. It established Israeli military superiority over all its adversaries in the Middle East. Part of this advantage stems from massive military aid provided by the United States for the last 40 years, at this point nearly $4 billion per year.

It marked the 50th anniversary of two other events: the beginning of an uninterrupted, illegal occupation and land seizure of Palestinian territory and the sinking of the U.S. naval vessel Liberty. During the conflict, the Liberty was in international waters flying an American flag when it was attacked by Israeli jets and torpedo boats. Both the U.S. and Israel said the attack was a mistake, but others maintain the attack was deliberate. Although 34 died and 171 were wounded, the ship survived.

Im quite aware that any criticism of Israel is called anti-Semitism by its supporters, but it seems thats their only argument, and I refuse to accept that.

Mac McCarthy

Ocean City

The surplus population

With all the talk of climate change and how human activities are affecting the planet, I cant help thinking how lucky the world is to have had many major wars, religious persecutions, plagues, natural disasters, political persecutions and ethnic cleansing. If not for these, global population might be double what it is and consuming many more resources.

Many more people consuming would end up killing each other over basic needs like water and food, and might get numbers back to todays level. I guess unnatural death is a necessary part of the human ecosystem.

In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus, a priest, wrote one of the most influential essays in the world. He wondered why there was so much suffering among humans and came to the conclusion that population growth tended to always outstrip food supply. Since humans tend not to limit their population size voluntarily, population reduction tends to be accomplished through famine, disease, poverty and war.

From this view, North Korea posturing, or Assad gassing his people, or starvation in Africa or almost any front-page news about people dying could be seen as all for the common good.

Frank Newdeck

Ocean City

Up to states to support renewable power options

The recent withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement was a staggering setback to the long-term survival of the American people, whether or not one trusts the science behind climate change and its correlation to human conduct. People cannot overlook the fact that individual countries and the world economy as a whole are moving away from costly, time-consuming and inefficient sources of energy procurement.

Other countries see that depending on fossil fuels past the year 2050 is simply not economically advantageous. Vast sums of money are being moved away from investment in coal and oil. Whole economies are not only betting on but putting the money behind the science to make it happen. Countries are finding less costly ways to move people around and keep the lights on. Extraction and refining of these carbon fuels are costly, time-consuming and archaic. The money is moving into renewable energy technologies that are smarter, safer and cleaner.

While it would be nice to have federal leadership truly helping the economy and building it for the future, states must take the reins. The Paris accord is a worldwide commitment. Unfortunately, the current presidential administration is trying to hold onto the past.

Bill Driscoll

Cape May Court House

President, Ocean Solar
The Andino commercial center was packed with people flocking to buy gifts ahead of Father's Day celebrations today.

Police officers stand at the entrance of the Centro Andino shopping center after an explosion rocked the place, in Bogota, Colombia.

By Reuters: At least three women were killed and nine injured after an explosive device detonated in a restroom in an busy upscale shopping center in Colombia's capital on Saturday, officials said.

The Andino shopping center in an exclusive area of Bogota was evacuated after the blast at around 5 p.m. local time in the women's lavatory. The Andino commercial center was packed with people buying gifts ahead of Father's Day celebrations on Sunday.

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Police said the device was placed in a toilet bowl in the second-floor restroom. Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa denounced the attack.

"This cowardly terrorist attack in Andino really hurts me," he said on Twitter.

One of the victims was a 23-year-old French woman who had been volunteering in a poor area of the city, he told reporters.

STREETS CLOSED, BUILDINGS EVACUATED

Streets surrounding the shopping center were closed and buildings evacuated by police as ambulances raced to the scene and security officials tried to establish who was responsible for the blast. Bomb squad specialists combed the area in a search for additional devices.

Photographs on social media showed a woman slumped against the wall with a pool of blood around her and what appears to be a large shard of metal piercing her back. In front of her is another woman with her leg torn apart above the knee.

Another image showed the destroyed toilet cubicle with a blood-splattered handrail and debris strewn all over the floor.

President Juan Manuel Santos has ordered an investigation into the incident.

Security has improved in Bogota over the last decade as police and military increased surveillance and put more armed officials on the streets. At one time all bags were checked at the entrance to shopping malls, but that has been vastly scaled back in recent years.

Sniffer dogs still check cars at parking facilities in the capital.

A peace accord signed last year with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's biggest guerrilla group, raised confidence bomb attacks might cease.

The country's second-largest insurgent group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, in February exploded a device in Bogota that injured dozens of police.

Authorities said there have been threats of attacks in Bogota by the so-called Gulf Clan, a group of former right-wing paramilitary fighters who traffic drugs.

Also read: Sarcastic Putin offers fired FBI chief James Comey political asylum

Also read: UK police arrest knife-wielding man from outside parliament in London

Also read: Russia says may have killed ISIS chief Baghdadi, US expresses scepticism

--- ENDS ---

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The theme for this year's annual conference is "Embracing the New Era of Eco-Civilization and Let Green Growth Benefit All," and its major topic is on building a pilot eco-civilization zone. Guizhou was approved to establish a national pilot eco-civilization zone in 2016, making itself a platform of China's reform for promoting ecological progress. Guizhou deeply implements the concept of "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" and makes eco elements and resources available to society as a whole. Nowadays, the eco-practices in Guizhou reflect the concept of "Green Advance, Green Lead and Green Growth".

As one of the major media partners in this global symposium, Huanqiu.com was established under the approval of People's Daily and the State Council Information Office and funded by People.com.cn and the Global Times. As a centralized network of comprehensive news media, Huanqiu.com strives for timely, objective and independent coverage and analysis of news and information at home and abroad. We are the preferred source of news and information for national as well as foreign media. Huanqiu.com is the provider for original bilingual contents online, the professional issuance agency for foreign games, and China's most influential bilingual Chinese-English news portal.

During the Forum, our accredited correspondents will report in the forms of image-text, video, new media and the like.

Chen Min'er, the Communist Party Secretary of Guizhou province and Chairman of the Standing Committee of its People's Congress, said in an interview with Huanqiu.com that ecology is key to culture, and it is Guizhou's glory and responsibility to accomplish the strategic goal assigned by the CPC Central Committee of building this national pilot eco-civilization zone. In the meanwhile, Chen mentioned that the reform will carry out by focusing on the construction of green barriers to promote green development and ecological poverty alleviation, strengthen the rule of law protection, and deepen communication and cooperation. The establishment of this pilot zone will make the colorful Guizhou pay more attention to its natural resources, environment, eco-civilization and cultural civilization.

Sir John Leslie Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, foreign president of the Eco Forum Global Guiyang Symposium 2017 International Consulting Committee and president of the EU Environment Council, told Huanqiu.com that the existing global framework cannot assure the accomplishment of a shared development, and it is unacceptable and unsustainable to let the economic and social gap between low-income developing and high-income developed countries grow widen. "Just like Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement, we could also formulate a Guiyang Agreement, which will make us more confident to address climate change and help us to reach an international agreement," said Sir Prescott.

SOURCE Huanqiu.com

Related Links

http://www.huanqiu.com


If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
Massage Envy CEO Joe Magnacca presents Excellence in Education Award to Schools of Medical Massage

The Schools of Medical Massage- (Dayton School of Medical Massage, Cincinnati School of Medical Massage, Cleveland Institute of Medical Massage and Dayton School of Medical Massage-Lima) were awarded the Excellence in Education Award from Massage Envy the nations largest employer of Licensed Massage Therapists, employing over 25,000 in 49 states.

This award recognizes the best schools nationally in the field of Massage therapy. Schools of Medical Massage have the distinction of being the only school to be a multi-school winner since the awards inception. Dave Drake Director of Marketing and Operations accepted the award for the Schools of Medical Massage at the Massage Envy National Conference held in Orlando Florida in front of 3,500 attendees. Bill Tahy President and Owner of the schools said its a great honor to receive such a prestigious award and to be recognized for our efforts to provide a quality education to our students, helping them fulfill their aspirations of becoming Licensed Massage Therapists.

The Dayton School of Medical Massage opened their first school in 1996 in Kettering Ohio. In 1997 the Cincinnati School of Medical Massage opened followed by the Dayton School of Medical Massage- Lima in 1999 and finally the Cleveland Institute of Medical Massage in 2001. Schools of Medical Massage offer training to become a licensed massage therapist. Students who graduate from their program receive 900 hours of education in anatomy & physiology, massage theory and practicum, business and ethics along with 105 hours of clinical experience.

About Schools of Medical Massage

Since 1996 Schools of Medical Massage has offered massage therapy training in the state of Ohio with locations in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton and Lima. We operate as the Cleveland Institute of Medical Massage, the Cincinnati School of Medical Massage, the Dayton School of Medical Massage and the Dayton School of Medical MassageLima (located in the Apollo Career Center). All of our schools are accredited by ACCSC (Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges), approved by the State Medical Board of Ohio and licensed by the State Board of Career Colleges and Schools. For more information, visit http://www.massageschools.com.
Moody's slashes India's economic growth projection for 2022 to 7 per cent from 7.7 per cent.
By India Today Web Desk: Star Plus' upcoming dance reality show Dance Plus is all set to entertain you this year with their 'Ek Level Up' performances. And the makers have got none other than Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone to perform at the launch of the show.

As per reports, Deepika will be seen performing on Deewani Mastani from Bajirao Mastani along with super judge Remo D'souza, who won a national award for this song. The choreography of the song was fabulous and the magic will be brought alive by Deepika and Remo on small screen for the first time.

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The creatives of the show have planned to resurrect the entire setting of the iconic title track of Bajirao Mastani. A source from the sets of Dance Plus 3 revealed, "Remo will be personally looking into the choreography. Deepika has already given her nod and a date to shoot for the act. If things go as planned it would be one mega event for TV viewers. Mastani will once again manage to enthrall us all."

Dance Plus 3 will replace Nach Baliye 8 and premiere on July 1.

Also see: Dance Plus 3 launched; 5 things you want to know about the new season

--- ENDS ---
On Sunday late afternoon, pro-Syrian government forces attacked the town of Ja'Din, south of Tabqah and west of Raqqa, ISIS' self-declared capital, the release said.

Ja'Din was held by coalition-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, and the Syrian strikes wounded some SDF fighters. Coalition aircraft stopped the initial strike through a show of force.

Coalition officials then contacted their Russian counterparts via a "de-confliction line" to stop the firing. But about two hours after the first strike by pro-Syrian government forces, a Syrian SU-22 fighter dropped several bombs near SDF fighters south of Tabqah.

"In accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of Coalition partnered forces," the release said, the SU-22 "was immediately shot down by a U.S. F/A-18E Super Hornet."

In a statement released on Syrian state television, the Syrian army said the US-led coalition shot down a Syrian army jet during a combat mission against ISIS fighters south of Raqqa.

The army's statement said the plane crashed and the pilot was missing.

The US-led coalition and its local partners have come into conflict with pro-Syrian government forces and their allies several times in recent weeks, as both sides jockey to assume control of territory given up by ISIS as the terrorist group loses strength in Syria.

All those earlier clashes came in the area around al Tanf, in southeast Syria near the country's borders with Iraq and Jordan. US special operations forces are on the ground near al Tanf to train local partner forces. (The US also reportedly stationed long-range rockets near al Tanf earlier this month.)

The area is seen as strategically valuable by the Syrian government and its Iranian backers, as well as by the US-led coalition and its local partners fighting ISIS. Russia has also reportedly launched strikes against militias opposed to the Syrian government in the al Tanf area.

As after those incidents, the US-led coalition said in a release Sunday:

"The Coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime, Russian, or pro-regime forces partnered with them, but will not hesitate to defend Coalition or partner forces from any threat ... The demonstrated hostile intent and actions of pro-regime forces toward Coalition and partner forces in Syria conducting legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated."

The al Tanf border crossing sits across the border from Iraq's al Waleed border crossing, which Iraqi government forces recently recaptured from ISIS militants.

Syrian government forces and allied militias reported meeting up with Iraqi forces near al Waleed in what Syrian officials called "the sign of the cooperation between the brotherly Iraqi and Syrian military leadership to secure the shared borders."

US officials said the meeting point was northeast of al Tanf and the Iraqi recapture of al-Waleed had "no bearing on Coalition partner training operations at At Tanf."

Iran has also fired on ISIS fighters in northern Syria in recent hours.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps forces fired several surface-to-surface, medium-range missiles from western Iran at ISIS bases around Deir ez-Zur in northeast Syria.

The semiofficial Iranian news agency Tasnim said the IGRC was targeting ISIS because it held the group responsible for attacks in Tehran earlier this month that saw five ISIS-linked fighters storm the Iranian parliament building and a shrine to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The attacks left 18 people dead and wounded more than 50.
Questioning the absence of local BJP MP SS Ahluwalia, GJM Darjeeling MLA Amar Singh Rai said it was "very unfortunate" that he chose to stay away from his own constituency during this hour of crisis.

By Indrajit Kundu: As the agitation for a separate state of Gorkhaland enters its second week in Darjeeling, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) on Sunday expressed its disappointment over the role of the central government.

Questioning the absence of local BJP MP SS Ahluwalia, GJM Darjeeling MLA Amar Singh Rai said it was "very unfortunate" that he chose to stay away from his own constituency during this hour of crisis.

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"The MP should have been here, everyone feels the same. He should have been here in this hour of crisis. In a way, we are very disappointed," Rai told India Today.

Ahluwalia had won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat in 2014 with active support of the Morcha. Though he did accompany the GJM delegation, which met Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi this week, he has so far stayed away from his constituency ever since the turmoil broke out.

BJP'S ROLE UNFORTUNATE

Criticising the Centre's role in, Rai termed the role of alliance partner BJP as "unfortunate and very disappointing" adding that the Morcha had expected "something positive from the part of the central government".

The Morcha, which is spearheading the stir in Darjeeling, maintains that it wants the immediate intervention of the Centre given the police crackdown initiated by the Mamata Banerjee-run West Bengal state administration.

"We are ready to sit with the Centre anytime. But with the state, the condition would be that they withdraw all forces and allow normalcy to return and let the Centre initiate a dialogue process," Rai said.

HOME MINISTER APPEALS FOR PEACE

Last week, the state government had requested the Centre to deploy Army after violence broke out during the Morcha's agitation against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. On Sunday, Rajnath Singh spoke to Banejree who apprised him of the ground situation.

"All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in an amicable environment. In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution. Every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue," Singh later tweeted.

Also read: Darjeeling hills burn over Gorkhaland: Why Bimal Gurung must recall 2009 Supreme Court guidelines

Also read: Bimal Gurung: Gorkhaland dreamer and the man behind Darjeeling's hot summer

--- ENDS ---
Seven people have been announced as nominees but not formally nominated.

But the Trump administration's lag in selecting nominees may not be the only thing to blame for the White House's hiring crisis. Of the 94 formal nominees, the Senate has confirmed only 42 so far.

A number of factors besides the lack of nominees have also contributed to the delay, including: Democrats' opposition to Trump's nominees, some Republicans' unwillingness to work for an administration rocked by controversy, and Trump's reported treatment of administration officials.

Here's a guide to the reasons:

Trump's nominees have had to wait far longer than Obama's, Bush's, and Clinton's.

According to The Washington Post, Trump's Cabinet nominees had to wait 25 days between being officially nominated and being voted on by the Senate. On the other hand, President Barack Obama's nominees had a median wait time of two days, President George W. Bush's waited zero days, and President Bill Clinton's waited one day.

A number of Trump's nominees faced a steep uphill climb during their confirmation hearings. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions faced particularly sharp questioning from congressional Democrats for their past conduct, and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos' nomination nearly failed after two Republican senators voted against her, leading to a 50-50 stalemate. In the end, Vice President Mike Pence had to cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm DeVos.

Sources: ,

Some Republicans are wary of joining the Trump administration amid the brewing Russia controversy.

The Trump-Russia story has gained even more steam since then, following Trump's abrupt decision to fire FBI director James Comey, a slew of media reports that raised questions about the president's and his associates' ties to Russia, and Comey's bombshell testimony before the Senate earlier this month.

A number of potential nominees are having second thoughts as the continuing investigations threaten to derail Trump's agenda, four people close to prospective nominees told Politico. Others echoed similar sentiments to The Washington Post in a story published Saturday.

An attorney who represents potential executive branch nominees also told Politico that three clients said they were not interested in working for Trump after former FBI director Robert Mueller was appointed as a special prosecutor to spearhead the FBI's Russia probe.

Sources: , ,

Trump's treatment of current administration officials may be deterring potential appointees.

The Post reported that some potential nominees are aware of Trump's reported mood swings and frequent irritation toward senior staff and Cabinet members.

"Trump is becoming radioactive, and it's accelerating," Bill Valdez, a former senior Energy Department official, told the Post. "He just threw Jeff Sessions under the bus."

Valdez was likely referring to reports that Trump is angry with Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia probe. Sessions reportedly offered to resign over the tiff.

Trump has also frequently made statements that directly contradicted those his communications staff and spokespeople have made. This was perhaps most prominent in the immediate aftermath of Comey's firing.

The White House and Trump's spokespeople initially said that Trump's decision to remove the FBI director was based entirely on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and had nothing to do with the escalating Russia controversy.

Shortly after, however, Trump told NBC's Lester Holt that he had already made the decision to fire Comey and was going to do it regardless of Rosenstein's recommendation. He also added that "this Russia thing" was a factor in his decision.
"Wed have meetings where wed sit down and say, 'We should put this much on YouTube, this much on other sites,' et cetera," Pepijn Rijvers, Booking.com's chief marketing officer, told Business Insider. "And then three months later wed ask, 'Howd we do?'"

But Booking.com is about to cut out that middleman, and it could have big implications for the advertising industry.

This week, thousands of top executives from the media, advertising, and marketing industries will touch down in France for the annual Cannes ad festival. There, these bigwigs will receive awards and look to ink major ad deals. Yet hovering over the proceedings are questions about the future of the classic ad-agency business.

In recent months, Booking.com has hired data scientists and researchers and other digital-media-buying experts. By the end of the year, all Booking.coms digital-media buying will be done in-house.

According to Rijvers there are two reasons for the change: speed and data. And the more outside companies involved, the more that structure gets in the way of adjusting digital ad campaigns on the fly, which ultimately costs the company money.

"I would not like to have meetings with long decks of data," Rijvers said, who recalled trying to set up "meetings with 30 people at agencies that take a week and a half to set up."

"We have way more data than the media agency has. Id make a very strong case that anything that generates data, you need to own as a business. You cannot have anyone else be the expert."

Booking.com is representative of a new wave of marketers. These are brands born with the internet, and they don't have decades of history running massive national television and magazine campaigns shepherded by traditional ad agencies. They don't rely on selling their goods at Walmart or Walgreens or the local car dealer. Instead, they have direct relationships with customers and live and die on data.

That means they have a very different take on advertising than traditional marketers like Procter & Gamble or General Motors, and that should scare the ad agency world.

The ad industry loves its cliches. "Content is king." "Everyone's scared of Google and Facebook." "I'm a thought leader." And these days, everyone loves to repeat the line "The agencies are so screwed." Though they usually use a different word at the end of that sentence.

There's little doubt that traditional agencies  the companies that write and produce those brilliant Super Bowl ads and buy the media space to showcase their work  are under fire from several fronts.

outsourcing the making of their ads to smaller upstarts

Accenture and Deloitte are investing in the ad world

Vice and BuzzFeed are making content for marketers

Still, the agency business will be hard to kill. According to Ad Age, US ad agencies reeled in over $48 billion in 2016. And the industry employs 200,000 people. So its not about to disintegrate overnight.

But growth in this business is undoubtedly slowing. The ad-agency holding company WPP recently posted its slowest growth rate in years, The Wall Street Journal reported. Similarly, Omnicom Group provided markedly cautious guidance for the near future.

"Theres little question that there are tougher times ahead," Brian Wieser, senior analyst at Pivotal Research Group, told Business Insider. Wieser laid out the risks facing the ad-agency holding-company giants, which have enjoyed strong growth in recent years from their media-buying agencies. That may be slowing dramatically, because of marketers squeezing their budgets and reduced demand, among other factors.

"Agencies are said to be like cockroaches," he said. "But even in a nuclear winter, cockroaches may have a tougher time."

Yet even as advertising has been disrupted by macro trends, such as software-driven ad buying, agencies have proved fairly resilient. "People talk about whether agencies ... and this function [they serve] will still exist, but there are a lot of people involved here," said Brian Lesser, North American CEO of the ad-buying giant GroupM, at a conference hosted by the trade company VideoNuze.

"And understanding a clients needs and determining exactly how to translate that into a media plan ... we'll always occupy that space," Lesser added.

Jordan Bitterman, chief marketing officer at the Weather Company, logged two decades at agencies. He says they will survive but their scope will shrink.

For one thing, he said many big marketers' overall businesses are struggling. Look at the retail industry, for example.

"This is just the new reality," he said. "The problems roll downhill. Marketing is going to feel it early and often."

Bitterman sees more marketers using smaller agencies and vendors on a short-term basis as needed. Need some social videos? Hire a specialist for a few months.

"The days of a full-service advertising agency offering full service to every client are gone," he said.

Booking.com's Rijvers agrees. He still works with several creative agencies as needed, but adds: We've "moved away from retainer relationships," he said. "They are predicated on a predictable future."

There's not much that's predictable about media and advertising these days. But Bitterman says there's a role for a smaller agency. Marketers still want agencies to coordinate all the different things they have going on at one time. And they'll always need an outsider's perspective. "Strategy and ideas never go out of vogue," he added.

Trust issues

Agencies' operational structures are one thing. Relationships, of vital importance in the marketing world, are another.

The ad-agency industry is still reeling from last year's bombshell report from the Association of National Advertisers, which found that cash rebates and "other non-transparent practices" to be pervasive in the US media-buying world. Essentially, the report, conducted by independent firm K2 Intelligence, found that ad agencies were buying ad space for their marketing clients, and not being open about what they were spending and how much money they were making.

And since no names were named, the effect made everyone a suspect.

"The tension has been heightened," said Andrew Altersohn, CEO at the ad-tech company Adfin. "That's led to an aggressive evaluation of in-house options."

In other words, many marketers are saying, If I can't trust my agency, I'll have to take things into my own hands.

Examples abound. Chobani has its own creative officer. Netflix and L'Oreal have brought more of its ad buying in-house. Western Union has consolidated its agency roster from over a dozen partners, in part because it wants to have a tighter rein on its spending,

Libby Chambers, Western Union's chief strategy, product, and marketing officer, told Business Insider that the company is contemplating a full audit of its ad buying, to make sure it's running ads in safe, cost-effective places on the web. "Now we can hold somebody accountable," she said.

Yet brands need to be careful what they wish for when they take on agency work, said Charles Cantu, CEO of the ad-buying company Huddled Masses. "In a visceral sense, this is something they want," he said. "The reality is, some are prepared for this and some are not."

Meanwhile, the ad-agency trust issues play into consulting companies' hands, said one 30-year agency veteran. Those companies have a reputation for being straightforward and are all about driving business results.

"These kinds of companies get access to decision makers and are tied into financials," said this executive, who did not wish to comment publicly.

Wieser of Pivotal Research said that big ad agencies are trying to evolve. Publicis's acquisition of the digital-ad company Sapient  which boasted of prowess in consulting  in 2014 was a step in that direction.

Jon Mandel, a media consultant who logged three decades in the agency world, including a stint as CEO of the ad-buying firm Mediacom, said it would be very difficult for classic ad agencies to change their ways.

"They are still set up for fighting the last war," he said. "They havent really set themselves up for the future war. Instead they are trying to eek out gains from a model than needs to change, while always trying to upsell clients on services."

Rosemarie Ryan, another longtime traditional agency executive who know runs the creative-consulting firm Co Collective, put it in even more dire terms.

"Facebook and Google are the new agencies," she said. "Look who's taking over the beach at Cannes."

Wieser was not predicting total agency destruction, particularly given ad agencies entrepreneurial nature and constant ability to reinvent themselves. He cited the emergence of search-centric agencies in the early 2000s, mobile agencies a decade ago, and other specialty shops more recently.

"Agencies are good at moving onto the next big thing," he said.

For example, that might mean building specialty practices for marketing via artificial intelligence, or virtual reality.
Mr Zwennes and Mr Fredrick Sampson Gurah who represented the University of Education prayed the court to dismiss the motion since the plaintiff has no capacity to meddle in the schools affairs.

Mr Zwennes also filed a motion on behalf of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Winneba branch of the University to join the suit.

The Defense Counsel challenged the jurisdiction of High Court to hear the case bordering on the fundamentals human right of 1992 Constitution.

Supi Kwayera has filed a suit under Act 23, 41(1) and 296 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana. The plaintiff was praying the court for the enforcement of section 8 of ACT 678, section 38 and 39 of ACT 663. Supi Kwayera is seeking reliefs at the court to place an injunction on University Governing Council from executing their duties.

The plaintiff was represented by Mr Alexander Kwamina Afenyo Markin and MP for Effutu Constituency. The court presided over by Justice George Ato Mills-Graves castigated media houses for bad and wrongful reportage about purported ruling given by the court to shut down the University. The Presiding Judge said the publication sought to create confusion in the country.

Mr Alexander Afenyo Markin told the court that the publication was contained in a press release issued and signed by Registrar of the University, Mr Acquaa Mensah and copied to the media houses.

Mr Zwennes rendered apology to the Court on the publication which sort to create confusion about the school. Mr Afenyo Markin prayed the court to grant reliefs seeking to ensure that enforcement of the ACT to promote peace and stability in Winneba and on the university campuses.
These appointees need to eat and feed their dependents, he said. "It is not enough to say they are getting by through the grace of God and friends."

He continued: "I worry when politicians work for free. We will have to assess the reasons for the disturbing revenue performance vis-a-vis the overall revenue maximisation strategy of the government and offer helpful solutions."

Speaking on TV3'S "Big Issue" Saturday, Mr Hamid said steps are being taken to address the situation.

He said: I guess that the processes for getting these things done takes time. You know the whole processes about Controller and Accountant General and all those things and so on.
The law, passed in 2006 by the John Kufour administration, allows Ghanaians living outside the country to participate in general elections held in Ghana.

However, the law has not been implemented since it passed by the Electoral Commission.

Speaking to Ghanaians in the UK on Friday, the president said he cannot understand why other state in West Africa allow citizens abroad to participate in their election but Ghanaians cannot do so.

READ MORE: EC to face court action over ROPAL

He said: We dont want politicians, presidents and ministers being responsible for our electoral system. The constitution in it wisdom has given the authority to a group called the Electoral Commission who have absolute independence to manage our electoral system for us.

I cannot understand why Senegalese and Malians and Guineans and Togolese can vote in elections outside and Ghanaians cannot do so.So let all begin to see how this can be done.

All kind of processes are going on. Some people have even brought a case to court to insist that the next election the laws should be applied.

And I hear that the high court has ordered the Electoral Commission to come and show them what steps they are taking towards implementing that law.

It is an important step. I am happy the high court has taken that direction.
The Business CEO Roundtable has published a report discussing what it says is a shortage of skilled workers in America, and hosted a conference in Washington featuring high profile CEOs, a top aide to Donald Trump and two US senators.

"There are a lot of jobs open," said Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, during a panel discussion sponsored by the pro-industry lobby. But "there are a lot of people who are not properly trained," he maintained.

But is there really a skills shortage? If so, why have median wages been stuck in a rut for so long? Why arent companies investing more in training and labor-saving equipment? Why arent they asking workers to work longer hours? It doesnt add up, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank in Washington.

"We want better educated people but thats not the thing holding back the labor market right now," Baker told Business Insider. "Its an incredible cop out."

The Business CEO Roundtable event was held as a preview of Trumps "workforce development week" in which he vowed to focused on labor market issues despite sharp proposed budget cuts to training programs.

"Apprenticeships place students into great jobs without the crippling debt of a four-year college degree," Trump said on June 15 before signing an executive order on apprenticeships.

he Federal Reserves monthly Beige Book, a report based on conversations between regional Fed officials and businessmen in their districts, tends to perpetuate the notion of a skills gap by unquestioningly regurgitating the complaints of executives.
Cosby stands charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault after he was accused of giving drugs to and molesting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his home outside Philadelphia back in 2004. Constand first filed a civil claim against Cosby in 2005. In total, Cosby has been accused of sexual misconduct by nearly 60 women.

Despite 52 hours of deliberation, jurors in the Cosby trial told Judge Steven O'Neill on Saturday that they were "hopelessly deadlocked" and could not reach a unanimous verdict. O'Neill then declared a mistrial.

What is a mistrial?

A mistrial is a trial that has not reached its normal conclusion, has no legal consequences, and is considered invalid. Though numerous factors can result in a mistrial, including lack of jurisdiction and incorrect jury selection, a hung jury  a jury that's unable to unanimously come to a verdict  is the most common reason.

The unanimous verdict has long been considered a "defining feature" of jury trials, according to Jeffrey Abramson in "We, the Jury," dating back more than 600 years in England. Such was the case in the US until 1972, when the Supreme Court ruled in Apodaca v. Oregon that a state jury could convict a defendant by a less-than-unanimous margin, though a federal jury must still agree unanimously.

Today, however, all states but Louisiana and Oregon require a unanimous verdict for criminal trials. That includes Pennsylvania.

What happens in the event of a mistrial?

When a mistrial is declared, it is up to the government to decide whether it wants to drop the prosecution or attempt a retrial.

Gloria Allred, who represents a number of Cosby accusers, said after the mistrial was declared that "We can never underestimate the blinding power of celebrity." One of Allred's clients, Kelly Johnson, appeared as a witness for the prosecution in Cosby's trial.

"
Rachel Brand, the associate attorney general, is third in command at the Department of Justice, and she is next in line to fill Rosenstein's role if he recuses himself from the investigation.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election has expanded to include a probe into whether Trump committed obstruction of justice with his firing of former FBI Director James Comey last month. Mueller, the former FBI director, is also investigating whether Trump associates committed financial crimes.

That news came after Trump confidant and Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy said Trump was considering firing Mueller. This was later supported by a report in The New York Times.

Then in a Friday tweet, Trump appeared to slam Rosenstein, who wrote a May memo cited by Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the basis for FBI Director James Comey's firing. Rosenstein also oversees Mueller, making the final calls about personnel, resources, and any prosecutions that would potentially arise from the investigation.

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director!" Trump wrote. "Witch Hunt."

Moments after that tweet, ABC News reported that Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel since Sessions recused himself in early March from any matters involving the Trump campaign, privately told his colleagues that he's considering recusing himself from the investigation.

That's where Brand comes into focus.

If Rosenstein were to recuse himself, Brand would be next in line to oversee the special counsel, which would elevate her to a highly visible position in Washington.

Sources told ABC News that it was in a meeting with Brand that Rosenstein discussed his possible recusal. He told Brand that she would take over if he were to recuse himself from the matter.

Brand, who was just confirmed to her position last month, has quite the stacked resume.

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Brand clerked for both Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and former Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice Charles Fried, who once served as President Ronald Reagan's solicitor general. A conservative lawyer, Brand worked in private practice before jumping into politics, serving under White House counsel Alberto Gonzales in President George W. Bush's administration before taking a job in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy.

After her Bush years, Brand worked as the chief counsel for regulatory reform at the US Chamber of Commerce. President Barack Obama then appointed her in 2012 to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight board, which she served as a member until earlier this year. The board is an independent agency within the White House that advises on the privacy and civil liberties aspects of government agencies' counterterrorism work.

"Shes a top-notch analytic lawyer and really good at figuring out what is the art of the possible," Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general under Obama who worked with Brand at the Chamber of Commerce, told The Washington Post after Brand's confirmation last month. "But the big issue for everyone at the Justice Department right now is how rigorously theyre going to police the rule of law."

Currently, Brand's portfolio at the Justice Department includes overseeing civil rights, environmental, and antitrust litigation. Under her purview is managing the lawyers who are arguing in favor of Trump's controversial travel ban executive order.

"The challenge of her job is that she is responsible for oversight of some of the most politically difficult issues, Jamie Gorelick, deputy attorney general under Attorney General Janet Reno who worked with Brand in private practice, told the Post. "All of the main places where there are differences between Republicans and Democrats reside in the civil litigation divisions. I think Rachel is well prepared  she's very smart and very thoughtful  but that's going to be a very hard job."

The biggest question facing Brand, if she were to be placed in the role of overseeing Mueller, is what she would do if Trump asked her to fire the special counsel.

Robert Chesney, a University of Texas law professor and co-founder of the Lawfare blog, doesn't think she would comply with such a request. That could lead Trump to possibly try and avoid such a confrontation "by instead going the 'nuclear' route: attempting to directly abolish the Office of Special Counsel altogether," he told Business Insider in an email.

In a piece for Lawfare, Jack Goldsmith, who worked in Bush's Office of Legal Counsel, and Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow at Brookings and a close friend of Comey's, wrote of their admiration for Brand.

"Brand is a conservative lawyer and not everyone agreed with her opinions on the PCLOB, but there is no doubt that she made significant contributions there and was an important voice in the PCLOBs public output," the two wrote. "She thus has extensive Justice Department experience and extensive national security experience. She is also intelligent, fair, independent, and tough-minded."

However, the two wrote that Brand's lack of experience as a prosecutor and in criminal law may become suddenly relevant if she has to fill Rosenstein's role. But they said that issue "is a manageable problem." The tougher task, they added, is "insulating the investigation from the erratic and inappropriate behavior of President Trump."
"After more than a decade combatting violent extremists and conducting contingency operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and most recently Syria, [the Defense Department] has prioritized the rebalancing of its forces in recent budget requests to build and sustain the capabilities necessary to prevail across a full range of potential contingencies," the report states.

"However, DoD has acknowledged that unrelenting demands from geographic commanders for particular types of forces are disrupting manning, training, and equipping cycles," it adds.

Each of the service branches has had some success in addressing readiness issues, but problems remain in some areas for each.

For the Marine Corps, as of February, about 80% of aviation units didn't have the minimum number of aircraft ready for training. The Marines also had a significant shortage of aircraft ready for wartime requirements.

A high pace of operations has also hindered the Navy's maintenance efforts. The service bases its readiness recovery on deployment and maintenance schedules. "However, GAO reported that from 2011 through 2014, only 28 percent of scheduled maintenance was completed on time and just 11 percent for carriers."

Like the Navy, the Air Force has seen continued operations with a shrinking pool of resources and little time for repair and recovery, citing Air Force reports that less than 50% of its forces are at acceptable readiness levels.

The service branch also says it is short of 1,500 pilots and 3,400 aircraft maintainers.

Air Force leaders are looking at several options to address these personnel issues, including heftier retention bonuses and stop-loss policies.

While the Army has seen readiness improvements in recent years, as GAO notes, it continues to have important deficiencies that put it at a disadvantage compared to other countries.

"For example, the Army reports that two thirds of its initial critical formations  units needed at the outset of a major conflict  are at acceptable levels of readiness, but it cautions that it risks consuming readiness as fast as the service can build it given current demands," the report says.

The Army has also gotten withering criticism of its unit readiness from within the service itself.

According to Capt. Scott Metz, who until recently was a

"They will stop for long periods of time in the open with minimal dispersion. They will not effectively use their dismounted infantry and will likely leave them in the back of vehicles for too long, allowing them to be killed with the vehicle. They also will probably make little use of tactical formations and will not use terrain to their advantage."

"makes the case that the Army overtasks subordinates to such a level that it is impossible for Army units and Army leaders to do everything they are tasked to do."

The problem is a deep-rooted one and will take some time to correct, requiring a cultural change starting at the highest levels of the Army's leadership, Metz writes.

Gen. Mark Milley, the Army's chief of staff, told the Senate this month that the Army, like the Air Force, is also suffering from a lack of personnel.

He told the Senate Appropriations' defense subcommittee that the service's portion of US defense strategy, the Army needs an active component of 540,000 to 550,000. That active component is now 476,000.
Protesters demanding a separate Gorkhaland have torched police vans, burnt public vehicles, pelted stones at security forces and vandalised government offices. Will Bimal Gurung or GJM pay for the damage to public and private properties as per the Supreme Court guidelines?

By Prabhash K Dutta: Darjeeling hills are on boil for over 10 days. At least two people have died and nearly 40 injured, some of them are said to be in serious condition.

Police vans, public transport including buses were burnt, offices vandalized, documents gutted, hundreds of tourists stranded and the economy of Gorkhaland region brought to a grinding halt by protesters led by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha of Bimal Gurung, whose unverified Twitter account declares him as "The only leader for Gorkhaland."

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Bimal Gurung is pushing Darjeeling for more shutdown and showdown as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) plans protest rally with the bodies of agitators killed during violence. The GJM claimed that their supporters were killed by police, which refuted the allegation saying that they did not fire bullets.

There is no estimate of loss of public property is available right now. Industry bodies and government agencies will be doing this once the agitation goes into a waning phase. But, damage to public property is a nationwide phenomenon.

The Supreme Court, at least, on two occasions has voice serious concerns over this brand of protest politics. In February 2016, the apex court - in the view of Jat agitation in Haryana where a loss of public property worth Rs 36,000 crore was estimated - asked the Centre to frame a proper policy.

Before that in 2009, the Supreme Court laid down extensive guidelines for the protesters and the governments to follow. The apex court emphasised that the cost of loss or damage to public property along with penalty would be recovered from the protesters including the organisers of the agitation.

GJM leader Bimal Gurung has revived demand for separate state of Gorkhaland. (Photo: Reuters) GJM leader Bimal Gurung has revived demand for separate state of Gorkhaland. (Photo: Reuters)

THE 2009 MATTER

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat, LS Panta and P Sathasivam issued binding guidelines in April 2009 in the case of Destruction of Public and Private Properties vs State of Andhra Pradesh.

The Supreme Court had taken suo motu cognizance of several instances put together where large scale damage to public and private properties were done during agitations, shutdowns, strikes and other protests.

The Supreme Court guidelines became operational in the absence of appropriate legislation. The guidelines are still in force but hardly put to force by any of the state governments.

Similar concerns were reiterated by another bench of the Supreme Court last year. An apex court bench headed by Justice JS Khehar (now the CJI) said, "People cannot be allowed to destroy public properties in agitation and they must pay the damage for loss of nation's assets."

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SUPREME COURT GUIDELINES FOR STAGING PROTEST

The Supreme Court order of 2009 said, "As soon as there is a demonstration organised:

(I) The organiser shall meet the police to review and revise the route to be taken and to lay down conditions for a peaceful march or protest;

(II) All weapons, including knives, lathis and the like shall be prohibited; (GJM protesters have used knives - a policeman was stabbed -, lathis, stones)

(III) An undertaking is to be provided by the organisers to ensure a peaceful march with marshals at each relevant junction; (GJM did nothing of the sort)

(VI) In the event that demonstrations turn violent, the officer-in-charge shall ensure that the events are videographed through private operators and also request such further information from the media and others on the incidents in question;

(VIII) The State Government shall prepare a report on the police reports and other information that may be available to it and shall file a petition including its report in the High Court or the Supreme Court as the case may be for the Court in question to take suo motu action."

Deployment of security personnel has been increased in Darjeeling in the view of GJM agitation for Gorkhaland. (Photo: PTI)

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SUPREME COURT ON FIXING LIABILITY

The apex court issued guidelines to assess and determine the liability for damages during agitation. The Supreme Court said,

(VII) The liability will be borne by the actual perpetrators of the crime as well as the organisers of the event giving rise to the liability - to be shared, as finally determined by the High Court or the Supreme Court as the case may be.

(VIII) Exemplary damages may be awarded to an extent not greater than twice the amount of the damages liable to be paid.

(IX) Damages shall be assessed for:

(a) damages to public property;

(b) damages to private property;

(c) damages causing injury or death to a person or persons; and

(d) cost of the actions by the authorities and police to take preventive and other actions.

Will Bimal Gurung and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha pay for the damages? Will Mamata Banerjee government follow the Supreme Court's directives?

The onus is clearly on Bimal Gurung, his Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee's government of West Bengal to ensure that the Supreme Court's directives are followed to fix accountability for the loss of public and private properties during Gorkhaland agitation.

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ALSO READ |

Darjeeling unrest reaches Delhi, Gorkhas stage protest against Mamata Banerjee at Jantar Mantar

Simmering Darjeeling: How municipality politics recast Gorkhaland stir afresh

Darjeeling unrest: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha gears up to revive peacekeeping wing

Bimal Gurung: Gorkhaland dreamer and the man behind Darjeeling's hot summer

ALSO WATCH: GJM supporters clash with police in Darjeeling; Mamata hints at larger conspiracy

--- ENDS ---
It has one of the highest rates in the world. 1 out every 1,500 Tanzanians is an albino. Despite the high rate, albinos are not seen as ideal human beings.

Lack of education and intolerance have brought untold suffering to albinos in Tanzania including death. Superstitious beliefs have led to the killing of albinos in the Great Lakes region in Tanzania.

In some other countries, it is much worse. According to a UN report in 2016, albinos were facing a total extinction in Malawi.

For many albinos in Tanzania, Ukerewe Island in Tanzania, the largest inland island in Africa, is host to many albinos who were kicked out from their families or didn't want to end up dead for ritual purposes. The number of albino communities in this island is 75 according to AFP.

It is on this island that the albinos of Tanzania have found their collective voice. Grammy award winning music producer, Brennan, and his wife Marilena Delli (filmmaker) visited the island recently. They came in collaboration with Standing Voice.

Brennan came to the island to give music workshops and record the albinos singing. "They'd been denied even that basic freedom. The thing that is so shocking about that is that's the one area of free speech or emotional expression people have (always) been allowed. Even in times of slavery in America, there was often one or two hours a week when people were allowed to express themselves in worship" he told CNN.

From the sessions, the producer was able to make a group of 18 men and women between the ages of 24-57.

The result of the sessions is an album titled "" released by Six Degrees. It was released before the International Albinism Awareness Day (June 13).
A victim of Evans criminal activities has come out to narrate his harrowing experience at the hands of the kidnapper.

Speaking with Vanguard, the victim identified as James Udeji, the Chairman of Comestar Cable Manufacturing Limited, disclosed that he was held for 42 days.

According to the reports, James was one of Evans' victims who paid the highest ransom $1.2m in order to regain his freedom.

ALSO READ: Photos of Magodo mansions owned by kidnap kingpin, Evans

Udeji went on to explain that he was abducted in Festac following his arrival in the country from Canada where he had gone to visit his wife who just put to birth a month earlier.

He said he was shot alongside two of his drivers in the process.

A doctor was reportedly called to attend to his injury immediately they got back to the hideout in order to stop his bleeding and save his life.

Udeji said although he had not been maltreated during his stay due to his condition

He also added that he was fed noodles on a daily basis and after paying the ransom, Evans' gave him N10,000 for transport and was dropped off close to the Lagos State University (LASU).

Udeji claimed to have been kept in chains for the duration of his stay and that Evans' travelled out of the country as soon as he received the ransom, even before he was freed.

Read his statement below:

On how he Was Kidnapped

"On September 2015, as I was coming back from my factory in Agbara to my home in Festac, arriving Seventh Avenue, I saw four gunmen. They stopped in front of my vehicle and started shooting while I was with my two drivers in my Hilux pickup.

"I was sitting at the back, thinking they were policemen. I was wondering why they were shooting and charging at us not knowing that they were kidnappers. In the process, they shot us, me and two of my drivers but luckily, nobody died. I still have a bullet in my body.

"By the time I realised they were kidnappers, they dragged me out of my vehicle to their own Lexus 470 Jeep. Inside their Jeep, there were lots of arms and ammunition inside a box. They had another box at the back where they put me in.

"Four guys were inside that Jeep, well-armed, even the driver had his own AK-47 riffle. They drove past Festac Link Bridge to Amowu-Odofin, around 4:30pm as if they were going to Okota. Later, they came out to Oshodi -Apapa Expressway. By this time, they had not blindfolded me but they pushed my head down, lying bare on the floor of the car. One of them just held me as I was seriously bleeding. I never knew I would survive this. I couldnt remember the places they took me to because I was lying down.

"After a long journey, they stopped at a particular area, those guys jumped down and another group came on board and zoomed off again.

"As we were going, we got to one house, they called the security guard who came and opened the gate, and they brought me out, gathered water, changed their clothes and called one doctor, whether he was quack or not, I do not know.

"They told the doctor they had an emergency. The doctor came, washed me and treated my wound. That was the first thing they did. Though, when we were about to get to where they wanted to take me to, they blindfolded me.

'They were administering two injections on me daily. When I asked them the kind of injection they were giving me, they said it was anti-tetanus injection and pain reliever. They refused to give me water saying that if you have a bullet in your body, you dont drink water.

"The second day, Evans came there with the doctor and clothes that, he came there because of me. Yet, I did not set my eyes on him. Maybe, the person that asked them to kidnap me told them that they should not let me die.

"I said this because of the kind of treatment they were giving me or maybe, it could be because of my wound. But, I was seriously bleeding. At a point, they were thinking of exchanging me. They called my brother to come and let me go out and treat myself of the bullet wound.

"My elder brother accepted to come but backed out at the end because of those people, you never know what they planned. Maybe their plan was to capture the two of us before they would kill us. It was an ugly situation.

"They injected me for seven good days. From that Monday till the next Sunday, every two days, there was a particular guy that came there to treat my wounds, dress it and put the bandage again. After some days, Evans called."

How Evans and his gang operated

"How they operate is that they keep a hostage keeper, which is someone that would be guiding kidnap victims so that any time their boss wants to call, he would call that person. When he calls the person, the person would bring the phone to the victim and hold the phone for you talk to him.

"They were always communicating. They did not maltreat me because of my condition but I heard them maltreating the victim in the other room with hot iron and the person would be crying.

"Before they start that, they would go and put on their generator so that their neighbours would not be hearing. That guy was a terror."

On his time in captivity

"They were feeding me with one useless (noodles). I was just managing to eat to keep my life moving. They asked what kind of drugs I was taking but I told them I was not on drugs. I did not make trouble with them but there was a day I tried to escape. I was scared whether all the neighbours were their gang members or not.

"Again, even if I would have escaped, I would have been naked because before you go to the bathroom, they take away your boxers. When you finished, you knocked at the door and turned your face to the wall as they gave you your boxer to wear.

"They would blindfold you and put you in chains again. Early morning I used to hear siren and I thought, that it was police that were coming to rescue me. At the end nothing would happen. They would go. What were they coming to do there around 4:00 am to 5:00 am? I noticed that five times and I asked myself, what the police are coming there to do?.

"I also noticed there was a construction site nearby where people were working. One particular day, one boy came in and asked Mummy, who is this uncle?. I was listening and waited to hear what the woman would say but she did not say anything.

"So, that couple that was paraded were there. I was praying every minute of the day, waiting for anything that would happen the next day. It was traumatising. So many things happened. I knew that nothing would happen to me but they would charge me more money.

"You know, I paid $1.2 million. We paid it in three instalments. We polyethene two hundred thousand dollars, eight hundred thousand dollars and another two hundred thousand dollars. He claimed that the first two hundred dollars we paid had been cancelled because we set them up by inviting security agents to be tracking them. Thats how we were accused and that the payment had been rubbished.

"He bargains with the victims, he doesnt bargain with the families. Whatever he asked for that is what the family would pay. A person that is under the chain, what would he say? Anything they asked you to do, you just had to do it because of your life. That was not joke, they meant business.

"If you refused to co-operate, they would kill you. I am sure; they have killed some people there. I stayed there for six weeks. I was abducted on the 7th of September and I was released on the 19th of October, 2015."

On his release

"After I had finished paying the ransom, they still kept me for another eight days. My people were worried, and I was worried too because I did not know what was going on outside. They had cut off communication with everybody. Immediately, he collected his ransom, he travelled abroad. He goes outside to keep his ill-gotten wealth, which was obvious.

"I now asked the hostage keeper, how long it takes them to release a hostage. He said four days, I now asked again, but why am I still here? He then said I should not worry, that the chairman travelled and that I would be released as soon as he returned.

"He said that I should see myself as a free man and relax. The man was a greedy man. Of all the money we paid him, he didnt feed us well. His duty, I observed, was to collect money and drop victims.

"When he came back to Nigeria, he came to me where I was detained by his men and said to me that, today, you will go. He ordered his boys to bring all my belongings. My Rolex watch, my bag, my golden ring and my sandals were nowhere to be found. Not to talk of cash because all of them were criminals. All other valuables were gone.

"They only brought my cloths, bank cheque books and seals and a polythene bag. And for my sandals, they bought one bathroom slippers for me. Just imagine someone coming back from his office.

"Then, he asked me to hold on till the road was free; it was about 5:00 pm.

"As I was waiting, he came back and called me, Nnwa which is my title name. Anytime he wanted to talk to me he first called me Nnwa. When he saw my wound, he said, I was a lucky man. That, my God, is a great God.

"He said that I would live up to hundred years for surviving that gunshot. I asked him why they were shooting us like that. He said in war all was fair. I then asked you and who were fighting?. Did I have gun with me?.

"Evans now asked who was the person in front of my car. That was when they thought I was a policeman. In fact, they would have killed my driver if he were a policeman. When he came down and they asked him, he told them he was just an ordinary driver. That was when they left him.

"He advised me to buy a lot of drinks because many people would be coming to sympathise with me. He stressed that people were already waiting for my arrival. He said:

Any day you are going to do Thanksgiving, we are going to be there. I now asked him, how would I know you will be there? He replied that I shouldnt worry; he would come and follow me to thank God. Nnwa, but your God is great oh.

"All these things he was talking, my mind was not there because I knew he was wicked.

"That evening, he brought ten thousand Naira that I should take it. That if, they drop me anywhere, I should use it to enter taxi to my house. Or if I wanted, they could drop me in a nearby hotel so that, I could call my people to come and carry me.

"But I told him to just drop my anywhere he wanted. When it became dark everywhere, they took me out of that house and moved me round the city before finally dropping me around Lagos State University (LASU), side in Iyana Oba.

"Even to walk was a problem because I had been in chains for long and all my bones had grown weak. I almost fell down while trying to cross the road because of my wobbling legs. I lost so much energy that, I became weak, lean and tired.

"Suya was the first thing I ate after my release from captivity. I called a motorcyclist to take me to any nearby bus stop, which he did. When I turned the other side, I saw one man selling roasted meat (Suya), I went to him and bought the meat for one thousand Naira and started eating.

"My action was to soften the ground for me to start asking questions that would let me know exactly where I was as by this time I never knew where I was exactly. I asked the man, how I could get to Mile 2, and he said before you get to Mile 2, you, first of all, get to LASU.

"I asked again, how I could I get to LASU, he told me to cross the road to the other side and enter any bus that was going that way. As soon as I entered the bus, I switched on my phones and there was no single credit on my phones except the one we used as a company group. That one doesnt need credit because we pay once in a month. I now used it to call one of my managers.

ALSO READ: How Evans lived in grand style during his reign of terror (Video)

"Immediately he saw my call, he knew I was out and asked me where I was so that he could come and carry me. I told him to come to LASU, I got there and was waiting for him. He was coming from Agbara axis. While there, I strolled down a bit to buy orange, one man just came to me that I should give him money in spite of my tattered appearance.

"I took two thousand out of the ten thousand Evans gave to me and gave to him. I was kind of hiding so that people who knew me before would not notice me until I got home.

"When my manager came, he took me straight to the house after that, I went to report officially to the police. Even the commissioner of police came to my house after that.

"After that incident, I requested for police protection which I was later provided with. I was so happy when I heard that, the guy has been arrested. I thank the Nigeria police for doing a great job. That shows that, if the police want to work, they could work."
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Special days dedicated to the environment come and go but the effects of vast oil spills, gas flaring, rampant pollution, deforestation and poor land management are likely to last for generations.

Millions of Nigerians already suffer from the consequences of environmental mismanagement but millions more, the rich and the poor together, will slowly suffocate if steps arent taken to protect Nigeria.

With its motto Think, Change, Take Action the government appears to be committed to tackling climate change.

There is even a federal Department of Climate Change and unlike US President Donald Trump, Nigeria hasnt backed out of the the Paris Climate Agreement.

According to the British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Harriet Thompson, the federal government and big oil have committed $1billion to clean up the catastrophic mess in Ogoniland.

However, with national debt levels rising to more than N19 trillion and the proclivity of those in power to steal, it would be anyones guess as to how much of the $1billion would find its way to where its needed most.

Ms Thompson estimated that if nothing was done to negate climate change it would cost the Nigerian government $460 billion by 2050.

On top of this, a recent report found that Nigeria could become the worlds dumping ground for petrol and diesel vehicles.

But it isnt all doom and gloom and, like a breath of fresh air, some in the private sector have taken it upon themselves to do their bit for the environment and Nigerias future generations.

Adding to its already N2 billion investment in Triton Aqua Africa Limited (TAAL), Heritage Bank has jumped on board with plans to plant about 350,000 seedlings in Oyo state.

The initiative, which was being headed by Global Resources (a subsidiary of TAAL), was expected to plant 350,000 seedlings of teak, Gmelina arborea and Cidrella trees every year for nine years in a concerted effort to reforest 9000 hectares of land that had been exploited by tree fellers.

Heritage Bank CEO, Ifie Sekibo commended Oyo state governor Senator Abiola Ajimobi and the Triton Group for getting behind the reforestation program.

We seemed to forget that our lives as Nigerian started with the land, Mr Sekibo said.

If we don't take care of the land, the land will take care of us, the land does not need us, and we need the land to take care of us.

Afforestation (planting seedlings) is one of the ways to take care of the land and we need to talk about carbon credit because we need to find a way to make money.

Not only will this initiative create a renewable resource, employment, and possibly carbon credits, planting trees will help stop erosion and improve Oyo states ecosystem.

While talk might be cheap from the government, perhaps the future of environmental protection is in the hands of commercial entities like TAAL and Heritage Bank.
Fatodu and Sowore have been friends for over two decades, says the former.

Both men are also alumni of the University of Lagos where they forged a bond as buddies.

They remained in touch when they both left Nigeria to pursue their dreams abroad.

Fatodu claims that he funded the honeymoon of the publisher in 2004 and contributed financially to the funeral of Sowore's dad in 2005.

However, in recent times, that bond of friendship has thawed as Fatodu told Pulse recently.

"Sowore demanded N100M from me as bribe", Fatodu disclosed to Pulse during an exclusive chat in Lagos. "He said N1.7B was transferred to my account. That out of it, I got a share of N500M. He said that out of my share, I should give him N100M," Fatodu added.

Fatodu explained to Pulse that he runs a PR consultancy called Leeman Communications which in 2014, was invited to tender bids for a contract with the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), then overseen by Lt Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd).

Leeman got awarded the contract, Fatodu said.

With Goodluck Jonathan losing the 2015 election contest to incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari, stories bordering on alleged corruption in the past, became media staples in Nigeria.

Sowore would tell his friend during a phone conversation in January of 2016 that he'd gotten hold of information of an imminent arrest of Fatodu by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for being a beneficiary of the alleged looting of security votes by Dasuki during the Jonathan era.

According to Fatodu, Sowore claimed he could kill the case against his friend by sounding out his pool of contacts in high places in government, if he pays up.

"He told me that if I don't give him N100M from the famous Dasuki loot, he'll run the story", Fatodu said.

"Besides, what I executed for the Nigerian government at the time, was a legitimate business transaction which cost nowhere near N1.7B. I don't know where Sowore got his bogus figures from", he said.

According to the PR consultant, after he refused to pay up, his friend of over 20 years ran the story tailored to besmirch him, on his popular platform.

"I told him I couldn't possibly have the amount of money he was demanding", said Fatodu. "Sowore stated that I was a front for former Aviation minister who led the publicity arm of the Jonathan presidential campaign. Of course it was a tissue of lies. After he ran the story on his Sahara Reporters, my company alongside 200 others across Nigeria, was invited to appear before the Contract Verification Committee of the office of the NSA to defend our contract, which we did.

"After the committee asked us a few questions on the contract, checked our company's documents, reports of work done and confirmed payment received for our work, they were satisfied and asked us to leave. My company was certified to have delivered the contract very well. It was a contract of N38M and we were only paid N12M. We only spent 25 minutes before the committee. The NSA is still owing us and I have written to them to clear their debt", Fatodu told Pulse.

In an audio made exclusively available to Pulse by Fatodu, Sowore allegedly tells his friend; "If people contacted me and said that EFCC wants to invite you to something, and I said to them, let me work on it...If the party that brought me into this picture said they are going after you and I say calm down now, I know this guy. You understand...that's what I was telling you yesterday. Ehen. That was what I was saying".

Fatodu is heard telling Sowore in the audio that he'll be expecting a formal invitation from the nation's anti-graft agencies and prefers to confront his case headlong because he's innocent. He also said he has nothing to hide from his friend.

"I challenge Sowore to dispute details of that phone conversation of 2016 or publish his own version if he's got guts", Fatodu bellowed. "All I had with the office of the NSA was a legitimate business transaction. Nothing more".

On January 11, 2017, while driving around Ikeja alongside a friend, Fatodu spotted Sowore riding on the opposite side of traffic, he recalls.

The Sahara Reporters publisher was heading into GRA, Ikeja.

According to Fatodu, "while driving around Ikeja alongside a friend, a car hurriedly jumped the red light and almost caused an accident for myself and other motorists that had the right of way.

"I just asked my friend; 'is that not Sowore?' Because we are all friends. I've driven in Sowore's car and I've also offered him a ride in my car. So I told my friend that the driver deliberately jumped the red light because of his previous threat to me.

"We moved close to the car and it was Sowore at the passenger's seat. As soon as he saw me, he started saying that he was going to deal with me in this country.

"I noticed they were about four guys in Sowore's car. I ran to the police at the junction of Nitel bus stop by GRA who helped to reach their colleagues who came to pick Sowore up. How can a so called investigative reporter, who prides himself as one of Nigeria's best, be involved in such rascality and blackmail?

"Imagine how many other persons whose careers Sowore has killed with his blackmail brand of journalism. I wasn't going to take it lying low. Apart from me, Sowore has ruined the careers of other mutual friends. What kind of man is this? With a friend like Sowore, who needs enemies?"

In his account of events after showing up at the Area 'F' police station in Lagos, January, Sowore said Fatodu wanted to have him killed.

"I am now safely out of the labyrinth of a police conspiracy centred around one Lekan Fatodu whom, in January 2016, we reported on Sahara Reporters had been involved in laundering money for Femi Fani-Kayode. On Wednesday, Lekan and a friend of his referred to as Andre waylaid me at GRA Ikeja and tried to kill me", said Sowore.

"The attempt was resisted by the public, following which he showed up later with a police van from Area "F" police with a plain cloth police team. As it turned out, Commissioner of the Lagos State Police Command, was part of the conspiracy, as he pulled out a petition alleging "criminal defamation" against me, got upset when I questioned his position and impartiality, and threatened to deal with me.

"Even in the days of General Abacha, I did not experience that brazen partiality. My attack by Fatodu was organized with the police, but as they were unable to arrest me directly, he was given the cover to carry out an attack that would give the police their needed tonic to take vengeance on me.

"The situation wasn't better when I was hurled before Lagos CP, Mr. Owoseni and later, Frank Mba, who started a winding story claiming it was a messy case. I was asked to sign for my bail on Self Recognizance, but I declined, insisting I had not been arrested by the police and were that the case, that I preferred to be booked and shown an arrest warrant. After a short argument, I was let go without signing a bail bond, but was asked to return to the Police Station on Thursday at 2p.m. I wish to thank all Nigerians".

ALSO READ:

Last Friday, Fatodu led a crowd to protest against "fake news" at the new Sahara Reporters civic media lab on Isaac John street, GRA Ikeja.

"This location which is part of the route for this walk is symbolic because the building we are looking at: 13B Isaac John GRA Ikeja is the office of Sahara Reporters, the headquarters of fake news in Nigeria which is run by the most notorious blackmailer in the history of Nigeria, Sowore Omoyele. It was inside that building I got Sowore arrested in January and the case is still in Panti police station", Fatodu blared into his audience.

"I've written to on the criminality that goes on in this property. Interestingly, the respected Nobel Laureate, had also warned that Sowore should toe the path of rectitude because now that his address is known he can easily be picked up when he commits any wrongful acts.

"I'm leading this critical discussion because I'm a lucky survivor of Sowore's malicious fake news, criminal blackmail and violence. Can Sowore swear on his late father's grave that he didn't demand a bribe from me?" Fatodu queried.

Attempts to get Sowore's side of the story and his reaction concerning the audio, were unsuccessful before press time.
Fashola signed the MoU in Lagos on Saturday, June 17, 2017.

The project is to be funded by AG Dangote Construction Company Ltd, an arm of the Dangote Group, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and Flour Mills of Nigeria.

According to NAN, the site was handed over to the stakeholders for the commencement of reconstruction works.

Fashola explained that the gridlock in Apapa has reached an unbearable level as transporters ignored the old system of moving cargo through rail to trucks and containers.

He said that the choice of the transporters to use road instead of rail for haulage increased gridlock, caused degeneration as well as well as hardship to residents of Apapa.

The minister commended the "leadership role" of the stakeholders to solve the complex problems in Apapa and its environs.

"As a result of all these unsavory practices, we have reached a point of near total gridlock, it is difficult to move cargo in or out, difficult for residents to get home and this must stop," he said.

Fashola said that it took time to reach an agreement on the project because the stakeholders were putting up an effective design that would address the drainage problem because the area is waterlogged.

"We have finished with the design, we now have a Bill of Quantity and the cost of the road is N4.34 billion to be funded and paid for by these three groups, Flour Mills of Nigeria, AG Dangote Construction Company Ltd and NPA," he noted.

The minister said that although the parties are funding the project, the Federal Ministry of Power Works and Housing will supervise it through all the stages to ensure quality and compliance with standards.

ALSO READ: FG orders suspension of work on national housing programme site in Ekiti

Fashola sought for the cooperation of all residents of Lagos and directed the Apapa Area Commander of the Nigerian Police Force, DSP My Nuru to apprehend reckless drivers who drive against traffic during the period of construction.

He also appealed to Nuru to tackle all bureaucracies that would affect free flow of traffic while apprehending offenders.
According to The Nation, some of the officials sneaked to London, United Kingdom, where Buhari is undergoing medical treatment, with files for the President to sign.

But President rejected the files, ordering them to take all documents and issues to Osinbajo, authoritative government sources were quoted as saying.

Buhari was also said to have refused to grant audience to ministers and some presidential aides who wanted to see him.

Contrary to social media reports, the President was said to have met with his wife, Aisha, during her recent trip to London.

It was learnt that one of the officials who attempted to see Buhari in London returned to Abuja on Wednesday, June 14, a few hours to the signing of the 2017 Budget by Osinbajo.

"Despite the fact that he is fast recuperating, the President has tried as much as possible to stick to one presidency," The Nation quoted a top source as saying.

"He has refused to see some government officials who went to London to see him instead of being at their desks to work. He also returned all files and documents to those who brought them to London.

"The President gave stern instructions that all files, documents and issues needing decisions should be taken to the Acting President. He does not want a divided government. Buhari is living up to his Spartan discipline.

"He has restricted audience to two or three personal aides with him in London. This is why there are no leaks associated with his first medical trip this time around."

The source added: "Those involved in taking files and documents to London had their ego deflated. Since their return from the various shuttles, they have been trying to curry the favour of the Acting President or cooperate with him. They did not know that intelligence report had exposed their antics.

"And the truth is that the President has been speaking with the Acting President."

ALSO READ: Buhari set to fire NIA boss over recovered $50M

On the reports that the First Lady, Aisha Buhari was not allowed to see her husband when she traveled to London, the source said, "As a matter of fact, the First Lady, met with the President without any encumbrances.

"Any story to the contrary is false. There is enough evidence to prove that she met with her husband. No one prevented her.

"Some people came out with the rumour because the President has limited contact with them this time around because of leaks during his last trip.

"Some of those who visited the President during the initial shuttle for medical care turned out to feed Nigerians with false information on his health.

"It became necessary to restrict access to two of three aides. Not everyone with the President in London is allowed to see or meet with him. Ministers and government officials have been shut out too.

"The declaration of the First Lady that the President was pleased with the conduct and performance of the Acting President was at the prompting of her husband to checkmate those who indulge in flying to London for unnecessary consultations and approvals."
Mohammed gave the admonition on Saturday, June 17, at the "Lai Mohammed 10th Annual Ramadan Lecture" held in his country home, Oro, Kwara State.

He expressed concerns over the rate of inflammatory statements capable of causing division and war in the country in recent times.

The Minister urged Nigerians to disregard those who are engaged in hate speeches as well as their purveyors.

ALSO READ: Lai Mohammed says culture is more important to Nigeria than petroleum

He said, "In the last couple of months, we have witnessed the increase in inflammatory and hate speeches.

"Hate speeches have been responsible for wars. Rwandan genocide where more than 800,000 people were killed was started by hate speeches.

"Like people say, wars are not really started by bullets, they are started by words of mouth.

"Nigeria is too big and God has a purpose for making us one and we shall remain united.

"There will be differences, but like the Yoruba says, Ori bibe ko ni ogun ori fifo (beheading is not antidote to headache).

"We have been living together peacefully and we will continue to live together, because we have a lot to gain by being united.
He gave the assurance when he received a situation report on the distribution of humanitarian aids to the victims of insurgency from the implementation team of the Special Relief Intervention programme.

A statement by the Acting Presidents Spokesman, Mr Laolu Akande, on Saturday noted that the team had been involved in the distribution of the aid since June June 8, when the programme was inaugurated in Maiduguri, Borno.

Osinbajo hailed the new delivery system for humanitarian aid in the region as a unique operation that promises to deliver on a well laid out plan.

The Acting President noted that there was considerable progress in the implementation of the Special Relief Intervention, having captured no fewer than 12,691 households in Borno since the exercise began.

He gave the assurance that the process would remain transparent and the objectives fully actualised.

The Acting President added that besides the emergency food distribution, government will deliver on a holistic plan that includes empowerment.

According to him, empowerment is an important feature of the relief intervention.

The Acting President said the humanitarian aid was huge in relation to available resources.

Osinbajo solicited the support of the National Assembly, especially from members representing the region, to enable the government to realise its objective of maintaining an effective humanitarian service delivery.

According to him, we must support this team because a lot of attention is focused on us, especially from the international community.

We need to be responsible and do this efficiently, and monitor performance on a regular basis.

It is a good opportunity to prove that we can handle these efforts very well, Osinbajo added.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the humanitarian programme is to deliver food to persons displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East.

The initiative, which was part of a broad plan to address food shortage in the camps and other settlements of displaced persons, was also to curb alleged diversion of food meant for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

According to the update presented by the implementation team, the issue of diversion of relief materials has been removed.

About 1,000 trucks are being used to deliver the assorted grains to beneficiaries.

Also, 656 armed police personnel are involved in the movement of the grains from various reserves across the country to designated NEMA warehouses in the North-East for distribution to beneficiaries.

Another 1,376 military personnel were deployed to escort the grains to some IDPs in the hinterlands across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.

The acting president received the brief from the team overseeing the Special Relief Intervention at the Presidential Villa in the company of National Assembly members from the North East.
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updating toll, adding fresh inputs)

Dhaka, Jun 18 (PTI) The death toll today rose to 163 in Bangladeshs landslides as five more persons, including three children, were killed due to incessant rains in two districts.

The fresh landslides occurred in the wee hours in Khagrachhari and Moulvibazar districts.

Three children died in Bangladeshs south-eastern Khagrachhari district, Dhaka Tribune reported.

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"The incident took place due to the torrential rain early today. The death toll might increase," a police official was quoted as saying by daily.

A woman and her daughter were killed in a landslide in north-eastern Moulvibazar district this morning, the report said.

Afia Begum, 50, from Moddhodimai village and her daughter Fahmida Begum, 13, were killed after their house was crushed under a landslide mass from a hillock, a local official said.

Locals recovered the dead bodies of the duo removing the landslide mass.

It has been raining hard in the district since yesterday submerging most of the roads.

With the addition of these two new landslides, the death toll from landslides in the country has risen to 163.

Earlier last week, the southeastern Rangmathi, Chittagong and Bandarban hill districts were worst affected regions in Bangladesh where incessant monsoon rains have triggered a series a landslides and caused water-logging in many parts, besides submerging a number of villages.

The disaster-hit Rangmathi district, which borders Mizoram and Tripura, is the worst hit among other district sand has alone seen 116 deaths.

The death toll from the landslide stands at 32 in Chittagong, six in Bandarban, two in Coxs Bazar and one in Khagrachhari, according to the disaster management ministry.

Densely populated Bangladesh is battered by storms, floods and landslides every rainy season but this years rain is the worst since 2007 when landslides killed 127 people in the port city.

Experts and environmentalists attribute the latest spell of landslides to illegal hill cuts exposing the sandy hills to quick erosion during protracted rains.

The landslides triggered by the monsoon rains came two weeks after Cyclone Mora hit Bangladesh, leaving eight people dead and damaging hundreds of homes. PTI AJR NSA AJR

--- ENDS ---
The spokesman, Steffen Seibert, hailed the strong showing for Macron's year-old Republic on the Move (REM) in a tweet, adding that Merkel wished for "further good cooperation for Germany, France, Europe".

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel also welcomed the vote's outcome, tweeting that it paved "the way for reforms in France+Europe".

Macron's centrist party won a massive majority in parliamentary elections, early projections showed, in a dramatic re-drawing of the French political map.

The new president's REM party and its allies MoDem are forecast to win between 355 and 425 seats in the 577-member National Assembly.

The result, if confirmed, would give 39-year-old Macron one of France's biggest post-war majorities, strengthening his hand in implementing the kind of business-friendly, pro-EU programme Berlin has long promoted.

Apart from loosening labour laws to try to boost employment, Macron also plans measures to deepen European integration and an overhaul of the French social security system.

Merkel has repeatedly stressed that it was crucial not only for France, but for Germany, to help Macron succeed.

Macron has forged the beginnings of a strong working relationship with the German leader since his election last month, despite significant differences over several issues including stewardship of the euro.

He chose Berlin for his first trip abroad as president.

At a joint press conference, Merkel threw her support behind Macron's call for a "historic reconstruction" of the European Union, even expressing some openness to a possible change to key treaties governing the bloc.
"The new line towards Cuba announced by US President Donald Trump takes us back to already half-forgotten rhetoric in the style of the Cold War," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Trump vowed Friday to overhaul his predecessor Barack Obama's deal to restore ties with Cuba, promising instead to support the Cuban people against Raul Castro's government.

Moscow said Trump's policy changes showed that "anti-Cuban discourse is still widely in demand. This cannot but cause regret."

It said that easing of sanctions under Obama was a "well-thought-out political decision in which there were no losers except marginal Castro opponents."

jpegMpeg4-1280x720Russia said it was reaffirming its "unshakeable solidarity with Cuba."
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, a flamboyant 44-year-old candidate for the Republicans party, was canvassing for votes at a Paris market on Thursday when a man called her a "stupid bobo" -- a blend of hipster and bourgeois -- and shoved her leaflets in her face, causing her to fall.

The former environment minister blacked out for several minutes before being rushed to hospital.

Vincent Debraize -- mayor of Champignolles, a small village in Normandy in northern France -- denied he had verbally or physically assaulted her, Kosciusko-Morizet's lawyer Xavier Autain told AFP.

Debraize was placed in custody for "intentional violence against a person conducting public services", according to Autain.

"It is a serious attack on an elected member of the Republicans and I hope for a fitting response from the judiciary," he added.

After the attack, the man left, heading for the closest metro entrance.

He was photographed, and his picture made the rounds in French media. French public prosecutors quickly launched an investigation.

"He was identified after witness testimony and thanks to video surveillance," said a police source.

Kosciusko-Morizet faces an uphill battle to win Sunday's second round of parliamentary elections in the well-heeled 5th, 6th and 7th districts of Paris.
Eight soldiers were wounded and nine vehicles were destroyed in the attack on the camp at Bintagoungou at about 5:00 am, an army statement said.

Local sources told AFP earlier Saturday that jihadists led the assault, which took place around 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Timbuktu, and has not been claimed.

"All the camp's military material was ransacked," a local official told AFP.

A resident earlier said that there were "no Malian soldiers to be seen -- the camp has been laid waste. The jihadists left with military hostages."

Northern Mali continues to fall prey to jihadist attacks. Four people were killed in an assault on UN peacekeepers near their base in Kidal earlier this month.

The Group to Support Islam and Muslims, also known as Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimeen in Arabic, a fusion of three jihadist groups with previous Al-Qaeda links formed in March, claimed that attack.

Led by the Malian jihadist Iyad Ag Ghaly, a former leader of the Ansar Dine Islamists, the group has claimed multiple attacks on domestic and foreign forces since its formation, notably the 12,000-member MINUSMA UN force.

MINUSMA began operations in 2013, providing security to and assisting Malian troops in a region which fell to jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in March 2012.

Although a French-led military intervention the following year drove the groups out of key towns, they have since spread further south in the troubled West African nation.
Birol Erdem, a former senior justice ministry official, was released under judicial supervision which means he should still face trial, a date for which has yet to be set.

He had been taken into custody in Ankara earlier this month along with his wife Gulumser Erdem.

Unlike her husband, she was, however, placed under arrest by an Ankara court ahead of trial, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Erdem, who was questioned for three days, had been accused of seeking to violate the constitution and being a leader of "an armed terror group".

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to wipe out Gulen's influence in Turkey after the failed July 15 coup seeking to oust him from power. Gulen denies any involvement in the coup.

A state of emergency declared days after the coup has since seen about 50,000 people arrested and over 100,000 lose their jobs, the biggest purge in the country's modern history.

But there has been criticism the purge has touched few at the heart of power and Erdem was one of very few top civilian officials to have been detained.

Reports at the time said Erdem was detained after other suspects had named him in their testimonies.

In a separate development, the son-in-law of Istanbul mayor Kadir Topbas, Omer Faruk Kavurmaci, was detained again by police on suspicion of business links to Gulen.
Most of the casualties worked in the Mashnaq market in the rebel-controlled Saada province on the Saudi border, an official at a nearby hospital told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Witnesses said the market was a centre for trafficking in qat, a leafy stimulant plant that is widely used in Yemen but illegal in Saudi Arabia.

One of the witnesses said some of the casualties had "just returned from a trip across the border".

The Saudi-led Arab military coalition has been accused of air strikes in Yemen for more than two years against areas controlled by the Shiite Huthi rebels.

Saada itself has come under heavy bombing since 2015, when the coalition intervened to support the government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in its fight against the Iran-backed Huthis.

The coalition claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on the rebel-held capital Sanaa in October 2016 which targeted a gathering of mourners at a funeral ceremony, killing more than 140 people.

The Huthis have also accused the Saudi-led coalition of a raid last month that killed 23 civilians, including women and children, in the southwestern city of Taez.

The Saudi-led coalition -- which accused the rebels of using civilians as "human shields" -- has not claimed responsibility for that attack.

The rebels, who control a string of strategic ports along the Red Sea coastline and the norther highlands that border Saudi Arabia, have sporadically launched rocket attacks across the border.

In late January, the Huthis attacked a Saudi warship in the Red Sea, killing two sailors.

More than 8,000 people have been killed in the past two years and tens of thousands wounded in the war in Yemen, according to the World Health Organization.

The UN has called Yemen the "largest humanitarian crisis in the world" and warns that 17 million people, or two-thirds of the population, face a serious threat of famine this year.
Correspondent Hasan Abdullah and cameraman Nihat Yayman, who were covering the talks, were detained by Saudi authorities at their hotel but then released after Cavusoglu personally intervened with the Saudi king, the Hurriyet daily said.

Abdullah said in a statement the pair "were detained from our hotel by Saudi police in Mecca after a live analysis" on the crisis with Qatar.

"The ordeal lasted nearly 10 hours during which we faced multiple interrogations and lock-up," he said, expressing gratitude to the Turkish authorities for solving the issue.

There was no immediate indication over why they had been detained or if it directly concerned their reporting from the kingdom.

Hurriyet said they were freed on the instructions of the Saudi king after Cavusoglu brought up the issue. The pair are now heading back to Turkey.

Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain broke off relations with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of supporting "terrorism".

The crisis has put Turkey in a delicate position as Ankara regards Qatar as its chief ally in the Gulf but is also keen to maintain its improving relations with the key regional power Saudi Arabia.
"The search and rescue is over," US 7th Fleet commander Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin told reporters, describing huge amounts of water that gushed into the sleeping compartments after part of the ship's right side was caved in.

The Navy said it had found "a number" of bodies inside the guided missile destroyer, but did not specify if all seven crew had been found dead in the search that took place after it limped back into harbour.

Aucoin said the final toll was not being released "out of respect for their families".

However, he said the destroyer sustained "a large gash" below the waterline, and nearby crew would have had little chance to escape the "tremendous" amount of water that poured through the breach.

"It was 2:20 in the morning. A significant part of the crew was sleeping," he added, standing on the pier in front of the docked destroyer at its base in Yokosuka, southwest of Tokyo.

"There wasn't a lot of time in spaces that were open to the sea.

"So, it was traumatic. As to how much warning they had -- I don't know."

The container ship, the 222-metre Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal, came into port with large scrapes on its bow, but none of its 20 crew were injured, Japan's coastguard said.

Aucoin declined to say what might be to blame for the accident, the cause of which is being investigated.

"We will update you once the investigation process is complete," he said.

"I'm not going to speculate on what happened... Hopefully we'll get those answers, but I don't have them right now."

'Lucky to be alive'

The 154-metre (500-foot) Fitzgerald was pulled by a tugboat back to its base on Saturday, where divers searched damaged areas of the destroyer, which was deployed in the mid-90s.

The Navy said the dead US crew were found by the divers.

"As search and rescue crews gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision... the missing sailors were located in the flooded berthing compartments," it said.

"They are currently being transferred to Naval Hospital Yokosuka where they will be identified," it added. "The names of the Sailors will be released after all notifications are made."

Several other US crew members were injured in the accident and had to be evacuated by air to hospital, including the vessel's commanding officer Bryce Benson, who is "undergoing treatment", Aucoin said.

"He is lucky to be alive," the fleet commander added, without elaborating.

The accident happened 56 nautical miles (104 kilometres) southwest of Yokosuka, in a busy shipping channel that is a gateway to major container ports in Tokyo and nearby Yokohama.

There have been several collisions involving large vessels in the area over the past five years, Japan's Asahi newspaper said.

Japan's coastguard is conducting an investigation into the accident -- including interviewing the container ship's Filipino crew -- although the US has primary jurisdiction in probing accidents involving military personnel.

"We can't comment on the accident as it's being handled by the Japanese coastguard," a spokesman for the container ship's Japanese owner, NYK Line, told AFP on Saturday.
DAVENPORT -- Dogs and humans alike flocked to the 11th annual Radish magazine-sponsored Healthy Living Fair at The Freight House Farmers Market in Davenport on Saturday.

The six-hour fair, located adjacent to the weekly farmer's market, was lauded by all as a great way to promote healthy lifestyles and to spread the word about products and services that contribute.

As it usually does, the Pet of the Year contest stole the show, and an 80-pound, 3-year-old Labradoodle named Bailey stole the stage and the hearts of everyone watching.

"She's wonderful," said owner Sharon Cramer, of Rock Island. "I paid $400 for her, but I wouldn't take $4 million."

Bailey is a therapy dog that Ms. Cramer said already has done more than 200 facility visits, seeing varying numbers of patients at each visit.

"She's one of the best therapy dogs," said Ms. Cramer. "She's been tested under fire with children, adults who are sick and special needs adults . . . and she does very well."

Bailey and Ms. Cramer visit facilities such as Bickford Cottage in Moline, the Monastery in Milan, Friendship Manor, Memory Care, as well as participating in the Trinity and Genesis Health Systems Caring Canines programs.

And even though Bailey stays busy making a difference in people's lives, she is no stranger to awards. Her list of accolades includes both a silver medal and a Companion Dog obedience title from the American Kennel Club and Dog of the Year at Friendship Manor.

Now she can add Radish Pet of the Year to the list, and Ms. Cramer said the contest is a great way to be an ambassador for her cause.

"I see it as fun, but for me I try to get the word out there about therapy dogs and how important a volunteer program that is," she said. "The more I can get my dog out there, the better."

Four other dogs competed for the title, and not one of them was an easy match.

Piper is another therapy dog with a big heart. She and her owner, Emily Clifton, do therapy with autistic children at Family Counseling and Psychology in Bettendorf.

Coco is a rescue dog whose owner, Ali Domino, adopted her in Pasadena, Calif., a day before she was scheduled to be euthanized.

Alisha Leblanc named her toy poodle Casanova because, in spite of his size, she said "he's very loving."

Keebler, a Belgian sheepdog, was the fourth contestant and a third therapy dog that works at area nursing homes and hospitals. Keebler's owner, Pam Clark, said "they are always on the go."

Although dogs are beneficial to health and well-being, they weren't the only attraction at the Healthy Living Fair, where more than 50 exhibitors set up their booths under large tents to give patrons information and samples about their products and services.

The exhibitors represented a wide variety of health-related topics such as fitness, massage and chiropractic therapy, whole and natural foods, hygiene and environmentally friendly products and overall wellness services or programs.

"We work with Radish magazine quite a bit," said Max Mayfield of Greatest Grains. "They really have a great event, and we're always at them because these are all the people that connect with us."

Greatest Grains had a raffle for a number of product-packed baskets and gave out free samples every hour.

Alan Hon and Jen Harper, co-owners of Two Rivers Massage and Wellness, were giving out pamphlets and five-minute sample massages. They took over the business a year ago and have been working to get the name out.

"We have actually met a lot of people here that didn't even know where we were," Ms. Harper said. "So it's great to talk to everyone and let them know what services we have."

Another, more unique type of therapy was at the fair as well. Shoemaker Spa and Wellness Center was giving samples of their non-invasive fat loss laser therapy.

"It emulsifies your fat cells," explained Penny Nuti, a laser technician at the center. "It's kind of like if your were a chef and you put water and oil in a pan, it would separate. That's what this is doing; your fat is the oil."

The center, run by Dr. Karen Shoemaker, was offering a special on its package for multiple sessions of the hour-long therapy that Ms. Nuti said is a great alternative to liposuction and a jump start for greater weight loss.

Artwork was also on display at the fair, but it was artwork backed with powerful stories.

"The work on the table is a result of therapy by cancer survivors," said Andrea Schelin, of Living Proof Exhibit, a nonprofit therapy center that offers free classes for anyone impacted by cancer.

"It's really nice to see the artwork, but it's healing for the people that come in to see it because of the stories behind it," she said.

It was their first time attending the fair, and Ms. Schelin was excited.

"It means a lot to this organization because we're all about getting the word out that we exist," she said.

Radish sponsors two such fairs every year, one during the summer and one during the winter. For more information on future fairs and events, or to check out Radish magazine, visit radishmagazine.com.
Delhi Metro Blue Line services were delayed after a catenary wire snapped near the Noida Sector 15 station.

By India Today Web Desk: Delhi Metro services on the Blue Line were today hit for over an hour after a catenary wire snapped near the Noida Sector 15 station, the news agency ANI reported.

According to Delhi Metro officials, services were affected from 5.31 pm and were restored by 6.44 pm.

"The services were restored by 6.44pm and metro services are now normalised on entire Line 3 (Blue Line)," the official said.

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Blue Line trains run from Dwarka to both Vaishali and Noida City Centre, and pass through Rajiv Chowk and Yamuna Bank stations.

In the last one week, this is the third time that services on the Blue Line were affected.

On June 13, passengers were left stranded for three hours following an electrical short circuit near Indraprastha station and on the next day, services were disrupted again for a short time when a man was walking on the Metro tracks in Noida.

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By Press Trust of India: drains

New Delhi, Jun 18 (PTI) Delhi PWD Secretary Ashwani Kumar has hit back at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who had accused him of not overseeing the desilting of drains, saying "negativity and squabbling attitude" does not work in such a challenging task.

In a sharp response to Kejriwals letter to Chief Secretary MM Kutty seeking action against him, Kumar told PTI there is no scope for "indulging in blame game" with regard to monsoon preparedness.

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In the letter, Kejriwal had said he had given specific instructions that the PWD secretary should himself visit important drains to ensure their desilting ahead of monsoon, but he "openly and brazenly violates" his directions.

The Delhi CM had also said the PWD secretary "refused" to step out of his air-conditioned office even when the health of the "entire population is at stake".

"The chief secretary should initiate proceedings for dereliction of duty against him. He should also personally ensure that the PWD secretary visits all drains listed by east and north Delhi mayors by this Sunday (June 18) and ensure their desilting. Visits by juniors will not be accepted," he had said.

Kejriwals letter comes close on the heels of the PWD slapping "penal rent" of around Rs 28 lakh on the AAP for the "unauthorised occupation" of a bungalow in Rouse Avenue here.

The PWD secretary said he would submit to the chief minister a report on the ground realities with regard to the drainage system.

"Whatever work is being done is being continuously assessed... There is no scope for indulging in blame game with regard to monsoon preparedness.

"All agencies, including the Public Works Department and local bodies, need to work with sincerity... Negativity and squabbling attitude does not work in this kind of a challenging task," he said.

The AAP government and the bureaucracy have been at loggerheads on a range of issues in the past.

In December 2015, the Delhi government bureaucrats had proceeded on mass leave to protest the suspension of two DANICS-cadre officers even as the Union Home Ministry had declared the suspension as null and void.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had recently demanded the removal of the Director of Directorate of Information and Publicity after the latter denied permission for his Facebook Live event. PTI BUN GVS

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By Press Trust of India: Barpeta (Assam), Jun 18 (PTI) Security forces today recovered electronic detonators and gun powder from inside a passenger bus in Barpeta district of Assam, police said.

A joint team of Assam Police and the Army found 200 pieces of electronic detonators and gun powder from inside a cement bag in the bus.

It was not clear to whom that cement bag belonged and no one was arrested.

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Police said that the driver was interrogated but he expressed ignorance about the items in the bag.

The bus was coming from Latumbai in Meghalaya to Barpeta Road town in Barpeta district of Assam. PTI COR TR NN LNS

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Hundreds of yoga enthusiasts gathered at the historic National Mall in Washington, DC ahead of the third International Yoga Day to mark the event.

The Indian ambassador to the US, Navtej Sarna, said it was a moving sight to see people turning up in large numbers at the heart of the US capital for the event.

What has happened in the last three years is quite phenomenal, that this movement of pushing forward and achieving recognition of the 21st of June as the International Day of Yoga, started by Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi, has brought this ancient discipline, philosophy, and practice from India into the hearts and lives of people in every corner of the globe, he said at the event on Saturday.

Sarna said the international event is neither a political movement, nor an economic movement.

This is something which is only for the benefit of all humanity at both an individual level and a macro level, because ultimately all societies in all countries are made up

of human beings, he said.

If we have each human being who has a balanced view on life, who has achieved a kind of equilibrium inside and outside, I think ultimately will go and affect how nations govern and are governed and how they relate to each other, Sarna said.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, in a citation, sent his best wishes for a joyous observance of the third International Yoga Day organised by the Indian embassy in association with the Friends of Yoga.

Virginia Governor Chris Van Hollen also sent his citation on the occasion in recognition of the spiritual value that yoga and meditation offer, and with appreciation and gratitude for the organising committees outstanding efforts to encourage, peace, harmony and consciousness.

Extending warm greetings to all who are gathered on the occasion, Senator Mark Warner, in his message, said the event provides an opportunity to celebrate one of the many important traditions of the Indian culture, yoga.

The appeal of this ancient, holistic tradition crosses cultural boundaries and increases international understanding and friendship. I hope all of the attendees enjoy taking part in todays activities, said Warner, a Ranking Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Co-Chair of the Senate India Caucus.

Warner said he remains very optimistic about Indo-US relationship, and continues to believe that they can make great strides together.

As two of the worlds largest democracies, and with the incredible Indian-American population that contributes so much to our culture, commerce and community in this country, it is critical for us to continue to deepen and broaden the existing framework of partnership and friendship.

In the last Congress, we were able to expand the US-India relationship on several fronts, including hosting Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi for a joint session. During this session, the prime minister described the many ties that bind India and the US together, as well as the significant contributions the Indian-American community has made to this country, he said.

The overwhelmingly positive response to his visit demonstrates the strength of the relationship between the US and India, Warner added.

Photographs: @IndianEmbassyUS/Twitter
Aam Aadmi Party leader Kumar Vishwas on Sunday said he never aspired to sit on a throne or occupy it, a day after he hit out at palace politics in the party.

Vishwas, who is the partys Rajasthan in-charge, held a meeting of nearly 600 volunteers at the AAP office sitting on the ground.

Addressing the volunteers, who will work in Rajasthan, he said a majority of those who attended the meeting have been a part of the anti-graft movement on which the party was built.

There has been a great enthusiasm among volunteers and an attempt is being made to reach out to the last worker in the party and seek his opinion even in the ticket distribution process, the AAP leader said.

He asked the volunteers to be observers and not in-charges when they go to Rajasthan as the party gears up for state polls scheduled next year.

When asked why he held meeting sitting on the ground, Vishwas said, I have always sat on the ground. I have never aspired to sit on a throne nor occupy it.

His remarks come in the backdrop of an internal churn the AAP has been witnessing.

We (AAP) did not come into being for these conspiracies and palace politics hatched by five-six people, he had told reporters on Saturday after posters emerged outside the party office calling a him a traitor and a friend of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The party has distanced itself from the posters.

Earlier, suspended AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan had accused Vishwas of being an RSS-BJP agent and of plotting a coup in the party.

Vishwas had held a coterie around Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal responsible for the partys recent poll debacles, while distancing himself from the official party line of manipulation of electronic voting machines.

Photograph: @DrKumarVishwas/Twitter
Formidable challenges including funds for the farm loan-waiver, and law and order stare him at his face, with the opposition claiming the misses have outnumbered the hits.

IMAGE: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath addresses a public rally. Photograph: PTI Photo

As Yogi Adityanath completes 100 days in office this week as Uttar Pradesh chief minister, formidable challenges including funds for the farm loan-waiver, and law and order stare him at his face, with the opposition claiming the misses have outnumbered the hits.

The loan-waiver, a major pre-poll promise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is making finance department burn the midnight oil in trying all permutations and combination to offload the sudden fiscal burden of nearly Rs 36,369 crore.

This coupled with R 34,000 crore for the implementation of the seventh pay commission recommendations, has put an additional burden of a whopping over Rs 70,000 crore on the states coffers.

The government faces other major challenges including of arranging funds for mega projects like the Purvanchal e-way.

The government itself has admitted it could manage to make just 63 per cent of the state roads pothole-free by the June-15 deadline set by the chief minister.

Distribution of free laptops among students -- mentioned in the BJPs sankalp patra (election manifesto) -- is another challenge confronting the Yogi government, which was inaugurated on March 19.

No date has been announced for the scheme to be launched.

With certain law and order incidents, especially caste and communal clashes, threatening to eclipse the achievements of the 45-year-old saffron-clad chief minister, his officials are going the extra mile to ensure there is no dent in BJPs image in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

IMAGE: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath listening to the problems of people at Gorakhnath Temple in Gorakhpur. Photograph: PTI Photo

The chief minister and his cabinet colleagues have already sought more time saying they inherited a jungle raj from the Samajwadi Party government and it would take them some time to set things in order.

Soon after being sworn-in, the CM had claimed he would prove his governments commitment to good governance first by ridding the roads of potholes completely by June 15.

However, his deputy Keshav Maurya, who also holds the public works department portfolio, admitted that out of 1.21 lakh-km of road length, repair works on only about 70,000km had been completed.

The condition of roads in Kanpur and PM Narendra Modis constituency of Varanasi is particularly bad.

Another challenge for the government is holding the urban local body elections by July 15, when their term expires.

The State Election Commission was ready and had completed its preparations, but the government itself put off the polls saying the rapid survey of the backward seats was faulty- -- the survey was conducted under the present BJP regime.

Now the elections are likely to be held in October.

As the state government prepares to come out with a 100-day achievement document later this week, state Congress spokesperson Dwijendra Tripathi ridiculed the ruling party for making promises that it could not meet.

Two months of the Adityanath government have not sent out any strong message on any of the issues which were part of BJPs campaign -- improved law-and-order situation and better administration, he said.

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has alleged that the Dalits, the OBCs as well as forward castes including Brahmins have been facing atrocities in the state -- in an apparent attempt to associate Adityanath and his government with Kshatriyas only.

As head of the Gorakhnath Peeth, Adityanath has often associated himself with Kshatriya symbols.

He is often seen surrounded by Kshatriyas mostly and he has supported Thakur leaders of other parties too -- in 2013, he came out in support of Kunda MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya who was accused of conspiring to kill a deputy superintendent of police.

Not known to take frequent barbs at him lying down, ex-chief minister Akhilesh Yadav recently took on the Yogi government, saying, I never knew officers wielded brooms so well. Now the question is how much filth have they cleared so far?

He said the deadline to make state roads pothole-free by June 15 remained a pipe dream.

IMAGE: Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath show a T-shirt for the International Yoga Day at the Governor House in Lucknow. Photograph: PTI Photo

When asked about the Yogi governments decision to probe the expressway and river front projects launched during the SP rule, Akhilesh said, Will this government do any work... or will it only conduct probes? This government should try to do better work than us.

Presently, the entire state machinery -- from ministry to departmental level -- is working on their 100-day progress reports which will be presented to the public in the form of a white paper, an official said.

While the CM is personally reviewing the works, a web-based monitoring system has also been put in place for 73 departments in the state to submit their progress reports, the official said.

The government has not announced any major scheme or big-ticket infrastructure projects other than the farm loan-waiver.

These are likely to be addressed when the government presents its maiden budget in the next few months. Adityanath has said that two months is a too short a period to showcase any achievements.

Law-and-order and governance, however, remain the primary challenges for Adityanath. It will be a herculean task to change the attitude of the bureaucracy down to the lowest level and make the government machinery responsive to the needs of the public, political observers feel.

Adityanath will need to begin the process of change and show tangible results soon in order to satisfy those who voted the BJP, and to stave off anti-incumbency sentiment before the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for 2019, analysts say.

The recent clashes between the Dalits and the Kshatriyas in Saharanpur, several instances of vigilantism in the name of cow protection or moral policing and the run-ins of BJP leaders, including legislators, with police and officials have hindered the new governments attempts to send out right signals on good governance.

The change has started to show in UP since the Yogi government took charge. Well-meaning people are feeling relieved with the closure of illegal slaughterhouses. With the constitution of anti-Romeo squads, anti-social elements harassing women and girls are now in fear.

Rowdyism is dying and crime graph falling. Peoples confidence in the government has been restored, the state BJP had said in its political resolution at its recent working committee meeting.

But, on the ground, certain recent incidents like caste clashes in Saharanpur and communal violence in Bulandshahr, Sambhal and Gonda gave the law-enforcing agencies sleepless nights-- more so as the BJP came to power on the plank of improving law and order, terming the erstwhile Samajwadi Party rule as a goondaraj.

In Bulandshahr, members of the Adityanath-founded Hindu Yuva Vahini were alleged to be behind the killing of an aged Muslim man after a love-jihad-style elopement. The Bulandshahr incident took place even as Adityanath met senior Yuva Vahini workers during a visit to Gorakhpur and warned them against taking law in their own hands.

The attack on Saharanpur SSPs residence allegedly by BJP activists led by local MP Raghav Lakhanpal, hogged the headlines.

And even before the dust settled on the controversy, caste violence broke out in the region.

The Samajwadi Party latched onto these developments. We were termed the goonda party. Now, what is happening under Yogi ji? Will he act? Akhilesh asked.

Perturbed over the sudden spurt in such incidents, the CM decided to set up a special monitoring cell in his office. A special cell will be constituted in the CMs office for crime-monitoring, which will be done personally by the CM, cabinet minister Shrikant Sharma said.

Refuting SPs criticism over the law and order, he said, Those SP leaders, who have carried criminals and rapists with them in their cars, should introspect.

Ever since Adityanath took over the reins of the state, the bureaucracy is constantly on its toes.

It is an unusual sight to see that the parking lots at the secretariat get full even before the clock strikes 9:25 in the morning.

Adityanath has proved himself to be a tough taskmaster, holding back-to-back meetings with ministers and bureaucrats well past midnight, only to return to office before 9.30 the next morning.

For almost a month, some 80-odd presentations were made by as many departments before the CM.

The state government has so far announced half a dozen significant measures, starting with the Rs 36,500-crore loan-waiver and power-for-all agreement, said Principal Secretary (Information) Avaneesh Awasthi.

At the BJP working committee meeting, Adityanath praised Cane Development Minister Suresh Rana for his efforts to clear Rs 5,558 crore of dues of sugarcane farmers within 40 days.

A panel of group of ministers constituted by the CM has submitted a report on a new mining policy and on clamping down on illegal mining, which is a major problem in UP.

A portal being launched under the CMOs supervision to allow people to file complain on illegal land-grab could be a game-changer, too.

The Power-for-All agreement between the Yogi government and the Centre promises electricity around the clock to district headquarters and 18-hour a day to all villages.

Another key decision was making transfers and postings of bureaucrats merit-based and free from extraneous pressures as reflected in wide-scale transfers done by the government.

In the erstwhile government, transfers had become an industry. Now, honest and talented officers are getting respectable posts, a BJP leader said.
Darjeeling remained on the edge on Sunday as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a Gorkha Janmukti Morcha activist, who was killed during clashes with police, and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.

IMAGE: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha activists protest during a bandh called by the outfit in Darjeeling.

Photograph: Ashok Bhaumik/PTI Photos

Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between GJM activists and the police were witnessed on Saturday.

The protesters, also carrying black flags and the Tricolour, assembled at the Chowkbazar. They shouted slogans demanding that the police and security personnel be immediately removed from Darjeeling.

We think the police and security personnel should be immediately removed from Darjeeling to create conducive environment for talks. The government should allow us to carry out peaceful and democratic agitation, Darjeeling MLA Amar Rai of the GJM told reporters.

IMAGE: Security personnel patrol a road during GJM strike in Darjeeling. Photograph: Ashok Bhaumik/PTI Photos

The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari on Saturday. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.

This was the first death since violent protests returned to Darjeeling on June 8, after a gap of a few years.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on Saturday said that the ongoing agitation in Darjeeling hills was a deep-rooted conspiracy supported by the insurgent groups of the Northeast and some foreign countries.

The GJM had rubbished the allegation made by Banerjee, saying that she was trying to malign the Gorkhas fighting for their identity.

The police, who have been on high alert after Saturdays violence and arson, conducted route marches with the army in several parts of the hills.

IMAGE: Gorkha Janamukti Morcha supporters block a road during their protest.

Photograph: Ashok Bhaumik/PTI Photos



Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday appealed to protesters not to resort to violence and, instead, hold dialogue to resolve any issue.

He said resorting to violence would never help them in finding a solution and asked the people living there to remain calm and peaceful.

All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment, Singh said.

IMAGE: The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari on Saturday. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes. Photograph: Ashok Bhaumik/PTI Photos

In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution, he said, emphasising that every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue.

I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence, the home minister said in a series of tweets.

Singh also spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and discussed with her the situation prevailing there.

She (Banerjee) has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling, he said.
At least 57 people are now known to have died and 59 people are injured in the devastating forest fire in Portugal.

IMAGE: The forest fire is seen near Tojeira, Pedrogao Grande, in central Portugal. Photograph: Rafael Marchante/Reuters

At least 18 people died in their cars when the fire took them by surprise.

It is possibly the deadliest-ever single forest blaze in Portugal.

IMAGE: The blaze is being called possibly the deadliest-ever single forest blaze in Portugal.

Photograph: Rafael Marchante/Reuters

Teams of psychologists have been deployed to care for survivors, who are 'in shock' and have lost relatives.

Police said lightning was to blame for the increasing death toll.

Policia Judiciaria Nacional director Almeida Rodrigues ruled out arson.

IMAGE: A policeman stands near a victim of a forest fire on the IC8 motorway near Pedrogao Grande, in central Portugal. Photograph: Rafael Marchante/Reuters

He said: The PJ, together with the GNR police force, have managed to establish the origin of the fire and it's all clearly pointing towards natural causes.

Weve even found a tree that was struck by lightning. Weve managed to determine that the fire was caused by thunderstorms.

IMAGE: Smoke is seen on the IC8 motorway during a forest fire near Pedrogao Grande

Photograph: Rafael Marchante/Reuters



The death toll is expected to rise further during the day as many people were said to be still missing.

Several roads of Pedrogao Grande have been cut off as firemen still battle the blaze on four different fronts, fanned by the heat and wind.

The blaze has been described as almost impossible to control and emergency services have spoken of a horrible scenario.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jun 17 (PTI) One person has been arrested in connection with seizure of counterfeit products of many well- known brands worth Rs 10 lakh, at a warehouse in east Delhis Shahdara area, police said today.

After receiving a complaint related to products bearing fake logos, the police raided a house in Dalhai Mohalla, Bhola Nath Nagar in Shahdara where the alleged products were found on the ground floor.

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"During the raid, the owner of the premises, Hardeep Singh, a resident of Dayanand Colony, at Lajpat Nagar-IV in south Delhi turned up and was arrested.

"Singh was asked about documents related to the material stored inside the warehouse but he could not give any satisfactory reply nor he could produced any document related to the material," a senior police official said.

Among the counterfeit products seized by the police included, several air filters with logo of a technology major, oil filter with the logo of a car-making firm and outer box with logo of a major technology company. PTI KND KUN

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By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jun 18 (PTI) The Centre has asked the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to conduct a detailed study to assess if there is any leaching from plastic bottles into liquid medicine formulations stored in them.

It has been over two-and-a-half years since a draft directive from the Union Health Ministry sought to replace plastic and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles with glass for storing pharmaceutical preparations.

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Leaching is a process by which water-soluble substances are washed out from soil, waste or containers (in this case).

Last year, a government study detected toxic materials, including lead, in plastic bottles of cough syrups and other liquid medicines. It concluded harmful substances are released from such bottles and suggested banning the use of such containers to keep drugs.

A ministry source said the finding was endorsed by the countrys top statutory authority on standards for medicines - the Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB).

"The DTAB also recommended that plastic and PET bottles should not be used for bottling medicines, especially meant for children and elderly people," the source said.

These findings, which came out in May 2016, were contrary to the findings of another expert panel led by former biotechnology secretary MK Bhan.

The MK Bhan panel had in March that year told the National Green Tribunal there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that use of PET or additive like antimony for pharmaceutical packaging may leach out substances beyond limits that pose a threat to human health.

The study, reported in May 2016, was conducted by the governments All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIH&PH).

It had found that four heavy metals ?- lead, antimony, Di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (known as DEHP) and chromium -? had leached into the five pharmaceutical formulations that were tested.

The degree of leaching with antimony, chromium, lead and DEHP from PET bottles grew as temperature increased.

The ICMR has now asked the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, to plan and conduct the study. PTI PLB TIR GVS

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By Press Trust of India: By Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Jun 18 (PTI) A bomb went off today at an election office in Nepals Kapilvastu district, injuring five people ahead of the second phase of the crucial local body elections which are being held after a gap of 20 years.

The bomb exploded at the election officers office in Vadganga Municipality of Kapilvastu district when a joint panel of Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Center) was returning after filing their nomination for the second phase of local level election to be held on June 28.

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The injured are being treated at a local hospital. No one has claimed responsibility for the explosion so far.

The process of filing nomination papers by candidates for the second phase of elections in 334 local units of provinces 1, 5 and 7 completed today.

The government has stepped up security at the election offices in various districts of southern Nepal to prevent any untoward incident in the wake of agitating Rastriya Janata Party Nepal?s declared programme to disrupt the polls.

The Election Commission (EC) said the registration of candidacy for the second phase of election has concluded smoothly.

Cadres of Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal in Rupandehi district have filed nomination in the second phase of filing nomination as independent candidate.

Rastriya Janta Party-Nepal, the major political grouping belonging to the Madhesi communities, did not field candidates for the first phase of election held on May 14.

Election officer Kamal Panthi said they had received independent nominations for all the 37 positions in the council.

The local level election is taking place across Nepal after a gap of 20 years.

The local body elections should have been held in every five years in Nepal. Due to political instability, they have been halted since May 1997.

The agitating RJP N has announced to disrupt the local level polls on June 28.

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. PTI SBP PMS PMS

--- ENDS ---
Ed Gillespie is a damn good storyteller. Hell have to be to win the Virginia governorship.

This past Tuesday night, having eked out a perilously tight, 1.2 percentage-point victory for the Republican nomination, Gillespie beamed before supporters at a suburban Richmond hotel.

His smile could not have concealed concern about the close finish in the primary over Corey Stewart, who out-Trumped President Donald Trump with appeals bordering on the buffoonish to neo-Confederates, gun-rights absolutists and anti-immigrant xenophobes.

But Gillespie, the professional talker who amassed a fortune plumping for big business, wasnt letting on. As they say in crisis communications, Gillespie redirected the narrative.

Rather than admit he had barely survived, Gillespie, instead, acknowledged his donors. He boasted about not spending a dollar more of their money than necessary to defeat Stewart and Frank Wagner, who finished third, siphoning from Gillespie the votes of comparative moderates.

That capacity for blarney  Gillespie shares it with the fellow Irishman he hopes to succeed, Terry McAuliffe, though hes less voluble than the Democrat  also was on display the morning after the primary, when the shooting in Alexandria of a GOP congressman compelled both parties to postpone the roll-outs of their respective tickets.

In an email to supporters that clocked off 7:30 a.m. Wednesday  21 minutes after police were alerted to the shooting  Gillespies campaign manager, Chris Leavitt, declared that the Republican primary had produced a cash-flush nominee who stands well within the political mainstream of Virginia.

In contrast, the Democratic primary yielded a candidate, Ralph Northam, who had been pushed to the left by a plucky opponent, Tom Perriello, and who was broke after burning through the millions he had harvested for the general election, not anticipating Perriello would make the race that he would lose by nearly 12 percentage points.

By weeks end, Northam was replenishing cash, collecting from the Democratic Governors Association $1 million. Theres a lot more where that came from. And both candidates can count on ample funding from national sources  organizations and individuals  that recognize the Virginia contest as a swing-state referendum on Trump.

As in the Gillespie victory speech, the news in the email was what wasnt said.

There was no mention of Trump, whose broad unpopularity in Virginia, the only Southern state he did not carry against Hillary Clinton, is generating stiff headwinds for Republicans.

There was no mention of the Republican-eat-Republican divisiveness of spring that could ripple into autumn with Stewarts refusal to fully endorse Gillespie.

There was no mention of the lagging turnout in the Republican primary  it trailed Democratic participation by about 180,000 votes  and what that says about rank-and-file enthusiasm in both parties.

Maybe Gillespie, whose handlers had expected his performance to top 50 percent, only to see it fall short of 44 percent, should have committed a heftier slice of his grubstake to voter mobilization.

Barely three years after nearly defeating U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., for a second term because of Barack Obamas unpopularity, an uncertain economy and worries that Democrats were demolishing health care, Gillespie finds himself buffeted by distaste for a GOP president, an improving employment picture and worries that Republicans are demolishing health care.

Its not much to work with, even for a guy experienced in peddling such hard sells as George W. Bush, who  in his second term  was just barely more popular than Trump. Dubyas approval rating, nationally, averaged 37 percent from 2004 to 2008. Six months into his term, The Donalds approval rating in Virginia is 36 percent.

This means Gillespie must de-nationalize the Virginia election. Good luck with that.

Gillespie trumpets an across-the-board cut in the Virginia income tax that Republican legislators, nearly all of whom endorsed him for the nomination, say privately the state probably cant afford. Hes all in on twin natural-gas pipelines that would slice across the mountainous west, alarming property-rights conservatives.

And Gillespie vows fealty to the right-to-work law, never mind that Virginians last November rejected a Republican bid to fold into the state constitution the prohibition on compulsory union membership. If anyone doubted his devotion on right-to-work, he appeared in Northern Virginia the other day with Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, the bete noire of organized labor.

In the increasingly blue Washington, D.C., suburbs, there is little or no distinction between state and national politics because nearly everyone who lives there is in some way affected  economically, culturally or socially  by the federal government.

Northern Virginias Democratic reflex is strengthened by Trumps disputed Muslim ban and his attack on the bureaucracy, both of which ultimately are pocketbook issues. That the region went solidly for Clinton means the Russia scandal and Trumps possible role are convenient excuses to vote against anyone with an R after his or her name.

Unless youre Barbara Comstock.

The Republican congresswoman won a second term despite the Clinton wave because she deliberately separated herself from Trump; even demanding he relinquish the nomination after the release of the vulgar 2005 video in which he preened about pawing women.

But Gillespie cant fully adopt the Comstock model. Through the primary, he had little to say about Trump. In the general election, he will need the presidents voters. They will expect from Gillespie a measure of obeisance to Trump. Expressions thereof may help with Trump voters, perhaps at the expense of losing others  many others.

Geographically, this puts Gillespie at risk everywhere.

Theres Trump country  rural Virginia, where there arent many votes. They are reliable and Gillespie will need every one of them. Accommodating the countryside could alienate the suburbs, which Gillespie is unlikely to carry but where he must be competitive, capturing moderate Republicans and election-deciding independents.

Stewart is not going to make this any easier for Gillespie, playing to the political press every time Gillespie appears to violate the Trump orthodoxy. Because Stewart has a gift for being outrageous  after the Alexandria shooting, he told The Washington Times that Democrats have blood on their hands  he could prove his own undoing.

Gillespie knows that story would tell itself.
FREDERICKSBURG  City officials werent sure what to expect when the first Virginia Railway Express train rolled into the Fredericksburg train station in 1992.

As it turned out, there were 300 commuters waiting to board, and a whole bevy of folks had come to watch and be part of a historic occasion, Mayor Mary Katherine Greenlaw said at a VRE silver anniversary celebration held in Fredericksburg on Friday.

Today, more than 1,000 people board VRE trains in Fredericksburg each weekday, Greenlaw said, and it can be hard for them to find a seat now that a station has opened in Spotsylvania County. She spoke to a crowd of about 100 mostly local, state and VRE officials and employees across from the train station at 200 Lafayette Blvd.

Truly, commuter rail service is one of the defining characteristics of our city, Greenlaw said. It is essential to the quality of life for the citizens of Fredericksburg, and essential to the sustainable future growth of our region.

Fredericksburg has been known as a railroad community since the 1830s, when people spoke of taking cars to Richmond or Washington, she said. RF&P Railroad elevated the train tracks over the streets in 1926, and the popularity of train travel didnt begin to decline in Fredericksburg until after World War II, Greenlaw said.

When the idea of VRE was first broached, she said that not everyone in the city was for it. She gave the late Bill Greenup, who had served on City Council and been mayor, credit for being its major proponent.

Today, neighborhoods benefit from being within walking distance of VRE, and the city is looking forward to having an improved train station, bridge and sound wall.

VRE has been good to Fredericksburg, and Fredericksburg has been good to VRE, Greenlaw said. Happy anniversary to us.

VRE began providing commuter rail service on its Manassas Line on June 22, 1992, and on its Fredericksburg Line on July 20, 1992. Since its inception, VRE has grown from serving fewer than 5,000 daily commuters during its inaugural year to nearly 20,000 riders per day.

Fridays celebration also featured speeches by U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation Director Jennifer Mitchell and VRE CEO Doug Allen.

It followed a VRE operations board meeting at City Hall in which members authorized Allen to order the final design services for a 125-foot addition and repairs to the southern end of the Fredericksburg train station platform, and a staircase so people wont have to walk across Princess Anne Street to board a train. It will take about six months for the final design to be authorized, and work is expected to begin next spring at the earliest.

Kaine, who commutes to Washington from his home in Richmond each Monday, said people had to look only at how busy VRE was when Metro began its SafeTrack program, which encouraged users to find alternative means of transportation while maintenance was being done. He said 23,000 people used VRE the first day of the program, an all-time record.

Imagine, those of us who are connoisseurs of driving on I-95 or I-66, imagine a workday with 23,000 more vehicles. It would be impossible, he said. Thats why Northern Virginia needs transit, and Northern Virginia has so appreciated 25 years of VRE.

A recent study found that commuters in the D.C. metropolitan area spend 80 hours a year, or two full workweeks, sitting in traffic, Kaine added. Thats twice the national average.

He said he was a strong proponent of transit while mayor of Richmond and governor of Virginia, and the states goal should be to offer a variety of means of transportation, including Amtrak, Metro, VRE and commuter buses.

Its good to have options, Kaine said.

He said that infrastructure, including transit, is one area that is most promising for complete bipartisanship, because everyone from mayors and governors to Congress and the president all understand the need for it.

I think we have a real opportunity before us right now with a president who is a builder, Kaine said.

He said that senators griped at first when they got Trumps proposed budget because it cut funds for transportation. Then his staff told them not to worry because he was putting together a big infrastructure package that would have funding for that and more.

Last week the presidents team rolled out the basic beginnings of a proposal, and we look forward to working with the administration to kinda fill it in and then make it happen, Kaine said. And if we do, there will be more funding for transit, and roads, and broadband and renovation of old school buildings.

Some of the projects could provide jobs right away, and help boost the economy.
I am a proud product and parent of Richmond Public Schools. I attended city schools when my dad was governor of Virginia in the early 1970s. My three children also received a great public education here, which successfully launched them on to college and career. I will be forever grateful to Richmond Public Schools for the opportunities it has provided to our family. Now I share the sense of urgency of so many Richmonders that those same quality opportunities be provided to all children in the city, no matter their ZIP code or background.

Improving Richmond Public Schools and the well-being of our children is the key to a healthier Richmond. Every sector of the community has a critical role to play in helping our schools and our children progress to the next level.

Coming together starts with our elected officials and our key government agencies getting on the same page to implement common goals for our children.

Thats the simple but powerful idea behind the RVA Education Compact, developed by Mayor Levar Stoney, members of the School Board, and City Council.

Richmond Public Schools face extraordinary challenges. Many of them are related to the disproportionate stress and trauma many Richmond children experience outside the classroom, caused in large measure by our extraordinary child poverty rate. Our childrens lives inside and outside the classroom are intimately intertwined. Thats why a truly effective change has to involve adults breaking down silos to bring the work of the schools together with the work of other city agencies and nonprofit organizations to engage and support children and families.

Richmond has taken positive steps in this direction already. The RVA Reads program engages dozens of volunteers each month to promote early reading at all pre-K sites in the city. The NextUp RVA program now operating in three city middle schools brings a high-quality after-school program to hundreds of children, providing both academic support and enrichment activities from dance to cooking. RVA Future Centers provides focused support and counseling to high school students pursuing college and career plans after high school. These initiatives are partnerships providing support to RPS students from city agencies such as the Office of Community Wealth Building and/or nonprofit entities such as the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation.

When adults cooperate, kids benefit. The Education Compact would create a framework to expand on such effective teamwork to benefit our children. The proposal, developed over the course of this spring with widespread community input, now calls for the board, council and mayor to jointly support a resolution to proceed with three simple collaborative steps:

Establishing quarterly meetings between School Board, City Council, mayor and city administration, and RPS administration;

Creating a Richmond Childrens Cabinet of agency leaders and key staff within the city who have direct impact on children and families to meet on a regular basis with RPS officials on matters of common concern; and

Establishing an Education Compact Team consisting of administrative leaders in the city and RPS, City Council and School Board representatives, and a diverse group of community stakeholders including teachers and parents. This team will be an advisory group, charged with making nonbinding policy recommendations on some of the toughest issues facing Richmond, such as adequately funding school facilities.

The aim of this work is to both address the critical needs of RPS and to expand partnerships and support services benefiting children from early childhood to early adulthood.

Adopting the Education Compact now will be a huge benefit to the School Board as it seeks to recruit its next superintendent. It will send the signal to prospective candidates that the mayor and City Council are serious about working with the School Board and school administration to tackle the hard problems. It also will send the message to funders  from local grant makers to the General Assembly  that Richmond leaders are finally on the same page.

As Virginias secretary of education in 2014, I joined with colleagues to establish a Childrens Cabinet, facilitating the same kind of inter-agency work across education, human services, juvenile justice and other child-serving entities at the state level.

I have learned in my decades of public service that theres never a perfect time to start a major initiative, and always a thousand imagined reasons why we should wait. But Ive also learned that theres no bad time to start doing the right thing. Starting now will move us closer to real solutions, and help create a positive, community-wide framework to support the work of the next superintendent.

The cooperative spirit between city and schools leadership embodied in the RVA Education Compact is the best chance I have seen in decades to advance the needs of all children here in Richmond. I urge the School Board and City Council to ratify the RVA Education Compact  and ask all Richmonders to roll up our sleeves to help make sure all our children succeed.
By Press Trust of India: London, Jun 18 (PTI) Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient, forgotten city in Ethiopia that unveils the origin of Islam in the country and its trade relations with India between the 10th and early 15th centuries.

A dig of Harlaa - a city 120 kilometres (km) from the Red Sea coast and 300 km from Addis Adaba - revealed a 12th- century mosque, evidence of Islamic burials and headstones, glass vessel fragments, rock crystal,glass beads, imported cowry shells and pottery from Madagascar, Maldives, Yemen and China.

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The architecture of the mosque is similar to those found in Southern Tanzania and Somaliland, showing connections between different Islamic communities in Africa, researchers said.

"This discovery revolutionises our understanding of trade in an archaeologically neglected part of Ethiopia. What we have found shows this area was the centre of trade in that region," said Timothy Insoll, professor at University of Exeter in the UK.

The settlement, which is around 500 metres by 1,000 metres has buildings and walls constructed with large stone blocks ? leading people to assume only those with enormous stature or strength could have built it.

The size of some of the building stones found created a local legend that the area had been home to giants.

"The archaeological findings suggest this place was home to a very mixed community. Farmers had been finding strange objects, including Chinese coins, as they were working on their land, and a legend began that the area was home to giants," researchers said.

The team also found bronze and silver coins from 13th- century Egypt. The remains found suggest jewellers were making high-quality, delicate pieces in silver, bronze and semi- precious stones and glass beads.

They used some technology usually associated in that period with jewellers in India, suggesting trade or immigration from there to Harlaa, researchers said.

"We know jewellery was being made here for trading into the African interior, and materials to do this came in from the Red Sea, East African Coast and possibly India, but we dont know what was given in exchange for that jewellery," Insoll said.

The discoveries will be exhibited in a heritage centre. Some findings will be displayed in the countrys national museum in Addis Ababa. PTI APA MHN MHN

--- ENDS ---
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
Bedford is getting its first brewery this week, and it's going to be a big one.

Beale's, named after the local legend of a missing treasure, will open Saturday in a 12,000-square-foot space at 510 Grove St. and will include a 30-barrel production facility, a taproom and a kitchen with a full-service restaurant. It will have an indoor capacity of about 86 people and will feature an outdoor space for an additional 60 people and a stage.

The project has been in the works since October 2015. Dave McCormack, a Petersburg-based developer, approached town officials about the idea of creating a brewery. McCormack also opened loft apartments in Bedford a few years ago.

The brewery received a $600,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development and a combination of federal and state historic tax credits since it's going into a historic property. The building formerly housed the Hampton Looms woolen mill and later Frank Chervan furniture.

It will create up to 30 new jobs, according to a news release.

The brewery's flagship beer, Beale's Gold, a German lager, is one of several aspects of the business playing homage to the local legend.

"Craft beer has become so complex and heady in the last few years," McCormack said in the release. "At Beale's we're going in the opposite direction, creating approachable, low ABV beers that everyone can enjoy."

The brewery plans to distribute its beer locally later this summer. A full restaurant will also be on site, with lots of barbecue on the menu as well as sausage, turkey, snacks, sandwiches and desserts. It will be open Wednesday to Friday nights for dinner, Saturday from noon to 10 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 7 p.m.

Beale's will be dog-friendly and offer plenty of communal seating space, live music and games. Town officials hope the project, a more than $2 million investment, will bring new visitors to Bedford.

"Not only will guests enjoy handcrafted beer and food, but they'll also experience folklore that shaped our community's character and history, " Bedford economic development director Traci Blido said.
Perry 60th Anniversary Lawrence E. "Larry" and Joanne Stinson Perry will celebrate their 60th Wedding Anniversary on June 21, 2017. Their life of devotion to one another was honored with a special family gathering hosted by their children. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. We love you!
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has demanded that GSTN be nationalised and SIT be set up for rolling out the Goods and Services Tax.

By India Today Web Desk: BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has demanded that a special implementation team be set up for timely roll out of the Goods and Services Tax. Swamy also said that the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) be nationalised and brought under full control of the government.

"The PM should constitute a Special Implementation Team (SIT) to see that a healthy and nationally secure GST can be set up in the economy," Subramanian Swamy tweeted.

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Swamy further demanded that the chairman of the GSTN be sacked. The GSTN is a private limited company tasked with providing technological support for roll out of the GST.

In a tweet, Subramanian Swamy said, "I demand Union Government nationalise GSTN and sack the Chairman GSTN for this monumental fiasco of being unable to active it by July 1."

I demand Union Government nationalise GSTN and sack the Chairman GSTN for this monumental fiasco of being unable to active it by July 1- Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 18, 2017

Swamy's comments follow a letter by the business chamber Assocham to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The Assocham wants that the GST roll out be deferred.

Assocham has referred to some media reports quoting the GSTN CEO Prakash Kumar as saying that "GSTN will not be fully operational on the 1st of July 2017."

The Assocham letter further reads, "This being the status of preparedness of GST Network, the taxpayers would find it very difficult to comply with GST requirement from 1st July 2017."

Questioning the GSTN CEO's reported remark, Subramanian Swamy demanded that accountability be fixed for "this monumental fiasco."

Swamy's another tweet read, "Has Infosys announced that GSTN will not be ready before July 1st. Who is accountable for this if true?"

Has Infosys announced that GSTN will not be ready before July 1st. Who is accountable for this if true?- Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 18, 2017

GSTN, a non-government, private limited company, was incorporated on March 28, 2013.

The Government of India holds 24.5 per cent equity in GSTN and all States, including NCT of Delhi and Puducherry, and the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers, together hold another 24.5 per cent.

The balance 51 per cent equity is with non-government financial institutions - HDFC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, NSE Strategic Investment Co and LIC Housing Finance Ltd.

GST'S INFOSYS CONNECTION

GSTN is responsible for providing the technology backbone to introduce GST and connect the databases of states and the centre.

To provide IT backbone for GST, the GSTN gave a Rs 1,380 crore contact to Infosys, which is tasked with building and maintaining technology network for the proposed new indirect tax system.

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The information technology system that the Infosys is working will allow taxpayers to register themselves and file tax returns online.

The same IT system will also allow collation of data by a nodal agency and disseminated to the state tax departments.

The government hopes that this IT system will prevent tax evasion and widen the tax base. But, the functioning of the GSTN has been questioned several times in the past.

This is not the first time that BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has raised concerns with regard to GSTN. Even in the past, Swamy questioned the shareholding pattern of the GSTN saying that it might compromise data security.

ALSO READ |

Subramanian Swamy fears GST could be Narendra Modi's Waterloo: A fact check

GST revised: Tax reduced on 66 items, says Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

What is the GST bill? Here's all you need to know about India's biggest tax reform

GST Bill: How goods and services tax regime will impact your life

Civil aviation ministry wants Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to defer GST roll-out

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ALSO WATCH | GST rates finalised: Hits and misses for common man

--- ENDS ---
CHARLOTTESVILLE  This year, the University of Virginia could reach a milestone: its on pace to receive more money from private donations than from the state. Thats highly unusual for a large state university.

The administration, under President Teresa Sullivan, sees it as a positive sign that its fundraising efforts  spurred, in part, by declining state funding on a per-student basis  are working.

At a board of visitors meeting earlier this month, Melody Bianchetto, the vice president for finance, reminded board members that the university is lucky enough to have a steady stream of philanthropic income  more than $150 million in operating money projected over the next year.

Not many public universities can say that, she said.

But if the trend continues, it could have greater long-term implications. The state traditionally holds the purse strings for public universities, giving it a lot of power, both implicit and explicit, over college administrators.

State politicians, responding to their constituents, usually push universities to keep tuition low and limit the number of spots given to nonresident students.

This year, pressure from the General Assembly was enough to make UVa set aside some of the $2 billion Strategic Investment Fund for financial aid and increase its in-state enrollment.

But legislators might have less influence in the future as UVa relies more on private donations to cover operating costs and less on state appropriations, said Dustin Weeden, who analyzes higher-education issues at the National Conference for State Legislators.

Youre more responsive to the goals of the people who give you your revenue, Weeden said. There are a whole host of concerns private donors have that are different from the goals of the state.

Private donors tend to favor things like new facilities and research, which could benefit the state in other ways, but not necessarily in the way public universities traditionally benefit the state: with affordable undergraduate degrees for in-state students.

Public institutions cant completely shrug it off, Weeden said. But I think they push for more autonomy and control over their own operations.

Greg Weatherford, a spokesman for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, said UVas relationship with the state shouldnt change substantially.

But the university may have more flexibility to spend money as administrators see fit, Weatherford added. This is a good thing, he said, because it will allow the university to think creatively and try new things.

UVa  as well as a handful of other large public universities in the state  has gained more autonomy since reaching a restructuring deal in 2005. The deal allowed the largest universities more freedom to, among other things, set their own tuition and fees.

In return, the universities would fulfill a list of goals set by then-Gov. Mark Warner, also known as the state ask. Some of these goals are specific, such as increasing the number of college graduates and degrees in science, technology, engineering and math.

Others are more vague, such as affordability and access.

The 2005 deal was a turning point, said James Bacon, a journalist, former Roanoke Times reporter and UVa alumnus who often writes about Virginia higher education on his blog, Bacons Rebellion.

Bacon said UVa and other institutions classified as tier 3, such as the College of William and Mary, have almost complete freedom to operate in the way they want thanks to the restructuring act.

The tradeoff has already been made, he said. But I dont see UVa getting any additional autonomy over and above what theyve already got. Theres not a whole lot the state regulates anymore.

The vagueness of the language surrounding affordability and access has allowed UVa and William and Mary to become more like private schools  charging more for tuition and putting that money back into aid for lower-income students, Bacon said.

But the changes were understandable, he said, because of declining funding and contradictory demands from the public. Politicians and their constituents want them to take on more students who need financial aid while keeping tuition low.

Theyre under a lot of pressure to increase enrollment from lower-income and first-generation college students, he said. And those kids need scholarships.

Weatherford said UVa and William and Mary are experimenting with a new model  for state universities in Virginia  that may allow them to keep costs low in the long run.

One of the best things about being in Virginia is they have the flexibility to try that, he said.

Bacon said he doesnt think UVa wants to become a private institution. Even if this shift toward private funding continues, he said, the university takes seriously its duty to the public.

That impulse does exist  people would probably love to get rid of that General Assembly oversight and cut the strings, Bacon said. But at the end of the day, they want to be a state institution.
BLACKSBURG  The lone Virginia Tech student stranded in her home country since January by President Donald Trumps immigrant travel ban is back on campus.

Sarah Mostafavi, a 25-year-old engineering graduate student from Iran, was welcomed back to school at a reception June 5. But the temporary ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries caused her to miss a semester of her studies and has complicated her degree plan.

Mostafavi, who is about halfway through a masters degree in industrial and systems engineering, expressed gratitude to all the people who heard her story and did what they could to help, including Tech staff and administrators.

I had very good support from the university. It was unbelievable, Mostafavi said. That was very heartwarming thing for me. But the fact this was happening in the U.S., for me, that was kind of shocking.

She had to go through a lot, interim ISE department head Eileen Van Aken said. Visa delays are not unheard of, she added. But its rare for a student to miss an entire semester.

In the graduate school, visa problems were uncommon until the travel ban created uncertainty, Vice President for Graduate Education Karen DePauw wrote in an email. About a third of Tech graduate students come from other countries, and Iranian students are the third largest group, DePauw wrote.

University officials have said Mostafavi was the only Tech student kept out of the country by the ban, which was established by executive order on Jan. 27. The order barred people from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia from entering the U.S. for 90 days. It, and a revised executive order that removed Iraq from the list, have been halted by federal judges. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to decide whether or not to take up the issue.

Mostafavis problems began last year with intractable back pain, she said. She came to Tech from Iran in January 2016 to study and do research in the universitys top 10-ranked ISE department. She studies complex social systems, such as Airbnb, and how to make them work better.

Around May 2016, Mostafavi said, she began to suffer nerve pain in her back and leg. By November, she said, it was more than she could stand. She was diagnosed with focal disk herniation.

I had lots of injections, but they didnt help, Mostafavi said. I had to go back to Iran for a surgery. If it wasnt necessary, I wouldnt have gone back after Trump was chosen in the November election.

The presidents hard-line stance on immigration unnerved some international students and faculty and their advocates .

But, Mostafavi said she told herself it would be OK. She flew to Iran for treatment believing she would soon return. Knowing visa approvals can take time, Mostafavi said she contacted the embassy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Nov. 22 for permission to return to the U.S. after her treatment.

There is no American embassy in Iran, so applicants must work through a country with diplomatic ties to the U.S.

The embassy warned her that it would take a while. But she had previously been cleared for entry, and they foresaw no problems with her case. On Jan. 19, 2017, the embassy notified her that she could send her passport. It would then be stamped and her visa issued, she was told.

Then politics intervened.

Facebook plea

Mostafavi said she thinks her passport was delivered to the embassy hours before news that President Trump would sign the travel ban. On Jan. 31, her passport arrived back in Tehran, but it was not stamped.

Included was a form letter that she later posted to Facebook. It read, in part: Your application for a nonresident visa has been refused under section 212(f) of the United States Immigration and Nationality Act. There is no waiver available for cases refused under 212(f).

That statute gives presidents broad authority to restrict foreign travel or immigration to the U.S. to protect the national interest. To Mostafavi, it seemed she was being lumped in with terrorists.

I was shocked, she said. I am a student. I do no harm.

Growing increasingly alarmed, on Feb. 3, Mostafavi posted a plea to Facebook: What will happen to my house, my stuff, my office, my work, my studies and my life? she wrote. Nobody cares.

But people did care. The post has since been shared more than 1,600 times, and Tech officials went to work on her case.

Support came from the university counsels office  an arm of the state Attorney Generals office. Representatives of Techs graduate school and the ISE department reached out. Even strangers Mostafavi had never met offered encouragement.

That same day, Feb. 3, a U.S. federal judge halted the travel ban. Mostafavi immediately contacted the embassy to ask if she could send her passport again to get the visa. They said yes, and she mailed it back to Dubai on Feb. 9.

A month later, it was returned to her, still unstamped. Her visa was not just delayed, she learned. It had been canceled.

If she wanted to return to Tech, Mostafavi would have to start the visa process over from the beginning, including an in-person interview with an embassy official in Dubai. Getting it scheduled would take weeks, and help from the office of U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem. There were no guarantees. The travel ban could be reinstated at any time.

Meanwhile, Techs spring semester had begun on Jan. 17, and the missed class days ticked by.

Officials assist

Griffith, who represents Southwest Virginia, is a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and has been a hardliner on some parts of U.S. immigration policy. He declined through spokeswoman Jessica Paska to comment on Mostafavis case, citing privacy concerns. Paska wrote in an email that our office regularly assists constituents with visas, passports, etc.

Techs federal legislative liaison, David Tinsley, did not respond to messages seeking comment. But Mostafavi and some Tech administrators said Griffiths office did work on the case.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat who has argued in legal filings against the ban, wrote in a statement that his staff helped with Mostafavis visa problem.

We have been aware of her situation and several similar situations where Virginia students were unable to or feared not being able to return to Virginia to continue their research and studies, Herring wrote. We are actively working with our clients at all colleges and universities to stay on top of the effects of the ban and provide assistance as needed, as was done in this situation, according to the statement. Colleges and universities who welcome international students, faculty, and researchers are some of the most vulnerable entities to the significant harms that President Trumps ban would have.

DePauw, of the Tech graduate school, wrote in an email that if the ban is upheld it will have a chilling effect upon graduate student enrollment and we would not be able enroll highly qualified students from those countries.

Justice Department attorneys struggled during a federal hearing in March on the first version of the ban to show clear evidence of terrorist acts committed by travelers from the countries singled out in the order, according to reports from USA Today.

The revised ban points to risks posed by the extensive ties that each of the six countries have with terrorist organizations, from Irans support of terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas to ISIS activities in Libya to an al-Qaeda offshoot operating in Yemen, USA Today reported.

Perplexing policy

That perspective perplexes Tech professor Navid Ghaffarzadegan, an Iranian immigrant and Mostafavis academic advisor.

ISIS, the major terrorist group operating in the Middle East, is as much an enemy of Iran as it is of the U.S., he said. The group claimed responsibility for two deadly terrorist attacks earlier this month in Tehran, where such violence has been rare. Both Mostafavi and Ghaffarzadegan are from Tehran. They both said their friends and family were safe.

If reinstated, the revised travel ban could have a big impact on Iranian students.

According to data from the nonprofit International Education Exchange, which tracks international students studying in America, in 2015-16 there were 12,269 Iranians studying in the U.S. The other five countries included in Trumps revised executive order  Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia  had a total of 3,220 students in American colleges and universities that year.

Making it more difficult for Iranian students to come is a bad idea for the United States, the professor said.

I teach classes for undergraduates at Virginia Tech, and a high majority are Americans and are from Virginia, Ghaffarzadegan said. And I am helping the economic development of the area, training these individuals who are going to work in industry. This is a benefit we get from people from other countries who come here.

Ghaffarzadegan said Iranians of his generation have studied in the U.S. and gone on to jobs at American universities and large firms such as Apple.

Those who study in America and go home to Iran help foster friendship and cooperation between the two countries, he said. The travel ban and efforts like it can damage those ties, he added, and destroy the dreams of innocent young people who want to make a better life.

Repairing the damage

Eventually, Mostafavi was given a March 30 interview appointment at the U.S. embassy in Dubai. The interviewer remembered her, Mostafavi said, asked about her back pain and empathized with her bad luck.

But there were more struggles to come. While she waited to hear about her visa application, her U.S. bank blocked her account, making it difficult to pay rent on her Blacksburg apartment.

The problem? U.S. sanctions on Iran. Because her Blacksburg income was off limits to her in Tehran, to pay living expenses, Mostafavi said she took work as a private math tutor.

Youre just like crying and very nervous, saying this is my life and its almost ruined, Mostafavi said. I have a house. But they just say: Wait. Dear maam, just wait until further notice. 

Meanwhile, administrators and staff from both the graduate school and the ISE department kept in frequent contact with her. She credits their support with keeping her going despite the uncertainty.

I did not know [Graduate School Dean Karen] DePauw and people here before, but they were emailing me, Mostafavi said. They were constantly saying: Youre going to get your masters. Dont worry. Were going to make sure this will go as smoothly as we can.

We wanted to make her feel connected to the department, Van Aken of the ISE department said. We really tried to just reinforce that.

The Graduate School was very concerned that Sarahs return to the United States was delayed due to the timing of the actions around the travel ban and are so appreciative that she has returned safely to Blacksburg and VT, DePauw wrote in an email.

Still, the visa troubles have complicated Mostafavis degree plan. She had hoped to do a professional internship this summer, but she could not apply for such a job from Iran.

Mostafavi said she cant do an internship during the fall or spring semesters, when she will be taking courses.

Still, Mostafavi said, she will work hard to catch up on her research, and she is eager to get back to her studies in the fall.

I knew that I wanted to study here, and I was no harm to this environment. Im actually helping develop research, Mostafavi said. I will always remember: OK, stick with what you are doing.

Mostafavi said she respects the views of supporters of the travel ban.

This is a country where anybody can say anything that they want. Thats what makes it beautiful, she said.

But I think people should look more carefully, and look at all the aspects of something. Maybe your action has some consequences that you are not seeing right now.
Salman Khan had praised Sunil Grover and said he felt incompetent as an actor in front of him.

By India Today Web Desk: Salman Khan and his brother Sohail Khan had a great time on Super Night with Tubelight. The Sultan was seen holding his stomach to control his laughter during the acts by various comedians on the show.

In a recent interaction with Anupama Chopra, Salman Khan praised Sunil Grover and said that he felt incompetent as an actor front of him. He said, "He came a a doctor. He was not doing any comedy, he was just playing a character. Then he came as Mr. Bachchan. We both (Salman and Sohail Khan) thought that we are sitting in front of Mr. Bachchan," said the actor who was amazed with Sunil's acting skills.

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Sunil tweeted and expressed his gratitude. He wrote, "I think it's a dream. It's not real. Can't be. I have tears rolling while I am dreaming. Jag ghumeya thare jaisa na koi @BeingSalmanKhan."

I think it's a dream. It's not real. Can't be. ??? I have tears rolling while I am dreaming. Jag ghumeya thare jaisa na koi @BeingSalmanKhan ??? https://t.co/DFNS4vdkVL- Sunil Grover (@WhoSunilGrover) June 15, 2017

Sunil Grover was seen in his famous Dr. Mashoor Gulati, as Mr Amitabh Bachchan, a shape-shifting snake and a snake charmer.

Sunil Grover along with other former TKSS comedians Ali Asgar, Sugandha Mishra and Sanket Bhosale were back on TV with Super Night with Tubelight on Saturday. The show was a 2-hour special episode on Sony TV where Salman Khan promoted his Eid release Tubelight.

--- ENDS ---
Virginia voters delivered one clear, unmistakable message in last Tuesdays primaries.

It had nothing to do with Confederate statues or President Trump or natural gas pipelines or any other issue that was talked about during the campaigns.

It was this: Southwest and Southside Virginia are disenchanted with  and disconnected from  the rest of Virginia.

This was a theme that showed up in both the Democratic and Republican primaries governor and lieutenant governor.

Each of those four results was marked by the same thing: A stark divide between this part of the state and the urban crescent that runs from Northern Virginia to Richmond to Hampton Roads.

Lets be clear: This isnt simply a rural/urban divide. There are rural parts of the state in the east, too  principally east of Interstate 95. In three of the four statewide races (the Republican lieutenant governors race was the exception), those rural parts of the state generally voted the way the urban crescent did.

This is very much a split between Southwest and Southside Virginia and the rest of the state. In all four races, the winning candidate won in the urban crescent, the losing candidate won in this part of the state.

There might be extenuating circumstances to some of those contests. Or maybe not.

In the Democratic governors race, Tom Perriello won his old congressional district  the Southside-based 5th District  and parts of Western Virginia where natural gas pipelines are a big issue. He ran as an opponent of such pipelines. Still, that alone doesnt explain his strength in Southwest Virginia counties that are nowhere close to the pipeline routes. He took 65 percent in Bland County, for instance; 58 percent in Washington County.

Likewise, in the Republican governors race, Corey Stewart positioned himself to the right of Ed Gillespie  and it would be fair to say that Republican voters in Southside and Southwest Virginia are more conservative than their counterparts in, say, Alexandria and Arlington. Perhaps that explains why Stewart ran so strong in Southside and Southwest; his high point was Russell County, where he took nearly 75 percent of the vote.

On the other hand, are Republican voters in Southwest and Southside really more conservative than Republican voters in some of the rural counties along the Chesapeake Bay? Gillespie won most of those counties, often handily.

Comparable splits showed up in both the Democratic and Republican races for lieutenant governor, both of which lacked the sharply-delineated issues that marked the two gubernatorial contests.

A geographical split in a general election is not at all surprising. Rural areas tend to be more conservative, urban areas more liberal, so its natural that wed see a partisan split in November. But this isnt November. So why would this geographical split show up in all four party primaries?

Well advance a theory: Each of these results  be they on the Democratic side or the Republican side  underscore the same point. Southwest and Southside Virginia increasingly feel disconnected from the states governing class.

In both the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial primaries, voters in Southwest and Southside generally backed the most anti-establishment candidate available  Perriello and Stewart.

That theory may not hold up entirely on the two lieutenant governors races. Its hard to say that Justin Fairfax was an establishment candidate for the Democrats, but it is fair to say that he ran a more conventional campaign (mostly talking about workforce development) while Platt ran a more insurgent-style campaign that called for impeaching President Trump.

Likewise, on the Republican side, Jill Vogel ran as a more normal Republican; Bryce Reeves campaigned as a more hot-button candidate.

The result: Fairfax and Vogel won their respective races by winning big in the suburbs, especially Northern Virginia, while Platt and Reeves mostly dominated in Southwest and Southside.

Viewed that way then, heres what we see: Southwest and Southside feel so disenfranchised from Richmond that they instinctively went with the candidates most likely to disrupt existing norms.

On the Republican side: Rural voters east of Interstate 95 may be just as conservative as their counterparts in this part of the state, but they may not feel as disconnected from state government. On the Democratic side: Look at the unusual way that African-American voters in Roanoke differed from African-American voters in the urban crescent. Northam won 3-1 among black voters there, but in Roanoke, it was Perriello who carried the citys black precincts by nearly the same margin. On both sides, we are out of sync and out of step.

Our theory: These results are really a cry for help from Southwest and Southside Virginia, two parts of the state that have suffered most heavily from the economic dislocations of the past few decades.

The partisan nature of the general election likely will paper over this geographical disconnect in November. Conservative rural voters will back Gillespie simply because hes a Republican, even if he is Establishment Ed, as Stewart called him. Voters in the more liberal urban pockets of Southwest Virginia will vote Northam because, as liberals, why would they want Gillespie?

That means its these primaries  where partisan issues dont get in the way  where we can most clearly see just how disenchanted voters in Southwest and Southside Virginia are.

Geographical discontents are nothing new. Thats what led to the creation of West Virginia. Its what has led to secession movements in northern California, northern Colorado, eastern Washington and various other places. Some of those are easy to laugh at. Those pushing the State of Jefferson in northern California even have their own flag, with two black Xs  to signify how their part of the state feels double-crossed by the capital in Sacramento.

Reality check: Southwest and Southside Virginia arent going to secede politically from Virginia, but they have, in many ways, seceded emotionally. Or, more accurately, we feel like the rest of the state has seceded from us.

What do Ed Gillespie and Jill Vogel, Ralph Northam and Justin Fairfax  all of whom were essentially rejected by voters in this part of the state last Tuesday  have to say about that?
Director Siddharth Anand thinks Tiger Shroff is the apt choice to play Rambo as Hrithik Roshan didn't want to do another Hollywood remake after Bang Bang.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Hrithik Roshan would have been "great" to play the title role in the Indian remake of Hollywood film Rambo but the actor was not keen to do another remake after Bang Bang!, the official adaptation of Knight and Day, says director Siddharth Anand.

Siddharth had directed Hrithik in Bang Bang! and they share a good camaraderie. For the Rambo remake, the director roped in Tiger Shroff and feels he is the "apt choice".

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"Hrithik and I have an equation or a relationship which is of great trust and respect, and the fact is that we are constantly talking about doing something together. We almost did Fighter together, which eventually didn't happen last year," Siddharth told IANS over phone from Mumbai. "Also Hrithik would be really a great choice for a character like Rambo but he didn't want to do another remake after Knight and Day. So we're working on something else," added the director.

Siddharth has worked on two films each with Saif Ali Khan and Ranbir Kapoor back to back. His debut directorial Salaam Namaste and the following film Ta Ra Rum Pum was with Saif, while his subsequent projects Bachna Ae Haseeno and Anjaana Anjaani were with Ranbir.

So, one was hoping he would keep the pattern going with Hrithik after Bang Bang!

Siddharth said: "Hopefully, we will have something to do together very soon. Rambo is not that. I chat with Hrithik on everything I do. He's one of the first people to know whenever I do something. He's more like an elder brother to me."

He spoke about casting an actor for the desi Rambo.

"After we completed the script, we deliberated a lot on the casting. It could draw a lot of polarised opinion on the casting because you take Sylvester Stallone and say this guy is going to portray a character immortalised by Stallone. It's too big a shoe to fill in, too big a responsibility," said the Anjaana Anjaani director.

"And so we had to get somebody who would be the apt choice. I was certain I wanted a young boy for it. Tiger felt just a natural choice for us. Fortunately, he loved it and came on board," he added.

The audience can look forward to some high-octane action from the movie, which is likely to go on floors in February 2018.

ALSO READ | Rambo remake: 5 reasons Tiger Shroff is the best choice to play desi Stallone

ALSO READ |Rumoured lovers Tiger Shroff and Disha Patani to come together for Baaghi 2

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ALSO WATCH | A Flying Jatt: When Tiger and Nathan had a face-off on stage

--- ENDS ---
MS Dhoni scored only 4 from 16 deliveries while Ravindra Jadeja finished with 0/ 67 and scored only 15 as India were thrashed by 180 runs in the final of the ICC Champions Trophy.

By Jepher Christopher Nickels: India on Sunday surrendered the ICC Champions Trophy to Pakistan after they were crushed by 180 runs in the final of the elite tournament at The Oval.

Put into bat, Pakistan rode of a brilliant maiden century by Fakhar Zaman (114) and twin half-centuries by Azhar Ali (59) and Mohammad Hafeez (57 not out) to post a mammoth 338/4 in 50 overs. (ICC Champions Trophy Final: Virat Kohli's overconfidence in run chases played into Pakistan's hands)

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In reply, India's chase never took off and they kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Mohammad Amir rattled the famed Indian top order before Shadab Khan and Hasan Ali chipped in with crucial breakthroughs to complete Pakistan's big win. (Price of Virat Kohli's rift with Anil Kumble: Heavy defeat vs Pakistan in Champions Trophy final)

Regarded as one of the best bowling attacks in the world, India bowlers were beaten all over the park as Pakistan posted a record total at the ICC Champions Trophy final.

BOWLING FAILURE

Jasprit Bumrah's No Ball had denied India centurion Fakhar's wicket. The Pakistan opener was on 3 when he edged one to keeper MS Dhoni off a no ball. He then went onto score his maiden century scoring 114 106 balls, laced with 12 fours and three sixes. (India superstars fail to walk the talk, surrender meekly to Pakistan: Are MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh good enough to play overseas?)

Ravichandran Ashwin, who missed the first couple matches, too proved expensive. He finished with 0/70 registering his worst bowling figures in his 108-match ODI career. Ashwin played three matches and managed to pick only one wicket from 29 overs.

Ravindra Jadeja was the player of the match when India beat England in the 2013 final. However, he was poor with the ball on Sunday returning with figures of none of 67 from his eight overs. He picked up four wickets from five matches in this edition. (India vs Pakistan, turning points: Jasprit Bumrah's costly no-ball, Virat Kohli's failure vs Amir)

BATSMEN FLOP

India's top three batsman - Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, and captain Virat Kohli - came to the final having combined for 874 runs, more than 80 percent of the team's tally in the tournament.

But Rohit was out for a duck off the third ball, Kohli went for 5, and Dhawan, the player of the 2013 and 2017 tournaments, was out for 21. (Champions Trophy Final: Pakistan were more intense and passionate than India, says Virat Kohli)

Pakistan pacer Mohammad Amir tore India apart in the first nine overs to set up Pakistan's maiden title glory at the Champions Trophy.

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Yuvraj Singh played some beautiful shots but was trapped leg before by Shadab Khan for 21. ('Congratulations Pakistan' tweets Virender Sehwag after India surrender Champions Trophy crown)

Dhoni gave up the limited-overs captaincy in January to concentrate on his batting. He was given the freedom to bat higher up the order and express himself. In January, he proved his worth by smashing his 10 hundred in a must-win game for India against England in an ODI series. Dhoni, who has taken India over the line many a times, succumbed to pressure failing to counter a short-pitched ball by Hasan Ali.

(AP Photo)

Dhoni did not have much game-time in the tournament. He batted once, against Sri Lanka and scored 63 but looked clueless against Pakistan in the final. Post India's defeat, security was beefed up at Dhoni's residence in Ranchi.

Hardik Pandya played a knock of a lone ranger but by then the match was over for India. He hit some lusty blows for his 76 off 43 balls but a poor communication with his partner Ravindra Jadeja ended his innings.

Jadeja was the villain in that run out. Jadeja tapped it towards the cover region. Hardik Pandya felt that there was a run and he started running. Mohammad Hafeez collected it quickly and threw it back to Hasan Ali who dislodged the bails. Jadeja did not even try running as he was in his crease. The replays showed that Jadeja took a couple of steps ahead and then turned back.

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Soon Jadeja too followed suit with 15 off 26 balls. He is yet to prove his credentials with the bat in the 50-overs format.

Moments later it was all over for India as Pakistan recorded a massive win, their first ICC title since 2009 World Twenty20 crown.

--- ENDS ---
Japan will on Monday release May figures for imports, exports and trade balance, highlighting a light day for Asia-Pacific economic activity.

Imports are expected to rise 14.5 percent on year after gaining 15.1 percent in April. Exports are called higher by an annual 16.0 percent after gaining 7.5 percent in the previous month. The trade surplus is pegged at 43.3 billion yen, down from 481.7 billion yen a month earlier.

Australia will provide May numbers for new motor vehicle sales; in April, sales added 0.3 percent on month and 0.1 percent on year.

New Zealand will see May data for its services index, as well as Q2 data for the Westpac Consumer Confidence Index. In April, the services index had a score of 52.8, while the Westpac index was at 111.9 in Q1.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

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What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
This is Kidambi Srikanth's second consecutive Super Series final, after he reached the summit clash at Singapore Open where he lost to compatriot B Sai Praneeth.

By Abreshmina S Quadri: India's star shuttler Kidambi Srikanth will take on world number 47 Kazumasa Sakai of Japan in a bid to clinch his first Indonesia Super Series title on Sunday in the final of the men's singles event.

No Indian player has ever won the Indonesia Open and Srikanth will be looking to break the barrier.

Srikanth reached the final after a thrilling semi-final against world no.1 Son Wan Ho of Korea, which he won 21-15, 14-21, 24-22 in 73 minutes.

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Srikanth showed wonderful grit and determination against Wan Ho to put into practice his strategic attacking display but he earned the winning point with sheer instinctive defence.

On the other hand, the unseeded Sakai put an end to HS Prannoy's dream run in the tournament after he defeated the Indian 17-21, 28-26, 21-18 in an hour and 16 minutes to enter the summit showdown.

HS Prannoy, on his way to the semi-final, had defeated Malaysian legend Lee Chong Wei and Olympic champion Chen Long.

This is Srikanth's second consecutive Super Series final, after he reached the summit clash at Singapore Open where he lost to compatriot B Sai Praneeth.

If the world no.22 manages to win today, it will be his third Super Series title after he had notched up victories at the 2014 China Open and the 2015 India Open.

--- ENDS ---
Kidambi Srikanth eased through the match in straight games as he beat Japanese Kazumasa Sakai 21-11, 21-19 in the Indonesia Super Series final.

By Abreshmina S Quadri: Star shuttler Kidambi Srikanth became the first Indian to win the Indonesia Super Series on Sunday by defeating unseeded Kazumasa Sakai of Japan in the men's singles category.

Srikanth eased through the match in straight games as he beat Sakai 21-11, 21-19.

World no.22 Srikanth will rise to his career high ranking of world no.2 when the next BWF Rankings are released.

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Srikanth used net play very cleverly in the first game to his advantage. He made Sakai go back and forth and created attacking opportunities for himself.

The second game was much more of a battle as Sakai began anticipating Srikanth's shots well thus gaining an edge to go into the break with an 11-6 advantage.

Srikanth fought back well after the break and began to find angles to put Sakai in uncomfortable situations to make it 13-13.

It was neck-and-neck from there with both the players fighting hard for each point.

With Sakai taking the lead 19-18, Srikanth used quick attacking strokes to trouble Sakai and won three straight points to win the match.

This was Srikanth's second consecutive Super Series final, after he reached the summit clash at Singapore Open where he lost to compatriot B Sai Praneeth.

With the win, Srikanth clinched his third Super Series title after he had notched up victories at the 2014 China Open and the 2015 India Open.

--- ENDS ---
This dynamic helped Gov. Laura Kelly win reelection in Kansas

Gov. Laura Kelly won a second term in a historic win in the Kansas governor's race. Her performance in Johnson County helped deliver a narrow victory.
It was not immediately known why the militants targeted the civilian.

By Press Trust of India: Militants shot dead a civilian in Pulwama district of south Kashmir on Saturday night, police said.

Aijaz Ahmad Malik (27) was shot at and critically injured by militants outside his residence at Arrubugh in Pulwama around 10.30 PM, a police official said.

Malik was rushed to a hospital here for treatment but succumbed to injuries, the official added.

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It was not immediately known why the militants targeted the civilian, he said.

More details awaited.

--- ENDS ---
Dear Editor,

I write regarding your editorial titled With Absolute Power anything is Possible published on the Sunday Samoan of 11 June 2017.

For me the theme of your editorial, the beginning of a coalition between state and church and the involvement of the court system in matters relating to the free will and freedom of choice to choose their religion and beliefs.

The Bible records in Ephesians 6:12 NKJV For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Revelation 16:13, 14 NKJV predicts this movement of the principalities and powers and rulers of darkness to incite the kings (leaders) of the nations to war against Gods Kingdom in whom Samoa is founded.

And I saw three unclean spirits coming out of the mouth of the dragon (Satan Rev 12:9) out of the mouth of the beast (king & kings of nations Daniel 7:17,19,21) and out of the mouth of the false prophets ( Mathew 24:4-5) Verse 14 For they are spirit of demons which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of God almighty.

As Christian Protestants we learn from history from 538AD-1798 as a result of the state and church coalition the protestant Christians were very close to have been annihilated in that period called THE Dark ages.

It was by the millions Christians who hold firmly to the clear teachings of the inspired scriptures that were in the verge of genocide. The Inquisitions of the Protestant Christians (Revelation 13:11-15) also predicts before the second return of Jesus Christ this same coalition of state and church will be resurrected.

The United States of America will take the lead as predicted; A fact that cannot be denied at present is that it is the Christian coalition that voted the current president of the United States of America into office. To unite religious matters with state power is very dangerous and will result in a form of fundamentalism that is worse than the ISIS fundamentalist.

Revelation 13 Verse 11 says that I saw another beast (a nation Dan 7:17) Coming up out of the earth and he had two horns (symbolising 2 forms of political leadership democratic and republican)

Verse 14: Telling those who dwell on the earth (global influence) to make an image (to resurrect a persecuting power practised by the first beast that ruled politically and religiously since 538AD-1798AD)

Verse 15: That the image (the resurrected coalition) should both speak (legislate) and cause (law enforcement) as many as would not worship (fundamentalism) the image of the beast to be killed (inquisition persecution through the court of justice system and Judiciary authorities)

Note your quote from the AG in reference to what was said by the prime minister Tuilaepa that aligns with prophecy  when the bill was introduced Prime Minister Tuilaepa said the constitutions reference to Christianity was only in the Preamble, and this was inadequate.

In adequate in terms of how Samoa as a Christian state is not included in the body of the constitution and instead it is in the cover and because of that little anomaly, Tuilaepa reckons: this does not stand in court as it is not included in the body of the constitution.

Definitely this is a clear fulfilment of prophecy and the state is now taking step one to set the global stage in repeating history in terms of a new rise of a new form of fundamentalism where the whole world will be affected and will be worse than ISIS fundamentalism why? This is why a global sanction is predicted against those who stand for God in honour of his Kingdoms constitution the 10 moral laws (the ten commandment) and the Testimony of Jesus (The Bible and Bible alone)

Revelation 13:16,17 says He causes (enforce) all both small and great rich and poor, free and slave.

To either follow its laws or no one can or may buy or sell except one who has the mark (the approval) of the beast. It was food the Esau gave away his birth right- no man can live without food, watch it is a matter of life and death. As Joshua testifies: I choose to serve God.

Christian Protestants wake up Jesus Himself testified in Revelation 1:3  blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep (hold on) those things which are written in it; for the time is near.

According to Revelation prophecy final book of the Bible for a final generation: This is a global movement by all the nations constitution amendment is a stage now set to repeat the shedding of blood since the dark ages for those who choose to follow Jesus all the way in faith, pure faith. Faith in his death and resurrection, faith in his salvation through divine grace, faith in his divine judgement and his soon return, for He is at the door.

In closing no one can interfere with prophecy when the time is fulfilled; God can use the Observer to warn the leaders for such a move, for Gods chosen leaders are accountable to God, they are answerable for the laws they legislate and enforce which will result in the persecution and annihilation of Gods chosen people who keep his commandments and the testimony of Jesus Revelation 12:17

And for sure we are now living the fulfilled time of prophecy. Have a peaceful quality time with the creator God.

M.A Hunt.
The Police are hunting for missing government money.

A total of $50,000 was removed from the safe located inside the main office of the Samoa Land Corporation (S.L.C.) at Vaitele.

This was confirmed by the Acting Police Assistant Commissioner, Salaa Moananu, in response to questions from the Sunday Samoan.

He said the matter was reported to the Police on 3 June 2017.

According to the report provided by the Criminal Investigation Division, the matter was reported to the police around 4pm from the S.L.C. office in Vaitele, he said.

The missing amount includes cheques.

The matter was initially reported to the Faleata Police post. The C.I.D. was contacted to take over the investigation.

Salaa said the police have ruled out the possibility that it was a burglary incident.

Police officers have taken photos and have been to every door and window."

It is evident there is no sign of forced entry into the building to indicate that this was burglary.

According to Salaa three employees of S.L.C have been questioned by the Police.

In the meantime, the S.L.C. has requested for their auditors to conduct an internal investigation into the books, he said.

A report will be given to the police upon completion. But that will not stop the police from continuing their investigation."

This case is a priority.

He added that having the auditors would assist the police.

The I.O. [Investigating Officer] says this is a significant amount and the money was put into the money safe between 2pm to 4pm.

We are suspecting the money was borrowed from S.L.C. and it was put back into a safe and the same day it was stolen.

The Assistant Commissioner pointed out that the missing funds is government money and the police will exhort all options to find it.

Asked if the police suspect that this was an inside job, and Acting Assistant Commissioner responded, I cannot say its an inside job given that they are looking at suspects outside of the S.L.C.

Contacted for a comment, S.L.Cs Chief Executive Officer, Ulugia Petelo Kavesi, could not confirm or deny the report.

I cannot confirm, and I cannot comment. Ill have to wait for the report from police on their findings, he said.
A Fasitoo-tai family has praised the quick response by the fire fighters which saved their family home.

A vehicle had caught fire next to the familys home, threatening the entire property on Friday afternoon.

Luafata Alii Tuvili, the owner of the vehicle, said their white four door sedan was operating fine during the day.

After my son picked up our kids from school, the car was fine, he said.

I came out because we had a family that came over and to my surprise my car was on fire."

My children and neighbors came running with water buckets in an effort to eliminate the fire from spreading."

I managed to get into my other car that was parked right next to the burning car and moved it otherwise both of our family vehicles would be gone in the fire, said Luafata.

I am thankful for the quick response by our firefighters, they came exactly as the fire was spreading to the ceiling of the garage."

If it hadn't for them our family home wouldve been destroyed by the fire.

Luafata is thankful that no one was injured.

He reiterated that if had not been for the fire fighters his family would've been homeless.

I cant thank them enough, otherwise we would have no house for my children.

Samoa Observer arrived and the fire was under control.

There were four fire trucks at the scene with more than 10 firefighters and also Electrical Power Corporation employees.

Luatua suspects the fire was caused by shortage of wires from the fuses.

One fire fighter at the scene said they will conduct their investigation and a report will prepared for this incident.

Efforts to get a comment from the Fire and Emergency Services Authority Commissioner Lelevaga Faafouina Mupo were unsuccessful.
The man responsible for organising Tofiga Fepuleais first solo tour in Samoa is looking forward to a great show on Wednesday night. Etu Tusitala, better known as Sir Life, is behind E-Life Events, which is organising the premier of Tofigas new show, I Gant beliv it.

We are happy and excited to bring Tofiga Fepuleai for his first solo tour to Samoa, to motivate and empower our people through his extensive experience and charismatic personality, he told the Sunday Samoan.

Sir Life is particularly looking forward to Tofigas visits to schools and the chance to share his experience with Samoans.

I believe this is a vital time for our people to have this kind of event. He is a comedian of high profile, who has experienced success, was at the top but then everything was taken from him."

This realisation of no hope was real and it is the reality that some of our people are currently experiencing."

Yet through faith in God, with family support and determination, Tofiga was able to get back on his feet."

Tofigas past experiences, renewed spirit, charismatic personality and his new passion to empower and motivate people - all will bring much encouragement and hope to our people (including the youth).

But it would not be a Tofiga show without laughter.

Our Samoan culture embraces laughter and to have Tofiga share messages to both young and old in such joyful manner, I am convinced that this familiarity will have positive and successful outcomes.

Tofiga is scheduled to touch down in Samoa tonight.

On Wednesday at Taumeasina Island Resort, he will reveal his new I Gant Belive It show.

The one thing I will be emphasising during this visit to Samoa is the importance of surrounding yourself with good people, Tofiga said.

It doesn't matter the number of people you surround yourself with but the quality of people who have around you. Everyone goes through tough times and most of the time its the people you have around that can make the difference of whether you get back up or stay down.

What can people expect?

Ive had a couple of Shows in NZ so far with my Wellington Show just a couple of weeks ago. I premiered my "I Gan't belive it" show to a sellout crowd in Auckland in April.

The support and feedback from people who have seen the show has been overwhelming and humbling. And now Im going to be performing my solo show in Samoa and for me its a big thing.

I look forward to visiting Samoa to perform my show but most of all to be able to be more involved with projects focusing on young people in Samoa. Its been awesome to connect again with my good friend Etu Life to plan this trip to Samoa. Im looking forward to sharing some of my experiences and life lessons with the students at some of the local schools in Samoa.

WHAT: Tofiga Fepuleai

WHEN: Wednesday 21 June 2017, 7pm  10pm

WHERE: Taumeasina Island Resort

COST OF TICKETS: Standing Ticket $50 pax, Corporate Table 10pax - $2,500

HOW YOU CAN GET TICKETS: Radio Polynesia Savalalo, Taumeasina Island Resort and from Elife Events @ 7592000/7630844/7700388
Lecturer, TV presenter, Rotarian volunteer and former Miss Samoa New Zealand, Ronna Lee, is the new recipient of the Peace award conferred by the Universal Peace Federation (U.P.F.) International.

Ms. Lee, who is in Thailand this week, is Samoas representative for the Launch of Youth and Students for Peace (Y.S.P.) at the Thailand U.N. Centre.

Seti Atimalala Suafa, Secretary General of U.P.F. in Samoa said that he was tasked to choose a representative for the launch of Youth and Students for Peace.

Ms. Lee was among three nominees.

I chose Ronna Lee because of her Rotarian work and assistance for students at Alafua.

She is a kindred globally minded spirit who actively works to raise youth leaders of talent and ability who can contribute to a more prosperous Samoa.

I believe Ronnas Educator and Media skills can facilitate partnerships and synergy for Youth and Students for Peace (Y.S.P.) in Samoa.

According to Seti, they will work with Ms. Lee to create peacemaking projects within Samoa, the Oceania Region and globally.

There are hundreds of U.P.F. Ambassadors for Peace Alumni in Samoa - including Savea Malifa.

Since 2012 I have overseen the appointment of four new ambassadors for Peace for Samoa.

They are Her Highness Masiofo Filifilia Tamasese (during 2014 Leaders World Summit in Seoul Korea), Louisa Apelu then A.C.E.O. for Ministry of Women and Youth (International Leadership Conference in Sydney2015) and earlier this year M.P.s Victor Tamapua and Tafua Michael Tafua (World Leaders Summit Seoul Korea).

Youth Ambassadors for Peace are people whose lives exemplify the ideal of living for the sake of others and who dedicate themselves to process which promote universal moral values, strong family life, interreligious cooperation, international harmony, renewal of the United Nations, a responsible public media and the establishment of a culture of peace.

Transcending racial, national and religious barriers, Youth Ambassadors for Peace contribute to the fulfillment of the hope of all ages, a unified world of peace wherein the spiritual and material dimness of; life are harmonised.
The Ambassador of Japan to Samoa, Shinya Aoki, is a chief of Fusi Safotulafai.

Yesterday, he was bestowed the honorary chiefly title of Maugaoleatuolo o Salafai during a ceremony at the Malaefono o Fuifatu.

The men of the village led Maugaoleatuolo towards the place of the ceremony.

It was there that Pau Sefo Pau the high chief of the village greeted the new title holder.

During the official ceremony Pau told Maugaoleatuolo that he is now part of the village as well as the family.

You are the mountain and you are going to live on the top of the mountain, said Pau.

You are a part of the village and part of our family as well and so you need to help us as well. There is a need for a school building and also help the village with a hospital as well.

Give the young boys and girls of the village good education and send some doctors to Savaii.

Pau said the gesture continues Samoas growing relationship with Japan.

We have accepted Mr. Aoki to have a title bestowment here in Safotulafai because Japan has helped Samoa in so many developments and I knew that he can also help the village if he becomes a part of us.

Maugaoleatuolo o Salafai Shinya Aiko acknowledged the support of the matai as well as the chief of the village.

It is an honor to have been bestowed the chiefly title from Fusi Safotulafai, he said.

I will do my best to serve the country and look after the village of Safotulafai as they have given me this great honor of the high chiefly title.
Is there a chance that the tons of nuclear waste at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) could finally get moved to another location?

Prompted by a lawsuit filed by an advocacy group, confidential negotiations are under way that may be exploring just that possibility.

The plants majority owner, Southern California Edison, is meeting with representatives of East County-based Citizens Oversight after the two sides asked the judge presiding over the case to give them time to work out a potential settlement. According to the stipulation, the two sides must report back to the judge by July 14.

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Neither side is talking to reporters but the discussions provide an opportune time to review the details of how and why so much spent fuel ended up within sight of the Pacific Ocean in the first place and when and where it could be shipped.

How much nuclear waste is at the plant?

SONGS officials say there are 1,609 metric tons, which equals 3.55 million pounds.

Is that a lot?

It represents about 2 percent of the total amount of the spent fuel from all of the nations nuclear power plants, according to the most recent figures from the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group.

SONGS accounts for about half the amount of nuclear waste that has accumulated at plants in California.

The plant is operated by Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric has a 20 percent stake in the project.

What exactly is spent fuel?

Inside a nuclear reactor, enriched uranium sustains a series of controlled nuclear reactions that unleash quantities of energy that is converted to steam that drives turbines that generate electricity.

After about four to six years, nuclear fuel loses its efficiency and is considered spent.

But the spent fuel is still thermally hot and emits a great deal of radiation  enough to kill someone within minutes if that person is not adequately shielded  and remains radioactive for thousands of years because of the long half-lives of some of its radio-isotopes.

To keep the fuel cool, nuclear plant operators transfer the waste to what is called wet storage, where it is placed in a metal rack in a deep pool of water, typically for at least five years.

After the fuel has been cooled it may be transferred to a dry storage system.

SONGS hasnt produced electricity since January 2012 and there are 8.4 million people within a 50-mile radius of the plant. So why does its spent fuel stay on site?

Because, to put it bluntly, the federal government has dropped the ball. Under the Waste Policy Act, passed by Congress in 1982, the U.S. Department of Energy was given responsibility for the long-term storage of nuclear waste.

In order to pay for the transfer of waste from various sites across the country, a Nuclear Waste Fund was established. Ratepayers from areas powered by nuclear plants paid fees of about 15 to 20 cents per month on their utility bills. The money built up over the years and is now worthat least $35.8 billion.

The government had promised to start accepting spent fuel in 1998 but the feds failed to come up with a permanent site to put the nations waste. As a result, a 2014 court ruling ordered DOE to stop collecting the fees from electricity customers.

As for the waste at SONGS, the California Coastal Commission in October 2015 approved a 20-year permit for Edison to expand a storage system that will eventually see all the plants waste stored in heavy, dry casks.

Why not send spent fuel to Yucca Mountain?

That was the original plan.

The government spent anywhere between $9 billion and $15 billion to build the repository that would store the fuel deep underground in the Nevada desert, about 100 miles from Las Vegas.

From the moment Yucca Mountain was first discussed on Capitol Hill back in the 1980s, lawmakers in Nevada fought against it. Nonetheless, the Department of Energy recommended opening Yucca and in 2002 the site was approved by then-President George W. Bush.

But the Obama administration cut funding for Yucca Mountain, delighting Nevadas Harry Reid, who became the Senate Majority Leader after the 2008 elections.

Now, however, there are indications that Yucca is back on the table.

The Trump administration has called for spending $120 million on storage projects that include reviving Yucca Mountain.

On April 27, the IHS Energy Daily, a trade publication, reported that a longtime contractor at Yucca sent out a memo saying the contractor anticipates having to supply 350 engineers for a potential re-start of the site.

But resurrecting Yucca Mountain figures to be a time-consuming process.

Rep. John Shimkus, R-Illinois, has put together a draft bill in the U.S. House of Representatives aimed at clearing the way to bring Yucca back.

But after taking a tour of SONGS earlier this year, when reporters asked Shimkus how long people will have to wait before spent fuel gets shipped out of San Onofre, he said, Just say a long time  a lot longer than you really hope, Ill be honest with you.

If Yucca Mountain came back online, is it big enough to handle all the nations nuclear waste?

Yes and no.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the repository was designed to hold 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste with 63,000 metric tons reserved for commercial waste. The total amount of waste from nuclear plants across the country has reached 78,590 and the industry adds about 2,200 tons each year. So in that respect, Yucca by itself would not be big enough to house all the nations spent fuel.

But the Nuclear Energy Institute says the 70,000-ton limit is not a design constraint but a restriction that was legislatively imposed. Originally, Congress envisioned the construction of not one (Yucca Mountain) but two national repositories and wanted to make sure the nations nuclear waste would be equitably distributed between them.

NEI officials say Yucca Mountain could safely accommodate four to nine times the 70,000 figure.

Arent there other places where it can be sent?

Under what is called consolidated interim storage, sites would be built in relatively isolated locations  provided they have consent from local communities  where multiple nuclear plants could send their waste.

Two sites have been discussed.

One is in a sparsely populated area in West Texas, operated by a company called Waste Control Specialists. The facility stores low-level radioactive waste and the company wants to dramatically expand the site, which has a 14,000-acre footprint.

But two months ago the company in charge of the project put its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on hold due to financial problems.

Waste Control Specialists executives had earlier discussed constructing the facility by 2019 but suspending the NRCs review of the application will almost certainly delay the project, if it ever gets built.

The other possible site is in eastern New Mexico and it would be a big one  proposed to hold about 120,000 metric tons of waste. Representatives of the project appeared at the most recent San Onofre engagement panel and said the plan has the support of local governments.

One persons waste is another persons most valuable possession, said John Heaton, chairman of the New Mexico group, called the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance.

The contingent said if the project is approved, it could go online in as soon as five years  a quick turnaround when it comes to the slow pace associated with the bureaucracy and construction time associated with nuclear projects.

Theres a third site on the radar screen as well.

Former San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre has lobbied for moving SONGS waste to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona, located about 50 miles from Phoenix.

Aguirre says its a logical place because SONGS operator, Southern California Edison, is a part-owner at Palo Verde, with a 15.8 percent stake.

But last summer, a public affairs officer at the NRC told the Union-Tribune the Arizona facility uses a different storage design than SONGS and an evaluation would need to be made to see if that can be resolved.

Aguirre is the lead attorney for Citizens Oversight in the groups legal fight challenging the controversial 2015 ruling by the Coastal Commission.

Who does the waste belong to  the federal government or Southern California Edison?

The spent fuel is the responsibility of Southern California Edison but according to the details of the Waste Policy Act, the waste eventually will be handed over to the U.S. Department of Energy. The agency takes title at the gate when the fuel leaves the site and owns it from that point on.

Do other nuclear power plants store their waste on-site like SONGS does?

Yes, since the federal government has not come up with a site to deposit spent fuel.

Does SONGS have the most spent fuel on site of any other plant in the country?

Not the most, but its in the top 10.

Every three years the U.S. government issues a report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on radioactive waste management. In its most recent report in September 2014, the government listed the inventory of spent fuel at each of 74 sites across the country.

According to from the report, San Onofre had 1,656 metric tons of spent fuel, which would place it in seventh place:

Lets say the federal government magically found a place to deposit nuclear waste. Would SONGS waste be the first on the list?

Thats a good question. There appears to be a lack of clarity when it comes to determining which spent fuel from which site goes to the front of the line.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has what is called an Acceptance Priority Ranking that essentially gives the nod to the oldest fuel that has been discharged from a particular location. Its called the oldest fuel first principle.

But David Victor, the chairman of the Community Engagement Panel at SONGS said in an email that there is no hard and fast rule  in fact, no clear rules on ordering of shipments.

The Nuclear Energy Institute said theres a provision in DOEs contracts with reactor owners that allows the department  if it chooses  to ignore the priority ranking to expedite removal of fuel from plants that are shut down.

SONGS is one of 14 sites in shutdown mode.

Given that SONGS has a relatively large amount of spent fuel hugging the Pacific Ocean and is located in such a densely-populated area with a history of seismic activity, locals insist SONGS waste should get priority.

Stranded fuel that is near people and environmental hazards must have the priority for being moved, said Marni Magda, the Sierra Club representative on the SONGS Community Engagement Panel.

The Union-Tribune emailed DOEs public affairs officer twice, requesting a brief interview about the oldest fuel first policy but was told there were no officials available.

Where, exactly, is the spent fuel at SONGS?

At San Onofre, the rods in wet storage are placed in a concrete structure 40 feet deep that is lined with steel and filled with water.

Edison plans to take the fuel assemblies currently in wet storage and move them into 73 dry storage canisters. The transfer process has not yet started but is scheduled to be completed by 2019.

There are already 50 canisters of spent fuel that are stored on site  33 contain waste from Units 2 and 3 and 17 canisters store spent fuel from Unit 1.

The nuclear industry loves long, awkward acronyms and the 50 canisters of used fuel sit horizontally on a site called an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI).

The ISFSI site sits atop portions of what used to be Unit 1. The 73 canisters that Edison plans to transfer from wet to dry storage will go into vertical casks on a site now under construction, just in front of the ISFSI location, behind a seawall 28 feet high.

Construction is underway at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station for a storage site that will house spent nuclear fuel canisters in 2019. In the foreground is the storage site for 50 canisters that have already been placed on site. Photo from May 9, 2017. ((Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) )

Activists have long warned of the casks leaking, and have worried SONGS is vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes, a Fukushima-type tsunami or a terrorist strike but Edison officials insist the site is safe.

If it could be moved immediately, can it?

Some of the waste at SONGS could be shipped out tomorrow, theoretically. But a lot of it will have to wait.

Edison officials say about half of the 33 canisters from Units 2 and 3 can be shipped out today and all of them will be cleared and licensed by the NRC to move by 2020.

Of the 73 canisters scheduled to get transferred from wet storage to dry casks, Edison estimates that 68 of the 73 canisters would be ready to be moved as early as 2020. Of the remaining five, two will be eligible in 2022, two in 2023 and one in 2028.

The 17 canisters of Unit 1 waste have to sit longer, though.

Unit 1 shut down in 1992 and Edison officials say the reactors fuel rods were made of stainless steel, the technology of the time. The fuel needs to cool for 38 years before transportation. The fuel pellets sit inside the stainless steel rods.

Two canisters of Unit 1 waste will be eligible to be transported in 2018 and the remainder will be ready through 2030.

If a site existed, how would SONGS waste be moved?

Most likely, by rail. When loaded, the casks at San Onofre weigh up to 50 tons and the Nuclear Energy Institute said they may be too big to fit on trucks.

Who would move the spent fuel?

The Department of Energy would be responsible for transport and would most likely contract with a private firm with experience in moving nuclear waste. Last year, the president of an international company that specializes in nuclear transportation delivered a presentation at a SONGS community panel.

I can move that stuff, said Jack Edlow, the president of Edlow International. Its not that difficult.

Will there come a day when there will be no trace of the nuclear plant at San Onofre?

Edison officials have set a target date of end of 2032 to remove nearly every remnant of the plant. The property would then return to the U.S. Navy, which owns the land.

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rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski
CITY COUNCILS

CARLSBAD

The Carlsbad City Council will meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday in council chambers at 1200 Carlsbad Village Drive, when the council will discuss a report on the revised draft of the Carlsbad Trails Master Plan.

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Public outreach for the citys new Arts & Culture Plan includes workshops at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Gowland Meeting Room, Carlsbad City Library complex, 1775 Dove Lane; and at noon Saturday at the Carlsbad Senior Center, 799 Pine Ave. Or fill out an online survey starting Friday at www.carlsbadca.gov/input. Email arts@carlsbadca.gov or call (760) 602-2090.

DEL MAR

The Del Mar City Council will meet at 4 p.m. Monday, two hours earlier than usual, in Suite 100 at 2010 Jimmy Durante Blvd. The council will consider adopting the 2017-18 and 2018-19 budget and council priorities, and a resolution adopting pay for staff and firefighters for 2017-18. The council will discuss the development of an ordinance for short term rentals, and one regulating the sale of dogs, cats, and rabbits. Also, the council has canceled its regularly scheduled July 3 meeting.

The Del Mar City Council is looking for five resident volunteers for its Measure Q Citizen Oversight Committee. The committee will review the revenue and expenditures related to the 1 percent transaction and use tax passed by Del Mar voters in 2016. Visit www.delmar.ca.us/611/Measure-Q-Citizen-Oversight-Committee.

ENCINITAS

The Encinitas City Council has canceled its regularly scheduled meeting for Wednesday.

ESCONDIDO

The Escondido City Council will meet in closed session to discuss labor negotiations at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in City Council Chambers, 201 N. Broadway. In regular session at 4:30 p.m., the council will give final approval to its 2017-18 through 2021-22 capital improvement plan and its 2017-18 CIP budgets, plus its Regional Transportation Improvement Program for 2016-17 through 2020-21.

OCEANSIDE

The Oceanside City Council will meet in closed session to discuss labor negotiations at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in City Council Chambers at 300 N. Coast Highway. In open session at 4:30 p.m., the council will consider permits for a wine tasting lounge at 322 W. Cleveland St.; will hold a third hearing on proposed districts for upcoming by-district elections; and will discuss an ordinance defining and banning loitering.

Oceansides Medical Marijuana Ad-hoc Committee will hold the first of seven meetings to discuss cultivation of medical marijuana at 2 p.m. Monday at the San Luis Rey Water Treatment Facility. The committee plans to hear from farmers who are growing medical marijuana, as well as representatives from the San Diego County Farm Bureau and residents of the Morro Hills agricultural area. RSVP online at goo.gl/wXtewO. For the full list of committee hearings, visit www.ci.oceanside.ca.us/services/comms/mmac.asp or email mmadhoc@ci.oceanside.ca.us.

POWAY

The Poway City Council will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Council Chambers, 13325 Civic Center Drive, for a hearing on its 2017-18 comprehensive financial plan; establish assessments for various landscaping and lighting maintenance districts; and review a plan for a mixed-use project on Poway Road with 40,000 square feet of commercial development and 53 residential units.

SAN MARCOS

The city of San Marcos will hold a second public workshop at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 1 Civic Center Drive, on the Brookfield proposal for a development of 220 condominium units on the southwest corner of South Twin Oaks Valley Road. Contact Art Pinon in the Planning Division at (760) 744-1050, ext. 3234, or email apinon@san-marcos.net.

SOLANA BEACH

The city of Solana Beach has an opening on its Parks and Recreation Commission. Applications are being accepted until 5:30 p.m. July 3. Find applications and information on the commissions at www.cityofsolanabeach.org or at City Hall, 635 S. Highway 101. Call (858) 720-2400.

SCHOOL DISTRICTS

CARLSBAD

The Carlsbad Unified School District board is scheduled to meet in closed session to discuss litigation and labor negotiations at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the district office, 6225 El Camino Real, and in open session at 6 p.m. for a public workshop considering proposed district maps for the upcoming switch to by-district trustee elections. View the maps at https://goo.gl/gzgVCV. The council will also give final approval to its Local Control and Accountability Plan for 2017-18, and its 2017-18 budget; and will approve a tentative agreement with the Carlsbad Unified Teachers Association.

ENCINITAS

The Encinitas Union School District board is scheduled to meet in closed session at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the district office, 101 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road, and in open session at 6 p.m.

ESCONDIDO

The Escondido Union School District board will meet in closed session at 6 p.m. Thursday at the district office, 2310 Aldergrove Ave., and in open session at 7 p.m.

The Escondido Union High School District board will meet in closed session to discuss student discipline and litigation at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the district office, 302 N. Midway Drive. In open session at 6:30 p.m., the board will give final approval to its Local Control and Accountability Plan for 2017-18, and its 2017-18 budget, and hold a public hearing on its initial proposal to the Escondido Secondary Teachers Association for 2017-2018 negotiations.

FALLBROOK

The Fallbrook Union Elementary School District board will meet in closed session to discuss personnel at 5 p.m. Monday in Room 106 of the district office, 321 N. Iowa St. In open session at 6 p.m., the board will approve the 2017-2018 Local Control and Accountability Plan and the 2017-18 budget.

SAN DIEGUITO

The San Dieguito Union High School District board will meet in closed session to discuss student discipline at 6 p.m. Thursday at the district office, 710 Encinitas Blvd., Encinitas. In open session at 6:30 p.m. the board will give final approval to the districts 2017-2020 Local Control and Accountability Plan, and to its 2017-18 district budget.

SAN PASQUAL

The San Pasqual Union School District board is scheduled to meet in closed session to discuss negotiations and personnel at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Trussell Hall, 15305 Rockwood Road, Escondido. At 5:30 p.m. in open session, the board will consider approval of the Local Control Accountability Plan, and the 2017-18 budget; and will discuss the annual review of the superintendents contract.

VALLECITOS/RAINBOW

The Vallecitos School District board is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the district office, 5211 Fifth St., Rainbow, for final approval of its 2017-18 Local Control Accountability Plan and the 2017-18 proposed budget. The board will then go into closed session to discuss litigation and personnel.

VALLEY CENTER

The Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District board will meet in closed session to discuss personnel at 5 p.m. Monday at the district office, 28751 Cole Grade Road. In regular session at 6 p.m., the board will hold a hearing on the 2017-18 Local Control and Accountability Plan and on the 2017-18 budget; will consider the superintendents contract for the 2017-2018 school year; and will hear a report on the proposed Dual Enrollment Partnership Agreement with Palomar College for 2017-2020. The board will also hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Valley Center High School Multi-Media Center.

VISTA

The Vista Unified School District board is scheduled to meet in special session at 5 p.m. Thursday in the district board room, 1234 Arcadia Ave.

laura.groch@sduniontribune.com
After a string of young adult novels, including Dark Water, a finalist for the National Book Award, Coronado author Laura McNeal has written her first for grown-ups, The Practice House.

Set in the 1930s, partly in a small Kansas Dust Bowl town and partly in Fallbrook, the novel is a love story, an immigration tale, and a rumination on the meaning of home.

McNeal will be at the Coronado Library, 640 Orange Ave., for a reading on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

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Q: This is your first book for grown-ups. What if anything was different for you in writing it?

A: I felt that I could spend more time on the things that I enjoy in novels  the development of a place and a network of characters. I felt like I could slow down and go into more detail. And I was able to go into the point of view of more characters who are older than adolescence.

Q: What first got you thinking about the story?

A: It began with a visit to a Practice House on the campus of the old Fallbrook High School. I was doing research for a story for the San Diego Reader about the history of home economics at Fallbrook High School, and someone mentioned the Practice House. I called the school and asked if it still existed and it did.

It just was such an evocative idea to me  the idea that it would have been seen as an endangered set of skills in the 1930s. And just how embedded the art of housekeeping was in our culture. It wasnt something that people questioned as a social good. It was seen as an integral skill for girls to learn, so much so that they were going to build this house and have them practice keeping house.

Q: Did you grow up learning homemaking skills?

A: I did. My mother was a home ec teacher, and my family was and still is a Mormon family. Traditional ideas of what a woman should do and what a home should be like were very much at the center of my culture when I was growing up.

Q: What drew you to the time period of the Great Depression?

A: Its partly aesthetic, honestly. I loved the clothes and I loved the dishes and all of that. But its also, I think, a period like World War II where America seems like a place full of innocent people who are suffering and struggling and ultimately triumphing in a way that we can see as purely heroic.

And I did spend a lot of time when I was a child at my grandmothers house in rural Arizona in a place very much like the Dust Bowl. Those things and images, the photographs and the objects that my grandmother had, became associated with that time for me. I had a real emotional connection to them.

Q: The title seems to be about more than just an actual Practice House, that you are exploring in a wider sense the idea of home. What made you want to write about that?

A: Whenever I think about the title I remember that some of my happiest memories in childhood were playing house. I always loved the idea of making home from found objects and it seems to me as I was growing up I was practicing. How would I make a home for myself? How would I find a home for myself? I do believe that all of the female characters in the book are working that out for themselves.

Q: You have an interest in the good intentions of strangers, too  not just in this book but in some of your others.

A: I think it comes back to having had a very nurturing and benevolent religious childhood. I only met strangers and members of my church who ended up having the best intentions. They were kind. That sort of hope, that belief that you could go out in the world and if you were good and your intentions were good, you would usually be met with goodness. I think the idea of a benevolent God was part of that, too  that someone was looking out for you if you were good.

And I think the process of growing up is the process of learning that maybe thats not true. In fiction and certainly in my own life, I like to keep that alive as long as I can for the characters, and I do believe that is at work in the novel. There are a lot of kind strangers in the book.

Q: One of the main characters, Aldine, is an immigrant from Scotland. How did that play into your thinking?

A: I wanted her to really be at the mercy of strangers, and you are never more at the mercy of strangers than when you are a foreigner. I felt that someone coming from a very green, very rainy, very wet place would be even more overwhelmed by the conditions of the Dust Bowl  that it would make the difficulty even more pronounced.

I also thought that given how much we do love all British accents  theyre so charming to the American ear  that it would create a sense of welcome for her, while at the same time being an obstacle. A character who feels misunderstood is also more vulnerable.

Q: How long have you been working on the book?

A: Oh, my goodness. This really is one of those stories. I started writing the book when our youngest child was 2. He is now a senior in high school. It didnt take me that long to write, probably four years. My agent started sending it around, and it was rejected many times and revised.

Theres a lot of turnover in publishing and my agent just never gave up. She would go out to lunch with another person who was working as an editor at a house that had rejected it at some other point in time, and she would say, I have this book, and she would describe it. Finally she found an editor who loved it as much as she did. That is what it took.

I was depressed about it for a really long time. It was really hard for me. I felt like I had failed at the thing I had always wanted to do. So having the book finally get published has been very nice. It has restored my faith in my ability to keep writing.

Q: What do you hope people get out of reading it?

A: I do hope that people will look again at that time in history and take heart, I guess, in the strength of Americans to survive natural, political and financial disaster. And I think for me personally, I had only imagined people coming to California and being disillusioned. Those images of Okies and Arkies on the highways in California are really depressing. Theyre really sad. The idea that you would leave one terrible place only to discover that you were going to be poor and downtrodden again is not a very hopeful narrative.

But the lemon packing and orange growing industry in Southern California is a wonderful story of success. People who moved to those parts of California, like my husbands family (they farmed oranges in Orange County), they found this magical, beautiful place with trees that grew in the winter time. And I just loved finding that happiness for my characters. Its an alternative ending to that story of coming to California during the Depression.

The Practice House, by Laura McNeal, Little A, 482 pages.

john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-2236
Le Bourget Airport will become the aviation industrys catwalk beginning Monday, with more than 150 jets, choppers and drones expected to zoom over hundreds of thousands of fans and trade representatives at a week-long celebration  the International Paris Air Show.

Launched in 1909 and held every two years, the 52nd Salon International de lAeronautique et de lEspace is expected to shatter its record 2015 draw  2,303 exhibitor companies from 48 countries.

And if the team from San Diego-based Kratos Defense & Security Solutions in Booth 3-A118 has its way, the world will get a hint of what promises to become the most lethal unmanned aerial vehicles ever designed  the XQ-222 Valkyrie and UTAP-22 Mako, relatively cheap drones that could double as a fighter pilots expendable wingmen in future wars.

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Weve evolved the maturity of the design to the point where we feel comfortable rolling pieces of it out, said Steve Fendley, president of the unmanned systems division at Kratos.

The company wont fly prototypes of the two drones over Paris; the Valkyrie mock-up wont be built at the companys Sacramento facilities until early 2018, while the Mako remains a highly classified project.

But versions of the real things have been zooming across naval test ranges in Kern and Ventura counties for months.

To Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, showcasing the Kratos drones at Paris is another indication that San Diegos burgeoning UAV industry, paced by Poway-based General Atomics groundbreaking MQ-1 Predator, is an international force.

A lot of the expense of building aircraft comes from life support  keeping the pilot alive. If you take that out, you save a lot of money and you dont put people at risk, said Hunter, a former Marine officer who serves on the powerful House Armed Services Committee.

General Atomics also will attend the Paris Air Show, but the Predator is different from the Kratos drones. It cruises at under 100 miles per hour for up to an entire day as high as 25,000 feet above the ground, perfect for surveillance and precise attacks.

The highly maneuverable Kratos UAVs are being built to fly just under the speed of sound  nearly 700 miles per hour for the Mako and about 50 mph slower for the Valkyrie  and mimic the capabilities of jets like the Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier II.

With a length of 30 feet, the Valkyrie boasts a big bomb bay, the ability to climb twice as high in the sky as the Predator and a fuel range of nearly 3,500 miles. Thats about the distance between New York City and London. Its also twice the range of the U.S. Air Forces stealthy and lethal F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, but at a fraction of the sticker price.

Kratos created the Mako for a few million dollars from existing technology, Fendley said. The Valkyrie is a $41 million project, with $7 million of that funding coming from the Air Force and the rest from private investors.

Based on the workhorse line of target drones already built by Kratos for the armed forces, the Valkyrie and the Mako will retail between $2 million to $3 million each. Theyre cheap enough to be used in swarms orchestrated by, say, the pilot of an $85 million Joint Strike Fighter  a school of Makos, a flight of Valkyries.

Think about a manned aircraft if it came down under a parachute onto its nose and flopped down on the ground and we said we were going to fly it again this afternoon. It would be impossible. It would never happen. But these have been designed with that level of ruggedness and reusability, Fendley said.

Hunter said the role Congress plays in future UAV development isnt so much to sluice taxpayer money to companies like Kratos, but to enable these comparatively smaller businesses to get a fair shake from the Department of Defense when they challenge mammoth defense corporations for contracts.

We have to make sure that DoD gives them a shot and allows them to compete instead of just going to the big guy first, Hunter said. Or theyll tell Kratos that they have to partner with a Boeing if you want to do this. Thats not right.

In even-numbered years, aviation firms and fans flock to the ILA Berlin Air Show in Germany and the Farnborough International Airshow in southern Britain. The Paris show is the only major global aerospace event the rest of the time.

Southern California companies plan to pack a powerful punch in Paris, accounting for 41 businesses out the 387 American companies currently on the schedule to exhibit their products and services at Le Bourget.

Headquartered between Santa Barbara and San Diego, the delegation includes local companies like Cubic Corp.  maker of advanced air-combat training systems  and the Hi Tech Honeycomb factory located near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar that manufacturers intricate seals for gas turbine engines.

Cubics defense programs conduct business in 38 countries, so Paris serves as a biannual reunion of clients, suppliers and military forces worldwide.

Ive gone from being a customer to being a provider, said Cubics president, David Buf Buss, a former Navy Air Boss who set the services aviation policies and training requirements.

A career aviator, Buss flew an A-6 Intruder long-range attack jet at Farnborough two decades ago and will lead Cubics team at Booth 3-B158 this coming week.

His staff is slated to show off the Top Gun P5CTS training system. The device is designed to bridge the gap between a plane like the one Buss piloted and fifth-generation fighters such as the F-35A by simulating combat in a highly realistic way against increasingly capable rivals.

Instead of bombing insurgents in Iraq or Afghanistan who lack anti-air missiles, radar sensors and jets capable of shooting down American aircraft, Buss envisions future wars as potentially complex battles involving electronic weapons and fighter pilots capable of reviving rivalries unseen since the end of the Cold War. And they need a training system that matches the complicated aerial war they might face.

It would be disingenuous to say that in the past 15 to 16 years of combat  what U.S. forces have been involved in has been easy. But from an aviation perspective , its been a relatively benign environment, Buss said. The future fight is much more complex.

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cprine@sduniontribune.com
Kerala Chief Minister Pinayari Vijayan said that government has stepped up its sanitation drive with support from locals.

Women and children have succumbed to fever. Photo for representation: Reuters.

By Press Trust of India: With over 100 deaths being reported since January in Kerala due to various types of fevers, government today appealed to the people to join the its mass sanitation drive on a war footing.

According to Health Department sources, as many as 103 people, including women and children, have succumbed to various types of fevers including H1N1 and dengue from January till date.

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Of the total 103 deaths, 53 people have died of H1N1 and 13 due to dengue, the sources said.

THE CRISIS THAT HAS GRIPPED KERALA Breeding of mosquitoes due to piling of waste was considered to be prime reason for the spread of fever and other communicable diseases, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said, adding social hygiene was essential to keep diseases at bay. "Political party activists, representatives of local self government institutions and members of socio-cultural outfits and clubs should take part in the sanitation drive on war footing," he said in a statement. Stating that the government had already stepped up its sanitation drive with the support of local people, Vijayan said fever cases have reduced in those places where waste management and mosquito control measures have been implemented effectively. He said the government had ensured enough stock of essential medicines and the service of doctors in all government hospitals. Meanwhile, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala visited Vijayan at his official residence today and submitted a memorandum with some suggestions to tackle the crisis. He alleged that 117 people had died due to fever in the state since January. At least an average of 20,000 persons are arriving at state hospitals seeking treatment for fever. "Youngsters and children are succumbing to viral fever" and there was emergency situation, he said. Chennithala also said the health department had failed miserably in containing the fever and blamed state health minister K K Shailaja for not rising to the occasion. Refuting the charges, the health minister said the opposition was trying to gain political mileage from the situation. A united effort is needed to overcome the situation, she said in Kochi.

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Delhi adopts three-pronged strategy to fight 3-fold increase in dengue cases

H1N1 strikes Kerala ahead of monsoons, 36 people dead

--- ENDS ---
Memorial Day never meant that much to Dr. Bill Krissoff. Maybe hed catch a glimpse on TV of the president placing a wreath on a tomb at Arlington National Cemetery, but otherwise what the day said to him was that summer was almost here.

Then his son Nate, a first lieutenant in the Marines, was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

1st Lt. Nathan Krissoff, USMC during his deployment to Anbar Province, Iraq, 2006. photo courtesy Bill Krissoff

Krissoff closed his thriving orthopedic practice in Truckee, moved with his wife to San Diego County, and at age 61 joined the Navy medical corps so he could go overseas and operate on those wounded in battle.

He would honor his son by turning something bad into something good. Every day would be Memorial Day.

He did two seven-month deployments, one to Iraq and one to Afghanistan, and was involved in more than 225 trauma surgeries, most of them for horrific injuries from bomb blasts like the one that killed his son.

Bill Krissoff (right) during deployment in Helman Province, Afghanistan. photo courtesy Bill Krissoff

Now retired, the Rancho Santa Fe resident said the experience was wrenching but rewarding in ways he hadnt expected. It was humbling to be able to serve. I feel lucky that I had a skill that could be useful.

Monday at 2 p.m., the Krissoffs sacrifice will be the centerpiece of the annual Memorial Day ceremony at the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial. There will be speeches from Marine officials and a missing man flyover by pilots in Beechcraft T-34s.

A plaque honoring Nate Krissoff will be unveiled, too, which his father said is as it should be. Hell be there, along with his wife, Christine, and their son, Austin, who was in the Marines when Nate died and could have quit because his family had already lost enough but he stayed in.

1st Lt. Nathan Krissoff, USMC (left) during his deployment to Anbar Province, Iraq, 2006. photo courtesy Bill Krissoff

Bill Krissoff said Memorial Day of all days the focus should be on Nate and the others who lost their lives during wartime.

But he also knows people find the way he honored the fallen to be remarkable. President George W. Bush talked about it in a speech. Its been the subject of a chapter in For Love of Country, a book about military heroism. It was featured in a short video narrated by Steven Spielberg for a Veterans Day concert in Washington, D.C. last year.

So Krissoff will tell his story when people ask him to, as long as they remember this:

In most situations, fathers inspire sons. In my family, the sons inspired Dad.

Earn this

Nate Krissoff was a junior at Williams College in Massachusetts, majoring in political science and swimming on the school team, when the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks happened.

Hed never shown any particular interest in the military, but now he felt called. After he graduated, he volunteered for the Marines, went into counterintelligence and was sent to Iraq in September 2006 with the Third Reconnaissance Battalion. He was 25.

In an email to his family as he was preparing to deploy, he mentioned the scene at the end of the movie Saving Private Ryan, when the private has been found and saved, at enormous cost to the soldiers looking for him, and is told, Earn this. Earn this life youve been given.

Earning it will mean sacrifice, determination, doing my job to the best of my ability, Nate wrote in his email. I chose this, and I wouldnt have it any other way.

Three months later, at the Krissoff home in Reno, there was a knock on the door. Bill looked out a front window and saw Marines in dress uniforms and a chaplain. He knew why they were there.

You never want to be in that position, he said. That memory is just seared into your brain. We went into a fog for weeks after that. We functioned, but Im not sure how.

At work, he and Christine, who ran the medical office, could mostly keep their grief at bay. They stayed focused on the details of patient care.

One day he was treating someone complaining about minor knee pain. I was kind of the guru of weird knee pains, he said. I didnt mind. Its what I did. But this time was different.

This just isnt that important, he remembered thinking. I need to do something more.

He approached the Army first, but what he really wanted to do was help injured Marines. Navy doctors deploy with the Marines, so he contacted a Navy recruiter. When the recruiter learned Krissoffs age, he wasnt encouraging. Early 40s was the oldest theyd take someone without a waiver.

In August 2007, President Bush came to Reno to give a speech to the American Legion. The Krissoffs and other families of service members killed in action were invited. After the speech, Bush met with the families and asked if they needed help with anything.

Krissoff mentioned wanting to join the medical corps. Bush asked Christine and Austin what they thought about the idea. They gave their approval. The president said hed see what he could do.

Three days later, Krissoff received a phone call from the recruiter, who told him, You got your age waiver.

All in

He didnt want it to be just a symbolic gesture, somebodys idea of a feel-good story. He wanted to do the work.

He and Christine closed the orthopedic practice and moved to Carlsbad to be closer to Navy medical facilities in San Diego while he took all the classes he could in trauma care and combat medicine. He did a boot camp, marching in the rain at a base in Rhode Island. He went to Morocco to practice working in a field hospital. There were trips to Okinawa and Texas.

I was all in, Krissoff said.

In February 2009, he got sent to Iraq, to a hospital on a base near Fallujah. Even though he thought he was ready, it was a culture shock to be there  the C-130s spiraling in to avoid getting shot, the blast walls surrounding the hospital like something out of Mad Max.

There wasnt much trauma care, though. What had been one of the busiest field hospitals was quiet now, as Sunnis who had been fighting the U.S. now joined forces against al-Qaeda. Most of the surgeries Krissoff saw werent that different from what he was handling back in Truckee  knees and shoulders injured in training.

He came home seven months later and started working in the hospital at Camp Pendleton. He hadnt even unpacked when he was offered a chance to go back, this time to Afghanistan. He and his wife talked about it. She was concerned about his safety, and so was he, but he also thought this might be his only opportunity to make the kind of difference he wanted to make.

With Christines blessing, he signed up.

This time, at Camp Bastion in southwestern Afghanistan, combat casualties were the norm. My first patient was a triple amputee, Krissoff said.

Nobody punches a time clock in a field hospital. The schedule is set by the helicopters arriving with the wounded. Some days he worked more than 15 hours straight.

And he thrived.

Without question, that was the most rewarding experience of my (30-year) orthopedic career, he said. Its intense, the injuries are horrific, but you are doing what you are trained to do and youre saving lives.

Because of advances in battlefield medicine, even those catastrophically injured can be saved if they make it to the hospital in time. During his stint in Afghanistan, Krissoff said, 98 percent of the patients who arrived with a heartbeat were stabilized and moved on to other facilities.

Bill Krissoff is one of my heroes, Marine Maj. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in the Spielberg video. Theres no doubt in my mind that because of his presence there, there are Marines alive today.

Not closure

People sometimes ask him if doing what he did brought closure.

Closure is for somebody who hasnt lost a son or a daughter, he said. When you lose a child at any age it upsets the natural order of things. Its very difficult and its devastating and your family constellation is forever changed.

Changed, too, is his appreciation for what the last Monday in May represents. Hes knows hell be hearing Monday from old friends in Reno, and from new friends all over: Marines who served with both of his sons. When he talks about their texts and calls  Just thinking of you  his eyes fill with tears.

Memorial Day is Memorial Day, Krissoff said. Its always going to be a day to honor the fallen.

One in particular.
With Baja California pushing forward on its plan for a massive desalination plant in Rosarito Beach, a ground-breaking proposal to pipe some of that water to the United States has overcome a key hurdle.

The U.S. State Departments approval of a presidential permit marks a step forward for the Otay Water District and its vision for a cross-border pipeline to import the desalinated water from Mexico.

We have electric lines, the largest crossing in the world, a gas pipeline, a bridge from the airport, that cross the border, said Mark Watton, general manager for the Otay Water District, which serves some 220,000 residents of southeastern San Diego County. Its only natural that we have a water line.

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Watton said the presidential permit approval on May 16 marks a giant leap, toward making his district the first in the country to import water from Mexico. The districts $30 million pipeline project would provide a new drought-proof water supply to its customers, reads a statement from the district.

But making the plan a reality will require many more steps  the great majority of those in Mexico. For starters, the Rosarito Beach Desalination Plant has yet to be built, though Baja California authorities said last week that they are on track with their plan to complete the first phase in 2019 and the second phase in 2024.

At full build-out, the proposed $463 million reverse-osmosis facility would be the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, twice the size of the Poseidon plant in Carlsbad, producing up to 100 million gallons of water daily.

Though Watton said he has been in talks with Baja California officials about the possibility of purchasing some of that water, the states chief water planner denied the existence of a plan to send any of the desalinated water across the border. The water is for Baja California, for our municipalities, said German Lizola, who heads the State Water Commission, in an interview last week.

Like San Diego, Tijuana is heavily reliant on the Colorado River, whose water is piped across the state and currently makes up more than 95 percent of the citys supply. And like San Diego, Baja California has been striving to diversify its water sources in its Pacific coastal regions  from Tijuana to San Quintin. Gov. Francisco Vega de Lamadrid has seen desalination as the solution.

Later this year, the state is planning the opening of a desalination plant in the port of Ensenada that would produce 5.8 million gallons daily, Lizola said. It is also preparing to launch construction of a similar-sized plant in San Quintin.

North of the border, the Otay Water District, whose southern boundary abuts the Mexican border, has also been looking for alternative water sources. The district has spent $4.1 million so far studying on the Mexican option, Watton said. Just like a lot of water projects, you have to invest some money to see if theyll pan out, he said.

Weve had an expression by the state (of Baja California) in the past that all things being equal, they would like to have an export market, Watton said. But there are no commitments at this point, he added.

The idea of building a desalination plant in Rosarito Beach has been around for decades. But it became a concrete plan last August, when the state signed a contract with a consortium under a private-public partnership agreement to build the the plant and operate it for 37 years.

The private group is comprised of NSC Agua, a Mexican company that is the subsidiary of a Cayman Islands-based Consolidated Water, together with two partners: the French company Degremont, and NuWater of Singapore.

To move forward, some conditions still need to be met. A filing last month by Consolidated Water with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stated that these include obtaining rights of way for an aqueduct, Mexican federal approvals for Baja California to receive and distribute seawater; federal permits to discharge residual water from the desalination plant; and financing for the projects first phase.

The company also has asked the state of Baja California for an increase in the water tariff to compensate for significant changes in foreign exchange, a company statement said, adding that it hopes to launch construction in the third quarter of this year.

The desalination project has the backing of the North American Development Bank, a binational institution that evaluates and supports infrastructure projects on the U.S.-Mexico border. We remain optimistic that the plant will come to fruition, read a statement sent Friday. In addition, we remain confident that the Bank will leverage private sector financing for the construction.

Spokesman Jesse Hereford said the bank is supporting the project as a water resources project of the state of Baja California. So far, no one has brought to us any discussion related to that desalination plant selling water to the United States, he said.

In case Baja California agrees to sell some of its water with the completion of the second phase in 2024, the Otay Water District is proposing its own tandem $30 million project. It is called Otay Mesa Conveyance and Disinfection System, and consists of a pump station at the border, a pipeline to carry the water to its reservoir and an ultra-violet water treatment facility.

The recent granting of the U.S. presidential permit has buoyed Wattons hopes that the project can move forward. The permits are issued by the U.S. State Department for cross-border projects found to be in the national interest, and require consultations with federal, state and local agencies and the solicitation of public comment.

While most of these permits involve land border crossings, they have also been granted for seven cross-border pipelines carrying petroleum products. Watton said his permit is the first that involves a proposal to import water from Mexico.

The permit was opposed by U.S. environmental groups  the Surfrider Foundations San Diego Chapter as well as Imperial Beach-based Wildcoast, which cited concerns about the future plant drawing from contaminated water off the Baja California coast. In recent months, Baja California has announced a series of projects that aim to clean up the Tijuana coastline.

South of the border, opinions are mixed about the plan for the Rosarito desalination plant. Some question the hurry to complete a project of that magnitude  at full capacity it would supply water for more than 1.7 million people  nearly the size of Tijuanas current population. They argue the state ought to put more effort into water reuse projects.

But others contend that the desalinated water can be a new source that can reduce Tijuanas vulnerability if an earthquake damages the Colorado River aqueduct. A desalination plant, proponents say, can increase the regions economic potential.

Water has always been a barrier for Tijuanas growth, said Cesar Romeo Sauceda, head of Tijuanas Chamber of Construction and Industry.

Romeo has heard talk about the possibility of sending some of the water to San Diego, and would not necessarily oppose such a plan. I think its part of being neighbors, of having commercial relations, its something natural, he said.

Still, up to now, he said, nobody that I know has officially spoken of selling some of that water to the United States.

This article was updated at 6:30 p.m. on June 19, 2017 to include comment from North American Development Bank spokesman clarifying the banks support of the project.

sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com

@sandradibble
Last week, ex-machinist Derek Coleman told of abandoning the comforts of North County for the adventure of war. In 2015 at age 25, he joined volunteer medics and spent a year and a half treating Kurdish and other Iraqi casualties of the war against the Islamic State.

*

Derek Coleman is a steely guy. His emotions are masked by an even tone and a straight-ahead gunfighter gaze. He spends words like a cheapskate does tips, but the things that happened to kids he cant let go of.

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Theres one that haunts me the most. I ran up to the back of a Humvee and an entire family had been wounded, I think by a car bomb. There was a small boy who was dead and his brother was injured. So I climbed into the back to pick the wounded boy up.

I put my arm behind his shoulders under his armpits. Then I put my other arm under his knees to carry him like you would. I didnt realize at the time that his legs were only attached by bits of skin. So when I picked him up, his legs actually slid out from my arm and I almost dropped him.

His femur actually scraped my arm. He was screaming in my ear, and hes waving around, and his legs are flailing. I put him on the table and we started immediately treating him with tourniquets. Very quickly we loaded him into an ambulance. My clothes were covered in his blood.

What happened to the boy?

He died a few minutes later. The shrug is in his voice. What can you do?

*

Derek spent a year instructing the Peshmerga (Kurdish) forces in basic battlefield first-aid and treating casualties of their battles with ISIS near Mosul. He and the other volunteers then found themselves out of work.

He says the Kurds backed off the fighting last November, having achieved their objective of freeing Kurdish villages from ISIS.

Dereks group gravitated to the Iraqi army in its heavy fighting to free Mosul.

It was decision time for Derek and his friends. He says, Do we go home? Do we join with the Iraqi army? We were very nervous about that because we had heard bad things about the Iraqis. They dont like Americans. We dont like them. We heard nobody was treating civilians, so we were like, Well, **** it. Lets do it.

We just pulled up one day. We said, Hey. Were here to do medical for you. There was one Iraqi officer who spoke a little English and he was just looking, like, Who are you guys? What is this? They were standoffish.

Occasionally, Dereks group would run into U.S. military units that were there to advise and assist the Iraq army. He says with a grin, I saw them advise and assist the **** out of some ISIS fighters a couple of times.

When wed run into American units, theyd be amazed because wed be driving our pickup trucks around. Of course, theyd be in giant vehicles that are 20 feet high and huge convoys and stuff. So us running around saying, Hey, see you guys later. Thanks for the MREs (meals ready to eat) and we would just kind of drive away.

The volunteers threw themselves into the battle for Mosul. At one point, they were with units farthest into the city, knowing they would be prime targets for ISIS fighters wanting to deny medical help to their enemies. That was especially true because Derek rarely carried a firearm.

The medics were treating up to 60 casualties per day; many were civilians, the flotsam of war.

Derek says, Yeah. I mean, one bomb goes off to kill a soldier and theres 30 civilians nearby, you know? Theres just simple math there.

He says about 25 percent of casualties were soldiers, 25 percent were children and the remaining 50 percent were adult civilians.

This is the way it would happen: A vehicle would pull up with injuries inside and we never knew what the cases were, or if it was, you know, a truck full of dead bodies, or a truck full of one guy who broke his thumb.

RELATED

One mans idea of adventure? Volunteering to help Kurds fight ISIS in Iraq

Is life cheaper there? Does death simply have to be accepted?

Yeah, it is. I met people who were my age who were young during the first Iraq War. Theyd talk about having bombs go off right outside their schools, sometimes daily.

Derek would decompress his personal tension by trying to bandage spirits as well as limbs. Every once in a while, Id buy a bag of candy and just hand it out. Id hand out water to refugees and have them look like, you know, their faces would light up.

Doing little things when big things arent around.

Derek says, We dealt with lots of female injuries. Bombs dont discriminate. There was a family that had a newborn baby. The woman was carrying the baby and the husband was carrying all their belongings. The woman looked terrified.

They look at me as, you know, blonde hair, blonde beard, blue eyes, wondering who the hell I was. Once they realized I was there to help, I saw this kind of relief wash over them.

We put her into the cab of this big truck and I handed her things up. She was just staring at me and smiling. I was smiling back at her. She started saying stuff, in Arabic, and our translator was like, Oh, shes saying youre an angel. Thank God youre here.

Im standing at the bottom handing her, you know, a blanket, with a smile on my face.  Yeah, that was cool. Every once in a while, I needed a pick-me-up after some tough times there.

There was one time in particular when Derek might have thought that maybe going to Iraq wasnt a good idea.

I ran to treat a wounded soldier and while we were loading him into a vehicle, people started running and driving away. A car bomb was (being driven) toward where I was. I just ran because I didnt know what to do.

I remember I see this big armored vehicle going as fast as possible past me, driving away terrified, and Im thinking, OK, that things booking it as fast as it can and Im on foot. Im dead. Theres no way Im going to survive this. Im just going to disappear any second now.

The bomb detonated, but he had gotten beyond the blast.

None of his group became a casualty during his time there, but that was because of luck, not lack of opportunity.

Do you have flashbacks?

Yeah, injuries Ive seen. Children that Ive seen wounded or killed. So many burned people and people who were literally blown up. It smelled like burnt hamburger to me.

I walk down the street and smell a restaurant and its like, Oh, wow. That reminds me of pulling out some charred dude, thinking hes alive, but hes not. Its weird. Very gory (images).

How did that change your view of war?

How horrible it is. I didnt actually realize how many civilians are just destroyed by it.

*

Derek knew his time was winding down when the work his group was doing started to be smothered by bureaucracy, especially the United Nations and its World Health Organization. That wasnt what he signed up for.

Someone like myself was not as needed anymore.

Bureaucracies give Derek a psychic itch, so in late April, he came home for good.

*

How did the experience change you?

I dont know. Itll take a long time to see permanent effects. Im more self-confident: 30 wounded people bleeding and screaming and its my responsibility. I pleasantly surprised myself. Hey, even when I get shot at, I can cut it.

Derek says he went to Iraq with almost $10,000 cash and came home owing about $6,000. Thats an amount he calls quite a bit. Everything was gone, spent on living expenses and medical supplies.

He says, Not too bad for your average 27-year-old American with no college loan. However, I was never a penny in debt before I left for Iraq, so it weighs on me.

He plans to become an over-the-road trucker to repay his debts, but also  and perhaps more important  to roll down the window and feel the winds of the Great Plains on his face, and have his boss 1,000 miles away and out of cellphone reach.

How about police work? The San Diego Police Department is looking for people.

Im actually a staunch Libertarian and so most police work to me would be bureaucratic.

A lot of life is.

Yeah, and so I want to do my best to avoid that.

Youre a lone wolf.

Yeah, definitely. I dont like being put into a box. I kind of like to stay home. I dont go out on Friday nights and get wasted and this kind of thing because theres nothing crazy I really want to do anymore.

I like helping people. I like the idea of conflict resolution.

Any thought of going back to school?

No. I love to learn, but I hate school. I would always say Id never let school get in the way of my education.

Derek has seen what weapons can do to flesh and bone, but he still loves his guns and hates bureaucracy  not a crowd-favorite combination for a Californian. To Derek, the line might be: If I cant carry, I wont tarry. Or something like that.

He plans to leave California soon, perhaps for Wyoming, Utah or Idaho, where guns are household utensils.

Theres no doubt in his voice when he says, My goal is to be happy. I dont know how Im going to do that, but I dont care how. I just know thats what I want.

*

Theres a lot of throwback in Derek Coleman. And yes, I can see him in an earlier time  maybe as a cowboy, not the myth variety but for real. A rootless Civil War veteran or a freed slave trying to find a place that fits.

He wouldnt be the trail-herd hand who jumps to the straw boss orders, or would be content to choke in the dust of riding drag.

Hed be the lone fence rider, spending his days repairing barbed wire and rescuing calves from mud holes.

Hed have a pistol in his bedroll, but only rattlesnakes would need worry.

Fred Dickeys home page is freddickey.net. He believes every life is an adventure and welcomes ideas at freddickey1@gmail.com.
Doug Green didnt set out to be a broadcaster, a journalist or a teacher, but somehow those three fields merged into a career that would take him across the country, around the globe and, now, to the top of his profession.

A longtime broadcast journalism teacher in the Carlsbad school district, Green was named a 2016 California Teacher of the Year on Monday  one of five teachers statewide to receive this years honor.

Its an incredible feeling, said Green, who learned the news Friday from state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, and then was sworn to secrecy until Mondays announcement. I had to sit down after his call. It was surreal.

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For students like 17-year-old Allan Weedman, Greens selection came as no big surprise.

Ive had him six years, and never had a teacher like him, said Weedman, a senior at Carlsbad High School. Hes laid back but hands-on at the same time. Ive never had a teacher who pushed me so much.

Green, 58, didnt always want to teach. He started out as a social worker in the United Kingdom, then moved to California in the early 1990s where his first job was to help students who struggled with reading at Valley Middle School in the Carlsbad Unified School District. After receiving his teaching credential, he began teaching eighth-grade language arts, and eventually was asked to design a broadcast journalism elective.

These days, he splits his time between Valley Middle School and Carlsbad High School, where he starts his day overseeing a live 12-minute news broadcast at the schools modern television studio equipped with the latest camera and control room gadgetry.

Hes taken students across the U.S. and to Germany and Poland to shoot documentaries, including a 2009 student film about the Holocaust and how lessons from that tragedy can be applied today.

I tell my kids that when you work as a reporter, you have a front row seat to life, Green said. I love to show students the possibilities of working with film and TV. You go out and tell stories. It gets them excited. There arent many programs (in schools) that are deadline driven, where you have to work in teams in a collaborative way.

Green comes from an educational background, inspired largely by his father, John Green, 82, who was a former district superintendent of schools in Connecticut. His father later was an educational adviser to Walter Mondale, the former vice president and U.S. senator from Minnesota. (Green said his dad was thrilled when he learned his son received the state honor.)

Valley Middle School Principal Tom Bloomquist said as a broadcast journalism teacher, Green has had an impact on countless young lives.

(His) work has transformed his students, and led to successful high school, college, and career opportunities that were made possible by having him as a teacher, Bloomquist said.

Two of Greens student-led documentaries  one about the 2010 shooting at Kelly Elementary School in Carlsbad, and another about the science behind immunizations  helped thrust his broadcast journalism program onto the national stage. Over the past decade, Carlsbad High has won 19 National Student Television Awards, often referred to as Student Emmys and was the winner of the prestigious STN Award of Excellence in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

That success is due to Green and his commitment to bringing out the best in his students, said Sydnie Hornback, a 17-year-old senior.

Hes always inspiring, she said. Ive been in the program since seventh grade. He pushes us to the best of our abilities. He never yells.

Finding out he received the state award was really awesome, Hornback said.

Green said broadcast journalism has something for everybody, and hes thrilled that so many of his students have thrived.

I love that my subject area has so much to offer to so many different types of learners, he said. I love that the program is rigorous and that it reinforces life skills. Students learn to manage deadlines, deal with technical challenges, and learn to become critical viewers. It is hands-on and academic.

There are 19 teachers from San Diego County who have been honored as California Teachers of the Year since 1974, said Music Watson, spokeswoman for the San Diego County Office of Education.

Before Green, the most recent local recipient was in 2013 when Martin Reisert, who teaches social studies and science at Oak Valley Middle School in Poway Unified School District, was selected for the honor.

Two other local teachers were finalists for this years award: Paul A. Messerle, an art teacher at Rancho Bernardo High School in Poway Unified; and, Janet Ratkovic Feilen, a special education teacher at Sevick School in Cajon Valley Union School District.

In addition to Green, the 2016 California Teachers of the Year were Daniel Jocz, a high school social studies teacher in Los Angeles; Mitch Bahr, who teaches instrumental music at a high school in Palo Cedro; Michelle Cherland, a second-grade teacher in La Quinta; and Ann Park, who teaches writing and science to fifth graders in Oakland.

Even with the award, Green on Monday night wasnt taking time to celebrate or take a breather. He ran a workshop for Valley Middle students with Bob Little, a journalist with KGTV Channel 10.

I never get burned out. For me, this is fun, Green said.

Green will be honored at a gala to be held in Sacramento on Feb. 15. He will spend some time away from the classroom later this year and early in the 2016-17 school year, serving as an ambassador for the teaching profession in California and will make an international trip to Japan to promote his profession.

pat.maio@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4929

Twitter: @patmaio
At the World Refugee Day Celebration on Saturday in City Heights, there was Iraqi dancing, Burmese traditional music, henna tattooing and bedazzled headscarves for sale. But more than half of the booths at the afternoon festival were there not to celebrate refugee culture but to serve the immigrants, who make up nearly half of the ethnically-diverse neighborhood.

San Diego County has one of the largest refugee populations in America, with more than 100,000 moving here since the Vietnamese boat people arrived in the 1970s. At Saturdays festival in Jeremy Henwood Memorial Park, refugees and their children talked about their love for their new country while acknowledging that assimilation challenges remain. Thats why so many of the booths were focused on helping these newcomers find their way.

The San Diego Police Department had a recruiting booth set up on the south edge of the park, where acting Sgt. Sam Morales said hes looking for multilingual men and women interested in serving as dispatchers and officers. With the influx of Middle Eastern and African refugees to San Diego in recent years, he said theres a great need for officers who can speak Arabic, Farsi and Somali.

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Three of the organizations at the fair offer mental health counseling services for refugees. Mental health care was cited in a recent study by UCLA Health as one of the top three priorities of refugees living in San Diego County. The issue has received more attention since the shooting death of Alfred Olongo, 38, a Ugandan refugee who was killed in an encounter with El Cajon police last September during a mental breakdown.

Jodi Ortiz works with the Union of Pan Asian Communities Multicultural Community Counseling program. It provides services to Asian, Pacific Islander and Latino youth, ages 5 to 20 from National City to Mira Mesa. She said that while young refugees are better than adults at assimilating the English language, they face more challenges with culture clash, religion and relationships when theyre in school.

There are so many changes they face coming from a different culture that can result in behavior problems at home and school, Ortiz said. But seeking counseling still remains a huge stigma.

After speaking briefly to the crowd, local Democratic Congresswoman Susan Davis said many of the refugees she talks with are concerned about immigration and deportation since the election of President Donald Trump. She said its important to build a community dialogue so that refugees feel safe approaching law enforcement and other public service providers without fear of repercussions.

The annual event was organized by the San Diego Refugee Forum, whose chair Rebecca Paida said more than 40 organizations were represented this year  the most ever. She came to the U.S. from Sudan in 1999 and said the festival not only celebrates the resilience of refugees, it also shows their desire to contribute to America.

A posterboard display in front of the Vietnamese Community of San Diegos booth featured photos of several successful first-generation Vietnamese-Americans, including California State Sen. Janet Nguyen and U.S. Army Brigadier Gen. Luong Thanh Viet. Spokesman Kim-Trang Dang said Vietnamese immigrants have successfully assimilated because they worked hard, but also because they never let go of their cultural values and community unity.

We have a deep history of culture, he said. Culture is what made us strong and helped us succeed.

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
Three heat-striken hikers were taken to hospitals and others were helped off the steep Three Sisters Falls trail east of Ramona Saturday afternoon.

Two of the distressed hikers were airlifted, one went to the hospital by ambulance, and five were evaluated by medics, a Cal Fire spokesman said.

Authorities warned anyone going on the treacherous trail this weekend to take plenty of water, carry a cellphone and hike with a partner. Temperatures in Ramona hit 95 on Saturday.

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Rescuers went into action about 3 p.m. when a 911 caller said a family member was in distress because of the heat after they had visited the falls and were returning to the trailhead. A deputy went to help and found additional hikers struggling, said sheriffs Lt. Karen Stubkjaer.

Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service helped arrange a helicopter to take the seriously ailing hiker to a hospital. No information on the persons condition was available.

A second hiker later was airlifted and a third taken by ambulance for treatment, Cal Fire Capt. Isaac Sanchez said. Five other hikers suffering from dehydration and heat were given water and were being assisted as they walked up the trail.

It happens every weekend, Stubkjaer said of hikers who head for the falls unprepared for its steepness and the heat.

The Sheriffs Department issued a warning earlier in the week, noting that the Three Sisters Falls trail is one of the most extreme short hikes in the county, including a nearly vertical stretch.

Since January, the sheriffs helicopter and search and rescue teams have gone on 24 rescues of hikers at Three Sisters and Cedar Creek Falls, an official said.
A hoverboard being charged started a fire in a Coronado house Saturday afternoon, a fire official said.

The C Avenue house filled with smoke and soot coated all the walls and furnishings, causing an estimated $22,500 in damage, Coronado fire Battalion Chief Perry Peake said.

He said the hoverboard, also called a self-balancing scooter, was plugged in for charging in a bedroom. It caught fire about 12:40 p.m. and the flames spread to a nearby bed, Peake said.

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Firefighters kept the flames from spreading past the bedroom and had the fire out in about 15 minutes. No one was injured, but the family was displaced because of the extensive smoke damage.

These things have been catching fire for a couple of years, Peake said. He said he didnt know if it was the board or the charger that started the Coronado fire.

The popular devices run on lithium ion battery packs and have been blamed in scores of fires. Airlines have banned having them onboard because of the fire risk.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled half a million hoverboards of various brands in 2016, noting at the time that it had received 99 reports of battery pack overheating, fires or explosions.
Like so many parts of Californias political tapestry, the threads of a state budget are stitched tightly together by the courts. Judges routinely settle fights over the annual spending plan.

But in one key case, settled 30 years ago this fall, the states highest court made such a significant change that its become easy for elected officials to quietly slip almost anything into the state budget.

Governors have done it, and legislators have done it, said Fred Silva, who was a top legislative budget staffer in the 1980s and now advises the bipartisan policy think tank California Forward.

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The loophole opened by the 1987 state Supreme Court ruling was an attempt to honor two long-standing rules: Legislation is supposed to be limited to a single subject, and governors can only use their line-item veto when a bill is related to the budget. The lawsuit in question challenged former Gov. George Deukmejians attempt to veto an expansion of welfare assistance.

The result was that budgets have become increasingly spread out over a number of different documents  a main budget bill and then a series of bills linked to it, nicknamed trailer bills, generally organized by subject matter. Last week, 16 separate pieces of budget-related legislation were sent to Gov. Jerry Browns desk.

And thats where the opening lies for injecting policy and political favors into the only duty that the Legislature has to fulfill every single year. There is no standard for what constitutes a bill related to the budget, Silva said.

Political Road Map: Sacramentos closed-door deals didnt go away with Proposition 54 

The first two decades of the trailer bill bonanza were marked by a couple of important trends. First, the number of budget-related bills usually grew when recessions hit and money was tight. Lawmakers generally have written more complex budgets to solve deficit problems than those they craft when the state is flush with cash.

And then there were the dozens of controversial side deals that were demanded by legislators who otherwise were reluctant to vote for a budget. Prior to 2010, state budgets were passed by a supermajority vote in both houses of the Legislature. Tucking a pet project into a budget trailer bill was often necessary. In 2002, during one of Sacramentos longest budget stalemates, Democrats agreed to create a tax break for farmers and to earmark state dollars for a Riverside County swimming pool.

In 2014, the solar industry persuaded Democrats to quietly amend a trailer bill to extend a property tax reduction for homeowners who install solar panels. The proposal was never debated in public, but was still signed into law. Last week, the budget-related bills were used to strip significant powers away from the California Board of Equalization and to make significant revisions to the rules covering special elections to recall a lawmaker from office.

Trailer bills are a box of chocolates, and you never know what youre going to get, state Sen. Richard Roth (D-Riverside) joked during last weeks floor debate.

The one inflexible rule for a budget-related bill over the last three decades has been that it include an appropriation  that it spends money. Again, theres no real standard as to whether its $10 or $100,000.

Influential interest groups know the rush of budget action presents an ideal opportunity to win support for pet projects. And theres a deadline; lawmakers now face the prospect of no paycheck for missing the June 15 budget deadline.

Powerful groups also know something else: Bills related to the state budget take effect as soon as a governor signs them, and they arent subject to being overturned by a statewide ballot referendum. In Sacramento, it seems, nothing is more of a sure thing than whats included in the budget.

john.myers@latimes.com

Follow @johnmyers on Twitter, sign up for our daily Essential Politics newsletter and listen to the weekly California Politics Podcast

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If you wish to inspect the frontlines of the conflict between Donald Trump and California, head for San Diego.

Yes, so far the Golden States fight against the president has so far taken place in the courts and in cyberspace. And, sure, challenging The Donalds legitimacy is not a mere local pastime but an all-consuming statewide prizefight. But as a matter of geography, culture and economy, the California-Trump War feels more intimate and higher-stakes in greater San Diego.

What makes Trumps wild swings land as punches in San Diego? Because the city is more deeply tied to the United States than Californias other big regions. Los Angeles and the Bay define themselves as global mega-regions that deviate from national norms. But San Diego is unapologetically American Americas Finest City being its most durable slogan. And since San Diego is the nations biggest border city and home to one of the worlds heaviest concentrations of military power, many San Diegans represent America not just as civic commitment but as professional duty.

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But San Diego practices an openhearted brand of Americanness that doesnt mesh well with Trumpian isolationism. The population of active military and veterans leavens its patriotism with hard-won wisdom about the world. And San Diego institutions have built ever-closer ties to Mexico, encouraging cross-border commutes, contemplating a cross-border Olympic bid and constructing an airport terminal that spans the border with Tijuanas airport.

And so Trumps obsession with border security is a threat to San Diegos daily routine. The presidents increased deportations have inspired fear among immigrants here, and his blasts against cities that dont use police to enforce immigration laws (San Diego among them) have inspired a poisonous backlash against federal law enforcement.

Further inflaming tensions, the Trump administration has made San Diego the host of the contest to design the presidents promised border walls. Sometime this month, contestant firms are expected to build samples of their border wall designs in the Otay Mesa neighborhood, which could touch off massive protests.

Trumps bigoted smear of refugees as security threats doesnt go down well in the region, long a California leader in welcoming refugees. San Diego County has taken in roughly half of all the Syrian refugees who have settled in California.

Trumps anti-trade policies are a challenge for the border regions economy and his attempts to restrict travel are seen as a danger to the massive tourism industry, which attracts more than 34 million visitors a year. His campaign against environmental regulation and proposed cuts to health and science funding threaten San Diegos many top research institutes (studying everything from climate change to Alzheimers) and its life science companies.

The litigious Trump should stay out of San Diego courts. He made few friends in the regions legal community last year with his racist attacks on U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, a San Diegan who is a highly respected member of the legal community there, for decisions in litigation against Trump University. Curiel is now assigned to a potentially precedent-setting case challenging the Trump administrations deportation of a 23-year-old man who appeared to be legally in the U.S.

For all Trumps provocations, opposing a president doesnt come all that naturally to San Diego, a military town accustomed to saluting the flag and superior officers. Trump also has nodded in San Diegos direction by proposing big increases in defense spending that could be a boon to the military and the areas many defense-related businesses.

And San Diegos middle-of-the-road politics  the countys voters are closely split between Democrats and Republicans  makes dealing with Trump trickier than it is in Californias other, monolithically Democratic coastal cities.

So Trump poses a quandary for San Diegos popular mayor, Kevin Faulconer, a Republican considered a possible contender for governor next year. Faulconer is not a Trump supporter, in word or deed  he backs comprehensive immigration reform, speaks Spanish, promotes cross-border trade and touts his citys Climate Action Plan. But his ambitions will require him to win the support of the small but powerful Republican base of voters who still mostly support Trump. Faulconer and other local Republicans, especially Congressman Darrell Issa, have had to walk a fine line between respecting a president of their party and criticizing Trumps many affronts to decency and common sense.

The California-Trump war is still young. Its possible that the president and his self-destructive tendencies will make it easier for San Diego to unite and oppose him with full force. But if the president hangs in and gains traction on his border, immigration, trade and budget policies, while delivering more money to the regions defense industry, then steel yourself, San Diego, for very bitter fights in your very beautiful city.

Mathews writes for Zocalo Public Square.
I owe it to my skipper to tell about the PT-109. I owe it to his memory.

It was in 1983 when I first met Patrick McMahon, whom John F. Kennedy had rescued on the PT-109 during World War II. He was a retired Cathedral City, Calif., mail carrier, then postmaster, who had moved to Encinitas in 1975 with his wife, Rose.

McMahon always fondly referred to Kennedy as the skipper. They remained friends until that fateful day in November 50 years ago.

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McMahon had been an automotive repairman in Detroit in 1941 when, at age 37, he enlisted in the Navy. It was in the Solomon Islands that he was assigned to the PT-109, commanded by 26-year-old Kennedy.

I remember when I first met the skipper I couldnt believe how thin he was. He must have weighed only 135 pounds. He was always hungry!

He recalled how JFK had confidence in his men; his crew loved him. He would do anything for anyone.

Shortly past midnight on Aug. 2, 1943, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri rammed the PT-109, slicing it in half, instantly killing two of the 13 crew members. McMahon suffered second- and third-degree burns (from which he fully recovered).

The surviving crew decided to swim to a nearby island. McMahon was in terrible pain. The skipper came over to me and said, Mac, you and I will go together.

I said, Ill just keep you back. You go on with the other men  dont worry about me.

Exasperated, the skipper cried out, What in the hell are you talking about? Get your butt in the water!

The skipper swam the breast stroke, carrying me on his back, with the leather strap of my kapok clenched between his teeth. It was daylight and it took about four hours to swim the three miles to the island.

Later they swam to a larger island. It took several hours to reach it, and when we finally arrived on the land, the skipper was physically ill, retching and vomiting. Many of the crew were frustrated and despondent.

JFK ended up spending some 30 hours in the shark-infested water during the ordeal, swimming out to sea in an attempt to attract the attention of another PT boat. At times, showing his humor, Kennedy would say, Were going to get back if I have to tow this island back!

With the help of some natives, the crew was discovered and rescued several days later.

During McMahons hospital recuperation, JFK wrote Rose McMahon on Aug. 11, 1943: Your husband ... is alive and well ... (he) acted in a way that has brought him official commendation  and the respect and affection of the officers and crew with whom he served.

Over the next two decades, the two friends corresponded by mail and visited in person. The McMahons visited the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port and McMahon was thrilled to attend the inauguration and parade.

All the crew rode on the PT-109 float in the parade as a surprise to the skipper. As we passed by the presidential reviewing stand, Kennedy stood up, grinned, whipped off his silk top hat, and gave us the skippers signal: Wind em up, rev em up, lets go!

He cherished a signed framed photo of the PT-109 inaugural float: For Patrick McMahon  with the warm regards of his old skipper  John F. Kennedy.

McMahon would see JFK when he visited Palm Springs. The Secret Service would call him to leave his mail rounds and go to the airport, where he would sit in a limo and wait for the president. The last time he saw his skipper was in 1961.

After his plane landed, he sat in the car with me, shook my hand, and repeated the same thing that he had said to me often throughout the years, If theres anything you ever need, Mac, let me know  it will just take a telephone call.

After what he did for me  the President of the United States saved my life  I could never have asked him for anything.

In 1964, Bobby Kennedy congratulated McMahon on his promotion to Cathedral City Postmaster: The president was always so fond of you and he would have wanted this for you also.

McMahon died in Encinitas in February 1990 at the age of 84.
A woman from Kerala gave birth to a baby boy while flying on Jet Airways's Dammam-Kochi flight at a height of 35,000 feet on Sunday morning.

By India Today Web Desk: A woman from Kerala gave birth to a baby boy while flying on Jet Airways's Dammam-Kochi flight at a height of 35,000 feet on Sunday morning.

According to officials, both woman and her child are in stable condition.

The 29-year-old C. Jose, who was travelling alone, went into premature labour when the plane was flying over Pakistan and had to diverted to Mumbai to handle the medical emergency.

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The baby was delivered with help of a passenger Mini Wilson, a trained paramedic, who was helped by the crew members.

After landing in Mumbai, mother and child were rushed to the Holy Spirit Hospital in Andheri east where their condition was reported to be "stable".

Jet Airways announced that being the first baby to be born in flight for the airlines, the kid would get a free lifetime pass for any travel on the carrier.

Jet Airways also informed Jose's family, who are rushing to Mumbai.

After a two-hour halt for the medical emergency, the flight departed for its onward destination to Kochi.

Cochin International Airport Ltd. Managing Director V.J. Kurian confirmed the incident, but did not give more details.

With inputs from IANS

ALSO READ:

Newborn baby walks immediately after birth, takes internet by storm

Baby on board: Turkish Airlines crew help woman deliver baby at 42,000 feet

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By Press Trust of India: Kochi, Jun 18 (PTI) Kochi Metro, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, will start commercial operations tomorrow. The trains will start from Aluva and Palarivattom from 6 AM simultaneously and finish the days ride at 10 PM at Aluva, a Kochi Metro Rail spokesperson said today. The headwaywould be 8.20 minutes and there would be 219 trips between 6 AM and 10 PM from Monday, she said. Meanwhile, Kochi Metro Rail Corporation organised "Sneha Yatra" for 1,550 persons including nearly 450 children with physical and cognitive disabilities from special schools, children from orphanages and inmates from old age homes. They also organised a special yatra for workers who built the system for the city. Their family members were also invited for the journey. KMRL had honoured hundreds of labourers who worked hard by giving them traditional Kerala Sadya (feast), prior to the inauguration. Modi had enjoyed a ride on Kochi Metro yesterday along with dignitaries, including Governor P Sathasivam, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and "Metro man" E Sreedharan. Kochi Metro Rail Limited is a 50:50 Joint Venture of Government of India and Government of Kerala. The first phase inaugurated yesterday operates from Aluva to Palarivattom and covers 13.26 km and 11 stations.

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In his inaugural speech, the Prime Minister had hailed the special features of the Kochi Metro.

It is the first metro project to be commissioned with a modern signalling system called the ?Communication-Based Train Control Signalling system."

The coaches reflect the ?Make in India? vision.

They have been built by Alstom of France, at their factory near Chennai, and have an Indian component of around seventy per cent. PTI TGB SS APR MVV

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A debt-ridden farmer allegedly committed suicide in Madhya Pradesh's Neemuch district, taking the number of similar deaths in the state to 11 in a week.

By Indo-Asian News Service: An elderly farmer, who was in debt, allegedly committed suicide today in Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh, taking the number of similar deaths in the state to 11 in a week.

Pipallya Vyas village resident Pyarelal Odh, 65, committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in his fields, police said.

His family said he had raised a loan of more than Rs 2 lakh which he was finding difficult to repay.

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Area police officer Hitesh Patil said: "Whenever a farmer commits suicide, it is always said that he was under debt. Since he was a resident of a village, he would be considered a farmer."

On Friday, Jagdish More, 35, had consumed poison in Rampura area of Dhar police station and died later in the day.

The deceased farmer's family told police that he committed suicide as he was upset over the pressure built by the bank for clearing the loan.

Another farmer Imrat died after consuming sulphas tablets in Chandlaun village in Gotegaon, Narsinghpur, in Madhya Pradesh. He breathed his last enroute to Jabalpur for treatment.

ALSO READ | Madhya Pradesh: Two farmer suicides in 24 hours, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Mandsaur tomorrow

ALSO READ | Farmers will fire bullets at government under our leadership: Madhya Pradesh Congress leader

ALSO WATCH | Madhya Pradesh: Shivraj Singh Chouhan meets families of farmers in Mandsaur

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At least two people have been killed in the terror attack at a luxury resort near Bakamo.

By Reuters: At least two people were killed in an attack by gunmen on Sunday at a luxury resort outside Mali's capital Bamako popular with Western expatriates, the security ministry said, but 36 guests had been rescued.

Gunmen stormed Le Campement Kangaba near Dougourakoro, to the east of the capital Bamako, a resort foreign residents often visit for weekend breaks.

"At first we thought they were armed bandits but we know how armed bandits operate, they don't hold territory, so now we think it is a terrorist attack," Mali's Security Minister Salif Traore told journalists outside the entrance to the resort late Sunday, part of which was on fire.

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Malian security forces, United Nations peacekeeping mission vehicles and French military armoured vehicles were surrounding the resort, according to a Reuters witness. A helicopter was circling overhead.

EYE WITNESS ACCOUNT

Security Ministry spokesman Baba Cisse said by telephone that two people had been killed, including a French-Gabonese citizen and another whose nationality was not yet known. Two others had been wounded, one civilian and a policeman, he said. An attacker had also been wounded and fled, leaving a sub machine gun and six bottles of explosives behind, he said.

Malian state TV reported that 36 guests had so far been rescued.

Witness Boubacar Sangare was just outside the compound during the attack. "Westerners were fleeing the encampment while two plainclothes police exchanged fire with the assailants," he said.

A spokesman for French forces in Mali declined to immediately comment.

Security has gradually worsened across Mali since French forces pushed back Islamist and Tuareg rebel fighters in 2013 from swathes of the north they had occupied the previous year.

Initially concentrated in the desert north, attacks have increasingly struck the centre and south, around the capital Bamako. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and another militant group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Bamako hotel in late 2015 in which 20 people were killed.

French troops and a 10,000-strong UN peacekeeping force have battled to stabilise the former French colony, which is riven by ethnic conflict and plagued by dozens of armed groups.

Also read: Trump says he is under investigation, his lawyer clarifies he isn't

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Also read: London fire: Police say 58 people assumed dead in tower block

Also watch: Haven't eaten since I heard the news of his death, says father of constable killed by LeT terrorists

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People of all backgrounds have gathered at the Big Lunch in Scunthore today (Sunday, June 18).

The event is part of the Great Together held in honour of murdered MP Jo Cox, who believed that there is more that unites us that divides us.

Sheffield Street, just off Frodingham Road, was this afternoon packed with people from the community attending various stalls with different food and drink or people to enjoy.

All the donations the event receives are going to homeless organisation The Forge Project.

Event organiser Helen Kirk said: "The response from the community has been amazing.

"Everyone has given their time and made donations.

"We have got The Forge Project here, Framework and support from Ongo. Scunthorpe United and Frankie and Benny's have donated raffle prizes - the whole community is coming together and everyone is welcome."
On learning about the racket, Bosch, Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki lodged a police complaint, following which a raid was conducted in Gali No 7, Dalhai Mohalla, Bhola Nath Nagar.

Over 500 air filters with logos of Mahindra, 1,001 outer boxes with logos of Maruti, and 33 diesel filters with logos of Bosch were seized in the raid at an east Delhi building.

By Chayyanika Nigam: Delhi Police recently raided a warehouse in East Delhi and seized fake auto parts of Bosch, Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki.

However, the manufacturer is still at large. The companies learnt of the racket after receiving complaints from a number of car owners. The parts were first sent to the forensic laboratories for examination of covert security features, including optical features such as concealed texts, nano texts, raster texts, etc., and printing features such as UV ink, thermochromic ink, etc.

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It is yet to be ascertained whether the fake parts were also available in the service centre of the companies. After learning about the racket, Bosch, Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki lodged a police complaint, following which a raid was conducted in Gali No 7, Dalhai Mohalla, Bhola Nath Nagar. It was learnt the ground floor was being used as a warehouse.

The owner, identified as Hardeep Singh, was nabbed. "Upon checking, 506 air filters with logos of Mahindra; 1,251 outer boxes of Mahindra; 2,401 outer boxes of air filters; 157 sealed air filters; six sealed oil filters; 1,001 outer boxes with logos of Maruti; 1,446 incomplete outer box sheets; 185 outer boxes; 33 diesel filters with logos of Bosch; 968 painted stickers of Mahindra; and 3,841 stickers were seized from the warehouse," Nupur Prasad, DCP (Shahdara), said.

Upon interrogation, Hardeep, a resident of Lajpat Nagar, confessed that the consignment used to be sent by someone and it was stored at the warehouse. Further, his only work was to pack the fake parts and seal them, for which he had employed a handful of people.

Also read: India is my country, I will never leave: 1993 Mumbai blasts acquitted Qayyum

Also read: Kashmir unrest: Just imagine yourself in grave... alone, slain cop Dar wrote on Facebook

--- ENDS ---
On Monday, two ships will call in the Finnish port: Phoenix Reisens Albatros and Hansa Turistiks Ocean Majesty.

The return of Albatros is special for Turku as in the last 12 months the city will have welcomed the whole Phoenix fleet.

In March this year at the ITB Berlin travel show, Phoenix managing director Michael Schulz received a plaque from Turku in recognition of the companys contribution to cruise tourism in the city.

Next month, the Finnish port welcomes Saga Sapphire over two days between July 20-23. The following week Island Sky visits twice in the same week, but for two different charter companies. On July 29, the city welcomes the guests of Zegrahm Expeditions followed six days later by the guests of Australia Pacific Touring (APT).

Looking ahead to next year Prinsendam is set to return and call on the 30th anniversary of the ships construction in the nearby shipyard as Royal Viking Sun. Guests will have the chance to visit the yard where the ship was built.
By Press Trust of India: Chennai, Jun 17(PTI): Narcotic drugs worth Rs 71 crore were seized and 10 persons arrested after a surprise check at at a manufacturing unit near here.

Acting on a tip-off that huge quantity of Methamphetamine, a narcotic drug was being manufactured at a facility in Red Hills near here, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials undertook a surprise search at the unit.

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During the search it came to light that the 10-member gang under the pretext of manufacturing detergent powder, was making "narcotic drugs", DRI said in a release today.

The gang including a Malaysian national, had installed an elaborate apparatus to process and "cook" Methamphetamine, in an isolated place inside the factory, it said.

The leader of the gang and nine other persons were arrested for the crime, the release said.

The seized drugs included 11 kg of Methamphetamine, 56 kg of Pseudoephedrine and 90 kg of heroin, together valued at about Rs. 71 crore, the release added. PTI VIJ SS

--- ENDS ---
Press Release

June 17, 2017 Drilon nixes CA abolition, urges Alvarez to seek legal remedy Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon on Saturday said he will oppose any move to abolish the Court of Appeals (CA). Drilon's statement came after House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez threatened to dissolve the CA after one of its divisions issued an order compelling the House of Representatives to release the employees of the Ilocos Norte provincial government. "We will oppose any move to abolish the CA as it would affect the entire judicial system," Drilon said. Drilon urged Alvarez to avail of the remedies under the law instead of resorting to threats. "I strongly advise Speaker Alvarez to respect and follow the judicial process by seeking legal remedies under the law," Drilon said. "The dispute can be settled in the Supreme Court where both parties can argue their position." "Any error that may have been committed by a division or by the members of the court should not be taken against the CA as an institution," he emphasized. Drilon, a four-time Senate President, added that the Senate has had its share of victories and defeats in the courts over the years. "However, it is not right to use the powers of Congress against the CA or any institution just because we do not agree with their decision. We may run out of courts if that were so," he said. He added: "Our judges and justices sometimes commit errors of judgment or jurisdiction, but the institution should not be made to suffer from such mistakes. The CA, Drilon noted, being the second highest tribunal of the land, "plays a critical role in upholding the Constitution and the rights of the people." The CA was created in 1936 by virtue of Commonwealth Act No. 3.
Press Release

June 18, 2017 ANGARA WANTS SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS TO BECOME A LAW Senator Sonny Angara is pushing for the passage of a bill that seeks to establish a medical scholarship program in the country to ensure the availability of doctors in every province nationwide. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has recently announced that it has allocated P317 million from its 2017 budget to provide free tuition for medical students in eight state universities and colleges (SUCs) for academic year 2017-2018. "We commend the CHED for giving priority to the education of our med students. To sustain this, I urge my colleagues to support the passage of the bill establishing a medical scholarship program in the country so that the budget for their free tuition will be assured every year," Angara said. According to CHED, new and continuing Filipino medical students can avail themselves of a full tuition subsidy from the following schools: University of Northern Philippines, Mariano Marcos State University, Cagayan State University, Bicol University, West Visayas State University, University of the Philippines (UP) Leyte, Mindanao State University, and UP Manila. Beneficiaries of the tuition subsidy will be required to render one year of return service in the Philippines for every year of cash grant received. They can serve as doctors in government or private hospitals, local government health facilities or become doctors to the barrios. Under Angara's Senate Bill 1157, the medical scholarship program will not only include free tuition, but also allowance for prescribed books, supplies and equipment, clothing and uniform, housing accommodation, transportation and other related miscellaneous living allowances. The proposed scholarship program shall accept at least one beneficiary from every province in the country. The number of beneficiaries per province shall depend on the number of medical doctors needed for each province as determined by the Department of Health (DOH). "The lack or the maldistribution of doctors and healthcare professionals in the country is truly alarming. Most doctors and medical specialists are concentrated in urban centers and larger municipalities, leaving far-flung communities largely unserved," the senator said. At present, based on DOH data, there is one doctor for every 33,000 Filipinos--a far cry from the World Health Organization standard which is one doctor for every 20,000 population. Recent data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that three out of five Filipinos die without seeing a doctor, nurse or any other allied health professional. Angara's bill further requires beneficiaries to serve their provincial hospital for at least five years upon passing the medical board examination. Data from the UP College of Medicine showed that about 80 percent of its graduates leave the country to practice medicine abroad. "The high cost of med school prompts new doctors to join private hospitals which offer higher pay. More lucrative opportunities abroad also lead to an exodus of medical professionals. This bill seeks to reverse these trends and address the continuing need for doctors in our provincial public hospitals," the lawmaker said. Angara also urged President Duterte to sign into law the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education bill to provide free education to all students enrolled in SUCs.
Press Release

June 18, 2017 De Lima alarmed over safety of civilians trapped in Marawi Senator Leila M. de Lima today expressed grave concern over the safety of hundreds of civilians who are still trapped in Marawi City due to the ongoing heightened military operations against the ISIS-inspired Maute group. De Lima said the government forces should step up their efforts in rescuing these civilians following reports that some of them were forced to eat cardboard boxes in order to survive the deteriorating conditions in the area, notably the scarcity of food supplies. "This is now a humanitarian issue because a substantial number of innocent civilians are still trapped in the conflict areas. Some of them lack food to eat and clean water to drink, if they are lucky enough to survive the heavy exchanges of fire," she said. Around 300 to 1,700 civilians reportedly remain trapped in some areas in Marawi despite majority of its 200,000 residents have fled in the early stages of the military operations. According to some news reports, the Maute fighters have also been using some civilians either to cook or carry ammunitions for them. They have also reportedly recruited children to fight along with them, especially among orphans of Muslim rebels. The former justice secretary also noted the increasing number of internally-displaced persons (IPDs) who are also suffering in the crowded evacuation areas outside Marawi City with a bleak future for their families and children once the conflict ends. "Affected local residents already lost their properties and livelihood, while their children's education, health, and social welfare are adversely affected. Such are the horrors of war that have become so costly for all of us," she said. Although Marawi City has a population of over 200,000 people, the Department of Social Welfare and Development reported that as of June 13, about 65,198 families or 316,684 individuals have been displaced from Marawi City and Marantao in Lanao del Sur, 14,772 of whom are reportedly staying in 68 evacuation centers. About 9,252 families or 43,159 individuals have also been evacuated from Marawi City to Iligan City where the local government unit has reportedly converted a covered court in Bgy. Buru-un as an evacuation center. Noting that a regular covered court could only accommodate 50 families, De Lima said these evacuation areas are heavily congested at a greater risk to the health and sanity of the thousands of IDPs and their families and children. To date, at least 290 people have reportedly died since the fighting began in May 23, which includes 206 militants, 58 soldiers and 26 civilians.
Press Release

June 18, 2017 Ombudsman junks treason, espionage case against ex-PNoy, Trillanes The Office of the Ombudsman has released its resolution dismissing the Treason and Espionage case against former President Benigno Simeon Aquino and Senator Antonio "Sonny" F. Trillanes IV. In the resolution issued by the Ombudsman, it did not find probable cause for Treason and Espionage, and there was no evidence to prove that there was conspiracy between the Aquino and Trillanes as alleged by the complainants. On May 6, 2016, Gen. Roberto T. Lastimoso, Dr. Enrico Sampang, Judge Moslemen T. Macarambon, former Congressman Ronald Adamat and Dr. Dioscoro Esteban, Jr. filed a complaint against the two for violation of Articles 114, Treason, and 117, Espionage, of the Revised Penal Code. The complainants questioned the backchannel negotiations done by Trillanes, who acted under the authority of Aquino as then president, with the Chinese representatives in connection with the standoff in the Scarborough Shoal. They alleged that Trillanes meddled in the country's foreign affairs and placed our national security at risk by muddling the issues and peddling misinformation. In dismissing the Treason and Espionage allegations, the Ombudsman noted: "Treason is a war crime. It is not an all-time offense...While there is peace, there are no traitors. There must be actual hostilities...Backchannel negotiations with China cannot be construed as 'giving aid to enemy.'" According to the Ombudsman: "As a result of the intense stand-off in April and May 2012 between Chinese and Philippines vessels in the Scarborough Shoal, Pres. Aquino's action of exploring means of peacefully settling the on-going issue with China was for the interest of the Philippines. It is an inherent presidential power to pursue negotiations with other States. On the other hand, Sen. Trillanes merely acted under Pres. Aquino's instruction to negotiate with Chinese representatives in order to ease the escalating tension between the two States." "The aggressive posturing of China was made known as earlv as Mav 23, 2011 when it was reported that...military garrisons and outposts are located in six reefs that are part of the Kalayaan Island Group. The back channel negotiation between Sen. Trillanes and Chinese representatives commenced only in May 2012. The alleged hostilities and aggression in the West Philippine Sea could not, therefore, be attributed to the backchannel discussions between Sen. Trillanes and the Chinese representatives," the decision further explained. Reacting on the Ombudsman's decision, opposition Senator Trillanes said: "The decision proves our point from the very start that the case was merely filed to harass and tarnish my reputation. This is what happens when your political opponents start to believe their own propaganda. But no matter how they twist the facts, in the end, the truth will always come out."
By Press Trust of India: Chennai, Jun 17(PTI): Narcotic drugs worth Rs 71 crore were seized and 10 persons arrested after a surprise check at at a manufacturing unit near here.

Acting on a tip-off that huge quantity of Methamphetamine, a narcotic drug was being manufactured at a facility in Red Hills near here, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials undertook a surprise search at the unit.

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During the search it came to light that the 10-member gang under the pretext of manufacturing detergent powder, was making "narcotic drugs", DRI said in a release today.

The gang including a Malaysian national, had installed an elaborate apparatus to process and "cook" Methamphetamine, in an isolated place inside the factory, it said.

The leader of the gang and nine other persons were arrested for the crime, the release said.

The seized drugs included 11 kg of Methamphetamine, 56 kg of Pseudoephedrine and 90 kg of heroin, together valued at about Rs. 71 crore, the release added. PTI VIJ SS MVV

--- ENDS ---
Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Infielder Trevor Plouffe was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday morning in a trade that will save the As money and could net the franchise a prospect.

Sources told The Chronicle that the As agreed to pay $2-plus million of the more than $3 million remaining on the salary of Plouffe, who was designated for assignment this week after batting just .214 in 58 games.
A grass fire that broke out along Highway 13 in Oakland briefly shut down all northbound lanes Saturday afternoon, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The fire was first reported at Park Boulevard at about 3:20 p.m.. Authorities closed the northbound lanes and diverted traffic at Redwood Road as Oakland firefighters battled the blaze.
OROVILLE, Butte County  The rush of workers and heavy machinery to the shore of Lake Oroville is so vast and unfamiliar its fanning rumors across this rural region that the ruckus couldnt just be for a historic dam repair.

Some say the around-the-clock clamor high above town must be a secret effort to mine undiscovered metal from the once-booming Gold Country outpost. Others suspect a missile silo is taking shape, not a new spillway to send water down the Feather River.

At the least, many residents are skeptical that the unprecedented, deadline-driven project will restore their shaken faith in the nations tallest dam.

Memories are still fresh from February when 180,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes after both of the lakes spillways  the main chute and an emergency one  were severely damaged. Authorities worried the whole dam might collapse.

Mason Trinca/Special to The Chronicle

Im moving as soon as I get the chance, said Charles Hunter, 47, a handyman who lives and works below the lake, as he painted the interior of a new downtown Oroville cafe on a recent morning. I worry that its just a patch job going on up there.

But as state officials gave The Chronicle a tour last week of the construction site, they said the effort was both extensive and relatively straightforward. The two damaged spillways, they said, are being rebuilt to maximize safety and strength  and, once again, reliably discharge water.

Its difficult to fathom the size of the job, which is critical for flood protection and the states water supply. As many as 800,000 cubic yards of cement  about twice what was used for the new Bay Bridge skyway  will be poured. Two concrete plants are being fired up at the lake to supply the material. The workforce will soon grow from about 200 to 500.

The challenge, officials say, will be finishing the work before the rainy season returns. Officials want both spillways to be operational by Nov. 1 in case the lake fills up by then and water needs to be released. Final touches, they say, can wait until the following summer.

Complicating matters, the state had little choice but to move forward before it figured out exactly what caused the spillways to erode. A team of independent dam experts investigating the debacle has offered a preliminary list of about two dozen structural deficiencies that may have been to blame  and wants the repairs to account for all of these.

State consultant and former Department of Water Resources manager Dave Gutierrez, who is advising on the project, said many of the shortcomings are the result of the dams age.

Just by doing a modern design, he said, youre going to take care of most issues.

During last weeks tour, behind several road checkpoints that keep residents far from the construction site, Gutierrez pointed out the many problems with the old spillways.

The 3,000-foot-long main chute  where the crisis began Feb. 7 when a crater opened up amid heavy releases from the lake  didnt have water stops to seal joints and prevent leaks from weakening it. Also, there is too little steel reinforcement in the structure, and the pipes that drain water beneath it are made of clay instead of superior PVC.

You cant even find clay pipes anymore, Gutierrez said, as he looked down from the top of the 770-foot earthen dam that was completed in 1968.

After weeks of blasting with explosives, the states main contractor, Kiewit Corp. of Omaha, Neb., finished demolishing 2,000 feet of the compromised main spillway, including the part that initially gave way. Over the next 4 months, the company will rebuild the section as well as fill in the 300-foot-long hole that opened up.

The upper 1,000 feet of the chute will be patched and waterproofed, as needed, then rebuilt next summer. There simply isnt time to do it this year.

The emergency spillway was essentially a barren hillside below a concrete apron at the lakes edge, and it was supposed to handle overflow if the lake got too high. But when it was thrust into action this year for the first time, the hill quickly eroded. Thats what prompted authorities to evacuate downstream communities, in case the land gave way.

State officials say they dont plan to use the emergency spillway ever again. However, theyre building a 1,700-foot cutoff wall, similar to a retaining wall, within the hillside to prevent future erosion, should the spillway be needed. Next year, they plan to pave the spillways upper stretch.

Kiewit, which has set up a sprawling operations yard at the lakes main boat launch, with more than a dozen trailers and countless construction vehicles, is being paid $275 million for two years of work.

The expense follows an estimated $200 million price tag for the emergency response to the crisis and is expected to be paid largely with federal emergency funds.

Critics of the Department of Water Resources say deficiencies in the spillways should have been addressed  if not when the dam was built in the 1960s, then in ensuing decades as dam safety science evolved.

While state officials insist theyve done all they can to keep the dam safe, the team investigating the spillways said its looking into the possibility of poor management.

Im not sure that were going to be pointing blame on any particular person or organization, said John France, an independent engineering consultant who is leading the investigation. Were more trying to focus on what lessons we can learn on how the process may have let us down in terms of not having the proper training or not responding to things the way they should have.

France said he expects the teams findings to have implications for other dams in California and beyond.

There will be some changes in the way the dam safety industry does its work, he said.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

This month, at the direction of Gov. Jerry Brown, the state Division of Safety of Dams sent letters to at least 100 dam operators directing them to re-evaluate their spillways for potential problems.

Downstream in Oroville, construction at the lake has manifest as a small economic boom.

The workers are all over the place, said an employee at the Sunset Inn on Feather River Boulevard. Its helpful.

For Tayler Rash, an employee at a downtown boutique called Pardon My French, the gains are yet to come, but shes hopeful the spotlight on Lake Oroville  even though it came via crisis  will translate to more business.

I was out of town last weekend, and I told someone I was from Oroville, she said. They said, Oh, yeah, the dam place, and I said, Oh yeah, the dam place.

If there are benefits, many say they pale in comparison to everything else the city has had to put up with, from closed roads and truck traffic to lingering concerns about the dams integrity.

Some still carry a grudge from the dams original construction, when the state put forth plans that never materialized, including a proposed amphitheater and restaurant and a tourist train to the lake, which submerged thousands of valuable acres.

We gave up a lot to have this facility here, and we dont gain from it, said Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly, a longtime critic of the Department of Water Resources.

Connelly sees renewed attention on the dam as an opportunity to revisit past inequities. But he knows thats an uphill battle.

Hopefully, he said, we can just be reassured that well be safe.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander
Spackled into last weeks 80-page report detailing San Franciscos latest homeless count were two big revelations: While the number of homeless youths plummeted 40 percent, the population of severely troubled homeless adults shot up 31 percent.

What the statistics show, according to those charged with helping the poor, is that the extra effort toward helping homeless children over the past two years is working. But they also show that despite creating millions of dollars worth of new shelters, supportive housing and street counseling teams, there is an intractable core of homeless adults who keep getting older, sicker and harder to pull inside.

Those statistics were overshadowed by numbers showing that camps are spreading alarmingly into different neighborhoods while the overall street population has stayed the same. But like dozens of other subcategories included in the report, the youth and hard-core adult numbers can help policy managers tighten their focus to where the needs are greatest.

Amy Osborne/Special to The Chronicle

Theres really nothing to celebrate until this number goes to zero, Jeff Kositsky, director of the city Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said Friday as he released the results of the biennial one-night homeless count, which was conducted in January. But what we can see from this is that there are areas where, when we invest wisely, we see reductions.

The report showed that San Francisco has 7,499 homeless people overall, a dip of 0.5 percent since the last one-night count taken in 2015  and that within that population, the most striking drop came in that 40 percent dip in the number of street people 24 or younger.

Sherilyn Adams, head of a leading nonprofit in the state helping homeless youths, questions the results of the one-night count, saying homeless kids know very well how to hide. Other tallies indicate there are more kids on the street.

Still, she believes some of the drop in the surveys numbers can be attributed to the quadrupling of supportive housing for homeless youths in San Francisco over the past four years, and to increased counseling outreach services for kids on the street.

The agency she leads, Larkin Street Youth Services, upgraded its drop-in center since the 2015 count and in the fall will help spearhead a $2.9 million federally funded effort in San Francisco to create new programs for homeless youths. In addition, Mayor Ed Lee is proposing an additional $2 million over the next two years for youth homeless programs that will include an emphasis on LGBTQ people  who constitute 49 percent of the latest homeless youth count.

The whole focus is to prevent youth homelessness to begin with, and make it rare, brief and non-reoccurring, Adams said. The city has set a goal of ending youth and family homelessness by 2020, and I think we can do that.

On the flip side, the new count of 2,138 chronically homeless people  up from 1,629 in 2015  reinforced studies by universities and hospitals showing the homeless population has been aging so steadily that the average age in the streets is now 58.

The chronically homeless are hard-core people whove lived outside for a year or more and suffer from narcotic, mental or other troubles that keep them on the street. The new city count reveals that among that group, not only did their numbers rise but their difficulties increased.

Sixty-three percent have psychiatric or emotional conditions, up from 55 percent in 2015, and 65 percent struggle with drug or alcohol abuse, up from 62 percent in 2015. A full 49 percent reported chronic health problems, up from 43 percent two years ago.

And perhaps as telling as any figure, the report found that only 25 percent of the overall homeless population were new to the streets  compared with 48 percent five years ago. The problem is so acute that homeless street outreach teams now focus most on those who have lived outside for at least 13 years  and there are never enough shelter beds for them.

Our greatest challenge in our residential treatment center program for substance abuse and mental illness is that 95 percent of our clientele (of 300 people) is homeless, and for too many of them there is nowhere to go after theyre done with the program, said Vitka Eisen, head of the community health nonprofit HealthRight 360 in San Francisco.

She said the maximum stay in her center is six months, but under proposed state and federal funding changes that could drop to three months, and theres no way with 90 days that youre going to exit into stable housing. So we need more supportive transitional housing for people coming out of residential treatment. Outpatient treatment just doesnt work well if youre living outside.

The Tipping Point Community charity has pledged to give the city $100 million over the next five years to help it cut the chronically homeless population in half.

Few were less surprised at the hard-core street numbers going up than the chronically homeless themselves.

What do you expect in a city where the rent is too high, and youre a guy who never made a lot of money? said Wayne Biggs, 66, who has been homeless since 2007 when his rent got jacked above what he could pay with his federal disability check.

Sitting the other day with his giant rolling suitcase at the main city library, Biggs said he is close to giving up on getting by with soup kitchens and the occasional hotel room. When his check of several hundred dollars comes in next month, he said, hes heading north where maybe he can rent a room in some small town.

I was a construction worker, an honest guy who worked until I got too old to swing a hammer, he said. What am I supposed to do? What are all of us supposed to do?

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron
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Lucie Watts sat on the sand of Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica Saturday, catching her breath beside her bright green surfboard.

The London resident had a flight out of the Bay Area that night at 7:30, but before she left, she said, she had to try surfing just once.

Watts joined scores of surfers who came to the beach for International Surfing Day, a celebration sponsored by the Surfrider Foundation that included a beach cleanup and a paddle-out with surfers both new and experienced.

Its tough; its really tiring, said Watts, 33, of her first attempt to paddle out into the ocean. I feel like I need more upper body strength. Its quite intense.

Not far from where Watts rested, Sid Naik threw bottle caps, candy wrappers, plastic bottles and other trash he had picked up from the beach into plastic bags.

The 17-year-old San Jose resident first became interested in beach cleanups through a school project and he plans to participate in a number of them during his summer break from the University Preparatory Academy, a charter school, he said.

Among the hundreds of cigarette butts that Naik picked up, he said, he also found plenty of half full beer bottles and one surfboard, broken in half.

If we stop the plastics from entering the ocean at this level, its really important because we can save lives, Naik said.

He picked up an abandoned tiny blue toy race car, washed it off and placed it on the bench nearby. His consolation prize for the day, he said.

Nearby, children dug holes with pink and blue shovels, skipped rocks into the water and played paddle ball with their family members. For many, it was just another beach day.

But for Watts, the day was somewhat of a triumph. She was able to get up on her knees as the water rippled underneath her board. Watts was determined, she said, and wasnt going to leave until she was able to stand up on the board.

I was just trying to rest to catch up, she said as her wet hair dripped onto the board.

Watts difficulty getting up on her board isnt uncommon for a beginner, especially in Northern California, where beach and weather conditions dont make it easy to learn how to surf, said Max Ernst, the board chairman for the Surfrider Foundations San Francisco chapter.

Last year, the celebration was held at Ocean Beach, notorious for its strong waves and currents, but this year the venue was shifted because Linda Mar is a good place for beginners to dab their toes in the water, Ernst added.

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.

There were hoards of beginners in yellow jerseys, wading in the shallow water while more experienced surfers in black wetsuits ventured out farther.

Dedication to the sport is key in Northern California.

Surfing in (Northern California) is like training. (Surfing elsewhere), I never get cold. Wind is never that strong. I never get tired. If you can surf here, you can surf anywhere, said Jeff Young, a volunteer with the Surfrider Foundation.

For many surfers, calm, sunny weather and unruly waves  the opposite of whats commonly found at Northern California beaches  are crucial for surfing, Young said.

In Southern California, theres tons of babes and you hang out, Young said. Here, you cant even plan a beach day.

But Saturdays surfing event was an attempt to put aside all the factors that play into a perfect surf day, and instead was focused on spending time in the water with your friends, Young added.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
The NDMC has so far issued over 1,100 notices -- and 13 challans -- to various buildings in the VVIP Lutyens zone, which were found to be "breeding spots" for mosquitoes.

By Press Trust of India: The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has slapped several notices on the Rashtrapati Bhavan after mosquito-breeding was observed at many pools of stagnant water on the sprawling complex.

The NDMC has so far issued over 1,100 notices -- and 13 challans -- to various buildings in the VVIP Lutyens zone, which were found to be "breeding spots" for mosquitoes by its surveillance team.

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"Every year, we form a surveillance team whose inspection leads to notices being issued by the NDMC. If the situation doesn't improve by the time of second inspection, challans are issued," a senior official of NDMCs health department said.

"We have issued several notices to various complexes and residential quarters in the Presidents Estate over mosquito breeding," the official added.

SIMILAR NOTICES ISSUED LAST YEAR

Last year, the NDMC had issued over 80 notices to the Presidents Estate after "heavy" mosquito-breeding was found at various places on its sprawling campus, he said.

The number of notices issued to the Presidents Estate was 125 in 2015.

However, the exact number of notices issued to the Rashtrapati Bhavan this year was not immediately available.

OTHER OFFICES ISSUED NOTICES

Among other important buildings which have been issued notices are the defence ministry and the Delhi high courts.

Also, the Haryana Bhawan, Paryavaran Bhawan, Mausum Bhawan, Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Safdarjung Hospital, AIIMS, Delhi Police Headquarters, and Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital have been served notices.

According to the latest municipal report on vector-borne diseases, at least 70 cases of dengue and 135 of chikungunya have been reported in Delhi till June 10.

Also read: Kerala in the grip of viral fever, 103 deaths reported since January

Also read: Dengue menace: This is how India will render the deadly mosquitoes toothless

--- ENDS ---
A man suspected of involvement in a fatal shooting in Concord on Saturday is in custody after crashing a car, police said Sunday.

The search for the man prompted an unsuccessful raid Saturday on his parents home in Oakley that left the family dog dead, according to the suspects mother, Sandy Jacobson.

Concord police began investigating the case when a shooting was reported around 1:50 a.m. Saturday in front of the Nica Lounge on the 1900 block of Salvio Street in Concord, according to the Concord Police Department.

When police arrived, they found a 43-year-old man on the ground bleeding from a gunshot wound, and he was declared dead at the scene shortly thereafter, police said.

The victims name has not yet been released pending notification of his family.

By interviewing witnesses, police identified a 27-year-old suspect, and the Concord police SWAT team served a high-risk search warrant on a home on the 1900 block of Teresa Lane in Oakley, where the suspects parents live. Police did not release the suspects name, and Jacobson did not identify her son.

A shelter-in-place order was issued for the 1800 and 1900 blocks of Teresa just after 11 a.m. and lifted about four hours later.

They came here saying our son who does not live here is in the house, Jacobson said. He was not in the house  we told them over and over  but they did not believe us.

During the raid, blinds and doors were broken, windows and mirrors were shattered, and the family dog was shot six times, she said.

We can fix this (damage), but we cant get our dog back. And they wont let us have him so we can bury him. They said, Well, no, Animal Controls here to take him away. We dont even have him to bury, Jacobson said.

The suspect, who reportedly lives at a halfway house in Martinez, was not found during the search.

Police later learned from the California Highway Patrol that the suspect had been involved in a single-vehicle crash and was taken to the hospital.

On Sunday, Concord police said the suspect was in custody.

Filipa Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi
Rafe Swan/Getty Image

After a chase winding through multiple towns, police apprehended four men who assaulted a man and stole his pants early Friday morning in Vacaville, officials said.

Officers pulled up to the 1500 block of Alamo Drive in Vacaville in response to an alarm call when the robbery victim emerged from an apartment complex across the street, his face covered in blood, and told police he had just been robbed of his cell phone, cash, watch and pants, according to the Vacaville Police Department.
Supporters of Sen. Kamala Harris have been calling me to ask if shes coming across as too strident in her questioning of Justice Department officials testifying before the Intelligence Committee.

You know, she seems kind of mean, one caller said.

Shes not mean, I said. Shes just being Kamala.

Unlike many politicians, Harris did not work her way up the ladder in the glad-handing world of city councils and the Legislature. She came into the Senate via the courthouse, first as a front-line prosecutor and then district attorney in San Francisco, followed by six years as state attorney general.

She is a dead-on prosecutor, and when she goes into that mode, watch out. She is out for blood.

Harris no-nonsense style was on full display in her grilling of Attorney General Jeff Sessions during a committee hearing last week on the issue of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Harris wanted to know exactly what policy Sessions was relying on in refusing to answer questions about his conversations with President Trump.

Sessions kept trying to dodge the question by being his Southern gentlemanly evasive self. At that point, under the unwritten club rules of the Senate, Harris was expected to be equally courteous and politely back off.

But Harris doesnt care about Senate courtesy. She has no interest in being in their club.

Or any club.

I remember back when she was first elected D.A., here in San Francisco. We had been very close, but she made a point of telling one of my buddies: You tell that Willie Brown that while Im D.A. hed better even consider jaywalking a capital offense.

And she meant it.

Former hedge fund titan and possible gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer hosted a breathtaking fundraiser to help the Bob Woodruff Foundation with its work for wounded veterans and their families at his Sea Cliff home the other night.

I say breathtaking because the front yard of the Steyer home is basically the Golden Gate Bridge. Steyer was so impressed with the view that he bought the house next door as well.

The funny thing is, the home sat empty for more than a year after Steyer bought it.

It needed that much work? I asked.

No. Steyer told me he was ready to move in, but that it took him 18 months to work up the nerve to tell his wife, Kathryn Taylor, about the purchase.

She was in love with their life on the Peninsula, and he couldnt quite find the right moment to tell her.

Then one day, he was at a party when a woman came up to him and asked him how he liked his new house.

Steyer replied, What are you talking about?

She said Steyers son had been throwing parties there for a year or so. Big-time parties, at least one a month, and that her son had been one of the partygoers.

So Steyer went to his son and asked, Have you been giving parties at Sea Cliff?

He said, Yeah.

How did you know about the house? Steyer asked.

Mom. She gave me a key.

Some 300 people gathered at Point Richmond to bid a final farewell to former Assemblyman Jack Knox, who represented Contra Costa County up in Sacramento for 20 years.

Back in the day, Knox made the mistake of crossing swords with then-Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh. He quickly found himself bumped off his perch on the penthouse committee that drew up laws for the banking insurance industry to the decidedly less posh committee that handled state interaction with local government.

The demotion turned out to be a real gift for the people of California. The dogged Knox crafted some of the most significant legislation of the modern era, including the creation of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

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.

But you know, politicians are funny creatures. No matter their accomplishments in office, what comes after can be a bigger deal to them.

At the memorial, former Assemblyman Bill Bagley said he was having a drink one day with Knox years after they both left politics, when out of the blue, Knox said, Bill, I think my stretch of freeway is longer than your freeway.

The next time they got together, Knox told him, I checked. Your stretch is 6.8 miles. Mine is 8.1 miles. So clearly mine is longer.

He was 92, and Im 91, Bagley said. Just think how impressive it was for two old guys to be arguing about who has the longest ... freeway.

Movie time: Churchill, set in World War II during the run-up to D-Day. Worth seeing, but dont go the theater tired. Your snoring might bother the other customers.

In March, I made a pitch in this space for help on lighting up the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park.

Well, on Wednesday, we are going to flip the switch. About 8:30 p.m., just as it gets dark. So come to the park and check it out. Mayor Ed Lee, Chief of Protocol Charlotte Shultz and I will greet you. The first colors may be champion Warriors blue and gold.

One of my readers chimed in that while some people refer to Trump as POTUS, as in the President of the United States, it might be more appropriate if we went with, The Donald of the United States.

DOOFUS for short.

Want to sound off? Email: wbrown@sfchronicle.com
Mickey Drexler wasnt just any retail executive. He was a merchant prince, a man whose fashion instincts helped rescue Gap Inc. in the 1990s when the San Francisco apparel chain was struggling to find relevance.

But Drexlers recent decision to resign as J. Crew CEO is perhaps the most stark reminder that fashion and marketing expertise alone cant rescue an industry besot by rapid demographic and technological change. Other big names in fashion, including Ron Johnson (J.C. Penney), Terry Lundgren (Macys), and Sharen Jester Turney (Victorias Secret), have vacated their posts in recent years. Kathryn Bufano (Bon-Ton Stores) and Linda Heasley (Lane Bryant) also resigned this year.

It might be tempting to say that Drexler lost his fashion touch and that people just dont want to buy J. Crew clothing. But the industry has been rapidly transforming.

Michael Macor/The Chronicle

The populism we have witnessed in politics seems to be sweeping through the fashion industry as well. Whereas merchant princes and princesses once told us what to wear a year from now, Millennial shoppers look to the more fickle and unpredictable trendsetters on social media.

Drexler was the guy that everyone thought had the magic touch, said Chicago retail consultant Brian Kelly. But retailers today should be using data ... rather than attending last years fashion show.

The next generation of retail apparel leaders will not be experts in fashion. They will focus more on data and supply chains.

Walmart, which is known more for logistics prowess than for fashion, said Friday that it will buy online mens retailer Bonobos for $310 million.

Theres more to retail right now than just making nice clothes, said Mark Lovas, a former top executive at Bonobos who is now CEO of Trumaker in San Francisco, another online mens clothing shop. Apparel retailers must craft business models that deliver merchandise to customers and remove unsold clothing from inventory in the quickest, most cost-efficient way possible, he said.

Those skills seem at odds with the merchandisers and marketers who have traditionally run apparel chains.

In the first half of the 20th century, big family-owned department stores dominated the U.S. fashion industry. Customers would trek to a downtown Bloomingdales, Marshall Fields or Daytons to find the latest look.

A CEO typically would have started at the company as a buyer, traveling across the country and eventually around the world to meet designers and attend fashion shows. Drexler came from a fashion background: He was merchandising vice president at Abraham & Straus in New York and later worked at Ann Taylor, Bloomingdales and Macys. After his stint at Gap, he led J. Crew as CEO for 14 years.

But the world of merchant princes has been upended. The Internet has allowed shoppers to quickly find a wide range of information  prices, styles, opinions  beyond catalogs, magazines or Sunday newspaper circulars.

Most retailers enjoyed opportunistic time periods, said Alicia Hare, a former strategy executive at Target Corp. who is now a regional president for SYPartners, a consulting firm in San Francisco. But they had no sense of purpose. Why do they exist? During challenging times, if you cant fall back on some kind of North Star, its difficult to find a path through.

Some emerging e-commerce companies like Bonobos and Touch of Modern in San Francisco, by contrast, have a laser focus. Both offer limited assortments of well-fitting mens clothing in the most convenient way possible.

Jerry Hum, co-founder and CEO of Touch of Modern, said he and his friends created the startup partly because they hated shopping at malls. Whereas women will try out several outfits at a physical store, men will buy several colors of the same shirt they like, he said.

And though Hum and his employees had no previous experience in design or merchandising, they now feel confident enough to create their own brand of clothing lines.

These e-commerce startups enjoy a distinct advantage over chains like Gap and J. Crew: The chains must spend a lot of money operating physical stores. Thats why retail leaders must mind every penny and root out waste, especially in stores and the supply chain.

Retail chains require a lot of labor, said Ash Fontana, a managing director with Zetta Venture Partners in San Francisco. Reducing labor costs requires using artificial intelligence systems and data analysis, he said.

For all of his talent on the runway, Drexler isnt particularly known for his expertise in technology and logistics.

Its an uncomfortable truth about apparel retailers: Clothes may make the man, but they no longer make the CEO.

Thomas Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. He is author of Rebuilding Empires (St. Martins Press) on how big-box retailers will adapt to the digital age. Email: tlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ByTomLee
Can companies change? Ubers months of turmoil and scandal, capped by its steps last week to reform its cutthroat corporate culture, bring that question front and center.

The beleaguered ride-hailing company said Tuesday it will implement 47 sweeping recommendations from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, whom it hired to investigate allegations of sexism, bullying, retaliation and other workplace issues.

Holders report acknowledged the catalyst: a blockbuster blog post from former engineer Susan Fowler in February detailing hostility toward women at Ubers San Francisco headquarters  and her futile attempts to get managers to respond. Since then, Uber has been mired in other controversies: a trade-secrets lawsuit, a program to evade law enforcement, a video of its CEO berating a driver.

Uber will change because they can, said political strategist Bradley Tusk, an early adviser to and investor in the company, adding that it would behoove Uber to release quarterly reports on what steps it takes. Theres nothing in the recommendations thats impossible to do. They just have to put in the work.

Time 2017

That work starts at the top, with CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick yielding some power to whoever takes the new position of chief operating officer. That cant happen in a substantive way until Kalanick returns from a leave to grieve his late mother and, as he said in a company-wide email, work on Uber 2.0 and Travis 2.0.

That raises another question: What might a revamped Uber look like?

Uber 2.0 should have checks and balances; have an HR function that really works for the best interest of the employees and company; realize that complaints need to get investigated and escalated, said Brooke Schneider, a New York employment and litigation attorney.

It wont be the entrepreneurial cowboy culture thats worked so well for them in the past, said Evan Rawley, a professor of management at Columbia University. It will be more bureaucratic, with more written procedures for things like compensation and promotion.

While that might sacrifice some of the breakneck growth thats turned Uber into a $69 billion powerhouse, its about time for them to act like a regular business anyway, Rawley said.

In fact, he said, the hedge funds that have invested in Uber and hold board seats hope the turmoil will force Kalanick to change some practices that have long rankled them, such as an aggressive price war with Lyft that causes Uber to hemorrhage cash. Uber said in April that it lost $2.8 billion last year on net revenue of $6.5 billion.

Some company critics  such as former employees and Fowler herself  saw the reforms as superficial. A few remedies, in fact, were literal window dressing, such as renaming the War Room the Peace Room, and jettisoning corporate principles like principled confrontation.

Some of the recommendations were a joke, said one former employee, who asked not to be named. For an 8-year-old company to need an outside company to say that alcohol and drugs should be prohibited during work hours? They should have known that already.

Others were cautiously optimistic.

The recommendations are good, but the question is how they will be implemented and propagated throughout the organization, said Chris Messina, who left a developer-relations job at Uber early this year. He described its environment as stark and stoic in marked contrast to the colorful and playful workplace of Google, where he previously worked.

Ubers structure is unusually decentralized with semiautonomous city teams, which might make it harder to spread change company-wide, Messina and others said.

Uber has been arrogant for a long time, said Ira Kalb, a marketing professor at the University of Southern California. But a company can always make changes in its culture.

In fact, he sees it taking the necessary steps to repair a tattered image: admitting the problem and apologizing; explaining how the scope is limited; and proposing a solution so it wont happen again.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 2 1 of 2 Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of 2 JARED SOARES/NYT Show More Show Less



What impact has all the tumult had on Ubers core constituents, its 40 million riders and 1.5 million drivers worldwide?

Even though consumers now see Uber in a more negative light, most users of ride-hailing services believe theyre all basically the same, said Stephen Beck, managing partner of consulting firm CG42, which surveyed 1,500 Americans about their perceptions of Uber in the midst of the string of scandals. The likelihood that they will switch is relatively low.

Credit-card data show Uber continuing to enjoy robust year-over-year revenue growth, albeit slightly less strong in February and March at the height of the controversies. After all, experts said, the vast majority of Americans have never even used ride-hailing apps, leaving a huge untapped market for both Uber and Lyft, even if some customers jump ship.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Drivers will stick with the company as long as it continues to provide them with passengers. Uber drivers are not switching to Lyft ... since, for the most part, Ubers product hasnt been affected by any of this turmoil, wrote Harry Campbell, a Los Angeles driver who runs the Rideshare Guy blog.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a management professor and senior associate dean for leadership studies at Yale, said he felt Holders report fell short by ignoring many of Ubers earlier controversies, such as its dodging of regulatory oversights and issues with driver compensation.

Hes concerned about the leadership vacuum with an array of top-level posts left vacant  chief operating officer, chief financial officer, general counsel, chief marketing officer  many due to a recent executive exodus. The companys plan to have the 14 executives who report to Kalanick run Uber in the interim sounds unwieldy, he said.

He, like others, sees Uber reflecting Silicon Valleys deep-rooted problems of sexism, ageism and lack of diversity.

Underscoring just how pervasive those issues can be, an Uber board member made a joke about women talking too much at the very meeting Tuesday where Uber sought to reassure employees it would stamp out sexism. That board member, David Bonderman, apologized and resigned the same day.

More established companies have worked to correct those problems by putting in systems and learning not to believe blindly in the religion of meritocracy, Sonnenfeld said.

Ubers controversies garnered it another distinction last week. Its featured on the cover of Time magazine as exemplifying a wake-up call for Silicon Valley.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid
Sa n Franciscos gay bar scene remains a vibrant part of LGBTQ life in the city: Each June these watering holes from the Castro to the Tenderloin are flooded with visitors looking to wet their whistles and celebrate S.F. Pride. Some bars are historic sites (Harveys) where pioneers like Harvey Milk planted the seeds that blossomed into the LGBTQ rights revolution. Other spots have great shows (Aunt Charlies Lounge, Oasis), fierce dancing (Badlands, the Cafe, El Rio) and killer cocktails and decor (Blackbird).

This year, our bar guide expands to include the cannabis lounges of San Francisco for Pride-goers with medical cannabis patient cards looking for a safe space to vape or smoke. Whether drinking or toking, enjoy San Francisco Pride safely and responsibly.

Castro

Last Call

3988 18th St.

Crowd: Relaxed, anti-scene, neighborhood crew where bartenders greet people by name.

Hot time: Afternoons and happy hour.

Dress code: Casual, unironic flannel shirt and jeans.

Dont miss: On cold nights, the fireplace. The jukebox is also a favorite.

Twin Peaks Tavern

401 Castro St.

Crowd: Veterans of Castro past, newbies looking to discover some Castro history.

Hot time: Pre- and post-showtime at the Castro Theatre, especially if theres a good Joan Crawford versus Bette Davis revival.

Dress code: Castro clone circa 1974, or try to out-sequin the fab veteran cocktail waitresses.

Dont miss: The view from the balcony seating.

440 Castro

440 Castro St.

Crowd: Its a regular den of bears. Grrr.

Hot time: Things pick up after 9 p.m. and are always happening on Monday Underwear Night.

Dress code: Chest hair.

Dont miss: Sunday, Scruffy Sunday, the last Sunday of the month.

Qbar

456 Castro St.

Crowd: Younger Castro-goers with a great gender mix.

Hot time: Saturday beer busts.

Dress code: Something to dance in that also takes great selfies.

Dont miss: Throwback Thursdays for 80s, 90s and 00s dance hits.

Moby Dick

4049 18th St.

Crowd: The beer and pool set.

Hot time: Wednesday Dick at Nite drag performances.

Dress code: New England whaler chic. Just kidding; jeans will do.

Dont miss: The frozen drinks and saltwater fish tank. Shiver me timbers.

Pilsner Inn

225 Church St.

Crowd: Neighborhoodies.

Hot time: Any warm afternoon or night on the patio.

Dress code: Whatever you wore to the Safeway across Market.

Dont miss: The old-school wooden phone booth, perfect for selfies.

Blackbird

2124 Market St.

Crowd: Younger, homo-meets-hipster professionals.

Hot time: The after-work crowd is politely cruisey. Tiki Sundays are also fun days.

Dress code: More trend-conscious than skin-conscious.

Dont miss: One of the best cocktail destinations in the gay bar scene; enjoy something other than a pour-over drink in a plastic cup. Craige Walters interiors and the rotating art shows make for a great setting.

The Mix

4086 18th St.

Crowd: Like its name, a mix  twinks to college boys to bears. Also a healthy gender and age mix.

Hot time: During one of the many beer busts held for charity.

Dress code: A sweater for the back patio bar is never a bad idea.

Dont miss: Free pool after 7 p.m. on Mondays.

Harveys

500 Castro St.

Crowd: Old-timers who remember the bar as the Elephant Walk in Harvey Milks day, newbies curious about the bars place in gay history.

Hot time: Dinner: Its a great place to carbo-load before drinking and dancing. Brunch: Its a great place to recover the next day.

Dress code: Honor the bars namesake with a Milk for Supervisor T-shirt.

Dont miss: The Mecca scramble.

Midnight Sun

4067 18th St.

Crowd: All sorts with some great drag regulars.

Hot time: The Mister Sister Mondays RuPauls Drag Race viewing parties.

Dress code: Glitter works as well on Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as it does on the Saturday go-go boys.

Dont miss: Castro Karaoke Wednesdays, hosted by Bebe Sweetbriar.

The Cafe

2369 Market St.

Crowd: People who come to dance with a capital D.

Hot time: Boogie oclock starts after 9 p.m.

Dress code: Shirts tend to come off quickly on the dance floor.

Dont miss: Latin themed Picante Thursdays.

Hi Tops

2247 Market St.

Crowd: Sports fans, jocks and athletic enthusiasts.

Hot time: Game time.

Dress code: San Francisco team colors are always encouraged; bartenders wear jocks for Thursday night Gym Class.

Dont miss: Monday night $5 chicken wing baskets.

The Lookout

3600 16th St.

Crowd: Revelers looking for a little noise and maybe a slice of pizza.

Hot time: Friday and Saturday nights on the town, post-brunch cocktails on Sunday.

Dress code: Something to show off those pecs and a pair of binoculars to check out your neighbor.

Dont miss: The view from the balconies of the musclemen exiting the gym on Market Street.

Badlands

4121 18th St.

Crowd: Twink alert!

Hot time: Most nights attract a healthy crowd to the dance floor, where Katy, Gaga and Madonna rule the playlists.

Dress code: Your best club-going sneaks, and a shirt you dont care about losing.

Dont miss: The black-lit hall of urinals with overhanging mirrors and the roomy dance floor.

Toad Hall

4146 18th St.

Crowd: People looking for a change of pace from Badlands.

Hot time: Weekends on the patio.

Dress code: Whatever you can dance in.

Dont miss: The great sound system.

Beaux

2344 Market St.

Crowd: Squeaky-clean and polished, like the venue.

Hot time: After work, early evening, late night.

Dress code: The tighter and more skin-baring the better.

Dont miss: The Beauxtox house cocktail, Cock Shot Tuesdays and the nearly naked gogo boys.

Flore (formerly Cafe Flore)

2298 Market St.

Crowd: Casual diners and drinkers, former punks who remember the cafes mosh pit days.

Hot time: Sunny days when the people watching is easy.

Dress code: Casual bohemian duds.

Dont miss: The ambience of sipping a cocktail in the patio garden, the gay history from the early days of liberation.

The Edge

4149 18th St.

Crowd: Mixed ages but skews more 30-plus.

Hot time: Weekends for day drinking that becomes early evening drinking.

Dress code: Chest hair preferred, but not required.

Dont miss: Musical Mondays for trivia and classic clips.

Tenderloin

The Cinch

1723 Polk St.

Crowd: Gay dive bar regulars.

Hot time: The vibe stays pretty homey and mellow even during weekend peaks.

Dress code: If this is a gay Cheers, channel your inner Carla.

Dont miss: The heavy pour of the average bartender, the Little Shop of Horrors man-eating plant decor.

Aunt Charlies Lounge

133 Turk St.

Crowd: Bathhouse-disco-era queens.

Hot time: Any evening performance, but Saturdays are always a fabulous show with plenty of classic older performers strutting their stuff. Reservations are available.

Dress code: Sparkle, glitter and that hint of the 70s.

Dont miss: Collette LeGrande, the sassy, saucy waitress and longtime performer who takes no nonsense.

Divas

1081 Post St.

Crowd: Trans women, drag queens, cross-dressers and the people who admire them.

Hot time: Late nights are when the real scene begins.

Dress code: At a place called Divas, a little excess is always encouraged.

Dont miss: The talent onstage for any of the numerous live performances.

Gangway

841 Larkin St.

Crowd: Unpretentious neighborhood characters and kitsch lovers alike.

Hot time: People always say theyre just starting the night at the Gangway  then end up finishing it there hours later.

Dress code: Try a nautical yacht-rock-meets-punk-rock look.

Dont miss: The people watching and staring up at the black-tarped ceiling.

Mission District

El Rio

3158 Mission St.

Crowd: A true mix of all the LGBT letters with a healthy helping of straights.

Hot time: Most weekends, its wall-to-wall people by 11.

Dress code: A mix of hipster uniforms then and now.

Dont miss: The live performances most nights of the week.

South of Market

SF-Eagle

398 12th St.

Crowd: Leather men.

Hot time: Weekends on the patio.

Dress code: Your Tom of Finland favorite chaps and a motorcycle jacket.

Dont miss: The overall Kenneth Anger retro biker vibe.

Powerhouse

1347 Folsom St.

Crowd: Leather, punk, jock, neighborhood guys  a real gay variety.

Hot time: When isnt it a hot time? Most nights youll break a sweat (which some patrons are into).

Dress code: If you have some kind of apparel-related fetish, this is the place to bring it out of the kink closet.

Dont miss: Tuesday nights ink-and-metal dollar-off drinks for bar-goers with tattoos and/or piercings.

Lone Star Saloon

1354 Harrison St.

Crowd: Mixed ages and sexes.

Hot time: Fridays and weekends.

Dress code: Go a little Western (either rugged or rhinestone variety) as a nod to the saloon spirit.

Dont miss: Chatting with the super-friendly bar staff.

The Stud Bar

399 Ninth St.

Crowd: Studs, twinks, goths, queens, trans, lesbians, one of the best melanges in SoMa, now the first worker-owned-collective nightclub in the U.S.!

Hot time: Performance nights, of which there are many!

Dress code: A great bar to let your freak flag fly, whether your look is haute or homemade.

Dont miss: The decor, the alt-music nights, the people-watching.

Asia SF

201 Ninth St.

Crowd: The performers may be trans women and drag queens, but the crowd is usually straight bachelorettes and tourists. Nearly family-friendly fun for those new to drag performances.

Hot time: Saturdays during the run-up to wedding season.

Dress code: Given the excess of bachelorettes, a white veil and tiara.

Dont miss: The new season of the Asia SF set reality show Transcendent on Fuse.

Hole in the Wall Saloon

1369 Folsom St.

Crowd: For gay bikers by gay bikers.

Hot time: Weekends.

Dress code: Your best grease-monkey onesie.

Dont miss: The totally selfie-worthy mechanics decor.

Oasis

298 11th St.

Crowd: Drag and cabaret fans and alt-indie types tired of the squeaky-pop Castro.

Hot time: Showtime! Oasis is home to many regular performance events hosted by and starring co-owners DArcy Drollinger and Heklina.

Dress code: Dress as your favorite Golden Girls or Sex and the City star, depending on which sitcom is getting the drag treatment that night.

Dont miss: The decor in the exotic fez room, the roof deck.

OMG

43 Sixth St.

Crowd: As the name implies, mostly Millennial and younger.

Hot time: Friday and Saturday nights.

Dress code: Something you dont mind breaking a dance-related sweat in.

Dont miss: The light show.

The EndUp

401 Harrison St.

Crowd: Techno fans and insomniacs who are looking for after-hours fun (the EndUp is open until 4 a.m. most days).

Hot time: After other bars have closed at 2 a.m.

Dress code: At that hour, who cares?

Dont miss: A chance to re-create the infamous tighty whities scene from the gay classic Tales of the City, which was set in the bar.

Other bars

Trax (Haight)

1437 Haight St.

Crowd: Dive regulars and college kids from not-too-far USF.

Hot time: Weeknights attract as good a crowd as weekends.

Dress code: When on Haight Street, what the hippies do. Just kidding; jeans and a hoodie are fine.

Dont miss: Their highly recommended Bloody Marys.

The Wild Side West

(Bernal Hill)

424 Cortland Ave.

Crowd: Neighborhood locals and people from out of the area cool enough to know about this hidden gem.

Hot time: Sunset, for the views from the garden.

Dress code: Neighborhood casual or neighborhood fabulous, a mix.

Dont miss: The whimsical garden with views and sculpture around every corner.

Cannabis Lounges

Access to these spaces is currently only open to medical cannabis patients with valid ID.

Lounge 8 Four 7

847 Howard St.

Crowd: Sports fans (theres usually a game, any game, blasting on the TV) and SoMa locals after work. Mix of ages, game time can reportedly get very bro-y.

Fee/Membership: Membership required.

Dont miss: Ask about the private reserve cannabis.

Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday

www.greendoorsf.com

Barbary Coast

952 Mission St.

Crowd: General Manager Nate Haas says of clients, You get the counterculture of the 60s meeting the hipster culture of today.

Fee/Membership: No fee or membership required.

Dont miss: The fabulous decor, inspired by great San Francisco institutions past, meets 420 tech with the first-ever full quartz dab bar in San Francisco.

Pride: Drag queens and snake-handling belly dancers are the featured entertainment at the party Friday night with flower specials all weekend: A quarter ounce for $35.

Hours: 8 a.m.-9:45 p.m.

www.barbarycoastsf.org

Harvest on Geary

4811 Geary Blvd.

Crowd: A mix, but mostly laid-back professionals.

Fee/Membership: Membership and application process required.

Dont miss: The social-club-like atmosphere, complete with rent-your-own cannabis locker storage.

Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

www.harvestshop.com

Sparc

473 Haight St. and 1256 Mission St.

Crowd: A mix of ages in both locations. The ultramodern decor is interior-design-award-winning.

Fee/Membership: Check contact information on website.

Dont miss: The monthly events like DJ and jazz nights.

Hours: 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Mission, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Haight

www.sparcsf.org

Urban Pharm

22 10th St.

Crowd: Bros, bro-ettes and burners alike in this steampunk-decorated lounge.

Fee/Membership: No fee or membership required.

Dont miss: The metalwork in the bar, Wednesday karaoke nights.

Hours: 8 a.m.-10 p.m.

www.urbanpharmsf.com

The Bloom Room

71 Jesse St.

Crowd: Intimate.

Fee/Membership: No fee or membership required.

Dont miss: The lab-tested potency listings on products.

Pride: During Pride weekend, for every purchase of any purple label eighth, Bloom Room will donate $5 to the San Francisco LGBT Center and will also give a free dab for each donation. Theres also 20 percent off all concentrates as well as selected eighths on special for $25.

Hours: 11 a.m.-8:45 p.m.; Sundays 11 a.m.-6:45 p.m.

www.bloomroomsf.com
Visiting the Summer of Love exhibition at the de Young Museum, choreographer Carlos Carvajal, co-artistic director for the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, was transported back 50 years. He was struck, he said, to see that the show focused primarily upon the poster art and the rock scene. There was no mention of the performing arts community, where there was a lot of innovation happening.

Carvajal was ballet master and associate choreographer for the San Francisco Ballet at the time. His ballet, Genesis 70, was performed to Terry Rileys avant-garde (now classic) In C. Carvajal describes its opening in an autobiography hes been working on: On opening night, probably due to a personal involvement with Chet Helms and other cultural community members ... (it) seemed like the entire Flower Power community was there, fringe, bells, paisley, long hair, patchouli and all, dressed to their very best. It was a hippie invasion to the usual ballet attendee, and many were offended by this manifestation of the youth culture at their staid opera house.

Carvajal was informed, after the opening, that the Ballet Guild just didnt enjoy the work, and they did not want that audience to come to our shows. It was a stunning reproach. Soon after, he formed his own company, Dance Spectrum.

Carvajal sent along a few reviews of the show, and I checked The Chronicle clips. Dance magazines Russell Hartley noted that although people usually wear black tie to ballet openings, this evening the audience truly rivaled the performers. Many audience members left during the performance, wrote Hartley, and the curtain call drew both boos and wild applause. Seeing how the work had aroused emotional response, the critic said he left with great hopes for the future of the San Francisco Ballet.

Chronicle critic Robert Commanday called the performance an extraordinary demonstration of ensemble discipline, dancer memory and a fantastic traffic plan. It was also terribly tiring. (That Monday, April 27, 1970, review appeared on an arts section page, and I couldnt help noticing some of the ads and stories about other performances in the Bay Area. Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Roberta Flack and Charles Mingus had performed at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley the Friday before for the fourth annual University of California Jazz Festival; Jerry Garcia was to perform that night at the Matrix on Fillmore Street; and Beverly Sills was to give a series of concerts at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. Not bad.)

And as to the question of whether Eventbrite tickets (free) are needed for the Wednesday, June 21, Surrealistic Summer Solstice Show in Golden Gate Park, Dawn Holliday, who is presiding over the show, says that tickets are not needed, and everyone who wants to be there is invited.

That concert will rub shoulders in the park with that nights adjacent lighting ceremonies for the Conservatory of Flowers. I am grateful to have been invited to a VIP reception for that (about which Ill write in a future column); at the same time, that invitation made me wonder whether the original Summer of Love had any VIP sections.

So I asked Peter Coyote, who had been a Digger in the Haight during the era. He said that at the Be-In, Allen Ginsberg, Lenore Kandel, Michael McClure, Suzuki Roshi and Gary Snyder were onstage, which naturally separated them from the crowd. But the Be-In was not a Digger event. The Diggers specialized in big frames like the Summer Solstice, which made everyone equal under the sun, the main reason why we never had any violence. The stage tended to make high-status and low-status territories, not in accordance with Diggers principles.

(When Altamont festival organizers asked the Diggers for help in creating an event for the Rolling Stones, the Diggers suggested a multistage event, to give all attendees access. They thought the Rolling Stones were too important to share space, and they called it a free concert to attract a huge audience they could use to film as extras in a Rolling Stones doc, emailed Coyote. That duplicity set the tone, and the entire world saw what occurred.)

As to the Diggers and the spirit of the Summer of Love: No, he wrote, we aint got no VIP sections.

Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @leahgarchik

Public Eavesdropping

Unless its a

real emergency,

we are not permitted to go to the bathroom during staff meetings.

Woman overheard
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Flo Braker, a home cook who grew to national recognition as an expert baker and luminary cookbook author, has died after complications from a fall. She was 78.

Ms. Braker, a Palo Alto resident, wrote several books, including her 1984 debut, The Simple Art of Perfect Baking, as well as the award-winning Sweet Miniatures (1991) and Baking for All Occasions (2008). For more than two decades, she penned The Baker column in The Chronicle. In 1997, she was inducted into the James Beard Foundations Whos Who of Food and Beverage in America.

When you think of pastry champions  someone who was a great baker from a technical standpoint and palate standpoint, and a champion of the pastry cooks in San Francisco  there was no one bigger than her, said San Francisco pastry chef and cookbook author Emily Luchetti. She knew everybody and was so supportive of the community.

Florence Ann Gumberts was born and raised in Evansville, Ind. In a 2005 column, she wrote about how she was transfixed by baking at a young age, watching her familys cook, Dorothy Temme, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl by hand with a wooden spoon as she made pies, cookies and cakes.

She met her future husband, Dave, while the two were attending the University of Michigan. The couple married in 1960 and decided to move to Palo Alto shortly afterward. As her family grew, so did her inquisitiveness for baking.

She just got into baking because it was something that intrigued her, Dave Braker said. She knew nothing about it, she just started reading lots of cookbooks.

In addition to baking for family and friends, Ms. Braker launched a small catering business, called Occasional Baking, that kept her busy for several years during the 1960s. In the early 1970s, she attended cooking classes in San Francisco led by Jack Lirio, who became a mentor. Eventually, Lirio asked her to teach baking classes with him.

She wrote about home entertaining for the San Jose Mercury News, and in 1989 she started writing The Baker column at The Chronicle. Her writing featured baking and pastry recipes that were approachable, educational and, above all, guaranteed to be delicious.

She was so exacting in the way that she wrote her books and the way she explained baking, said Celia Sack, owner of Omnivore Books in San Francisco. Whether in person or in writing, it felt like she was there holding your hand.

Ms. Brakers star continued to rise. Shortly after The Simple Art of Perfect Baking was republished in 1992, she received a call from Julia Child inviting her to come to Cambridge, Mass., where the two spent a week together filming an episode of Baking With Julia.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

In addition to her written works and television appearances, Ms. Braker was a charter member and president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and active in many other culinary organizations, including the San Francisco Professional Food Society and Les Dames DEscoffier. She was also a founding member of the Bakers Dozen, a San Francisco educational and networking organization of baking professionals, educators, authors and serious home bakers.

Whenever at the Bakers Dozen, whatever she would buy, the other bakers would want to buy, said Sack, who met Ms. Braker at the Bakers Dozen meetings. She would get some fancy chef-y book  and if Flo wanted it, then it had to be good.

Ms. Braker is survived by her husband; son Jeffrey Braker of Burlingame; daughter Julie Weinstein of San Mateo; and three grandchildren. A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Sunday at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos, followed by interment at Hills of Eternity Memorial Park in Colma.

Sarah Fritsche is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sfritsche@sfchronicle.com Twitter and Instagram: @foodcentric
WASHINGTON  Congressional Democrats demanded Sunday to hear directly from top White House adviser Jared Kushner over allegations of proposed secret back-channel communications with Russia, saying the security clearance of President Trumps son-in-law may need to be revoked.

Trump, having returned from a nine-day overseas trip, immediately railed against administration leaks, calling them fabricated lies, in a flurry of tweets.

And Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly defended the idea of establishing that kind of communication as a smart thing and said he didnt see any big issue here for Kushner.

But to the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, its obviously very concerning that a key Trump campaign figure was possibly seeking secret communications with a country that intelligence experts say intervened in the 2016 election.

Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank said the government needed to get to the bottom of the matter and urged a review of Kushners security clearance to find out whether he was truthful.

If not, then theres no way he can maintain that kind of a clearance, Schiff said.

The Associated Press and other news organizations reported that Kushner in December proposed a back channel between the Kremlin and the Trump transition team. Kushner spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about facilitating sensitive discussions to explore the incoming administrations options with Russia as it developed its Syria policy. The intent was to connect Trumps chief national security adviser at the time, Michael Flynn, with Russian military leaders, a person familiar with the discussions said.

The White House did not acknowledge the meeting or Kushners attendance until March. At the time, a White House official dismissed it as a courtesy meeting.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, described the latest allegations involving Kushner as serious and called for a thorough investigation.

He needs to answer for what was happening at the time, Booker said. Whats worrying me are the patterns were seeing. So one is this administration not talking about our values, cozying up to authoritarian leaders. And the other pattern we have is just a continuous drumbeat of inappropriate contacts with the Russians.

Lawyers for Kushner said he was willing to talk with federal and congressional investigators about his foreign contacts and his work on the Trump campaign.

The disclosure of the back channel put the White House on the defensive. Just back from visiting the Middle East and Europe, Trump on Sunday dismissed recent reports as fake news.

It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies, Trump tweeted.

Federal investigators and several congressional committees are looking into any connections between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Kelly appeared on Fox News Sunday, NBCs Meet the Press and ABCs This Week, Schiff also spoke on ABC, and Booker was on CNNs State of the Union.

Hope Yen and Vivian Salama are Associated Press writers.
By Press Trust of India: before burial

(Eds: Superseding DES39 slugged DL-LD BABY)

New Delhi, Jun 18 (PTI) In a shocking case of negligence, a newborn was allegedly declared "dead" by the staff of a central government hospital today but was found to be alive just before the infant was to be buried.

A police officer had earlier said the baby died but later claimed that there was another case in the hospital and that it was a case mistaken identity. The baby is alive, the officer, who did not want to be named, said.

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The incident occurred at Safdarjung hospital when a resident of Badarpur delivered a baby this morning. The nursing staff apparently failed to find any sign of breathing.

"The doctor and the nursing staff declared the baby dead and sealed the body in a pack, labelled it and handed it over to us for burial," said Rohit, the father of the child.

As the mothers condition was not stable, she remained in the hospital while the father and other family members took the body and went home, making preparations for the burial.

But then Rohits sister suddenly felt some movement in the pack and when they opened it, they found the baby breathing and moving its limbs.

Immediately a PCR call was made and the baby was rushed to Apollo Hospital from where it was shifted to Safdarjung.

The shocked parents have approached the police regarding the case.

"How can they be so irresponsible and declare a baby, who is alive, as dead? If we had not opened the sealed pack in time, my baby really would have died and we would never have come to know the truth. This is a gross negligence on the part of the hospital and the guilty should be punished," Rohit said.

Safdarjung hospital authorities have ordered an inquiry into the matter.

"The woman had delivered a baby 22-weeks-old premature baby. As per WHO guidelines, babies born before 22 weeks and weighing less than 500 gms do not survive and are not considered as deliveries. The baby was motionless without any cry or respiration after birth.

"We have ordered an inquiry to find out whether it was not checked properly if the baby was alive before being declared declared and handed over to his parents," said A K Rai, Medical Superintendent at Safdarjung hospital.

According to another doctor, such babies are kept under observation for about an hour before being declared dead. PTI PLB SLB AAR SC AAR

--- ENDS ---
Since the tallest dam in the United States threatened California with catastrophe last winter, state officials have responded with policies to stanch the flow not just of water but of information.

The latest example is the Legislatures vote to exempt a whole class of crucial information about dams from the states public-records law. A provision in the recesses of a lengthy budget-related bill requested by the governor and passed by both houses last week could prevent public and press access to plans for responding to dam emergencies.

That is hardly an academic issue in the wake of Februarys brush with disaster at the Oroville Dam, where record rains and brittle spillways forced nearly 200,000 to evacuate downstream areas. Gov. Jerry Browns administration has since awarded a $275 million contract to repair the structure and, last week, ordered new inspections of some 70 aging dams. At the same time, citing security concerns, the state has limited access to contract, inspection and other records despite the objections of journalists, legislators and local governments.

The bill passed Thursday, now awaiting Browns signature, is one of several trailer bills dealing with an array of policy issues. Among them, it expands the emergency action plans required of federally regulated dams to other dams and makes them consistent with other state emergency plans, such as those for earthquakes and tsunamis, said Kelly Huston, a deputy director of the state Office of Emergency Services. It also exempts those emergency plans, as the Sacramento Bee reported, from disclosure under the California Public Records Act.

Noting that evacuation routes and most of the other information in the plans are meant for public consumption, Huston said the administrations intent is to make them largely public but to withhold select sensitive information, such as specific dam vulnerabilities or law enforcement officers phone numbers. Oroville project communications manager Erin Mellon said officials intent is to improve safety with more emergency planning and make most of the plans transparent. The governors office also noted that the draft language of the legislation was published three months ago.

But the provision nevertheless underwent little public discussion and has the effect of creating a new exception to a public-records law that already has plenty, said David Snyder of the First Amendment Coalition. The legislations blanket language forces the public to rely on the best intentions of state officials rather than the legal presumption that the emergency plans, like most other government records, are public.

The dam legislation certainly has important public-safety goals. And its possible that in an attempt to keep a narrow swath of sensitive information confidential, lawmakers and the administration have inadvertently come to the brink of creating an excessively broad and unnecessary exemption to the Public Records Act. In any case, the governor can easily reassure the public of his commitment to transparency by refraining from signing that provision into law.
Winter is horning in on summer in the California mountains, where a stubborn blanket of snow is preventing several high-country camps from opening just as swarms of seasonal sojourners are itching to head for the hills.

Summer officially begins Wednesday, but the historic storms that rolled through this winter deposited so much snow in the Sierra, Cascade and Siskiyou ranges that roads are still being plowed, tent sites are still being dug out and damage is still being assessed.

The lingering ice has been a particular problem in Yosemite National Park, where officials last week announced the shutdown of the famed High Sierra camps  only the third time in a century that the scenic back-country sites have been declared off-limits for the entire summer because of thick snow.

We had a very heavy winter with a lot of rain and snow, and Tioga Road is not open yet, said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman, referring to the thoroughfare that provides the only access to the high camp trailheads. We not only have to clear the road, but mitigate avalanche concerns, and then wed have to get the tents up.

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Gediman said reservations for this year at the remote shelters will be honored next summer when, presumably, there wont be as much snow on the ground.

The High Sierra camps are five tent villages arranged in a loop, each about a days journey apart, similar to the hut-to-hut systems in the towering Alps of Austria, Switzerland, Germany and France. They range from the big Merced Lake camp at 7,150 feet to the Vogelsang camp perched on a mountainside 10,300 feet above sea level.

The other camps, which provide sleeping accommodations and showers, are May Lake, near Mount Hoffman; Glen Aulin, on the Tuolumne River; and Sunrise High Sierra Camp, the last camp on the fifty-mile loop. They have been hugely popular with guests, including backpackers, horseback riders and celebrities, since the first one opened in 1916.

Photographer Ansel Adams was partial to them, as was former first lady Laura Bush, who visited three of the High Sierra camps in 2001 with friends and a Secret Service detail.

The camps can be reached only on foot or by horse and mule pack trains. Everything arrives this way, including filet mignon and, sometimes, birthday cakes. The five camps together can accommodate 203 people a night, and reservations are handled through a lottery held every November.

Lance Iversen/San Francisco Chronicle

The problem, Gediman said, is that pack trains have not been able to get to the camps to set up tent cabins and other facilities. Now, there isnt time to get everything up and running before September, when the camps normally close, he said.

The last time heavy snow forced closure of the high camps for the summer was in 2005. The only other time was in 1995. Gediman said all guests with canceled reservations will get a full refund if they decide not to book next summer.

The Yosemite high country isnt the only place still shrouded in white. Heaping piles of snow are also blocking access to some campsites in Tahoe National Forest, Desolation Wilderness, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Plumas National Forest and Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

In many places, camp operators are hustling to dig out and restore access. At the city of Berkeleys Echo Lake Camp, in South Lake Tahoe, winter and spring storms damaged 37 of the 45 cabins while burying the site in 15 feet of snow. Workers could not get in to fix anything until early June, when the road leading to the camp was finally cleared.

The damage to the tent cabins is significant and there is also damage to the pool fence, stage and observation deck, said Scott Ferris, Berkeleys parks and recreation director. This is the worst snow year weve had in, I believe, 100 years. It has definitely been tough and it continues to be difficult because there is still a fair amount of snow on the ground.

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.

Ferris said the camp, which opened Saturday, suffered $80,000 in damage. Many Echo Lake campers, he said, are Berkeley families who once vacationed at the citys Tuolumne Camp, near Yosemite, which was destroyed by the Rim Fire in 2013 and is not expected to reopen until 2021.

Those who forge ahead with their camping plans should expect wet, icy conditions, Ferris said.

Itll just be a High Sierra experience, he said.

Berkeley seems to have cornered the market on camp disasters. In April 2016, a landslide damaged structures and destabilized the ground above several other buildings at the citys Cazadero Camp, a music camp along the Russian River.

At this point, Ferris said, were pretty well-versed on how to deal with these issues.

Despite the occasional ice coating, tents and sleeping bags are still likely to be abundant in the mountains this summer. Plenty of campsites are open, according to park rangers, and although the Yosemite high camps will be closed, the store, gas station and lodge at Tuolumne Meadows should open once Tioga Pass is cleared, hopefully in the next few weeks, Gediman said.

People have been very understanding about it, he said, because they are aware of the kind of winter weve had.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite
A San Jose police officer opened fire on a reckless driver just after midnight Saturday in the departments seventh officer-involved shooting this year, officials said.

Two officers were patrolling the 1700 block of Oakland Road when they approached a red Mazda Miata that had evaded them earlier when they attempted to stop the driver for driving recklessly, according to Sgt. Enrique Garcia, a spokesman for the San Jose Police Department.

The driver put the car in reverse and accelerated toward one of the officers, who then discharged his weapon, fearing for his life, Garcia said.

The driver, a man in his 20s, escaped the scene in the Miata, and police do not believe he was seriously injured, according to Garcia.

Area hospitals were checked for walk in shooting victims  none were found, he said in a statement.

The officer who fired his weapon has been placed on routine paid administrative leave, Garcia said.

The San Jose Police Departments Homicide Unit is conducting the criminal investigation. The case is being monitored by the San Jose Police Departments Internal Affairs Unit, the city attorneys office, and the Office of the Independent Police Auditor, he said.

Officers from the San Jose Police Department have been involved in six other shootings this year, half of them deadly. All six of the previous incidents had to do with mental illness, Garcia said.

Police are still seeking the driver involved in the Saturday incident. The suspect vehicle is described as having a black convertible top and paper license plates, police said.

Police are asking anyone with information on the drivers whereabouts to call the department at (408) 277-5283.

Filipa Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi
Forget frequent flier miles, last-minute getaways and even road trips. Nearly half of Americans say they wont be taking a vacation this summer, mostly because they cant afford it, according to a May poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The survey said 43 percent of Americans wont be taking a summer vacation. The top reason for skipping a trip was the cost, cited by 49 percent of non-vacationers. Another 11 percent said they cant take the time off from work, while 3 percent said they dont like to be away from work.

About half of Americans living in households making less than $50,000 a year dont plan to take any summer vacation this year, and theyre especially likely to cite costs as a reason.

And if your employer gives you paid vacation days, consider yourself lucky: Forty-one percent of those surveyed who work full or part time said they do not get any paid time off to use for vacation. Younger and lower-income workers are especially likely not to get any paid time off.

Danny Aguilar of Lakewood, Colo., says the cost is what stops him from planning a vacation. He works in information technology, but because hes self-employed, The income is very unknown. You dont know whats going to happen. You never really know whats coming. You cant really budget.

Other findings from the poll:

Most Americans use at least some of their paid time off if they have the option, but many still leave paid vacation on the table. Fourteen percent of workers who get paid vacation did not use any of the days they had coming to them. Just half of those with vacation time used all or most of the days they were entitled to in the past year.

Not everybody wants to go away in the summer. Fifteen percent of those who are passing on a summer getaway say its because they already took a vacation or because theyll travel some other time of year.

Americans seem to value time over luxury when it comes to their vacations. Nearly two-thirds say theyd prefer to take a longer but less luxurious vacation over one thats shorter but more luxurious.

Linda Dube and her sister are among those citing cost as a reason for staying home this summer. The sisters, who are retired, live in Fitchburg, Mass., and usually vacation for a few days at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut. We decided this year, instead of doing that, wed save a little money and take a one-week staycation, she said. They plan a day at a local mall, eating out at a wonderful little diner in the next town and perhaps a trip to a nearby art museum. Dubes sister is in a wheelchair, she added, so any destination must accommodate wheelchairs.

David Kisler of Costa Mesa (Orange County) says he cant afford a vacation either. Im working three jobs to make ends meet, said Kisler, who lost his job marketing network security in 2009. His wife works, too, but he said theyve been dipping into savings to tackle projects around the house.

Kisler and his wife did recently drive to Mission Beach near San Diego to spend time with family whod driven in from Arizona, but three days with relatives in a shared rental house is not exactly a vacation, he said.

More than 4 in 10 Americans say they dont consider visiting family to be a true vacation, though about three-quarters do consider a long weekend away a vacation.

For Kisler, the weekend in a shared house with family certainly cant compare with the week he and his wife spent a few years ago in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in a hotel near the beach. That was a real vacation, he said.

Beth J. Harpaz and Emily Swanson are Associated Press writers.
By Press Trust of India: Islamabad, Jun 17 (PTI) Pakistan today said that it has opened another crossing point on the border with Afghanistan to facilitate Afghan transit trade.

The decision came close on the heels of a meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of SCO summit in Astana.

Foreign office said in a statement that Pakistan opened Kharlachi crossing with Afghanistan in Kurram tribal district "with effect from today."

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"The decision reflects Pakistans continued efforts for facilitating Afghan transit and trade through Pakistan," it said.

It also clarified that this is not a pedestrians crossing, but is meant for facilitation of trade and transit vehicles. PTI SH ZH

--- ENDS ---
DORAVILLE, Ga.  Dr. Nadine Becker wasnt politically involved until she saw Donald Trump elected president, but the suburban Atlanta gynecologist didnt know how to engage, given her traditionally Republican surroundings.

I was yelling at the TV and throwing things at the TV, said the 55-year-old mother of three. Then she found her cause in 30-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff, who is seeking a major upset in Georgias Sixth Congressional District runoff Tuesday against Republican Karen Handel.

With a potential price tag exceeding $50 million, the most expensive House race in U.S. history has become a proxy for the nations political divides, offering another early test for Trump and the GOPs monopoly in Washington. And it gives Democrats a chance to prove they can flip at least 24 GOP-held seats and reclaim a House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.

My values are being threatened, Becker said, mentioning health care access, abortion rights and voting rights, and now we have something we can do.

Business owners Brian Sleeth and Dave McCleary are equally appalled, but for reasons that leave them backing Handel.

This is about who will support Donald Trump and his agenda, says Sleeth, a 37-year-old landscaper from Johns Creek. Karen Handel says she will, and we look forward to holding her accountable.

The seat opened in February when Republican Tom Price resigned it to become Trumps health and human services secretary.

The candidates have generally aligned with their national parties on policy. Handel says shed have voted for the House GOP health care bill; Ossoff says hed have opposed it. She broadly endorsed Trumps loose outlines for tax cuts; hes said any plan must be fiscally responsible. He supports a higher minimum wage, with caveats; shes opposed.

For Handel, Ossoffs values are 3,000 miles away in San Francisco, the home of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

Bill Barrow is an Associated Press writer.
WASHINGTON  A member of President Trumps legal team repeatedly insisted that Trump is not under investigation for obstruction of justice but acknowledged he could not know for certain during combative Sunday television interviews.

Let me be very clear here, as it has been since the beginning, the president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction, lawyer Jay Sekulow said on NBCs Meet the Press, part of a blitz of bookings on the Sunday morning talk shows.

That assessment, repeated on three other broadcasts, was at odds with a Washington Post report last week and seemingly with a tweet by Trump himself Friday.

During a later appearance on Fox News Sunday, Sekulow conceded that he could not say with absolute certainty that Trump is not being investigated because he cannot read the mind of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The Post reported last week that Mueller, who was appointed to oversee the investigation into Russias role in the 2016 election, is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice.

Trump wrote Friday in a tweet about the probe that I am being investigated.

On Sunday, Sekulow sought to explain that Trump was using Twitter to address the Post report and was not actually confirming that he is being investigated, despite writing those words.

Sekulow cited recent congressional testimony by fired FBI Director James Comey in which Comey said he had told Trump on a few occasions that Trump was not personally under investigation in relation to the Russia probe. Those conversations, however, occurred before Trump fired Comey, who was helping lead the investigation, and before the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to oversee the probe.

Last weeks Post story cited five people briefed on the interview requests, who said the current director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, head of the National Security Agency, Mike Rogers, and Rogers recently departed deputy, Richard Ledgett, agreed to be interviewed by Muellers investigators.

The five people spoke on the condition of anonymity .

Sekulow referred to the Post story as a fake report during an appearance Sunday on CNNs State of the Union.

We stand by our story, which President Trump confirmed Friday in a tweet acknowledging he is under investigation for obstruction of justice, Post Executive Editor Martin Baron said in a statement.

John Wagner and Rosalind S. Helderman are Washington Post writers.
The posters were torn apart and thrown outside the BJP party office.

The posters have been put up at various places in Lutyens Delhi. Photo: India Today.

By Ashutosh Mishra: The political corridors these days are abuzz with speculations over who is going to be the country's next president.

Parties across spectrum are reaching out to each other to arrive at a consensus ahead of the Presidential election.

In this scenario, posters supporting Lal Krishna Advani for the post of the president have come up at some prominent locations in Delhi.

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These posters were also put up outside the headquarters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at 11, Ashoka Road. The posters, however, were torn apart and thrown outside the party office.

The posters thrown outside the BJP headquarters. Photo: India Today

The posters backing L K Advani for president have been published in the name of Ashok Tanwar, who calls himself the convener of Gurjar Samaj and a farmer leader.

In these posters, L K Advani is described as the best-suited contender for the president's post. Many of these posters have been put up in and around Raisina Road in Lutyens Delhi.

Senior BJP leader L K Advani's name has been doing the rounds as a probable BJP candidate for the Presidential election.

Recently, BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha batted for L K Advani as the presidential candidate through a series of tweets. "Advaniji is far above others if election is done through a referendum or direct voting by the people, of the people and for the people. Advani ji should have been the 1st and last choice of the country for the President's post in present scenario," the actor-turned politician tweeted.

Besides Advani, names of Murli Manohar Joshi, E Sreedharan are also doing the rounds for presidential candidate.

ALSO READ:

Presidential poll: How a joint Opposition candidate may trump Modi-Shah combination

Presidential election 2017: Will it be Gopalkrishna Gandhi vs NDA candidate?

Presidential election 2017: PM Modi may have bigger plans for Metro Man Sreedharan

ALSO WATCH: BJP constitutes three-member panel to decide Presidential candidate

--- ENDS ---
The meeting comes a day after the BJP chief, who is on a three-day visit to strengthen the party organisation in the state, said his party would consult its allies before finalising the NDA's presidential candidate.

By Press Trust of India: BJP president Amit Shah along with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at his residence 'Matoshree' in suburban Bandra, and held a close-door meeting.

The meeting, which started at around 10 am and lasted for nearly 75 minutes, comes a day after the BJP chief said his party would consult its allies before finalising the NDA's presidential candidate.

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Amit Shah is on a three-day visit to Mumbai to strengthen the party organisation in the state.

Shiv Sena, which has often been critical of the BJP and the Modi government, recently suggested the name of MS Swaminathan, the father of India's Green Revolution, as its presidential choice.

The Shiv Sena had earlier said it may choose an "independent" path in the election to the highest constitutional office. It had backed Congress nominees -- Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee -- in the last two presidential elections.

Asked about Fadnavis' remark that the BJP was prepared for snap Assembly election, in an apparent reference to continued strain in ties with the Shiv Sena, Shah earlier said, "What he meant was that if mid-term polls are forced on us, we are ready to fight."

On the recent farm loan waiver announced by the Maharashtra government, Shah had said through it the state was offering relief to the farmers. "The burden of loan waiver will be on the government and not banks," he had said.

Also Read:

Presidential election 2017: Will Shiv Sena break ranks with NDA 3rd time in a row?

Presidential election 2017: How BJP, Congress have picked candidates

Watch Video: Race to Raisina: Amit Shah along with Devendra Fadnavis meet Uddhav Thackeray

--- ENDS ---
The Shiv Sena is learnt to have told Amit Shah that the Bharatiya Janata Party should first decide on a name and then seek support.

By Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: The much hyped meeting between BJP President Amit Shah and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray over Presidential polls ended inconclusively. The Shiv Sena is learnt to have told Shah that the BJP should first decide on a name and then seek support. The Shiv Sena has already suggested two names from its side.

The meeting between Shah and Thackeray lasted for 75 minutes. Apart from Uddhav, his son Aditya from the Shiv Sena and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis from the BJP participated in the meeting. The meeting had assumed significance especially in the backdrop of the recently strained ties between the allies over farm loan waiver.

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According to highly placed sources, Amit Shah told Uddhav Thackeray that almost all constituents of NDA have agreed to give all the powers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to decide on the name of candidate for Presidential polls. Shah requested Shivsena should also come onboard.

Uddhav Thackeray reminded Amit Shah that his party has already suggested 2 names. Which are that of RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat and Agriculture Expert MS Swaminathan. Uddhav Thackeray has asked the BJP to either decide on the names suggested by their party or to pick a candidate of their own choice. After which, the saffron party would decide whether to support him/her or not.

Apart from the Presidential polls, Uddhav Thackeray also discussed the farm loan waiver issue with Shah and Fadnavis.

Also Read:

Presidential election 2017: Amit Shah meets Uddhav Thackeray to discuss NDA's candidate

Presidential election: Amit Shah to meet Uddhav Thackeray whose Shiv Sena has been backing Mohan Bhagwat for President

Also Watch:

Race to Raisina: Amit Shah along with Devendra Fadnavis meet Uddhav Thackeray

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Udupi (Karnataka), Jun 18 (PTI) President Pranab Mukherjee today lamented the lack of healthcare infrastructure and personnel in the country, particularly in the rural area, and expressed hope more investments would help bridge the gap.

After laying the foundation stone for a super speciality hospital in here, he said creating better health infrastructure through investments has helped cure many diseases but "there remains a huge gap yet".

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The president said, the country requires not only accessible but affordable medical facilities.

"Against the international norm of a doctor per thousand population, we have one doctor for 1,700 people in our country," he rued.

"No civilised society can tolerate this," he said.

The situation is more alarming in rural India where the shortage of surgeons is estimated to the tune of 83 per cent.

The overall shortage translates to 81.2 per cent as on 2015.

The president offered solutions to help overcome some of the challenges. He suggested the situation requires increasing the number of medical colleges and engagement of corporate sector, especially in the rural area.

He asked people to think about the kind of healthcare system they want - a commercial, profit-driven one or a system compatible with the socio-economic conditions of the society.

The president also condemned attacks on doctors, medical staff and vandalism of health institutions. "This is no way... If you cant trust doctors whom can you trust."

The region has witnessed protests by medical professionals over the issue in the recent past.

Mukherjee also visited 800-year-old Sri Krishna Temple in the Udupi.

The temple was renovated with wooden craft a month ahead of the presidential visit, said KR Shashank Bhatt, a disciple of the 88-year-old head priest at the temple.

Udupi is considered a fertile ground for the banking sector and the birthplace of the Syndicate Bank and the Corporation Bank. Karnatakas coastal city is also known for its cuisines and temples.PTI ABH TIR MAV

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The 24-year-old Indian shuttler was just flawless in his performance beating unseeded Kazumasa Sakai 21-11, 21-19 in the summit clash that lasted for 36 minutes.

By Asian News International: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday congratulated Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth on his maiden win of the Indonesia Open title , saying the entire nation was extremely delighted on his victory.

"Congratulations @srikidambi! We are extremely delighted on your victory in the Indonesia Open Super Series tournament," tweeted Prime Minister Modi.

Congratulations @srikidambi! We are extremely delighted on your victory in the Indonesia Open Super Series tournament.- Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 18, 2017

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Meanwhile, North Eastern Democratic Alliance (NEDA) Convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma announced a cash reward of Rs. five lakh for Srikanth."Congrats @srikidambi on your superb win at #IndonesiaSSP Finals. You've made us all proud. Glad to announce Re 5 lakh award from @BAI_Media," Sarma tweeted.

Congrats @srikidambi on your superb win at #IndonesiaSSP Finals. You've made us all proud. Glad to announce Re 5 lakh award from @BAI_Media pic.twitter.com/hiR9N8kEAZ- Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) June 18, 2017

Earlier in the day, Srikanth came out with a spectacular performance as he defeated unseeded Kazumasa Sakai of Japan 21-11, 21-19 to win the men's singles title of the Indonesia Super Series Premier badminton tournament in Jakarta.

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: By Aditi Khanna

London, Jun 18 (PTI) In a rare move, the UK government today announced the cancellation of the Queens Speech for 2018 to give Parliament more time to push through controversial Brexit laws after Prime Minister Theresa Mays election debacle.

The speech, which is prepared by the government and read out by 91-year-old Queen Elizabeth II, marks the official start of parliamentary proceedings every year and sets the agenda that is to be passed by both houses during the course of the year.

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Leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom said the next parliamentary session was being doubled in length to two years.

Announcing the scrapping of the 2018 event, Leadsom said the European Union exit legislation would begin with the "Great Repeal Bill".

She said: "We will build the broadest possible consensus for our Brexit plans, and that means giving Parliament the maximum amount of time to scrutinise these bills by holding a two-year session of Parliament.

"It will mean we can work together to deliver a successful Brexit deal and a strong social legislative programme that delivers justice and opportunity to everyone."

The highly unusual move would allow MPs to scrutinise "substantial amounts of legislation", she said.

The Queens Speech traditionally takes place during the ceremonial State Opening of Parliament, which this year was planned for Monday and has since been postponed to Wednesday as the Conservative party stitched up its deal with the Democratic Unionist Party for support of its minority government.

The last time the Speech was cancelled was in 2011 by the then Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. That decision, the first time it had been taken since 1949, was criticised at the time by Labour as an "abuse of power" aimed solely at easing the passage of controversial legislation.

The Queen?s Speech - which lays out the laws that ministers want to pass in the coming year - is a major moment in the parliamentary diary.

It is seen as a critical test for the Government and failure to win the backing of a majority of MPs is seen as a vote of no confidence.

By cancelling the 2018 Queen?s Speech, Prime Minister Theresa May removes a vote that could have bought down her Government from the diary, The Telegraph reported.

Mays gamble to call a general election three years before the Fixed Term Parliament Act would have required her to hold one backfired on June 8 when her party suffered heavy losses and lost its majority in the Commons. PTI AK NSA

--- ENDS ---
Following an RTI query, the Election Commission has ordered FIRs against AIADMK (Amma) leaders including Tamil Nadu CM E Palaniswami in RK Nagar bypoll bribery case.

By India Today Web Desk: The Election Commission today ordered FIRs against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E Palaniswami, AIADMK (Amma) leaders TTV Dinakaran, Vijayabhaskar and others in RK Nagar bypoll bribery case.

The poll panel's decision to register cases against the AIADMK leaders including CM Palaniswami follows a Right to Information petition seeking to know what action was taken by the Election Commission in the bribery case.

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The Election Commission had countermanded on April 9 the RK Nagar bypoll in Tamil Nadu scheduled for April 12 following allegations that the voters were being bribed by political parties.

In response to RTI query, EC directs FIR against TTV Dinakaran,TN CM Palaniswami,Vijayabhaskar and others in RK Nagar Bypoll bribery case- ANI (@ANI_news) June 18, 2017

INCOME TAX RAID PROVIDES CLUE

Based on the documents seized during the Income Tax Department's raids on Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijayabaskar's properties in Chennai in early April, the Central Board of Direct Taxes had submitted a report to the Election Commission saying that around Rs 90 crore were set aside by the AIADMK to be distributed among the voters.

AIADMK's jailed general secretary VK Sasikala's nephew TTV Dinakaran was contesting from RK Nagar Assembly constituency.

The bypoll was necessitated by the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who represented the constituency.THE OTHER BRIBERY CASE

In another case of bribery, Dinakaran was arrested on April 26. Dinakaran was accused of trying to bribe Election Commission officials to get AIADMK's poll symbol - Two Leaves - for the Amma faction of the party.

Dinakaran was accused of giving money to middleman Sukesh Chandrasekar, who had been arrested on April 16. The Tees Hazari court of Delhi granted bail to TTV Dinakaran on June 5 in this case.

On June 14, the Delhi High Court dismissed the bail plea of Sukesh Chandrashekar. Justice S Muralidhar turned down Chandrashekar's bail application on the ground that the police had seized a fake Rajya Sabha member ID card from his possession which was a "serious threat on Parliament's security".

The EC had frozen the AIADMK's symbol after the two factions - one led by Dhinakaran's aunt Sasikala and the other by former chief minister O Panneerselvam - staked a claim to it.

Dhinakaran is facing the charge of arranging the money from undisclosed sources and getting it transferred from Chennai to Delhi through illegal channels.

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With inputs from Pramod Madhav

ALSO READ |

AIADMK's TTV Dinakaran gets bail in bribery case over party's two leaves symbol

ALSO WATCH | After RTI query, Election Commission orders FIR against Tamil Nadu CM Palaniswami, TTV Dinakaran

--- ENDS ---
The Oman desert does not look like sand. The dune Im sitting on is the color and consistency of sifted wheat flour. Durum with a dusting of cayenne. In its grooves are impressions from everyone around me: the long bare feet of my bedouin guide; the deep crescent hoofs of his camels; tick marks from small desert birds, beetles and iridescent scorpions.

Nothing comes through this desert without leaving its mark, my guide says, refilling my cup with saffron tea, Not even something as weightless as the wind.

Hes right. The cratered landscape of Omans Sharqiya Sands is shaped by conflicting winds that howl through the Arabian Peninsula. I watch gusts wipe this sandy slate clean, turning our tracks back to ghostly ripples. It seems that after only a few minutes, the deserts history is rewritten.

The powdery sand rests in 300-foot-tall mounds, dunes so high they lend a new perspective of the Middle East, and as the orange sun thats been dominating the sky all day drops behind the farthest drift on the horizon, I reconsider what I know  or thought I knew  about this part of the world.

This dune we sit on now will shift to a different position by sunrise tomorrow, he explains, and I slug back the last sip of saffron tea, now bitter and cold from the wind.

Back at the Nomadic Desert Camp, a bedouin camp travelers can stay at, carpets are rolled across the sand outside of my palm frond hut for a makeshift terrace under a star-studded sky. As I tear away at a piece of charred fire bread, flatbread baked on embers and ash, Im reminded why it was Omans geology that drew me here: to discover a country with little else to tell its story other than whats recorded in its ever-changing landscape.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 1 of 5 Jenna Scatena/Special to The Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Jenna Scatena/Special to The Chronicle Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Jenna Scatena/Special to The Chronicle Show More Show Less 5 of 5









From the Sharqiya Sands to Nizwa, the band of freshly paved highway is lined with rock quarries, For Sale signs to empty desert lots, dust devils and billboards of popular leader Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Because the countrys tourism industry is young and small  the doors only opened to outside tourists in the early 1990s  Oman is still a country primarily designed for locals, not foreigners.

The map on my iPhone only displays a large swath of beige as we weave our rental car around Kias and pickup trucks full of camels. We pass gas stations where robed men linger over plastic tables, and sand-colored hamlets hallmarked by mosque domes that resemble imperial Faberge eggs.

Soon we pull in to Nizwa, an ancient city wedged at the foot of the Al Hajar Mountains, a sawtooth range that separates the countrys northern coast from its desert interior. To the southeast is the lonely edge of the Ar Rub al Khali, or the Empty Quarter, the largest uninterrupted expanse of sand on the planet.

Nizwa was Omans ancient capital dating back to the sixth century, and it has been a religious center and a vital stop on trade routes for more than a thousand years. As such, its the best place in the country to experience Omans timeless traditions and craftsmanship, and to understand how they relate to the land.

Its Friday, Islams holy day, and the town square is swirling with men in colorful turbans, with jezail muskets over their shoulders and curved khanjar daggers strapped to their waists  the national insignia. I make my way through a parade of goats readying to go up for auction, then veer through the souq, a maze of stalls hawking crafts and goods.

It is a showcase of the mountains many resources  silver, copper and marble  for which the ancient trade routes were created. Tables are splayed with hammered silver jewelry, marble decorative objects and rose-hued clay water jugs. Farmers sell pyramids of sticky dates and amber cubes of locally harvested frankincense.

The desert I first saw as simply barren continues to show me all the ways its not. As one of the craftsmen hands me a copper necklace, I realize this souk is just one example of all that the land actually has to give, and how the Omani people have cultivated it in ways I wouldnt have expected.

Other than some modern trinkets and conveniences, the scene probably is not much changed in 150 years, back to when the Omani empire included portions of Abu Dhabi, Iran, Zanzibar and the East African coastline down to Mozambique.

Nizwa has its share of historical sites  the imposing Nizwa Fort is among the countrys most popular monuments  but portions of the town itself are a living museum of a culture shaped by trade, by the desert and by the people who came through one to do the other.

Emad Aljumah/Getty Images

Just outside of Nizwa, Im standing on fossilized coral and fish skeletons stamped into a limestone rock. Long ago, this mountain was wedged at the bottom of the Arabian Sea. Today it crests at one of the highest points in Arabia, 93 miles from the coast and nearly 10,000 feet into the sky.

Jebel Akhdar is a far cry from both Omans sea and deserts in many ways, and its stony mountainsides, wide plateaus and vertiginous valleys are oases of Eden-esque farms I was not expecting in Oman.

These are the best pomegranates in the Middle East, my guide says, gazing down the valley. People drive pickup trucks all the way from Dubai to fill them up.

We stumble down the hill to an opulent village he says was built from pomegranate money. Its homes  a cluster of apricot-, lavender- and pistachio-colored compounds  parody a still life. Behind iron gates front doors are dizzy with Islamic geometric patterns, and reflective gold windows allow residents to see out and prevent outsiders from seeing in.

For a moment, a music box melody drifts through the stagnant afternoon air, followed by the call to prayer. Old, weathered men in light white dishdashas assemble in the street and slowly walk past us, aided by whittled olive branch canes, then slip into a violet mosque.

Rose farms cascade down rocky terraces beneath us, where rosewater is harvested for medical, culinary and cultural uses. Farther down are hardy date palm orchards and olive groves fenced in by dusty rosemary shrubs. Beyond, walnut and peach trees as well as apiaries line the horizon. Connecting it all is a web of Omani aflaj irrigation systems, tranquil narrow channels engineered to water crops that can be traced back 5,000 years. All of this amasses to a profound feeling of peace and serenity I had not anticipated on a trip to the Middle East.

We always come to the table if peace is on it, my guide says. And these days, its increasingly up to us to provide the table as well.

After overcoming a violent history of tribal warfare, Oman has quietly been a rising force for peace in the region, promoting religious tolerance and serving as neutral ground for diplomatic talks. The term Switzerland of the Middle East has floated past me a few times.

In the evening back at Alila Jabal Akhdar, one of the newest hotels in an area quickly amassing more, my deck opens to the so-called Grand Canyon of Arabia. As the sun angles toward the horizon, massive shadows play like puppets across the yawning canyon. Shaggy free-range goats bleat as they clomp over piles of rocks to tear small thick leaves from the branches of an acacia tree.

The architecture is made in the image of traditional Omani villages, lined with stone walls and thatched fences. In the rooms are handwoven curtains, Omani wedding chests and whats become the comforting scent of frankincense. It all reflects the mantra three people Ive met in Oman have already told me, Travelers are not tourists; they are guests.

There are scenes along certain sections of Omans coastline reminiscent of Californias Highway 1. An hour south of Muscat, swallows swoop over placid estuaries, cliffs plummet into a swirling ocean, old shipwrecks crest the shallow waters, and a man sells dates and watermelon slices from the back of a Westfalia alongside the serpentine road.

But other parts remind me that this is the Arabian Sea, not the Pacific. Sand-castle-like fortresses freckle the bluffs, and parts of the drive are queued with evidence of Omans changing landscape: lines of construction workers in baby-blue jumpsuits picking away at the mountains, and a gridlock of tankers, loaders and excavators clearing the way for more transportation infrastructure, part of an ambitious plan the government is striving to roll out over the next few years.

Its hard to imagine that less than a century ago, this peaceful country was the Arabian Peninsulas capital for arms and ammunition trading, and entrenched in a bloody war. Its almost equally difficult to imagine that if all goes according to ruler Saids plan, in a few years their economy will be oil independent and a fleet of shiny new trains will be hauling a new generation of tourists along this beautifully desolate coastline.

When we reach Al Sifah beach, we are greeted by the resident goats and donkeys but no one else. We haul our rented camping equipment to the farthest dune and pitch our tent in a soft bed of pink sand a few yards from the water  in Oman, you dont need a camping permit, or even a designated campground, for an overnight.

The beach is empty except for a few fishing boats with peeling paint, and the silhouettes of a group of women strolling the shoreline. We hadnt set out to camp at this specific beach, we merely followed the wind down the coastline and slept where we were at the moment the sun begins to set.

Jenna Scatena is a San Francisco freelance writer. Email: travel@sfchronicle.com. Twitter and Instagram: @Jenna_Scatena

If you go

GETTING THERE

Muscat International Airport is located in the countrys capital. International flights run daily. Tourist visas are required for U.S. citizens.

WHERE TO STAY

Alila Jabal Akhdar: Plot No. 4 Al Roose, Jabal Al Akhdar, +968 2534 4200, www.alilahotels.com/jabalakhdar. This luxury stone hotel commands sweeping views of the Al Hajar Mountains and the gorge below. Each room is equipped with luxury bed linens and a balcony. The hotel has a full service restaurant, a spa, a pool and a gym. Room rates starting at $257.

Nomadic Desert Camp: www.nomadicdesertcamp.com. This remote desert camp is set amid the dunes of Sharqiya Sands and is run by a local Bedouin family. The cozy barasti huts can house either two adults or a solo traveler. Evening campfires, sunset camel rides and dune safaris are all available. Twin shared huts start at $90.

Al Baleed Resort Salalah: Al Mansurah Street, Salalah +968 23 22 82 22, www.salalah.anantara.com. A palm-tree-lined walkway leads up to this beachfront resort beside a freshwater lagoon. The resort has 40 well-appointed rooms with views of the sea, an infinity pool, a spa and three gourmet restaurants. Rooms starting at $192.

The Chedi Muscat: North Ghubra 232, Way No. 3215, Street No. 46, Muscat, (800) 745 8883, www.ghmhotels.com/en/muscat. An elegant seaside oasis within the citys bustling capital. Each of the 120 rooms has its own private terrace. There are an elegant, zen-styled spa, eight distinct restaurants, and prime dolphin watching along the Gulf of Oman. Rooms starting at $290.

WHERE TO EAT

Ubhar: Al Kharjiyah St, Muscat, +968 24 699826, www.ubharoman.com. A classic Omani restaurant that offers an elevated interpretation of traditional Arabic specialities. The dessert menu includes baklava-style pastries and frankincense ice cream.

Juniper: Plot No. 4 Al Roose, Jabal Al Akhdar, +968 2534 4200, www.alilahotels.com/jabalakhdar. This impressive restaurant is situated inside the Alila hotel and draws on Arabic cuisines from the Middle East to the Mediterranean. The menu offers traditional mezze platters along with entrees like Omani-spiced lamb and smoked duck breast.

The Beach: The Chedi Hotel, North Ghubra 232, Way 3215, Street 46, Muscat, +968 9662 7390, www.ghmhotels.com/en/muscat. Located on Atheiba Beach, the Beach serves fresh, Mediterranean-inspired seafood in an elegant setting with a view of the gulf.

Shahrazad Moroccan Restaurant: Part of the Barr al Jissah Resort, Muscat 100, Muscat, +968 2477 6565, www.shangri-la.com (click Find a Hotel and Sultanate of Oman). A mix of Moroccan, Arabic and Omani dishes served up in an opulent interior of curtain draped doorways, a shimmering ceiling, and Moroccan lamps.

MORE INFORMATION

Oman Ministry of Tourism: www.omantourism.gov.om
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YOKOSUKA, Japan  Navy divers found several sailors bodies Sunday aboard the stricken destroyer Fitzgerald that collided with a container ship in the busy sea off Japan, but a spokeswoman said not all seven missing had been accounted for.

Searchers gained access to the spaces that were damaged in the collision and brought the remains to Naval Hospital Yokosuka where they will be identified, the Navy said in a statement. Seven sailors had been missing, but Yoko Kato, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy in Yokosuka, said not all were recovered. She did not say how many were found.

Japans coast guard officials said the sea and air search was still continuing at the site of the collision, 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, home to the 7th Fleet.

The Navy said the families were being notified and given the support they need. The names of the sailors will be released after notifications are made to relatives.

Sixteen hours after the predawn Saturday collision, the damaged destroyer was pumping out water as it limped back to its home port in Yokosuka Naval Base south of Tokyo by sunset Saturday, its crew lined up on deck. The vessel it struck  a Philippine-flagged container ship  was berthed at Tokyos Oi wharf, where officials began questioning crew members about the cause of the crash.

At least three other crew members, including the captain, were injured in the crash, which damaged two berthing spaces, a machinery room and the radio room and exposed a mangled mid-starboard side of the ship. It wasnt clear how extensive the damage is below the water line.

Most of the more than 200 sailors aboard would have been asleep in their berths at the time of the collision.

This has been a difficult day, said Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the 7th Fleet. I am humbled by the bravery and tenacity of the Fitzgerald crew. Now that the ship is in Yokosuka, I ask that you help the families by maintaining their privacy as we continue the search for our shipmates, he said before the announcement that the bodies were found.

The Fitzgeralds captain, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, was airlifted early Saturday to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokosuka and was in stable condition with a head injury, the Navy said. Two other crew members suffered cuts and bruises and were evacuated. It was unclear how many others may have been hurt.

The Japanese coast guard said it received an emergency call from the container ship, the ACX Crystal, reporting the collision around 2:20 a.m. Saturday. It was questioning crew members of the ACX Crystal, which is operated by the Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen K.K., and was treating the incident as a case of possible professional negligence, said Masayuki Obara, a regional coast guard official.

Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families, President Trump said on Twitter. Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance.

The ACX Crystal weighs 29,060 tons and is 730 feet long, the coast guard said, much larger than the 8,315-ton Navy destroyer. The container ships bow was dented and scraped, but it did not appear to have sustained any major structural damage.

Nippon Yusen said all of the ACX Crystals 20-member Filipino crew members were safe.

Conditions were clear at the time of the collision, though Yutaka Saito of the coast guard said the area is particularly busy with sea traffic.

Just heard the sweetest voice and saw a wonderful face. Hes okay. Thank you all for the prayers, Rita Schrimsher of Athens, Ala., tweeted after speaking with her grandson, Jackson Schrimsher, via FaceTime.

Eugene Hoshiko and Koji Ueda are Associated Press writers.
KABUL  Seven U.S. soldiers were shot and wounded by an Afghan commando Saturday, the second such insider attack in a week, according to Afghan officials.

The attack took place in the Afghan National Army 209th Corps headquarters at Camp Shaheen, in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Col. Abdul Qahar Aram, spokesman for the 209th Corps, said an Afghan soldier had opened fire, wounding foreign soldiers in the garrison area of the camp. He said reports claiming the soldiers had been killed were false.

The U.S. military would confirm only that U.S. soldiers were wounded in an insider attack that occurred there at about 2 p.m., and that an Afghan soldier had been killed and another wounded. The U.S. military also denied that any of its soldiers had been killed.

Another Corps spokesman, Maj. Nasratullah Jamshidi, said the attacker, an Afghan commando, had been shot at the scene and died on his way to a hospital.

Green-on-blue, or insider, attacks have been a recurring problem for the U.S.-led coalition, most recently on June 10 in the Achin District of eastern Nangarhar province, where U.S. ground forces are helping Afghan special forces fight militants.

A commando participating in the joint operations opened fire on four of the Americans, killing three and wounding another. The Taliban claimed the commando had been an infiltrator, but Afghan officials said it appeared to have been the outcome of a personal dispute. Both Afghan and U.S. officials have said the incident is under investigation.

Special forces soldiers in the Afghan Army, generally referred to as commandos, are much more highly trained than regular troops and work in proximity to U.S. soldiers, including serving as partners in ground combat operations, as well as in training exercises.

So far this year, six U.S. soldiers have been killed in combat in Afghanistan, all of them involved in the fight against the Islamic State in Nangarhar province. Five of the six apparently were killed by their own side: the three on June 10 and two others in April who apparently were killed accidentally in an air strike in the same area.

In two episodes in March, a total of 11 U.S. soldiers were wounded by Afghan soldiers in green-on-blue attacks in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan, according to Afghan officials. Nonetheless, the incidence of such attacks has decreased greatly as U.S. and other foreign forces have declined from a peak of 150,000 soldiers to about 14,000 now. In 2012, one-fourth of all coalition killings were carried out by Afghan insiders, according to U.S. military officials.

The 209th Corps has been particularly troubled this year, and in April was the scene of the Afghan militarys biggest single loss of life in the past 16 years, when Taliban infiltrators entered Camp Shaheen and killed more than 160 soldiers, many of them unarmed.

Rod Nordland is a New York Times writer.
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DEIR ABU MASHAL, West Bank  Palestinian militants disputed an Islamic State claim Saturday that it was behind a deadly attack against Israel, saying it was their people who killed a female police officer on duty near Jerusalems Old City.

Family members of the attackers said they were deeply religious men who acted on their own.

Islamic State issued a statement taking responsibility for the stabbing and shooting attacks Friday evening. If true, it would mark the first direct Islamic State action against Israel, and the group warned on its affiliate news agency it will not be the last.

Let the Jews expect the demise of their entity at the hands of the Caliphate soldiers, it said, calling the attack revenge for Gods religion and for the violated sanctities of Muslims.

However, the Hamas and Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine militant groups quickly retorted that the three attackers who were killed were their members and accused Islamic State of trying to undermine their efforts.

In their village of Deir Abu Mashal, near Ramallah, relatives of the three denied any connection to Islamic State or the other groups. The Israeli military raided the village Saturday, imposing a closure.

Yaakov Peri, an Israeli lawmaker and former head of the Shin Bet security service, said the coordinated assault marked an upgrade over recent Palestinian violence, and he hoped it was not the beginning of a new wave of attacks. Still, he said he doubted it had anything to do with Islamic State, also known by the Arabic acronym Daesh.

The Daesh claim of responsibility is absurd, he said. There are great differences and conflicts between Daesh and Hamas. Hamas wants to clarify that it is involved in a national battle of the Palestinian people with the Zionist occupier and it is in its interest to present it as such.

The three men were armed with knives and an automatic weapon and carried out near simultaneous attacks at two locations. Police Staff Sgt. Maj. Hadas Malka, 23, was stabbed to death. After the attack, police conducted a large roundup Saturday searching for Palestinians who had entered Israel illegally. It said 350 people were arrested.

The attack was the latest bloodshed in a wave of Palestinian attacks on civilians and soldiers that erupted in 2015. At times the attacks were daily occurrences, but had somewhat subsided in recent months. However, there have been a string of recent attacks near the Old City.

Mohammed Daraghmeh is an Associated Press writer.
BEIRUT  Iraqi forces captured a border crossing point to Syria from the Islamic State group on Saturday, increasing pressure on the extremists and getting closer to meeting up with Syrian troops and their allies who reached the border earlier this month for the first time in years.

Tribal forces and border police, supported by Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition aircraft, took part in the operation to take the al-Waleed crossing, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

Al-Waleed, in the far west of Iraq, fell to the Islamic State group in 2015, giving the militants full control of the Iraq-Syria border, which they vowed to erase as part of their ambition to build their caliphate.

Saturdays push by Iraqi troops came nearly three weeks after Iraqs paramilitary forces  mostly Shiite fighters with close ties to Iran referred to as the Popular Mobilization Forces  reached the Syrian border in northeastern Iraq.

In recent months the militants have been coming under increasing pressure in Iraq and Syria where they have lost vast parts of the land they declared as a caliphate in June 2014.

U.S. troops and Syrian opposition fighters control the Tanf area on the other side from al-Waleed. Earlier this month, Iranian-sponsored pro-Syrian government forces outflanked U.S. advisers and rebels holding the Tanf border crossing to establish their own link to Iraq for the first time in years. The Iraqi side is still held by Islamic State.

The push by Iraqi forces came as the Syrian military announced Saturday the cessation of all combat operations in the southern city of Daraa for 48 hours in support of national reconciliation efforts after days of violence in the area.

The announcement comes days after the contested city witnessed some of the worst fighting in months amid fears by opposition activists that the government will try to take Daraa, where the countrys civil war began in 2011.

In a statement, the armys General Command said that all combat operations would stop as of noon Saturday for 48 hours. A de-escalation agreement brokered by Iran, Russia and Turkey in May has brought hardly any relief to the city, activists said. The agreement covers four zones in Syria where the rebels are fighting pro-government forces.

Bassem Mroue and Balint Szlanko are Associated Press writers.
1 Russia sanctions: President Vladimir Putin warned Saturday that new U.S. sanctions on Russia will damage ties between the countries. It will of course complicate the Russian-American relationship, Putin said, according to an interview published by the Tass news agency. The Russian leader said it was too early to speak about a possible response. The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve sanctions against Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 election. The bill, which passed 98-2, targets Russian individuals accused of corruption and sectors of the Russian economy.

2 Egypt assassination: An Egyptian criminal court sentenced 31 Islamists to death Saturday for their part in the June 2015 assassination of the countrys top prosecutor, Hisham Barakat. The ruling referred the case of the 31 to the countrys top theologian to solicit his nonbinding opinion on the death sentences, a formality followed by courts in the case of capital punishment. The court will reconvene July 22 to reaffirm the death sentences and issue its verdict on 36 other defendants in the case. Of the 67 defendants, 15 are at large. Barakat is the most senior government official killed by militants since the 2013 ouster by the military of the Islamist Mohammed Morsi, Egypts first freely elected president whose one-year rule proved to be divisive.
VATICAN CITY  German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Pope Francis encouraged her to work to preserve the Paris climate accord despite the U.S. withdrawal and shared her aim to bring down walls, not build them.

Merkel and Francis met Saturday in the Apostolic Palace, focusing on the Group of 20 summit that Germany is hosting in Hamburg on July 7 and 8. The Vatican said the talks focused on the need for the international community to combat poverty, hunger, terrorism and climate change.

Merkel said she briefed the pope on Germanys G-20 agenda, which she added assumes that we are a world in which we want to work together multilaterally, a world in which we dont want to build walls but bring down walls.

Francis has consistently called for nations to build bridges not walls  including in reference to the border wall the Trump administration wants to build with Mexico.

Merkel said Francis encouraged her to fight for international agreements, including the 2015 Paris climate accord, which aims to curb heat-trapping emissions.

We know that regrettably, the United States is leaving this accord, Merkel said.

As he did when President Trump visited last month, Francis gave Merkel a copy of his environmental encyclical, Praise Be, which casts fighting climate change and caring for the environment as an urgent moral obligation.

Francis issued the encyclical in the run-up to the Paris negotiations in hopes of urging a global consensus on the need to change the perverse development models that he said had enriched the wealthy at the expense of the poor and turned Gods creation into an immense pile of filth.

The audience began with Francis expressing his condolences over the death of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In his formal note of condolences, Francis called Kohl a great statesman.
As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.
The big monitor lizard (genus Varanus) is being hunted in numbers for its genitals, that have found ways in to the hands of smugglers and even temple priests who are selling it as a 'luck charm' for sex life.

By Baishali Adak: There is a new entry in the bizarre world of illegal wildlife trade in India. Enforcement agencies have discovered that now the big monitor lizard (genus Varanus) - found across deserts, forests and coastlines of the country - is being poached for its hemipenis (sexual organ), which is sold as a lucky charm for virility and fertility in men.

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Because of its forked appearance, it is called "hatha jodi". This is often used to confuse customers with the popular Ayurvedic plant "hath jod", which serves to mend bone fractures. The Madhya Pradesh special task Force (MPSTF) seized 68 pieces of the tiny reptile body part from four poachers in raids in Indore and Khargone from June 16-17.

One of those arrested was a priest of the famous Navagraha temple of Khargone, who was found in possession of 13 hatha jodi. "This also points towards the artificially created religious beliefs around hatha jodi," said RP Singh, additional principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) of MP. Many pieces have been found smeared with vermillion around temples in the past few days. Three traders - Sumit Sharma, Sachin Sharma and Feroze Ali - were nabbed from Indore with 10 pieces of the contraband. Lokesh Jagirdar, the Navagraha temple priest, was also arrested on June 16.

More than 200 genital pieces were seized in Odisha on May 30.

On Saturday, following clues given by them, their supplier, Rajesh Porwal, was taken into custody from Indore. Officers said the items were most probably procured from western MP or the Thar Desert of Rajasthan, where the stony and desert topography harbours large populations of the lizard. Each piece was being sold for anywhere between Rs 500 to Rs 15,000 depending on how naive or desperate the buyer is. "So many false pretexts are given, ranging from boosted sex life to success in lucky draws and gambling and prosperity in business. Unfortunately, with increasing prosperity in towns like Ujjain, Indore and Ratlam, people are willing to shell out the money as well," Singh said.

SEX SELLS AND SO DO GENITALS

Dr Sumit Dookia, herpetologist and professor at Delhi's Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, said, "India has four varieties of these reptiles - Bengal, Yellow, Desert and Water Monitor Lizard. Their habitat is distributed across the middle Himalayas to Western Ghats. They are expert terrestrial animals as well as great swimmers." "Notably, they serve an important role in the ecosystem as scavengers, eating up the flesh of dead animals alongside eggs, insects, small birds and animals. Any downfall in their numbers is unhealthy for the ecosystem," he added. They are a Schedule 1 species as per India's Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) prohibits trade in the Bengal Monitor Lizard.

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Additional Director of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), Tilottama Verma, informed, "Previously, we had found 210 hatha jodis in Brahmeswarpatna area of Odisha on May 30. And 22 such pieces were confiscated in Hyderabad in March, taking the confirmed number of big lizards killed for their genitals to 300 at least. Some such items were seized in Chennai too." "We have long known monitor lizards to be killed sporadically for their meat, fat and oil, consumed in mostly some tribal areas. But hatha jodis certainly came as a surprise to us. We sent them to various scientific labs to ascertain their true origin," he added.

The items are also being sold online, even on big global e-tail firms. "We had launched Operation Wildnet to get hold of such unscrupulous elements a few months back, which has so far been successful. This racket is a cause of worry for us," Verma said.

Also read: Sexual desire stimulant herb racket busted in Mumbai, 33,000 kg of grass seized

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Also read: Man imagines neighbours accusing him of having sex with mom, chops his genitals

Also read: Peacocks don't have sex: Visitors flock Kerala peafowl sanctuary to see if Rajasthan HC judge was right

Also watch: Bizarre! No meat, eggs or sex for pregnant women, advises Ministry of Ayush

--- ENDS ---
A U.S. fighter jet shot down a Syrian warplane Sunday after the Syrians struck local ground forces supported by the United States, the first time the U.S. military has downed a Syrian aircraft since the start of the civil war in 2011, officials said.

The combined air and ground confrontation represents a further escalation between forces supporting President Bashar Assad of Syria and the United States, which has been directing the military campaign in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State.
Very few people outside a small circle of Republicans seem to know what's really happening with healthcare at the federal level. Theres bipartisan unease over the secrecy of it all, and some senators have recently said publicly that theres no concrete bill yet, just ideaseven though theyre expected to vote on it in just a few weeks.

But a core demand among Republicans who want to repeal Obamacare (formally the Affordable Care Act) has been a reduction in federal dollars that are currently aimed at boosting the number of insured low-income people. That plan's adoption would have a major effect in New Mexico, which still has one of the countrys highest number of uninsured despite improvements in recent years.

While insurance companies have dropped out of the exchange markets in other states, New Mexicans still have a relatively high number of insurers available to them through Obamacare, which expanded the Medicaid program here. There are now about 900,000 New Mexicans insured Medicaid, which is financed by both the state and the federal government.

The state comes up with matching funds through its budget and then the federal government will match that at a certain percentage based on the poverty rate within the state, says Abuko Estrada, a staff attorney at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty. And because New Mexico has one of the highest poverty rates in the country, we also have one of the most generous match rates [at] about a four-to-one match rate right now.

Either version of the proposal that has passed the House and is before the Senate would almost certainly end Medicaid expansion in New Mexico, potentially reducing the number of insured people by the hundreds of thousands. More than 260,000 people have gained health insurance through Medicaid since 2014.

We can certainly speak for New Mexico, we are not looking forward to seeing those big cuts become reality, says state Sen. Nancy Rodriguez, D-Santa Fe, in reference to the federal bill. We will continue to see the most vulnerable, needy, multiply-impaired individuals, very negatively impacted if this happens. Were watching very carefully.

Even without the threat to Medicaid expansion from DC, New Mexico is expecting a $32 million shortfall in its fund for the state Medicaid program, known as Centennial Care, after December 2018. The Human Services Department is considering measures like raising premiums for people who arent hugging the poverty line and eliminating coverage that pays for medical bills for three months prior to signing up for insurance.

At a meeting of the Legislative Health and Human Services Committee on Friday at the state Capitol, Medicaid Division Director Nancy Smith-Leslie said the department had also considered doing more frequent checks of Medicaid-covered patients income, but backed off after public backlash. In addition, she said they nixed a proposal to drop the number of people covered for Hepatitis C (theyre crossing their fingers that the price of the drugs drops), but even with everything else they would still have a shortfall and need supplemental funds in 2018.

If some of these other actions dont occur [to reduce costs] we will be in a bigger pickle, Brent Earnest, department secretary, said at the hearing. It requires more short term solutions for balancing the Medicaid budget, which he said meant three things: Providers rights reductions, reductions to benefits, and short term changes to eligibility.

A draft of the updated Centennial Care plan to be implemented January 2019 will be ready by September 1, Earnest said. The federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare services is expected to approve the program. There are public hearings throughout June in Silver City on Monday, Farmington (21), Roswell (26) and a tribal consultation in Albuquerque on June 23.

But even Earnest acknowledged that a sharp reversal of Medicaid at the federal level would throw its state counterpart into disarray. Less money from DC would really change the structure of the program.

Once the legislators began questioning department officials, Rep. Miguel Garcia, D-Albuquerque, immediately named the elephant in the room.

What does the human services department propose to do if the federal government removes the current federal medical assistance percentage matching funds, and replaces those with block grants?

Secretary Earnests response wasnt reassuring.

I dont have an answer for that, Earnest said. I think what we are certainly watching is, you have two big changes: One is [the Trump administrations] proposed budget, which over a number of years takes money out of the Medicaid program nationally, and [two is] the changes in the American Health Care Act, which also significantly changes financing for Medicaid.

So its a double whammy concern for Medicaid and where it ends up.

Editor's note: An original draft of this story said that the state was expecting a $915 million shortfall this year. That is the number budgeted to the human services department for the upcoming fiscal year, not the amount of the shortfall, which is $32 million. We regret the error.

Santa Fe Reporter
The town of Srinagar woke up to a high alert today morning over reports of a possible fidayeen attack on security forces in the next 48 hours.

By India Today Web Desk: A high alert has been sounded in the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar for the next 48 hours or two days over a possible fidayeen attack.

The security forces are on strict vigil as reports suggest that militants might strike a security establishment.

A terror attack is also feared in the Valley during the Champions Trophy final match between India and Pakistan today.

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More details awaited.

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By Press Trust of India: Kolkata, June 18 (PTI) Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math President, Swami Atmasthanandaji Maharaj passed away at a city hospital today after a prolonged illness.

The 98-year-old monk had been undergoing treatment for old age related ailment since February, 2015.

A statement released by the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math said, "Despite the best medical attention, his condition deteriorated over the last few days and he passed away around 5.30PM today at Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan hospital."

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The cremation will take place at Belur Math tomorrow at about 9.30 pm and the gates of Belur Math will remain open tonight and throughout tomorrow till the last rites are completed, it stated.

Atmasthanandaji, born in May, 1919, at Sabajpur, near Dhaka now in Bangladesh, had received "mantra diksha" from Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj (a monastic disciple of Ramakrishna) in 1938 and joined the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math in January 1941 when he was only 22 years old.

In 1945, Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the sixth President of the Order, gave him Brahmacharya vows, and in 1949, Sannyasa vows and the name Swami Atmasthananda.

After serving the Order at Belur Math and the branches at Deoghar (Vidyapith) and Mayavati (Advaita Ashrama), Atmasthanandaji got the opportunity to serve Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the then President of the Order, for a long time. He spent several years in his holy company in the solitude of Shyamla Tal in the Himalayas. In 1952, he was posted to Ranchi TB Sanatorium branch as an Assistant Secretary.

In 1958, he was sent to Rangoon (Yangon) in Burma (now Myanmar) Sevashrama as its secretary.

When military rulers took over Rangoon Sevashrama, he returned to India in 1965. and was posted to Rajkot branch as its head in 1966.

He was elected a Trustee of the Ramakrishna Math and Member of the Governing Body of the Ramakrishna Mission in 1973.

In 1975, he was appointed an Assistant General Secretary of the twin organizations. Under his stewardship as Relief Secretary, the Math and Mission conducted massive relief and rehabilitation operations in various parts of India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

He became the General Secretary of the Math and Mission in 1992 and continued to be in that post for five years till 1997 when he became a Vice-President of the Order.

He was elected President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission in December 2007.

Swami Atmasthanandaji had travelled extensively in various parts of the country as well as the globe and visited many branches of the Order and some unaffiliated centres spreading messages of Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda and Vedanta besides, giving mantra diksha to many spiritual seekers.

He was one of the key persons to organize Pallimangal (integrated rural development) activities in Kamarpukur and Jayrambati, a youth training centre at Saradapitha (Belur) and many other social service programmes.

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Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who paid a visit to the ailing Maharaj earlier in the afternoon, described his passing away as "an irreparable loss to mankind".

"Saddened that Rev. Swami Atmasthanandaji, President, Ramakrishna Math & Mission passed away today at Seva Pratishthan #Kolkata," Banerjee tweeted.

"I paid my last visit to him this afternoon. A life of outstanding social & religious service. This is an irreparable loss to mankind," Banerjee said. PTI SCH MD

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By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Repeating with correction in dateline)

Shillong, Jun 17 (PTI) Three persons were killed and nine others suffered injuries while two women went missing after incessant rainfall triggered a massive landslide in Ri-Bhoi district of Meghalaya today.

Officials said the incident took place at a labour camp near Umiam Lake around 5 AM during heavy rain, which continued since last night.

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Two teenaged girls and a 25-year-old man were killed while two women went missing in the landslide, a district disaster management authority official said.

Nine others were injured in the incident, the official added.

The official said efforts were on to clear the debris and the injured have been referred to NEIGRIHMS, Ganesh Das Hospital and Shillong Civil Hospital.

There were also reports of landslides at Umtyngngar, Mawkynrew and other places, but there was no casualty, they said.

Meanwhile, Met department officials confirmed onset of the south west monsoon in the north eastern region. PTI JOP PR KIS

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A delegation from Sint Maartens Collective Preventive Services (CPS), a department in the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour, recently attended the 9th Summit of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) in Washington DC at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The two-day June 6-7 summit took place under the theme: First Food: The Essential Role of Breastfeeding.

Dr. Virginia Asin, CPS Head gave a presentation about Breastfeeding Promotion and Practices on Sint Maarten. CPS Nurse Ivanca Woodley, also attended the summit and was co-presenter.

I am very proud that our program got the attention of ABM, but I am more proud of the fact that the work done by our staff with limited resources, both human and financial, received such high recognition.

At the summit we expanded our knowledge with attending professionals who offered support and technical assistance for the future upgrading and improvement in our Breastfeeding program and practices.

With this summit behind us, CPS has intensified the already strong relationship with the American University of the Caribbean (AUC) through Dr. Julie Taylor who is the current President of ABM, but also the Associate Dean for Academics and Student Affairs at AUC.

It was a huge honour for us to be invited to make a presentation at such a prestigious event in front of an illustrious group of experts in the field of breastfeeding, Dr. Virginia Asin said on Friday.

The First Annual Summit, held in June 2009, marked the 25th anniversary of the Surgeon General's Workshop on Breastfeeding and Human Lactation, a milestone event led by the late C. Everett Koop, MD in 1984.

Now in its Ninth year, the Summit will continue to monitor and address the unmet health needs of underserved mothers and their vulnerable children associated with low rates of breastfeeding, and to work proactively toward reducing barriers to breastfeeding.

The goal of the summit was to bring high-level visibility in order to generate timely evidence-based programs for an enhanced national breastfeeding agenda.

Each year's Summit serves as a benchmark to assess annual progress in breastfeeding practice nationwide. In the past ABM have been pleased to feature each Surgeon General as well as leaders from other Federal agencies, key Senators, Congressmen, Governors, Mayors, the World Bank, and nonprofits nationwide.

Key thought leaders in health and public health and medicine participating in the conference included high-level representatives from major Federal agencies as well as hands-on grass roots administrators from important programs throughout the United States and leaders from academic institutions, industry, nonprofits, and public agencies.

The Summit was again presented by the publication, Breastfeeding Medicine. Founded in 1995, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine is an international, multi-specialty, physician organization with more than 700 members dedicated to the promotion, protection, and support of breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding Medicine, as its official peer-reviewed journal, will publish the Summit proceedings and policy recommendations coming out of the summit.

PHOTO CUTLINE: L to R: CPS Nurse Ivanca Woodley, President of ABM Dr. Julie Taylor, and CPS Head Dr. Virginia Asin.




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The Home Repair project designed to assist the most vulnerable in our community to live in decent homes was launched Monday June 12th. The Department of Community Development, Family & Humanitarian Affairs (CDFHA), Youth Affairs, contractors and students have all come together in a win, win, win project to benefit the community. The students will gain valuable work experience that will equip them with valuable experience to enter the labor market as a skilled worker. In anticipation of the launch, the contractors and participating students met last week Thursday for an introductory meeting before repairs on the first 12 homes commenced.





Minister Lees opening remarks began with a short story that helped paint a picture of the objective of the project. When I came in as a Minister, there was a gentleman that used to come to our office on a regular basis seeking assistance, and one day he came to request some help to have his house repaired. To get an idea of what kind of repairs the gentleman was referring to, we took a trip to see his living conditions. He lived in a small room, you could see the zinc sheets from his roof pealed back, and the bathroom was deplorable. When it rained he had to put a plastic sheet over his bed so his bed wouldnt get wet. It was heart wrenching to see elderly that contributed to building this island, living in socially substandard conditions. Certainly, thereafter I came back to the Ministry, and said look, here is clearly a person who has a social problem. We need to find a way to help him immediately. But when you looked into it, our system didnt allow us to help him. So in the end, according to our governmental rules there was nothing we could do to improve his living environment. But sure enough, come election time somebody fixed his roof and the guy had on a t-shirt from a particular party. So what happened? He had to sell his vote, his dignity, for a roof over his head.





The point Minister Lee echoed was something is fundamentally wrong, if that is what our people need to do to live with pride and dignity. With that in mind he tasked Aida Holaman, Head of CDFHA with figuring out how to solve this problem. Minister Lee stated that he couldnt be more proud of how has developed and whoe heartedly thanked everyone for their contribution to our nation.





Aida has brought her charm, her charisma, her commitment to the community, and her dedicated team to do this project. And in a sense, the fact that I had so little involvement, is really just a testament to everyones commitment to the project. I had nothing to do with choosing the contractors or nothing to do with selecting the people who are going to receive the help that they so desperately need. These are simply the people in our community who based on an assessment by the the Ministry of VSA has been identified as eligible for the assistance, and it doesnt matter where youre from or what your political allegiance is, but simply these are the people that need the most help in our community.





In addition, guest speaker, Mr. Mason gave a motivational speech directed to the students and emphasized the need to always be persistent no matter what obstacles or challenges they encounter while working in the field. Also addressing the gathering was member of MPC management team Mr. Richard Garrin who expressed enthusiasm in collaborating with this program that was a direct link to the vision MPC vocational section has outlined and shared this with Aida Holaman during her many visits at the school. Vocational students can now be connected to relevant internship programs such as this one:





For this MPC is extremely grateful.





After all the formal speeches, Department Heads Aida Holaman and Shermina Powell, as they phrased it got real with the students. Aida Holaman emphasized that the students present are setting the trend for the next generations to follow  what you do and how you embrace this opportunity will pave the way for your younger brother, sister, or cousin. Another important message to the students was to remember that the people they will meet in our community are opening their homes to them, and they must remember to treat them as if they were their mother, grandmother, uncle, or neighbor. The students were reminded that this is an opportunity for their future, and the team at CDFHA and Youth Affairs will be there to support them through it.





She also gave special recognition to the three (3) young ladies who are part of the project regarding women in the technical field. In closing Aida was also the voice of the seniors and physically challenged and thanked all collaborators, on behalf of these two target groups for this great initiative, as they were extremely grateful to benefit from such an initiative as they so often expressed feelings of being forgotten by members of the St. Maarten community.





In an invited comment Minister Silveria Jacobs stated, Opportunities for education to meet the labor needs are always promoted and appreciated. This is truly a great example of Education on the Move initiated by the Ministry VSA. I encourage the students to make great use of this opportunity, as it connects the youth to community involvement. The students will gain the experience of giving back to a greater cause to those who are in much need of the help. Much thanks and gratitude to the business community and contractors for giving back to the community and promoting education through work experience! Inter-ministerial collaboration creates tangible results. Id also like to thank the management, faculty and staff of the various schools and staff of the Department of Youth for assisting in this years BOPP program and safeguarding opportunities for all students.





After this pilot, the Ministry of VSA hopes to be able to showcase what can be done with limited resources and a lot of good will. Minister Lee stated that he had one regret, which was he wished there was more money so we could help more people, however he re-emphasized his commitment to continue to seek support from within Government and from the business community in terms of construction material, discounts, etc. to make sure this project may continue and more people can be helped.




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Ministry of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Development and Infrastructure (Ministry VROMI), announces that there will be a temporary interruption in the traffic flow on part of the A.J.C. Brouwers Monday evening. This closure was initially scheduled for June 14, but due to rainfall that evening, the works had to be postponed and rescheduled.

The road closure will be Monday evening, June 19 from 9.00pm to 5.00am.

Motorists are advised to be observant of detour and directional signs during the aforementioned hours. Motorists heading to Cole Bay/Simpson Bay from Philipsburg/Cul de Sac, will have to use the Arlett Peters road (old Cake House road) or the Alexis Arnell Boulevard (Link 1 Phase 2).

All motorised traffic coming from the Cole Bay area to Philipsburg/Cul de Sac must use the Alexis Arnell Boulevard.

The aforementioned closure is related to the painting of road markings on the A.J.C. Brouwers road from the Round-a-bout Cay Hill intersection to the Arlette Peters Road.

The aforementioned works will be carried out by Soualiga Infrastructure.

Ministry VROMI apologizes for any inconveniences this may cause.




In a tweet yesterday, Trump appeared to confirm that that he was being investigated for firing former FBI director James Comey.

By Santosh Chaubey: While appearing on several talks shows on Sunday, Jay Sekulow, a lawyer from US President Donald Trump's legal team, denied that Trump was under investigation for firing former FBI director James Comey.

In a tweet yesterday, Trump appeared to confirm that that he was being investigated for firing former FBI director James Comey.

I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2017

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The Post reported that Robert Mueller, who is overseeing the FBI's probe into Russia's meddling in last year's US presidential election and possible links with the Trump campaign, has expanded his inquiry to probe whether Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey as FBI chief.

Trump said he was being investigated by the man who, in the first place, told him to fire James Comey. Trump's tweet could be targeting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the probe into Russia's intervention into the last year's presidential polls.

Sekulow, American Center for Law and Justice's chief counsel, tried to downplay the content of the tweet and defended Trump's firing of Comey as a constitutional act.

On CNN's "State of the Union"*, he said that the tweet in question was Trump's response to the Washington Post story that claimed that Trump was under a possible obstruction of justice probe after firing James Comey. Sekulow added that the confirmatory tone of Trump's tweet was due to Twitter's word limit, "There's a limitation on Twitter, as we all know. The President's response was as it related to the Washington Post report. He cannot in a Twitter statement include all of that in there. That's it. Simple explanation."

He reiterated his claims on NBC's "Meet the Press" saying that Donald Trump "was not and had not been under investigation for obstruction." He said that "Donald Trump was not afraid of the investigation - there was no investigation" and defended Trump's tweet in question saying that "Donald Trump is responding to what he's seeing in the media in a way in which he thinks is appropriate to talk to those people that put him in office."

"There has been no notification from the special counsel's office that the president is under investigation," he told on CBS' "Face the Nation" programme. Questioning veracity of the Washington Post story, Sekulow asserted that the President could not be under investigation for doing something that the Department of Justice asked him to do. In this case, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had written to Trump to fire James Comey. Sekulow asserted that "the president could not be investigated, or certainly could not be found liable for engaging in an activity he clearly had power to do under the constitution."

James Comey, who was fired by Trump last month, publicly testified this month that Trump had told him to ease off on his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was under the FBI investigation for his Russian links. Comey said he believed Trump's advice to be a direction and thus felt uncomfortable by it. Terming Comey's allegations untrue, Trump later said he was willing to testify under oath.

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By Press Trust of India: By Aditi Khanna

London, Jun 18 (PTI) Facing fierce criticism over its response to London high-rise inferno, the British government has sent its staff to assist local council authorities in rehabilitation of victims of the deadly blaze that claimed at least 58 lives and rendered hundreds homeless.

The move follows widespread criticism of the local Kensington and Chelsea Council?s performance as residents of the 24-storey Grenfell Tower, which was engulfed in fire early on Wednesday, condemned the relief efforts and lack of information.

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A team of civil servants has been embedded into the Kensington and Chelsea Council office to bolster relief work.

Other measures outlined by Prime Minister Theresa May following a meeting with residents at Downing Street on Saturday, included more staff covering phone lines and ground staff wearing high-visibility clothing so they could be easily found.

She said: "Frankly, the support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough.?

"I have heard the concerns and I have ordered immediate action across the board to help victims relatives and the survivors,? she said.

May herself had come in for a barrage of criticism for failing to visit residents and her response to the disaster.

On Friday, she was heckled on a visit to the North Kensington estate, and protesters marching on Friday and Saturday called for her resignation.

Her First Secretary of State, Damian Green, defended the prime minister, saying she was as "distraught as we all are".

Scotland Yard has said the rescue operation by emergency services on the site will take weeks and the death toll is also expected to rise further, though not all victims may be identified due to the nature of the burns.

Metropolitan Police Stuard Cundy said: "Sadly, our work will be ongoing for many, many weeks. We know that there are still bodies of those who died inside the building and we want to return those people to their families as soon as we possibly can.

"The work to search the building is challenging, but naturally could never be done quickly enough for those currently having to live with the uncertainty of knowing where their loved ones are.?

London mayor Sadiq Khan has said that tower blocks in the city built during the 1960s and 1970s could be torn down following the Grenfell Tower fire.

"Nowadays, we would not dream of building towers to the standards of the 1970s, but their inhabitants still have to live with that legacy. It may well be the defining outcome of this tragedy that the worst mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s are systematically torn down," he said.

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The cause of the massive blaze is still under investigation, but anger has mounted in the community amid reports that the rain-screen cladding on the exterior of Grenfell Tower may have spread the flames.

UK Chancellor Philip Hammond today indicated that flammable material suspected to have been used was most likely banned in the UK.

"My understanding is that the cladding in question, this flammable cladding which is banned in Europe and the US, is also banned here. That?s my understanding,? he said.

"Second question is were they correctly complied with? And obviously that will be a subject that the (public) inquiry will look at. It will also be a subject that the separate criminal investigation will be looking at,? he said.

On the lack of sprinklers in Grenfell Tower, and other buildings, he said: ?My understanding is that the best expert advice is that retrofitting sprinklers may not always be the best technical way of ensuring fire safety in a building.? PTI AK PMS

--- ENDS ---

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Dan Henninger talks with host, John Batchelor (podcast)

Show Notes:

Shakespeare in the Park Trump "Unhingement." @DanHenninger @WSJOpinion

"...But that wasn't the end of it. We may assume that as Ms. Griffin was creating her video, the artists at New York's Public Theater were rehearsing their production of " Julius Caesar, " the one in which Central Park audiences watch Caesar as a blond-haired Donald Trump, who is pulled down from a podium by men in suits and assassinated with plunging knives.

The news site Axios runs stories regularly about journalists who have been suspended or fired because of their unhinged postings on Twitter . After Donald Trump used a tweet to revive his long-running feud with the mayor of London amid the June 3 killings, CNN personality Reza Aslan tweeted that Mr. Trump was a "piece of s--."

Some take comfort that these displays did not go unpunished. CNN wrist-slapped Ms. Griffin by dropping her as co-host of its New Year's Eve show with Anderson Cooper. Delta Air Lines , American Express and Bank of America withdrew their sponsorship of "Julius Caesar," though New York City's Democratic Comptroller Scott Stringer said their pullout "sends the wrong message."

Advertisers must wake up every morning wondering what political meteorite will hit them next. J.P. Morgan Chase pulled its ads this week from NBC News rather than be associated with Megyn Kelly's prime-time interview with Alex Jones to discuss "controversies and conspiracies," such as his notion that the Sandy Hook murders were a hoax. Ms. Kelly justified the interview in part on Twitter because Donald Trump appeared on Mr. Jones's show and "our job is 2 shine a light."

Donald Trump's election has caused psychological unhingement in much of the population. But the Trump phenomenon only accelerated forces that were plummeting in this direction before the 2016 election...."

Video interview with Henninger
Good Morning Canberra.

We have a classic crisp winter day on the cards for your Monday. After a minus 2 degree low, things are set to warm up to 15 degrees and reveal a clear, sunny afternoon.

It's a formula you can expect throughout this week. But make the most of the sunshine as the bureau has forecast potential showers over the weekend.

Let's see what's making news in the capital.

Shorten calls for cladding inquiry after deadly London disaster
It was great to see that Macquarie Group chief executive, Nicholas Moore, managed to keep a straight face as he told a Senate committee on Friday that the government should exclude the investment bank from paying Scott Morrison's bank levy. This was based on the argument that it was such a minor player in the domestic market.

"Macquarie Bank has less than 2 per cent market share in the domestic mortgage market, less than 2.5 per cent in deposits, less than 2 per cent of Australian lending and advances, and less than 1.5 per cent of the credit card market," he told the committee.

"Macquarie Bank is therefore not a major bank as normally understood and therefore we think it should not be subject to the levy."

Let's remember what this levy actually is: a payment to tax payers in recognition of the fact that these five banks operate with a rolled gold guarantee that we will bail them out if trouble hits.
Rising demand for warehouse and distribution space across the country  boosted by the pending arrival of online giant Amazon  has led to a rise in industrial land values, prompting asset sales.

The commitment to the Western Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek will continue to lift land values in Sydney's outer western regions, and double-digit growth is expected to continue, according to research by Colliers International.

Cope Sensitive Freight's site at 40 Fulton Drive in Derrimut, Victoria.

The group's research manager Sass J-Baleh said industrial land values, historically, had recorded higher growth rates during periods of new industrial infrastructure.

"It is particularly during the stages when the project has been 'committed', that precincts within close proximity experience the greatest value uplift," Ms J-Baleh said.
It could take years to find out decisively what combination of risks led to the deadly Grenfell Tower fire that killed at least 58 people in London, but some early signs should have Australia worried.

With the benefit of hindsight, there were many problems that made residents vulnerable if something caught alight: they had only one internal staircase to escape by, were advised to stay put during a fire and some reported not hearing alarms.

Victoria's Planning Minister Richard Wynne said last week a fire of the same magnitude could not happen in Australia because its building codes were too good.

The uncomfortable fact that many of Australia's buildings are fitted with the same aluminium cladding identified as one of the main aggravators for the Grenfell Tower fire should shake the country out of any such complacency.
The sailors were reported missing after missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a Philippine-flagged container ship south of Tokyo Bay in Japan early on Saturday.

The US Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald returns to Fleet Activities Yokosuka following a collision with a merchant vessel while operating southwest of Yokosuka, Japan. (Reuters)

By Reuters: The bodies of a number of sailors who were missing after the US Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship were found in flooded compartments of the damaged ship, the US Seventh Fleet said in a statement on Sunday.

Japanese media said all seven of the sailors who had been reported missing were found dead.

"Divers were able to access the space and found a number of bodies," the Seventh Fleet said in a statement.

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The Seventh Fleet statement said the sailors were being transferred to a US naval hospital where they would be identified.

"The families are being notified and being provided the support they need during this difficult time," it said.

WHAT HAPPENED

The Fitzgerald, an Aegis guided missile destroyer, collided with the Philippine-flagged merchant vessel more than three times its size some 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka early on Saturday.

Three people were medically evacuated to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka after the collision, including the ship's commanding officer, Commander Bryce Benson, who was reported to be in stable condition, the Navy said.

The other two were being treated for lacerations and bruises and others injured were being assessed aboard the ship.

The USS Fitzgerald sailed into port on Saturday evening but search and rescue efforts by US and Japanese aircraft and surface vessels had been continuing for the seven missing sailors, the Navy said.

REASON BEHIND COLLISION UNCLEAR

Benson took command of the Fitzgerald on May 13. He had previously commanded a minesweeper based in Sasebo in western Japan.

It was unclear how the collision happened. "Once an investigation is complete then any legal issues can be addressed," a spokesman for the US 7th Fleet said.

The US Navy said the collision happened at about 2:30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT Friday), while the Japanese Coast Guard said it took place at 1:30 a.m. local time.

The Fitzgerald suffered damage on her starboard side above and below the waterline, causing "significant damage" and flooding to two berthing spaces and other areas of the ship, the Navy said.

JAPAN WILLING TO 'COOPERATE FULLY'

Japan's Nippon Yusen KK, which charters the container ship, ASX Crystal, said in a statement on Saturday it would "cooperate fully" with the Coast Guard's investigation of the incident.

At around 29,000 tons displacement, the ship dwarfs the 8,315-ton US warship. It was carrying 1,080 containers from the port of Nagoya to Tokyo.

None of the 20 crew members aboard the container ship, all Filipino, were injured, and the ship was not leaking oil, Nippon Yusen said. The ship arrived at Tokyo Bay later on Saturday.

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The waterways approaching Tokyo Bay are busy with commercial vessels sailing to and from Japan's two biggest container ports in Tokyo and Yokohama.

Also Read:

US Navy destroyer collides with merchant ship off Japan, 7 crew members missing

Kochi: 2 killed after fishing boat collides with cargo vessel

Also Watch:

Indian cargo ship Al Kausher hijacked by Somali pirates on way to Yemen's Al Mukala port

--- ENDS ---
Trump's victory, as the controversial polemicist Michael Moore predicted, was "the biggest "F--- YOU ever recorded in human history."

Yet despite all the scare hoopla, Americans are not yearning for 1930s-style European dictatorship. Many of the white working-class folks who had voted Democrat for a quarter of a century had not suddenly lurched to the authoritarian right. They were simply fed up with an establishment divorced from the thoughts and attitudes of ordinary Americans and happy to find someone finally tapping into their anxieties.

During last year's US presidential election campaign, no political label was hurled around more freely at Donald Trump than fascist. Neo-conservative Robert Kagan reflected the prevailing wisdom among intellectuals and journalists when he lamented: "Yes, a Trump presidency would bring fascism to America."

Although Trump sometimes seems to skirt the bounds of reasonable political discourse, the fascist label is far from apt. Indeed, after five months of President Trump, it is already clear that the US Constitution's normal checks and balances are working, as America's founders had intended. Scrutiny and accountability in Washington have not disappeared.

The courts have blocked the President's executive immigration orders. The FBI and Capitol Hill are investigating his election campaign's (alleged) ties to Russia and his (alleged) attempts to stop these probes. So too is an Independent Counsel.

Even Congress, dominated by Trump's own party, rejected his keynote legislation to repeal Barack Obama's healthcare policies. And although he attacks the Fourth Estate unlike any predecessor, Trump is subjected to more intense media criticism than any president, including Richard Nixon.

Far from representing the return of Franco, Hitler or Mussolini, The Donald has shown he's just an incompetent oscillator, who has presided over the most chaotic start to an administration in living memory.

These are divisive political times in America when ad hominem abuse and physical harassment are all too often used against opponents: the shooting at Republican lawmakers is just the latest example of the intense polarisation that is dividing the US. (The activist posted this on Facebook in March: "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co.")
The crimes committed in Melbourne by Yacqub Khayre led to a predictable political response. Within days, state and federal leaders announced tougher anti-terrorism measures, including limits on parole and further powers of detention. These responses satisfied a political need to be seen to act, but it is not clear that they will make the community safer.

One problem was the willingness of the media and politicians to immediately identify the actions of Khayre as being terrorism. We know that he killed a man, took a woman hostage and initiated a siege. Each of these is a very serious crime, but none by themselves amounts to terrorism.

The mother of Nick Hao, the 36-year-old man murdered by Yacqub Khayre in Brighton, fronts the media. Credit:Jason South

The strongest connection to terrorism is that he apparently called a newsroom to say 'This is for IS. This is for al-Qaeda.' But, it is not clear why he did this, and he may have done it once he realised the trouble he was in due to his crimes. Apart from identifying himself with these groups, he issued no list of demands. It is also not plausible that he was simultaneously acting on behalf of these very different terrorist organisations.

Claiming to act on behalf of a terrorist network is again not enough to amount to terrorism. An act of terrorism requires the causing of harm with a view to achieving a religious, political or ideological objective. His actions bear the hallmark of a person who committed crimes and then sought to associate these with terrorist organisations without a view to achieving a broader goal. We cannot be certain, and may never know, whether he was involved in an act of terrorism or if his actions were merely those of a violent, drug-affected man.
We spend a lot of time telling girls to speak up and make their voices heard. It's a message embraced by a large slice of the music, TV and film industry. Corporations, from banks to soap companies, love the halo that comes from advertising campaigns featuring girls delivering messages about empowerment. And there are special programs designed to encourage girls to assert themselves.

But what happens when those girls grow up and act on this advice? If the past week is anything to go by, women's voices are unwelcome across large swathes of public life.

We spend a lot of time telling girls to speak up and make their voices heard. But what happens when they grow up and act on this advice?

First we had the spectacle of New Yorker contributor Jim Holt interrupt physics professor Veronika Hubeny when she explained her own research in string theory and quantum gravity. That's right: she was the expert, but a man felt the need to explain her ideas for her and the assembled audience.

So persistent was Holt in talking over Hubeny that an audience member intervened, shouting "Let her speak, please!" Clearly others felt the same way; the interjection was met with applause.
"I have to become a doctor again because in my previous life, I was only a doctor," he said. "I don't know how to do anything else." Overseas-trained doctors can have their qualifications recognised by the Australian Medical Council but if they are unable to obtain proof of their degrees, as is the case for Mr Hanna, they need to repeat their studies. This typically involves a six-year undergraduate degree followed by at least a year of postgraduate clinical training to become a medical practitioner, and at least three years of training to become a general practitioner, according to a spokeswoman for UNSW. Mr Hanna says he is a very different student now than he was in the 1990s when he completed his bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery the first time around. "I'm very nervous about my exams because I'm not doing as well as I use to," Mr Hanna said.

"All my life I was first in school but I'm older in age now and my memory is not like it was, and I have responsibilities." Despite this, Mr Hanna is still near the top of his class in all his subjects, which include English as a second language, general maths, Arabic continuers and extension, and biology. He is the oldest of 12 students over the age of 30 who will be sitting the HSC this year. While a full profile of this year's HSC cohort is not yet available, last year's figures show 497 students sitting the exams were over the age of 20. At Bankstown Senior College, which has one of the largest cohorts of mature aged students in NSW, 57 out of 71 year 12 students were over 20 last year.

Mr Hanna says having a mix of 17 and 18-year-olds and mature aged students in the classroom has been a great experience, especially when it comes to understanding his own daughters who are in year 11 and year 5, and his son, who is in year 8. "It's like a family here, and I can understand young people and their different culture better," Mr Hanna said. "And my own studies mean I can understand how the HSC and ATAR systems work, and I can discuss them with my children and help them take decisions about which subjects they choose and their futures." He says one of his favourite things about studying for the HSC is competing with his 17-year-old daughter, who is doing many of the same science and maths subjects he did in year 11. "We can discuss things and get help from each other, it's a good competition with my family," Mr Hanna said.
The vast majority of Australians say the world is becoming more hazardous and their confidence that America will play a constructive role in global affairs has plummeted since Donald Trump became president.

New polling shows 89 per cent of Australians agree the world has become more dangerous during the past year, 8 per cent more than last year. The survey also revealed just 37 per cent of Australians now believe the United States has an "overall positive" influence on world affairs, a huge 23 percentage points lower than in 2016.

Ipsos Australia research director, Laura Demasi, attributed this slump to the behaviour of Mr Trump since he became the US president in January.

"On a global scale, people are clearly nervous about Trump's unpredictably and are worried about what his 'America first' agenda really means for the rest of the world," she said.
One of Australia's most respected former public servants has called for a strategic approach to government decentralisation, warning regional cities could be too small to support transplanted workers without their own broad and viable labour markets.

Kevin Rudd's pick to lead the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Terry Moran, said the National Party's latest decentralisation push should only force public service relocations to cities and towns where local workforces encompass the skill base of the new agency, citing state and federal decentralisation to Geelong as an example of successfully locating related agencies together.

Former PM&C boss Terry Moran. Credit:Andrew Meares

A corporate advisor and former president of the Institute of Public Administration, Mr Moran said employment hubs in capital cities and major regional centres with good public transport links had proven to be ideal decentralisation locations for the Victorian and New South Wales governments over more than 15 years.

Public servants were not isolated professionally or personally and could pursue their public service career or seek external employment in related jobs, he said.
Billionaire Huang Xiangmo's political influence has extended directly into the NSW parliament with revelations that a serving NSW MP filed documents for an organisation headed by the Chinese Communist party-aligned businessman while acting as its adviser.

Labor MP Ernest Wong filed and signed off on financial documents for the Australian Guangdong Chamber of Commerce (AGCC) headed by two major Labor donors, including Mr Huang.

Mr Wong also listed his parliamentary email on the NSW Department of Fair Trading documents he lodged on behalf of the AGCC in November 2014.

Mr Wong filed the documents even though the organisation is directed by several wealthy businessmen, including at least two multimillionaires, with ready access to lawyers and translators.
Sections deleted The department deleted a section of the draft stating the conservative Sydney Anglican Diocese-backed Generate Ministries "has become a very influential player" in the delivery of secondary school SRE. The organisation was founded by Sydney Anglican Youthworks, Presbyterian Youth NSW, NSW Baptist Churches and Scripture Union NSW. The department also deleted that "parents (and schools) appear to be largely unaware of the links their high school SRE teacher might have with Generate Ministries", and that the "influence" of third party groups "such as Generate Ministries on the delivery of SRE is currently unacknowledged". It replaced the section with a sentence noting that the roles of boards, committees and "third party groups doing their human resource functions may not always be known or clear to parents", and without identifying Generate Ministries. Generate Ministries is governed by its founding partners, has at least 110 SRE "boards" and received $4 million in government funds in 2016 to provide chaplains in more than 200 NSW schools. Its website values include seeking to "be dependent on God" and "model courageous, entrepreneurial, servant-hearted leadership".

The final ARTD Consultants report released in April noted some NSW school principals reported feeling "undue pressure" from a scripture provider, but the Department of Education deleted the draft report's naming of it as an Anglican provider. 'Age-inappropriate and insensitive' The final report retained a section of the draft showing a large Christian publisher's workbook in 2015 contained material that was "age-inappropriate and insensitive to children's welfare", with "negative passages" including that "cancer is a consequence of our sin and a gift from God" and that "we should die for our faith if necessary". The ARTD report found the level of complaints about SRE was low but they were most often about lesson content. Parents were less satisfied than principals and scripture providers that complaints were handled appropriately. Mr Shoebridge criticised the Department of Education for initially refusing to disclose the deleted sections, which showed "distressing details about exactly what goes on behind closed doors in SRE" classes.

"The role of the Department of Education is to protect children in its care, not the religious bodies that want to be preaching at them," Mr Shoebridge said. "We can now see some of the serious child protection concerns that the department wants to hide, including scripture teachers holding dual roles as school chaplains and the reluctance of some SRE providers to provide working with children clearances." 'Gain a truthful picture' Fairness in Religion in Schools spokesperson Darrin Morgan said it was unreasonable to expect a parents' group to "have to go to the lengths we are going to gain a truthful picture of what is going on during scripture in NSW public schools". "Scripture providers and the Department of Education cannot be trusted to do the right thing by students and their parents," Mr Morgan said.

A Department of Education spokesperson said it provided "general feedback and suggestions to ARTD to improve the accuracy, consistency and readability of the report", but ARTD made "final editorial decisions". The deleted "headship" section referred to in the draft report related to a 2015 text that was no longer taught in SRE classes, the spokesperson said. Generate Ministries general manager James Flavin said it was "just a statement of fact" that the organisation was very influential in NSW SRE delivery and he wanted to expand the group's reach in NSW schools. He did not agree with the view that such an aim was proselytising. Criticism of the government He said Generate Ministries was working with other faith groups, including a Buddhist and Islamic group, to gain access to NSW high schools, but did not support any processes that placed students in scripture classes by default.
A police officer who gave a tow truck driver tip-offs about accidents in south Sydney has been sacked after a stoush between rival operators exposed the bribery scheme.

Less than a minute after details of a car crash would come over encrypted police radio, Hurstville constable David Luke Cottrell would text the details to St George City Towing driver Charlie Ghassibe.

The pair exchanged 389 calls and texts between 2009 and 2011, many of which were subsequently deleted, including one that the NSW Police Force argued was proof that he met Mr Ghassibe at the back of the towing company's workshop one day to collect $1000.

"The workers are nearly gone so text me when you are here," Mr Ghassibe wrote.
Sometimes, when the pain is really bad, Jessica King can't even walk with crutches.

She has to crawl across the loungeroom floor and down the tiled hallway to get to the bathroom.

Setback: Gail King (right) says halting the physiotherapy has cost her daughter Jess (left) months of treatment. Credit:Eddie Jim

Jessica, 35, lives with cerebral palsy and a mild intellectual disability and used to always rely on a wheelchair or aids to walk.

Six years ago, Jessica and her mother Gail discovered a specialist form of physiotherapy. Combined with regular gym trips, it gave her the strength and stamina to leave her wheelchair, and even walk unaided at times.
A wedding was called off in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur after the groom's family issued an ultimatum to the bride's family - if there's no beef on the menu, get ready to call off the wedding. They also asked for a dowry.

By India Today Web Desk: Weddings can be called off for a number of reasons, but beef is rarely one of them. But that's what happened in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, where the bride's family cancelled the wedding because the groom's family wanted beef on the menu, the news agency ANI reported today.

It wasn't just that the groom's family gave the his in-laws an ultimatum - serve beef or get ready to call off the ceremony - but they also wanted dowry, the report said.

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This comes just weeks after a man in Uttar Pradesh's Kuhedi village refused to get married after noticing that only vegetarian dishes were served at the ceremony, and the bride tied the knot with one of the guests instead.

And that happened after the panchayat gave the impromptu wedding the go-ahead.

ALSO READ | Irked by veg-only dishes, groom refuses to marry. Other man proposes to the bride, and...

ALSO READ | Hang those who eat beef as status symbol, says Sadhvi Saraswati

ALSO WATCH | Beef row: Holy cow proving to be BJP's nemesis in north east?

--- ENDS ---
A woman says she may never work again after a terrifying knifepoint robbery at her family's milk bar in Melbourne's outer west.

Mary Lakkis, 63, had been about to close up shop on Saturday night when a group of armed men stormed in.

Werribee milk bar owner Mary Lakkis. Credit:Channel Seven

"Give me your money!" the men shouted.

The group, wearing masks and gloves, jumped the counter at the Riverdene Village Shop in Werribee while one of them ran towards Ms Lakkis and pointed a knife at her chest.
Tokyo: A number of the seven US Navy sailors missing after a collision between a destroyer and a container ship have been found dead, the Seventh Fleet said on Sunday.

The sailors were found in the berthing compartments of the ship that flooded after the collision, which occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning. The container ship appeared to have hit the destroyer almost square on, severely damaging the berthing compartments where the sailors were sleeping.

A spokesman for the Seventh Fleet would not immediately confirm whether the bodies of all seven missing sailors had been found or just some of them.

Japanese media said all seven of the sailors who had been reported missing were found dead.
Aung Din, 12, displaced from Mung Ding Pa, collects water every morning for his household at the Phan Khar Kone IDP camp in Bhamo city, Kachin State. Credit: Patrick Brown, 2017 Panos Pictures/UNICEF Saw Day Poe, an ethnic Karen community worker co-ordinating humanitarian aid to the country's displaced in south-east Myanmar says he sees greater militarisation, not peace, in ethnic areas. "The occupation of ethnic lands by the Myanmar army has been the reason for these people leaving their homes in the first place," Saw Day Poe says. "In some areas, instead of reducing, the number of Burma Army positions is increasing. What the army has done and continues to do is still a nightmare for these families." La La, 10, and Noor Bi, 8, sell fish at the market in the Sin Tet Maw camp for internally displaced persons in Rakhine State, Myanmar. Credit:Patrick Brown, 2017 Panos Pictures/UNICEF Rebel fighter Nerdah also sees the militarisation first hand. "We have counted more than 300 military bases, including fortified bunkers, in Karen State. That has been an increase since a 2012 ceasefire," he says.

"The current situation is not stable, the military are using ceasefires with ethnic armed forces to take land and increase their presence in ethnic areas. There can't be peace until government troops withdraw from these areas." A country at war with itself The vast majority of displaced people in Myanmar are found in the ethnic states on the edges of the country, which shares borders with Thailand, Bangladesh, Laos, India and China. The ethnic people within these states have faced the brunt of atrocities in various conflicts since the country's independence in 1948, although the displacement of Rohingya is a more recent phenomenon. The UN estimates that the total number of civilians affected by civil war in Myanmar is 2.5 million. A mix of racism, ethno-nationalism and corruption are issues that lie at the heart of Myanmar's internal conflicts, says Smith.

"The Myanmar Army has a strategic interest in lucrative natural resources located in ethnic areas. These are multibillion-dollar industries. But there's also an ethnic dynamic to the wars," he says. "Implicit in these brutal campaigns is ethnic-Burman supremacy and deep-seated discrimination." Ceasefire agreements between Myanmar's military and various ethnic armed forces have resulted in an uneasy calm descending on some areas in recent years, but a renewed war in Kachin and Shan states  to the country's north-east  has displaced more than 100,000 people since 2011. Military commanders of ethnic armed groups that have ceasefire agreements with Myanmar's military, like Nerdah, look at the military campaigns in those areas with growing alarm. "The military is still committing crimes against people in ethnic states, particularly Shan and Kachin states," Nerdah says. "Even [Myanmar de facto leader] Aung San Suu Kyi can't make a real change as the army is still in control." Humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have not been granted access to deliver aid to more than 40,000 displaced civilians in areas of Kachin State. The UN is reporting a similar pattern on the ground in Shan State where more than 20,000 people are in need of urgent assistance. Meanwhile, a surge in fighting in Shan State prompted an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 refugees to flee across the adjacent Chinese border in March.

'We want to go back but how?' A woman washes dishes at the Phan Khar Kone IDP camp in Bhamo city, Kachin State. Credit:Patrick Brown, Panos Pictures/UNICEF Phil Thornton is a journalist who has been based in the region for more than 10 years and has written extensively on displacement and refugees. Thornton doubts the authenticity of the Myanmar military's promise to investigate alleged war crimes within its ranks or to protect its displaced citizens. "It doesn't look like by its actions that the Burmese government is taking its responsibility for returning refugees and displaced people seriously, especially when it is still using its army, helicopters and jet gunships in the country's north to bombard ethnic villages," he says.

"Displaced people I have talked with do want to go back, but they don't want to go back while the Burma Army occupies their land  why would they? Their land is still occupied by the army that shelled them from it in the first place. "It is also unsafe, there are thousands of landmines everywhere that haven't been cleared or even properly located," Thornton says. Nine of Myanmar's 14 states and regions are contaminated with landmines. Over the past two years, there has been a new victim of landmines on average every three days; one out of every three victims is a child. There were 251 victims of landmines in 2014 alone. A survey in 2014 by frontier aid agency The Border Consortium, found that landmines affected 53 per cent of 222 villages in south-east Myanmar. Saw Ba Sun, 9, was injured by an unexploded landmine two years ago in Ann Ka Law village, Kyin State. Credit:Patrick Brown, Panos Pictures/UNICEF No landmines have been removed yet, and the process of removing them could take more than three decades, according to some experts.

I Meanwhile, funding to displaced people in the border regions has been cut, Saw Day Poe says. "Basic food support has been cut or reduced, which means displaced people will have an even harder time coping. Already they try and stay alive by farming small areas around these camps, but that isn't enough for food security. "We want to go back but how?" Saw Day Poe says. " [Internally displaced people] are asking that question. For them, the biggest problem remains security and survival." David Tharckabaw, a former leader within the Karen National Union  the main political organisation representing ethnic Karen people inside Myanmar  is pessimistic that the country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has the political capital to steer the nation towards a lasting peace. "Suu Kyi's hands are tied by the 2008 constitution. They can hardly do anything much in the peace process and to stop the war of atrocities against the northern ethnic peoples and Rohingya," Tharckabaw says, referring to Myanmar's controversial constitution that hands control of key ministries, including border affairs, to the military with little, if any, civilian political oversight. There are signs that ethnic people have had enough and are willing to risk public protest to get their voices heard. Just last month 2500 displaced Karen marched in protest on the banks of the Salween River to demand Myanmar's military withdraw from their farms and villages to allow them to return home in safety.
Los Angeles: The glorious avocado - known for its its pebbly armoured skin, succulent green flesh and soaring price - is enjoying a global surge in popularity.

Whether it's the featured ingredient in an outrageously priced serving of avocado toast or the culprit in a sudden increase in avocado-cutting hand injuries, one thing is clear: people are crazy about the heart-healthy fruit.

In Asia Pacific, the millennial generation is expected to have the largest spending power of any generation ever. Credit:Jennifer Soo

In fact, authorities say that growing popularity could have driven three workers from a Californian produce company to pilfer $US300,000 ($393,000) worth of avocados recently.

"They are in demand. Everybody loves avocados," said Sargent John Franchi of the Ventura County Sheriff's Office.
Tel Aviv: Palestinian factions and the Israeli military have both rejected a claim by Islamic State that three Palestinian men who carried out a fatal shooting and stabbing attack in Jerusalem were members of the militant group.

The attack with guns and knives near Jerusalem's Old City on Friday killed a border policewoman and wounded three other people. It was the first attack in Israel or the Israeli-occupied West Bank claimed by Islamic State.

Israeli police stand around a body of a Palestinian after the attack in Jerusalem's occupied Old City on Friday. Credit:AP

Hours after the attack, the group announced that "soldiers of the caliphate" had launched the "blessed operation ... on a gathering of Jews" and said it would attack again.

Hamas said one of the attackers belonged to the Islamist Hamas movement and two others to the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, both domestic Palestinian groups.
Washington: A member of President Donald Trump's legal team said on Sunday that Trump is not under investigation by the special counsel, an assessment at odds with tweets Trump himself sent on Friday.

"Let me be very clear here, as it has been since the beginning, the president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction," lawyer Jay Sekulow said on NBC's Meet the Press, part of a blitz of bookings on the Sunday public affairs shows.

The Washington Post reported last week that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who was appointed to oversee the investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 election, is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice.

On Twitter on Friday, Trump wrote as part of a tweet about the probe that "I am being investigated."
Washington: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has cancelled a trip to Mexico to focus on resolving a crisis in the Persian Gulf sparked by a Saudi-led coalition's move to isolate Qatar for allegedly supporting terrorism.

Tillerson had been expected to go to Cancun for less than 24 hours on Monday for a meeting of the Organisation of American States, where the main focus is to be Venezuela's political crisis. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan will go instead, the State Department said on Friday.

"The Secretary of State will continue his efforts to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East region through in-person meetings and phone conversations with Gulf and regional leaders," the department said. It said Tillerson has "made more than a dozen phone calls and participated in several in-person meetings."

The statement marked the first confirmation from the US that Tillerson, who has met with top officials from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in recent days, is formally trying to mediate a solution to the Qatar conflict.
Yokosuka, Japan: A US Navy destroyer came close to sinking after a "traumatic" collision off the coast of Japan, the commander of the Seventh Fleet said on Sunday, after the bodies of the missing sailors were found in the berthing compartments of the stricken vessel.

Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin declined to say how many of the seven missing sailors had been recovered because the families of those who died were still being informed.

But Aucoin said that the search-and-rescue mission was over, and the Navy Times reported that the bodies of all seven sailors had been found in the ship's flooded berthing compartments.

Multiple investigations are underway to determine how a technologically advanced US warship was not able to get out of the way of the huge and cumbersome container ship, even if it had right of way.
THE HAGUE:--- On June 16th the Minister Plenipotentiary, Henrietta Doran-York, met with the Head of the Taskforce for the United Nations Security Council, Ms. Marriet Schuurman.

In their meeting, discussions centered around the very important subject of the preparations for the year 2018, in which the Kingdom of the Netherlands will hold a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Minister Doran-York, expressed to the Taskforce, that the Caribbean of the Dutch Kingdom, should be better represented and more visible during this tenure, as that is not so much the case at this moment.

The Minister also put great emphasis on the topic of climate and security, especially where it pertains to the Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

In the near future, the effect that climate change has on policy making in the area of security and conflict prevention will only be enhanced, the Minister stated.

Taskforce Head Mrs. Schuurman agreed with the concerns of Minister Doran-York on behalf of Sint Maarten, and also said to be looking forward towards a closer cooperation with all relevant authorities on St Maarten, in order to assure a successful tenure for all parties involved.

Minister Plenipotentiary Doran-York deemed the meeting to have been very informative and stated that both parties had the opportunity to exchange ideas in areas of increased cooperation.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Rotary Club of Sint Maarten kicked off its new Rotary year on Saturday, June 17th at The Refuge in Beacon, Hill St. Maarten, which officially begins on July 1st.

Outgoing President Henna Budhrani thanked the outgoing Board of Directors for their service and reflected on the past year. Henna explained, Serving as President of the Rotary Club of Sint Maarten has helped me grow as a person and as a leader. I want to thank all of the members of the four St. Maarten/St. Martin Clubs, our sponsors, donors, Friends of Rotary, and especially my Board. It is through this combined effort that our club has accomplished so many projects that directly impacted our community in a positive way, and by making a difference in people's lives. On behalf of the Club, President Henna then turned over the keys to two vehicles, one for the Meals on Wheels Foundation and the other for the New Start Foundation. She continued, "As I hand over the reign to our new President John, I want to see our club flourish to greater heights. His success is our club's success, so we must all be there to support the new projects that benefit our community

President Budhrani then officially turned over the reigns of the Rotary Club of Sint Maarten to John Caputo.

Newly installed President Caputo introduced his new Board Members and Committee Chairpersons including: Secretary/President-elect Sherrylle DeHaarte , Immediate Past President Henna Budhrani, Vice President Pierre DeCelles, Treasurer Robert Judd, Sargent-at-Arms Franklyn Maynard, Anil Sabnani and Danny Ramchandani (Fundraising) Iris Fehse and Maayke DeHaan (Fun & Fellowship), Larry Gregory (Disaster Relief), Agnes Kapoor and Adelena Schaap (Administration), Edward Bardfield (Technology Services), Adelena Schaap (Public Image), Maayke DeHaan (Membership), James Ferris (New Generations) and Jeffrey Soc Sochrin (Special Advisor to the President).

Caputo went on to say, It is an honor and a privilege to have been trusted to preside over the Rotary Club of St. Maarten and the amazing individuals we call Rotarians. There are so much history and good this club has done for the community and the world as a whole over the past 45 years. We will continue to change lives, improve situations, and provide help where help is needed. Of course, none of this is possible without your unwavering support of our endeavors. This Change of Board Celebration is a perfect example of how are Club makes a difference, with more than $1,000 being raised to support the needs of the recent Cay Bay fire victims. This year we are taking on some very big projects, which will all have huge impact and sustainability with the youth of our island. The youth is our future and the Rotary Club of St. Maarten will do our part to make that future a bright one".
By Press Trust of India: By K J M Varma

Beijing, Jun 18 (PTI) Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh today met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussed improvement of bilateral relations.

Singh met Wang on the sidelines of the BRICS foreign ministers meeting being held here to finalise the agenda for this years BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit to be held in September in Chinas Xiamen city.

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In his opening remarks, Singh said India would like to strengthen strategic cooperative relationship with China.

The BRICS foreign ministers meeting is a precursor to the chain of meetings of BRICS officials including the National Security Advisors (NSAs) meeting to be held later next month ahead of the Summit.

Incidentally, this is the first time the foreign ministers meeting has been called by a host country holding the BRICS Summit.

China took over the rotating presidency of the BRICS from India after last years Goa Summit. PTI KJV ZH

--- ENDS ---
Opener brings an early escape for Notre Dame men's basketball

It's a big season of expectations for a veteran Notre Dame team - first up, a second chance at Radford in home opener
Banerjee, chaired a high level meet at the state secretariat in Nabanna that was participated by various development boards of the hills, and asserted her resolve to restore peace in the hills.

Upping the ante, GJM activists, including the women's wing, came out on the streets in hundreds to protest an alleged police raid on the residence of party assistant General Secretary Binay Tamang.

The area virtually turned into a battlefield as protests marked the GJM-sponsored indefinite shutdown which spilled out onto the plains. The GJM protest to demand a separate Gorkhaland is being countered by supporters of West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress.

Kiran Tamang, an officer of the Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) was critically injured in the violence, while the GJM claimed four of its supporters were killed.

Expressing shock at the incident, Banerjee said an all-party meeting will be held in Siliguri on June 22 to discuss the growing unrest in the northern West Bengal hills.

Coming down heavily on the GJM violence, Banerjee said: "We have come to know from the police that there is a link (of GJM) with terrorists. I am told there is a connection with underground insurgents from the northeast India. I have requested that they should not extend any support in Darjeeling." Banerjee said the state government is ready to initiate a dialogue with the party in a conducive environment.

The alleged police raid and vandalising of the residence of Tamang at around 3 a.m. triggered massive resistance from GJM supporters. Tamang also claimed Vikram Rai, son of party MLA Amar Rai, had been arrested. However, Amar Rai said his son has no political affiliations and he was released later.

Widespread protests were reported from Singamari, the northern point of Darjeeling, as hundreds of GJM's women activists rallied with shrill condemnation of the raid, and shouted slogans for a separate Gorkhaland as they held aloft the tricolour.

At least four vehicles including three of police were torched while eight vehicles were vandalised. Police said at least 25 people were injured in clashes.

Later in the day, the effects of the trouble were felt in Kalimpong's Gorubathan market where GJM supporters allegedly torched a vehicle of the power supply authority, while the Jaldhaka police station was vandalised.

Police fired tear gas shells as the women activists pelted stones and pushed back at the police barricade shouting "Police Go Back".

Additional Director General (Law & Order) Anuj Sharma and Banerjee denied charges of police firing on protesters. "Police had not fired. GJM supporters are creating violence and attacking police. Many police personnel are seriously injured. We cannot tolerate this hooliganism," Sharma said.

In other incidents of violence, GJM supporters allegedly pelted stones and lobbed petrol bombs at the residence of Trinamool activist Deoraj Gurung in Lebong Cart Road, attacked a local Trinamool activist's residence at Pankhabari, and reportedly set a PWD office at Bijonbari on fire.

The Army has also been called in. Official sources said that troops were patrolling in the entire hills. The party called for a 12-hour strike in Dooars on Sunday.

GJM chief Bimal Gurung said: "Gorkhas are facing a lot of torture. Two of our supporters have died because of the state government. I appealed to all the Gorkhas to protest against torture."

BJP state women's wing president Roopa Ganguly also raised her pitch against the Trinamool government saying the unrest in the hills was due to Banerjee.

The ongoing agitation has crippled tourism. The famed toy-train service of Darjeeling Himalayan Railway has been suspended in view of the strike.
Years ago, Bob came home at lunchtime to find the bathtub filled with frogs. To the dismay of the frog collector, our five-year-old son, we donned gloves and carefully bucketed up the frogs and returned them to their natural habitat. Please advise your child that a state fishing license is required for taking frogs.

Ann Arbor prohibits hunting, trapping, or attempting to trap any animal in a park, but you can admire them. Ann Arbor city herpetologist Patrick Terry says June is a great month to look for green frogs, the most common local species thats active during the day. By June the males are calling, hoping to attract mates.

The serenading song of the green frog has been described as a twang or chung sound like those made by a guitar string. You can hear a sample on the DNRs website at goo.gl/RQ9Nfw.

While green frogs make several different sounds, its the twang theyre known for. If the sound you hear is more of a deeper bellow than a twang, chances are you are listening to a bullfrog (the DNR website has a sample of that, too). Though green frogs are active during the day, Terry says youre more likely to hear them singing after dark.

Confusingly, both the bullfrog and the green frog may be green in colorand some green frogs may be olive or brown or some combination of these colors and green. Size may be the quickest way to distinguish the species, because bullfrogs can get much larger. If youre unsure about a smaller frog, check whether there is a ridge down the backa dorsal lateral fold. Green frogs have them, bullfrogs do not.

Green frogs hang out around the edges of ponds and lakes or squat on rocks or logs in the water when they are not swimming. Rush up to a potential frog habitat and your sole reward may be the soft plopping sound of frogs entering the water. If you want to look before they leap, approach gently and quietly.

The good-looking green frog in our photo sat for us on its rock in a small pond in the childrens garden at Matthaei Botanical Gardens. Though wed positioned ourselves at the very edge of the pond, it posed patiently, probably because it was surrounded by waterits safety netand was used to human admirers. Over the years we have seen many frogs at this little pond.

Terry calls the green frog a habitat generalist and suggests looking and listening for them at any healthy pond, stream, or lake. His personal favorite spot is Black Pond Woods Nature Area. Leslie Science and Nature Center has access to that woods and parking as well. Terry suggests looking for frogs in the water from a small bridge along the path. Theres a map on Leslies website at goo.gl/1wWsBs.
A Delhi man was arrested by the police after a woman accused him of masturbating mid-air on a Hyderabad-New Delhi flight.

By Puneet Kumar Sharma: Delhi Police today arrested a 55-year-old man for allegedly masturbating while on a flight from Hyderabad to the national capital.

The man, a resident of Rohini in Delhi, was arrested on the basis of a complaint filed by a female co-passenger who said she was sitting next to him on the Hyderabad-New Delhi IndiGo flight.

According to the First Information Report, a copy of which is with IndiaToday.in, the man 'unzipped his trousers and started masturbating' as the flight was taking off from Hyderabad.

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The woman says she immediately informed the air hostesses who changed her seat.

The man was detained by IndiGo's security staff once the flight landed in New Delhi and was then handed over to the police. Simultaneously, the woman lodged a formal complaint with Delhi Police.

The man has been arrested and charged under sections 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 345A (sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Also Read:

Rampur molestation: 4 accused arrested, hunt on for remaining

Rampur molestation: Police arrest main accused, investigation underway to nab others

Also Watch:

Rampur molestation case: Police arrests 4

--- ENDS ---
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STAMFORD  Though virulent rejection of the gay and lesbian community seems to be waning, LGBT people need to keep fighting bigotry based on race, culture and gender identity, said Anthony Crisci, executive director of the Triangle Community Center in Norwalk.

We are not all confronted by hate every day and sometimes we do not even see the hate being directed toward other members of our community, Crisci said.

About 100 people gathered in Latham Park Sunday for the Interfaith Council of Southwestern Connecticuts Pride and Joy celebration of LGBT unity and diversity. Crisci joined Mayor David Martin and area clergy of the Buddhist, Christian and other faiths to offer prayers for equality, healing and understanding. June is Gay Pride month.

As the sun overtook an overcast morning, participants lit candles and listened to rousing gospel music performances by the Stamford-based New World Chorus and the Unitarian Universalist Church choir.

Crisci said Dr. Martin Luther Kings sermons on unconditional love given during the original Civil Rights struggles remain relevant to LGBT people and other groups who feel marginalized. He said the shooting roughly a year ago at the Pulse night club in Orlando, Fla. taught him it is necessary not to hide when faced with disharmony. Nearly 50 people were killed in the assault at the gay club, and another 60 were wounded.

What Dr. (Martin Luther) King Jr. is telling us is to go find where hate is rooted within our society and our community and to drive it out with love, Crisci said.

The Rev. Jacqueline Gilchrist, wearing rainbow colored vestments, cited the words of author Maya Angelou. We have gathered on this day to say no to hatred and discrimination, she said. If you have received the healing gift to be yourself, as Maya Angelou said, as soon as healing takes place in you, go out and heal someone else.

The Rev. Todd Yonkman, pastor of the First Congregational Church, which borders the park, said that the issue of gay pride and Fathers Day are forever entwined for him. Yonkmans father, Bill Yonkman came out of the closet when he was a young man, and eventually died of AIDS in 2012.

Every year for a number of years pride and Fathers Day have come together for me, Yonkman said. I want to remember Bill Yonkman and give deep thanks for you being here.

In addition to being sponsored by the First Congregational and Unitarian Universalist churches next to Latham Park, North Stamford Community Church and Temple Beth El of Stamford also helped coordinate the event, Yonkman said.

In previous years, both First Congregational and the Unitarian Church have held separate Pride month events and this is the first time weve done it together, Yonkman said. I think it worked out very well.

Peter Romersa, a member of the New World Chorus and Stamford native said he is a 51-year-old straight man who considers himself an ally to gays, lesbians and others.

There is still a little of a lingering stigma, Romersa said. I think this type of event is very important to demonstrate support for LGBT. I have so many friends in that community.
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STAMFORD  It occurred to City Rep. Rodney Pratt recently that something was lacking in his West Side district.

When I was younger, everybody knew everybody, he said. All the neighbors spoke to each other and none of the kids got away with anything because it got back to the parents.

To restore that sense of community in the 9th District, Pratt approached the Boys & Girls Club of Stamford, which runs the Yerwood Center on Fairfield Avenue, and requested a space to create an office.

They assigned him a room on the first floor, near the newly re-opened pool. He painted and furnished the office, which has a sign saying it belongs to Pratt and his co-representative, Linda Custis.

A Democrat running this year for a second term, Pratt hopes that by having a designated meeting space, his constituents will come to him with their concerns about the neighborhood.

Pratt says hes the only Board of Representatives member he knows of who has an office. No longer will he have to meet people at diners or doughnut shops.

I thought it would bring legislators right into the community where we should be and help bring everyone together, he said.

To help bridge the gap between legislators and the community, Pratt has invited other elected officials who represent the neighborhood, like state Rep. Patricia Billie Miller, D-145, and Board of Education members, to use the space alongside him.

Ive been on the board for three years and people dont have a clue what I do or how it works, said Pratt, chairman of the Board of Representatives State and Commerce Committee and co-chairman of the Transportation Committee. I really want them to know that these representatives are bending over backwards to serve the community.

Pratt says his constituents are most concerned with traffic issues, which Pratt said he has addressed by securing stop signs and other improvements, and jobs. Pratt is encouraged by the Home Depot long planned for the West Side, which would bring with it jobs for the neighborhood.

Whats going to drive a man to crime? Not being able to feed his kids and not having a job, he said.

Pratt is troubled by the gun violence on the West Side. Yet so far this year there have been no reports of shots fired in that neighborhood. The first two reports came from Waterside and the South End.

Still, Pratt points to some 30 reports of shots fired and shootings there in 2015 and 2016.

We had all these meetings downtown and in the mayors office and people were asking me, What are you going to do? It really bothered me because I felt my hands were tied, he said.

Its no coincidence he chose to set up shop at the Yerwood Center, where last summer the Boys & Girls Club ran an open gym in the evenings to keep kids out of trouble. The program proved to be a success, drawing hundreds and continuing this year, Pratt said.

I really think the West Side is going to become one of the apples of Stamford, and not just a place where shootings happen, he said.

To schedule a meeting with Pratt, call 203-667-7581.

eskalka@stamfordadvocate.com
While Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is currently taking a leave of absence as the company rebuilds in the wake the crises ranging from sexual harassment allegations to legal battles with Google, several high profile voices have chimed in with what they think the 7-year-old business can to do improve in the future.

Read on for opinions from leaders such as Richard Branson and Chris Sacca about the state of affairs at Uber and the lessons you can apply to your own business.

Richard Branson: Recognize when to delegate.

"I think he should have put himself out of the business on a day-to-day basis years ago," Richard Branson said at the Accelerate-Her conference in London this week. "An entrepreneur is not a good manager of people, and Travis Kalanick is definitely not a good manager of people. He should have realised that long ago, and done what he was good at."

Related: What Does Uber Need to Do to Fix Its Battered Reputation?

Chris Sacca: Know when to ask for help.

"For the first time he's acknowledging the places he could use help and starting to take responsibility for his broader role, Uber investor Chris Sacca said in May at the Collision Conference in New Orleans. "I think that the company is redeemable and that the culture is fixable.

Arianna Huffington: Understand when to take a break.

Its one of the delusions that drives modern workplaces, especially here in the Valley -- that burnout is necessary for growth and success, Uber board member and Thrive Global founder Arianna Huffington said in a statement to The Washington Post. Thats why its important to lose always on and working longer from the cultural values, especially given that we now have the data that proves conclusively that being always on and working longer  lead to terrible consequences.

Related: Uber Needs to Recreate its Company Culture. Here's What You Can Learn From Its Mistakes.

Kenneth Lerer: Dont be afraid to throw things out and start over.

Uber got to where it is because of its culture. But Uber cant continue to grow and flourish if it continues with its same culture, venture capitalist Kenneth Lerer told The Washington Post. If you take the culture out of Uber, might it not succeed? Only time will tell.

Mark Cuban: Dont double down when youre wrong.

Traviss biggest strength is that he will run through a wall to accomplish his goals, Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban told The New York Times earlier this spring. Traviss biggest weakness is that he will run through a wall to accomplish his goals. Thats the best way to describe him.

Related:

What The Founder of a Company Cannot Do

Advice for Uber From Branson, Cuban and Others

Here's What Travis Kalanick (or Anybody) Needs to Do to Take an Effective Leave of Absence



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje today commented on the death of activist Zafar Khan, who was allegedly lynched by civic officials on Friday. Raje said Khan's death was unfortunate and retweeted a post from an unverified account of the IG of Police, Udaipur that said scientific evidence did not point to murder.

By India Today Web Desk: Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Sunday commented on the death of activist Zafar Khan, who was allegedly lynched by civic officials in Pratapgarh on Friday.

Initial reports of Khan's death said that he had intervened to stop the civic officials, who were on a Swachh Bharat campaign, from photographing women defecating in the open.

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Khan's actions led to a fight and he was allegedly beaten with sticks and later died.

Khan's brother filed a police complaint that names, among others, Nagar Parishad commissioner Ashok Jain. Jain has denied that he and his men were responsible for Khan's death.

Commenting on the incident, CM Raje tweeted Sunday morning, "The demise of Zafar Khan ji in Pratapgarh is extremely unfortunate. Investigation is on - justice shall prevail."

Click here to Enlarge CM Vasundhara Raje's tweet that retweets a post from the Rajasthan government's PR department

'NOT MURDER'

Notably, while posting her comment on Twitter, Raje retweeted a post from the verified account of the Department of Information & Public Relations, Rajasthan that itself retweeted a message purportedly from the Inspector General of Police, Udaipur. (Pratapgarh falls under the Udaipur division).

The Udaipur IG's account is unverified and doesn't carry any other tweets expect a post about Zafar Khan's death. The tweet reads, "Demise of ZafarKhan (sic) is unfortunate. Scientific evidence doesn't suggest murder. Law will take its course".

The Udaipur IG Twitter account seems to be extremely new, with the profile page noting that it was created in June 2017.

Click here to Enlarge Unverified account of IG of Police, Udaipur

'BEATEN TO DEATH'

On Friday morning, Zafar Khan, a 55-year-old social worker and a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, came across a group of civic officials photographing women who were defecating in the open.

The officials were part of a Swachh Bharat Mission project and were reportedly running a campaign to shame those defecating in the open.

Following Khan's intervention, asking the officials not to photograph the women, a fight broke out and Khan was allegedly beaten with sticks.

Khan's older brother, Noor Mohammed, filed a First Information Report against the civic employees, naming Kamal Harijan, Ritesh Harijan, Manish Harijan, Nagar Parishan commissioner Ashok Jain, and others.

ALSO READ | Jamshedpur limps back to normalcy after lynching of 7 men over WhatsApp rumour

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ALSO READ | Delhi: Man beaten to death for stopping 2 youths from urinating in public

ALSO WATCH | Rajasthan activist lynched for objecting to women being photographed

--- ENDS ---
A 26-year-old man has died after disappearing during a dramatic rescue operation at a south-east London dock.

Emergency services rushed to Greenland Dock, in Surrey Quays, after receiving reports of two people in the water at around 8.20pm on Saturday.

Crowds gathered as emergency crews staged a two-hour long effort to pull the 13-year-old from the water.

However, rescuers were unable to find the man.

The scene at Greenland Dock on Saturday evening. / Paul Wyatt

A body, believed to be that of a 26-year-old man was pulled from the water on Sunday, Scotland Yard said.

The tragedy came as Londoners basked in temperatures of 30C in parts of the capital.

A spokesman for the Met Police said: Police were called at around 8.20pm on June 17 to reports of two people in the water at Greenland Dock.

Crowds watch as emergency services stage a rescue operation. / Kristina Kuznetsova

Officers, including the Marine Policing Unit, attended and found that one of those people - a boy believed aged 13 - had managed to get out of the water. He was taken to hospital as a precaution and subsequently discharged.

The second person, a 26-year-old man, could not be found.

London Ambulance Service, London Fire Brigade and the Harbour Master also attended and rescue units enter the water but the man was not found.

This morning the body of a man was recovered from the water - next of kin have been informed.

The incident is not being treated as suspicious.
E ach family whose home was destroyed in the Grenfell Tower fire will receive at least 5,500 from the Government, it has been announced.

On Sunday Downing Street said residents of the burnt-out tower block would receive 500 in cash followed by a bank payment of 5,000 from Monday.

The money will be taken from the Governments 5 million emergency fund which they pledged would be spent on aid, clothing and food for the victims.

Some of the cash is already being handed out and further payments will be available from the Westway Centre and nearby post office on Portobello Road. Help will also be given to people who do not have bank accounts.

It comes after a volunteer claimed survivors were being given just 10 to live on by the local council.

Mrs May said: "As we continue to respond to the needs of the community, our focus is on ensuring that all of those affected by this unimaginable tragedy get the right support as quickly as possible.

The PM has said the support for families was 'not good enough' in the hours after the disaster. / Getty Images

"My government will continue to do absolutely everything possible to help all of those affected through the difficult days, weeks, months and years ahead."

It comes after a weekend of meetings for Prime Minister Theresa May who has talked with residents and community leaders as well as chairing a Government taskforce to determine a plan of action.

Mrs May insisted the Government was doing everything possible to help those caught up in the tragedy.

Tragedy: Two women cry as they bring flowers to the scene on Saturday. / AFP/Getty Images

She had previously ordered daily updates on how the rehousing plans for residents were progressing and promised all Grenfell residents legal costs in the public inquiry would be covered.

The PM also pledged another 1.5 million for mental health support for the firefighters and other emergency workers who dealt with trauma during the horrific blaze.

She admitted the support for residents on the ground in the wake of the disaster was "not good enough".

Mrs May had previously faced criticism over her handling of the disaster after visiting the scene in north Kensington but initially failing to meet with residents.

PM Theresa May was criticised for this visit, where she only met with emergency workers. (Getty Images)

The PM later visited survivors in hospital before inviting a group of residents to Downing Street for talks lasting two and a half hours.

On Sunday, residents who met the Prime Minister in Downing Street following the Grenfell Tower fire criticised estate managers of the building as having been "invisible in the aftermath of the tragedy".

The group, made up of victims, residents, community leaders and volunteers, said they were grateful to Theresa May for listening to their concerns but demanded "real action and immediate results" moving forward.

Grenfell Tower Firefighters - In pictures 1 /32 Grenfell Tower Firefighters - In pictures A firefighter pours water over his head after battling a huge fire at the Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey apartment block in North Kensington, London EPA Firefighters spray water after a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west Londo PA A firefighter investigates a floor after a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA Firefighters rest as they take a break in battling a massive fire that raged in a high-rise apartment building in London AP A firefighter close at the scene after a fire engulfed the 27-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA Emergency services close to the scene after a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London Alex Lentati The moment a resident is carried out of the Grenfell Tower block by fire bridgae and riot police carrying shield Sky News Emergency services close to the scene after a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA Emergency services close to the scene after a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London Alex Lentati Emergency services gather close to the scene after a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA Firefighters rest as they take a break in battling a massive fire that raged in a high-rise apartment building in London AP Firefighters wait to start their shift after a massive fire raged in a 27-floor high-rise apartment building in London AP Firefighters stand amid debris in a childrens playground near a tower block severly damaged by a serious fire, in north Kensington, West London REUTERS Emergency services gather close to the scene after a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA Firefighters react as a huge fire engulfs the Grenfell Tower AFP/Getty Images Emergency personnel operate during the fire at the Grenfell Tower, a 27-storey apartment block in North Kensington, London EPA A firefighter rests during the ballte against the blaze at Grenfell Tower Jeremy Selwyn Emergency services close to the scene after a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London Nigel Howard A London Fire Brigade worker moves air tanks close to the scene of a fire that engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA Firefighters spray water after a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA Fire crews rest as they take part in the operation to put out a fire in a high rise apartment block in London AP A firemen reacts after battling a huge fire at the Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey apartment block in North Kensington, London EPA Residents were trapped "screaming for their lives" as flames raged through a 27-storey tower block in Notting Hill Alex Lentati Emergency services spray water towards a fire that engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA

In a statement they criticised Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation for its reaction to the disaster.

The group said: "In our meeting at Downing Street, we explained to the Prime Minister the anger of all residents towards the management of the estate over a long period of time, paving the way to this tragedy.

"With the exception of very few junior officers, the estate managers have been invisible in the aftermath of the tragedy."

The statement said: t said: "We are devastated by this tragedy. We are angry about the inadequacy of the response and the longstanding neglect of our buildings by the council and building management.

"We are grateful to the Prime Minister for listening to us and for the assurances she has given us but now we need to see real action and immediate results with centralised coordination of the relief effort with residents closely involved.

"The Government must also take a serious look at the neglect and chronic underfunding of social housing over decades."

The blaze ripped through the 24-storey building in the early hours of Wednesday, leaving residents trapped in the high rise block.

Police have since said 58 people are missing and presumed dead as the search continues to recover bodies.
T he leader of Kensington council has refused to answer questions over whether he feels guilty about the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower which left 58 people presumed dead.

Nick Paget-Brown was asked the question twice on BBC Radio Fours The World This Weekend programme on Sunday.

He told the presenter: I feel like everybody else - traumatised by the enormity of the tragedy that overtook North Kensington in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

"I've heard the criticisms of the council this morning, the leader of the opposition and from others, I've read what the media have been saying about it.

"All I can say is to my certain knowledge the council, councillors, volunteers, community groups, officers of the council, have been present in North Kensington since very soon after they were notified that the fire had started."

Nick Paget-Brown, leader of the council, with Police Commander Stuart Cundy in the wake of the fire. / Getty Images

Asked again if he feels guilty, he replied: "I feel terrible about the whole position we find ourselves in.

I think we need an inquiry into why this fire started and why it spread so quickly. I want that information as much as anybody else. Im not going to comment further than that at this stage.

"All I'm keen to say is there is an effective, co-ordinated relief effort on the ground and I'm sorry if people haven't seen that."

Grenfell Tower tribute messages - In pictures 1 /18 Grenfell Tower tribute messages - In pictures Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jeremy Selwyn Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower PA Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower AP Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jeremy Selwyn Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower PA Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower PA Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell

Asked on the programme if he would resign, the Tory leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council Mr Paget-Brown said: "That's not a matter for now."

Police said 58 people are missing and presumed dead in the horrific fire which broke out in the early hours of Wednesday.

The recovery operation continues as police confirm 16 bodies had so far been found.

Grenfell fire: Police say 58 missing and presumed dead

Prime Minister Theresa May previously said that the support given to survivors and the families of victims was not good enough and said there were huge frustrations on the ground as people struggled to find information.

On Saturday she met with residents and community leaders in Downing Street to listen to their concerns.

Following the meeting, Mrs May announced she had ordered daily updates on the progress of rehousing residents and the public inquiry would report personally back to hear.

An emergency 5 million from the Government was pledged to pay for aid for victims and an extra 1.5 million will be spent on mental health support for the emergency services.
T he family of a kind and amazing Syrian refugee killed in the Grenfell Tower blaze will be allowed to enter the UK for his funeral after tens of thousands of people called on the Home Office to grant them visas.

Mohammad Alhajali, 23, was the first victim of the devastating fire which ripped through a west London tower block to be formally identified by police.

More than 85,000 people signed a petition calling for his parents to be granted visas for the UK so they can attend his funeral.

A Home Office spokesman said on Saturday: "We made contact with Mr Alhajali's family yesterday and assisted them in making arrangements for their travel to the UK in these terribly sad circumstances."

Killed in blaze: Syrian refugee Mohammed Alhajali / PA

The lobbying effort was set up by family friend Mirna Suleiman, 26, who had been ringing around numerous hospitals, rest centres and the casualty helpline for news of his fate before discovering he had not made it out alive.

Ms Suleiman said she chose to launch the campaign because as someone with Syrian family herself, she knows how difficult it is to obtain a visa for visits.

The Syria Solidarity Campaign posted on Facebook: "We're very pleased to announce that the family of Mohammad Alhajali received visas to come to the UK for Mohammad's funeral.

Heartbreaking: Omar Alhajali describes the moment he realised he had lost his brother / BBC News

"It's not the kind of reunion anyone would have wanted, but we know it will be comforting for the family as they grieve for the loss of Mohammad together."

Mr Alhajali's family said in a statement: "Mohammad was a very amazing and kind person. He gave love to everyone. He came to the UK because he had ambitions and aims for his life and for his family.

Grenfell Tower missing people - In pictures 1 /42 Grenfell Tower missing people - In pictures Jessica Urbano, 12, is missing after the fire Yasin El-Wahabi Nora Huda Khadija Saye PA Kedir Hashim: His wife and their three children are feared to have died Mary Mendy Mohamednur Tuccu PA Denis Murphy PA Ali Yawar Jafari PA Isaac Paulos Mariem Elgwahry PA Gloria Trevisan and Marco Gottardi Zainab Dean Nadia Choucair Farah Hamdan and her 6-month-old baby Ernie Vital Missing Marjorie Berkti Haftom, 30, and her 12-year-old son Biruk PA Hesham Rahman Ligaya Moore PA Saber Neda Fathaya Alsanousi Raymond Bernard Tony Disson Rania Ibrham Missing Firdaws and Yahya Kadir Sakinheh Afraseiabi Fatima Afraseiabi Steve Power Hamid Kani PA Husna Begum Tanima and Komru Miah Sheila Smith

"Our whole family will miss Mohammad dearly and he will never be forgotten.

"To God we belong and to him we return."

Mr Alhajali's older brother Omar - who was with him in the flat - survived the fire after they were separated on the way out.

The percentage of rejected visa applications for visits from Syria has soared after the country's devastating civil war began in 2011.

But the Home Office has established processes which allow it to consider visa applications outside the Immigration Rules on compassionate grounds.

The success comes as police announced 58 people are now presumed to have died in the fire which broke out on the Lancaster West Estate on Wednesday.

The number of people confirmed dead still stands at 30 and 16 bodies have been recovered.
T hese are the shocking photos and video of the ruins of peoples homes inside Grenfell Tower following the devastating blaze which left dozens feared dead.

On Sunday night, four days after fire ripped through the 24-storey building, police released the distressing images showing the inside of the burnt-out building.

It comes as police reiterated their warning that some victims may never be identified.

The number of people missing and presumed dead is now thought to be more than 58, the previous figure they had given.

Remnants of a wash basin, kitchen sink and an exercise bike are among the charred items which can be seen in the wreckage.

Fire ripped through the 24-storey building in the early hours of Wednesday. / Met Police

Another video clip shows what appears to be bed springs and a blackened bath.

The pictures were captured by a specialist police team as the search to recover bodies from the high rise building continues.

Police have so far recovered 16 bodies and one person has been formally identified.

Video showing the devastating inside of Grenfell Tower

Ten people are still in a critical condition in hospital.

Met Police Commander Stuart Cundy said on Sunday the conditions inside the tower due to the fire damage verge on the indescribable.

Although all floors have now been searched by crews, the next stage will be a full forensic and systematic examination of the building, which could take weeks to complete.

The lift inside the block of flats. / Met Police

He said in a statement: "We must also prepare people for the terrible reality that some people may not be identified due to the intensity of the fire.

Family liaison officers are supporting families, and that includes those people we know to be dead; some of those who are critically ill and sadly those people who we have been told were in Grenfell Tower that night who we have been unable to trace.

Work has been ongoing throughout the night and continues today, so we can get as good an understanding as possible about who we believe to be still missing.

Startling video of the inside of Grenfell Tower after it was destroyed

"Sadly that work leads me to believe that the number of people missing, but as yet unaccounted for has risen from yesterdays figure of 58."

He added: "Today, police teams continue their support to families, and make enquiries to cross check the number of those missing.

"I have always said I will be accurate about what I know, so the next figure of those presumed dead and missing will be released tomorrow, Monday, 19 June. The figure will be higher but I do not wish to speculate on that number today.

Shocking: The inside of one of the Grenfell Tower flats. / Met Police

I must consider the fact that there may be others in the building who, for whatever reason have not been reported to us. There is also a real possibility that there may be people in the building that no one knows are missing."

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Theresa May set out measures to help victims of the fire, including giving 5,500 to each family left homeless from the fire.

The money will be taken from an emergency Government fund of 5 million pledged to be spent on aid, clothing and food for the victims, Downing Street said.

The Prime Minister met with residents for talks in Downing Street and listened to concerns over rehousing, money and accountability.

Notting Hill Grenfell Tower Fire - In pictures 1 /49 Notting Hill Grenfell Tower Fire - In pictures A blaze rages through Grenfell Tower block in Notting Hill Jeremy Selwyn Aerial view of the fire at Grenfell Tower, Notting Hill Jason Hawkes Jeremy Selwyn Aerial view of the fire at Grenfell Tower, Notting Hill Jason Hawkes Jeremy Selwyn A firefighter investigates a floor after a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower PA Exhausted firefighter rest on steps of houses after ours of tackling the blaze Alex Lentati Jeremy Selwyn Residents wave frantically at a window during the blaze Nigel Howard Emergency personnel operate during the fire at the Grenfell Tower, a 27-storey apartment block in North Kensington, London EPA A police officer helps to evacuate a local resident from close to the scene of a serious fire in a tower block at Latimer Road in West London Reuters Debris and ash surrounding Grenfell Tower in the West Lancaster estate, Latimer road Jeremy Selwyn A fleet of ambulances at the scene ready to deal with the injured AFP/Getty Images A firefighter rests during the battle against the blaze at Grenfell Tower Jeremy Selwyn Firefighters prepare to enter the building to tackle the flames EPA Nigel Howard Smoke billows from a fire that has engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA Flames engulf the tower block in Notting Hill AFP/Getty Images This shocking image shows flames engulfing the 27 storey tower Jeremy Selwyn Police and Emergency services at the scene of a major fire in Notting Hill after a block of flats Grenfell Tower is engulfed in flames Nigel Howard A person peers out of a window from the building on fire in London AP Firefighters react as a huge fire engulfs the Grenfell Tower AFP/Getty Images Smoke rises from the fire at the Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey apartment block in North Kensington, London EPA Smoke billows across the London skyline follwing a fire at Grenfell Tower in the West Lancaster estate Alex Lentati Aw omen react followign the blaze at Grenfell Tower Alex Lentati Smoke billows across the London skyline follwing a fire at Grenfell Tower in the West Lancaster estate Jeremy Selwyn A water jet douses the fire at the Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey apartment block seen through a fence in North Kensington EPA Young children wear protective face masks near the burning 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images Two men hug within the security cordon as Grenfell Tower is engulfed by fire AFP/Getty Images A man (circled) looks from a window as smoke pours from a fire that has engulfed the 27-storey Grenfell Tower PA Smoke billows across the London skyline follwing a fire at Grenfell Tower in the West Lancaster estate Alex Lentati Firefighters on the scene at Grenfell Tower on Latimer Road early this morning Alex Lentati A view of debris from the Grenfell Tower fire covering a football pitch EPA Aerial view of the closed of Westway follwing a the fire at Grenfell Tower in the West Lancaster estate, Latimer Road. Jeremy Selwyn Fire fighters tackle the building after a huge fire engulfed the 24 story Grenfell Tower in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images A local resident is carried to receive some medical aid at a community centre close to a fire that has engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower PA

It followed criticism of her handling of the disaster after she visited the scene of the blaze but initially failed to meet with victims. She has since met survivors and community leaders several times.

On Sunday, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said the local community was "frustrated" and "angry" in the wake of the blaze after he attended a church service near the tower block in west London.

Speaking outside St Clement's Church, Mr Khan said: "There is a feeling from the community that they have been treated badly because some of them are poor.

Recovery: Members of the emergency services in the middle floors over the weekend. / AFP/Getty Images

"The tragedy we're seeing is because of the consequences of mistakes and neglect from politicians, from the council and from the Government."

Fury came to a head on Friday night as thousands of people took to the streets in two separate protests in Kensington and Whitehall demanding justice for the victims.

Mrs May admitted the support given to residents in the wake of the disaster "was not good enough".

Nick Paget-Brown, the leader of Kensington and Chelsea council, insisted officials were on the ground "very soon" after the fire broke out.

Protesters outside Kensington Town Hall in west London. / PA

But he dodged questions over whether he felt guilty about the tragedy, telling BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend: "I feel terrible about the whole position we find ourselves in. All I'm keen to say is there is an effective, co-ordinated relief effort on the ground and I'm sorry if people haven't seen that."

Meanwhile, a company involved in the renovation of the tower was forced to deny cladding on the building was banned in the UK after incorrect comments made by Chancellor Philip Hammond.

It was reported that the material used in the cladding covering Grenfell was Reynobond PE - a cheaper, more flammable version of two available options.

Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Mr Hammond said: "My understanding is the cladding in question, this flammable cladding which is banned in Europe and the US, is also banned here."

John Cowley, managing director of CEP Architectural Facades, which produced rainscreen panels and windows for Grenfell Tower's cladding sub-contractor Harley Facades Ltd, said: "Reynobond PE is not banned in the UK.

"Current building regulations allow its use in both low-rise and high-rise structures.

"The key question now is whether the overall design of the building's complete exterior was properly tested and subsequently signed off by the relevant authorities including the fire officer, building compliance officer and architect before commencement of the project."
T heresa May has admitted the support for families in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy was not good enough as police say 58 people are now presumed dead.

On Saturday the Prime Minister responded to the anger among residents who are demanding more information from the Government and local authorities.

After 24 hours of rallies in support of the Grenfell victims, Mrs May met with residents and community leaders on Saturday before setting out her plans to help.

The PM hailed the work of the emergency services but added: Frankly, the support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough."

The PM has said the support for families was 'not good enough' in the hours after the disaster. / Getty Images

She has now ordered daily updates on the progress of rehousing victims and has deployed more staff across north Kensington and on phone lines to support victims.

She reiterated her promise of a public inquiry which will report back to me personally and pledged victims legal costs would be paid by the Government.

The Governments 5 million emergency fund is already being spent on clothing and food to help the dispossessed and NHS London will provide counselling and bereavement support to families.

Recovery: Members of the emergency services in the middle floors. / AFP/Getty Images

It comes as police announced they now know at least 58 people were inside Grenfell Tower when the fire started in the early hours of Wednesday and are now missing.

Of the 58, 30 people are confirmed dead. Officials have so far recovered 16 bodies.

The first victim has been confirmed as 23-year-old Mohammed Alhajali, a Syrian refugee who lived in the tower in north Kensington.

Grenfell fire: Police say 58 missing and presumed dead

Police said 19 people are still in hospital, including 10 who are in a critical condition. Everyone who was taken to hospital has now been identified.

In a statement on Saturday, Met Police Commander Stuart Cundy said: Whilst I sincerely hope that our work over the coming days means that we able to say that less people are confirmed as having died, I also have to consider the sad reality that this may rise.

A protester holds a sign in support of Grenfell Tower victims outside Downing Street on Saturday. / AFP/Getty Images

"I would like to ask anyone who was in Grenfell Tower that night, but for whatever reason has not told us they are safe to please call our Casualty Bureau. It does not matter why you have not told us, what is important is that we know you are safe.

"I completely understand the growing sense of frustration within the local community and especially those people for whom Grenfell Tower was home.The loss of life as a result of this tragedy is truly harrowing, and we remain committed to providing the certainty and answers as soon as we possibly can.

PM Theresa May visiting the site for the first time. (Getty Images)

Among concerns previously been raised by people in the wake of the fire was the lack of a centralised missing person list and worries over where Grenfell residents will be rehoused.

It was coupled with criticism of the PMs handling of the disaster after she made a private visit to the base of the tower but failed to meet with residents.

Mrs May has since visited survivors in the Royal Kensington and Chelsea Hospital as well as meeting residents at a church in Kensington on Friday, where crowds pelted her with cries of shame on you as she left.

Evacuation from Notting Hill Grenfell Tower Fire - In pictures 1 /28 Evacuation from Notting Hill Grenfell Tower Fire - In pictures The moment a resident is carried out of the Grenfell Tower block by fire bridage and riot police carrying shields Sky News Members of the public receive treatment at the scene of a huge fire at Grenfell tower block in White Cit Guilhem Baker/LNP A local resident is carried to receive some medical aid at a community centre close to a fire that has engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower PA Firefighters rest as they take a break in battling a massive fire that raged in a 27-floor high-rise apartment building in London AP Sandwiches are handed out to local residents close to a fire that has engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower PA Resident Michael Paramasivan and his daughter Thea Kavanagh, 5, who managed to escape a fire that engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA A woman who is awaiting news of her friend who was caught up in a fire that engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower PA A man comforts a boy after a tower block was severly damaged by a serious fire, in north Kensington, West Londo Reuters Two men hug within the security cordon as Grenfell Tower is engulfed by fire AFP/Getty Images Young children wear protective face masks near the burning 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images A police officer helps to evacuate a local resident from close to the scene of a serious fire in a tower block at Latimer Road in West London Reuters Local resident Amanda Fernandez reacts following a huge fire at the Grenfell Tower EPA People terrified for their friends and family trapped inside Grenfell Tower @ellenwhinnett/News Corp Australia Women donate clothes to a stall which has been set up to help people near the burning 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West Londo Getty Images Eddie Daffarn wrapped in a towel speaks on a mobile phone near the scene of a serious fire in a tower block, in north Kensington, West London Reuters A woman comforts a boy after a tower block was severly damaged by a serious fire, in north Kensington, West London Reuters Firefighters prepare to enter the building to tackle the flames EPA woman reacts following a huge fire at the Grenfell Tower EPA Emergency service responders and local people at a cordon surrounding the fire that has engulfed the 27-storey Grenfell Tower in west London PA Volunteers bring food and water to local residents following a huge fire at the Grenfell Tower EPA A women reacts following the blaze at t Grenfell Tower on Latimer Road Alex Lentati

On Saturday, she invited a group of residents and community leaders to Number 10 Downing Street for a two and a half hour meeting to listen to their concerns.

She also chaired a meeting of a specialist Government task force to deal with the Grenfell tragedy.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who was at the meeting, said he used it as a crucial opportunity for me to make clear to the Government what the residents need.

Work is now continuing to recover bodies from inside the building, which has now been completely searched. Police said the recovery work will carry on for many week.s

Commander Mr Cundy said: Sadly, our work will be ongoing for many, many weeks. We know that there are still bodies of those who died inside the building and we want to return those people to their families as soon as we possibly can.
The Rajasthan Chief Minister has come in the eye of the storm, or the Twitterati outrage over her tweet on the death of social activist Zafar Khan, which she termed as 'demise' in her justice promising post.

By Dev Ankur Wadhawan: Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje's tweet on the death of a 50-year-old activist Zafar Khan, who was allegedly lynched by civil officials has stirred quite a storm on the social media.

The use of word 'demise' in her tweet for the activist who was allegedly killed by civil authorities has sparked a controversy. Raje tweeted, "The demise of Zafar Khan ji in Pratapgarh is extremely unfortunate. Investigation is on - justice shall prevail."

The demise of Zafar Khan ji in Pratapgarh is extremely unfortunate. Investigation is on - justice shall prevail. https://t.co/1V9DmV26KY- Vasundhara Raje (@VasundharaBJP) June 18, 2017

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In addition, the Udaipur IG's unverified account that doesn't carry any other tweets except a post about Khan's death read, "Demise of ZafarKhan (sic) is unfortunate. Scientific evidence doesn't suggest murder. Law will take its course".

Raje's tweet was read with a condoning undertone by many, including Opposition leaders, like former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

He tweeted, "The CM of Rajasthan seems to have already reached a conclusion even before an inquiry that Zafar Khan was not murdered."

Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot also attacked the chief minister for overlooking the horrid lynching of Zafar Khan.

He tweeted, "'Killed' would have been far too appropriate a word to use for the CM. And going by previous lynching instances, justice is unlikely to prevail."

"Killed"would have been far too appropriate a word to use for theCM.And going by previous lynching instances,justice is unlikely to prevail https://t.co/eQiMGfaICU- Sachin Pilot (@SachinPilot) June 18, 2017

Raje's tweet has sparked an outrage on Twitter, with people criticising her for the clinical post and many activists like Kavita Krishnan demanding stern action against Khan's perpetrators.

Krishnan tweeted, "He didn't just drop dead on a morning walk! Died as a result of lynching by Govt officials!! Arrest Nagar Parishad Commissioner Ashok Jain."

WHO IS ZAFAR KHAN?

On Friday morning, Zafar Khan, a 55-year-old social worker and a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, came across a group of civic officials photographing women who were defecating in the open.

The officials were part of a Swachh Bharat Mission project and were reportedly running a campaign to shame those defecating in the open.

Following Khan's intervention, asking the officials not to photograph the women, a fight broke out and Khan was allegedly beaten with sticks.

Khan's older brother, Noor Mohammed, filed a First Information Report against the civic employees, naming Kamal Harijan, Ritesh Harijan, Manish Harijan, Nagar Parishan commissioner Ashok Jain, and others.

Also read: Rajasthan activist Zafar Khan objects to photography of women defecating in open, gets beaten to death

Also read: Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje says Zafar Khan's death unfortunate

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Also read: PM Narendra Modi condemns Manchester attack, no word yet on Jharkhand lynchings back home

--- ENDS ---
A n asylum seeker has been filmed shouting and crying for help after being slapped by what appeared to be an immigration officer on a Heathrow flight.

Video from the Turkish Airlines flight, which was travelling to Istanbul on Saturday, has emerged showing a man being slapped and his head being pushed forcibly against his seat before take-off.

Passenger Ahtzaz Ali, 27, an office manager from Birmingham, was on the plane when the incident unfolded.

He said he believed the man was an asylum seeker and the scenes left fellow passengers "disturbed".

The scenes unfolded on a Turkish Airlines flight from London to Istanbul / @mariamkhan29/Twitter

Mr Ali, who was travelling to help Syrian refugees, said: "There was a man who was clearly upset on board the plane but wasn't being abusive to the crew or anybody else.

"All of a sudden, someone who seemed like they were an immigration officer came and started physically abusing the man by slapping him and pushing his face down whilst he was crying and shouting that he wouldn't be safe going back to Afghanistan.

"The journey after he was taken off the plane was very upsetting as passengers were in tears, clearly disturbed by what they had seen.

The incident on Saturday was filmed by passengers / @mariamkhan29/Twitter

"It was a violation of this man's human rights and shocking to see how he was being treated."

A Home Office spokesman said it did not comment on individual cases, but added: "If people are in the country illegally and refuse to leave voluntarily we will take action to remove them.

"Whilst it is regrettable that some people become disruptive on removal, we do our utmost to try and minimise any potential impact on the rest of the passengers.

"Any use of force must be fully justified and proportionate and is used only as a last resort for the shortest time possible."
A man has died after falling into a dock in south east London.

Emergency services rushed to Greenland Dock in Surrey Quays at around 8.20pm on Saturday after reports of a man and a boy in the water.

The 13-year-old boy was saved from drowning by a member of the public but search crews were unable to find the man, 26.

The search continued on Sunday morning and the man's body was pulled from the water.

Crowds gathered on Saturday night as the dramatic rescue effort unfolded for more than two hours.

The scene at Greenland Dock on Saturday evening. / Paul Wyatt

Bystanders shared photos online of a heavy police presence as a police helicopter circled overhead. Fire engines and an ambulance were also at the scene.

A spokesman for the Met Police said: "Officers, including the Marine Policing Unit, attended and found that one of those people - a boy believed aged 13 - had managed to get out of the water. He was taken to hospital as a precaution and subsequently discharged.

Firefighters, paramedics and police officers were at the scene. / Sara Bandali

"The second person, a 26-year-old man, could not be found. London Ambulance Service, London Fire Brigade and the Harbour Master also attended and rescue units enter the water but the man was not found.

"This morning, the body of a man was recovered from the water. His next of kin have been informed."

Police added the incident is not thought to be suspicious.

One photo from the dock shows a rescue lifeboat as emergency workers stand nearby.
S urvivors of the Grenfell Tower fire are being given just 10 to live on by the local council despite millions of pounds of donations to relief funds, a volunteer has said.

West London film producer Nisha Parti, who has been helping victims, said the cash is being given to those checking into hotels in the wake of Wednesday's horrific blaze.

She said volunteers were unable to get hold of any money, despite huge donations of cash being made and Theresa May pledging 5 million in emergency funds.

Speaking on ITV's Peston on Sunday, she said: "Kensington and Chelsea are giving 10 to the survivors when they go to hotels.

Grenfell Tower donations and tributes - In pictures 1 /48 Grenfell Tower donations and tributes - In pictures Locals look through clothes and food at Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Locals look through clothes and food at Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Locals look through clothes and food at Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Locals look through clothes and food at Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Locals look through clothes and food at Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jeremy Selwyn Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Locals look through clothes and food at Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Locals look through clothes and food at Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Locals look through clothes and food at Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jeremy Selwyn Flowers are left as a tribute near the burning 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower Getty Images Locals look through clothes and food at Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Donations of clothing and food at the Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn People sort donated products at a five-a-side pitch at Westway sports centre Getty Images Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower PA Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower PA Donations of clothing and food at the Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Donations outside Latymer Community Church after a fire engulfed Grenfell Tower PA The aftermath of the fire in North Kensington as the community rallies round. Blankets being donated to the Westfield Community Centre Nigel Howard Donations of clothing and food at the Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Donations of clothing and food at the Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn A comment left among tributes close to Grenfell Tower PA A schoolgirl looks at messages of support for victims, missing and those affected by the massive fire in Grenfell Tower AP Donations of clothing and food at the Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Donations at the Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Donations of clothing and food at the Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Donations of clothing and food at the Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Donations of clothing and food at the Westway sports centre Jeremy Selwyn Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower PA Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell Tributes left close to Grenfell Tower Jonathan Mitchell

"There is money pouring in from all these amazing volunteers, we can't get access to the money and we cannot get it to the families."

When asked why they couldn't get access to it, she said: "Because no one's telling us where it is.

"Victims were going to hotels, arriving at hotels, with no one from the council to greet them, to check them in, to give them clothes and food.

"Volunteers are now going to hotels with food packages, with cash that they're trying to find because they have nothing."

Kensington Town Hall Grenfell Tower protest: People chant "Shame on you!"

Meanwhile Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad said survivors were being repeatedly moved around.

She told BBC One's Sunday Politics: "We are still hearing stories of people not being allocated properly.

"There's one woman this morning and her child, they have been moved three times since Wednesday into different accommodation.

"That's absolutely appalling."

There is increasing unrest over the official response to the fire, which is believed to have killed 58 people.

Prime Minister Theresa May in particular has been criticised for failing to meet victims during a visit to the site of the incident.

Hundreds of protesters marched through the streets of Kensington and Notting Hill on Friday evening amid mounting anger, while a second protest erupted in Westminster.

Kensington and Chelsea Council have been approached for a comment.
T he external cladding blamed for the ferocity and speed of the Grenfell Tower blaze is banned in Britain, the Chancellor has said.

The revelation comes amid claims contractors used the cheapest aluminium coated panels as part of a 10m regeneration of the tower block last year  allegedly the only ones available that were not fire-resistant.

It is believed that fire-resistant cladding would have cost just 5,000 more.

Phillip Hammond said a criminal investigation would examine whether building regulations had been breached when the block was overhauled.

Chancellor Philip Hammond appearing on The Andrew Marr Show / PA

He added the public inquiry set up by the Government following the tragedy would also examine if rules had been broken.

The Chancellor told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "My understanding is the cladding in question, this flammable cladding which is banned in Europe and the US, is also banned here.

"So there are two separate questions. One, are our regulations correct, do they permit the right kind of materials and ban the wrong kind of materials? The second question is were they correctly complied with?

"That will be a subject that the inquiry will look at. It will also be a subject that the criminal investigation will be looking at."

Inside Grenfell Tower 1 /17 Inside Grenfell Tower Water is sprayed on Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building PA Fire service personnel inside Grenfell Tower in west London PA A view inside the Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building PA Sniffer dogs were sent inside to the tower today PA Fire service personnel inside Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building PA Part of the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building PA A view inside the Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building PA

However John Cowley, managing director of CEP Architectural Facades, which fabricated the rainscreen panels and windows for Grenfell Tower's cladding sub-contractor Harley Facades Ltd, refuted Mr Hammond's claims.

He said: "Reynobond PE is not banned in the UK. Current building regulations allow its use in both low-rise and high-rise structures.

"The key question now is whether the overall design of the building's complete exterior was properly tested and subsequently signed off by the relevant authorities including the fire officer, building compliance officer and architect before commencement of the project."

Meanwhile Mr Hammond refused to say how long he believes Theresa May will remain in number 10 after reports emerged on Sunday that she has 10 days to save her position.

According to the Sunday Times, dozens of MPs are set to demand a vote of no confidence by writing letters to the 1922 backbench committee.

The Chancellor, who was barely visible in the run up to the June 8 vote, also criticised the way the election campaign was run.

He said the Conservatives would have "probably done better" if they had focused on its economic record.

Mr Hammond said his role in the campaign had not been the "one I would have liked it to be".

He said: "I'm not going to repeat to you the private conversations I had with Theresa May on Friday.

"Yes, it's true that my role in the election campaign was not the one I would have liked it to be.

"I did a lot of travelling around the country. I met lots of very interesting people, I heard lots of interesting stories.

"I would have liked to have made much more of our economic record, which I think is an excellent one, creating 2.9 million new jobs, getting the deficit down by three quarters."

Asked if Mrs May's former aides Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill had kept him off the airwaves, he replied: "I'm not going to speculate about what happened inside the campaign leadership team.

"The end result is, in my judgment, we didn't talk about the economy as much as we should have done.

"We didn't put enough energy into dismantling Jeremy Corbyn's economic proposals and his spending plans, which would be catastrophic for this country and we will now do that."

Asked how long Mrs May had left in number 10, he replied: "I think what the country needs now is a period of calm while we get on with the job at hand."

"Theresa is leading the Government and I think the Government needs to get on with its job."
T heresa May has 10 days to save her position with dozens of Tory MPs poised to hold a vote of no confidence in their leader, it has been reported.

The Prime Minister is said to have been put on notice to shape up in the wake of a disastrous General Election campaign followed by an inadequate response to the Grenfell Tower blaze which is believed to have killed as many as 58 people.

According to the Sunday Times, dozens of MPs are set to demand a vote of no confidence by writing letters to the 1922 backbench committee.

Officials are set to look into Mrs Mays response to the west London inferno which left furious Londoners branding the PM inhuman.

Grenfell Tower victims outside Number 10 on Saturday. / AFP/Getty Images

Cabinet ministers have also claimed they would be more likely to oust the leader if her position to win a vote at the Queens speech on June 28 looks to be at risk, the newspaper reported.

MPs warned there had been a loss of trust in Mrs May's leadership, and a cabinet minister told friends he was "worried about her state of mind".

Another minister close to the PM told the Sunday Times: "She had better stop feeling sorry for herself, pull up her socks and start to lead  and if she can't do that she should go. Shape up or ship out."

PM Theresa May visiting the site for the first time. (Getty Images)

Tory sources said there was a risk that Mrs May would face the same fate as Iain Duncan Smith, who was forced out in 2003, if 48 MPs called for a vote of no confidence.

Heidi Allen, the MP for South Cambridgeshire, rallied MPs to decide whether or not Mrs May should stay.

She said the public wanted "a leader and a party that will carry us through this most turbulent of periods but care about the little man at the same time.

Theresa May leaving the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London. / PA

A former minister added: "She's going to have to go sooner rather than later. The critical moment is June 28 and 29 when there are votes on the Queen's speech. If it looks like they will be lost, you have to strike."

The claims came as Mrs May apologised to the victims of the tower blaze and admitted support for families was not good enough.

Grenfell Tower aftermath - In pictures 1 /18 Grenfell Tower aftermath - In pictures The top section of the death trap Grenfell Tower Jeremy Selwyn The tower today, after the flames were extinguished Jeremy Selwyn A close up of the tower's damaged windows PA Fire service personnel survey the damage PA The tower today, after it emerged at least 17 were killed Jeremy Selwyn Rows of blackened windows after the fire Jeremy Selwyn Police sent in sniffer dogs today to search for bodies Jeremy Selwyn PA The Grenfell Tower at dawn today Jeremy Selwyn Donations have flooded in for victims Jeremy Selwyn Water is sprayed on Grenfell Tower PA Rows and rows of blackened windows. It is feared over one hundred people may have perished Jeremy Selwyn Part of the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP Fire crews examine the wreckage PA

She said on Saturday: The response of the emergency services, NHS and the community has been heroic.

But, frankly, the support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough."

It comes after the PM this week faced criticism for her response to the tragedy, after she made a private visit to the scene but failed to meet with victims.

She was again slammed for a BBC Newsnight interview on Friday in which presenter Emily Maitlis accused her of "misreading the public mood".

On Friday, Mrs May visited survivors in hospital before meeting victims and community leaders at a church in Kensington. Downing Street then subsequently announced 5 million would be spent on clothing, aid and food for those who have been left homeless.

Following a meeting of a Government taskforce on Grenfell and the talk with residents, Mrs May said money from the 5 million emergency fund to help victims buy food and clothes was already being handed out and more funding would be allocated if needed.

Grenfell residents at 10 Downing Street

She has ordered daily progress reports on housing for those affected.

It came as police announced 58 people are missing and presumed dead in the tragedy. The search to recover bodies is continuing and 16 bodies have so far been found.

Anger over the Government and local council's handling in the wake of the disaster had come to a head on Friday with two separate protests erupting across the capital.

Protesters stormed into Kensington town hall while a separate rally saw over a thousand people march to Downing Street to demand justice for the victims.
B rexit talks are set to begin on Monday, nearly a year after the historic vote which saw the UK opt to leave the European Union.

The Governments Brexit secretary David Davis will meet the EUs top negotiator, Michel Barnier, in Brussels for phase one of negotiations.

It is the beginning of a long slog for both Theresa Mays Government and the EU, with the talks expected to last until October 2018 before a deal can be agreed.

Here is everything you need to know and some of the key dates in the 15-month talks.

When do the talks begin?

Negotiations between David Davis and European Commissions negotiator Michel Barnier will begin on Monday, June 19 in Brussels. It is just four days short of being exactly one year to the date of the EU referendum.

Brexit minister David Davis will be in Brussels for the first day of formal negotiations. / AFP/Getty Images

There were fears the talks could be delayed after the Tories disastrous election results earlier this month which left them busy negotiating with the DUP to form a Government.

But Mrs May confirmed the timetable remains on course and will begin next week.

What will they discuss on Monday?

The first issues likely to be discussed by Mr Davis and Mr Barnier will include the rights of EU citizens in the UK and of Brits living in Europe, as well as the Northern Irish border.

EU Commission negotiator Michel Barnier. / AFP/Getty Images

Also up for discussion is how big the so-called divorce bill will be. So far this has been estimated at anything from 11 billion up to 100 billion euro, which works out as 88 billion.

The possibility of any trade deal is not expected to be up for discussion just yet. The EU insists that phase one of talks will focus only on the terms of withdrawal, and not on a future trade relationship.

What happens next?

The Queens Speech will be delivered on Wednesday, setting out details of the laws which the Government will want to bring in over the coming two years.

Included in the speech will be details on any legislation the Government requires to put Brexit into effect.

It is expected to include a Great Repeal Bill bringing EU laws and regulations onto the British statute book, as well as bills on issues including immigration and customs.

What about talks on migration and security?

There will be a two-day summit of the European Council on June 22 and 23, which will be attended by all 28 EU leaders including Theresa May. This is set to focus on migration and security.

PM Theresa May signing the letter to the EU triggering Article 50. / Getty Images

On Thursday, EU negotiator Mr Barnier will report back to leaders about relocating EU agencies based in the UK.

How often will EU and UK representatives meet?

David Davis and Michel Barniers teams will meet for one week every month. They will then return to their bases across the Channel to develop their positions.

When does phase two of talks begin?

In October this year, EU negotiator Mr Barnier is due to report back to EU leaders on whether sufficient progress has been made to move on to phase two.

Brexit: Article 50 Triggered - In pictures 1 /26 Brexit: Article 50 Triggered - In pictures Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa May's formal notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels AFP/Getty Images Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Common PA Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa May's formal notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels AFP/Getty Images European Council President Donald Tusk holds a news conference after receiving British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit letter in notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters Prime Minister Theresa May takes her seat after announcing in the House of Commons PA The time 12:20pm shows on Big Ben on March 29, 2017 in London, England. The British Prime Minister Theresa May addresses the Houses of Parliament as Article 50 is triggered and the process that will take the United Kingdom out of the European Union begins Carl Court/Getty Images D-day: pro-EU protesters outside of the Houses of Parliament today as Theresa May prepares to trigger Article 50 AFP/Getty Images EU Council President Donald Tusk holds British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit letter which was delivered by Britain's permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow (not pictured) that gives notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters PMQ's in The House of Commons PA Jeremy Corbyn speaking at PMQ's in The House of Commons Sky News Theresa May leaving for the House of Commons Jeremy Selwyn Mayor of London Sadiq Khan at the headquarters of Vivendi in Paris where he took part in TV interviews to discuss the imminent triggering of Article 50 by the UK to leave the EU Stefan Rousseau/PA Britain's permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow arrives at the EU Council headquarters for as meeting before hand delivering British Prime Minister Theresa May's notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow arrives at the British representation of the European Union in Brussels Aurore Belot/AFP/Getty Images A giant headed Theresa May in Parliament Square, London during a protest by Avaaz after PM signed a letter to trigger Article 50 that starts the formal exit process by the UK from the European Union David Mirzoeff/PA British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson walks down Whitehall Jack Taylor/Getty Images Britain's PM Theresa May signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, invoking Article 50. AFP/Getty Images

Phase two of the talks will cover the UKs future trade relationship with the EU.

If talks are on course, towards the end of this year the negotiators will be discussing the possibility of a transition period following Brexit during which new trade arrangements can be finalised and phased in.

When will talks end?

The EU hopes to finish withdrawal talks around October 2018. This will allow them time to be ratified before the end of the two-year Article 50 deadline.

Later that year the European Court of Justice could be asked to rule on whether the deal requires approval by each EU state. If so, it could have to be ratified by up to 38 national and regional parliaments, with any of them effectively holding a veto.

Mrs May has promised MPs a "take it or leave it" vote on whether to accept the deal or take Britain out of the EU without agreement and fall back on World Trade Organisation rules.

The Westminster vote will take place before the European Parliament debates and votes on the deal, effectively giving MEPs the final say on whether it will go ahead.

When will Britain leave the EU?

The UK will stop being a member of the union on March 29, 2019, two years after Article 50 was triggered.

On this date Britain will be out of the EU whether or not a withdrawal agreement has been reached.

Because the exact moment of exit is midnight Brussels time, the UK is due to leave at 11pm on March 29.

This date can be extended by agreement between all member states. It is not yet clear whether the exit clock can be stopped by the UK withdrawing its Article 50 notification.

The EU insists that a trade deal can only formally be adopted after withdrawal, though the UK hopes this will happen very swiftly, with necessary negotiations completed before Brexit day.
P olice are hunting the riders of what is believed to be a stolen scooter after a young woman was seriously injured in an alleged hit-and-run.

Officers and paramedics raced to the scene of the crash in Islington, north London, shortly after 9.30am on Thursday.

The 20-year-old victim was rushed to hospital after suffering head injuries in the crash at a junction on City Road.

She remains in a serious but stable condition, police said.

Police have released images of the scooter in an attempt to track the riders / Met Police

A Met Police spokesman added: The scooter rider and pillion passenger rode off from the scene. The scooter had no license plates and is believed to be stolen.

It is believed that the scooter was not involved in any snatches prior to the incident.

To date there have not been any identifications made of those responsible.

No arrests have been made and enquiries continue.

Anyone who recognises these people or who has information that could assist the investigation is asked to contact officers on 020 8991 9555 or tweet via @MetCC. Alternatively, call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
E mmanuel Macrons party has won a large majority in the French Parliament.

Polling agency projections on Sunday night suggested that Mr Macron's La Republique En Marche party could take 355 to 365 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, the powerful lower house. That is far more than the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority to carry out his programme.

The vote hands the centrist a mandate to reshape French politics and overhaul the country's restrictive labour laws.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, a centre-right politician who joined Mr Macron's movement, said "through their vote, a wide majority of the French have chosen hope over anger".

With 82 per cent of the vote counted, the Interior Ministry said Mr Macron's party had 42 per cent of the vote, the conservative Republicans had 22 per cent and the far-right National Front captured 10 per cent.

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May watch the France vs England friendly earlier this week. / AP

The Socialists, who ruled the nation before Mr Macron's independent presidential victory in May, were decimated and only won 6 per cent of the vote.

Republicans leader Francois Baroin declared his party the main opposition and wished Mr Macron "good luck" because he said he wants France to succeed. He said conservative lawmakers are going to have a strong bloc in the lower house to be able to voice their views.

However, some opponents vowed to do their best to counter Mr Macron's plans.

Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen registered a massive victory in her northern bastion of Henin-Beaumont, defeating Mr Macron's candidate as she won her first French parliamentary seat. Ms Le Pen was easily defeated by Mr Macron in the May 7 presidential vote.

Ms Le Pen said she would "fight with all necessary means the harmful projects of the government," especially what she called Mr Macron's pro-European, pro-migrant policies.

She said her National Front party had won at least six seats - with not all votes counted - an increase from the two seats it held in the outgoing legislature.

Additional reporting by Associated Press.
* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020.

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018.

* IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014.

* Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013.

* Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011.

2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100.

* Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010.

* Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010.

* Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010.

* Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll.

Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008.
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Taking a break during a recent board meeting in Scottsbluff, Steve Nelson, president of Nebraska Farm Bureau, reviewed the organizations purpose namely making life better for its members.

According to Nelson, the organization was instrumental in creating todays University of Nebraska Extension program 100 years ago. It has continued to support rural families in their dealings with government, world trade, and other important issues.

Today, it represents livestock producers as well as farmers.

The whole idea is that by working together, we can accomplish more than as individuals, Nelson explained. Today that is more important than ever. With fewer farmers and more complex issues, its more difficult for individuals to be involved in the political arena. Everybody cant be there (legislature, Congress), but we need day-to-day representation in Lincoln and Washington. Thats where Farm Bureau fits in.

Among the main topics of concern on the national level are trade and the Farm Bill. On the state level, property taxes and funding for education are major concerns.

Regarding international trade, Nelson said, From an agriculture perspective, we need to be very careful not to lose those good things.

With a new president, and changes in the regulatory arena, they need to leave agriculture alone, or they might make it worse. Our trade with Canada and Mexico are extremely important.

The future of the Farm Bill is also a major concern for agriculture, Nelson said, noting the need to protect many parts of the bill that face significant cuts.

We need crop insurance, and there needs to be some protection for our livestock producers. We need a strong safety net for all of our producers.

Nelson went on to address what is probably the top issue for Nebraska agriculture producers  property taxes.

Were working to develop new ideas and solutions for this broken tax system, he said. Its very difficult for everyone.

Water is also an on-going concern, with organizations, individuals and legislative representatives always working to improve management.

Behind some of todays problems is the size of the federal government, according to Nelson.

Its too big, and in time, were going to have to address it and set priorities. Everyone cant have everything. Its not realistic, but we have to work for a solution to make life better.

Thats what Farm Bureau does, Nelson said. We continue to work to make life better for our farmers and ranchers. Its important because we grow the food for all of the people. I see no higher calling. We have to continue to work for a better future.

The future involves todays youth. Nelson said the organization is especially focused on including young farmers and ranchers. He noted that it is difficult because todays youth are less interested in traditional meetings and events, and are more into virtual experiences.

Its a very high priority of Farm Bureau to create an environment they want to be involved in.

He said the organization is looking at ways to include youth, and one successful step has been the number of young farmers and ranchers on the organzations board of directors.

Were proud of that, Nelson said. Our youth are recognizing the importance of leadership. They are learning skills theyll use to lead the organization into the future.

Nelson and the NFB board of directors were in Gering June 8 where they conducted their quarterly meeting. It was an opportunity to meet local members and share thoughts on the future of the organization, as well as agriculture as a whole.

Nebraska Farm Bureau will hold a final celebratory event in December to conclude its 100th anniversary observance.
TORRINGTON, Wyoming  When Gene Lay says he has the best neighbors in the world, he knows what hes talking about.

About 5 p.m., Monday, June 12, Lay and his wife, Linda, headed for the basement after spotting what looked like tornado activity in an overhead cloud. They huddled under a mattress, listening to the cracks and pops of windows exploding and pieces of their home being ripped off.

At one point, Linda exclaimed, There goes the roof. They discovered she was correct when they emerged a few minutes later to find the porch gone.

Immediately, family and neighbors began arriving at the ranch, located about 25 miles northeast of Torrington. Their son, Randall, and his family, live about a mile south. They saw the tornado moving toward Gene and Lindas place and headed that way.

They discovered broken and uprooted trees, the roof completely gone from the big shop, and a 50x30 foot shed totally destroyed. The house was still standing, as was a smaller shop southeast of it.

To their dismay, the vehicles that had been parked in the big shop to protect from hail, were pelted by iron beams ripped from the roof. Lay said later that it took 5 1/2 hours Monday morning to cut the metal into pieces so the vehicles could be moved.

By Tuesday morning, volunteers from as far as Lusk, Wyoming, were busy setting a tractor with an attached bailer back on their wheels. Younger members of the family were loading sheets of metal on to a flatbed trailer, and what was possibly the remains of a stack of round bales was tangled into the corral fences.

Wyrulec, the rural electric company, sent out crews Tuesday morning to begin replacing about a mile of the power line and the transformer at Lays.

According to Wyrulec manager Ryan Schilreff, about 20-25 poles were replaced, and the project was completed on Thursday.

As of Wednesday evening, Lay said about 15 people had worked on the cleanup during the day. Trash was being hauled away, and odds and ends of lumber and steel were being gathered and stacked.

He said all of the windows in the house had exploded into the rooms, but two rooms had been cleaned by evening.

Still missing are fuel tanks, as well as the fence around the yard, among other items.

The familys horses survived for the most part. Two were lost, and three taken to the veterinarian in Torrington, but were home again by Wednesday evening.

Lay praises his neighbors and the Prairie Center community for their willingness to help others.

They rise to the occasion every time you need help, Lay declared.

And he knows from experience. He lost nearly 5,000 acres of grass to the Prairie Center fire in July, during which he incurred a serious back injury. His neighbors pitched in then to fix fence and help out when ever and how ever they could.

Id do the same thing, Lay said. We take care of each other.

Others outside the community can contribute to the cause, as well. First State Bank in Torrington has opened a Relief Fund for the Lay family. For information, call the bank at 307-532-5600.
University of Nebraska winter wheat and field pea plot tours are scheduled for June 21 and 22 at several locations around western Nebraska, providing farmers and others an opportunity to learn more about new varieties and other topics relevant to wheat and pea.

Wheat Plot Tours

Wheat variety trial plots are located in Cheyenne, Box Butte and Kimball counties. The varieties include both experimental lines and also varieties that have been commercially released, from both public breeding programs such as UNL, and private breeding programs, such as Syngenta and Lima Grain Cereal Seeds. Most varieties are hard red winter wheat, but there are also several hard white wheat varieties as well.

The schedule of wheat tours:

June 21

 8 a.m., Cheyenne County at High Plains Ag Lab (Rainfed): From HPAL office, 0.25 miles east on Cr. Rd. 32N, then north on trial road. Plot is on Field 23.

 3 p.m., Box Butte County (Irrigated): From Hemingford, 1 mile west on Nebraska Highway 2, 0.5 miles north on CR 71. Plot is on the west side of road on Darby Jespersens farm.

 5 p.m., Box Butte County (Rainfed): From Hemingford, about 5 miles south on Highway 2, then about 0.6 miles south on CR 67. Plots are on the west side of the road, on Chris Cullans farm. From Alliance: 8 miles north on Highway 385, 4 miles north on Highway 2, 0.25 miles west on Hall Road; south on CR 67.

June 22

 8 a.m., Kimball County (Rainfed): From Kimball, 2.5 miles south on Highway 71; 4 miles west on CR 28; 2 miles south on CR 33; 0.5 miles west on CR 24. Plot is on the north side of the road on the Damon Birkhofer farm.

Specialists and crop breeders from the public sector, as well as representatives of private seed companies, will be on hand at wheat tour stops. Discussion topics will include genetics (new varieties on the horizon) and also production issues, such as diseases (especially wheat streak mosaic and other fungal diseases); insects like wheat stem sawfly; and weed management.

Pea Field Days

Field pea plot tours are scheduled for Cheyenne, Scotts Bluff and Box Butte counties. These tours will feature 20 to 25 varieties at each location from commercial seed companies, Pulse USA, Meridian, Northern Seed and Legume Logic, and representatives from local elevators. These include varieties currently being grown in Nebraska as well as experimental lines that represent potential new varieties. Discussion will include 2016 data and 2017 crop condition.

Dates and locations of the field pea plot tours are:

 June 21, 8 a.m., Cheyenne County at High Plains Ag Lab (Rainfed): From HPAL office, 0.25 miles east on Cr. Rd. 32N, then north on trial road.

 June 22, 9 a.m., Box Butte County: From Hemingford, 5 miles south on Highway 2; about 3 miles west on Hall Road. Plot is on the south side on Brad Hansens farm. From Alliance: 8 miles north on Highway 385; 4 miles north on Highway 2; 3 miles west on Hall Road.

 June 22, 1 p.m., Scotts Bluff County: UNL Panhandle Research and Extension Center small plot area, 4502 Avenue I, Scottsbluff.

For more information call Dipak Santra at 308-632-1244 or 970-397-9817 (cell) or Vernon Florke at 308-249-3161.
GERING  For almost 20 years, the annual Rock-N-Roll Fathers Day classic has brought gear heads and classic car enthusiasts to the valley to strut both metal and muscle. This years show brought in over 300 entries from more than five states, Skip Lessert of the High Plains Auto Club said.

The cars and trucks parked outside Five Rocks Amphitheater ranged in make and model, stretching back to almost 100 years.

We have a Model T here, and thats the oldest models Im familiar with, and they go all the way up to fairly new. I think theres even a 2017 Corvette here, Lessert said.

While theres not an official judging at the show, participants receive a form after registering to jot down their favorites. Lessert said that special awards, such as the sheriffs, police, and military awards, are picked by a handful of judges.

Paul Snyder, of Gering, said this is his third year entering the classic, and that so far hes enjoyed it.

The club that puts this on does a great job, Snyder said while polishing the chrome of his 60 Chevy Imapala. Theyve got it very well organized, to the point where you just come and they take care of everything.

You also get to meet with a lot of guys in the same boat.

Tim Van Pelt of Black Hawk, South Dakota, brought his modified 26 Model T more than 220 miles show it off. While hes entered into several shows as far as Minnesota and as close to home as the Black Hills, Van Pelt said this is his first time entering the Rock-N-Roll Classic, but it wont be his last.

Weve already got our motel reservations for next year, he said.

Among the rows of vintage vehicles, one car stood out from the rest: a 65 Impala Super Sport, up for grabs to the right raffle winner.

The Golden Globe SS is the 13th project restored by Mid-Plains Community College in North Platte. Autobody Instructor Don Wilson said the automotive technology and auto body technology programs at MPCC restored the car back to condition, and when the car rolled out the garage, none of the students shed a tear, he said.

I think they were ready to get rid of it, Wilson said. A couple of them would like to win it.

Wilson said the car was recovered from a garage in North Platte, where it had sat in dust and disregard for roughly 25 years. The tires were flat, and a quarter-panel needed replaced, but the body, with exception of the trunk, was pretty much rust-free.

Normally, it takes about 9 months (to restore a vehicle), but this one took here a little longer, Wilson said. Its got all new moldings, and new bumpers. Its a nice car, and it runs very well.

A total of 10,000 raffle tickets are up for grabs at a price of $10 each. Proceeds will be used for scholarships for students in the Automotive Technology and Auto Body Technology programs and to help offset the cost of producing another raffle car next year. Tickets will be sold everywhere the vehicle is displayed. A schedule is posted on the colleges website, mpcc.edu.

The drawing for the Impala will be at 3 p.m. during the Colonel Codys Cruise Show and Shine in downtown North Platte on Sept. 9.
GERING  The sounds of drums and songs in Lakota echoed off the barns and sandstone hills Saturday at the Legacy of the Plains museum.

For about a decade, members of the Oglala Lakota and others have gathered for the annual Circle of the Bluffs Powwow.

While Circle of the Bluffs has had many homes during its tenure, its current location is in an arbor behind the museum. The wooden structure is painted in the sacred colors of the Lakota: red, yellow, white and black. Each color represents something different, be it direction, animals and human beings.

For natives, powwows are a way to join in dance and song and celebrate their culture, but the ceremony also holds a higher purpose.

Kelly Looking Horse, who emceed the powwow, said that powwows are also used as a way to recognize the accomplishments of others, such as graduating from school or returning home from the military.

We have the belief that when people receive praise, they continue to do more, Looking Horse said. They strive for that recognition.

Another facet of the powwow is the healing power of blessings and prayer. Sonny Richards of Rapid City, South Dakota, who served as the staff-bearer for the powwow, and Edison Red Nest Jr., who served as the arena director, began by blessing the ring, the dancers and guests at the powwow with sage.

There is nothing we cannot overcome through prayer, Richards said.

A final aspect of cultural significance is the immersion, especially of young people, and the preservation of the Lakota language.

Of the more than 560 Native American tribes in the United States, many have lost their language due to cultural integration and forced assimilation.

Events like The Circle of the Bluffs help keep the Lakota and its language from going extinct.

The Circle of the Bluffs Powwow continues Sunday, June 18 from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Legacy of the Plains museum.
At government buildings across the nation, a picture of a smiling, benevolent-looking politician is just about as common as fluorescent lights.

But a portrait of President Donald Trump that no longer graces the town hall in Jackson, Wyoming, has sparked national controversy.

Last week the mayor of Jackson, Pete Muldoon, had the president's portrait replaced with a photo of Native American Chief Washakie. Vice President Pence's portrait was pulled, too.

Although Muldoon, who took office Jan. 1, called Trump a "divisive figure," he insisted in a lengthy statement on his website that politics wasn't a motivating factor behind the removal.

"We aren't required to display signs of respect - our respect is earned, not demanded," Muldoon's statement said. "Dictators like Joseph Stalin required their portraits to be displayed everywhere. Luckily, we do not live in a dictatorship. We can choose who we honor."

The first-term mayor told The Washington Post that he doesn't think Jackson's nonpartisan government should boost a political party, and that his stance applies to Democrats and Republicans. In Jackson, the mayoralty is a nonpartisan.

"We all have our own political views, but I don't think the town should be promoting one over another," he said. "And we do that when we place a politician's picture up."

But local Republicans say the move was politically motivated - especially because the affluent ski-town is a liberal island in a conservative state.

In the 2016 presidential election, Teton County, where Jackson is the largest town, was the only county in Wyoming won by Hillary Clinton - 57 percent of voters chose Clinton, 31 percent picked Trump.But Trump thumped Clinton in the state, winning 70 percent of the vote to Clinton's 22.5 percent.

"This issue is bringing ugly national partisan politics into our community and disrupting what has been very effective nonpartisan hardworking local government," Paul Vogelheim, the chair of the Teton County Republican Party, said in an email to The Post.

"Hanging pictures of the president has been a tradition in the community since at least the mid-80s. I find taking down these pictures as political showboating and totally disrespectful and dishonoring of the position of the president."

Tyler Lindholm, a Republican state lawmaker from Wyoming's conservative 1st District, echoed this sentiment.

"As far as I know, no public office ever took down President Obama's picture or Vice President Biden's picture," he said in a video message on his Facebook page. "And yet as soon as a Republican is elected, Jackson takes a stance that they're going to jerk their pictures down. I guess that shows character, doesn't it."

The Teton Republican Party launched a petition that asks the Jackson Town Council to pass a resolution requiring portraits of the president and vice president "to always hang in Teton County's local government buildings."

Muldoon told The Post that those reactions - and messages he's received that called him a "liberal billionaire" and "said they'd punch me in the face" - bolster his point.

"The portraits are fine. I have no problem with them. But the requirement to display them and the anger and outrage when they're not put up, that's where it gets weird. That's a cult of personality, and it shows in the emails that I've been getting."
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Quiz time: What do the letters SS stand for in SSDI?

If your answer is Social Security, congratulations. You know that Social Security Disability Insurance is part of Social Security. That seems obvious, but President Donald Trumps administration wants you to think otherwise.

If you ask 999 people out of 1,000, (they) would tell you that Social Security disability is not part of Social Security, Mick Mulvaney, the administrations budget director, said in May at a press briefing on its 2018 spending plan. Its old-age retirement that they think of when they think of Social Security.

Mulvaney was explaining a proposed $72 billion spending cut in disability benefits and Supplemental Security Income, to be spread over 10 years. The likely intent was to wriggle away from Trumps campaign pledge not to cut Social Security.

Mulvaney does have a point  most people do think of retirement when they think of Social Security, due to the universality of retirement benefits. But despite his claims on popular perceptions of Social Security, Mulvaneys attempt to separate SSDI from Social Security is dangerous and could have a very corrosive effect.

Hacking away at the disability insurance program is an attack on the very idea of social insurance. The fundamental aim of Social Security is to protect against the risk of lost income from work, whether from retirement, disability or the death of a family breadwinner.

Disability insurance was added to the program under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Workers and employers alike contribute to the disability insurance fund through their payroll tax contributions. (Currently, 2.37 percent of the total 12.4 percent payroll tax goes into the disability fund, split evenly between workers and employers.)

Workers qualify for benefits by working the equivalent of at least 10 years  just as they do for Social Security and Medicare, although the number of work credits required for disability are adjusted for age to accommodate younger workers.

So disability protection is an earned benefit, no different than retirement coverage. But SSDI often is attacked as though it were a government handout.

Indeed, the administrations proposed cuts come alongside cuts to other programs that assist the vulnerable, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Childrens Health Insurance Program, Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Republican opponents of SSDI often argue that disability spending is out of control and that more beneficiaries must return to the workforce.

Its the fastest-growing program, Mulvaney said in one television interview. It grew tremendously under President (Barack) Obama. Its a very wasteful program, and we want to try and fix that.

Hence the Trump budget plan forecasts cutting spending by tightening program eligibility rules.

Spending levels off

SSDI spending did grow in recent decades, but that was due to changes in the nations demography and workforce.

Baby boomers reached ages when disability is most likely, and more women entered the workforce, making them eligible for disability payments where needed. Another factor: the increase in Social Securitys retirement age, to 66 from 65, has kept more workers on disability who would have otherwise transitioned to retirement benefits at 65.

More recently, growth has leveled off  9.455 million people received disability benefits in April this year, down by 121,000 compared with the previous April. The benefit is very modest, averaging just $1,032 per month.

Media reports on SSDI often try to make the case that fraud and abuse of the program are rampant, but the case is mostly anecdotal. Typically these stories focus on the South or Appalachia  parts of the country where SSDI beneficiaries are found in disproportionate numbers due to lower levels of education and income and where access to health care is more limited.

There hasnt been any evidence to show that people who could be working are getting benefits, said Lisa Ekman, director of government affairs at the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives, a specialized bar association for attorneys and advocates who represent SSDI claimants. The standards havent changed, and they are very strict.

Indeed, only one in three SSDI applications is approved upon initial application and less than 40 percent are granted after all levels of appeal are exhausted, she notes.

If anything in SSDI needs reform, it is the clogged pipeline of cases on appeal awaiting adjudication. Wait times are at a historic high  an average of 616 days to get a hearing.

But budgeting for a big cut in SSDI spending by tightening work requirements is no more than wishful thinking. The only way to really save money in the program is by shrinking the benefits of vulnerable people or by reducing benefit levels that already are very modest.

Trying to cut the SS from SSDI is not going to cut it.
At least one Afghan was killed and seven American soldiers were wounded in an "insider attack" at a base in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, a U.S. military official said.

A spokesman for the U.S. military command in Kabul said earlier comments by an Afghan official that Americans had been killed were incorrect.

But he confirmed that seven soldiers had been evacuated after being wounded in the incident at Camp Shaheen, the headquarters of the Afghan army's 209th Corps in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

UPDATE: Seven U.S. service members wounded, evacuated for treatment. Insider attack Camp Shaheen, Mazar-e Sharif under investigation https://t.co/WXujMMXA3U  Resolute Support (@ResoluteSupport) June 17, 2017

At least one Afghan soldier was killed and another wounded, the U.S. official said. He could not immediately say if the suspected shooter was among the dead or wounded.

Abdul Qahar Araam, spokesman for the Afghan army's 209th Corps, announced earlier that an Afghan soldier had shot and killed four U.S. soldiers inside the base.

In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said an Afghan commando loyal to the militant group had opened fire on foreign "invaders", killing four and wounding four others.

The German military heads the multinational advising mission based in Mazar-i-Sharif. A spokeswoman for the German forces at the joint missions command in Potsdam said: "According to what we know right now, no Germans were affected."

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and a fourth wounded on June 11 when an Afghan soldier opened fire on them at a base in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.

In April, scores of Afghan soldiers were killed when militants breached security at Camp Shaheen, detonating explosives and shooting hundreds at a mosque and dining hall on the base. The attackers were disguised in Afghan army uniforms.

Coalition countries, led by the United States, are considering sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan to help advise and assist Afghan forces struggling against Taliban and Islamic State militants.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday he would present options on Afghanistan to President Donald Trump "very soon".
Lionel Wendt: Recovery and dispersal View(s):

By Manel Fonseka

When I first wrote about Lionel Wendt in 1994, the person and the artist seemed to be almost forgotten. Few visitors to the popular theatre and art gallery that bear his name had any idea who he was or were even curious about him. He had become like a personality behind a well-worn street name, familiar but unknown. It was as if he had disappeared along with his house, Alborada (morning-song in Spanish) when the latter was demolished in 1950 for the present Wendt Memorial complex.

His memory was retained almost solely perhaps by those who possessed a copy of that beautiful book Lionel Wendts Ceylon. Underwritten by his friend Harold Peiris and published by Lincoln-Prager, London in 1950 for the Lionel Wendt Memorial Fund (LWMF) it has now become a collectors item. It was planned when Wendts younger brother Harry Wendt was still alive, and was to be the first of three volumes of photographs. Five thousand copies were published. However, the book did not sell easily and subsequent volumes were abandoned.

The search for Wendt

My own search for Lionel Wendt came about quite by accident. In 1993 I began to work on an article in connection with the 50th anniversary (August 29, 1993) of the founding of the `43 Group in Lionel Wendts house. It struck me that outside the Sapumal Foundation there was no sizeable (or publicly accessible) collection of the work of these artists. My husband had told me how much his own interest in modern art was inspired and influenced during his schooldays by the paintings that used to hang in the foyer of the Wendt theatre. But I had never seen them  or, at least, noticed them. They were part of an impressive collection built up by Lionel Wendt, left to his brother Harry and then to Harold Peiris, who gave it to the Fund. A passing reference in Neville Weereratnes book (The `43 Group: A Chronicle of Fifty Years in the Art of Sri Lanka, 1993) to the decision in 1963 to sell these paintings, put paid to my article by launching me on a journey to discover the lost collection instead.

Weereratne regrets this loss: They made a formidable gallery that would indeed have served well as the nucleus of a national collection. He would probably be glad to learn that Keyts Yama and Savitri (1938), one of the finest paintings in the collection, finally found its way home after a long sojourn abroad and was acquired for the Presidential Collection.My search for the Wendt painting collection, however, turned out to be a first step on a very different journey  the recovery or, rather, re-discovery, of Lionel Wendt himself. It opened up a whole new world, taking me to unexpected places and introducing me to people I would have been the poorer for not knowing. Among them were former friends and pupils of Lionel Wendts, like the pianist Hilda Naidu, who gave me one of my most cherished possessions, a large original print of the famous self-portrait  the one that hangs in the foyer of the Wendt theatre. She also confirmed, quite by accident, in one of our many conversations, my hunch that it was his voice concealed under a pen name behind various satirical writings. Almost everyone I met in this way urged me to write a book about him.

Ian Goonetileke, of course, has revealed something of Wendts influence on and relationship with George Keyt, related to him over many years of friendship with the painter. Former Wendt Memorial trustee Shelagh Goonewardene wrote about Wendts contribution to art in her Sunday Times column on theatre in 1980, reproducing it as a chapter in her book This Total Art: Perceptions of Sri Lankan Theatre, in December 1994.Air Lankas in-flight magazine, Serendib reprinted Len van Geyzels introduction to Lionel Wendts Ceylon in 1989, with several illustrations from the book. Painter and writer Neville Weereratne had a chapter on the Wendt contribution in his book on the `43 Group (1993). Scholar Ellen Dissanayake published an article she had written about ten years earlier  Renaissance Man: Lionel Wendt  in Serendibs issue for July/August 1994. An inferior reprint of Lionel Wendts Ceylon was produced by an Indian publisher in 1995. A poor substitute for the original edition, it blatantly omits the 1950 publishing data, giving the impression that the first edition was also by the same publisher. I believe that the LWMF was not consulted about this reprint and it is unlikely that copyright permission was obtained, even for Len van Geyzels introduction.

The turning-point; August 1994

It was not until August 1994 when Lionel Wendt: Photographs, an exhibition at the Lionel Wendt Memorial Gallery, took place, that the spotlight on Wendt unleashed a new wave of interest in his photographic achievement. For 35 years, Sri Lankans had no opportunity to see the work of their most famous photo-artist. Since the exhibition and sale of his photographs at the opening of the Lionel Wendt Memorial Art Gallery in 1959, there seems to have been no public showing of Wendts work until this exhibition in August 1994. On that memorable occasion, one hundred original prints in excellent condition from the collection of the LWMF were displayed for a week at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery. The exhibition was organised by the Fund and the Deutsche Bank, who also sponsored it and published the catalogue.

It evoked great interest, especially from a younger generation of photographers who had never seen original work by Lionel Wendt. Three hundred copies of the catalogue sold in two days and almost five hundred more before the end of the week. Every photograph from the exhibition was reproduced. My contribution was as a writer to the catalogue where I published descriptions and notes about the photographs along with an essay: Rediscovering Lionel Wendt.

International recognition and the loss of heritage

At the time I began my search (July 1993), few people seemed to be interested in what Wendt had collected, but some, at least, were interested in his photographs. This some needs emphasis because it was, in fact, surprising to see how little interest there was, at this stage, in Wendts photography. It was encouraging, however, to find that most of the original photo-prints reproduced in Lionel Wendts Ceylon were well-preserved by the Fund, together with a number of other original photo-prints.

But apart from this collection of photographs, there is, or was until recently, another major collection of Wendts work in Sri Lanka  the largest perhaps, anywhere in the world. I was invited to view it in 1993, and realizing how difficult it was for the owners to continue to look after it, I tried hard to find a person or institution in Sri Lanka to buy it and preserve it for the country  but failed. At the time I was also innocent of the origins of these photographs. I have subsequently come to learn that they had in fact been stored for years in a commercial firm while building work was underway at the LWMF. The current owner had found them and appropriated them instead of returning them to the Fund. An opportunity to see something of this magnificent but contentious collection came two years after the 1994 exhibition, when a selection was displayed and sold at Gallery 706 in Colombo. Two years later a number of works were exhibited for sale by Paradise Road Gallery. From this time on, the buying and selling of original Lionel Wendt prints and the drain abroad began, what can only described as the re-discovery of his commercial value. One has to ask if in Sri Lanka, as usual, we seem to be as eager to get rid of what we have, as people abroad are eager to relieve us of it.

The outcome of this commercial interest can be evidenced in the marketing of Wendts work by Dutch gallery owner Ton Peek who mounted several exhibitions in the late 1990s. In 1999 he exhibited forty vintage silver prints (sic) in the Paris Photo Fair 99 held by the International European Salon of Photography, in the Louvre. These were described as mostly collage-portraits of Ceylon men. Peeks notes say, Wendt had rarely left Ceylon, at that time a Dutch possession (sic).

Arguments for keeping and safeguarding our cultural heritage and preventing its export have been made ad nauseam. I am reminded of the image of a leaning signpost in Ceylon which Wendt titled: The Point Beyond Which Everything Repeats Itself. I wonder if those of us who share this point of view will look like desolate leaning signposts to future generations. It is perhaps symbolic that the editors of Lionel Wendts Ceylon re-titled the picture: InvadedDesolate.

I know of one other small but very precious and revealing collection of photographs by Lionel Wendt owned by a descendant of the person to whom Wendt gave them. I had the privilege of seeing them in a rush encounter with the owner sitting in a railway station cafe  we had each come from separate parts of the country for the meeting. The photographs make up a book and say as much about the photographer as they do about his subject; they show a Wendt very different from the image many have of him. I have longed to be allowed to have copies and have waited nigh on 20 years for this. Without some part of them, any book I wrote would be incomplete.

(December 2000)

(A version of this article was published in The Sunday Observer, 17 December 2000 under the title Lionel Wendt: Disappearance and Discovery.)

2017: Resurgence abroad The publication of his photographs in Lionel Wendt: A Centennial Tribute by the LWMF in 2000 on the 100th anniversary of his birth, launched this passionately Sri Lankan masters work into the new millennium.

Today, after decades, we are witnessing a great revival of interest in his genius as a photographer. Since writing about my re-discovery of Lionel Wendt in 1994 I have watched his work become the subject of much international interest. In 2003 the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, exhibited sixty prints from the collections of Nalin Tomar and Mahijit Singh in India, in The Gaze of Modernity: Photographs by Lionel Wendt, from August 21 to October 28. I now believe their photographs came from the contentious collection in Colombo referred to in the article alongside. "I was invited to contribute a text for the exhibition catalogue Lionel Wendt and Sri Lankan Modernism for which I also identified and annotated the photographs as part of my research. Some time later I discovered that the Fukuoka acquired some of the works from Nalin Tomar for its permanent collection. His collection appeared again, some ten years later, this time as part of a commercial exhibition held at Jhaveri Contemporary in Mumbai, of eighteen works by Wendt together with paintings by Amrita Sher-gil. The same gallery exhibited thirty-six works at the commercial art fair Frieze Masters 2014 in Regents Park, London. When living in New Delhi in 2001 my husband sent a request to Tomar for me to see his collection. He refused. It is ironic that two years later I was writing for an exhibition of his collection, something I was ignorant of until the museum sent me a copy of the catalogue in which I had written! The dispersal of Wendts work through Jhaveri Contemporary into numerous private and public collections internationally has undoubtedly led to much intrigue and curiosity about the artist. Foreign curators have come to Sri Lanka in search of Lionel Wendt. As a result his work is currently featured in documenta being held in Athens from April 8 to July 16 2017. While the show exposes his work it also exposes how the intrigue and curiosity for Wendt has stopped short of looking at the provenance issues that surround a large body of his photographs. A parallel exhibition, described by its organisers as a large-scale retrospective exhibit at Huis Marseille, which will shine a spotlight on the fascinating work of this photographer in all its facets opened on 10th June in the Netherlands. The exhibition includes over one hundred and forty prints by Wendt, most of which originate from the galleries of Ton Peek and Jhaveri Contemporary. Both these commercial galleries, profit from the museum presentation of the work, which they have initiated and collaborated on. The involvement of the art market at such close quarters to the scholarly curation of Wendts work raises more questions than answers. Moreover Ton Peek is also selling ten works by Wendt which he has reprinted and is trying to sell in boxed editions of prints. To truly show Wendts work, in all its facets, as this exhibition claims to be doing, one would also need to see this as a collection that rightly belongs to the LWMF but has been sold at home and abroad because people who had no right to them could not see beyond their financial value and their own gain. But perhaps this is a question that is yet to be addressed by those who are re-discovering Lionel Wendt.
New Zealand has been a world-leader in being nuclear-free since the 1980s  and it was that spirit peace activists were tapping into yesterday on The Strand.

A peace vigil was held on the waterfront during the afternoon, with people bringing placards to promote the dream of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Committed proponent of peace, and opponent of nuclear weapons, Mary Rose was among those who attended.

Ive become deeply concerned about the global impact of nuclear weapons. They are one of the primary threats to survival of humanity, along with climate change.

The vigil also intended to raise awareness about a United Nations conference in New York, in which more than 130 countries were attempting to draft a treaty calling for a ban on nuclear weapons.

However, none of the countries involved in the process have nuclear weapons  while those countries that are nuclear-armed have expressed their opposition to such a treaty.

Gray Southon, who attended the vigil, says most of New Zealands traditional allies are against the negotiations to end nuclear weapons.

But we are with the majority of the worlds nations, and we are one of the leaders in promoting these negotiations to permanently ban nuclear weapons.

Joy Rising, another attendee, thinks the rise of President Trump has contributed to a groundswell in activism of this kind around the world.

Hes actually encouraging people to take it upon themselves to do something. By saying no, we cant do it, people are defying him.
Prime Minister Bill English and Transport Minister Simon Bridges have cut the ribbon to mark the completion of the $1.4 billion Waterview Tunnel.

Simon says the Waterview Tunnel completion celebration today marks the biggest change in Aucklands transport system since the opening of the Auckland Harbour Bridge in 1959.

The Waterview Tunnel is one of the most important infrastructure developments to take place in New Zealand and will help unlock Aucklands potential as a world class city and secure its future economic prosperity, says Simon.

The Waterview Tunnel is the final link in the Western Ring Route, a new 48km route linking the west of Auckland, Manukau, the city and the North Shore.

The Western Ring Route is one of the governments Roads of National Significance and was prioritised because of the contribution it will make to our fastest growing city. It will provide more options to Aucklanders travelling around the city, more efficient links to and from Auckland Airport, Ports of Auckland and inland freight hubs, reducing costs for people and businesses, not only in Auckland, but throughout the country.

Wider economic benefits are estimated to be worth $430 million, through improved productivity and reduced travel time, and also include the creation of more than 18,000 jobs.

The Waterview Connection includes twin 2.4km-long three-lane tunnels, and a giant motorway interchange at Great North Road to connect the Southwestern and Northwestern motorways.

This latest connection in Aucklands state highway network will provide a more resilient and reliable motorway network by reducing the current dependence on State Highway 1 and the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

New bus shoulder lanes will mean more efficient journeys for people using buses to travel to and from the central business district and demonstrate the governments commitment to better public transport.

Significant upgrades and an extension to the Northwestern Cycleway will provide a safe, separated and enjoyable route for pedestrians and cyclists, between the city and western suburbs.

This has been a long awaited and eagerly anticipated piece of transport infrastructure envisioned decades ago. Im thrilled to be opening New Zealands biggest and most ambitious transport infrastructure project which will help transform Aucklands transport and economic future.

The official opening will be followed by a number of community events to provide the public an opportunity to experience the twin-tunnels before opening to traffic in early July.
The Tauranga-based Hinemoana waka is following the New Zealand yachting tradition of heading north for winter.

But unlike most other Kiwi yachts that head north for the winter Hinemoana is hoping to make a living out of it.

Hawaiki Rising Voyaging Trust project leader and Hinemoana skipper Pat Mohi says they are hoping to earn enough taking tourists and guests on waka voyages to be able to subsidise costs for some of their New Zealand voyagers.

We would like to go up there and offer an authentic cultural experience on-board a waka, taking passengers or clients between islands, giving them an experience of what a waka is about in the environment, says Pat.

What we are hoping to do is maybe we can gather some funding up there and maybe be able to put that back into our youth programmes down here, to offset costs for our young ones coming on the summer programme in New Zealand.

It just takes a bit of the weight off the kids that are waiting to come onboard, some of the money stuff. Takes a bit of pressure off Simon as well.

Simon McDonald is the Hawaiki Rising Voyaging Trusts benefactor. He sold his internationally successful dental business, Katikati-based Triodent, a couple of years ago  leaving him with sufficient funding to do something philanthropic.

The waka Hinemoana is enabling him to give something back via a youth-oriented rite of passage experience similar to Spirit of Adventure or Outward Bound, and something that particularly appealed to young Maori and Polynesians.

I was reading Andrew Crowe, hes been writing a book about Polynesian voyaging looking at the anthropology and history and linguistics and the navigation, says Simon.

He asked me to read a book that he is writing, it still hasnt been published. As I read the book I became increasingly in awe of what the Polynesian explorers and voyagers did back then. Its boggling. They discovered virtually every island in the Pacific.

They were able to build ocean-going vessels that could withstand storms that could get people from A to B and back. An extraordinary achievement thats all but forgotten.

Hinemoanas last summer voyage finished at the beginning of June. During the next month or so the wakas electric motors are being removed and replaced with biofuel diesels.

Some of the other wakas are now running on coconut oil, says Pat.

They will be keeping the solar panels.

The New Zealand programme is going to change a little next season because they will be picking up at-risk youth from the Turou Hawaiki scheme. The 12-week pilot programme finishes with the young people enjoying an eight-day waka voyage on Hinemoana.

The programme will change for them, there will be more land-based activities, more build-up to the ocean, just so that when the kids get out there they are aware and more secure in what they know to be safe and they are more secure need to do, says Pat.

The waka will be doing what it does now but also carrying for those kids who are more in need, says Pat.

It will definitely feed into the marine area, but there has to be more homework done on land. So the kids are fully versed in what they need to do when they get on the waka.

If gives them a sense of where they are at, a sense of how to behave in a certain situation. If we can do that with the kids well be half way through the safety issues sorted.

I liken it to going onto a marae, says Pat. Its just so they are safer and can then build up better appreciation of what needs to happen on the waka. At the same time its really appreciated by a lot of kids to have that sense of space. A lot of kids really rise to the occasion thinking: Im part of something huge.

My history, my wifes history is working with at-risk youth, or just with people that are culturally disenfranchised, says Pat.

They just want to be in contact with their culture and learn more about it. It doesnt necessarily mean they are from a household that is lacking.

So its just about exploring the idea that culture is a healthy thing and exposing the young ones to it so they feel more a part of it, and the benefits that would operate in regarding to identity and self-worth, and stuff like that.

Hinemoana is one of seven waka designed and built in 2009 for Te Mana o Moana, the Spirit of the Ocean voyage. Hinemoana was the flagship.

She was built in mind that she would cater to all the small islands that couldnt maintain and keep the vessel to themselves, says Pat.

So on the deck and throughout the vessel are designs and symbols that come from each of the different islands. She is the pan-Pacific vessel that incorporates all the traditions of Polynesia as well as Micronesia and Melanesia.
The installation was the result of a collaboration with acclaimed Swedish artist Frida Fjellman, designed to celebrate the start of the prestigious event, which once again drew art lovers, key industry players and global press from round the world.

One of Swedens most prominent Craft Artists, Fjellman was commissioned by NetJets to create an eye-catching installation that complemented the notion of air travel along with recognising the companys engagement with design and art.

She decided to reimagine the ceiling of the NetJets VIP lounge around the theme of a Crystal Atmosphere. The installation incorporated approximately 100 glass prisms of different sizes and colours that are all hung at different heights creating a dreamlike atmosphere where the visitor automatically became a participant among the glass crystals.

Philip Baer, Regional Vice President, NetJets Europe, said: Art Basel in Basel is an annual highlight for our Owners, both in Europe and across the globe, many of whom are avid art collectors and enthusiasts.

NetJets has supported Art Basel in Basel since 2002 and our long-running involvement is testament to the shows continued position as the worlds leading platform for Modern and contemporary art.

This year we wanted to take our partnership with Art Basel one step further and through our collaboration with Frida, NetJets continues to demonstrate its commitment to providing innovative and exceptional experiences for our customers."

Every year NetJets creates a six-day event at Art Basel in Basel and Art Basel in Miami Beach with their VIP lounge providing owners with hospitality throughout the week, as well as access to the show during the VIP days.

The aviation firm saw flight traffic to Basel increase around 19% between 2015 and 2016 and this year is expecting in excess of 90 flights.
I don't know how many young women come to this blog or how many are parents of teenage or young adult women, but here are some safety tips from Kelsey's Army:

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1. Trust your instincts - If something feels wrong then something probably is wrong.2. Know your surroundings - know who and what is around you.3. Always have a plan for where you would go and what you would do if a situation arises.4. Be willing to make a scene in order to be noticed.5. Let someone know where you are going and when you will be back.Remember the acronym TIPS:ake Chargenform others of your whereaboutsrepare for any situationurvival Mentality (role play situations so you will respond should they happen)For more information, go to Kelsey's Army
Natalie Smith main

Natalie A. Smith had not been heard from in nearly two weeks. College officials said she was located Friday night in Brooklyn by investigators with the New York State Police.

(Provided photo)

OSWEGO, N.Y. -- A woman who was working at the State University College at Oswego and was reported missing more than a week ago has been found.

In a statement Saturday college officials said Natalie A. Smith was located Friday night in Brooklyn by investigators with the New York State Police.

"We are relieved to hear that Natalie is safe ...," Oswego President Deborah Stanley said in a statement, "... and are extremely thankful and appreciative of our law enforcement partners, particularly the New York State Police, for their expertise and dedication throughout the case."

A photo and information about Smith began circulating widely on Facebook earlier this week as friends tried to publicize her disappearance.

Friends said they had not heard from Smith since June 5 when she was headed to Albany for a conference. She was traveling with a man, Dennis W. Washington Jr., a friend of Smith's from hometown of Fayetteville, N.C., the college said.

Smith was officially reported missing on June 9 and University Police began investigating her whereabouts.

In addition to University Police and state troopers, the NYPD, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and Canajoharie Police Department joined what college officials called an exhaustive investigation.

Smith's car, a 2006 Chevrolet Impala, was found in Brooklyn on Monday.

Officials did not say what happened to Smith or where she had been. But the college said Smith was well and spoke with state police investigators at the 72nd Precinct, indicating that she wanted to remain in Brooklyn.

Smith was an AmeriCorp VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) member assigned to Oswego as a STEM mentor.
OSWEGO, N.Y. -- Three suspects repeatedly kicked and punched a man during an attack, even hitting him with a beer bottle and stabbing him, Oswego police said.

Police said that around 11:15 a.m. on Saturday, June 3, multiple people were "involved in a physical altercation" on West First Street near West Utica Street.

Police said several suspects repeatedly punched and kicked a man, hitting him in the head with a beer bottle and stabbing him with a sharp metal object. As a result, police said, the man was injured and suffered a stab wound to his torso.

He was taken to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, treated and released.

Luis A. Dailey was arrested on June 8. Kevin J. Vandelinder and a 17-year-old boy were each arrested Friday. Police did not identify the 17-year-old.

Police said Dailey, 26, of 315 Lyman Ave., Fulton; Vandelinder, 31, of 210 Academy St., Fulton; and the 17-year-old were each charged with second-degree gang assault, a felony.

The gang assault charge means that a person with the intent to cause serious physical injury is helped by at least two others and causes serious physical injury.

All three were arraigned in Oswego City Court. Dailey was ordered held at the Oswego County jail in lieu of $10,000 bail or $20,000 bail bond. Vandelinder was held without bail. The 17-year-old was released on his own recognizance.

Officers are continuing to investigate. Police asked anyone with information about the case to contact 315-342-8120.
Total solar eclipses are not really that rare since it happens periodically, but it has been almost a century since one swept over the United States, making the Great American Solar Eclipse a true must-watch phenomenon for those in its path of totality.

Since the much-awaited total solar eclipse that will be seen across the United States is just nine weeks away, Tech Times has prepared a list of tips to make the experience more memorable.

Here are five things to keep in mind before and during the eclipse.

Location Matters

As already mentioned, the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse will sweep across the United States, but that doesn't mean everyone will get the chance to see it. Various agencies and institutions have already plotted out the eclipse's path for everyone, so it's only a matter of finding the most suitable viewing location.

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the eclipse's path of totality is about a 70-mile-wide stretch from the West to the East Coast. The eclipse will begin from Lincoln Beach in Oregon and travel across 14 states until it exits at Charleston, South Carolina. Take a look at NASA's map below.

Other states will also see the eclipse, but they will only get to experience a partial eclipse. Here is NASA's table of eclipse times.

Do Your Homework

There is nothing more depressing than going to a supposedly nice viewing location along the path of totality only for nature to flush all preparations down the drain.

Since the total eclipse is high in the sky, it is best to learn the locations that could throw the least viewing obstacles, such as bad weather or a thick veil of clouds. Luckily, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a 10-year historical "cloud map" containing data from weather stations in the United States. See the map below.

Just to make it clear, lighter dots mean less cloud formations and darker dots mean higher chance of cloud formations. Even with the historical data and detailed map, however, it is important to still stay tuned to weather forecasts as the big day approaches.

Use Proper Equipment

No matter how dark it gets when the total solar eclipse finally happens, it is important to remember that people should never ever look at the sun directly. There are plenty of other ways to view the phenomenon, from watching its reflection in a basin of water to wearing special eclipse viewing glasses  and no, regular sunglasses are not proper viewing eyewear.

Cameras and telescopes already have existing lenses that are deemed safe to use for viewing and taking photos of the eclipse, but there are also cheaper ways to see the eclipse. Contact local science centers and museums if they have any eclipse viewing glasses available. If that is not an option, a simple cereal box and foil projector can also be used.

Watch Out For Side Events

So Aug. 21 arrived and everyone is in their chosen viewing locations. Watching the eclipse itself is already a wonderful experience, but it can get even better if people know what else to watch out for. There are other interesting instances to see before, during, and as the eclipse ends, and they are called "contact times."

There are four contact times (C1 to C4) from first contact to the end of the event. Sometime between C1 and C2, two other events happen, but only those in the path of totality have the privilege of actually seeing them. Here are the four contact times and what people can expect to see when it happens:

C1: This is the point wherein the moon "touches" the sun.

 Diamond Ring: When only a small portion of the sun is left, the light around it could look like a diamond ring, hence the name.

 Bailey's Beads: When the moon is really close to covering the sun, some people would see the remaining light through the mountains and valleys of the moon, and the light appears like beads because of this. This happens very quickly, so people would miss it if they're not at full attention.

C2*: The moon completely covers the sun.

C3*: The sun begins to show again.

C4: The moon completely moves away from the sun.

 Shadow Bands: Sometime before C2 and right after C3, there's a rare phenomenon called shadow bands, which does not happen every total solar eclipse. During the times when the sun appears like a very thin crescent moon, the light could bend in a way that would make snake-like shadows appear on the ground. The phenomenon is still a mystery to scientists, and most video recordings are not as clear, so anyone with an HD camera may want to keep an eye out for it.

Enter The Twilight Zone ... Or Not

Humans would be watching the total solar eclipse in amazement, but some events may be lost on those who are too focused on watching the sun and moon in action. It is better to be sensitive to nature during the eclipse to experience the difference two and a half minutes would make.

When the eclipse finally happens, people would notice a sudden shift in nature and animal behavior. The temperature actually drops from a daytime to a nighttime one, but this may not be too noticeable since C2 will last less than three minutes. The winds, however, could suddenly change directions due to the temperature change, so watch out for it.

Animals are also affected by the eclipse, especially those that are naturally nocturnal. Birds and cicadas would become silent and turn in for the "night," and bats would begin their "nightly" hunt. Some animals would also make their way to their nightly resting places, as if convinced that it is already nighttime.

What To Do When The Path Of Totality Is Out Of Reach

Of course, not everyone would be lucky enough get the full total solar eclipse experience, but NASA has got it covered.

NASA will live stream the event in various platforms, so all one has to do is open up any of the agency's streaming platforms. Of course, they will also broadcast it in the agency's YouTube page, so watch out for it.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Transportation Security Administration, along with American Airlines, is trying out a 3D scanner that could possibly lead to safer flights, shorter queues, and leniency with carry-on luggage.

New Scanners At Airport Checkpoint

The TSA is currently conducting a demonstration of new computed tomography (CT) scanners in the single checkpoint late at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in a move to heighten security efforts and threat detection capabilities.

In partnership with American Airlines, the TSA's demonstration of its new technology is being conducted through its Innovation Task Force.

"Enhancing aviation security is a shared responsibility," said American Airlines Senior Vice President for Customer Experience Kerry Philipovitch regarding the collaboration with the TSA.

The new CT screening machine has the capability to provide 3D images that can be viewed and rotated for a thorough analysis. It does so by shooting hundreds of images using an X-ray camera that spins around the conveyor belt to get a complete photo of the item to be scanned.

In its current state, the machine uses specific and sophisticated algorithms that can detect explosives, firearms, and other banned items for carry-on luggage. However, if further inspection is required on a specific item, the TSA agents may still open and inspect the contents of a bag in order to ensure that it does not contain any dangerous item.

Apart from gaining more security, using the CT scanners for carry-on luggage could significantly reduce inspection time for carry-on luggage. What's more, it could eventually lead to more lenient rules when it comes to bringing liquids or even laptops in carry-on luggage.

This technology isn't exactly new as it is already being used for luggage. However, due to the cost and its larger size, the TSA has held back on using the scanner for carry-on luggage until now.

The next airport to possibly test the scanner later in the month is the Logan International Airport.

Enhanced Security

The TSA's partnership with American Airlines is part of U.S. officials' initiative to ensure security in the country.

For instance, the laptop ban on carry-on bags was done based on intelligence reports that terrorist groups are developing bombs that are made to look like laptop batteries. And since carry-on bags do not undergo the same CT scans as checked-in luggage, laptops and tablets were banned on the cabins of flights from certain Middle Eastern and African nations going into the United States.

The TSA's Innovation Task Force is continuously working with both private and public sectors to create a more secure and less invasive travel experience.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Court of Appeals of the National Court of Justice announced Thursday the annulment of the eight-year sentence against the former vice-president of Ecuador Jorge Glas and six others... | Read More
LERNA -- Signs point to the fact that Coles County is part of the area where Abraham Lincoln spent most of his Illinois life.

And a sign unveiled Saturday will show that "gateway" to the section of state where Lincoln roamed before becoming the 16th president.

A ceremony at Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site featured the first showing of the sign that tells that Charleston is one of six "gateway communities" in the 42-county Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area.

Sarah Watson, executive director of the Looking for Lincoln organization, said the gateway signs will be a complement to larger signs on interstate highways.

Looking for Lincoln will oversee the federally designated heritage area to promote tourism and help people learn the story of Lincoln's time in Illinois, Watson said.

"It's a story we're really just starting to tell," she said.

The larger signs that tell motorists they're "entering the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area" are already in place on interstate highways at the area's borders.

The gateway communities in the heritage areas are locations with direct ties to Lincoln's history and with structured programs and facilities related to those ties.

On Saturday, Charleston city Planner Steve Pamperin presented a model of the gateway community sign that will be placed at the city's entrances.

"The intention is to tell the story of Lincoln in Coles County," he said.

Historic Site Manager Matthew Mittelstaedt said Lincoln's family ties to Coles County show that his story took place in a large part of the state.

Lincoln had close contact with his family, including his father and stepmother, whose home is featured at the historic site, until just before he became president, Mittelstaedt noted.

"Each part of the state has part of the Lincoln story," he said. "The heritage area is where most of the activity in Lincoln's life took place."

Those "long ties" to Lincoln's history help take people to the places to where he ventured, Mittelstaedt added. The impact of tourism to Illinois' economy shows the interest of programs to promote history and get people involved in it, he also said.
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We live in an era full of celebrity chefs that you probably have never heard of. Just think about that for second  people can be celebrities 
Police are investigating a suspicious fire in Farrer that engulfed a house and a number of cars on Saturday night.

Neighbours and fire crews rushed to the scene on Lambrigg Street just after 11pm to find several cars, as well as parts of a house, alight.

The aftermath of a deliberately lit fire at a home on Lambrigg St in Farrer. Credit:Rohan Thomson

Farrer local Heather Wilkins ran across the road to help neighbours battling the flames after hearing the sound of a "car screeching".

"We thought a car had crashed so we headed over and saw it was actually the cars in the garage that were on fire," Ms Wilkins said.
The Age has long fought for the rights and freedoms of the individual. But there are some freedoms that have no place in a civilised society, and none more so than the carrying of illegal firearms. In September 2016, we highlighted the scourge that illegal guns have become in Victoria. The investigation, by this newspaper's crime team, revealed the number of gun crimes in Melbourne had more than doubled in a little under five years. It revealed that shootings had become a weekly event. More than 750 people with serious criminal convictions were caught carrying guns, a statistic that was up 500 per cent since 2011. Illegal firearms seized by police in Victoria. Credit:Tom Cowie The Age therefore welcomes last week's confirmation by state and federal governments of a gun amnesty  the first since John Howard initiated a gun buy-back in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre in 1996  which will begin next month. Mr Howard's initial gun amnesty was a successful policy measure  more than 700,000 guns were handed in. It is high time it was repeated, and this time with hand guns. The number of illegal firearms in Australia is in excess of 250,000, according to the Australian Crime Commission, and growing steadily.

But an amnesty is not the only measure that is required. With gun crime at unprecedented levels, The Age also supports the introduction of firearm prohibition orders. These orders allow police to subject prohibited persons to warrantless searches and ban them from being in proximity to a gun. Under the legislation, a police chief commissioner can place a firearm prohibition order on someone as young as 14 or a suspect who has no prior convictions, if the commissioner believes it is in the public interest. Once the order is in place, that individual, their cars and their property can be searched at any time by police without the need for a warrant. While we see the need for police to act swiftly when moving in on suspects who have given real cause  those linked to organised crime, gangs and terrorism  we call for serious accountability. The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission or the Ombudsman should have permanent, ongoing oversight of any such orders. The chief commissioner who issues the orders must be answerable for any breaches of the civil liberties of the innocent.
Red Symons asked an ABC podcaster if she was "yellow". A good retort would have been "no more than you are red". Richard Jemison, Carlton River, Tasmania He should be stood down Even though I am a fan of Red Symons (most of the time), I feel he should be stood down by the ABC until he apologises to Ms Wang: a real apology that shows he understands the seriousness of his racist remarks. Susan Munday, Bentleigh East

Influence and responsibility If the ABC doesn't move Red Symons on for his detestable xenophobic rant, what hope is there for a better outlook, a brighter horizon, than the disappointing century we have had to endure so far. Individuals in a position of influence need to be reminded of Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl's assertion that with freedom comes responsibility, hence his suggestion that the US have a complementary statue of responsibility on the west coast. Damian Peters, Brighton FORUM

A beautiful passing Wrong Helen Fuller (Letters 15/6). My wife drank liquid Nembutal and was unconscious within a couple of minutes, literally just falling asleep while we hugged and told each other how much we loved each other. Her body then slowly shut down over a period of the next hour. It was the most beautiful and peaceful death you could wish for and certainly much preferable to her than the untreatable and incurable slow death she was experiencing. The legislation provides the person be given the medication and it is completely up to them if and when they choose to take it. Medical intervention is only required if the person is no longer able to swallow and requests the doctor to assist. If you do not agree with voluntary assisted dying then you don't have to be involved, just don't begrudge it to those that want and need it. Name and address withheld Not above the law If Greg Hunt, Alan Tudge and Michael Sukkar think they are above the law, and claim judges are divorced from reality, their capacity to serve as representatives in Parliament must be very seriously questioned.

They represent the ongoing failure of parliamentarians to recognise that there is a new demand for insight and sense to guide democracy. Melanie Lazarow, Brunswick Doing the right thing Sometimes we face difficulty in life not because what we are doing is wrong, but because what we are doing is right. Gillian Triggs is a case in point of a public servant who has provided frank and fearless advice to the Coalition government in her role as President of the Human Rights Commission. ('Lauded and vilified', The Age, 17/6)

The basis of Attorney General George Brandis' tirade against Gillian Triggs was that the report she tabled to Parliament regarding children in detention, did not augur well for the Coalition government. Put simply, it made them "look bad". However, making the government "look good" to Australians was not what Gillian Triggs signed up for, but rather to observe the provisions in her statutory mandate of "speaking out if particular acts are contrary to Australia's obligations under international law". A finding of fact that is now clearly irrefutable. John Fitzsimmons, Mornington Satirical target Whether Malcolm Turnbull's speech at the Midwinter Ball should have been leaked is one thing.

The reason why President Trump was satirised (Jeremy Browne, Letters, 17/6) might just be that Donald Trump has through his behaviour, actions, comments and tweets since even before he put himself forward as a candidate for the presidency until now made him the perfect target. He may be the leader of our most important ally but I amongst many would suggest there has never been a person more unprepared and unsuited for this most important position. Tony Healy, Balwyn North Cladding risks One must agree with the sentiments in John Coffey's letter (16/6) about the risks of aluminium-sandwich cladding in fires, and obfuscation and delays in dealing with the problem, here and elsewhere. I must correct his repeating of a furphy, however: no British ships were lost in the Falkland/Malvinas through aluminium fires. Two frigates lost still had some aluminium in the superstructures, but both were sunk by the blast of "conventional" bombs. Aluminium in British and American ships was being phased out because of its lower melting-point than steel, so John's point remains valid. Paul McGann, Glen Waverley

Heed Dutton's actions We should take more notice of Immigration Minister Dutton's actions than his words. He claims that the $70 million payment to the Manus Island asylum seekers is not an admission of guilt; if the government is not guilty of being complicit in their brutal and torturous treatment, they'd fight the case legally. He clearly doesn't want their dirty secrets to be exposed publicly. He's forgotten that 90 per cent of Manus Island asylum seekers have been found to be genuine refugees. His draconian policy has cost us billions as the annual cost of detaining two people in the centres is $1 million as against $30,000 to process them in the community. We should stop demonising people fleeing from persecution and war with over 60 million displaced people scattered throughout the world. Who's taking responsibility for the 2014 deaths of Reza Barati, murdered by a guard and Hamid Khazaei, who died from medical negligence? Kevin Burke, Eltham Prison profits

The exploding prison population ensures the multinational companies working with Corrective Services are raking in the profits. The private businesses who run some of Victoria's prisons emphasise security and incarceration, rather than correction. There's no gain for their shareholders in altering a prisoner's antisocial behaviour by education or treatment before they are released. And there is no gain for a community placed under constant stress and danger from the released unrehabilitated criminal doing their reoffending. Recidivism rates have reached critical levels, while the prison owner's profit margins soar. Glenda Jones, Carlton Nothing fair here So much for fair, egalitarian Australia. Blind Freddy could see what was happening when the state Labor government asked developers to "redevelop" the Carlton public housing estate. The ratio should have been 549 public apartments and 241 private, with no distinction between them. Labor's continuing and deluded infatuation with "private-public partnerships" is a joke. All they do is hand truckloads of money to profiteers, generate short-term savings and shift costs to the health, justice, education and social welfare sectors. This constant deference to the private sector partly explains the widespread frustration with, and mistrust of, the barely distinguishable Labor and Liberal parties. Sian Watkins, Ivanhoe

No damage I d like to point out to Les Gordon ("Water recovery", 17/6) that in fact I live and invest in Mildura and I see no evidence of damage to agriculture due to water recovery. There has been no major water recovery for a while and there is water available to buy. The next lot of water recovery will happen through infrastructure works. You just have to acquaint yourself with available information. The NFF should come clean and say why they want to undermine the Murray Darling Plan. Mr Gordon should see the Darling river for himself: it is being reduced to a trickle thanks to irrigators in the north of the basin. If South Australia does not demand an explanation, I will be surprised. In the meantime a lot of farmers are in distress. For now, let us pray there's not another drought on the way.

Stefano de Pieri, Mildura A thought for refugees Tuesday is World Refugee Day. Of 65 million refugees in the world today, two-thirds are internally displaced and the others have fled their countries. They all deserve to be kept safe and to be properly fed and housed. They also need an opportunity to live meaningful and productive lives. Some have been in camps for 20 years or more but most are children and young people. War and persecution are the main cause of this displacement. Why is Australia increasing expenditure on arms and the military while reducing expenditure on diplomacy and aid for overseas development? Carole Wigg, Medical Association for Prevention of War

Whither morality? Asylum seekers and refugees have long been commodities (Letters, 18/5), like the elderly, disabled and other vulnerable groups. Since the late 1990s, these voiceless and-or impaired people have been units of funding for competitive tendering by service providers. Why, then, are taxpayers paying compensation and not the funded providers? It seems risk has been shifted to "clients", who endure mistreatment, and taxpayers, who are kept in the dark under "commercial-in-confidence" but remain financially liable. This format appears to literally bank on the full extent of scandal, abuse, malpractice and waste remaining concealed. Hence, every effort is made to prevent uncontrolled information flowing to the public, stemming transparency, accountability and independent scrutiny. This, in turn, heightens the risk to vulnerable people.

How much unnecessary suffering has to occur before ethics, humanity and transparency are restored to elevate the society above moral bankruptcy? Barbara Chapman, Hawthorn The fourth evil Communist China's President, Xi Jinping, has vowed to fight "the three evil forces"  terrorism, separatism and extremism. He should add a fourth  communism. Craig Calvert, Montmorency

AND ANOTHER THING Tony Abbott When will Tony Abbott go back to where he belongs  the 20th century? Dawn Kneen, Deepdene

Abbott is becoming more like an Opposition Leader every day. Ian Broinowski, Battery Point, Tas Abbott in bronze? It should be coal or maybe pig iron. Greg Bradshaw, Dandenong North What Mr Turnbull needs in cabinet is an Abbott-proof fence.

David Baylis, Mentone Refugees Human rights abuse, $70 million payout, $20 million legal costs, Peter Dutton's day job. Terry Malone, Warburton As a policeman, Peter Dutton enforced laws, as an MP he creates laws, as Immigration Minister he plans to be above all that.

Wendy Knight, Little River Grenfell Grenfell Tower was once a home, now it is a funeral pyre. Andrew Powell, Caulfield North If cladding creates updraughts of air behind it that spread flames, it is senseless to use on high-rise.

Meg McPherson, Brighton The spotlight is on a chronic housing shortage in London. Isn't the problem chronic over-population issues? Jen Gladstones, Heidelberg Court If the taxpayer is funding the legal challenge by Tudge, Hunt and Sukkar, I object your honour.
It's hard to believe how long it is taking to narrow the economic disparity between men and women.

The gender pay gap  the difference between women's and men's average full-time earnings  has hardly shifted in two decades. And last week an Australian Institute of Company Directors report revealed the percentage of women appointed to the boards of our top 200 companies declined during the past six months. Women still only account for one in four board directors in those big firms.

But an unsung group of change agents has been revealed: men with daughters.

Harvard University researchers Paul Gompers and Sophie Wang investigated hiring patterns in the hard-nosed, male-dominated world of venture capital and found a striking correlation. The firms whose partners had more daughters hired significantly more women. And they also made more money. Firms with improved gender diversity, induced by parenting more daughters, delivered better performance and higher profits.
It's hard to put your finger on the most startling thing about Donald Trump's decision to give the one-finger salute to the Paris climate agreement, but one of its more incredible effects is that it finally knocks Australia off its perch as global climate pariah sans pareil. Which is quite extraordinary really, when you consider that the septuagenarian plutocrat currently passing for Leader of the Free World has only been officially meddling in global climate deals for 200-odd days, while we've been assiduously shirking our responsibilities and thwarting international negotiations for nigh on two decades.

If you can tear your gaze away, for a moment, from our woebegone chief scientist Alan Finkel  the singularly unfortunate fellow tasked with advising the Coalition on how to curb emissions without actually resorting to effective policies to do so  then think back to the heady days of Australia's first foray into disingenuous climate change negotiations: the Kyoto climate conference of 1997, where the Aussie delegation was 'stacked' with representatives of the fossil fuel industry and our negotiating tactics comprehensivelycheesed off the European Union. Was it because we wanted a free ride? Or was it that, after almost derailing the consensus in order to secure a special deal, we decided to stick it to the rest of the industrialised world by not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol after all? Hard to say.

Trump, meanwhile, was still dithering about trashing Miss Universe Alicia Machado and honing his don't-bother-me-with-the-details management style. And if you want to talk about deal-making  the celebrated topic of Trump's The Art of the Deal, his favourite tome after the Bible with gems like "If you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big"  then consider this: Australia rocked up at a climate change conference aimed squarely at securing the agreement of developed countries to reduce emissions and walked away with a leave pass to crank them up by 8 per cent.

And that's not all, either. Because at the 11th hour, we also held out for a special clause to allow emissions from land clearing to be included in the agreement, which inflated our 1990 baseline by 30 per cent and guaranteed we'd hit our 2012 target even if emissions from other sectors went gangbusters  which they pretty much did. So when it comes to doing deals and putting one's short-term economic interests ahead of the greater good, The Donald could learn a thing or two from us right there.
Bill Shorten is calling for an urgent parliamentary hearing into the cladding material used in Australian buildings after London's deadly Grenfell Tower fire.

The Opposition Leader believes a Senate committee inquiry into non-conforming building products should broaden its scope after the high-rise tragedy that has killed at least 58 people and put many dozens more in hospital.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has promised to restore penalty rates. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

British Prime Minister Theresa May conceded the official response to the fire "was not good enough" as the death toll rose, making it the country's deadliest fire since World War II.

Mr Shorten's call comes amid revelations that hundreds of Australian buildings are believed to be cloaked with similarly flammable material.
State government policies on renewable energy and "mindless moratoriums" on gas fields will be discussed at an energy ministers' meeting as the Turnbull government tries to shift the blame for rising power prices.

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said on Sunday that the overwhelming consideration of Coalition MPs was the cost of power, but he pointed the finger at state government policies which, he said, had been significant contributors to the problem.

"The states just don't step up to the plate on this issue," Mr Frydenberg told Sky News.
Nothing could have prepared me for the reality of the constant demands, the damaged relationships or the loss of my freedom. Suddenly I was expected to be chained to this little human day and night, and although I knew that was the way it would be before I had a baby, thinking about it and living it year-on-year are two very different things. At first people thought I had postnatal depression, but I knew it was more than that; deep down I just knew I'd made a terrible mistake and that I should never have become a mum. Some women aren't cut out for it, and the unfortunate thing is that sometimes there's just no way of knowing which way you'll swing until you come home with a baby. And then it's all too late, you're trapped. And that's exactly how I feel most days  trapped. I was worried, of course, so I did the counselling thing and the medication thing, but by the time my daughter was four years old , I knew it had nothing to do with postnatal depression and everything to do with the fact that I wasn't mum material. You can't tell people that, though, because unless you're of the opinion that having kids is the best thing ever, you get crucified. So you learn to smile a lot and say the right things and do the right things in order to fit in. I haven't even told my husband because he'd probably think I'm a monster. That only serves to make me feel more alone in the world.

My daughter is 11 now and some days I feel like she's onto me. She has a way of looking at me like she can see straight into my soul and I'm terrified I'm damaging her. I wish I could tell her it's not that I don't love her  I love her immensely and I'm so, so proud of the person she's growing up to be  but it's motherhood with all of its limitations that I struggle with. I wish I could tell her that I'm just as surprised as she is and that I went into this with the best of intentions. But mostly, I think I would tell her that I'm sorry and that I would have wished better for her." LEANNE*, 43 Corporate lawyer, mother of two "When I had my first baby at 35, I was what you would call the ultimate career woman. I had several phones, a calendar full of meetings and a husband who worked in same field  although I was always just that little bit ahead. I went on maternity leave confident I could just pick up where I left off, and of course my world just imploded.

For the past eight years, I've watched my husband's career rise and rise while mine has deflated like a balloon, as though it popped out a baby and came crashing down to earth. I went into motherhood without thinking too much about how much I wanted it personally, only that it was just something everyone was expected to do. I hadn't been around babies before and had no idea what I was doing, so the sense of shock when I first held my daughter was overwhelming. Prior to motherhood, I was a runner  I left jobs when I didn't want to work there any more and relationships when I no longer felt they were working. Suddenly, here I was in this situation where I couldn't run. Instead of that grand rush of love everyone talks about, I became aware that I was no longer free, and that quite possibly I had ruined a life that had been pretty great. My daughter has special needs and that is tough on a day-to-day basis, but for me, the hardest thing has been the loss of my identity and the loss of agency. I began grieving for everything that seemed lost to me, and that's not easily done because you're grieving in a space where you're not allowed to grieve, so there's a real cognitive dissonance with everything around you. When my daughter was four months old, I began working part-time again, but felt like I couldn't do anything  my job or parenting  as well as I'd hoped, and that only added to my disappointment.

My husband and I thought giving our daughter a sibling to focus on would make things less intense and so our son was born five years ago. We are on the right track  things are better at home now  but careerwise, I still struggle with what is and what could have been. I worked in my own business part-time for years, but it often felt like I was spending most of my time watching YouTube tutorials on how to fold fitted sheets. Every time I was asked, 'Where is my dinner?' I'd immediately think, 'How did this become my life? Who am I? Where did I go?' Yesterday I was offered a job which is the equivalent of the work that I did pre-children, but part-time and earning a third of the salary I was on back then. I accepted it. Today I can say my children are an absolute delight, but I don't mind admitting it's taken me many years and a lot of work on myself to get there. Acceptance of my situation has been key, as has very deliberately hugging my daughter for no reason. I don't know why, but this simple act of human touch and connection has changed us both and while I still have days when I hate motherhood, it's no longer every minute of every day. Some days are filled with pure joy." GILLIAN*, 26

Public relations executive, mother of two "Sometimes, when I'm doing the school run, or making dinner, I daydream about what my life could have been had I not had children so young. Would I have travelled? What kind of heights could I have reached in my career? But most of all, I wonder if I would be happier. Getting pregnant at 20 was a huge shock to both me and my boyfriend. We'd only been together a year and were firmly in that whole going out and partying phase  a baby was not in our plans! But we decided it was meant to be and at the age of 21, I became a mother to a little girl. To give you an idea of the mindset of somebody of that age, after I came home from hospital, I got a call from a girlfriend, not because she wanted to meet the baby, but because she wanted to ask if I was free to go out drinking. That was the moment I realised I was on a very different path to that of my friends and I suddenly felt quite lonely. My resentment towards my partner kicked in around the three-week mark when I realised his life really hadn't changed all that much. I tried not to pay too much attention to those niggling thoughts initially, but when I went back to work part-time when my daughter was 10 months old and I commenced the work-family juggle, I realised just how furious I had become with him.

I was trying to hold down a job, do the childcare run and keep the house afloat with the meals, laundry and cleaning and then I'd get, 'I don't know what you're so upset about? You get to have fun at home for most of the week away from work.' He just couldn't understand what a blow motherhood had been to my sense of self, relationships and career, and we ended up in couples counselling. Truth be told, a sense of regret has really only made its presence felt since our son was born two years ago. It wasn't my choice to have another baby so soon, but I have to have a full hysterectomy soon, so the doctors informed me it was very much a 'now or never' situation. The birth itself was fine, but as my son has grown older and his demands have become more constant, I've realised that they've worn me down. I would just like one day when I don't have to hear, 'I want', 'I need' and 'Do this' but I know I'm not likely to get that wish for another 20 years, if ever. I try to talk to people about how I feel, but they tend to shut me down  even the ones I know feel the same way. Maybe it touches too close to the bone, who knows? It's easy to focus on all the things you're missing out on  sometimes I can't help myself. I think about the jobs I can't go for because I'm currently limited in what I can do, and the friendships that have fallen by the wayside.
More than 120 primary and high schools will be built or upgraded across NSW with $2.2 billion in new infrastructure funding to address chronic overcrowding fuelled by an explosion in student numbers.

The government will on Monday announce the list of projects which range from new and redeveloped schools to extra classroom space, halls and libraries  to be funded in Tuesday's state budget.

The government says 27 schools will be built in Sydney growth areas including Catherine Field, Marsden Park, Leppington and North Kellyville as well as in Penrith, Liverpool, Sydney Olympic Park, Ryde, Wagga Wagga, and Warnervale on the Central Coast.

The budget will commit $2.2 billion over five years in new money to 123 new school infrastructure projects, which will commence during the next two years to create 32,000 more student places and 1500 new classrooms across the state.
A $250,000 reward has been offered for information that helps the ongoing investigation of Brisbane man Wayne Youngkin's presumed murder more than three decades ago.

Mr Youngkin's remains were found in a septic tank at his former home at Brighton in November last year, 31 years after he was reported missing.

Police have released an image of presumed murder victim Wayne Youngkin and a friend as a $250,000 reward for information is announced. Credit:QPS Media

Police said the 29-year-old's skeleton was found with "significant trauma" and searched Deagon wetlands in April for possible evidence they believed may have been disposed of in the water.

It emerged earlier this year there was a six-year gap between when Mr Youngkin, who had lived with his late uncle and grandmother, was last seen publicly and him being reported missing.
A woman who was last seen in an SUV in Ipswich on Saturday night has been found safe and well.

Police said the woman was found in the Ipswich suburb of Springfield Lakes about midday on Sunday.

The woman was assisting police with their investigations.

She was reported missing from Raceview after being last seen getting into a silver SUV with three men about 7pm on Mahogany Street.

She was assisting police with their investigations and it is understood the three men were known to her.
They were the pictures thousands of ANZAC diggers sent home to their loved ones during WWI, almost a hundred years later they are the inspiration for a Queensland love story which hopes to become a classic Australian film.

In 2010, more than 3000 candid and often informal pictures of Allied troops were discovered in the attic of a rundown farmhouse in the Somme Valley, France and purchased by Kerry Stokes for the Australian War Memorial.

The film uses photographs from the Antoinette and Louis Thuillier collection, courtesy Australian War Memorial, to illustrate the relationships forged between Australian WWI diggers and French women.

They were taken by Antoinette and Louis Thuillier in the village of Vignacourt in Northern France and during the war had been converted to postcards for soldiers to send home to their families to show they were safe.

Michael and Donna Fiechtner, Brisbane teachers turned film producers, visited Vignacourt as part of an overseas trip to commemorate the role of ANZAC soldiers in WWI.
Tax breaks, new job zones and geographically targeted visas could be used to encourage more people to move to country towns in a bid to tackle Melbourne's "unsustainable" population boom.

With 16 months before the next election, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has launched an ambitious bid to address what some in his party believe may be the greatest long-term challenge facing the state: its unprecedented growth.

In an interim report to be released on Monday, the state Liberals have laid the groundwork for a major push to decentralise growth away from metropolitan Melbourne  where more than two-thirds of Victorian residents now live  and into regional cities and towns.

In order to do that, a number of proposals are on the table, including financial incentives for businesses to relocate (such as stamp duty or land tax concessions); geographically targeted visas (which would require people to work within a designated radius of a regional area); and an aggressive marketing campaign talking up the benefits of country towns (particularly to encourage first home buyers).
He has carried responsibility for some of Victoria's biggest and most contentious projects and events in recent years: approval of Melbourne's tallest skyscraper for Crown, the botched fuel reduction burn near Lancefield, the first water ordered from the desalination plant.

As head of the state's planning, environment and water networks, Adam Fennessy is one of Victoria's top public servants.

Adam Fennessy, secretary of Victoria's Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. Credit:DELWP

He is highly regarded as a manager, and admired by his colleagues. In return he is well rewarded to the tune of $470,000.

But that hefty wage is not enough to keep him on the state's payroll. Next week he is taking his two decades' experience and heading to the private sector.
Belmont Station has been announced as the first stop on the underground Forrestfield-Airport link as part of plans to develop a new precinct close to Perth Airport featuring housing, shops and community spaces.

The WA government released concept images of the new train station on Sunday, which will be the first of its kind to promote high-density housing in Perth's eastern suburbs.

An artist's impression of the new underground station. Credit:Metronet

The project, to be built underground at Brearley Avenue in Redcliffe, looks set to service more than 5000 employees and close to 8000 residents are expected to move to the area in the long term, which will neighbour Perth Airport's domestic terminals.

The station will be the focal point for the 176 hectare development, which will turn the land surrounding the station into a mixture of high-density housing, public areas, commercial space and a new planned shopping centre with 110 direct factory outlets.
Washington: Serbia is not known for its gay-friendly policies.

More than half of the country's residents consider homosexuality a "sickness", and 48 per cent said they'd try to find their son or daughter a "cure" if they came out. Nearly three-quarters of the country's openly gay residents say they've faced discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation.

Ana Brnabic, right, nominated as the prime minister-designate, arrives at the municipality building in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia on Friday. Credit:AP

In 2009, Serbian Orthodox Bishop Amfilohije Radovic compared Pride parades to "Sodom and Gomorrah". A year later, an MP described homosexuality as an "illness, perversion, deviance and aberration, and a social problem which caused a confrontation between the representatives of a healthy, heterosexual Serbia".

This week though, Serbian President Aleksander Vucic made a historic decision: naming Ana Brnabic prime minister. If her cabinet is approved next week, she will become a double first: the country's first female and first openly gay head of government.
Nutson's Automotive News Summary June 12-18, 2017: RIP Vic Edelbrock Jr; Dream Cruise Sans Chevrolet; Waymo NoMo; Deiselgate 2; Takata Bankrupt; Bolt Bolting; US Auto Sales Dropping; Gas Prices Dropping; SUV Headlights Suck







AUTO CENTRAL CHICAGO, June 18, 2017; Every Sunday Larry Nutson, Senior Editor and Chicago Car Guy along with fellow senior editors Steve Purdy and Thom Cannell from The Auto Channel Michigan Bureau, give you TACH's "take" on this past week's automotive news in easy to digest mega-tweet sized nuggets.

If you are a car and driving fan like we all are here at The Auto Channel, you can easily "catch up" or put these stories in context by searching the past 25 year's 2,019,398 pages of automotive news, automotive stories, articles, reviews, archived news, video, audio, rants and raves accessible from The Auto Channel's Automotive News Archive.

Hey TV viewers, you can now enjoy The Auto Channel TV Network "Free and Clear" on WHDT Channel 3 in Boston and on many local cable systems. All South Florida auto fans can continue to watch The Auto Channel TV Network on WHDT-TV Channel 9 in West Palm Beach as well as cable channel's 17 and 438, channel 9 Miami. WHDN launched its full schedule (including The Auto Channel)of broadcasting in the Naples-Fort Myers market on digital PSIP channel 9.1 channel, look for us Hulu and on TUNAVISION.

Nutson's Nuggets: June 18, 2017

* Just in time for summer vacation, the average nationwide gasoline price at the end of last week was the lowest for this point of the year since 2005, according to GasBuddy. The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline fell to $2.35, a drop of 3 cents in the past week and more than 2 cents below last year at this time, according to AAA. The break may be short lived, so hit the road now.

* Auto industry analysts are mostly predicting that the last two years of record light vehicle sales will not repeat for calendar 2017. David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research, addressed an industry conference this week listing a number of factors in play including difficulty finding qualified people to fill key positions, particularly in manufacturing, changing business models and uncertainty in the political climate, namely what will happen with CAFE standards, NAFTA and tax policy.

* InMotion, Jaguar Land Rovers mobility services business, announced a $25m investment in Lyft, the rideshare company in the U.S. The investment will support Lyfts expansion and technology plans. It will also provide Jaguar Land Rovers InMotion Ventures with the opportunity to develop and test its mobility services, including autonomous vehicles, and to supply Lyft drivers with a fleet of Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles.

* GM has built 130 self-driving Chevrolet Bolt EV test vehicles on the same Orion Township, MI assembly line that produces the consumer-bound Bolt EVs. Earlier vehicles GM built as self-drivers were all custom built so theses are the first self-drivers to be built on the regular line. GM plans to deploy the vehicles in Detroit, San Francisco and Scottsdale, Arizona. They're equipped with next-generation technology including lidar, cameras, more than 40 sensors and other hardware. They will join more than 50 already being tested in the three locations, bringing the companys test fleet to 180.

* The cute, little, jellybean-shaped Waymo self-driving car prototype weve all seen - in service since 2014 - has been retired, replaced by a fleet of Chrysler Pacifica minivans that will carry on as Waymos test platform. Waymo has also shifted its focus from making its own car eventually to providing the self-driving technology to others. Waymo says it is equipping the new Pacificas with the all-new AI (artificial intelligence) computer platform and newest, radar-based sensors. The initial fleet of 600 minivans will be focused on use by the public rather than just testing engineers.

* The West Virginia Universitys Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions--the same folks who discovered VW's cheating, stopped short of accusing Fiat Chrysler of emissions cheating, but said on-road tests of Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs and Ram 1500 pickups revealed nitrogen oxide levels at three to 20 times what is permitted by U.S. clean-air rules. FCA responded by saying "U.S. pollution standards for emissions are based on laboratory testing, so a comparison with on-the-road tests is "invalid." The researchers appear to have obtained some of the results by driving faster and with more weight in the vehicle than the regulators call for, according to the statement. "Despite the report, there is no regulatory protocol for conducting on-road emissions testing," the company said. We happen to agree with FCA.

* A study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released this week found most SUV headlights unsafe by industry standards. IIHS tested 37 vehicles and only two - the 2017 Volvo XC60 and 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe - received the top good ratings while 12 others received acceptable scores. The rest were deemed marginal or poor. Senior researcher at IIHS, Matt Brumbelow, said the main shortcoming is that the lights only provide a short view down the road at night, adding that most buyers dont test drive these vehicles in the dark before buying. The range of light shed by headlights had a range of 148 feet for poor compared to 315 feet for the top rated Volvo XC60.

* A new report from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute's authored by Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle examined the current status and recent progress regarding various technical and public acceptance-related issues that have historically hindered the more widespread acceptance and adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), which includes both battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV). The report concludes that recent advances and improvements have led to PEVs becoming increasingly more competitive with conventional gasoline-powered internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Furthermore, future costs of the vehicles and fuel, coupled with rising public interest and increasing numbers of charging locations, are expected to make such vehicles even more capable of replacing ICE vehicles for the majority of U.S. drivers in the relatively near future.

* Takata, the Japanese maker of airbags, appears to be planning to file for bankruptcy as early as next week in the U.S. and Japan, according to a report in Automotive News. With billions of dollars of liabilities linked to defective airbag inflators facing the company, it has been working with Key Safety Systems, a U.S. auto parts maker, on a deal for financial backing. Details of the deal have not been revealed. The defective airbags are blamed for 16 deaths and 180 injuries worldwide and the company agreed to plead guilty to criminal wrongdoing and pay $1 billion in U.S. damages

* Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is recalling 297,000 minivans in North America because of a wiring problem that can lead to inadvertent airbag deployments. The recall of 2011-2012 model year Dodge Grand Caravan minivans.

* From the Detroit News we read that Chevrolet has quietly dropped its longstanding presenting sponsorship of the Detroit-area's Woodward Dream Cruise. "Brands such as Chevy are being more strategic in spending as they seek the most value for their marketing dollars. And while Chevy has a long heritage of performance cars, many of its new vehicles such as the all-electric 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV represent its future and future buyers," Autotrader senior analyst Michelle Krebs said. "Millennials are the hot group to focus on, and the Woodward Dream Cruise is not necessarily a millennial event," she said.

* Racing, as weve been told for generations, is a means by which advanced automotive technologies can be tested and proved. Don Panoz, owner of Road Atlanta and developer of a variety of advance race cars like a hybrid car in the 1990s and more recently the weird DeltaWing car that raced at LeMans in 2012, is planning to bring a fully-electric racer to the 24-hour LeMans race next year. The car was revealed in France this week ahead of this years 24-hour race. Because of limited electric range it would have to pit every 45 minutes for battery swaps, so it would make it uncompetitive for the overall race but could demonstrate the advantage of electric propulsion, along with Panoz race car building expertise.

* From our friends at AutoWeek we learned that Vic Edelbrock Jr. passed away late last week at the age of 80 after complications from a cold. Vic Edelbrock Jr. took over the aftermarket performance parts company that bears his name after the untimely passing of his father, Vic Edelbrock Sr. Vic Jr. was just 26 when his father died in 1962. The first speed parts for the Ford flathead V8 and then the Edelbrock intake manifold for the small-block Chevy became the foundation from which the company springboarded into a legend.
At the end of January of this year struggling junior gold and copper miner Timpetra Resources faded into history following the acquisition of three complementary aquaculture companies to create a vertically integrated publicly traded company, Murray Cod Australia (MCA).

The initial response from Aussie investors was high but waned as the companys combined Half Year FY 2016 Financial Results showed a profit loss rising to $775k from the previous years loss of $184k. Here is MCAs share price performance since listing on the ASX.



Aquaculture, or farm fishing, has an impressive future as overfishing and declining species populations coupled with high operating costs challenge traditional wild fishery operations. The following chart from the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) makes a strong case for investing in quality aquaculture stocks  rising population coupled with rising demand for farmed fish over wild fisheries.



One of the lessons some share market investors learn the hard way is that operating in a sector with strong tailwinds is no guarantee of success. Murray Cod Australias vertically integrated business model, controlling farming from hatching to maturing to marketing may remind some of the Hatch to Dispatch business model dubbed as the EcoCell System hyped to the market from a one-time up and coming ASX stock, Cell Aquaculture (CAQ).

Cell Aquaculture came on the ASX in 2005, shooting up to an all-time high of $3.50 in a matter of months. Then followed a seemingly never-ending series of disappointments culminating in the company entering voluntary administration, emerging with a new and improved business plan. Here is a ten-year price movement chart for CAQ.



The new and improved business plan saw the company exiting the aquaculture sector and moving into property development.

Given the appeal of Australias freshwater species of Murray Cod, MCA may deserve a spot on your watch list. In a recent interview with the Finance News Network (FNN) the Executive Chairman of the company highlighted the fact the IPO Prospectus forecasted productive capacity of 90,000 kilos and the company has already reached 300,000. Murray Cod Australia expects to exceed 1 million kilos by 2021 and approach 10 million by 203o.

Whether Murray Cod succeeds or succumbs to the fortunes that befell Cell Aquaculture remains to be seen. There are other aquacultural stocks from which to choose with track records to analyse.



Tassal Group (TGR) has the best historical performance record while competitor Huon Aquaculture (HUO) has a decided advantage in the near future, according to the analyst community. Both are primarily in the salmon business, with Huon a relative newcomer to the ASX (2014) while Tassal has been around since 2003.

Tassals aquaculture operations are based in Tasmania where the process of creating the companys fresh, smoked, canned and frozen Atlantic salmon begins. During the 2000s the company exported about 15% of its production while struggling to keep up with exploding domestic demand. About 5 years ago, Tassal management consciously chose to concentrate on the domestic market, a move applauded by the market. Here is how the share price has performed since that decision.



In July of 2015 Tassal expanded its product line through the acquisition of De Costi Seafoods, a purveyor of a wide variety of seafood from prawns to whiting to squid to calamari, as well as salmon now supplied by Tassal.

Tassal is at present the only aquaculture stock to pay a dividend, with a current yield of 3.8%, fully franked, and a 2-year dividend growth forecast of 15.9%. Revenue increased from $260 million in FY 2014 to $425 million in FY 2016, while net profit increased from $41 million to $49 million with a slight year over year drop ($1 million) between 205 and 2016.

While Tassals domestic market focuses primarily on retailers like Coles and Woolworths, its principal rival in the salmon sector  Huon Aquaculture (HUO)  focuses more on the wholesale sector, largely restaurants. Like Tassal, Huon prefers to concentrate on the higher margin, less volatile, domestic market. Huon also farms Ocean Trout.

Huon listed on the ASX in 2014 and reported solid results in its first year as a publicly traded company  $192 million in revenue with $7 million in net profit. While revenues increased in FY 2016, profit dropped to $3.4 million, a decline of 79% from FY 2015. Both Tassal and Huon suffered from less than stellar growing conditions and falling prices. Huon has rebounded strongly, reporting Half Year 2017 Financial Results with profit at $31.4 million, largely due to better weather and higher salmon prices, besting Half Year 2016 results that came in with a loss of $1.3 million. In addition, the outlook for 2017 stated by management is very strong, with EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation and Amortisation) expected to increase 156%.

In a refreshing side note in an investing environment with high concern over the actions and machinations of some corporate leaders, Huon is a true Mom and Pop Shop, run by Peter Bender, his wife Frances, and their son James. Peter and Frances began the company back in 1986.

Tassal and Huon find themselves at opposite ends of a dispute with the Tasmanian Environmental Protection Agency over environmental conditions and overstocking in Tasmanias Macquarie Harbor, where both companies have operations. Huon has filed suit against the EPA with Tassal joining in to support EPA regulations opposed by Huon.

Seafarms Group (SFG) farms prawns. Unlike its larger salmon-producing rivals in the aquaculture sector, this company is in active pursuit of export markets. In July of 2016 Seafarms announced the initial shipments of its flagship Crystal Bay Tiger Prawns to approximately 200 seafood outlets in Europe. Within days of the announcement the stock price soared 80%. Here is the chart.



Seafarms began its existence as Western Australian Resources Limited, focused on mineral and water resources exploration. Seeking a new direction in 2011, the company morphed into the current aquaculture producer, Seafarms Group, in 2013 and has interest in a Carbon Services company, CO2 Australia. CO2s activities include a variety of services such as reforestation, revegetation, and ecological surveying and monitoring. The company has revenue generating contracts with the Federal Government.

Seafarms has generated revenues over the past three fiscal years ranging between $23 and $26 million but is still operating at a loss. However, the company has big plans for the future with its $1.5 billion Project Sea Dragon. The project is in the very early stages, having received the first round of regulatory approvals. The plan is to develop a completely land-based operation, with ponds replacing the pens maintained in harbors and coastal areas by other producers. In theory, this should ensure consistent, year-round production. Management projects export revenues from the project of $1.7 billion within ten years. Upon completion Seafarms expects to produce 100,000 tonnes of its other offering, Black Tiger Prawns. This would be an enormous jump from current production of Crystal Bay Prawns of 1,500 tonnes.

Clean Seas Seafood (CSS) entered the market as Clean Seas Tuna back in 2005 expecting to strike in rich by farming the prized Southern Bluefin Tuna, a gourmet delight used in sushi and sashimi. Given the demand and the dwindling supply of wild Southern Bluefin Tuna, the massive investment the company made in the early stages of development seemed justified. Investors flocked to the stock in anticipation of a successful breeding program. Here is a ten-year chart for Clean Seas.



Despite spending millions, the company was unable to bring its Bluefin Tuna juveniles to maturity. In late December 2012, the company put its aggressive development efforts towards propagation of Southern Bluefin Tuna on hold in favor of Yellowtail Kingfish propagation. Initially, the move paid off as shareholders returned to the stock before going cold again. Here is a five-year price movement chart.



Considering that he company sold no tuna, it is somewhat surprising it was not until a new CEO arrived that the company changed its name to Clean Seas Seafood, from Clean Seas Tuna. However, the propagation program for Southern Blue Fin Tuna remains, with broodstock in place and plans to attempt another production wave once the companys newly aggressive marketing of Yellowtail Kingship returns Clean Seas to consistent profitability. The company lost $9 million in FY 2016. However, revenues have been steadily increasing, rising from $10 million in FY2014 to $30 million in FY 2016.

In July of 2016 investors were buoyed by the news Clean Seas had signed a contract with Beston Global Food Company Ltd (BFC) for Kingfish to be distributed in China, Hong Kong, and South Korea, only to be disappointed when the agreement failed.

On 8 June of this year the company released the welcome news it anticipates doubling its net profit for the second half of FY 2017, from $1.83 million in the second half of 2016 to between $3.5 and $4.5 million. In addition, the company is looking for new distribution options in Asia. Currently, Clean Seas serves the Australian, European, and US markets.

The final piece of good news was the announcement the company will no longer outsource Kingfish processing, opening its own facility, adding about $1 million in profit, according to the company.

>> BACK TO THE NEWSLETTER: Click here to read other articles from this weeks newsletter


Michael Heffernan, PhillipCapital

BUY RECOMMENDATIONS

AGL Energy (AGL)



Chart: Share price over the year

This vertically integrated energy stock bought the Loy Yang power plant at a great price, and also has interests in the renewable sector. It has been a solid performer in an uncertain environment, has sound fundamentals and attractive growth prospects.

Boral (BLD)



Chart: Share price over the year

Has benefited from increasing activity in the local building industry and has been a strong sharemarket performer in the past year. Its acquisition of major US builder Headwaters paints a positive outlook.

HOLD RECOMMENDATIONS

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)



Chart: Share price over the year

The share price of Australias premier bank has been hit hard, exacerbated recently by the bank tax. However, at its current price, it looks a compelling buy. Its full year report is due in early August and investors can also look forward to an attractive dividend.

Telstra (TLS)



Chart: Share price over the year

The partial recovery from a share price retreat represents an opportunity to buy a blue chip stock offering a most attractive fully franked dividend.

SELL RECOMMENDATIONS

Wesfarmers (WES)



Chart: Share price over the year

The stock has been hit hard due to a soft retail sector, the continuing presence of Aldi, the imminent entry of Amazon, the recent fall in the coal price and a resurgent Woolworths. However, while bargain hunters may be interested, conservative investors may like to wait until the stock has consolidated in an upward direction.

Sigma Healthcare (SIG)



Chart: Share price over the year

A leading Australian pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor with sound fundamentals. Recently, it looked like it had overcome its troubles of the past few years and was heading in the right direction. But I prefer to avoid stocks involved in litigation.



Tony Locantro, Argonaut

BUY RECOMMENDATIONS

Great Boulder Resources (GBR)



Chart: Share price over the year



A high risk/high reward junior explorer focusing on advancing a portfolio of well located gold assets in WA. The real excitement should come from drilling the Mt Venn nickel-copper-cobalt targets. The previous owner Gold Road Resources, in the hunt for water, ended up with mineralisation at the edge of a massive 2 km anomaly. This stock is illiquid, but I would expect this to change as drilling draws closer.

AdAlta (1AD)



Chart: Share price over the year



A biotech junior focusing on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), where i-body AD-114 has already shown promising signs in treating lung tissue in mice. 1AD is also looking at other treatment potential in eyes and kidneys. The IPF sector has seen some significant upfront payments from majors, and with safety trials set to start in early 2018, I would expect an increase in attention. The appointment of Dr Robert Peach to the board (he previously oversaw an $8 billion US takeover) highlights the commercial potential for AD-114.

HOLD RECOMMENDATIONS

Red Metal (RDM)



Chart: Share price over the year



RDM remains my preferred resource junior on the ASX. A recent announcement focused on a new project with geological similarities to Oz Minerals Carrapateena project. RDMs market capitalisation of about $25 million is underpinned by the Maronan lead-silver, copper-gold resource, with further discovery potential at depth. Recent share price weakness provides an opportunity to accumulate the stock leading into some major drilling programs.

Metal Bank (MBK)



Chart: Share price over the year



MBK continues to explore the Triumph Gold Project in North Queensland, working towards outlining shallow gold resources, while expanding the potential at depth. The Eidsvold Project will also be drilled in the near term. Multi-million ounce potential remains, and this would likely see a major share price re-rating. The share price has been subdued due to a lack of exploration results. I recommend MBK as a hold, or high risk speculative buy for those without exposure.

SELL RECOMMENDATIONS

InvoCare (IVC)



Chart: Share price over the year



This funeral company has experienced a strong rally, and, in my view, is now in the take profits zone, with the aim of looking for a re-entry around $12. A number of high price/earnings ratio stocks have disappointed the market, and IVC will need to keep the momentum going to justify its lofty valuation. The shares closed at $14.73 on June 16.

Cochlear (COH)



Chart: Share price over the year



COH closed at $154.34 on June 16. The hearing implants provider is one of the success stories on the ASX. But, in our view, its exposed to a potential correction should the market dip, or earnings fail to justify a recent hefty price/earnings multiple of around 40 times. Id prefer to lighten with some profits, with a view to buying back in a fearful market.



Tony Paterno, Ord Minnett

BUY RECOMMENDATIONS

The Star Entertainment Group (SGR)



Chart: Share price over the year

Delivered defensive, stable and transparent domestic earnings growth and invested strategically in expansion and refurbishment in the Australian market. We expect continued earnings growth, particularly from its projects in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, coupled with disciplined capital allocation. We believe the Australian domestic gaming market is growing, which should be positive for Star, given its 40 per cent market share. Stars electronic gaming machine business offers a high margin and a predictable and recurring portion of earnings.

Orora (ORA)



Earnings growth should be delivered via clear cost saving opportunities from the relatively new B9 paper manufacturing facility in Botany, NSW. A weaker Australian dollar should benefit the translation of earnings from the North American division and from a scaling up of this division.

HOLD RECOMMENDATIONS

Crown Resorts (CWN)



Chart: Share price over the year

Crown is taking steps to capitalise on strength in the domestic market through refurbishments and expansion projects. We believe CWN offers a bright outlook, as Australia is one of the top tourism destinations for Chinese citizens.

Macquarie Group (MQG)



Chart: Share price over the year

Guidance is for fiscal year 2018 earnings to be broadly in line with fiscal year 2017. We expect earnings to be supported by asset realisations, with the outlook now more transactionally dependent as opposed to the growth in annuity-style earnings seen in recent years.

SELL RECOMMENDATIONS

Sonic Healthcare (SHL)



Chart: Share price over the year

Following a period of outperformance, the stock was recently trading 10 per cent above of our valuation. In our view, the key downside catalyst is the likely confirmation of funding reforms planned in Germany and the US. We believe these cuts arent fully reflected in consensus estimates. We note that historically, the share price adjustment comes only when earnings fall short of expectations rather than when funding cuts are announced.

ARB Corporation (ARB)



Chart: Share price over the year

Despite the downturn in commodities, the company has continued to grow sales, assisted via the store roll out in the Australian market. However, the stock has re-rated materially over the past several years and was recently trading at a substantial premium to the Small Industrials Index. We see downside risk to current fiscal year 2017 consensus forecasts.

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Please note that TheBull.com.au simply publishes broker recommendations on this page. The publication of these recommendations does not in any way constitute a recommendation on the part of TheBull.com.au. You should seek professional advice before making any investment decisions.
With Ten Network in voluntary administration, efforts are under way to restructure the company. But having lost A$231.2 million in the half-year ending February 2017, it will take a lot to make Ten a viable business.

In the short term, Ten has to focus on reducing costs by renegotiating contracts with its suppliers. Over the long term, Ten has to contend with changing demographics and falling television advertising. The company has to receive more revenue from the content it already has, and the best way to do that may be through a tie-up with Foxtel.

How to make Ten viable

Entering voluntary administration provides an opportunity to reorganise Ten and renegotiate contracts. Changing media ownership laws would doubtless make this easier, by allowing some of the major shareholders to take the company private.

In the short term, Ten should aim to reduce expenses, aiming for annual savings of A$80 million. In a release to the ASX, Ten talks about renegotiating contracts with the studios it buys content off, notably CBS and 20th Century Fox. Ten had already identified these cost reductions, but entering voluntary administration will give the company a stronger bargaining position.

However, these negotiations are just the beginning of content changes. Ten will need to produce content more cheaply and aligned to a changing target demographic. As younger viewers moved away from traditional television, Tens programming has suffered. Voluntary administration will give Ten more power to renegotiate contracts with domestic suppliers too.

Longer term, Ten needs to protect and expand its revenues. With television advertising declining, Ten needs to reach more viewers so that it can maximise the revenue from the content it has. Distributing content through more channels, such as realising the full potential of streaming, would enable more efficient use of content and increase the potential audience.

But developing these channels by itself might not be a viable option as Ten has neither time nor financial resources. This is why it makes sense to tie up with Foxtel, already a major shareholder and a big player online.

A common theme to these strategies is that Ten needs to compete more effectively for content and advertising revenues. This means that regulatory constraints must be removed if it is to fight for long-term financial sustainability.

Overcoming financial hurdles

A major contributor to Tens recent half-year loss was a one-off impairment charge  the company wrote down A$214.5 million from the value of its television licences.

But, even allowing for this one-off item, there was still a substantial loss and the financial pressures have been building for some time. Much of this pressure stems from a decline in revenues from A$998 million in 2011 to only A$689 million in 2016. The 2016 annual report even notes a structural change in advertising as a risk facing the company.

Over this same period Ten has been working to reduce operating costs, but obviously this has been difficult. The financial reports do not give exact breakdowns of costs, but we do know that content contracts with CBS and 20th Century Fox are substantial and need to be reduced.

If there is one thing we can be certain of, it is that there must be substantial change in the business for Ten to recover.

Further contributing to Tens woes are loan facilities that expire in December. This includes borrowing that amounted to A$73.8 million at the end of February and which needs to be repaid in the short term.

Unless Ten can negotiate an extension to its loan facility at the Commonwealth Bank, the solvency of the business becomes doubtful. Failure to get backing for a new loan to replace the current one in December is reportedly one of the reasons Ten decided to go into voluntary administration.

Previously, major shareholders had provided guarantees for Tens banking facilities, but this is difficult to justify given the state of the business. Regardless, it would not resolve the underlying issues. For Ten to be viable, it needs to get a handle on costs and reach more viewers with the content it has.

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By Peter Wells, Professor, Accounting Discipline Group, University of Technology Sydney. This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/06/2017 (1973 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Conservative senator Don Plett is not singing the praises of a private members bill, currently before the Senate, that would make the English lyrics of Canadas national anthem gender-neutral by changing two words.

Bill C-210 seeks to amend the National Anthem Act by substituting in all of us command in place of in all thy sons command.

Recently, during Senate discussion preceding the bills third reading, Pletts proposed another alternative, thou dost in us command, arguing its historicity made it a superior choice.

Penned in 1908 by Robert Stanley Weir, the English lyrics of O Canada originally contained the line thou dost in us command. In 1914, for reasons that are still debated, Weir changed the line to in all thy sons command.

If were going to change, my argument still is that we change to what Judge Weir [initially] wrote, not to some wording that we come up with 108 years later, Plett told The Carillon this week.

However, the seemingly straightforward amendment came with other implications. Bill C-210 was originally sponsored by the late Ottawa MP Mauril Belanger. Parliamentary protocol dictates that if a private members bill faces an amendment after its original sponsor has died, it must be sent back to the House of Commons. MPs must then grant unanimous support to a new sponsor before he or she can oppose the amendment.

The scenario is considered by many to be highly unlikely in a partisan House, but Plett told The Carillon he was optimistic, and stressed his amendment was not intended to undermine the bill.

Unanimous consent is not entirely impossible, he said.

However, he admitted the unanimity clause came as a surprise.

I knew they would have to get a new sponsor in the House, but I did not know that they would require unanimous consent.

Pletts amendment was defeated in the Red Chamber last Thursday by a vote of 41 against and 18 in favour, with nine abstentions.

It didnt surprise me that it was defeated, and nor did I lose any sleep over it, Plett said. His amendment was put forward, he said, for the sake of compromise, and to ensure any changes made to the anthem were rooted in history.

Some onlookers now wonder if the bill will pass in time for Canada Day, but Plett remains unsympathetic towards its overarching aim.

Im not that concerned about the bill dying, because Im quite content with the words the way they are, he said. Ive always been opposed to the bill. I dont like the bill. I am going to continue to work against the bill at this point.

Plett did, however, acknowledge the bill would not change the meaning of the national anthem, and indicated his tentative support of gender-neutral language in everyday life.

As time evolves, we get more comfortable with language, and I think we should, he said.

But if my son was a policeman, Id probably call him a policeman, he added.

Plett was also skeptical of those who found in all thy sons command offensive or exclusionary, saying the anthem addresses, and belongs to, all Canadians.

I have strong feminists working in my officestrong feministsthey do not feel left out when we sing in all thy sons command, he said.

Before the Senate rises, more amendments are expected, including grammatical challenges, Plett said.

I dont expect it to pass, he remarked, and surmised the bill occupies a lower rung on the governments priorities ladder.

Whatever the future holds for Bill C-210, Plett said three-quarters of the correspondence he has received on the matter has opposed changing the lyrics.

Southeast Manitoba would be right up there, and maybe even in a higher percentile, he said.

Regardless of the bills fate, which lyrics will Plett belt out at this years Canada Day celebrations?

I will sing the lyrics that are officially our song at that time, he pledged.
He went to Madang to undertake a four-year health extension officer course so he could be registered to work at the Raihu Catholic Mission Hospital in Aitape.

He also became a medical assistant, one of the magnificent paramedics who did so much to assist the development of PNG.

Before embarking on his PNG assignment to Aitape, Br Garry undertook a chefs course and then a mechanics course so he could fix all the mission motorbikes.

About that time he saw that his own calling was to missionary work and he took orders.

Br Garry is back on home turf. In the 1950s, as a young man, he was a member of the Bronte Surf Life Saving Club where his father was Captain and brother Brian the beach inspector.

He spent many years in Aitape reinforcing and leveraging the mission presence in that remote part of Papua New Guinea.

FRANCISCAN Brother Garry Hill OFM, who turned 75 this year, has just moved into the big Friary at Waverley in Sydney.

Before he returned to the town, he spent eight months assisting in the operating theatre at Wewak Hospital increasing his skills.

He would run Raihu Hospital on those frequent occasions when no volunteer overseas doctors were available.

In the early days of personal computing, Br Garry came back from leave with the first Apple portable computer and rapidly became a self-taught expert in the field.

Later he took over the Nuku Health Centre and was there for many years much loved by the community.

Which ever hospital or clinic he was working in, you could always find him by following the trail of joy and laughter, said his close friend, former Sepik businessman Rob Parer.

He was irrepressive, ebullient and unstoppable.

Looking back he was a one man whirlwind - putting up buildings, developing photos in his studio, baking bread, out fishing to provide protein for the patients at the hospital, delivering babies, doing surgery and generally saving and caring for thousands of people over the years.

Being in contact with him meant being dragged into whatever his immediate doings were.

Ive no idea where he fitted in the many, many months he would be away on patrols covering the length and breath of the West Sepik and half the East Sepik by foot, canoe,dinghy and plane looking after TB and leprosy patients.

When he got to an age where retirement was necessary, Br Garyy joined four other friars at Francis Haven House of Prayer, 10 kilometres outside Bendigo in Victoria.

He had a ute which he would use to call around to the various friaries to fix gutters, install rain water tanks and deliver firewood which he had cut for winter, said Rob Parer.

But the friars were too few and Francis Haven too big and not so long ago Br Garry returned to where he began, in Sydneys eastern suburbs.

He said its great there but he can get a full nights sleep without someone knocking on the door with six spears stuck in his back, said Parer.

It seems that the Waverley Friary is a large place with many residents, amongst whom a very large bumber formerly worked in PNG.

The Aussies get a bit fed up of hearing all about PNG all the time, said Parer.

Br Garry would feel right at home. What a unique and loveable character.
Three years after Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Ukrainian Crimea -- then launched incursions into eastern Ukraine as well -- neighbors are still nervous that President Vladimir Putin's tanks could one day move even farther west. Take Poland, for example.
In 2018, Texas A&M University researcher Jeff Chancellor will watch as his wife, Serena Aunon-Chancellor, and her fellow NASA astronauts embark on a mission to the International Space Station -- and as she prepares for her journey, Chancellor is doing his part to contribute.

Chancellor is part of a team of computational physics researchers at Texas A&M who have been working to develop an accurate method of simulating the radiation make-up of environments such as outer space or Mars.

He said the team was able to "reproduce the measured spectrum" of radiation from current and previous spacecrafts -- a feat which he said has potential to help discover new ways to develop better materials and keep astronauts safer in the face of foreign radiation environments.

"Honestly, I think it could change almost everything," Chancellor said. "It provides the capability to put a satellite or some other type of vehicle or system into the environment you expect it to be exposed to so you can test it to the point where we can determine what it's lifespan would be, approximately."

Chancellor said much of the team's work only was made possible by the supercomputer resources from the Texas A&M High Performance Research Computing and the Texas Advanced Computing Center. He said the data run during their research would have taken more than three years to compute on an average laptop -- a task he said was completed in "about an hour and a half" with the supercomputing resources at A&M.

Team leader Helmut Katzgraber said the team's approach stems largely from its members.

"Basically you have a bunch of fundamental physicists that sat down and thought about the problem and came up with a solution that didn't require any type of material science or engineering input," Katzgraber said. "If you're really interested in doing something for society, you don't have to be a material scientist to get this going."

Where some researchers are focused on science for the purpose of discovery, Chancellor said their team is focused more on solutions.

"Our goal is to provide something usable," Chancellor said.

Chancellor said while there may not be an immediate change seen in the aftermath of the team's recent research, he hopes to see its effects quickly.

Katzgraber said the team's recent work is just the "first step in a cathedral tower" of the research still to come as they endeavor to make a real impact on the safety of space travel.

"The most important thing was to validate and make really sure we were [correct]," Katzgraber said. "Now that we're sure, the next step is pretty clear."

Moving forward, he said the team will begin working with companies and other entities currently working in foreign environments to "change how these guys have been doing radiation testing."

While Chancellor said his wife's upcoming trip into space certainly has given the project a personal component, he said it is a pursuit he has been invested in for nearly two decades.

"Knowing and being in this field where for a long time the answers were very vague and uncertain is part of the drive to try to find a better solution," he said.
Stocks are by far the best way for the average American to build wealth over the long run. However, there are thousands of equities to choose from, so it can be difficult to decide where to start. There are two main ways to get exposure to stocks in your portfolio: You can invest in individual stocks, or you can own them indirectly through mutual funds or ETFs.
A Bryan man claimed to have noticed items mysteriously disappearing from his home over the past few months. On Friday police arrested the man's former roommate, whom they believe had let himself into the home and taken several hundred dollars' worth of property.

According to police reports, the neighbor of Bryan resident Jose Morillo-Zuniga, who lives on Lucky Street, contacted police Friday morning. The neighbor said he just witnessed Morillo-Zuniga's former roommate walking in and out of the home, and the neighbor knew the former roommate had been prohibited from ever re-entering. The neighbor called Morillo-Zuniga, who arrived on scene and spoke with officers.

Morillo-Zuniga explained to police that an individual named Jose Ramirez Medina, 30, was allowed by him and his wife to live at the home three years ago and given a key to the residence. Morillo-Zuniga claimed Medina became heavily involved in illegal activity, and for this reason Morillo-Zuniga kicked him out, taking back the key that had been given. Since this time Medina has been barred from coming near the home, the reports state.

Police were able to locate and detain Medina nearby in the neighborhood with the assistance of Morillo-Zuniga. Medina was found in possession of a key that unlocked the front door of Morillo-Zuniga's home. Morillo-Zuniga said that for the past few months he had noticed items mysteriously disappearing from his home without evidence of a forced entry, which led him to believe Medina had robbed him. Police searched the house with the home owner, who indicated that more than $200 in cash and coins was missing, as were two cell phones. Officers searched Medina thoroughly and found two cell phones as described, as well as two pairs of women's panties, though Morillo-Zuniga's wife stated she did not recognize them. A large bag of coins also was located behind a nearby convenience store.

Medina was charged with burglary of a habitation, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in jail and $10,000 in fines.
It's time for the pet parade.

The Eagle is looking for pictures of your pet lounging around, causing mischief or snoozing in the sun. Submissions could be printed in the paper or appear on theeagle.com.

Send your cutest photo to news@theeagle.com and tell us why your pet is a special part of your life. Be sure to also include your pet's name, your first and last name and your city of residence.

For more pet photos, visit theeagle.com/petparade.

Kramer, a rescue cat, loves "just a swingin" on the patio while he naps. He shares a residence with six other rescue cats and a rescue dog and Jerry and Cheryl Redden of New Baden.

Roxie is feeling silly for summertime. Reggie, Shannon and Amaya Davis of Bryan got her from an aunt three years ago. Without any training, she has become a compassionate therapy dog for Shannon, who has an autoimmune disease. When you ask if she wants to go for a walk, she'll grab her leash off of the hanger, bring it to you and once you attach it, she will grab her leash & walk herself, Shannon says. "Our lives wouldn't be the same without her, that's for sure."

Bear is a 5-year-old Pomeranian who lives in Bryan with owner Janet Myers. "He's a smart, funny little dog. He loves children," Janet says. "I've never owned a small dog before and I have to say he has stolen my heart."

Daisy Kate is a sweet rescue boxer from Louisiana. She is 5 years old and absolutely loves peanut butter. She also loves to wrestle and play with the members of her family, Jackson, Madeline, Jeff and Jill Borowiec of College Station.
Making a return to our two favourite summer locations, Mount Maunganui and Nelson in early January 2023, we've got whiff of the first release lineup and me oh my, yes boy
WACO gets a crack at the first state championship game in school history
People and Animals Working in Spirit (P.A.W.S.), Griffin Hospital's Pet Therapy Program hosts a meet-and-greet with the Connecticut Emergency Animal Response Service (EARS) at Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn., on Saturday June 17, 2017. EARS is a team of volunteer first responders trained for rapid-response to "all-hazard" animal emergencies within Connecticut. For more information about EARS, visit www.earsct.org.
Terence Blanchard is a top-tier jazz trumpeter, with five Grammy Awards from 13 nominations and more than 30 albums.

He took over for Wynton Marsalis in Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers at the tender age of 20, following it up with a more than 30-year solo career, leading his own ensembles through acclaimed performances in clubs, concert halls and at festivals.

That said, youre in for a surprise if you come to Jazz in June Tuesday expecting Blanchard to play hard bop or acoustic jazz.

I have a band called the E-Collective, Blanchard said by phone from his New Orleans home. Its groove-oriented and its a band thats got guitar, keyboards, trumpet with effects, bass and drums. Weve been together for two years. We made an album thats called 'Breathless' that got a Grammy nomination and were working on some new music. We just recorded some new songs for an album that will probably come out next year. Thats what were going to be presenting for you guys in Nebraska.

So how did Blanchard, 55, find his way to the funky, groove-oriented jazz of Breathless?

I was scoring a film called 'Inside Man that needed some groove kind of music for the score, he said. I was working with drummer Oscar Seaton. We thought maybe we should do this at some point. Nine, 10 years later, here we are. Oscar was working with Lionel Richie so we had to wait. But it got to the point where it was if I dont do it now, its never going to get done. Its a lot of fun.

Its a big change stylistically, but its not a big stretch for me. I grew up playing all different styles of music. And the guys in the band can really play. ...These guys are brilliant musicians. Ive been saying E-Collective is the best example of what America should be. You look at these five guys and youd never put them in a band. But we come together.

The other members of E-Collective include Fabian Almazan (piano), Charles Altura (guitar) and Donald Ramsey (bass).

While it is primarily instrumental, Breathless is a politically charged album with a couple of biting songs with vocals, including the title cut, which comes from Eric Garners repeated plea I cant breathe when he was killed while being arrested by New York City police in 2014.

While were creating the music, life is going on, Blanchard said. We had to figure how to address that. Thats the reason for Breathless. This next record has the same kind of theme. Were thinking of calling it Travel Ban.' It has nothing to do with Donald Trumps travel ban. Its from the fact that some people cant travel in this country for fear of law enforcement, of getting shot or arrested for no reason.

There doesnt seem to be any recourse for people like this. People keep getting shot. They put out statistics that show its not that many people or that big of a percentage. But if one person is shot who isnt committing a crime, its too many.

Blanchards social-political music appears to connect directly with the films of Spike Lee, which he has scored since 1991. Those pictures include Malcolm X, Get on the Bus, 4 Little Girls and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, Lees Hurricane Katrina documentary in which Blanchard appears along with his mother who lost her home in the flooding. Most recently, they collaborated on 2015s Chi-Raq.

I make those connections, Blanchard said. I lived them in the case of Katrina, you saw me go through it on the screen. With Chi-Raq,' its a huge issue that Bernie Sanders has really been trying to bring out, but people dont see the full extent of it. When you have the economic inequality and you have no jobs for young people, they resort to doing things that make them money. Its a huge issue.

It doesnt have to be that way. The most frustrating thing about it is the level of greed that is there. How much money do you need? At some point, its become like a Monopoly game. Thats not good for the country, for people.

Blanchard, who will discuss his work following a free 3 p.m. screening of Chi-Raq at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center before Tuesdays concert, makes no effort to hide his political beliefs.

He was seen and quoted by the media last month while watching the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. P.G. T. Beauregard from a New Orleans intersection near where he grew up and went to high school.

Not surprisingly, Blanchard says he believes President Donald Trump is damaging the country, in large part through encouragement of some of his supporters.

I get why theyre frustrated, he said. I understand it and its real. But hes not the guy to solve the issue and these things have a trickle-down effect. Youre seeing it in more bullying, in more racial conflict. Its having a huge effect on our lives.

But Blanchard said the country cant be healed by further division, politically or racially, and cannot resort to violence to solve any problem.

Ive always said I admire Nelson Mandela, he said. When he was released there were a lot of people who were talking about going out and killing people, putting people in prison. He said No what happened to us was horrible, painful and cruel. But we have to move forward and we cant look at them as enemies. Thats a Ghandi-esque approach.

Everyones frustrated because of the political system and nothing gets done. Its going to come to a head at some point. I think this guy (Trump) is pushing it too far. After Hurricane Katrina hit, we didnt have red states and blue states. We had people who wanted to care for others. I saw that firsthand. We need to get to that.

Blanchard has scored dozens of films, sometimes working in styles far removed from jazz. That has, perhaps inevitably, caused a dynamic interchange between the scores and jazz.

"They definitely feed off each other, he said. The jazz part of my career has been affected by what Ive done in film. It has had a huge effect with what I was doing with my quartet before I formed E-Collective and now -- bringing in different styles and approaches. And its vice versa.

Being a jazz musician and having the ability to think on my feet has helped me in the film world -- in being open to new sounds and new approaches and when youre in the studio, having to think on your feet and make changes right now.

While they work together, Blanchard said, if forced, hed pick playing jazz over scoring films.

Ive always wanted to be a performer, he said. I enjoy both, but the performing thing has always had my attention. The thing about performing is when youre playing with great musicians, they make you grow in where they take you. Thats what I need. So if I had to choose one, Id take performing.

Asked if there was anything else he believed he had to do in his career, Blanchard quipped probably drag racing then added:

Theres always going to be things that come up. But Ive never said I want to do this. Ive had a full career. Ive written an opera, Im writing my second one Ive been commissioned to write for other jazz ensembles. Ive scored over 50 films. Ive got my groups. For me, its just about what the next challenge is going to be.
Hall County 4-H members recently participated in the annual Bike Road-E-O at the Hall County Extension Office.

During the event, 4-Hers rode through an obstacle course, where they had the opportunity to practice bike safety while using their bicycle skills, followed by a written test to check their bicycle knowledge. All participants received 4-H bike reflectors.

Emily Reimers was named champion in the senior division. Joanna Stauss was reserve champion.

Intermediate division honors went to Rhett Kosmick, champion, and Grady Knuth, reserve champion.

Khale Daniel earned champion honors in the junior division; Greta Knuth was reserve champion. Earning ribbons were Alex Lammers, purple, and Cassie Lammers, blue.

Kade Kosmicki participated in the Clover Kids division.

Briefly ...

Michaeka Folkers, a Grand Island Northwest High School student, and Leslie Rodriguez, a Giltner High School student, were among 273 high school students from across Nebraska who participated in the 23rd Annual Masonic All-Star Marching Band, which performed June 3 during Shrine Bowl festivities in Kearney. Folkers is the daughter of Mike and Angie Folkers of Grand Island. Rodriguez is the daughter of Maria Castro and Salomon Rodriguez of Phillips.

Jasa Scheierman, a 2017 graduate of Aurora High School, is one of 15 winners of the Fontanelle Hybrids Western Knowledge. Exceptional Communities. Essay Contest. She was awarded a $1,000 scholarship for her 250-word essay on the topic, What new technology will be the biggest benefit to production agriculture in your community?
On Wednesday, Gov. Pete Ricketts and Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA) Director Greg Ibach joined Greater Omaha Packing (GOP) President Henry Davis to load the first box of beef from Nebraska destined for China.

Nebraska is the countrys top beef processor as well as beef exporter, and China is the second largest importer of beef in the world, Ricketts said.

In 2016 Ricketts led a trade mission to China to share the story of Nebraska beef with potential customers in anticipation of the market re-opening. In 2015 he visited Beijing to urge the Chinese government to reopen the Chinese market to American beef.

Davis said Chinese officials toured his companys Omaha plant last fall to learn about high international animal health standards and food safety standards and traceability and labeling protocols.

Were excited to be shipping beef to China for the first time in 14 years, he said.

Ricketts said beef exports will complement Nebraskas current successes in the Chinese marketplaces with soybeans, distillers products and pork.

Since 2005, Nebraskas share of the international U.S. beef sales has increased from 3.6 percent to more than 18 percent, and Nebraskas market share in Europe has increased from 5 percent to nearly 50 percent of total sales.

Nebraskas beef producers have waited for 13 years for the opportunity to access Chinas estimated $2.6 billion market, said Troy Stowater, Nebraska Cattlemen president. He said Chinese officials have spent considerable time in Nebraska in recent years.

The protocol lists several requirements that U.S. producers need to meet in order to ship beef to China. Beef exports must come from cattle that are under 30 months of age, are born in the U.S., Canada or Mexico, and can be traced back to a U.S. birth farm or first U.S. port of entry. Changes in ownership will not have to be tracked.

U.S. beef destined for China may not contain residues of growth promotants, feed additives and other chemical compounds prohibited by Chinese law. Testing will occur at point of arrival. If a shipment were to include a prohibited substance, it would be rejected, returned to the U.S. or destroyed.

Chilled or frozen bone-in and deboned beef products are eligible for shipment. Qualified beef products produced after May 24, 2017, may be shipped once a plant is approved by USDA as eligible to export to China.

Stowater said Nebraska is home to numerous harvest plants, and the product equivalent of 2,600 head of cattle is exported worldwide from Nebraska every day.

Given Chinas rapidly expanding middle class,

Nebraskas livestock industry is poised to benefit tremendously from restored beef trade with China, he said.

We hope that by getting our foot in the door, we can develop a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with China, said Craig Uden of Cozad, president of the National Cattlemens Beef Association.
Lambley new credit manager for Bosselman Energy

Ryan Lambley has joined Bosselman Energy Inc. as credit manager.

Lambley will manage the receivables portfolio, new customer accounts, credit limits, debt/collection and will lead and develop credit and collection policy and programs. He will report to the CFO.

He grew up in South Dakota and continues to help operate the family ranch. He has a bachelors degree from Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, S.D.

Prior to working at Bosselman Energy, Lambley was a credit manager with CPS in Wichita, Kan.

Luker managing fleet operations for Bosselman Carriers

Mark Luker has joined Bosselman Carriers LLC as its fleet operations manager.

Luker will provide tactical direction and leadership to drive operational performance and develop robust business strategies to support growth.

He is an Iowa native and most recently relocated from Montevideo, Minn., to Grand Island. He has spent his career in the transportation industry and brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to his new role.

Prior to working for Bosselman Carriers, he managed Western Co-op fleet operations.

Garey, Fread join Balance Mobility & Aquatic Center staff

Kelcey Garey and Chelsea Fread have joined the staff of Balance Mobility & Aquatic Center in Grand Island.

Garey is a speech-language pathologist who will focus on rehabilitation, assessment and treatment of speech-language disorders in adults.

She has a bachelor of science in education from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and received master of science in education this year from UNK. She previously worked as a medication aide in Curtis.

Fread is a physical therapist who will provide rehabilitation for patients in the areas of geriatrics, orthopedics, neurological disorders, vestibular rehabilitation, lymphedema and womens health.

She has a bachelors degree in biology/life sciences from Wayne State College in Wayne and a doctorate of physical therapy from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Balance Mobility & Aquatic Center is located at 905 N. Custer Ave. Garey and Fread can be reached at (308) 398-2170.
Fresh and authentic food is Sonephet Manivongs livelihood.

Manivong owns and operates Sticky Rice, a Grand Island food truck business that serves Thai Lao cuisine.

He tosses handfuls of scallions, onions and carrots into the custom-made wok inside the Sticky Rice truck. Popular items at Sticky Rice include drunken noodles, pad thai and, of course, sticky rice. Manivong said making pad thai is super simple, but each pad thai dish is different from the rest.

Manivong is Laotian and said pad thai is like Thailands hamburger. Its popular, but each restaurants rendition tastes different.

The 1996 Grand Island Senior High graduate learned his cooking skills from his uncle, who owns the Sticky Rice restaurant in Ithaca, N.Y. He got the food truck idea from seeing the food truck culture in New York. He said hes always wanted to own a business, so it was the perfect pairing. Manivong said his uncles drive inspired him to have the same drive and dedication.

Why wait when you can do it now? Manivong said about him starting up the food truck.

He is trying something new by offering delivery service. Manivong said thats more convenient for customers than trying to find where his truck is located. Manivong said the delivery service will be especially useful when its hot, so customers can stay by their air conditioning and get his colorful, flavorful dishes at their door.

Manivong also offers catering services.

Manivong started his business around 2011, he said. After two hard years of trying to get his business running, he took a few years off. He went back to New York to help his uncle, who was thinking of retiring, and recently returned to continue operating his food truck.

When Manivong started the food truck business, he also worked full time. The business took more money and work than he first anticipated, but he stuck with it because it was his passion. He bought the truck, which used to be an ice cream truck, off of Craigslist from a sheriff in Aurora.

Manivong kept some of the colorful decals on the truck as a remembrance of what it used to be. He spent about $20,000 converting it into a mobile kitchen. He installed sinks, a prep area and a stove for the wok all by himself. Manivong said he purchased the equipment and watched YouTube videos to help him put everything in the truck the right way. For electricity, he uses a generator and plugs a cord into an outlet.

Manivong said what he loves about operating the Sticky Rice food truck is that he gets to pave his own way. He chose his own career and went to college, which his parents didnt have an opportunity to do. Though rewarding, operating a food truck is a lot of hard work.

Youve got to be the jack-of-all-trades, he said.

He had to be the dishwasher, driver, cook, cashier, janitor, advertiser and server. Now, he has family to help him out, but it was especially a lot before with no employees.

Although the truck and operation may be small, the food is fierce.

I want to provide food to all types of people, Manivong said. He has a passion for food and people. I love being able to produce something and see people enjoy it immediately.

In New York, he was inspired by that. Being in a diverse college town, Manivong said, his uncles restaurant got many compliments about how authentic and tasty the food was.

Hes got the process down, Manivong said of his uncle.

Manivong makes his own pad thai sauce, which is a secret recipe. The difference between pad thai and drunken noodles is the type of noodles and the sauce. Drunken noodles have a little spice to the sauce and use broad rice noodles. Pad thai uses a sweeter sauce and stick noodles, which are thicker than the rice noodles.

Another one of Manivongs specialties is sticky rice, of course.

Sticky rice is pretty much like the bread and butter of the country (Laos), Manivong said.

Its usually served with a sauce, and its meant to be eaten with clean hands. He said its used like a utensil to scoop up other food. He wants to provide people with more unique food options and wants them to try Laotian food.

People usually never have a chance to try sticky rice, Manivong said.

Manivong will be at the Hear Grand Island concert downtown each Friday through Aug. 26 and other events in the area, such as the Heartland Celebration of Freedom on June 24 at Third City Christian Church. Manivong said he will roll out a new menu item each week at Hear Grand Island to mix things up.

For more information on the Sticky Rice food truck, a menu or where to find it, follow @stickyriceNE on Twitter and the Sticky Rice NE Facebook page.
Husker Harvest Days may only last for three days each year, but it has a long-lasting impact on Grand Island and Hall County.

A 2014 study found that the farm show held each September pumps $7.5 million into the local economy each year. This isnt small change. It is a major boost to local businesses that many plan for each year.

And its not just the thousands of visitors the show attracts. Its also the hundreds of vendors and all of the workers at the exhibits. Last year, the show had 650 exhibitors.

Husker Harvest Days officials and Farm Progress, which produces the show, do an outstanding job each year putting on the worlds largest totally irrigated working farm show. Farmers and ranchers come and can actually see the newest equipment at work in the fields. They also can see the latest technology and hear from farm experts on about any subject.

However, Farm Progress officials say the shows site west of Grand Island needs some infrastructure improvements. These would include better drainage, paved streets and upgrades to water and electrical service.

The estimated cost of these improvements is $9 million and Farm Progress has asked the city of Grand Island to help with up to $2 million in the project.

The City Council last week wisely approved a resolution of intent to work with Farm Progress on the site improvements. The details of what the city would do havent been worked out, but its important that the city let the show know that it will help.

Husker Harvest Days is a big attraction for Grand Island, and no one wants the show to move, so its important for the city to do what it can to help.

Many other farm show sites have already made these kinds of improvements and its reasonable for Farm Progress to also seek them at HHD. The fear for Grand Island, of course, is that another community would try to steal the show away. Its vital that the city have a good working relationship with Husker Harvest Days.

A legitimate concern is whether the city can afford to assist with the HHD infrastructure improvements considering the fact that the city has a strapped budget. However, some of the citys commitment could come in the form of tax-increment financing or TIF that really wouldnt impact the citys budget.

The Grand Island Chamber of Commerce and Grow Grand Island are also working to help with the improvements.

Husker Harvest Days will be celebrating its 40th year in Grand Island this year. During those 40 years, farming and technology has changed. The internet, cellphones, GPS and other technology has grown to become a big part of farming and of the farm show.

More electrical power and communications capability is important these days for a successful farm show.

Grand Island needs to make sure it is helping Husker Harvest Days have the infrastructure it needs to be successful so the show can enjoy another 40 years in the heart of farm country in Central Nebraska.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, June 18, 2017 15:36 1971 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5be83d 4 Lifestyle tech-companies,#technology,technology,company,#company,dog,#dogs,dogs,dog-friendly,dog-friendly-offices Free

Some tech companies in California, United States, are said to allow employees to bring their dogs to the office.

As reported by Antara news agency, the dogs presence is seen as a way to help boost employee productivity by relieving stress and improving the work environment.

Santa Monica-based artificial intelligence tech firm GumGum is among the companies that encourage employees to bring dogs to the office. The companys chief executive Ophir Tanz says that in the high-paced environment, dogs make the employees feel calmer.

Since not everyone is a fan of dog, GumGum's office is also equipped with a dog-free working space.

Read also: 6 recommended places in Jakarta to spoil your dogs

Though currently only dogs are welcomed in the office, Tranz says the pet policy may be expanded, allowing employees to bring cats or other animals to the office.

Online fashion marketplace Tradesy also shares a similar belief with GumGum.

At Tradesys office, visitors can spot dogs of various breeds joining meetings, sitting on desks or resting on couches.

Tradesy CEO Tracy DiNunzio says a dog-friendly office creates a win-win solution for both employer and employees.

DiNunzio adds that the policy benefits the employer as the employees may work longer since they can have their favorite pet around. (jes/kes)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, June 17 2017

Prosecutors at the Jakarta Corruption Court are demanding a panel of judges sentence former Banten governor Ratu Atut Chosiyah to eight years imprisonment for her alleged role in graft involving the procurement of medical equipment in Banten.

The prosecutors are also demanding Atut be required to pay a Rp 250 million (US$18,797) fine.

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Maritime engineering students from the 10 November Institute of Technology (ITS) run a trial of a prototype vessel called RoboBoat Barunastra Nala V that utilizes a naval autonomous system in a pond at the university compound in Surabaya on Friday. The vessel will be entered into the upcoming International RoboBoat Competition in Florida, United States next week.(JP/Wahyoe Boediwardhana)(ITS) run a trial of a prototype vessel called RoboBoat Barunastra Nala V that utilizes a naval autonomous system in a pond at the university compound in Surabaya on Friday. The vessel will be entered into the upcoming International RoboBoat Competition in Florida, United States next week.(JP/Wahyoe Boediwardhana)
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) London  Sun, June 18, 2017 09:32 1972 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5b0eda 2 World London-fire,Inferno,Theresa-May,fatalities Free

The presumed death toll from the London tower block inferno jumped to 58 on Saturday as embattled Prime Minister Theresa May, accused of misreading the growing anger over the tragedy, pledged action after meeting survivors desperately seeking answers.

Dozens of people were still missing three days after the 24-storey Grenfell Tower was engulfed in flames, and worries over the safety of the apartment block's charred wreck has slowed the search for human remains.

Sixteen bodies have been taken to a mortuary, and the first victim formally identified was named as Mohammad Alhajali, a 23-year-old Syrian refugee.

Queen Elizabeth II said the disaster had cast a sombre pall over Britain, but insisted the country was showing resolve in the face of adversity.

But public anger has been swelling, with furious residents heckling May and storming the local authority headquarters on Friday.

They demanded justice for the victims and claimed Wednesday's fatal blaze was due to negligence, with many citing the new cladding put on the 1974 concrete tower.

'Death trap'

"It was a death trap, and they knew it," one person shouted as demonstrators surged inside the offices of the Kensington and Chelsea council, responsible for managing the social housing block in a working-class enclave of one of Britain's richest districts.

Police said Saturday that their investigation would look at the building and its 2016 refurbishment, and vowed to bring prosecutions "if there is evidence".

"There are 58 people who we have been told were in Grenfell Tower on the night that are missing and therefore, sadly, I have to assume that they are dead," police commander Stuart Cundy told reporters at the scene.

He said that number could change should further information come to light.

The area surrounding the tower has been plastered by distraught relatives with pictures of the missing, from grandparents to young children.

Morocco said seven of its nationals were among the dead.

May was criticised for avoiding locals when she visited the disaster site on Thursday and faced cries of "Shame on you" and "coward" when she returned the following day, with police breaking up scuffles.

On Saturday May met a group of 15 victims, residents, volunteers and community leaders at her Downing Street office. Demonstrators gathered outside, protesting about several issues including the fire.

Support 'not good enough'

"Everything possible will be done to help them," the prime minister said of the victims in a statement.

She said support on the ground for families immediately after the blaze was "not good enough" and ordered that more staff be deployed at the scene in high-visibility clothing.

May said those living in similar high-rises "also want answers" and ordered local authorities to complete urgent safety checks.

"The fire at Grenfell Tower was an unimaginable tragedy for the community, and for our country. My government will do whatever it takes to help those affected, get justice and keep our people safe," she said.

May who has promised 5 million ($6.4 million, 5.7 million euros) for emergency supplies, food and clothing, has also announced a judge-led inquiry into the disaster.

There are questions about why the block was not fitted with sprinklers or a central smoke alarm, as well as whether the recent refurbishment  including the use of cladding that was blamed for worsening previous building fires in France, the United Arab Emirates and Australia  helped fuel the flames.

May said she would be responsible for implementing the inquiry's findings, while the victims' legal costs would be met by the government. Everyone displaced will be housed nearby within three weeks, she promised.

19 still in hospital

Some 19 patients are still being treated in hospital, of whom 10 are in a critical condition, the National Health Service said.

Queen Elizabeth and her grandson Prince William visited a community centre Friday where some survivors are being housed, with volunteers inundated with donations of clothes and food.

The monarch stood for a minute's silence before her 91st birthday parade on Saturday.

"It is difficult to escape a very sombre national mood," she said in a message marking the event.

The fire forced residents to flee through black smoke down the single stairwell, jump out of windows or even drop their children from the 120-apartment building.

Alhajali, who lived on the 14th floor, was a civil engineering student at West London University. He came to Britain in 2014 with his brother.

"Mohammad was a very amazing and kind person. He gave love to everyone," his family said in a statement.

"He came to the UK because he had ambitions and aims for his life and for his family. Our whole family will miss Mohammad dearly and he will never be forgotten."
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, June 18, 2017 14:47 1971 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5bbbc6 1 City ahok,basuki-tjahaja-purnama,Djarot-Saiful-Hidayat,blasphemy Free

Plans have been made to transfer former Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama to the infamous Cipinang penitentiary in East Jakarta, according to an official from the North Jakarta Prosecutors Office.

Preparations to move Ahok started after his lawyers and prosecutors retracted their appeal against Ahoks two-year prison sentence for blasphemy.

Normally, [Ahok would be transferred to] Cipinang. There has not been any other directive from general prosecutors, said head of the North Jakarta Prosecutors Offices General Crimes Unit, Dicky Oktavia, as quoted by kompas.com.

Read also: Sandiaga says he wants to visit Ahok in detention

However, he added that Ahok could still be moved to a different prison amid security concerns. The final decision would be made after the Prosecutors' Office received a ruling from the Jakarta High Court on the withdrawal of the appeals, which would officially make the verdict final and binding.

The security is indeed our concern, Dicky said.

Deputy Djakarta Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat is sworn in as Jakarta governor at the State Palace on Thursday. (JP/Anton Hermansyah)

Newly-inaugurated Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat, who took the seat after Ahok was found guilty of blasphemy, previously said he hoped his former superior would not be taken to Cipinang due to the condition of the prison, which is deemed overcrowded.

Read also: Visiting Ahok: Djarots first day as Jakarta governor

Reports previously said there were threats to harm Ahok from Cipinang prisoners.

Ahok is currently being detained at the Mobile Brigade Command detention center (Mako Brimob) in Kelapa Dua, Depok, West Java. (fac/bbs)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, June 18, 2017 11:57 1972 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5b4409 1 National Pansus,fire,house-of-representatives Free

A room located in the House of Representatives Nusantara 2 building in Central Jakarta caught fire at 3 a.m. on Sunday.

According to the Jakarta Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD DKI), the fire was first spotted at the Inquiry Committee (Pansus) room on the third floor of the building.

At least 15 fire trucks were deployed to extinguish the fire.

Right now, the fire has been extinguished but the smoke remains thick in there, Central Jakarta Fire and Rescue Agency officer, Permadi, said on Sunday as quoted by tempo.co.

He added that there were no fatalities because the room was empty and locked. The cause of the fire and the losses it incurred are still undetermined.

This not the first time the House building has experienced a fire. In April last year, flames razed a room on the 20th floor of Gedung Nusantara 1, allegedly caused by a cigarette. (wnd/dmr)
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Linkedin Winny Tang (JP) Jakarta  Sun, June 18, 2017 21:03 1971 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5c200d 2 Business Global-Mediacom,media Free

Publicly listed media conglomerate Global Mediacom is focusing on three media businesses this year in spite of the tight competition namely content and advertising based media, subscription based media, and online media.

In content and advertising based media, its subsidiary Media Nusantara Citra, runs four major television stations, RCTI, MNCTV, GlobalTV and iNews. Moreover, the group manages its pay TV and broadband businesses under MNC Sky Vision and MNC Kabel Mediakom.

[This year], we are focusing in all of these three main businesses, primarily from MNC, MNC Sky Vision and MNC Kabel Mediakom as drivers of growth, Global Mediacom director Oerianto Guyandi told The Jakarta Post recently.

The firm, controlled by billionaire Hary Tanoesoedibjo, is offering conventional bonds and Islamic bonds  known as sukuk  worth a total of Rp 1.1 trillion (US$82.7 million) to fund its working capital and refinance debts.

Mirae Asset Sekuritas Indonesia analyst Christine Natasya is upbeat on the overall growth of media industry due to better advertising environment. The growth in e-commerce will not threaten TV ad revenue as, according to her, many e-commerce businesses are likely to increase their free-to-air (FTA) TV ad spend.

The countrys e-commerce players have been spending aggressively on TV advertising over the past two to three years, especially in 2015, she said. (ags)
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Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Wonosobo, Central Java  Sun, June 18, 2017 13:19 1972 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5b72eb 1 National Jokowi,interfaith,tolerance Free

On the final day of his three-day work trip in Central Java, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo visited on Saturday a religiously pluralistic village to emphasize the government's campaign of respecting and maintaining diversity throughout the country.

The decision to stop at Kepencar village in Wonosobo regency was made last minute by the President in an apparent move to balance his Islamic-leaning trip after he spent the first two days of his tour visiting four Nahdlatul Ulama Islamic boarding schools in three regencies.

Kepencar represents the typical pluralistic village as its residents adhere to various religions. It has two big and 13 small mosques, one church, one Buddhist temple, or vihara, and all religious followers living in the village have been living peacefully for decades.

The President distributed packages of basic food to 5,473 people and 1,449 households in the relatively poor village.

Central Java has been a stronghold for Jokowis supporters as the President garnered 12 million votes out of the provinces 18 million voters in the 2014 presidential elections.

Indonesia is very diverse and we have to keep up the unity of the country by respecting diversity, Jokowi told Kepencars residents.

Jokowi further said that Indonesia was a big country with 17,000 islands, and it also had a total of 516 regencies and 34 provinces, as well as 714 different tribes that have been living peacefully for decades. (dmr)

Topics : Jokowi interfaith tolerance
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Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Semarang  Sun, June 18, 2017 13:35 1972 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5b8568 1 Politics Jokowi,#ElectionBill,Semarang,presidential-threshold,bill-deliberation,house-of-representatives Free

While the House of Representatives protracted deliberation of the Election Bill sees an imminent deadlock, President Joko Jokowi Widodo emphasized on Saturday that his administration would defend the governments proposal to maintain the presidential threshold of between 20 and 25 percent.

The presidential threshold is the minimum share of votes a political party or a coalition of parties must have in order to nominate a presidential candidate.

The threshold is one of five crucial issues in the bill that have yet to be settled.

Jokowi said maintaining the threshold would make the 2019 simultaneous legislative and presidential elections simpler.

He also said that, in the future, the number of political parties should also be reduced.

The development of our political system must be consistent in striving for simplification. If previously, we set [the threshold] at 20 percent, why should we go back to zero? Jokowi said in Semarang on Saturday.

Read also: House agrees to an additional 19 legislative seats for 2019 election

He added that changing the threshold should not be for the sake of accommodating short-term political goals.

Jokowi said he had ordered Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo to convince the House.

Jokowis ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) won the 2014 legislative poll with 19 percent of the vote.

Tjahjo, a senior PDI-P politician, earlier said that if the House insisted on lowering or scrapping the presidential threshold, the government would retract its participation in the deliberation to stall the process and Jokowi would issue a Perppu (Regulation in Lieu of Law) to return to the old election law.

Jokowi, however, said that there was no plan to issue a Perppu yet, because the government was still lobbying lawmakers. (bbs)
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Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Temanggung, Central Java  Sun, June 18, 2017 14:17 1971 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5b9cbd 1 National joko-widodo,Jokowi,development,village,temanggung Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has targeted to build 60 iron suspension bridges to improve access in mountainous villages across the country.

Jokowi made the pledge on Saturday while inaugurating a new 90-meter suspension bridge named Kali Galeh in Bulu subdistrict, Temanggung regency, Central Java.

I dont only inaugurate big bridges, but also small ones like this, because they are a vital part of our infrastructure. This hanging bridge will speed up distribution of logistic and mobility of people between villages and subdistricts, Jokowi said.

Read also: C. Java residents access loans under agrarian program

Jokowi said that without a bridge, travelers would have to take longer routes to arrive at certain villages, which would be costly and time consuming. He added that the difficult topography of regions across the country had forced the government to build more hanging bridges.

Since 2015, the government has built 10 hanging bridges in Banten and four in Magelang [Central Java]. Papua and Sulawesi are regions that need hanging bridges the most, Jokowi said, adding such a bridge would cost up to Rp 6 billion (US$451,000).

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo speaks to students at an Islamic boarding school.(JP/Haeril Halim)

Later on Saturday, Jokowi inaugurated a low-cost housing complex in Parakan subdistrict in Temanggung before he continued his activities to inspect the newly established Temanggung regional hospital.

Last Thursday, Jokowi embarked on a three-day working trip in Central Java, where he visited 22 sites in six regencies. He headed to Semarang on Saturday evening to conclude the trip and return to Jakarta. (bbs)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, June 18, 2017 19:08 1971 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5c1ee1 1 City Ramadan-2017,Idul-Fitri-2017,sahur,sahur-on-the-road Free

An Indonesian Military (TNI) member, Ananda Puji Santoso, 22, was attacked with a sickle after confronting a group of youngsters during a predawn meal event in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, in the early hours of Saturday.

Ananda was hanging out with fellow military personnel when all of a sudden a group of youngsters taking part in the event reportedly shouted harsh words at Ananda while riding their motorbikes.

[Ananda] could not accept their words so he approached them. But, two of them took out sickles, said Central Jakarta Police Chief Sr.Comr. Suyudi Ario Seto on Sunday as quoted by tribunnews.com

After trying to dodge the attacks, one person stabbed Anandas wrist, causing him to run from the scene. Ananda was later taken to Hermina Hospital.

Suyudi added that the police were still hunting down the perpetrators. (wnd/wit)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Surabaya  Sun, June 18, 2017 14:34 1971 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5ba765 1 National accident,boat-accident,exodus,Idul-Fitri-2017 Free

All 392 passengers of the Bahari 9C express boat that sank on Saturday off Kalosot Island in Madura, East Java, were safely evacuated, the East Java Transportation Agency confirmed.

"All passengers are saved after being evacuated by boats belonging to local residents near the location," agency head Wahid Wahyudi told Antara on Sunday.

He said that the evacuation went on until 11.20 p.m. and all the passengers had been taken to Raas Island port.

The boat was traveling from Jangkar port in Situbondo to Raas Island port when its propellers hit a coral reef at 5:30 p.m., around 1.6 kilometers before its destination.

Read also: KNKT to probe truck cargo in fatal ferry fire

The boat trip was the second round of free sea transports provided by the East Java administration that day for passengers who wanted to return to their hometowns to celebrate Idul Fitri next weekend.

The first boat sailed to Raas Island port at 9:30 a.m. with 368 passengers and returned to Jangkar port with only 19 passengers.

"However, because of the very high demand, the boat sailed again to Raas Island with 392 passengers," Wahid said. (yon/bbs)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, June 18, 2017 16:08 1971 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5bf6a5 1 National aceh,sharia-law,gambling,police Free

Aceh's Lhokseumawe Police arrested on Saturday nine alleged gamblers  including two village heads and a village official  at a food stall in Blang Raya village in Muara Dua district, Lhokseumawe.

Comr. Ahzan, coordinator of the Lhokseumawe Police's "star team," said the arrests were based on reports from nearby residents who claimed that the food stall had been doubling as a gambling den.

"The team walked for 50 meters to prevent their arrival from being noticed by the gamblers," Ahzan said as quoted by kompas.com.

(Read also: Calls for tolerance spark controversy in Aceh)

The two village heads are identified as MH, 40, from Kuta Makmur district in North Aceh; and SA, 34, from West Baktiya district, also in North Aceh. An administrative official from a village in Kuta Makmur identified as DA, 34, was also arrested.

"We confiscated seven boxes of domino cards, two decks of playing cards and cash worth Rp 11.8 million [US$ 887.35]," Ahzan said, adding that police also seized their belongings, which included six wallets, six cellular phones and four motorbikes.

Ahzan said the suspects had been taken to the Lhokseumawe Police precinct for further investigation.

Gambling is prohibited under Acehs sharia law, with violators sentenced to public canings as punishment. (yon/bbs)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Indonesia  Mon, June 19 2017

Despite being held during the holy month of Ramadhan when Muslims refrain from eating and drinking, a yoga event, as part of a series of events building up to International Yoga Day on June 21, has attracted larger crowds than previously anticipated.

Around 1,500 people participated in the event at Taman Menteng in Central Jakarta on Saturday morning, with many of them queuing up at the venue at 5 a.m. At the start of the event at 6 a.m., Manish, charge daffaires at the Embassy of India in Indonesia, talked briefly about yoga and how it could help create harmony between people, society and environment.

This years event was the third time the embassy co-hosted it, having previously done so on two separate occasions at the Bung Karno Sports Complex (GBK). The event was moved from the GBK because of ongoing renovations for the 2018 Asian Games.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, June 18, 2017 15:34 1971 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5bddd7 4 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,famtrip,Asita,yogyakarta-tourism,Semarang,solo,surakarta,Central-Java Free

Members of the Association of Indonesian Tours and Travel Agencies (ASITA) Central Java have praised the Tourism Ministrys initiative to conduct a familiarization trip (famtrip) for travel agents and tour operators from India to explore Joglosemar (Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Semarang) in Central Java.

Thank you, Tourism Ministry, famtrip is the most fitting program to explore Joglosemar and Im sure [participants] will be back bringing groups of tourists with their own travel packages, said ASITA Central Java head Joko Suratno.

Read also: The return of Semarangs Old Town

Tours and travel [agencies] in Central Java also need to be ready to offer the best destinations and the best welcome for [Indian tourists]. Moreover, if the ministry continues to spread its famtrip wings to Chinese tourists, it will create a huge market movement toward Bali, as well as Joglosemar, he added.

Joglosemar is the main entry gate for tourists who want to visit Central Java and Yogyakarta; the three cities already have their own international airports.

Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Semarang are favorite destinations for cruise ships that stop at Tanjung Emas port in Semarang. Theyre also favorites among European tourists who participate in the Java-Bali Overland tour.

Read also: Borobudur among National Geographics 15 iconic adventures

Joglosemars main tourist attraction is undoubtedly Borobudur Temple in Magelang, which has been proclaimed by UNESCO as a Heritage Site and is one of the Tourism Ministrys 10 Priority Destinations. (asw)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, June 18, 2017 12:45 1972 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a5b5723 4 News Wonderful-Indonesia,Shibuya,Tokyo,Japan,tourism-promotion,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia Free

An advertisement for the Wonderful Indonesia tourism campaign can now be spotted overlooking Japans famed Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.

Japan is entering its school holiday period on July 21 until August 3, and there will be a public holiday from August 11 to 20, explained Tourism Ministry's deputy for overseas promotion I Gde Pitana.

Shibuya Crossing is one of the busiest intersections in Japan. Every day, some 69,000 pedestrians walk across the intersection. Shibuya Crossing is located in front of Shibuya Station, where the Hachiko statue stands. The station itself has eight different public train tracks and 15 city bus tracks from different areas.

Read also: Seven must-visit places in Shibuya for first-timers

The advertisement comes in the form of a 4-meter by 25-meter vertical advertisement board showcasing pictures of Banyuwangi in East Java, Borobudur Temple in Central java and an underwater view of Nusa Penida, Bali.

The Wonderful Indonesia tourism campaign for the Japanese market kicked off in mid-May, starting with a promotion at Shinagawa Station, then continued at Haneda Airport in early June, before wrapping up in mid-July.

In 2016, Japan placed fifth for the highest number of overseas tourists coming to Indonesia. According to Tourism Minister Arief Yahya, on average, Japanese travelers spend six days vacationing in Indonesia, spending an average of $1,138.

Some 74 percent of hotel occupancy is dominated by Japanese visitors. Moreover, 47 percent of Japanese tourists discover Indonesia through word-of-mouth. (asw)
Summer. A time for carefree adventure, spending time with your friends and new experiences (weather permitting). The freedom of summer is enjoyed by students of all corners of the world and with the academic year now drawing to a close, it is time for our attention to shift from revision to making the most of this beloved season.

However, the stress of looming deadlines and stuffy exam halls often halts our growing anticipation of the fast-approaching summer, meaning a quick, sure-fire way of getting in the summer mood is what a lot of people crave. Got a spare two hours? Then film is the route for you. Whilst road-trip movies are a safe bet in regard to this cause, there are many films out there that are often overlooked.

So here are four easy-watches you may not have seen that are guaranteed to get you summer ready in two hours or less!

1. Stand By Me (1986)

Being the 80s classic that it is, Stand By Me is the film you're most likely to have seen on this list but it is surprising the amount of people who have never heard of it! With summer approaching it's time to bring this film to light and let it grace you with its feel-good vibes.

Stand By Me follows four best friends as they search for the body of a dead boy. So this may sound incredibly morbid and not at all feel-good but their journey through rural Oregon and their growing friendship is what will get you in the summer mood.

This film screams adventure and showcases a type of childlike innocence that you'll want to relive this summer break. The group's unity and ability to poke fun at one another is at the forefront of this 80s classic and the campfire scene of their random conversations will no doubt remind you of your friends and the need to kick back and relax. On top of this, the catchy soundtrack, the mischief and the emotional journey of the film will ignite a plethora of fun, original ideas for your own summer adventures and get you and your friends out searching for fun (but hopefully not a dead body...).

2. Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

To give him credit, pretty much any of Richard Linklaters films could have easily made this list, but Everybody Wants Some!! is an incredible explosion of colour, music, comedy and friendship that is too often overlooked in the discussion of 2016 films and will therefore be given the recognition it deserves.

Set in the 80s, the film takes place over the three days before college (university) is due to start and within that short time frame, the main characters get up to all sorts of crazy (often alcohol fuelled) activities including a disco, a hoedown and frat parties to name a few.

Its the combination of the classic 80s music and style, the setting and the carefree fun the characters are so clearly shown to be having that creates the picture of an idyllic summer which will definitely get you riled up for summer nights out, meeting new people and maybe even a little summer romance.

Even if what they get up to isnt quite your thing, the amount of fun and adventure they fit into just three days will be enough to inspire you to make the most of the three months you have free.

3. The Kings of Summer (2013)

The Kings of Summer is a story of 3 boys who, after finishing school for the summer, take control of their lives by building a house in the woods and living off the land. The scenery in this film is stunning.

That alone should be enough to make you want to get outside and be amongst nature, but if its not, there is also the peaceful yet engaging score, well-crafted, unique and relatable characters and a funny script, all of which work in capturing exactly what summer is about  laughing, learning and having fun.

Like Stand By Me, this is a film that will make you want to unite forces with your friends and do something new and maybe even out of your comfort zone all in the name of summer.

4. Endless Love (2014)

This is one for you romantics out there. Its the classic story of boy meets girl, families disapprove and so on, but its setting and small scenes that capture the spirit of summer so perfectly.

Long car journeys with the radio blaring and the wind blowing in their hair, the dreamy natural sunlight, the dancing in the street and swimming in lakes, all very romantic but more importantly all very summery.

The montage scene of their summer together will hopefully inspire and remind you to make the most of every sunny day us Brits get (because lets face it we dont get many!) and venture further afield to ensure you have the perfect summer.



The theme of friendship and adventure is at the forefront of these films and rightly so. That is what summer should be about and why these films are so apt to get you riled up for the upcoming months.
Actress Elisabeth Moss has said she is 100% positive she has been paid less than her male co-stars during her career.

The Handmaid's Tale and former Mad Men star, best known for her role as secretary-turned-advertising creative Peggy Olson, said she had been treated with shocking sexism in Hollywood.

She said: I have always felt womens rights were very important, it always felt close to my heart.

Elisabeth (Ian West/PA)

I got the part on Mad Men and it was a job, its not like I made a conscious choice, but then through that process and playing that character I found my feminism and I found what it means to be a feminist and I got to explore it and it became more and more important to me as I went on.

My one big thing is women dont make as much as men. Im sure, I know, Im 100% positive Ive been a victim of that.

She added: The other thing I have experienced is in pitching something that is female led. I have been told something is too female by executives.

It was everything, the fact it was a female lead, a female protagonist, was led by a woman, made it too female, which I was shocked by. This was recent, in the last couple of years, and its shocking to me to hear that, that is almost illegal to say.

It wasnt said to my face, I would dare a male executive to say that to my face now.

Elisabeth (Ian West/PA)

Elisabeth has recently won praise for her performance in the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale, in which women have been stripped of their rights, and will soon be seen in the second series of Top Of The Lake.

She said the sexism did not deter her, adding: We did fine, we are making it, just not with those people who thought it was too female.

She also clarified that she believes The Handmaids Tale is a feminist text, after reportedly telling a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival that she considered it to be a human story rather than a feminist one.

Elisabeth (Ian West/PA)

She said: If there was anything I said that led anyone to believe a Im not a feminist and The Handmaids Tale is not a feminist work then obviously I didnt say the right thing.

Its a many-fold subject but I think that for me it is not only a feminist work, there are many groups that are punished and much maligned in the show, its just not only feminist.

Im not a politician, Im not trained to talk about this shit, Im a 34-year-old woman who is an actress who has ideas and opinions and I do my best to talk about them.

It was an interesting learning experience and an interesting wake-up call, I didnt know anyone gave a shit what I said.

Elisabeth (Ian West/PA)

The other wake up call is you cant stand in the middle. I dont stand in the middle in my personal life but I also dont want to exclude people or force my opinions and my political agenda on other people.

Now I dont give a shit so much any more, thats how I feel, so if people want to hear the truth then the truth is I do feel this way and it is my political agenda.

The Handmaids Tale continues on Channel 4 on Sundays at 9pm. Top Of The Lake: China Girl will be shown later this summer on BBC Two.
Glastonbury staff are working closely with police to make sure the festival is the most safe place that it can possibly be in the wake of the terror attacks in London and Manchester, co-organiser Emily Eavis has said.

More than 150,000 people will flock to Worthy Farm in Somerset next week for the music and arts event and Eavis, the daughter of festival founder Michael, said every precaution was being taken to keep them safe.

(Yui Mok/PA)

She told BBC 6Music: We have had a lot of security meetings in the last couple of weeks and our head of security, who is also in charge or the operations here, he is incredibly experienced in this area so we have put in place lots of extra provisions and extra security checks.

We have sent an email out to the public to let them know that coming in will take a bit of extra time this year because we are going to doing extra searches and you will notice that on the way in, there will be extra space made for those searches to take place and some extra security and police.

(Ben Birchall/PA)

She added: We are working very closely with the police and we just want to make it as safe as possible and you can rest assured we have got the best team making sure that happens and that its the most safe place that it can possibly be.

This years event is being headlined by Radiohead, Foo Fighters and Ed Sheeran while Hollywood star Johnny Depp was recently added to the bill.

The Pirates Of The Caribbean star, 54, is the guest of honour at a new drive-in movie area, Cineramageddon.
A journalist for The Sun has been accused of impersonating the friend of a Grenfell tower victim in order to get an interview, according to sources for The Guardian.

Police have confirmed that at least 30 people died in the Grenfell tower block fire, and almost 60 remain unaccounted for.

Kings College hospital, one of six London hospitals to receive over 70 victims of the fire, has written to News UK with concerns about the conduct of a reporter from The Sun. A spokeswoman for the NHS hospital trust said the hospital will be informing the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).

She added: We are unable to comment on the specifics until our complaint has been investigated. IPSO confirmed that it has not yet received an official complaint regarding journalists allegedly impersonating friends to gain access to private hospital areas.

If claims are verified, the journalists conduct would violate clause 8 of the Editors Code of Practice set out by IPSO, which states: journalists must identify themselves and obtain permission from a responsible executive before entering non-public areas of hospitals or similar institutions to pursue inquiries.

Sources for The Guardian have stated that the reporter was trying to interview Mario Gomes, a resident of the 21st floor of Grenfell tower who re-entered the burning building to find his 12-year-old daughter.

News UK has denied that any of its employees acted inappropriately, and claims that one of its journalists had arranged a follow-up interview with Gomes following a phone interview.

A spokesman for News UK said: On arrival The Sun reporter and photographer made hospital staff aware that they were present and had been in touch with the contact. However we were informed the contact had changed his mind on the interview and The Sun promptly left the hospital.
University College London has fallen victim to a major ransomware cyber-attack.

The attack began on Wednesday, with the universitys information services division announcing on their website that access to some shared drives would be stopped, and that students should not open any email attachments until advised otherwise.

UCL is currently experiencing a ransomware attack. Access to N: and S: drives is currently disabled https://t.co/GjLK2C9Rdp  UCL ISD (@uclisd) June 14, 2017

Ransomware attacks are those in which a computer and shared drives where you store files are threatened with damaging software unless payments are made. The NHS suffered a similar attack last month, which sources in the British intelligence services claimed was launched from North Korea.

University staff initially suspected that the breach had occurred as a result of phishing emails containing links to destructive software, but later announced that the system infection had more likely stemmed from users accessing a compromised website, where clicking on a pop-up might have spread the malware.

The attack continued into Thursday but was eventually contained by computing staff, and access has been restored to most of the universitys online folders. The rest will go back online on Monday morning.

Students and staff are reminded to remain vigilant at all times when using the networks. Kings College London has extended a similar caution to its own students.

An update on the university website reads:

We apologise for the ongoing problems this is causing users across UCL and we are working at the highest priority to restore normal services as soon as possible.

Please continue to report any unusual computer activity or problems accessing your files to the Service Desk.

Lead image by David Iliff. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
The Capital of the World. The Big Apple. Whatever you choose to call it, New York City is every bit as magical as Frank Sinatra and Alicia Keys have made it out to be.

Though a trip to the top of the Empire State Building or a visit to the Guggenheim may set you back a few bucks, here are five things you can do in NYC that won't cost you a nickel.

1. Central Park

Probably the most obvious thing to do when you're strapped for cash in the Big Apple, Central Park is truly idyllic, and a wonderful day out for anyone looking to take a break from the hustle and bustle of New York City's streets.

Attracting over 40 million visitors a year, the Park's appeal stems from both its unique wildlife and flora, making it an ideal picnic or resting spot for weary travellers.

2. The Staten Island Ferry

For those who crave a decent view of the Statue of Liberty but can't quite afford a trip to Liberty Island itself, the Staten Island Ferry is a free-to-ride passenger shuttle that travels between the New York boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Trips take 25 minutes each way, and are well worth taking.

3. Times Square

Considered by many to be the heartbeat of the world's most exciting city, Times Square is unrelentingly mesmerising. Billboards, bright lights, and the home of Broadway, the intersection commonly referred to as "The Capital of the Universe" is also a great place for individuals to unwind and watch the world go by.

4. The High Line

Constructed atop a disused Manhattan railroad, the High Line is a park that fully opened in 2014 that attracts over five million visitors annually. The man-made green space is well over a mile long, and is the perfect location for a morning walk or an evening stroll.

5. Museum of Modern Art (MoMa)

Nestled in Midtown Manhattan and just a five minute walk from Times Square, the Museum of Modern Art usually requires adults and students to pay $25 and $14 respectively for admission. When I say usually, I mean for the whole week - but for a four hour period between 4pm and 8pm on Fridays admission is completely free. Make sure to leave through the gift shop too.
The title of the amazing travel blog for millennials, Why Wait to See the World?, may be a question - but co-founders Stephanie and Megan believe they have the answer: dont!

Why Wait is designed not just to encourage you to travel, but to give you the tools to do it. Its chock full of resources and information from expert travellers on why, and how, to travel abroad.

And luckily enough, one half of that expert traveller team, Stephanie Yoder (who has been travelling on and off for the past decade!) has agreed to be interviewed by The National Student.

Get ready for a fascinating insight into a wonderful, world-traveller lifestyle, including Stephanies dream destination, her romantic vacation gone wrong, and the time that she drank shots of cobra blood!

Lets start at the beginning: was there one trip in particular that inspired your passion for travelling? What was it about that place that made you realise you wanted to travel the world?

Studying abroad in London really opened me up to the joy of travel, but it was a trip to Iceland a couple years later that really set things in motion for me.

I was living in my hometown, working a 9-5, doing fine but generally feeling pretty aimless. I took a trip to Iceland with a girlfriend and we spent the most wonderful week driving the Ring Road, sitting on black sand beaches, hiking through tall grasses and spotting puffins off the coast. It was the summer solstice and the sun never set the entire week we were there.

It was then I decided that nothing made me happier in life than travel, and I needed to find some way to pursue that. I came home, started a blog, and began to save my money - the rest was history.

What about your craziest trip? Ever have something go unexpectedly wrong happen that was a nightmare at the time but is funny to look back on now?

Visiting China felt pretty crazy! Everything there is just so culturally opposite to what I was used to, it really did feel like visiting a different planet.

I was just thinking about a travel disaster this morning. I was supposed to go on a romantic vacation to Spain and Italy with my husband. The night before we were supposed to leave he discovered his passport had expired! Changing the tickets would have been expensive so I flew out the next morning and left him behind to sort his mess out. I spent a long weekend in Barcelona by myself.

At first I was mad, but I actually ended up having a pretty good time!

Culinary travel is a massive part of Why Wait - whats your all-time favourite food experience?

Some people are really into fine dining, but I am all about street food - the cheaper the better!

I seriously loved Vietnam and China for that reason. Mexico is also marvellous for street food, with a taco stand on every corner. Some of my other favourite places to eat are Italy, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Argentina.

The weirdest thing youve ever eaten?

Ill eat pretty much anything but the strangest might have been cobra in Vietnam. We even took shots of cobra blood!

Dream trip: if you had an unlimited travel budget, but for only 72 hours, where would you go and what would you do?

Thats a toughie! I would really love to visit Andalucia: Seville, Granada, Cadiz, etc. Im not sure why Ive never been but it sounds so romantic with its rich history, tiles, and orange trees. I love history so I would definitely visit the Alhambra.

How do you normally choose where youd like to go next?

Its pretty random for me. When youre willing to go almost anywhere the world is your oyster: a cheap flight, a friend to visit, a conference to attend.

Last year my husband and I went to Japan for a family wedding - we turned it into a three-week tour of the country. Sometimes I am lucky enough to travel on tourism campaigns for work and that can be completely random - Ive been sent to Fiji, Finland and Sri Lanka, among other spots.

Are there any big misconceptions people have about you and your unconventional life?

People think travel blogger life is super glamorous. Its not, I swear! Well some days might be - like that time I got sent to Fiji - but 90% of the time I am sitting on my couch, in my pyjamas, in front of my laptop.

Its a lot of hard work for not that much money - definitely not a get rich quick scheme. At the same time, there are a lot of very rewarding things about choosing to live outside the box.

Finally, what upcoming adventures can we look forward to reading about next on Why Wait to See the World?

We are busy ladies! Megan is always on the move with Argentina, Europe, and the West Coast of the US in her near future. Im going to Colombia next month, and in October I am moving to Italy!

So there should be a lot of interesting content coming up on Why Wait as we explore the world and try to help you do it too!
RACINE  The local organized labor community and county Democratic party officials are coping with a void among their ranks.

Jeffrey Van Koningsveld, a former chairman of the Democratic Party of Racine County, WRJN show host and former president of the local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, died June 8 at his home. He was 64.

Van Koningsveld was born in Racine, where he became active in the local political scene. In addition to being a former chair of the local Democratic party, he served as campaign manager for Randy Bryce, the Democrats 2014 State Senate candidate, who lost to Republican Van Wanggaard.

(Jeff) was one of those guys you could just reach out to, said Bryce. The two met while Van Koningsveld was hosting the Labor Today show on WRJN.

Van Koningsveld was a retired electrician. But he did not slow down after his working days were over and he threw himself into community involvement, Bryce said.

He worked as hard in retirement as he did when he worked as an electrician, Bryce said.

A bibliophile

Van Koningsveld was big on books, too, according to Meg Andrietsch, the Democrats current county chair. Andrietsch recalled frequently discussing books with Van Koningsveld, referring to him as a voracious reader.

Because of Van Koningsvelds fondness of literature, the DPRC will be making a donation to the Racine Public Library in Van Koningsvelds name, Andrietsch said.

Van Koningsvelds leadership and hard work during the attempted recall of Gov. Scott Walker in 2011 also did not go unnoticed, said Andrietsch.

According to those who knew him, Van Koningsveld was a warm, welcoming person. Jane Witt, who succeeded Van Koningsveld as DPRC chair, remembered cookouts at his house.

At the first picnic I attended, he was slaving over the grill, smiling and laughing, Witt said.

Van Koningsveld was also active with the Southeastern Wisconsin Coalition for Transit NOW, which campaigned for Metra train service to Racine and Milwaukee, Andrietsch said. He was also on the board of United Way of Racine County.

Jeff leaves a hole, Witt said. Some people do when they leave this earth, and Jeff definitely did.

A private memorial service was held Tuesday, June 13, at Purath-Strand Funeral Home & Crematory, 3915 Douglas Ave.
But the deal has just been finalised and formally signed.

The convenor of Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET) has said Australia should not proceed with Pacer-Plus as there are just 12 of the original Pacific Island countries were prepared to sign up.

Vanuatu last week joined two of the region's other major economies, Papua New Guinea and Fiji, in pulling out of it.

THE Australia and New Zealand-driven free-trade deal with Pacific countries, Pacer-Plus, appears to be set to fail.

AFTINET convener Dr Patricia Ranald said the two largest economies, Papua New Guinea and Fiji, have both refused to endorse the final text, saying it did not recognise their need to develop their infant industries.

Without them, PACER-Plus has failed as a regional agreement, she said.

"PNG and Fiji's rejection shows that the agreement is heavily skewed towards the interests of Australia and New Zealand - despite early rhetoric that the agreement was about development needs," said Dr Ranald.

"The negotiations have been conducted in secret but leaked documents revealed many issues of concern to Pacific Island civil society groups."

Dr Ranald said that the smaller economies in the Pacific had less negotiating power than Fiji and PNG, and that the Australian and New Zealand governments should not be pressuring vulnerable economies into a deal which does not benefit them.

Pacific Island countries already have tariff-free access for their goods in Australia, so they get no extra market access. The main purpose of Pacer-Plus is to reduce tariffs on Pacific Island imports from Australia and New Zealand and to reduce the ability of governments to regulate foreign investment in services and other sectors.

"Tariff reductions would lead to revenue losses for smaller Pacific Island countries, which could impact on the ability of these governments to provide essential services to their populations," she said.

"Trade-in-services rules could also create pressure for privatisation and reduce the ability of governments to regulate to provide equitable access to essential services for vulnerable populations.

"Pacific Island governments should not be pressured to sign an agreement that is not in the interests of their peoples."
WIND POINT  Installing water and sewer lines. Maintaining a good school system. Solving crimes.

Any number of weighty issues have required leaders in the seven Racine County communities east of Interstate 94 to balance their own interests with those of the area. Results have been mixed.

Kate Foster would like you to know Racine County is not unique in facing those types of challenges.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Racine is classic, said Foster, the University of Maine-Farmington president and expert in local government and regional decision making. Youre not wrestling with something others have never seen before.

Foster kicked off a three-part series, called Resilient Communities, on Wednesday at the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread, 33 E. Four Mile Road. The initiative seeks to bring together all eastern Racine County communities  Caledonia, Elmwood Park, Mount Pleasant, North Bay, Racine, Sturtevant and Wind Point  to mull the future of the region and foster more conversations and collaboration.

A full house of about 120 people heard Foster talk about the concept of resilience, how leaders can approach their issues and how the Racine area compares to the rest of the country.

Build on strength

Foster presented a system of measuring a regions capacity to bounce back from a crisis, whether it be a sudden event or a chronic one. The system included a swath of variables related to income, education, poverty, affordability and other factors.

Racine ranked in the middle of the pack compared to other regions, and particularly high in civic engagement, according to analysis Foster presented.

While careful to note she had no sure-fire ways to improve collaboration among communities in the Racine area, Foster implored officials to have breakfast together to build relationships, develop regional leaders and build on the areas strengths.

You need some champions who feel good about this place, who look at it and say this place is full of opportunity,  Foster said in an interview before the presentation.

So I come in and I say: Do you know how many places would kill for a waterfront? You have an art museum, good library system ... build on strength.

Wednesdays briefing was the first of three planned at Wingspread. Rob Henken, president of the Milwaukee-based Public Policy Forum, and Rebecca Ryan, founder of Next Generation Consulting, are scheduled to speak on the next two Wednesdays.

When its over, officials plan to meet one on one with community groups and governing bodies.

We hope leaders will accept our open invitation to come to Wingspread, come to the table in spirit of cooperation to explore the possibilities and determine what can and must be done now, said Ashley Staeck, program officer at the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread.

Jean Jacobson, the Norway town chairman and former Racine County executive, said the region has proven it can accomplish big goals, noting officials work to get water and sewer out to Interstate 94 after some 30 years of discussions.

It was a fun project. A lot of gnashing of teeth, but it got done after two years, Jacobson said during a question-and-answer session.

Mike Frontier, a Racine Unified School Board member, said during the Q&A that participants need a sense of urgency about working together better.

Were running out of time here. We need to work together to make this collaboration happen, Frontier said.

The remaining Resilient Communities events are at capacity, but residents can join the discussion online by watching a livestream at Facebook.com/TJFWingspread. During question-and-answer sessions, a moderator will take questions posed online and ask them on users behalf.
'That's madam governor to you': Record 12 women elected to serve in 2023
Actress Huma Qureshi says Bollywood is "quite heady" and it is very difficult to brace up for the journey in the industry.

"I was prepared in my own way (about the constant public scrutiny). But the industry is quite heady. You can't really prepare for it," Huma told over phone from Mumbai.

After doing some short films, Huma, who hails from Delhi, came into the spotlight with Anurag Kashyap's dark thriller Gangs of Wasseypur  Part 2 in 2012.

She has delivered hits like Ek Thi Daayan, Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, Badlapur and Jolly LLB 2, but failed to generate the expected response with films like Dedh Ishqiya and D-Day.

The actress, who was last seen in horror film Dobaara: See Your Evil, says she tries to focus on her work and "do the best to my ability".

On the career front, Huma believes in taking "things as they come". She is also harbouring Hollywood dreams.

Asked if she wants to head to the West, she said: "Hopefully."

"(I'm waiting for the) right film and right script to come along," said the actress, who auditioned for the third instalment of The Mummy franchise last year.
A new series of community conversations started last week at Wingspread as part of a Johnson Foundation program.

A new initiative called Resilient Communities brings together all of the eastern Racine County communities  Caledonia, Elmwood Park, Mount Pleasant, North Bay, Racine, Sturtevant and Wind Point  to mull the future of the region and discuss ways municipalities can collaborate more.

This collaborative effort is vital for this community.

As Helen Johnson-Leipold, chief executive of Johnson Outdoors and chairwoman of the Johnson Financial Group and Wingspread boards, explained: You cant just look out for yourself  I think until we can come together and work together, all of us, we are going to have a hard time.

The Racine community is a treasure. We are lucky to have an amazing lakefront, beach and Reefpoint Marina. A story earlier this month highlighted how that marina came together because of collaboration.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of investment followed, including Lakeshore Towers, the Gaslight Pointe development, the hotel that is now a Doubletree Inn and the adjacent parking structure.

Jean Jacobson, former Racine County executive, also cited officials work getting water and sewer out to Interstate 94 after some 30 years of discussion.

Without that collaboration, our county wouldnt be able to grow, to expand its tax base and expand job opportunities for residents.

Collaborations can be smaller, but still make a big difference.

For example, the James A. Peterson Veterans Village is in the works at 1624 Yout St. Its a community of tiny houses to help homeless veterans. To help with that initiative, students in one of the new academies at Park High School built one of the tiny houses for veterans. They put their education to a real-life purpose.

Based on those examples, we know collaboration with real outcomes are possible.

Racine County communities need to continue to figure out ways to work together, whether its on development or helping with social problems.

Municipalities and organizations are no longer able to depend on federal or state dollars or big grants they once received. They can only depend on each other.

Mike Frontier, a Racine Unified School Board member, said during the Q&A session that participants need a sense of urgency about working together better.

Were running out of time here. We need to work together to make this collaboration happen, Frontier said.

We agree, and hope differences can be put aside to achieve, through collaboration, a better future.
41 RJP-Nepal leaders, cadres arrested in Dhanusha

Dhanusha police arrested 41 leaders and cadres of Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal (RJP-N) on Sunday. Half-a-dozen RJP-N cadres have been injured when police resorted to baton-charge.


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The last days of the Newfie Pride

There were many nights he didnt sleep. The numbers and scenarios turned over and over in his mind, making rest impossible. Id get up two, three oclock in the morning, night after night, come out to the kitchen table and work the numbers every ...
A week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of high-value currency notes, farmers in Haryana, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh were not rattled.

"This is a war against wrongdoers that Modi has waged. Everything will be alright for us," Dubraj Singh, paddy farmer and leader of the local unit of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) in Karnal, Haryana, had said.

Seven months after the announcement, the situation is no longer the same. Singh and other activists of BKU are trying to garner support of farmers to demand a loan waiver by the state government.

The problems farmers faced after the demonetisation move were largely felt in and around the mandis or regulated wholesale agriculture markets.

In Kota, the agricultural heartland of Rajasthan, farmers had grown exotic crops like quinoa, olives and spices. "As demonetisation happened, the buyers and the prices for the crops came crashing," said Mangani Ram, chairman of the Kota Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC)-run mandi.

"Olive farmers lost heavily as they ran out of money to buy the necessary nutrition for their crops. As a result, the olive plants have become perennially undernourished," said Rajasthan Agriculture Minister Prabhu Lal Saini.

Describing the impact of demonetisation, Saini, who is himself a farmer, said, "For taking Rs 100 in cash, the discount rate was 5-10 per cent in most mandis. This was the premium for cash payments.

Digitisation, too, has affected the farmers. "The need to have a bank account and an Aadhar card have created another panic in the rural landscape," Jay Shankar, chief economist at Religare Capital Markets, said.

Mihir Shah, former Planning Commission member, explained how demonetisation emptied farmers' coffers. "Demonetisation resulted in a liquidity crunch to the extent that traders did not have money to buy produce from farmers and shunned the markets" said Shah.

Shiv Sena leaders in Maharashtra and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had criticised demonetisation for making the lives of farmers miserable.

The Reserve Bank of India had said in a report that farmers who grow vegetables, spices, soybean, pulses, potatoes, onions, coriander and fenugreek had to endure "fire sales" of their produce, as prices of these high-value seasonal crops drove to record lows following demonetisation.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday condemned the vandalism unleashed by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), alleging "deep-rooted conspiracy" and "links with terrorists" as violence sparked in the north West Bengal hills amid the GJM-sponsored indefinite shutdown.

The CM said her government is ready to initiate a dialogue with the party, but in a conducive environment.

Banerjee, who chaired a high level meeting at the state secretariat in Nabanna regarding the various development boards of the hills, said an all-party meeting will be held in Siliguri on June 22 to discuss the growing unrest in the hills.

Coming down heavily on the GJM violence, Banerjee said, "This is a deep-rooted conspiracy. So much of arms and ammunition couldn't have come in a single day. There is an international border and state border. They are violating the Constitution. They are only hurling bombs. They are stockpiling illegal arms and bombs."

About dialogue, she said, "We are ready but not under the current situation."

Banerjee alleged that the GJM had connections with the northeast insurgent groups. She also claimed foreign link behind the violence. "We have come to know from the police that there is a link with terrorists. I am told there is a connection with underground insurgents from northeast India. I have requested that they should not extend any support in Darjeeling," she said.

"Development work will continue and there should be an end to this deep-rooted conspiracy in the hills. In this matter, the central and state government must come together," she said.

Banerjee also slammed GJM supporters for "insulting" the national flag. "They aren't listening to the court (Calcutta High Court) even after it passed an order saying the bandh is illegal. Don't know from where they get support. They are using the national flag for vandalism. We are proud of our national flag... How can they throw bombs at the national flag? How can they do it?

"I will urge the Central government not to encourage them to behave like this. If anything happens to any tourist (foreigner) it will bring a bad name to the country. They (GJM) have stopped tourism, transport, drinking water supply and food. The GJM supporters burnt down the primary health centre. Media persons are in danger, they are being blackmailed and threatened," she said.

Urging the people in the hills to not listen to the GJM leadership, she also denied reports of police firing. "That is absolutely wrong. They (GJM) started firing. We can't support those who are indulging in violence and hooliganism," she said.

Later in the day, at a programme to honour journalists, Banerjee reiterated the unrest is a "deep-rooted conspiracy" and that "some people in the hills are trying to break up Bengal."

She also asserted she will not be intimidated by threats. "If someone tries to scare me with a gun, the person may not realise that I have it in me to snatch away the gun," she said.
As militants attacked an Army convoy near Bijbehara in Anantnag district on Sunday, intelligence agencies have warned about militants plotting major attacks in three different areas in Srinagar in the next few days. The intelligence warnings that are being shared with the central and state police forces have warned of movement of militants in downtown areas of Srinagar.

The inputs warn that these militants are planning grenade attacks, indiscriminate firing on security forces, camps, establishments and deployments specifically in Noorbagh, Nowhatta and Eidgah area of Srinagar in the next two days.

The intelligence agencies have said that the inputs need to be followed up and developed by the forces on the ground for preventive measures and also neutralising the militants before they carry out their nefarious designs. All law enforcement agencies have been asked to coordinate with the local police, the intelligence sources said .

Officials in the intelligence setup said that the threat will remain high till the confrontation between the Army, CRPF and local police with the local militants continues, pointing to the trend of local militants joining hands and spreading base. They have pointed to the presence of Lashkar militants in traditional Hizbul Mujahideen pockets and strongholds over last few weeks.

The upsurge in the militancy in the valley coincides with the stepping up of border tension by Pakistan with increasing incidents of firing and shelling.

The Centre meanwhile is asking security forces to come down heavily on the militants and ensure intelligence inputs are followed. Simultaneously, the brain-storming over a solution to the festering problem in the Valley is going on at the level of the national security advisor Ajit Doval.

On June 3, two Army jawans were killed and four others injured after militants had attacked an Army convoy in south Kashmir's Qazigund area on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway. The attack coincided with heavy mortar shelling and firing with machine guns by Pakistani forces on forward posts and villages in Poonch district.
A Kerala woman, travelling from Saudi Arabia's Dammam to Kochi on a Jet Airways flight, delivered a baby en route on Sunday morning, an official said.

The woman, whose name was not known, was travelling alone and suddenly developed labour pains as the plane was in Pakistani air space. The cabin crew sought the help of a nurse who was also on the flight and the mother-to-be was moved into the first class area, where the delivery took place.

Following the delivery, the flight was diverted to Mumbai where the mother and baby were taken off and moved to a hospital.

The flight then took off from Mumbai after a two hour stop.

Cochin International Airport Ltd Managing Director V.J.Kurian said that he heard about the incident, but does not have more details of the woman passenger.
5 RJP-N activists injured in Parasi police firing

At least five persons were injured when police fired rubber bullets to disperse Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal (RJP-N) protesters in Parasi, the district headquarters of Nawalparasi, on Saturday.
Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission President Swami Atmasthanandaji Maharaj passed away on Sunday after a prolonged illness, said the Belur-based Math. He was 98.

People pay their last respects to Swami Atmasthananda | PTI

The monk, who was elected President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission on December 3, 2007, had been admitted to Seva Pratishthan hospital from February 21, 2015 for treatment of old-age ailments.

"With deep sorrow we announce the passing away of Swami Atmasthanandaji, President of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, on Sunday, at about 5:30 pm at Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan hospital, Kolkata," said a statement from the Math.

The cremation will take place at Belur Math on Monday at about 9.30 pm and the gates of Belur Math will remain open tonight and through Monday till the last rites are completed, it added.

Born in May 1919, at Sabajpur near Dhaka, he received "emantra diksha" from Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj (a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna) in 1938 and joined the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math in 1941 at the age of 22.

In 1945, Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the sixth President of the Order, gave him Brahmacharya vows and in 1949, Sannyasa vows and the name Swami Atmasthananda.

After serving the Order at Belur Math and the branches at Deoghar (Vidyapith) and Mayavati (Advaita Ashrama), he served Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj himself for a long time and spent several years in his company in the solitude of Shyamla Tal in the Himalayas.

In 1952, he was posted to Ranchi TB Sanatorium branch as an Assistant Secretary. He worked hard to expand itss services in many ways. Sent to Rangoon Sevashrama as its Secretary in 1958, he developed its hospital to make it the best hospital of Burma (Myanmar) at that time.

He was elected a Trustee of the Ramakrishna Math and Member of the Governing Body of the Ramakrishna Mission in 1973.

In 1975, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the twin organisations.

Under his stewardship as Relief Secretary, the Math and Mission conducted massive relief and rehabilitation operations in various parts of India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

He became the General Secretary of the Math and Mission in 1992 and continued to be in that post for five years till 1997 when he became a Vice-President of the Order.

Expressing her grief, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said in a tweet: "Saddened that Rev. Swami Atmasthanandaji, President, Ramakrishna Math & Mission passed away today at Seva Pratishthan."

"A life of outstanding social and religious service. This is an irreparable loss to mankind," she added.
There are things they teach you at business school. And then there are other things. So many of India's most successful enterprises are family-led concerns that there is a whole school of thought emerging they must be doing something right. So, what is it?

Suggests Pratish Sanghvi, co-founder of the last mile delivery service company Grab.in: "Business schools today, in their quest to create individual stars of the future commercial ecosphere, often forget to instill the fundamental lessons that segregate the successful entrepreneur from the rest. While traditional businesses and family enterprises often start training the younger members of the family from a very young age, they are often not allowed to handle the significant matters. It is a bottom-to-top approach which is followed, in contrast with the B-school curriculum, which, from the very beginning, only trains students to become CEOs and managers, without giving them basic knowledge of the groundwork. As a result, in the real world, the powerpoints and blueprints prepared by B-school grads fall flat on their face as they are impractical and made by considering only what Case theory 101 ordered, not the ground reality."

He goes on: "Another observation in B-school learnings today is the lack of attention to detail. Generations of business tycoons have grown up listening to stories of how JRD Tata (its first chairman) used to throw a fit even if there was one chink or a spot in the cutlery or plates on Air Indias flights. While these maybe ignored by B-school students as redundant information or minor issues, the attitude of delivering an impeccable experience to the customer develops only when you have a strong sense of identification with the business and the desire for perfection."

According to a recent study by OnStartups, 48.1 per cent of entrepreneurs state that they grew up in a family business.

Sanghvi finally asks, Can a three year B-school training impart a business acumen equivalent to a lifetime of learning from a business family?

The answer can be a triumphant yes, if only that education goes far beyond academic restrictions and focuses more on practical lifesaving tools, he adds.

On Father's Day, startup founders on their dads

Does daddy know the best? We asked this question today, on the occasion of Father's Day.

Raghav Chandra, co-Founder UrbanClap

My father is my oldest and greatest friend and support pillar. I remember him helping me through my first startuphe travelled down for days to help hiring and operations, sharing the burden and stress. He always seemed to be the one I took for granted. That in itself is the greatest sense of support.

Neha Bagaria, founder and CEO, JobsForHer

"My father is an entrepreneur himself and I was pretty sure I would walk down that path as well. He was always on board with my career choices. He supported me, pushed me and motivated me to strive harder to achieve my career goals. His best advice has remained with me in my entrepreneurial journeyAlways look five years into the horizon when making any big decisions. Don't focus on the short run; instead, keep a broader perspective. Even with your career, it doesn't matter if you have taken a break for a few years. What's a few years of break compared to the long span of a person's career?

Vishwavijay Singh, co-founder, SaleBhai.com

My father is a very honest man, and he has always advised me to be one myself. The best advice he gave me was not to be deterred by poor short-term results, as there is always a silver lining that we cannot comprehend immediately, but becomes apparent over time. One practical advice that has served me well is to always combat stress with action instead of letting it drive you into passive despair. Not only does being active de-stress you, it also helps you focus on dealing with it positively."

Sunil Gupta, founder and director, ExportersIndia.com

"My father strongly advocated that experience is the greatest teacher. A pillar of strength, he taught me that We never lose. We either win or we learn. This mantra kept me going in trying times and I turned failures into stepping stones for success. My father, an epitome of simplicity, inspires me each day to keep everything in life simple, because pretentiousnessbe it in processes or thoughtsonly makes it harder. Simplicity is hard to attain, but it leads to success in personal and professional spheres of life; this is what I have experienced following my fathers advice."

Gurinder Singh Bhatti, chairman and MD, ESS Global

"My father had a small establishment in Amritsar and I still remember I used to help him in his business at the young age and used to do the collection for him. He guided me to be honest and be fair towards the work you do as you need not to speak loud, your work speaks for you. He taught me to be competitive in a healthy way rather than following the competition and be the follower. Aim for setting the new trends and be the leader."

Vivek Kejriwal, founder and CEO, OneWay.cab

My father taught me: 'I can only advise you. It' up to you to take decision. If I stop you, out of respect you may obey me; next time you will do things of your own without asking.

Shreenidhi, co-founder, Flintobox

"When I was in my sixth grade, I had to shift to a new city. It was a terrible feeling for me to leave everything behindmy school, my friends, my cozy little room and so many little things that I had grown comfortable with. It was the first time I was shifting to a new place and starting things from scratch. To console me, he (father) used to say, 'Youll never forget your first times whether you like them or not. And the more of these you experience, the more you get out of your life'.

Lot's of learnings there! But how many of these founders also went to B-School? The debate goes on...
At least 58 people are feared to have died in the fire that engulfed a London tower block this week, police said on Saturday, as Prime Minister Theresa May admitted that the response from the authorities had not been good enough.

With anger mounting over the government's handling of the blaze, May met residents from the Grenfell Tower and vowed to personally oversee the recovery as protesters gathered to demonstrate in the streets around her residence for a second day.

Weakened by a botched election gamble last week, May has been criticised for her muted response to the fire and had to be rushed away from a meeting with residents on Friday under heavy police guard as protesters shouted "Shame on you".

"The response of the emergency services, National Health Service, and the community has been heroic," May said in a statement. "But, frankly, the support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough."

London Police Commander Stuart Cundy said the toll of 58 included those who were missing and presumed dead from a fire which ripped through the 24-storey social housing block as residents slept in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

"Sadly at this time, there are 58 people who we have been told were in Grenfell Tower on the night that are missing and therefore sadly I have to assume that they are dead," he said.

If the number is confirmed, it would make the Grenfell Tower blaze the deadliest in London since World War Two. The toll had previously been put at 30.

While the blaze has prompted an outpouring of generosity, with many people donating provisions and clothes, it has also unleashed rage at the authorities as the charred tower was cast as a deadly symbol of a deeply divided society.

On Friday angry protesters chanting "We want justice" stormed their way into the Kensington and Chelsea town hall to try to confront the leaders of the local council.

Residents of the destroyed tower said May was far too slow to visit the stricken community, that the building had been unsafe and that officials have failed to give enough information and support to those who have lost relatives and their homes.

Anger in London

On Saturday May spent over two hours meeting residents from the north Kensington area at her Downing Street residence and chaired a meeting on the government's response to the fire.

She has promised to set up a public inquiry and pledged 5 million pounds of support, housing guarantees and help with access to bank accounts and cash. Those who lost their homes will be rehoused within three weeks, she said.

"It has been decided today that the public inquiry will report back to me personally," May said. "As prime minister, I will be responsible for implementing its findings."

One of her closest allies, Damian Green, defended May, saying she was "distraught about what has happened". "We're all desperately sad," said Green, who was appointed May's deputy in the wake of the general election. "We're all angry, but of course none of us as angry as those who were directly affected. I absolutely get why they're angry."

May was asked repeatedly in an interview on Friday whether she had misread the public mood. While failing to answer, she said the focus was now on providing support to the victims.

On Saturday more than 1,000 people gathered near May's Downing Street office to protest against her plan to form a government with the support of a socially conservative Northern Irish party.

One banner showed a drawing of May with the words "Shame" and "Disgrace".

'Not a viable PM'

After a turbulent three months which has seen Britain hit by three deadly Islamist militant attacks and now the tower blaze, Queen Elizabeth said the mood was deeply sombre but that the British people were resolute in the face of adversity.

Having visited residents and volunteers near the tower on Friday with her grandson William, the queen also led a minute's silence in Buckingham Palace on Saturday.

"It is difficult to escape a very sombre national mood," Elizabeth said in a message on her official birthday. "The country has witnessed a succession of terrible tragedies. "Put to the test, the United Kingdom has been resolute in the face of adversity," Elizabeth said. "United in our sadness, we are equally determined, without fear or favour, to support all those rebuilding lives so horribly affected by injury and loss."

Such a direct message from the monarch is rare and indicates the extent of the turmoil in Britain.

Opponents said May's handling of the fire had thrust her position further into doubt by showing a failure to feel the public mood and act decisively.

Her failure to win a majority in an election she did not need to call had already sparked a tumultuous week and pitched Britain into its deepest political crisis since the Brexit referendum a year ago.

Britain is now likely to go into arduous talks on Monday about its exit from the European Union with a weakened leader who is dependent on Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party to get legislation passed.

Matthew Parris, a columnist and former Conservative lawmaker, said May's response to the fire had shown a lack of judgment which made her unsuitable to be prime minister.

"Wallowing in the wash of a general election that stripped our prime minister of her authority on the very eve of EU negotiations, neither common sense nor the evidence suggest she can re-establish public confidence," Parris wrote in the Times.

"This prime minister is not viable."
DoSM to continue market checks till Dashain

The Department of Supplies Management (DoSM) said it will continue its aggressive monitoring campaign for the next few months in Kathmandu, after a large number of business firms were found to be involved in market anomalies.
President Donald Trump is beginning his day with a stream of tweets defending his record and lashing out at the investigation into Russian interference in the election.

In a two-part tweet posted before 7 a.m. Sunday, Trump wrote: The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt.

He continued by saying: Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm massive regulation cuts, 36 new legislative bills signed, great new S.C.Justice, and Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax Cuts in works!

Witch hunt is how Trump characterizes the probe into Russias election interference and possible ties to his campaign associates.

Trump advisers describe the president as increasingly angry over the investigation, yelling at television sets carrying coverage and insisting he is the target of a conspiracy.

The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm,..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017

massive regulation cuts, 36 new legislative bills signed, great new S.C.Justice, and Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax Cuts in works!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017

The new Rasmussen Poll, one of the most accurate in the 2016 Election, just out with a Trump 50% Approval Rating.That's higher than O's #'s!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017

(AP)
Donald Trump Jr slammed the BBC for a misleading and biased headline to a story about the horrific terror attack in Jerusalem on Friday evening.

The headline writers at the BBC chose to highlight the fact that three Palestinians were shot dead, while neglecting to note they had just murdered an Israeli Border Police Officer in a coordinated stabbing and shooting attack. The headline read: Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem

President Trumps eldest son took note, tweeting You mean after they stabbed a female Israeli police officer to death right? This is as close to being misleading as possible.

You mean after they stabbed a female Israeli police officer to death right? This is as close to being misleading as possible. https://t.co/EWZPHiRemU  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 17, 2017

Need a new term for this nonsense. Sort of the opposite of victim blaming. How about Culprit Coddling? Maybe Criminal Cozying? Thoughts??? https://t.co/EWZPHiRemU  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 17, 2017

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also noted the misleading headline and reportedly requested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to contact the BBC. Yuval Rotem, the Director General of the MFA, as well as the Israeli Embassy in London, contacted the BBC to share Israels disappointment at their misrepresentation of the facts.

A short time later, the BBC amended the headline, which now reads: Israeli policewoman stabbed to death in Jerusalem

Donald Trump Jr then returned to twitter, where he noted that the BBC had indeed changed their headline. He also accepted a congratulatory tweet from a follower, and indicated he believed the BBCs oversight was rooted in Anti-Israel bias.

So nice of @BBC to take down their ridiculous tweet from this morn. If they didnt flagrantly mislead they wouldnt have to be called out. pic.twitter.com/hGvy3ZuiYb  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 18, 2017

Its my pleasure. To me it seemed like a very slanted tweet against Israel given what actually happened. Guess I was right. https://t.co/zUcPQbfzFk  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 18, 2017

ISIS and Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack at Jerusalems Shaar Shechem, which killed 23-year-old Hadas Malka HYD and left 4 wounded.

(Nat Golden  YWN)
Gov. Chris Christie, who fell out of the running for president and then for a position in the Trump administration, has worked to improve his image this year, dedicating himself to the state and nations opioid epidemic and opening up again to New Jerseys press corps.

It hasnt worked.

His approval rating is among the lowest in history for any governor, as he enters the final months of his last term. He is under attack by the leading Democratic and Republican candidates  including his top deputy  running to succeed him. He describes himself as old news.

Only 15 percent of voters approve of the Republicans job performance and 81 percent disapprove, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. The university said its the worst gubernatorial approval rating surveyed by the poll in more than two decades. The poll surveyed 1,103 voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 points.

Christies allies say hes not worried about the low ratings, but there are few signs the voters who once gave him high marks for his handling of Superstorm Sandy and elected him twice to one of the countrys most powerful governorships will change their views.

His meager popularity threatens his ability to score some wins to set his legacy before he leaves office, while also harming Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagnos chances in Novembers governors race, which would leave Republicans out of power in any statewide office.

Politicians are like diapers. They both need to be changed regularly and for the same reasons, said Kurt Epps, a retired English teacher from Perth Amboy.

The registered Democrat voted for Christie twice. He says he has soured on the governor because of the so-called Bridgegate scandal in which three Christie aides were convicted or pleaded guilty in a political revenge plot, and Christies presidential run, which took him out of the state for all or parts of 261 days in 2015.

You got a job to do here. I dont mind someone seeking higher office, but tend to your business here, Epps said.

Epps was one of many so-called Christiecrat voters who crossed party lines to support the governor but are now disillusioned.

That dynamic was at the center of the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scheme, orchestrated as payback for a Democratic mayor who declined to back the governor in 2013. The scheme grew out of an effort to rack up as much Democratic support for Christie ahead of his re-election effort, which was seen as a forerunner to his presidential run.

Christie returned to New Jersey in early 2016 after dropping out of the race with approval ratings just under 30 percent, according to Quinnipiac. The rate tumbled by about 10 points shortly after the Bridgegate convictions .

Quinnipiac tracks about a dozen other states, including New York and Pennsylvania. None of the other states governors has fallen as low as Christie.

Christie pledged to get back to work and said at the time that voters would recognize and reward him with higher ratings. He then hit the campaign trail for Trump, briefly chairing his transition team and finishing as a runner up as Trumps running mate.

Mike DuHaime, a longtime adviser who twice served as Christies chief strategist, attributed the falling approval to the energy behind the left wing nationally. He cited higher Democratic voter turnout in New Jersey and Virginia primaries  the only two statewide races in the country this year.

He will just continue to make the tough decisions that he thinks are best for New Jersey, regardless of how those issues poll, DuHaime said.

Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick, a close ally, distinguished between Christies policies, specifically preferring lower taxes, and the governors in-your-face personality.

People maybe have an issue with how he approaches the issues, Bramnick said. If people dont like the personality and think hes too strong or too tough, that can lead to it.

Experts link the governors falling approval ratings to the 2013 George Washington Bridge scandal, which eroded voters views of Christie as competent and credible.

If Christie was in on it, then he doesnt deserve to be governor, said Joe Ferrandino, a Republican from Long Hill who voted for Christie twice. And if he didnt know what was going on, then he shouldnt be governor because he was incompetent.

Christie might be able to recover a few points in polls before November, but the race between Democrat Phil Murphy and Guadagno is likely to remind voters what they dont like about him, Montclair State University political science professor Brigid Harrison said.

People are fed up and just want him out of office, she said.

(AP)
Ties between Saudi Arabia and Turkey have begun to fray due to sharply different policies toward Qatar.

Saudi Arabia has led other Arab nations in cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar over allegations the small Gulf nation backs terror groups. Qatar denies this and says the decision to isolate it is politically motivated.

Turkey has criticized the decision and authorized the deployment of additional troops to Qatar in a show of support.

Saudi tour guides Khalid Abdullah and Edris Ismail told The Associated Press on Sunday that some Saudis are cancelling planned visits to Turkey for the upcoming Muslim Eid holiday, which starts next week. Saudi Arabia says around 250,000 Saudis visited Turkey last year.

An Arabic hashtag on Twitter has also appeared calling for Saudis to cut ties with Turkey.

(AP)
The President of the Ofer Military Court of Appeals, Judge Col. Netanel Benisho, ordered the cancellation of an administrative order issued to a 16-year old resident of Kiryat Arba. The order was issued to the minor approximately one month ago, on a recommendation by the Shin Bet and signed by IDF Central District Commander Major-General Roni Numa. The order distanced the minor from all of Yehuda and Shomron, other than his parents home, including his place of study in the Har Hebron region, and required him to be under house arrest at night at his parents home.

The minor, who regularly attends school, visited Givat HaBaladim and Geulat Tzion a few times for Shabbat during the past several months. At the deliberation Honenu Attorney Menasheh Yado, who filed the appeal with the military court, stated that the purpose of the order was to empty the hilltop communities of their residents and that it was not based purely on security concerns.

As with all administrative orders there were no accusations made and no court ruled on the matter. Such orders are issued by authority of emergency measures and security legislation, the purpose of which is to thwart terror.

After studying the information and the claims of both sides, I have reached the conclusion that the order should be canceled, ruled the judge in his decision. Later in his ruling the judge elaborated on the reasons which brought him to the decision and mentioned that he did not find at this time that the appellant posed a danger to the security of the area and therefore the GOC did not have grounds to distance him.

Additionally, the court partially accepted a petition by a Binyamin resident, a minor, who had received an identical administrative order and reduced its duration from five months to only two. In the decision, the court ruled that the reduction was necessary in order to allow for a reexamination of the case at that time. for an early examination of the necessity to continue the restriction. Honenu Attorney Menasheh Yado represented the minor.

In response to the cancellation Yado stated that, The attempt by the Shon Bet to cope with hilltop communities, which are first and foremost social arrangements, with military measures suitable for handling terror, does not express strength but rather weakness, a weakness of the leadership in coping with the public and an attempt to ostracize such youths as if they were not part of the social fabric of Israel.

In this case [the Central District Commander] wanted to issue an administrative order to a youth who is still under the close care of his parents. This is clear testimony to the lack of appropriateness which has reached ludicrousness. We are pleased that the court put the Shin bet in its place and did not allow a minor to be issued an administrative order.

Recently the court also reduced the duration of Yitzhar resident Elkana Picards administrative restrictive order from four to two months.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A paratrooper was RL killed when his patrol vehicle flipped over near Kissufim Crossing to Gaza. The victim, Sgt. Yuval Mena ZL, 20, was part of a patrol and their vehicle flipped. Two of the surviving soldiers were reported in serious injuries and a fourth injured lightly. They were transported from the scene by chopper to the trauma unit of Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva.

An investigation is underway to determine what caused their Hummer to flip over. Southern District Commander Major-General Eyal Zamir has appointed an inquiry headed by Colonel Avi Rachamim.

The levaya is set for Sunday evening 24 Sivan at 6:30PM in the Kiryat Shaul Military Cemetery. Sgt. Mena is survived by his parents and two older sisters.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Filing of nominations for phase II local polls complete

The filing of nominations by candidates representing various political parties in the country for the second phase of local level election to be held on June 28 has been held in an enthusiastic and peaceful manner, according to the Election Commission (EC).
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released on Friday documents that the PA (Palestinian Authority) does not plan to change its policy following meetings between PA Chairman Abu Mazen and US President Donald Trump. Minister for Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqe announced the PA will continue making payments as it has always done.

In 2016, the PA allocated to 1.15 billion shekels for salaries for terrorists, amounting to 7% of its total budget as well as about 20% of financial aid it receives. Payments will continue to families of imprisoned terrorists as well as those killed perpetrating terror attacks.

Ramallah officials told the al-Quds newspaper that US Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt was told that the PA would not change its policy, as it may create a breeding ground for terrorism.

The Wafa news agency quoted Qaraqe as saying, We will continue paying the families of the martyrs and prisoners and will not succumb to Israeli pressure. We will continue aiding them, for they are victims of the occupation.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
We round up the Sunday newspaper share tips. This week, Midas looks at oil firm Diversified Gas & Oil while the Sunday Telegraph analyses Coats, and the Sunday Times delves into utility giant Centrica.

FINANCIAL MAIL ON SUNDAY

In 2001, Rusty Hutson Jr co-founded Diversified Gas & Oil to take advantage of an eye-catching opportunity in the US energy industry.

Over the past decade, fracking has been the big story in America and the industry grew by leaps and bounds but, when oil and gas prices tumbled, many players were left with huge debts and heavy losses.

This left the way clear for Diversified, a nimble operator with a highly experienced management team, it has been snapping up these assets on the cheap and building up a low-risk, profitable business.

The shares are 71p and should rise materially as the business expands and develops.

Share placings are normally priced at a discount to the prevailing price but, in this case, Diversifieds new shares were priced at 70p, an 8 per cent premium to the price before the deal was announced.

The enthusiasm has a certain logic. The bigger Diversified gets, the more it can drive down costs. Before the deal last month of a transformative take- over worth $84 million (66 million) for example, operating costs per unit of gas were $1.24. After the latest transaction, those costs have fallen to 89 cents. Given that Diversified sells gas at about $2.50, the companys margins are clearly very healthy.

Read the full Midas columm here.

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

The long-running dispute regarding thread maker Coats and concerns over there not being enough money to fund three pension schemes has hung like a cloud over the firm, says James Ashton in this week's Questor column for the Sunday Telegraph.

After a 255m agreement last December, only one now remains to be settled and the company is now back in charge of its own destiny, according to Ashton.

Coats' shares have now advanced 33 per cent in the last year, it's about to enter the FTSE 250 and analysts at UBS forecast a compound annual growth rate of 2.5 per cent.

After the May trading update, house broker Peel Hunt upped its annual forecasts to $156m (122m) this year and the shares trade at 12 times next year's forecast earnings.

Buy.

SUNDAY TIMES

The owner of British Gas, Centrica, has lost half of its value over the past three years but Iain Conn who took over at the start of 2015 has a plan, says Simon Duke in this week's Inside the City column in the Sunday Times.

Conn's overhaul has two parts and the first involves investing heavily in more flexible power generation and smaller, more nimble gas plants.

The second is his connected homes project, whereby consumer manage their energy usage more efficiently.

Over the long time Centrica and its rivals will see their profit margins fall so the question remains if Conn's overhaul can combat this problem, says Duke.

Buy.
Booking a flight used to be so simple  choose the destination and class of travel, select a seat and you could be sure your baggage was also included in the price along with some food and drink on board.

Holidaymakers could start their getaway feeling relatively relaxed.

Now travellers need the attention to detail of a contract lawyer combined with the skills of a mathematician to know if their ticket represents a good deal.

Constantly changing luggage allowances is just one bugbear of Wizz Air customers

Get it wrong with regards to your baggage allowance, make a typing error on the booking form or  as opposite  accidentally press the wrong button on the payment page that triggers onerous currency exchange charges and those bargain prices suddenly balloon.

Passengers must have their wits about them to keep on top of airline rules. Constantly changing luggage allowances is just one bugbear  and they differ between airlines.

Now Ryanair is at the centre of allegations  which it denies  that it splits up families travelling together to panic them in to paying up to 11 a person extra each way for allocated seats.

All these hurdles stoke up costs and stress.

Martyn James, of online complaints service Resolver, says: Airlines which put people through this decision-making circus need to bear in mind that their customers are only a few clicks away from a competitor. Something has got to change to end the series of indignities and stress people face just to book a flight.

Here are just some of the flight extras that inflate a ticket price:

Seats

Whether it is extra legroom, a wider seat, switching seats or sitting together, charges mount for those who want to select a certain level of comfort on their flight or fear the airlines random allocation.

Charges for allocated seats range from 1 to 55 depending on airline and cabin class. Changing seat is free with some airlines as part of a higher ticket price, while others, such as BAs standard ticket, applies a 7 charge to switch even to a neighbouring seat.

Tip: Only choose allocated seats if it is vital to sit together, such as when travelling with children.

I WAS BILLED AN EXTRA 34...FOR PAYING IN EUROS BY ERROR Vee Pitchley booked a flight for her son Tom, pictured, with Wizz Air but was hit with currency conversion fees Vee Pitchley felt she had been mugged when she purchased two flights to Warsaw in Poland for her tennis player son Tom, 17, and a companion with low-cost airline Wizz Air last month. She was invoiced 265  confirmed in an email  which she paid with her debit card. But when Vee checked her bank statement, she found her account had been debited by 299. Contacting the customer helpline  costing 1.10 a minute  Vee was told she had paid the bill in euros and therefore incurred conversion fees. Vee, a London-based communications executive, says: They told me there was nothing I could do. But when you are booking what you think is a cheap flight you feel cheated. When Wizz Air investigated, it found Vee had accidentally pressed the wrong button on the payment page and chosen euros. The help desk told her the extra cost was in its terms and conditions. But the detail was buried away. Even if it was a slip of the finger that had caused the error, Vee says the extra 34 fee was excessive. Wizz says this total included charges made by Vees bank. Like other airlines, Wizz sets its own exchange rate using a form of dynamic currency conversion  where the charge to the customer is usually higher than on the open market. James Hickman of currency specialist FairFX, says: Banks make a charge of about 2.75 per cent per transaction plus a fixed fee of a couple of pounds. In Vees case this would probably account for about 10 of the extra charge. Jane Wallace, co-founder of Skinted Minted Mum, warns travellers to always check bank or credit card statements. Most airlines have clauses allowing them to charge extra after a ticket has been issued. But some give themselves greater leeway. Wallace has found several airlines with small print catches.For example, Swiss states it is entitled to retroactively charge (an) optional fee for currency conversion. Monarch says if you use a card of a different currency to that quoted, it will charge the Reuters wholesale exchange rate plus an average margin of 7 per cent. Wallace says: When a restaurant bill includes a dessert you never ordered, you are justified in asking for it to be taken off. Airline customers getting charged high fees for foreign exchange should do the same. Wizz Air has agreed to refund Vee the charge as a gesture of goodwill.

Luggage

Prices or hold luggage vary hugely, as do weight and size limits. With the new automated bag drops used by some airlines, it is now tricky to win over check-in staff with a smile or a sob story about baggage being slightly over the limit. Get it wrong and you could pay between 10 and 20 per extra kilogram.

Many carriers also have a one cabin bag rule, with size and weight variations (some as small as a laptop case).

Tip: Check weights before leaving home  and always book hold luggage in advance as rates escalate at the check-in desk and gate.

Ensure there is space in any cabin bag for a handbag to avoid being charged extra.

Payment

Credit card charges usually apply at a rate of up to 3 per cent, with a few exceptions such as Monarch.

Although rules now require such fees to be made clear up-front, many travellers neglect to budget for them in advance.

Tip: Consider using a debit card to avoid charges.

Splitting up families: Ryanair is at the centre of allegations

Flight confirmation

Some airlines charge to send a text confirming details of a flight. This can cost 1.

Tip: Rely on an email instead.

Priority boarding

Priority boarding may be on offer only to members of airline loyalty schemes or those whose ticket includes allocated seating.

Some charge extra such as Wizz Air (5 online and 25 at the airport).

Tip: You may ensure your hand luggage gets a space in the cabin but you will not get to your destination any faster by boarding first. It is a cost not worth bearing.

Get it right: Ensure there is space in any cabin bag for a handbag to avoid being charged extra

Insurance

Automatic insurance add-ons were once ubiquitous and a serious annoyance when booking a flight.

These days they are few and far between but offerings are still presented alongside the booking details to lure lazy buyers. Most cover is at best basic and poor value for money.

Tip: Take out your own travel policy in advance. Compare deals at websites such as TravelSupermarket or Compare The Market.

Car hire and transfers

As with insurance, car hire and transfers are now offered only as voluntary extras  unlike in the past when people had to untick a box to exclude them from such deals.

But watch out  some airlines still do this outside the UK.

Tip: Deals are likely to be more competitive if you do your own searching. Try comparison websites such as Skyscanner or Kayak.

Few airlines now provide standard ticketholders food and drink, especially on short haul flights

In-flight purchases

Few airlines now provide standard ticketholders freebie food and drink, especially on short haul flights.

Tip: Buy a picnic before heading on board and avoid buying lottery tickets and other in-flight offers pushed by stewards. Take earplugs and zone out of the sales patter.

Checking-in

Some airlines charge for check- in at the airport  50 with Ryanair, for instance. Many also charge to reissue boarding passes.

Tip: Set a reminder on your phone to check in online and print your own boarding pass or use a mobile phone boarding pass if available.

Name changes

Make a mistake with a name on a booking, such as using a nickname  and you could face a charge of 100 or more to correct it.

Tip: Ask a relative or friend to look over your booking before you press the purchase button.
Financial education officially became part of the school National Curriculum in 2014, but many experts say that money lessons begin at home.

Parents who talk to their children about saving and investing are more likely to help their kids get into good financial habits for when they are older.

Research by Santander has found that parents are the biggest influence on money behaviour for 43 per cent of people. Two thirds of those aged 18 to 34 wish they had received more.

James Carleton, 71, was a fund manager in the City and has built a portfolio for daughter Louise

Laith Khalaf, senior investment analyst at fund broker Hargreaves Lansdown, says: Financial education is one area that parents can really give their children a head start in life.

'Young adults are often thrown in at the deep end of finances, faced with high levels of debt and the steep climb to get on the housing ladder, so a little financial know-how can go a long way.

The dangers of paying high interest on borrowing and the benefit of putting money away for the long-term are life lessons best not learned the hard way.

Dad likes to take profits, I prefer to buy and hold winners

Semi-retired advertising agency owner Stephen Thomas, 58, has been investing on and off for the past 30 years. He made money in the dotcom boom but got his fingers burned when the bubble burst in March 2000.

When he got access to his pension he decided to start investing again, this time with the help of his son Sam.

Now aged 30, Sam, a plumbing and heating engineer, says: I did not see my dad every day but he would tell me about his investments and what money he had made or lost.

It was really interesting to hear about and seemed better than just keeping my money in a bank account that did not pay any interest.

Stephen adds: At first Sam helped me with my investments but I said he should open an investment account too so he could make money for himself  I was not going to share what I was making.

Now the two meet up most afternoons at Stephens home in Sandbach, Cheshire, to talk investments. The day starts at 7am when Sam looks online at company announcements.

These regulatory announcements can include a firms accounts, general updates or news of mergers or acquisitions. Sam flags up companies he thinks look interesting to his dad who then does some more research.

Each has an Isa with AJ Bell, which they use to buy individual stocks and shares. It is a risky way to invest but the two like doing their own research on companies and Stephen makes an effort to go to investor presentations and try to meet the chief executives and directors of the firms they invest in and to speak to other investors in the companies.

Mostly, they invest in shares on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), a stock market where fledgling businesses can often have share prices of less than a penny.

They have invested in oil companies, lithium miners and pet care businesses, to name just a few. Their best ever investment was in a Russian miner, whose shares climbed from 4p to 44p.

But while the investment portfolios of the two men are similar, they do have different approaches.

While Sam likes to hold shares for the long term as he is saving money for his future retirement, Stephen likes to crystalise any profits he makes.

Sam says: We do not argue because we have separate Isas. It means ultimately we make our own decisions about which shares to invest in. The only time we might have a disagreement is if we both want to use the login for the news service at the same time.

Fund manager learnt investing from his father and then taught his daughter

Bookkeeper Louise Wickham, from Guildford, Surrey, learned everything she knows about finance from her dad.

James Carleton, 71, was a fund manager in the City in his working life and has been putting money aside for his daughter since she was young. But it was not until Louise, 40, started a business in 2001 that she became interested in finance.

She says: I had to learn about lots of financial issues I had never thought about before such as setting up a pension, and I soon realised I was interested in finance. So I started talking to dad about money matters more and more.

James likes to put his money in investment trusts which pay good dividends, such as City of London and Caledonia. He then sticks with them for the long term.

He has created a portfolio of investments for Louise and she adds money to the various investment trusts when she wants to.

She says: I am not yet confident enough to pick out my own funds. There is still a lot I do not understand. If the papers say the stock market has fallen I will phone dad in a panic and he will calm me down and remind me we are investing for the long term.

While the pair do not discuss investments every day, they will regularly sit down with a cup of tea and log in to their online accounts with Hargreaves Lansdown to check how their investments are doing.

James says he learned his basic investment principles from his dad and has passed them on to Louise. She is hoping her son and daughter, aged ten and 12, who already have Junior Isas, also catch the investment bug when they are older.

Louise says: I think investing and the stock market are intimidating. Without my dad, I would never have got involved, I would have just put my savings in the bank and effectively lost money  the difference investing has made to my financial situation has been huge.
American aircraft maker Boeing has urged the UK to maintain the closest links to the European Union aerospace industry and regulatory affairs after Brexit.

Speaking ahead of the Paris Air Show, which starts tomorrow, boss Dennis Muilenburg said Boeing remained committed to long-term investment in the UK, regardless of the outcome of Brexit talks.

But he said: We do think its important as Brexit negotiations continue that we encourage the ability for the UK to continue to connect into the broader aerospace community in Europe in terms of regulatory models, certification of airplanes and air traffic systems.

Keep it close: Boeing has urged the UK to maintain links to the European Union

We think it would be advantageous for all of Europe and the UK to have those integrated aerospace systems remain in place.

Boeing, which said airline passenger traffic was up 8 per cent this year compared with 5 per cent last year, is expected to announce the launch of a new version of its 737 Max aircraft to take on Airbus in Paris.

He said: The Max 10 is essentially the same size as the A321 but has about 5 per cent better operating costs per seat so its a very attractive airplane.

While we havent officially launched it yet, were having very productive discussions. It would enter into service in roughly the 2020 time frame.

He said Boeing was also considering making a totally new mid-market airliner.
Hundreds of billions of pounds of financial deals conducted in euros through the London Stock Exchange every day should be moved to the Continent after Brexit, according to one of Europes top bankers, threatening tens of thousands of City jobs.

The call, from Christian Noyer, Frances Brexit envoy for finance and former head of the Banque de France, will come as a blow to the City, which had hoped EU bankers were softening their stance on where trades in euros are cleared.

Speaking exclusively to us, Noyer said that having the bulk of euro trading cleared in London had made the euro-crisis worse. Asked if European Union regulators should force the process to be managed on the Continent he said: Definitely, its clear.

Uncertain: Having the bulk of euro trading cleared in London had made the euro-crisis worse

With Brexit talks due to begin tomorrow, the City battle centres on so-called euro-clearing, the mechanism by which derivatives trades in euros and other financial contracts in the currency are managed between buyers and sellers.

City figures have warned that losing this business poses the biggest single threat to jobs. Accountancy giant EY has estimated that 83,000 London jobs depend on it.

Last week, the European Commission said it would not recommend immediate relocation of the business, but left the final say to regulators at the European Central Bank and European Securities and Markets Authority.

Noyer, himself a former vice president of the ECB and a current adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron, was speaking just days after the Commissions report.

He said: If a market is cleared 10 per cent in London, 5 per cent in New York, 5 per cent in Asia, and 80 percent in the EU 27, I think thats OK. Thats where equivalence of regulation, access to data, and supervisors all can play the role of ensuring that there is no big accident.

But if you have 90 per cent of the market that is outside then you have a risk. The LSEs London Clearing House is responsible for three quarters of the global market in euro derivatives clearing.

Noyers intervention highlights the determination of Europes central bankers to take closer control of clearing houses since the eurozone crisis began in 2009.In 2011 LCH, Londons main clearing operation, required banks to provide extra cash or securities to deal with possible losses on EU countries debt, driving up borrowing costs in the eurozone.

Noyer said: It fuelled the eurozone crisis at exactly the wrong moment. The mandate of UK regulators was not to protect the euro area, it was to protect the City. The increase was not a normal increase, it was an explosion of margin calls.

EU oversight would mean regulation of clearing houses would have to take the financial stability of the eurozone into account.

The London Stock Exchange, whose French boss Xavier Rolet has issued some of the fiercest defences on clearing, backed Londons role in euro-trading last week. He said: A location policy increases, not decreases, risk and costs for customers. Given this, European and global customers have overwhelmingly expressed a preference for shared regulation between the EU, UK and US.

Warning: London Stock Exchange's French boss Xavier Rolet has issued some fierce defences on clearing, backed Londons role in euro-trading last week

One issue stressed by the LSE is that clearing many currencies in one place allows transactions to be offset against others, meaning banks have to provide less margin. But Noyer said it should be possible to create systems to allow cross-border offsetting.

Noyers one concession was that London should be given time to move the operations. He said: It takes probably several years. We are talking about the risk of having crises in ten, 20 or 30 years.

Noyer was optimistic that Paris would win a big chunk of the business the City will lose as a result of Brexit. He said: I see it as a very good sign for ourselves that many major firms have waited until the French elections to make a decision and finalise their plans.

Macron has pledged to reform Frances labour and tax laws. Noyer said he hoped France would have the best labour market flexibility in Europe bar the UK and Ireland in a few months from now, with insurers, asset managers and bank trading rooms moving to Paris.

He added: There is no other city in Europe that has the pool of talent Paris has. You need an ecosystem, you need a regulator understanding those activities and we have that.

HSBC is moving 1,000 people to Paris and Noyer said: All the other groups are still making their strategy. So we shall see. They will probably not concentrate everything in the same place.

Noyer said he supported the idea of a transition period for financial services after the UK leaves the EU, dismissing suggestions that Brexit posed any risk to EU financial stability. It would be good to grant an additional one to two years to be sure the transfer of contracts with clients takes place in an orderly way, he said.

I hope this can be agreed in negotiation between the UK and the EU. But it could be decided unilaterally by the EU because we could always say the new rules will apply only fully in one year or two.
Brexit will bring absolutely no advantage to Eddie and James Millbournes Canagan pet food business and has already led to price increases, they have complained.

Eddie has had his fair share of ups and downs in business since buying a pet shop at 24. He said this was almost annihilated by Sainsburys when shoppers started buying pet food from superstores instead.

A second business, which for 16 years distributed Nutro pet food in the UK, was similarly damaged when the brand was sold to Mars.

In the doggy bag: James Millbournes family firm exports to 35 countries

He then launched Canagan in 2012 after spotting a trend for grain-free pet food in the US. With the recent help of his son James, the company is now turning over 24 million and sells in 35 countries.

Eddie is targeting 30 million in turnover next year and does not sell to supermarkets or pet superstores.

He said: I have a dislike for that part of the business world and I have an affinity towards independent pet stores.

But despite their success, including recent export wins in China, Russia and France, Brexit is a worry.

Eddie said: Being a firm Remainer, it terrifies us because we could have some type of import duty imposed on our products. Were probably looking at around a 10 per cent levy.

Eddie and James Millbournes Canagan pet food business and has already led to price increases

The problem is 90 per cent of the ingredients are sourced in the UK. Now our manufacturers are having to compete with European buyers for British meat and vegetables that they never really used to buy, which has resulted in an 11 per cent price increase.

'We cant absorb that.

James said: Politicians talk about how were going to be an outwardly trading nation. Hang on, our company already trades with Indonesia, Mexico, Singapore, the Philippines, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Thailand.

So where are all these new markets were suddenly going to get? We already trade with them.

All were doing is risking the ability to trade with the EU. I cant see any advantage to it at all for us.
Girls lag despite outnumbering boys in exams

In 2015, girls first outnumbered boys in the whole of school education including the Secondary Education Examinations. The trend is sure to continue at least over the next decade. Girl examinees were higher by 998 than boys in the year, which increased to 1,477 in 2016.
MBABANE  The swearing-in of new Lesotho Prime Minister Thomas Thabane before a croud of 20 000 people is an indication to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) that the people of Lesotho are ready for change.



This was part of the observations shared by Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini on his return from the inauguration of the new Lesotho prime minister held in Lesotho on Friday.



Addressing the media at the Ngwenya Border Gate, Dlamini said the overwhelming attendance and peaceful situation in Lesotho is testament of the fact that the elections held in that country had yielded the desired results.



Dlamini mentioned that not only was he representing Swaziland but he also had a message for the Basotho nation from His Majesty King Mswati III as the Chairman of SADC.



Firstly, the premier clearly stated that for the duration of his stay in Lesotho there had been peace.

This is despite fears of upheaval following the murder of new premiers wife Lipolelo Thabane, 58, who was shot on Wednesday night in a village near Maseru.



I was sent to assure the nation that Swaziland would support Lesotho - another kingdom - as well as assist the country as the SADC chair while the country formed its new government. He explained that currently, the country only had the premier in office and the rest of their government still needs to be formed.



Dlamini said the elections in Lesotho were a perfect example to the rest of SADC of how a peaceful election should be carried out, how it needs to be treated and how it should be accepted by the people.
MBABANE - Army Commander Lieutenant General Sobantu Dlamini is reportedly refusing to pay three dismissed soldiers a combined amount of about E20 million despite His Majesty King Mswati III having allegedly issued an order that the payment be effected.



The three, namely Nkosikayikhethi Nxumalo, Vusumuzi Hlatshwako and Mpendulo Mngometulu, were dismissed from the army for allegedly stealing fuel but were exonerated by the court after it ruled in their favour.



Nxumalo, Hlatshwako and Mngometulu want E6.5 million, E7.5 million and E5.8 million respectively, which includes salary payment from date of dismissal to the retirement age, pension payment from date of dismissal to the date of retirement age, constitutional damages and punitive damages for contempt of court/discrimination and unfair/constructive dismissal.



Nxumalo was to retire in November 2018; Mngometulu in June 2015; and Hlatshwako in February 2033.

The army commander is said to have refused to issue the payment, resulting in the trio approaching the Commander-in-Chief, His Majesty the King, through emissary (lincusa) Princess Gcebekile to report their predicament.



The other reason they approached the King is that Dlamini told them they had been dismissed from the army by His Majesty.

Nxumalo says he was present alongside Princess Gcebekile when they had an audience with the King, who ordered that they should be paid the money based on the court order and the retirement age.



Nxumalo said After Lieutenant General Sobantu Dlamini did not comply with the Royal Command, Princess Gcebekile returned to the King as Commander-in-Chief of the Umbutfo Swaziland Defence Force on January 5, 2016. This resulted in Deputy Army Commander Jeffrey Shabalala calling Lieutenant General Sobantu Dlamini to tell him that the King had ordered that we should be paid the full terminal benefits up to 60 years retirement age.
MBABANE  Formed in 1907, few would dispute that the Royal Swaziland Police Service is currently in its pathetic state ever in its 110 years of existence.



Challenged by this, it appears paralysed.

At the core of its weakness is the rot of individuals, which manifests itself in the form of corruption and committal of serious crimes.



Arguably, the police service leadership at all levels had struggled in confronting and eliminating this scourge of parasitism. As a result, tragically, the Royal Swaziland Police Services inflicted state of disintegration mirrors that of other security forces.

The citizens are fast losing confidence in the police service due to the massive scandals involving those who are given a rare privilege of safeguarding our safety.



Against this backdrop, whether highest ranking or junior, all law breaking police officers find themselves undergoing disciplinary hearings and are put in the dock on charges of corruption and subsequently expelled from the force if found guilty.



This is if the words of the Prime Minister (PM) Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini are anything to go by. The PM is the one who is in charge of the police service and is even referred to as the Minister of Police.



Speaking to the Times SUNDAY, the first man in command of His Majesty King Mswati IIIs government made it clear that all law breaking police officers would be brought to book. The pm said that the police service has a code of conduct, which all police officers are expected to abide by. If anyone breaks the laid down rules or law he/she is accordingly disciplined or made to appear before a court of law like any other offender, the premier said.
He always kept his beard neatly trimmed and his hair well groomed, not like those scruffy baby boomers you see nowadays with their pony tails and salt and pepper mats hanging over their stained tee-shirts and pot bellies.

Being of fair complexion I envied him his beard; I didnt start shaving until I was 47 years old.

Shortly after our arrival in PNG my friend grew a beard and let his hair grow long. Its a fashion that comes and goes but he has maintained it ever since.

I RECENTLY caught up with an old friend. We had gone to Papua New Guinea together as kiaps in 1967 but had known each other well before that.

It had been a few years since we had caught up and I was mildly shocked. I dont want to be too uncharitable but he looked vaguely like one of those wild-eyed and emaciated hermits that have just been dragged out of the cave theyve lived in for the last 100 years.

I didnt say anything but went home to look in the mirror. Normally I do that without my reading glasses but this time I decided to see what was really there. I wish I hadnt.

What I saw wasnt very pleasing. If I was a horror movie Id be R+-rated. There are wrinkles upon wrinkles and big brown sunspots galore.

How the hell did that happen I wondered?

I took a longer look. Ive always been reasonably lean but what flesh I used to have around my shoulders and chest now seems to have slipped down to accumulate around my navel to form a kind of fleshy balcony sheltering my nether regions. Handy for my insulin shots, I consoled myself, but aesthetically a disaster.

My plans to spend the summer swimming off our local beach might need a rethink. I wonder if its possible to buy flesh coloured swimming corsets for men.

I shouldnt have been surprised of course. Eighteen months earlier I had walked straight past another old friend at the airport.

He was also an ex-kiap. Luckily he recognised me. We sat down for a coffee in one of the airport cafes. Well, I had a coffee. He had a coffee and a plate of scones piled high with strawberry jam and cream.

This explained why he appeared about two tonnes heavier than when I had last seen him. But that wasnt all. His alluring native New Ireland colouring had somehow turned into something resembling one of those overcooked and blackened sausages you flip off the barbeque for the dog because no one else will eat it.

And something had happened to his hair, it had gone walkabout. That prodigious coiffure that he had spent hours teasing with fragrant coconut oil had abandoned ship.

The only thing familiar about my two old kiap friends, the wide-eyed hermit and the frizzled and bloated sausage was their conversation. Apart from the odd whinge about aches and pains and other unmentionable afflictions they were still talking just as they had when they were in their winsome twenties with the world at their feet.

Such irony.

I wonder why, in this gee-whizz, high tech world of infinite possibilities no one has invented trade-in bodies.

You know, you take your worn out carapace into the body shop, select a suitable replacement and wait for twenty minutes while they transfer your mind into the new model.

That would be something Id definitely buy.

Phil enters his seventieth year this day and we hope he manages to hold everything together for a while yet - KJ
Gyrocopter set to fly in Pokhara skies

Heli Air Nepal will soon be launching a gyrocopter, a one-passenger rotary-wing aircraft, for the first time in the skies of Pokhara, adding a new adventure tourism product in the lake city, the company said on Saturday.
Madhes forces in poll race

Two Madhes-based partiesthe Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum-Nepal and the Nepal Loktantrik Forumhave geared up their preparations for the second phase of local level elections in Kapilvastu district.
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By Philip Newman

ASTORIA  An Astoria man has been sentenced to more than three years in prison after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography, the Queens district attorney said.

A cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led to the arrest of Charles Flores, 23, according to Queens DA Richard Brown. Flores pleaded guilty in April to possession of a sexual performance by a child before Acting Queens Supreme Court Justice Gia Morris, who sentenced him to one to three years.

The defendant has now been sentenced to prison time for uploading and having thousands of images and videos of children  some as young as 5  being sexual abused by adults, Brown said. The defendant admitted when pleading guilty that his curiosity led to a sick obsession. Photos and videos of children being molested and abused are, for all intents and purposes, crime scene images.

Brown said that according to the charges, an NYPD detective got a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about a Google mail account that had uploaded two images possibly involving child exploitation. When interviewed by police, the defendant admitted that it was his email address and, during a forensic preview of Flores hard drive, investigators found 20 images of prepubescent children roughly between five and 12 being sexually abused by adult males, the DA said.

When he was arrested, the defendant told police he began seeking child pornography to help his girlfriend, according to Brown.

 Philip Newman
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Our restaurant reviewer, Susie Davidson Powell, says that no restaurant has been recommended to her more than Tara Kitchen in Schenectady. Now the Moroccan eatery has a new location in Troy.

Related: Readers tell us about the best new restaurants to open in 2016

From the review: "At the heart of Tara's dinner menu is the Moroccan tagine, stews slow cooked in traditional shallow-bottomed vessels with conical lids, also called tagines. Whether you peer through the storefront glass or sit framed behind the huge turquoise logo, you'll see a mob of cream-colored tagines steaming on the impressive, 12-burner range.

Moroccan cuisine is a powerful, multisensory feast, a blend of cultures, nomadic peoples and spice routes, of Berber tagine tradition touched by Spanish, Arab, desert Bedouin, Ottoman and French influence. Slow-simmered tagines explode with piquant flavors  the pestle-pounded 12 spices of ras-el-hanout, bitter salt-preserved lemons, fiery and pungent chile harissa. Fragrant and rich, spicy and sweet, tart and zesty, Moroccan condiments and sauces, like musical notes, are completely different when rearranged. And Tara's menu, overwhelming at first look, offers myriad suggestions and the chance to create your own." Read the complete review on tu+.

Click through the slideshow above for a closer look at Tara Kitchen II in Troy, and learn about a few other restaurants we've visited recently in Troy.
If you're a Capital Region resident, you probably pass one or two Stewart's Shops on your way to work without a second thought. It's a convenient stop for gas, milk, groceries, ice cream and more, and with more than 335 in upstate New York and Vermont, for many they are a big part of everyday life.

Related: From 2015: How Stewart's became our shop around the corner

But did you know Stewart's used to have a helicopter? In the 1950s, the company was looking for ways to grow their ice cream business. In 1958, the company purchased the helicopter for business travel as well as an advertising campaign. Earn 500 "Perky Points" from your purchases, and you could go up for a ride.

Click through the slideshow above for photos of the helicopter, and see how much Stewart's has changed through the years.








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Yokosuka, Japan

Navy divers found the bodies of missing sailors Sunday aboard the stricken USS Fitzgerald that collided with a container ship in the busy sea off Japan, the Navy said.

Searchers gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision and brought the remains to Naval Hospital Yokosuka where they will be identified, the Navy said in a statement. Seven sailors had been missing, but Yoko Kato, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy in Yokosuka, said not all seven were recovered.

She didn't say how many were found.

Japan's coast guard officials said the sea and air search was still continuing at the site of the collision.

The Navy said that the families were being notified and provided the support they need during "this difficult time." The names of the sailors will be released after all notifications are made.

Sixteen hours following the predawn Saturday collision, the damaged destroyer was pumping out water as it limped back to its home port in Yokosuka Naval Base south of Tokyo by sunset Saturday, its crew lined up on deck. The Philippine-flagged container ship was berthed at Tokyo's Oi wharf, where officials began questioning crew members about the cause of the crash.

At least three other crew members, including the captain, were injured in the crash, which damaged two berthing spaces, a machinery room and the radio room. Most of the more than 200 sailors aboard would have been asleep in their berths at the time of the collision.

It wasn't clear what caused the crash.

After helping stabilize the USS Fitzgerald, the destroyer USS Dewey joined other American and Japanese vessels and aircraft in the search for the missing sailors.

During the search, family members were frantically seeking news, appealing via social media for calls from sailors aboard the ship.

The USS Fitzgerald's captain, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, was airlifted early Saturday to the Yokosuka hospital and was in stable condition with a head injury, the Navy said. Two other crew members suffered cuts and bruises and were evacuated. It was unclear how many others may have been hurt.

The Navy said that the collision occurred 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, home to the 7th Fleet.

The Japanese coast guard said it received an emergency call from the container ship, the ACX Crystal, reporting the collision around 2:20 a.m. (17:20 GMT Friday). It was questioning crew members of the ACX Crystal, which is operated by the Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen K.K., and was treating the incident as a case of possible professional negligence, said Masayuki Obara, a regional coast guard official.

"Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families," President Donald Trump said on Twitter. "Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance."

The ACX Crystal weighs 29,060 tons and is 730 feet long, the coast guard said, much larger than the 8,315-ton Navy destroyer. The container ship's left bow was dented and scraped, but it did not appear to have sustained any major structural damage.

Nippon Yusen said all of the ACX Crystal's 20-member Filipino crew members were safe.

Conditions were clear at the time of the collision, though Yutaka Saito of the coast guard said the area is particularly busy with sea traffic.

The names of the missing sailors were being withheld pending notification of their families.
Malaysian arrested for flying drone without permission

A Malaysian national working for UNICEF has been arrested by police for flying drone in Dolakha headquarters Charikot without taking permission from the authorities.
The Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Dr Kieran OReilly, is to lead this years Famine 1848 Walk in Ballingarry.

The Walk takes places on Saturday, 29 July at 3pm. The Walk commemorates all those who suffered during the Great Famine: the million who died and the million who fled Ireland as refugees.

The Walk also remembers the attempt by William Smith OBrien, M.P., to stage a moral force revolution in 1848 in Ballingarry in response to the Famine.

The Walk starts at the Young Ireland 1848 and National Flag monument in the village of The Commons and finishes at Famine Warhouse 1848, the state national heritage site and visitor attraction.

The Walk covers a mile and a half of gently ascending ground and usually takes about forty-five minutes to complete. Those who do not feel like walking or are unable to walk are welcome to come and participate at the house museum, an important site in Irish national history.

Archbishop OReilly is well placed to speak on the theme of famine, emigration and refugees in the contemporary world as he is a member of the Society of African Missions.

At the beginning of his ministry he worked as a missionary priest in Monrovia in Liberia in West Africa. He also served in Nigeria. He was superior general of his order before being appointed Bishop of Killaloe in 2010. He succeeded to the archbishopric of Cashel and Emly in 2015. Archbishop OReilly will deliver the Walk leaders speech at the end of the Walk.

Famine Warhouse 1848 is an OPW site and a museum. The historical exhibition in the house tells the story of the great famine, rebellion and emigration in mid-nineteenth century Ireland in the context of 1848 as a momentous year in continental European history.

There is an audio-visual room and a tea-room where light refreshments will be served on the day. The site is in the hidden Ireland in the Slieveardagh hills but mid-way between the Rock of Cashel and Kilkenny City. It is close to the Tipperary border with Kilkenny and there are scenic and extensive views at 1,100 feet across Leinster.

The Walk, an annual act of witness and remembrance, is organised by the Ballingarry 1848 Historical Society and is now in its eleventh year. It has become a great occasion attracting national and international visitors. All are welcome. It takes place whether it rains or it shines.

Participants are advised to be prepared for changeable Irish weather conditions and to bring both a sun hat and an umbrella.

On Sunday, 30 July, in the tea room in the afternoon, there will be music and readings of prose and poetry on the Famine and Young Ireland.

The music will be by Ballingarrys contemporary trad group, the Mangled Badgers. There will also be guided tours explaining what happened at the house in 1848.

The state National Famine Commemoration will take place at Famine Warhouse 1848 on 30 September this year.
The search is on to find the home of the best pint in the county and the Tipperary Star is calling on the public to get voting in our online poll for their all time favourite.

A quick shout out last week on social media to nominate the deserving publican who pours the best pint had hundreds of nominations flow in to our office by email, twitter, Facebook and even a handwritten love note or two.

From there the tedious task of drawing up a shortlist of entries began to take place and now the Tipperary Star is once more opening the question to the public - where can the best pint in the county be found?

Remember every vote counts so make sure to share (and share again) on social media and get as much support behind your favourite local, pub, bar, saloon, tavern or watering hole as you can and make sure they can officially lay claim to the top honour.

Can you pint us in the right direction? Happy voting!
[June 18, 2017] The Eco Forum Global Symposium 2017 Kicks Off in Guiyang

GUIYANG, China, June 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 17, the Eco Forum Global Symposium 2017 opened in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province, organized by the provincial government and its main media partner, Huanqiu.com. More than 400 businesspeople, politicians, and academics participated in the forum to discuss how to build a pilot eco-civilization zone; more specifically, to enter a new era of eco-civilization in an innovation-driven and evidence-based manner. The theme for this year's annual conference is "Embracing the New Era of Eco-Civilization and Let Green Growth Benefit All," and its major topic is on building a pilot eco-civilization zone. Guizhou was approved to establish a national pilot eco-civilization zone in 2016, making itself a platform of China's reform for promoting ecological progress. Guizhou deeply implements the concept of "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" and makes eco elements and resources available to society as a whole. Nowadays, the eco-practices in Guizhou reflect the concept of "Green Advance, Gren Lead and Green Growth".



As one of the major media partners in this global symposium, Huanqiu.com was established under the approval of People's Daily and the State Council Information Office and funded by People.com.cn and the Global Times. As a centralized network of comprehensive news media, Huanqiu.com strives for timely, objective and independent coverage and analysis of news and information at home and abroad. We are the preferred source of news and information for national as well as foreign media. Huanqiu.com is the provider for original bilingual contents online, the professional issuance agency for foreign games, and China's most influential bilingual Chinese-English news portal. During the Forum, our accredited correspondents will report in the forms of image-text, video, new media and the like.

Chen Min'er, the Communist Party Secretary of Guizhou province and Chairman of the Standing Committee of its People's Congress, said in an interview with Huanqiu.com that ecology is key to culture, and it is Guizhou's glory and responsibility to accomplish the strategic goal assigned by the CPC Central Committee of building this national pilot eco-civilization zone. In the meanwhile, Chen mentioned that the reform will carry out by focusing on the construction of green barriers to promote green development and ecological poverty alleviation, strengthen the rule of law protection, and deepen communication and cooperation. The establishment of this pilot zone will make the colorful Guizhou pay more attention to its natural resources, environment, eco-civilization and cultural civilization. Sir John Leslie Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, foreign president of the Eco Forum Global Guiyang Symposium 2017 International Consulting Committee and president of the EU Environment Council, told Huanqiu.com that the existing global framework cannot assure the accomplishment of a shared development, and it is unacceptable and unsustainable to let the economic and social gap between low-income developing and high-income developed countries grow widen. "Just like Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement, we could also formulate a Guiyang Agreement, which will make us more confident to address climate change and help us to reach an international agreement," said Sir Prescott. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-eco-forum-global-symposium-2017-kicks-off-in-guiyang-300475577.html SOURCE Huanqiu.com

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Meditate on this

This is what a Tibetan guru has said about modern education, The development of compassion is what is missing from schools today. Perhaps teachers are not compassionate, or maybe students are not compassionate either.
Kansas City Neighborhood History

Glen Airy Place tucked away in North Hyde Park Fewer than a dozen homes lined what was once known as Glen Airy Place in the North Hyde Park neighborhood, but the street still retains a tucked-away quality that sets it apart from other streets around it. Reader Dale Ealey recently asked what history is known about this unique block.

Kansas City Damage Report

Power outages and damage reported in Saturday night's storms Severe thunderstorms hit the Kansas City metro Saturday night. Several reports of power lines and trees down were reported throughout the metro. The National Weather Service tweeted out that they had gotten reports of 65-75 mph winds. We are getting reports of 70-75 mph winds across the KC Metro right now.

Golden Ghetto Close-Call

Four people using portable generator treated for CO poisoning in Olathe OLATHE, Kan. -- Four people are being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning after using a portable generator in Olathe on Saturday. Firefighters responded to a medical call near Weaver and Oak Streets just after 7 p.m. Emergency personnel found four patients who were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Show-Me Cruelty

Missouri Ranks Among Nation's Worst in Supporting Family Caregivers (Kansas City) -- Forty-seventh. That's where Missouri ranks nationwide in providing assistance to family caregivers. The finding appears in the Long-Term Services and Supports State Scorecard, which ranks states on how they're doing to create a high-performing system of care for older people and adults with disabilities - and those who assist them.

Home Team Stays Losing

Royals' winning streak snapped with 9-0 loss to Angels | FOX Sports ANAHEIM, Calif. - Albert Pujols, Cameron Maybin and Luis Valbuena each homered and Alex Meyer dominated for six innings as part of a two-hitter, helping the Los Angeles Angels beat Kansas City 9-0 on Saturday to snap the Royals' six-game winning streak.

Angelicand another look at Kansas City morning links. Take a peek:And this is
Nepse plunges nearly 26 points

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) plunged 25.6 points to close at 1,589.59 points last week, as investors declined to purchase shares amid the uncertainty of holding the second phase of local election on prescribed time.
GIVEN THAT THERE'S NO NEW PLAN TO STOP LOCAL VIOLENCE, LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT ALL THE KANSAS CITY IDEAS TO STOP VIOLENCE THAT WON'T WORK!!!

Spy Cams Won't Stop Kansas City Killing

Candles Don't Deflect KCMO Gunfire

Pizza Won't Prevent Local Murder

The KC Streetcar Isn't Bullet Proof

Kansas City Gun Control Is A Losing Cause

After the rain cleared in Kansas City last night, the shooting started.There's was a spate of gunfire that police and media are still counting up this morning. The unofficial body count in Kansas City so far is anywhere from 63-65 withand two more near fatal shootings last night.To wit . . .Here's a quick run-down of what this town has tried so far. Take a look:This week there has been a lot of bragging about new tech andSadly, other cities across the globe that have invested in these new toys haven't seen much of an impact to their crime stats, just a more cost in storing data and managing all of the inevitable conflicts that arise from so much public spying.We're right in the middle of the tragic "season of vigils" and every year the claims of city-sponsored activists grow even more bold as they compete for funding and become the political mouthpieces of local politics who pull their purse strings.have started yet again and while media is remarkably uncritical of this mostly useless program, the effect on curbing youth violence is negligible while a Summer of taxpayer subsidized parties nearly always ends with trouble and a near riot.There's a theory in Kansas City that rail transit solves nearly every social ill of the urban core. However, that idea is only backed up by tax breaks for developers, lawyers and consultants who will say and dofor their next check.The proof of a downtown renaissance beyond social media hype is hard to find and bringing this scam to the Plaza promises more of the same in addition to increased danger from a rougher cross-section of KCMO riding the rail line.For the past few yearsThe reality is that blaming guns for crime is a losing battle and denying 2nd Amendment protections to locals in the urban core might simply spark even more violence.Sadly . . .The reality is that Kansas City's elected officials are more focused on the local development game as election season nears and winning political office courtesy of donations becomes far more critical than the rapidly increasing rate of local killing.You decide . . .
It is my hope that it will happen from autumn 2017 or spring 2018 that foreign investors will lend their money to Greece.

Greece could return to the markets between autumn this year and spring 2018, Thomas Wieser, the head of the EuroWorking Group (EWG), told Austrian radio station ORF on Saturday.

Greece could return to the markets soon, he was quoted as saying. It is my hope that it will happen from autumn 2017 or spring 2018 that foreign investors will lend their money to Greece.

Wieser said subject to proper handling and good economic policy this will be possible, noting that Greece would initially pay in the markets certain risk premiums and should accept shorter repayment times but he is very optimistic.

He also said he expects talks on debt relief measures to start in mid-2018. Theres political will to look at the framework of relief at the end of the program and if it is necessary to provide the agreed relief.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Source: ANA-MPA
Thessaloniki mayor Yiannis Boutaris hailed the event and marched along with the LGBTQI community and its supporters

More than 13,000 people participated in the 2017 Thessaloniki Pride parade, which concluded this year's festival held over four days, with the slogan "It's a matter of education".

Participants gathered at the city's emblematic White Tower and marched through the main streets, returning again to the original rallying point. Organizers said participation this year greatly exceeded that of 2016.

Thessaloniki mayor Yiannis Boutaris hailed the event and marched along with the LGBTQI community and its supporters. Several lawmakers were also present.

A small-scale scuffle broke out when the parade had reached Tsimiski road, when a group of about 25 people tried to prevent participants from passing through, but they were pushed back by police.

The festival will close with a live gig by the Greek band Veggas.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Zweifussler License: CC-BY-SA
Astir Palace Vouliagmenis S.A. in Athens, Greece announced that Polychronis Griveas stepped down as the companys Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and has been replaced by Jeffrey Macdonald.

The company would like to thank Mr. Griveas for his 10-year contribution to a wide range of corporate issues and for ensuring the smooth running of the company, both on business and strategic issues, an announcement by Astir Palace Vouliagmenis noted and added. In addition, his participation in the completion of the transfer of the companys shares and in the subsequent write-off procedure from the Athens Stock Exchange has proved decisive.

During his successful career, the companys new CEO, Jeffrey Macdonald, has 20 years of international experience in the field of tourism and real estate development. During his career, Macdonald held senior management positions in real estate development companies both in Greece and abroad, such as Ikos Development (a subsidiary of Oaktree Capital), Libra Group, Emaar Properties and Lamda Development.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Greece and Cyprus can expect more tourists in the following at least three years after the deal TUI UK and BookYourWeddingDay.com signed

AYIA NAPA, Cyprus  Cyprus expects to hit another record number of tourists this year, with visits to the east Mediterranean island expected to increase 5 percent over last year, according to The Associated Press.

Cyprus Tourism Organization Chairman Angelos Loizou says thats on top of a record-setting 2016, which saw almost 3.2 million holidaymakers arrive. He told The Associated Press on Thursday that the tourism industry contributes more than 20 percent of the countrys 17.6 billion-euro ($18.5 billion) economy.

Moreover, Greece and Cyprus can expect more tourists in the following at least three years after the deal TUI UK and BookYourWeddingDay.com signed. People from the USA, China and Europe are visiting Greece to get married in one of the beautiful islands.

The most popular destinations are Santorini, Mykonos, Paros, Skiathos, Corfu etc.

The deal is for three years starting March 1st 2017.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Tourexpi, turizm haberleri, Reiseburos, tourism news, noticias de turismo, Tourismus Nachrichten,  , travel tourism news, international tourism news, Urlaub, urlaub in der turkei,  , holidays in Turkey,   , global tourism news, dunya turizm, dunya turizm haberleri, Seyahat Acentas,

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The Turkish subsidiary of Russias nuclear energy company Rusatom plans to launch its project to build the first nuclear power plant (NPP) in Turkey next year, Russian news agency Tass reported, citing a statement from the Rosatom State Nuclear Corporation.



Russia and Turkey signed an inter-governmental agreement in 2010 on cooperation in the construction and operation of Turkeys first NPP. The $20-billion Akkuyu NPP project stipulates building four power units with VVER-1200 reactors and a total capacity of 4,800 MW in the southern Turkish province of Mersin. The plant is estimated to meet around 6-7 per cent of Turkey's electricity demand.



The project is carried out by Akkuyu Nuclear Company, a subsidiary of Rosatom Energy International, which was granted a 49-year-long electricity generation license from the Turkish Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) on Thursday.



"After carefully reviewing the bid, the EPDK managing council decided to give the green light to the bid and issued a power generation license to Akkuyu Nuclear Company, valid until June 15, 2066 (49 years)," Rosatom said in a statement.



Akkuyu Nuclear also expects to obtain permissions from the Ministry of Forest and Water Management, the Ministry of Finance and the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEK) this summer. Those permissions will enable Akkuyu Nuclear to start the construction of auxiliary facilities and other sections of the nuclear power plant not directly related to nuclear power generation.



Main construction works, however, are expected to begin in March 2018, after Rosatom receives the main license.



"In line with the intergovernmental agreement, the first unit is to be put on stream no later than seven years after the Turkish side issues all required permissions," Rosatom said.
Doha failed to adhere to repeated requests, sent out in 2013 and 2014, to end its support of terrorism and extremism, and involvement in conflicts in the region, said Arabia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, according to a media report.



He said the decision taken by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt to sever ties with Doha was taken to send a message to Doha, WAM, the Emirates news agency added, citing the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).



"We consider Qatar an ally in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), countries and we do not seek to harm Qatari citizens, but the current situation must be corrected. Doha cannot continue its current policy and must stop financing terrorism, Al-Jubeir said.



He said that he was going to address and explain to the Qataris all the points led to the current diplomatic crisis, hoping that Doha would address these issues.



He highlighted that Saudi Arabia's hosting of the historic Arab Islamic American Summit brought together the US and a number of Muslim and Arab countries with the aim of better dialogue between Arab and Islamic countries and their counterparts in the West.



The GCC countries have partnered with the US in the fight against the financing of terrorism, a move that is of great importance in the efforts to drain the sources of funding of terrorist organisations and extremist groups all, Al-Jubeir added.



The minister also referred to the situation in Yemen, where expressed the Kingdom's concern on the siege imposed by Houthi groups in some areas, causing famine and hindering the arrival of medical and food aid, the report said.



He pointed out that the coalition forces are working to lift the siege and reach the needy as soon as possible.



According to Al-Jubeir, the Saudi government has allocated $800 million to address the crisis through the King Salman Centre for Relief and Humanitarian Aid.



He explained that the Kingdom hosted a reconstruction conference in Yemen in cooperation with the World Bank and allocated over $10 billion for these efforts.



Al-Jubeir said that the end of the Syrian crisis would be attained via a political solution in accordance with the First Geneva Declaration and the UNSC Resolution No. 2254.



The minister reiterated Saudi Arabia's commitment to fighting and defeating Daesh in Syria and throughout the world.



He also reiterated the support of the Kingdom for steps taken by the Iraqi government to fight against the terrorist organisation and welcomed Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi who will visit Saudi Arabia next Monday to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries and ways to develop them.



The Saudi foreign minister also highlighted that the Iranian regime continues to ignite violence by intervening in the affairs of various countries in the region, supporting terrorist groups in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, and planting Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Syria and Iraq in blatant violation of international laws and norms.



He said that Iran should act as a committed state if it wanted to return to the international community, should halt its aggressive actions and support of militias. He expressed his pessimism concerning the regime in Tehran changing its approach to regional and international affairs.



As for Libya, Al-Jubeir explained that the Kingdom is coordinating with its international partners to restore the country's stability and not to allow the spread of terrorism in Libya and Africa.
The Estee Lauder Companies has announced that it has made a key investment in Deciem, a fast-growing, vertically integrated Canadian multi-brand company, driven by a consumer-centric focus that is already impacting the world of beauty.



Deciem was founded in 2013 in Toronto, Ontario by Brandon Truaxe, who leads the company alongside co-chief executive Nicola Kilner.



Deciems innovative multi-brand strategy is propelled by a vertically integrated structure - with its own laboratory, manufacturing, e-commerce sites, retail stores and marketing infrastructure - that enables the company to rapidly identify opportunities, create and incubate new brands, and deliver quality, much-sought-after products.



The company has launched ten brands to date - including international cult favorite The Ordinary, an evolving collection of skin care treatments offering familiar and effective ingredients at accessible prices, and NIOD, an ingredients-driven skincare brand focused on addressing the root causes of aging, said Truaxe.



Its nearly unthinkable for a conglomerate to embrace a disruptive mindset like that of Deciem  and yet we have felt like family from the very first day we met the loving team at The Estee Lauder Companies, he stated.



With a vibrant following among millennials and diverse consumers seeking functional beauty grounded in science, Deciem offers a broad range of products across price points through its own multi-brand stores, department stores, e-commerce, TV shopping networks and select retailers, primarily in the US, UK and Canada.



On its key investment, Fabrizio Freda, the president and chief executive of The Estee Lauder Companies: "In four short years, Brandon and Nicola have established, in Deciem, a powerful engine of innovation and growth. Through its unique business model, Deciem has produced some of the most creative independent brands on the market, capturing the passion and trust of devoted fans around the world  and they are just getting started."



"We look forward to engaging with the team and supporting their global growth aspirations, stated Freda.



Deciem is a new kind of beauty company that is well-positioned to create a new generation of successful beauty brands, said William P. Lauder, the executive chairman.



Brandon is the quintessential founder and entrepreneur who, as Estee Lauder exemplified, is willing to take risks, push the boundaries of beauty, and fearlessly pursue a bold vision. We are excited by Deciems great potential and the opportunity to be part of its future," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Nomination day: UML cadre dies in a clash with NC in Bajura

CPN-UML cadre Hansa Rawat died when cadres of UML and Nepali Congress clashed at Cheddaha Village Council in Bajura district on Sunday.
Buyers are welcome to inspect all of our furniture prior to bidding.

Product Information

6 Drawer Chest/Lowboy Plus 2 Bedside Table / Cabinet

Made of New Zealand pine.

Stylish handles with a vinyl and metal finish.

All the panels including the back and drawer bottoms are made of timber with no MDF or particle board used.

Heavy duty metal runners on all the drawers ensure smoothness of operation and added strength

The runners extend the drawer fully out eliminating dead space at the back of the drawer.

The back panel is made of timber

Overall Lowboy Dimensions: Width: 1380mm Depth: 450mm Height: 820mm

Cubic metres: 0.51m3

Overall Bedside Cabinet Dimensions (per cabinet): Width: 530mm Depth: 450mm Height: 660mm

Cubic metres: 0.15m3 (per cabinet)

Local or National delivery is no problem. We are happy to provide a quote for delivery to your particular area.

We can also provide delivery to Rural areas (additional fee is required), please let us know your address and we can provide a quote for you.

We can usually combine shipping on multiple purchases. Please ask us for details.

We can make delivery arrangements nationwide. This includes to rural areas although this may cost more. Please ask us for a quote to your area if it does not appear in our delivery options.

To see more photos and information, please Google "Mainland Furniture"

You are very welcome to come and inspect our items prior to bidding. We are open 10am-5pm Monday to Friday and 10am-4pm Saturday and Sunday. Everything is on display.

For more than 10 years we have been bringing quality furniture at great prices to our happy customers around New Zealand. All our sales are covered by the Consumer Guarantees Act. Please review our positive feedback.
Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.
Police detain 2 Kanchanpur journos

Police arrested two journalists, Khem Bhandari and G Bhatta (editor and executive editor of Manaskhanda Dainik which publishes from Mahendranagar) on charge of public offence on Saturday.
Divya Sharma

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 17

It seems that there is no check on the use of plastic carry bags in the city as residents and shopkeepers continue to use these bags.

Last year in April, the then Parkash Singh Badal-led government banned the use and sale of plastic carry bags.

As per the notification, non-bio degradable plastic carry bags or containers, including items made from thermocol, have been banned under Section 7 of the Punjab Plastic Carry Bag Act.

Municipal Corporation Commissioners and Executive Officers (EOs) in Municipal Councils or Nagar Panchayats were nominated for the purpose of lodging complaints regarding the violation of orders as per the instruction.

A random visit to the city on Saturday revealed the unregulated use of banned material across the city.

From vegetable vendors to highend stores, everyone is using the banned plastic bags to help the customers in carrying the purchased material, especially vegetable vendors in the city. Most of the violators were caught unaware of the harmful effects and the ban on plastic bags.

Ram Prasad, a vegetable vendor, said, There is no alternative to these bags. These bags are easy to carry for me as well as for my customers.

I had no idea that the plastic bags have been banned by the authorities and are harmful. Moreover, the alternative of the plastic bags is costly, added Prasad when asked about the ban imposed on the use plastic bags.

Not only vegetable vendors but various shops owners in various commercial markets have not refrained from using the non-biodegradable.

Pointing at the collective responsibility of both residents as well authorities, Anita Sharma, a school teacher said, The government and residents will have to step forward to ensure the implementation of the ban.

Urging the people to come forward for the effective implementation of the ban, MC Joint Commissioner Sorabh Arora said, We urge the people to come forward and not to use the plastic bags. If possible, they should try to carry their own bags. We will be organising drives to distribute eco-friendly jute bags at free of cost in the city.
NN Vohra

AMONG the factors which have contributed to the failures of governance in the past years: the foremost is corruption which has spread unchecked and presently permeates all levels of functioning. The continuation of corrupt and unlawful practices has resulted in seriously damaging the capability and credibility of the institutions of governance. It is a matter for grave concern that in many States it has virtually become a practice for pliant officers of doubtful integrity being handpicked on considerations of caste, community or political affiliations and assigned to lucrative posts for gathering funds for their political masters. Resultantly, the best available public servants are perhaps not even considered for manning important posts in the administrative system. This phenomenon has bred frustration and demotivation among the competent and upright elements in the various cadres, all over the country.

Day-to-day political interference in the functioning of the governmental machinery has generated indiscipline and unaccountability. Resultantly, it has become growingly difficult for the common man to get any work done without paying bribes and this has led to the common man losing trust in the functioning of the administrative system.

The incessant interference in the functioning of police organisations has led to serious damage being caused to the morale, discipline and professionalism of the constabularies. A grave consequence of this situation has been the progressive deterioration in the maintenance of public order, open defiance of the law, and increase in the incidence of varied serious crimes.

Criminal systems

The past decades have witnessed the growing phenomenon of criminal elements enjoying the protection of politicians in power and a threatening nexus developing between unprincipled public servants, corrupt politicians and organised crime and mafia networks in the country. Side by side, while several major scams and scandals have continued to remain under investigation for decades none of the alleged offenders have so far been brought to book. This is perhaps because the CBI and CVC, the apex central agencies responsible for dealing with corruption among public servants, are no longer looked upon as professional agencies which are capable of resisting political pressures and extra-legal influences. This has rightly led to the general belief that the rich and those who hold high positions are not answerable to the laws of the land.

It is indeed a sad failure that successive governments at the Centre have not as yet succeeded in establishing an effective law to curb corruption in the highest echelons, including at the level of the Prime Minister. After decades of discussion, the country is still awaiting the appointment of the first Lokpal.

Time has come for leaders of all political parties, particularly those who wield power at the Centre and in the States, to recognise that the continuance of corruption shall damage and weaken the administrative and legal framework to the extent of threatening the very foundations of our polity and society and thus endangering the unity and integrity of the country.

The rule of law cannot be enforced unless the criminal justice system functions with speed, efficiency and fairness. Unfortunately, we have failed on this front. It has been reported that well over 3 crore cases are pending trials, of which nearly 2 crore relate to criminal offences. Because of the virtual collapse of the justice system, the offenders get discharged for want of evidence, after awaiting trials for years and there has been a worrisome decline in the conviction rates of the criminal cases put to trial. It is a matter for even greater concern that, besides the failures arising from infrastructural deficiencies, the judicial apparatus has been also facing complaints which reflect on its competence and integrity and, in the past years, members of the superior judiciary, even up to the level of the Chief Justice of India, have been the subject of serious allegations.

We also face serious challenges in regard to the management of national security. For the past several decades now, adversary external agencies and international terrorist groups have been continuing with their determined activities to subvert and destabilise India by spreading religious fundamentalism, inciting conflicts and perpetrating violence and killings. It is important that the highest attention is paid to ensure that there is no gap or deficiency whatsoever in the effective preservation of the country's territorial integrity.

Safeguarding national security

Even after the terror attacks in Mumbai, on our Parliament and, more recently, on the Air Force Base in Pathankot, we are still in the process of establishing the required country wide apparatus which would have the capability of effectively safeguarding national security. Also, the required steps have still to be taken for securing firm and clear understandings between the Centre and the States for enacting a comprehensive federal law for establishing a fully empowered central agency which can take immediate cognisance and promptly investigate a terror attack which may take place at any time, anywhere in the country, without precious time having to be lost in securing multiple clearances.

It is of crucial importance, particularly at the current juncture, for the Centre and the States to join hands for working most closely together and tackling all major pending tasks for building a strong and vibrant India. In working towards such a goal, the very first steps required would relate to speedily de-politicising the entire administrative apparatus, curbing corruption, fearlessly enforcing the rule of law, ensuring impregnable national security management and creating a country-wide environment for re-energising, enlarging and strengthening the vital institutions of governance.

While the poverty ratios in our country have been progressively declining, about one-fifth of our population is still living below the international poverty line and, considering the large size of our population, the current level of unemployment is cause for serious concern. Even when the per capita incomes have marked a near ten-fold increase we have still not achieved the requisite headway in securing meaningful reduction in inequality. As reported, 1 per cent of the richest in our country are reported to own nearly 60 per cent of the total national wealth of which only 2 per cent is owned by the entire bottom half of the population.

It is, however, a matter for great pride that today we are amongst the leading exporters of food commodities while, in the earlier years, we were almost entirely dependent on imported food grains. The corpus of our scientific and technical manpower is the second largest in the world and India is among the top in the arena of nuclear power and space technology. As an industrial power we do not stand very high, but India has the distinction of achieving the fastest growth among the major world economies. Another of our notable achievements is that in the past seven decades democracy has got deeply rooted in our country and despite adverse geo-political factors and influences in our neighbourhood and beyond, our democratic institutions are firmly established. At our last General Elections in 2014, no less than 66 per cent of the country's 834 million voters turned out to participate in the polls.

Reducing inequality

In looking towards the future we need to recognise that among the most daunting challenges facing us is to reduce inequality without losing any more time. The continuance of social and economic inequalities could unleash confrontations and conflicts which could trigger chaos and disorder across the country. For this reason alone it is of vital importance to ensure that the administrative system, all over the country, functions in a manner which ensures against any injustice being done to our people, particularly to those who belong to the disadvantaged segments of our society and are already suffering.

Another cause for concern relates to the wanton manner in which rights and liberties are sought to be exercised in our country. This trend must not continue. It is also essential that our citizenry remains duly conscious of its obligations and duties to the nation. Side by side, it would be beneficial for the Central and State governments to take sustained initiatives for promoting an environment which imbues our people with values founded in equality and secularism and respect for the diversity of our numerous and far spread communities. For this purpose we shall need to make conscious efforts to learn, understand and appreciate the diversities of our various communities in regard to their views, beliefs, cultural practices, customs and habits.

Already, in several parts of the country, community relations are being disturbed and disrupted by growing caste and religious divisiveness. This is resulting in time-honoured socio-cultural traditions and practices being questioned with unjustifiable aggressivity, leading to inter-community clashes and violence. While we may be rightly proud of our civilisational past and repeatedly keep reminding the world that the people of India are multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-lingual, it is cause for considerable anxiety that our tolerance levels and traditional sensitivity to differing views and beliefs are witnessing erosion.

It is also necessary to devote due and timely attention to the upcoming generation. If we are to benefit from the youthful demographic profile of our large population it is essential that gainful opportunities are provided to our youth and all required steps are taken to ensure against their energies being exploited for generating disharmony or causing disruption. For this reason alone, it is essential to ensure against there being any failure in providing clean, prompt and efficient governance which is aimed at achieving inclusive and equitable human, social and economic development to rapidly promote the welfare of all our people, in every part of the country.

Efficient delivery of services

It would be useful to keep in mind that meaningful governance can be provided if all the public services cadres, across the entire country, ensure efficient delivery of services and secure timely implementation of the nation-wide schemes and programmes which are aimed at poverty alleviation and removal of illiteracy and provision of employment, safe water, food, shelter and health care to all our people. These crucial goals cannot be achieved unless the entire administrative machinery functions with total commitment, efficiency and visible accountability.

If the country has to be liberated from corruption, maladministration and misgovernance, the political executive shall needs to accept its responsibility, assume leadership and play a visibly proactive role in promoting productive governance. It would no longer do to attribute all our failures, on various fronts, merely to the deficiencies of the bureaucracy.

In conclusion, let it be said that we do not have the luxury of waiting endlessly for reforming the governance of the country. If we have to move forward and achieve the goal of eradicating inequality and discrimination and for all our people to become free from want and fear of any kind, then the entire administrative apparatus, effectively and honestly led by the political executive, shall need to perform with efficiency, speed and accountability, all over the country.

Excerpted from the first B K Nehru Memorial Lecture delivered by NN Vohra, Governor of J&K, at CRRID, Chandigarh, on June 10.
Washington, June 18

US Vice President Mike Pence has lauded the Sikhs' contribution, saying the community should continue to give back by serving in the military and public offices at local, state and federal levels.

Pence, 58, said the community's "issues" were close to his heart and he was aware of them.

"Sikhs Community and its issues are always close to my heart and I always admire the contribution of Sikhs in Indiana and across the United States," Pence told a Sikh delegation in Indianapolis.

"I am fully aware of Sikh awareness issues since me days as Governor," Pence told Sikhs Political Action Committee (SikhsPAC) led by Gurinder Singh Khalsa.

Main topic of discussion with the delegation was Sikh awareness and introduction of Sikh History in public history curriculum through federal department of education.

During the meeting, Pence reaffirmed his commitment to Sikh community and encouraged it to continue to give back in the form of serving in the military and public offices at local, state and federal level, it said.

Early this week, Khalsa visited Washington DC and met about two dozen US Senator and Congressmen.

He also attended US Global Leadership Collision where about 500 world faith leaders, veterans and elected leaders participated to influence the American foreign aid policies.

Pence was the first sitting Governor who attended Sikh Parade and bestowed highest Civil award to a Sikh in 2015.

The US state of Indiana has passed a resolution recognising Sikhs' "significant contributions" to America.

Hate-crime incidents against Sikhs have seen a spurt in in America recently.

A 39-year-old Sikh man was shot in the arm outside his home in Kent, Washington, in March by a partially-masked gunman who shouted "go back to your own country".

Earlier, Indian-origin convenience store owner Harnish Patel, 43, of Lancaster in South Carolina was found dead of gunshot wounds in his yard in the same month. PTI
KASHMIR is losing the count of its dead as the ongoing conflict enters a dangerous and audacious phase. Last week saw a spurt in killings and an unusual happening: politicians skipping the funeral prayers of policemen dying in the line of duty. The massacre of six policemen in an ambush on Friday evening in the Acchabal area of Anantnag district, within hours of the killing of Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Junaid Mattoo, delivered a message to the security forces that militants would retaliate instantly and fiercely to avenge the killing of their colleagues. This is not the first time policemen have been ambushed, but the latest killings have created a scary environment. The all-pervasive thought ruling the Valley is that the enemy wears the uniform. This has propelled new challenges for the state police, already under pressure from the conflict between the prevailing pro-militant sentiment and the call of duty.

The task is getting tougher as the hostility towards them is no less than that towards other uniformed forces. Political support, too, is not discernible as most politicians have chosen to stay away from their funeral prayers. That has not gone down well with the families of the slain policemen, even though politicians decision could have been influenced by security concerns. Immediately after the Acchabal atrocity, militants mounted another attack on the security forces camps in Bijebhra, Anantnag, on Saturday. The militants have shown their capacity to strike anywhere and anytime.

Also, a nexus of militants and stone-throwers has surfaced at encounter sites. Security forces view them as disrupters of operations and enemies like the holed-up militants, while the locals sympathetic to the idea of separatism see them as innocent protesters under attack from the Indian forces that have declared a war on the people of Kashmir. Such emotional bonding is unprecedented in Kashmir. The locals connect with militants and disconnect with the state police is a new and dangerous phenomenon. Things are bad and are likely to worsen because there is no counter to the prevailing sentiment and violence in Kashmir.
Prez: Step up efforts for nature conservation

President Bidya Devi Bhandari has called on the international organisations working for nature conservation to make an effort in minimising damages caused by earthquakes and other forms of natural disasters in countries like Nepal.
Tribune News Service

Ambala, June 18

Rajya Sabha MP Kumari Selja today said she would sit on a dharna in Ambala on June 24 in support of farmers. She criticised the BJP government for ignoring farmers demands.

Selja, while speaking with mediapersons here, said, Farmers are in a poor condition. During the UPAs regime farmers used to get remunerative prices for their produce but now farmers are forced to throw their crops on roads. According to a report, 30 per cent farmers in India now fall in the BPL category.

There is no coordination between MLAs and ministers of the BJP. Corruption has increased and law and order has deteriorated. Even ministers and MLAs are not safe in the state. A CBI inquiry should he ordered to know the reasons behind the incidents with BJP MLAs and ministers, she added.
Tribune News Service

Shimla, June 18

Infighting within the Congress and visible absence of its cadre to drum up support for the party backed candidates cost the ruling party six seats that gave an additional advantage to the BJP-backed candidates in the MC polls.

According to Congress workers, BJP won six seats just because of infighting in Congress over the choice of party-backed candidates in Chhota Shimla, Engine Ghar, Krishna Nagar (SC reserved), Benmore, Panthaghati, while the party cadre and pro-party supporters ditched its candidates in Kangna Dhar and Pateog, splitting votes favouring the BJP and CPM-backed candidates.

Congress-backed candidate Seema Chauhan, wife of two-time councillor Surender Chauhan lost to BJP-backed Vidushi due to the presence of a Congress rebel who dented the Congress votebank in the Chhota Shimla ward.
Our Correspondent

Palampur, June 18

Union Minister Shreepad Nayak today laid the foundation stone of Gau Sadan being built by Himalayan Institute of Yoga and Naturopathy.

Speaking to mediapersons, the Union Minister said that special emphasis would be laid on reviving the ayurveda system of medicines. He said a plan had been prepared by the Centre to develop naturopathy and yoga in the country.

He said the ministry had planned to develop yoga and naturopathy in public private partnership (PPP) mode under the supervision of the Government of India. He urged self help groups and NGOs to join hands with the ministry to serve the cause.

The Union Minister praised BJP leader Shanta Kumar in setting up Himalayan Institute of Yoga and Naturopathy. He assured full support to the institute and suggested its expansion. Speaking on the occasion Shanta Kumar said Vivekananda Medical Research Trust was established in 1992 with Re one, when he was chief minister of the state. Today it has a naturopathy and yoga centre and super-specialty hospital, which provides medical services at reasonable prices. He said the trust would also set up a heart care centre at Palampur.
Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, June 18

The state has performed poorly under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) scheme from 2012-13 to 2016-17. The state is already grappling to complete the sanctioned works.

During the current year (2017-18), no expenditure on maintenance of road works was made against the required funds of Rs 6.54 crore.

The information was given out at the PMGSY regional review meeting in Shimla on June 1 and 2. The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Rajesh Bhushan, joint secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, and Director General, National Rural Roads Development Agency.

Sources claimed that the national quality monitors, during their inspection, had reported that about 19.54 per cent of the works in J&K were not maintained properly. The Ministry of Rural Development admitted that the maintenance of rural roads was a cause for concern in J&K.

Sources said J&K was directed to closely monitor the availability of funds vis-a-vis the expenditure on maintenance to ensure that the road network was maintained to the desired service levels.

The ministry pointed out that 26 projects in J&K were not inspected by the state quality monitors but the payment was made to the contractors. Further, the state did not establish field labs for road works.

As against the annual target, of the total 746 inspections, which are to be made by the state quality monitors in J&K, only 621 inspections had been made till now.

The Ministry of Rural Development has asked the state to ensure that the roads constructed under the PMGSY are maintained properly. Further, it has also requested to upload maintenance expenditure on online management, monitoring and accounting system regularly. It was also suggested that the payment to contractors under the maintenance works of roads be linked to the report of the national quality monitors/state quality monitors, an official claimed.

Cause for concern
Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, June 18

Bashir Ahmed Baba, hailing from the Rainawari area of Srinagar, has been languishing in a Gujarat jail for the past seven years with the trial in his case yet to conclude.

Buoyed by the recent acquittals and release of many Kashmiris in terror-related cases, the family in Srinagar has now appealed to the Gujarat Government to speed up trial. The family claims that Baba was framed and implicated in a false and frivolous case by the Gujarat ATS in 2010.

Our only appeal to the government in Gujarat is to speed up the trial of my brother, said Babas younger brother Nazir Ahmad, working as salesman at a garment shop in Srinagar.

He added that his brother had applied for bail on humanitarian grounds to attend the funeral of his father last month, but his plea was rejected.

The government could have released him on humanitarian grounds, but his plea was rejected. My brother could not attend the funeral of our father, who had died waiting for the release of his son from jail, Nazir said, describing his brother as innocent. Their father had been suffering from cancer.

As claimed in the FIR, the ATS had received an intelligence input that a person named Bashir Baba, alias Aijaz, was roaming in Ahmedabad and other cities of Gujarat to carry out terrorist acts in the state.

Disputing the version of the police, the family maintains that Baba was selected for a 15-day training in Ahmedabad in March 2010 by Maya Foundation, a German NGO running a project for surgical treatment of cleft lip in children in rural areas.

A day before his arrest, Baba had called up home to say he would be coming back within a day. Nothing incriminating has been found from the possession of my brother, but his trial has been lingering on, with the result that he has been behind bars for seven years now, said Nazir.

Though Baba had been arrested during a raid on the Ahmedabad hostel where he was staying, his arrest was shown by the ATS to have taken place in Anand district, the family said, questioning the circumstances leading to Babas arrest.

As evidence, the family showed the documents related to the NGO, where Baba worked as assistant project manager before his arrest. In the FIR registered by the ATS, Babas date of arrest had been shown as March 13, 2010, at 2400 hours, which was also shown as the date of occurrence.
The whole world celebrates the Fathers Day but how many of you know that it was started by an American woman who was raised by a widower.

Sonora Smart Dodd was born in Sebastian County in Arkansas in 1982 and her mother died when she was 16. Dodds father, William Smart, raised her and

five brothers after their mother died.

While listening to a Mothers Day sermon with her father at the Central Methodist Church in 1909, Dodd was bothered that there was not a day to honour her civil war veteran father who raised her and five younger brothers alone.

Dodd wanted the celebration to be held on June 5, her fathers birthday, but planning difficulties pushed the first Fathers Day celebration to Sunday, June 19, 1910, ABC News reported.

As Dodds idea gained momentum across the country, two National Fathers Day committees were formed, one in Virginia in 1921 and one in New York City in 1936. President Woodrow Wilson sanctioned the idea of celebrating Fathers Day in 1913 and visited Spokane to join the celebration in 1916. President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea in 1924, as well.

In 1957, US Senator Margaret Chase Smith from Maine introduced a bill to create a federally proclaimed day writing: Either we honour both our parents, mother and father, or let us desist from honouring either one.  PTI
Jitendra K Shrivastava

Tribune News Service

Patna, June 18

A student of Class 10, who was allegedly gangraped and thrown out of a running train in Bihars Lakhisarai district recently, is battling for her life at a city hospital.

The victim, who had gone to relieve herself outside her house, was raped by a youngster at gunpoint, then handed over to a group of five others, who made her board a train, gangraped her and threw her out near Koel railway station.

The woman has grave injuries in her private parts and has two to three fractured bones, caused by the force of the throw.

She was taken to a hospital at Bhagalpur, which moved her case to the Patna Medical College and Hospital. Her family however said they faced problems in finding her a bed at the hospital and were desperately looking for donated blood.

Lakhisarai Superintendent of Police Ashok Kumar said that the victim had identified two of the six youngsters who had raped her.

The victim has identified two suspects  Santosh Kumar and Mritunjay Kumar. We have arrested Santosh Kumar, while the raids are being conducted to arrest the others.
RJP-N leaders dub election as drama

Chairmen of the Rastriya Janata Party- Nepal (RJP-N) have dubbed the second phase of local level election slated to be held on June 28 is only a drama.
Suresh Dharur

The growing instances of rogue behaviour of lawmakers and the recent land scams have dented the image of both Telugu states  Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Andhra CM N Chandrababu Naidu and his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao are grappling with the political fallout of the deviant acts of their party leaders and the mounting Opposition pressure over the alleged scandals involving land transactions.

Telangana is rocked by the multi-crore Miyapur land scam involving illegal transfer of 796 acres of government land to private individuals on the city outskirts. The Congress and Telugu Desam Party have alleged involvement of the leaders of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and close aides of the CM.

While the government has ordered CID probe into the scam, the Opposition has been insisting on a CBI inquiry to ferret out facts.

Though the CM asserted that not a single inch of the government land had actually gone into the hands of private individuals and that there was no loss to the state exchequer, the governments image took a severe beating.

Facing all-round flak, the government ordered raids on 142 sub-registrar offices across the state and suspension of some revenue officials. The scam could not have come to light at a more inopportune time for the TRS government as it was preparing to showcase the highlights of its achievements on the eve of completion of three years of the states formation.

Naidus image takes a beating

Despite his oft-repeated claim of zero tolerance towards corruption, Chandrababu Naidu is being criticised for graft and dubious land deals by his party leaders. Under pressure from the Opposition, Naidu suspended an MLC G Deepak Reddy from the TDP following his arrest by the Telangana police for resorting to land grabbing, forgery and intimidating public.

The MLC and his associates were allegedly involved in encroachment of land worth Rs160 crore in Asifnagar and Banjara Hills areas of the city. The case came at a time when the TDP in Telangana was gearing up to expose the ruling TRS for the land scams in and around Hyderabad.

In March, Naidu had suspended another TDP MLC, V Narayana Reddy for his alleged involvement in defrauding banks and money laundering. Yet another incident, involving the TDP MP from Vijayawada Kesineni Nani, had created huge embarrassment for the CM. The MP, whose family is engaged in transport business, raided a local road transport commissioners office and abused the officials for stopping buses belonging to his Kesineni Travels that run passenger services to Telangana and Karnataka.

The TDP MLA Ch Prabhakar and MLCs Buddha Venkanna and P Sateesh were in the news for attacking government officials for not heeding their requests.

Naidu is worried over the rising instances of unruly behaviour of his party leaders. Anantapur MP JC Diwakar Reddy recently manhandled IndiGo staff at Visakhapatnam airport and ransacked the boarding counter. He refused to tender an apology. The CM is believed to have expressed displeasure. A few weeks ago, the MP had misbehaved with cops at Vijayawada airport. The incidents have taken the sheen off the TDPs campaign against rival YSR Congress Party chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy who is facing corruption cases.

Ministers squabble

Two Andhra ministers are embroiled in a public spat after a land scam surfaced in Visakhapatnam.

HRD Minister G Srinivasa Rao wrote a letter to the CM hitting out at Minister for Roads and Buildings Ayyanna Patrudu. This came after Patrudu had hinted at his cabinet colleagues involvement in the scam.

Demanding a probe, Rao claimed that his colleagues remarks were damaging the governments reputation.

Lightning warning system

Andhra Pradesh has developed a system to forecast lightning and alert people living in vulnerable areas. The AP State Disaster Mitigation Society (APSDMS) has put in place a forewarning system of lightning with the support of ISRO and a US-based Earth Networks  a weather monitoring and forewarning technology firm with 1,200 sensors in 40 countries.

In 2015, 75 deaths due to lightning strikes were reported in the state. The Rayalaseema districts of Chittoor and Anantapur are particularly vulnerable to lightning strikes. The information gathered from Earth Networks and ISRO would be shared with people of the potentially vulnerable regions through electronic media and social networks to minimise the damage.

The authorities have set up 14 sensors in Kuppam, Anantapur, Kurnool, Kadapa, Srikakulam and Visakhapatnam to predict lightning strikes and efforts are underway to install them in eight more areas prone to disasters.
Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, June 18



BJP president Amit Shah met with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at the latter's residence Matoshree in suburban Bandra this morning.



Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was among the state BJP leaders who accompanied Shah for the meeting. According to Shiv Sena sources, the closed-door meeting, which began at 10 am lasted 75 minutes.



The meeting of the two leaders comes a day after Shah told reporters that the BJP would be finalising the candidate for the presidential elections after consulting other parties in the National Democratic

Alliance.



The Shiv Sena had voted against the BJPs candidate twice in the past presidential elections. Thackeray has been pressing for either RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat or the agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan to

be fielded by the NDA this time round.
KV Prasad

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 18

The Bharatiya Janata Party today moved towards finalisation of its nominee for the presidential election due next month, preferring to keep the cards close to its chest. Party leaders continued the process of reaching out to allies and leaders in the Opposition, seeking views and authorisation to name the candidate.

The BJP Parliamentary Board is scheduled to meet here on Tuesday to select the ruling coalition candidate amid reports from Mumbai that the Shiv Sena remained unwilling to give a blanket authorisation to the BJP without the latter putting a name on the table.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

BJP chief Amit Shah had a 75-minute meeting with Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray to ascertain the views of its ally. Shiv Sena sources told The Tribune that its earlier proposals of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and agriculture scientist MS Swaminathan were turned down.

The BJP said Bhagwat was difficult and Swaminathan has health issues. This is election for the President of India and the Shiv Sena has always taken its own stand we respect the PM but need to have a name which the BJP did not offer today, a Shiv Sena leader from Mumbai said.

The Sena rebuff notwithstanding, the BJP got the nod from another ally, Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party. After a meeting with Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, the LJP chief said the party would go with the decision of the PM.

Naidu, one of the three members of the party panel tasked to hold consultations, also spoke to Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav and Naresh Agarwal on the presidential election. The SP leaders, said BJP sources, favoured a politician as the President.

Separately, Arun Jaitley spoke to Trinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal leadership. Jaitley along with Home Minister Rajnath Singh is on the three-member panel set up by Shah to do the political outreach. Naidu briefed the BJP president on discussions with various parties so far.

CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy today said during his meeting with Naidu and Rajnath Singh, he suggested the name of Gopal Gandhi as a candidate. The BJP leaders just heard us and said nothing. They did not have any names to discuss, but I suggested that the elections offer an opportunity to have a person with secular credentials who can heal the current atmosphere of divisiveness. BJD parliamentary party leader Bharatruhari Mahtab too wondered how could there be any discussion without the BJP suggesting candidates it had in mind.

Earlier, the BJP panel met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
Tribune Reporters

Jalandhar, June 18

Ten persons, including four children, were killed in three road mishaps in the state today.

Four persons, including two kids, were killed while nine sustained injuries when a Mahindra Xylo they were travelling in was hit by a truck near Rupewal Mandi at Lohian in Jalandhar.

The deceased have been identified as Ranjit Singh, who was at the wheel, Parminder Kaur (54), Sukhdeep (4) and 11-month-old Japdeep Singh. Those injured were Harman Singh (29), Sukhwant (28), Baljit Kaur (26), Gurbachan Kaur (50), Karamjit Singh (21), Gurleen Singh (19), Gurjinder Singh (23), Jupinderjit Singh and Manjot Singh (3). The victims were relatives and going to Moga from Nangal Lubana village in Kapurthala district in the Xylo (PB 08 JB 8333).

The mishap took place when a truck coming from the opposite direction lost balance while crossing a speed breaker and crashed into the Xylo, which overturned following the collision.

The injured were admitted to private hospitals in Nakodar and Jalandhar.

Shahkot SHO Rupinder Singh said the accident took place at around 12.30pm. We have arrested the truck driver, Pardeep Kumar.

Ferozepur: Three persons, including two women, were killed and five others injured when the Mahindra XUV in which they were travelling hit a tree around 4 am on Sunday.

Families of Vinod Kumar and Ashok Kumar were coming back after offering prayers at Mata Chintpurni shrine in Himachal Pradesh when around 4 am their car veered off the road near Lohgarh village on the Ferozepur-Zira road.

In the mishap, Vinod Kumar (40), who works in the Canal Department, his wife Pushpa (38) and Ashoks wife Manisha (35) died on the spot. Ashok, his children Keshav and Kashish and Vinods children Lovepreet and Liza sustained injuries.

They were referred to a private hospital in Amritsar. Gurdial Singh, Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) of the Kulgarhi police station said post-mortem of all bodies had been conducted and inquest proceedings under Section 174 of the CrPC have been initiated.

Tarn Taran: Three persons, including two children, were killed in an accident on the Tarn Taran-Patti road near Kairon village, 20 km from here, today.

The deceased have been identified as Joga Singh (30) of Lauhuka village, his six-year-old nephew Sukhmandeep Singh and one-year-old niece Puneet Kaur. Gurmeet Kaur, the mother of the children, had a narrow escape.

All were riding a motorcycle (PB46 HC 7155), which collided with a car (PB49 A 5336) near Mahi Resort at Kairon village.

The bodies have been sent to the Civil Hospital, Patti, for a post-mortem. The Patti Sadar police have registered a case against the car driver, who fled.

Four killed as car, truck collide

Abohar: Four youths died on the spot as the car in which they were travelling collided head-on with a truck on the Hanumangarh-Sangria highway late on Saturday night. The deceased have been identified as Sunny Marwaha (20), Arjun Pahwa (25) and Deepak Sharma (22) of Hanumangarh and Tushar Lunawat (20) of Nokha. The truck driver sped away after the mishap only to be intercepted near a naka. On seeing the naka, the driver fled leaving the vehicle behind. A case has been registered. OC
GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 18

Krishna Ho Ho Solutions, a local firm which had been operating the Harike amphibious bus ride, has asked the state government to review Tourism Minister Navjot Singh Sidhus decision to scrap the project.

The firms proprietor, Sanjiv Aggarwal, said at least 40 employees were set to lose their jobs, including qualified tour guides, computer operators, drivers, security guards and workshop attendants.

Wild weeds in the waters were hampering the movement of the bus. I was expecting the government to resolve the issue. Scrapping the project has come as a jolt for me and my staff, Aggarwal said.

He claimed that the firm had raised a temporary bundh and installed a net around one-and-a-half km in the waters to tackle the weed menace.

The Harike cruise, a dream project of then Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, had been inaugurated on December 10, 2016.

SAD targets Sidhu

Chandigarh: The SAD on Sunday asked Navjot Singh Sidhu whether he would levy entry fee at the Heritage Street in Amritsar and other projects to earn extra bucks. On the grounding of the amphibious bus, the SAD asked, Sidhu should take action if there is any irregularity. Akali MP Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said, The SAD will hold Sidhu to account in the Vidhan Sabha. We will continue to protest against his boorish behaviour. TNS
Tribune News Service

Barnala, June 18

Residents of Vidhate village today blocked the Barnala-Moga road near Tallewal alleging police inaction in a suicide case in which a father-son duo was the accused.

They alleged that the accused were roaming free and threatening the kin of the deceased even as they had made repeated requests to Tallewal SHO Naib Singh to arrest the accused.

Gurpreet Singh, a resident of the village, had hanged himself at his house on May 25 after being allegedly harassed for a compromise in a court case by some villagers. On the statement of his family members, a case was registered against Manjit Singh and his son Harminderjit Singh of the village.

The police are deliberately delaying the arrest of accused. Today, we have started our agitation and blocked the road for some hours. As senior police officials assured us of arresting the accused soon, we deferred our protest. We would resume our protest in case the police did not fulfil their assurance, said Gurmeet Singh, brother of the deceased.

Refuting the allegations, SHO Naib Singh said they had been conducting raids to arrest both accused.
Harvinder Khetal

THANK God! So, its not just we over-sensitive girls that feel so. It seems that its quite a universal feeling. So much so that a couple of years ago  in 2105  the word describing that feeling even made it to the Oxford dictionary. And, it hasnt ended in the tome lying dormant. In fact, it has even been acknowledged as an offence in some countries, attracting fine and prison. The word is manspreading.

This 21st century expression originates from man and spreading. Manspreading is a practice whereby a man, especially one travelling on public transport, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats.

Having to broach this issue makes me uncomfortably squishy. As crunched as I felt when I was squished against the corner, grimly holding on to edge to prevent myself from falling into the aisle as the driver took a sharp turn, when my fellow male passenger in the local bus spread into my zone and leg space. Being skinny too didnt help. Rather, it gave the other party more room toyou know what. That was when I was in New Delhi for a short while and travelled in DTC buses since the office provided the cab only on the return journey in the late evening. Thankfully, in Chandigarh, I move around in my car even at night and dont have to endure such agonising encounters on a routine basis anymore.

But I remember that ordeal and feeling very well: an amalgam of discomfort, repugnance, embarrassment, rage, frustration, unwanted pile-on, etc. I would wish for the journey to end soon, more so during the sweaty summer heat. Splits go well with gymnastics, not in crowded public buses and trains, please! Once, unable to bear it even after much wriggling and fidgeting, I even sarcastically asked the offending bulky neighbour if he had bought two tickets that he felt entitled to so much space. Fortunately, the invading fellow was shamed enough to squirm and squeeze himself into a smaller size. Someone else in his place might have pounced at me for my perceived impudence. Rather, a lot many dismiss it as another feminist fad and misandry (dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men).

Perhaps, it affects women disproportionately. But outright rejection of the sentiment as being silly would amount to another assertion of male dominance in our patriarchal world and gender insensitivity. We girls are taught that nice girls should keep their legs crossed. How about sensitising boys to be nice boys? By including lessons on manspreading in their social etiquette protocol?

Manspreading, also called man-sitting, has polarised people into two positions. Each side stares at the other with a dirty look and a sigh over the matters of the thigh and how nigh it may rightly be. Incidentally, Madrid has banned manspreading in public transport. And, two years ago, two men were arrested from the New York Subway (metro) for crossing the boundary of a seat. Paris and San Francisco too are mulling to crack down on this matter. Respect others space and close your legs, please, they advise.

Well, well as women the world over fight to reclaim their territory, I am reminded of upskirting. Its another neologism. A neologism (from Greek ???- neo-, new and logos, speech, utterance) is the name for a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been fully accepted into mainstream language.

Upskirting is the practice of surreptitiously photographing or videotaping underneath a female's dress or skirt. Voyeurs carrying smartphones often take the snap or video in public places, unbeknownst to the victim. Thats a legal issue too. In Gerogia, USA, a man was convicted and sentenced to five years on probation filming under the womans skirt.

Technology has indeed taken us far from the days of that harmless naughty skirt and wind picture of Marilyn Monroe and her many clones.

hkhetal@gmail.com
Mr. Llyod George has announced the appointment of a commission to enquire into the industrial unrest in Great Britain. In addressing the Commissioners he took a birds' eye view of the existing situation. There can be not the slightest doubt that the industrial population of that country have had to face an abnormal situation owing to the exigencies of the war. The first demand was that of the Army and the Navy and the country responded with a will. Next came the demand for munitions and the country equally rose to the call. As Mr. Lloyd George said five million men in the prime of life had been withdrawn from industry, but with diminished numbers it had been necessary in many cases to maintain increased output. Consequently, there had been much over-strain, fatigue, exhaustion and irritation.
A former 40 year Atheist analyzes Atheism, without resorting to theism, deism, or fantasy.

***

If You Don't Value Truth, Then What DO You Value?

***

If we say that the sane can be coaxed and persuaded to rationality, and we say that rationality presupposes logic, then what can we say of those who actively reject logic?

***

Atheists have an obligation to give reasons in the form of logic and evidence for rejecting Theist theories.
Seven more air quality monitoring stations by end of this year: DoE

Seven more air quality monitoring stations will be added in Kathmandu and Pokhara by the end of this fiscal year, according to the Department of Environment.
Mogadishu, June 15

Police say the death toll in an overnight attack by al-Shabab extremists on a popular restaurant in Somalias capital has risen to 31.

Capt Mohamed Hussein says many of the victims were killed at point-blank range after the attackers hunted them down.

Police say nearly 40 people were wounded in the assault that began when a car bomb exploded outside the Pizza House restaurant in Mogadishu.

Security forces ended the siege this morning after the extremist snipers fired on them. Hussein says all five attackers were killed.

Fighting continued through the night as Somalias al- Shabab Islamic extremists fought off heavily armed soldiers in a bloody siege at a popular Mogadishu restaurant.

Extremist snipers fired on security troops who surrounded the restaurant building and used big guns mounted on the backs of vehicles to neutralise militants. Soldiers entered the ground floor while the insurgent attackers held positions upstairs.

Senior Somali police office Capt. Mohamed Hussein said at dawn today that at least one attacker was firing on troops from inside the restaurant.

The roofs were blown off the Pizza House restaurant and nearby buildings from the powerful blasts.

High casualties are feared in the attack on the busy restaurant. Police said the bodies of five girls thought to have been killed by militants were found in the restaurant.  AP
Kathmandu, June 18

A bomb went off on Sunday at an election office in Nepals Kapilvastu district, injuring five people ahead of the second phase of the crucial local body elections which are being held after a gap of 20 years.

The bomb exploded at the election officers office in Vadganga Municipality of Kapilvastu district when a joint panel of Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Center) was returning after filing their nomination for the second phase of local level election to be held on June 28.

The injured are being treated at a local hospital. No one has claimed responsibility for the explosion so far.

The process of filing nomination papers by candidates for the second phase of elections in 334 local units of provinces 1, 5 and 7 completed today.

The government has stepped up security at the election offices in various districts of southern Nepal to prevent any untoward incident in the wake of agitating Rastriya Janata Party Nepals declared programme to disrupt the polls.

The Election Commission (EC) said the registration of candidacy for the second phase of election has concluded smoothly.

Cadres of Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal in Rupandehi district have filed nomination in the second phase of filing nomination as independent candidate.

Rastriya Janta Party-Nepal, the major political grouping belonging to the Madhesi communities, did not field candidates for the first phase of election held on May 14.

Election officer Kamal Panthi said they had received independent nominations for all the 37 positions in the council.

The local level election is taking place across Nepal after a gap of 20 years.

The local body elections should have been held in every five years in Nepal. Due to political instability, they have been halted since May 1997.

The agitating RJP N has announced to disrupt the local level polls on June 28.

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.  PTI
Yokosuka (Japan), June 18

The bodies of missing sailors were found in flooded compartments of the USS Fitzgerald, which came close to sinking after a collision with a container ship off Japan tore a gash under the warship's waterline, the US Navy's Seventh Fleet commander said on Sunday.

An earlier Navy statement had said the bodies of several sailors were found in the berthing compartments inside the guided missile destroyer but US Seventh fleet Commander Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin declined to say how many.

The search at sea has been called off, he told a news conference at Yokosuka naval base.

Aucoin said the USS Fitzgerald could have foundered, or even sunk, but for the crew's desperate efforts to save the ship.

"The damage was significant. There was a big gash under the water," Aucoin said.

"A significant portion of the crew was sleeping" when the destroyer collided with the Philippine-flagged container ship, destroying the commander's cabin, he said.

The Fitzgerald is salvageable, he said, but repairs will likely take months. "Hopefully less than a year. You will see the USS Fitzgerald back," Aucoin said.

Aucoin was asked if damage on the starboard side indicated the US ship could have been at fault but he declined to speculate on the cause of the collision. Maritime rules suggest vessels are supposed to give way to ships on their starboard.

Notifying families

Japanese media said all seven of the sailors who had been reported missing were found dead.

The US Seventh Fleet said in a statement earlier on Sunday: "Divers were able to access the space and found a number of bodies." They were transferred to a US naval hospital for identification, it said.

"The families are being notified and being provided the support they need during this difficult time," it said.

The Fitzgerald collided with the merchant vessel more than three times its size some 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka early on Saturday.

Three people were medically evacuated to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka after the collision, including the ship's commanding officer, Commander Bryce Benson, who was reported to be in stable condition, the Navy said.

The other two were being treated for lacerations and bruises.

The USS Fitzgerald sailed into port on Saturday evening, listing around 5 degrees, a US Navy spokesman in Yokosuka said. The flooding was in two berthing compartments, the radio room and auxiliary machine room, he said.

There were 285 crew onboard, the spokesman said.

Benson took command of the Fitzgerald on May 13. He had previously commanded a minesweeper based in Sasebo in western Japan.

'Professional negligence'

It was unclear how the collision happened. "Once an investigation is complete then any legal issues can be addressed," a spokesman for the US Seventh Fleet said.

Japanese authorities were looking into the possibility of "endangerment of traffic caused by professional negligence", Japanese media reported, but it was not clear whether that might apply to either or both of the vessels.

The US Navy said the collision happened at about 2:30 am local time (1730 GMT Friday), while the Japanese Coast Guard said it was 1:30 am local time.

Japan's Nippon Yusen KK, which charters the container ship, ACX Crystal, said in a statement on Saturday it would "cooperate fully" with the Coast Guard's investigation of the incident.

At around 29,000 tons displacement, the ship dwarfs the 8,315-ton U.S. warship. It was carrying 1,080 containers from the port of Nagoya to Tokyo.

None of the 20 crew members aboard the container ship, all Filipino, were injured, and the ship was not leaking oil, Nippon Yusen said. The ship arrived at Tokyo Bay later on Saturday.

The waterways approaching Tokyo Bay are busy with commercial vessels sailing to and from Japans two biggest container ports in Tokyo and Yokohama.  Reuters
Lisbon, June 18

A huge forest fire raging since Saturday in central Portugal has killed at least 62 persons, the government said on Sunday, in what is possibly the deadliest-ever forest blaze in the Atlantic coastal country, used to the woods burning almost every summer.

The dimension of this fire was such that we dont have memory of such a human tragedy, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said as he arrived in Pedrogao Grande, a mountainous area some 200 km northeast of Lisbon.

He said it was vital to focus on the prevention of new fires, amid a continuing heat wave, strong winds and lack of rain. He also warned that the death toll could still increase.

The government declared three days of mourning and sent two army battalions to help the emergency services. The European Union said it would provide firefighting aircraft. France has offered three planes and Spain has sent two, authorities said.

Speaking in the Vatican, Pope Francis, who visited Portugal last month, mentioned the victims in his weekly address: I am close to the dear people of Portugal, hit by a devastating fire which is raging in the forests around Pedrogao Grande, causing many victims and injuries. Let us pray in silence.

Another 54 people have been injured and taken to hospitals, including four in serious condition.

Hundreds of firefighters were still battling the flames on Sunday. Various local motorways were shut for safety reasons. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa visited the site of the tragedy during the night and expressed his condolences.  Reuters
Kabul, June 18

At least five Afghan policemen were killed and 15 people injured in a suicide bomb and gun attack by Taliban insurgents on the police headquarters in an eastern city on Sunday, authorities said.

The assault on the headquarters in Gardez, which was still continuing, was launched at 6:00 am, said the regional police commander, Asadullah Shirzad.

Five civilians were among the wounded.

One of the five attackers was still holding out more than five hours after the coordinated assault began, Shirzad said.

"The first attacker blew up his vehicle at the entrance to the headquarters, opening the way for two others who opened fire on security forces, and another suicide bomber was shot dead," he said.

The head of the police hospital, Dr Shir Mohammad, confirmed the casualty toll.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement.

Since the beginning of their spring offensive in late April, the Taliban have been mounting lethal attacks on the positions of the Afghan army and police, who have lost several dozen men in recent weeks.

Foreign forces assisting the Afghans have also been targeted. Seven US soldiers were wounded on Saturday in an insider attack at a military base by an Afghan soldier described as a "patriot" by the Taliban.

They are battling to topple the government of President Ashraf Ghani and oust the Western forces that support him. AFP
Temporary teachers' hunger strike reaches Day 3

The United Temporary Teachers Central Struggle Committee has been staging hunger strike for three days in the Capital. They are on fast-onto-death protest demanding their permanency through normal process.
Patriotism was on full display Thursday afternoon as locals gathered at Stone Canyon Lake in Owasso to celebrate the Folds of Honor Foundations 10-year anniversary and hear plans for its new headquarters.

The nonprofit organization, founded in 2007, provides educational scholarships to families of military men and women who have been killed or disabled while on active duty.

Since its start, Folds of Honor has raised more than $100 million and awarded more than 13,000 scholarships across all 50 states.

Thursdays ceremony brought together community partners and donors to commemorate the organizations decade-long efforts in providing support for military families.

For us as an organization, this is a very historical day, said Folds of Honor Vice President Ben Leslie. We wanted to  celebrate what weve done but honor the sacrifices of all the families that make our organization work.

Stephen Brown, a retired, disabled Navy SEAL of 14 years, was in attendance and said Folds of Honor has helped pay for his two children, Brianna and Cody, to attend private schools.

They were more than welcome to help us out, and they have now for four years, he said. Theyve (allowed) my kids to have an opportunity to expand their education  into Christian facilities.

The outdoor party featured a barbecue, refreshments, music and giveaways, as well as an appearance by the Budweiser Clydesdales, who galloped by the crowd in a patriotic spectacle.

To date, Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch) has donated around $11 million to Folds of Honor and presented the horses as a tribute to the foundation and the men and women of the U.S. armed forces.

Its so cool to see them here for that reason and the lives that weve changed, said Folds of Honor founder Maj. Dan Rooney. When you watch one of the most iconic symbols of freedom in the world prancing down through Stone Canyon Park,  its awesome.

Rooney also unveiled plans for Folds of Honors new headquarters  an approximately $40 million, 10,000-square-foot, two-story facility that will be situated near Stone Canyon Lake.

Plans for the building have been in the works for more than two years. Folds of Honor has partnered with Morton Buildings Inc. of Muskogee and GH2 Architects of Tulsa for the project, scheduled to break ground this October.

Associated Builders and Contractors, they are just pure patriots, Rooney said. They wave the flag; they drink their Budweiser; they swing their hammers.  This whole deal is bootstraps, and it is real, and that is why its going sea to shining sea.
A little more than a week after Coweta Police Chief Michael Bell was named interim city manager for the City of Coweta, a new interim city manager has been named.

Roger Kolman was hired for a six-month term following a lengthy executive session during a special Coweta City Council meeting on June 15. He assumes the position on Monday, June 19 at which time he will hire Bell back as Cowetas chief of police.

Bell had resigned from his law enforcement position on June 8 after he was appointed as interim city manager. His appointment came after long-time Coweta City Manager Steve Whitlock was fired by a 3-2 council vote on June 5.

For the betterment of the city, we needed to bring an actual city manager into this position with experience of being a city manager, Bell explained on Friday. There are too many good projects going on that need to continue, and I did not want them to fall through.

The Taco Bueno that everyone is talking about is still in progress, he continued. The QuikTrip, Caseys and Taco Bell projects  all those things have important steps that need to be met at this time, and Roger understands how to meet those steps.

Bell admits he wants to get back to being chief of police for this great city.

I love being a chief of police. Thats why I came here to Coweta and thats what I want to get back to, he said. I love the citizens here and I get along with them. I want to go back to being a chief.

I would personally like to thank the council for their confidence in allowing me to hold this position temporarily, Bell added. I would also like to thank the citizens who stood behind me at this time in support. I look forward to working with each and every one of them as their chief of police.

Kolman, 49, is a native of Billings, Montana. He has served as city manager in the Oklahoma communities of Glenpool (three years) and Anadarko (two years) and with the city of Maricopa in Arizona.

When he went to Maricopa in 2004, a special census recorded its population at 4,198. Kolman said today the population is approximately 45,000, and at one point the city was issuing 800 single family residential permits a month.

The growth that is coming to Coweta in the next 10 years ... Ive seen it before and dealt with it, Kolman said. Maricopa was a special case because it came so fast. The only reason it grew the way it did was Intel was building new plants in Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix. Those engineers wanted to come to Maricopa to buy bigger houses on bigger lots for less cost and commute.

Kolman believes the growth in Maricopa and the growth Glenpool has experienced in recent years is what gives him the ability to deal with what Coweta is going to see.

Glenpools population has grown from approximately 10,500 in 2010 to a little more than 14,000 now. That city has issued an estimated 145 single family residential building permits per year.

Kolman said a 348-unit luxury apartment complex that was completed in that community last year has already been filled, adding to the census.

While the growth there isnt like the rocket in Maricopa, its been steady, he noted.

Kolman said the most recent developments to occur in Glenpool include a Medplex by Saint Francis Hospital which is a precursor to a full blown hospital; the approval of a 160-acre TIF (Tax Increment Financing) district that will include two auto dealers and other retail development around 161st Street and a just completed half million gallon water storage tank that will not only feed the Medplex, but also surrounding commercial and residential development.

What Im looking forward to (in Coweta) is to pick up the ball and keep the growth going while maintaining the small town feel, Kolman said. Ultimately, you want to maintain the neighborhood friendliness you see in small towns today where people know their neighbors. We want to be a friendly community for residents and new and existing businesses.

Kolman assured he will maintain an open door policy for the Coweta community.

I invite the citizens and those in the business community to come and see me. If Im free, I will sit down and see what I can do to help them out, he said.

Bell said Kolmans contract for his interim position will be discussed at the July 10 city council meeting.

Preceding Thursdays executive session, newly appointed Coweta city councilmembers Harold Shorty Chance and John McCrackin were sworn into office.

After taking the oath of office, Chance was elected to serve as vice-mayor on the council, vice-chairman of the Public Works Authority and secretary of the Coweta Industrial Development Authority.

Noticeably missing from the meeting was long-time city attorney David Weatherford. Bell said he received a hand delivered resignation letter from Weatherford on June 12.

He said he didnt think he could be productive with the new council and felt it was time to move on, Bell said. He said he will help with the transition until we get somebody on board.

Bell said it is always a good idea to have an attorney present to answer questions and address any legal matters that come into the meeting. The individual holding the position is considered a contract employee.

This is something we will have to address pretty quickly, he added.

Bell said it has been an honor for him to work with Weatherford.

I have a lot of respect for him as an attorney and for his knowledge of the law, he said. Ive had some pretty deep conversations with him about the cases weve worked.
Undocumented, domestic helps mired in low wages, exploitation

Domestic workers, the most vulnerable unregistered workers of the labour community, who often work without clear terms of employment, are facing identity crisis and inferiority complex, stakeholders have said.
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.
Iskender Efendi; this is the chap who invented the Iskender Kebab in the northwest city of Bursa back in the 19th century.

When we moved to Turkey in 2003, Bursa was the first place we visited as part of our travels.

Friends had told us to make sure we ate Iskender Kebab at the restaurant run by people said to be Iskender Efendis descendants.

Their Iskender Kebab recipe is, of course, regarded as the best.

Great really that Bursa and this unassuming little eatery is where one of Turkeys most famous kebabs entered our lives.

As home of the Iskender Kebab, Bursa is home to many specialised outlets claiming to serve the best one.

And just about every city and town in Turkey has a restaurant that advertises their Iskender Kebab.

If youre looking for it, yourself, its sometimes also called Bursa Kebab.

What Is Iskender Kebab?

One of the many Iskender Kebabs weve eaten in restaurants over the years

Iskender Kebab is not the most photogenic of Turkish dishes, thats for certain.

But when youre in the mood for this classic dish, it really does hit the spot.

Bursa has a harsh winter.

And the calorific ingredients that make up the meal are rich and comforting.

That Translation Issue Again

Iskender is the Turkish word for Alexander (esp. Alexander The Great).

And, in years gone by, Turkish restaurants in the countrys coastal resorts have attempted to translate the name of this dish for their foreign tourist guests.

Now, weve told you in the past about the pickle this can create.

There was a period where a handful of Fethiyes eateries were serving up sensitive meatballs rather than icli kofte to diners!

The Iskender Kebab has received similar treatment. The boards of some tourist resort restaurants have read:

Iskender  Alexander

Buyuk Iskender  Big Alexander

Kocaman Iskender  Enormous Alexander

Ahh, all good fun and lots of laughs.

But there is also so much to be said for just leaving well alone when it comes to attempting to translate the names of foods.

Iskender Kebab Ingredients

To make Iskender Kebab, lightly toasted, warm pide bread is cut into bite-sized chunks and spread over the plate.

Then slithers of lamb doner meat are scattered over the top.

Lamb is the most traditional meat used but beef or chicken doner can be used, too.

Our homemade Iskender Kebab

After the meat comes the rich tomato sauce which is lathered over the top of the meat and some of the bread.

A dollop of natural suzme yoghurt on the side.

And then comes an extra touch of richness and comfort. A generous knob of butter is melted in a pan.

When it begins to sizzle, its immediately poured over the top of the sauce. Yummy!

Charred green pepper and tomato sometimes accompanies your Iskender Kebab, too.

How To Make Iskender Kebab At Home

Weve been a bit beefy and bready of late.

Having only recently enjoyed a treat of et sote (which we served with bread), here we were again, back at our local butchers shop in the fish market, preparing to play about with more meat and bread.

I think he finds us mildly amusing, our butcher, as we put on our best Turkish to explain what we want to make and ask for the best meat to use.

Service with a smile. But always a little twinkle in his eye, too.

Two Brits making all these Turkish dishes. And no idea which cuts of meat to use.

Our local butcher recommended entrecote

Creating That Doner Look

After explaining that we wanted to make Iskender Kebab at home, he recommended a cut of entrecote.

A 300 gram slab was cut from the hunk of beef behind the counter. Then, with the sharpest of knives, he deftly sliced it into thin slithers.

We might not have a vertical doner kebab spit at home but who needs one when youve got a skillful butcher with a sharp knife, eh?

Our steak slithers were set to marinate in some olive oil and dried kekik (oregano and thyme) when we got home.

And then I set to work on the tomato sauce.

Weve eaten enough Iskender Kebabs in our time to know the type of sauce we were looking for. This wasnt to be rushed

Charred peppers, a simmering sauce and slithers of steak

More Iskender Kebab Prep

Four green peppers were charred in a hot oven ready to serve on the side of our Iskender Kebab.

A medium-sized tomato was finely chopped and simmered over a low heat for a few minutes in a generous glug of olive oil.

Salt and pepper, grated garlic and a pinch of chilli flakes was added and stirred in.

A heaped dessert spoonful of salca (tomato paste) was next and a light splash of vinegar.

As the sauce simmered, I ladled in water at various stages. About 400 millilitres over the space of 30 minutes.

Once we were both happy with the taste and texture, I removed it from the heat and placed a lid on to keep it warm.

Now all that was left to do was to fry the entrecote and heat the bread in the oven. Then, we could plate up our homemade Iskender Kebab.

And top with sizzling butter.

Our Homemade Iskender Kebab Recipe

SaveSaved! Print Pin Iskender Kebab Recipe This Iskender Kebab recipe is easy and delicious. Ask your butcher to prepare your meat for you so you can get the doner meat texture. Prep Time 2 hours 15 minutes Cook Time 40 minutes Total Time 2 hours 55 minutes Servings 2 Calories 830 kcal Author Turkeys For Life Ingredients 300 g entrecote marinated, very thinly sliced

150 g pitta bread

1 tbsp natural Turkish yoghurt

4 thin green peppers

2 tbsp olive oil 1 for marinade, 1 for frying

pinch dried oregano For The Sauce 1 medium tomato finely chopped

1 clove garlic peeled & grated

1 heaped dessert spoonful tomato paste

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp vinegar

1 pinch chilli flakes

salt & pepper to season

400 ml water

2 tbsp butter melted & sizzling, to finish Instructions Before you start making your Iskender Kebab, marinate your steak for a couple of hours in the olive oil and oregano. For The Sauce First of all, set your sauce simmering.

Gently heat your olive oil in a saucepan and add your chopped tomato.

Stir around for a few minutes and then add your garlic, chilli flakes and pinch of salt and pepper.

Once your tomato has really softened, add your tomato paste (salca) and a ladleful of water.

Stir and heat through until the salca has dissolved.

Ladle in more water and add your vinegar and stir gently.

Continue to add more water intermittently to keep your sauce at the thickness youd like.

After around 30 minutes, remove your pan from the head and seal with a lid to keep warm. For The Meat Whilst your sauce is simmering, grill your peppers under a high heat until charred.

Place them to one side.

Heat olive oil in a frying pan and, once hot, start to fry your marinated beef.

Meanwhile, heat your pide bread (pitta bread) until it is hot and lightly toasted.

Fry your meat until browned and you also have some crispy bits, too. Build Your Iskender Kebab Now you need to work fast.

Take two serving plates.

Remove your bread from the oven, cut it into bite-sized chunks and divide between the two plates.

Now top the bread with your beef and add a generous knob of butter to the frying pan you used for the beef.

Place the pan back on the heat.

Pour your tomato sauce over both plates and add a serving of yoghurt to each.

Place your charred peppers on the plate and pour your sizzling butter over the top of your tomato sauce.

Serve immediately. Notes You can use lamb or chicken, as well as beef, to make Iskender Kebab at home.

In Turkey, a soft, doughy pide bread is used for Iskender Kebab. If you cant get this, other types of unleavened bread will do the trick.

Calories are approximate and meant as a rough guide.

And thats how you make Iskender Kebab at home!

If youre not a big fan of red meat, then Tavuk Iskender is also possible. Thinly sliced chicken rather than beef or lamb.

Weve also mentioned pide bread in this post.

This is a soft doughy bread that is perfect for holding your juices without going soggy.

Its not to be confused with the bread eaten during Ramazan, here.

When you shop for your bread, youre looking for thick, unleavened bread.

Serve Your Iskender Kebab

Oops, someone forgot the peppers!

Have you spotted the slight error, yet, in our homemade Iskender Kebab photos and instructions?

Well, we are human beings.

We cook and eat all our own food for our Turkish recipes section.

So I excited was to photograph and tuck in to our Iskender Kebab that we were halfway through the meal before it hit me:

The charred peppers were still sitting on a plate on top of the oven!

We did eat them with the rest of our meal, though.

As we said at the beginning of this article, Iskender Kebab is not the most photogenic of dishes.

A half eaten Iskender Kebab with green pepper certainly wouldnt have looked too appetising in a photograph, would it?

It tastes fabulous, though!

Afiyet Olsun!
Britains Got Talent presenter Ant McPartlin has checked into rehab after admitting to addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol.

The long-time presenting partner of Declan Donnelly developed depression and chronic pain from a botched knee operation two years ago left him in physical and mental agony.

I feel like I have let a lot of people down and for that I am truly sorry, he said.

I want to thank my wife, family and closest friends for helping me through this really difficult time.

Ive spoken out because I think its important that people ask for help if theyre going through a rough time and get the proper treatment to help their recovery.

It comes just days after he was released from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where he underwent an operation to correct the damage done two years earlier at a different hospital.

McPartlin, 41, is said to be worth 60million ($100m) and will spend the next six weeks in a wheelchair. Doctors have reportedly told him there is a danger his knee will one day collapse, leaving him crippled.

Lifeline: 131114

beyondblue.org.au

Source: The Telegraph
Seven paid $100,000 to a Sydney-based company linked to Roberta Williams manager for a Sunday Night interview on her late husband, Carl Williams.

The segment that ran on Sunday Night last July.

Fairfax Media, which reports the news has angered former Victoria Police detectives, says it has not violated proceeds-of-crime laws, because the payment was for information about Carl Williams and not Roberta Williams, who is also a convicted drug dealer.

Seven West Media declined to comment on the deal.

Roberta Williams, who was declared bankrupt by the Federal Court last November, recently confirmed she was appearing in a pilot for Mob Wives.

So far no network has been aligned with the prospective show.
Karl Stefanovic left Today without as much as a goodbye on Thursday to head to the airport, according to media reports.

He was on air until around 7:40am and rushed to catch a 9.40am flight to Auckland before two further connecting flights to Bora Bora.

There he joined new girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough and a small group of friends on James Packers super yacht, according to News Corp.

He is expected to resume work on Thursday morning, with his duties covered by Ben Fordham.

Fordham has previously defended his colleague, saying: Any questioning of his work ethic is completely ridiculous because work never ends for Karl.

On Thursday TV Tonight asked Nine Publicity if Karl had joined his girlfriend on a holiday.

A Nine spokesperson said, Karl is on leave for the next few days. He will be back on air at the end of next week. Ben Fordham will be filling in for him.
The sun is a good source of Vitamin D which is very important to the body. On the other hand, overexposure to the heat of the sun can lead to skin cancer. Thus, doctors advise people to put on some sunscreen for protection. Recently, nanotechnologists have developed a sunscreen that produces melanin.

Scientists and researchers from the University of California - San Diego revealed that they developed a sunscreen that acts like melanosomes, skin cells that produce melanin and protect the skin from ultraviolet radiation.

Nathan Gianneschi, head of the research and a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, materials science and engineering and nanoengineering at UC San Diego, said the research started after they discovered that they can produce synthetic melanin-like nanoparticles and also behave like natural melanins found on bird feathers.

They also discovered that these synthetic melanosomes could be taken up by keratinocytes, the majority of skin cells found in the epidermis or outer skin. They studied how these melanin-like nanoparticles behave and found another surprising discovery - the synthetic melanosomes do not just spread on the skin like their natural counterparts but they also protect the skin DNA from getting damaged by ultraviolet radiation.

This nanotechnology breakthrough brings significant impact especially in the are of skin-related diseases, such as vitiligo and albinism, and their treatment. Gianneschi said that there haven't been any effective treatment for such diseases.

Vitiligo is caused when the immune system abnormally clears the melanocytes from the skin and ultimately stopping its production. Albinism, on the other hand, a genetic defect that is characterized by the absence of a copper-producing enzyme, tyrosinase, which is also responsible for producing melanin.

The researchers further stated that these melanin-like nanoparticles can be used for the development of novel therapies for melanin-defective related diseases.

The study was published in the ACS Central Science journal.
As part of the appointment to Health Estates Primary Care and Community Infrastructure (PCCI) Framework, the Ballymena project is the first of three Health and Care Centres to be designed for the Northern Trust.



Officially opening on the 18th February 2016 (by Simon Hamilton, the Minister for Health, Social Services and Public Safety in the Northern Ireland Executive), the new building is designed around a welcoming, three storey entrance atrium, stepping down to a two story block formed around an external courtyard space. The atrium and courtyard create a highly legible layout, providing clear user wayfinding and orientation, while maximising opportunities for natural ventilation and daylight.



Lead architect Keppie, in collaboration with Hoskins Architects, spent considerable time with the various departments and operational and facilities user groups, to ensure that the clinical adjacencies, patient journeys and materiality have been configured to form a clear, cohesive and calming building, from a hitherto disparate range of accommodation and services.


On the heels of returning to The AXIS at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino earlier this week for their headlining residency show, the Backstreet Boys have announced a special promotion with The Animal Foundation.

On Friday, June 23 and Saturday, June 24, when you make a donation of a Petco or PetSmart gift card of $100 or more to The Animal Foundation, you will receive a pair of tickets to see Backstreet Boys: Larger Than Life at one of their recently announced performance dates in November 2017 or February 2018.

As the largest volume single-site animal shelter and pet adoption center in the nation, The Animal Foundation provides refuge for homeless animals throughout the Las Vegas Valley. Donated gift cards will go toward improving the lives of animals currently staying at The Animal Foundation. Donations can be made at the Lied Animal Shelter located at 655 North Mojave Road, Las Vegas, Nev. 89101 between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Friday, June 23 and Saturday, June 24. Gift cards must be from either Petco or PetSmart and accompanied by a receipt with proof of how much the card is worth. Individuals donating gift cards will receive two tickets, valued at more than $100, to see the Backstreet Boys in November 2017 or February 2018.

We typically see a rise in intakes at the shelter during the summer months and are currently at capacity, said Jeff Stilson, Director of Operations at The Animal Foundation. Donations are always a huge help and very appreciated. We thank the Backstreet Boys for their support in tackling this issue in our community.

We try to take advantage of every opportunity we can to give back, Brian Littrell of the Backstreet Boys. We hope our support draws awareness to help shelter animals and increase adoptions during the summer months when animals in Las Vegas most need our help.

Since the residencys premiere on March 1, the pop juggernauts sold-out shows have attracted fans from all over the world, hosting the biggest audience in the history of Las Vegas headlining residencies. The show has received rave reviews from fans and critics alike, with Billboard Magazine stating, Larger Than Life really is a show that no Backstreet fan should miss.

For 24 years the Backstreet Boys, one of the most successful groups in music history, has continually delivered the finest pop music one has to offer, making them one of pops most influential performers. With countless #1s, record-setting tours, numerous awards and worldwide sales in excess of 130 million, BSB has been recognized as the best-selling boy band in history.


Brothers David Morton and Michael Morton celebrated the grand opening of MB Steak, the debut of their stylish new steakhouse concept, at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas on June 15. Special guests includes DJ Lydia Ansel, the Cast of Magic Mike Live and Mayor Carolyn Goodman (Pictured: DJ Lydia Ansel  Photo credit: Joe Durkin).

Photo credit: Joe Durkin

To commemorate the occasion, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman named the day, June 15, 2017, MB Steak Day, and Clark County Commissioner Mary Beth Scow honored the event with a proclamation.

Photo credit: Joe Durkin

Joined by Goodman and Scow, the Morton brothers cut the commemorative ribbon with a meat cleaver before an audience of cheering family and friends. The celebration came just a few days before Fathers Day, befitting to the brothers rich family history as third generation restaurateurs.

Photo credit: Joe Durkin

Among the 500 guests were the cast of Magic Mike Live, the popular male revue created by Channing Tatum. The cast posed for photographs on the black carpet before joining party guests inside.

Photo credit: Joe Durkin

Guests enjoyed gourmet stations in every room, including a caviar bar with blinis, carving stations serving MB Steaks dry aged tomahawk, Imperial Wagyu Strip loin and more; flavorful side dishes, including creamed corn with crab and mushroom grits; and an elaborate candy and dessert bar. Cocktail experiences were also offered in each of room and included Champagne and wine stations; chilled Hangar One vodka to complement the caviar; and tastings of cocktails made with Tatums vodka, Born and Bred.
The Dangerous Side-Effects of Plastics, and How to Minimize Their Toxic Impact

Plastics are not only an environmental disaster; these man-made conveniences introduced a century ago are also harming our physical and mental health. Phthalates  chemical compounds used to make plastic more flexible and durable  are found in more products than you might imagine, and have become the human bodys
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The focal point of the medias political commentators is Syria, which lies at the heart of a colossal PSYOP operation aimed at inducing us to believe that those who are actually under attack are the aggressors. However, lurking in the penumbra are events unfolding in other parts of the Middle East and Africa.

For five years now, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the Emirates have been driving the war in Syria by infiltrating it with terrorist forces. Yet now they are accusing the Syrian Government of war crimes and to this end are sponsoring the Caesar photographic exhibition, presented tomorrow at Rome [1] and are continuing their massacre in Yemen. The US Central Command is participating in this war with anti-terrorist attacks, officially documented, carried out in Yemen with drones and fighter-bombers.

Even further removed from the medias focal point, are the US military operations in Africa.

These are led by the U.S. African Command (Africom), that has two important subordinate commands in Italy. The U.S. Army Africa, headquartered at the Ederle barracks, at Vicenza, commands the mission and deploys forces for the operating theatre, providing at the same time military assistance to African partners to establish security and stability on the continent.

The U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, headquartered at the base in Capodichino, Naples, is established by six task forces formed of warships of the Sixth Fleet based at Gaeta. Their area of responsibility covers Russia, Europe and Africa (apart from Egypt that comes under the Central Command), including half of the Atlantic from the North Pole to the Antarctic. They are subject to the commands of Admiral Michelle Howard, who at the same time heads the Command of the Joint Allied Forces (JFC-Naples) headquartered at Lake Patria (Naples).

With these forces, including the fighter bombers on the aircraft carriers and the armed drones based at Sigonella, the U.S. is stepping up its military operations in Africa. Since August, air raids have been carried out in Libya and are aimed at halting the advance of Isis (the threat of which has been exaggerated beyond belief). In actual fact, these raids further the plan of reconquering and recolonizing Libya, where U.S. and European Special Forces have been operating for some time.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg of the African great game: among its many missions, AfriCom is constructing a base of armed drones in Niger, officially for anti-terrorist purposes. This serves the military operations that the U.S. has been conducting for years, together with France, Africa of the Sahel, especially in Mali, Niger and Chad. Countries among the poorest in the world (with a rate of illiteracy that in Niger is 70% among men and 90% among women), but extraordinarily rich in raw materials  coltan and gold in Mali, uranium in Niger, oil in Chad  exploited by US and French multinationals that fear competition from Chinese companies, that offer African countries far more favourable [trading] terms.

Another U.S. military operation, with drones and special forces, is underway in Somalia, a country of primary geostrategic importance.

At the same time, the U.S. Army Africa penetrates the continent with cooperation for security programmes, the real aim of which is training military elites to serve the U.S.A. For the same reason, war ships of the U.S. Naval Forces Africa sail along the African coasts providing assistance for maritime security.

Spiritual help is also on board: the Chaplain of the Wasp, a ship of amphibian assault, has held via video conference the Holy Mass in the Mediterranean, for the sailors on board the war ship San Antonio, assigned on a mission in Africa.
Photo: Xavier Collin/Image Press/Splash/Corbis

Sometimes, the finest feuds to grace Hollywood are developed from years of bottled up jealousy and a healthy dose of pain. This is not one of those times. Taking to Twitter on Saturday morning, noted funny guy Seth Rogen revealed something that seemingly came out of nowhere: Another funny guy, Rob Schneider, dislikes him so much that he blocked him on the social-media website. Why? Seriously, your guess is as good as Rogens. Tweet him your thoughts.

Why does he seem so appalled to be sitting with his own family? pic.twitter.com/v7Udqq1Yz2  Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) June 17, 2017

Rogens fellow comedy chums naturally thought this was hilarious, and tried to understand where the hell this unexpected animosity stems from. Rogen, for what its worth, honestly has no idea.

I honestly have no idea.  Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) June 17, 2017

Shit.  Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) June 17, 2017

You're missing some gold pic.twitter.com/V41r1hTyFB  Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) June 17, 2017

He's picking fights with comedy legends  Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) June 17, 2017

That's good.  Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) June 17, 2017

But wait! Hours later Schneider chimed in with his side of the story  but instead of actually explaining the reasoning behind his block, he brokered for a meeting with  Rogens occasional film co-star James Franco.

Dear @Sethrogen



I'll unblock you if I can meet James Franco. You'll be back in buddy!



Potentially yours again,

Rob  Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider) June 18, 2017

And it worked?

Dear Seth,

You are officiallyUNBLOCKED!

Go celebrate 2Nite with some close friends.But be on your best behavior from now on!

ILOVED"TheEnd"  Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider) June 18, 2017

Dear Seth,

And thanks for hooking me up with Franco. You're right, he is dreamy!

Your pal once again,

Rob  Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider) June 18, 2017

We have no idea whats going on, either. Rogen has yet to respond to Schneider.
Photo: Pool/Getty Images

Social media erupted Saturday morning when news broke that Bill Cosbys sexual-assault trial had ended in a hung jury. When the judge announced a mistrial a little after 10 a.m., questions loomed about what could have possibly happened to cause the jury to become so hopelessly deadlocked in this high-profile case, and whether the Montgomery County District Attorneys Office would take on the 79-year-old comedian a second time.

By lunch, D.A. Kevin R. Steele had vowed that his office would retry Cosby. He said Andrea Constand, the woman at the center of the case (shes accusing Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her in his Philadelphia home in 2004), is also onboard and willing to testify again.

As if to demonstrate just how firmly the battle lines have been drawn in this case, Cosbys camp gave no sign that they would give into speculation over his past relationships with women. The comedians spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, not only criticized the women accusing Cosby of assault (many of the comedians accusers attended the trial and could be seen crying outside the courthouse today after the announcement was made) but also took a jab at the attorneys looking to prosecute. With Cosby standing quietly by his side, he told them in no uncertain terms that they should go back to law school.

Gloria Allred, the attorney representing 33 of the more than 60 women who have publicly accused Cosby of assaulting them over 40 years, also spoke to the media on Saturday. Allred, whos attended the trial since day one, said, Its too early to celebrate. Shes digging in her heels as she prepares to bring a civil case against Cosby in California as early as this month. Her client in that case has accused Cosby of raping her at the Playboy Mansion when she was just 15 years old.

This weekend, however, the biggest question is what exactly led to the mistrial? Was the case simply not as strong as prosecutors hoped? Did the jury have trouble navigating the three felony indecent-sexual-assault charges?

From the start, the evidence in this controversial case hinged on believability, and specifically on whether Constand was credible during her seven hours on the stand.

Melissa Gomez, a nationally known trial consultant, said its likely the jury was polarized on each end of the spectrum, and that both the defense and prosecution can learn a great deal about what happened based on the questions the jury asked during the six-day deliberation.

The repeated reexamination of key testimony from both Constand and Cosby supports the theory that jurors were likely torn between who to believe and what happened on the night in question. During the more than 50 hours of deliberations, the jury not only asked for a rereading of statements Cosby made about his admitted use of Quaaludes with women, they also wanted to see Constands phone records.

It can come down to the smallest thing, said Gomez. The jury may be looking at Constand and wondering how she remembers what happened the night she claims she was drugged and assaulted, or even why she voluntarily took pills. Any reasonable doubt, said Gomez, can create a deadlocked jury.

The fact that Cosby did not take the stand in his own defense may have also played a role in the deliberations. As such, the defense may not call him for the second trial if they think hes a loose canon or unreliable. It happens a lot with high-powered people, said Gomez.

Ultimately, she said, The jury wants information that supports their position. Its not unusual for them to have questions about evidence so they can use it to bolster their opinions, like the phone call between Constands mother and the comedian, which seemed to be a major focus during deliberations in the past few days.

There are many other variables to consider for the next trial  like what people already know about the case and whether Constand will elaborate on any new details, even whether new witnesses are called. The celebrity quotient will certainly continue to complicate this already complex case. Cosbys fame could have worked for or against him, said Gomez, depending on if jurors felt deceived or enamored.

D.A. Steele said that Cosbys celebrity does not preclude him from prosecution a second time. Its expected that both sides will be looking for jurors who are unbiased and, no matter what they know of the case or Cosby, that theyll be able to judge based on the evidence presented in the courtroom.

The fact that the jurors dug in their heels is significant, said Gomez. They learned that this is a polarizing case, and both [sides] have a winning strategy.
The shops and restaurants clustered around Second Street and Franklin Avenue are a full half-mile from the retail phenomenon known as Magnolia Market at the Silos. But theyre feeling the parking pinch the Silos have brought to downtown.

In a case of the solution becoming a problem, the free Silo District Trolley loop that the city started last summer to ease parking congestion has encouraged Silo shoppers to park at the already crowded public lots in front of River Square Center and Stones Throw.

Now the downtown Public Improvement District and City Center Waco are asking the city to take several steps to steer those customers to other lots.

We at City Center Waco and the PID are concerned that this is a serious problem, City Center Waco executive director Megan Henderson said. The unavailability of parking for customers of the river district is contributing to a decline in business for those establishments.

The PID board, which oversees a fund for special downtown services, met Monday and recommended some short- and midterm solutions to the parking crunch.

They start with removing references to the public parking lot from tourist promotional materials and with removing signs advertising Second and Franklin as a trolley stop. Next, the public parking signs at the lots would be replaced with new signs advertising public parking only after 5 p.m. and on weekends, though the lots would remain open to the public without restriction.

In addition, the PID board asked the city to encourage users of the Waco Convention Center to park across Third Street from City Hall and to make the underused city parking garage at Fourth Street more welcoming to visitors. In the midterm, the PID board is also asking the city to consider creating an alternative public parking lot somewhere else along the trolley loop.

Assistant City Manager Deidre Emerson said city staff has already scrubbed mention of the River Square trolley stop from its online publications and will bring the other recommendations to the July 18 council meeting for discussion.

Recent study

Underused private lots seen as key to downtown Waco parking issues For those who have circled the block looking for a space around RiverSquare or the Magnolia 

Hendersons nonprofit group provides staffing for the PID and helped conduct a recent parking study for downtown that the PID commissioned. The study, conducted last year, found the lots between Third Street and University Parks Drive were the most used in downtown, often reaching full capacity. The average car was observed to stay an hour and 45 minutes.

But the dynamics have changed since those observations were made last August and September. The trolley route, which debuted in July 2016, grew in popularity over the ensuing months, with most Silo visitors using free parking near the Waco Downtown Farmers Market site around University Parks and Webster Avenue.

But since early 2017, that free parking area has closed because of a site cleanup for future development, and tourists have migrated to River Square to park, according to Henderson and the merchants.

When the trolley started, it was great, said Jennifer Wilson, owner of the Spice Village retail emporium at River Square. We were super excited about the possibilities and the amount of people it was going to bring to us. . . . But what we discovered is that because the city had this listed as one of the parking places to get on the trolley, cars would literally stay here all day. Its hurting people who are coming directly to River Square.

Wilson said her business is getting plenty of tourist traffic, but she worries that its at the expense of local customers.

Our Waco customers are not coming to us anymore because theyre so frustrated with parking being such an issue, she said. I think all the businesses down here have seen the abandonment from some of our locals because they dont want to have to deal with the parking.

Ninfas Mexican Restaurant also has seen the mixed blessing of Wacos Magnolia boom, general manager Darlene Johnson said. She said the tourists do come to eat at the restaurant, where they can get a discount by presenting a Magnolia sales receipt.

Nowhere to park

Underused city parking garage key ingredient in downtown Waco comeback With the growing popularity of Wacos city center, is it time for a big public parking garage in the heart of downtown?

They definitely bring in a lot of people, but I do hear a lot of locals talk about it: I wanted to come, but there was nowhere to park, so I assumed you were busy,  Johnson said.

Henderson said the parking crunch is having a big effect on the smaller food establishments and on office leases. She said River Square has 24,000 square feet of office space available, and Stones Throw has 17,000 square feet upstairs. But parking issues make that space a hard sell.

Trent Weaver, owner of Stones Throw, agreed that parking is a challenge to leasing that space.

It purely depends on the type of tenant you put in there, Weaver said. You might have a 100-employee tenant interested, but theres only 132 spaces for parking.

Already, that parking lot serves Bangkok Royal, Fuzzys Taco Shop, Wing Stop and Teriyaki Park, as well as Bicycle World, which is preparing to move to a new space a block away. New clothing and spa boutiques and a liquid nitrogen ice cream shop are also in the works.

Weaver said he welcomes the traffic from Magnolia, but he said business in the river area has grown enough to justify structured parking.

Theres no doubt we need a few parking garages strategically placed down here, he said.

Henderson said Weaver might be right, though it might take millions of dollars and several years to get one built, and much more study would be required. She said City Center Waco in the next few weeks will start collecting new parking data to get a better gauge of whats needed to help River Square and Stones Throw thrive.

Everybodys goal is that those places will be full, she said.
For years, this was Oklahomas league. But now Baylor could be the program that everyone else in the Big 12 aspires to be.
Wacos Juneteenth procession stretched half a mile down Elm Avenue on Saturday, as hundreds of people danced, rode horses, cruised in classic cars or threw candy to a hip-hop soundtrack.

The sight was impressive even to Dwayne Banks, who has seen two decades worth of parades along Elm Avenue celebrating the end of slavery in Texas.

There was more to see this year, said Banks, standing in front of Marilyns Gift Gallery, which he owns with his wife, Marilyn Banks. Usually over the last couple of years its been about five minutes long. This is a lot bigger. . . . Im impressed with what they did this year.

In fact, he observed that the parade participants appeared to outnumber the crowd, an observation that parade organizers with the Cen-Tex African American Chamber of Commerce confirmed. Chamber President and CEO Laveda Brown said parade participation grew from about 300 people last year to more than 400 this year, and she hopes the event will continue to grow in popularity next year.

Ashley Royal, owner of Footprintz Dance Studio, said she hopes a new generation of Waco residents will embrace Juneteenth.

It needs to be way bigger, said Royal, whose students paraded with pompoms Saturday. Next year, it should be bigger than the Fourth of July.

Royal said the younger generation needs to be educated more about the meaning of Juneteenth.

A few girls asked me, What is Juneteenth?  she said. I try to teach them that because of Juneteenth were able to have business and have all the things that we have today.

Juneteenth, which falls on Monday this year, is celebrated these days from Seattle to Atlanta to New York, but its roots are uniquely Texan.

It was on June 19, 1865, a month after the Civil War ended, that Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and read aloud the order to free Texas 250,000 slaves, including that it meant absolute equality of personal rights of property between former masters and slaves.

The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, had taken effect in January 1863.

Black Central Texans have celebrated Juneteenth ever since. Celebrations in the early part of the 20th century drew thousands of people to Taborian Park, which is now part of Baylor University, newspaper accounts from the time show. Former slaves would speak alongside ministers and white city leaders, and everyone would enjoy free barbecue.

Along the parade route, parade watchers described Juneteenth as a tradition for food, music and family reunions.

We like to eat a little barbecue, have a Big Red and some watermelon, said Patty Price, who had driven in from Axtell.

Ivory Albert Seaton drove in from Dallas with his fiancee, Jana Mays, a Waco native.

I come for our family reunion and Juneteenth every year, Seaton said. Its what I do to celebrate black history. Its a joyful thing for me to celebrate.

The parade featured new Waco Independent School District Superintendent A. Marcus Nelson as grand marshal, with Sheriff Parnell McNamara and Councilman Jim Holmes serving as deputy marshals.

This year, the usual picnicking and music celebration at Brazos Park East following the parade didnt happen, but the NAACP and other social-justice-minded organizations held a small event at Oscar DuConge Park in East Waco. Adults were encouraged to register to vote, while kids ate hot dogs, competed to win books and got to meet Police Chief Ryan Holt and members of the police SWAT team.

Waco NAACP President Peaches Henry said Juneteenth is a reminder of the importance of the right to vote and participate in government.

It has historical meaning, but it also has a new energy behind it, Henry said. People are absolutely engaged now in civic activities in ways they have not been because of the atmosphere in our country. This election taught people that voting, or the lack of voting, has consequences. . . . This generation of young people is not going to accept the notion that voting doesnt count. Theyre realizing that struggle for freedom is never over. We have to continue to fight.
As a candidate, President Trump vowed a tough new immigration regime, but many of his signature plans have so far been stymied: Mexico is not paying for a wall on Americas southern border, Congress so far refuses to sign off on increased funding for a big deportation force and courts keep blocking Trumps travel ban on visitors from several Muslim-majority countries and his effort to starve so-called sanctuary cities of funding.

Some states are picking up the slack. In May, Texas passed a law based on a state Senate bill that allows police officers to delve into anyones immigration status  during an arrest, detention, on college campuses or, in some cases, even after witnessing a crime. Set to become law in September, it also makes it mandatory for local police and sheriffs departments to comply with federal requests to detain undocumented immigrants. At least 32 other states are considering similar anti-sanctuary city laws.

But the new law is proving divisive in increasingly diverse Texas and a source of concern for law enforcement officials who fear that undocumented immigrants  in many cases their eyes and ears into local crime  will clam up and stop helping police for fear of coming into contact with immigration authorities. Police chiefs in six large Texas cities  Arlington, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio  vocally opposed the Senate bill, even as it won support from rural and suburban voters. Major Texas hubs like Dallas and Fort Worth are now torn between continuing policies they say make their cities safer and economically vibrant and enforcing the letter of the law and moving to deport anyone who may have entered the country illegally.

There cant be a fear that if you engage with police, you will be asked for documentation status. If you live under that fear, then you will not call the police, said Lee Kleinman, a member of the Dallas City Council.

Though not a sanctuary city, Dallas has benefited from an open-arms policy: Kleinman credits the citys welcoming, can-do atmosphere toward immigrants with helping attract big companies like Toyota and Boeing. But theres also fear of a backlash.

We have to walk a very fine line, he said. We have no interest in being declared a sanctuary city.

The term is hazily defined, usually referring to cities that dont comply with federal immigration laws in one way or another. No major Texas city defines itself as a sanctuary city, but the label could soon carry steep consequences. Under the new Texas law, cities and officials who dont toe the line can be fined up to $25,000 a day, and police chiefs and elected officials could even face jail time if they dont cooperate.

Many major cities across the United States such as San Francisco, New York and Chicago are either self-declared sanctuary cities or, like Dallas and Fort Worth, put a higher priority on fighting crime than on immigration violations (though they still cooperate with detainer requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for arrested immigrants). Theres a reason for that: Undocumented immigrants can help police keep tabs on rough neighborhoods, gangs and the drug trade. The more comfortable they feel speaking with police, the more likely they are to come forward and share information that could help prevent or solve a crime.

Undocumented residents dont live in a vacuum, said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who strenuously opposed the bill. If a large swath of your community is afraid to dial 911 or afraid to send their children to school or go to the county hospital, then we are all less safe.

In neighboring Fort Worth, the citys police department has spent almost two decades investing in community policing strategies that encourage residents, regardless of immigration status, to see police officers as resources instead of threats. For the Hispanic community, Officer Daniel Segura is the public face of this effort. Hes a familiar sight around town, his booming radio-host voice greeting Fort Worths Hispanic residents at taquerias, shopping centers and churches.

We tell them: We dont care about your legal status. But if you are a victim of a crime or a witness of a crime, you can be a part of solving that crime, he said.

Segura says he gets tips almost daily on drug and gang activity, which he passes on to investigators. The department also works with roughly 1,000 Citizens on Patrol volunteers, many of them undocumented, an informal neighborhood watch.

They are our eyes and ears, Segura said.

The approach, afforded by a bigger police budget and combined with better equipment and a larger police force, has produced real results. In the 1980s, Fort Worth was nicknamed Murder Worth and was one of the crime capitals of the United States. Today its a model for gang prevention and the murder rate has shrunk drastically.

Cities such as Dallas, Austin and San Antonio are battling the new law in court. But if it takes effect in September, Officer Segura worries he will no longer be able to reassure residents that police officers are friends, not foes. That would be a stark change from the departments current guidelines, which direct officers to steer clear of asking about immigration status. He suggests it could be a deal-breaker for him.

If I have to go against my character on what I do, then Im not going to be doing it, he said.

Supporters of the new measures say concerns over racial profiling are overblown and stress that the law is meant to keep officials from ignoring ICE detention requests, as Sally Hernandez, the new sheriff in Travis County, which surrounds progressive Austin, vowed to do for low-level misdemeanors. The new law doesnt require police to ask for papers  it just stops them from being prohibited from doing so.

The Texas law does not seek to deport every innocent illegal immigrant who gets stopped by a traffic cop. But the law is the law, and we believe it should be enforced, says Fran Rhodes, vice president of fundraising for the NE Tarrant Tea Party, which supports the law.

But Jenkins, the Dallas judge, doesnt buy it. However politicians spin it, officers are liable to ask you and your family for papers, and anyone who doesnt have them can be detained, he said. Police chiefs who urge officers to focus on crime and stay away from immigration debates, he said, could now be prosecuted.

There are already signs that some of the worries Segura and Jenkins share are coming true. Police departments across the country have observed a marked drop in crime reporting in Hispanic neighborhoods this year. In Houston, the number of Hispanic residents reporting rape and sexual assault fell 43 percent, and other types of crime reporting dropped 12 percent in the first three months of 2017, compared with the same time period in 2016, while other ethnic communities have continued reporting crimes at nearly the same or higher rates.

The Los Angeles Police Department said in March that reports by the citys Hispanic population of sexual assault had plummeted 25 percent since the start of 2017. According to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, Dallas, Philadelphia and Denver saw a similar drop in crime reporting from Hispanics in the first three months of Trumps presidency.

The anxiety is palpable among many undocumented immigrants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Anecdotal evidence suggests fear of encountering the immigration dragnet is keeping Hispanics lying low. Real estate agents that deal with low-income housing report a steep drop in clients looking for new homes. Schools have seen gaps in attendance from Hispanic students. Dentist and doctor offices that serve Spanish-speaking communities even say business is suffering because they are having trouble convincing immigrant families their personal information is safe.

Some are joining in the effort to try to reassure immigrants as well. At a know-your-rights panel sponsored by Jefferson Dental Clinics, which caters to Spanish speakers, 31-year-old Magdalena Rodriguez had a question. Three years ago, she and her husband caught a burglar at a relatives house and detained him till police arrived. She wanted to know if she could still parlay that into whats known as a U-visa, a special visa for crime victims and witnesses who help police. Officer Segura, who attended the panel, told her it would be a long shot, but she should start the process. Rodriguez was desperate for a chance. She has lived in the United States for 16 years and now fears being sent back to Mexico, leaving her four young children behind. What kind of mother am I? she said, wiping tears from her eyes.

Since Trump took office, Rodriguez trembles every time she drives 25 minutes to school and keeps shopping trips to a minimum. She takes her children to the doctor only at night  pulling them out of class for a day might attract extra scrutiny. Shes sick of her neighbors marijuana smoke blowing into her house, but she and her husband are afraid to even begin looking for a new place.

Would she still call the police if she saw another burglary? If she were robbed herself?

She shook her head no. Shes too afraid.

Come September, if the law takes effect, she and her husband have decided to move to another state.

It feels like everything we achieved in these years  kids, family, work. . . Rodriguezs voice trailed off. Its like you are hitting a wall.
Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent.

 Psalm 71:9

What does it take to become a priority in the Texas Legislature? As someone who provides nursing-home care for the states frail and elderly, I often wonder why my residents and their caregivers never seem to be a priority of our legislators.

About two out of every three Texas nursing-home residents rely on Medicaid to pay for their care. That rate is set by the Texas Legislature. Our Legislature has set a rate that is one of the lowest in the nation. It does not even come close to meeting the cost of caring for Medicaid residents by the states own estimates.

The result is that nursing homes struggle to ensure that when your loved ones call for help, someone who is qualified and compassionate will be there quickly to help them. The fact that nursing homes are not able to offer competitive wages makes it hard to recruit good, quality nurses and nurse assistants. This is why our annual staff turnover statewide averages more than 90 percent.

It also makes it very hard to upgrade older facilities or offer some of the extra amenities that can brighten the lives of our residents.

But the Legislature has been reluctant to fund increases to assist with this care. In 2015, despite entering the session with a $7.5 billion budget surplus, Texas nursing homes received no increase from state lawmakers.

This session, with a much tighter state budget, providers did not ask for state funding. Instead, we asked the Legislature to allow us to pull down federal funds  without expanding Medicaid  through a program that has been used to help nursing homes in 43 other states. We even supported requiring that 50 percent of those dollars not be available to nursing homes unless we earned them by demonstrating improvement in the quality of care.

You would think legislators would jump at the chance to get funding back to an industry that everyone seems to agree is badly underfunded and needs to improve quality, especially with a program that would not add to state spending.

Some of them did. Rep. J.D. Sheffield, a physician and Republican from Gatesville, and Sen. Juan Chuy Hinojosa, a McAllen Democrat, filed legislation to authorize it. Several legislators, including Appropriations Committee Chairman John Zerwas, helped in this effort. But others still could not see their way to assist this struggling sector of health care. They thought people might accuse them of voting for a granny tax and that certain political groups might attack them for not being conservative enough.

Im a lifelong conservative Republican, as are many who supported this bill. I believe conservatism is about taking care of your responsibilities, including helping those unable to help themselves, and using taxpayer dollars wisely and only where they will have the most positive impact.

Fears among legislators were not enough to prevent 97 of the 150 members of the House and six of the nine members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee from voting for the bill. But fear did result in the bill failing to get the vote it deserved and the support it needed to be considered on the Senate floor before a key legislative deadline.

I love caring for nursing-home residents because of the opportunity it brings to do something that truly matters and positively affects the lives of so many people. I enjoy their stories about the Texas they remember. I am always moved by the love they show for their families and often for other residents and staff.

I want them to feel happy and cherished even as their health fails them. I want their final years to be filled with purpose and the dignity and respect they deserve.

What will it take for state legislators to share this commitment, rise up above political rhetoric and fear, and prioritize care of our elderly? Unfortunately, the answer may be seen in Child Protective Services, where the state only stepped up its efforts and funding when tragedies and intolerable situations received media coverage.

Texans must demand more. We cannot wait for our elderly to suffer the way our children have before our legislators finally jump to action.
The union representing electrical and communications workers has launched a legal challenge against a key element of the Turnbull government's controversial building and construction laws.

The Communication, Electrical and Plumbing Union is asking the Federal Court to overturn a decision by the construction industry watchdog to apply the government's strict new building code to workers who install powerlines, build substations and roll out National Broadband Network cabling.

Construction watchdog boss Nigel Hadgkiss. A union is challenging the ABCC's decision on SA Power workers. Credit:Simon Schluter

The union says the decision to apply the code to hundreds of SA Power Networks employees  putting their conditions at risk  is unfair and illegal, describing the challenge as a test case that will affect thousands of workers nationwide.

The building code sets out the requirements  including industrial conditions  that a company has to comply with if they want to tender for taxpayer-funded projects.
Port Macquarie engineer and surfer Dale Carr has a joke about how he got bitten on the "fart gun".

But there was nothing very funny about his experience one August afternoon in 2015, when he was attacked by a 2.7 metre shark, about 150 metres from the shore at Lighthouse Beach. The lacerations to his buttocks meant he lost two-and-a-half litres of blood and needed three rounds of surgery before he was able to go home to his wife and kids.

Dale Carr shows the wounds of his attack. Credit:James Brickwood

Since the attack, Carr has been keen to share his experience with other survivors through a members-only online forum called Bite Club. But he quickly decided not to express a public opinion on how to deal with sharks. When Carr awoke in hospital, he was bombarded with insensitive Facebook messages from trolls telling him he deserved the bite because he had gone into the water, while others called for all sharks to be killed.

In his view, sharks should be added to politics, religion and sex as conversation topics best avoided. "I have never seen anything like it. It is so polarising."
As senior Turnbull government ministers studiously refused to comment about the possible charges against Greg Hunt, Alan Tudge and Michael Sukkar, it was Senator Hinch - twice jailed for contempt - who declared "the system is rotten".

The parliamentarian with more experience of contempt of court than any other, Senator Hinch compared Friday's hearing - during which the trio retracted but did not apologise for their criticisms, in which they suggested the judiciary was too lenient when it comes to sentencing terrorism suspects - to scenes out of a Franz Kafka novel.

Crossbench senator Derryn Hinch has slammed the Victorian Supreme Court for threatening three Turnbull government ministers with contempt charges, saying the judiciary is not above criticism and he would have told the court to "go jump".

"The three ministers were well within their rights to do what they did," he told Fairfax Media. "If I was the minister I would have told them to go jump. Courts are not inviolate."

Senator David Leyonhjelm last week labelled the judiciary as "dear little daffodils". Credit:Andrew Meares

Amid an ongoing political debate about the sentencing of terrorism offenders, Mr Hunt accused the Victorian legal system last week of becoming a forum for "ideological experiments", Mr Sukkar said the judiciary should focus more on victims and less on terrorists' rights and Mr Tudge said some judges were "divorced from reality".

The three Victorian ministers  all qualified lawyers  now face being charged with contempt. If that happens, there is a possibility they could be disqualified from Parliament and put the government's slim majority at risk.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce on Sunday signalled he was keenly aware of the risks."If the court says that there's an issue here then I'm going to shut up," he told the ABC's Insiders program. "I want to do everything in my power to make sure it doesn't go badly, so I'm going to be saying nothing, and that's unusual for me."
Main Roads WA has announced the roll out of yellow box line marking to a further 12 intersections in the Perth metropolitan area, saying the lack of "common sense" by drivers has made the move necessary.

The marking acts as a reminder to drivers not to stop within an intersection, and a trial of the yellow box system was trialled last year at four different Perth intersections.

An example image depicting how a yellow box intersection works. Credit:Main Roads WA

The model has been proven to reduce the number of times vehicles queue across an intersection.

A Main Roads WA spokesperson said the addition of the marking to 12 Perth intersections would hopefully improve traffic flow, and should be completed by the end of this month.
Roe 8 protesters have hit back at accusations they left their 'junk' behind in the Beeliar wetlands following the cancellation of the Perth Freight Link project.

Activists camped at the site during construction, with some opting to set up in trees in order to block demolition.

A protester camping in a tree at the Roe 8 site. Credit:Hannah Barry

Photos of a makeshift camping platform and signage left in a gumtree at the site sparked criticism regarding the protesters' efforts to clean up after themselves at the Beeliar site.

But activists say the criticism was unwarranted, as protesters were not allowed to return to the wetlands to clean up after themselves due to strict bail conditions.
The WA Liberal Party's president has dismissed claims tensions boiled over at a state council meeting where Foreign Minister Julie Bishop successfully pushed for references to China be removed from a policy paper calling for more defence assets in the West.

An account of the meeting to AAP stated there had been anger between executive members and deep resentment within sections of the party boiled over during discussion of the recommendation in Perth on Saturday.

The WA Liberal policy calls for more defence assets to be located in the state in preparation of a possible heightened Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

WA Liberal Party state president Norman Moore rejected that account.

The WA Liberal policy calls for more defence assets to be located in the state in preparation of a possible heightened Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean.
Bamako: At least two people were killed when gunmen stormed at a luxury resort popular with Western expatriates outside Mali's capital Bamako on Sunday.

Gunmen stormed Le Campement Kangaba near Dougourakoro, a resort foreign residents often visit for weekend breaks.

"At first we thought they were armed bandits but we know how armed bandits operate, they don't hold territory, so now we think it is a terrorist attack," Malian Security Minister Salif Traore told journalists outside the entrance to the resort, part of which was on fire, late on Sunday.

Malian security forces, United Nations peacekeeping mission vehicles and French military armoured vehicles were surrounding the resort. A helicopter was circling overhead.
Aldi Rizal would throw tantrums and hurt himself in order to get his cigarettes. Credit:Getty Images "He would eat three chicken legs at one meal, three bowls of bakso (meatball soup) at once, one tin of condensed milk in the morning and one at night. If I said to eat less, he would throw tantrums and threaten to go back to smoking. So I just let him eat what he wanted. His weight got out of control then." When Aldi started school, kids made fun of his huge lunch box. He began to cut down on the size of his meals and his weight is now under control. Aldi Rizal, with his mother Diana, quit smoking when he was four. He is holding up a YouTube video of his younger smoking self. Credit:Jewel Topsfield The infamous "Indonesian smoking baby" YouTube videos raised international awareness about the alarmingly high child smoking rate in Indonesia: 20 per cent of Indonesians aged 13 to 15 smoke according to the 2014 Global Youth Tobacco Survey.

But now health experts are alarmed that a controversial bill before parliament aimed at increasing cigarette production will roll back regulations discouraging smoking in Indonesia. Aldi Rizal with his mother Diana. Credit:Jewel Topsfield My parents know I smoke, they don't mind. My parents only ask for one thing, I don't inhale glue. I smoke, but I am not addicted to it. It's just like candy. I can stop anytime. 13-year-old Sandi Saputra Indonesia and three other tobacco-producing countries have also appealed against Australia's world-first cigarette plain packaging laws to the World Trade Organisation, arguing they created an illegal trade barrier. The final ruling is expected next month but a leaked draft reportedly found in Australia's favour.

Sandi Saputra, a 13 year old smoker from Palembang. Credit:Amilia Rosa Aldi's internet notoriety meant that Diana was pilloried for being a bad mother. She blames herself, in part, for Aldi smoking at such a young age because she craved cigarettes while pregnant, whereas with her other children her cravings had been for sour fruits and green mangoes. But Diana also tells us of her struggle to get Aldi to quit in the middle of a fishing village where smoking is ubiquitous and villagers would give him money to buy cigarettes because he was "cute and funny". Idris, the former head of Bone-Bone, a village in Sulawesi that banned smoking. Credit:Amilia Rosa "The first thing I did was confiscate the cigarettes and he would throw a tantrum. He started banging his head, he stabbed himself in the knee with a knife," she says.

"He woke at 3am and started demanding cigarettes." Diana says she tried every method available to make him quit including hot ointment on cigarette tips and taking Aldi to an isolated river house. "He said: 'If you don't give me a cigarette I will jump'. I thought, like other kids, it was just an empty threat. He jumped." She shows us the scar on his head. "There was blood everywhere. After that I caved in. If he wanted cigarettes he got cigarettes." It was not until a local journalist reported the case to Dr Seto that Aldi received two months of therapy in Jakarta and managed to quit. Like many a reformed smoker, Aldi now warns of the difficulties of quitting.

He wants to be a doctor and tells his dad to stub out his cigarettes: "I quit and you didn't," he tells him. "If we smoke, we will ruin our lives," he says. "Nerves and brain, all will be ruined. Throat, teeth " On the main road of Aldi's village of Teluk Kemang, an enormous billboard blocks the sky advertising Sampoerna  the leading tobacco company in Indonesia and part of Philip Morris International. "Size is important," the slogan says. Increasing restrictions in countries such as Australia means Indonesia  where public smoking and cigarette advertising are largely unregulated  is one of the final frontiers for Big Tobacco. Point-of-sale advertising here is startling after coming from Australia where cigarettes are banned from even being displayed in shops.

In Indonesia TV screens above rows of cigarettes in mini-marts have commercials on endless replay. Cigarette ads ranked fifth in television advertising spending in 2016. "We [Australia] banned tobacco advertising 25 years ago but in Indonesia it's rampant," says Mike Daube, a professor of health policy at Curtin University. "Any controls are notional where kids are heavily exposed to cigarette adverts that make smoking seem cool and glamorous." A 2015 survey found 85 per cent of schools in five cities in Indonesia  including the capital of Jakarta  were surrounded by cigarette ads. Daube does not mince his words. "I think Indonesia is a public health nightmare," he says. "It's just desperately depressing. When you look at the magnitude of the problem it is quite catastrophic. Even with conservative estimates we are looking at 200,000 deaths a year caused by smoking."

Cigarettes are also among the cheapest in the world here. A pack of Marlboro  one of the most expensive brands  will set you back just 25,000 rupiah (about $2.50). Single sticks, known as loosies, are sold at roadside stalls for the equivalent of a few cents. Thirteen-year-old Sandi Saputra works nights at a nasi goreng (fried rice) stall in Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra, and attends school by day. He earns the equivalent of $2.50 a night, most of which he gives to his parents, but has a bit of leftover pocket money to spend on loosies. "I started smoking when I was in first grade, seven years old, because everybody was smoking, all my friends," he says. "My parents know I smoke, they don't mind. My parents only ask for one thing, I don't inhale glue. I smoke, but I am not addicted to it. It's just like candy. I can stop anytime." While smoking is decreasing globally, it is increasing here. Indonesia already has the highest male smoking rate in the world  67 per cent according to the 2011 Global Adult Tobacco Survey  although for cultural reasons the female smoking rate is much lower.

About one-third of the population of 250 million smokes, compared with 12 per cent of Australians. In 2014 Indonesia began mandating that 40 per cent of cigarette packets must be covered with the sort of graphic pictorial health warnings  cancerous mouths and tracheotomy holes  familiar to Australian smokers. It was a rare victory for anti-smoking activists in a country where health reforms pose a dilemma because the tobacco industry is a significant part of the economy. Indonesia is the fifth-largest tobacco leaf producer in the world and Sampoerna its largest taxpayer. It is one of only a few nations not a signatory to the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which stipulates that government policies be protected from the vested interests of the tobacco industry.

The 2016 Tobacco Industry Interference Index found Indonesia had the highest level of tobacco industry participation and interference in government policy in the ASEAN region. "There is currently a pro-tobacco bill in Parliament for debate which serves to protect tobacco farmers rather than public health," it says. The bill seeks to triple cigarette production to 524 billion by 2020. "If passed, this bill has the potential to roll back the few achievements in tobacco control such as the pictorial health warnings currently applied on cigarette packs." This has raised alarm bells within Indonesia's health ministry.

"The problem now is that many of our children are smoking," says director for health promotion Dedi Kuswenda. He says the health ministry would like to see the warnings enlarged to cover 75 per cent of packs and then move to plain packaging. "In Australia more people are not smoking now. But it is as if we [Indonesia] are becoming a cigarette sale area. At the end of the day it is about increasing profit when we need to be healthy." But Syarif Abdullah Alkadrie, one of the parliamentarians debating the proposed new law, says the bill is about protecting tobacco farmers. He says 50 per cent of Indonesia's tobacco is imported and lawmakers want this restricted to 20 per cent. "We must look at this issue from both sides," he says. "A lot of people earn their living from tobacco."

The Indonesian government has made no secret of its irritation with Australia over the plain packaging laws. A final ruling on the WTO appeal, expected next month, is predicted to uphold Australia's argument that the rules don't violate trade laws because they qualify as a legitimate public health measure. But it will come at a sensitive time. Australia and Indonesia are negotiating a free trade deal  slated to be concluded by the end of the year  and Indonesia is already angry about dumping duties slapped on its A4 paper exports. Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita "joked" to his Australian counterpart, Steven Ciobo, that he would consider requiring Australian wine sold in Indonesia to pass halal certification and use plain packaging in retaliation.

"I deliver it in a light way though, and it was just an expression of my resentment," he was quoted as saying in The Jakarta Post. Smoking has long been a vexed issue in Indonesia. A 2009 fatwa prohibiting smoking in public places or by pregnant women and children was the most controversial ever issued by Indonesia's highest Islamic clerical body. "So far we have always been able to come to the same conclusion, with no dissenting opinion except for once, when we issued a fatwa on smoking," Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) chairman Ma'ruf Amin told Fairfax Media earlier this year. "We argued for two days and could not come to a solid conclusion. Some agreed to smoking and some did not." The local variant of cigarettes  Kretek  are a source of national pride. A mixture of tobacco and cloves, they lend the streets of Indonesia a distinctive sweet smell.

Aditia Purnomo and Muhammad Nur Azami are members of the smokers' rights group Komunitas Kretek. Both were activists  Azami a "green" warrior" and Aditia involved in the labour movement  who happened to smoke and became angry about regulations they felt discriminated against smokers. "So we decided to fight back against the government," Aditia says. "It [smoking] is a human right." Aditia says the first major anti-smoking campaign was by Hitler's Nazis, who wanted to protect the health of the Aryan master race. He believes it hypocritical of the government to regulate smoking while reaping tax benefits from its revenue: "If health is a priority, just say smoking is illegal." In the past, Aditia says, people believed Kretek could be used as medicine to treat flu or coughing because they contained cloves. He still believes they have some benefits, but acknowledges there are also side effects.

Azami's black T-shirt is emblazoned with the slogan "Kretek are not cigarettes". He says the anti-tobacco movement serves the interests of the health industry that produces nicotine patches and electronic cigarettes. "It's not fair only tobacco products have pictorial warnings. What about junk food, KFC, McDonalds, children driving motorbikes?" The June edition of global trade magazine Tobacco Reporter carries a story, "Trouble in Paradise", which notes that Indonesia's tobacco industry is facing new challenges. It points out the nation's two largest cities  Jakarta and Surabaya  have moved to make indoor places smoke-free. Notwithstanding that "Indonesia's tobacco control efforts are half-hearted and the government's attitude towards the sector remains ambivalent", Tobacco Reporter says, the country is slowly moving to a more restrictive environment. "It is only a matter of time before the country's tobacco industry will be operating in the same conditions that have long been common in other parts of the world."

Perhaps the remarkable story of Bone-Bone, a tiny village in South Sulawesi with a population of 800, provides a glimpse into this future. In 2000, former hamlet head Idris, who ran a small warung (roadside stall), noticed villagers were spending big chunks of their incomes on cigarettes. "They were just wasting their money," he tells us. Idris approached village leaders to discuss how to stop smoking. The first step was an initially unpopular proposal that the village warungs stop selling cigarettes. Within six months all eight had signed up. Smoking was then banned in public places. No smoking signs were posted everywhere with horrible pictures of blackened lungs. "One kid went home crying. He said he didn't want his dad's lungs to turn black like in the pictures."
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jun. 16, 2017 | AURORA, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 16, 2017 | 01:57 PM | AURORA, KY

The biggest buzz surrounding this year's Kenlake Hot August Blues Festival is the return of festival favorite Big Mike Griffin. Big Mike performed at the very first Hot August Blues Festival in 1990 and at every festival afterward until 2008.



Big Mike will return to the Kenlake Hot August Blues Festival Saturday, August 26th. For a limited time, fans can order tickets to this year's festival at a 40% discount at KenlakeBlues.com.



Standing at a towering 6'10", it could literally be said that there's no bigger blues musician than Big Mike Griffin.



Big Mike comes from a proud tradition of journeyman blues musicians. He has performed on stages across North America and Europe; every place from juke joints and roadhouses to Turner Field and Riverfront Stadium.



Griffin has also been a biker for more than 30 years. His love of both music and motorcycles spawned a new type of Motormusic that has been widely accepted as a new and exciting form of Blues/Rock.



Born and raised in Lawton, Oklahoma, Big Mike was introduced to music at an early age.



"My dad played, so there was always a guitar or fiddle laying around the house. It seems like I've been playing as long as I've been alive," he said.



Later, he began listening to blues artists like T-Bone Walker, Paul Butterfield, and Mike Bloomfield. His blues education was further enhanced by late night highway trips to Texas to catch legends like Freddie King, Albert King, and Albert Collins.



Big Mike started his career as a professional musician in the clubs and honky tonks in southern Oklahoma and north Texas. He haunted the blues clubs in Wichita Falls and the Dallas- Fort worth area early on, as the blues music that came from that area really spoke to him. He formed friendships with many great bluesmen of the area. Jimmy Vaughn and his brother Stevie Ray were acquaintances as well as peers.



Blues was his first love musically, but to stay working in the music business, he also played country music. In the late 70's Griffin formed the Broken Spoke band. The band's success led him to share the stage with such artists as Hank Williams Jr., George Strait, John Conlee, Johnny Rodriguez, Barbara Fairchild and David Frizzell. His relationship with those artists ultimately led to his relocation to Nashville.



At that time, through his good friend, Warren Haynes, Mike was hired by David Allan Coe to play guitar in his band. He toured with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, George Jones and Neil Young.



At the end of his tenure with Coe, Griffin formed a blues band, and was signed to Malaco Records in 1992. The band released three CD's on that label.



In 1997, long time friend and fellow biker John Tubbs partnered with Mike to form Chrome Link Records, which is based in Lawton and has an office in Nashville. They currently have 8 titles on the label.



In 2008, Big Mike starred in the award-winning documentary, "Iron City Blues", which chronicled his creation of a blues song about the most notorious town in the South. This film received rave reviews in the press, from Biker Magazine, to the European edition of Easy Riders Magazine. In 2014, Big Mike was inducted into the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame.



Today, he continues to tour the country, sharing his unique form of the blues with long- time friends and a new generation of fans.




Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/06/2017 (1972 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was a dark and stormy night. In a galxy (sic) far far away.

So begins Chapter 1 of a collaborative work of fiction currently being written at Strong Badger Coffeehouse. Check that: typewritten.

PHOTOS BY PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Brock Peters chose the name for his coffeehouse because Brock is a Gaelic term for badger.

Brock Peters, owner of the West End hub at 679 Sargent Ave., collects manual typewriters. About six months ago, the 29-year-old barista dusted off one of his treasures and plunked it on a window sill near the front door of his homey, 800-sq.-ft. shop. Next, he inserted a blank piece of paper in the machines carriage. Since then, anybody who pops in for a cuppa joe has been welcome to add a sentence of their own to what Peters hopes will culminate in a full-length novel.

I dont really have a title for it  I refer to it as The Progressive Story  but its really a ton of fun showing younger folks how these old warhorses work, says Peters, running his hand over the 39-year-old portable unit, which he pegs as a Brother JP-1 model.

Its such a perfect neighborhood for this type of business. Judging by the pretty routine gratitude I receive, I think the people here were really ready for something like this, in their own backyard, so to speak  Strong Badger proprietor Brock Peters

Stealing a page from The Typewriter Revolution, a blog penned by Xavier University professor Richard Polt, Peters recently hosted an event billed as a type-in. Customers were able to BYOT  thats bring your own typewriter  and tap, tap, tap away to their hearts content. At one point in the evening, Peters issued a challenge, after which he awarded prizes to the speediest typists in the room.

We had seven or eight people in total, going all at once. It was so cool it sounded like this little symphony.

  

A small, metal badger sits atop a display case while Brock Peters chats with a customer. Patrons have given Peters an array of badger souvenirs that are on display throughout the coffeehouse.

Peters parents are from Winnipeg. After getting married in 1988, they moved to Whitehorse, a destination that had been on Peters fathers bucket list for years.

I was about three and a half when we moved back (to Winnipeg) so I dont really have any distinct memories of that period just a funny little birth certificate and a document that says I crossed the Arctic Circle when I was one, he says, pausing to wish a regular named Carolin a pleasant evening as she packs her things to go. (Before heading out the door, she reminds Peters she intends to bake him a badger-shaped cake in honour of the shops first anniversary, which is just around the corner. The only problem is it falls on a Wednesday, she points out, and dont you think it would be more fun if we celebrated on the Friday that week, instead?)

Peters removes his cap and scratches his beard when asked about his relationship with coffee prior to opening his biz in August 2016.

There wasnt much of one of at all, to be perfectly honest. For years, it was just something that kept me alive. I started drinking coffee at Husky service stations during high school band tours so for sure, the bar was pretty low.

Dave Nishikawa (left) and Mark Somers enjoy a cup of coffee in the cozy surroundings of the coffeehouse.

Before Strong Badger, Peters worked at McNally Robinson Booksellers. He enjoyed his job, but about three years ago he began thinking he should pursue a career he was invested personally in. He chooses his words carefully when he begins to explain how the notion of a coffee shop entered his radar.

At the time, I was kind of struck by a bunch of the so-called, third wave coffee shops that were opening up and also, what they were doing for the independent coffee scene in Winnipeg, he says, turning down his in-house stereo system, which is almost permanently glued to a jazz station. The thing was  and this might be my personal self-consciousness coming through, though others have expressed the same opinion  when it came to some of the places I walked into, I almost felt like I wasnt cool enough to be there.

I understood why they were doing their minimal aesthetic, because their focus is almost entirely on the cup of coffee. But at the end of the day, thats not really my aesthetic.

A voracious reader, Peters had long been interested in the cultural heritage associated with coffee shops. In the United Kingdom, for example, they are hotbeds of political discourse, where men and women gather to solve the worlds problems, morning, noon and night, he says. The folk music movement owes a large debt of gratitude to their ilk, he continues, citing Bob Dylan and Joan Baez as artists who got their start performing in front of caffeinated crowds in the early 1960s. Summing up, he says it was the idea of what a neighborhood coffee shop could provide  besides hot beverages  that piqued his interest.

Patrons of the Strong Badger Coffeehouse are encouraged to contribute to "The Progressive Story" by adding a sentence to the story owner Brock Peters hopes will eventually become a full-length novel.

Before trying his hand at a place of his own, Peters figured he needed to do his homework. First, he enlisted one of his roommates to teach him the ins and outs of brewing coffee using freshly roasted beans. Next he built a mobile cart out of plywood, which he used to sell pre-prepared iced-coffee drinks to passersby in different parts of the city.

Because the response his cart received in certain corners of the West End was largely favourable, Peters started going for long walks in the neighborhood, investigating properties that might be conducive to a permanent location. It was during one of those strolls when he spotted a shady, little for-rent sign in the window of a vacant building that, in a previous life, housed a pizza and fried chicken outlet. He signed a lease for the space in February 2016, took possession a month later and spent until the end of July 2016 in renovation-mode.

Finally, at 7:30 a.m. Aug. 2, 2016, he kind of quietly cracked open the front door and flipped his sign over to read open.

I distinctly remember at the end of that first day being completely wiped. I was slumped over in a chair after being on my feet all day when one of my buddies, who was there for moral support, said, Hey, dude. Dont forget you still have to cash out. (About Strong Badger, Peters business tag: it turns out Brock, his given name, is an old Gaelic term for a badger. I wanted the name of the place to be personal, but I didnt want it to be personal in an obvious sense, he says, noting the majority of the badger-related souvenirs that dot his walls and shelves are gifts from customers.)

Peters is reflected in one of the many pictures of badgers found throughout the coffeehouse.

From the get-go, Peters has sourced his coffee beans from Manitoba roasters exclusively. Black Pearl Coffee on Dufferin Avenue was the first company he partnered with. Four others have since come on board, including Clandeboyes Green Bean Coffee Imports and Sheepdog Coffee Co., a Winnipeg producer thats only been up and running since February.

I try to cater to different tastes, but if I have one profile, its that I prefer a nutty cup (of coffee) to a fruity cup, and a lower acidity versus a higher acidity, Peters says. But my house drip is always the same thing; its Other Brother Roasters Community Blend  theyre based in Winkler  which is an easy-drinking, crowd-pleaser kind of thing.

In addition to the aforementioned typing event, Peters also hosts writing workshops, book launches and small-scale concerts on an on-going basis. Its a good thing he recently hired his first paid employee because when it comes to his monthly open-mic affairs, there have definitely been occasions when Peters, an accomplished bass guitarist, couldnt help but jump up on stage, axe in hand, to participate in an impromptu jam session.

Although Peters does have a fair number of regulars who work in the area and grab a coffee to go first thing every morning, he figures 80 per cent of his clientele live within a few blocks of the shop. He and his girlfriend recently moved into the area, too  it takes him 10 minutes to walk to work if he moseys  and despite having lived most of his life in Charleswood, hes definitely fallen for the West End, he confesses.

Book launches, open mics, intimate concerts and workshops are among the events Peters hosts.

You dont need a car, everythings close, its incredibly diverse its such a perfect neighborhood for this type of business, he says, admitting he still gets uncomfortable when regulars thank him for setting up shop in their neck of the woods. Judging by the pretty routine gratitude I receive, I think the people here were really ready for something like this, in their own backyard, so to speak.

As for future plans, dont hold your breath waiting for a second or third Strong Badger to open anytime soon, he advises.

Its absurdly presumptuous to say, Oh, its not about the money, because obviously I need to make money to pay the rent and get by in life, but when it comes to having a chain of successful coffee shops, no, I cant see that happening. I guess the thing is, Ive never been out to make the best cup of coffee in town. A good cup of coffee? For sure. But a good cup of coffee along with a good everything else  thats the real goal.

For more information, or to see what special events are scheduled at Strong Badger Coffeehouse in the next while, go to www.strongbadgercoffee.ca.

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric businesses and restaurants.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca

Coffeehouse patrons Matt Veith (left) and Chris Sundby work on their laptops.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/06/2017 (1972 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two people were taken to hospital following an early morning apartment fire on Corydon Avenue Sunday.

An automatic alarm notified the fire department about the blaze at 915 Corydon Ave. at 3:57 a.m., a fire department spokesman said. When firefighters arrived at the scene, flames could be seen from the northwest corner of the building.

The fire was contained in one suite, the spokesman said. Some residents of the building were able to shelter in their suites; others took shelter in a Winnipeg Transit bus at the scene, the fire department spokesman said.

Three people received medical assessments at the scene and two were taken to hospital for further assessment. There was no word on their condition Sunday. A total of 17 emergency vehicles responded to the call, including a ladder truck and paramedic units.

The cause of the fire and a damage assessment were not available Sunday.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/06/2017 (1972 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One woman is dead and another woman faces a charge of manslaughter following a weekend house party.

Police were not naming the 37-year-old woman who was stabbed at 570 Spence St. early Saturday morning.

A 23-year-old woman was taken into custody and faces manslaughter charges, a Winnipeg police spokesman said Sunday. He said police would not identify the homicide victim.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Winnipeg Police investigate the scene at 570 Spence St. Saturday after a 37-year-old woman was stabbed to death.

The home where the stabbing death occurred is on Spence Street between Sargent and Notre Dame avenues.

Several area residents the Free Press spoke to Saturday said that at least one floor of the house, which appears to be a duplex, was frequented by drug dealers within the last several years.

Its sad, said one resident, who lives further down Spence Street and says he used to visit friends who lived in the house. I dont know whats happening to this street.
MENOMONIE, Wis. (AP)  Danielle Olson watched the clouds ahead of her on May 29, their shapes dark and hanging low.

Below her, the Menomonie Municipal Airport grew smaller as she climbed higher into the air. Turbulent winds gave the 16-year-old some jitters.

Flying is a way of life for Danielle, whose first of countless experiences in a plane came when she was just 5 weeks old. But this flight was different: The frequent flyer was piloting alone for the first time and in a two-seat aircraft she built with her dad.

Ive flown in other planes, and its just another plane. But this one, I built, Danielle said at her familys hangar, the RV14 resting on the runway behind her. I riveted those rivets. Its cool that I made a plane, and Im flying it by myself.

Student pilots must be at least 16 years old to fly solo, and Danielle made sure she was ready as soon as possible. By the time she turned 16, she had met all the requirements to fly alone and was in the air the morning of her birthday, a feat flight instructors say is rare. But leading up to that moment, Danielle already had a lifetime of flying experiences and years of building a plane under her belt.

When Danielle was an infant, her parents loaded her into a car seat with an overhead layer of foam wrapped in a bath towel to protect her small ears from the roar of the planes engine and took flight. Before that, Tim and Andrea Olson did the same thing with Danielles older sister, Colleen.

Shes never known not flying, Andrea said, watching as Tim and Danielle posed for photos with the plane they built together.

Danielle, Colleen and their parents used every opportunity to take the familys home-built, four-seat plane around the U.S. and beyond. By the time Danielle was 11, the family had traveled to all 50 states. In their experience as flyers, the family has also traveled to the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Canada and Mexico.

As time went by and the kids outgrew their car seats, Danielle and Colleen tottered around the plane as young children. Danielle said she fondly remembers climbing up front on cross-country flights and sleeping in her dads lap when the wind was calm and the ride was smooth as glass.

Danielle was only 5 or 6 years old when she fully realized she loved to fly, she said. She was still too short to see over the panel, but Tim sat her in his lap, pointed to one of the planes screens and showed her how to direct the aircraft.

Dad said, Just fly through the green boxes,  Danielle said. I just did that the whole time, and that was when I first realized this is something I can do, not just sit in the back and ride along.

Tim, whose interest in flying extends back to when he was a small child, learned how to fly in his early 30s. He wanted to give his kids a chance to learn and figured the familys four-seat plane wasnt the best model in which to do that, he said.

I knew the kids were growing up, he said, and it was kind of heartbreaking because I knew I didnt have much time left with them to do what I wanted to do. And I wanted them to be able to learn how to fly.

So, why not build their own two-seat plane together?

Between 2013 and 2016, the Olson family was busy assembling the RV14 kit, working full-time jobs, going to school and for Danielle, also learning the essentials of flying.

Building their two-seater was no easy task, Tim said  at some points of the build he estimated he and Danielle were spending 30 hours a week on their project. And a lot of the time, Danielle said, the work was challenging and monotonous.

You couldnt picture it at times, Danielle said as she contemplated the building process. There are all these parts, and you couldnt picture it as an actual thing you can fly.

It helped to get the body of the plane together so she could better imagine what she was working toward, Danielle said, and to take the familys four-seater for a fly with her mom or dad. The best part about the build, Danielle said, was painting the plane after they finished assembling.

There are some drips and mess ups if you look close, Danielle said, but its cool because we did it ourselves.

When the plane was finished in June of last year, Tim immediately took Danielle and their plane to the sky. Tim obtained his official instructors license in January, and his daughter became his first student.

Danielle plans to obtain her private pilot license when she turns 17, the minimum age for that license. Between now and then, shell spend time racking up the hours of flight required for her license.

In the state of Wisconsin, an estimated 3,409 people have active private pilot licenses as of December 2016, according to data from the Federal Aviation Administration. Of those license holders, only 194 are women.

Danielle has already accomplished an unusual amount in the world of aviation by flying solo for the first time at 16, said Mike Jacobs, a certified flight instructor for Wisconsin Aviation.

Its not very common that it happens at that age at all, Jacobs said, noting that it takes most people between 20 and 25 hours of training to be ready for a solo flight. Very few people solo in the teens.

The night before Danielles first solo flight, she couldnt sleep.

Fears of the airplane stalling midair and plummeting to the ground plagued her mind. In all her 16 years of being in planes, that scenario had never happened  it hadnt even come close to happening. But her dad had always been there while she learned to fly, she said, and the thought of flying without him was uncomfortable.

With my dad in the plane, I knew that no matter how badly I messed up, hed be able to fix it and land the plane safely, she said. So when I was with myself, I had to be more cautious because if something went wrong, I couldnt rely on him.

Stronger winds the day of her flight made Danielle a bit nervous, she said, but once she got going instinct settled in and she almost forgot she was alone. A moment of peace struck her when she saw a break in the dark clouds to the east, sunlight streaming through the opening.

You could see the rays, Danielle said, noting a church sermon about signs of God in everyday life her family heard the day before. Being a religious person, I was like, Oh, Gods here! Im good. 

After that, Danielle safely landed the plane and took off twice more.

While some parents may cringe at the thought of letting their child fly alone in an aircraft they built at home  especially in light of the Chetek teen who died in an airplane crash May 24  Tim and Andrea said they felt the RV14 is safe. After all, they know that plane inside and out.

We cant let (news of a fatal crash) stop us, Andrea said, because flying is something we love.
JUNEAUThe Dodge County Extension office is hosting this summers Area Animal Science Day June 23 for the southern and eastern portion of Wisconsin.

The event will be held at the Dodge County Fair Grounds starting at 9 a.m. and ending with an awards ceremony at 3 p.m.

This educational event includes two different judging opportunities for the 335 participating youth involved in 4-H clubs or FFA chapters in the surrounding counties. Livestock evaluation: beef, sheep, swine, and meat goats will be judged in two classes for either breeding or market purposes.

Dairy cattle judging is the second opportunity available where 32 dairy animals will be placed into eight classes of cows or heifers. Youth will sort through all the livestock; place their classes into what they see as first, second, third and fourth place and give sets of oral reasons which explain the thinking behind the way they placed the animal classes.

All the animals represented are being brought in by local producers throughout Dodge County. Area businesses have generously donated shavings for bedding for the animals. The 335 youth participating are from Dodge County and 19 other surrounding counties! The public is welcome to join in viewing Area Animal Science Days.
As Dan Buettner and his team of researchers from National Geographic magazine traveled to the Blue Zones  places where people were living to be 100-plus years old at much higher rates than they do here in the United States  the team noticed that nearly all of these centenarians had a strong sense of faith and a strong connection to a faith-based community.

It doesnt matter which faith you choose, studies have found that people who attend a place of worship four times a month and truly feel a part of the group live an extra 4 to 14 years. All but five of 263 centenarians in the original Blue Zones areas belonged to a faith-based community.

Why is engaging in a faith-based community so good for your health? Faith-based communities:

Provide a big social network. People who attend religious services have a large social network and a regular meeting place. Weekly meetings with friends are a great way to talk, connect, de-stress, laugh and have a good time.

Encourage positive behaviors. People who attend church tend to be more physically active and may be less likely to indulge in unhealthy behaviors like drinking, smoking and using illegal drugs. Religious services offer a regularly scheduled time to slow down and reflect.

Create a sanctuary in time. Taking a weekly break from the rigors of daily life is a great way to relieve stress, slow down, rejuvenate, and down shift.

Support a sense of purpose. When people practice their beliefs and values, they feel good about themselves and their purpose in everyday life.

Allow you to reconnect with your inner self. With so much of the time we spend plugged in, tuned in, or online, its easy to become disconnected. People who tak

a

e some time e

ach day to think about who they are and what their purpose is in the world figure out what is truly important. This will help to lessen daily frustrations and stress.

People are encouraged to recommit, reconnect or explore a new faith-based community if they do not already have one to which they belong. Start by asking friends and neighbors for suggestion. Those who already belong should invite a friend. Its just one more way to improve well-being, leading to a longer, better life.

Blue Zones Project engages church members through simple activities that strengthen social, physical and emotional health. Those who already belong to a church or religious group that meets regularly, should get involved. Studies suggest that the more people participate, the greater the reward. Faith-based organizations often have many volunteer opportunities within and outside of the organization. Seek out the opportunities to become more involved while helping someone else. Taking care of someone else takes the focus away from personal problem and may be an opportunity to meet new friends, discover hidden skills and enjoy a sense of purpose.

Blue Zones Project aims to reach all places people live, work, learn, and play. Healthy behaviors spread within and outside of faith-based congregations, connecting members to a thriving community.

A faith-based summit will be held June 20 for members, leaders and clergy of faith-based communities to learn more about the opportunities with Blue Zones Project. For more information, email bluezonesprojectdodgecounty@healthways.com or call 920-212-8511.
1967

Alfred S. Procter of Sparks, Nevada, has given the city a new aluminum flag pole which has been installed on Dickason Boulevard. It was presented as a memorial to the Procter and Webster families, pioneer settlers of Fountain Prairie and Elba, 1849-1966.

Mrs. Walter Bock, lifelong resident of Columbia County, has been chosen as outreach supervisor by the Central Wisconsin Community Action Council. She will be recruiting for the Head Start programs and surveying the need for senior housing in Portage. Mrs. Bock is president of the Columbus Womens Club and resides in Columbus.

1977

The Columbus Board of Public Works presented to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission a proposal for the Madison Gas & Electric Tower Line route. MG&E plans to build the new power line through the middle of the city Industrial Park. An alternative route around the fence line would add the cost of one additional pole to the project.

1987

Two students, Krista Hegge and Julie Kaland, who will both be seniors at Columbus High School in the fall, will be traveling to Russia as a part of a 32-student People to People American-Soviet Youth Exchange. The trip will last three weeks and will visit Leningrad, Moscow, Minsk and Vladimir.

Four FFAS members were honored with the Star Farmer degree at the state FFA Convention. Brian Bolan, Steve Hein, Brian Paulson and Todd Kronberg received the Star Farmer degrees.

1997

The Fall River Police Department recently hired a new police chief, Brent Van Gysel, who hails from Racine. Van Gysel brings 11 years of experience to his new position.

The Fall River 150th birthday celebration came to a close by dedicating a time capsule filled with clippings, school childrens drawings and other memorabilia. The capsule will remained sealed until 2046, the year of the villages bicentennial.
The Lost Lake-Randolph Historical Society will hold an Antique and Collectible Appraisal Fair on Sunday, June 25 from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at their museum W11827 Concord Road, Randolph, which is seven miles north of Columbus at the corner of Concord Road and Highway 73 at the Old St. Marys Church. George Ferriter will appraise items from noon to 4 p.m. (registration begins at 11:30 a.m.) Each person may bring up to three items to be appraised for the fee of $5 per item.

This event also celebrates the addition of a new agricultural building to the museum grounds. Late last fall the historical society moved the former Sunlit one-room schoolhouse from the corner of Concord Road and County Road CC. This building became the center of an expanded building that will house the expanding agriculture exhibit at the museum. Construction is nearing completion and exhibits will soon begin filling the space. The society invites those interested to visit and see the progress theyre making at preserving local history. All other exhibits will be open for touring, including the authentic one-room school house. Attendees can also enjoy a brat fry and an old-fashioned pie and ice cream social and sundaes, featuring custard donated by the Columbus Culvers restaurant.

The Lost Lake-Randolph Historical Society has been in existence since 2001, when the old St. Marys Church was closed for use and put up for sale. More than 200 concerned citizens decided to preserve this beautiful property and turn it into a museum to house local history. Exhibits include a substantial display of one-room schools, cheese factories, area farming, the Randolph Fire Department, an extensive model train set, antique clothing and hats, a vintage kitchen, military uniforms donated by area service members and natural history items previously displayed at the rural Randolph Nature Land. In 2010, the Lost Lake School was moved to the museum grounds and restored, providing a wonderful example of a local one-room school for anyone wanting to see how education has changed over the past century. The museum is open on the first and third Sundays of each month from June through September.

The Lost Lake-Randolph Historical Society is one of 14 societies in Dodge County and is an affiliate of the Wisconsin State Historical Society. You can learn more about the societys museum and events at www.LostLakeRandolphHistory.org.
It was the Summer of Love, and for many decades the Columbus Firemans Park Pavilion was the place to be each summer for those looking to dance or just enjoy great music.

You can relive both on Friday, June 30.

The award-winning Beatles tribute band The BriTins will help you remember the Summer of Love by performing for the Columbus Historic Landmarks and Preservation Commission (CHLPC) Pavilion FUNdraiser. The four-piece band will begin at 8 p.m. with two 75 minute shows, ending at 11 p.m. The performance will feature more than 40 of the Beatles hits from Love Me Do to Let It Be and will include period costume changes. It was 50 years ago this summer, the Summer of Love, that The Beatles released Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, the most acclaimed rock album of all time. The BriTins will perform several songs including Sergeant Pepper, A Little Help From My Friends, Fixing A Hole and Lovely Rita. The BriTins have been entertaining audiences for over 40 years and have mastered the music of the Beatles. This summer the band will play numerous venues throughout Wisconsin including Sweet Applewood Days, Divine Mercy Parish Festival and Italianfest. The BriTins have been featured on WTMJ television, WRIT and WOKY radio, and have appeared at Beatle Bashes in Madison and Milwaukee. In 2002 The BriTins were nominated for the Best Nostalgia Act by the Wisconsin Area Music Industry. The band is comprised of Rick Bertoni (Paul McCartney) on bass and vocals; Mike Shumway (John Lennon) on rhythm guitar, keyboards and vocals; Mike Truttschel (George Harrison) on lead guitar, keyboards and vocals; and Jeff Gish (Ringo Starr) on drums. All of their gear is authentic including Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch and Hofner guitars, Vox amplifiers and Ludwig drums. Costume changes will include the early collarless suits, the Shea Stadium jackets and the Sergeant Peppers regalia.

The Pavilion FUNdraising concert will take place at the Columbus Firemans Park Pavilion, which was constructed in 1916. It was originally designed as a dancehall and community gathering place. For more than 100 years, the Pavilion has been the site of hundreds of public and private events attended by thousands of area residents. It was the venue of choice for swing bands in the 1930s and 1940s as well as rock bands in the 1960s. The Columbus Firemans Park Pavilion is a highly visible and distinctive local historic landmark representing the unique architectural heritage of Columbus.

Columbus Historic Landmarks and Preservation Commission is hosting the concert event as a result of a generous donation from a Columbus native, who wanted to make a donation to the Pavilion Project Fund. CHLPC saw the opportunity to make a fantastic community concert event for all, as well as an opportunity to have a great FUNdraiser for continued improvements to the Pavilion. In 2016 CHLPC raised the funds to add a much needed elevator to the building, as well as the addition of two ADA bathrooms on the second floor, and a full remodel of the existing bathrooms. CHLPC would like to continue their efforts on improvements to the Pavilion. You can help by attending this great concert event. There is a $10 cover charge which will go directly to the Pavilion Projects Funds. Doors will open at 5 p.m. Beer and beverages as well as food vendors will be available.

The local band The Sharrows will be starting out the evening by playing from 6 to 7 p.m. The BriTins will perform from 8 to 11 p.m.

To make a tax deductible donation to the CHLPC Pavilion Projects Fund, please send donations to CHLPC, 105 N. Dickason Blvd, Columbus, WI 53925, or contact Carolyn Fredericks, CHLPC president, at 920-623-5908 or email at cfredericks@columbuswi.us

For more information on The BriTins, see The BriTins website at www.thebritins.com.

For more information on The Sharrows, see their website at www.thesharrowsmusic.com or www.facebook.com/thesharrows.




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The suspects tied to the tree

By: Alexis Bell WorldWideWeirdNews.com

Two men in Malaysia, were given street justice after they were found stealing coconuts from a tree.

Villagers in Sitiawan, tied the men to the coconut tree, using the suspectsa own rope.

A grocery store owner spotted the two men climbing the 16 foot tall tree, and alerted other villagers.

The incident unfolded at 10:30 a.m. Several villagers arrived and caught the two individuals removing coconuts from the tree that did not belong to them.

Former village head, 65-year-old Mohd Yaacob Hashim, said that after the men admitted to stealing the coconuts, they were both tied to the tree using the rope they had used to pluck the fruit.

Villagers found coconuts in the car that was being used by the two men. However, Hashim said that he was not sure if those coconuts were taken from the village or from somewhere else.

Hashim said that the two people were tied to the tree to teach them a lesson. One suspect was said to be in his 30s while the other is a teenager.

Mohd Yaacob said that the two suspects asked to be released and claimed that this was the first time they had done such a thing.

However, villagers decided to hand them over to police. aWe did not beat them or hurt them, we waited for the police to arrive,a Hashim explained.
Crews from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are searching for a diver that went missing in the Gulf of Mexico Saturday.

An official from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says the reports about a missing diver about 20 miles south of Cabbage Grove first came in around 1 pm. No word yet on what led up to that call, but officials say they do believe the person was diving because they were well off shore.

Officials say if they person isn't found Saturday night, they will continue looking Sunday morning.

Stick with WTXL for updates on this developing story.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The Florida A & M School of Nursing is officially the oldest continuing baccalaureate nursing program in Florida.

This weekend, students, alums and faculty celebrate the college's 80th anniversary. The FAMU School of Nursing will be hosting events throughout the weekend in honor of the milestone.

The school has been teaching future nurses since 1936. Saturday, the members of the college held a luncheon to celebrate its success and create plans for the future.

"It's very important. Plus, we need to be more visible in our communities so we can encourage other young people to become nurses and come to FAMU in order to be the most well rounded nurse that is possible to be," said Helen Heathington, a FAMU School of Nursing alum.
We now know the identity of the diver who went missing into the Gulf of Mexico this weekend.

Officials from the U.S. Coast Guard say they're searching for 48-year-old William Peel. He was last seen around noon Saturday when he went into the water and never came back up. Coast Guard officials have been searching for him by air and sea ever since. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission dive team is also assisting.

Officials say they're scouring an area of approximately 800 square nautical miles. No word yet on what caused the diver to go missing. Officials from both the Coast Guard and the Wildlife Commission say they will continue searching and they're remaining hopeful.

Stick with WTXL on-air and online as we continue to follow this developing story.
Tallahassee, Fl. (WTXL) -- There are still only two areas of interest in the tropics to focus on at this time...one in the Gulf of Honduras, and the other north of South America.

An area of broad low pressure has formed over the Gulf of Honduras, and the associated showers, are showing signs of organization. Gradual development is expected to continue as it moves northwestward over the Yucatan Peninsula and into the south and central part of the Gulf of Mexico during the rest of the weekend. The National Hurricane Center has given this an 80% chance of development in the next five days. As of now, models are not in great agreement as to where this area of low pressure will go after reaching the Gulf of Mexico. There is a chance that this area of interest will close in on us, and may even move over the area. If that happens, it'll likely be in the middle of the next work week bringing more rain and breezier conditions to us. Of course, this will be closely monitored and updates given as they come in.

The second area of interest sits about 1400 miles east southeast of the southern Windward islands with scattered showers and thunderstorms. At this time, it is moving west northwest at 15-20 mph over the tropical Atlantic. This area of interest has a 60% chance of formation in the next five days.
YAKIMA  In an effort to hear community members share concerns and solutions to public safety issues, the city of Yakima will host a second ne
A particularly strange petition landed Monday on the desk of the Supreme Courts judge on duty. Two lawyers, Shahar Ben Meir and Yitzhak Aviram, asked the High Court of Justice to forbid Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked , who also serves as chairperson of the Judicial Selection Committee, to hold a discussion on the seniority method, through which the committee automatically appoints the most veteran Supreme Court judge as the chief justice.

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Why is it a strange petition? For two reasons. The first reason is the ban the petitioners are asking the court to impose on a holding a discussion on the issue. The acceptable rule is that the High Court deals with practical matter rather than with theoretical questions. The need for such a petition, therefore, is unclear.

The second, and more important, reason is the inherent conflict of interest which all Supreme Court judges are subject to when dealing with the seniority issue. The conflict of interest stems from the fact that cancelling the method would make each and every one of them a possible candidate for the prominent position. Even if we assume that the discussion Minister Shaked wishes to hold will have some kind of practical meaning, its unclear who can even discuss such a petition.

The fact that the seniority method has yet to disgrace the Supreme Court and the State of Israel can be seen as a sort of miracle (Photo: Noam Moskovich)

The petition only exposes the fundamental problem in the way Israels Supreme Court is run, a Supreme Court whose judges feel no obligation to answer to anyone. The High Court will likely deny the petition, if only for the sake of appearance. The Judicial Selection Committees discussion will likely feature experts and jurists who will voice their different opinions. Some will support the method, while others will oppose it. Lets just hope that the justice minister wont cave in and will get the committee to adopt a decision in principle against the seniority system.

President Reuven Rivlin made a good argument against the system earlier this week. The president noted, with a lot of integrity, that in spite of the positive experience gained with the seniority system, its definitely possible that this method will cause the State of Israel a great amount of embarrassment. Israel has no efficient impeachment system for Supreme Court justices, and a situation in which the State of Israels legal system is headed by a bad judge, lacking inspiration and management skills, is definitely possible.

Beyond the concern raised by Rivlin, which is somewhat theoretical at this point, cancelling the seniority system is genuinely required. Would we accept a situation in which the most senior general in the IDFs General Staff is automatically appointed chief of staff? Would we be able to live with a situation in which the most senior minister becomes prime minister? Even at the Knesset, where the most veteran Knesset member opens the first parliamentary session, he is replaced with a democratically elected Knesset speaker within days or even hours.

The seniority system serves as a negative incentive for excellence among Supreme Court justices. Furthermore, it creates unnecessary and problematic score-settling in Supreme Court appointments, because the moment a justice is appointed, his or her future presidency is already determined. The fact that this method has yet to disgrace the Supreme Court and the State of Israel can be seen as a sort of miracle, but according to the famous Talmud rule, we must not rely on miracles. The seniority system must be canceled, the sooner the better.
The Foreign Ministry and the Israeli embassy in London sent a strong protestation to the British news network BBC, following the headline they gave to the news item about the attack last night in Jerusalem. The headline was "Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem."

The protestation was sent under the order of Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yuval Rotem, who was instructed to do so by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "following the BBC's incorrect report on the attack in Jerusalem and its refusal to use the term 'terrorism' when it comes to attacking Israeli citizens."
Thousands of friends and family attended MSG. Hadas Malka's funeral Sunday, two days after she was murdered in a terror attack near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City.

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Officials who attended the funeral included Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan, Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh, Border Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai and other ministers and Knesset members.

Hadas Malka's funeral (:  )

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Hadas' brother, Guy, eulogized her, saying, "You had so many dreams, we wanted to see you get married. Get up, please say this is a dream. Say this isn't you. A damn terrorist ruined our dreams. We will never forget you as our hero sister who defended Jerusalem. Watch over us from above, we love you forever."

Photo: Israel Police

Commissioner Alsheikh also spoke at the funeral, praising her for her courage and determination to serve the country. "You fought for the border police out of a deep sense of mission and desire to contribute. Your friends have said that you are full of values and loved your country and its people," Alsheikh said. "They say that in addition to being a professional and a patriot you were a great sister to all the other fighters, always worrying about everyone's wellbeing, always smiling, always willing to lend a helping hand."

Photo: Israel Police

Turning to the attack itself which ended Hadas's life, Alsheikh said, "You fought against a terrorist who attacked you, but unfortunately, we are standing here today seeing the cost: a fresh grave and pain for your family, the border police, the Israel police and the entire nation. I call upon all Israeli citizens to remember you, not just as a fighter against terrorism, but also as a fighter in the police's war for Israeli society, a war which isn't always given its proper recognition."

Minister Erdan said of Hadas that her "memory will not fade from us. Her memory will be sealed in the heart of the entire nation. The sound of children's laughter was heard around the Shabbat table, even during this difficult Shabbat, because of Hadas and her friends who fight to protect our capital, the guardians of Israel in Jerusalem."

Photo: Israel Police

Speaking in an interview with Ynet, Superintendent Yossi Fitoussi, Hadas' commander, described his first encounter with Hadas during which he was quickly convinced of her abilities and dedication. "I was looking for a good and capable candidate. When she came into my office, she just radiated strength. Just as I expected, I was not wrong. She had great aspirations for life."

Hadas was critically wounded after being stabbed in Friday's twin terror attack in Jerusalem while trying to draw her weapon. She later succumbed to her wounds at Hadassah Mt. Scopus Hospital.
The family of Abera Mengistu, who voluntarily entered Gaza and was captured by Hamas almost three years ago, received Saturday the security video showing him cross the border into the strip.

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Mengistu crossed the border into the Gaza Strip on September 7, 2014 and has since been held in captivity by Hamas. About three months later, then-commander of the 143rd Division, Brig. Gen. Itay Virov, met with the family and presented them with the findings of the IDF investigation into the incident, and also showed them the video.

About six months ago, the family filed an official request to receive the footage.





Abera Mengistu

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot decided to approve the request and on Saturday evening after which Defense Ministry representative Lt. Col. (res.) Orly Cohen Gefen and the head of the Military Intelligence Division's Captives and Missing Persons Department, Lt. Col. A. delivered the video to the Mengistu family.

Earlier this month, hundreds of people rallied for Mengistu's release on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, marking 1,000 days since he crossed the border. Protesters carried signs saying "Love thy neighbor Abera" and "Abera is still alive."

Mengistu's mother, Agernash, said at the rally, "My heart is breaking by the thought that after so many days, I don't know if my son has seen a doctor, received medication, or what his medical condition is at all. I'm hopeful mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters will understand my son is sick, and what happened to me could happen to anyone."

Rally for Mengistu (Photo: Ido Erez)

Last month, Human Rights Watch condemned Hamas's "cruel and indefensible" detention of Mengistu and another Israeli citizen held by Hamas under similar circumstances, Hisham al-Sayed, and defined the two as having "serious mental health" issues.

Hamas has never officially confirmed Mengistu and al-Sayed's detention, but videos it posted on social media have made mention of both. Beyond that, the terror group has not given any update on the situation of the two men, nor did it allow Red Cross or Red Crescent medical officials to visit them.
Israel is right. Cutting the power supply to Gaza is the result of internal Palestinian score-settling. And in any event, its kind of difficult to require Israel to fund electricity and concrete for Gaza, when these materials are used for building tunnels and rocket-manufacturing facilities, rather than for welfare and prosperity. The next death, in Sderot or Ashdod or Tel Aviv, could be because of the electricity supplied to Hamas death industry. Should Israel facilitate jihad?

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Being right is not enough, however, because the accusing fingeras alwaysis pointed at Israel. Israel can and should and must, therefore, use this impending crisis to repeat the proposal that has already been raised by the European Union and the international community: An end to the siege, and investments and prosperity in exchange for demilitarizationregardless of the fact that this offer has already been rejected. It must be repeated, as an Israeli initiative, and it must be done dramatically and with a lot of noise.

Power outage in Gaza. If Hamas says no to the Israeli initiative, it will lose a lot of points in the global public opinion (Photo: AFP)

If that doesnt happen, there will be another round of violence, like Operations Protective Edge and Cast Lead. We already know the result. Its the exact same result. Israel will be paralyzed for several weeks, the economic damage will be enormous, Hamas will once again enlist the anti-Israel propaganda machine, which is always eager to take to the streets and whet its keyboards, and Israel will suffer more than Hamas. So what for?

So instead of announcing a power supply cut, Israel must make Hamas a dramatic offer. The proposal should be raised in a press conference and at the United Nations, and published as whole-page ads in international newspapers. It will cost Israel much less than the damage that will be caused by the rockets on Ashdod, Ashkelon and perhaps even Tel Aviv. We have nothing to lose. If they say yes, it will be our gain. If they say no, they will lose a lot of points in the global public opinion, where they are expected to win.

My concern is that Israel will choose the predictable route, in which it is right very rightbut is also acting very foolishly, leading to defeat.

In the service of BDS

I am writing this column from Boston, in the midst of meetings and lectures. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus words about the continuation of construction, and more construction, anywhere in the territories, echo in the background. Its the same Netanyahu who invested more than NIS 100 million in the war on anti-Israel propaganda. What good will all these millions of shekels do, when Netanyahu himself is issuing statements that destroy the chance for a peace agreement? How exactly can the Israeli policy on peace be explained, when Netanyahu is encouraging the construction of one big state?

What good will millions of shekels do, when Netanyahu himself is issuing statements that destroy the chance for a peace agreement? (Photo: Reuters)

Its possible that these are just words. Its possible that their purpose is to appease the settler leaders, who want more and more settlement construction. After all, they are complaining about a construction freeze. But in this era, words are part of the story, an important part. And the Israeli prime ministers words about expanding construction in the settlements, even beyond the settlement blocs, is worth millions to the anti-Israel propaganda.

The other meaning is that BDS activists and members of the radical right share the same vision. The former are advocating one big state, and the latter are executing it. Pro-Israel Jews, who I am meeting with these days, are finding it difficult sometimes to defend Israel, and not just because of the BDS. They are finding it difficult because of the Israeli government as well. The prime minister, who is supposed to be a hasbara wizard, is sometimes, just sometimes, working in the service of BDS.

So I have a proposal for Netanyahu: You could save tens of millions of shekels from the state budget, allotted for hasbara purposes, by cutting down on the words that even tens of millions of shekels cant explainunless the coalition interest is more important than the national interest.
The BBC has published a clarification and apology regarding coverage of the twin terror attack in Jerusalem on Friday night, in which their headline raised ire for being perceived as both bias and misleading.

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Initially, the BBC had reported on the attack with the headline "Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem." The headline made no mention of the three Palestinians as having been the terrorists or that border policewoman Hadas Malka was murdered in the attack.

Original BBC headline

In response to the widespread outcry, the BBC said, "We accept that our original headline did not appropriately reflect the nature of the events and subsequently changed it. Whilst there was no intention to mislead our audiences, we regret any offense caused."

The headline was only changed after strong protest from the foreign ministry and the Israeli Ambassador in London, Mark Regev. The two sharply criticized the network for refusing to use the word "terror" when it comes to attacks against Israelis.

US President Donald Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., also weighed in on the controversy, Tweeting, "You mean after they stabbed a female Israeli police officer to death... right? This is as close to being misleading as possible."

(Translated and edited by Fred Goldberg)
The IDF is marking the final ten days of Ramadan as a particularly sensitive moment for security, fearing another attack similar to the twin attack carried out on Friday evening in Jerusalem.

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IDF and security forces always prepare in advance for the month of Ramadan, increasing their operations in the West Bank and east Jerusalem due to the high chances of renewed attacks.

IDF forces encircle Deir Abu Mash'al

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Forces belonging to the IDF's Judea and Samaria Division have been instructed to raise their level of alertness as a result of Friday's attack, but thus far, there have been no restrictions on movements put on Palestinians within the West Bank, with the exception of the encirclement of Deir Abu Mash'al, near Ramallah, where the three terrorists came from.

Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit

The village has been marked by the IDF as a "violent area," where many operations have been carried out over the past year including confiscation of illegal vehicles, searches for illegal weapons and numerous arrests of terror suspects.

Photo: Reuters

However, despite few restrictions within the West Bank as a result of the attack, some 250,000 entry visas for Palestinians have been cancelled and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the area around the Damascus Gate be declared a security area.

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman leveled blame at the Palestinian Authority, saying, "We will continue to fight relentless Palestinian terror and the unbridled incitement that feeds it. We will pursue the perpetrators and instigators wherever they may be. The thunderous silence from the PA, which refuses to condemn terrorism, and the claims by Abbas that Israel murdered three innocent Palestinians, proves there is no partner on the other side."

Despite increased IDF activity in the area prior to Friday's terror attack, the three terrorists still managed to cross the West Bank and exit the village armed with guns and knives without being detected by security forces.
BEIRUT -- Iran and China began a joint naval exercise in the Gulf on Sunday, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

The military drill comes at a time of heightened tension between the Iranian and U.S. military in the Gulf and is likely to be a cause of concern for Washington.
The parents of a minor arrested last week on suspicion of carrying out suspected nationalistically-motivated crimes claimed on Sunday that they have not been permitted to contact him since, nor have they been informed of his whereabouts or circumstances.

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We have no idea what our son is accused of. This is a Kafkaesque situation that has been forced on us. No one has shown us anything. We dont know anything, the suspects distressed mother said during an interview with Ynet.

The minor was arrested last week, along with nine other Jewish teenagers from the Hilltop Youth, after local Judea and Samaria Police raided a so-called home for Jewish teens barred from entering the West Bank.

Parents of the arrested youth (Photo: Yogev Atias)

A gag order was placed on the entire investigation, including the suspicions against the teens.

Two of the Hilltop Youth arrested during a police raid Monday of a Jerusalem house hosting them are suspected of committing racist acts, while seven others were suspected of violating court orders barring them from meeting with certain people.

The seven were released under restrictions, while the court extended the remand of the other two suspects by three days.

There is a law enforcement system and I respect it if there is something against my son. Let them say what it is and we will deal with it, said the minors father. The fact that they have prevented any meeting with a lawyer for a full week is not right. Even serious criminals are granted the right to speak to an attorney.

I go to work every day all day and I am uncertain. I want to teach him to be a civilian who abides by the law but how can you be a law-abiding civilian when the state or its branches dont give a person basic rights that he deserves as a human being?, he continued.

Even if the person has done something, he has rights  We are in a state of confusion, he lamented. When they dont tell us what is happening with him for a full week it is an injustice and a crime.

The mother of the arrested individual told Ynet that My son has been taken for a full week. We dont know who by, where he is, who is taking care of him, what is happening to him or what they are doing to him. The imagination can go far in situations like these.

Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir slammed the conduct by the security forces in their handling of the matter.

I think the conduct of the Shin Bet is disrespectful. In the middle of the night they take young men and it has become a consistent ritual to deprive them of meetings with a lawyer and of legitimate rights, he said. Every common criminal, even rapists, murderers and drug dealers, receive the right to counsel and to speak with a lawyer...Even if there is a confession of some sort because of this conduct, what will it be worth?

During the last month, the number of hate crimes have multiplied leading to an increase in the number of restraining orders ordering certain offenders to stay away from the West Bank. So far, six cases have been recorded involving hate crimes and since the beginning of June, the Shin Bet has issued more than 30 restraining order.
The uncle of one of the three attackers who killed a 23-year-old Border Police officer and wounded four others on Friday spoke with Ynet, distancing his family from the attack, on Sunday.

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"The family had no prior knowledge of the intention to carry out an attack," said Mohammed Atta, the uncle of Osama Atta, who carried out the attack together with Adel Anakush and Bara Saleh. "There are no parents who wouldn't stop their son if they knew about his intentions. We have no joy; he's dead."

The three Palestinians, armed with an automatic weapon and knives, assaulted officers on duty near the Old City in two locations Friday evening.

The village's Facebook page, celebrating the three attackers

Police said Master Sgt. Hadas Malka, 23, was rushing to respond to that initial attack nearby when a Palestinian assaulted her with a knife. Malka wrestled with the man for several seconds as he stabbed her multiple times before other officers saw what was happening and opened fire, killing him, police said. She later died of her wounds in hospital. The other two attackers were also shot dead by security forces.

The uncle completely dismissed ISIS's claiming responsibility for the attack: "Osama was identified with Fatah and has nothing to do with ISIS. He was imprisoned in Israel for a year, and in prison, too, he was identified with Fatah. He was not religiously observant and had nothing to do with ISIS."

IDF soldiers enforcing closure on the village (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

He explained that his family believes that a sense of revenge for that period of imprisonment in Israel may have prompted Osama to carry out the attack, but he emphasized that it was only a hypothesis. "He spent a year in prison, and this is an age when nationalist fanaticism and nervousness prevail," he said.

The slain Hadas Malka

The family has expressed doubts regarding the details Israeli authorities released about the attack, and specifically do not believe that the attackers had guns.

Adel Ankush's father said he was completely surprised by the fact that his son had carried out an attack: "I did not expect anything like this ever to happen. I'm in shock. He was the hope of the family."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the Palestinian government for not condemning the attack.

He called for the world to "demand the immediate cessation of Palestinian Authority payments to the families of terrorists, something that only encourages terror."
The Israel Police issued a statement on Sunday saying that they have extracted a murder confession from the cousin of 19-year-old Bedouin woman Hanan al-Bakhiri, who disappeared last month. In addition to her cousin, the suspects in Hanan's murder are two of her uncles. The case is being treated as an "honor killing." On Saturday, several protest rallies broke out across Israel, calling on authorities to act to protect women from domestic violence, in light of the high murder rate over the past six months.

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Hanan Al-Bakhiri had called her mother on May 3, around 9 pm, telling her she was on her way home. Police suspect that shortly after, she was kidnapped and led to her death.

The Tel Aviv protest rally (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

It was Hanan's cousin, Mahmed, who eventually confessed to the murder during a police interrogation, saying he had killed Hanan together with his father Yunas and uncle Sager al-Bakhiri. After confessing to the murder, Mahmed lead the police to the spot where Hanan was buried. Though he acknowledged killing her, he did not express any remorse over his actions. Police have informed her mother that Hana's remains will be transferred for a proper burial.

Hanan al-Bakhiri (Photo: Courtesy of Israel Police)

After her father died, Hanan was put under the custody of her uncle. She was eventually married off to a man with disabilities, whom she divorced shortly after, about six months before her disappearance. After Hanan was requested to return the money her husband's family had paid for her, she found a job and began leaving the house for work. The police investigation found that her uncle saw both the divorce and her decision to start working as actions that "dishonored" their family.

Habima Sq. in Tel Aviv (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Police furthermore found that after she was kidnapped, her uncles and cousin kept her alive for a week, as they searched her belongings and interrogated her about the people with whom she had been in contact. When they were done, they broke her neck, before proceeding to burn her body for two hours, remove her remains in a sack and then bury them in the ground, three to four meters deep.

Tel Aviv protest (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Hanan had in the past filed a complaint against her half brother, alleging he had threatened and hurt her. She later withdrew her complaint, saying that nothing had really happened. During an investigation, though, it was discovered that he had broken her hand and threatened her to drop the charges.

Hanan's neighbors expressed sorrow over her murder. "Poor Hanan," one of them said. "The things we know are hard to say. We have our customs, which are different than (those of Jewsed). There are things we see in a non-positive way. For you, it's freedom. We have our mentality. I didn't see her going out with someone with my own eyes, and if you haven't seen something with your own eyes, you can't say anything. But there are a lot of rumors. People see her go out. Come back. A cousin says something. Another person says something."

Haifa rally (Photo: Zohar Shahar)

The suspects are being represented by attorneys Mahmed Abu Farih, Yossi Lin, Rami Shalbi and Erez Shalev. So far, they have issued statements saying their clients deny the crime they have been accused of committing.

The protest rally in Haifa (Photo: Zohar Shahar)

Women and men protest complicity that allows women's murders

Hanan is one of 16 cases of domestic violence ending in the murder of a woman over the past six months. In response to the mounting cases, several women-led protests took place on Saturday, with the larger rallies taking place in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. The participants cried out against the perceived lack of action taken by authorities to counter this trend and lower it. Hundreds of people arrived at Habima Sq. in Tel Aviv, 500 Arab and Jewish women and men arrived at Sefer Sq. in Haifa, and some 60 protestors arrived at Zion Sq. in Jerusalem. Protests were also held in Afula and the Galilee's Goma Junction.





Protest rally in Jerusalem (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

"We call on the Israeli government to convene an urgent meeting and act to found a national emergency plan to combat violence against women," the organizers of the Tel Aviv protest posted on Facebook.

From right: Peretz, Zandberg, Rozin and Hanin (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Several MKs also arrived at the Tel Aviv rally, including Amir Peretz (Zionist Union), Dov Hanin (Hadash), Tamar Rozin (Meretz) and Tamar Zandberg (Meretz).

Zandberg stated that "nothing in this country is as quietly accepted as the mass murders of women. We are now seeing a movement that's the first of its kind, of women who are not staying silent, but clearly stating that this isn't a fluke or a mistake, but a policy. A government plan that already exists remains for the time being only in writing, without being implemented. There are things to do, this isn't predetermined."
The State Prosecutor's Office issued a statement on Sunday, referring to the police search of the Yedioth Ahronoth Publishing Thursday, in search of sensitive infomation on matters of national security that may be included in the upcoming book of former prime minister and current convicted felon Ehud Olmert.

In its statement, the State Prosecutor said that it had requested the court issue a warrant to allow it access to Yedioth Ahronoth Publishing, in an effort to find out whether Olmert's memoir contains information that could create significant security risks for Israel. After the court's granting the warrant, the Prosecutor's Office handed them over to the police for review.

Olmert, who was convicted of bribery and sentenced to 27 months in prison, petitioned the court on Sunday for an early release, after completing two-thirds of his sentence.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will have to wait until Thursday, June 29, to find out whether he will get out of jail early after having served two-thirds of his 27 month sentence for corruption related charges.

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Olmert (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

Olmert appeared before the Israel Prison Services parole board Sunday morning, with his attorney Eli Zohar telling reporters that he had received a thorough, comprehensive and fair hearing and that his legal team hoped for a positive result.

The former prime minister entered jail in 2016 after being convicted on separate charges of accepting bribes, breach of trust and obstruction of justice.

Though Olmert had been expected to be granted parole, last week the State Prosecutors Office opposed his early release in light of an investigation into the possible leak of classified information by the former prime minister, with Olmert being punished by preventing him from meeting with his attorneys.

The Prosecutors Office said last Thursday that it had asked police to investigate whether Olmert had committed a criminal offense while incarcerated at Maasiyahu Prison in Ramle.

The investigation is related to an autobiography the former prime minister has been writing while jailed, parts of which touch on sensitive security issues. One of Olmerts attorneys was apprehended last month with a chapter of the book, dealing with a top secret security-related incident that the censor has banned in the past for publication.

Olmert spoke emotionally about his family on Sunday, as he asked that he sentenced be shortened. His lawyers added that "above all, we reject outright all the attempts of external and inappropriate influence that have been exerted on the committee in recent days in order to divert the opinion of its members.

"Anyone who knows Mr. Olmert's tremendous contribution to the strengthening and security of Israel over the decadesand there are thousands of those who have been his confidants and who are who and familiar with various parts of his workfully understands that these claims are empty ones."

As part of an investigation into whether Olmert transferred classified information to unauthorized parties, police raided the Rishon LeZion offices of Yedioth Books, Olmerts publisher, in a search for classified documents related to the case.

A statement by the Prosecutors Office said Olmert had received multiple warnings and added that the leak of classified information could cause serious damage to state security.

Olmerts attorneys said at the time however that the book had been submitted to the censor.

The book in its entirety has been handed over to the censor and Mr. Olmert has no intention of publishing anything without the approval of the censor. Mr. Olmert has not released or published any other classified material beyond material for the book, his lawyers said.

"During his term of office, the applicant underwent an unusual process, that could even be classified as inhumane. The applicant has paid his debt to society several times over. The fact that he decided to resign before he was indicted and the way he conducted his trials until his behavior during the period of imprisonment fully matches the conditions that justify the removal of one-third of his sentence."

Olmert was sentenced to eight months in jail for accepting a NIS 60,000 bribe for his part of the Holyland affair, during his time as industry, trade and labor minister, as well as being found guilty in disrupting investigative procedures in the Holyland and Talansky affairs.
Celebrity Israeli chef Haim Cohen launched the nonprofit Nevet's first US fundraising campaign today urging American Jews and Israeli Americans to help feed hungry school children in Israel. The campaign rolled out on social media.

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Nevet, founded by the non-profit Leket Israel in 2006, provides nutritious daily school breakfasts to disadvantaged students at 120 schools across Israel.

"School sandwiches for kids aren't just two slices of bread with a spread in betweenthey're much, much, much more," said Cohen, the Israeli TV cooking star and restaurateur who conceived the hybrid Middle Eastern and Mediterranean menu for New York's Taboon restaurant. "Breakfasts give school children the power to learn better and be proud."

A 2013 review in "Frontiers in Human Neuroscience" found that eating breakfast positively affects learning in children in terms of behavior and school performance, and the effects of a nutritious breakfast are particularly pronounced in undernourished children. Over the past decade, students benefiting from school breakfast programs have seen a 17.5-percent rise in their overall math grades, according to Deloitte research. More than nine out of 10 principals at schools working with Nevet reported that their students are better behaved after eating their 10 a.m. meal, and that their absence rate dropped 6 percent.

Haim Cohen (File photo: Yaron Brener)

"Most Israeli children go to school without eating breakfast at homeinstead they are given sandwiches and snacks to eat during a mid-morning break," said Rotem Yosef, Nevet's vice president of strategic development. "Unfortunately, many students from disadvantaged or dysfunctional backgrounds come to school hungry and empty handedand that's where Nevet steps in."

According to the Israeli government's National Insurance Institute, there are 776,500 children living below the poverty line in Israel. Nevet distributes some 1.3 million breakfasts every year to 8,000 students daily, but there are still some 13,000 students on the organization's waiting list and many more who would benefit from a healthy, daily breakfast.

"This hidden problem is about more than just nutrition or hunger. It's also about establishing a healthy routine and creating a consistent nutritional anchor for the children every day. By feeding these kids breakfast, we feed their minds, giving them the opportunity to succeed and, hopefully, break the cycle of poverty," said Yosef.

Those interested in donating to the campaign should visit:

http://www.nevet.org/en/donate-a-sandwich-for-child/

.
The United States, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel have recently been conducting secret negotiations to coordinate the first flight of Palestinian pilgrims from Ben Gurion airport to Saudi Arabia, with a short layover on the way, probably in Jordan.

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Yedioth Ahronoth, Ynet's sister print publication, learned of the intention to organize a special plane in which only Palestinian passengers between Israel and Saudi Arabia will be able to fly. Since there are no open relations between the two countries, the plane will have to land briefly in Amman. The Americans initiated the matter as a result of President Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Trump was the first to fly direct between the two countries (Photo: Reuters)

A senior Israeli source said the talks are already in advanced stages. He said the flight would be carried out through a foreign company that is neither Israeli nor Saudi. The Palestinians will be able to make pilgrimages to the holy places in Mecca and Medina. This is the closest to a direct flight that has yet to be offered.

Air Force One was actually the first plane to fly directly from Riyadh to Ben Gurion Airport, when President Donald Trump came on his first foreign trip.

Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz presented Trump's, Jason Greenblatt, his "railroad for regional peace" plan. The plan speaks of connecting Israel to Jordan and from it to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states in a network of railways that would give the Arab states access to the Mediterranean. Greenblatt was reportedly enthusiastic about the program.
A US warplane on Sunday shot down a Syrian military aircraft that dropped bombs near US-backed fighters in Syria, the US military said.

The US Central Command issued a statement saying the plane was downed "in collective self-defense of Coalition-partnered forces," identified as fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces near Tabqah.

The Syrian army said earlier that the US-led coalition shot down one of its planes during a combat mission against ISIS militants. Washington is leading an alliance in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.
Foreign owners of investment property in Queensland will be slammed with a 1.5% land tax surcharge on assets with a value of $350,000 or more. The state government is seeking additional revenue in order to maintain a wafer-thin operating fiscal surplus.

The Palaszczuk government announced the new measure in its 2017-18 state budget, and said the surcharge represents a fair contribution to the tax base, considering the numerous benefits foreign property investors in Queensland enjoy.

Absentee owners benefit from a high standard of services and infrastructure delivered and maintained by a broad range of taxes, the government said in its budget papers. The surcharge will ensure absentee owners of land make a further contribution.

However, property industry lobby groups have slammed the decision, accusing the state government of breaking a key election promise and jeopardising the economy.

The introduction of a land tax surcharge on foreign property owners comes twelve months after the state government introduced an additional stamp duty surcharge on foreign property investors, said Christopher Mountford, executive director of the Property Council (Queensland). Both represent a broken election promise to not introduce new taxes, fees or charges.

Mountford noted that foreign investment in residential real estate is a vital part of the Queensland economy. [It] gets new projects off the ground, increases housing stock, creates jobs and increases tax collections to all levels of government, he said.

Mountford called out the Palaszczuk government, saying it was playing a dangerous game by increasing taxes on foreign investors. If we keep pushing up the costs of investing here, ultimately another part of the globe will become a more attractive place to invest, and the money and associated jobs will be redirected. We are not just competing with the southern states, we are competing with the rest of the world, he said.

Related stories:

Brisbanes Property Market Is Growing Hotter By The Minute

Growth In Net Overseas Migration Fuels Property Demand
New Delhi: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed grief over the Portugal forest fire tragedy in which 62 people lost their lives.



"Sad to learn of tragic loss of lives in the forest fire in Portugal. Deepest condolences to the Portugese people on this tragedy," Prime Minister Modi tweeted.



Portugal has declared three days of national mourning as the death toll in one of the country`s worst forest fires rises to 62.



Several hundred firefighters and over 100 vehicles were dispatched late on Saturday to tackle the blaze, which broke out in the afternoon in the municipality of Pedrogao Grande before spreading fast across several fronts.Portugal`s Prime Minister Antonio Costa described the fire as the greatest tragedy that the country has seen in recent years in terms of forest fires.



Several parts of Portugal are scorching under a severe heat wave with temperatures exceeding 40 C.Portugal is prone to forest fires during the dry summer months.



More than 100,000 hectares of the country`s mainland was devastated by a series of fires last year.
Paktia: As many as five suicide bombers attacked the police headquarters of eastern Paktia province on early Sunday morning, a spokesman for Interior Ministry, Najibullah Danish said.

Clashes are still going on, Tolo News reported.

A suicide bomber first detonated his explosives close to the parking area of the headquarters, followed by four other who tried to enter the compound.

Danish further informed that out of the five, three were killed. Two policemen were also killed.

The attack took place at about 6.30 a.m.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Karachi: Several demonstrators protested against the Pakistan Army outside the Karachi Press Club, alleging that the military establishment was responsible for extremism in the region.

In a video posted by Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) activist Zahid Sindhi on Twitter on Sunday, people can be seen shouting slogans - "Yeh jo dehshad gardi hai, iske peechhey wardi hai" (Men in uniform are responsible for the terror), "yeh jo mullah gardi hai, iske peechhey wardi hai" (the Army is responsible for extremism).

The protestors also demanded the independence of Sindh from the state of Pakistan.

Earlier, Members of the World Sindhi Congress (WSC) held anti-Pakistan protests in front of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva against Islamabad`s use of brutal force against the Sindhi community.

The protest held on June 14 was also attended by representatives of the Baloch community, Gilgit and Baltistan, Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and human rights defenders of other nations.

The WSC protested against enforced disappearances of Sindhi political activists, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and other human rights abuses against Sindhi people.

The protestors raised, `Go go China go`, `Pakistan stop killing Sindhi people`, `No to CPEC` slogans.

A WSC representative told human rights defenders, "Sindhi people are facing one of the worst human rights atrocities in their history and in recent months there have been an intensification in disappearance of Sindhi political activists by Pakistani security agencies. In the last three months alone scores of renowned political activists and writers have been abducted."

"In all these cases, the state denies any role and the judiciary has also failed to provide any relief. We understand that these disappearances are part of an operation by the Pakistani state to create terror and stop political and civil society activists from raising their voices for democratic and human rights," he added.
Beijing: Agitated over killing of two Chinese nationals in Pakistan by ISIS militants, Chinese netizens have been demanding that China should send troops to Pakistan to fight against the dreaded terror group.

The reports about killing of two Chinese nationals in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province, has generated a cascade of discussion on Weibo, a Twitter-style Chinese social media platform, with many users calling for revenge, Hong Kong based South China Morning Post reported today.

Social media users are demanding the Chinese government to send troops to Pakistan to seek "payback" for the killing of the two Chinese nationals, the daily said.

"We shall start a war against ISIS, killing them on behalf of the two murdered Chinese,? said a user going by the name Zhou Qi Bei Hou.

?It is time to fight violence with violence,? another user, Lingchen99096, said.

Pakistan government's claim that the two Chinese nationals were involved in illegal preaching activities has ignited more anger.

"The Pakistani government said they were told that the two Chinese were missionaries. I was just wondering, who told them," the Post quoted one Weibo user as saying.

It is rare that netizens in China could let loose such a barrage of criticism against Pakistan on social media which is controlled by heavy firewalls by Chinese authorities.

It is not clear how this barrage of criticism on the social media appeared despite the firewalls.

Chinese Foreign Ministry on June 9 said Beijing was informed by Pakistan officials that a Chinese man and a woman identified as Lee Zingyang, 24, and Meng Lisi, 26, who were kidnapped last month from Quetta may have been killed.

Reports from Pakistan said the two were killed by Islamic State group after being abducted by gunmen dressed as policemen in Quetta in restive Balochistan province last month.

Chinese officials have yet to confirm the deaths, but a spokesman from the Chinese foreign affairs ministry said on Wednesday that Beijing was investigating whether the two were illegally preaching in Pakistan before they were abducted.
New Delhi: Bollywood stars Sidharth Malhotra and Manoj Bajpayee's upcoming film 'Aiyaary' is trending all over the social media, all thanks to a fresh still  which was recently shared online by filmmaker Neeraj Pandey  from the sets of the movie.

In the image, both the stars can be seen donning army uniform. "Brothers in arms. From the sets of #Aiyaary," the 43-year-old director captioned the photograph.

Earlier, the team was clicked in Kashmir where they were reportedly filming an important schedule of the flick.

Check out the fresh still:

'Aiyaary' is said to be a crime drama based on a real-life incident.
Delhi: The Delhi Police arrested a man on Sunday on charges of murdering his wife by strangulating her at a park in the national capital.



The 24-year-old, Manoj Kumar, told his wife he has planned a surprised for her and took her to Bonta Park in the north Delhi. After reaching there, the man strangulated her with a clutch wire that he had purchased the same day.

According to report, the deceased had been living away from her husband and was staying at her parent's house for some time.



After the incident, the accused left her dead body at the park and returned home. He then called one of his friends and informed him about the crime. However, upon knowing the incident, his friend immediately informed the police after which he was arrested around midnight.



The police took the accused to the crime sport to recover the victim's body, however Manoj was heavily drunk to identify the spot where he had strangled her.



It took them almost 12 hours to locate the victim's body.



The accused runs a general store in Kanjhawala in north west Delhi. He first met his wife at a Gurgaon bar where she worked.



They couple got married in July 2015.



According to police, the couple used to fight a lot and Manoj used to suspect his wife of having an extra-marital affair. He, on several occasion had objected her taking to other men.
London: British Brexit minister David Davis heads to Brussels on Monday to open divorce talks with the EU with a message that there should be "no doubt  we are leaving the European Union".



Days after a suggestion from French President Emmanuel Macron that Britain could still choose to remain, Davis said there would be no backtracking from Prime Minister Theresa May`s plan to deliver on Brexit, for which Britons voted in a referendum almost a year ago.



"As I head to Brussels to open official talks to leave the EU, there should be no doubt  we are leaving the European Union, and delivering on that historic referendum result," Davis said in a statement.



"Leaving gives us the opportunity to forge a bright new future for the UK  one where we are free to control our borders, pass our own laws and do what independent sovereign countries do."



May, under pressure after losing her ruling Conservatives` majority in a botched snap election and over her response to a devastating fire that killed at least 58 in a London apartment block, says she wants a clean break with the EU - a strategy some in her party have challenged as risking economic growth.



Davis, a prominent `Leave` campaigner in the referendum, said he was approaching the talks in a "constructive way", knowing they will be "difficult at points".



"We are not turning our backs on Europe," he said in the statement. "It`s vital that the deal we strike allows both the UK and the EU to thrive, as part of the new deep and special partnership we want with our closest allies and friends."
Paris: French President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party won a massive majority in parliamentary elections today, early projections showed, dominating the country's traditional forces in a dramatic re-drawing of the political map.



Macron's year-old Republic on the Move (REM) and their allies were set to win between 355 and 425 seats in the 577- seat National Assembly, according to partial results after the second round of an election in which many high-profile figures were thrown out.



The result, if confirmed, would give 39-year-old Macron one of France's biggest post-war majorities, strengthening his hand in implementing his business-friendly, pro-EU programme.



But turnout was estimated to be extremely low, at around 44 per cent, giving his critics grounds to claim he has no groundswell of support.



The assembly is set to be transformed with a new generation of lawmakers younger, more ethnically diverse and with far more women than the outgoing parliament.



The scale of the change is forecast to be so large that some observers have compared the overhaul to 1958, the start of the present presidential system, or even the post-war rebirth of French democracy in 1945.



Just months ago, Macron was given little chance of becoming president, never mind dominating parliament, but he and the movement he founded 16 months ago have tapped into widespread desire for wholesale change.



His party dominated France's traditional parties, the rightwing Republicans and Socialists, but also the far-right National Front (FN) of defeated presidential candidate Marine Le Pen which fell far short of its target.



The Socialists were the biggest losers of the night, punished by association with years of high unemployment, social unrest and lost national confidence.



The party lost around 200 seats after five years in power under former president Francois Hollande, leaving them with only around 27 to 49 seats.



The Republicans hung on to between 97 and 130 seats, down from over 200 in the last parliament, and remain the main opposition party.



Le Pen's FN were only expected to win four to eight seats but she was elected an MP.



But despite the zest for political renewal, the vote failed to generate much excitement.



Official statistics showed turnout at a near 60-year low, revealing a high degree of election fatigue after four votes in under two months.



"People are tired of always seeing the same faces," said Natacha Dumay, a 59-year-old teacher voting in the northeastern Paris suburb of Pantin where Socialist former justice minister Elisabeth Guigou was voted out a week ago.



"Even if we don't know the new faces it's not important. We're not voting for individuals but for a programme," Dumay added.



Turnout will be closely watched after it hit a near 60- year low in the June 11 first round of voting, leading some to warn Macron that his mandate is not as strong as he thinks.



REM won 32 percent of the votes cast in the first round, but this represented only about 15 percent of registered voters.



"Go and vote!" Prime Minister Edouard Philippe urged on Thursday, calling it both "a right and a responsibility".



Around half of REM's candidates are virtual unknowns drawn from diverse fields of academia, business or local activism. They include a mathematician, a female bullfighter and a former Rwandan orphan.



The other half are a mix of centrists and moderate left- and right-wing politicians drawn from established parties including ally MoDem.



Le Pen's victory was a rare bright spot for Le Pen's nationalist and anti-EU party which was once hoping to emerge as the principal opposition to Macron but is now expected to have only a handful of lawmakers.



The hard-left France Unbowed is also struggling to maintain the momentum it had during the presidential election.
New Delhi: In a breather to resorts in the picturesque Himachal Pradesh town of Kasauli, the Supreme Court has stayed a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order directing demolition of seven properties, which were extended illegally without requisite approvals from authorities.

A bench comprising justices R K Agrawal and Sanjay Kishan Kaul issued notices to various parties in the case and posted the matter for July 11.

"Till then the operation of the impugned judgement and order shall remain stayed," the bench said.

The direction came on the plea filed by two resorts -- Narayani Guest House and Bird's View Resort -- challenging the May 30 NGT order directing demolition of illegally constructed portions of their buildings and also imposing environmental compensation ranging from Rs 5-10 lakh on each of them.

The green panel had imposed hefty fines on the hotels -- Bird's View Resort, Chelsea Resorts, Hotel Pine View, Narayani Guest House, Hotel Nilgiri, Hotel Divsikha and AAA Guest House -- for causing irretrievable damage to the ecology, polluting the environment and raising unauthorised constructions.

The tribunal had noted that Bird's View Hotel, which had permission for five rooms and two cottages, has carried out excessive construction and built nine rooms, one cottage and a three-storey frame structure adjoining the existing building without obtaining prior approval from Town and Country Planner, Solan.

Similarly, Chelsea Resorts which had permission for two blocks with three-storeys each has illegally constructed four blocks besides a twin parking unit.

Hotel Pine View originally had permission for three storeys in one block with a total capacity of seven rooms but its owner constructed a seven-storey structure in two inter-connected building blocks.

Narayani Guest House had consent for three storeys and one floor for parking. However, the owner constructed a six-storey building.

Nilgiri Hotel had permission for three storeys but the bench noted that including basement, there were eight storeys of the building.

The judgement had come on the plea filed by Society for Preservation of Kasauli and its Environs (SPOKE) contending that such a huge commercial activity cannot be permitted due to the fragile ecology of Kasauli town.
Hyderabad: The Hyderabad police on Saturday nabbed a surrogacy racket that has been active in the Sai Kiran Infertility Hospital here in Banjara Hills.

According to investigation reports, as many as 46 women are being illegally confined to the hospital during their nine-month pregnancy term, in exchange for around Rs. 2.5 to 3.5 lakh.

Most women who have fallen prey to the activity are natives of Delhi, Nagaland, Darjeeling, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

According to Limba Reddy, DCP Task Force, West zone task force police, raids were conducted with the help of District Medical Officers (DMO) and found 46 surrogate mothers concealed by the hospital authorities by offering them a heap of money, owing to their poor economic background.

"We have verified all the documents. Some irregularities were found; the hospital management should register for surrogacy but they are running the hospital illegally. The management is not even permitting the surrogate pregnant women to go out; they are illegally forcing them to be in the hospital for nine months," said Dr. Padmaja, DMO, Hyderabad.

The hospital reportedly wasn't maintaining any proper records and had no license to run the hospital.

The police asserted that the investigation is underway, adding that the accused will be taken to task.
New Delhi: The Delhi Police arrested a 56-year-old man at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport on charges of sexually harassing a woman passenger and mistreating her midway the journey on an IndiGo flight.

The woman and the accused were travelling to Delhi from Hyderabad.

In her complaint, the woman alleged that shortly after she took her seat in the Hyderabad-Delhi flight, her co-passenger unzipped his pants and started masturbating. The accused even made lewd gestures at her.

Noticing this, the woman raised an alarm with the airline stagff following which her seat was changed.

Simultaneously, the man was told to go to the lavatory and clean himself.

After the flight landed at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, the woman lodged a formal complaint with the police against the accused.

The man, identified as Rohini resident Ramesh Chand, was arrested under IPC sections 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 345A (sexual harassment) at Domestic Airport Police Station.
Beijing: India and China have held talks here on a host of issues, including the CPEC corridor project and NSG membership, with New Delhi expressing its willingness to boost strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with Beijing.

The talks were held between visiting Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Both leaders met on the sidelines of the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting being held here to finalise the agenda for this year's BRICS summit to be held in September in China's Xiamen city.

The BRICS comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

They discussed steps to strengthen strategic relations on the directions laid down by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting at Astana recently.

Wang referred to the fruitful and constructive meeting between Xi and Modi on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on June 8-9 at Astana.

In his opening remarks, Singh said that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj wanted to visit Beijing but health and other restrictions did not permit her.

"She is looking forward to meet you," he said.

Xi and Modi have "laid down directions for us and both the countries to proceed with a path of mutual respect, mutual cooperation on how to improve the existing mechanisms so that more trade, commerce and people to people contacts can take place," Singh said.

"We both are Asian neighbours, two growing economies, people with ancient relations, we mark the path others to follow. India looks forward to strengthening and deepening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with China," he said, adding he looks forward for many interactions with Wang.

Singh avoided making any reference to differences between the two countries including India's sovereignty concerns over the controversial China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Beijing blocking India's entry into the strategic Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) besides a UN ban on Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) leader Masood Azhar.

India last month skipped China's high profile Belt and Road Forum (BRF) under which CPEC comes.

Beijing also opposed the visit of the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh which it considered as part of Tibet.

Officials said that both the governments are keen to find common ground on the contentious issues.

Singh later attended a banquet hosted by Wang for the Foreign Ministers of BRICS countries.

All the foreign ministers from the BRICS who would also call on Xi.

During the foreign ministers' meet, China is expected to outline the agenda for this year's BRICS summit which included efforts to seek common ground against terrorism.

The meeting is a precursor to chain of meetings of BRICS officials including the National Security Advisors (NSAs) meeting to be held later next month ahead of the summit.

China took over the rotating presidency of the BRICS from India after last year's Goa summit of the group of emerging countries.

China is also expected to outline its proposals for the BRICS summit.

At the Goa summit, India invited heads of the members of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) excluding Pakistan from the region.

Incidentally, this is the first time that the foreign ministers meeting has been called by a host country holding the BRICS Summit.
New Delhi: In a first, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) Ministry on Sunday launched a joint initiative to provide for a Yoga session for diplomats at the Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra here.

Diplomats from several countries took part in the event, and will later participate in the International Yoga Day celebrations on June 21.

Union Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj will also be a part of the Yoga session beginning at 11 a.m. at the Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra on Wednesday.

MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay, who attended the session, underlined the importance of Yoga in the day-to-day life.

"The objective is not only to introduce the diplomatic core and create awakening about Yoga, but also to stress and underline that Yoga is not merely for health, but is essentially a message for peace, harmony and well-being of the entire world," he told ANI.

U.S. diplomat Tallon Sessions, who was also in attendance of the event, said that performing Yoga brings him peace and helps him throughout the day.

"Yoga is very new for us. It brings peace and helps me throughout the day. We are from the United States and we are familiar with Yoga, and as we got to know that India is celebrating it, we were happy we could be a part of it," Sessions told ANI.

Yoga teacher Avinash Ghasi from the Art of Living (AoL) entailed the dynamics that go into organising such a large-scale event.

"Yoga is like being in that economic state of mind. Here in the sessions, we are using Asanas and Pranayams to arrive at that state of economity within. Here we see a lot of people from different countries. People are very enthusiastic to celebrate the International Yoga Day. The teachers over here take three to four sessions a day," he said.

The International Yoga Day will commemorate its third anniversary ever since its inception on June 21, 2015.

Prime Minister Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government has made grand plans for the day.

The Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) has been working tirelessly to make the International Yoga Day functions across the country and world a grand success.

Union Government's 74 ministers will take part in the Yoga Day functions in 74 cities on June 21.

Prime Minister Modi will take part in the Yoga Day function in Uttar Pradesh's capital Lucknow, where AYUSH Minister Shripad Naik would also be present.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah will perform Yoga in Ahmedabad. Home Minister Rajnath Singh will attend the Yoga Day function in Himachal Pradesh's Sujanpur Tihra. Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu will be present in Delhi.

Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nitin Gadkari, J.P. Nadda, Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan and Piyush Goyal will take part in International Yoga Day functions at Patna, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Kochi, Bhubaneswar, Visakhapatnam respectively.

AYUSH Ministry is working day and night to make the International Yoga Day a big success not only at national level, but also at international level. It has written letters to different Ambassadors and Embassies and urged to make the event successful.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his UN address had suggested the date of June 21, as it is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and shares special significance in many parts of the world.
New Delhi: Amid Darjeeling remaining on the boil over a separate statehood agitation, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday appealed to Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) protesters not to resort to violence and, instead hold dialogue with the government to resolve the issue.

He said resorting to violence would never help them in finding a solution and asked the people living there to remain calm and peaceful.

"All concerned parties and stakeholders should resolve their differences and misunderstandings through dialogue in amicable environment," Rajnath said.

In a democracy like India resorting to violence would never help in finding a solution, he said, emphasising that every issue can be resolved through mutual dialogue.

"I appeal to the people living in Darjeeling and nearby areas to remain calm and peaceful. Nobody should resort to violence," the home minister said in a series of tweets.

Rajnath also spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today and discussed with her the situation prevailing there. "She has apprised me of the situation prevailing in Darjeeling," he said.

Rajnath had yesterday also spoken to Banerjee and asked her to take all possible steps so that peace is restored in the picturesque hill station where people are protesting against "imposition" of Bengali in schools by making the language mandatory.

The GJM which is in power in the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, is spearheading the agitation there demanding a separate state -- Gorkhaland.

Darjeeling remained on the edge today as thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying the body of a GJM activist, who was killed during clashes with police, and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.

Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and the police were witnessed yesterday.

The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari yesterday. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.

This was the first death since violent protests returned to Darjeeling on June 8, after a gap of a few years.

(With Agency inputs)
Kolkata: President of Ramakrishna Math and Mission Swami Atmasthanandaji Maharaj, under whose leadership major relief operations were conducted in various parts of India, Nepal and Bangladesh during natural calamities, died at a city hospital today after a prolonged illness.

The 98-year-old monk had been undergoing treatment for age-related ailments since February 2015.

A statement released by the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math, said, "Despite the best medical attention, his condition deteriorated over the last few days and he passed away around 5.30 pm today at Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan hospital."

The cremation will take place at Belur Math tomorrow at about 9.30 pm and the gates of Belur Math would remain open tonight and tomorrow till the last rites were completed, it stated.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had met the ailing Swami on April 17 last year, condoled the seer's death, terming it as a "personal loss".

As a young boy, Modi had visited the Belur Math to join the Order, but his request was turned down and he was told that his calling was elsewhere.

Later, he got spiritual guidance from Swami Atmasthananda in Rajkot, Gujarat and considered him as his 'guru'.

West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also condoled the demise of the monk.

Banerjee had paid a visit to the ailing monk earlier in the afternoon.

Atmasthanandaji, born in May 10, 1919, at Sabajpur, near Dhaka, now in Bangladesh, had received "mantra diksha" from Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj (a monastic disciple of Ramakrishna) in 1938 and joined the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math in January, 1941 at the age of 22.

In 1945, Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the sixth president of the Order, gave him 'brahmacharya' vows, and in 1949, 'sanyasa' vows and the name Swami Atmasthananda.

After serving the Order at Belur Math and the branches at Deoghar (Vidyapith) and Mayavati (Advaita Ashrama), Atmasthanandaji got the opportunity to serve Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the then president of the Order, for a long time.

He spent several years in the company of Virajanandaji Maharaj at the Shyamla Tal in the Himalayas. In 1952, he was posted to Ranchi TB Sanatorium branch as an assistant secretary.

In 1958, he was sent to Rangoon (Yangon) in Burma (now Myanmar) Sevashrama as its secretary.

When military rulers took over the Rangoon Sevashrama, he returned to India in 1965 and was posted at the Rajkot branch as its head in 1966.

He was elected a trustee of the Ramakrishna Math and member of the governing body of the Ramakrishna Mission in 1973.

In 1975, he was appointed an assistant general secretary of the twin organisations. Under his leadership as relief secretary, the math and mission conducted massive relief and rehabilitation operations in various parts of India, Nepal and Bangladesh during natural calamities.

He became the general secretary of the math and mission in 1992 and remained at that post for five years till 1997 when he became a vice-president of the Order.

He was elected president of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission in December 2007.

Swami Atmasthanandaji had travelled extensively all over the country and abroad and visited several branches of the Order and some unaffiliated centres spreading the messages of Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda and Vedanta, besides giving 'mantra diksha' to disciples.

He was one of the key persons to organise the Pallimangal (integrated rural development) activities in Kamarpukur and Jayrambati, a youth training centre at Saradapitha (Belur) and many other social service programmes.

Governor Tripathi conveyed his heartfelt condolences to Atmasthanandaji's numerous devotees whose "loss cannot be compensated".

"May his soul rest in peace in his heavenly abode," Tripathi said in a statement released by the Raj Bhawan tonight.

Banerjee described his passing away as "an irreparable loss to the mankind".

"Saddened that Rev. Swami Atmasthanandaji, President, Ramakrishna Math & Mission passed away today at Seva Pratishthan #Kolkata," she tweeted.

"I paid my last visit to him this afternoon. A life of outstanding social & religious service. This is an irreparable loss to mankind," the chief minister said.
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir police personnel will donate a day's salary for the families of the cops who were killed in the line of duty in the state this year.



Fourteen police personnel and two special police officers (SPOs) have sacrificed their lives in various militancy- related incidents during the year, according to a police spokesman.



Police personnel will donate one day salary for the families of the martyrs who have sacrificed their precious lives in the line of duty, the spokesman said.



"To show solidarity and their concern for the bereaved families of these martyrs, J&K police personnel will donate one day salary of the current month," he added.
Mumabi: Ahead of the presidential elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Sunday met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at the latter's residence at 'Matoshree' in suburban Bandra.

Shah was accompanied with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis as he held a close-door meeting with Thackeray which started at around 10:00 am today.

The meeting lasted for nearly 75 minutes.

The development comes a day after the BJP chief, who is here on a three-day visit to strengthen the party organisation in the state, said his party would consult its allies before finalising the NDA's presidential candidate.

Shiv Sena, which has often been critical of the BJP and the Modi government, recently suggested the name of MS Swaminathan, the father of India's Green Revolution and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat as its presidential choices.

The Shiv Sena had earlier said it may choose an "independent" path in the election to the highest constitutional office. It had backed Congress nominees -- Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee -- in the last two presidential elections.

Asked about Fadnavis' remark that the BJP was prepared for snap Assembly election, in an apparent reference to continued strain in ties with the Shiv Sena, Shah earlier said, "What he meant was that if mid-term polls are forced on us, we are ready to fight."

On the recent farm loan waiver announced by the Maharashtra government, Shah had said through it the state was offering relief to the farmers. "The burden of loan waiver will be on the government and not banks," he had said.

(With PTI inputs)
Mumbai: This is one of the rare moments that remains etched in your memory for life! A lucky couple was blessed with a baby boy during a Jet flight to Mumbai.

The Jet Airways flight from Saudi Arabia's Dammam to Kochi was diverted to Mumbai after a woman went into labour onboard.

The airline has promptly announced a free lifetime-pass for the new-born for all his travel on Jet Airways.

The Boeing 737 had 162 guests onboard.

A guest delivered a baby boy at 35,000 feet. Pleased to offer newly-born a free lifetime pass for all his travel on Jet, the airline said in a statement.

The mother and the baby were rushed to the Holy Spirit Hospital in Mumbai upon landing and both are reportedly stable.

Wow what a news!

Happy parenting for the couple!
New Delhi: China's space program has been subject to immense appreciation as well as criticism. However, that is far from keeping them from tackling the competitive space race head-on.

Now, with its eyes firmly on the top, China has announced its first mission to send mini-ecosystems  containing potato seeds and silkworm eggs  to the lunar surface next year.

With an aim to study how the organisms develop on the surface of the moon, the 3-kilogramme mini-ecosystem, developed by research teams led by Chongqing University in China, will be sent to the Moon by the Chang'e 4 scheduled to launch in 2018, authorities announced at the Global Space Exploration Conference.

An 18-centimetre-tall cylinder will carry potato seeds and silkworm eggs to be incubated.

The silkworms will hatch and create carbon dioxide, while the potato plants will generate oxygen, Zhang Yuanxun, who designed the ecosystem, was quoted as saying by 'Global Times'.

Xie Gengxin, chief designer on the project, said their mission is to prepare for future moon landings and possible human inhabitants.

"We will livestream the development of plants and insects on lunar surface to the whole world," Gengxin added.

China is planning a manned mission to the Moon, and officials have announced that the preliminary preparations for the lunar landing have begun.

Yang Liwei, deputy director general of China Manned Space Agency and the country's first astronaut said that it will not take long for the project to get official approval and funding.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: As the country is gearing up to usher in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from next month, experts have cautioned that the government as well as firms should firewall their systems to deal with increasingly more complex cyber threats.

Billed as the country's biggest taxation reform since independence, the Goods and Service Tax (GST) is expected to kick off from July 1.

Experts opined there could be a rise in the number of security incidents, if the government and private players do not prepare themselves adequately to address the potential cyber risks around the GST.

PwC India Partner and Leader (Cyber Security) Sivarama Krishnan said there are several threats that companies could get exposed to as a result of the new tax regime.

Threats as a result of data leak, unauthorised changes to master data and involvement of third parties -- who will have access to a company's data -- are set to increase.

"Companies need to modify their IT architecture with a focus on the GST. Hardening and security configurations of the systems that will be used in the end-to-end technology landscape will be required," he said.

Ansh Bhargava, Senior Consultant, Taxmann.Com, was of the view that since the GST Network (GSTN) will be recording the data of 8 million taxpayers each month, "it is imperative that this sensitive financial information be safeguarded against malicious attacks or security breaches in every possible way".

"It is of utmost importance that the cyber security unit is not only capable of detecting security threats but also conducting fraud investigations and forensics whenever needed," he said.

On cyber threats, Rohan Khara of mobile wallet company MobiKwik said even small glitches can mean major disruptions, which is why his company has set up a robust technology infrastructure to handle billions of transactions.

"We even use predictive analytics that can forewarn of cyber issues," he said.

The expert from PwC further said that in order to de- risk themselves, companies must adopt new approaches to cyber security, governance and monitoring processes.

"The GST requires restructuring of the IT processes. If operationally security aligns with business objectives, it will enable a seamless GST process," Krishnan said.

Rajeev Banduni, Co-founder and CEO GrowthEnabler advised that with the rushed timeline of implementation, suppliers and buyers should assess the information security practices of the Application Service Providers (ASP) and GST Suvidha Providers (GSP) while processing for GST implementation.

"These end-devices of ASPs and GSPs could be the next target of cyber terrorists," he cautioned.
Lucknow: A review meeting of six departments, including Social Welfare, Disabled Welfare, Minority Welfare, Backward Class Welfare, Women Welfare, Food Safety and Drugs departments, chaired by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was held here on Saturday.

The meeting was held to review the works being done by the ministers in the 100 days of the Yogi-government.

During the meeting, providing scholarship to all the backward castes was also discussed, said state cabinet minister Om Prakash Rajbhar.

"A CWC report on both the Waqf boards has also been submitted to the Chief Minister who has forwarded it to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for further probe," Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary, state Cabinet Minister said.

"We discussed about the performance and weakness which are being faced by the officials," said Mohsin Raza, state minister for minorities, waqf and Haj.
Darjeeling: In protest against the killing of two persons during heavy clashes between security personnel and protesters, thousands of protesters assembled at the central Chowkbazar carrying dead body of a GJM activist and raised slogans demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.

The GJM activist was killed during the clash with the police yesterday.

The protesters were seen carrying black flags and the Tricolour as they assembled at the Chowkbazar and raised slogans demanding that the police and security personnel be immediately removed from Darjeeling.

"We think the police and security personnel should be immediately removed from Darjeeling to create conducive environment for talks.

The government should allow us to carry out peaceful and democratic agitation," Darjeeling MLA Amar Rai of the GJM told reporters here.

Security personnel in large numbers were deployed in the hill district of West Bengal after widespread clashes between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists and the police were witnessed yesterday.

The GJM has claimed that two of their supporters were shot dead by police in Singmari. The police rejected the allegations of firing by its personnel, and said one person was killed during the clashes.

Earlier today, the GJM leadership ruled out talks with West Bengal Chief MInister Mamata Banerjee and denied the allegations made by her.

"The allegations are baseless, Mamata Banerjee is trying to mislead people. It is not a political fight but a fight for our own identity. We will not stop until and unless Gorkhaland is achieved. The struggle will intensify in the hills," Gurung said in an audio-visual statement.

Banerjee had yesterday said that the GJM-led agitation in Darjeeling hills is a "deep-rooted conspiracy" supported by the insurgent groups of the Northeast and some foreign countries.

The rally is happening amid increased police security in the region. After Saturday's violent clashes, police have been on high alert with pickets and barricades in front of the government and GTA offices. Several entry-exit points of the hills have also been barricaded. Police has also been conducting route marches with Army in several parts of the hills, according to Indian Express.

Police pickets and barricades were placed in front of the government and GTA offices, and various entry-exit points of the hills. Several woman police personnel have also been deployed.

Gearing up for a prolonged confrontation with West Bengal government over the Gorkhaland statehood issue, the party's leadership is planning to revive Gorkhaland Personnel (GLP) - its "peacekeeping" wing.

"The situation is getting worse with each passing day. We feel that a head-on collision is just a matter of time. So we need to prepare ourselves to counter the state government democratically," GJM central committee member and former in-charge of GLP Colonel (retd) Ramesh Alley told PTI.

"We (GJM) will revive and recruit more youths in GLP our own peacekeeping force. We are not into any kind of violence nor is GLP into this. But we have to prepare ourselves," he said.

GJM, Alley said, wants to raise a 8000-strong force in Darjeeling hills which will be well prepared to tackle "any kind of situation".

The idea of setting by GLP by recruiting youths from the hills was first mooted by Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) supremo Bimal Gurung during the Gorkhaland agitation of 2008.

Gurung had then held a meeting with former army personnel and officers from the hills and requested them to take charge of selection, recruitment and training of the youths. The outfit was first named Gorkhaland Police, but after opposition from various quarters it was renamed Gorkhaland Personnel (GLP).

The criteria for a place in this force was education upto standard eight and of course physical fitness and agility. After initial selection, nearly 3000 youths were trained for joining GLP.

The force in 2009 enforced bandhs called by GJM, ensured that locals wear traditional Nepali attire at least thrice a week, seize and destroy liquor and provide protection to Gurung and top GJM leaders.

On the boil for the past 10 days over a separate state demand, Darjeeling had yesterday witnessed widespread clashes between GJM activists and the police in which one person was killed and 35 security personnel were injured, including an India Reserve Battalion (IRB) officer.

(With Agency inputs)
Brussels: Greece has blocked a European Union statement at the United Nations criticising China`s human rights record, a decision EU diplomats said undermined efforts to confront Beijing`s crackdown on activists and dissidents.



The EU, which seeks to promote free speech and end capital punishment around the world, was due to make its statement last week at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, but failed to win the necessary agreement from all 28 EU states.



It marked the first time the EU had failed to make its statement at the U.N.`s top rights body, rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said.



A Greek foreign ministry official said Athens blocked the statement, calling it "unconstructive criticism of China" and said separate EU talks with China outside the UN were a better avenue for discussions.



An EU official confirmed the statement had been blocked.



Presented three times a year, the statement gives the EU a way to highlight abuses by states around the world on issues that other countries are unwilling to raise.



The impasse is the latest blow to the EU`s credentials as a defender of human rights, three diplomats said, and raises questions about the economically powerful EU`s "soft power" that relies on inspiring countries to follow its example by outlawing the death penalty and upholding press freedoms.



It also underscores the EU`s awkward ties with China, its second-largest trade partner, diplomats said.



Brussels has welcomed Beijing as an ally against U.S. President Donald Trump in the fight against climate change and trade protectionism. But as business ties grow, the bloc is struggling to speak out against a Chinese government crackdown on human rights lawyers and other activists since 2015.



China`s COSCO Shipping, owner of the world`s fourth-largest container fleet, took a 51 percent stake in Greece`s largest port last year.



Hungary, another large recipient of Chinese investment, has repeatedly blocked EU statements criticising China`s rights record under communist President Xi Jinping, diplomats said.



One EU diplomat expressed frustration that Greece`s decision to block the statement came at the same time the International Monetary Fund and EU governments agreed to release funds under Greece`s emergency financial bailout last week in Luxembourg.

"It was dishonourable, to say the least," the diplomat said.
Tehran: Iran's navy has conducted a joint exercise with a Chinese fleet near the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.

The official IRNA news agency said today's drill included an Iranian warship as well as two Chinese warships, a logistics ship and a Chinese helicopter that arrived in Iran's port of Bandar Abbas last week.

It said the scheduled exercise came before the departure of the Chinese fleet for Muscat, Oman. It did not provide further details.

The US navy held a joint drill with Qatar in the Persian Gulf yesterday.

US and Iranian warships have had a number of tense encounters in the Persian Gulf in recent years. Nearly a third of all oil traded by sea passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Tel Aviv: Israel`s cabinet on Sunday approved a new law banning the sale of binary options overseas by online trading firms based in Israel, a business that has drawn broad international criticism over allegations of illicit practices.



The proposed amendment to the country`s securities law was drawn up by the Israel Securities Authority (ISA) and other government offices and submitted to the cabinet by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon.



It now heads to parliament, where it is expected to be fast-tracked, giving it priority over other bills, an ISA spokeswoman said.



The draft law also prohibits any type of trading forum that sells to overseas clients - even if they do not offer binary options - without receiving a licence from the country where clients reside.



Breaking the law will be punishable by up to two years in prison and if money laundering is involved, punishment could reach 10 years in prison.



"Beyond the severe economic harm to citizens around the world, marketers of binary options are increasingly causing reputational damage and inflaming anti-Semitism towards Jews and Israelis," ISA Chairman Shmuel Hauser said in a statement.



Israeli regulators have received many complaints regarding losses suffered by binary option traders in various countries, the statement said.



Binary options involve placing a bet on whether the value of a financial asset - a currency, commodity or stock - will rise or fall in a fixed timeframe, sometimes as short as a minute.



Israel already banned the domestic sale of binary options last year, the first country to do so.



The owner of an Israeli binary options firm was arrested on suspicion of fraud and extortion last month after an investor abroad reported losses of more than $500,000 to the online company, the first arrest since authorities announced a crackdown.



A Reuters special report published in September shed light on the rapid rise of the industry in Israel. London-based lawyers said hundreds of their clients were duped out of vast sums of money by some Israeli firms. More than 100 operators are estimated to be based in Israel, a technology hub.



Investors have accused some of these Israeli companies of transferring money between accounts without approval and in some cases of preventing them from withdrawing their own funds.
1. Yes. Taxpayers are funding its operation; they should have a voice in the naming process.

2. Yes. The city should operate with a spirit of inclusivity. Residents will be responsive.

3. No. Public input can be problematic; rejection of suggestions can be divisive for residents.

4. No. Residents elect council members to make decisions on their behalf. No input is needed.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say whether public input would be more of a benefit or a hindrance.

Vote

View Results
Kuwait City: Kuwait's Supreme Court on Sunday reduced the death sentence of a Shiite citizen convicted of forming a pro-Iranian cell and of plotting attacks to life in prison.

Hasan Abdulhadi Ali was sentenced to death by the lower and appeals courts last year after he was convicted of being "the mastermind of a cell" of 26 Shiites accused of links to Iran and of plotting attacks in the Sunni-ruled emirate.

Members of the cell had been charged with spying for Iran and hiding large quantities of arms, explosives and ammunition in underground warehouses.

Ali was also found guilty of having been an operative of Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement since 1996 and of smuggling significant amounts of arms and explosives from Iran into Kuwait.

The supreme court judges, whose rulings are final, sentenced 20 other members of the cell to between five and 15 years in jail and acquitted two.

The cases of the remaining three members were not taken up by the supreme court because they remain fugitives.

They include the only Iranian member of the cell, Abdulredha Haider, who was handed the death penalty in absentia by the lower court in January last year.

The court had accused Haider of ties to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard and of recruiting the Kuwaiti Shiites and facilitating their travel to Lebanon, where they received military training from Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The 23 defendants present at the trial have denied the charges and said that their confessions were extracted under torture.

Iran has denied any links to the group.

Around a third of Kuwait's native population of 1.35 million is Shiite.
Karachi: The parents of a 16-year-old Hindu girl who was allegedly abducted and converted before being married to a Muslim man in Pakistan have changed their location due to fear, a media report has said.

Ravita Meghwar was abducted by some men from the influential Syed community in Tharparkar's Nagarparkar area in the southeast Sindh province on June 6, creating an uproar among the minority community.

Her parents said that they have changed their location fearing they might be attacked by the family of their daughter's so-called husband, Geo TV reported.

Meghwar's parents said they moved from Wanharo village to Mithhi after they raised their voice against a man, nearly double the girl's age, kidnapped their daughter, forcefully converted her to Islam and married her, the report said.

A court has summoned both the parties on June 30. The girl's mother wanted the police to take Meghwar in their protective custody until the hearing day, but the police said they cannot take action against the "couple".

The Hindu community, along with the girl's family, has insisted that she was kidnapped and forcefully converted.

Her father Satram Das Meghwar alleged that influential members of the Syed community had kidnapped his daughter after giving sleeping pills to the family.

He alleged that despite frequent appeals, Thar police did not take any action to trace the girl till she was forced to convert.

However, the girl said that she had not been kidnapped but eloped with Ali Nawaz Shah. She and her husband have requested the Hyderabad bench of Sindh High Court to provide them protection.

The PML-N member of national assembly from Thar and chief of the Pakistan Hindu Council, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, has expressed his concern over the alleged abduction and the subsequent conversion of Ravita.

Scores of people have questioned the validity of the marriage certificate issued by the cleric and condemned the incident on social media, demanding a probe into the incident.
Colombo: The Sri Lankan Navy on Sunday arrested five Indian fishermen for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters.



"Naval personnel attached to a Fast Attack Craft belonging to the Northern Naval Command arrested 5 Indian poachers along with a fishing trawler engaged in illegal fishing practices in Sri Lankan territorial waters west of Delft Island this morning," the Sri Lankan Navy said in a statement.



The arrested Indians will be handed over to the Jaffna Assistant Director of Fisheries for a legal action.



The Sri Lankan Navy also rendered assistance to another Indian fishing trawler in northwest of Analativu Island as sea water had trickled into the vessel making a panic-stricken situation.
Dubai: At least 25 Yemenis were killed when Saudi-led coalition aircraft struck a market in the northern Saada province, a local health official said on Sunday, the latest in a string of deadly incidents in the 27-month-old conflict.

Officials from the Saudi-led coalition could not immediately be reached for a comment on the report.

Yemen has been torn by a civil war in which the exiled government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, is trying to roll back gains made by the Iran-aligned Houthi group which controls most of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.

The director of the Houthi-run Health Department office in Saada said the aircraft conducted two raids on al-Mashnaq market in Shada district, which is close to the Saudi border, on Saturday, killing 25 people and wounding at least one.

"Rescue teams were unable to reach the area for some time for fear of being hit by artillery shelling of the area," the official, Dr Abdelilah al-Azzi, told Reuters by telephone.

Reuters could not independently confirm the report because the area is located very close to the frontline, but several Yemeni online news outlets carried a similar report.

A Saudi-led coalition air strike killed 22 people and wounded dozens when it struck a market in western Yemen near the Red Sea fishing town of Khoukha in March.

Khoukha and the nearby city of Hodeidah are controlled by the Houthis who overran Sanaa in 2014 and moved south to Aden in 2015 forcing Hadi and his administration to flee into exile.

The Yemen war has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced more than three million and ruined much of the impoverished country`s infrastructure.

The Saudi-led coalition was formed in 2015 to fight the Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh who have fired missiles into neighboring Saudi Arabia.

In December, the coalition acknowledged it had made "limited use" of British-made cluster bombs, but said it had stopped using them.

Nearly half of Yemen`s 22 provinces are on the verge of famine, according to the U.N. World Food Programme.
YEREVAN, JUNE 16, ARMENPRESS. The delegation led by the Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ara Babloyan participated in the forum of the Armenian political forces in Stepanakert on June 16.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the parliament of Armenia, Ara Babloyan gave a speech, which runs as follows,

Honorable participants of the inter-party forum,

Dear colleges,

I welcome the participants of the forum of Armenian political parties. Its an important platform to discuss inter-party, inter-state and national issues.

The political parties of Armenia and Artsakh operate in different geographical locations as organizations, but they all are engaged in activities for the sake of Armenia in one and the same territory  the Armenian territory. They have very similar political programs, goals that stem from the priorities of one nation that has two states. Our parties have rather rich political capital which they can effectively use to achieve those goals.

Dear friends,

Artsakh, as one of the priorities of Armenias foreign policy, has its important place in the programs of the political forces active in Armenia. During all the national elections those parties allocate a separate part in their election programs to the issue of Artsakh, the relations with the Republic of Artsakh, are ready to contribute to Artsakhs economic development, defend its security, and right to self-determination. The political forces of Armenia are the reliable partners of the political parties of Artsakh and are ready to contribute to supplementing the political experience of the parties of Artsakh, and expanding their informational base and international ties. Its also logical that the political parties of Artsakh give much importance in their programs to the relations with the Republic of Armenia, as well as pan-Armenian issues.

All the political forces of Armenia, with some differences in their programs, are consolidated over one issue  the fate of Artsakh, and the same goes for our people. I am convinced the same consolidation exists among the political parties of Artsakh when it comes to the fate of the state, while the constructive cooperation between the parties further enhances the potential and opportunities that the political parties of Armenia and Artsakh have when acting separately. Only with joint efforts it can be possible to transfer the existing challenges into new opportunities, ensuring security and development for the Republics of Armenia and Artsakh.

Dear partners,

I am convinces this platform will have its contribution to the exchange of experience and information, dialogue between the political parties of the two Armenian states and the development of the political culture in general.

I wish you productive activities.
The Democrat leadership has made constant, profound and incredible pronouncements that one's supportive vote for Republicans is tantamount to surrendering Democracy forever. Understanding their sincere thinking in their extreme position: How will you still vote on this election day?

Democrat; because the continuance of this Democracy from the existential threat of extreme Republicans is paramount.

Republican; the process of having a choice is the democratic method within what so called "Democracy" does exists.
Big differences between House and Senate bills may require tough negotiations



Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, calls to order a March 15 meeting of the Senate Health Care Committee. (CJ photo by Dan Way)

A Senate panel passed legislation Thursday to accelerate mental health Medicaid reform and free up nearly $1 billion in frozen assets to provide more behavioral health services.Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, a co-chairman of the Senate Health Care Committee, presented an amended version of House Bill 403 that would speed the integration of mental health services and physical health care.Such integrated care would deliver better results for less money by using Prepaid Health Plans, Hise said. The PHPs would receive a monthly fee per patient, versus the current model, which pays providers for every service they perform.PHPs could be commercial managed care networks or organizations comprising private health care providers. Up to five PHPs would serve Medicaid and NC Health Choice recipients statewide. Four regional contracts would be issued to provider-led entities to deliver services.The bill would hold providers accountable by developing health metrics to measure how successful they are in providing care to patients with problems resulting from mental illness, substance abuse, and intellectual or developmental disabilities.Hise called it "a Herculean task" for the state Department of Health and Human Services to implement the reforms in a two-year period. He wasn't willing to wait the six years the House version of the bill allows to reform the system, improve services, and achieve improved health outcomes.Sen. Tommy Tucker, R-Union, said he's not as critical of the current LME/MCO structure as Hise. Originally there were 11 area LME/MCOs administering the services. They were consolidated to seven.Tucker called Cardinal Innovations, the largest of the seven, "a rogue group," and said he was "appalled at the audit " recently released by the State Auditor's Office. It found numerous examples of extravagant spending.The original House bill created the six-year transition plan. It passed on a 109-0 vote. Tucker said DHHS supports that bill, and state Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth, a primary sponsor of the legislation, told him the House would not approve Hise's version.Hise said the differences would be resolved in conference committee if the House doesn't concur with the Senate changes. Those include plowing nearly $1 billion in reserve funds the LME/MCOs have built up back into much-needed services.He said the Senate version would reimburse medical providers at 90 percent of Medicaid rates for treating patients out of network. They aren't now required to pay out-of-network providers.Projections are that several LME/MCOs would fail within the six-year House transition period, Hise said. They are losing money on Medicaid patients.Without the more immediate reforms in the Senate bill, the state would enter into a series of costly, inefficient patchwork fixes over the next six years to keep the system functioning, he said.Another benefit to the Senate bill, Hise said, is that if one of the organizations goes belly-up, others will vie for the contract. The current system doesn't allow such a continuity of services, he said.If the state wanted to shut down an ineffective organization, the entity could tie the state up in lawsuits for years under the current structure, Hise said. The Senate bill would eliminate that potential.Sen. Mike Woodard, D-Durham, expressed worry that the Senate bill would take money and employment for rural hospitals. Hise said there's no reduction in spending, and savings on overhead and administrative costs should make it possible to add jobs.


Daniel Wilkinson, a doctoral student in ECU's Brody School of Medicine, has patented a process for replicating T cells for possible treatment of autoimmune diseases like MS and Type 1 diabetes. (Photos by Cliff Hollis)



Doctoral student Daniel Wilkinson and Mark Mannie, Wilkinsons supervisor and a professor in East Carolinas Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Like many great scientific discoveries, Daniel Wilkinson's came almost by accident.As part of his doctoral research at East Carolina University, Wilkinson was working on a way of creating regulatory T cells, which are used in the treatment of autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis. But Mark Mannie, Wilkinson's supervisor and a professor in the Brody School of Medicine's Department of Microbiology and Immunology, said the results of Wilkinson's experiments kept coming out differently than what they were expecting.Mannie said.T cells are cells in the body that attack infectious organisms, such as viruses and parasites. But sometimes, the T cells become confused and will attack healthy parts of the body, leading to autoimmune conditions such as MS and Type 1 diabetes. Most people don't get autoimmune diseases because of a subset of T cells called "regulatory T cells" that protect the body.Scientists don't have a lot of knowledge when it comes to how regulatory T cells work, because they are very malleable and are difficult to cultivate and study.Wilkinson, a Charlotte native who got his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has figured out a way to replicate the regulatory T cells through an in-vitro process.Mannie said.Wilkinson said,Wilkinson has a provisional patent on the process, and he and Mannie are authoring a paper on their work. Ultimately, the goal is to license the technology to a biotech company that can use the process to create a treatment for autoimmune conditions.Mannie calls Wilkinson a model student and researcher.Mannie said.As an undergraduate, Wilkinson wanted to study medicine to become a physician. But during his senior year, Wilkinson worked in an HIV research lab and that changed his outlook.That's precisely what Wilkinson has accomplished with his work on regulatory T cells.he said.
Studies suggest that climate change could cost Canada billions by 2020, while a recent UN report says for many countries, the cost of adapting to climate change could hit $500 billion per year by 2050.

B.C.'s portion could be hefty  but there will be variables.

For example, the cost of living for average British Columbians could go up if agricultural crops that the province typically imports from elsewhere fail.

Infrastructure costs might rise due to new climate events, like rising sea levels.

Catastrophic and unpredictable climate disasters  like the Fort McMurray fire  could become more regular, leading to billions of dollars of unforseen property and infrastructure damage.

Budget worries

Those potential high costs are what keep Doug Smith, the City of Vancouver's director of sustainability, up at night.

Infrastructure repair costs  for example to build up dykes and levees in the Lower Mainland  are so high they aren't politically viable, he said.

"We're talking huge, huge amounts of money that will really have a negative impact on our economy," he said.

And as a major city, there are other high-cost expenses that could derail long-term climate change spending, he also explained.

"I mean if we if we have an earthquake here that's going to change our priorities for a long time," he said. "You look at Wellington, New Zealand and they're not worried about climate change, they're worried about rebuilding."

Lydia Ryall, a farmer on low-lying Westham Island near Delta, B.C., is worried the cost of adapting to climate change will ultimately become too high for the municipality, province and federal government to cover.

"My major worry is maybe in 60, 70 years ... it's going to cost too much and [it's easier] to let these, you know 50 families, and all this farmland just get flooded. Who knows?" she said.

To spend or not to spend?

Kevin Falcon, who has served as a deputy premier and a B.C. Liberal finance minister, says governments are empowered to make determinations on how best to spend public money.

Story continues

Falcon, who says he's "a full climate change person" who supports the carbon tax, says there should be investment to adapt to climate change  albeit spent carefully and practically.

"I'm very much in favour of them spending their money on things that are going to get the best return on investment," he said, citing rapid transit as one example.

"Some spending is going to have to happen [and we have to] make sure it's as evidence-based as possible and be responsible about it."

But planning and spending for climate change  as illustrated above  can be tricky.

John Clague, a professor of earth sciences at Simon Fraser University, says it's important to inform citizens of this uncertainty so they can make informed decisions.

"I think the only hope there is that people have a discourse over the issues and come to appreciate that there is uncertainty."

Listen to 2050: Degrees of Change, a CBC Vancouver podcast
Security high as former fugitive Steven Skinner in court on murder charge

A man charged with a 2011 murder who has been outside of Canada since the killing has been extradited back to Nova Scotia and will appear in court on Monday.

Steven Douglas Skinner faces a second-degree murder charge in the death of Stacey Adams, a Dartmouth man who was killed on April 10, 2011.

Skinner, 44, left the country the day of the murder, eventually landing in Mexico. The murder charge was laid against him in July 2011. Law enforcement officials eventually found and arrested Skinner on Margarita Island, Venezuela, on May 15, 2016. He's been held in custody ever since as Canadian officials attempted to arrange extradition.

'A long way to go'

The family of Adams said they received confirmation of the news on Saturday from the lead detective on the file.

Kendelle Blois, speaking on behalf of the family, told CBC News the family is feeling like "this is a step to another beginning."

"We still have a long way to go."

Blois said although it took a long time, no one doubted the day would come and the family is grateful to the Venezuela government for agreeing to extradite Skinner back to Nova Scotia. There were a lot of court proceedings to get to this point, she said, although the family isn't clear on all the details.

"We're just grateful it's happened," she said. "It is our hope the courts make him accountable for the charges that are brought against him."

Other charges

In addition to the second-degree murder charge, Skinner is facing several charges in connection with an incident in Lower Sackville on July 22, 2009, including aggravated assault, forcible confinement, assault with a weapon, uttering threats and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

Skinner was arrested in Ontario on July 25, 2009, and was returned to Nova Scotia, where he was brought into police custody and later released on conditions.
Otto Warmbiers roommate in North Korea has spoken out for the first time  and chillingly recalls his last words to the 22-year-old college student, who was released from imprisonment in North Korea in a coma on Tuesday.

Danny Gratton told the Washington Post he met Warmbier in Beijing in Dec. 2015 on a tour to North Korea. The pair quickly struck up a friendship, and Gratton, a sales manager in his mid-40s from England, says he was the only Westerner to see Warmbier detained by security services at Pyongyang International Airport.

No words were spoken. Two guards just come over and simply tapped Otto on the shoulder and led him away, Gratton said. I just said kind of quite nervously, Well, thats the last well see of you. Theres a great irony in those words.

Gratton says he and Warmbier were among the last people to go through security at Pyongyang International Airport on that morning. Two security officials stopped and took Warmbier to a private room.

That was it. That was the last physical time I saw Otto, ever, Gratton said. I was also the only person to see Otto taken away. Otto didnt resist. He didnt look scared. He sort of half-smiled.

The group landed in Beijing Capital International Airport, but when their tour guide called a colleague, who was with Warmbier still in North Korea, he said he couldnt travel because he felt ill.

The University of Virginia student was later sentenced to 15 years of prison and hard labor for allegedly stealing a political propaganda poster from his Pyongyang hotel in Jan. 2016.

North Korea reportedly told a U.S. official that Otto contracted botulism while detained and slipped intothe coma after taking a sleeping pill. He suffered a severe neurological injury, a University of Cincinnati Medical Center spokeswoman revealed Thursday.

Otto was just a really great lad who fell into the most horrendous situation that no one could ever believe, Gratton told the Post. Its just something I think in the Western world we just cant understand, we just cant grasp, the evilness behind that dictatorship.

Story continues

The two quickly bonded on their four-day, three-night tour with Young Pioneers Tours, a Chinese company that markets itself as providing budget travel to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from, reports the publication.

Warmbier was planning to be in the country for a five-day stay before flying to Beijing to participate in a 10-day tour of two Asian financial capitals, Hong Kong and Singapore, sponsored by his school: University of Virginia.

When we got to Pyongyang, we were the two single guys, so it seemed logical for us to be put in the same room, Gratton said. So basically from the time we got to Pyongyang to the time I left him, we were together.

I got to know Otto really, really well. He was such a mature lad for his age.

RELATED VIDEO: North Korea Releases Jailed American Student Otto Warmbier

Warmbier was arrested on Jan. 2, 2016, while trying to board a plane out of North Korea. He was charged with hostile acts against the state after allegedly attempting to take down a large propaganda sign lauding the regime in a staff area of his hotel in Pyongyang. His alleged crime took place on their second night in Pyongyang, the Post reports.

Gratton told the newspaper he didnt see Warmbier commit the alleged theft  and saw no evidence that Warmbier was planning any such act.

Ive got nothing from my experiences with him that would suggest he would do something like that, he told the publication. At no stage did I ever think he was anything but a very, very polite kid.

Although the two werent together at all times, they traveled during the day and spent time with each other at night.

At a news conference Thursday morning in his home state of Ohio, Otto Warmbiers father, Fred Warmbier, said theres no excuse for North Koreas treatment of his son.

Otto, I love you and Im so crazy about you, Im so glad youre home, you are such a great guy, Fred said through tears during the press conference. My family has been rock solid throughout this, we have supported one another.

Gratton, meanwhile, is aghast at what happened to his friend.

No one deserves that. He was just a young lad who wanted a bit of adventure, Gratton told the Post. Every once in a while they single out someone to make a point, and this was just Ottos turn. Its so sick and warped and unnecessary and evil.
With U.S. President Donald Trumps new directives toward Cuba announced June 16, 2017, we have some Q&A on what this means.

1. Did President Trump Really Cancel the last administrations completely one-sided deal with Cuba?

The answer is simply, no. However, the new Trump directives crack down on travel and conducting business in Cuba.

The changes are aimed to ban transactions with Grupo de Administracion Empresarial SA (GAESA). GAESA operates state-owned companies that account for a large amount of the business revenue produced in Cuba. It is headed by Luis Alberto Rodriguez, who is Raul Castros son-in-law. GAESA also operates and funds military operations in Cuba. The problem becomes that GAESA owns and operates many business activities in the tourism sector including hotels, tour buses, and restaurants.

While travel wont be totally banned to Cuba, the new Trump directives will be enforced by the Treasury Department, which will in the upcoming months issue regulations. There are non-GAESA controlled travel businesses such as private housing and taxis. To prove this, it is expected Americans traveling to Cuba will have to keep stricter records and could be subject to a Treasury Department audit.

There are some changes from the last administration that will remain in place. The countries will keep their embassies. Commercial airlines and cruises will still be permitted to go to Cuba. There are no changes to the restrictions on bringing Cuban Cigars into the United States.

2-So what does this mean for me if I want to go to Cuba?

Individual travel to Cuba will get more difficult, specifically booking your own flight and hotels. Now you are going to be subject to restrictions and potential audits by the Treasury Department. You are most likely going to have to go via a sanctioned and authorized tour group to Cuba. These tour groups are now also going need to comply with the regulations.

3-I watched the Presidents Speech. I never heard him mention cigars. Is this correct?

There was nothing specific mentioned about cigars during the speech. A Senior Administration official was asked about bringing in goods, including Cuban Cigars, and he said there were currently no changes. However, there is nothing that would prevent changes in the future. This is because the Embargo is still in place and that is ultimately the law.

4-When will we get the specifics on how The Trump Directive Will Be Carried Out?

This will come from the Treasury Department and specifically OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control). It could take weeks or months. This is similar to what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has done with the Deeming Regulations  namely announce the directive and worry about the devil in the details later.

The announced changes do not take place until OFAC issues the new regulations which are going to be amendments to the Cuban Asset Control Regulations.

5-Why are Commercial Airlines and Cruise Ships Still Operating to Cuba?

Under the Trump directives, fees paid to GAESA for the use of ports and airports will be exempt from the new bans. Many of the charter flights still operate under GAESA, so perhaps its more advantageous to keep the commercial operation going.

6-With restrictions aimed at GAESA, what can we expect?

Nick Syris is my co-host on the Smooth Draws Radio Show. He has spent a lot of time in Cuba and knows the Cuban landscape as well as anyone. He feels Cuba isnt ready to roll over, but will be making adjustments to live in the post-Obama era.

Syris commented on the show, I know on the Cuban side that they already are adjusting it right now. So, in my opinion, everything funnels one place anyway. So they are just going to reshuffle it and move all of this stuff away from the military arm of Cuba. So it is going to be a cat and mouse game between the U.S. and Cuba. And it will be interesting what Trump and his administration actually do with that.

You can hear our conversation on this topic from Episode 112 of the Smooth Draws Radio Show.

http://soundcloud.com/smoothdraws/show-number-112-june-17-2017#t=49:10

7-Where can I currently find more specific travel guidance?

The U.S. Treasury Department has issued additional FAQs that can be accessed here.
Recent reports highlight the continuing dire human rights situation in Iran. Ongoing abuses reveal how challenging it will be for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to live up to campaign promises to improve the human rights situation there.

Since President Rouhanis re-election in May, the Center for Human Rights in Iran reports that eight political and civil rights activists have been given prison sentences of up to four years for allegedly reading and spreading feminist literature in Iran; Bahai student Farzad Safaei was expelled one semester away from completing his bachelors degree at the Islamic Azad University because the University discovered he was a Bahai; on the day human rights defender and Bahai rights activist Navid Khanjani was to be released from prison, he was told he must serve an additional year for another purported crime.

And the two former presidential candidates, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, as well as Mousavis wife Zahra Rahnavard, remain under house arrest, despite President Rouhanis statements that they should be released.

U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Virginia Bennett said recently that the United States is determined to apply pressure on the Iranian government to protect thefundamental freedoms of the Iranian people:

"We continue to promote human rights in Iran in a wide variety of ways, in particular, I would recall our [State Departments] Acting Spokesperson statement on February 14th calling for the release of Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Zahra Rahnavard.

She also noted that the United States has repeatedly called on the government of Iran to release all prisoners of conscience, including the imprisoned members and leaders of Irans Bahai community:

Freedom of belief is a fundamental human right. Continued imprisonment, as well as the abuse that they sustain while they are imprisoned, really crosses a line that I think is very important to the United States.

Acting Assistant Secretary Bennett said, We are going to continue to hold Iran accountable for its serious human rights abuses.

As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated in his remarks on the re-election of President Rouhani, the United States hopes that he restores the rights of Iranians to freedom of speech, to freedom of organization [assembly], so that Iranians can live the life that they deserve.
Afghanistan has known little peace or stability over the past four decades, having suffered through a Russian invasion, a civil war, five years of harsh rule by the fundamentalist Taliban regime, and the United States-led NATO action aimed at dismantling al-Qaida and overthrowing the Taliban regime that sheltered the terrorists.

Some 6.2 million people fled the country during the years of upheaval. But once the Taliban had gone, the refugees began to return home.

There is a clear connection between explosive hazards and displacement of populations, and Afghanistan is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. In some parts of the country, the land is unsafe to farm, unsafe for livestock, unsafe to even walk. Thus, many refugees who returned still could not go back to their homes.

The government of Afghanistan set a goal of clearing the countrys known minefields by 2023. Eighty percent of that goal has already been reached. Yet 570 square kilometers has yet to be de-mined.

In late March, over 90 representatives met for the Afghanistan Donor and Implementing Partners Coordination Workshop for Mine Action, jointly hosted by the U.S. Department of States Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, and the Afghanistan Ministry for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs, writes Amy OHalloran, Program Administrative Assistant in the State Departments Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement. The goal was to identify the challenges involved in meeting the Afghan governments 2023 target.

The United States is a long-time supporter of Afghanistans demining efforts. From 1993 through 2016, we have provided over $442 million for conventional weapons destruction and demining assistance to Afghanistan, through grants to Afghanistans mine clearance organizations and international nongovernmental organizations in the mine action community.

The United States is proud to support humanitarian mine action in Afghanistan because protecting civilians is a prerequisite for achieving any kind of peace and stability, said the U.S. Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament, Ambassador Robert Wood. Men, women, and children must be protected from the risk of landmines and unexploded ordnance. As long as these dangers persist, it is difficult for communities to recover from conflict.
In Singapore, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis warned that violent extremist organizations, including fighters returning from the Middle East and local individuals radicalized by malicious ideologies, seek to gain ground in Southeast Asia.

Pro-ISIS militants in the Philippines recently attempted to seize part of Marawi City in Mindanao, attacking innocents, killing police and military, and taking worshippers hostage. ISIS also claimed responsibility for the brutal bombings that killed three police officers at a Jakarta, Indonesia, bus station.

We must act now to prevent this threat from growing, said Secretary Mattis. Otherwise, it will place long-term regional security at risk and stunt regional economic dynamism.

Alliances are critical to countering the extremist threat, said Secretary Mattis. They provide avenues for peace, fostering the conditions for economic growth with countries that share the same vision, while tempering the plans of those who would attack other nations or try to impose their will over the less powerful.

In the Philippines, the U.S. is helping to train, advise and assist the military in their fight against violent extremist organizations in the south.

The U.S. will also continue to support the modernization of the Philippine Armed Forces to address the country's security issues. During this challenging fight against terrorists, we will stand by the people of the Philippines, and we will continue to uphold our commitments to the Philippines under the Mutual Defense Treaty, said Mr. Mattis.

Another U.S. priority is to empower countries in the region so they can be stronger contributors to their own peace and stability. The U.S. calls on all countries to contribute sufficiently to their own security.

At the same time, said Mr. Mattis, we encourage them to actively seek out opportunities and partnerships with other like-minded nations as we do the same to sustain and maintain the peace.

And finally, the U.S. Department of Defense is working to strengthen U.S. military capabilities in the region because security is the foundation of prosperity, enabling the flow of commerce.

By strengthening its alliances, by empowering the region, and by enhancing the U.S. military, the United States intends to continue to promote the rules-based order that is in the best interest of the United States, and of all the countries in the region.
CEO Jeff Bezos has steered Amazon to acquire and invest in almost 100 companies since it went public. Source: Reuters

Amazon (AMZN) announced it is buying Whole Foods (WFM) for $13.7 billion on Friday, purchasing the upscale grocery chain for $42 per sharea 27% premium on its share price of $33.06. This is the Seattle giants largest acquisition to date, far surpassing the $1.2 billion it spent to buy online shoe seller Zappos.com in 2009.

Over the past week, Amazon rumors did not revolve around a purchase of Whole Foods, but rather that of another companySlack, a set of workplace chatroom tools, that boasts 5 million users and may be worth up to $9 billion.

The possibility of taking in a rising office messaging tool and a high-end supermarket in the same week is a testament to Amazons well-known vastness. The company, which boasts a massive market cap of $469 billion, has expanded so far from its original internet-bookstore mold that anything seems possible.

Its no secret Amazon pursued Whole Foods to get a real foothold in the supermarket business and boost its food delivery service to compete with major grocery stores. Whole Foods has both the massive infrastructure for food logistics and a reputation of quality.

In general, however, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos often leaves company strategy opaque. To get some insight into its vision, it makes sense to look at the companies it has acquired. Since it went public, Amazon has bought or made large investments in almost 100 companies, according to Bloomberg. (CrunchBase charts its acquisitions alone at 76.) Just over 20 of these companies were acquired or invested in by Amazon over the past two years. For the most part, they fall into a few main categories.

Amazons order history

The first category consists of retailers that Amazon has bought to build a bigger Amazon. Whole Foods is included here, as are Zappos.com, Audible, and Shopbop. Many of these serve to expand Amazons product offerings into newer territory, which may be more competitive. Amazon has also bought companies like Souq.com, which, as the Amazon of the Middle East, enabled Amazon to leap forward in that international market.

Story continues

Its not the only consumer category of companies Amazon has dipped into. In addition to buying retailers, Amazon has acquired companies to improve existing consumer products. It acquired an Indian publishing company to give it a leg up on books in the international market, a gaming company, Curse, for its Twitch gaming platform. Its also bought an Indian payments company to improve its online payments platform, and an AI image recognition company called Orbeus.

Amazon, of course, has also invested in home internet-of-things products like Petnet, a remote pet-feeding device, Rachio, a wi-fi-enabled sprinkler system, and Luma Home, which makes wi-fi devices. None of these investments was an all-in acquisition, but it tips the companys cards that Alexa may only be the beginning.

The next category takes a step away from the consumer-facing part of the company. Though Amazons main business is consumer-driven, the companys cloud business, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is massively lucrative, taking in $2.56 billion in the first quarter of this year. Its influence is far-reaching: Many websites you frequent use Amazons services.

The acquisitions that have fueled Amazons cloud business includ Thinkbox, Nice, havest.ai, Iconic, and Elemental. These companies provide technology relating to cloud services that include security and media rendering, which could have uses beyond AWS. Amazons devices and Prime content services are nothing if not media heavy.

The breadth of these categories and Amazons overall portfolio speaks to the companys  and notably Bezos  outsize ambition more than anything else. But by acquiring a company for almost $14 billion, thats already apparent. Amazon is just getting started.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Got a tip? Send it to tips@yahoo-inc.com.

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chris wallace jay sekulow

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace grilled an attorney for President Donald Trump over the Russia investigation and the president's seeming acknowledgement that he was under investigation for potential obstruction of justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey.

In a heated interview on "Fox News Sunday," Trump attorney Jay Sekulow insisted  as he did on the other Sunday political talk shows  that the president was not under criminal investigation, despite reporting from The Washington Post and the president's own tweet that suggested he was a target of the investigation.

The interview became lively when Sekulow seemed to contradict himself, suggesting that Trump was under investigation after firing Comey on the recommendations of the attorney general and deputy attorney general.

"He takes the action that they also, by the way, recommended. And now he's being investigated by the Department of Justice," Sekulow said. "So he's being investigated for taking the action the attorney general and deputy attorney general recommended him to take by the agency that recommended the determination."

"You've now said that he's being investigated," Wallace said.

"No, Chris. Let me be crystal clear so you completely understand: We have not received nor are we aware of any investigation of the president of the United States," Sekulow replied.

"Sir, you've just said two times that he's being investigated," Wallace said.

"I just gave you the legal theory of how the constitution works," Sekulow said. "If in fact it's correct that the president is being investigated, he's being investigated for taking an action that an agency told him to take. That is protected under the constitution."

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available on iOS and Android.

Story continues

When Wallace said Sekulow did not appear to know whether Trump is under investigation for obstruction of justice, Sekulow sarcastically suggested that he had not been informed that special prosecutor Robert Mueller was investigating the president.

"You're right, Chris, I can't read the mind of the special prosecutor, but I have not been notified, no one has been notified that he is," Sekulow said.

After the Fox News anchor pressed Sekulow over whether Trump was going to fire deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and Mueller, Sekulow attempted to end the line of questioning.

"Here's what you're trying to do, Chris," Sekulow said.

"Now you're reading minds again," Wallace said.

"No, Chris, I deal with fact and law," Sekulow said. "You're asking me to read people's minds."

"Well then, don't tell me what I'm trying to do, because you don't know what I'm trying to do," Wallace replied. "Actually, what I'm trying to get is a straight answer out of you."

Sekulow appeared on several political talk shows on Sunday to argue that contrary to the president's tweet, the Trump team did not know if the president was under investigation by Mueller.

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Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban, the billionaire investor and TV personality, used Twitter on Friday to weigh in on Amazon's announcement that it would acquire Whole Foods.

Cuban said one question would determine whether the purchase by the online retail giant was a smart one.

"The Amazon question," Cuban tweeted. "Can they get your groceries to you faster than you can get to the store to shop in an Uber/lyft world? Yes."

Cuban's argument, though forward-looking, is that it would take less time for Amazon to deliver your groceries from a physical Whole Foods location  by drone, van, or whatever  than for you to take an autonomous car owned by a ride-hailing company to a physical store and back.

When asked whether faster grocery delivery like he was envisioning would add value to the world, the "Shark Tank" host replied: "What is more valuable than your time?"

Here are the tweets:

The Amazon question. Can they get your groceries to you faster than you can get to the store to shop in an Uber /lyft world ? Yes  Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 16, 2017

What is more valuable than your time ? https://t.co/5iaA4iChph  Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 16, 2017

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By Lauren Hirsch

(Reuters) - A decision by Goldman Sachs Group Inc last year to move an investment banking veteran to Seattle, as well as Evercore Partners Inc's hiring of a top banker defending companies against activist investors, has paid off handsomely.

Goldman advised Amazon.com Inc and Evercore advised Whole Foods Markets Inc on Amazon's $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods that will see the U.S. organic grocery chain become part of the world's largest internet retailer.

The deal was Amazon's first valued at more than $1 billion, making it a coveted trophy for investment bankers in search of fees and glory.

Goldman had laid the ground for this moment. Last year, it dispatched senior bankers to several North American cities where big companies are based, including Atlanta, Toronto and Seattle.

One of those bankers, David Eisman, moved from San Francisco to Seattle to help lead a small team tasked with strengthening ties with the city's biggest companies, including Amazon, Microsoft Corp and Starbucks Corp.

When Amazon decided to approach Whole Foods last month, it picked Goldman for advice. Eisman advised the company alongside fellow Goldman bankers Colin Ryan, who focuses on technology mergers, and Cosmo Roe, who focuses on consumer and retail companies.

Evercore itself clinched a role in the deal with the help of a Goldman alumnus. Last year, Evercore poached Goldman's head of activism defense Bill Anderson, who for more than 12 years had advised more than 175 companies on how to tackle activist investors and hostile bids.

When Jana Partners LLC in April said it had raised its stake in Whole Foods in April and pushed for a sale of the company, Whole Foods interviewed several investment banks to hire an adviser to help defend against the activist hedge fund.

"From the moment Jana had announced its stake in Whole Foods ... an onslaught of attention from media and banks ensued," Whole Foods' chief executive, John Mackey, said in a Texas Monthly article this month.

Story continues

Whole Foods' conversations with banks took place before the company was approached by Amazon, so Goldman was also vying for a role with Whole Foods. With Anderson among its ranks, however, Evercore prevailed.

When Amazon approached, Whole Foods turned again to Evercore. Anderson advised Whole Foods alongside senior Evercore bankers Eduardo Mestre and William Hiltz.

Goldman now stands to receive $30 million to $35 million in advisory fees, while Evercore stands to receive $40 million to $50 million, according to estimates from investment banking advisory firm Freeman & Co LLC.

Goldman and Bank of America Corp, which provided bridge financing to Amazon, could receive between $35 million and $50 million in debt arranging fees, according to Freeman.

(Reporting by Lauren Hirsch in New York; Additional reporting by Michael Flaherty in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)
In this Nov. 3, 2015, file photo, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg speaks during a forum in San Francisco. AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File

PARISThe chief operating officer of the worlds dominant social network did not show up in person at the Viva Technology conference here Friday. Of course notSheryl Sandberg appeared via video chat.

After brief uncertainty over whether her feed could get patched through to the screen behind the stage (see, even tech leaders cant count on video chats working on the first try!), the Facebook (FB) COO appeared above her interviewer, Maurice Levy.

Sandberg, speaking from Facebooks offices while sipping a cup of coffee, fielded questions from Levy, until recently the CEO of Viva Tech co-host Publicis Groupe (PUB.PA), with amazing aplomb. She never wandered off message and rarely let an uh slip. (Should she ever run for office, woe betide anybody who faces her in a debate.) And attendees watching with an interest in advertising on Facebookspoiler alert: Sandberg wants you to do just thatwould have come away with useful advice.

Ad advocate

It made sense that when speaking via video to a marketing executive, Sandberg spent so much time discussing video ads. They benefit from Facebooks massive scaleshe called its rapid growth the fastest adoption of a communications technology the world has ever knownand its near-ubiquity on mobile devices.

But you can still screw them up. Sandberg offered two tips that too many advertisers dont seem to grasp.

One is to assume a distracted audience.

You need to put your key point up front, in the first two to three seconds, she said. They need to work with the sound on or off.

The other is not to recycledont throw an ad cut for TV on Facebook. You want to create natively, Sandberg advised.

Do those things right, she emphasized, and you can reach an audience of unparalleled scale: There has never been a better time to be a marketer.

Maurice Levy, outgoing chief executive officer of Publicis Group SA, delivers a speech at the Viva Technology conference in Paris, France, June 15, 2017. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Theres probably never been a better time to be a Facebook ad executive, either. The company has been doing so well that some media observers worry about how much Facebook, along with Alphabet, Inc. (GOOG, GOOGL), dominates online advertising. One analyst estimated that Facebook alone racked up 77% of online advertisings growth in 2016, leaving little for competitorsincluding Yahoo Finances parent company Verizon (VZ).

Story continues

And as Google moves to incorporate a limited ad blocker to its Chrome browser while Apple (AAPL) starts to jam some common ad-tracking techniques in its Safari browser, the appeal of Facebook ads that will appear in its apps all the time should only increase.

Privacy: its complicated

Sandberg was cagier when Levy asked about Facebooks commitment to privacy. Thats a tricky topic for the company, since people wont share their info on the service unless they think only their friends will see itwhile advertisers wont buy ads unless they think Facebook will show them to people with genuine interest in the topic.

Privacy is core to everything we do, Sandberg said. She pointed to the social networks efforts to make it clear to its users who will see whatever theyre sharing. Thats a legitimate pointI cant seem to go two weeks without Facebook reminding me that I can choose who sees what I post.

We remain very focused on this, because its so important to peopledefinitely in Europe, but its clear around the world.

Indeed: One month ago, the EU fined Facebook 110 million for not disclosing its plans to link the information of its own users and that of the WhatsApp messaging app it bought in 2014 for $19 billion. France separately fined the company 150,000 for not walling enough of its users data from its advertisers.

Facebooks privacy policies and politics will only get more complicated in the European Union next May. Thats when the EUs General Data Protection Regulation will enter into force across the continent. This sweeping reform will add such requirements as a mandate that social networks let their users take their data to another sitesomething Facebooks Instagram doesnt support today.

Diversity up and down the line

Sandberg also held back when Levy inquired about Facebooks commitment to diversitya topic she declared huuugely important but which, like privacy, has earned her employer criticism.

We know that more diverse teams make better decisions, she said. That, for tech, means more women and more underrepresented minorities.

But Facebooks own numbers show its making scant progress on that front. Its July 2016 diversity report revealed at senior leadership levels, women represented only 27% of the total, while blacks and Hispanics each accounted for 3%. On Facebooks eight-member board, Sandberg is one of only two women.

She had a better story to tell about how Facebook has made its workplace policies more family-friendly. For instance, it now gives four months of paid leave to a new parent and extended immediately-family bereavement leave to 20 days.

A few minutes later, the interview ended. Sandberg blew the audience a kiss, picked up a piece of paper, and went back to work in California.

(Disclosures: I moderated three panels at Viva Tech and had my travel expenses covered.)

More from Rob:

Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.
Americas most selective university is holding its graduation on Saturday, and many of its graduates likely have their pick of lucrative gigs at tech giants like Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT).

But some Stanford graduates may choose a potentially less lucrative and definitely riskier route.

Startup is the buzz word, says Benjamin Williams, a rising senior studying computer science at Stanford. People talk about [starting] companies maybe even too much; its the vibe and the culture.

While Stanford has a long history of producing entrepreneurs, current students Yahoo Finance spoke to suggest they might be more obsessed with startups than ever. Some of that might have to do with timing; Stanford graduates might be less risk-averse since the economy is thriving.

Moreover, millennials in general seem to have startup fever.

A survey of 18- to 34-year-olds from September found that 51% of 1,200 people surveyed knew someone who has launched or worked for a startup. And 78% of those who did know someone who worked or launched a startup considered that person to be a success. Meanwhile, 62% of the total millennials within the survey even considered a startup of their own.

Why startups?

People talk about doing startups for the sake of doing startups, says Lawrence Murata, a soon-to-be graduate at the School of Engineering. But Murata believes startups should evolve from the desire to solve a bigger problem.

Murata should know since hes worked on a number of business ventures. For example, Murata and his friends were avid music listeners but didnt enjoy their music listening experience  so they set out to create onetune.fm, a free music streaming service.

Lawrence Murata Courtesy: Lawrence Murata

Though this project did not turn into a startup, Murata and friends continue to create projects that have gained attention like CS+Social Good. That project was launched to connect students to use technology for taking action and collaborating on the worlds most pressing problems, Murata wrote in a Medium post.

Story continues

Now, already onto another project focused around communication between vehicles, Murata says his mission is to create technology that will help reduce the number of driving-related deaths from 1.3 million deaths per a year to zero.

Post-graduation, Murata intends to stay in Silicon Valley to work with a venture capital firm in order to accelerate this current project. He adds, Being here helps because of your proximity to startups, to investors, and the tech innovation that is happening here.

Stanfords proud entrepreneurial history

Stanford students desire to join or create a startup of their own reflects a willingness to take a major risk. Unlike larger, more established companies, startups are more likely to fail, which could leave these graduates unemployed very early in their careers. While working at Google and Facebook may seem intriguing with incredible perks, the opportunities to strike it rich at these tech-leading companies are limited.

In the startup world, however, the high risk comes with the potential for high rewards. And Stanford grads know this.

For $62,541 a year, including tuition, room and board, and a mandatory health fee, these students have already made a wise investment in their four years of education at Stanford. Its an investment that could be considered minuscule compared to the potential of earning billions.

Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy of Snapchat (SNAP) were once frat brothers of Stanfords Kappa Sigma Chapter. Kevin Systrom of Instagram once roamed the halls of Stanford and made cappuccinos as an employee of Palo Altos Caffe del Doge, just a four-minute drive from campus, Steve Bertoni noted in Forbes. Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg even asked Systrom to forgo his senior year at Stanford to launch a photo service for Facebook. Systrom later created it to become Instagram and ironically sold to Facebook for $1 billion.

Not everyone wants to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, or Kevin Systrom

Hearing something like Mark Zuckerbergs story is somewhat amazing. Hes a 30-year-old CEO of a billion dollar company, but once you dive a little closer, its a huge anomaly, says Morgan Bryant, a graduating senior. (Zuckerberg is 33 now.)

Others dont feel the pressure to create a startup, either. Nathaniel Buescher, a graduating senior also, is set to work at Microsoft as a Project Manager. A project manager in Information Technology at Microsoft could make a starting salary of over $80,000, according to payscale.com.

However, he says that being surrounded by peers who are invested in whats next for his generation is inspiring, adding that its an aspect of Silicon Valley that hell miss.

Benjamin Williams. Courtesy: Benjamin Williams

Silicon Valleys powerful pull

Benjamin Williams  whos interning as a software data engineer at The New York Times  feels an attraction to work in NYC post-graduation in May 2018. He also aspires to eventually develop his own company. Williams points out that tech engineers refer to New York as Silicon Alley, a nice, but still-growing tech scene.

And so, where does he think he has to go to create a successful startup? That depends on where the tech community is thriving when the time comes. But as of now, he thinks hell have to return to where the majority of investors and larger tech community live and work  Silicon Valley.

Brooke DiPalma is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @BrookeDiPalma

See also:

Very presidential: Harvard students react to Mark Zuckerbergs speech

Tim Cook challenges MIT grads: How will you serve humanity?
No matter what your goal is  a bigger house , early retirement or getting out of debt  everyone wants to boost their income.

But do you know what to do when you finally earn enough money to reach those financial milestones? Probably not.

That's according to Suze Orman , financial expert and former CNBC television host, who told the audience at the eMerge Americas conference in Miami, Fla., "I'm worried about you. Every single one of you I'm worried about, because you're focusing on success, which is great, but you're not focusing on making more out of less."

The biggest mistake Orman sees people everywhere make is that they're not taking an active role in handling their own money. Everyone is focused on the hustle, but few dedicate the same effort to responsibly managing their funds.

"The biggest problem is when you do make it big and you don't know what to do with your money," she says. "Because then, what happens is some financial advisor is going to come by and give you a slick presentation, they're going to give you an elevator speech and a pitch and you're going to take it. And you're going to lose everything that you have worked for."

Even if you're thinking, "I'm smart enough to avoid getting swindled by a dishonest advisor," you could still be digging your own grave if you're mindlessly racking up credit card debt or neglecting to pay down your student loans.

It's important not to get so wrapped up in your other projects that you're not paying attention to your financial health. You will never have financial freedom if you are in debt, Orman says.

"Not one of you in this room has an excuse of why you aren't dealing with your money," Orman tells the eMerge audience. "Do you know your FICO score? Do you have credit card debt? Do you know how to get out of credit card debt? Do you know what type of retirement account to have? Do you know how to buy a home?"

Story continues

The crux of the issue is power. While most people feel empowered to take ownership over their careers and personal lives, they drop the ball when it comes to their finances, Orman observes. But unfortunately, "you will never be powerful in life until you are powerful over your own money," she says. "How you think about it, how you feel about it, and how you invest it."

Snag inspiration from Orman and learn how to get out of debt, save up to afford a house , become a millionaire or work toward whatever your individual financial goal may be.

"If you want to be powerful in life, you have to be powerful over your own money," Orman says.

So start there.

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The tour group that brought a 22 year-old American student to North Korea where he was later detained and sent home over a year later in a coma advertises the country as "probably one of the safest countries on Earth to visit."

The group, Young Pioneer Tours, does not mention the State Department's strong warnings about the risk of detention or "unduly harsh sentences for actions that would not be considered crimes in the United States."

Instead, the Young Pioneer Tours' North Korea FAQ section begins with this:

How safe is it? Extremely safe! Despite what you may hear, North Korea is probably one of the safest places on Earth to visit. Tourism is very welcomed in North Korea, thus tourists are cherished and well taken care of. We have never felt suspicious or threatened at any time. In fact, North Koreans are super friendly and accommodating, if you let them into your world. Even during tense political moments tourism to the DPRK is never affected.

Their website, which uses communist imagery while offering tours of North Korea for around 1,000 euros, generally promises a safe, good time with tours around North Korea's internal holidays and customs.

But one North Korean custom is living under wartime law, and the US has no formal diplomatic relationship or consulate in the country to advocate for US travelers.

Otto Warmbier, sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for "anti-state" crimes that amounted to trying to steal a poster from a hotel, learned this lesson the hard way. While thousands travel to North Korea each year and return safely, Warmbier's story shows there's a terrible price to be paid for some.

As the Washington Post's Anna Fitfield notes, Koryo Tours, another tour group, does mention the risks and links to travel advice.

NOW WATCH: Watch how the US would shoot down an incoming ICBM in its tracks





More From Business Insider
NEW YORK, June 18, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sergio Fernandez de Cordova, Chair of the PVBLIC Foundation and a member of the Private Sector Advisory Group of the SDG-Fund at the United Nations, was honored with the 3rd place spot on the UN Social 500 List. This makes him one of the worlds top social influencers promoting the international goals of the United Nations.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8cb0ea36-a732-4b5a-bdb6-7da93df0afe4

Im beyond honored to be named to this list, the goals put forth by the United Nations are extremely important to the future stability of the world. I will continue to give voice to these goals in any way I can, said Fernandez de Cordova.

The UN Social 500 is based on an algorithm that tracks the success of United Nations staff and contractors who use their personal social media channels to share and promote the work of the UN. The list consists of the top 500 most influential.

Read more about Fernandez de Cordovas ranking here:

http://www.unsocial500.com/2017/06/07/sergio-fernandez-de-cordova/

Find more information on the UN Social 500 List Here:

http://www.unsocial500.com

*PR, media relations, news and content distribution services provided by 1-800-PublicRelations 1800pr

About PVBLIC Foundation

PVBLIC Foundation is an innovative non-profit media organization that harnesses the power of media to drive social change. An aggregator of media across all platforms, PVBLIC works strategically to pair media space with key non-profits at the local, national and global levels. We utilize existing and emerging technologies to increase issue awareness around important causes and help non-profits amplify their message. At PVBLIC, we believe that media is the new currency.



About SDG Media Zone:

The SDG Media Zone is a platform for editors, bloggers, content creators and influencers to communicate innovations, partnerships and discussions as a call to action for humanity to engage the Sustainable Development Goals. The SDG Media Zone is a PVBLIC Foundations initiative. PVBLIC is a registered 501c3 and makes the SDG Media Zone possible via cross-sector partnerships. For more information, please visit: sdgmediazone.org
I'm compiling a list of MBA programs that have retained legal counsel (immigration attorneys) to assist their international students and their potential employers in navigating the complex U.S. work visa system.Securing a work permit beyond the MBA internship & 1-year Optional Practical Training after graduation can be a significant challenge to foreigners. This is because many companies perceive the visa application process to be expensive, complicated, and time consuming. Indeed, many choose to avoid the process altogether, adopting a policy of "we are unable to sponsor international candidates..." - I'm sure many a foreign student has run into that (I have).I don't work for any lobbying organization or special-interest group. I'm just a law abiding, tax-paying foreignerhoping to spend more than 1 year working America. As I continue to research programs I hope to be able to add more schools to the list. I also hope this is not an inappropriate topic [mods please delete it if it is]. I know the subject of immigration and foreign labor is often the subject of a heated debate. I don't want to cause any trouble, just provide some resources and helpful tips to my fellow international applicants... cheers~
daagh wrote:

Even though the homogeneity of the genetic record of the world's population, which is said to be consistent between individuals to one part in ten thousand, has been explained by environmental factors, it may be equally accounted for by the theory of convergent evolution.



(A) Even though the homogeneity of the genetic record of the world's population, which is said to be consistent between individuals to one part in ten thousand, has been explained by environmental factors, it may be equally accounted for by the theory of convergent evolution.



(B) Although said to be consistent between individuals to one part in ten thousand, the homogeneity of the genetic record of the world's population has been explained by environmental factors and may be equally accounted for by the theory of convergent evolution.



(C) Equally accounted for by the theory of convergent evolution, the homogeneity of the genetic record of the world's population, which is said to be consistent between individuals to one part in ten thousand, has been explained by environmental factors.



(D) Consistent between individuals to one part in ten thousand, the homogeneity of the genetic record of the world's population, even though explained by environmental factors, but is accounted for by the theory of convergent evolution.



(E) While the homogeneity of the genetic record of the world's population is said to be consistent between individuals to one part in ten thousand, it has been explained by environmental factors, and may be equally accounted for by the theory of convergent evolution.

Explanation

"Be challenged at EVERY MOMENT."



Strength doesnt come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldnt.



"Each stage of the journey is crucial to attaining new heights of knowledge."



| Please DO NOT post short answer in your post!



Advanced Search : https://gmatclub.com/forum/advanced-search/ Rules for posting in verbal forum | Please DO NOT post short answer in your post! Signature Read More

Creating a filter: we can take our time reading the somewhat lengthy underlined sentence. Assuming we identify no error, we can move on to choice (B).Finding objective defects: choice (B) distorts the intended meaning. The "consistent to one part in ten thousand" part is not being disputed, as (B) implies; it's just providing information about the subject the imaginary author is discussing. Choice (C) also distorts the point. The "convergent evolution" piece is the point of the sentence, but (C) sticks it at the beginning as if that point were a given. The main point of a sentence should, generally, reside in its independent clause. Choice (C) is out. Choice (D) more or less expresses the intended meaning, but it has a grammatical error; the insertion of the conjunction "but" makes it a non-sentence because it creates a clause that has a verb, "is accounted for," with no grammatical subject. Choice (D) is out. Choice (E) distorts the intended meaning in a way similar to (B). The correct answer is (A)._________________
THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD

The Hypothetical Subjunctive

The Command Subjunctive

So this is basically used in two special situations:- Unlikely or unreal conditions (usually after 'if' or a similar word)- Proposals, desires, and requests formed with certain verbs and the word thatThese two uses correspond to two forms of the subjunctive mood: The Hypothetical Subjunctive and the Command Subjunctive, respectivelyWe use it in a few circumstances to indicate unlikely or unreal conditions. Principally, this form occurs after 'if', 'as if', or 'as though'Now the basic form of the Hypothetical Subjuctive is equivalent to the Simple Past of every Verb, with one exception. For the verb 'to be' . For the verb 'to be' the form were is always used.Eg. To overcome my fear of germs, I will think about disease as though it WERE harmlessThe other form of the subjunctive mood is the Command Subjunctive, which is much more important on the GMAT than the Hypotethical SubjunctiveThe command subjunctive is used with certain BOSSY VERBS such as require or propose. Bossy Verbs tell people to do thingsThis form is also known as the Bare Form of the verb: the infinitive without the 'to'.The subjunctive construction with a Bossy Verb is always as follows: Bossy Verb + THAT + subject + Command SubjunctiveHowever, there are some common Bossy Verbs, such as WANT, you cannot use the Command Subjunctive with but rather an infinitive (to + the bare form)- Common Verbs that take ONLY the Command Subjunctive when indicating desire: demand, dictate, insist, mandate, propose, recommend, request, stipulate, suggestNote: Propose can take an infinitive when there's no second subject (Eg. The attorneys PROPOSED TO MEET the following day)- Verbs that take ONLY the infinitive: advice, allow, forbid, persuade, want- Verbs that take EITHER the Command Subjunctive OR the infitinive: ask, beg, intend, order, prefer, urge, requireAlso, you should keep in mind that few bossy words, most notably prohibit, take other constructions alltogether (Prohibit FROM)The Command subjunctive can also be used with nouns derived from Bossy Verbs, such as a demand or a request.Also the Command subjunctive is possible with 'It is X', in which X is an adjective, such as essential, that conveys urgency. It is X is not commonly tested on the GMAT (Eg. It is essential THAT Gary BE ready before noon)Other adjectives conveying urgency include: advisable, crucial, desirable, fitting, imperative, important, mandatory, necessary, preferable, urgent and vital.Note also that you can use an infinitive in these constructions (Eg. It is essential for Gary to be ready before noon)Avoid the use of the Command Subjunctive 'whether'. This usage is old fashioned (Eg. I like Ice cream, , whether it BE choclolate, vanilla, or any other flavor)Oh and by the way, a few Bossy Verbs can be used in non-Bossy ways: Her presence SUGGESTS that she IS happy. In this context, suggests means "probably means"; it is not acting Bossy. As always, pay close attention to the meaning!Hope it helps you outMake some Kudos rain if you like it. I really need them for my GMAT testsTake it easy ok?CheersP.S. Oh, and BTW will some clarify what's wrong with Choice (B) in the question above? Let me knowThanks
eski wrote:

Q.The rules may require 1,000 or more makers of drugs, medical devices and other medical products to report payments, gifts, consulting fees, research support among other types of compensation made to physicians and teaching hospitals. The federal government will post such payment data on a public Web site that will be easily searchable starting late next year



A. that will be easily searchable starting late next year

B. that might be easily searched from starting later next year

C. that will be searched easily starting late next year

D. and such data will be easily searchable, starting late next year

E. and such data would be easily searchable starting late next year



And expert comments ?

Clear and concise

grammatically correct, but changes the meaning in its use of might. "form" seems to be redundant and can be dropped.



Clear and concise but a subtle change in meaning. In fact (A) and (C) are very close answer choices; GMAT will not throw such close answer choices as this matter could be debatable.

The original sentence says "website" will be searchable, but (D) says "such data"; not much difference, but still (A) express the thought clearly and concisely. The use of comma is inappropriate and changes the meaning drastically. The sentence will mean that the "posting of data" will take place starting next year, but the original sentence says that the "website" will be searchable "starting next year"

Same as above but this choice is better than (D)

Hi eski,First this is not a GMAT question for sure because it contains two sentences. In GMAT you will get only one sentence.All the choices look grammatically correct to me. (A) and (D) are the best ones, but (B) makes a slight change in the original meaning, so (A) the original sentence is the best one.A. that will be easily searchable starting late next yearB. that might be easily searched from starting later next yearC. that will be searched easily starting late next yearD. and such data will be easily searchable, starting late next yearE. and such data would be easily searchable starting late next yearHope that helps,Vercules_________________
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
A woman known as Grandma Adela is one of three women featured in a new documentary called The Apology. The film is about the Japanese militarys sexual enslavement of women during World War II.

Filmmaker Tiffany Hsiung worked for five years to persuade the three victims to tell their stories. Hsiung says the women continue to suffer the effects of the torture.

The war hasnt really ended for any of the survivors, and thats what I was really interested in documenting.

Last year, the film was named best documentary at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea. It was shown recently at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York City.

The documentary tells about the lives of Grandma Adela in the Philippines, Grandma Gil in South Korea and Grandma Cao in China. They were among the reported 200,000 girls and young women across Asia who were known as comfort women. They were reportedly kidnapped by the Japanese army and held in what were called comfort stations. There, the women say they were regularly raped as well as abused in other ways.

The reports are disputed in Japan. Some Japanese officials have even tried to get changes made to school history books in their telling of the period. Some officials suggest the women volunteered to work providing sex to soldiers.

For 20 years, surviving comfort women and their supporters in South Korea have gathered every week at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to demand an official public apology. They want Japan to accept responsibility for what they say happened to them. They also want the Japanese government to pay the victims for wrongdoing.

In 2015, then-South Korean President Park Geun-hye and [Japanese] Prime Minister Abe reached an agreement on the issue. But both the comfort women and current South Korean President Moon Jae-in have rejected the agreement. It included a statement of apology by Abe and an $8-million donation to a fund for the victims.

Grandma Gil is a leading activist seeking justice for the survivors. In the film, she is shown speaking in Japan. She is publicly criticized by conservative protesters who call her a prostitute. But she is also warmly welcomed by teenage girls at a school who cried when they heard her story.

She told the girls: For over 70 years I have not lived like a normal person. Would the wound go away if you apologize? No. The scars will remain but my heart can heal. I am waiting for that day.

On the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, Prime Minister Abe expressed sympathy to victims of Japans military aggression. But he said, generations not involved in the conflict should not be burdened with continued apologies.

Hsiung said her documentary is not an attempt to place guilt on Japan forever. She says she just wants Japan to admit the truth and learn from the past.

Just because everyone who has been responsible for that, and committed that, have all passed away, you know, it doesnt mean that that history and those atrocities get lost.

The documentary shows both the support South Korean comfort women receive and the lack of support and isolation for survivors in China and the Philippines. It notes that Chinas restrictive political environment has made it difficult for supporters of the comfort women to organize.

Hsiung said during the filming of the documentary she helped comfort women meet others who had also been abused. In one part, Grandma Adela is encouraged to speak about her experiences when she watches a video of a comfort women gathering in Seoul.

I think when people get to see that they are not alone, it is not an isolated issue, its not just in their village, its not just this one grandmother. When they see that it is part of a bigger thing, they feel more inclined to participate, to talk about and to share what they know.

Im Jonathan Evans

.

VOA Asia Correspondent Brian Padden reported this story from Seoul. He had reporting help from Youmi Kim. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted the report for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

documentary  n. a movie or television program that tells the facts about actual people and events

scar  n. a feeling of great emotional pain or sadness that is caused by a bad experience and that lasts for a long time

burden  n. someone or something that is very difficult to accept, do or deal with

atrocity  n. a very cruel or terrible act or action

isolated  adj. separate from others

inclined  adj. wanting to do something or likely to do something

participate  v. to be involved with others in doing something; to take part in an activity or event with others
Armenia ombudsperson meets with Belgium colleagues

Newspaper: Armenia parliament opposition seats to no longer be empty

US intends to protect Azerbaijan from threats of Iran

Aliyev, Erdogan discuss results of tripartite meeting in Russias Sochi

Azerbaijan army fires at Armenia positions, uses mortars as well

Amazon becomes world's first public company to lose $1 trillion in market value

EU's odd couple: Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel can't stand each other

US, China set first benchmarks ahead of presidents' meeting

Iranian MFA summons Azerbaijani ambassador to carpet in connection with anti-Iranian propaganda

Washington to resist any attempt by new Israeli government to annex West Bank

Biden thinks Elon Musk's relations with other countries are worthy of being looked at

Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister tells Polish senator about consequences of Azerbaijani aggression

Armenian deputy in Vilnius talks about goals of Azerbaijan's aggressive policy

Taliban bans women from gyms

U.S. to send Ukraine another $400 million in military aid

Ursula von der Leyen announces EUR 250 million support package for Moldova

Biden and Jinping meet on sidelines of G20 summit in Bali to be held on November 14

Riches of world get poorer suddenly

State Duma deputy: Interparliamentary format Yerevan-Baku-Moscow will be included soon to solve issues

IMF sees growing risk of economic fragmentation

Armen Gevorgyan to visit Strasbourg, Brussels and Paris

State Duma deputy: Upper Lars border crossing capacity has increased fivefold

UK government freezes over 18 billion pounds worth of Russian assets

State Duma deputy on Zatulin's ban on entering Armenia: These issues must be resolved

Borrell calls for retooling EU infrastructure for rapid transport of military equipment to East

European Parliament clears way for Croatia's admission to Schengen Area

European Council President Michel calls on EU member states to jointly purchase gas to reduce fuel prices

Alen Simonyan congratulates scientists on their professional holiday

Armenian President meets with leaders of several countries in Egypt

Greece accuses Turkey of profiting from the suffering of other countries under sanctions

USAID official says she personally saw how democracy, economic development are progressing in Armenia (VIDEO)

Spain court sentences civilian to prison for spreading fakes

Armenian Embassy in Russia issues statement on Azerbaijan's actions

Indian company to supply 155mm self-propelled artillery guns worth $155mln to Armenia

Japanese minister caught in scandal for talking about death penalty

France changes its ambassador to Azerbaijan

UN General Assembly draft resolution requires Russia to pay reparations to Ukraine

Belarusian State Border Committee: Poland creates tense situation on border

Joint meeting of Armenian National Assembly and Russian State Duma Committee takes place

Iranian President says attempt to destabilize country fails

Deputy: Russian side is informed about importance of withdrawal of Azerbaijani units from the territory of Armenia

State Duma deputy: We can't imagine Russia without Armenia

Georgian PM and Armenian Ambassador discuss cooperation issues

Bali is short of armored limousines for G20 summit participants

FLYONE ARMENIA to start flights between Yerevan, Dubai

Kyodo: Emperor of Japan revealed to have prostate hyperplasia

Iranian intelligence urges Saudi Arabia not to test Tehran's strategic patience

Kazakhstan intends to ship 1.5 mln tons of oil via Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline

Former Ombudsman: 2,700 ha of Kapan community of Armenia's Syunik Province are under occupation by Baku

Armenia to ratify cooperation agreement with China

Japan and the US begin major joint exercise

Armenia soldier sustains gunshot wound from Azerbaijan shooting

Armenia legislature speaker receives deputy chair of Russia State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration

PM: If anyone thinks peace agenda is peaceful annihilation of Armenia or Karabakh Armenians, they are sorely mistaken

Armenia Premier: We have 16 missing persons since September 13 military aggression by Azerbaijan

Bitcoin is trading just above $16,000

Armenias Pashinyan: Spreading of fake news by Azerbaijan becomes prelude to new aggression

Armenia PM: Azerbaijan, with its practices, reminds of Al Qaeda and Islamic State, which discredit Islam

PM: Armenia, Karabakh propose Azerbaijan to create demilitarized zone

Pashinyan: There is no Armenia army in Karabakh

All 10 fallen soldiers transferred on October 27 by Azerbaijan to Armenia are identified, buried

Pashinyan: Armenia is going to present new proposal to Azerbaijan

$25M allocated to Armenia MOD

Biden says he will discuss Ukraine conflict at G20 summit

Pashinyan: Armenia has no obligation to construct new roads

Pashinyan: Aliyev not only threatens but is already preparing genocide of Karabakh Armenians

Armenias Pashinyan: Azerbaijan president is attempting to create invented grounds for closing Lachin Corridor

Erdogan tells what relations between Turkey and Armenia depend on

Iran says it has developed first hypersonic ballistic missile

Armenias Pashinyan: Russia peacekeepers are deployed in Karabakh indefinitely

FM Lavrov to head Russia delegation at G20 summit

Erdogan: Ankara continues mediation efforts to resolve Ukrainian crisis

Armenia to get 100mn loan to fund budget deficit

IAEA head: Talks on Iran's nuclear program ended inconclusively

Armenia PM: Aliyev grossly violated tripartite written agreement of Sochi

This year 320 people seek asylum in Armenia, 213 are from Ukraine

Erdogan speaks on trusting relationship with Putin

Gold prices remain stable

Ombudsperson in Brussels, reflects on top Azerbaijan leaderships policy of Armenophobia

Indonesian authorities: Putin won't come to G20 summit in Bali

World oil prices falling

Washington demands part of Israeli Arrow 3 for sale to Germany, be produced in the U.S.

Armenia Security Council chief meets with Lithuania officials

Armenia FM heading for Paris

Egypt launches Tax Free system for foreign tourists

Washington, Brussels don't approve German plan to resume transatlantic trade talks

Newspaper: Armenias Mirzoyan makes it clear to Blinken that wording Artsakh should be included

Newspaper: Armenia parliamentary opposition decides to return to legislative body

Polar and brown bear hybrids may appear in Yakutia due to climate change

Volkswagen releases office chair with electric motor and klaxon

Israel reveals Pulcinella secret, admitting that it used drones not only for surveillance

Chinese woman makes dresses for her daughter out of trash bags

Poland and Slovakia will increase defense spending

Audi presents new crossovers Q8 e-tron

Benny Gantz: Israel has an opportunity to strike Iran's nuclear facilities

France National Assembly speaker reaffirms solidarity with Armenia, Armenians

Samvel Babayan: Russia will withdraw peacekeepers from Nagorno-Karabakh

Hungarian government sets price ceiling on eggs and potatoes

Benny Gantz: Israel does not have the production capacity to supply Ukraine with air defense systems

Germany must adopt energy-saving measures in face of skyrocketing inflation
YEREVAN.  President Serzh Sargsyan on Monday visited the Russian embassy in Armenia, on the occasion of Russias national day: Russia Day.

Sargsyan congratulated Russian Ambassador Ivan Volinkin, the embassy staff, and the brotherly people of Russia in this connection, and wished them peace and prosperity.

Also, the President of Armenia sent congratulatory messages to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, on this occasion.

In his message addressed to Putin, President Sargsyan underscored that as based on a solid foundation of friendship and brotherhood between the two nations, Armenian-Russian relations have enriched with a new content in recent years.

According to Serzh Sargsyan, the active political dialogue and the ongoing constructive interaction on key issues of regional and international agenda, the implementation of joint projects in the economic, technico-military, humanitarian-cultural and in several other domains are fully consistent with the spirit of allied relations between Armenia and Russia.

I am convinced that together we will be able to ensure further growth of the whole complex of strategic partnership between Armenia and Russia, in both bilateral and multilateral formats, for the benefit of our countries and peoples, as well as in the best interest of regional security and stability, President Serzh Sargsyan also noted in his congratulatory message addressed to the Russian president.
This morning, Milwaukee Film announced that the organization acquired a 31-year lease for the Oriental Theatre, with plans to begin operating the legendary local movie palace as a year-round, non-profit cinema in July of 2018.

The Oriental  which will celebrate its 90th anniversary next Sunday, June 25, with a special screening of "Casablanca"  is currently run by national theater chain Landmark Theatres.

"The Oriental Theatre is a treasure," said Jonathan Jackson, artistic and executive director at Milwaukee Film, in a press release. "I have visited hundreds of cinemas worldwide, and the Oriental Theatre is my favorite. It is magical to see 1,000 of our members fill the main house at our monthly screenings. Our nine-year-old organization securing long-term control of this cinema is a momentous occasion. We have cemented our permanence in Milwaukee and intend to greatly expand our cultural, economic and educational impact on our community."

Milwaukee Film's goal for the Oriental Theatre is to continue and emphasize its place in the city as a hub for independent cinema, programming weekly releases of notable indie releases and documentaries from across the country and the globe, as well as booking repertory selections, event-based productions, family programs and other themed film festivals  in addition to, of course, the Milwaukee Film Festival.

Milwaukee Film also plans to make improvements to the iconic locale  including upgrades to the auditoriums' projection and sound  while maintaining its almost centuries-old character and personality.

"We are excited to partner with Milwaukee Film because it presents a truly unique opportunity to fuel Milwaukees cultural renaissance," said Tim Gohkman, in a release. His father, Boris Gohkman, purchased the building in 2004. "As a key Milwaukee institution, Milwaukee Film is uniquely positioned to energize North Ave., Farwell Ave., and the entire city with year-round programming. For years, I have considered the Milwaukee Film Festival my favorite annual event in Milwaukee, I just can't wait to see what they do next."

To help with this new expansion  making Milwaukee Film one of less than 10 organizations in the U.S. that will operate a year-round movie theater as well as assemble a film festival  the local film nonprofit has begun a fundraising initiative, with a $10 million goal. As of today, Milwaukee Film has already raised $3 million toward that goal thanks to a $1 million donation from the Herzfeld Foundation and a $2 million personal contribution from Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele.

"From day one, every person involved in Milwaukee Film  from staff, to volunteers, to the Board, to our dedicated 3,600 members  has been driven by the goal of not simply creating a film festival, but creating one of the best and biggest film festivals in the world," said Abele, in the release. "This announcement brings us closer to that goal. It isnt the culmination or an end point, its the start of the next chapter."

The next chapter also includes the 2017 Milwaukee Film Festival, which will open up Sept. 28 and run through Oct. 12. For more information on discounted six-packs and passes, as well as becoming a member and helping drive the impending expansion forward, visit Milwaukee Film's website.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday warned the leader of the main opposition party against making a planned protest march from Ankara to Istanbul, telling him "don't be surprised" if legal proceedings were opened. Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu called the march after former journalist turned CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoglu was sentenced to 25 years in jail on Wednesday for leaking classified information to a newspaper. Kilicdaroglu is now on the third day of a trek that is expected to take almost a month and represents by far his biggest challenge to the Turkish strongman since he took over the CHP in 2010. But Erdogan said his actions were damaging for the country and appeared to warn Kilicdaroglu he could even face legal troubles. "Calling people out onto the street is neither good for them or for the country," Erdogan told a business conference in Istanbul. "Wandering around with a 'justice' placard in your hand is not going to bring justice. If you are looking for justice, then the place in Turkey to find justice is the parliament." He added: "If the judicial authorities invite you in somewhere tomorrow then don't be surprised." Kilicdaroglu, 68, has made the word "justice" the slogan of his march, clutching a stick with the word emblazoned on a card. His plan is for the 450-kilometre (280 miles) trek to culminate at Maltepe prison in Istanbul where Berberoglu is being held. Political tensions have been rising in Turkey after Erdogan on April 16 narrowly won a referendum granting him greater powers that the CHP fears will lead to one-man rule. Kilicdaroglu in an interview with AFP on Friday accused Erdogan of staging a "second coup" with the crackdown that followed last July's failed putsch. A dozen MPs from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) had already been arrested under the emergency declared after the coup bid. But Berberoglu's arrest was the first time an MP from the CHP, the main secular opposition founded by first president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, has been held.
In Benin's economic capital of Cotonou, as in many other African cities, finding a house, office or restaurant is often like a treasure hunt. Luck, if not a miracle, is required as easy clues such as street names, even where they exist, are usually not posted and address numbers are rarely marked. Most people in Cotonou formulate complex combinations of landmarks and directions to navigate around town. Typical directions might be: "My office is after the big market, past the apartment block on the right with the mobile phone mast, and it's the third road on the left, tiled building." Can't see the apartment block with the mobile phone mast? Game over, back to square one. Sam Agbadonou, a 34-year-old former medical technician, knows how frustrating it can be to get around and describes Cotonou as a "navigation challenge". "I was called when there were break-downs and went to health centres to repair machines that save lives," he said. "But some centres are really in the middle of outlying neighbourhoods and it is difficult to get there." Now, to put an end to the hassle and quickly find their destination, locals are turning to crowdsourced mapping applications adapted for use in Africa that are challenging Google Maps for dominance on the continent. - 'Map party' - In 2013, when Agbadonou heard about OpenStreetMap, an international project founded in 2004 to create a free world map, he knew it was a good idea. Agbadonou founded the Benin branch of the project, which today boasts 30 members. With his friend Saliou Abdou, a trained geographer, Agbadonou regularly organises "map parties" -- field trips to identify the city's geographical data. They start with the basics -- street names and address numbers -- and move on to other details that set their maps apart from the Silicon Valley competition. "We write down everything: the trees, the water points, the vulcaniser (tyre repairer) on the street corner, the tailor's shop... . You don't see that on Google Maps!" Agbadonou said with pride. Thanks to his work over the last four years, Cotonou is slowly revealing itself. For example, the Ladji district, which never used to feature on most maps, is now included. Armelle Choplin, an urban planner at the Institute of Research for Development (IRD) in Cotonou, has no choice but to use Google Maps for her work. But she is relying more and more on the crowdsourced maps which are more adapted to an African context. "IGN France (the French national institute of geographic and forest information) carried out an aerial mapping of Benin between 2015 and 2016 and it should be available in September," Choplin said. "But we don't know if we will have access or the terms." - Social inclusion - Rapid population growth, lack of regulation in real estate and haphazard urbanisation are a headache for most big cities in Africa. Along the coast in Ghana, Sesinam Dagadu created a similar mobile app called SnooCode, which targets the poorest in society and the illiterate. His goal is to give "an address for every man, woman and child" by issuing an individual "location code" as a substitute address. "I wanted to make sure our system was accessible to those at the bottom of the social pyramid," Dagadu said about his app, which is free. "Without addresses, many important features of the modern society no longer work, from tracking diseases and emergency response services to e-commerce and deliveries," said the 31-year-old. - Citizenship - OpenStreetMap is already being used by humanitarian organisations during epidemics. Enthusiastic communities of amateur cartographers participating in 'mapathons' have been inputting geographical data from satellite images available on the internet into the online map. Some have recently focused on the Democratic Republic of Congo, where several cases of Ebola have been reported. In particularly remote areas of a country, maps only show the outline of roads. The cartographers add houses and, crucially, water points -- essential data to stop the spread of an epidemic. For volunteers or the app's creators, map-making isn't just a passion, it's become a part of what it means to be a citizen. As geographer Abdou puts it, working on the maps is his way of "contributing to the development of my country".
Former prime minister Goh Chok Tong has asked Singaporeans to urge Prime Minister Lee and his siblings to settle their dispute in private. (Photo: AFP)

Singaporeans can urge the Lees to settle their dispute amicably in private or through closeddoor arbitration, said Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong on Saturday evening (17 June).

It is not worth tearing up family bonds built over a lifetime over these differences, however serious they are. This is not the family legacy which their father would have wanted to leave behind, said Goh in a Facebook post.

The former Prime Minister was the third senior political figure in a day to weigh in on the ongoing feud between Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his younger siblings Hsien Yang and Wei Ling. Since issuing a statement on Wednesday denouncing their older brother PM Lee, the younger Lees have engaged in a flurry of social media posts detailing various allegations and rebuttals to PM Lee.

In response, PM Lee released on Thursday a summary of statutory declarations to a Ministerial Committee set up to explore the options for the house at 38 Oxley Road, the residence of the late former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, who was the father of the three younger Lees.

Besides the fate of the house, PM Lee and his two siblings are also squabbling over the contents of the late Lees will pertaining to his intentions for the house.

Earlier on Saturday, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said in a Facebook post that most Singaporeans are sick and tired about these endless allegations, which are quite baseless. He added, The government has serious business to attend to relating to the welfare of Singaporeans.

The Oxley Road house at the centre of a public dispute between the children of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. (Photo: Reuters)

The secretive Ministerial Committee

On the same day, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean also revealed for the first time that he chairs the Ministerial Committee. The Government has the responsibility to consider the public interest aspects of any property with heritage and historical significance, and this applies to 38 Oxley Road, said Teo in a statement. The committees interest in Mr Lees will is confined to the light that it sheds on (Lee Kuan Yews) wishes for the house.

Story continues

Teo noted that the Committee is currently studying various intermediate options. For example, demolishing the house but keeping the basement dining room where many important historical meetings took place, with an appropriate heritage centre attached. He also denied the younger Lees assertion that the Committee was secretive and disclosed the identities of three of its members: Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong and Shanmugam.

Shanmugam also noted separately that there are dozens of Cabinet Committees considering a variety of matters. He said, Their composition is not public and they report to the Cabinet.

In response, Hsien Yang claimed in a Facebook post that Shanmugams presence on the committee represented a clear conflict of interest, given that the minister had advised Lee Kuan Yew, Hsien Yang and Wei Ling on aspects of the late Lees will related to his wishes for the house.

We found the refusal to identify the members of the committee, and to confirm Shanmugams recusal particularly troubling as he is an experienced Senior Counsel and Minister for Law who should well understand the problem of conflicts of interests. Only now do we find out that he is indeed a member of this Committee.

Posting his remarks shortly after, Shanmugam declared that the suggestion that he is in conflict was ridiculous. He added, I was already a Cabinet Minister when I spoke with some members of the Lee family  at their behest  and gave them my views. They were not my clients. Nothing that I said then precludes me from serving in this Committee.

I am well aware of the rules of conflict, having been in practice for over 22 years. If Mr Lee Hsien Yang seriously believes that I was in conflict, he can get a lawyer to write to me and I will respond.

Meanwhile, ESM Goh also said that he supports the careful way in which Teo and the Government are handling the issue as public interests are involved. I advised (DPM Teo) to respect Lee Kuan Yews wish but agreed that it would be disrespectful of our own heritage to just demolish the house for it to be replaced by a commercial building or another private residence.

Related stories:
Key dates in the Iraqi offensive to recapture Mosul, the country's second biggest city, from the Islamic State group (IS) jihadists who seized it in June 2014. - The battle begins - - October 17, 2016: Iraqi forces launch the assault. It was in Mosul in July 2014 that IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance, to urge Muslims worldwide to move to the recently proclaimed "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria. Tens of thousands of army, police and counter-terrorism troops are thrown into the long-awaited offensive with air and ground support from a US-led coalition. Kurdish forces also take part in operations north and east of the city. - Entering Mosul - - November 1: The army says it has entered Mosul city for the first time since 2014. - November 3: Baghdadi breaks a year-long silence, urging followers to fight to the death for Mosul in an audio recording. The Iraqi advance begins to slow. - November 13: Iraq says it has recaptured Nimrud, an ancient city southeast of Mosul. - November 23: Shiite-dominated paramilitary units known as the Hashed al-Shaabi say they have cut IS supply lines between Mosul and the jihadists' Syrian stronghold Raqa, 400 kilometres (250 miles) to the west. - East Mosul is freed - - December 29: Government troops end a two-week pause and launch the second phase of their assault on east Mosul. - January 8: Iraqi units reach the Tigris River that divides Mosul and take up positions near one of the city's five bridges, all now destroyed. - January 24: The Joint Operations Command coordinating the fight says the east has been "fully liberated". - Battle for west begins - - February 19: Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announces the start of the battle for western Mosul, with Iraqi forces backed by coalition air power and close-in support from coalition advisers. - February 24: Iraqi forces seize full control of Mosul airport and enter their first west Mosul neighbourhood. Three days later they take control of a fourth bridge over the Tigris. - March 12: A US envoy says Iraqi troops have cut all roads into western Mosul, trapping remaining IS fighters inside. - March 14: Iraqi forces say they have captured the city's train station after reaching other symbolic sites such as the regional government headquarters and the city's museum. - Old City - May 4: Iraqi forces launch a second front in northwestern Mosul to further seal the siege on the Old City, where IS has concentrated most of its resources. May 16: A military spokesman says it has recaptured almost 90 percent of west Mosul. June 18: Iraqi forces launch an assault to retake the Old City, where the United Nations says jihadists may be holding more than 100,000 civilians as human shields. Since mid-October, more than 860,000 people are estimated to have fled Mosul.
The late former prime minister Lee Kuan Yews Oxley Road residence. (Photo: Reuters)

Lee Wei Ling criticised Law Minister K Shanmugam after he said that he does not have a conflict of interest over his role in a Ministerial Committee exploring options for the Oxley Road house where the late prime minister Lee Kuan Yew lived.

In a Facebook post on Sunday (18 June), the late Lees daughter said about Shanmugam, We were once very good friends and each had helped the other a great deal. Also Shan knows Pas real wish and concern as Pa consulted him when I invited Shan to Oxley.

She called Shanmugams view on conflicts of interests absurd.

The children of Lee Kuan Yew, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, have been embroiled in a public spat over whether the family home at 38 Oxley Road should be demolished according to their fathers will.

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean revealed on Saturday (17 June) that he chairs the Ministerial Committee, whose members also include Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong and Shanmugam.

Shanmugam, who is also Minister for Home Affairs, said on the same day, I was already a Cabinet Minister when I spoke with some members of the Lee family  at their behest  and gave them my views. They were not my clients. Nothing that I said then precludes me from serving in this Committee.

Shanmugam was responding to Lee Hsien Yang, Wei Lings younger brother, who had claimed in a Facebook post that Shanmugams presence in the committee represented a clear conflict of interest, given that the minister had advised Lee Kuan Yew, Hsien Yang and Wei Ling on aspects of the late Lees will related to his wishes for the house.

The law minister added that it was ridiculous to claim that he had a conflict of interest.

Earlier Sunday, Hsien Yang also made a Facebook post refuting Teos claim that there was nothing secret about the committee.

We recommend that he look up the definition of secret in a dictionary, the post said.

Story continues

Hsien Yangs post also included a picture showing statements by the late Lee saying that he wanted the house to be demolished after his death.

Related stories:
More than 2,000 people took part in Kiev's gay pride event on Sunday amid a heavy police presence, as nationalist protesters tried to stop the event and set fire to a rainbow flag. Participants walked through the city centre protected from counter-protesters by Ukrainian police in helmets and bullet-proof vests as well as National Guard troops. Ukraine's pro-European authorities ensured the gay pride event could go ahead despite widespread homophobic attitudes in the ex-Soviet country where gay marriage is not permitted. Police said around 2,500 marchers took part, protected by almost 5,000 officers. They detained six protesters who tried to break through a cordon of riot police. None of the marchers were injured, the interior ministry said, but the head of Kiev police said two of its officers suffered minor injuries. "Finally in our country we are able to come out for our rights and show that we exist," said one participant, Tetyana. "I feel nervous and happy that I can come out and not fear anything." Another marcher Volodymyr Kosenko said: "I feel pride today because I see round me my friends and acquaintances and my husband. I see people who came out to say that everyone is equal in Ukraine." Marchers shouted slogans such as "We're different, we're equal!" and "Ukraine for all!" Among the marchers was British Ambassador Judith Gough, who wrote on Twitter there was a "fine party atmosphere. But more than 100 ultra-nationalists tried to block the route and burned a rainbow flag. "I'm convinced that this is wrong. It's a sin and it can destroy our country morally," said Irina, a student. "I condemn the propaganda of homosexuality in Ukraine and particularly the holding of gay parades. I came to speak out against it. The Bible says clearly it's a sin," added Kyrylo Babentsov, another protester. A spokeswoman for Amnesty International in Ukraine, Mariya Guryeva, praised the police for ensuring crowd safety, calling this "very positive." "This is positive evidence the Ukrainian authorities are trying to ensure the citizens' rights to peaceful protests and to express their views," she told AFP. But she cautioned that homophobic crimes still largely go uninvestigated and police "are very reluctantly to put such crimes on record." Last year's Kiev event was held in the city centre for the first time amid an unprecedented police presence and attracted around 700 participants.
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AAR Corp. provides products and services to commercial aviation, government, and defense markets worldwide. The Aviation Services segment offers aftermarket support and services; inventory management and distribution services; and maintenance, repair, and overhaul, as well as engineering services. This segment also sells and leases new, overhauled, and repaired engine and airframe parts, and components; and provides inventory and repair programs, warranty claim management, and outsourcing programs for engine and airframe parts and components, as well as performance-based supply chain logistics programs in support of the U.S. department of defense and foreign governments. In addition, it offers airframe inspection, maintenance, repair and overhaul, painting, line maintenance, airframe modification, structural repair, avionic and installation, exterior and interior refurbishment, and engineering and support services; and repairs and overhauls components, landing gears, wheels, and brakes. The Expeditionary Services segment provides products and services supporting the movement of equipment and personnel by the U.S. and foreign governments, and non-governmental organizations. This segment also designs, manufactures, and repairs transportation pallets, and various containers and shelters; and provides engineering, design, and system integration services for command and control systems. The company serves domestic and foreign passenger airlines; domestic and foreign cargo airlines; regional and commuter airlines; business and general aviation operators; original equipment manufacturers; aircraft leasing companies; aftermarket aviation support companies; and domestic and foreign military customers. It primarily markets and sells products and services through its employees and foreign sales representatives. AAR Corp. was founded in 1951 and is headquartered in Wood Dale, Illinois.
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Small business owners continue to back President Donald Trump.

Seventy percent of small businesses are in favor of the Presidents Buy American-Hire American executive order. If approved, it will require the government to review its current H-1B visa program.

Meanwhile, 52 percent rate Trumps first 100 days in office as a success.

According to a new survey by business-for-sale marketplace BizBuySell, majority of small business owners support Trump on most issues.

Small Businesses Approve Trumps Tax Plan and Immigration Crackdown

An overwhelming majority of small business owners (85 percent) say they support Trumps proposed tax plan.

As for his controversial stance on immigrants, 59 percent of small businesses say they back the push for increased immigration crackdowns and deportations.

American Healthcare Act is a Sore Point

But small businesses are not particularly happy with Trumps handling of healthcare issues. Forty-five percent feel President Trump has handled healthcare issues poorly.

Fifty-five percent say they dont support the Republican healthcare replacement bill, also known as the American Health Care Act.

Meanwhile, 54 percent are opposed to the aspect of state waivers opting out of regulations and consumer protections that were included in Obamacare. This would mean states can allow insurers to charge more for patients with pre-existing conditions.

Small Businesses Keep Faith in President Trump

This is not the first time Trump got thumbs up from small businesses since he took office. Another recent survey conducted by SurveyMonkey in partnership with CNBC found nearly 3 out of 5 small business owners approving President Trump.

Respondents did however indicate that tax relief must come soon for them to continue supporting the president.

San Francisco-based BizBuySell surveyed more than 500 small business owners and prospective buyers to determine approval of Trumps Presidency since he took office.
Bing Ads fully rolled out the pilot launch of its mobile ad platform recently, setting the stage for competition with Google AdWords putting Bing Ads on par with the undisputed search leaders ad network.

The update to Bing Ads brings with it expanded device targeting, allowing for greater control of bids specific to device type. Advertisers can now target users of desktops, laptops, tablets or smartphones specifically.

Expanded Device Targeting for Bing Ads

This form of control not only specifies target, but also tailors the adjusted bid ranges. The following table shows the bid percentages by device type on Bings new platform.

By having the ability to target audiences more specifically, advertisers can measure ROI and make changes accordingly to improve return, such as excluding devices that are under-performing. If your business notices that desktop ads produce fewer results, opting out of them is as simple as setting the range to -100 percent. Previous versions did not allow this.

Further modifications can be made in advanced campaign settings with scheduling and location specific ads.

As a business you are now able to target customers that are in your vicinity by the devices they are using. When you consider that current estimates place smartphone searches at 82 percent, this is a valuable proposition.

With mobile quickly becoming the go-to medium, the ability to opt-out of desktop was a desired feature by many advertisers. This move will further support the near mobile-only campaigns preferred by small businesses and their target audiences.

Bing to Google Connectivity

Another strategy employed by Bing is bid adjustments across search engines. By setting value parameters equal to AdWords, Bing users are now able to leverage imports from Google and maintain any preset adjustments. Bings features can be accessed via Mac and Windows. This can be done through Bing Ads Editor, through Bings API and globally through Bing Ads Web Interface  including Google Import.

The new move establishes Bing Ads as a clear alternative to Google AdWords offering more options for small business owners.
Samsung has always proved itself sagacious in the tech market with its amazing range of smartphones. Samsung believes in quick extirpation and comes up every time with something dazzling on the market. Yet again Samsung is ready with the new model of Samsung Galaxy series, Samsung Galaxy S9. Samsung Galaxy S9 is expected to have some of the great features which may out up competition for the Apple Inc.s expected iPhone by the end of the year 2017. Let us see some the amazing features of Samsung Galaxy S9 

1. Latest Operating System

Nougat OS

Samsung Galaxy S9 is expected to run on Android v7.1 Nougat OS. The user interface is going to much simpler and interactive. Although the device comes up with a single SIM inlet, it supports VoLTE which is a quite important factor for the smartphone users these days.

2. Display

The touch screen is as usual Capacitive. You will be glad to know that the device is categorised as a Phablet due to its humongous 6.0-inch display. The Super AMOLED display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 9. The screen features a resolution of 2160 x 3840 pixels. Watching movies would be really fun on the device.

3. Processor and Storage

Snapdragon Qualcomm 830

The Octa core processor CPU with Qualcomm Snapdragon 830 chipset make the device run like a bullet. You can enjoy high-end games with great graphics without any lag in between undoubtedly. Currently, there would be two variants available of the device with 64GB/128GB internal memory and 6GB/8GB RAM respectively. You can extend the storage up to 2 TB.

4. Camera and Multimedia

16MP rear and 13 MP front selfie shooter

Samsung has always been famous for the camera quality in their smartphones. You should not be amazed at the capability of the camera to take high-resolution images with 16MP in the back and 13 MP in front for amazing selfies. Samsung Galaxy S9s camera not only takes great images but is also capable of recording 2K videos. Samsung Galaxy S9 comes up with 3.5mm audio jack, seemly a great multimedia device on the whole. It supports 3GP, ASF, M4V, H.263, H.264, MKV, 3G2, DivX, AVI, WMV, FLV, MPEG4 for video and WAV, AAC+, AC3, OGG, FLAC, WMA, MP3, AMR, AAC, MXMF, eAAC+ for audio. The speaker seems to be clear and loud.

5. Battery

Wireless Charging

After Samsung Galaxy Note 7, Samsung has been seen to improvise the battery up to a great extent in the recent models of smartphones. The device comes up with a non-removable Li-Ion 4500 mAh battery. The battery is enough to run your phone for a day. It supports fast charging so you need not worry about the charging time. In an hour of charging period, you will be good to go for an entire day. Battery charging is totally wireless.

You can trust Samsung Galaxy S9 with your wallet as it seems to be a great device worth it. The built is quite good full metal body may be. It comes with a Fingerprint sensor which adds on your security. The device is totally waterproof and feels sturdy in hands. It has a Bluetooth version 5 for file sharing and wireless headsets. It also comes up with an IR blaster. On the whole, the device is really impressive.
Protest marches in support of the victims of the deadly Grenfell Tower fire on Wednesday, June 14, took place in cities and towns across in the United Kingdom on Saturday.

Many protesters called for Prime Minister Theresa May to resign and showed support for Jeremy Corbyns Labour Party. This video shows protesters marching in central Leeds. The marchers can be heard chanting Tories out. Corbyn In.

Others voiced their opposition to a proposed Tory-DUP deal to keep the Conservative Party in government. Placards reading Dont get DUPed can be seen among the crowd. Credit: Twitter/Andy Haigh via Storyful
WASHINGTON  Advocates for children celebrated last year when President Barack Obama signed a law meant to keep military officials from concealing child abuse and neglect on military bases. But U.S. Department of Defense officials say the law doesnt address one key reason why military children who are mistreated may not be getting all the help they need.

Talias Law, named for a 5-year-old girl who was killed by her soldier father on a military base in Hawaii, requires military officials to immediately report any suspected child abuse or neglect involving military families to state social services agencies. But there is no reciprocal requirement for social services agencies  the agencies arent required to let the military know about reports of suspected child abuse and neglect in military families.

Thats a problem, Pentagon officials say, because if the military doesnt know about the suspected abuse, it cant connect families to the vast resources it has to help victims and treat abusers. Doing so is especially urgent now, the officials say, as many social services agencies face budget restraints and lack the resources to help families in need.

For the past three years, Pentagon officials have been asking states to enact laws or set policies that require local child protective agencies to ask families they work with if they are in the military, and, if they are, to immediately report any suspected abuse or neglect to the military. Fifteen states have enacted such laws or started to follow such policies that were already in place. Nine more states are considering similar bills this year.

Addressing child abuse and neglect in the military can be complicated. Without the laws, the military may not find out about the neglect or abuse until a service member is charged criminally. The laws require reporting far before that  shortly after child protective services finds out about suspected abuse.

But military families, child protective workers and others worry that if suspected abuse by a service member is reported to the military, it could be career-ending.

Social service officials say they consider the military to be a service members employer, and in other circumstances they wouldnt tell employers about suspected child maltreatment  especially before its been substantiated.

Harold Cooney, who works on state policy as a Northeast regional liaison for the Defense Department, said when he hears this concern, he reminds social service workers that most employers dont have an entire division dedicated to treating abusers and helping their families.

The military wants to know every time one of the roughly 1 million children with parents in the military may have been victimized, so every allegation can be addressed, said Kathy Robertson, program manager of the Defense Departments Family Advocacy Program.

It impacts the child, the whole family and the military unit, Robertson said. Our whole goal is to strengthen military families and to rehabilitate them.

But not everyone agrees that the military is doing all it can to protect children. The military has received criticism in the last few years from advocates for children for failing to report to police and local social services when it knows of abuse and neglect, and for how it addresses it.

The Family Advocacy Program has about 2,000 counselors, clinicians and other employees stationed at military installations to help families in which abuse or neglect may have occurred. Along with counseling for victims and treatment for perpetrators, the program offers prevention services such as classes for new parents.

Once suspected child maltreatment is reported to the program, clinicians determine whether it meets the programs definitions of abuse and neglect. That determination is not used for legal proceedings, but rather to determine whether the program should formally document the abuse or neglect and require treatment.

Robertson said the programs criteria for determining maltreatment are less forgiving than those used by state child protective services agencies. We err on the side of prevention, she said. We really try to engage that family.

In the last decade, the rate of suspected child maltreatment occurrences reported to the Family Advocacy Program, as well as the rate of occurrences meeting the programs criteria for abuse and neglect, have both increased. About seven instances of child maltreatment were reported per 1,000 military children last fiscal year, compared to five per 1,000 children in fiscal 2007, according to a recent Defense Department report.

The increase was primarily due to an increase in reports of child neglect, including a lack of supervision appropriate for the childs age and exposure to physical hazards such as bathtubs, electrical outlets and unsafe cribs. Of the 13,916 instances reported to the program last fiscal year, 6,998 met the militarys criteria for child abuse or neglect; 4,960 children were victims of abuse or neglect.

The rate of child maltreatment reported to the military is about half of what is reported in civilian families, according to the report. But David Rubin, director of PolicyLab at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, said the actual rate of abuse and neglect is probably about the same as in the civilian population, or perhaps higher.

In a study released last year, Rubin and a group of researchers at PolicyLab found that just 1 in 5 U.S. Army soldiers children who received a medical diagnosis of child abuse or neglect had a corresponding Family Advocacy Program report. The reason for that, Rubin said, is not because the military knew about maltreatment and ignored it, but rather that military officials were simply never told about the doctors findings.

When I think about this late at night, Rubin said, I think there are kids out there that arent getting reported. And whats the magnitude of that?

Military officials insist that getting treatment or other help from the military wont affect a service members career. The work of the Family Advocacy Program is separate from military court proceedings that are used to determine punishment for a crime. According to military rules, a commander decides when to start military court proceedings, and the commander cant take any action simply because of a finding from the Family Advocacy Program.

When a service member is accused of a crime such as child abuse or neglect, they can be tried in either civilian or military court, or both. Punishment in military court can result in jail time, a reduction in rank or a dishonorable discharge.

In 2015, a national commission examined how to ensure that no children die from abuse or neglect. To help military children, the commission recommended federal legislation to require information sharing between state agencies and Defense Department family advocacy offices.

The Defense Department is asking states, not Congress, to take these steps because the rules will need to be administered and enforced at the state level, and they should be crafted to local officials liking, said Bill Huleatt, a social worker for the Family Advocacy Program.

Even in states that havent enacted these laws, many county social services agencies have already agreed to report incidents to family advocacy offices at local bases. But whether that is happening is unclear.

In Maryland, which does not require social services agencies to report child maltreatment to the military, Anne Arundel Countys social services agency has agreements with the two military installations there: Fort Meade and Naval Support Activity Annapolis. But the county still doesnt always report to military bases, according to Susan Tyzack, assistant director of social services. If it is a serious event and the child is in danger, it does. If not, the county asks for the familys permission to tell the base, and most of the time, she said, the family agrees.

Maryland state Del. Geraldine Valentino-Smith, a Democrat, introduced a bill this year to require agreements between local social services agencies and the military. She said at least one base in the state was having difficulty establishing agreements with surrounding counties. The bill failed, but Valentino-Smith said she would introduce it again if the issue doesnt get solved at the local level. Social services agencies in the state are facing budget restraints, and the militarys resources could help, she said.

Cooney, the Pentagon liaison in the Northeastern states, said he sometimes has a hard time convincing service members that having suspected abuse or neglect reported to the military wont tarnish their career.

But Cooney also acknowledges that there are times when punishment is warranted. Speaking to a Maryland House committee considering Valentino-Smiths bill this year, Cooney told lawmakers, if hes abusing a child or a spouse, maybe it should be detrimental to his career, or her career.

Whitney Gregg, a counselor near Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C., said the military families she works with are often concerned that information about their relationship or mental health issues will somehow make it back to their supervisors.

Oftentimes, she said, they want to keep it within the family, in part because of the stigma associated with mental health and relationship problems.

Military families face unique stresses, including frequent moves that take children away from schools, spouses away from jobs, and entire families away from support systems, Gregg said.

These stresses could put military children at higher risk of maltreatment. In another study, Rubin and other PolicyLab researchers found that children under the age of 2 in military families were at a higher risk of abuse or neglect in the six months after a soldier returns home from a deployment.

The fact that military families move often is another reason the military should know about child abuse and neglect, Cooney said. Otherwise, an abuse record may not follow the family to a new posting.
The bear tilts its head and grins, revealing a tiny tongue behind a dental gate.

The handwork of the founding father of Zuni fetish carving, the quirky beast seems to signal what has been long overdue: the first exhibition to honor the patriarch of this dynamic pueblo art form.

The Leekya Family: Master Carvers of Zuni Pueblo opens at the Albuquerque Museum on Saturday, June 24. The exhibition gathers 350 carvings of Leekya Deyuse, his contemporaries and descendants. Organizers borrowed the objects from 42 lenders, including Phoenixs Heard Museum, Santa Fes Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, the School of Advanced Research, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Keshi: The Zuni Connection in Santa Fe and author Kent McManis, the owner of Grey Dog Trading in Albuquerques Old Town.

Known for his gently undulating forms and whimsical expressions, Leekya, along with Teddy Weahkee and Leo Poblano, was among the first few Zuni lapidarists in the early 20th century to move from carving traditional fetishes for personal and religious use to carving figures for the Indian art tourist market. The 1975 auction of the C.G. Wallace collection kindled the Zuni fetish craze, bringing prices of up to $21,000 for a Leekya necklace.

The collection of more than 2,500 objects had been housed inside Albuquerques old De Anza Motor Lodge, where Wallace showed it off to everyone from Will Rogers to Museum of Modern Art Director Rene dHarnoncourt.

The exhibition is showcasing 95 pieces from the 1975 auction. They havent been seen in 40 years.

Museum curator Deb Slaney tells Leekyas story through the voices of his grandsons Freddie and Francis Leekya and his daughter, the late Sarah Leekya.

Freddie begins his own carving by bringing offerings of cornmeal, some food and a prayer before he digs for earth-toned Zuni stone, or travertine, at a secret pueblo site.

Hes the one who told us where the mine was, Freddie said of the grandfather he never knew. He taught us how to get it and what to do with it.

Freddies easy laugh punctuates his stories. He says he never knows what animal hell discover within each stone.

You just look at it and you eventually see theres something thats going to be in there and something starts popping out, he said. It takes patience.

Freddie carves mostly farm animals  longhorn steers, horses, pigs and turkeys  as well as Zuni men and women and his famous frog man.

My clan is the frog, so I like to do a lot of frogs, he said.

The Zuni people use horses for healing,while medicine bears are for hunting, he said.

Leeyka was a sheep farmer and laborer before he found work carving animals, figures, leaves and other shapes for the tourist market through Wallace. Freddies father, Francis, told him Leekya was inspired by ancient fetishes discovered at an archaeological dig. He soon progressed to carving, using turquoise, coral, abalone and spiny oyster, as well as Zuni stone. Leekya used grinders, watchmakers files, and emery cloth to create highly polished, rounded forms.

Hes so important because he brings visibility to the art of carving to Zuni, Slaney said. His name has been a household word to those who appreciate the art form.

What Maria Martinez was to pueblo pottery Leekya is to fetishes, said Bronwyn Fox, co-owner of Santa Fes Keshi: The Zuni Connection.

He epitomizes what fetishes are, Fox said. Theyre just so beautifully carved, and theyre very exuberant. Theyre happy. They make me smile. He had an amazing sense of humor.

Leekya created movement in the angles and details of the heads and feet of mammals and in the turned heads and fluttery wings of birds and butterflies. He specialized in bears, wolves, foxes, birds, frogs, turtles and snakes. The bulging eyes and squat bodies of his fat frogs nearly croak with personality.

In doing so, he created a new art form.

Freddie Leekya sees his grandfathers spirit in his own carvings.

When I finish my stuff and come back to his stuff, its kind of similar to his work  the smile.

Leekya died in 1966.
Jake Shimabukuro is a confident man.

And its rightfully so.

The musician is a ukulele virtuoso and composer who carved out a niche for himself in the music world.

Yet the 40-year-old did have to overcome some fears while writing his latest album, Nashville Sessions, released last fall.

This album is my first all-original record, he says in a recent interview. It was scary to do. My whole early part of my career was purely covers. This was a challenge for me. I had to come up with my own tunes.

Shimabukuro is known to combine elements of jazz, blues, funk, rock, bluegrass, classical, folk and flamenco.

Well-known in his native Hawaii and Japan during his early solo career in the early 2000s, Shimabukuro became famous internationally in 2006, when a video of him playing a virtuosic rendition of While My Guitar Gently Weeps was posted on YouTube without his knowledge and became one of the first viral videos on that site.

Widespread acclaim brought high-visibility collaborations with a wide range of artists, including Yo-Yo Ma, Jimmy Buffett, Bette Midler, Cyndi Lauper, Jack Johnson, Ziggy Marley, Dave Koz, Michael McDonald, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Tommy Emmanuel and Marty Friedman.

Gaining this high visibility also put some pressure on Shimabukuro.

Thats why I went to Nashville, he says. Its home to some of the best songwriters. I began to feel at home, and the music came in waves.

Though the album came out months ago, Shimabukuro has been hard at work on a new album.

Finally tackling the hurdle of writing his own, original music, he will continue to write originals.

I dont have a system or method to my writing, he says. The new album is going to be somewhere in between for me. Im writing originals, but Im also working on getting some new covers in my repertoire. My bassist and I have come up with a great cover of (The Beatles) Eleanor Rigby. Weve been starting the shows with that song. Its something familiar, and people really enjoy it.

If you go

WHAT: Jake Shimabukuro

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 19

WHERE: KiMo Theatre, 423 W. Central

HOW MUCH: $25-$35, plus fees at holdmyticket.com
LONDON  U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said Saturday that support for families immediately after the Grenfell Tower disaster was not good enough.

At least 58 people are thought to have died in this past weeks London high-rise fire, Metropolitan Police commander Stuart Cundy said Saturday, citing missing persons reports.

And May said support for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after the disaster was not good enough, according to the Press Association.

The admission comes after angry protesters took to the streets Friday and again Saturday to criticize Mays response to the fire, and to demand her resignation.

The prime minister has faced criticism for not speaking to those affected immediately after the fire.

Her deputy came to her defense, insisting in a radio interview on Saturday that she is distraught by what happened.

First Secretary of State Damian Green described the criticism as totally unfair.

In a visit to the scene the day after the fire, May spoke with fire safety officials but not with local residents. On Friday, she visited victims privately at a local hospital.

Mays critics were quick to compare her somewhat reserved public approach to footage of opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn embracing distraught victims and London Mayor Sadiq Khan being interrupted repeatedly by locals as he made a speech at the scene.

On Saturday, May held a 2 1/2-hour meeting with people affected by the fire, the Press Association reported.

The government has promised a public investigation into the fire. Green told BBC that someone would be appointed to head the inquiry in the coming days.

On Friday evening, May spoke with locals in a church hall near the scene of the fire. Videos on social media showed angry crowds heckling her as she left, shouting coward and shame on you.

At Fridays meeting, May pledged a $6.4 million support fund for those affected.

Flames rapidly engulfed the 24-story Grenfell Tower in the early hours of Wednesday.

Firefighters were able to save dozens. Many other residents managed to escape the fire on their own.



2017 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany)

Visit Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) at www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The ex-wife of a former Bernalillo County firefighter who was killed in his garage late last year has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the case  more than two months after her current husband was charged with the murder.

Police investigators said in a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court that days after 54-year-old Don Fluitt was found dead in his garage on Coors and Sequoia NW on Dec. 29, he was scheduled to appear before a judge with his ex-wife, Christine White, to discuss child custody changes.

Christine White, 46, had told her current husband, Terry White, that she was worried about losing custody of her 11-year-old daughter, according to the complaint. Christine White is also identified as Christine Estill in jail records.

Terry White was arrested by Navajo police in March and charged with murder in Fluitts death.

In an interview with the Journal after Terry Whites arrest, Fluitts brother said he was shocked at who was identified as the suspect, and said Christine White also couldnt believe her husband was involved.

Investigators said in the court document that a neighbors surveillance video from the night Fluitt died showed him leave his house shortly before 8 p.m., and when he returned, a man in a hoodie sneaked into the garage.

The man appeared to be expecting Fluitt to return home, since he wasnt dressed in clothing warm enough for the cold weather, according to the complaint. It said Fluitt had left the home to drop off his daughter with Christine White, who had changed the time of their usual custody exchange.

Albuquerque polices crime lab determined that Terry Whites DNA was found underneath Fluitts fingernails, according to the complaint.

Terry White was arrested by Navajo police in Arizona in March while trying to kill himself by carbon monoxide poisoning. Afterward, he told a fellow inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center that he and his wife were likely to lose custody of their child and his wife had encouraged him to kill Fluitt to protect his family, according to the complaint.

Terry White told the inmate that, while fighting in Fluitts garage, he twisted his trachea, then slit his throat with a steak knife  details that werent included in the charging documents against Terry White but matched a report from the Office of the Medical Investigator, the complaint says. It also says Terry White told the inmate he had taken out a $250,000 life insurance policy and made plans with his wife to kill himself.

The complaint states that when the inmate was released from jail and met with Christine White, she gave the man $200 and her wedding ring if he agreed to smuggle pills into the detention center so Terry White could go through with the plan. The inmate instead gave the ring to one of his friends, who pawned it, and he told police about the plans.

A warrant was issued for Christine Whites arrest on June 14. An Albuquerque police homicide detective arrested her Friday evening.

She is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center without bond.
In the tragic case of Otto Warmbier, a young American imprisoned in North Korea for the past 18 months, many of us nervously hoped for the best.

Unfortunately, we got news of the worst  or close to it  last week.

The 22-year-old University of Virginia student, who was detained for swiping a North Korean propaganda poster from a hotel wall 18 months ago, was finally released to his family in Cincinnati on Thursday. But he arrived home comatose and uncommunicative with a severe brain injury, his future very much in doubt.

North Koreas notoriously cruel regime admitted Warmbier had been in a coma for the better part of a year and ascribed his critical condition to botulism and his taking of a sleeping pill. But American doctors who tended to the young man after his arrival in Ohio dont buy it.

They diagnosed Warmbiers condition as unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, the result of a traumatic brain injury, probably caused by a lack of oxygen. If Warmbier is to recover  and thats a very big if  it will require numerous surgeries to different parts of his brain.

All of this is deeply upsetting to former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who had been negotiating for Warmbiers release. A former U.N. ambassador experienced in negotiating for political prisoners, Richardson said he had met with members of the North Korean delegation to the United Nations in New York 20 times since Warmbier was jailed.

In a telephone interview with me Friday, an audibly appalled Richardson said North Korean representatives never mentioned Warmbiers grave condition.

This is the most egregious and worst response North Korea has ever given on a humanitarian issue, he said. The fact that they failed to disclose his condition  it makes the idea of dialogue and diplomacy very difficult.

Who is going to want to deal with these people diplomatically if they perform such horrific acts? In the past, with the father of Kim Jong Un, you could make a deal with him for prisoners.

Richardson is a big advocate of negotiating with and talking to Americas enemies  a strategy he still espouses. But he conceded the Warmbier episode has left him disgusted.

Im one of the main advocates for dialogue, but Im sour on the North Koreans, he said. Im so upset at the way they behaved with Otto, because I got personally involved with this.

Richardson praised President Donald Trumps State Department for moving aggressively to secure the prisoners release when news of his condition reached Washington last week.

On Thursday, The Washington Post asked Ottos father, Fred, about the Obama administrations efforts on behalf of his son.

I think the results speak for themselves, he said.

Richardson can certainly sympathize with the grieving father, but he said Warmbiers prolonged incarceration wasnt for lack of effort by the Obama White House. He said his own Santa Fe-based Richardson Center for Global Engagement sent a three-member American delegation to Pyongyang last November with the Obama administrations endorsement, offering humanitarian and flood assistance and privately raised cash to pay for the return of U.S. soldiers remains from the Korean War in exchange for the release of Warmbier.

Susan Rice (Obamas national security adviser) and the White House signed off on it  they supported it, Richardson said.

But the North Koreans didnt bite, so Warmbier remained suspended in a diplomatic hell.

The North Koreans were waiting for the transition, and they werent going to make a deal with a departing administration, Richardson said. They were waiting for the Trump administration.

Richardson said he is now urging the Trump White House to make sure the U.S. government pays for Warmbiers care and provides access to the nations best doctors. He also said the United Nations should demand a full investigation into the Warmbier debacle, but he predicted North Korea wont cooperate.

Meanwhile, three more Americans still languish in the sinister regimes prisons. And Richardson didnt sound optimistic about them, either.

I dont think its (the Warmbier tragedy) going usher in a dialogue with North Korea in the short term, he said. I think there is too much anger because of Otto. And it wont provoke a military response, because its not in our national security interest.

This will lead to a continued stalemate with more sanctions, Richardson said. The North Koreans will continue with more missile tests and, basically, I think the result will more tension on the peninsula.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Just south of Paseo del Norte on the east bank of the Rio Grande, three men in hip waders wrangled a large net last week in search of endangered silvery minnows.

Their work paid off when they scooped dozens of squirming fish out of the net.

A lot of fish  looks like lots of red shiners, said Jason Kline, a biologist with SWCA Environmental Consultants, which is under contract with a state agency to help monitor fish populations in the Rio Grande.

Most of the fish, in fact, were red shiners, named for their distinctive red fins. But the catch also included a handful of silvery minnow, which were classified as an endangered species in 1994.

Were seeing good numbers of silvery minnow coming on to the floodplain in Albuquerque, said Grace Haggarty, a hydrologist with the state Interstate Stream Commission, the agency that hired SWCA.

This site is an example of what biologists call a restoration area, where heavy equipment was used to lower the riverbank, allowing river water to flood the sandy bank.

The warm, slow-flowing nutrient-rich water in overbanked areas provide ideal nursery habitat for tiny larval minnow to grow into young adult fish, said Michael Porter, fishery biologist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Sometimes, they spawn on the flood plain, sometimes they spawn in the channel, Porter said of the minnow. But the larvae have to get on the flood plain to survive.

Porter estimated that various state and federal agencies have built at least 50 restoration areas on the Rio Grande between Cochiti Dam and Elephant Butte Lake.

Various state and federal agencies have funded the projects over the years. This 20-acre site, within eyesight of the Paseo del Norte bridge, was built by the Albuquerque Bernalillo Water Utility Authority in 2014.

Restoration areas do more than provide silvery minnow habitat.

See all these little seedlings coming up? Porter said.

Thousands of tiny cottonwood seedling pepper the dried mud, which had been underwater just days earlier. Most of the sprouts will dry out and die, but a few will send down roots that find water.

The roots have to chase the water down as it recedes, he said.

Also growing in some abundance here are willow seedlings. When they mature, willows provide vital habitat for the Southwestern willow flycatcher  a bird listed as an endangered species in 1995.

Cottonwoods and willows, both native to the Rio Grande bosque, have been muscled out of many areas by invasive species  especially salt cedar, Russian olive and Chinese elm.

Dozens of young cottonwood trees here are surrounded by chicken-wire cages.

They put chicken wire around the cottonwoods because theyre valuable, and beaver love them, Porter said.

Beavers cut down the cottonwoods and eat the bark, he said.

A healthy snow pack delivered plenty of water to the Rio Grande this year. The river overbanked this year in many areas that normally remain bone dry.

The Rio Grande has had the highest sustained flows this year since at least 2010, U.S. Geological Survey data shows.

Flows in Albuquerque peaked May 17 at about 5,000 cubic feet per second. Flows on that date in 2016 were about 1,500 cfs. They dropped rapidly last week, from about 3,800 cfs Tuesday to about 1,800 cfs Friday at Paseo del Norte.

In recent years, the Rio Grande has entered a drier period, with peak flows often topping out at 2,000 cfs or less, said Todd Caplan, restoration program director at GeoSystems Analysis Inc.

Restoration areas are typically designed with those lower flows in mind, said Caplan,who has designed and built restoration areas for several agencies.

A recent project at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge north of Socorro was designed to begin filling with water at 800 cfs and become fully inundated at 2,000 cfs, he said.

This year, biologists have observed larval fish in the flood plain since it became inundated in May, Haggerty said.

We will probably see a lot of fish next year that were spawned this year in the flood plain, she said. I think everybody feels pretty positive about how (the silvery minnow) are doing this year.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Paul Salas made a news splash when he was arrested by Albuquerque police earlier this year for an alleged armed crime wave that involved 47 armed robberies from October through March.

But it wasnt just robbery detectives who were on his trail when he was busted. Bernalillo County sheriffs deputies who keep track of sex offenders were already looking for Salas after he failed to show up for his annual sex offender registration in the Phoenix area.

Sharing information, APD and BCSO were both tracking Salas when he hit a Verizon store, where he stole several iPhones and a tracking device that eventually led officers to him.

Salas is the sort of convicted sex offender, police say, that the registry was designed to help law enforcement and the public to keep under watch.

He was convicted in 2006 of two counts of attempted sexual conduct with a minor under 16 as a result of a plea bargain that dismissed more serious charges. As part of his sentence under Arizona law, Salas was to report to the local sheriff to be put on the sex offender registry for the rest of his life.

After he absconded in April 2016, Arizona detectives found that Salas had been corresponding with a female inmate in New Mexico, so they notified Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office Sex Offender Registry Team, or SORT.

Detectives from the registry team shared their leads  several local addresses  with robbery detectives.

Salas is now residing in the Metropolitan Detention Center, charged with 55 counts of armed robbery, two counts of robbery and other crimes, including kidnapping, child abuse, conspiracy and aggravated assault.

Prosecutors sought to hold him without bond, but District Judge Stan Whitaker refused that request and set a $100,000 cash bond. Salas is also charged with being a fugitive from Arizona, where his probation has been revoked and has another $100,000 cash bond in that case.

There are literally hundreds of sex offenders who leave one state for another each year.

Many move for personal reasons and abide by the sex offender registration laws in their new state of residence.

Others, like Salas, dont.

No safe haven

New Mexico was once considered a safe haven for convicted sex offenders seeking to avoid registering with local sheriffs.

The original state law, passed in 1995, had few teeth for prosecutors and law enforcement but lots of loopholes for felons.

Federal laws were not much help.

But a lot has changed.

New Mexico toughened its sex offender registration laws in 2005 and 2013.

For instance, among the changes in the 2005 law was a law that allows offenders convicted of more serious sex crimes to be ordered by a District Judge to register for the rest of their lives. The previous cap was 20 years.

The 2013 changes required tighter reporting requirements  mandating updates with local sheriffs every 90 days.

As a result of the changes, the number of sex offenders in the state has more than doubled to 3,639 since 2005 and in Bernalillo County the number has tripled to almost 1,100. There are 62 people statewide for whom police are looking because they failed to register.

In Bernalillo County, the sheriffs registry team makes home visits twice a year to make sure the offender is still living at that address.

Detectives say that once an offender is off probation or parole, their contact with the sex offender registration detectives may be the only law enforcement agency tracking their whereabouts.

Federal law enforcement involvement got a big boost in 2006 with the passage of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, also known as the Adam Walsh Protection and Safety Act.

It provided money to states to improve public access to sex offender registries, tried to standardize state laws across the country for registering sex offenders and made it a federal crime for offenders to cross state lines and not register if they were required to do so.

U.S. marshals offices around the country and in New Mexico routinely investigate cases with local law enforcement.

And in New Mexico such cases are routinely prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneys Office.

New Mexico cannot be a safe haven for convicted sex offenders, said Acting U.S. Attorney James Tierney.

And local prosecutors like Bernalillo County District Attorney Raul Torrez say they also take absconders seriously.

It is the underlying crime that the public expects us to take very seriously, he said.

Bernalillo County Sheriffs Sgt. Harry Landis said in an interview that the registry aids law enforcement in many ways.

Theres a report of an attempted abduction at a school bus stop by a man driving a white van, Landis said. We can put out a list of the convicted sex offenders in that area driving a white van.

We know who they are. We know where they live, Landis said. And in New Mexico we see many sex offenders who are convicted of committing other violent crimes so that type of information is valuable to law enforcement.

Tierney said, Our families and friends need to know if convicted sex offenders live in their neighborhoods or work near their childrens schools so they can take protective measures.

The sex offender registries are designed for online public access and are searchable by name, address, county or city and are available on the state Department of Public Safety.

Failure to register

Federal and state criminal cases against sex offenders who fail to register are fairly common in New Mexico.

n In 2014, Undrio Antwanne Roe, 45, moved to Hobbs from Louisiana where he was convicted in 1999 on state charges of sexually assaulting a minor.

Roe was arrested by deputy U.S. marshals and was sent to federal prison for a year and one day, with five years of supervised release and a requirement that he register when he gets back out of prison.

 aSIn March, Kevin Gordon Scott, 60, pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender in New Mexico after leaving Colorado. He was originally convicted in 1982 of rape and other sexual assault charges in Indiana and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison. After he was paroled in Indiana, he moved to Colorado where he initially registered but fled to New Mexico.

Bernalillo County Sheriffs detectives and deputy U.S. marshals tracked Scott down. He awaits sentencing in federal court.

 McQuade Quintana, 29 of Dulce, was sentenced in late 2015 to 22 months in federal prison and three years supervised release for railing to register. Quintana was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse of a child in January 2006. When he was released from prison, he registered in Bernalillo County but then moved to Rio Arriba County where he failed to register.

The U.S. Attorneys Office places the highest priority on prosecuting SORNA (failure to register) cases involving sex offenders convicted of abusing children under the age of 12 years, Tierney said. These cases are a priority because of the potential danger convicted child sex offenders pose to communities in New Mexico, including our 22 Native American reservations, and are prosecuted as part of the offices worst of the worst anti-violence initiative.

The bad news

But there are still holes in the system.

Despite the growth in the number of sex offenders registered in the state, New Mexico still lags behind states with small populations.

Nebraska for instance has more than 5,100 registered sex offenders.

Even though New Mexico lagged behind other states in expanding the use of the registry, the states numbers will continue to grow  fueled in part by nearly 1,300 convicted sex offenders now serving time in the states prison system. Many of them at some point will be released and required to register.

That will require more resources for local sheriffs to oversee the registered sex offenders in their counties or in the case of tribal lands, the appointed chief of police.

Some states have more criminal laws that require registration than New Mexico. For example, many states require registration for crimes involving prostitution, voyeurism and bestiality, while New Mexico does not.

And New Mexico is among the states that dont require juvenile sex offenders to register.

Failing to register is a fourth-degree felony in New Mexico, which means it can lead to an 18-month prison sentence. Potential sentences in the federal system are much longer with up to 10 years for a first offense.

In New Mexico, district judges imposing a sentence have the discretion to lower the registration requirements, including length of time.

Some crimes in New Mexico require registration with law enforcement, but they are not on the public registry.

For example, a conviction for fourth-degree criminal sexual penetration can carry a 10-year registration requirement, but only with law enforcement.

But the public is allowed to see the registration of someone convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual contact  considered a less serious offense  which carries a lifetime registration requirement.

Law enforcement and prosecutors just shrug their shoulders at the discrepancy. They dont know why it exists in the law.

On the other hand, New Mexico takes a tough stand on absconders and will extradite people who fail to register and leave the state.

How to locate sex offenders The Department of Public Safety maintains the state sex offender registry, which is available online at http://www.nmjustice.net/

If you are tracking the whereabouts of a specific sex offender the site offers a free email alert system if that offender moves or the offenders status changes.

If you want to know if any sex offenders are registered in your neighborhood, simply write your address in the area search function and a map of registered offenders will show up on your screen.

You can also locate a sex offender by name.

Number of sex offenders in New Mexico prison system

2013  1,279

2014  1,269

2015  1,300

2016  1,254
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Newly minted lawyer Dan Cornish has some big shoes to fill.

Sworn in with the New Mexico State Bar on April 25, he became the fifth generation in his family to follow the legal profession.

The ceremony itself is rich in tradition. Although held in Santa Fes Lensic Theater to accommodate a large crowd of friends and family members, it is a formal session of the state Supreme Court, and an attorney must make a motion for a candidate to be admitted. Dan Cornishs father, Tim Cornish, made the motion, as did his own father when he was sworn in.

Dad told me, youre going down a path that others have gone down before you. Theyve blazed a noble trail and youre going to be held to those high standards,  Dan Cornish said.

Along that noble trail some of his forebears had some pretty exciting adventures; one of them investigated mobsters in the 1930s, another dodged a bomber in Panama and got stabbed in court.

The legal tradition in Dan Cornishs family began with his great-great-grandfather John D. Wilson, who came to New Mexico in 1907 and became a lawyer through the old custom of working in an attorneys office.

Wilson practiced law during New Mexicos territorial days and served as a U.S. Attorney in the 1920s.

His son, Don Wilson, served in the Army in World War I and World War II. In between, he graduated from the University of Colorado Law School  UNM didnt have a law school until the late 1940s. For a while he worked in Washington, D.C., investigating mobsters for the U.S. Treasury Department, including the notorious Al Capone. Don Wilson died in 1975.

Wilsons son-in-law Thomas G. Cornish was in the Navy in World War II, passed the bar in 1949 and practiced law with former Gov. Arthur T. Hannett. He was an avid hunter and kept Labrador dogs. His son, Tim Cornish, recounted an occasion when a dog got out and snatched a turkey from the neighbors home. The neighbor was none other than Sen. Dennis Chavez.

Dad got the turkey back from the dog, washed it off and the senator had the turkey. It must have been kind of a gritty turkey, Tim Cornish said.

Tim Cornish, 67, is full of stories about his own colorful law career. After graduating from UNM Law School, he went to Socorro where he eventually became deputy district attorney under Eldon Douglas. From there, he headed to Santa Fe where he did a short stint with the Human Services Department.

Thats when the stabbing incident occurred. At a child custody hearing in 1986, a mother enraged at the judges decision not to return her child slashed a social workers face with a concealed pocket knife. Tim Cornish immediately grabbed the woman to restrain her and was wounded in the stomach. He still has the scar.

My impression was that this woman was going to kill her (the social worker) and I didnt think about it. It was just one of those automatic things, Tim Cornish said.

He recalls another case in which an attorney tried to punch him during a deposition.

Part of professionalism in the old days was fisticuffs, said Tim Cornish.

He spent a few years as an assistant attorney general under Attorneys General Paul Bardacke, Hal Stratton and Tom Udall. One of his tasks was to coordinate the border conferences for U.S. and Mexican attorneys general to discuss cases of mutual interest. He believes that prompted an invitation in 1991 by the State Department to go to Latin and Central America to help officials in various countries modernize their judicial processes.

Over the next 15 years, he worked in Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama, sometimes taking his family with him. Dan Cornish vividly remembers his arrival to Guatemala as a teenager. Their car was stopped behind a taxi when suddenly a military truck rolled up, two men with M16 rifles jumped out, dragged a man out of the taxi, threw him into the truck and drove off.

That was something that really stuck out for me. I was 15 years old, and that was on my ride home from the airport, Dan Cornish said.

While in Panama, Tim Cornish was nearby when bombers tried to assassinate the countrys attorney general, whose office was in the area.

I was looking out my window and boom! he said.

Tim Cornish returned to the U.S. in 2006 and worked from 2008 through 2013 as deputy district attorney in Torrance County. He has been semi-retired since 2014.

Now that he, too, is a lawyer, Dan Cornish jokes that his career in civil litigation with the Doughty, Alcaraz & deGraauw law firm wont be as exciting as his fathers.

But the younger Cornish has already had his share of drama.

Before being accepted to UNM Law School in 2013, 36-year-old Cornish tested out a motley assortment of jobs  UNM academic adviser, director of campus tours, singing waiter at the Macaroni Grill and Shakespearean actor.

In every arena, the law kept calling. Becoming a lawyer seemed the best resolution.

After the rigors of law school and the grind of preparing for the bar exams, finally taking the oath was a huge deal. He attended the ceremony with his wife, Tiffani, and their infant son  and perhaps future lawyer  Henry.

Dans father, Tim Cornish, was delighted.

Its a wonderful thing for me to see. I think hell be the best litigator of the lot, practicing with the same ethical and moral framework that his predecessors have done.
Typewriter enthusiasts gather at an Albuquerque restaurant to experiment with vintage Smith Coronas. Fans in Boston kneel in a city square and type stories about their lives during a pro-immigration demonstration. A documentary on typewriters featuring Tom Hanks and musician John Mayer is set for release this summer.

In the age of smartphones, social media and cyber hacking fears, vintage typewriters that once gathered dust in attics and basements are attracting a new generation of fans across the U.S.

From public type-ins at bars to street poets selling personalized, typewritten poems on the spot, typewriters have emerged as popular items with aficionados hunting for them in thrift stores, online auction sites and antique shops. Some buy antique Underwoods to add to a growing collection. Others search for a midcentury Royal Quiet De Luxe  like a model author Ernest Hemingway used  to work on that simmering novel.

The rescued machines often need servicing, and fans are forced to seek out the few remaining typewriter repair shops.

I havent seen business like this in years, said John Lewis, a typewriter repairman who has operated out of his Albuquerque shop for four decades. Theres definitely a new interest, and its keeping me very busy.

Renewed interest began around 10 years ago when small pockets of typewriter enthusiasts came together online, said Richard Polt, an Xavier University philosophy professor and author of The Typewriter Revolution: A Typists Companion for the 21st Century. Since then, the base of fans has dramatically grown, and various public events have been organized around the typewriter.

Its beyond the phase where this is just a fad, Polt said.

Its almost impossible to gauge recent typewriter sales. Almost all of the original manufacturers are out of business or have been bought out and become different companies. The Moonachie, New Jersey-based Swintec appears to be one of the worlds last typewriter makers, selling translucent electronic machines largely to jails and prisons.

But operators of thrift stores and estate sales say typewriters are some of the quickest items to go.

Thats part of the fun: the hunt, said Joe Van Cleave, an Albuquerque resident who owns more than a dozen typewriters and runs a popular YouTube channel on restoring the machines. Sometimes, like a little luck, you might find something from the 1920s in great condition.

Doug Nichol, director of the upcoming documentary California Typewriter, said the interest stems from digital burnout and people wanting a connection to the past. That interest seems to transcend age, he said.

Kids who grew up knowing only mobile phones and the computer are excited to see a letter typed with your own hand, said Nichol, who owns 85 typewriters. Its a one-on-one interaction that doesnt get interrupted by Twitter alerts.

In his film, set for release in August, Nichol interviews Hanks, who said he uses a typewriter almost every day to send memos and letters.

I hate getting email thank-yous from folks, Hanks says in the film. Now, if they take 70 seconds to type me out something on a piece of paper and send to me, well, Ill keep that forever. Ill just delete that email.

Hanks owns about 270 typewriters but often gives them away to people who show an interest. No one is ever going to make the great typewriter ever, ever, ever again, he said.

One way the typewriter craze is growing is through organized type-ins  meet-ups in public places where typewriter fans try different vintage machines. Such events have been held in Phoenix, Philadelphia, Seattle, Los Angeles and Cincinnati.

During a recent type-in at Albuquerque soul food restaurant Nexus Brewery, around three dozen fans took turns clicking the keys of an Italian-made 1964 Olivetti Lettera 32 and a 1947 Royal KMM, among others.

Rich Boucher, a slam poet, spent most of his time on a 1960s-era Hermes 3000 crafting poetry and pausing while trying to figure out when to return the carriage for a next line.

I havent used a typewriter in forever, Boucher said. This is a real refreshing way to spend a summer afternoon.

After finishing his work, Boucher grabbed his phone and sent a Facebook status update about the experience. He then started looking online for a Hermes 3000.

Thats the typewriter I want, he said. Im going to find one.
A new global scholarship programme for the worlds lest developed nations has been launched by DLA Piper.In its inaugural year 21 students from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Senegal, Uganda and Zambia will receive funding for studies in their own countries along with mentoring from DLA Piper lawyers, and a series of global placements."We believe this is the first scholarship programme of its kind and have worked with leaders in the social mobility sphere to create a programme which contributes to the rule of law within least developed countries without acting as a brain drain for talented students, said the firms global co-chair Juan Picon.Further scholarships will be awarded in December.Comedian and actress Rebel Wilson has been advised by Corrs Chambers Westgarth in a defamation case against German media company Bauer.The case surrounded claims made in Bauers Australian magazine Womans Day. The jury found that all were untrue and that some were motivated by malice.The media has a critical role to play in our society. But freedom of the press doesnt justify chequebook journalism or plagiarism. The jury accepted that Bauers magazines engaged in a calculated campaign to capitalise on Rebel Wilsons public success, said Corrs Partner Richard Leder, who was the principal Partner on the matter. Even on the eve of trial, they published a story about her that was simply a fabrication. The jury accepted that their claims were defamatory and untrue.Damages will be awarded by the trial judge in the coming week.Former Morgan Lewis Stamford lawyer Timothy Cooke has joined the arbitration practice of Stephen Harwood in Singapore as partner.Cooke has 17 years experience and was called to the Bar in 2000. His practice is focused on international commercial arbitration, based predominantly in Southeast Asia.
Newly reorganized Lancair International is planning to fly the first version of its MAKO high-performance kitplane to AirVenture this year and a news release from the company says the first article is coming together well. The company released a photo of the fuselage of the aircraft in its paint booth at the new headquarters in Uvalde, Texas, over the weekend and if it looks remarkably like a Cirrus SR22 or the Cessna TTX, thats because Lancair has been hyping the new kit as direct competition to those airplanes. But theres one thing the Mako wont share with the go-fast factory models and thats the nearly $1 million price tag.

We expect the performance of the MAKO to exceed either Cirrus or Cessna TTX at a fraction of the cost, said CEO Mark Huffstutler. And since its a kit, theres a lot more flexibility in the final product, especially engine choices. A variety of engine options will be available, ranging from the standard 210-HP Continental IO-360 to a 350-HP turbocharged Lycoming TIO-580, the news release said. Typical non-turbo cruise speeds will be in the 215 knot range, with the turbocharged models exceeding 250 knots. Full production is expected early in 2018.
The U.S.s busiest FAA flight examiner was remembered as a generous, humble man whose love of aviation knew no bounds. Services were held last week at Madison County Executive Airport near Huntsville, Alabama, for Clyde Harold Shelton, who died after a brief illness at the age of 86. He stopped flying last Nov. 30, having given a record 10,379 checkrides. He ended his love affair with all things with wings with 38,971 flight hours, 20,000 of them as an instructor. My father had the privilege of being able to live his dream for 63 years. His dream was to fly, promote aviation and teach, Sheltons son, Scott, told local media.

While Shelton was famous as a pilot, his career with NASA helped launch and sustain the U.S. space program. Shelton worked with Werner Von Braun on all the rockets developed by NASA from the Redstone to the Saturn V. He retired after 38 years in 1993, ending his career in the shuttle program.
One of the parlor games Republicans are playing in the shadows of the Russia investigation is this: Who would President Pence pick as his vice president?

Quick refresher: If a president leaves offices for any reason, the sitting Vice President takes over and picks his number two, subject to majority vote in the House and Senate.

Quick stipulation: Yes, this is premature and highly speculative and premised solely on Trump leaving office for whatever reason.

The various theories being tossed around:
The "U.S. government has acknowledged just 20% of the more than 700 strikes carried out since 2002" in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, according to a Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic and Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies investigation.

Why it matters: Those countries are not active battlefields for the U.S., but the U.S. has allegedly been launching strikes nonetheless and hitting civilians. "It's important there are constraints" holding a country accountable on striking civilians, one of the co-authors of the study, Alex Moorehead, told Axios, because otherwise  right now  the U.S. "lowers the threshold for their use of force," which other countries could start doing, too.

Plus, launching strikes in non-hostile areas is unlawful unless one of three conditions is met: getting permission from the country to attack, getting permission from the UN to attack, or if there is an imminent (that means seconds not hours) threat.

The Pentagon told Axios it "cannot confirm a percentage that conflates Department of Defense airstrikes with others" and acknowledged one strike in Pakistan in the last 18 months. The DOD spokesperson did not immediately comment on what the downsides are to being transparent on strikes and the Pentagon said in March the rules of engagement have not changed, which applies to constraints on who and when the U.S. can strike (more on that here).

America's legal justification for launching strikes is vague: The U.S. has been claiming self-defense since 2010 when launching airstrikes against individuals in Yemen and Somalia, but the UN Charter sanctions using force against another country in self-defense, not against individuals, the authors write.

But the "war on terror" is complicating things; the Chief of Staff to U.S. Ambassador to the UN has said since the U.S. is engaged in "armed conflict" with al-Qaeda, the U.S. "may target them with lethal force wherever they may be found."

The Trump effect: The administration is "much more bellicose and willing to use force," Moorehead said, leaving a much "greater risk of abuse" of airstrikes under Trump. Already, Trump's administration has been launching airstrikes at about 5 times the pace Obama did, per the CFR. The White House did not immediately return request for comment.

Methods: The study took data The Bureau for Investigative Journalism collated on strikes in those three countries and compiled how many of these reports the U.S. government officially confirmed. TBIJ included Afghanistan in its data, but this report excluded it because "there's never been a doubt there's an armed conflict ongoing" there.
Little Marco. Crooked Hillary. Crazy Bernie. Lyin' Ted. Low-energy Jeb. Goofy Elizabeth Warren. And now ... "The Witch Hunt."

Trump, forced into campaign mode by his own actions and indiscretions, has officially branded the investigation by his own Justice Department.

His pair of tweets this morning from Camp David:

"The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm, ... massive regulation cuts, 36 new legislative bills signed, great new S.C.Justice, and Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax Cuts in works!"

"Witch Hunt" with caps is a Trump signature. He also capped it on May 31, and twice on Friday. One variation there that we're likely to see/hear again: "phony Witch Hunt."

The day before, the all-caps: "You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people!"

Longtime Trump aides tell us that during the campaign, the lifelong branding expert workshopped his nicknames, kicking around possibilities on the plane before settling on the catchiest and most subversive.

He first tweeted "witch hunt," in lower case, on May 12, three days after firing Comey, and then again on May 18, the day after Bob Mueller was appointed special counsel: "This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!"

Be smart: Trump's brio, branding and bombast can't mask the glum reality, reflected in an increasingly fatalistic mood in Trumpworld.

"There are no good days," said a confidant to the inner circle. "They are caught in the endless cycle of the off-message tweets and leaks."

Dive deeper ... "Meet Bob Mueller's team tackling the Russia investigation" ... N.Y. Times, top of col. 1, "Flynn's Disdain For Limits Led To a Legal Mire."
18 June 2017 10:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijan`s Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev has met a delegation led by EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn.

Mr. Mustafayev highlighted developing relations between Azerbaijan and EU in energy, investment, trade fields, Azertac reported.

The Minister noted EU is one of main foreign trade partners of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan`s state bodies successfully cooperate with EU. Azerbaijan-EU business forum is significant in terms of expansion of cooperation among the businessmen, he added.

The Minister said Azerbaijan attaches great importance of the cooperation with EU in the fields of energy and transport.

On importance of expansion of ties with EU, the Minister said non-oil sector is priority in Azerbaijan. He also provided an insight into the reforms carried out in the country for diversification of the economy.

Azerbaijan is interested in boosting cooperation with EU in fields of diversification of economy and export, as well as promotion of the investment and development of the entrepreneurship, he added.

Johannes Hahn delivered his congratulations on National Salvation Day and pointed out that pragmatic and practical cooperation does exist between Azerbaijan and the EU in the fields of transport, trade, connectivity and energy.

Further development perspectives of the EU-Azerbaijan relations, as well as issues of mutual interests were discussed at the meeting.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
18 June 2017 10:54 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is to make a two-day official visit to three North African countries to discuss latest regional developments and mutual relations, PressTV reported.

Zarif is to kick off his visit to Algeria, Mauritania and Tunisia on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Saturday.

He added that the top Iranian diplomat plans to hold talks with foreign ministers and heads of state of the three countries.

The visit is aimed at exploring possible avenues for strengthening relations and exchanging views about developments in the Middle East, particularly the war in Syria and the crisis involving Qatar and several other Arab countries in the Persian Gulf region, the Iranian spokesperson said.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates severed ties with Qatar in early June, officially accusing Doha of supporting terrorism and destabilizing the region, which Doha strongly denies. In their apparent bid to secure US support and that of Israel, they further suspended all land, air and sea traffic with Qatar, expelled its diplomats and ordered Qatari citizens to leave their countries.

Different foreign-backed terrorist groups have been wreaking havoc in Syria since 2011. Over the past few months, Syrian forces have made sweeping gains against Takfiri elements, who have lately increased their acts of violence across the country following a series of defeats on the ground.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated last August that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the crisis until then.

Qassemi further stressed the importance of reinforcing solidarity among Muslim countries given the ongoing developments in the region and said, The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that Muslim states must have further unity and convergence in the face of ill-wishers and those who seek to sow discord.

The Iranian foreign minister paid a visit to the North African countries of Tunisia and Algeria in August 2015.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
18 June 2017 11:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Iranian Ambassador to London Hamid Baeedinejad said on Saturday that it is too soon to show reaction to the US senate anti-Iranian bill, IRNA reported.

He made the remarks in a message released on his Instagram page.

Whether the US senate bill will accommodate Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or not needs careful review, former Iranian nuclear negotiator said, adding that the officials and institutions in charge of monitoring the JCPOA have done or will do the required investigation to see whether the new US sanctions violate the nuclear deal or not.

The US senators have claimed that they have deleted those parts of the anti-Iranian bill which breaches the US obligations enshrined in the JCPOA, he added.

Baeedinejad said that the new sanctions should be approved by the US House of Representative and it should be also signed by the US president; therefore any official reaction should be postponed to future.

Since the new anti-Iranian senate bill targets both Tehran and Moscow, its veto by the US president is possible, he noted.

On June 15, the US Senate voted for a legislation to impose non-nuclear sanctions on Iran for its defense missile programs. They voted 98-2 in favor of the legislation.

Bipartisan negotiations also led to the bill, including expanded sanctions on Russia, in response to its intrusion into Ukraine, efforts to meddle in the 2016 election and its support for the Syrian regime.

Republican Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky and Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, were the only two people who voted against the bill.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
18 June 2017 11:37 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Syria has declared a 48-hour cease-fire in the southwestern Daraa city, starting as of 12 noon local time (0900GMT) on Saturday, the Defense Ministry said, Anadolu reported.

In a statement published on its website, the Ministry said that the military operations against the opposition forces in Daraa would be halted for 48 hours.

Since June 3, the Syrian regime had been heavily attacking the city's opposition-held areas.

Guarantors Russia, Turkey and Iran had agreed on May 4 in the Kazakh capital, Astana, to establish "de-escalation zones" in war-torn Syria.

The zones would cover the city of Idlib and certain parts of Latakia, Homs, Aleppo and Hama as well as Damascus, Eastern Ghouta, Daraa and Quneitra.

Syria has been locked in civil war since March 2011. According to UN's spe-cial envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, around 400,000 people have died in the conflict while half the population has been driven from their homes.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
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Under Armour, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the developing, marketing, and distributing performance apparel, footwear, and accessories for men, women, and youth. The company offers its apparel in compression, fitted, and loose fit types. It also provides footwear products for running, training, basketball, cleated sports, recovery, and outdoor applications. In addition, the company offers accessories, which include gloves, bags, headwear, and sports masks; and digital subscription and advertising services under the MapMyRun and MapMyRide platforms. It primarily offers its products under the UNDER ARMOUR, UA, HEATGEAR, COLDGEAR, HOVR, PROTECT THIS HOUSE, I WILL, UA Logo, ARMOUR FLEECE, and ARMOUR BRA brands. The company sells its products through wholesale channels, including national and regional sporting goods chains, independent and specialty retailers, department store chains, mono-branded Under Armour retail stores, institutional athletic departments, and leagues and teams, as well as independent distributors; and directly to consumers through a network of 422 brand and factory house stores, as well as through e-commerce websites. It operates in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. Under Armour, Inc. was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.
CNO Financial Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, develops, markets, and administers health insurance, annuity, individual life insurance, and other insurance products for senior and middle-income markets in the United States. It offers Medicare supplement, supplemental health, and long-term care insurance policies; life insurance; and annuities, as well as Medicare advantage plans to individuals through phone, online, mail, and face-to-face. The company also focuses on worksite and group sales for businesses, associations, and other membership groups by interacting with customers at their place of employment. In addition, it provides fixed index annuities; fixed interest annuities, including fixed rate single and flexible premium deferred annuities; single premium immediate annuities; supplemental health products, such as specified disease, accident, and hospital indemnity products; and long-term care plans primarily to retirees and older self-employed individuals in the middle-income market. Further, the company offers universal life and other interest-sensitive life products; and traditional life policies that include whole life, graded benefit life, term life, and single premium whole life products, as well as graded benefit life insurance products. CNO Financial Group, Inc. markets its products under the Bankers Life, Washington National, and Colonial Penn brand names. The company sells its products through agents, independent producers, and direct marketing. CNO Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Carmel, Indiana.
Archbishop of Canterbury helps embattled Theresa May with private prayer sessions

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been helping embattled Prime Minister Theresa May with private prayer sessions as the country lurches from crisis to crisis.

May has been criticised for calling an unnecessary General Election, for her response to the Grenfell Tower fire and more. She is reported to have wept in Downing Street when addressing staff about the fire.

Demonstrators marched on Downing Street over the fire, which has exposed the vast gaps between rich and poor in the capital.

According to The Sun, Archbishop Justin has been helping her with private prayer after she went to him for help.

May, a vicar's daughter, is a deeply committed Christian and attends church regularly on Sundays.

The Sun says she found Welby's help 'a great comfort'.

Some of May's strongest critics are within her own party, where senior Tories fear she has lost what previously seemed an ability to connect with country and people.

According to reporter David Wooding, senior Tories have told Mrs May to shape up or go

A source told him: 'Theresa has an unshakable faith and it's no secret that she goes to church every Sunday with her husband Philip. What isn't so widely known is that she has had meetings and held prayers with the Archbishop of Canterbury.'

Welby, an evangelical, is a passionate believer in the power of prayer to change lives.

They have not met however since the General Election.
Theresa May lives on after promoting Gove and Green: divided over Brexit, united by Christian faith

They were the appointments that changed everything for Theresa May and, in the short term at least, for the country.

Until yesterday afternoon, May looked, to quote a vengeful George Osborne, like a 'dead woman walking'. She had failed to regain momentum since the disastrous collapse in Conservative support in Thursday's general election, and the internal Tory firing squad was assembling. The influential back-bench Tory 1922 Committee had just brought forward its meeting with May from Tuesday to Monday, and it appeared that the centre of gravity in the party was against her. The Tory hierarchy, so ruthless, usually, when it comes to ridding themselves of failed leaders, had processed the result and was making its move. Many journalists, including this one, thought she would be gone in 24-hours.

And then May delivered her masterstroke. Much of the country, and a good proportion of Westminster watchers, were probably taking a break from politics on Sunday afternoon when May began what some called a 'shuffle' rather than a 'reshuffle': she had already confirmed that the top six jobs would remain occupied by the same people.

She appointed Damian Green as First Secretary of State and Minister for the Cabinet Office: deputy prime minister in all but name. Green, a 61-year-old former journalist for the BBC, Channel 4 and The Times, is a highly able moderate who left journalism to work for John Major's policy unit in 1992. His former colleagues in the press reacted positively, despite the lambasted May's premiership remaining until minutes earlier on a knife edge. 'He's one of the good guys,' said one senior FT journalist. But what remained unclear is how the Daily Mail and the Sun would react. For Green is one of the most pro-European Conservative MPs in the House of Commons. An old ally and backer of the most pro-EU Tory, Kenneth Clarke, Green cut his parliamentary teeth after entering into the Commons in 1997 in the Tory Reform Group, a highly pro-European pressure group on the far left of the party. Green was sacked as a middle-ranking immigration minister by David Cameron, though brought back to be Work and Pensions Secretary by May. Nonetheless, to appoint what the rightwing press could call a 'Euro-fanatic' to such a powerful position was a risky move.

Then came the surprise Cabinet return of Michael Gove, who had languished on the back-benches since his spectacular, abortive bid to be Tory leader last summer. Though not in the top six, Gove was given one of the few remaining substantial positions, that of Environment Secretary. Gove said he was 'flattered' and 'surprised' to be given the job, which some green campaigners are already saying he is unsuited to. They pointed to a report by the Guardian in 2013 claiming that the then Education Secretary was blocked in an attempt to drop climate change from the geography national curriculum. Some suspect him to be a climate change skeptic. In fact, Gove has long taken an interest in environmental matters, and helped shape Cameron's apparently pro-green agenda while the Tories were seeking to 'modernise' in Opposition.

At 49, Gove is highly able with complicated politics, and not easily labelled as the right-wing libertarian some seek to name him as. But nonetheless he remains Rupert Murdoch's favourite British politician and has a relatively close relationship with the owner of the Sun and The Times, for which Gove, like Green, used to work (he still writes a column and some longer articles, including an interview with Donald Trump which Murdoch secured for Gove).

More importantly, Gove was the architect of Brexit, and so May had balanced her reshuffle and placated both the Sun and the Mail, for which Gove's wife, Sarah Vine, writes a column.

Green and Gove come from different wings of the Tory party, but what they have in common is their faith: they are both practising Christians while being staunch social liberals.

Indeed, Green, who is little known as a Catholic, once described himself to me as both a 'social liberal' and a 'birth Catholic,' adding: 'There are always going to be areas on which the Church and a party overlap, and areas where they don't overlap.' On his own approach, Green said of his faith: 'It is so much a part of me that I don't consciously think, "Is this a way to approach a particular political issue?'" This has been a socially liberal government and I don't agree with the Church on equal marriage.' Green went on: 'The interaction between the Church and any political party ought to be difficult and I would intensely oppose the idea of political parties being representative of a religion.'

Gove would doubtless agree with that. An Anglican and regular church-goer, Gove spoke about his faith at some length to Christian Today in February.

Gove was brought up as a member of the Church of Scotland, and his mother is a still regular churchgoer. 'My father never really had any strong religious beliefs [but] I was brought up as a Christian,' Gove explained.

'I enjoy listening to sermons and homilies, and it may be a consequence of having grown up in the Church of Scotland where the sermon is almost the centrepiece in a way that obviously the Eucharist or the Mass is in the Catholic  small or large 'C'  tradition. Gove praised the Holy Trinity Brompton vicar Nicky Gumbel as 'outstanding' and the then Bishop of London Richard Chartres 'a fantastic preacher'.

On his own faith, Gove, who said 'I am a sinner and I know it profoundly,' showed humility: 'While at different times the strength of my faith has wavered or been tested, and while I would never say that anyone should'  he laughs  'look at any of the things that I've done and say this is a pattern of Christian living  because I am a sinner and I know it profoundly -- nevertheless, I have held throughout to a belief in Christian doctrine, and while I worship now in a Church of England church rather than a Church of Scotland church, my views I would say were those of  and again it's always very difficult to pigeon hole, to define oneself  but of a straightforward, mainstream, Protestant Christian.'

By last night, after the appointments of Green and Gove, the tide had turned and May appeared safe  for now. The two main contenders to replace May, David Davis and Boris Johnson, were urging Tory MPs to back the prime minister. Johnson sent a message on a WhatsApp group telling his colleagues to get behind May and then penned an article for the Sun praising her. This morning, Davis described weekend speculation about a Tory leadership contest 'the height of self-indulgence' and also heaped compliments on May.

For her part, May yesterday morning entered her local church, St. Andrew's in Sonning, a marked woman. Whether she was inspired to make her game-changing reshuffle during the service, we do not know.

But by last night, she had salvaged an apparently doomed premiership and lived to fight another day.
Theresa May seeks in comfort in church amid brutal criticism

Theresa May and her husband sought comfort at church on Sunday as she struggles to assert authority after loosing the Conservatives' majority at the general election.

The Prime Minister was pictured heading into St Andrew's Church in Sonning, Berkshire, for communion.

The small riverside town, near Reading where George and Amal Clooney bought a nine-bedroom mansion in 2014, is in Mrs May's constituency of Maidenhead.

The vicar's daughter faces a grilling from her MPs on Monday evening as she will address the Conservative's 1922 committee of backbenchers.

She is expected to signal to colleagues she will run the government in a more inclusive, less controlling way after dismissing her two closest advisors, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill.

The Prime Minister also carried out a minor reshuffle over the weekend, bringing Michael Gove, who ran against her for Conservative leadership, back into the cabinet as environment secretary and moving Andrea Leadsom to leader of the commons.

It comes after a disastrous election campaign where the Tories fell short of the 326 seats required for an overall majority. Although they were still the largest party, the Prime Minister is in talks with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which hold 10 seats to secure a working government.

If a deal is reached the Conservatives are expected to ditch several key manifesto pledges including removing the triple lock on pensions and opting or a softer approach to Brexit.

Former chancellor George Osborne, now editor of the Evening Standard, told the BBC: 'Theresa May is a dead woman walking. It's just how long she's going to remain on death row.'
With a weakened leader and reeling from crisis, Britain hurtles into the Brexit unknown

With her strategy unclear and her position insecure, Prime Minister Theresa May plunges this week into tortuous divorce talks with the European Union that will shape Britain's prosperity and global influence for generations to come.

At one of the most important junctures for Europe and the West since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, May's government is reeling from a crisis of her own making the loss of her parliamentary majority in a June 8 snap election she did not need to call.

Such is the collapse of May's authority that her entire Brexit strategy is being picked apart in public by her ministers, her lawmakers and her allies on the eve of formal negotiations which begin in Brussels on Monday at 0900 GMT.

Despite signals from both France and Germany last week that Britain would still be welcome to stay if it changed its mind, Brexit minister David Davis insisted on Sunday there would be no turning back.

'As I head to Brussels to open official talks to leave the EU, there should be no doubt  we are leaving the European Union,' said Davis, who will launch the talks with chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier.

'Now, the hard work begins. We must secure a deal that works for all parts of the United Kingdom, and enables us to become a truly global Britain.'

Britain has less than two years to negotiate the terms of the divorce and the outlines of the future relationship before it is due to leave in late March 2019. Both sides need an agreement to keep trade flowing between the world's biggest trading bloc and the fifth largest global economy.

But the other 27 members of the EU combined have about five times the economic might of Britain. They also have a strong incentive to deny the UK a deal so attractive it might encourage others to follow the British example.

With May still hammering out the details of a post-election deal to stay in power with the support of a small Northern Irish party, there are fears of a disorderly exit that would weaken the West, imperil Britain's $2.5 trillion economy and undermine London's position as the only financial centre to rival New York.

Compounding the pressures on the British leader, she has been widely accused of failing to show enough empathy with victims of a horrific tower block fire in London last week.

One European diplomat in London said the political upheaval was such that it was difficult to know what to write back to his capital, pouring scorn on May's campaign slogan of 'strong and stable leadership'.

'What can you say of meaning about such chaos?' the diplomat asked. 'I suppose it isn't quite a strong and stable Brexit yet.'

Leaving the European Union was once far-fetched: only 15 years ago, British leaders were arguing about when to join the euro, and talk of an EU exit was the reserve of a motley crew of sceptics on the fringes of both major parties.

But the turmoil of the euro zone crisis, fears in Britain about immigration and a series of miscalculations by former Prime Minister David Cameron prompted Britain to vote by 52 to 48 percent for Brexit in a June 23 referendum last year.

Leaving the EU - the biggest blow since World War Two to European efforts at forging unity - is now the official consensus of both the Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party.

Amid such upheaval, though, there is little agreement on what kind of Brexit May should try for - even assuming she can hold onto her job.

'The United Kingdom's political tectonic plates are moving at the very moment when we are negotiating Brexit,' said Anand Menon, professor of politics at King's College London.

Before the election, May proposed a clean break from the EU: leaving its single market, which enshrines free movement of people, goods, services and capital, and proposing limits on immigration and a bespoke customs deal with the EU.

Opponents describe that as a 'hard Brexit'. They argue instead for a 'soft' version, prioritising some form of continued access to the single market in order to minimise economic damage.

While European leaders try to gauge what to expect from Britain, May is so weakened that her own finance minister and the partners on whom she will rely for her majority, Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, are giving her public guidance.

'My clear view, and I believe the view of the majority of people in Britain, is that we should prioritize protecting jobs, protecting economic growth, protecting prosperity as we enter those negotiations,' finance minister Philip Hammond said.

While Britain's economy has shown unexpected resilience since the Brexit vote, there are signs of weakness. Business leaders say the uncertainty means they are having to plan on the assumption that Britain leaves without a proper deal.

'Everything is all over the place,' said a senior executive responsible for Brexit preparations at a FTSE 100 company. 'It's a bit of a dog's breakfast at the moment because there is a lot of manoeuvring and a lot of moving parts.'

Brexiteers accept there is likely to be some short-term economic pain but say Britain will thrive in the longer term if cut loose from what they see as a doomed experiment in German-dominated unity and excessive debt-funded welfare spending.

Opponents of Brexit fear that ditching a 60-year strategy of trying to hedge European integration with a special relationship with Washington or a brittle Commonwealth of former colonies would undermine what remains of Britain's global influence.

The first issue at the Brussels talks will be the status of millions of EU citizens living in the United Kingdom and British residents of the other 27 countries, including their right to stay, to work, and to access medical care.

The extent of Britain's exit bill needs to be decided, with the EU27 expected to seek tens of billions of euros they see as London's fair share of programmes to which it has committed.

The situation in Ireland - where the only land border between the EU and United Kingdom will lie - will also be discussed.

May wants to negotiate the divorce and the future trading relationship before Britain leaves, followed by what she calls a phased implementation process to give business time to prepare for the impact of Brexit.

The EU wants to deal with the first phase of divorce talks before moving on next year to discuss trade, though EU officials acknowledge that the agreements to be reached before Britain leaves can only be concluded as a whole package simultaneously.

Three days after the talks begin, May is due to travel to Brussels for an EU summit - a chance for the other 27 leaders to take stock of their negotiating partner in the sharply altered climate brought about by the dramas of the past two weeks.
125 YEARS AGO

From 1892: In order to vote your name must appear on the Grand Register.

At half past 3 oclock a.m. the men working at the A. T. Cornish Bottling Works were startled by a puff of smoke. They rushed out and found the dwelling of J. H. Ramsey lying just a few feet west was in flames. With heavy southwest winds the whole bottling works was burning within a few minutes, with flames roaring like a furnace. The next door dwelling of J. H. Ramsey ignited. No other buildings burned with the hard and timely work of citizens who rushed to the scene upon the first alarm.

It is supposed that the fire was ignited by sparks from a freight engine that had just pulled up the grade.

The old brewery building was among the first built in Old Town in 1885 owned now by John Clark and insured for $700. A.T. Cornish who occupied the building with his beer, ice and bottling works, lost his entire stock of goods and equipment aside from a small bottle corker and 100 kegs of beer in the cellar with insurance of $1,500. His loss valued at $4,000.

The Ramsey dwelling also built in 1885 was of logs. A portion of the belongings were saved with loss estimated at $1,600 and insurance at $400.

The Atlantic & Pacific Building Association have made their first assessment of their stock and now have several thousand dollars in Treasury Contracts and have bid for building 10, 4-room cottages, 5 in Williams and 5 in Winslow. They will be built of brick and the cost not to exceed $800 each.

The Territorial Board of Equalization has assessed the Atlantic & Pacific $3,886 per mile and rolling stock $197,000 total average per mile of road @ $5000. The Arizona Central (the Flagstaff Road) mainline is valued @ $1000, the Prescott & Arizona Central Railroad mainline right-of-way and so @ $4,802.86 per mile with rolling stock raised to $11,700, their Round House at Prescott raised $750.00 plus the pump house at Bangharts $250, and all additional right-of-way total value $5,000 per mile.

100 YEARS AGO

From 1917: The band formed in February by our local boys is holding a dance on Friday night with the purpose of raising funds to purchase uniforms and to cover other needed expenses.

Teams and equipment for roadwork have been taken to Maine for the grading work between Maine and Williams. F. R. Goodman will be in charge of the work.

Auto Fan Belts made in any size or width while you wait. W. H. Switzer. Ph. 94.

John G. Gutherie Forest Supervisor, in conference with the Flagstaff Boad of Trade, the City Council, the State Land Dept. and the Forest Service has made an agreement for a Special Use Permit for an indefinite time period in which 146.2 acres of land located along the north side of City Park be added to said City Park. The purpose of this being to improve the size and use of the park. The Elks plan to use the space for camping over the Fourth of July.

75 YEARS AGO

From 1942: The earth was shaken at Tuba City at 2:30 a.m. on Monday. It followed a smaller shake a few weeks ago. No damage was sustained.

ID tags for children are on sale at the Monte Vista each Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. They are sponsored by the Womens Club and cost 25 cts. for a silver one or 10 cts for nickel. Each has the childs name and phone number. Mrs. Wilbur McKinzie.

Spare rooms are needed. You can establish a patriotic and profitable modernization in your attic and basement. Loans are available from the Bank of Arizona.

A Sheriffs Posse is to be organized with 10 to 15 horsemen ready to be available within 15 minutes anywhere in the county where they are needed. Sheriff Perry and Bob Hansel veteran cowboy and Director of the Pow Wow are in charge.

The Annual Pow Wow Dance sponsored by the Business and Professional Womens Club will be June 20 at the Monte Vista. 9:30 p.m.1:30 a.m. Admission $1.10.

The old rubber drive has begun. Discarded tires and other items are pouring in to various Service Stations. They are coming from the Indian Reservation, farms, ranches, homes, businesses and industrial plants. 1 cent paid per pound for all rubber.

The wood pile, garage and chicken house at the Bill Ardrey residence burned down last Saturday afternoon. The cause remains unknown.

A burning trash pile at Elden and Birch set the grass afire Tuesday. It was swiftly extinguished by our fire department.

Wanted: 3 organs or pianos. There is a great need at the Navajo Ordnance Project for religious services. Box 500 Coconino Sun.

A fire at the hospital caused by a blow torch scorching old paint from the exterior walls of Mercy Hospital became serious Saturday morning. Good work by the Volunteer Fire Department saved the building and held the damage to about $2,000. The Patients were removed.

H. 82 Tues. L. 37 Sat. Still no rain

50 YEARS AGO

From 1967: Enterprise Road between Rt. 66 and Butler in the Flagstaff Industrial Park is to be paved although Mayor Rollin Wheeler protests that this establishes a bad precedent. It will be approximately 300 feet in length and City Manager expects it to cost $12,111. $7,038 will come from the property owners with balance paid by the city. The work will be done by city crews.

The paper mill may possibly resume production if a new water supply can possibly be arranged. The payroll would amount to approximately $65,000 per month with full production. Water conservation is a part of the plan.

A change in zoning from R -1 to R-3 in the newly annexed Cheshire Properties North of Coconino Estates to allow for the building of apartment houses has met with a massive protest by 132 adjoining property owners.

There have been several brush fires caused by children playing with matches.

Youre invited to the Grand opening at Mt. Elden Park Saturday and Sunday. All streets, sewers and sidewalks are in and paid for. Mountains in the background. 3 and 4 bedrooms homes beginning at $21,450. VA & FHA Housing loans available. 5 minutes from downtown. Refreshments will be served. Go north on Beaver Street to where it ends on the hillside. Thomas E, Breen & Co.

H. 81 Thurs. L. 40 Wed, Rain 0.45 Mon.

25 YEARS AGO

From 1992: According to City Police, the FBI was on the scene within minutes after a robber presented a teller at Valley National Bank with a note demanding money. The robber departed with an undisclosed sum of money remains at large and is being sought. There are no roadblocks since no vehicle was noticed.

Flagstaffs First Grad-Nite Party held in the Recreation Center on NAUs North Campus was rated a Success despite the smaller than hoped for crowd. The 2 sponsors said for a first all-three-high-school event it went well and have several suggestions for improvements in future years.

Sedona is planning for the next wave of tourism rather seeing their Red Rocks disappear in a haze of smog and seeing their life style crumble. A team from Coconino & Yavapai Counties, The Forest Service and the City of Sedona has prepared a 103 page report outlining the areas concerns about air quality, scenic resources, small town/rural atmosphere, solid waste disposal, transportation and water resources.
World's largest Baptist university rescinds degree bestowed on comedian Bill Cosby

Back in 2003, the world's largest Baptist university bestowed upon comedian Bill Cosby an honorary doctorate degree.

However, that was before the sexual allegations made against the actor came to light.

Now, Baylor University is joining several other schools in rescinding the degree it gave to Cosby due to his "acts of interpersonal and sexual violence" that goes against the school's values.

About 50 women have already come forward accusing Cosby of drugging, raping, and sexually assaulting them, according to Charisma News. The incidents occurred decades ago, therefore putting into play the statute of limitations for legal actions.

Cosby has denied all of the allegations, but Baylor University refuses to let its good name be tarnished by the accusations hurled against him.

"Baylor University is working to confront the scourge of interpersonal and sexual violence wherever it occurs," the school said in a statement. Baylor's Board of Regents made the decision on Thursday and revoked the honorary degree on Friday.

Earlier this year, another group called Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment (PAVE) has demanded that the White House revoke Cosby's Medal of Freedom, which was given to him in 2002.

Angela Rose, executive director of the victims group PAVE, wrote in their website, "The presidential medal of freedom is the highest honor award to an American civilian. Bill Cosby's name does not belong among this distinguished list. Cosby admitted to procuring drugs to have sex with women without their consent. We cannot yet give his accusers their day in court, but we can fight back in the court of public opinion."

However, President Barack Obama has already said that even if he condemns the actions made by Cosby, he cannot revoke the award.

"I'll say this. If you give a woman  or a man, for that matter  without his or her knowledge a drug, and then have sex with that person without consent, that's rape. And I think this country, any civilised country, should have no tolerance for rape," he said, according to NBC News.
A bill in New Yorks city council would require the New York Police Department to reveal crucial details about every surveillance technology that the department uses to detect terrorism and crime. Ninety days before the NYPD intends to implement a new surveillance technology, it would have to post on the Internet a technical description of how the new tool works, and how the department plans to use it. The public would have 45 days to comment on the proposed technology; the police commissioner would then have 45 days to respond to the public comments before he could actually start using the new capacity. Existing technologies would also have to be retroactively submitted to public review.

Perhaps aware that this moment may not be ideal for promoting what would be, in effect, a terrorists manual on how to evade discovery in New York City, the bills supporters have hilariously taken to casting it as a pro-illegal alien, anti-Trump gesture. New York is a sanctuary city, now in open resistance to the Trump administration, two members of the Brennan Center for Justice wrote in an op-ed advocating for the so-called Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act. (The Brennan Center wrote the POST Act for council members; the center has pushed similar bills across the country, including in Seattle and Oakland, two cities that have been particularly vulnerable to anti-fascist violence.) The city council press release claims that the bill strengthens New York Citys commitment as a sanctuary city . . . as the Trump administration seeks to increase surveillance across America.

In fact, the proposed law has nothing to do with New Yorks deplorable status as a sanctuary city. Criminal illegal aliens avoid lawful deportation in New York because city and police officials release them back to the streets in defiance of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests, not because of sophisticated surveillance technologies. But though the bill would have no effect on the citys campaign to thwart immigration enforcement, it would impede the citys ability to stay one step ahead of terrorist planning. Memo to the council: counterterrorism is not a leisurely activity compatible with lengthy public review and administrative red tape. It requires nimbleness and speed in the face of a rapidly evolving threat. And disclosing to the enemy the extent of, and details about, your surveillance capacities provides an invaluable blueprint for foiling those capacities.

Supporters of the bill are playing the race card as well, claiming that the bill is necessary to counter the NYPDs historic tendency to oppress minorities. The managing director of the Bronx Defenders claims, without evidence, that the NYPD has illegally surveilled Black Lives Matter activists. Council members Dan Garodnick and Vanessa Gibson argue that Surveillance technology often has a disproportionate, harmful impact on communities of color. This claim is ludicrous. The radiation detectors that ring the city looking for nuclear threats, say, or the network of public cameras that protect critical infrastructure and sensitive buildings, have no disproportionate impact on minorities or any other group, other than on someone looking to do the city harm.

As for privacy concerns, the anti-surveillance Left has never grasped the constitutional principle that the Fourth Amendment has no bearing on activities conducted in the open. A police officer does not need a warrant to observe a suspicious individual on a street casing a target; the police department does not need a warrant to erect a camera in a public space capturing activities visible to other members of the public. The NYPD does need to persuade a court that it has probable cause to surveil any activity involving a legitimate expectation of privacy, such as a cell-phone conversation, and the department complies with those warrant requirements. Any surveillance that could implicate political activity already is subject to extensive judicial and civilian oversight.

Pretending to have expertise on terror tactics, the Brennan Center declares that none of the information disclosed through the POST Act will be of value to a potential terrorist or criminal. The chance that Brennan Center lawyers understand better than the NYPDs counterterrorist experts how terrorists leverage information is zero.

The council press release frankly acknowledges that the bill is just a first step toward limiting the unchecked use of surveillance technologies that . . . feed into a broader national surveillance state. In other words: If we get this bill, were coming for more. Many of the laws supporters, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, oppose all government secrecy, no matter how essential to public safety. But the agenda of the POST Act is broader even than shutting down lawful surveillance. It is the latest outgrowth of the movement to eviscerate all policing, a movement that encompasses the councils ongoing effort to end public-order enforcement (also known as broken-windows policing). That movement now drapes itself in anti-Trump fervor. If it succeeds, the public will have much more to fear than the fictitious national surveillance state.

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Member 13286611 wrote: Any thoughts? Yes. You should upgrade to VB.NET, as VB6 is no longer supported.



There is also no reason not to. VB.NET is available for free, and would work happily with Win7.



If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] Bastard Programmer from Hell



how to add check box in datagrid in VB 6 . 0







If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] Bastard Programmer from Hell



Hello guys .....i am actually new to VB and am trying to create a system which must be used by teachers to grade pupils marks that is if a teacher imputs a mark in the system it must show whetehr the mark grade is an A GRADE OR B GRADE , OR U GRADE so ........can you help me ASAP



I an running Windows 10 Home edition on a 64-bit machine with 16gb of memory. Windows Build version 1703 Build # 15063.413



On Jun 15-16 a notification popped up on my screen indicating that Windows need to do some prep work for the upcoming Windows Creator update. I responded affirmatively and there after Windows installed an update which took several hours.



Now all of a sudden Visual Studio 2010 has started crashing when loading a solution/project or executing a project.

This does not happen every time. Also Visual Studio seems to take longer to load and when building/compiling a project it seems to take a lot longer.



I reinstalled Visual Studio 2010 but that did not seem to help.



Has anyone experienced similar problems?



hello everyone.

i need some help, i have a problem on my project in my Visual basic 6.0 like this

run-time error '-2147467259 (80004005)': [Mysql] [ODBC.51 driver] [mysqld-5.6.0] no database selected





Never underestimate the power of human stupidity

RAH



Member 13265037 wrote: no database selected There is a clue in that message.



I looked at program that counts the line and

vbproj tree

vbproj

vbprojinf

maybe I am searching for the wrong thing or using wrong words when searching but.

I have a program that has a lot of text boxes and list boxes and it works. i just need to be able to unhide or hide or make it visible not visible but I not know which is which in the frames. the codes has like 10,000 lines or or around there. been using it for years. Thanks.





I downloaded a program that counts lines in a vb6 projects but I wish to exposes the containers in a running vb6 IDE.

I not want people to do the work for me. I want to learn and do as I go. I tried active dll and activeX thinking to hook into exposed properties of the running vb6 IDE. if you know of a program or a partial program that attempts to do that then maybe it will show me something I not think of before. what would you do. (If possible point me in the correct direction or where to look and learn. What I am trying to do is to open and run the program and then run the 2nd program which is compiled which will look in the first vb6 IDE running program and look for the exposed properties in the vb6 IDE running and turnoff frames or makes invisible or this way because it is running the results are almost right away and I can see where the controls are and decide what to do with it. I hope I am not too confusing. Sorry I am deaf and really not use speak English. I used vb3 to vb6. Used Dos all the way to windows 10. Will continue to look and ask around and read vb6 programming books in pdf formats.



Hello, I use this code to try to sort my desktop icons, but noway... ' Declaration ' ------------- ' API declarations Public Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" _ Alias "SendMessageA" _ (ByVal hwnd As Long, _ ByVal wMsg As Long, _ ByVal wParam As Long, _ LPARAM As Any) As Long Public Const LVS_SORTASCENDING = &H10 Public Const LVM_SORTITEMS = (LVM_FIRST + 48) ' and others declarations... ' code in sub procedure ' --------------------- Public Sub sortIconsByNameAsc() h = GetDesktopWindow() ' hwnd for desktop Call SendMessage(h, LVM_SORTITEMS, LVS_SORTASCENDING, h) end sub



Hey guys,



i would like to know how do i map my own keys under a variable?!!

I have this smallcode:



VB Private Sub Form1_KeyDown(sender As Object , e As KeyEventArgs) Handles Me .KeyDown Dim AKEY = ComboBox2.Text If e.KeyCode = AKEY Then End If End Sub



Is there a way to use Letters instead of numbers in my ComboBox?

Thanks you!



modified 7-Jan-19 21:02pm.





You should explain 'a little bit' more ...





I have a piece of code to play a sound and when i press a key the sound is played..



what i want is to select a key from a combobox (A/B/S/D any key) to play that sound!

Basicaly i want to map the key to play the sound via a combobox!



I hope the explanation is better now...



modified 7-Jan-19 21:02pm.





Why do you want to use a Combobox for that ?

What is exactly the goal ?

English is also not my first language ... but if I have a question and want an answer it is necessary to explain what I want or need. So it is up to you again ...





well yes...my goal is to make a drum machine that plays several drums..

The combobox would be used to map which key plays each drum!!



for eg.

Drum 1 - Combobox value "A/B/C/D Key ...etc"

Drum 2 - ComboBox2 value "A/B/C/D whatever"



I want to assign keys to my drums via several Combobox controls..so that the user might choose which key he wants for each Drum!!!



modified 7-Jan-19 21:02pm.


Snap Inc. is a social media company operating globally. The company was founded in September 2011 by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. Originally known as Snapchat, the company changed its name to Snap in order to represent its offerings better as it grew over the years. The companys headquarters are in Santa Monica, California and it is a very tightly held company. The original founders, Evan Speigel and Bobby Murphy own a combined 45% of non-dilutable shares with ownership transferable to the other upon death. The two remain active in the company today serving on the board and acting as CEO (Speigel) and CTO (Murphy).

The company was formerly known as Snapchat, Inc. and changed its name to Snap Inc. in September 2016. Snap Inc. was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. Over the years it has been courted by most of the big tech companies including Facebook and Google but has always opted to remain a standalone company. The business went public in 2017 and raised $30 billion on its opening day which is about 10 times the expected amount.

Today, Snap operates as a camera company internationally. The companys main revenue streams are Snapchat, a mobile app for cameras and communications, and Spectacles, a wearable augmented reality device. Snapchat is a camera app that allows users to take pictures and tell stories, the platform also permits ad sales which is an integral part of the revenue and earnings. The companys mission? To empower people to express themselves in todays digital world.

Spectacles is a hardware device that can connect with Snapchat to deliver pictures and video from a point-of-view perspective. The company has since made three upgrades to the original version and has a Next Generation model available too. The Next Generation of Spectacles are not intended for sale but will be made available to creators who wish to push the boundaries of video and digital communications.

In October 2022 the company reported it had more than 347milion daily active users with more than 250 million engaging with AR each day. The platform had more than 250,000 Lens creators (Lenses are AR experiences) with more than 2.5 million lenses created. There were more than 6 billion lens plays each day and more than 75% of 13-34-year-olds in 20 countries were users.
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.
Bernie Dumas is retiring as president and CEO of the Nanaimo Port Authority, effective September 30, 2017.

After nearly 40 years of working in the marine industry across Canada it is time to dedicate more time to my family and personal pursuits, Dumas said in a prepared statement.

The past nine years as the president and CEO of the Nanaimo Port Authority have been the most enjoyable and gratifying time of my career. I am pleased to have been part of the NPAs transformation from a forest product distribution center to a multimodal port operation.

Port Authority Board Chair Moira Jenkins lauded Dumas for his vision and innovation as leader of the port authority. His many accomplishments reflect his exceptional commitment. He has led the ports transformation from a forest products distribution center, to a multimodal port operation, establishing Nanaimo as the main marine gateway for trade to and from the island, Jenkins said.

Through Bernies vision, and with the introduction of DP World and containerization, the ports short-sea shipping service now connects Vancouver Island to new global markets for island manufacturers. Bernie has been instrumental in the development of the Marine Domain Awareness System, a program which is considered one of the best in Canada, and ensures safety for our harbor and for the coast. Nanaimo can take pride in establishing this service which is highly valued by our marine community, Jenkins added.

The Nanaimo Port Authority is one of 18 Port Authorities across Canada, established under the Canada Marine Act to promote and support the national, regional and local economies and to ensure a safe and secure harbor for cargo operations.
The Majestic Princess today made her maiden call to Marina Bay Cruise Centre, marking the completion of her 28-day voyage which started in Rome on May 21.

Majestic Princess visit also marks the closing of the cruise season for 2016-2017 at Marina Bay Cruise Centre, according to a statement.

We are thrilled for Majestic Princess to call at Singapore. The ship is fully booked with guests from across the world such as USA, UK, Australia and some are closer to home from Malaysia and Singapore. We are delighted these guests have shown great enthusiasm in wanting to sail on our new ship to try out her exciting new features which deliver an exceptional cruise experience, said Farriek Tawfik, Director of Southeast Asia, Princess Cruises.

The Majestic Princess will offer two new 14-Day Grand Asia voyages sailing from Shanghai to Singapore on 25 February 2018 and Singapore to Shanghai on March 11 2018. Majestic Princess will also begin her deployment in Australia from September 2018 to March 2019 after which she will return to China.

Photo Credit: Princess Cruises
Swedbank AB (publ) provides various banking products and services to individuals and companies. The company operates through Swedish Banking, Baltic Banking, and Large Corporates & Institutions segments. It offers savings accounts, mutual funds and insurance savings, pension savings, institutional asset management, and other savings and investment products; private residential lending, consumer financing, corporate lending, leasing, other financing products, trade finance, and factoring services; and current accounts, cash handling, debit and credit cards, card acquiring, other payment products, as well as domestic, international, mobile, and document payments. The company also provides equity trading, structured products, corporate finance, custody services, fixed income and currency trading, and other capital market products; and administrative services, treasury operations, real estate brokerage and management, legal services, safe deposit boxes, and others. In addition, it offers asset management, as well as life insurance and pension services; investment and trading services, including currency, fixed income, and equity and related derivatives services, as well as structured products; advisory and investment banking products and services, such as corporate financing, debt capital market, leveraged finance, and loans and syndication; and transaction banking services comprising cash management, trade finance, securities, commercial payments, account, and clearing and settlement services. Further, the company provides telephone, Internet, and mobile banking services. The company operates 153 branches in Sweden, 17 branches in Estonia, 21 in Latvia, and 42 in Lithuania. It also has operations in Norway, Finland, Denmark, China, the United States, and South Africa. The company was formerly known as ForeningsSparbanken AB and changed its name to Swedbank AB (publ) in September 2006. Swedbank AB (publ) was founded in 1820 and is headquartered in Sundbyberg, Sweden.
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates regulated exchanges, clearing houses, and listings venues for commodity, financial, fixed income, and equity markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Singapore, Israel, and Canada. It operates through three segments: Exchanges, Fixed Income and Data Services, and Mortgage Technology. The company operates marketplaces for listing, trading, and clearing an array of derivatives contracts and financial securities, such as commodities, interest rates, foreign exchange, and equities, as well as corporate and exchange-traded funds; trading venues, including 13 regulated exchanges and 6 clearing houses; and offers futures and options products for energy, agricultural and metals, financial, cash equities and equity, over-the-counter, and other markets, as well as listings and data and connectivity services. It also provides fixed income data and analytic, fixed income execution, CDS clearing, and other multi-asset class data and network services. In addition, the company offers proprietary and comprehensive mortgage origination platform, which serves residential mortgage loans; closing solutions that provides customers connectivity to the mortgage supply chain and facilitates the secure exchange of information; data and analytics services; and Data as a Service for lenders to access data and origination information. Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
The following companies are subsidiares of TE Connectivity: 999 Arques Corp., ABB ENTRELEC terminal block business, ACC Telecommunications, ADC Chile Limitada, ADC Communications (SEA) Pte. Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Holding Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Ltd., ADC Communications Hong Kong Limited, ADC Telecommunications Equipment (Shanghai) Co., AMP Amermex, AMP Products Pacific Limited, AMP Taiwan B.V., AMP Trading B.V., AMP de Venezuela, Acalon Holdings Limited, Advanced Fiber Products LLC, Advanced Fiber Products Limited, Advanced Tube Technologies, AdvancedCath, AdvancedCath Technologies, Alpha Technics, American Sensor Technologies, Betatherm (R&D) Limited, Brantner Holding Company, Brantner and Associates, Butterfly Management SAS, C.S. Tyco Decisive Inc., C.S. Tyco Dependable Inc., C.S. Tyco Durable Inc., C.S. Tyco Reliance Inc., C.S. Tyco Resolute Inc., C.S. Tyco Responder Inc., CII Guardian International Limited, Cablotec GmbH, Carrier Kheops Bac SAS, Catheter and Disposable Technology, Celis Eletrocomponentes Ltda., Cima de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Clarebury Pty. Ltd., Codenoll Technology Corporation, Communication Expert International Investments Limited, Compagnie Deutsch Distribution SAS, Compagnie Deutsch SAS, Comtec Systeme GmbH, Connecteurs Electriques Deutsch SAS, Corcom, Corcom West Indies Limited, Cotsworks LLC, Creganna, Creganna Captial Holding Ireland Unlimited Company, Creganna Finance (US) LLC, Creganna Finance Ireland Limited, Creganna Luxembourg SARL, Creganna Medical Devices, Creganna Medical Pte. Limited, Creganna Medical Technology Unlimited, Creganna Medical s.r.l., Creganna Regulatory, Creganna Solutions Limited, Creganna Solutions Unlimited Company, Creganna Tactx Singapore Limited, Creganna Unlimited Company, Cregstar Bidco Limited, Critchley Group Limited, Crompton Instruments (South-East Asia) Pte. Ltd., Deutsch, Deutsch Connectors Hong Kong Limited, Deutsch Connectors Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Connectors Trading (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Finance SAS, Deutsch GB Limited, Deutsch Group SAS, Deutsch India Power Connectors (Pvt) Ltd, Deutsch Israel Ltd., Deutsch SAS, Deutsch Servicios S. de R.L. De C.V., Deutsch Subco Limited, Deutsch UK, F.A.I. Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, First Sensor, Grangehurst Enterprises Pty. Ltd., Hirschmann Car Communication, Hong Kong Sensors Technologies Limited, Howard A. Schaevitz Technologies, Intercontec Connector System (Shanghai) Co., Intercontec Produkt GmbH, Intercontect Pfeiffer Industrie-Steckverbindungen GmbH, Jaquet North America, Jaquet Technology Group AG, Kemex Holding Company, Kenabell Holding Limited, LADD Distribution LLC, LADD Distribution Limited, LSA, MEAS Asia Limited, MEAS Europe SAS, MEAS France SAS, MEAS Ireland (Betatherm) Limited, MEAS Norway AS, MEAS Shenzhen Limited, MEAS Switzerland S.a r.l., MEAS US Holding, MP&E, Measurement Specialties, Measurement Specialties (Chengdu) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd. Production Branch, Measurement Specialties Foreign Holdings LLC, Measurement Technology (Chengdu) Ltd., Medical Engineering & Design, MicroGroup, Morlynn Ceramics Pty. Ltd., Nikkiso-Therm Co., PT KRONE Indonesia, PT. Tyco Electronics Indonesia, Pfeiffer GmbH & Co KG, Pfeiffer Verwaltungs GmbH, Polamco, Polamco Limited, Potter & Brumfield de Mexico, Precision Interconnect LLC, Precision Subsea AS, Precision Wire Components, Precision Wire Holding Company, Produxx, RAYCHEM-RPG Private Limited, Raychem (HK) Limited, Raychem (Shanghai) Trading Ltd, Raychem China Limited, Raychem Dominicana S.A., Raychem Industries BVBA, Raychem International LLC, Raychem International Manufacturing LLC, Raychem Juarez, Raychem Limited, Raychem Ltd., Raychem Pacific Corporation, Raychem Saudi Arabia Limited, Raychem Shanghai Cable Accessories Ltd, Raychem Technologies Limited, Rochester Wire and Cable LLC, SEACON Advanced Products LLC, Seacon (Europe) Limited, Seacon Global Production, Seacon Produtos e Servicos Opticos e Eletricos Ltda., Sensitive Object, Servo Interconnect Limited, Shanghai CII Electronics Co., Shenzhen Century Man Communication Equipment Co., Sibas Electronics (Xiamen) Co., TCN Holding (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., TE Connectivity (Barbados) SRL, TE Connectivity (Denmark) ApS, TE Connectivity (HKZ) Holding Limited, TE Connectivity (Kunshan) Company Limited, TE Connectivity (Netherlands) Holding S.a r.l. - Irish Branch, TE Connectivity (Schweiz) Management AG, TE Connectivity (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Argentina S.R.L., TE Connectivity Australia Pty Ltd, TE Connectivity Colombia S.A.S., TE Connectivity Connectors (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Distribution (Thailand) Limited, TE Connectivity EMEA Holding GmbH, TE Connectivity Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity HK Limited, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen E-Finance branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. (Ireland Branch), TE Connectivity Holding International S.A., TE Connectivity Inc., TE Connectivity India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A., TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Ireland Limited, TE Connectivity LATAM Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM I S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Limited, TE Connectivity MOG Europe S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Inc., TE Connectivity MOG Sales GmbH, TE Connectivity Manufacturing (Thailand) Company Limited, TE Connectivity Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., TE Connectivity Morocco SARL, TE Connectivity Nederland B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Poland II) Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Turkey) B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Phoenix Optix Inc., TE Connectivity Seacon Phoenix Inc., TE Connectivity Sensors Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity Services India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Solutions GmbH, TE Connectivity South Africa Proprietary Limited, TE Connectivity Spain, TE Connectivity SubCom S.L.U., TE Connectivity SubCom Spain Holding S.L.U., TE Connectivity Technology Solutions Limited, TE Connectivity Tunisia Sarl, TE Connectivity ULC, TE Connectivity US Group Holding Inc., TE Connectivity Vietnam Holding Company Limited, TYCO Electronics Polska Sp.z.o.o., TYCO SUBMARINE SYSTEMS INC., TacPro, Tactx Medical, Taicang Speed & Spin Sensors Co., Taliq Taiwan Limited, Tappat Engineering Pty Ltd, TechDevice Costa Rica Limitada, TechDevice Holdings, TechDevice LLC, The Whitaker LLC, Transoceanic Cable Ship Company LLC, TyCom Holdings II SA, TyCom Networks (Peru) S.A., Tyco Electronics (AMP Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Dongguan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Holding Limited, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics (Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Kunshan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Tyco Electronics (Qingdao) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Schweiz) Holding II GmbH, Tyco Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Tyco Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Suzhou) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Zhuhai) Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Guangdong Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Italia Products S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Italia S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Korea Co., Tyco Electronics AMP Manufacturing (S) Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Qingdao Ltd., Tyco Electronics AMP Shanghai Ltd., Tyco Electronics Austria GmbH, Tyco Electronics Belgium EC BVBA, Tyco Electronics Brasil Ltda., Tyco Electronics Canada ULC, Tyco Electronics China (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Componentes Electromecanicos Lda., Tyco Electronics Corby Limited, Tyco Electronics Corporation, Tyco Electronics Czech s.r.o., Tyco Electronics Del Peru S.A.C., Tyco Electronics EC Trutnov s.r.o., Tyco Electronics EC Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Tyco Electronics Eta Limited, Tyco Electronics Finance Alpha GmbH, Tyco Electronics Finance S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Finland Oy, Tyco Electronics France SAS, Tyco Electronics Germany Holdings GmbH, Tyco Electronics Group S.A., Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (French Branch), Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (Ireland Branch), Tyco Electronics H.K. Limited, Tyco Electronics Hellas MEPE, Tyco Electronics Holding Corp., Tyco Electronics Holding France, Tyco Electronics Holding S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited, Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited Taiwan Branch, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 1 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 2 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 3 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hungary Termelo Kft, Tyco Electronics Idento, Tyco Electronics India (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Industrial Y Comercial Chile Limitada, Tyco Electronics Integrated Cable Systems LLC, Tyco Electronics Ireland Limited, Tyco Electronics Israel Ltd., Tyco Electronics Italia Holding S.r.l., Tyco Electronics Japan G.K., Tyco Electronics Lambda, Tyco Electronics Latin America Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics Manufacturing Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Mexico, Tyco Electronics Middle East FZE, Tyco Electronics Motors Ltd, Tyco Electronics NZ Limited, Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Germany Holding) S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar China) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands Holding B.V., Tyco Electronics Norge AS, Tyco Electronics Philippines, Tyco Electronics Precision Engineering Ltd., Tyco Electronics Printed Circuit Group LP, Tyco Electronics RIMC Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics RUS OOO, Tyco Electronics Raychem GmbH, Tyco Electronics Raychem Korea Limited, Tyco Electronics SIMEL SAS, Tyco Electronics Saudi Arabia Limited, Tyco Electronics Services GmbH, Tyco Electronics Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications LLC, Tyco Electronics Svenska AB, Tyco Electronics Svenska Holdings AB, Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Co., Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Ltd., Tyco Electronics Tecnologias S. de R.L. de C.V., Tyco Electronics UK Holdings Ltd, Tyco Electronics UK Ltd., Tyco Electronics UK Ltd. (Kenya Branch), Tyco Electronics Ukraine Limited, Tyco Electronics Uruguay S.A., Tyco Electronics Verwaltungs GmbH, Tyco Electronics Wireless Systems B.V., Tyco Electronics de Venezuela, Tyco Elektronik AMP Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Tyco Global Networks Ltd., Tyco Iberia, Tyco International Services GmbH, Tyco Networks (Argentina) S.R.L., Tyco Networks (Italy) Srl, Tyco Networks (Netherlands) B.V., Tyco Networks Iberica, Tyco Submarine Systems, Tyco Submarine Systems C.A., Tyco Submarine Systems de Argentina S.A., Tyco Telecommunications Ltd., Wema Americas LLC, Wema Automotive System Private Limited, Wema Environmental Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies (Shenzhen) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies Ltd., Wema System AG, Wema System AS, Wema System Hong Kong Limited, Wema System Production and Distribution HK Limited, Xiamen Delixing Electric Equipment Businesss, and motec Montage GmbH.

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Sainsburys is closing in on a takeover of Nisa Retail, the member-owned convenience store group - but is set to face a rebellion from independent shopkeepers opposed to its demutualisation. Britains second-biggest supermarket chain is understood to have won a bidding war with the Co-operative Group for Nisa, which has 2,900 stores and 1.3bn in sales. Sainsburys is said to have offered 2,500 a share, valuing Nisa at 130m, based on 52,000 shares in issue - The Sunday Times

Fears are growing of a recruitment crisis for British business in the event of a hard Brexit with almost half of companies reporting a drop in the number of EU nationals applying for jobs. The vast majority of firms want a soft Brexit and half of those questioned believe negotiations  which are due to begin in Brussels tomorrow - should be delayed because the prospects of a good deal have been damaged by the shock Election result. - Mail on Sunday

Lloyds Banking Group is expected to extend the deadline for making compensation offers to victims of the HBOS Reading fraud, as it emerged only one of 64 affected customers has received compensation. Lloyds had pledged to do so by the end of June. The compensation is too come from 100m the bank has set aside for the victims of the fraud, which took place between 2003 and 2007 before it bought HBOS at the height of the financial crisis. - The Observer

Jaguar Land Rover is drawing up plans to hire an extra 5,000 engineers and technical staff in the next 12 months in what will be seen as a major boost to the UK economy ahead of its departure from the European Union. The recruitment drive, which could be announced this week, will see the countrys biggest automotive business - which produced 544,000 cars on its British production lines last year - increase its domestic workforce by almost 15pc to 42,000. - Sunday Telegraph

Barclays could be hit with criminal charges this week over its Gulf-backed emergency fundraising in 2008. Following a five-year investigation, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is expected to reveal its decision on the case on Tuesday morning. - The Sunday Times

Booking a flight used to be so simple  now travellers need the attention to detail of a contract lawyer combined with the skills of a mathematician to know if their ticket represents a good deal. Ryanair is at the centre of allegations  which it denies  that it splits up families travelling together to panic them into paying up to 11 a person extra each way for allocated seats. - Mail on Sunday

Brussels will publish proposals this Wednesday to force financial intermediaries to automatically disclose any new cross-border tax schemes offered to clients. Those designing and promoting aggressive avoidance structures will have five working days to file details with their local tax authority, according to a leaked version of the proposals, drawn up by the European commission. - The Observer

The Chancellor has dismissed speculation the UK could pursue a soft Brexit and remain part of the EUs customs union and the single market. There have been rumours that Philip Hammond, who backed the remain camp during last years EU referendum, will use Theresa Mays weakened authority following the general election to force the prime minister to water-down her Brexit stance. - Sunday Telegraph

The former boss of Ve Interactive, the one-time tech unicorn, has had his assets restricted as a lender pursues him in the High Court. David Brown, a flamboyant entrepreneur, and Martin King, his lieutenant, must notify the court five days before selling any assets worth more than 50,000, under terms set out in a hearing on Friday. - The Sunday Times

Customer service standards across swathes of the financial services industry remain as unacceptable today as they did five years ago. This is despite the regular naming and shaming of serial offenders by the likes of the Financial Conduct Authority (the Citys regulator) and the Financial Ombudsman Service. Even the occasional company fine has not improved matters. - Mail on Sunday

ITVs hunt for a chief executive has narrowed to a shortlist that includes a senior Sky executive, the boss of an insurance group and the head of a Scottish broadcaster. Its board is expected to discuss the selection process at a meeting this week that could identify Adam Croziers successor, with an official announcement expected in July. - The Observer

Bosses at Ocado will be urged to rebrand the online grocer in the City as a technology business and overhaul their investor relations team when they face an activist shareholder for the first time this month. Richard Bernstein, the fund manager behind Crystal Amber, is to meet Duncan Tatton-Brown, Ocados chief financial officer, during the last week of June, after his investment firm revealed a 0.5pc stake in the food delivery business a fortnight ago. - Sunday Telegraph
In the Mail on Sunday, Midas focuses on Diversified Gas & Oil and its aptly named founder, the fourth generation oil man Rusty Hutson Jr.

Hutson founded Diversified in 2001, foreseeing the mammoth opportunity fracking would become.

He was correct, of course, but when the oil price crash that nobody expected actually occurred, many of the fracking players - up to their eyeballs in debt - folded amid cash crises.

That left the path clear for Diversified, according to Midas, which has been gobbling up fracking assets on the cheap and building up its profitable and low-risk portfolio.

The shares are 71p and should rise materially as the business expands and develops, Midas said of the firm, which joined AIM in February.

Diversified focusses on the Appalachian Basin, a hub for the US shale industry, with a large number of operators more than happy to raise cash by disposing of their more conventional assets - assets Diversified is apparently very keen on.

Midas was cheering Diversifieds latest deal - a transformative takeover worth $84m, which will give the company 14,000 productive wells.

Before the deal for example, operating costs per unit of gas were $1.24. After the latest transaction, those costs have fallen to 89 cents, Midas quipped.

Diversified reportedly sells gas at about $2.50, meaning the companys margins were clearly very healthy.

In The Sunday Times Inside the City column, Simon Duke kept his eyes firmly on utilities behemoth Centrica - something of a love/hate stock for many traders in recent years.

Duke noted that it wasnt so long ago utilities were the workhorses of the stock market - solid and sturdy, with dependable dividends.

Over the past three years, however, British Gas owner Centrica lost half its market value, thanks to an abundance of regulation, increasing competition and oil prices falling through the floor.

The Conservative manifesto promise to cap energy prices only opened the floodgates beneath Centricas prospects even further.

Duke said Centrica chief Iain Conn - the BP veteran - had even larger problems on his plate, with all sorts of technology, from inexpensive solar panels to smart thermostats threatening earnings.

Wednesday would be a significant day for Conn and Centrica, with the chief set to tell the City eary how his plans to cement the companys position in an uncertain market are progressing.

Those plans included large investments in flexible power generation, including a huge battery facility in Barrow-in-Furness as well as a number of smaller gas plants which could fire on-demand.

He was also a big backer of Centricas plans to implant itself at the heart of Britains connected homes, championing the Hive smart home platform developed and sold by British Gas.

Hours after his City update, the country will find out whether Theresa Mays plans to keep a lid on energy prices had come to fruition, as the Queens Speech is read.

The question is whether Centricas new initiatives can expand fast enough to offset the slump in its traditional business, Duke wrote.

Conn has at least set the company on a more profitable path.

Dukes advice? Buy.

Please note: Digital Look provides a round-up of news, tips and information that is impacting share prices and the market. Digital Look cannot take any responsibility for information provided by third parties. This is for your general information only and not intended to be relied upon by users in making an investment decision or any other decision. Please obtain a copy of the relevant publication and carry out your own research before considering acting on any of this information.
A breakthrough in antibiotic resistance was reported last week. Scientists had re-engineered the drug vancomycinused against extremely resistant infections including MRSAto make it stronger and stop bugs becoming immune to it. Vancomycin has been prescribed for 60 years and is a highly effective antibioticyet in some countries bacteria are developing resistance.

Professor Dale Boger, of the Scripps Research Institute, California, had previously managed to make two tweaks to the drug in the lab to make it more potent. Last week, his team announced a final tweak, which when combined with the previous two would make it 1,000 times stronger than it was in its original form, and bacteria would no longer be able to resist it.

In a press release announcing the breakthrough, Boger called vancomycin magical for its proven strength against infections, and said his teams modifications had given the drug superpowers. The release described the breakthrough as an advance that could eliminate the threat of antibiotic-resistant infections for years to come.

Reporting on the story, British media outlets used similar language. A Daily Express headline announced the new vancomycin could spell end of antibiotic resistant infections. The Sun said scientists believed the breakthrough could hold off the threat of antibiotic resistance.

So does the development of this new drug really mark the end of superbugs? Professor Peter Wilson, a consultant microbiologist at University College London Hospital, is doubtful. The new vancomycin is only effective against one family of bacteria called gram-positives, he pointed out, which only account for some of the infections seen in hospitals. Most of these infections are not resistant to standard antibiotics and so the super vancomycin would have very little effect, he said.

What is antibiotic resistance and why is it so dangerous?

Both vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) and VRSA feature on the World Health Organizations list of bugs posing the greatest risk to mankind because there are so few drugs that can work against them. If scientists were able to make the new vancomycin into a drug it would be fantastic and doctors would welcome it, said Dr. Tim Jinks, head of drug resistant infections at the Wellcome Trust. Yet in practical terms the drug could only be used against a handful of infections.

Gram-positive infections include enterococcibugs commonly found in the gut which can sometimes cause an infection, especially in patients already unwell with other illnesses. In the study, the beefed-up vancomycin was tested and found to be effective against normal enterococci and vancomycin-resistant forms of the bug. Other gram-positive infections treated with vancomycin include Staphylococcus aureus and its resistant types: methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA). VRSA is exceedingly rare in the UK.

Both Wilson and Jinks agreed that another family of bacteriaknown as gram-negativespose a greater threat in the UK. Gram-negative infectionssuch as E.coli and Klebsiellaare a major cause of blood poisoning and are more likely to become resistant to antibiotics. E.coli is the most common cause of bloodstream infections in the UK. There were 38,000 bloodstream infections from E.coli in 2016 in England, compared to 1,099 in 2015/16 from MRSA. The new vancomycin would not work against a number of serious and life-threatening infections, both experts agreed.

It is also important to note the changes made to vancomycin were carried out in the lab. There were 30 steps involved to achieve the modified version. In order for the new drug to become available in hospitals and nursing homes, scientists would have to find a way to engineeror synthesize itwith fewer steps and en masse.

Then, it would have to go through trials in order to become licensed and be tested for efficacy and safety on humans. That could take at least five years, said Jinks. The results are encouraging but there remains a desperate need for continued research and innovation to create new antibiotics, he said.

The Bureau asked Boger for comment but he declined to respond.
From: American Evaluation Association (AEA) For Immediate Release: Dateline: Washington , DC Sunday, June 18, 2017

Lisa Aponte-Soto co-chair of the Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse (LA RED) TIG, AEA GEDI alumni, and National Program Deputy Director of

Latinx currently comprise 16% of the U.S. population and are projected to comprise one-third of Americans by 2050 (U.S. Census, 2010). Meeting the needs of a booming Latinx community calls for investing recruiting, training, and retaining a diverse workforce. Despite efforts to build a pipeline, Latinx continue to be underrepresented across the field of evaluation accounting for approximately 5% of AEA members.

What does it take to become a Latinx leader? Outside of the nature versus nurture paradigm, leadership takes courage. It also takes a high level of commitment and responsibility to represent an entire community when we take stock of the heterogeneity across the Latinx community. Culture plays a significant role in the leadership development of Latinx professionals. A value for collectivism and staying connected with community help establish strong partnerships, networks, and connections that enhance work productivity, program outcomes, and sociopolitical acumen. Bilingualism and biculturalism further enrich these contributions.

Gaps along the continuum of the Latinx leadership pipeline create a void in cultural understandings and empathy for Latinx issues; and, further perpetuate discord in the workplace and in communities served. It is necessary to continue to challenge hegemonic paradigms and explore critical race theory and LatCrit paradigms rooted in democratic principles of social justice and advocacy.

Another challenge for Latinx to move into positions of leadership lies in overcoming issues of discrimination, racism, isolation, and tokenism. Navigating a landscape different than your own can be intimidating, particularly if you lack visible leaders who look like you. Being grounded in your cultural identify, mentoring relationships, and a strong social network can mitigate these challenges.

Hot Tips for Emerging Leaders

Find a Mentor  Latinx senior leadership in AEA can serve as padrinos and madrinas (i.e., godparents) role models, mentors, coaches, and sponsors who are integral to the professional development of novice Latinx evaluators. Anyone can serve as a mentor as long as they are willing to invest in supporting emerging Latinx evaluators.

 Latinx senior leadership in AEA can serve as padrinos and madrinas (i.e., godparents) role models, mentors, coaches, and sponsors who are integral to the professional development of novice Latinx evaluators. Anyone can serve as a mentor as long as they are willing to invest in supporting emerging Latinx evaluators. Join a Network  When Latinx enter leadership pathways accidentally, building social capital offers a valuable support system for career success. There are additional support networks and training opportunities available through the Latina Researchers Network.

 When Latinx enter leadership pathways accidentally, building social capital offers a valuable support system for career success. There are additional support networks and training opportunities available through the Latina Researchers Network. Volunteer  Volunteering to chair a TIG, serving on an AEA committee, or running for board leadership can help expand your evaluator network while developing your leadership skills.

 Volunteering to chair a TIG, serving on an AEA committee, or running for board leadership can help expand your evaluator network while developing your leadership skills. Seek Additional Training  AEA offers opportunities for emerging evaluators of color to acquire formal/experiential training including the Graduate Education Diversity Internship program and the Minority Serving Institution Fellowship. LA RED is a space for evaluators working collaboratively with/for Latina/o communities regardless of their personal racial-ethnic background. To join the discourse, please email us at

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from LA RED Topical Interest Group members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the

Saludos! I amco-chair of the Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse (LA RED) TIG, AEA GEDI alumni, and National Program Deputy Director of RWJF New Connections at Equal Measure . This week LA RED highlights ways to advance the presence and leadership of Latinx evaluators and researchers in AEA to foster culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) theory and practice with a Latinx lens.Latinx currently comprise 16% of the U.S. population and are projected to comprise one-third of Americans by 2050 (U.S. Census, 2010). Meeting the needs of a booming Latinx community calls for investing recruiting, training, and retaining a diverse workforce. Despite efforts to build a pipeline, Latinx continue to be underrepresented across the field of evaluation accounting for approximately 5% of AEA members.What does it take to become a Latinx leader? Outside of the nature versus nurture paradigm, leadership takes courage. It also takes a high level of commitment and responsibility to represent an entire community when we take stock of the heterogeneity across the Latinx community. Culture plays a significant role in the leadership development of Latinx professionals. A value for collectivism and staying connected with community help establish strong partnerships, networks, and connections that enhance work productivity, program outcomes, and sociopolitical acumen. Bilingualism and biculturalism further enrich these contributions.Gaps along the continuum of the Latinx leadership pipeline create a void in cultural understandings and empathy for Latinx issues; and, further perpetuate discord in the workplace and in communities served. It is necessary to continue to challenge hegemonic paradigms and explore critical race theory and LatCrit paradigms rooted in democratic principles of social justice and advocacy.Another challenge for Latinx to move into positions of leadership lies in overcoming issues of discrimination, racism, isolation, and tokenism. Navigating a landscape different than your own can be intimidating, particularly if you lack visible leaders who look like you. Being grounded in your cultural identify, mentoring relationships, and a strong social network can mitigate these challenges.LA RED is a space for evaluators working collaboratively with/for Latina/o communities regardless of their personal racial-ethnic background. To join the discourse, please email us at lared.tig@gmail.com The American Evaluation Association is celebrating. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from LA RED Topical Interest Group members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.


A far-reaching report which details how developing technology can advance farming was launched at the Royal Three Counties Show in Malvern, Worcestershire.

The report follows extensive consultation with a range of experts from the fields of science, academia, horticulture, arable and livestock farming, land management, ecology and politics.

MEP Anthea McIntyre, a member of the European Parliament's Agriculture and Rural Development Committee, is publishing the report.

She presented a copy of the report to the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Michael Gove at the Royal Three Counties Show.

It comes as news that a recent report highlighted how 'smart farming' and technological advances can be embraced in order to support the growing human population.

The new environment secretary Michael Gove and Anthea McIntyre MEP at the Three Counties Show

'Heart of agriculture'

Technological Solutions for Sustainable Agriculture sets out a range of recommendations for putting technology the heart of agriculture in the UK and Europe to boost productivity and protect the environment.

Key evidence was gathered at a round-table conference last month in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, and in reports from John Chinn, Chairman of the UK's Centre for Applied Crop Science, and the Vice Chancellor of Harper Adams University David Llewellyn.

Harper Adams has pioneered precision agriculture which enables heavy machinery to follow so-called digital tramlines on farmland in order to minimise damage to soil health and water management.

One of the university's projects aims to be the first in the world to plant, tend and harvest a crop by only using autonomous vehicles.

'Mankind's future'

Miss McIntyre, Conservative MEP for the West Midlands, said nothing is more important to mankind's future than agriculture and how the world feeds an 'ever-growing number of hungry mouths' across the globe.

She said: "And nothing is more important to agriculture's future than the serious but sensitive application of new technology, chemical and genetic innovation and the harnessing of emerging digital, biological and physical science.

"If we are to feed millions more every year in a way that is ecologically and economically sustainable, we need to square the circle that puts farming efficiency at odds with the environment, public health and bio-diversity.

"The key to achieving that is technology. Not just more technology but more-effective, more-accessible and more-affordable technology.

"Our widespread consultation highlighted many key opportunities including increased used of robots and drones, driverless tractors, more-accurate application of pesticides and better rural broadband. Deteriorating soil quality and reduced nutritional qualities in food were among the challenges flagged up.

"I believe our recommendations can play a major part in pushing the advance and harnessing of technology to the front of the agriculture and policy agendas."
A County Antrim farmer has received a nine month suspended prison sentence after he was convicted of causing unnecessary suffering to his livestock.

He has caused unnecessary suffering of 11 cattle, one charge of causing unnecessary suffering to a sheep, three charges of failure to dispose of animal carcasses and three charges of failure to comply with an animal by-product requirement.

48-year-old James Steele of Crumlin has been disqualified from owning, keeping and participating in keeping farm animals for 25 years.

He was also sentenced to nine months imprisonment suspended for four years at Antrim Crown Court.

This case arose from a number of welfare inspections carried out by Government Officers on James Steeles farm between September 2015 and January 2016.

Previous animal welfare convictions

The farmer was known to the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Department (DAERA) because of previous animal welfare convictions and therefore the situation on his farm was being monitored closely.

At these inspections, officers found dead cattle and sheep which James Steele had failed to dispose of. They also had to euthanize a number of cattle and sheep to prevent any further suffering.

DAERA was granted a deprivation order under the Welfare of Animals (NI) Act 2011 in January 2016, this order allowed the Department to remove the remaining cattle from Mr Steeles possession.

Speaking after todays sentencing, Danny Gray from DAERAs Welfare and Enforcement branch said: This is the first time the Department has had to take an animal welfare prosecution to the Crown Court due to James Steeles continuing and inexcusable disregard for the care of his animals.

Todays sentencing underlines how serious DAERA is about pursuing those who continue to break the law relating to animal welfare.
Farmers are cautious about signing up to new schemes, survey shows
News that the European Union is to ban the use of plant protection products (PPPs) on protein crops grown in ecological focus areas (EFAs) has been widely condemned by farmers on Twitter.

In order to maximise their basic farm payments, farmers are obliged to keep at least 5% of their claimed areas as EFAs.

See also: MEPs vote to ban pesticides in ecological focus areas

They have a number of options as to what they can do on this land  including leaving it fallow, maintaining buffer strips, growing nitrogen-fixing crops and planting hedges.

Many have elected to grow peas and beans, seeing this as the most commercially viable option, while also fitting in with the arable rotation and helping to improve the soil.

But the commission is keen to see a wider range of environmental options adopted so, as part of a so-called simplification package, has sought to ban the use of PPPs on protein crops in EFAs.

The decision is expected to apply for 2018 BPS claims onwards.

Commenting on Twitter, farmer David Hinchcliffe said the move would undermine EU protein crop production, resulting in even more imports from other parts of the world.

#Illogical decision .will decrease area of EU protein crops. More imports of GM protein . # https://t.co/68aHbuFFjx  David Hinchliffe (@dnhinchliffe1) June 15, 2017

Pulse grower Peter Smith and Irish seeds manager Donal Fitzgerald also questioned the sustainability of the new policy on EFAs.

Terrible blow for all of us trying to increase native protein production, sustainability my arse! #foolsmakingrules #clownsrunningthecircus  Donal Fitzgerald (@DonieFitz) June 16, 2017

Nuffield scholar Thomas Bradshaw also predicted a fall in the sown area, while Cambridgeshire farmer David Walston said that legumes should be grown on their own merit.

Did you not used to say legumes should be grown on their own merit, rather than relying on EFAs? Or am I misremembering?  David Walston (@OOOfarmer) June 15, 2017

Not everyone was so aggrieved, however, with rural action group Arc welcoming the development




Haiti - News : Zapping...





Words of sympathy of Moise

"I learned with sadness of the death of Dr. Jean Joseph Moliere, a great servant of the State. My sympathies to all his family," Jovenel Moise.



Youri Latortue in Vietnam

At the invitation of the President of the National Assembly of Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, the President of the Senate Youri Latortue, at the head of a high-level delegation, is paying an official visit to Vietnam from Friday 17 until Thursday, June 22nd. Youri Latortue will also be accompanied by his wife. Note that this is the first time that a Senate delegation travels to Vietnam as part of the cooperation between the two countries.



Amending Budget voted with changes

On Friday in the Lower House, 94 deputies responded to the roll-call at the opening of the ratification session of the amending budget. However, after a session of several long hours, dotted with numerous speeches and motions, more than twenty dissatisfied deputies left the meeting before the vote. The budget was finally ratified after numerous amendments by 70 votes for, 1 against and 1 abstention. As part of the changes, the overall decommitment of 929 million Gourdes, including 175 million in the National Education envelope, to be reallocated in various envelopes including: + 70 million Gdes to UEH, +18 million Gdes to the Chamber of Deputies, +70 million Gdes to Health and other adjustments qualified as minors... The Budget will be transmitted to the Senate for possible ratification in the same terms...



The Minister of Tourism in Florida

Jessy Menos, Minister of Tourism, is participating in the Diaspora Tourism Investment Summit in Miami (June 16-17, 2017).



Women encouraged to seek office in the indirect elections

On the occasion of indirect elections https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-21246-icihaiti-cep-indirect-elections-process-under-way.html the Ministry for the Status of Women and Women's Rights and the CEP encourage women to run for positions through an awareness campaign.



Scanning of business names

This week, the Ministry of Trade and Industry launched the process of digitization of the business name registry to facilitate management and access to a database.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Pardee honors physician, philanthropist of the year

Dr. Peter Goodfield was honored as Pardee's 2017 Physician of the Year.

Pardee Hospital Foundation announced the 2017 Physician of the Year and Philanthropist of the Year at its annual gala, A Black Tie Affair, on Saturday night at the Blue Ridge Conference Hall at BRCC.

Related Stories

Dr. Peter Goodfield, a board-certified cardiologist at Pardee UNC Health Care, was honored as Physician of the Year and Flat Rock resident Mary Olson was named the Philanthropist of the Year.

This is the fifth year that the Foundation has presented the Physician of the Year Award, which is given to a Pardee physician whose career has been defined by medical excellence, dedication to compassionate patient care and a commitment to improving the lives of people throughout the community. It's the 14th year the foundation has presented the Philanthropist of the Year Award, which recognizes a member of the community who has made an outstanding contribution to Pardee UNC Health Care, Pardee Hospital Foundation and the improvement of the communitys health care.

Goodfield founded and currently serves as medical director of the HeartLife Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at Pardee and as an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Having previously served as chief of staff, over the past 11 years, Dr. Goodfield has served on the Pardee board of directors, during which time chaired the Performance Improvement Committee, was a member of the Joint Advisory Committee, and was a member of the Executive Committee and vice chair at various times. He served as a member and then chairman of the hospitals Institutional Review Board from 1993 to 2013. He has served as principal investigator in dozens of clinical trials at Pardee and has published research in several medical journals. He and his wife reside in Hendersonville.

Mary Olson was named the Philanthropist of the YearOlson is a patron of Pardee Hospital Foundation, supporting the Capital Campaign, sponsoring the annual black-tie gala, and serving as a sponsor and committee member of the Women Helping Women initiative since its inception. Olson retired from more than 40 years of teaching in California in 1993 when she and her husband, John, moved to Flat Rock. She is a patron of the Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra, an avid supporter of the arts and was involved in the American Kennel Club for a number of years showing Dandie Dinmont terriers.

The event celebrated Pardee UNC Health Cares dedication to serving the medical needs of Henderson County and Western North Carolina. The gala included dinner, dancing, live music, a silent auction and a raffle, with the final amount raised reaching $140,000, including a record $34,000 from the silent auction.
Indian Government and Hindutvavadis should extend help for protection of oppressed and distressed Hindus from Bangladesh and pressurize that Government. If minority Hindus are given separate land, we will not sit quietly till Hindu Rashtra was established there, stated Shri. Subhash Chakrawarty of Nikhil Banga Nagari Mahasangha from South 24 Parganas district in Bengal. He spoke on the topic of Fight for Hindus from Bangladesh in the morning session on the fourth day of Hindu Convention. He said further that

1. Fanatics oppressed Hindus and divided this country. Even now, fanatics are trying to divide Bharat and create Islamic country.

2. Hindus from Bharat and Bangladesh are oppressed and Hindutvavadis should strongly tell elected representatives that they wouldnt get votes if Hindus were done injustice. They will have to leave power if injustice continued even after Hindus voting for them.

3. PM Modi had promised before coming to power that Bangladeshi infiltrators would be driven out; but after 3 years of being in power, PM Modi should tell us how many Bangladeshi infiltrators have been driven out so far.

4. Hindu refugees coming from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Pakistan are extended facilities by giving Constitutional status; however, Hindu refugees from Bangladesh are not given such status and facilities.
Lucas Group Releases New White Paper To Aid Companies With Job Offer Strategies

Posted by Press Releases on Sunday, 06-18-2017 4:30 am

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As unemployment rate hits 16-year low, Lucas Group publishes roadmap for navigating this competitive market with job offers tailored to candidates individual motivators.Lucas Group, North Americas premiere executive recruiting firm, announced the publication of its newest white paper, How to Make Smarter Job Offers: Taking an Individualized Approach.The white paper, authored by Cincinnati-based Managing Partner Sara Luther, addresses one of the biggest challenges companies are facing in todays competitive job market: how to get top-choice candidates to say yes to the job offer.The white paper breaks down the four primary job candidate motivators culture, lifestyle, career growth and compensation and provides an actionable roadmap for designing customized job offers that candidates are eager to accept.In todays candidate-driven market, top talent is fielding counter-offers and competing offers left and right, says Luther. If a hiring manager wants a dream candidate to say...

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New Brandon Hall Group Research Addresses the Unrealized Potential of Competencies

Posted by Press Releases on Sunday, 06-18-2017 5:15 am

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Most corporations use competencies to improve performance. But new Brandon Hall Group research shows competency planning and management are in their infancy in the majority or organizations, and that lack of investment and automation is limiting effectiveness. Brandon Hall Group, the leading independent Human Capital Management research and analyst firm, has released findings of its 2017 Competency Planning and Management Study, which shows a huge opportunity for organizations that want to improve their talent management. Competency management is the pulse of performance improvement at the individual and the organizational levels. It is also a central tenet of workforce planning, learning and development, and talent management, Brandon Hall Group CEO Mike Cooke said. Despite the strategic importance of competencies, many organizations in all industries are struggling with making competencies effective and to align them with business goals. The research shows that organizations ...

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From the Archive Myanmar: Diplomatic Graveyard

Renata Lok-Dessallien (L), the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar, and British ambassador to Myanmar Andrew Patrick attend a news conference at Sittwe airport after a trip to the Maungdaw areas in northern Rakhine State on November 3, 2016. / Wa Lone / Reuters

With the recent news of the coming departure of UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Renata Lok-Dessallien, The Irrawaddy revisits its analysis from November 2007 of the UNs trail of failed missions in the country.

No UN envoys to Burma have turned into superman. Instead, all six previous diplomats buried their mission under a tomb stone marked Democracy and Human Rights. Burma is now a diplomatic graveyard.

The six UN special envoysstarting with Japanese diplomat Sadako Ogata who was appointed in 1990 as an independent expert of the UN Commission on Human Rights to the Malaysian businessman Razali Ismail, the UN secretary-generals second special envoy to the countryquit their job in deep frustration.

Their missions to Burma were routinely rebuffed by the junta and, at least one of the diplomats, the UNs second special rapporteur, Mauritian Rajsoomer Lallah, wasnt even allowed to step on Burmese soil due to his sharp criticism of the regime.

We are faced with a country which is at war with its own people, said Lallah, who was appointed in 1996. His annual reports to the UN General Assembly were rejected by the regime as biased on the grounds that they were based on information provided by opposition groups. In 2000, he quit amid reports of inadequate support from the UN and his own frustration with the juntas leaders.

The seventh and last envoy, Nigerian diplomat Ibrahim Gambari, is in Burma now to try to create a dialogue between junta chief Than Shwe and detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Like his failed predecessors, the question is whether Gambari can move the junta forward even a little bit. This is Gambaris fourth trip to Burma since May 2006. His predecessor Razali Ismail, who served from 2000 to 2006, made twelve visits but failed to bring tangible results. The Malaysian diplomat told The Irrawaddy when he quit, It is best to conclude that I have failed.

However, it isnt fair to say their failure was their fault. The heart of the problem is the ruling junta. For the generals, dealing with a UN envoy is just another political card to manipulate diplomacy and world opinion.

With each envoy, the junta has cleverly played a game, always pushing things back to square one. On the eve of Gambaris arrival in Burma on Saturday, the military regime announced it wants to expel the UN resident coordinator Charles Petrie due to his criticism of the juntas failure to improve economic and humanitarian conditions.

The statement in question, issued on October 18, declared that the concerns of the Burmese people had been clearly expressed through the recent peaceful demonstrations, and it is beholden on all to listen.

His expulsion clearly shows the mentality of the generalsand their political will.

The junta thinks nothing of abusing normal diplomatic protocol. A room where UN special human rights rapporteur Paulo Sergio Pinheiro was conducting an interview in 2003 with a political prisoner in Insein Prison in Rangoon was bugged. Pinheiro cut his visit short as a result.

Part of the UNs problem in Burma is its traditional lack of muscle, especially in dealing with such a repressive country. The UN Security Council itself also has differing views on how to deal with Burma. Also, the UN envoys themselves sometimes have varying degrees of personal interest.

Because of a lack of concrete results, the Burmese people are growing frustrated with the UN and its envoys. Some Burmese call Gambari kyauk yu pyan, which means one who takes gems and then leaves,according to The Associated Press.

Rumors circulate that some UN envoys have taken boxes of presents from the generals. The former envoy Razali Ismail had a business deal between the military government and a Malaysian company that he heads, the IRIS Corp, which sold high-tech passports to the regime. Such entanglements taint public perceptions.

Many Burmese people now believe that the only way to create change is to take matters in their own hands. On October 31, about 100 monks marched again in Pakokku in central Burma. They are many monks in the sangha who are determined to sacrifice themselves to bring freedom to Burma.

Like them, the UN also needs to be determined to bring change to Burma.

But in fact, the UN seems to be more determined to play a negotiating role between the junta and the opposition parties, even after the military regime brutally put down peaceful demonstrations in September.

The world, including the US, the EU, Asean, and even China and Indiawho are both close allies of the military regimehave supported the UNs latest diplomatic effort.

Unfortunately, diplomacy alone willagainprobably prove to be insufficient. The UN needs more muscle, otherwise its envoy and its efforts at mediation seem destined to end up like all the restin the Burmese diplomatic graveyard.
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Human Rights Watch |  

(Beirut)  Egyptian authorities in recent weeks have arrested at least 50 peaceful political activists, blocked at least 62 websites, and opened a criminal prosecution against a former presidential candidate, Human Rights Watch said today. The actions are further closing any remaining space for free expression.

The charges against the activists appear to be based on peaceful criticism of the government and some local law provisions, such as insulting the president, that inherently violate the right to freedom of expression. At least eight face possible five-year prison terms under Egypts 2015 counterterrorism law for their posts on social networking sites. The website blocks affected major Egyptian and international news organizations as well as political groups.

Egyptian authorities are using the pretext of fighting terrorism to crush peaceful dissent, said Joe Stork, deputy Middle east director at Human Rights Watch. The government isnt going to make inroads against extremists by shutting down peaceful opposing voices.

Among those arrested was a prominent human rights lawyer, Khaled Ali, whom prosecutors called for questioning on May 23, 2017, and subsequently sent for a fast-track trial on the charge of committing a scandalous act in public. Ali ran for president in 2012, coming in seventh with about 134,000 votes. He has signaled interest in challenging President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the 2018 presidential election.

The wave of arrests during April and May was reported by Freedom for the Brave, an independent Egyptian group that tracks such arrests.

Expand Egyptian activists shout anti-government slogans during a protest against the governments decision to transfer two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, in front of the Press Syndicate in Cairo, Egypt, April 13, 2016.

 2016 Reuters



On June 1, the group released a detailed list of the 42 people detained, showing that 29 remained in custody, four of whom had already been sent to trial. Many were active in movements critical of the government, including the nascent Bread and Freedom Party.

Prosecutors accused 17 of membership in prohibited groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and the April 6 Youth Movement. On June 13, Interior Ministry forces arrested five more activists and three journalists from around the Journalists Syndicate in downtown Cairo.

The government invoked article 28 of Law 95/2015 for Confronting Terrorism to charge at least eight activists with propagating ideas or beliefs advocating the commission of terrorist acts. The charges stemmed from Facebook posts, according to a statement by six Egyptian rights groups. Mohamed Walid, a Bread and Freedom Party member from Suez, was arrested after posting, I am neither pro-Mubarak nor do I belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, I just want to live as a human being, as well as down with the military rule and the slogan of the Bread and Freedom Party, bread and freedom for all people.

Human Rights Watch reviewed the prosecution file for Andrew Nassef, also charged with promoting terrorism. It stated that prosecutors seized publications and banners from his home that were critical of the government, such as January 25 Again, a reference to the 2011 uprising, and Release Egypt. Nassefs Facebook posts cited in the file included: When will we overthrow the prisons and military dictatorships again, and, Seek freedom and talk about every oppressed person in the country whether you know him or not () because one day it will be your turn.

Other detainees are accused of insulting the president, spreading false news, or using social networking sites to incite against the state or advocate the overthrow of state institutions.

On May 24, Egyptian authorities imposed a coordinated blackout on at least 21 websites, most belonging to news organizations, for allegedly supporting terrorism and spreading lies, according to an unnamed senior security source who spoke to the official Middle East News Agency. The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, an independent Egyptian rights group, said the block had grown to 62 sites as of June 12.

Among those affected were Egyptian news websites such as Mada Masr, Masr al-Arabiya, and Daily News Egypt; Turkish news websites; international news websites such as Al Jazeera and the Huffington Posts Arabic edition; the official websites for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian movement Hamas; and the website for the Tor Project, which supports internet anonymity.

The move occurred hours after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates blocked access to Al Jazeera and other Qatar-based websites, ostensibly in reaction to statements by Qatars emir published by Qatars state news agency. The apparently coordinated effort by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other allied countries to isolate Qatar stemmed from years of anger at Qatars foreign policy and has in recent days extended to Saudi Arabia and the UAE severing all ties and closing air, land, and sea transportation to Qatar.

Qatar claimed that the statements attributed to the emir were false and that its news agency had been hacked. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and British law enforcement officials supported that assessment, media reports said.

Egypt has gone further, extending its censorship to domestic opposition movements, including by blocking a website for the National Popular Campaign to Defend the Land, which opposes a plan by al-Sisi to cede two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. The Sisi administration has sought parliamentary approval to move ahead with the plan, despite court rulings that it is illegal. It went before the parliament for debate on June 11 and 12, and parliament approved the decision on June 14. On June 13, while activists gathered at the Journalists Syndicate to protest the agreement, Interior Ministry security forces surrounded them and arrested some. At least eight, including three journalists, are being held for investigation by prosecutors for protesting without a license.

On May 31, representatives of four websites, including Mada Masr, said they would file a joint complaint to the prosecutor general on the basis that the block was unlawful.

Ali, the lawyer and former presidential candidate, was also a key member of a legal team that successfully challenged the decision to cede the two islands to Saudi Arabia. He was accused of making an obscene gesture with his middle fingers during a celebratory street protest following the Supreme Administrative Courts ruling on the Red Sea islands issue in January. The charge is punishable with a sentence of up to one year or a fine of 300 pounds (US$17) under article 278 of Egypts penal code.

Alis lawyers told Human Rights Watch that they fear that a conviction on a charge of public indecency would probably prevent Ali from running for president in 2018, since elections laws disqualify those sentenced for crimes that undermine honor. No law defines such acts, but the lawyers said that Egyptian courts have interpreted sexual gestures or conduct as offenses that undermine honor.

Though many countries criminalize offenses to public order, prosecuting someone for making an obscene gesture during a peaceful protest would be an unreasonable limitation on freedom of expression, and it would be disproportionate to penalize such an act with imprisonment or the forfeit of political rights, Human Rights Watch said. The Dokki Misdemeanour Court for Minor Offenses in Cairo has scheduled Alis next hearing for July 3 and ordered that defense lawyers be allowed to obtain the case file.

Egypts constitution, in article 57, states that it is impermissible to deprive citizens of the right to use all forms of public means of communications or to interrupt or disconnect them arbitrarily. Article 71 states that it is prohibited to censor, confiscate, suspend or shut down Egyptian newspapers and media outlets in any way.

However, Egypts 59-year-old emergency law, which al-Sisi invoked on April 11 after deadly twin church bombings by the extremist group Islamic State, allows the authorities to censor publications at will. After al-Sisi declared the state of emergency, Ali Abdel Aal, the parliament speaker, said that social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube would fall under its surveillance and censorship provisions, the newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm reported.

The Human Rights Committee, the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, stated in its general comment 34 that the prohibition of a site or an information dissemination system from publishing material solely on the basis that it may be critical of the government or the political social system espoused by the government constitutes a violation of the right to free expression. Egypt ratified the covenant in 1986.

Via Human Rights Watch



Related video added by Juan Cole:

Heinrich-Boll-Stiftung: Egypts Human Rights Crisis  Europes Responsibility?
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

The Syrian press is watching Oliver Stones interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin and likes what it sees. Syrias al-Watan (The Nation) reports that Putins Syria policy is the complete restoration of central government authority over the entire country, in preparation for a pull-back of Russian military forces to the Humaymin Air Base and Tartus on the Mediterranean.

He doesnt appear to envisage that the Syrian military is capable, however, of taking all the countrys territory back, no matter how much air support Russia gives. Instead he sees a negotiation process, helped along by outside players such as the United States, Iran, Egypt, and Turkey willing to negotiate at Astana, Kazakhstan. He says he is asking them for constructive cooperation.

Putin believes that all the major players can agree that terrorism must be stopped.

Putin admits the need for dialogue between the opposition and the regime, including the armed opposition. (If Putin is sincere about this, he should be aware that Bashar al-Assad has repeatedly refused to talk to armed rebels, dismissing them as terrorists.)

Asked if it is necessary to partition Syria to resolve its crisis, Putin strongly disagreed and argued for the necessity of maintaining the territorial integrity of Syria and attaining a resolution of the various conflicts going on in the country.

He points out that partitioning Syria might only result in the mini-states fighting wars with one another.

Putin said that Russia was willing to support those Sunni rebel groups that fought ISIL (Daesh, ISIS) and the Nusra Front (the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate). He revealed that al-Assad is OK with that.

The end game, Putin says, will be the drafting of a new constitution and the holding of new presidential elections under watchful international supervision, as soon as possible.

In the meantime, in his phoner with the press on Thursday, Putin gave some less noble reasons for his involvement in the Syrian war, according to BBC Monitoring:

The experience that the Russian military have gained in Syria is priceless, President Vladimir Putin said, speaking at his annual phone-in as shown live on official state TV Rossiya 1 on 15 June. We can say that the experience of using our Armed Forces in combat while employing modern weapons is absolutely priceless, I am saying this without any exaggeration. You know, our forces have even gained an absolutely different quality, Putin said. Combat experience also gave a chance to military engineers to test and tune the weapons on site, he added. Source: Rossiya 1 TV, Moscow, in Russian 0903 gmt 15 Jun 17

That sounds about right. The Russian military-industrial complex isnt less than anyone elses.

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SPOKANE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gold Reserve Inc. (TSX.V: GRZ) (OTC: GDRZF) (Gold Reserve or the Company) today reported that it has entered into a further amendment to the settlement agreement (the Settlement Agreement) previously entered into with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Venezuela).

Under the terms of the amended Settlement Agreement, Venezuela will pay Gold Reserve a total of approximately US$1,032,000,000 as result of negotiations of the parties to satisfy the arbitral award granted in favor of the Company by the International Centre for Settlement Investment Disputes (the Award), including the price agreed for the mining data related to the Brisas property.

Venezuela has paid Gold Reserve an initial installment of US$40,000,000 and will pay the balance of the amount owing in installments (the Installments) over approximately the next two years. The amended Settlement Agreement contemplates that Venezuelas obligations thereunder will be partially collateralized with Venezuelan sovereign debt.

This is an important milestone for not only Gold Reserve but for Venezuela. The Company would like to acknowledge the considerable efforts of its team and its Venezuela counterparts, who have worked extremely hard to bring this to a successful conclusion.

The Company and its Venezuela counterparts also ratify their commitment to move forward towards the future development and creation of the joint venture named Empresa Mixta Ecosocialista Siembra Minera, S.A., and continues to strengthen the Venezuelan productive economy through development of gold, copper and silver projects.

Further information regarding the Company can be located at www.goldreserveinc.com, www.sec.gov, and www.sedar.com.
TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - June 16, 2017) - Cobalt 27 Capital Corp. (the "Company" or "Cobalt 27") (TSX VENTURE: KBLT) is pleased to announce that it has priced its public offering (the "Offering") of 22,222,225 post-consolidated common shares ("Shares") at a price of $9.00 per Share (the "Offering Price"). The $200 million Offering will consist of 10,924,420 Shares being sold for gross cash proceeds of $98,319,780, and 11,297,805 Shares being issued to acquire 1,205.6 tonnes of physical cobalt for a total cost of $101,680,245. Cobalt 27 has filed its final long form prospectus dated June 16, 2017 (the "Prospectus") with the securities commissions in each of the provinces and territories of Canada, except Quebec, in connection with the Offering.

The Offering is being made through a syndicate of underwriters led by Scotia Capital Inc., Canaccord Genuity Corp., and TD Securities Inc. (the "Lead Underwriters") and includes BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., GMP Securities L.P., Haywood Securities Inc., Cormark Securities Inc., Eight Capital, PI Financial Corp., Sprott Private Wealth Inc. and Numis Securities Inc., (collectively, with the Lead Underwriters, the "Underwriters"). The Company has entered into an underwriting agreement with the Underwriters for the Offering.

The Company has granted to the Underwriters an over-allotment option, exercisable in whole or in part for a period of 30 days following the closing of the Offering, to purchase up to an additional 3,333,333 Shares at the Offering Price.

The Company has provided notice to each of the vendors of physical cobalt that the Company will be acquiring the full amount of cobalt previously optioned. Pricing under each contract ("Cobalt Contracts") has been established, and in aggregate the Company will be acquiring 2,157.5 tonnes of physical cobalt consisting of 1,486.5 tonnes of premium-grade cobalt and 671.0 tonnes of standard-grade cobalt. A total of 951.9 tonnes of cobalt are being acquired for cash consideration, with the balance of 1,205.6 tonnes of cobalt being acquired for Shares. An aggregate of 11,297,805 Shares will be issued to and held by the vendors of cobalt, which will represent approximately 47% of the Company's total issued and outstanding Shares upon closing of the Offering and the Cobalt Contracts.

The net proceeds realized from the Shares sold for cash will be used toward the acquisition of physical cobalt ($78,519,245), three years of expected general and administrative costs (expected to be approximately $2,000,000 per year), and a reserve to evaluate and acquire streams, royalties and direct interests in mineral properties containing cobalt.

Both the Offering and the purchase of physical cobalt under the Cobalt Contracts are expected to close concurrently on or about June 23, 2017, subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. The TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") has conditionally approved the listing of the Shares being sold under the Offering. The Company's Shares will resume trading on the TSXV on closing of the Offering, on a post-consolidated basis. As a condition of undertaking the Offering, the Company's Shares will be consolidated on the basis of one new Share for every 20 shares previously outstanding immediately prior to closing. There will be a total of 23,881,394 Shares outstanding after closing of the Offering.

The Offering is only made by the Prospectus. The Prospectus contains important information about the securities being offered. Potential investors should read the Prospectus prior to making an investment decision. A copy of the Prospectus is available under the Company's profile on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com.

About Cobalt 27 Capital Corp.

Cobalt 27 Capital Corp. is a minerals company that offers pure-play exposure to cobalt, an integral element in key technologies of the electric vehicle and battery energy storage markets. The Company intends to acquire and hold physical cobalt, as well as manage and grow a cobalt-focused portfolio of streams, royalties and direct interests in mineral properties containing cobalt.

For further information please visit Cobalt 27's website at www.co27.com.
South Korean health authorities said Sunday it confirmed another case of the Zika virus found in a woman who traveled to Thailand.



It has raised the official number of infected patients in South Korea to 21.



A 31-year-old, whose name was withheld, tested positive for the mosquito-borne virus by a local health agency in South Jeolla Province on Thursday, after she had a fever and other symptoms, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KDCD).



The virus, first discovered in Africa, is not life-threatening but may be linked to birth defects in newborns like abnormally small heads and improperly developed brains.



The woman reportedly came back on June 10 after visiting the Southeast Asian country. She said she started having symptoms the next day.



The new infection case comes about two weeks after the health authorities reported a 33-year-old woman as a confirmed Zika virus patient on June 2. She went on a trip to the Maldives.



The authorities said they are examining three others who traveled with the newly infected patient. (Yonhap)




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Williams-Sonoma, Inc. operates as an omni-channel specialty retailer of various products for home. It offers cooking, dining, and entertaining products, such as cookware, tools, electrics, cutlery, tabletop and bar, outdoor, furniture, and a library of cookbooks under the Williams Sonoma Home brand, as well as home furnishings and decorative accessories under the Williams Sonoma lifestyle brand; and furniture, bedding, lighting, rugs, table essentials, and decorative accessories under the Pottery Barn brand. The company also provides home decor products under the West Elm brand; kids accessories under the Pottery Barn Kids brand; and an organic bedding to multi-purpose furniture under the Pottery Barn Teen brand. In addition, it offers made-to-order lighting, hardware, furniture, and home decors inspired by history under the Rejuvenation brand; and women's and men's accessories, travel, entertaining and bar, home decor, and seasonal items under the Mark and Graham brand, as well as operates a 3-D imaging and augmented reality platform for the home furnishings and decor industry. The company markets its products through e-commerce websites, direct-mail catalogs, and retail stores. It operates 544 stores comprising 502 stores in 41states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico; 20 stores in Canada; 19 stores in Australia; 3 stores in the United Kingdom; and 139 franchised stores, as well as e-commerce websites in various countries in the Middle East, the Philippines, Mexico, South Korea, and India. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
County Manager Cynthia Seelhammer has announced the appointment of James (Jimmy) Jayne as the new Special Initiatives Director for Coconino County. Jayne will serve on the Executive Leadership Team and work on economic development for the county.

Jayne has been the Navajo County Manager since 2003. Prior to his term as County Manager, he was the Chief of Staff in the U.S. House of Representatives, worked for the Arizona Corporation Commission and the Arizona Water Banking Authority.

As the Special Initiatives Director, Jayne will also oversee the Public Affairs and Community Outreach Department to support successful operations of the Board of Supervisors. He will also work with the Public Health Services District to analyze and advise on Title 36 management. Jayne will officially start with the county August 8.
Financial executives talk about gender equality at The Korea Times' roundtable in Seoul. From left: Deutsche Bank Korea Managing Director Park Hyun-nam, Ewha Womans University law school professor Eunice Kim, Korea International Finance Institute CEO Kim Sang-kyung, and Industrial Bank of Korea Senior Executive Vice President Choi Hyun-sook / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul





By The Korea Times Finance Team



The Korean government needs to take steps that can ensure women will be on an equal footing with men in the workplace, according to female executives from the financial sector.

"Korea has a serious problem when it comes to gender equality," said Eunice Kim, a professor of law at Ewha Womans University. Kim serves as an outside director of the board of the KB Financial Group.



"Without state intervention through legal actions, this problem of gender inequality will persist."



Kim and Choi Hyun-sook, senior executive vice president of the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK), Park Hyun-nam, managing director of Deutsche Bank Korea, and Kim Sang-kyung, chief executive of the Korea International Finance Institute (KIFI) and Korea Network of Women in Finance recently participated in The Korea Times' roundtable discussion on the topic of gender equality.



Korea ranks at the bottom of The Economist's gender equality index, with the 2016 index showing women make up only about 2 percent of corporate boards at listed companies in Korea.



Given half of the females on the boards here are family members of the companies' owners, Prof. Kim said, the actual figure is just 1 percent.



This is way lower than those of European economies, including Norway where the number of women on boards accounts for more than 30 percent. It is also far lower than the OECD average of 20 percent.



Japan's female boards used to be in the same situation as Korea, but Japan has recently introduced a policy to increase corporate boardroom seats for women. It seeks to have women in more than 30 percent of leadership positions by 2020.



The index measuring Japanese female board members increased to nearly 7 percent, KIFI CEO Kim said.



"Change is going to be very difficult without a legal quota system. Korea has been a male-dominated society and men have been resistant to let go of their power," she said.



Korea needs to adopt Norway's quota model, they suggested.



In 2003, Norway asked its listed companies to voluntarily have about 40 percent of their boards be women to promote gender equality.



After two years of no progress, Norway enforced a rule, warning it would punish those that do not meet the 40 percent quota.



Norway now ranks third, following Iceland and Sweden.



"I believe the problem lies with how girls are being brought up and educated here. They are usually told not to raise their voices. Also, Korea still stresses the importance of education for boys, not both girls and boys," Park said.



This old-fashioned attitude makes it more difficult to break the stereotypes of women, and ultimately the glass ceiling, as this society does not see females as potential leaders the same as men, they said.



Without social improvement through progress in education and culture, the quota system for women leaders would not work.



"Our political and corporate leaders need to be aware of the importance of our gender issue, and keep an open mind that both men and women can do the same work," Choi said.



They are pinning their hopes on the new government. President Moon Jae-in said he will have 30 percent of his Cabinet positions held by women.



"In addition to the unification of the Korean Peninsula, it has been said that women can help boost the economy," Kim said. "Women are asking to be treated the same as men. That's all."
18.06.2017 LISTEN

QUOTE: Grenfell Tower fire is corporate manslaughter and arrests must be made, says LABOUR MP David Lammy We should call it what it is; its corporate manslaughter, thats what it is and there should be arrests made, frankly, the Tottenham MP said. UNQUOTE

These words, uttered by Mr David Lammy, one of the few black Members of the British Parliament, gave voice to the feelings of many who watched in horror as Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey block of flats in Latimer Road, in the Ladbroke Grove area of West London, was engulfed in flames.

Seventeen people have been reported as having died from the inferno. But there are fears that the final death toll will be much higher  probably passing the 100 mark.

The first thought that entered my head when I saw the building burning on TV in the early hours of Wednesday, 14 November 2017, was how closely the sight reminded me of what I saw on TV on 9/11  the day the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York were hit by aircraft used to deliberately pummel them. The sheer horror of it all came back.

But why, at such an early stage (when the enquiry into the fire promised by the British Prime Minister, Mrs Theresa May, has not even begun its work, let alone reach any conclusions about the cause(s) of the fire) should Mr Lammy be making a demand for arrests?

The answer is that it has emerged since the conflagration, that the residents had been calling attention to the unsafe nature of the building for the past two years at least, but that their cries have been ignored. The building was refurbished recently at a cost of several million pounds. But instead of becoming safer, it became even more dangerous.

To improve its insulation from the cold air outside, the walls were covered with cladding, but apparently the cladding used was not fire-resistant and is not allowed to be used on buildings in the US, especially New York. As soon as the fire reached the outside of the building from the 4th floor  where a power surge is suspected to have caused a fridge to explode and catch fire  the entire cladding was ignited  from the top of the building right down  and the chances of many people being able to escape the flames and the thick black smoke, vanished.

The UK is a fully advanced country, where building technology has become very proficient. But the Conservative Governments of recent years  which were mimicked by the Labour Government of Tony Blair to some extent  have been starving councils of money, with the result that corners are often cut when public works are undertaken.

Even worse, many council and governmental construction establishments have been dissolved, with the result that many public works are given out on contract to private firms, whose first objective is, of course, to enrich their share-holders. It is suspected that council officials sometimes collude with private contractors to allow less expensive, but often unsafe, materials to be used in the course of carrying out public works. So, if you imagined that it is only in developing countries that public officials and private firms get together to cheat and sometimes endanger the lives of members of the public, think again. The enquiry into this disaster will therefore be watched very closely all over the world

As the anti-galamsey campaign gathers momentum, some of the revelations coming forward are quite unbelievable. Who would have thought that top people in the Forestry Commission, who are entrusted with the task of safeguarding our forest reserves from marauding profit-seekers, would be the very people who would allow Chinese galamseyers and their Ghanaian collaborators to enter forest reserves and carry out galamsey there? Yet a serious allegation has been publicly made on TV that this is happening, and yet, up till now, the Forestry Commission has said absolutely nothing about the allegation!

We know, of course, that the Minerals Commission has been at the forefront of creating confusion in the mineral laws of the land  by overlooking the legislation that requires mining licences to be ratified by Parliament before they can become operative  and thereby giving leeway to the galamseyers to destroy our river-bodies and farmlands.

What I personally did not realise is that the Water Resources Commission is also involved in allowing galamseyers to dredge rivers and streams in search of gold!

I was shocked to read the following report, which came out inadvertently, no doubt, at a court hearing:

QUOTE: Dr Mawuli Lumor, officer in charge of the Ankobra River Basin, [has] confirmed that the Water Resources Commission (WRC) has not granted permits to  five Chinese and five Ghanaian, charged for  [carrying out] galamsey in River Ankobra at Bamianko, in the Western Region. As far as I am concerned, they have not been permitted to mine in the Ankobra Basin since 2007. I have been working in the Basin and I do investigations before the go-ahead can be given. Concerning the accused, no [application for a] permit has come to my office. Addressing questions posed by counsel for the accused, Dr Lumor said that dredging or diverting of a water course was allowed but under technical supervision, and by laws as stipulated by the Water Act. UNQUOTE

Three questions arise from this report: (1) Is the Ankobra River polluted and in danger, as a result of the dredging of its riverbed? (2) Has the Water Resources Commission granted any permits for such dredging on the Ankobra? (3) If it has, is it not directly responsible for the state of the Ankobra River and other Rivers and streams on which it has granted permits for dredging to be conducted?

You can see from the above questions that we would never have known that the Water Resources Commission is issuing permits for dredging and diversion of rivers, but for the court case. Thus, our own state machinery, it appears, is being suborned to sue permits to destroy our country and its resources. For how many galamseyers have actually been given a sheen of legitimacy by state officials who are  if we take the charitable attitude  simply inefficient, or if we take the cynical view, corrupt? We never can tell.

Meanwhile, the destruction of the rivers, streams and farmlands, continues.

Unabated.

What a people.

www.cameronduodu.com

By Cameron Duodu
There seems to be no end in sight to the dreaded war against illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, in the country.

Day in and out, there is one report or the other of some incident relating to galamsey which is simply interpreted as 'gather them (mineral deposits) and sell'.

Illegal mining in the country is gradually becoming a fly in the ointment of sound forest and management, with its attendant effects like deforestation and forest degradation, drought, water and air pollution.

The country's forest reserves are being plundered, whilst waters bodies which used to serve as potable drinking water such as the Densu, Ankobra, Offin, Pra, Birim and several others, including farmlands, have all not been spared the effect, with the worst hit areas said to be Kyebi and Wassa Akropong.

Past governments' several attempts to curb the menace have failed, obviously because of the big cartel involved, sometimes with the connivance and direct involvement of the police, military, immigration officials, politicians and chiefs of the affected areas themselves.

Presidential Intervention

This is what compelled President Akufo-Addo to declare war on illegal mining when he took over the reins of government, promising to stop it even if it would cost him the next elections after galamseyers threatened to vote against his party.

I understand the galamseyers say if I want go by the dictates of the law, they will vote against me and my party the NPP at the next elections. But what is important to me is to do what God has asked me to come and do which involves programmes and policies that will lead Ghana on the path of development. That is more important to me than elections matters, he said.

Our forefathers bequeathed these lands to us; if we can't put them to good use, it's better we leave them in the state we came to find them but not to destroy them. That is what has led to this war against galamsey, President Akufo-Addo added.

Minister's Show Of Force

But that fight has not proved an easy one try as the sector Minister for Lands & Natural Resources, John Peter Amewu, is to clamp down on the activities and operations of these illegal miners.

Even though the campaign has received massive support from majority of Ghanaians, including the media who also formed a 'Media Coalition Against Galamasey', the practice continues unabated, interestingly with new twists and turns.

But the gruesome murder of a young and promising officer of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), Major Maxwell Adams Mahama, who was said to be on an anti-galamsey operation at Denkyira-Obuasi in the Central Region with a military detachment, has provoked public-spirited anger and sparked a new wave of campaign against the menace.

It has not only succeeded in heightening tension in galamsey communities but seems to have rekindled government's effort to stamp out the tide with all the force it has.

Military Involvement

It, therefore, came as no surprise that more than a week ago, President Akufo-Addo, who is the Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, tasked them with the responsibility of leading the war against galamsey.

Speaking at the presentation of colours to the Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment (Recce Regiment) of the Ghana Armed Forces more than a week ago at Burma Camp in Accra, President Akufo-Addo stated that as government intensifies its efforts to curb the illegal mining phenomenon, otherwise referred to as galamsey, that is polluting our waters, destroying our farmlands and forests, and threatening the very survival of this country, Ghanaians would continue to rely on the efforts of our security services, with the Armed Forces in the fore front to help deal with the problem.

He stressed confidence that as always, the Armed Forces will rise to the occasion.

This happened after the Lands and Natural Resources ministers toured some illegal mining sites to assess the extent of damage and to also see what measures could be put in place to forestall recurrence.

Field Operations

As part of activities to ensure the ecological integrity of Ghana's forests, the sector minister planned another visit to forest reserves in the Ashanti Region, which have been affected by illegal mining operations.

He was together with the Chief Executive (CEO) of the Forestry Commission, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, famously known as Sir John, and his Deputy, John Allotey, the Australian High Commissioner and his wife, Andrew and Theresa Barnes; officials of Ashanti Regional FC offices, officials from the Ministry of Lands & Natural Resources, the Minerals Commission, Water Resources Commission, the media and a joint police, military and immigration teams.

The tour saw him visit places, including the seat of the Ashanti Kingdom, Manhyia Palace, where he went to solicit the support of the monarch.

After receiving the blessings of Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the minister and his team then went on a fact-finding mission at Nkawie where they visited the Tano Offin Forest Reserve, which is the biggest in the Nkawie District.

The Nkawie District Manager, Nana Poku Bosompim, mentioned that though the reserve has been declared a Globally Significant Biological Area (GSBA), there had been some instances of illegal logging and mining.

From the Tano-Offin Reserve, the chief executive of Forestry Commission and the sector minister sought audience with representatives of 1,200 farmers at Nyinahin-Nkyensekrom.

These farmers are being engaged to do the Taungya system of farming in the reserve. In all, the farmers will be planting 200 hectares of land.

The chief executive thanked the farmers for agreeing to plant and nurture the trees and advised them to plant only allowable food crops on their farms.

He advised them to take care of the trees well up to the time of maturity and harvesting as they also have a 40 percent stake in the project.

The team then moved to Amadaa, another community which has suffered extremely from illegal mining activities where they saw gaping holes filled with water and parts of the Offin River which have been polluted.

Arrests

In the process, three young men who gave their names as Abdul Karim, Musah Seidu and Yakubu, who were engaged in some form of search for gold, which is known in local parlance as 'kolikoli', were arrested.

Their water pump was seized together with some gallons of diesel and other items which they were believed to be using them for mining in the night.

They are among the list of several other Ghanaians and foreign nationals who have been arrested for illegal mining, with some facing prosecution, including the now famous Aisha Huang.

A little over a week ago, four expatriates engaged in galamsey at Tontokrom in the Amansie West District in the Ashanti Region were arrested.

They included Coemwotit Putats and Chepainyi Serchii  all Ukrainians  Farid Issaer, a Russian, and one other person who are since facing prosecution.

Their arrest was caused by John Peter Amewu when he paid a visit to some illegal mining sites on Monday.

The company, owned and run by Russians and Ukrainians, was mining on concessions fronted by three Ghanaian companies  Kasmil Mining Company Limited, K. Afriyie and Sons Precious Metal Company and King Solomon Mining Company.

Interestingly, some of these galamseyers do not only wield dangerous weapons, including guns, used in protecting themselves but are also said to protect themselves with spiritual powers, considering the gains involved.

What is, however, not certain is whether these spiritual powers are able to help them escape from arrest.

Report

Meanwhile, a study conducted by the International Growth Centre (IGC), an organisation that documents galamsey operations and their environmental impacts, revealed that an estimated amount of $250 million is required to reclaim lands and water bodies affected by these illegal mining activities in the Western Region alone.

The thought-provoking question that immediately comes to mind is how much would be the cost of other regions and the total cost of the entire country if only one region needs that much for the purposes of claim and water bodies reclamation, thereby, raising serious concerns.

Way forward

This is part of reasons why people like Lawyer Kwame Gyan, who is well-versed in the country's land administration system, has been pushing for a strict application of the law.

He is of the firm conviction that when the existing laws are applied to the letter without fear or favour of who is at fault, sanity would prevail.

It is believed that most of these state agencies, including the police and military and the other agencies with the responsibility of seeing to issues relating the menace, have either been compromised or have all gone to bed hence the need for all of them to get back to work to save Ghana, its water bodies, farmlands and forest reserves from these stealthy encroachment and degradation from not only foreigners but its own nationals.

By Charles Takyi-Boadu


Dakar (AFP) - Corner shops, markets and street traders are still the traditional way most Senegalese do their shopping, but micro-businesses are turning to digital means of tracking clients in the west African nation's informal economy.

Amadou Bawol Bah, like many owners of the corner "boutiques" in Senegal, used to have a large ledger he filled in each day with purchases and credit offered to his customers.

"One day I was filling in some details and some cooking oil tipped onto the ledger," he recalled of the moment in 2015 that wiped out years of careful bookkeeping.

Bawol Bah's disaster became the inspiration for a locally-designed app called "Weebi", meaning "easy" in the local Pulaar language, and the trader hasn't looked back since downloading it.

"Weebi simplifies sales and my invoices. The tablet and smartphone replaces the notebook and pen," explained Weebi's co-founder Cheikh Sene, who began his start-up with two other Senegalese and a Frenchman.

A micro-printer for receipts completes the mix, Sene added.

App ambitions

Around half of Senegal's registered businesses are one-man traders like Bawol Bah, according to government statistics, and operate at thin margins with clients often reliant on credit paid back at the end of the month.

In the case of accidents like Bawol Bah's, the app comes with confidential backup for each user, according to Weebi, so data remains safe in case of loss or damage to a device.

After winning a prize for digital innovation at the Africa-France summit held in Bamako in January, Weebi's ambitions are growing in the capital.

Senegalese co-founder of the Weebi start-up Cheikh Sene

Although just 40 users so far have the app, which is a standalone download or can be bought for 118,000 FCFA ($200) preloaded onto a tablet, 300 clients have shown an interest in the product in the Dakar area.

Marieme Assietou Diagne, who manages a health food delivery business, says she has gained "more free time and better sales" since using the software.

"It helps us to follow clients -- who are the regulars, the number of orders, and how many meals we are selling per day," she told AFP. "We can reward loyal customers at the end of the month."

Overcoming illiteracy

Other small business owners have begun using "Somtou", a console launched in May with an interface specifically designed for Senegal's majority illiterate population that works with icons and voice commands.

The upstart costs of buying a laptop and the electricity required to run it all day are prohibitive for most, and training in accountancy programmes or software such as Microsoft Excel hard to come by without paying for classes.

With sturdy casing and bright graphics, Somtou is aimed squarely at market traders and small businesses, said its Cameroonian creator Ted Boulou.

"It allows those in the informal sector to manage their work more effectively, and gives them more precise estimates of income, revenue and clients," Boulou said.

That can empower them to better bargain wholesale costs and promotions, making businesses more effective, he added, while filing of tax returns and other government documents became simpler and more accurate.

Pricing is also flexible for clients without much upfront cash.

"Some will pay 13,000 FCFA ($22) per month for two years, or 500 FCFA (85 US cents) a day for two years," Boulou explained, as the single payment of 275,000 FCFA was prohibitive for many -- and he has taken 100 orders.
Members of the AU Commission, Fellow Africans, and Bilateral partners on the continent, my name is Matthew M. Fred from Liberia, a West African State is known for electing the first woman head of state on the continent. I am a Global Rights Activist and work with the Youth Against Tribalism In Africa (YATIA) a youth-led organization fostering unity, peace, growth and prosperity on the continent regardless of the tribe (ethnic background), geographical location, race, and religion. With sadness, regrets, disappointments and a feeling of exasperation, Matthew writes

South Africa Xenophobic Attacks

The recent xenophobic attacks on aliens and foreigners in South Africa need to be addressed, the rest of Africa has to show South Africa that she is still dependent on other African countries to boost her fast pacing economy. With South African businesses being the largest African-owned businesses around the continent cannot easily survive economically without the rest of the continent purchasing and be importing their products. We as humans depend on one another to survive, likewise, a nations dependency is on another through partnership and trade policy and collaborations to boost one anothers economy. South Africans knowingly lacked to exhibit the good leadership of one of Africas greatest heroes, Nelson Madiba Mandela, who inspired a lot of great people and nations around the world.

Asa Global Rights Activist, I believe this does not have to continue, and the rest of Africa must shun on this. The African Union as an organization must address this act of stupidity and discrimination. Africa cannot be fighting to grow her economy in order to minimize western dependency syndrome, a disease that is encouraging corruption, power-greed, dependency, and laziness, when, at the same time be discriminating against ourselves. We have to ensure that this ignorant act of madness and animosity that continues to be carried out by South Africans toward their fellow African brothers and sisters be abolished and never be repeated. This barbaric and unnatural behavior which has the propensity to create conflict and destabilize peace and livelihood in the southern region; also has the possibility of segregating and creating a generational hatred and envious scar from victims of the incident.

I believe that this is another form of tribalism because they are discriminating and humiliating against their fellow African Kinsmen of different tribes, countries, and regions. I also believe that this grudge and envy developed by South Africans toward their fellow African brothers and sisters also have the propensity to undermine and underpin the bilateral relationship that exists between the countries and people of Africa.

South Africans should know that without exporting their products to the rest of the continent, they would not have improved in their economic growth and development. They should not look down on their fellow Africans as an impediment to acquiring their jobs, growth, economic development, and livelihood, but rather the strength behind their economic power. What makes the West powerful is the diversity of people and the help of immigrants that make up its countries.

South Africans ensuring their diversity must understand not to humiliate and discriminate against their fellow Africans, regardless of tribe, color, region, and physical identities, but rather help build one another as one group of people.

One thing the African Union failed to realize over the years, is that they have forgotten to follow the principles and foundation on which it was founded. In order to curtail and address issues in the region, the AU must understand that it cannot do it along with the formulation of untimely and unreasonable policies that cannot sustain, maintain, and curtail issues in its member States, but rather increase and stir up issues in the region.

The AU also seemingly failed to understand that the issues surrounding the region cannot be addressed only by a group of commissioners, AU representatives, members and class of the African elites, but rather with a collective effort that needs the collaboration and consultation of the masses, the community, the local people and the commoners. The AU has to understand that the voices of these people have to be heard. The AU also needs to realize that to Unite, consolidate and govern a group of nations, the people first have to be united, because, without the people, there is no nation, there is no AU, there is no Africa, it is because of the people that these places and sects exist.

Heads of the AU States

To form a city, you have to amalgamate towns and communities, to form a country, you have to amalgamate its geographical territories and regions, same as to amalgamate a continent that contains hundreds of cities, towns, regions, counties, communities, territories, and countries, it has to be with the full involvement of the very people that will inhabit it, uniting them should be the first priority. When the people understand they are of the same kind and from one region, they have a common solidarity and believe in one common objective; which I would term as seeing themselves developing and growing economically, and peacefully as one group of people with one voice.

Matthew M. Fred

AU Headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Editor-in-Chief of the Crusading Guide newspaper has applauded the CJ nominees call to depoliticise the judiciary.

Abdul Malik Kwaku Baako said he was happy Justice Sophia Akuffo emphasised that she was talking about depoliticisation and not political nature of the judiciary.

Speaking on Joy FM/MultiTVs new analysis programme Newsfile Saturday, he said there are people who hold the perception that public officers tend to pander to the administrations, which appointed them, which is wrong.

According to him, a look at Ghanas judiciary history shows that there were people who were political functionaries but subsequently became justices of the court doing things that were against the administrations, which appointed them.

J. E. K. Aikins who was Attorney General and Secretary for Justice under the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) was part of the majority ruling against December 31 being a public holiday, Mr Baako said.

He added that although he A-G was part of the NDC but was not part of what was canvassed by then Deputy Attorney General, Martin Amidu in court.

The Supreme Court Judge rejected claims that appointments in the judiciary are highly politicised when she appeared before Parliament's Appointment Committee on Friday.

Justice Akuffo who used herself as an example said claims that appointments are based on political leanings is incorrect and should not be encouraged.

Maybe I am an example that it is not, I was appointed by Jerry John Rawlings and now I have been nominated by Akufo-Addo and these are presidents from the different political divides but unfortunately everything in this country has been politicised, the country's second Chief Justice nominee said.

She has promised to leave a legacy that will ensure every Ghanaian feels secured to resort to the courts which will deliver quality and efficient justice to all.

In support of call, Mr Baako recounts how unbiased her judgements have been in cases perceived to have been political over the two decades she has served in the judiciary.

"She has given various judgement's that didn't go in one direction, so it is the law first and their [judges] faith to the oath they took, the law and the advocacy that comes to the court," he said.

Mr Baako believes there is no point going back to the arguments as the country has passed that stage citing the case of the constitutionality of the Fast Track Court as well as the Election Petition hearing.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim |[email protected]
President Nana Akufo-Addo says donor support to the budgets of some ministries in 2016 is the equal to the revenue allegedly diverted by some 19 customs officials who were arrested recently.

It will be recalled that three (3) weeks ago, the countrys law enforcement agencies cracked allegedly a syndicate of 19 persons at the Tema Harbour, comprising customs officials and representatives of three clearing and freight forwarding agencies, who were allegedly responsible for the loss of some GHC1.2 billion in revenue to the state.

Referring to figures from the Ministry of Finance, President Akufo-Addo stated that the budget for the Ministry of Health in 2016 amounted to some GHC2.9 billion. Out of this amount, GHC743 million, representing 26% of the Ministrys budget, was financed by overseas donors.

Again, the President noted that the Ministry of Educations budget for 2016, amounting to GHC5.9 billion, saw a contribution of GHC323 million by overseas donors; whereas the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, whose budget for 2016 GHC463 million received donor support of GHC70 million.

So in three Ministries of our social sector  health, education and gender  out of a total budget of GHC9.2 billion, GHC1.2 billion is an overseas aid or donor support. And yet, one group of alleged racketeers at Tema can deny us revenue of GHC1.2 billion, he lamented.

The President noted that with a handful of customs officials and representatives of clearing agencies allegedly responsible for this level of loss, one can, therefore, imagine the leakages and the seepages that exists in the countrys revenue collection system.

The fight against corruption is about ourselves, it is not so a big a theoretical thing in the air. They (corrupt officials) are degrading our capacity to control our own development, and to be able to do so with our heads high and not with our hands up, begging people to come and help us. We should not be in that position, he bemoaned.

The President continued, We appreciate the contributions and the support that our friends across the world make to our country and to its development. We are not looking gift horses in the mouth, but we should be capable of financing our own development, so that whatever anybody else wants to come and give is like a bonus, the icing on the cake.

These statistics, the President indicated, tells you how important the fight against corruption is. If it is, indeed, true that the leakages (from the ports) can be anything between GHC7 billion to GHC10 billion, then you can appreciate the magnitude of where we are. Those pocketing these sums of money, and denying these monies to our exchequer, are, essentially, denying our capacity to develop.

He assured Ghanaians that to the extent that God gives me health and strength, I am going to do my best to make sure that the fight against corruption is won.

Describing Ghana as a country of considerable resources, with 27 million hardworking people, President Akufo-Addo noted that if we handle the resources of our country honestly and intelligently, there is no limit to where we can go.

The reason why the fight against corruption is such an important matter for his government and the people of Ghana, he explained, is because of the project that we (government) have put before our people.

We want to put Ghana in the situation Beyond Aid. We want to be able to mobilise Ghana's own resources to handle the problems of its development. We are not a poor country in Ghana. We are a country of considerable resources, with 27 million people, hardworking people in the land which is blessed with a lot that nature has given us, he added.

President Akufo-Addo was addressing the Ghanaian community resident in the United Kingdom, at an event held at the Central Hall, Westminster, London, on Friday, June 16, 2017, when he made these known.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
The widow of Major Maxwell Adam Mahama has penned a moving message on behalf of her two children in remembrance of their departed loving father.

Barbara Mahama spoke profoundly about how different this year's Father's Day will be for Jerry and Jaden without their father who was a "rock" for them and her.

"You would have prayed for them in their sleep, and played with them later in the day, you would have teased Jerry that he loves food, and you would have teased Jaden for playing deaf when watching cartoons.

"You would have said the boys are your therapy, and you would have jumped around with them, they would have asked for more, and you would have laughed and said that these kids dont know that I am growing old, she fondly reminisced.

Without Captain of the 5th Battalion Infantry who was mistakenly lynched on suspicion of being an armed robber while on official duty by residents of Denkyira Obuasi, Barbara Mahama said "I will take consolation in Psalm 68:5 which says 'Father to the fatherless, defender of widows-this is God, whose dwelling is holy.'"

She assured the posthumous Major that despite the long arduous journey he has left for her and the children, "we will survive because you would want us to survive."

"You never liked it when people put their lives on hold and you definitely WILL not like us to put our lives on hold now, not for anything, not to please GHANAIANS, not to please hypocrites.

"You would love to see us dancing without you, singing, laughing, bonding, living, and loving you," she said.

Read her letter below:

Dear Maxwell, I woke up early thinking about today, thinking about how different it will be, thinking about the kids, thinking about everything, and crying.

Today is fathers day, and I know the importance of fathers in the lives of children, and I will miss the rock you were to the kids and me.

You would have prayed for them in their sleep, and played with them later in the day, you would have teased Jerry that he loves food, and you would have teased Jaden for playing deaf when watching cartoons.

You would have said the boys are your therapy, and you would have jumped around with them, they would have asked for more, and you would have laughed and said that these kids dont know that I am growing old.

Today, I will take consolation in Psalm 68:5 which says Father to the fatherless, defender of widows-this is God, whose dwelling is holy."

This journey will be long and full of uncertainties but we will survive because you would want us to survive.

You never liked it when people put their lives on hold and you definitely WILL not like us to put our lives on hold now, not for anything, not to please GHANAIANS, not to please hypocrites.

You would love to see us dancing without you, singing, laughing, bonding, living, and loving you.

You would love to see me dressed up to kill-I will gather courage and do that soon my love, you would love to see a broad smile on my face and some lipstick on my lips.

I dont know how it will be, but I will try to be a father and a mother, with God as the overall father for the kids. This task is huge but God does not give us more than we can handle.

I wont be able to send the kids out today because I may end up crying the whole time. Im sure by now, you are laughing at me and saying the usual B, you have too many tears in your tear ducts so you just want to empty your eyes.

The devil wanted to break me but I am crushed down and not destroyed. God gave me new and stronger wings to fly at a higher altitude.

Thank you for the many great memories, even if I say a memory a day, 10 years will not dry up the special moments.

Great Father, we love you, God bless your beautiful soul my king.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
The African Union (AU), a body founded by some of Africa most prestigious founding fathers with a dream, passion and an inspiration to unite the African Continent in order to spur economic growth, development, lasting peace, and unity among people of the same race. But however, since its inception in 2001, the African Union, which change to the Organization of African Unity (OAU), has tremendously failed to fully implement some of her many mouth-talking policies. In fact, its auxiliaries, like the Economic Communities of West African States (ECOWAS), The Southern African Development Community, SADC, and the East African Community (EAC) are far better when it comes to improvement in their organizations and policies than that of the AU, and are creating, and restoring economic ties within their regions.

Over the years, the African Union has proven to be a political, social, and economic organization, with no impact, a total rhetoric and take shape. The institution has failed to restore peace and unity on the continent, thus, helping to instill conflict and disunity by creating un-meaningful policies that do not have a triggered-down effect on the least common people who made up a vast majority of the continent.

Since 2015, AU had asked to address the migrant crisis, but nothing since

They have failed to address the migrant crisis, which is causing thousands of Africans to illegally migrate to Europe in search of jobs and better living, to fully put a stop to the Xenophobic attitude in South Africa, to minimize Tribalism (Ethnic Discrimination) among the African Tribes, minimize poverty and hunger, implement the one passport system, implement the one money system, end long-standing conflicts in some of regions, etc.., but yet, begging for aid that has no impact on curtailing some of the key issues that affect the lives of majority of the citizens. The AU as a body of African Nations is 10 times richer, both in size, population and resources than the EU and received over $200 Billion annually in donor aid, and but yet continue to become beggars to the European Union, China, and the United States. The AU leaders lacked boldness and the courage to act on things placed on paper, hence, they are only good at writing policies that cannot be put into action.

The AU has failed to bring South Sudan Ethnic Civil War to rest since 2013

On a majority scale, the African Union is unpopular and unknown in most indigenous parts of the continent, yet it has offices in its member states that have no impact and stride of its presence. The visionaries, Kwame Nkrumah, Muammar Kadafi and the rest of their colleagues should be angry by now in their graves for seeing their dream being transformed into an offering plate for westerners instead of holding onto and living the African Dream. Many may ask; when will we live the African dream, can this generation allow us? But the answer lies with theMouth-Talking Body.

I believe that the Union has been unable to achieve tangible progress on its goals due to deep economic and political disagreements stemmed from a power-greed, tribalism, and being more biased, which starts from top to bottom. Many at times, youths from many AU nations dream of an Africa where they will not have to travel to Europe to get the best medical treatment, education, life, living their dream, but for tourism purposes, just as EU citizens traveled to the continent for leisure, tourism and vacation purposes. This can only happen when a group of old people who still follow the same corrupt trend of mouth talking start to act on policies. Africa must Unite, and yes we must! AU wake up, you are not an organization to implement projects, you are a government! You need to start executing the policies to stop ethnic discrimination, Civil conflicts, child marriage, Female Genital Mutilation, negotiating man-made viruses for money to her people, disuniting us, self-insufficiency, dependency, begging, and start working out the African Dream.

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the father of Pan Africanis Africa Must Unite

The African Union celebrated this year Africa Day on Thursday, 25th May. The formation of the African Union was aimed at fostering unity, peace, progress, and self-determination, but these ideas are yet to be realized fully across the continent. Referring to this years celebration, the African Union Commission repeated their paper ritual and collected Africas young people as an enormous resource for the continents development. It was in that regard that African Union Heads of State and Government declared the theme for 2017 as Harnessing the Demographic Dividend through Investments in Youth. But yet, young people constituting over 60% of the population tend to be the least at some point, most disadvantaged, marginalized and jobless on the continent.

Matthew M. Fred

AU Headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founder of the Christian Action Faith Ministry, Archbishop Duncan Williams, has admonished mothers to avoid tarnishing the image of their husbands or ex-husbands to their children.

In a Fathers Day sermon delivered on Sunday, he said whatever image children have of their father will play an important part in how the children develop.

For whatever reason, it looks like mothers always have a problem when it comes to managing their pain and they set up their kids and their kids become victims of their circumstances; they always try to poison their kids with their pain and their grief, Duncan Williams said during his Fathers Day sermon.

As the world marks Fathers Day today, there are concerns that the euphoria associated with the day is nothing compared with Mothers Day celebrations.

Some Ghanaians believe this could change if fathers spend more time at home, and especially with their children.

Archbishop Duncan Williams also said mothers have a crucial role to play in how fathers are perceived at home.

Mothers, especially women of faith, have to be very, very careful -- if [they] love their kids -- about what they tell them about their father," he said.

Father's Day was started by an American woman, Sonora Smart Dodd who was raised by her father after her mother died.

While listening to a Mother's Day sermon with her father at the Central Methodist Church in 1909, she was concerned that no day was set aside to honour her civil war veteran father who raised her and five younger brothers alone.

Dodd wanted the celebration to be held on June 5, her father's birthday, but planning difficulties pushed the first Father's Day celebration to the 3rd Sunday in June of every year.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
Member of Parliament for Sissala East Constituency in the Upper West Region, Abass Ridwan Dauda, has donated motorbikes and barrels of fuel to some security services.

The benefactors were the Ghana Police Service (GPS), Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) as well as the Sissala East District Directorate of the Food and Agriculture.

The aim of the donation according to the MP is to help the police embark on their patrol activities to reduce crime in the area and for the GIS to monitor the countrys border with Burkina Faso.

The items donated are valued GHC25,000.

Mr Dauda also paid rent for 10 houses in the Tumu township for personnel of the Police Service. This is to increase the number of personnel sent to the area to man police posts at Banu, Nabulo, Sakai, Bawesibelle, Naabugbelle, and Nmanduonu.

There have been reports of armed robbery attack on passengers in the two Sissala districts over the past few months.

The MP said the donation will go a long way to reduce cross-border crime in the district and at the border with neighbouring Burkina Faso.

He has also renovated the office of the District Directorate of Education of the Ghana Education Service (GES).

He said there is no country in the world that can develop without the people being educated and that explained why he penciled education as one of his priorities.

He urged circuit supervisors to perform the tasks they are mandated to perform to improve students performance.

The Sissala MP further donated a barrel of petrol to extension officers in the area to enable them to go around the community to educate farmers on good farming methods and the government policy on agriculture.

The MP last month donated 1,008 mathematical sets to candidates sitting for this years Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Rafiq Salam| Joy News
El-Fashir (Sudan) (AFP) - The top US envoy in Sudan began Sunday a four-day trip to Darfur to assess security in the war-torn region as the UN prepares to downsize its 17,000-strong peacekeeping force.

The visit of Steven Koutsis, Washington's charge d'affaires in Khartoum, also comes just weeks before President Donald Trump's administration decides whether to permanently lift a two-decades old US trade embargo on Sudan.

A joint report sent to the UN Security Council last month by the African Union and the United Nations recommends that the ceiling set for military troops be cut by 44 percent and the maximum number of police reduced by 30 percent in the UNAMID force.

Ahead of the expected drawdown, Koutsis embarked on a visit to Darfur for a first-hand assessment of the situation in the region.

The envoy met several Sudanese and UN officials, as well as tribal chiefs, academics and members of civil society groups in the North Darfur capital of El-Fashir.

"We are now discussing with UN the restructuring of UNAMID," he told North Darfur deputy governor Mohamed al-Nabi at a meeting attended by an AFP correspondent in what is a rare visit by the international media to the conflict-wracked region.

"Now the responsibility will fall on local authorities to bring security to the state."

Nabi assured Koutsis that Sudanese security forces were equipped to tackle the security situation, but Koutsis expressed his "concern" over their ability at a separate meeting with academics and university students.

He said he was concerned "whether the local government and the national government are prepared to assume responsibility of providing security" to the people of Darfur.

Darfur has been engulfed in conflict since 2003, when ethnic minority insurgents mounted a rebellion against President Omar al-Bashir, complaining that his Arab-dominated government in Khartoum was marginalising the region that is of the size of France.

Bashir launched a brutal counter-insurgency, and the United Nations says that at least 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict and another 2.5 million have been forced to flee their homes.

Sudanese officials claim the conflict in Darfur has ended, but reports of fighting between government forces and rebels continue to emerge.

The cuts to the UNAMID force would result in major savings to the UN peacekeeping budget at a time when Washington is seeking to reduce its financial contribution to the blue helmets.

UNAMID has a budget of $1.04 billion per year, making it one of the UN's costliest missions along with the UN force in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Washington is expected to decide next month on whether to permanently lift its trade embargo on Khartoum imposed in 1997.

Before leaving office, president Barack Obama eased US sanctions, but kept Khartoum on a six-month probation period before Washington formally lifts the trade embargo.

The sanctions were imposed over Khartoum's alleged support for Islamist groups.

Late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was based in Khartoum from 1992 to 1996.
18.06.2017 LISTEN

Accra, June 18, GNA - Higher educational institutions which train the labour force have a role to play in ensuring that their products are well-equipped with employable skills, Professor Osei Darkwa, the President of Ghana Telecom University College, has said.

He said successive governments had rolled out several models and initiatives aimed at job creation, however, those policies and programmes had yielded little or no impact.

Prof. Darkwa said this at the weekend during the eighth graduation ceremony of the Pentecost University College (PUC) in Accra on the theme: 'Economic Growth and Job Creation: The Role of Private Universities'.

A total of 285 students graduated from the Faculty of Theology and Mission, Faculty of Engineering, Science and Computing as well as the Faculty of Business Administration.

Prof Darkwa said private universities had even much greater responsibility to turn out the calibre of graduates required by industry by ensuring that they acquired entrepreneurial skills to remain relevant.

Her said one area the universities, particularly the private ones, could explore was Information Communication Technology (ICT) to contribute meaningfully towards economic growth and job creation.

He noted that ICT stimulated economic growth and boosted job creation and it was important for government to put in place the necessary policies and infrastructure for educational institutions to leverage on ICT to make their products employable.

Prof Darkwa urged the graduands to believe in themselves, confront the opportunities and challenges in the world, and bear in mind that the choices they made would determine where they would be in future.

'We believe your training here at PUC has given you knowledge and moulded your perception about life and its experiences and we have every confidence that this training will be put to excellent use," he added.

Apostle Dr Daniel Okyere Walker, the Rector of PUC, said the current unemployment situation in Ghana could be described as alarming which was threatening the stability of the nation.

He said this, therefore, called for the mobilisation of all segments of society to combat the menace through job creation.

Dr Walker said the Government had indicated that there would be 'One-District One-Factory' aimed at enhancing the livelihood of the citizenry, however, it was worth nothing that if the jobs were created, qualified, competent and skilled workers would be needed.

He said government alone was incapable of training the nation's labour force and called on the private institutions to join in the provision of skills that would be useful to the 'One-District One-Factory' policy.

Dr. Walker said PUC, over a decade, had produced a substantial number of graduates who were excelling in the fields of business, politics, academia and health.

He urged graduands to give back to society adding "shun nepotism, corruption, lawlessness, laziness, impatience and injustice, and embrace virtues such as hard work, innovation, creativity, teamwork and integrity".

GNA

By Iddi Yire, GNA
- President Buhari has reportedly shunned meeting with ministers and aide trying to see him in London

- Some of them wanted him to peruse some files for his approval but he rejected them

- The president insisted Osinbajo being the acting president remained in charge

President Muhammadu Buhari has reportedly ordered some aides and minister seeking his approval on some files, asking them instead to meet with acting president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo.

The president who is on medical treatment in London duly handed over power to Osinbajo before he proceeded and has since maintained the standard protocol.

READ ALSO: I have seen it all, I want to die now and have some rest  Evans declare

The Nation reports that some government officials had travelled to London to get the presidents approval but he had left them embarrassed insisting that all files be directed to Osinbajo for approval and possibly signed.

A top government source said: Despite the fact that he is fast recuperating, the President has tried as much as possible to stick to one presidency.

He has refused to see some government officials who went to London to see him instead of being at their desks to work. He also returned all files and documents to those who brought them to London.

The President gave stern instructions that all files, documents and issues needing decisions should be taken to the Acting President. He does not want a divided government. Buhari is living up to his Spartan discipline.

He has restricted audience to two or three personal aides with him in London. This is why there are no leaks associated with his first medical trip this time around.

Those involved in taking files and documents to London had their ego deflated. Since their return from the various shuttles, they have been trying to curry the favour of the Acting President or cooperate with him. They did not know that intelligence report had exposed their antics.

And the truth is that the President has been speaking with the Acting President.

Concerning the rumour that Aisha Buhari was not allowed to see the president when she travelled to London, the source said this wasnt true, insisting the First Lady met with him.

Any story to the contrary is false. There is enough evidence to prove that she met with her husband. No one prevented her.

Some people came out with the rumour because the President has limited contact with them this time around because of leaks during his last trip.

Some of those who visited the President during the initial shuttle for medical care turned out to feed Nigerians with false information on his health.

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It became necessary to restrict access to two of three aides. Not everyone with the President in London is allowed to see or meet with him. Ministers and government officials have been shut out too.

The declaration of the First Lady that the President was pleased with the conduct and performance of the Acting President was at the prompting of her husband to checkmate those who indulge in flying to London for unnecessary consultations and approvals.

Watch a Legit.ng TV video below of Professor Osinbajo speaking about the issue of Biafra and Nigeria's unity

Source: Legit.ng
- The mansion where Mrs Chinwe Onwuamadike, mother of notorious kidnapper lives in has been sighted

- The magnificent property is in her maiden home compound

- She has however allegedly gone into hiding

Mrs Chinwe Onwuamadike, mother of dreaded kidnapper, Mr. Chidumeme Onwuamadike, a.k.a Evans, like his son, lives in building fit for kings and queens.

READ ALSO: Go and meet Osinbajo! Buhari reportedly rejects files, shuns aides and ministers in London

A recent visit to Akamili, Umudim in Nnewi, the hometown of the notorious Evans by Vanguard revealed that his mother owns a magnificent property in her maiden home compound.

Legit.ng had reported that mother of notorious kidnap kingpin, Chukwudubem Onwuamadike, popularly called Evans, has reportedly gone into hiding.

The billionaire kidnapper was last Saturday June 10 arrested by operatives of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT).

Check out the mansion of billonnair kidnapper' mother in the village

Legit.ng had also reported that Evans said he regretted that he could not end his life before policemen arrested him in his Magodo residence, adding that he knew the police would not treat him fairly when he was caught, following his atrocities in the past.

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According to him, he immediately moved to end his life the moment the police gained access to his house but the policeman who ran after him as he ran into his house when he sighted them at his gate, prevented him from completing his mission.

Check out the mansion of billonnair kidnapper' mother in the village

Legit.ng had earlier reported that Evans was in shock when he saw the picture of his wife and children crying.

Evans has been in detention since he was apprehended by security operatives on Saturday, June 10 with his arrest garnering public commendation for the police.

Watch a Legit.ng TV video below of Nigerians expressing their opinion about Evans.

Source: Legit.ng
Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 56F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies in the evening, then becoming cloudy overnight. Low 31F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph.
- The presidential committee on rice and wheat production has on Sunday, June 18, said Nigeria has been importing poison in place of rice

- Bagudu said imported rice is no longer good for human consumption

- He said the importers of rice in Nigeria specialize in importing cheap and auctioned rice into the country

The presidential committee on rice and wheat production has on Sunday, June 18, said Nigeria has been importing poison in place of rice.

The chairman of the committee Abubakar Bagudu speaking to journalists in Birnin-Kebbi said imported rice is no longer good for human consumption, Punch reports.

Legit.ng gathered that Bagudu while condemning the continuous importation if rice into Nigeria said imported rice contained preservatives which are poisonous.

Noting that there are three major importers of rice in Nigeria, Bagudu, the governor of Kebbi state said these people specialize in importing cheap and auctioned rice into the country.

The presidential committee on rice and wheat production has on Sunday, June 18, said Nigeria has been importing poison in place of rice

He further decried Nigerians' patronage for imported 'foreign' rice more than localled produced ones.

He said: "Countries, particularly Thailand, India, China and Vietnam, buy a lot of paddy from their farmers and keep in storage sometimes, as long as nine years so that by so doing, they are supporting their farmers."

A country like Thailand, for example, may have eight million tonnes of rice in storage; so occasionally, they will auction the ones that are almost going bad that is, the one that is not fit for human consumption," Bagudu said.

They sell the paddy as low as 20 per cent less than the international market price.

Those that import rice into Nigeria will go and buy the paddy and clean them up," he said.

The governor also said that Thailand had in April 2017, auctioned 1.62 million tonnes of rice at about $140 per tonne while the market price of it was $700 per tonne.

Legit.ng earlier reported that thousands of rice farmers in Kebbi state had staged a protest against rice importation in Nigeria.

The farmer with their placards said the importers of rice in Nigeria were destroying their business of rice production.

You can watch this Legit.ng TV video of Nigerians discussing Nigeria as the giant of Africa:

Source: Legit.ng
- Lagos state government has resumes sales of LAKE RICE

- The rice is a result of partnership by Lagos and Kebbi states

- A 50kg bag will sell for N12,000 while each bag of the 25kg and 10kg are going to be sold for N6,000 and N2,500 respectively

The Lagos state Government(LASG) said it would resume the sales of LAKE Rice at approved retail outlets across the state from Monday, June 19, ahead of the Eid-el-fitr.

The states commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Oluwatoyin Suarau, said this on Sunday while reviewing the modalities for the distribution of the rice across the state.

READ ALSO: Evans: Photo of mansion billionaire kidnapper's mother built in the village

Suarau said that the sales would be part of the state governments commitment to ensure food security and help residents sail through the current economic recession.

A 50kg bag will sell for N12,000 while each bag of the 25kg and 10kg are going to be sold for N6,000 and N2,500 respectively

According to him, the rice which has been subsidised to ensure affordability is fresh and safe for consumption.

The selling of the rice is auspicious, especially, with regards to the forthcoming Eid-el-fitr.

The ministry will ensure a fair distribution of the rice across the state and ensure that the product is available during the festive period.

The prices of the product have not changed: a 50kg bag will sell for N12,000 while each bag of the 25kg and 10kg are going to be sold for N6,000 and N2,500 respectively, he said.

The commissioner listed the approved sales outlets to include: Lagos state Agric Input Supply Authority Centres at Ojo, Ajah, Odogunyan in Ikorodu, and Epe.

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Other will include the secretariats of all the 57 local government and local council development areas in the state.

He said they would also be available at the Agricultural Development Area Complex at Oko-Oba, Agege; LTV8 Complex in Agidingbi; the State Universal Basic Education Board complex at Maryland; the Government Technical College premises at Idimu-Alimosho and the Eko Farmers Mart, in Surulere.

Meanwhile, the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has granted permission to the Lagos state government to embark upon a total reconstruction of the international airport road from Oshodi.

In a press statement signed on Wednesday, May 31 by the secretary to the Lagos state government, Mr Tunji Bello, the state governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode who made the disclosure, commended the Osinbajo for his statesman like approach to issues and for fast tracking the process.

Watch the Legit.ng TV report below of Osinbajo flagging off the Lagos-Ibadan railway project in Lagos.

Source: Legit.ng
- An attack by some Boko Haram terrorists have left scores of villagers dead in Damboa local government area of Borno state

- The terrorists attacked Gumsiri community on Saturday, June 17

- The terrorists arrived the community at about 6 pm while villagers who were observing Ramadan broke their fast

An attack by some Boko Haram terrorists have left scores of villagers dead in Damboa local government area of Borno state, SaharaReporters reports.

The terrorists Legit.ng gathered attacked Gumsiri community on Saturday, June 17.

A local hunter who witnessed the attack said the terrorists arrived the community at about 6 pm while villagers who were observing Ramadan broke their fast.

READ ALSO: Lagos state resumes sales of LAKE RICE: Check out prices, sales outlets nearest to you

The hunter said the indigenes of the community which is about 10 kilometres away from Gamboa were forced to flee from the village following the terrorists attack.

The terrorists attacked Gumsiri community on Saturday, June 17

Also, a member of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) said many of the villagers were feared dead during the attack.

READ ALSO: Read how billionaire kidnapper Evans reacted to seeing picture of his wife and children in tears

The CJTF said: "Many may have been killed. Hundreds of civilians fled to Damboa town from Gumsiri. The terrorists arrived at about 6 pm and as of 8.30pm, they were still there."

Legit.ng also gathered that another hunter resident in Chibok said villagers who flee from the community said the casualty rate may be high.

He also said the villages said the terrorists easily overpowered the CJTF because troops of the Nigerian military were not in the community to help.

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"They overpowered our members in Gumsiri. I can't tell you what the casualty figure is now. We just want to appeal to the Chief of Army Staff to deploy troops to all the villages between Damboa and Chibok. We don't have soldiers in Gumsiri," the hunter said.

You can watch this Legit.ng TV video of Nigerian Air Force operation against Boko Haram:

Source: Legit.ng
Eggs, pancakes, sausage and of course plenty of milk, cream and cheese will all be on the menu for this years La Crosse Dairy Breakfast Saturday, June 17 in Bangor.

Breakfast opens at 6 a.m. and will be served until 11 a.m. At the Hy-Jo-De Dairy farm north of Bangor along Hwy. 162.

The Hy-Jo-De Dairy farm, located at N5359 Hwy. 162, got its start in the early 1950s when Joseph and Eileen Gerke moved to the region with a single calf and a team of horses.

The family started with 18 Holsteins. Today that number has grown to more than 500, 200 of which are milked twice a week.

Joe and Debra Gerke purchased the farm from their parents in 1984 and have run the farm with the help of their children Joel and Emily until 1997 when the family welcomed another partner Jason Hauser.

Its a family event for everyone to come out and learn about the dairy industry, Joel said. Everyone is excited to teach people about it.

The life-long dairy farmer said he looked forward to teaching people about how the farm works and how the animals are cared for.

He said there is a lot of misinformation about organic and nonorganic milk that he hopes to clear up.

La Crosse Dairy Breakfast Chairman Jeff Heitkamp is expecting a large turnout.

Weve had 2,200 to 2,500, he said. Well serve all of them breakfast.

The new chair said in years past the event has attracted thousands of guests to historic dairy farms throughout the region.

He said the event has something for people of all ages including a petting zoo and inflatables for the kids.

The buildings and barns are all open for people to tour, Heitkamp said.

Heitkamp said its an excellent opportunity to come out and learn more about the Wisconsins rich dairy history, how peoples milk, cheese, cream and butter are made.

The dairy industry is where all your milk products come from, he said and added dairy farms like Hy-Jo-De are where most of Wisconsins dairy products start.

It keeps people connected with their food, he said.

The cost is $6 for adults and $4 for children. For more information on the breakfast contact Heitkamp at 608-343-6220.
HOLMEN -- Allan Roy Lindvik, 77, of Holmen died Tuesday, June 13, 2017, in the care of the compassionate staff of Lakeview Healthcare Center in West Salem.

He leaves behind his wife of 51 years, Joan (Hansen) Lindvik; his daughter, Debra Kay Christensen; her husband, Hans; his grandsons, Tristan James and Travis Allan; and beloved sister, Patricia (Thill) and her family.

Born and raised in La Crosse, Jan. 8, 1940, he was the proud Norwegian son of Theodore Lindvik and Dorothy Streck. ("Uff Da" was a vocabulary staple).

Allan attended Logan High School, but his joy was never found in a classroom. Instead, he spent his younger days hunting and fishing every square inch of land and water available.

He served in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1962, spending part of his service overseas. Once discharged, he gained employment with Burlington Northern Railroad. A hard-working, Union supporting Democrat, he was known to his co-workers as "Bluetick" because of the pack of hounds he coon hunted with. He would work as a conductor for the next 40 years.

In 1965, he met Joan Louise Hansen. Three months later, he gave her a cigar band engagement ring. And even though her dad said they should wait a little bit," they went ahead and got hitched at Immanuel Church in La Crosse. It was the coldest day in January. Cold enough for the beer to freeze at the reception. (Its alright, they ran out to buy more).

Through the years Al continued to pursue his passions. He had a great respect for hunting and enjoyed stripping it down to its primitive roots. He became a longbow enthusiast, even making his own bows, quivers and arrows with the skill of the artisan he was.

He shared and transferred his love of the outdoors to his son, Eric, who unfortunately preceded him in death in 1991. But he achieved his own bit of immortality through the good times he had with his son-in-law, around the bonfire and through his grandsons love of hunting, fishing and endless treks through the countryside.

In his later years, it was fishing and fly-tying that gave him enjoyment. If it wasnt a good day to fish, you were sure to find him at his workbench.

Al loved his life. And not even the cruelty of Alzheimer's could steal away his warm smile and gentle spirit.

A brief prayer service with military honors will be held at 6:30 p.m. June 23, at Dickinson Family Funeral Home, 515 McHugh Rd., Holmen. A visitation will be held from 4 p.m. until time of service.

In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred. Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.dickinsonfuneralhomes.com
Ellen Ristow, 69, died Friday, March 24, 2017, surrounded by her family.

Ellen was the fourth of nine children born to Monica (Morris) and Harold Ristow, April 1, 1947. Ellen was our beloved sister, favorite Auntie and Great-Auntie El.

She was a graduate of Blessed Sacrament (1961), Aquinas High School (1965), St. Francis School of Nursing (RN 1968), El Camino College (BA English) and Southwestern School of Law (JD, 1995). In 1973, she married Mike Gautsch, also of La Crosse. They later divorced.

From the start of her nursing career, she realized that nursing could be a ticket to a life of adventure. Ellen, along with friends, moved to Hawaii. She surfed by day and nursed by night. Upon her return, she quickly decided it was time for a summer in New England, as a camp nurse. Her next move was living and working in California, where she explored the west coast of the U.S. and Mexico.

Ellen loved adventure and being in nature. She was always ready for a camping trip to the desert or the beaches of Mexico. Ellen backpacked the mountains of California and learned to rock climb. Her hiking and camping friends will miss her dearly on their adventures.

Ellen also loved the adventure of international travel. She best loved traveling and living among the locals, so her trips were often to regions relatively unexplored by tourists. After several trips to Europe, she took some lengthy trips to Asia, as well as Central and South America. A medical mission to Ecuador, rough traveling in Southern China, traveling Thailand, in the back of a pickup truck, hiking across the Myanmar (Burma) border to swim in a waterfall, oxcart travels in Mongolia, each trip brought adventures, stories and new friends.

Ellen worked in various aspects of nursing, E.R., head nurse on a kidney transplant floor at Harbor UCLA, gastroenterology research, school nurse, camp nurse, ICU, CCU, travel nurse, home health care. When she became an attorney in California, she specialized in supporting the elderly, and those in need of medical assistance.

After 35 years in California, Ellen eased into retirement spending summers in La Crosse and winters in Austin, Texas. The music, and eventually the dancing, grabbed her soul. She immersed herself in the old dance halls and the new dance studios of Texas. However, she kept traveling the highways of this country, visiting friends and family from coast to coast with her canine sidekick, Billy. They visited 41 states and Canada and accumulated 60,000 miles of road dust in 3  years. Billy was the last of a series of lucky dogs and cats, who ended up abandoned on her doorstep, but Billys love of adventure echoed Ellens. They walked beaches from California to Cape Cod, Georgia and the Carolina's to Texas. They camped in the deserts, hiked along the urban LA River and in the mountains, and enjoyed the beauty in the world around them.

Ellen found calm and peace in her life when she returned to Wisconsin, enjoying the river and the bluffs and renewing old friendships. Ellen will be dearly missed by her siblings, nieces and nephews and many friends, and a two year old girl who loved to play tickle with her.

Ellen was preceded in death by her parents, Monica and Harold Ristow; her brother, Mark Ristow; and her former husband, Mike Gautsch; brother-in-law, Jim Peterschmidt; and three nephews, Nick Donndelinger, Nathaniel Rindner and Benjamin Rindner; and many dear friends.

She is survived by six sisters, Jane Peterschmidt, Anne Kessler, Mary Ristow, Lorna (Ed) Koelbl, Sue (Corey) Rindner, Peggy (Steve) Doncov; and her brother, John Ristow; as well as by 16 nephews and nieces; and 11 great-nieces and nephews.

We look to her as an example of a life well lived and will miss her always.

Please join us for a celebration of Ellens life at 3 p.m. Saturday, July 8, at Koelbls Cottage, 2698 S. 7th St., La Crosse. Picnic supper at 5 p.m. Bring stories and memories to share.
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MIAMI (TNS)  Less than three weeks before it was set to kick in, the Trump administration has rolled back a regulation designed to protect students who were defrauded at for-profit colleges and announced plans to rework a related law already on the books.

The new rule would have set up a clear path for students to report fraud and have their student loans forgiven; made it easier for a group of students to make claims together (if, for instance, a school folds); and gotten rid of a rip-off clause in contracts that prevented students from suing the colleges.

The other Obama-era regulation, which would penalize for-profit career college programs that leave graduates drowning in debt, is also going back to the drawing board.

Education Department Secretary Betsy DeVos called the regulations muddled and unfair in a statement announcing her department will rework the rules.

Fraud, especially fraud committed by a school, is simply unacceptable. Unfortunately, last years rule-making effort missed an opportunity to get it right, DeVos wrote on Wednesday.

One of the new rules, known as the borrower defense to repayment regulation, is now in suspended animation for at least two years, the fastest possible pace to revamp it, said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

DeVos said the overhaul wont impact ongoing review of claims filed by nearly 16,000 defrauded students whove already asked the education department to refund their loans. Some could see their loans forgiven within the next several weeks, she said.

But there are many more students with similar complaints, said Nassirian, who was at the table for the talks behind the Obama-era rules.

The problem is there are tens of thousands of others who have significant cases to make, he said. What happens to them?

In Jay Friersons case, he isnt sure. The 30-year-old from Broward Countys Oakland Park said he owes $10,000 for the handful of nursing classes he took for six months at Dade Medical College in 2010. The program shut down almost overnight in 2015, and the man who headed the school, Ernesto Perez, later pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud.

They were focused on people making payments, and not teaching us the curriculum, he said. Frierson joined the Army Reserves to help pay back that debt.

He said he applied for loan forgiveness, but he never heard back. Legally, students like him can still take their fraud case to the state and try to get their debt wiped out, but the process can be arduous.

The Obama-era regulations came after the collapse of two titans in the for-profit college industry: Corinthians Colleges and the ITT Technical Institute. Some for-profit colleges have been accused of predatory and fraudulent practices, ranging from hiring strippers as recruiters to forging students signatures on loan documents.

Still, the career college industry has boomed. It donates generously to politicians, and get nearly 90 percent of its revenues from taxpayers, in the form of federal Pell grants and student loans.

The latest moves by the education department are a relief to for-profit colleges, which argued the rules unfairly targeted an industry that primarily serves low-income and minority students.

Curtis Austin, the executive director of the Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools and Colleges, said for-profit students account for less than a third of student debt nationwide.

You kind of wonder about a program that targets student debt that doesnt target all debt, Austin said.

Austin said he hopes to see the Education Departments committee come back with new fraud-fighting regulations that are focused on helping students at any institution  not just for-profits.

This is a refining process, not an elimination process, Austin said.

Other critics, like the groups behind 186 primarily black colleges, universities and institutions, say the Obama-era regulations were too broad and could hurt good programs along with the bad.

But the overhaul leaves debt-saddled students from for-profit colleges in limbo, and its too early to tell what the Trump administrations solution will be.

The other rule DeVos plans to review is the employment regulation, which would have financially punished career programs when graduates loan payments are higher than a certain percentage of their income. The law is still on the books until the department officially replaces it, which would be in June 2019 if the committee proceeds at breakneck speed, Nassirian said.

But the question is how rigorously the department of education will enforce the current law, something the administration hasnt made clear.

For now, students can continue to submit fraud claims, but the road to new regulations to protect them is a long one.

At the end of the day, my view is people will end up responding to the facts, Nassirian said. The evidence has piled up so high that it would take an act of will not to see it.
The British newspaper Times reported Saturday (June 17) that in a dramatic move Saudi Arabia and Israel are in talks to establish economic ties that perhaps explain why Saudi Arabia and its allies have imposed a sweeping blockade on Qatar, in an effort to force the Gulf state to drop its support for Hamas, who control Gaza.

The Times quoted Arab and American sources as saying that the links would start small: allowing Israeli businesses to operate in the Gulf, for example, and letting El Al, the Israeli airline, fly over Saudi airspace.

Sources close to Saudi Arabia, however, dismissed the idea of improved relations as wishful thinking on behalf of a White House keen to demonstrate immediate results from President Trump's recent visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel, the paper said and added:

"The prospect has become a source of controversy in the White House. Jason Greenblatt, the president's top envoy to the region, has taken a conventional approach to the peace process, trying to lure the Israelis and Palestinians back to talks, but he has clashed with Jared Kushner, Mr Trump's son-in-law, who has become close to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi deputy crown prince. They have discussed an 'outside-in' approach, by which Gulf States would improve ties with Israel as a prelude to a peace agreement -- and full recognition of Israel by Gulf and Arab states."

The British daily pointed out that Israel and the Gulf States have been quietly building security ties, motivated by a mutual fear of Iran. "A Saudi delegation led by a retired general made a trip to Israel last year and senior Israeli officials are keen to expand the alliance. "I think it's much better to co-operate on economic issues than the fight against terror," said Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli defense minister. He praised efforts to isolate Qatar."

Riyadh has demanded that Qatar cease support for Hamas and expel several of the group's leaders, including Salah al-Arouri.

Michael Binyon of The Times wrote there are huge risks in reviving the idea of an Israeli liaison in Saudi Arabia:

"Any concession to Israel without a move by the Jewish state would be seen by Muslims as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause. It would further embolden Isis and other Islamist groups to denounce the House of Saud as illegitimate. And it would reinforce the perception on Arab streets that America was intent on dividing Arab governments.

"Small steps -- allowing over flights or participating with Israel in regional economic gatherings -- are easier. The diplomatic coup of the boycott of Israel being ended by a country claiming leadership of Sunni Muslims could easily backfire, and Saudi Arabia already feels challenged on almost all its frontiers."

Turkish mediation efforts

Meanwhile, against the background of continued tensions between Qatar and the Saudi-led group of countries, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, held talks in Saudi Arabia with the king, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, on Friday. "

The meeting was positive," AFP news agency reported, quoting diplomatic sources, but there were no specifics.

Cavusoglu travelled to Mecca, where Salman is based for the last days of Ramadan, after meeting his Kuwaiti counterpart on Thursday. Cavusoglu was in Doha on Wednesday where he called for dialogue after meeting Qatar's emir and foreign minister.

"Although the kingdom is a party in this crisis, we know that King Salman is a party in resolving it," Cavusoglu said earlier. "We want to hear the views of Saudi Arabia regarding possible solutions and will share with them our views in a transparent way ... We pay a great attention to our relations with them."

Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al Sabah, the emir of Kuwait, which has not cut ties with Qatar, has also been trying to mediate.

According to Al Jazeera, Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, has cancelled his scheduled trip to an Organization of American States (OAS) meeting in Mexico next week to stay in the United States and work on resolving the Qatar crisis.

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From WSWS

In a series of tweets Friday morning, President Trump confirmed that he is under investigation by the special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, appointed by his own Department of Justice to look into allegations of collusion between the Trump election campaign and Russian government officials.

Trump seemed to threaten the Justice Department official who appointed Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, tweeting, "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt."

The president was referring to the fact that Rosenstein drafted a memo on why FBI Director James Comey should be fired, and that special counsel Mueller is reportedly including the firing of Comey within the scope of his investigation, as an instance of possible obstruction of justice.

Trump's latest tweets suggested that the raging conflict within the American ruling class -- spawned by differences over foreign policy, in relation to the Syrian war but more generally involving US-Russian relations -- could be reaching a new point of explosion.

The conflict between Trump and his own Justice Department has become increasingly tense and public. Last week, it was widely reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had offered to resign because of Trump's criticism of his decision to recuse himself from all investigations related to the Russia and the Trump election campaign, in which Sessions had played a prominent role.

The recusal by Sessions left decision-making authority in the hands of Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. Eight days after Trump fired Comey, Rosenstein named Mueller special prosecutor, giving him significant independent resources to continue the Russia investigation.

It was widely reported Thursday that Mueller has expanded the scope of the investigation beyond the question of possible collusion between Trump campaign aides and alleged Russian involvement in hacking attacks on the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The Washington Post reported that Mueller had sought the testimony of several top intelligence officials, including Admiral Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, and Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, about Trump's requests that they intervene with Comey to block the Russia investigation.

The New York Times reported that former members of Trump's transition team were given "preservation orders" Thursday to safeguard documents, including electronic records like email, related to the ongoing Russia investigation. A memo from the general counsel of the transition team, cited by the Times, required preservation of records relating to Russia, Ukraine and five former Trump aides, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign manager Paul Manafort. It was not clear whether these records would be sought by Mueller, or the various Senate and House committees investigating alleged Russian interference in the US election, or all of these.

The Post also reported that Mueller was looking into possible financial connections between Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, now a top White House adviser, and a Russian bank, as well as other financial dealings with Russia on the part of others in the Trump entourage.

Trump's thinly veiled attack on Rosenstein could be a precursor either to Trump demanding that Rosenstein fire Mueller -- which he would likely refuse -- or Trump's firing Rosenstein himself. Or Rosenstein might seek to forestall such a confrontation by recusing himself from further involvement in the Mueller-led probe, on the grounds that his own actions in firing Comey were now a subject of the investigation.

Any of these alternatives would have the same outcome: decision-making authority over Mueller and the Russia investigation would pass into the hands of the third-ranking official in the Department of Justice, Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand, a former Bush administration official who later served as chief counsel for the US Chamber of Commerce.

There were several unconfirmed press reports Friday, citing unnamed sources in the Justice Department, that Rosenstein was preparing to recuse himself. ABC News reported that Rosenstein had already notified Brand that she would take over if he did so.

Right-wing media backers of Trump have been preparing the ground for Trump to fire Rosenstein, Mueller or both. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich this week called Mueller "now clearly the tip of the deep state spear aimed at destroying or at a minimum undermining and crippling the Trump presidency."

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From The Guardian

A bedrock of our democratic legitimacy could rise or fall with the US supreme court's decision whether to hear a case on hyper-partisan gerrymandering



Trump signing another Executive Order

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As we are all experiencing, every day there's some new shock from the Trump-Pence administration. Much of it is disgraceful. Yet we cannot let the tragedy of Donald Trump's presidency distract us from the broader fight to restore and protect the legitimacy of our democracy.

That legitimacy comes from the voters, and their influence is being systematically devalued by gerrymandering. A bedrock of our democratic legitimacy could rise or fall with the US supreme court's decision as to whether to hear a case and finally rule on the constitutionality of hyper-partisan gerrymandering.

The court recently reaffirmed the illegality of racial gerrymandering in the case of North Carolina. But to protect fully our democratic legitimacy, the court must go further and prohibit gerrymandering done to cement one-party rule.

Over the past several years, a ground war has been conducted against our democratic legitimacy at the state level by state political parties intent on minimizing the power of certain voters. Their goal: near permanent one-party rule.

This practice of hyper-partisan gerrymandering is destroying our democracy by reverse-engineering the election process. Rather than voters choosing their representatives, representatives choose their voters.

I have reluctantly come to the view that the long-term solution is to take redistricting decisions away from elected officials, either by requiring that maps be drawn using non-partisan independent analysis, or putting redistricting entirely in the hands of independent commissions. I have previously supported legislative redistricting before these brutal tactics were employed.

A short-term solution, however, lies with the US supreme court, which has an opportunity to ban this illegitimate political ploy by agreeing to hear Gill v Whitford, and ruling that Wisconsin's hyper-gerrymandered map is unconstitutional. The court could almost single-handedly reinstate the influence of voters by doing this.

In Gill v Whitford, Wisconsin voters are arguing that the state's redistricting map violates their first amendment rights and the equal protection clause in the 14th amendment. Using census data from 2010, the Wisconsin Republican party redrew the state district map so as to essentially guarantee that it wins a majority of seats in the state legislature. The district lines make no sense other than diluting the influence of Democratic voters and inflating the value of Republican voters.

Locking in a Republican majority in Wisconsin took some real creativity, and utter disregard for what makes our democracy legitimate. Democratic and Republican voters are not generally clustered into partisan areas of Wisconsin, but more spread out across the state.

And yet, with roughly 50% of the statewide vote in 2012 and 2014, the Republican party was able to lock in a solid majority in the state assembly, with 60 out of 99 seats in 2012, and 63 out of 99 seats in 2014. These outcomes are only possible with a district map that silences certain voters and gives a megaphone to others.

This delegitimization also affects the resulting loyalties of the elected officials. In partisan gerrymandered districts, an elected official knows that the greatest threat to re-election is a primary challenger, which leads to hyper-loyalty to the party bosses or their financial backers, regardless of their constituency or personal convictions.

Representatives do not need to answer to constituents, hold town halls, or even campaign very hard, so long as they stay in the good graces of the state party and in particular their post-Citizens United big money backers.

The supreme court has never before ruled a state's redistricting plan unconstitutional because of partisan gerrymandering. While the court is often loathe to overturn its own precedent, it has done so in the past when our country has learned hard lessons from its own history. "Separate but equal" is a prime example. This may seem like a hyperbolic comparison, but it is less so when you consider the motives behind and impact of gerrymandering.

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From Gush Shalom



Donald Trump- Caricature

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WHEN I was young, there was a joke: "There is no one like you -- and that's a good thing!"

The joke applies now to Donald Trump. He is unique. That's good, indeed.

But is he unique? As a world-wide phenomenon, or at least in the Western world, is he without parallel?

As a character, Trump is indeed unique. It is extremely difficult to imagine any other Western country electing somebody like that as its supreme leader. But beyond his particular personality, is Trump unique?

BEFORE THE US election, something happened in Britain. The Brexit vote.

The British people, one of the most reasonable on earth, voted democratically to leave the European Union.

That was not a reasonable decision. To be blunt, it was idiotic.

The European Union is one of the greatest inventions of mankind. After many centuries of internal warfare, including two world wars, with uncounted millions of casualties, good sense at long last prevailed. Europe became one. First economically, then, slowly, mentally and politically.

England, and later Britain, was involved in many of these wars. As a great naval power and a world-wide empire, it profited from them. Its traditional policy was to instigate conflicts and to support the weaker against the stronger.

These days are, alas, gone. The Empire (including Palestine) is but a memory. Britain is now a mid-ranking power, like Germany and France. It cannot stand alone. But it has decided to.

Why, for God's sake? No one knows for sure. Probably it was a passing mood. A fit of pique. A longing for the good old days, when Britannia ruled the waves and built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land. (Nothing very green and pleasant about the real Jerusalem.)

Many seem to believe that if there had been a second round, the British would have reversed themselves. But the British do not believe in second rounds.

ANYHOW, THE "Brexit" vote was considered a sharp turn to the Right. And right after, there was the American vote for Trump.

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Remarks at United National Antiwar Coalition in Richmond, Virginia, June 17, 2017

Did you hear about Trump calling up the mayor of



.What me worry.

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Did you hear about Secretary of War Mattis telling Congress that for the 16th year in a row he would produce a plan for "winning" a war on Afghanistan? Congress either believed it or has been paid to act as if it believes it. Congress members Jones and Garamendi have a bill to defund this endless act of mass-murder. We need a movement that can nonviolently shut down Congressional offices until they do so.

We do have marches in various cities this weekend to ban nuclear bombs, and negotiations underway at the UN to create a treaty that does that. Once most countries on earth have banned nuclear bombs, the US will explain that, as with successful bans on guns, banning weapons is just not physically possible. Your eyes must be fooling you. A large percentage of that small percentage of people in this country who hear about the matter at all will believe what they are told.

Even more will believe what they are not told. Many who care about resisting climate change, completely ignore the growing danger of nuclear apocalypse, because they don't hear about it -- some people even going so far as to wantonly demand greater hostility between the US and Russian governments. What could go wrong?

We need radical reforms in our education system that go beyond ending standardized tests, shrinking classrooms, and training and paying teachers. We need courses taught in every school in the subjects of social change, nonviolent action, and refining practical techniques for the successful recognition of bullshit.

Trump says dealing more weapons to Saudi Arabia raises no human rights concerns, but visiting Cuba to drink a mojito on the beach, or allowing Cuban medicines to save US lives, borders on a crime against humanity. Others say that weapons of military mass murder should properly be spread only to nations that murder their domestic prisoners in humane ways, like Arkansas. Meanwhile we can't talk about millions of people on the edge of starving to death in Yemen, we can't build a movement against starvation, of all things, because the starvation is caused by war and war is not to be questioned.

Did you know that over in Charlottesville our city voted to take down a statue of Robert E. Lee that was put up by racists in the 1920s? But we can't take it down because a Virginia state law forbids taking down any war monument. That is a law, if ever there was one, that needs repealing in this capital of the confederacy -- or at least amending to require an equal sized peace monument for every monument to war. Imagine what that would do for Richmond's landscape.

Imagine what it would do for our souls. We are in need of a secular and collective resurrection. "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift," said Dr. King, "is approaching spiritual death." And "a nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan." We've paid up, all the installments. We've reached spiritual death. We've gone into spiritual decomposition. We're rapidly making our way toward actual extinction.

When the United States wants to start a new war, the number one justification is that some former client "used chemical weapons on his own people," as if using them on someone else's people would be OK, and as if people can belong to someone. When the United States uses white phosphorus as a weapon on human beings, we should understand them as our brothers and sisters, our own people. Our government is an outlaw whose own actions by its own standards justify its overthrow.

Here's what I propose, as a beginning. World flags in place of national flags. Thank yous for their service to everyone engaged in programs of social uplift. Backs turned on national anthems, pledges of allegiance, and war promoters. Peace demonstrations on every war holiday. Peace books promoted at every school board meeting. Picketing and flyering at every weapons dealer. Welcome parties for all immigrants. Divestment from all weapons. Conversion to peaceful industries. Global cooperation in requiring the closing of all foreign bases. Urging every U.S. mayor to endorse the two resolutions coming up before the U.S. Conference of Mayors that tell Congress not to move money from human and environmental needs to the military but to do just the reverse. And nonviolent resistance to business as usual at every local office of every elected official not on board with the radical change needed to protect peace, planet, and people.

Needless to say this requires political independence and principled promotion of policy, not personality. The same people who rigged a primary to nominate one of the only candidates who could have lost to Donald Trump are now targeting Trump with one of the only accusations that can blow up in their faces for lack of proof or in all of our faces in the form of nuclear war. Meanwhile, Trump is openly guilty of illegal wars, illegal prejudicial bans on immigrants, illegal willful destruction of the earth's climate, unconstitutional domestic and foreign profiteering from his public office, and a whole laundry list of crimes from sexual assault to voter intimidation.

Trump opponents, too wise by half, say don't impeach him, his successor would be worse. I respectfully maintain that this position fails to recognize what is needed or our power to achieve it. What is needed is to create the power to impeach, eject, unelect, and otherwise hold accountable anyone who holds public office -- something we do not now have, something we must have for whoever comes after Trump whenever they come after Trump, but something that we can only have if we create it.

Nancy Pelosi says to sit back, relax, because Trump will "self-impeach." I respectfully suggest that people no more self-impeach than wars self-end, guns self-ban, police self-reform, energy systems self-convert, schools self-improve, houses self-build, or planets self-protect. The only strategy this mindset leads to is self-destruction. Congress clearly will not self-govern. We have to impose our will. We have to understand what is needed and create it, against the concerted efforts of those in power. Power concedes nothing without a demand, said Frederick Douglass. Let's do some demanding.
One man, one vote. It's a phrase we've all heard and it kind of tugs at us. But the tugs are may be in different directions. You might well ponder where women come in to the picture, for example. And descendants of former slaves may feel strongly about how men among their ancestors were denied the right to vote.



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The phrase may also ring hollow to the many with felony convictions who are permanently denied the right to vote, even today; in fact, many are denied the right to vote just for having a name similar to someone with a felony record. To advocates of alternative-voting systems, the focus may be more on the meaning of one vote than on the meaning of one man.

Emotions are important. People do not often think just logically as emotions often come into play. Voting itself is an emotional issue, not strictly and perhaps not even mainly a logical one. We are guided by wise old, often trite sayings, by habit of party affiliation, by stories we have heard, advertisements we have seen, and on rare occasions even by policy convictions. The point is that we are simply making a mistake when we think about voting methods without taking some account of the emotional baggage of typical voters.

Consider, for example, an election very much like the ones we usually have, using plurality voting with only two candidates in the race. In this limited circumstance, plurality voting is, at least in a weak formal sense, a balanced voting system where it is just as easy to vote against a candidate as to vote for a candidate. To vote against candidate A, a voter only has to vote for candidate B and conversely. So we might think there should be nothing at all to be gained by using balanced-plurality voting instead. Why bother with a voting system any more complicated when the simpler and very familiar system is already, arguably, a balanced system.

But in fact we cannot assume that voters think so logically. A voter who does not like either candidate A or candidate B may (with plurality voting) only being allowed to vote for one of the candidates, conclude that she cannot bring herself to vote for either candidate. She instead decides to just sit out the election and not vote, despite actually having a distinct preference between the two candidates. Alternatively, maybe such a voter will feel a responsibility to vote, so she instead casts a write-in ballot voting for her dog, herself or someone else who has no realistic chance of winning the election. It's a feel-good vote of course that has the identical effect on the election as not voting, but she does feel more responsible and perhaps even a little proud of voting but managing to find a way to avoid voting in favor of an unacceptable candidate.

But now consider what might happen if the election were held using balanced-plurality voting, where voters can explicitly cast a vote for or against either candidate. That same voter might think differently about how to vote. After all, while she opposes both candidates and (in her mind) cannot vote for either one, in reality she does oppose candidate B considerably more than she opposes candidate A. By casting her vote against B, this voter can feel honest about participating in the election and gratified that it was with a truly meaningful vote that actually could effect the election results. Logically, a vote against B has exactly the same effect in the election as if she held her nose and voted for A, but the emotions are very different and in this case at least, emotions rule. Emotions have real effects on voting so they cannot just be ignored when choosing a voting method.

And what about the day after the election? Voters learn that candidate B did actually win the election, but both candidates received negative net votes. B enters office with a negative 400,823 net votes compared with the negative 401,004 net votes cast for candidate A. The new Governor or new Senator takes office by a slim 181 net-vote margin but (importantly) with a negative net vote total. Quite clearly to everyone, this would be a win without anything remotely resembling a mandate. Compared to earlier election years when plurality voting was used, voter participation has increased significantly, so it is also harder for the new Senator to claim support from that silent majority of voters who did not show up to vote.

A lesson here is that if you want to determine the wishes of the voters through an election, then voters have to be allowed to express their opinions quite explicitly and directly (and I should point out that his is a virtue common to all of the balanced-voting systems). In general, it is not really relevant that some logical technical argument can reveal a clever way to vote that will have some desired technical effect. If voters are not aware of the argument or not completely convinced by it, the argument suffers from a serious flaw that makes it inapplicable to a real election with real human, emotion-guided voters.
So basically The Daily Show printed out a bunch of Trump tweets, framed them and hung them all over an exhibition space for everyone to come see. Why? Because they can, apparently. Its called the Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library and its open to the public all weekend. If youre in New York City, you can check it out at 3 West 57th Street, right across from Trump Tower, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. today through Sunday, although you could also not do that.

When you walk inside, you will be greeted first by metal detector-wielding security guards and then by a spinning glass case. Inside the case is a pair of arms topped by a pair of tiny hands clutching a tiny iPhone. Here:

Behind the arms is a large screen playing a video introduction by Daily Show host Trevor Noah. You can pass through one of two doors into the main room, which, again, is pretty much just his tweets printed out and dressed up nice. For instance:

The tweets are paired with little cards that provide some jokey context, like at an art museum:

I found this pairing to be particularly gross:

Ha ha, the line where he admitted hes a sexual predator can also be applied to his tweets! Classic Trump.

There are some placards that aggregate a bunch of tweets about a similar topic, such as Hillary Clinton, global warming or Jeb Bush:

Above each placard is a framed medal, memorializing the subject of said tweets for their valor. Congrats, Jeb, on your valor.

There are some interactive exhibits, like one where you read a tweet and then slide it aside to discover whether it was true or false:

Or the one where you type your name into a Trump nickname generator, and then a staffer nearby writes that name onto a name tag for you. Here, I copied down the URL so you can do that without getting out of bed, unless you wanted to go back to sleep, which sounds pretty nice if you ask me: tdstrumpnicknamer.com.

There are also a couple video exhibits. One is a presentation of Trump tweet statistics, like how often each of his family members gets a mention. Another is a short film, hosted by Jordan Klepper, explaining the history of Trumps Twitter. Then theres a large live feed of Trumps timeline which, allegedly, will sound an alert when he tweets anew. The centerpiece of the whole affair is a large golden toilet which I guess you can sit on and type a tweet yourself, which shows up on a large monitor. Also theres this painting:

Is this funny? The whole thing, I mean. I cant tell anymore. This whole genre of satire has emerged in which essentially you hold up something Trump said or did and say, Ha ha, isnt that hilarious? Which, sure, it is, in a way, but I dont need you to tell me. We live in Trumps world. When I pick up my phone, there he is. When I put it down, too bad, hes on TV or the front page of a newspaper. When I close my eyes and cover my ears and shout la la la la la la! hes wormed into in my head anyway. I dont know what the formula is for good Trump satire, but I have a feeling it should do more than put a gilded frame around his bile. This whole exhibit is a quote-tweet with high production value. Its suffocating enough out thereI want my comedy to give me some goddamn oxygen.

Trevor Noah offered some brief remarks at the librarys press opening last night. Its about giving context to the tweets, he said. Not absorbing them one bite at a time but rather looking at them as a body of worksome of the greatest moments, some of the greatest ideas that have been shared in 140 characters or less. Sorry, but, just one more time: Who wants that?? Were stuck with this guy for four years! We have no choice but to gaze at his body of work all day every day!

I did ask Noah whether, with so much Trump fatigue in real life, he has any concern about Trump fatigue in comedy. When is enough enough? I will admit it was a dumb question to ask because he was taking questions in character and not answering them seriously at all. Cant blame a guy for trying, am I right? Anyway, he said this: Trump fatigue? I dont know if you know the president but fatigue is not a part of his lexicon. You do not get tired of Donald J. Trump. He gets tired of you. Donald Trump has shown that he has an ability that few human beings possess, to ramp up the news cycle when that fatigue sets in.

I remember a week sitting in my office with my colleagues, Noah went on. I looked at them, they looked at me and we said, It seems we have gotten used to this. It seems the news has died down. Shortly thereafter, James Comey met his end. And that was when we knew: You can never have Trump fatigue. You can only get used to what is, and thereafter there will be something new. So as soon as you get comfortable, prepare for the next shit storm my friend, because it will be coming.

Hes not wrong. Trump has already attacked his Deputy Attorney General on Twitter this morning. When he pressed Tweet, a red light went off in the Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library and an alarm rang his own words: Bing bing bing bing. The shit storm is coming. Theres nothing we can do about it. What would be nice is if our comedy institutions could find some way to joke about the shit storm that isnt simply repeating it verbatim, some new and radical means of making the world funny again rather than lying down in the bed thats been made for us by madmen. Until then I think I will weather it all from the Trump-less walls of my own home, thank you very much.

The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. all weekend, at 3 West 57th Street.

Seth Simons is Pastes assistant comedy editor. Follow him on Twitter.
Liv Boeree's Advice for Las Vegas Adventurers

June 17, 2017 Brandi Williams

Poker players from all over the world descend upon Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker each summer where they spend endless hours inside the Rio, and they rarely venture outdoors (unless its to warm up or smoke). Liv Boeree is one player, however, that makes getting outdoors during the WSOP a priority, and in her words  I just like to get out of the city as much as possible during the WSOP. I get stir crazy if I spend too much time indoors. This year her priority was taking a short trip to the Grand Canyon. We asked how the Grand Canyon won out for the summer side trip, and she explained, Igor had never been to [the] Grand Canyon before, so I had to do something about that immediately, as its incredible. So, off to Arizona it was for a break from poker.

Feeling a bit grand after some canyoning  Liv Boeree (@Liv_Boeree)

An estimated five million people visit the Grand Canyon each year, and if you follow Boeree on Instagram or Twitter it is easy to see why. Her social posts not only show the beauty of the canyon, but Boerees appreciation for nature. When asked how important nature is to her, she responded: Its hugely important to me. I grew up surrounded by nature and always feel at my best in it. Her appreciation of nature was evident this this past Earth Day, as she posted pictures of Zion National Park in Utah on Instagram and Twitter.

Taking time to enjoy the outdoors can have beneficial effects both physically and mentally. Many players grind upwards of fourteen hours a day during the WSOP, which can take a toll on ones mental state. Boeree feels that taking nature trips helps her with her game, and she had this to say, I always feel reinvigorated after an adventure, and that obviously helps with [my] mental game. Getting out and about provides a fresh perspective on the grind! That sounds like good advice for poker and life.

Boeree is not the only player taking time away from the felt during the WSOP to enjoy the beauty of the Southwestern U.S. Timothy Adams recently took time away from the felt to explore Zion National Park and posted a spectacular picture on Twitter.

Zion National Park  Timothy Adams (@TimOtheeAdams)

And, Mustapha Kanit followed the lead of millions and decided to visit Grand Canyon this summer. He posted this vivid picture of himself deep inside the canyon.

Boerees love for nature and her thirst for adventure were so evident that we posed the question of what local side trip she would recommend to a Las Vegas visitor. She enthusiastically responded: The easiest is Red Rock Canyon - stunning, 25-minute drive from the city and every kind of hike you could want from gentle strolls to intense climbing. Or, if you want to escape the heat, a 50-minute drive gets you up into Mount Charleston - it's really high, so much cooler and very different, alpine environment. If this poker thing doesnt work, Boeree might just have a career as a nature travel guide!

If you want to follow more of Livs adventures on and off the felt, you can follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

Sharelines Nature and poker? According to @Liv_Boeree, combing the two can help with your poker game.
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.




In February 1961, Mary MacMakin arrived in Afghanistan with her husband and four children, landing on a snow-strewn runway in the capital, Kabul. It was a trip into the unknown for the 31-year-old aid worker and her family.

Little did MacMakin know that her trip would kindle a decades-long dedication to Afghanistan, a country MacMakin has now long called home.

A Boston native who majored in physical therapy at Stanford University, MacMakin had lived a privileged life in the United States. But it was in impoverished Afghanistan where she says he found her true calling as a humanitarian worker at the height of the Cold War.

I have always felthome here, says the 87-year-old, who lives in a cramped, shared apartment in Kabul. I have been in love with the mountains and the people.

She tries harder to explain her fascination, recalling a shared taxi ride with three young men in Kabul many years ago. She says conversation naturally turned to why MacMakin, so obviously a foreigner, felt so at home in Afghanistan.

I told them I have been trying to figure that out for decades, why I like living here. And one of the reasons I'd discovered, she says, is because the people seem to be so well-balanced, personally, between mind and heart. Americans live in their head/mind so much they have forgotten their core being, their heart.

It was no surprise when MacMakin finally decided to apply for Afghan citizenship last year. Due to her lifelong commitment to the country, she was presented with her documents by none other than President Ashraf Ghani and first lady Rula Ghani on Norouz, the Persian new year, in March.

The decision was as much practical as it was emotional, she says.

Getting my residence visa renewed every six months became a big hassle after I reached 65 because the government does not issue work permits to people over 65, says MacMakin, who speaks Dari, one of the two national languages in Afghanistan.

Since first arriving 56 years ago, MacMakin has witnessed history, living through the overthrow of the monarchy, a communist coup, the Soviet occupation, the rise and fall of the Taliban regime, the U.S.-led invasion, and the international military withdrawal in 2014.

But she almost didnt make it.

Back in 1961, the family had first flown from San Francisco to New Delhi. They then boarded a Douglas DC-20 with a dozen others for the trip to Kabul, only to make a perilous emergency landing in the Indian city of Amritsar because of engine trouble. A week later, MacMakin finally made it to the Afghan capital, where she remembers the snow was piled so high on each side of the runway that airport personnel had to shave the tops off the highest drifts so the plane's wings could clear them.

The family settled in. Her husband had been sent to Kabul to start an education publishing house, and MacMakin said she soon began learning the language and getting to know the city.

I started exploring the bazaars as soon as we had a few days of Dari lessons, she says. An American woman who had lived in Kabul for a few years had a horse and persuaded me to get a horse, too. The two of us then rode all around Kabul exploring the city.

MacMakin ran projects for humanitarian groups like Save the Children and CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere).

In 1967, the family moved back to the United States. Four years later, MacMakin returned to Kabul alone to continue her aid work while her husband stayed behind to raise their children.

The 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the brutal 1992-96 civil war forced her to leave. When she returned again to Kabul, in 1996, she said she was "shocked" by what she saw. Most of the city had been reduced to rubble. Kabul resembled a wasteland. And there was a new fundamentalist militia in power -- the Taliban.

But that did not stop her from opening PARSA (Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping women and children made widows and orphans by the wars.

During its five-year reign, the Taliban banned girls from going to school and women from working outside their homes. At great risk to her safety, MacMakin set up a secret, makeshift school for girls.

In July 2000, the Taliban arrested her on charges of spying for the United States and of attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity, allegations she firmly denied. She was held in a juvenile prison for four days before being deported to Pakistan. She returned only after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 overthrew the Taliban.

In 2006, MacMakin stepped down as head of PARSA and handed the reigns to Marnie Gustavson, a fellow American who has worked in Afghanistan for the past 15 years. Gustavson describes MacMakin as a maverick and a little crazy but also deeply compassionate.

Afghans think that Mary is theirs, certainly more theirs than the Americans, says Gustavson. She fits into how Afghans appreciate anyone of her age and who has done as much as she has done. Shes quite revered.

This is a person who immersed herself in this country and she learned and she received as much as she gave, adds Gustavson. We are ambassadors for the Afghan people because so much of the media and so much of peoples perspectives outside of the country dont fit with what we see and know.

Most of the thousands of international aid workers, diplomats, and security contractors who came to Kabul following the fall of the Taliban in 2001 have since left, especially after the withdrawal of most international troops at the end of 2014. But despite the escalating violence and political turmoil, a small number of foreigners, including MacMakin, are committed to riding it out in their adopted home.

MacMakin, whose husband died seven years ago, says she spends "every penny" of her monthly $1,500 U.S. Social Security check on living expenses and on another aid organization she has founded, Afzenda, which enables impoverished women to earn extra income from sewing.

Im not going anywhere, says MacMakin. It is hard for people, even Afghans, to imagine why a foreigner would want to live in Afghanistan, but it has an undeniable attraction."
Afghan officials say a foreign contractor has been kidnapped in the capital, Kabul.



Agriculture Ministry spokesman Latifullah Rashedi said the man, who was kidnapped early on June 18, was working in the accounting department of the ministry as part of a project managed by the World Bank.



Rashedi declined to give the individuals nationality.



Rauof Zia, media officer for the World Bank in Afghanistan, said the kidnapped individual is a Kenyan national working for one of the lender's projects under the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund.



Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for the Kabul police, said the contractor was African.



Police have started investigating the kidnapping and rescue efforts were under way, he added.



Mujahid said the man was kidnapped in the western neighborhood of Kart-e Char at around 9 a.m. local time.



No group has so far claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.



In May, a Finnish woman was kidnapped from a Kabul guesthouse in an attack that killed a German woman and an Afghan security guard.

Based on reporting by AP and dpa
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.
MILLINOCKET, Maine (AP)  Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Thursday that federal ownership of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument is "settled," and he may recommend an upgrade to a national park.

Zinke visited the 87,500 acres (35,410 hectares) of wilderness over two days as part of President Donald Trump's review of more than two dozen national monuments.

The former Montana congressman didn't share Maine Gov. Paul LePage's opinion that the land was unworthy of the federal designation. Instead, he described it as a "beautiful and special place" after touring the property, doing some hiking, and canoeing on a river.

At a chamber of commerce breakfast Thursday, Zinke went even further in suggesting that he might recommend that Congress elevate the land's status to a national park. That was the original goal of Roxanne Quimby, co-founder of Burt's Bees, who purchased the land.

The governor has charged that federal ownership of the land will slow economic development in the region, in addition to questioning the land's beauty.

LePage did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

During the breakfast event, the 30-plus attendees were asked to stand if they supported the federal monument. Everyone stood.

Zinke visited the wilderness area adjacent to Baxter State Park, home to the state's tallest mountain, Katahdin, and first signaled on Wednesday he's inclined to keep it in public hands.

But he also suggested Wednesday, and again Thursday, that it could be opened to "traditional uses," such as timber harvesting, hunting and fishing.

Zinke said it important to make sure local stakeholders had a voice in then-President Barack Obama's creation of the monument last year. In addition to the chamber meeting, he spent time with leaders of the Penobscot Nation and a group that opposes the federal ownership.

Supporters were encouraged by Zinke's enthusiasm. And Lucas St. Clair, Quimby's son, said he appreciated that Zinke thanked the family for its gift to the American people.

"We're taking a big sigh of relief. We feel like the secretary was straightforward with his comment. He said it's an opportunity to create a national park. He said it's a worthy landscape," said St. Clair, who accompanied Zinke during his visit.
Dr. Pauline Jackson was one of only two female students in a class of 62 when she entered her first semester at the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1957, but she never considered herself an anomaly.

Ive never been in an environment where there were more than just a handful of peculiar women like me, she told the Wisconsin Academy Review in 1995. I never saw myself as being any different from men as far as opportunities were concerned.

From a young age, Jackson refused to be pigeonholed by gender stereotypes, attending an all-boys school, the closest to her home, as a child and acing the the math and science portions of her exams to secure a spot at Stanford, from which she graduated with honors. When a teacher suggested she stay home and have babies when she was unable to correctly answer a question in class, she turned the humiliation into a learning experience, and went on to become the first female psychiatrist at Gundersen Health System in 1972, and, in 1993, broke a 151-year-old tradition as the first female physician to preside over the Wisconsin Medical Society.

She was a pioneer  the first female psychiatrist I ever met, said Tim Petersen, a former staff nurse in the Gundersen inpatient psychiatric unit. "A hardworking, tough, no-nonsense lady.

Though slight in physique, she was strong in demeanor, and her discipline extended to all aspects of her life, from her neat, trim and professional appearance to her strict but fair parenting. And while she faced her share of adversity in the workplace, she powered through.

I admired her. She stuck with it, and it wasnt easy for her, said Dr. Erik Gundersen, retired cardiac surgeon for Gundersen Health System. She was pretty courageous and showed considerable strength.

Jackson, 80, died Thursday of a fall-induced brain hemorrhage, leaving behind two children who remember her as equally dedicated to both family and career.

In 1998, Jackson retired from the hospital where she brought on the psychiatry departments first female interns and advocated tirelessly for the compassionate and comprehensive treatment of mental illness, a mission she continued as a Gundersen Medical Foundation board member.

Born in Santa Barbara in 1936, Jackson was an only child who excelled in school and by the age of 5 was set on attending Stanford, where she first studied to be an engineer. She later worked as a superintendent for Fallsview Mental Health Care in Ohio, and after marrying husband William, from whom she was later divorced, adopted son John and daughter Linda Fox from an orphanage in North Carolina. She immersed the two in education while stressing philanthropy. A supporter of many non-profit organizations, she often worried about adequate funding for mental health and fought on its behalf.

Her forefront was always, What can we do here when the state starts cutting funding, John said. Her low in life was in the 1980s when the states started cutting funds for mental health.

Also a forensic psychiatrist, Jackson performed mental health assessments on many high-profile criminals, including Bryan Stanley, who shot three men in an Onalaska church in 1985. She voiced concern about the lack of attention to the high rate mental illness among the homeless, and had the ability to connect even with patients displaying devastating symptoms.

She just had this understanding, recalled Kay Petersen, who worked with Jackson as a nurse in the outpatient ward and remembers her taking every call herself. She wasnt put off by anyone. She was very much there for her patients.

Her patients liked her a lot, Gundersen agreed. She was a remarkable person.

Funeral arrangements are pending with Dickinson Family Funeral Home.
Iraqi security forces have launched an operation to retake the last Islamic State (IS) militant group stronghold in Mosul, the country's second-largest city.



Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the international coalition fighting IS militants, said on Twitter that Iraqi forces breached Mosul's Old City early June 18.



Lieutenant General Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yarallah, who commands army operations in Ninevah Governorate, said Iraqi special forces, the regular army, and federal police were taking part in the operation.



"The initial air strikes started at around midnight. The security forces started storming parts of the Old City at dawn," an officer with Nineveh operations command said.



"This is the final chapter" in the offensive to take Mosul, said Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, commander of the elite Counterterrorism Service (CTS) units spearheading the assault.



The IS group overran Mosul in 2014, declaring a self-styled "caliphate" over areas it ruled.



Mosul's Old City is a densely populated maze of narrow alleyways where fighting is often conducted house by house.



About 100,000 civilians remain trapped there in harrowing conditions, with little food, water, and medicine and limited access to hospitals, according to the United Nations.



"This will be a terrifying time for around 100,000 people still trapped in Mosul's Old City ... now at risk of getting caught up in the fierce street fighting to come," the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said in a statement.



Iraqi forces backed by the air strikes of the U.S.-led coalition have been pressing a months-long offensive to retake the Old City on the west side of the city from IS fighters.



Taking back the Old City is crucial to recapturing the whole of the former IS bastion.



Thousands of civilians are believed to be trapped in the Old City, where the militants are using them as human shields, UN humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande said June 16. She said conditions are "desperate," with little food and no clean water.



Iraqi forces launched the Mosul offensive in October, retaking the eastern part of the city in January and starting the operation for its western part the next month.



The move on Mosul's Old City comes just one day after the Iraqi military said its forces and Sunni tribal fighters had driven IS extremists out of the Al-Waleed border crossing near Syria, nearly three years to the day after the town fell to IS.



The military statement on June 17 said U.S. and Iraqi aircraft supported ground troops in the offensive on the western edge of Iraq.



Al-Waleed is across from the Syrian border town of Al-Tanf, site of a U.S. base used to aid forces fighting IS and the government and allies of President Bashar al-Assad in Syrias six-year civil war.



IS took Al-Waleed on June 22, 2014, as its forces captured large chunks of territory from Syrian and Iraqi government forces, declaring capitals in the Syrian town of Raqqa and the Iraqi city of Mosul.



When Al-Waleed fell to IS, it gave the group control of the Iraq-Syria frontier. At the time, they vowed to eliminate the border and establish a "caliphate" over territory in the two Arab nations.



U.S.-backed fighters in both countries are now pressuring IS forces and are attempting to push their final fighters out of the two self-declared capitals.



Along with supporting Iraqi government forces, the United States backs Syrian and Kurdish rebels fighting Assads government in Damascus. Russia and Iran have backed Assad.



The presence of the U.S. forces on the Syrian side near Al-Tanf has prevented Iran-backed Shiite forces supporting Assads government from receiving supplies along the main Baghdad-Damascus highway. The capture of Al-Waleed is likely to aid the U.S. efforts there.



On June 6, the U.S.-led coalition said it had eliminated a unit of Iranian-backed forces fighting on behalf of Assad as it neared the Al-Tanaf base. Russia denounced that attack as an "act of aggression."



The Pentagon on June 14 announced the deployment of the truck-mounted High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) to the Al-Tanf base, also drawing protests from Russia.



Around Raqqa, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have seized territory to the north, east, and west of the city as they prepare for the final assault on the IS stronghold.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, Kurdistan24, and TASS
Former Japanese residents are traveling to two Russian-held islands in the Pacific Ocean to pay their respects at family graves, Japanese officials say.

The visit -- set to begin on June 18 -- will mark the first time Japanese citizens will be allowed to travel by air to the disputed island chain, which Tokyo calls the Northern Territories and Moscow calls the Southern Kuriles.

Previous Japanese visitors were forced to travel by ship under a complicated procedure.

About 70 visitors will travel aboard a charter flight by Russian airline Aurora from the Japanese city of Nakashibetsu to the islands of Iturup and Kunashir, officials said.

Although Russian-held, Japan still claims the islands, which the Soviet Union seized in the closing days of World War II.

Lingering tensions over the islands have prevented Japan and Russia from signing a peace treaty to formally end the war.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida on June 17 said the visit and continued cooperation with Russia regarding the islands could mark a big step toward the eventual signing of a peace treaty.

"The joint economic activities in the Northern Territories and the fact we are going to jointly consider their future is no doubt a big step toward signing a peace treaty by solving the issue of sovereignty [over the islands]," Kishida told Japanese NHK TV.

On March 20, Moscow and Tokyo pledged closer economic and security cooperation related to the island chain.

A month later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had agreed with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to start flights for former Japanese residents to "visit the graves of ancestors" on the islands.

He said the move was made to help create an atmosphere of trust and mutual understanding as the two sides sought a more-permanent solution to the dispute.

With reporting by TASS and Jiji Press
Several thousand protesters marched in the Spanish capital of Madrid to urge the countrys conservative government to fulfill its commitment to take in more than 17,000 refugees as part of a wider European relocation plan.

On June 17, the protesters, many chanting "No human being is illegal," marched behind a huge banner reading: "We Want To Welcome Them Now! Enough Excuses. No More Barriers."

In 2015, Spain pledged to take in more than 17,300 refugees but has so far only resettled just over 1,300, according to Amnesty International.

The country vowed to take in 15,888 from camps in Italy and Greece, which are on the front line of the refugee influx, and 1,449 from Turkey and Libya. Many originated in Syria, officials said.

A February march in Barcelona in support of refugees attracted some 160,000 protesters, officials and organizers said.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP
This weeks Majlis podcast looks at Turkmenistans economic crisis.

Turkmenistan has the fourth-largest reserves of natural gas and once, decades ago, the leadership of the country was predicting it would become a second Kuwait.

Instead, the country has reached the point where the government is compensating for shortfalls in revenue by putting the burden on the people of Turkmenistan.

Muhammad Tahir, RFE/RL's media relations manager, moderated a discussion on the latest signs from Turkmenistan showing the extent of the steep economic downturn.

From Scotland, Dr. Luca Anceschi, a lecturer in Central Asian studies at the University of Glasgow, participated. From London, Maximilien Lamberston, an analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit who covers the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Russia, joined the discussion. From Prague, the director of RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, Farruh Yusupov, told the Majlis some of what he has been hearing out of Turkmenistan lately. And I chipped in a few comments, too.

Listen to the podcast below or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes.
Two officials from Pakistan's consulate in eastern Afghanistan have gone missing during a road trip, Pakistan said on June 18.

"Two officials of our Jalalabad Consulate-General are missing since June 16 while commuting to Pakistan by road," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

"The matter has been raised with the relevant Afghan authorities, who have informed that all efforts were in hand to probe the incident."

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria told RFE/RL on June 18 that Islamabad is "in touch with Kabul" to locate the missing officials.

Zakaria did not disclose the names of the officials and did not give further details.

Attaullah Khogiani, a spokesman for Nangarhar Province, told RFE/RL that local authorities have launched a search operation in the areas along the Jalalabad-Torkham road.

It is unclear whether the officials were kidnapped.

However, Islamic State and Taliban militants are active in different areas of Nangarhar, which borders the Khyber tribal district in northwest Pakistan.

Relations between the neighbors have soured over claims that Pakistan secretly supports insurgents trying to topple the Afghan government.

Afghan officials frequently accuse Pakistan of supporting the Taliban and providing sanctuary for the guerrillas on its soil in hopes of maintaining influence in Afghanistan.

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the militia was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

It has battled the Kabul government and its foreign allies ever since.

With additional reporting by Tolo news and AFP
Taliban fighters stormed a police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan on June 18 after striking it with two suicide car bombs, killing at least five police officers, officials said.

Sardar Wali Tabasim, spokesman for the provincial police chief in Paktia Province, said another eight police officers were wounded in the attack. Tabasim said one of the attackers detonated his suicide vest inside the compound, while two others were shot dead by police, and one was still fighting.

A doctor at a nearby hospital said more than a dozen wounded civilians had been brought in for treatment. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

Najib Danish, deputy spokesman for the Interior Ministry, confirmed the attack in Gardez, the provincial capital of Paktia Province.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to media.

One of the explosions was so strong it shattered windows up to 2 kilometers from the attack site, said Abdullah Hsrat, spokesman for the provincial governor.

The city of Gardez was targeted in another Taliban attack in May, when militants stormed a bank branch, killing two policemen and leaving 31 people injured.

Insurgent groups like the Taliban and Islamic State have launched a series of attacks across Afghanistan in recent weeks.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a mosque in Kabul on June 15.

A massive truck bombing and later suicide attacks left hundreds dead and wounded at the end of last month and beginning of June, raising political tensions for the Afghan government, which is struggling to combat rising violence and corruption.

Thousands of international troops remain in the country to train and assist Afghan security forces as well as carry out counterterrorism missions.

American defense officials say in coming weeks they will decide whether to send between 3,000 to 5,000 more troops as requested by military commanders.

Based on reporting by AP, AFP, dpa, and Reuters
KYIV -- Thousands of gay-rights activists marched in a pride rally in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, on June 18 amid a massive police presence.

According to police, some 2,500 people gathered for the March of Equality in the center of Kyiv, which started near Taras Shevchenko Park and lasted for more than one hour. An estimated 5,500 officers ensured that the event proceeded without disturbance.

Police sealed off all roads near the park and also secured exits from the Tolstoy subway station nearby.

PHOTO GALLERY: Scenes From The March (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Participants had initially planned to march down Volodymyrska Street, but the route was changed due to the presence of antigay protesters and nationalist activists.

Several antigay protesters set fire to a rainbow flag, the symbol of the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex) community.

A counterdemonstration by a few hundred ultranationalists degenerated into scuffles with police in which two officers were injured and six people arrested, Kyiv police chief Andrey Kryschenko said.

Police performed security checks among the protesters and confiscated balaclavas, gas canisters, eggs, and green paint. Six antigay protesters were detained after they attempted to break through the police cordons.

Gay-rights activists from Switzerland and Israel also participated in the event.

"I am very satisfied with the work of law enforcement," Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Anastasiya Deyeva told RFE/RL.

"I am very satisfied with the atmosphere because the people here are really enjoying some kind of harmony, I would say. We have come here for human rights, we have come here for equality, and it really is great," Deyeva said.

The ambassadors of Britain and Canada, Judith Gough and Roman Waschuk, attended the march in a sign of support for Ukraine's LGBTI community. Waschuk told reporters that Canada stands for equal rights.

In a statement issued ahead of the march, rights watchdog Amnesty International said that Ukrainian authorities "must not only provide adequate security for the LGBTI marchers at this weekends pride event in Kyiv but also address structural causes of discrimination in the country, including addressing impunity for hate crimes, hate speech, and incitement to violence."

Kyiv held its first major pride march last year after a pro-Western government that came to power in 2014 sanctioned such events.

Last year's March of Equality, held on July 12, attracted some 1,000 participants and was guarded by some 5,500 police and 1,200 soldiers from the National Guard. Last year's parade passed off mostly without incident, despite threats from far-right groups who said they would disrupt proceedings.

In 2015, the march was called off when right-wing activists pelted participants with smoke grenades.
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Thousands of gay-rights activists attended a pride march in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, on June 18 under massive police supervision. Police formed a chain to protect the marchers in anticipation of attacks from ultranationalists. Drone footage at the end of the video shows counterprotesters attempting to block the march. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
Russia has warned that it will consider U.S.-led coalition aircraft in Syria "aerial targets" after a U.S. fighter jet shot down a Syrian Air Force plane.

The threat from the Russian Defense Ministry, issued on June 19, stopped short of saying U.S. or other allied jets would be shot down but still represented a sharp increase in tensions.

The U.S.-led coalition said earlier that pro-government militiamen attacked units of U.S. partner forces known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It said the Syrian aircraft had dropped bombs on SDF positions and was shot down near Tabqa in the afternoon of June 18 "in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of coalition-partnered forces.

The coalition said it contacted Russian counterparts via a special telephone line "to deescalate the situation and stop the firing."

"The coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime, Russian, or pro-regime forces partnered with them, but will not hesitate to defend coalition or partner forces from any threat," the statement said.

The Pentagon said that the Syrian fighter bomber was engaged by a U.S. F-18 Super Hornet jet.

The Russian ministry, however, denied that the United States had used the channel before the Syrian Su-22 bomber was downed. It said it was also suspending interaction with the United States on preventing air incidents over Syria.

"Any flying objects, including planes and drones of the international coalition, discovered west of the Euphrates River will be tracked as aerial targets by Russia's air defenses on and above ground," the Defense Ministry said in its statement.

Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A Syrian Army statement said the "flagrant attack was aimed at undermining the efforts of the army as the only effective force capable with its allies...in fighting terrorism across its territory."

"This comes at a time when the Syrian Army and its allies were making clear advances in fighting the [IS] terrorist group," it said, adding that the pilot was missing.

Meanwhile, Russian news agencies quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on June 19 that the United States should respect Syria's territorial integrity and refrain from unilateral actions in this country.

"As for what is happening 'on the ground' in Syria, we proceed from the assumption that it is necessary to fully respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity in Syria," Lavrov was quoted as saying. "Therefore, any actions 'on the ground,' and there are many participants there, including those who carry out military operations, should be coordinated with Damascus."

Lavrov's deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, described the U.S. strike as another step toward "dangerous escalation."

"We are warning Washington against using similar methods in the future," Ryabkov was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.

He added that he will meet with U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon on June 23 in St. Petersburg to discuss problems in bilateral ties, the news agency reported.

The U.S.-backed SDF fighters are in the process of encircling Raqqa, the Islamic State militant's final major stronghold in Syria.

The Syrian Army has also taken territory from retreating IS in the area as the multifaceted battle in Syria rages on after six years.

The United States and Turkey support differing rebel groups against IS and pro-government forces, while Russia and Iran back Assads government.

On June 19, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said that the next round of Syria peace talks in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, has been scheduled for July 4-5.

At the end of the previous round of talks in Astana last month, Russia, Turkey, and Iran signed a memorandum calling for the establishment of safe zones in Syria, but some Syrian opposition representatives walked out in protest.

The six-year Syrian conflict has left hundreds of thousands dead and driven more than 11 million people from their homes.

IS fighters are also under pressure in Iraq. On June 18, Iraqi security forces launched an operation to fully liberate Mosul, the country's second-largest city.

U.S. officials said coalition forces had breached the Old City, where the final IS extremists are clinging to their last positions, using more than 100,000 civilians as human shields.

With reporting by Interfax, Reuters, and AFP
Hetti Brown, who will become executive director of Couleecap Inc. when Grace Jones retires July 14 after 31 years in the post, most recently was executive director of the Animal Welfare Office of the Public Health Division of the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services.

Brown reformed the state emergency response and sheltering program for people with pets, led a task force to help people with mental health disorders and conducted research to enhance outreach programs for people who receive public assistance.

She also worked closely with state and county lawmakers to author and pass laws establishing new state services. In addition to launching job skill programs for youth and adult offenders, Brown led her department in developing training for judges, law enforcement officers and field case workers.

Brown was state director for the Humane Society of the United States, a role in which collaborated with elected officials, state agencies and other nonprofit organizations to develop legislative priorities and strategic plans.

As a governor-appointed member of a state task force to reform animal welfare infrastructure in Delaware, she represented the organization in underserved areas of North Philadelphia, where she delivered free safety net services to people living in poverty.

Before her work in the nonprofit sector, Brown spent 11 years with AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, where she directed marketing teams, led cross-team operational planning processes and created leadership development training programs.

Brown, who could not be reached for comment on her Couleecap role, recently relocated to La Crosse to join her husband, an assistant professor in the Womens, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Browns inspiration to help less fortunate people springs from her firsthand knowledge of poverty as a child, as well as work in the nonprofit and public sectors. The core principles she operates on including focusing on the people being served, building barrier-free programs, investing in organizational culture and cultivating diverse community partnerships.
In the last decade, 7 million hectares of boreal forest in Eastern Canada have been destroyed by the voracious insect known as the spruce budworm. And the outbreak is heading south again this spring, leaving devastation and fires in its wake.

Take a walk in the boreal forest of Eastern Canada these days, and chances are you'll hear the sound of millions of caterpillars taking a dump. They're the spruce budworm, and they're on the move.

"It's a bit yucky," said Patrick James, a spatial ecologist with a doctorate in forest ecology who's a professor of ecological modeling in the department of biological sciences at Universite de Montreal.

"If you walk in the woods in an area that's being severely defoliated, it sounds like rain," said James, 37, who has a new scientific paper published on the budworm phenomenon. "It's all of their frass, the bug poo, falling through the canopy of the trees."

More than that, it's devastating the economy.

"There's a huge consequence for the forest industry," James said. "The budworm changes the composition of the forest, it denudes the trees and leaves behind huge areas of standing dead and dry timber. Most of those trees don't get harvested, they don't go to the sawmill, profits aren't made."

Budworm outbreaks will cost the industry in New Brunswick alone an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion over the next 30 years, according to a 2012 study by University of New Brunswick researchers. Timber revenue will be lost, so will jobs, and the consequences will amplify as budworm, grown into dime-size moths, head south.

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And in their wake comes something else: fire.

In his study, published in February in the U.S. journal Ecological Applications, James shows that defoliation increases the risk of natural fires igniting eight to 10 years after a budworm outbreak -- especially now, in the spring, before summer fire season starts. Interestingly, this risk actually decreases in the years immediately after an outbreak, since the "greenup" of ground vegetation keeps the soil moist and less likely to ignite.

Predicting the risk

For his study, James looked at defoliation data stretching back to 1963 in two vast ecosystems in eastern and central Ontario. These results suggest that fire management agencies, which normally rely on weather indicators, could also include defoliation data to better predict areas of high fire risk. Knowing when and where the fire risk is increased due to the budworm can lead to pro-active techniques like "salvage logging," harvesting dead trees from areas already defoliated.

"If you can reduce the amount of budworm-killed forests in an area, you would then reduce the risk of fire ignition, which would then reduce the probability of having large forest fires," James said.

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The issue of how budworm affects fire is expected to become even more important in the future as both fire and insect activity is expected to increase due to climate change. However, how the interact and what sort of damage may result, remains uncertain.

Spruce budworm outbreaks happen every 35 years or so; the last one peaked in the early 1980s and the latest one began in Quebec in 2006. Natural Resources Canada warned last fall that while the impact is greatest on Quebec's North Shore and in the Gaspe and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, where 7 million hectares have been defoliated, budworm has been spotted in New Brunswick and may spread to the Acadian Forest.

The process works like this. First, the budworm larvae eat away at the tops of trees -balsam fir, black and white spruce. After several years, the dead treetops break off in the wind and their debris builds up on the branches below. Lightning strikes the dry material, which ignites, while meanwhile down on the forest floor an accumulation of needles lies ready to ignite, too.

Hovering on the border

Unseen in urban environments like Montreal, the budworm are nevertheless getting closer. They can be spotted in Quebec's Mauricie region, an hour north of Trois Rivieres, and around Ville Marie, south of Rouyn-Noranda in the Abitibi region.

Where are the moths headed next?

"We're at an interesting point in the outbreak," said James. "Last year it increased, but at a slower rate. In Quebec's North Shore region, around Baie-Comeau, the budworm ate all they could, and with radar we detected great clouds of them on the move, migrating on the wind to areas that hadn't been so heavily affected, largely towards the south to the Lower St. Lawrence, the Gaspe and New Brunswick."

The moths are now "hovering on the New Brunswick border around Campbellton," he added, referring to a mass infestation that hit there last summer, when millions of larvae turned into moths and flew into town or were carried there by the wind, covering everything for miles around. "With that development, I would expect there'll be more activity in northern New Brunswick this year."

Can't the budworm be killed before they do their damage? Yes, but it's very expensive.

In the 1950s, authorities tried to contain budworm outbreaks by spraying infested areas with DDT. With that toxic method no longer an option, authorities now resort to a budworm-specific bacteria called Bt. The problem is price: DDT cost only a few cents per hectare to spray, whereas Bt costs $40 per hectare. "If you have $1 million worth of wood, it will cost you $1 million to spray it," James said. "The cost is prohibitive."

An early-warning system

There may be another solution, much cheaper: budworm tracking. Three summers ago, Canadian Forest Services appealed to the public to help track budworm in eastern Canada. Several hundred "citizen scientists" now lure, trap and count moths in six provinces, as well as Maine, uploading the data on an app and sending the dead moths to Natural Resources' main research laboratory in Fredericton, N.B.

It's a kind of early-warning system, suggesting how and where moths "disperse" and in what number. "The value is two-fold," said James, who's involved in the program at an analytical level, using spatial modeling and genetics. "It helps us understand if budworm populations are increasingly locally, which is a problem, or are migrating from somewhere else, flying in and then dying, which is less of a problem."

In the end, knowing more about the spruce budworm -- its life cycle, its behaviour, its migratory patterns -- will help make its infestations easier to control. And once they're better understood, plans can be made to cope with the pesky beasts when they arrive.

The urgency is greater than ever, James said.

"We're now in the 10th year of the current outbreak, with 7 million hectares of forest in Quebec alone that has been defoliated and directly affected by the spruce budworm. The last outbreak (in the '80s) peaked at 45 to 50 million hectares," he said.

"So it's pretty clear to me: Things are going to get worse before they get better."
Life is full of emotional highs and lows, ranging from enjoying an activity with a loved one and savoring a delicious meal to feeling hurt by a negative interaction with a co-worker or that recent scuffle with a family member. But when we let emotions from one event carry on to the next, such spillover can color our impressions and behavior in those new situations -- sometimes for the worse.

Researchers at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are discovering what happens in the brain when such emotional spillover occurs and, for the first time, are able to pinpoint areas directly responsible. Their findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), a technique that produces a magnetic field that can temporarily "knock out" or inhibit activity in specific parts of the brain, the team discovered that when the lateral prefrontal area of the brain (a region known for executive function) was inhibited by the stimulation, participants showed more emotional spillover. In the experiment, they measured this by collecting people's ratings and first impressions of neutral faces they saw immediately after faces that were smiling (prompting positive emotions) or fearful (prompting negative emotions).

The findings, supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, are part of larger efforts to understand the complexity of the brain and what types of mental training or activities can best improve emotional reactions known to promote higher levels of well-being. TMS therapy is approved for depression by the FDA, and this work may shed light on why stimulating parts of the prefrontal cortex is successful in improving the ability to regulate negative emotions.

"It was interesting because participants saw the emotional faces very briefly," says Regina Lapate, Center for Healthy Minds collaborator and current postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the work. "And when asked afterward, they didn't think that they had been influenced by it in their ratings. Having their prefrontal cortex disrupted generated spillover onto their unrelated events that followed. Emotional spillover can happen without us being aware of it."

The team discovered that when the lateral prefrontal cortex was intact (when the brain was not inhibited by TMS), the person did not show spillover when viewing subsequent neutral faces. And when the opposite occurred -- when the lateral prefrontal cortex was inhibited by TMS, emotional spillover occurred more frequently and with greater intensity. Three days later outside of the laboratory, participants still showed that emotional bias when asked to rate the same neutral faces, suggesting that the negative emotional spillover they first showed in the laboratory produced long-lasting, biased first impressions.

"If your first impression of someone is formed when you're experiencing emotional spillover from a previous context, that negative impression may stick," Lapate adds.

In addition, research on mindfulness meditation has been suggested to improve emotion regulation and connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and more emotion-centered areas of the brain such as the amygdala. If scientists know that there's a causal relationship between these areas of the brain, they can more accurately tailor interventions to target these areas and improve well-being.

"We are excited about this experiment because it demonstrates the causal role of the prefrontal cortex in regulating emotional behavior," says Richard Davidson, William and James Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry who worked on the study and directs the Center for Healthy Minds. "It invites the possibility that strategies that promote prefrontal engagement may have beneficial consequences for emotion regulation."

Next on Lapate's agenda is to test whether the reverse works -- can TMS stimulation that increases neural firing in the prefrontal cortex lead to a decrease in negative emotional spillover? At the University of California, Berkeley, she'll continue exploring that question as well as how the lateral prefrontal cortex as a whole changes the neural coding for positive and negative information.

Meanwhile, the team at UW-Madison will further examine how contemplative practices may change emotional spillover and target these areas as measured by neural activity recorded in a brain scanner.
The flight decks of aviation-capable vessels like aircraft carriers bustle with noise and danger -- screaming jets, snapping steel cables and powerful tractors and forklifts. Planning and orchestrating this high-octane dance requires precision and accuracy from those responsible for directing deck traffic.

To make the jobs of aircraft handlers easier, the Office of Naval Research's (ONR) TechSolutions program has sponsored the development of the Deployable Ship Integration Multitouch System -- DSIMS, for short.

DSIMS is a mobile software package that features a digital, touchscreen image of a ship's flight deck or hangar bay, and can be used on a laptop or desktop computer. It enables aircraft handlers to change flight deck configurations anywhere on the ship, plan operations before deployment, and share information digitally with other DSIMS users for improved collaboration.

"This interactive, computerized system is a leap forward for naval aviation," said ONR Command Master Chief Matt Matteson. "It's a fairly straightforward technological solution that brings with it tremendous functionality and saves time."

To track the movements of aircraft and equipment on the flight deck, handlers currently use a tool informally called a "Ouija board" -- a waist-high, six-feet-long physical replica of the deck. Located in the ship's flight deck control center, the board is covered with toy-like plastic models of aircraft, each marked with colored thumbtacks to designate maintenance, fuel or flight status.

The Ouija board's design has barely changed since World War II. Despite its effectiveness, however, it does have limitations. For example, if aircraft handlers need to plan for upcoming or unexpected scenarios -- bad weather or a surprise VIP visit -- they must do so while underway, and change the Ouija board back to its original layout after completing the planning session.

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By contrast, DSIMS can help plan such situations months before a ship leaves port. When playing out various flight deck situations -- called "evolutions" -- on the DSIMS touchscreen, participants can use their fingertips or a computer mouse to move around digital aircraft, to show which aircraft need to be in which location and where crates and other equipment should be positioned.

There also are special screen modules denoting aircraft fueling needs, maintenance requests and availability for flight. Each evolution can be saved and recalled during operations, or used for briefings and training.

"DSIMS allows for planning of future evolutions," said Tim Zieser, an engineer at Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Lakehurst, New Jersey. "It also enables aircraft handling officers to create briefs that can be used to inform the chain of command, and train their people before a complex evolution, so everyone is on the same page."

Zieser recently demonstrated DSIMS at Lakehurst's Carrier Analysis Lab for Sailors and Marines from the USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), before the amphibious assault ship deployed.

"The technology is fantastic," said Lt. Timothy Sullivan, stationed aboard the Iwo Jima. "It lets us make time-critical decisions today, so we don't have to months from now, over the Ouija board on the ship. It will save us man hours down the road as we execute the mission."

DSIMS originated in 2016, when a request from Commander, Naval Air Forces, was sent to ONR's TechSolutions program for a digital, mobile version of the Ouija board. TechSolutions is ONR's rapid-response science and technology program that develops prototype technologies to address problems voiced by Sailors and Marines, usually within 12-18 months.

Later this year, TechSolutions will deliver a prototype DSIMS for testing and evaluation on several ships, including the Iwo Jima. Zieser and his team hope to see the system issued throughout the fleet next year.

Watch a video of the DSIMS demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLwZ7N_0F0U&feature=youtu.be
As World Elder Abuse Awareness Day is observed on June 15, new study data from the Chinese community in Chicago is shedding light on the impact of elder abuse in America.

The discoveries are reported in five articles appearing in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences. Rush University Medical Center Medical Center Professor XinQi Dong, MD, MPH, led the team that conducted the research.

"What we're finding is that elder abuse is an extremely complex problem, with severe consequences regarding psychological well-being," Dong said. "Patterns of victimization may be influenced by the older adults' health, intergenerational relationships, and other social determinants like culture.

This is the first time that scholars have examined elder abuse -- including psychological, physical, sexual, financial exploitation, caregiver neglect -- and self-neglect in relationship to a number of factors, such as two-year incidence, adult children perpetrators and previous child abuse, levels of physical function, and thoughts of suicide.

The researchers utilized the PINE and PIETY studies, two population-based longitudinal studies surveying more than 3,000 Chinese older adults and their adult children in the Chicago area, to investigate elder abuse among the U.S. Chinese population. They found:

Nearly 1 in 10 Chinese older adults become new victims of elder abuse every two years.

Risk factors for elder abuse vary depending on the type of abuse.

Adult children who were abused as minors are nearly twice as likely to abuse their older parents compared to those who were not abused.

Victims of elder abuse and self-neglect are 2 to 3 times more likely to have suicidal ideation than non-victims.

Lower levels of physical function may be a protective factor against victimization

"Examining elder abuse in the U.S. Chinese community sheds light on the potential cultural nuances of elder abuse," Dong added. "Perpetrators of elder abuse tend to be family members, but adherence to collectivism or familism and lack of institutional support may deter Chinese Americans from asking for help."

Elder abuse or mistreatment is a serious public health issue impacting at least 1 in 10 older adults in the U.S. each year, leading to declines in the health and well-being on individual and family levels.

"While we want prevention and intervention efforts to be implemented as soon as possible," Dong said, "researchers need to make sure they have enough information to create effective, culturally-appropriate programs to truly improve the lives of older adults."
A new study at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) and the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech has found a connection between common household chemicals and birth defects.

Known as quaternary ammonium compounds or "quats," the chemicals are often used as disinfectants and preservatives in household and personal products such as cleaners, laundry detergent, fabric softener, shampoo and conditioner, and eye drops. The research demonstrated a link between quats and neural tube birth defects in both mice and rats.

"These chemicals are regularly used in the home, hospital, public spaces, and swimming pools," said Terry Hrubec, associate professor of anatomy at the VCOM-Virginia campus and research assistant professor in the veterinary college's Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology. "Most people are exposed on a regular basis."

Hrubec investigated the effect of two commonly used quats: alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride and didecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride. These are often listed on ingredient lists as ADBAC and DDAC, respectively, and are valued for their antimicrobial and antistatic properties, as well as their ability to lower surface tension. Hrubec found that exposure to these chemicals resulted in neural tube birth defects -- the same birth defect as spina bifida and anencephaly in humans.

"Birth defects were seen when both males and females were exposed, as well as when only one parent was exposed," said Hrubec, who is first author on the study and holds both a doctor of veterinary medicine degree and Ph.D. from the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. "The fact that birth defects could be seen when only the father was exposed means that we need to expand our scope of prenatal care to include the father."

Hrubec found that mice and rats did not even need to be dosed with the chemicals to see the effect. Her research shows that simply using quat-based cleaners in the same room as the mice was enough to cause birth defects. "We also observed increased birth defects in rodents for two generations after stopping exposure," Hrubec added.

An earlier study in Hrubec's laboratory found that these chemicals led to reproductive declines in mice. Follow-up research found that quats were decreasing sperm counts in males and ovulation in females. The research raises the possibility of quats contributing to human infertility, which has been on the rise in recent decades.

"We are asked all of the time, 'You see your results in mice. How do you know that it's toxic in humans?'" Hrubec said. "Our research on mice and rats shows that these chemicals affect the embryonic development of these animals. Since rodent research is the gold standard in the biomedical sciences, this raises a big red flag that these chemicals may be toxic to humans as well."

Quaternary ammonium compounds were introduced in the 1950s and 1960s before the standardization of toxicity studies. Chemical manufacturers conducted some toxicity studies on the compounds during this period, but they were never published. Today, the chemicals are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Hrubec noted that an epidemiological study could determine whether people who have a high rate of exposure, such as healthcare workers or restaurant servers, have a more difficult time becoming pregnant or have a greater likelihood of having children with neural tube birth defects, but no such study has been conducted to date.
SpaceX test fires a previously flown Falcon 9 rocket booster ahead of its planned launch on June 19, 2017 to send BulgariaSat-1, the first communications satellite for Bulgaria, into orbit from Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Update for 10:30 p.m. ET: SpaceX has delayed the Falcon 9 rocket launch of BulgariaSat-1 to no earlier than June 23 to allow time to replace a suspect valve on the booster's payload fairing. Read our full story.

Original story: SpaceX is ramping up for its eighth flight of the year on Monday (June 19) with the launch of a communications satellite for Bulgaria aboard a previously flown Falcon 9 booster. It will be the second demonstration by Elon Musk's space company of its ability to reuse its launch-rocket hardware.

Liftoff is scheduled for between 2:10 and 4:10 p.m. EDT (1810 and 2010 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A, currently SpaceX's only operational pad in Florida. Repairs to the company's original launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of the NASA spaceport, are underway following an accident nine months ago. SpaceX expects to resume flying from Launch Complex 40 later this year. [In Photos: SpaceX's 1st Reused Rocket Launch (and Landing)]

For now, Musk's team is focused on getting BulgariaSat-1, Bulgaria's first satellite, into orbit. The spacecraft, manufactured by Palo Alto, California-based Space Systems Loral (SSL), will be used for direct-to-home television and communications services to the Balkans and other regions in Europe, as well as North Africa.

A space first for Bulgaria

Satellite operator Bulgaria Sat is a sister company of Bulsatcom, a television, internet and mobile communications company based in Sofia, Bulgaria, that employs about 2,000 people.

"Back in 2010-2011, we started seeing a need to develop the services we were providing," chief executive Maxim Zayakov told Space.com. "The satellite operator we were using at that time was not able to provide any growth opportunities  We were going to have to move somewhere or create our own home. It was kind of like, Why move three times? Why not create our own home? We were already holding a license for Bulgarian orbital slots, so why not? This is the best we could do to do the ultimate quantum leap."

To finance the deal, which is costing about $250 million, Bulgaria Sat turned to the Export-Import Bank of the United States, an independent government agency that provides U.S. businesses, including SSL, with government-backed loans so foreign customers can buy their products.

BulgariaSat-1, the first communications satellite for Bulgaria, undergoes testing with its solar arrays deployed. (Image credit: Bulgaria Sat/SSL)

The Export-Import Bank has been a target of conservatives in Congress and remains mired in political controversies, though President Donald Trump said in April he plans to revive the hobbled agency.

"We have to pay tribute to the U.S. guys who were able to support this program because, frankly speaking, it was going to be totally impossible without their support. Space is not like anything else," Zayakov said. "The programs have a very long horizon. It's not something in the usual telecom world. The commercial banks would usually not support something that would have a horizon of more than five years and that is by far not the case in space."

Bulgaria Sat hired SpaceX on its own in 2007 for a Falcon 9 rocket ride, but the deal later was folded into the SSL contract, which handles manufacturing, launch services, insurance and the first year of satellite operations. Terms of the deal were not released.

Bulgaria Sat, in partnership with SSL, opted last summer to switch to a previously flown Falcon first stage in exchange for an undisclosed discount and earlier launch slot.

Second flight for a Falcon 9

The Falcon 9 rocket that will launch BulgariaSat-1 flew in January 2017 to send a batch of 10 Iridium communication satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The booster landed itself on a drone barge in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX relaunched its first recovered booster on March 30 on a satellite-delivery mission for Luxembourg-based SES.

"The booster provides a good value and at the same time we have full confidence in its performance," Zayakov said. "There was a byproduct that we got a bit earlier launch date too."

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell estimates that Bulgaria Sat was able to fly about three months sooner by opting for the preflown Falcon. Once operational, BulgariaSat-1 is expected to generate between $24 million and $25 million annually, Zayakov said. The satellite, which weighs nearly 8,800 lbs. (4,000 kilograms) is designed to last at least 15 years.

Bulgaria Sat services nearly 1 million homes with direct television and other communications services. With the new spacecraft, Bulgaria Sat is aiming to double that figure over the next five years, Zayakov said.

Editor's Note:You can watch SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch of BulgariaSat-1 live via SpaceX's webcast page, which will begin Monday about 1:46 p.m. EDT (1746 GMT). You can also watch the launch webcast here, courtesy of SpaceX.

Irene Klotz can be reached on Twitter at @free_space. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Update for June 27, 5:30 p.m. ET: NASA has once again delayed the launch of the artificial cloud mission due to unexpected cloudiness around the Wallops Flight Facility launch site. NASA has announced the next launch attempt to be Thursday, June 29 sometime between 4:25 and 4:48 a.m. EDT. The backup launch day is June 30.

NASA is hoping to execute a rocket launch that will create artificial glowing clouds. These could be visible to millions of people along the U.S. East Coast.

A Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket will launch into the night sky from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. If all goes well, the rocket will create brilliant red and blue-green clouds of vapor as part of a canister-ejection technology test. Weather permitting, the clouds could be visible to observers on the East Coast between New York and North Carolina, and as far inland as Charlottesville, Virginia.

You can watch the rocket launch live here, courtesy of NASA Wallops, or directly from the Wallops center here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-tv-wallops. NASA's live webcast will be accompanied by a Facebook Live event on the Wallops center's Facebook page here.

NASA plans to fly a Father's Day rocket launch from the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia on June 18, 2017. The rocket and its glowing clouds may be visible along the U.S. East Coast, but is very dependent on weather conditions. (Image credit: NASA)

The primary goal of tonight's launch is to test a new canister (or ampoule) ejection system on the sounding rocket, NASA officials have said.

"The multicanister ampoule ejection system flying on this mission will allow scientists to gather information over a much larger area than [they were] previously able [to] during a sounding-rocket mission," NASA Wallops officials wrote in an update. "Canisters will deploy during the rocket's ascent, and they will release blue-green and red vapor to form artificial clouds between 4 and 5.5 minutes after launch. These clouds, or vapor tracers, allow scientists on the ground to visually track particle motions in space."

The mission is highly dependent on the weather, as the test requires clear skies over ground-camera sites at the Wallops Center and in Duck, North Carolina, NASA officials have said.

A Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket is seen on its launch rail ahead of a June 18, 2017 launch attempt from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. (Image credit: NASA)

In fact, this is the eighth time NASA has tried to launch this mission so far this month. Since June 1, the agency has been repeatedly thwarted by high winds, cloud cover and even boats in an offshore hazard area (where parts of the sounding rocket fall into the Atlantic Ocean).

If you live in the Wallops Island area and would like to watch the launch with NASA, you can visit the agency's Wallops Flight Facility.

You can also download the "What's Up at Wallops" app to find out where and when to look to see the launch from your location. Wallops officials are expected to post updates on Twitter and Facebook, too.

Editor's note: If you capture an amazing image of the sounding-rocket launch or the colorful artificial clouds that you would like to share with Space.com and its news partners for a story or photo gallery, send photos and comments to: spacephotos@space.com.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Luanda (Angola, June 17, 2017 (SPS) - Angolan Foreign Minister, Georges Chikoti, has called on the African Union to continue its persistent efforts together with the United Nations to implement the decisions of international legitimacy in Western Sahara and to enable the Saharawi people to exercise their right to self-determination and independence.

The Angolan Foreign Minister affirmed, following a meeting Friday with Foreign Minister Mohamed-Salem Ould-Salek, that the African Union will remain the main supporter and responsible alongside the United Nations for finding a solution to the question of Western Sahara in accordance with the decisions and resolutions of the two organizations related to the Western Sahara issue.

The Angolan Foreign Minister stressed in a statement quoted by the Angolan media that his country hopes that the liberation struggle of the people of Western Sahara will be resolved through a solution that guarantees the right to self-determination, adding that Angola's position on this issue will not change as long as the Sahrawi people are fighting for freedom. This position is based on the historical principles and responsibilities of the Angolan people, he added. (SPS)

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Geneva, June 17, 2017 (SPS) - Sahrawi activist Mina Abaali called on the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva to protect Sahrawi people's natural resources from the systematic looting by foreign companies from the European Union and by others from Morocco.

During a general debate on the item 4 on the agenda of the 35th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Sahrawi activist denounced the fact that some companies continue their fishing activities on coasts belonging to Western Sahara, under agreements concluded with the occupying power Morocco.

"This is a blatant violation of the international law and of the European Court of Justice's ruling, which considers that any agreement concluded with Morocco and including Western Sahara territories without explicit consent of Sahrawi people, through their representative Polisario Front, is null and void and constitutes a violation of the law," said the activist.

For her part, Sahrawi journalist Ababa Ahmida called on the UN Human Rights Council to assume its role regarding Western Sahara to push the UN process by allowing Sahrawi people exercise their right to self-determination, in accordance with international charters and treaties. (SPS)

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El-Aaiun (Refugee Camps), June 18, 2017 (SPS) - Saharawi people on Saturday celebrated the 47th dual anniversary of Zemla historic uprising and national day of missing persons by organizing a number of activities coinciding with the anniversary of the event.

In the presence of the President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, members of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front and SADR government and other participants, the Secretariat of the Political Organization of the Polisario Front organized a conference on the occasion to shed light on Zemla uprising, which formed a pivotal event in the history of the national Sahrawi resistance, in the break with colonialism and revealing its plans, and the impact left by its prominent leader Sidi-Mohamed Brahim Basiri, symbol of peaceful resistance in Western Sahara.

The participants in the conference organized a sit-in, where they raised slogans in solidarity with the Saharawi masses in the occupied territories of Western Sahara. (SPS)

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A man who drove into a police cordon in south London desperate for help after being stabbed is fighting for life in hospital.

The victim, aged in his 20s, sped through police tape while officers investigated a car crash in leafy East Dulwich, witnesses said.

As officers reopened one side of Lordship Lane the black BMW reportedly narrowly missed police officers before the driver got out covered in blood.

Bystander, James Stott, 27, described dramatic scenes as officers fought to save the man.

He said: I though the car was going to hit a police officer then it came to a really sudden stop and a man got out covered in blood.

The next minute he was on the floor getting treated. It looked like hed been stabbed in the stomach.

Scotland Yard said the man was in a critical condition at a south London hospital.

Detectives are working to establish who he became injured.

A spokesman said: Enquiries continue to establish how and where the man came to sustain his injuries.

It is not linked to the original collision that officers were dealing with.

No arrests, enquiries continue.

Officers from Southwark investigate.
In early 2017 it was noted that among the additional weapons being delivered to secular Syrian rebels (backed by a U.S. led coalition) were EIMOS truck mounted 81mm mortar systems. This is a recently (2015) introduced system that uses a recoil mechanism to enable the mortar to be safely fired from a pickup type truck. The version SDF (Syrian Kurd led rebels) received each had the mortar, fire control system and 54 81mm mortar shells on board. A crew of four handles the vehicle and mortar which can hit targets up to about 5,000 meters. A typical 81mm high-explosive shell will land within 10 meters of the target at a range of a few thousand meters. When one off these shells explodes they will cause casualties out to about 30 meters (100 feet). If nothing else it gets the attention of those in the target area and suppresses (to use the military term) their intended activities.

Bahrain was the first official customer for EIMOS and received EIMOS vehicles in 2016. Bahrain was apparently where the SDF EIMOS vehicles came from. Many initially thought these were American systems because the SDF also received armed hummers as well as some Stryker wheeled armored vehicles. But on closer examination it was easy to figure out that this was a new design for a rather new type of mobile artillery.

Israel pioneered the development and use of soft recoil systems for vehicle mounted mortars. This recoil system reduces the force of the recoil by over 70 percent and allows 120mm mortars to be mounted in hummers and 81mm mortars in pickup trucks. The addition of computer controlled GPS navigation with modern fire control systens enables systems like this to halt and fire accurately within 30 seconds or less. Israel was also one of the developers of more accurate mortar fire control systems.

Israel first introduced a soft-recoil equipped system in 2004 when a 1.6 ton Israeli 120mm mortar was mounted in a seven ton Supacat HMT (High Mobility Transport). HMT is four wheel cross country vehicle with a capacity for 3.2 tons. The cab was modified to hold the five man mortar crew. The Israeli mortar system was mounted on a computer controlled turntable. The mortar fired regular 120mm shells 8.2 kilometers, or rocket assisted ones 13 kilometers. In 2012 Israel introduced an 81mm version of this system and Spain was one of the first to receive six of these low recoil 81mm systems mounted in a VAMTAC military truck (similar to the American hummer) with a payload of about two tons. Since most Moslem nations are still reluctant to buy weapons directly from Israel there are a lot of non-Israeli manufacturers who license Israeli tech and export it as their own. The Kurds have actually become enthusiastic users of Israeli military tech, as have the Turks (until an Islamic political party took power in 2000) and a few other Moslem nations outside the Middle East. The Spanish EIMOS system is designed for even lighter four wheel vehicles and can use an 81mm or even lighter 60mm mortar system. Both depend on the low-recoil system to minimize stress on the truck.
Its 6:38am on a dark, dull, sodden, weekday morning.

But thats not the only compelling reason to feel grey and gloomy. City-bound traffic is backed up about seven kilometres from Te Puna beyond whats locally known as the Gecko Depot  the Omokoroa turn-off on State Highway 2.

People are anxious to get to work, but the commuter world is this morning moving at between a standstill and 5km/h. Grindingly slow. And getting noticeably slower.

Its a dog, says Doug. Twelve months ago I would be at work in 25 minutes. Now I spend two and a half hours a day on the bus. Eyes are rolled, hands are gestured, sighs are deeply sighed. Yep, its a dog.

And impatient headlights on Omokoroa Rd waiting to get onto SH2 are backed up from the Give Way sign at the Gecko Depot right back round the corner and out of sight. Itll take several frustrating minutes for a chance to edge out into the mainstream. And then crawl into town.

Earlier this month at a meeting, Omokoroa people were asked to put post sticky notes on the wall for the review of the community development plan, says local community board chairperson Murray Grainger. The Omokoroa Road/ SH2 intersection featured majorly on the sticky notes.

Understandable because there are 5400 traffic movements through this critical but choked up T-junction every day. Thats a lot of trucks, buses, motorcars and motorbikes headed in and out of Omokoroa, a suburb having major growth spasms. And with the spasms, pangs and pains like their intersection, their very own bottleneck.

But its out of our hands, says Murray. Its with NZTA. We are very much dependent on the mandarins of Wellington to fix it.

And what the mandarins are proposing is something called a grade-separated interchange  a flyover which will allow traffic to flow seamlessly off and onto SH2 from Omokoroa Rd, eliminating crossing conflict. So no roundabout, but an overpass with a four-lane highway all the way to Tauranga.

The NZTA has gone back to Wellington to seek permission to formalise that preferred option, says Murray.

Its not going to happen next week, or next year. Its a long-term answer. But at least the NZTA solution is a proper solution, the right solution rather than a band-aid solution. So its suck it up and wait. So it seems, says Murray.

Theres been a big increase in the traffic going in and out of Omokoroa  grown markedly over the past two or three years.

And a lot of it is trucks and trade vehicles going into the new subdivisions, says Doug. And theres only one way in and one way out.

Its just gone 7am and a Nana has just dropped off her grand-daughter at the park-and-ride for the school bus. Shes looking at the congestion across the road  she throws up her arms in despair and huffs. Its all symptomatic for her.

We came to Omokoroa because it still felt rural, yet only 15 or 20 minutes from town on a straight road. The subdivisions which we thought were 10 years away are now at our back door and we have to allow three quarters of an hour for a trip that should take us 20 minutes. Shes just observing.

But even 45 minutes wouldnt cut it in peak hour this morning. The Weekend Sun leaves the Omokoroa intersection, the Gecko Depot, at 7.52am, through Whakamarama a few hundred metres down the road at 7.59am, a complete standstill at Ainsworth Rd at 8.05am, Te Puna at 8;15am (the best part of 25 minutes to travel seven kilometres), over the Wairoa River at 8.28am and to Bethlehem at 8.32am. Thats right, 40 minutes to get from the Omokoroa turnoff to Bethlehem. And finally back in the office on The Strand at 8.46am.

An exasperating experience and not one youd want to do twice a day. And imagine the cost to a city  all those cars, all that wasted time, all that wasted gas, all that wear and tear.

A bus did drop by the park-and-drive at 7.14 am  there were about half a dozen people already aboard. One more climbed on. Minimal buy-in to the message that buses are the perfect way to avoid the drive to and from work. That may be the case with bus lanes or on a multi-lane highway. But in a traffic snarl buses are no more perfect than the cars in front or behind.
Dollar General Corporation, a discount retailer, provides various merchandise products in the southern, southwestern, Midwestern, and eastern United States. It offers consumable products, including paper and cleaning products, such as paper towels, bath tissues, paper dinnerware, trash and storage bags, disinfectants, and laundry products; packaged food comprising cereals, pasta, canned soups, fruits and vegetables, condiments, spices, sugar, and flour; and perishables that include milk, eggs, bread, refrigerated and frozen food, beer, and wine. The company's consumable products also comprise snacks, such as candies, cookies, crackers, salty snacks, and carbonated beverages; health and beauty products, including over-the-counter medicines and personal care products, such as soaps, body washes, shampoos, cosmetics, and dental hygiene and foot care products; pet supplies and pet food; and tobacco products. In addition, it offers seasonal products comprising holiday items, toys, batteries, small electronics, greeting cards, stationery, prepaid phones and accessories, gardening supplies, hardware, and automotive and home office supplies; and home products that include kitchen supplies, cookware, small appliances, light bulbs, storage containers, frames, candles, craft supplies and kitchen, and bed and bath soft goods. Further, the company provides apparel, which comprise casual everyday apparel for infants, toddlers, girls, boys, women, and men, as well as socks, underwear, disposable diapers, shoes, and accessories. As of February 25, 2022, it operated 18,190 stores in 47 states in the United States. The company was formerly known as J.L. Turner & Son, Inc. and changed its name to Dollar General Corporation in 1968. Dollar General Corporation was founded in 1939 and is based in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.
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Let us not break faith with those brave men and women who sacrificed their lives for our freedom.

Korean War vets work on memorial 'before we fade away' Al Wright of Sparta wasnt sure in 1950 why President Harry Truman sent me over there, he 

My father was in the Army during World War I, on a train heading toward the front lines. As they moved forward and closer, the war ended and the soldiers were returning home. Of course, we later had a great deal of fun with that, saying They (the Germans) had surrendered because America was sending in their secret weapon  namely, my father.

ln reality, my father was a terrible shooter, hated guns and could not imagine killing another human being. To him, it meant killing someones dad, son, boyfriend or brother. Certainly not a favorable mindset for a soldier. Strangely enough, in my 10 years of service to my country, l felt the same way. ln World War I, most of the soldiers were immigrants and foreigners. If one could read, write and speak English, one could easily get promoted.

When the WWI veterans returned home, most became active citizens in their community. In La Crosse, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Thomas Rooney raised $1,528 to erect a zoo at Myrick Park, which paid for Monkey Island, the monkeys , fence and

sidewalk around the island, and electricity from the pump house to the zoo. Keep in mind $1,528 was a lot of money at that time. To give you an idea, an uncle of mine had a small brick home built at 411 West Ave. South, plus a garage, for $1,600. It still looks almost like new today. The same group of VFW members from Thomas Rooney Post 1530, added a duck pond two years later.

A quick reminder, in 1929, very few homes had an inside toilet, or running water in their homes. No food pantries, garage sales, health insurance, Social Security or a car.

Since there are no more WWI Veterans left, why bother with a memorial? Who will look at it? Who cares?

Well, l do of course. Allow me to quote a verse from the poem, ln Flanders Field.

We are the dead: short days ago,

We Iived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved: and now we lie

ln Flanders Field.

I personally dont like to use the word honor. It is a word l reserve and choose to use only to God and my mother and father. Paying tribute is my favorite expression, showing both feeling and a respectful sense of responsibility. Payback time. We owe them our freedom.

The memorial will be situated next to the Korean War Memorial at Veterans Freedom Park, located on the north side of La Crosse. The Korean War Memorial was dedicated July 27, 2016, and hundreds showed up on an extremely hot day. It was a total success.

Later, many expressed the joy they felt being able to be a part of it. The donation they made will be felt 100 years from now, long after they passed. Personally, ld rather receive $1 from 100 people than $100 from one person. Many visitors come every day to pay tribute and a chance for many to brag about the Memorial they helped to build. There are no administrative fees and every cent donated goes toward the memorial.

Ill be spearheading this memorial project along with Al Wright from Sparta, our vice president of the Korean War Veterans Association.

We also have the full support and blessing from the Park and Recreation Department of La Crosse.

Im not sure how much we will need. We will build according to the amount we raise and if there is anything extra, it will be used for another memorial.

Of course, we need your financial donation to make this memorial a reality, but most importantly, we need your support. Any amount you contribute says, we want to be a part of it and help build this WWI memorial, Dont sit on the fence. Make a commitment and get on board. We need you.

Please make out your check to World War I W Memorial and send to Louie Ferris, 1519 George St., La Crosse, Wis., 54603. Any questions? Call 1-608-784-9576.
The Buckle, Inc. operates as a retailer of casual apparel, footwear, and accessories for young men and women in the United States. It markets a selection of brand name casual apparel, including denims, other casual bottoms, tops, sportswear, outerwear, accessories, and footwear, as well as private label merchandise primarily comprising BKE, Buckle Black, Salvage, Red by BKE, Daytrip, Gimmicks, Gilded Intent, FITZ + EDDI, Willow & Root, Outpost Makers, Departwest, Reclaim, BKE Vintage, Nova Industries, J.B. Holt, and Veece. The company also provides services, such as hemming, gift-packaging, layaways, guest loyalty program, the Buckle private label credit card, and personalized stylist services, as well as special order system that allows stores to obtain requested merchandise from other company stores or its online order fulfillment center. As of March 11, 2022, it operated 440 retail stores in 42 states under the Buckle and The Buckle names. The Buckle, Inc. also sells its products through its website, buckle.com. The company was formerly known as Mills Clothing, Inc. and changed its name to The Buckle, Inc. in April 1991. The Buckle, Inc. was incorporated in 1948 and is headquartered in Kearney, Nebraska.
Coeur Mining, Inc. explores for precious metals in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The company primarily explores for gold, silver, zinc, and lead properties. It holds 100% interests in the Palmarejo gold and silver mine covering an area of approximately 67,296 net acres located in the State of Chihuahua in Northern Mexico; the Rochester silver and gold mine that covers an area of approximately 43,441net acres situated in northwestern Nevada; the Kensington gold mine comprising 3,972 net acres located to the north of Juneau, Alaska; the Wharf gold mine covering an area of approximately 3,243 net acres situated in the northern Black Hills of western South Dakota; and the Silvertip silver-zinc-lead mine comprising 97,298 net acres located in northern British Columbia, Canada. In addition, the company owns interests in the Crown and Sterling projects located in southern Nevada; and the La Preciosa project located in Mexico. Further, it markets and sells its concentrates to third-party customers, smelters, under off-take agreements. The company was formerly known as Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation and changed its name to Coeur Mining, Inc. in May 2013.Coeur Mining, Inc. was incorporated in 1928 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Vipshop Holdings Limited operates online platforms for various brands in the People's Republic of China. It operates in Vip.com, Shan Shan Outlets, and Others segments. The company offers women's apparel, such as casual wear, jeans, dresses, outerwear, lingerie, pajamas, and maternity clothes; men's apparel comprising casual and smart-casual T-shirts, polo shirts, jackets, pants, and underwear; and skin care and cosmetic products, including cleansers, lotions, face and body creams, face masks, sunscreen, foundations, lipsticks, eye shadows, and other cosmetics-related items. It also provides shoes and bags, which comprises casual and formal shoes, purses, satchels, luggage, duffel bags, and wallets; handbags; apparel, gears and accessories, furnishings and decor, toys, and games for boys, girls, infants, and toddlers; sportswear, sports gear, and footwear for various sporting activities; home furnishings, such as bed and bath products, home decor, kitchen and tabletop items, and home appliances; and consumer electronic products. In addition, the company offers food and snacks, beverages, fresh produce, and pet goods; beauty products; and internet finance services, including consumer and supplier financing, and microcredit. Vipshop Holdings Limited provides its branded products through its vip.com and vipshop.com online platforms, as well as through its internet website and cellular phone application. Further, it offers warehousing, logistics, product procurement, research and development, technology development, and consulting services; software development and information technology support solutions; and supply chain services. Vipshop Holdings Limited was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Guangzhou, the People's Republic of China.
Baxter International Inc., through its subsidiaries, develops and provides a portfolio of healthcare products worldwide. The company offers peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis, and additional dialysis therapies and services; intravenous therapies, infusion pumps, administration sets, and drug reconstitution devices; remixed and oncology drug platforms, inhaled anesthesia and critical care products and pharmacy compounding services; parenteral nutrition therapies and related products; biological products and medical devices used in surgical procedures for hemostasis, tissue sealing and adhesion prevention; and continuous renal replacement therapies and other organ support therapies focused in the intensive care unit. It also provides connected care solutions, including devices, software, communications, and integration technologies; integrated patient monitoring and diagnostic technologies to help diagnose, treat, and manage a various illness and diseases, including respiratory therapy, cardiology, vision screening, and physical assessment; surgical video technologies, tables, lights, pendants, precision positioning devices and other accessories. In addition, the company offers contracted services to various pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies. Its products are used in hospitals, kidney dialysis centers, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, doctors' offices, and patients at home under physician supervision. The company sells its products through direct sales force, as well as through independent distributors, drug wholesalers, and specialty pharmacy or other alternate site providers in approximately 100 countries. It has an agreement with Celerity Pharmaceutical, LLC to develop acute care generic injectable premix and oncolytic molecules. Baxter International Inc. was incorporated in 1931 and is headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois.
The following companies are subsidiares of Pearson: AEL (S) PTE Limited, ATI Professional Development LLC, Addison Wesley Longman Inc., Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., Aldwych Finance Limited, Americas Choice Inc., Atkey Finance Limited, Author Solutions, Axis Finance Inc., CAMSAWUSA Inc., CTI Education Group (Pty) Limited, Camsaw Inc., Casapsi Livraria e Editora Ltda, Centro Cultural Americano Franquias e Comercio Ltda., Century Consultants Ltd., Certiport, Certiport China Co Ltd, Certiport China Holding LLC, Certiport Inc., Cogmed Systems AB, Connections Academy of Arkansas LLC, Connections Academy of Florida LLC, Connections Academy of Iowa LLC, Connections Academy of Maine LLC, Connections Academy of Maryland LLC, Connections Academy of Minnesota LLC, Connections Academy of Missouri LLC, Connections Academy of Nevada LLC, Connections Academy of New Jersey LLC, Connections Academy of New Mexico LLC, Connections Academy of New York LLC, Connections Academy of Oregon LLC, Connections Academy of Pennsylvania LLC, Connections Academy of Tennessee LLC, Connections Academy of Texas LLC, Connections Education Inc., Connections Education LLC, Connections Education of Florida LLC, Dominie Press Inc., Dorian Finance Limited, Dorling Kindersley Australasia Pty Limited, EBNT Canada Holdings ULC, EBNT Holdings Limited, EBNT USA Holdings Inc., Edexcel Limited, Edexcel South Africa Pty Ltd, Education Development International plc, Education Resources (Cyprus) Limited, Educational Management Group Inc., Educational Publishers LLP, Embanet ULC, Embanet-Compass Knowledge Group Inc., EmbanetCompass, Embankment Finance Limited, English Language Learning and Instruction System Inc., Escape Studios Limited, FBH Inc., Falstaff Holdco Inc., Falstaff Inc., GED Domains LLC, GED Testing Service LLC, George (Shanghai) Commercial Information Consulting Co. Ltd, Global Education, Global George I Limited, Global George II Limited, GlobalEnglish, Globe Fearon Inc., Guangzhou Crescent Software Co. Ltd, Heinemann Education Botswana (Publishers) (Proprietary) Limited, Heinemann Publishers (Pty) Ltd, INTELLIPRO INC., Icodeon Limited, IndiaCan Education Private Limited, Integral 7 Inc., Integrated Analytics LLC, J M Solucoes Exportacao e Importacao Ltda, K12 Learning Services LLC, Kagiso Education Pty Ltd, Knowledge Analysis Technologies LLC, LCCI International Qualifications (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., LCCIEB Training Consultancy. Ltd, Learning Catalytics, LessonLab Inc., Lignum Oil Company, Linx Brasil Distribuidora Ltda., Longman (Malawi) Limited, Longman Australasia Pty Ltd, Longman Group(Overseas Holdings)Limited, Longman Indochina Acquisition L.L.C., Longman Kenya Limited, Longman Mocambique Ltda, Longman Romania S.R.L., Longman Swaziland (Pty) Limited, Longman Tanzania Limited, Longman Zambia Educational Publishers Pty Ltd, Longman Zambia Limited, Longman Zimbabwe (Private) Ltd, Longmaned Ecuador S.A., Major123 Limited, Maskew Miller Longman (Pty) Limited, MeasureUp LLC, Modern Curriculum Inc., Multi Holding, Multi Treinamento e Editora Ltda, NCS Information Technology Services (Beijing) Co Ltd, NCS Pearson Inc., NCS Pearson Pty Ltd, NCS Pearson Puerto Rico Inc., National Computer Systems Japan Co. Ltd, Ordinate Corporation, PN Holdings Inc., PT Efficient English Services, Pearson (Beijing) Management Consulting Co. Ltd., Pearson (Guizhou) Education Technology Co. Ltd., Pearson Affordable Learning Fund Limited, Pearson America LLC, Pearson Amsterdam B.V., Pearson Australia Finance Unlimited, Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd, Pearson Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Pearson Australia Pty Ltd, Pearson Benelux B.V., Pearson Books Limited, Pearson Brazil Finance Limited, Pearson Business Services Inc., Pearson Canada Assessment Inc., Pearson Canada Finance Unlimited, Pearson Canada Holdings Inc, Pearson Canada Inc., Pearson Central Europe Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Pearson College Limited, Pearson DBC Holdings Inc., Pearson Desarrollo y Capacitacion Profesional Chile Limitada, Pearson Deutschland GmbH, Pearson Digital Learning Puerto Rico Inc., Pearson Dollar Finance Two Limited, Pearson Dollar Finance plc, Pearson Educacion SA, Pearson Educacion de Chile Limitada, Pearson Educacion de Colombia S A S, Pearson Educacion de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Pearson Educacion de Panama SA, Pearson Educacion de Peru S.A., Pearson Education (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Pearson Education Achievement Solutions (RF) (Pty) Limited, Pearson Education Africa (Pty) Ltd, Pearson Education Asia Limited, Pearson Education Botswana (Proprietary) Limited, Pearson Education Hellas SA, Pearson Education Holdings Limited, Pearson Education Inc., Pearson Education Indochina Limited, Pearson Education Investments Limited, Pearson Education Korea Limited, Pearson Education Limited, Pearson Education Namibia (Pty) Limited, Pearson Education Publishing Limited, Pearson Education S.A., Pearson Education SA, Pearson Education South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Pearson Education South Asia Pte. Ltd., Pearson Education Taiwan Ltd, Pearson Education do Brasil S.A, Pearson Educational Measurement Canada Inc., Pearson Educational Publishers LLC, Pearson Egitim Cozumleri Tikaret Limited Sirketi, Pearson Falstaff (Holdings) Inc., Pearson Falstaff Holdco LLC, Pearson France, Pearson Funding Five plc, Pearson Funding Four plc, Pearson Funding Two Limited, Pearson Holdings Inc., Pearson Holdings Southern Africa (Pty) Limited, Pearson IOKI Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Pearson India Education Services Private Limited, Pearson India Support Services Private Limited, Pearson Institute of Higher Education, Pearson International Finance Limited, Pearson Investment Holdings Inc., Pearson Italia S.p.A, Pearson Japan KK, Pearson Lanka (Private) Limited, Pearson Learning China (HK) Limited, Pearson Lesotho (Pty) Ltd, Pearson Loan Finance No. 3 Limited, Pearson Loan Finance No. 4 Limited, Pearson Loan Finance No.2 Unlimited, Pearson Loan Finance Unlimited, Pearson Longman Uganda Limited, Pearson Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Pearson Management Services Limited, Pearson Management Services Philippines Inc., Pearson Maryland Inc., Pearson Netherlands B.V., Pearson Netherlands Holdings B.V., Pearson Nominees Limited, Pearson Online Tutoring LLC, Pearson Overseas Holdings Limited, Pearson PEM P.R. Inc., Pearson PRH Holdings Limited, Pearson Pension Nominees Limited, Pearson Pension Property Fund Limited, Pearson Pension Trustee Limited, Pearson Pension Trustee Services Limited, Pearson Professional Assessments Limited, Pearson Real Estate Holdings Inc., Pearson Real Estate Holdings Limited, Pearson Schweiz AG, Pearson Services Limited, Pearson Shared Services Limited, Pearson South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Pearson Strand Finance Limited, Pearson Sweden AB, Pearson VUE Philippines Inc., Pearson in Practice Holdings Limited, Pearson in Practice Skills Based Learning Limited, Pearson in Practice Technology Limited, Penguin Capital LLC, Phumelela Publishers (Pty) Ltd, ProctorCam Inc., Reading Property Holdings LLC, Rebus Planning Associates Inc., Reston Publishing Company Inc., Rycade Capital Corporation, Shanghai AWL Education Software Ltd, Silver Burdett Ginn Inc., Skylight Training and Publishing Inc., Smarthinking Inc., Sound Holdings Inc., Spear Insurance Company Limited, Stark Verlag GmbH, Sunnykey International Holdings Limited (BVI), TQ Catalis Limited, TQ Clapham Limited, TQ Education and Training Limited, TQ Global Limited, TQ Group Limited, TQ Holdings Limited, The Financial Times (I) Pvt Ltd, The Learning Edge International pty Ltd, The Waite Group Inc, Trio Parent Holdings LLC, US Learning Services LLC, USLS Holdings LLC, Virtual Nerd, Vue Testing Services Israel Ltd, Vue Testing Services Korea Limited, Wall Street Institute Kft., Williams Education GmbH, eCollege.com, and Editions Du Renouveau Pedagogique Inc..

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Carter's, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, sources, and markets branded childrenswear under the Carter's, OshKosh, Skip Hop, Child of Mine, Just One You, Simple Joys, Carter's My First Love, little planet, and other brands in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: U.S. Retail, U.S. Wholesale, and International. Its Carter's products include babies and young children products, such as bodysuits, pants, dresses, knit sets, blankets, layette essentials, bibs, booties, sleep and play products, rompers, and jumpers; and OshKosh brand products comprise playclothes, such as denim apparel products with multiple wash treatments and coordinating garments, overalls, woven bottoms, knit tops, and bodysuits. The company also provides products for playtime, travel, mealtime, bathtime, and homegear, as well as kid's bags and diaper bags under the Skip Hop brand. In addition, it offers bedding, cribs, diaper bags, footwear, gift sets, hair accessories, jewelry, outerwear, paper goods, socks, shoes, swimwear, and toys. The company operates 18,800 wholesale locations, including department stores, national chain stores, and specialty stores. As of December 31, 2021, it operated 980 retail stores. The company also sells its products through its eCommerce websites, such as carters.com, oshkoshbgosh.com, oshkosh.com, and skiphop.com, as well as other international wholesale accounts and licensees. Carter's, Inc. was founded in 1865 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
Trex Company, Inc. manufactures and distributes decking, railing, and outdoor living products and accessories for residential and commercial markets in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Trex Residential and Trex Commercial. It offers decking products under the names Trex Transcend, Trex Select, and Trex Enhance for protection against fading, staining, mold, and scratching; Trex Hideaway, a hidden fastening system; and Trex DeckLighting, a LED dimmable deck lighting for use on posts, floors, and steps. The company also provides Trex Transcend Railing products that are used in Trex decking products and other decking materials; Trex Select Railing products for a simple clean finished look; Trex Enhance Railing system; and Trex Signature aluminum railing for a contemporary look. In addition, it offers Trex Seclusions, a fencing product that includes structural posts, bottom and top rails, pickets, and decorative post caps. In addition, it designs, engineers, and markets architectural and aluminum railing systems, and staging equipment and accessories for the commercial market, as well as sports stadiums and performing arts venues. Further, the company acts as a licensor in various licensing agreements with third parties to manufacture and sell products under the Trex name, including Trex Outdoor Furniture; Trex RainEscape, an above joist deck drainage system; Trex Pergola, a cellular PVC product; Trex Latticeworks outdoor lattice boards; Trex Cornhole boards; Diablo Trex Blade, a saw blade for wood-alternative composite decking; Trex SpiralStairs and structural steel posts; and Trex Outdoor Kitchens, Cabinetry, and Storage products. It sells its products through wholesale distributors, retail lumber dealers, and Home Depot and Lowe's stores, as well as through its direct sales staff, independent sales representatives, and bidding on projects. Trex Company, Inc. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Winchester, Virginia.
The Legacy of Tun Razaks Oldest Son

M. Bakri Musa

www.bakrimusa.com









The dismissive attitude of Malaysian officials to the latest US Department of Justices (DOJ) civil forfeiture lawsuit targeting expensive assets allegedly acquired with funds illicitly siphoned from 1MDB is misplaced. Their stance is an embarrassing display of gross ignorance.





Yes, civil lawsuits in America are as common as mushrooms after a rainfall. This DOJ action however, is the largest (in dollar value) such forfeitures to date. This second set of lawsuits targeted assets allegedly given to Hollywood celebrities, as well as to the spouse of Malaysian Official 1 (MO1). The two categories are separate though the latter believe that she is in the same class as the former.





Najib apologists and enablers never fail to point out with unconcealed smugness that the defendants to the lawsuits are not individuals, specifically Najib or his associates and relatives, rather those assets.





in vacuo; someone or somebody owns them. They in effect are the defendants. That is right, but such sophistry reveals a fundamental ignorance of the American judicial system. Those targeted assets do not exist; someone or somebodythem.in effect are the defendants.





By targeting those assets and not their owners, DOJ is spared the task of identifying their rightful owners. That can be an arduous and expensive task, what with multiple shell companies involved in dizzying number of foreign jurisdictions. Instead, all DOJ has to do is wait for the owners to come out of the woodwork to identify themselves and lay claim to those assets by challenging the lawsuit. They have to, otherwise they would lose those assets, or at least their share.





One of those owners is Jho Low. He claimed to have bought those assets with his familys wealth. That at least was believable as he came from a wealthy clan in Penang. Sure enough, his familys assorted trusts too have contested the lawsuit from faraway New Zealand!





Then there is one Reza Aziz, identified as the stepson of MO1. Where did this son of a nondescript Malaysian army officer get his wealth? From his mother, the daughter of my parents contemporary as a village school teacher in Kuala Pilah? Visit her dilapidated ancestral home back in my kampong, and her current flamboyant lifestyle today would make you puke. As for Rezas stepfather Najib Razak, that man had spent his entire adult life in government, with its measly pay.





Reza Aziz concocted the idea that the money (some hundred million!) was a gift from a benevolent Saudi Sheik. Even the wealthiest corpulent Sheik would not be so extravagant with his favorite toy-boy, yet this Reza Aziz character wants those seasoned DOJ prosecutors to believe his story! Even his American accountants did not believe him.





One other owner has also come forward. Hollywood celebrity Leonardo DiCaprio has not only surrendered the gifts he had received from the parties named in the civil complaint but went further and cooperated with DOJ investigators. That cannot be good news for Jho Low or Reza Aziz.





Any bets whether any of the other owners, specifically the alleged recipient of that pink diamond, MO1s spouse, would return their gifts? It is worth pondering whose actions better reflect the forgiving spirit of Ramadan, hers or DiCaprios?





Najib supporters trivialize the DOJs lawsuit, citing its lack of action after its first filing last year as proof of its political intent. To them, these series of forfeiture lawsuits are yet another albeit more sophisticated American attempt at regime change. Such commentaries reveal a pathetic lack of the basic understanding of the US justice system.





civil lawsuit. Unlike criminal ones where the axiom justice delayed, justice denied is adhered to, civil suits can and do drag on for years. They go to trial only when all parties are ready, and all extraneous issues as with ownership claims settled. The fact that these forfeiture lawsuits drag on should not be misinterpreted in any way. This asset forfeiture is alawsuit. Unlike criminal ones where the axiom justice delayed, justice denied is adhered to, civil suits can and do drag on for years. They go to trial only when all parties are ready, and all extraneous issues as with ownership claims settled. The fact that these forfeiture lawsuits drag on should not be misinterpreted in any way.





There is also the possibility that criminal charges would be filed against specific individuals during the discovery or the trial.





There is only one certainty. Once a lawsuit is filed, those assets are effectively tied up. They cannot be sold, mortgaged, or altered in any way without the courts consent. DOJ has in effect total control of those assets, meaning, their de facto owner.





These forfeiture lawsuits will not be settled out of court. Those prosecutors have a point to prove, and with unlimited resources to pursue it. That reality has prompted owners like DiCaprio to cooperate with DOJ.





This will not be like a Malaysian trial where prosecutors could be illicitly paid off or where defense lawyers openly brag about having judges in their (lawyers) back pockets. The defendants have hired some of the best legal minds including those who had once worked in DOJ and had successfully prosecuted many high profile kleptocrats. It will be far from a walk in the park for the DOJ lawyers.





DOJ does have something in its favor. In a civil suit, unlike a criminal trial, the burden of proof is lower, only the preponderance of evidence and not beyond reasonable doubt. The burden of proof also shifts from the plaintiff to the defendant. Meaning, the owners have to prove that the funds they used to purchase those assets were untainted. It would be very difficult to convince an American jury that a Middle Eastern sheik would willingly part away with hundreds of millions of dollars to a Malay boy no matter how pretty he looks, for nothing in return.





Regardless of the outcome, this trial would expose to the world all the sordid ugly details of the 1MDB shenanigans. Once those are out, not many would be proud to call themselves Malaysians. They would be downright ashamed for having elected a leader with such unbounded avarice, and then letting him get away with it for so long.




Cynthia Erdman, president of Partnership Bank, Tomah, will continue to serve the banking industry as the 2017-18 past chair of the Wisconsin Bankers Association.

The Wisconsin Bankers Association is the states largest financial industry trade association, representing nearly 250 commercial banks and savings institutions, their nearly 2,300 branch offices and 23,000 employees.

Erdmans banking career began in 1986 as a personal banker and consumer lender while she was still attending college. From 1992-2007 she served as a mortgage officer and commercial banker as executive vice president for Acuity Bank, which later merged with Timberwood Bank. During her tenure with Timberwood she served as a senior vice president and commercial banker.

In April of 2008 Erdman joined First Bank as an executive vice president and chief lending officer and was promoted to president and chief executive officer in May of 2009. The bank changed its name to Partnership Bank in 2014.

Active in the community, Erdman serves on the boards of the Neighbor for Neighbor Food Pantry, Andres Charitable Fund and Thomas Earle Foundation. She is also a past board member of Tomah Memorial Hospital and has held numerous leadership positions and offices on community boards over the years, including the Greater Tomah Area Chamber of Commerce, Handishop Industries, city of Tomah Long Range Planning Committee and Tomah Boys and Girls Club.

Also serving as officers on the WBA board are: Chair Frederick Siemers, president of River Cities Bank, Wisconsin Rapids; Chair-Elect David P. Werner, president and CEO of Park Bank, Milwaukee; and Vice Chair Mark Meloy, CEO of First Business Bank, Madison.

Joining the board for three-year terms are: Christopher Del Moral-Niles, CFO, Associated Bank, Green Bay; Scot Thompson, president/CEO, Denmark State Bank; and Tom Van Pelt, president & CEO, Citizens State Bank, Hudson. In addition, Ken Thompson, president and CEO, Capitol Bank, Madison was selected to continue serving on the board following his time filling the one-year unexpired term left vacant by Werners selection as Vice Chair in 2016.

Those continuing their terms on the board are: Mary Bomkamp, president/CEO, Highland State Bank; Dennis Doyle, president/CEO, Great Midwest Bank, S.S.B., Brookfield; Sang Kim, regional president  WI/MI, Wells Fargo, Milwaukee; Paul Kohler, president and CEO, Charter Bank, Eau Claire; Scott Kopp, president/CEO, Bank of Galesville; Stan Leedle, Executive Vice President, Choice Bank, Oshkosh; Bill McDonald, CEO, Greenwoods State Bank, Lake Mills; Mark Mohr, president/CEO, First Bank Financial Centre, Oconomowoc; and Marty Reinhart, president/CEO, Heritage Bank, Spencer.
Love to gawk at celebs? Youre not alone. These are the photos that made the top of our feeds this week.

For Off the Rack, where we read the tabloids so you dont have to, go here.

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When Joe Jonas takes the stage on Sunday night, he expects hell screw up. Once or twice, anyhow.

Hell be co-hosting the iHeartRadio Canada Much Music Video Awards with Brampton R&B star Alessia Cara, whos making her debut as an awards show host. Naturally, she asked for advice from showbiz vet Jonas, who told her hes probably going to mess up too.

It isnt worth being upset if something goes wrong. Thats just part of it . . . so Im just going with the flow and laughing certain things off, Jonas said during a phone interview. And Ill have a lot of fun and probably learn some cool things.

The annual awards show, at the Bell Media headquarters at 299 Queen St. W., honours the years best music videos and will air at 9 p.m. on Much.

Jonas, current member of the dance-rock band DNCE and former member of the Jonas Brothers, said it will be pretty cool to see how were going to do together. He and Cara will be joined by presenters Tatiana Maslany, Carly Rae Jepsen, YouTube personality Tyler Oakley and more.

In a world where music videos are increasingly less prevalent, the MMVAs are still an event that brings Queen St. to a halt, Alan Cross, veteran Canadian broadcaster and host of The Ongoing History of New Music for the Edge, told the Star. The event started in 1990  a very different time for music videos, which the channel, then known as MuchMusic, played constantly  but Cross notes, They still get lots of people out. It is their biggest marketing event of the year. People line up outside. If done properly, the event can turn into TV ad dollars.

John Kampilis, executive producer of the awards show, says they give out 1,000 wristbands for spots inside the parking lot alone. Every year, a few thousand people take to the streets as well.

Were so well known around the world because were a show you dont see anywhere else, he said. Theres no outdoor award show for fans anywhere.

Over the years the MMVAs have developed a reputation as a big, lively party backstage. In 2006, producers told the Star, they served up 14,000 hors doeuvres and 9,500 beverages chilled on 700 kg of ice. However, neither the trophies nor the snacks are the draw: the stars are.

There will be 10 artists  including DNCE, Lorde and Niall Horan  performing during the broadcast but, according to Kampilis, more than 100 people will hit the stage, from presenters to winners to performers, dancers and choirs.

He estimates just under 1,000 people are involved in the planning and execution of the show, including the technical crew, creative team, graphic designers, floor directors, stage manager, lighting team and more.

Its a lot of controlled chaos that happens all around us all night long, he said.

The awards will also have new elements this year, including more theatrical sets than ever before.

We have a lot of artists who are bringing a lot of theatre to the stage. There are more set designs happening on the stage this year than before, Kampilis said. Almost every band has come to the table with huge and challenging creative ideas that were trying to execute. Weve gone out to every construction house in Toronto to build these sets.

Cross said the MMVAs exist for at least three commercial reasons: they tend to be profitable for the TV channel; they raise the profile of the artists; and they can bring new life to a video release thats been out for a while.

Jonas believes the show is especially successful because it does a good job of balancing the awards that arent specific to actual video.

But thats not to say he doesnt appreciate the music video side of things. Jonas said he believes its something that will come back around in a big way someday soon.

Were supervisual people. I think our attention span is getting less and less, so people are being more creative with how they come up with videos, he said. Somebody like Beyonce, she created an entire movie. Although she isBeyonce, theres hope there for younger artists to be able to be creative.

The video side of the industry has been important to Jonas for some time. The 27-year-old remembers growing up dreaming about appearing on MTVs Total Request Live, whose decade-long run ended in 2008. He and siblings Nick and Kevin appeared on the show as the Jonas Brothers.

The goal was to have the biggest crowd outside and get your video to No. 1, and that was just calling in and voting, Jonas said. There was a beauty to it. You felt connected to those artists. I remember growing up watching Eminem or the Backstreet Boys going on TRL and it was such a phenomenon.

Now, as a member of DNCE, known for their hit Cake by the Ocean, Jonas plans to continue creating and growing DNCE as a band and see where that can go.

He also hopes to explore other ventures, including helping other artists create and produce records, and his passion for food, something he has begun through his involvement in two L.A. restaurants.

And a few coffee shops will be opening soon so Im working on different stuff, he said. Fingers crossed that can grow into something bigger.

Video of the Year nominees

R.E.D., A Tribe Called Red feat. Yasiin Bey, Narcy & Black Bear

Fireproof, Coleman Hell

Glowed Up, Kaytranada feat. Anderson.Paak

Sleep in the Heat, PUP

Mercy, Shawn Mendes

MMVA performers

Arkells

Iggy Azalea

Camila Cabello

Jazz Cartier

DNCE

Niall Horan

Imagine Dragons

Lorde

Post Malone

Julia Michaels

Red carpet performers: Jessie Reyez, Kardinal Offishall

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You dont need to have been to see the brand-new public fountain at Berczy Park. Instagram  and Facebook, and Twitter  have all been there for you, countless times. From its outer circle of big dogs (retrievers, Labs, a St. Bernard) to its inner rings of pugs, terriers and puppies all spouting water in apparent supplication to a golden bone held aloft the fountains peak, each and every canine  there are 27, and one cat  is well enough represented online to have its own profile on Facebook.

What youre less likely to see in such a way is its immediate neighbour, Indigenous artist Jeff Thomass Imposition of Order, an enormous, billboard-sized work of images exhuming the areas not-terribly-playful history: A steely portrait of Thayendanegea, also known as Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief who in the 18th century threw his people in with the British against both French and American forces in wars spanning more than 20 years.

Thomas, who shows alongside the portrait maps of lands promised to Brants people for his service, now lost, makes a critical gesture in this moment of Truth and Reconciliation: How to make visible a true, and ugly, history of a city where newness is often privileged at the expense of the past.

Public art is subject to few rules, though certain truisms hold: Everyone has an opinion, and theyre as broad as the works themselves. If the fountain, which opened last week, and Imposition of Order, which appeared for the Luminato Festival at exactly the same time, belong in the same family  and, with their public esthetic statements, they do  theyre quite clearly distant relations: One an unblinking challenge to a complex history rooted in the ground beneath the concrete; the other, a reference to nowhere in particular and not very much at all

They seem to have nothing to do with each other, which of course is the point: In a landscape more littered with public art by the day, what standard applies?

Not enough of one, Brandon Vickerd says. At this point, the culture of public art in Canada is healthy enough to turn its intentions towards establishing a critical eye, he said. Right now, its a fair question: What are we hoping to achieve, as a culture, when we take on public art?

Vickerd, a professor of sculpture in the fine arts department at York University, hosted a national symposium on campus last month on that very subject. Public Art: New Ways of Thinking and Working took place over the May long weekend. With private development generating vast amounts of public art as a byproduct of most cities urban planning regulations, the notion of standards was very much in mind.

Theres such a proliferation of public art taking place, but theres a real lack of critical discourse around it, Vickerd said. And the truth is, its a really difficult field: Theres so much priority on consensus  this idea that youre making a work that has to be everything to everyone, all the time  that you end up with works that are insignificant to everyone.

While encouraging signs abound here  James TurrellsStraight Flush and Micah LexiersTwo Circles enrich downtown office towers  the field remains confoundingly broad.

Hence, perhaps, the stretch from a dog fountain to Imposition of Order, and everything in between. That polarity is what Vickerd means to address. It really is a big question: Can you make a work of art that is commissioned by the city, or a developer, that is critical and has a critical presence in the cityscape?

Another question: does it have to? Cameron Cartiere, a professor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver who specializes in public art, also came to the symposium, but with a very different point of view. What public art is asked to do is so much more than a work in a museum or gallery, said Cartiere, a co-editor of The Practice of Public Art, a prominent journal in the field. In the public realm, the stakes are higher  youve only got one shot. Our expectations are much too high  and heaven forbid we indulge in a little whimsy.

Public art that free-floats out of context isnt new, but it was driven to new heights of infamy recently when it was revealed the provincial government had granted more than $121,000 to the Redpath Waterfront Festival to bring a giant rubber duck from Ohio to the province for Canada 150 (The good thing is that its temporary, said Cartiere, diplomatically. People get to see what they like, and what they dont.)

Whats seen as a worthy public art investment remains broad, indeed. A less high-profile project  and certainly one less fun, as culture minister Eleanor McMahon described the duck to be  from the Toronto Fire Native Cultural Centre is currently walking the slow path of approval and funding: The work, a 12-foot long turtle climbing a boulder inscribed with the names of Ontarios 13 residential schools, is intended by Ojibway artist Solomon King as a Restoration of Identity gesture to the many Indigenous people abused within the system. The citys Aborginal Affairs Committee recommended the proposal go forward in May, though many hurdles are yet to be cleared before it comes to be.

The idea of putting art in public is age-old  think of monuments to the various caesars in ancient Rome, or bronze sculptures glorifying everything from generals to politicians since the Renaissance at least. But the shift in thinking, from heroic memorials and monuments to meditations on site, place and culture, is relatively new and Toronto, generally, has not been swift to its embrace.

As recently as 1968, the province installed a cast-off statue of King Edward VII in Queens Park, acquired from India as it purged the remnants of British colonial rule. Its arrival served as a quiet reminder of the citys staunch conservatism, proclaimed much more loudly a couple of years prior as perhaps the citys best-known public artwork, Henry Moores The Archer, an amorphous, high-Modern sculpture, was installed at Nathan Phillips Square in 1966.

The Archers initial renown came not from its merits: It looks like a sick mushroom, one bystander told the Star that year, and the sentiment wasnt unique. After a cool public reception to its initial proposal in 1964, city council refused to pay for it, leaving then-Mayor Philip Givens to lead a private fundraising campaign to acquire it from Moore on his own.

Givens, vilified for pushing the work on a largely-indifferent public, would pay a political price: He was voted out six weeks after The Archer was installed, with its arrival a favourite campaign target of his rivals.

Then, of course, is not now, and The Archer, along with Moores Two Forms, recently relocated by the Art Gallery of Ontario to Grange Park, are among the most-loved public artworks in the citys history. I always say: Dont judge too quickly, Cartiere says. Things need to settle into the landscape and become part of peoples experience, and that takes time.

Cartiere says public art can play several roles, from engaging with deep histories specific to the site and community to simple amusements. There are layers to these things, she said. It depends on what you value in a city. We ask our cities to not just house us, but to have others come and visit. Why should they? What makes us interesting and unique?

Indeed, among public arts many chores is to help establish a civic tourism brand. Anish Kapoors Cloud Gate, a giant chromium bean in Chicago, quickly became an emblem of the city worldwide, not to mention the victim of knock-offs.

The more organically such a symbol evolves, the better, Cartiere said  a credo not adhered to in 2015 by the city when it installed a giant TORONTO sign at Nathan Phillips Square for the Pan Am Games. Nonetheless, its an Instagram hit  so much so that other cities, like Ottawa, have adopted the same strategy.

Dont laugh off the social media considerations of public art projects, Vickerd says. Ive been on juries where jurors will say, This would be a great selfie sculpture,  he says. I realize that its the way we see the world  its the way we socialize, its the way we document our lives now. But I dont think theres a reasonable argument to be made for making a work thats a good backdrop for Instagram.

Nonetheless, high-minded cultural ideals are in tough against crowdsourced validation. For Canada 150, the anniversary of Canadian confederation on July 1, the city has made a slight tweak to its TORONTO sign, adorning the giant letters with raccoons and maple leaves.

For a site as significant to the citys history  for the square to be built, the Ward, the citys foundational melting pot of cultural difference, was razed, and all its diverse residents scattered to the wind  the gesture seems blithely thin. We may sometimes expect public art to do too much, but is there a danger that we expect too little?

Thats a real problem, Vickerd says. Not every work has to be critical. Theres room for multiple ways of thinking. But I think there have to be some gatekeepers.

But Cartiere says quality remains in the eye of the beholder, and the field should remain broad. Think of how many buildings in your city really make you say, Wow, she said. Not that many. We need to be realistic in our expectations  and a lot more patient.

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They huddled together in the back of my SUV in heavy coats that didnt quite fit. A mother, a father and their three sons. The roads were slick with greasy slush and snow had just begun to fall. We were en route to their first doctors appointment when I decided to take a sudden detour.

I pulled into an empty parking lot and got out to point enthusiastically at the beautiful, plump flakes. Thalaj I said in mangled Arabic, urging the two youngest boys to catch snowflakes on their tongues.

Doctor? Rama, the mother, asked in obvious confusion.

No, later. First I want to show you something.

Hesitantly, they followed me down an unshovelled path and past a shuttered concession stand. Their eyes lit up when they saw it: the jagged cliffs of Ottawas Hogs Back Falls. The parents took out their cellphones to record video, while the children laughed at the ducks swimming in the river. The rushing water and snow-laden trees would become the backdrop for the Syrian refugees first family photo in Canada.

There is both promise and uncertainty in that photo. Ramas resolve is mirrored in the face of her middle son. They both look determined to take on whatever comes, while Ramas husband, Ali, drapes a protective arm around her shoulders. Their oldest son, a 15-year-old, wears the goofy grin of a teen in wonder of what hell discover next. But it is the expression of the youngest that strikes me most. His toque is pulled low over his ears and the 6-year-old is leaning into his mother, staring out with worry and doubt. They fled bombs and death in Syria and have found safety here, but what will the future hold for them in Canada?

Their escape reminds me of my familys journey four decades earlier. I was one of the hundreds of thousands of boat people who fled the Communist government after the fall of Saigon.

The latest Heritage Minute from the charitable organization Historica Canada encapsulates Canadas remarkable humanitarian response to that desperate moment in time. When asked by Historica if I wanted to help create the Minute, I didnt hesitate. This was a chance to tell the story of Canada at its best  when the nation led with compassion and resettled nearly 100,000 boat people in the Great White North. It was a chance to acknowledge the everyday Canadians who only saw need, not racial, cultural or political differences. And finally, it was a chance to pay tribute to the strength of refugees in their struggle to survive and in their quest to succeed.

The fall of Saigon

My parents were ethnic Chinese business people in Saigon, targeted by the new Communist regime to be moved to re-education camps in the countryside. We had no choice but to flee in 1979. My father quickly liquidated our assets into 30 pieces of one-ounce gold squares and $75 (U.S.) currency. The money would be used to bribe officials, to persuade soldiers to turn their heads at checkpoints and to buy us passage on a rickety fishing boat.

The boat was built for 100 passengers, but the captain allowed 315 desperate people on board. On the five-day journey across the Gulf of Thailand we encountered pirate ships twice. The first marauders boarded with guns, knives and machetes and ransacked the boat. The second took the remaining food and water, all that was left.

But the profiteering of pirates paled in comparison to the cruelty of state policy. On Day 5, just as our spirits were lifted by the sight of land, the Malaysian coast guard intercepted our boat and turned us away. The coast guard was deaf to the pleas, blind to the tears, as they towed our boat back into international waters.

The captain had 20 family members on board, and there was no guarantee any of them or us would survive another journey. We had fuel, but no food and water. So the decision was made to make a U-turn. Under cover of night, we began to sail toward Malaysia again, planning to anchor the boat as close as possible to land, then sink it. People slammed sledgehammers against the engine and tore apart the boat.

My father jumped first, clinging to a piece of scrap wood and yelled at me to jump. But I was too scared to move. So my mother grabbed me and threw me overboard, praying my father would find me in the waves. Then she jumped with my sister in her arms. That day, nearly all of the passengers washed ashore on a barren beach; we could not be turned away.

Three months later, Canadian immigration officials would visit our refugee camp and accept us into Canada. We ended up in Lethbridge, Alta., and basically became the adopted family of the local Alliance Church. One of our first shopping experiences was at the Salvation Army to pick out clothing. My sister selected a red coat with a CH crest sewn on the front of the jacket after my father told her the C stood for Canada. He didnt know what the H stood for and had no idea it was a Montreal Canadiens jacket.

The Heritage Minute ends with a similar scene, when a Canadian girl gives a Vietnamese child a toque with Les Glorieux.

But where the Minute concludes is where my Canadian story begins. It doesnt end with resettlement but with integration. For refugee families like mine, integration was a long and hard road that required much sacrifice. It was a goal that couldnt have been reached without reliance on strangers who turned into friends.

A Canadian life

During our first few years in Canada, I never felt we were lacking anything, except that we rarely had time for fun as a family. My sister and I were latchkey kids. My parents couldnt come to our school events because they were either working or in English classes. They had multiple jobs and split shifts. But their burdens were lightened by a rotating group of church volunteers, from university students to retirees, who would drive my parents to classes and appointments. They acted as references for my parents first jobs.

My mother started washing dishes then waiting on tables before getting work assembling the handsets of rotary telephones. It was a far cry from her job in Vietnam as an accountant and freelance newspaper writer. Because my father understood and spoke some English as well as Vietnamese, Mandarin and Cantonese, he was able to get hired as an interpreter. But the work was sporadic, so an employment counsellor persuaded him to take welding courses at night school, which had the unintended outcome of boosting his daughters fragile self-esteem.

People often thought I was a either sullen or shy because I rarely spoke or smiled. It was because I was embarrassed of my crooked teeth and severe overbite. After my father got his welding certification, he landed a full-time job with dental benefits that paid for braces. By the time I was in Grade 9, I lived life with a perma-grin.

Then there was the woman across the street who cajoled her 6-year-old son into accompanying me to school every day. It took more than a month, but Barry eventually stopped walking ahead of me, and fell into step beside me becoming my first friend. My mother could only repay such kindness in spring rolls and dumplings. For those who helped us, that was enough.

Returning the favour

It was Canadas humanitarian response to the Vietnamese boat people that created the blueprint for the countrys most recent effort to help Syrian refugees. Since November 2015, more than 40,000 Syrian newcomers now call Canada home. But resettlement cant be equated with success. Most of the Syrians are government refugees and many could use additional support beyond what social agencies can provide. With language and cultural barriers, they could easily fall through the cracks. It would be easy for us to shield our eyes from their challenges. We can drive by the neighbourhoods where they live. We can stay silent when we overhear xenophobic remarks. We can make excuses by pointing to our differences. Or we could extend a hand.

It was political will that got my family to Canada, but as a former refugee I know that it was community effort that enabled us to thrive

Thats why Im part of a group sponsoring Rama and Ali.

My hope for them  and for all newcomers  is that we dont just applaud their journey to safety, but pave a way for them to succeed.

Judy Trinh is a freelance reporter based in Ottawa. She consulted on the new Heritage Minute, which is based on her familys story.

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A 77-year-old GTA woman in intolerable suffering from incurable osteoarthritis wants medical assistance to die but cant find a doctor willing to do it.

The only issue is whether her natural death is reasonably foreseeable  a controversial restriction in the doctor-assisted dying legislation introduced last year.

On Monday she will take the unusual step of asking a Superior Court judge to declare whether she meets the requirement, allowing her doctors to help her die without fear of prosecution for murder and providing clarification that could help others in the same position as her.

I will remain here in this room forever, in pain, until someone allows me to die, she said in an affidavit filed with the court. I have no future.

She was referred to a doctor earlier this year who found that she met all the criteria, including that her natural death was reasonably foreseeable, and agreed to perform the procedure. Eventually, as required by law, she found a second doctor who said she was eligible.

While her condition is not terminal and she could die from any number of causes, she does not have long to live given her age, her incurable, debilitating illness and declining health, the doctor found according to an affidavit.

But by then the first doctor had changed his mind out of concern he could be charged with murder.

Since at least one other doctor has disagreed she meets the requirement of reasonable foreseeable death, he is uncomfortable performing the procedure because if he is legally incorrect he could be criminally prosecuted, he said in an affidavit.

The identity of the woman and her health-care providers is under a publication ban.

The mother of three was diagnosed with osteoarthritis at the age of 43 and the pain kept getting worse, according to her affidavit. She would put a frozen bag of peas on the back of her chair just to be able to sit down.

Nine years later she quit her job because the pain left her unable to function. She went on to have both her knees and her right hip replaced and a rod inserted into her left leg and lower back.

She moved to a nursing home for full-time care in 2011 but by 2016 she could no longer participate on committees or even eat in the dining room because it was too painful to sit up at a table.

She describes the pain in her knees, hips, back, fingers and toes like the stabbing of a knife, causing to her wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Even swallowing food and her medication is unbearable.

I am currently taking fentanyl, morphine and prednisone but this hardly takes the edge off the pain I experience, she said.

She says three doctors have told her there is nothing more they can do. Her condition is irreversible and she will just continue to get worse.

She decided in January of 2017 she wanted to die with medical help.

I have lived a good life and a long life, she said. But I am now nearing 80 years old. I am at the point where I can say I have done my duty to the world and to the people I love. I simply want to quietly move out of life, end my intolerable suffering and go home to God.

In documents filed with the court, the womans lawyer Andrew Faith stressed the chilling effect the lack of clarity has on access to medical care.

He pointed to a submission made to the Senate committee by Dr. Douglas Grant, the president of the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada.

This is legal, not medical, language, and I think we just heard that the lawyers don't even like it. The language is too vague to be understood or applied by the medical (profession) and too ambiguous to be regulated effectively.

Faith argues this case is similar to that of Kay Carter, a Vancouver woman whose case led to the landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling on assisted dying. Carter did not have a terminal condition, but had spinal stenosis, was in irreversible decline, and suffered from extreme pain. She was 89 when she went to Switzerland in 2010 to have a medically-assisted death.

The Minister of Justice has specifically said Carter would be eligible under the legislation, Faith wrote.

In their response, the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario said the court should not issue the declaration requested because judicial pre-authorization is neither necessary nor advisable.

Parliament gave doctors and nurse-practitioners, not judges, the responsibility of determining whether the criteria for medically-assisted dying has been met, Crown lawyer Josh Hunter wrote in a factum submitted to the court.

He also said such a declaration would improperly interfere with prosecutorial discretion by deciding in advance whether or not the action is criminal.

The woman at the centre of the application said in her affidavit that a declaration from the court is her only hope.

Every day this drags on is another day of terrible suffering for me, she said.

Not only is my suffering intolerable to me but so is my quality of life. I am the kind of person that has always kept busy and always found meaning in helping other people, she said. I am no longer able to do the things that brought me joy and made my life worthwhile.

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In a year where most marches have been anger-fuelled and reactionary, this one was joyous.

Midwives from 113 countries danced and cheered their way Saturday through downtown Toronto, marching to draw attention to the role of midwives in global health care.

Midwives are underpaid and undervalued, yet were delivering so many of the children of the future around the world, said Toronto-based midwife Alanna Kibbe, 39.

We are a group of almost all women providing care to almost all women. Thats a gender equity issue.

The march kicked off the International Confederation of Midwives congress, an event that happens once every three years. This years gathering is expected to draw 4,000 to Toronto.

On Saturday, the marchers waved rainbow Pride flags alongside those from dozens of countries, including Australia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Mexico, Ethiopia and, of course, Canada.

The midwives  many decked out in the colourful dresses and scarves of their home countries  chanted phrases like more midwives to a steady, pulsing beat of drums, winding their way from the Harbourfront to Nathan Phillips Square.

The event is happening at an interesting time for Canadian midwives in particular. Last year, the Association of Ontario Midwives took the provincial government to the human rights tribunal over what they claim is a gender-based pay gap.

A decision in that case is expected in the next year, said Katrina Kilroy, the president of the Canadian Association of Midwives.

We still are marginalized in the Canadian health-care system, Kilroy said. We have provinces where we still do not have regulated midwifery.

Another focus for the Canadian midwives was increasing access to safe, culturally-sensitive care in Indigenous communities  something Kibbe said is obligatory as Canada works towards reconciliation.

Those cultural practices that are critical for the birthing process have been stolen, and those families deserve to get them back, she said.

Midwives from developing countries  male and female alike  said they were there to advocate for better access and technology.

Wakasiaka Sabina, a 45-year-old who teaches midwifery in Nairobi, Kenya, said shes working to help isolated young mothers from rural areas who face risky births without proper care. For those women, a midwife may be the difference between life and death.

They are forgotten, Sabina said. That is the problem we have. The midwives can speak for the women who are dying.

The ICM Triennial Congress starts Sunday with events running through Thursday.

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Detention facilities should allow inmates to make overseas calls and must crack down on drug smuggling into jails, a coroners inquest has recommended.

Those were two of the six recommendations the jury made at the inquest in the death of Francisco Romero Astorga, an immigration detainee suffering from depression and substance abuse.

The three-woman, two-man panel did not make any recommendations on the detention practices of the Canada Border Services Agency as the coroners office restricted the scope of the inquiry to the events after Astorga was arrested and held at the Maplehurst Correctional Centre, a maximum security detention facility in Milton.

The border agency uses provincial jails to house detainees when there is an overflow at its own holding centres or when a detainee poses dangers to others.

Astorga, a 39-year-old Chilean, was held in custody for an immigration violation for 59 days and died of an overdose of fentanyl and methamphetamine on March 13, 2016 while in custody. On Friday, the jury concluded the death was an accident.

Although Romeros family said they were happy with the jury recommendations, they said there are still unanswered questions.

The access to phones and communication with family was the main thing. Everything started from a phone call for support, said Esteban Romero Astorga, brother of the deceased, after the jury delivered its verdict in Milton.

Why did they charge a mentally ill man and put him in a maximum security jail? asked the younger Romero, who flew in and sat through the weeklong inquiry.

Francisco Romero Astorga first visited Canada in 1996 and went underground after abandoning his asylum claim. He worked as a baker before he voluntarily left Canada in 2002.

With the money he saved, he opened a nightclub in Chile and worked in restaurants and in construction before coming back to Canada on Nov. 1, 2015. His last contact with his family was through Facebook before Christmas that year.

The inquest heard he was intercepted by border officials at Pearson airport but walked out of the interview room without anyone noticing. A warrant was issued. He was arrested by Peel police after he was caught stealing food at a Walmart. He was handed over to CBSA on Jan. 13 and held until his death.

He told authorities he suffered from depression and was suicidal, and was initially placed in segregation before being transferred into a regular cell, according to a submission from the familys lawyers at the inquest.

During the inquest, the jury heard about the prevalence of drug smuggling into detention facilities and substance abuse among inmates.

The inquest was also told that the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Service policy was that phone calls were not permitted to cellphones or any numbers outside North America.

After his death, a coroners investigation statement revealed police found in Romeros cell a homemade fish device used to transport drugs and contraband from cell to cell, as well as a slim-jim used to contain and secrete drugs within the body.

We know there are serious drug problems in Ontarios jail system, lawyer Simon Wallace, who represented the family along with counsel Shane Martinez, said after the verdict was delivered.

We are glad the jury recognized that as well. We hope using new drug (possession) detection technology can reduce the chances of this from happening. While technology is helpful, its important to ensure we have enough support and educational programs for prisoners struggling with drug and mental health problems.

Martinez said he is still deeply concerned with the provinces ability to keep inmates safe.

We need to ask ourselves why this preventable tragedy was allowed to happen . . . And why it is still reluctant  despite so many deaths  to implement more common sense measures that would protect the most vulnerable, said Martinez.

Esteban Romero Astorga, an executive with a hotel chain in Dubai, said he and his big brother, along with their two sisters, were raised in a middle-class household by their father, a career navy officer, and loving homemaker mother.

We are all very close. Francisco loved adventures. I remember after his first trip to Canada, he couldnt stop talking about what a great county it was and how nice Canadians were. Thats why he wanted to go back, a sobbing Romero told the Star in an interview.

He said he wanted to live and die in Canada. It became true and he did die here.

The inquest jury also recommended the creation of a drug/contraband security committee among corrections officials to enhance security measures against trafficking, a review of the meal hatches under cell doors to prevent inmates from passing items through them and stronger enforcement of signing and dating internal forms among jail officials for accountability purposes.

A ministry spokesperson said officials will review the recommendations and respond appropriately.

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Concerned about the prevalence of unlicensed immigration consultants and what MPs say is the industry's inability to self-regulate, a parliamentary committee is recommending Ottawa scrap the existing regulatory body and take over the policing of the profession.

Paid immigration and refugee consulting should be restricted to lawyers in good standing with provincial law societies and consultants registered with the federal government, said the immigration committee in a 60-page report released Friday.

The current framework does not provide adequate oversight, the parliamentary citizenship and immigration committee said in the report. There are a number of issues with the current framework and more remains to be done to ensure that individuals coming or immigrating to Canada do not fall victim to the abuses of unscrupulous consultants, and that the integrity of our immigration system is not diminished.

It is not the first time Ottawa is reviewing the profession.

In 2004, the federal government put up $1.2 million to create the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, a self-regulatory body that everyone hoped would instill a sense of professionalism and faith in a business with a notorious reputation.

Despite the good intentions, Ottawa decertified the regulator in 2011 following complaints about mismanagement and poor governance, and replaced it with another self-regulatory body, the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC), based in Burlington.

The regulator is a private corporation designated by Ottawa to police its members, with a mission to protect consumers of immigration services through regulation and promotion of the use of authorized immigration representatives.

Since its creation, the ICCRC has seen the number of licensed consultants increase from 1,700 to 4,000, with $7.2 million in revenue, mainly from membership dues, and an annual budget over $6 million.

The regulator, with 29 employees in three offices across Canada, is overseen by a 15-member board of directors, including three public interest representatives who are not consultants. Half of the directors are elected each year to serve two-year terms.

Almost six years after its inception, the organization is again dogged by the industrys old demons. So-called ghost consultants, or unlicensed agents, are still operating and criticisms about transparency surrounding its finances are being raised.

Over the last few months, the bipartisan parliamentary committee heard from 50 witnesses including consultants, lawyers, community groups, immigration and border officials, advocates and migrants before compiling the report with 21 recommendations.

During the committee hearings, the regulator argued the government should grant it more power so it could pursue unlicensed and unscrupulous consultants on its own. Currently, the ICCRC has no authority over ghost consultants.

Critics of the regulator recommended Ottawa restrict the practice of immigration law to lawyers, who have been self-regulated by provincial law societies for over a hundred years, or that the government itself take over regulation of what they say is a deeply troubled industry.

In recent months, five members of the ICCRCs board of directors have resigned with another removed from duty based on repeated incidents of bullying and intimidation of staff and board members, according to the regulator.

In an interview the board member, Ryan Dean, said he was removed for being a whistleblower.

His dismissal in April followed his testimony before the parliamentary committee the month before, in which he complained the regulators books did not balance and he was denied access to its financial records.

To date, there are four sets of financial statements, all for 2016, all certified and audited, Dean told the committee. The last time I talked about this in public (at the annual general meeting), the ICCRC shut off the microphones during the question-and-answer period explaining the financial statements, and another member was physically assaulted by management for speaking his views, and the mike was torn out of his hands.

In an email response to the Star, Lawrence Barker, the regulators registrar, said the council is financially-sound and has established $3.5 million in reserves without incurring any expenses to taxpayers.

At the last annual general meeting, the public auditors were present and confirmed that the financial statements as presented at the meeting were proper and correct, Barker wrote.

The regulators 2016 annual report shows it spent $66,000 or 1 per cent of its budget on marketing and advertising to consumers. Barker said ICCRC participates in numerous consumer protection initiatives and is expanding its outreach with an increased budget this year.

Meanwhile, MPs sitting on the parliamentary immigration committee said their offices are overwhelmed by complaints against consultants and requests to fix constituents immigration problems.

Here we are. Its a deja vu, all over again, said Vancouver East MP Jenny Kwan, opposition NDPs immigration critic and vice-chair of the House committee, who was in favour of having the profession regulated directly by the federal government.

This is not to say all consultants are bad but Im more convinced than ever before that self-regulating is not working, added Kwan in an interview.

Dean, the board member who was removed after speaking to the parliamentary committee, is also critical of the regulators outsourcing of its discipline and investigations operation to a company called NR Complaint and Discipline Solutions Inc., which is registered to the wife of ICCRCs director of complaints and discipline, Robert Kewley.

The government told ICCRC that they were the regulator, and the ICCRC turned around and has given the power and a big cheque every month for many years to the private corporation, Dean told the parliamentary committee. None of us directors were even allowed to ask questions about it, because its the black box.

A contract between Kewleys company and ICCRC obtained by Dean and viewed by the Star showed it was paid $12,500 a month for the service. Kewley, when reached at his home office, wouldnt confirm the amount but said he was paid a monthly flat fee by the regulator from 2011 to 2015. He has an ongoing contract with ICCRC that expires later this year. He refused to disclose the new terms.

Barker, of the ICCRC, said many professional regulatory bodies, especially the smaller ones, contract investigative work to a third party in the early stage after their formation. The regulator planned to move the operation in-house later in 2017, he added.

From the get-go in 2011, he said, Kewley was retained as a contractor to lead the investigation and complaint intake. He is not, nor has ever been, an employee, said Barker.

Kewley, a former Mountie, told the Star his company had three other retired RCMP officers as investigators and the business was registered to his wife for taxation reasons.

Debbie Douglas, who sat on the ICCRC board for a year as a public interest member, said in her resignation letter in January that her time on the board was challenging.

While I strongly support the mission of the regulatory council, its practice of governance, its relationship with members and the backroom dealings that appear to be status quo are in opposition to my values of equity and transparency, Douglas, executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, wrote in the letter obtained by the Star.

The decision of the members to vote out all incumbent directors standing for re-election was less an exercise in democracy than an expression of cynicism and one-upmanship.

Douglas declined to comment further when reached by the Star.

The Canadian Bar Association, which represents lawyers across Canada, urged Ottawa to dismantle ICCRC and restrict the practice of immigration law to lawyers and Quebec notaries.

The evidence presented to the parliamentary committee is clear that ICCRC has significant problems resulting from the consultants inability to self-regulate, Vance Langford, chair of the bar associations immigration section, told the Star in an interview.

One of the problems is many consultants do not have the benefit of the education and training, as well as the effective regulations that lawyers do. We had CSIC, and now ICCRC. They dont deserve a third chance.

Barker argued the bar associations recommendation was made out of the groups self-interest.

The Canadian Bar Association is an advocacy and member service organization that promotes the interests of lawyers. The changes they have recommended would entitle their membership to compensation for the provision of all Canadian immigration consulting services, Barker said.

Removing 4,000 licensed and regulated immigration consultants from the marketplace would have a considerable impact on those seeking immigration services, as it would be difficult for lawyers who specialize in the practice of immigration law to accommodate the new-found demand.

The committee's recommendations are not binding. The study was received Friday by Parliament for consideration.

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NORRISTOWN, PA.After a mistrial was declared in Bill Cosbys sexual assault case, a member of Cosbys public relations team read a heated statement from the comedians wife, Camille Cosby.

How do I describe the district attorney? Heinously and exploitatively ambitious. How do I describe the judge? Overtly arrogant in collaborating with the district attorney, said the statement. How do I describe the counsels for the accusers? Totally unethical. How do I describe many, but not all, general media? Blatantly vicious entities that continually disseminated intentional omissions of truth for the primary purpose of greedily selling sensationalism at the expense of a human life.

The statement was read outside the Norristown, Pa., courthouse, where the jury declared themselves hopelessly deadlocked after 52 hours of deliberation in the case of accuser Andrea Constand. Camille Cosby, 73, only attended one day of the trial with her husband.

Camille Cosbys statement continued: Historically, people have challenged injustices. I am grateful to any of the jurors who tenaciously fought to review the evidence, which is the rightful way to make a sound decision. Ultimately, that is the manifestation of justice, based on facts, not lies. As a very special friend once stated, Truth can be subdued, but not destroyed. Camille Cosby also thanked her husbands lawyers, other staff members, family and friends for their support.

Cosbys longtime spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, made a statement of his own, declaring that Mr. Cosbys power is back. Its back. He also suggested that lawyers representing alleged victims, including celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, go back to law school and take another class.

The prosecutor, Kevin Steele, says he will retry Bill Cosby.

Some on social media took issue with Wyatts victorious reaction to the mistrial. Comedian Aparna Nancherla, who frequently posts social commentary, tweeted, Ask women again why they dont report their rapes.

But early reaction to the Cosby mistrial from the celebrity Twitterverse was decidedly muted. Many more were still expressing outrage that the Minnesota police officer who shot Philando Castile was acquitted Friday.

A jury deliberated longer in the #Cosby Case! Than the murder of #PhilandoCastile! #TeamDl.

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Palestinian militants disputed a Daesh claim Saturday that it was behind a deadly attack against Israel, saying it was their people who killed a female police officer on duty near Jerusalems Old City. Family members of the attackers said they were deeply religious men who acted on their own.

Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, issued a statement taking responsibility for the stabbing and shooting attacks Friday evening. If true, it would mark the first direct Daesh action against Israel and the group warned on its affiliate news agency it will not be the last.

Let the Jews expect the demise of their entity at the hands of the Caliphate soldiers, it said, calling the attack revenge for Gods religion and for the violated sanctities of Muslims.

However, the Hamas and Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) militant groups quickly retorted that the three attackers who were killed were their members and accused Daesh of trying to undermine their efforts.

In their village of Deir Abu Mashal, near Ramallah, relatives of the three denied any connection to Daesh or the other groups. The Israeli military raided the village Saturday, imposing a closure, but officials also said Friday nights attacks were carried out by local individuals without a formal link to any group.

Yaakov Peri, an Israeli lawmaker and former head of the Shin Bet security service, said the co-ordinated assault marked an upgrade over recent Palestinian violence and that he hoped it was not the beginning of a new wave of attacks. Still, he said he doubted it had anything to do with Daesh.

The Daesh claim of responsibility is absurd, he said. There are great differences and conflicts between Daesh and Hamas. Hamas wants to clarify that it is involved in a national battle of the Palestinian people with the Zionist occupier and it is in its interest to present it as such.

The three men were armed with knives and an automatic weapon and carried out near simultaneous attacks at two locations. Police Staff Sgt. Maj. Hadas Malka, 23, was stabbed to death. Following the attack, police conducted a large roundup Saturday searching for Palestinians who had entered Israel illegally. It said 350 people were arrested.

The attack was carried out by three Palestinians, two PFLP members and a Hamas member, said Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri, adding that Daesh claims that it carried out the attack are meant to sow confusion.

The PFLP said its two attackers, 19-year-old Osama Ata and 18-year-old Baraa Ata, were members of the same clan who both spent time in Israeli prisons.

The PFLP is a small radical leftist group, operating within the PLO led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The group opposes any peace talks with Israel and calls for liberating Palestinian territories by force, but their violent attacks are very rare and mostly carried out by individuals.

The father of the third attacker, 18-year-old Adel Ankoush, said his son was too young to belong to any faction. Hasan Ankoush said his son was a devout Muslim, who prayed five times a day and joined the non-Jihadi wing of the Islamic Salafi group.

The three would meet regularly in Ankoushs basement with its frayed painting, broken windows and only a few plastic chairs. Ankoush was training to be a plumber while the other two were unemployed.

Hasan Ankoush said he would have stopped his son had he known of his plans.

I taught him that worshipping God is the right path for salvation. I was shocked, said the unemployed father, paralyzed by a stroke. He was my only hope in life, he planned to learn a job and work and help me in life.

The attack was the latest bloodshed in a wave of Palestinian attacks on civilians and soldiers that erupted in 2015. At times the attacks were daily occurrences, but had somewhat subsided in recent months. However, there have been a string of recent attacks near the Old City.

Since September 2015, Palestinian assailants have killed 43 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British student, mainly in stabbing, shooting and vehicular attacks. In that time, some 250 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire. Israel identified most of them as attackers.

Israel blames the violence on incitement by Palestinian political and religious leaders compounded on social media sites that glorify violence and encourage attacks.

Palestinians say it stems from anger over decades of Israeli rule in territories they claim for their future state.

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BAMAKO, MALIJihadists attacked a hotel resort Sunday in Malis capital, taking hostages at a spot popular with foreigners on the weekends. More than 30 people managed to escape though at least two people were killed, authorities said.

Moussa Ag Infahi, director of the national police, told The Associated Press that three of the assailants had been killed while a fourth escaped.

Gunfire first rang out at the Campement Kangaba on the outskirts of Bamako in the late afternoon, according to a security guard who was working at the time.

Mahamadou Doumbia said a militant on a motorcycle entered the area around 3:40 p.m. and cried Allah Akbar before jumping off and running toward the pool area.

Then a car with three jihadists entered the resort and they started to fire their weapons, he said. A French soldier who had come for the weekend but had his gun shot and wounded a jihadist.

Malis security minister later issued a statement confirming at least two deaths, one of which was a dual French-Gabonese citizen.

As night fell, witnesses saw smoke rising from the Campement Kangaba, which features three swimming pools and is a popular escape from the Malian heat. It was not immediately clear what was burning, although jihadists in other attacks have set cars ablaze.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which took place amid the final week of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In predominantly Muslim Mali, people have been fasting from sunrise to sundown for three weeks.

Sundays violence came about a week after the U.S. State Department warned of possible attacks on Western diplomatic missions and other locations in Bamako that Westerners frequent.

A UN official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists said those at the resort when the attack began included people affiliated with the French military mission, as well as the UN and European Union missions in the country.

Religious extremism in Mali once was limited to northern areas, prompting the French military in 2013 to lead a military operation to oust jihadists from power in the major towns in the north. But the militants have continued targeting Malian forces and peacekeepers, making it the deadliest UN mission in the world.

There are no French troops based in Bamako, but about 2,000 French troops are based in northern Mali fighting Islamic extremists.

French President Emmanuel Macron was informed about the attack and was following the events carefully, according to an official in his office.

In recent years, the jihadists have become even more brazen, attacking sites frequented by Westerners. In March 2015, five people died when militants hit a popular restaurant in the capital. A devastating attack on the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako later that year left 20 dead  six Malians and 14 foreigners.

That attack was jointly claimed by both the regional Al Qaeda affiliate and a group known as Al Mourabitoun, which was founded by Moktar Belmoktar after he fell out with Al Qaeda leaders.

In a video released in March, jihadists said those two were joining together along with two Mali-based terror groups.

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PEDROGAO GRANDE, PORTUGALA raging forest fire in central Portugal killed at least 62 people as they desperately tried to flee, charring cars and trucks as it swept over roads. The disaster  the worst tragedy Portugal has experienced in decades  shook the nation, with the president declaring that the countrys pain knows no end.

Almost 24 hours after the deaths Saturday night, fires were still churning across the forested hillsides of central Portugal. Police and firefighters were searching charred areas of the forest and isolated homes, looking for more bodies.

It is a time of pain but also . . . a time to carry on the fight against the flames, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa told the nation in a televised address Sunday evening after the government declared three days of national mourning.

A huge wall of thick smoke and bright red flames towered over the tops of trees in the forested Pedrogao Grande area, 150 kilometres northeast of Lisbon where a lightning strike was believed to have sparked the blaze Saturday. Investigators found a tree that was hit during a dry thunderstorm, the head of the national judicial police said.

Dry thunderstorms are frequent when falling water evaporates before reaching the ground because of high temperatures. Portugal is prone to forest fires in the dry summer months and temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius hit the area in recent days.

At least four other significant wildfires were burning Sunday elsewhere in Portugal but the one in Pedrogao Grande was responsible for all the deaths.

The dimensions of this fire have caused a human tragedy beyond any in our memory, said Prime Minister Antonio Costa told reporters as he arrived at the scene Sunday. Something extraordinary has taken place and we have to wait for experts to properly determine its causes.

Interior Minister Constanca Urbano de Sousa said the death toll had risen to 62 by the end of Sunday. She said the countrys judicial police was expecting to complete the identification of the bodies soon in order to release them as early as possible.

Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes said firefighting crews were having difficulties battling the fire, which was very intense in at least two of its four fronts. He said authorities were worried about strong winds that could help spread the blaze further.

More than 350 soldiers on Sunday joined the 700 firefighters who have been struggling to put out the blaze, schools in the area were closed until further notice and outdoor fires were banned.

The forest fire deaths were the biggest in memory in Portugal, which saw 25 Portuguese soldiers die fighting wildfires in 1966. Last August, an outbreak of fires across Portugal killed four people, including three on the island of Madeira, and destroyed huge areas of forest.

Isabel Brandao told The Associated Press on Sunday that she had feared for her life when she saw the Pedrogao Grande blaze.

Yesterday, we saw the fire but thought it was very far. I never thought it would come to this side, she said. At 3:30 a.m., my mother-in-law woke me up quickly and we never went to sleep again.

Others were also shocked.

This is a region that has had fires because of its forests, but we cannot remember a tragedy of these proportions, said Valdemar Alves, the mayor of Pedrogao Grande. I am completely stunned by the number of deaths.

State broadcaster RTP showed terrifying images of several people on a road trying to escape the intense smoke that had reduced visibility to a few meters. A young man shared a bottle of water with a distraught woman as she stumbled down the road.

Gomes gave a grim description of the deaths to RTP. He said at least 30 people died inside their cars as they tried to flee between the towns of Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera. He said 17 others died right outside their cars or by the road, 11 people died in the forest, two people died in a car accident related to the fire and information was missing on the other deaths.

Gomes said 54 people were also injured in the fire, 5 of them seriously, including four firefighters and a minor.

Costa tweeted his deepest regret for the victims . . . and a word of encouragement and strength for all who help combat this scourge.

We are most likely facing the biggest tragedy of human life that we have known, he said.

There was no immediate identification of the victims. Portugal established a special diplomatic channel for embassies to receive information on foreign citizens who may be affected.

The European Union responded to a call for assistance by Portugal. As a result, Spain sent four firefighting aircraft on Sunday, France was sending three and Greeces prime minister also offered firefighting help.

Many world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressed solidarity with Portugal. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tweeted that he was overwhelmed by the tragedy at Pedrogao Grande. The Portuguese people can count on our solidarity, support and care.

In Kazan, Russia, Portugals national soccer team wore black arm bands and stood for a moment of silence with the Mexican team in solidarity with the forest fire victims. The ceremony took place before the teams match Sunday at the Confederations Cup tournament.

Coach Fernando Santos, Cristiano Ronaldo and the rest of the players released a statement saying in this sad hour, we send our deepest sympathies to the families, friends and loved ones of the victims of the fires.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino, attending the match in Russia, also offered his condolences.

We want to send a big hug to everyone in Portugal for what they are going through, which is absolutely terrible. There are no words for that, he told reporters.

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When Rhode Islands teacher of the year took his turn in front of the camera with U.S. President Donald Trump in April, he struck a pose some took as an act of defiance:

Nikos Giannopoulos cocked his head ever so slightly away from the president, toward a black lace fan hed brought with him. He wore a rainbow pin on his lapel, a ring through his nose and a gold anchor around his neck.

Bold, Gay Teacher Of The Year Photo Bombs Donald Trump With Fan, was HuffPosts first headline (later toned down) after Giannopoulos posted the photo on Facebook on Thursday and quickly amassed thousands of shares.

A fierce pose, wrote the Daily Mail.

Giannopoulos, who only received the photo recently, did not sound fierce on the phone with The Washington Post. His attire in the Oval Office, he explained, was more or less the same style he wore in the classroom at Beacon Charter High School for the Arts, where his work as a special-education teacher won him Rhode Islands teacher of the year award and a trip to the White House in April.

The issue with being openly queer is our existence is constantly politicized, he said. They never stop to think: Oh, maybe thats just who I am.

And yet, the teacher acknowledged, there was a certain social significance in his decision to dress as himself to a White House that has revoked federal protections for transgender students, erased an LGBT rights page from its website and hired at least one adviser who appears to believe in gay conversion.

Read more:

Thousands march in support of LGBT rights at rallies across U.S.

LGBT community worried about the future of hate crime prosecutions in U.S.

Trump wants to undo Obamas protections for transgender rights in schools

Beacon  a small school in Woonsocket  has nearly a dozen transgender students, Giannopoulos said. Theyre nervous. Theyre not feeling theyre going to be supported.

He said hes been working with them to write the schools bathroom policies, after the Trump administration revoked federal guarantees that they could use the ones matching their gender identity.

The 29-year-old teachers work with the schools gay-straight alliance helped win him the award. When he interviewed with state officials about it, he said, he made sure to dress no differently than he did with his students  with a bit of flair.

And so by extension, Giannopoulos felt, he had to dress the same way in Washington. Perhaps with just a touch more flair.

The entire day I was thinking about what it means to be in the White House and in the Oval Office, he said. What it represents to be an openly gay person and a queer LGBT person in the White House.

The lace fan was his partners, he said, though it has become a regular travelling aid when he visits somewhere warm  as Washington was in April.

The gold anchor around his neck was not his standard attire. But he was representing Rhode Island, and its the state symbol, after all.

I was definitely nervous, Giannopoulos said. I didnt know what the reaction would be.

No one seemed to notice as he passed through security, he recalled. But Trump spotted the fan shortly after the teachers were led into the Oval Office.

He said I had good style.

Giannopoulos grew more confident then  enough that when an aide asked him to put the fan away for his private photo, he raised a small protest.

I said, I was hoping to pose with this, he said. They said, No  just put it away.

He did, for a minute. But before the shutter snapped, Giannopoulos asked the president if he minded.

He said, sure. So the fan came out, the ensemble was complete, and the rest is history, Giannopoulos said.

To be clear, the whole thing was surreal and very brief.

The teacher still has many concerns about the fate of LGBT rights under the Trump administration. In his Facebook post of his White House visit, he referred to the president only as the man seated at the desk, which he said was meant to point out that more people than the president are behind White House policies.

He wishes the event had been more than a photo op. Had he been allowed to converse with the president, he would have tried to explain his gay and trans students fears.

But as far as the photo went, Giannopoulos said, he at least got to take it as he pleased.

Ultimately, we were allowed to do what we wanted, he said. I was visibly queer in the Oval Office, and no one can take that away from me.

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Re: When feminisms wonders arent for all women, Kanji, June 15

When feminisms wonders arent for all women, Kanji, June 15

I was startled to read Azeezah Kanjis attack on Wonder Woman based on Israels response to Gaza. If the star of the film is Israeli, then the film must be bad seems to be her argument.

Ms. Kanji based her position on actor Gal Gadots support for her fellow Israelis during the Gaza war. Should I suggest that Ms. Kanji cant separate the role of an actor within a comic-book-based film from her own general hostility toward the State of Israel?

I would suggest Ms. Kanji reconsider her position. This film supports strong women who make their own decisions. It illustrates the endless cruelty of war and the power needed to go on with life in spite of heartbreaking loss.

Palestinians can do this. Israelis can do this. Attacking Gal Gadot does not bring us closer to building bridges toward peace.

Fredelle Brief, Toronto

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May 29 (2) May 28 (2) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (3) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (2) May 18 (3) May 17 (3) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (5) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (3) May 10 (4) May 09 (4) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (2) May 05 (3) May 04 (4) May 03 (2) May 02 (3) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (7) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (7) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (5) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (6) Mar 18 (6) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (5) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (2) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (9) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (2) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (3) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (2) Jan 22 (2) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (4) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (2) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (2) Jan 07 (2) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (2) Jan 04 (2) Jan 03 (2) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (2) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (2) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (2) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (2) Dec 21 (2) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (2) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (2) Dec 16 (2) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (2) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (5) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (2) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (2) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (2) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (2) Nov 22 (2) Nov 21 (2) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (2) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (4) Nov 13 (2) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (2) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (2) Nov 08 (2) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (6) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (4) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (2) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (2) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (5) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (5) Sep 30 (2) Sep 29 (2) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (2) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (2) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (2) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (5) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (2) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (2) Aug 25 (2) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (2) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (2) Aug 12 (2) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (2) Aug 09 (2) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (2) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (2) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (2) Jul 29 (2) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (2) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (2) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (2) Jul 21 (3) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (2) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (2) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (2) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (2) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (2) Jul 03 (2) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (2) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (1) Jun 24 (2) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (2) Jun 19 (2) Jun 18 (2) Jun 17 (2) Jun 16 (2) Jun 15 (2) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (2) May 26 (2) May 25 (2) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (2) May 19 (2) May 18 (4) May 17 (7) May 16 (2) May 15 (2) May 14 (4) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (4) May 10 (4) May 09 (3) May 08 (2) May 07 (2) May 06 (2) May 05 (1) May 04 (2) May 03 (4) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (1) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (2) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (2) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (1) Apr 02 (1) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (2) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (2) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (2) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (1) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (2) Mar 15 (1) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (2) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (1) Mar 07 (1) Mar 04 (2) Mar 02 (2) Feb 28 (1) Feb 24 (1) Dec 31 (4) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (3) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (2) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (4) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (3) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (3) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (4) Oct 30 (3) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (4) Oct 16 (3) Oct 15 (3) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (4) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (3) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (3) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (5) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (4) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (3) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (5) Jul 11 (4) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (3) Jul 01 (6) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (5) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (5) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (3) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (5) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (4) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (5) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (4) May 23 (4) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (4) May 19 (3) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (1) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (4) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (5) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (4) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (3) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (3) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (3) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (3) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (3) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (3) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (3) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (3) Mar 07 (3) Mar 06 (4) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (3) Mar 01 (3) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (3) Feb 25 (3) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (3) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (3) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (3) Jan 21 (4) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (5) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (3) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (2) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (2) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (2) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (5) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (5) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (4) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (3) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (2) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (2) Oct 07 (2) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (3) Oct 04 (2) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (4) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (2) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (2) Sep 24 (1) Sep 23 (1) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (1) Sep 19 (1) Sep 18 (1) Sep 17 (2) Sep 16 (1) Sep 15 (2) Sep 14 (2) Sep 13 (1) Sep 12 (1) Sep 11 (2) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (1) Sep 08 (1) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (1) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (2) Sep 03 (1) Sep 02 (1) Sep 01 (1) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (1) Aug 28 (1) Aug 27 (1) Aug 26 (1) Aug 25 (1) Aug 24 (1) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 20 (2) Aug 19 (1) Aug 18 (1) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (1) Aug 14 (1) Aug 12 (1) Aug 09 (1) Aug 08 (1) Aug 07 (1) Aug 05 (1) Aug 04 (1) Jul 31 (1) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (5) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (4) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (4) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (6) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (6) Jun 18 (5) Jun 17 (5) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (5) Jun 03 (5) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (4) May 30 (4) May 29 (4) May 28 (5) May 27 (5) May 26 (5) May 25 (4) May 24 (5) May 23 (4) May 22 (4) May 21 (3) May 20 (6) May 19 (4) May 18 (4) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (3) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (3) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (3) May 06 (3) May 05 (3) May 04 (3) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (6) Apr 12 (4) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (5) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (4) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (4) Apr 04 (6) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (5) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (4) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (5) Mar 16 (5) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (6) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (7) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (4) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (4) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (5) Feb 25 (4) Feb 24 (5) Feb 23 (5) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (7) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (8) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (3) Feb 06 (6) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (6) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (6) Jan 26 (6) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (5) Jan 22 (5) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (5) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (4) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (5) Jan 05 (6) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 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200 years ago today, Mount Tambora, on an island in Indonesia, erupted just before sundown. It is the largest eruption in recorded history, four times as big as the more famous 1883 eruption of Krakatoa and ten times as big as Mount Pinatubos 1991 eruption. The explosion was heard 1,600 miles away (Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore, thought it was cannon fire). Thousands died in the immediate area from direct volcanic effects and perhaps another forty thousand on surrounding islands from famine and disease in the months after.

However there were longer term effects worldwide; so much ash and sulfur dioxide were sent into the atmosphere that it blocked the sun and caused the average global temperature to drop 2C. That doesnt sound like much, but it made 1816 the coldest year since the 1400s. Crops failed, people starved and rioted, diseases ran rampant, rivers froze. Thousands of farmers left New England for the midwest; Vermont alone had a population drop of 15,000 people. According to William and Nicholas Klingaman in 1816: The Year Without Summer, reviewed in Macleans Magazine,

The massive load of sulphate gases and debris the mountain shot 43 km into the stratosphere blocked sunlight and distorted weather patterns for three years, dropping temperatures between two and three degrees Celsius, shortening growing seasons and devastating harvests worldwide, especially in 1816. In the northern hemisphere, farmers from frozenand abolitionistNew England, where some survived the winter of 1816 to 1817 on hedgehogs and boiled nettles, poured into the Midwest. That migration, the Klingamans argue, set in motion demographic ripples that would not play out until Americas Civil War, almost a half-century later.



Heading west in the year without summer/ New England Historical Society/Public Domain

In an interesting article in the Daily Beast two years ago, Mark Hertsgaard sees parallels between the year without summer and the climate crisis today. As crops failed, prices skyrocketed and the quality of food declined; political unrest increased and mass migrations were triggered. all over a few degrees.

But another parallel  is either the most bizarre or darkly hilarious of all.

As the ghastly weather of 1816 persisted, observers naturally tried to divine the cause of their distress. The favored explanation among the learned was sunspots. Newspapers in both Europe and the U.S. cited the appearance, in April, of an unusually large spot on the surface of the sun as a likely cause of the disastrously frigid weather.



That sounds familiar. No doubt there will be a lot of coverage of the year without summer next year, but it all started with this event at 5:05 Indonesian time April 5, 200 years ago.

J.M.W. Turner/Public Domain

It also made for great sunsets for a decade.

I am reading 1816: The year without summer now, and will review shortly.
When sunscreen chemicals wash off beach-goers, they bleach coral, stunt its growth, and sometimes kill it outright.

If youre heading to Hawaii, or any other tropical paradise, to soak up the sun this winter, you might want to leave the sunscreen behind. It sounds counterintuitive after years of being told to slather on sunscreen to protect our skin from dangerous UV rays, but now research is showing that human use of sunscreen could be seriously damaging tropical coral reefs.

Senator Will Espero presented a bill to the state congress on January 20 that would ban sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate (except under medical prescriptions) in Hawaii. Espero argued that a ban is crucial to maintaining the health of coral reefs  an tourist attraction on which Hawaii relies.

Sunscreens use filters, either chemical or mineral, to block out the suns radiation. The chemical filters are most damaging, washing off the skin into the water while swimming, surfing, spearfishing, or even using a beach shower. Researchers have measured oxybenzone in Hawaiian waters at concentrations that are 30 times higher than the level considered safe for corals. According to Hawaiis Department of Land and Natural Resources:
On Thursday, June 22, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will hold a meeting with President of the European Council Donald Tusk.

An Ukrinform correspondent learned this from the European Council.

"A meeting with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is scheduled at 10:30 on June 22," the European Council reported.

A meeting with journalists on the results of the leaders' talks is scheduled at 12:00 Kyiv time.

In addition, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will take part in the European People's Party summit on June 22.

ish
Happy Father's Day! Ghana's Rap Doctor, Okyeame Kwame, talks about his hit single "Saucin" featuring his son and on being a UN Super dad. Also on today's show, music and refugees takes center stage. Hear artist Sarah Hickson talk about her photographic memoir exhibit in New York "Sounds Unseen." It documents the music project in northern France, The Calais Sessions.
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Washington's coolest summertime tradition, the annual Capitol Hill Ice Cream Party, brings together hundreds of people to celebrate America's favorite cold treat. Dozens of companies contribute the 1,500 gallons of ice cream and frozen yogurt needed for the event. VOA's Mariia Prus brings us a taste.
The increased threat of terrorism and a flood of illegal firearms into Australia have prompted the government to offer its first national gun amnesty since a massacre at a former penal colony more than 20 years ago. In 1996, 35 people were killed by a lone gunman at Port Arthur in Tasmania. That tragedy prompted tough gun control measures.

It is estimated there are more than a quarter-million illegal guns in Australia, although government officials concede the exact number is impossible to gauge. A recent proliferation of illicit weapons and the potential impact on national security, as well as concerns about organized crime, have prompted the government in Canberra to introduce a three-month amnesty, starting July 1.

It will give Australians the chance to hand in their unwanted weapons without fear of prosecution. Anyone caught with an illegal weapon outside that period face fines of up to $212,000 or up to 14 years in prison.

Australian Justice Minister Michael Keenan says a deadly siege at a cafe in downtown Sydney in December 2014, the murder of a police accountant in Sydney a year later, and a fatal shootout this month in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton are evidence that an amnesty is needed.

Well, it brings certainly into mind the importance of doing this. I mean, we know the Lindt Cafe siege an illegal firearm [was used]; the murder of Curtis Cheng, an illegal firearm [was used]. It is yet to be determined some of the aspects of Brighton, but obviously we would expect the same. So clearly the fact that we have a deteriorating national security environment, got an environment where there has been five terror attacks on our soil, and, sadly, in the vast majority of those cases, it has been an illegal firearm that has been used.

A similar deal followed the Port Arthur shootings in the mid 1990s, which also restricted possession of automatic and semi-automatic firearms.

Thirty-five people died when a lone gunman, using a semi-automatic rifle, attacked a former penal colony at Port Arthur, a popular tourist destination on the island state of Tasmania. It was the worst mass shooting in Australia's history.

Officials say the tough gun control measures brought in after the Port Arthur shootings have prevented further mass killings.
Embattled President Michel Temer exchanged furious denunciations of corruption Saturday with a leading businessman who alleges Brazil's leader was behind the bribes paid by business executives to politicians and government authorities in exchange for political favors.

Meatpacking billionaire Joesley Batista, who is himself under investigation for fraud, claimed in an interview published in the news magazine Epoca that "Temer leads Brazil's largest and most dangerous criminal organization." He provided no specifics to back up his charge.

Temer's office fired back with a statement describing Batista as "the most notorious and successful bandit in Brazil's history," and it promised to file criminal and civil lawsuits against him.

Batista is now a key witness in corruption investigations that threaten to force Temer out of office before his term ends in December 2018. Prosecutors have said they are considering charging the president with receiving bribes and with trying to obstruct the investigation into a colossal corruption scheme at the state-run oil company that involved huge kickbacks to politicians in return for inflated contracts. Dozens of politicians and business executives already have been convicted in the Petrobras case.

Kickbacks reported

A key part of the evidence against Temer comes from plea bargain agreements with prosecutors signed by Batista and his brother Wesley that allow the two men to remain free. Under investigation in a pension fund fraud, they have said they paid kickbacks to more than 1,800 politicians to win favors for their JBS meatpacking company.

JBS is the world's biggest meat processing company and operates more than 100 industrial units around the world.

Their revelations include a recording of a March meeting between Batista and Temer in which the president appears to condone the payment of hush money to imprisoned former Speaker of the House Eduardo Cunha, who is serving a 15-year corruption sentence.

Prosecutors have said that in the recording Temer is heard authorizing Batista to pay Cunha the equivalent of about $150,000 a week for not reaching a plea bargain deal.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is offering a $35,000 reward for information leading to the capture of those who set off a bomb Saturday in a luxury shopping mall.

Three people were killed and nine wounded in the blast in the women's bathroom at Centro Andino in central Bogota.

"In the face of cowardly acts like yesterdays, Colombians must unite and be supportive," Santos said Sunday. "We will not allow what has been achieved so far to be stopped by a handful of extremists, cowards or those who do not want the reconciliation of the Colombian people."

The bomb blew up next to a toilet while the mall was packed with shoppers getting ready for Father's Day.

Those killed included a young French woman who was volunteering at a school in a poor Bogota neighborhood.

No one has claimed responsibility for the blast. Suspicion has fallen on the country's second rebel group - the National Liberation Army - which refused to join the FARC rebels in signing a peace deal with the government.

But the ELN, which is negotiating peace, condemned the bombing and attacks on civilians. It was behind a February attack that killed a policeman.
Saturday, June 17, 2017

From SEARAC

Providence, RI - In a big win for the Southeast Asian communities of Rhode Island, the General Assembly made history this month by voting to pass the " - In a big win for the Southeast Asian communities of Rhode Island, the General Assembly made history this month by voting to pass the " All Students Count Act ," introduced by Representative Grace Diaz and Senator Jeanine Calkin. The bill is designed to uncover education disparities among Asian and Pacific Islander students.

The All Students Count Act requires the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to disaggregate data for specified Asian ethnic groups in every demographic report by ancestry or ethnic origin.

Representative Diaz, a leading champion for the bill, reacted by saying, "I am very proud of my colleagues for joining me in the passage of the bill. We all worked very hard to get this bill passed. The population of Rhode Island is uniquely diverse, especially within the Asian community. I believe that data drives good policy, and this bill will do that to meet all of the needs of our students because all of them matter."

Senator Calkin added, "I am very pleased that the Rhode Island Senate unanimously passed the All Students Count Act yesterday. This bill will help close the achievement gap for students in districts that may not be receiving federal funding. The community advocates should be proud of all the work they have put in over the last few years on this bill, and I'm happy their efforts have led to the passage of this act."

Founding Executive Director of the Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education (ARISE) Chanda Womack said, "Asian Americans as a whole have statistically been seen as overachievers, and the 'model minority.' The disaggregated data tell a different story for Southeast Asians. It is imperative to look beyond broad census labels to understand how sub-populations are faring."

Disaggregated data from the American Community Survey reveal that Cambodian and Hmong communities faces far higher poverty levels and lower rates of education attainment when compared to the Asian population and the total population in Rhode Island.

SEARAC Executive Director Quyen Dinh stated, "Rhode Island is poised to become a national leader in moving forward this major civil rights issue for Asian American communities by dismantling systemic barriers that perpetuate the model minority myth. Disaggregated educational data will uncover long-standing disparities that have been invisible too long for Southeast Asian American communities, taking us one step closer to true education equity for our communities. We applaud ARISE and the Rhode Island organizers who brought us this far."

SEARAC have been working on this for over a decade. It's encouraging and empowering that our state leaders understand the need and stand behind this." Womack continued, "This is a big step forward for our community. Organizations like the Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM) andhave been working on this for over a decade. It's encouraging and empowering that our state leaders understand the need and stand behind this."

Rhode Island would be the third state in the nation to require their education department to disaggregate Asian American student data, after Washington and Minnesota.

bh

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2017/06/rhode-islands-all-students-count-act.html
British Brexit minister David Davis heads to Brussels Monday to open divorce talks with the EU with a message that there should be no doubt we are leaving the European Union.

Days after a suggestion from French President Emmanuel Macron that Britain could still choose to remain, Davis said there would be no backtracking from Prime Minister Theresa Mays plan to deliver on Brexit, for which Britons voted in a referendum almost a year ago.

As I head to Brussels to open official talks to leave the EU, there should be no doubt we are leaving the European Union, and delivering on that historic referendum result, Davis said in a statement.

Leaving gives us the opportunity to forge a bright new future for the UK one where we are free to control our borders, pass our own laws and do what independent sovereign countries do.

May, under pressure after losing her ruling Conservatives majority in a botched snap election and over her response to a devastating fire that killed at least 58 in a London apartment block, says she wants a clean break with the EU, a strategy some in her party have challenged as risking economic growth.

Davis, a prominent Leave campaigner in the referendum, said he was approaching the talks in a constructive way, knowing they will be difficult at points.

We are not turning our backs on Europe, he said in the statement. Its vital that the deal we strike allows both the UK and the EU to thrive, as part of the new deep and special partnership we want with our closest allies and friends.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard says it fired missiles at terrorists based in eastern Syria Sunday, to retaliate for an attack in Tehran earlier this month.

The guard says a "large number of terrorists were killed and weapons destroyed" in the strikes on Deir Ezzor province.

It says targets included terror headquarters and a car bomb-making facility.

Seventeen people were killed and more than 50 wounded in the June 7 terror attacks on the parliament compound and a shrine to the late Ayatollah Khomeni in Tehran.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Shi'ite Iran also is blaming Sunni Saudi Arabia for stirring up violence.
Lisa Calans legs are buried next to her fathers grave, the result of an Islamic State bombing at a political rally two years ago, one of the extremist groups early attacks in Turkey.



So I guess I can say I am already partly in the grave, the 29-year-old film professional told VOA.



During the past four years, IS has killed almost 400 people and wounded more than 1,000 in Turkey, starting with 51 dead in two car bombs on May 11, 2013, according to a VOA tally from news reports of IS-related terror.



IS either claimed responsibility or was named by authorities as being behind the attacks.



A film script writer, Calan has managed to stay upbeat and doesnt suffer from the financial problems of other victims of IS attacks, thanks to a fund-raising campaign on her behalf in Turkey and Germany. But she continues to deal with the aftermath of the bombing of a pro-Kurdish HDP party rally in Diyarbakir that killed four people and wounded many others.



I very often have horrible nightmares, she said. I hear sounds of explosions. I smell gunpowder all over my body. I hear people screaming. I see body parts. I see blood. It is so terrifying.

Hope alive



But I am still able to hope and smile, she added. Most of all I want to see peace realized in Turkey. My hope for peace keeps me alive. I will never give up asking and working for peace.



Peace has become hard to find in Turkey, which has been pummeled by attacks from Kurdish separatists long before IS emergence took the country by surprise in 2013.



Since a cease-fire broke down in July 2015 between the government and the outlawed PKK  the Kurdistan Workers Party  at least 2,844 people have been killed in PKK-related violence, including 395 civilians, according to figures compiled by the International Crisis Group.



Turks are also dealing with the effects of a massive government crackdown on dissidents following a coup attempt last year and the impact of the long-running civil war in neighboring Syria which spawned an escalating IS movement inside Turkey.



Turkeys government has come under blistering internal criticism for allowing IS militants from other countries to gain passage into neighboring Syria and Iraq and letting IS sympathizers establish havens in the country's southeast region.



As IS escalated terror in Turkey, each attack has left lives shattered.



Ive had seven operations so far, said Calan. I have to have one more pretty soon. This one is a little risky. I am still thinking about it.

Her family also has been devastated. Her mother and younger brother have had trouble coping. And an older brother earlier lost both legs to an illness.

Moving on



So I am the second child of in the family with no legs now, Calan said. Not easy at all ... My close friends keep treating me as they did before. I know how they feel. Because of my condition we have to be more careful where we go and meet. I used to love walking in Diyarbakir. I walked almost everywhere. That somehow changes their lives too.



Calan credits the challenges of growing up in a Kurdish family with helping her overcome tragedy.



All Kurdish children are born into a political world, Calan said. This keeps people able to go on with their daily lives. This gives us strength. That is how I am, too. I dont feel like a person with no legs.

Calan hopes to return to her budding career in film, where she served as an art director, script writer and actress. She already has picked out her next project, a documentary about three IS bombings in Turkey, including Diyarbakir.



I want to talk to a lot of people who were at these places like I was, those who got wounded and those who lost loved ones, their personal problems that came after these bombings, Calan said. Many people now have serious financial problems. They cant afford their treatments.



Government officials say Turkey has intensified its crackdown on IS-associated militants since a New Year's Eve attack on Istanbul's Reina nightclub claimed by IS.



But for Calan, who is pursuing compensation for her injuries, the government shares some responsibility for the IS-bombing that took away her legs.



Government authorities turned a blind eye to this whole thing, she said. Everybody was already talking about a probable IS bombing attack during the HDP rally in Diyarbakir. I blame some politicians, too. Some of the statements they have made were encouraging to IS militants.
Israel revoked on Sunday the permits of 200,000 Palestinians to enter Israel that were approved for the holy month of Ramadan following two near simultaneous Palestinian attacks on police that killed a young female officer near Jerusalem's Old City.

Israeli defense body COGAT, posted the announcement on its Arabic language Facebook page. Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that preparations are underway to destroy the homes of the Palestinian attackers and tighten security at the entrance to the Old City, home to sensitive holy sites sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Three Palestinian attackers armed with an automatic weapon and knives assaulted officers on duty near the Old City in two locations Friday evening.

Police said Staff Sgt. Maj. Hadas Malka, 23, was rushing to respond to that initial attack nearby when a Palestinian assaulted her with a knife. Malka wrestled with the man for several seconds as he stabbed her multiple times before other officers saw what was happening and opened fire, killing him, police said. She later died of her wounds in hospital.

The Islamic State group took responsibility for the attacks but two Palestinian militant groups, Hamas and People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine quickly retorted the three attackers were their members and accused IS of trying to undermine their efforts.

At his weekly Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu lashed out at Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for not condemning the attack.

Israel had previously announced its annual goodwill measures for Ramadan that included 200,000 thousand visiting permits for family visits for Palestinians from the West Bank and access for 100 Gaza residents to attend prayers at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque.

COGAT said the visiting permits were canceled but the prayer permits remain unchanged.

Netanyahu criticized the Palestinian government for not condemning the attack.

He called for the world to "demand the immediate cessation of Palestinian Authority payments to the families of terrorists, something that only encourages terror."

Israel has long unsuccessfully pushed for the Palestinians to halt the "martyrs' fund" payments to roughly 35,000 families of Palestinians killed and wounded in their long-running conflict with Israel, including suicide bombers and other militants.

Last week U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the Palestinians had agreed to stop the payments but both the Palestinians and Israel disputed the claim.

Israel argues that such pay promote violence. It stepped up a campaign against the fund after a wave of Palestinian attacks began in September 2015.

Since then, Palestinian assailants have killed 43 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British student, mainly in stabbing, shooting and car ramming attacks. In that period, some 250 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire. Israel identified most of them as attackers.

At times the attacks were daily occurrences, but they have relatively subsided in recent months. However there have been a string of recent attacks near the Old City in east Jerusalem.

Israel captured the territory with its key holy sites from Jordan in the 1967 war.

Israel considers the city its eternal, undivided capital while Palestinians want the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.

The fate of the area is an emotional issue at the heart of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel blames the violence on incitement by Palestinian political and religious leaders compounded on social media sites that glorify violence and encourage attacks.

Palestinians say it stems from anger over decades of Israeli rule in territory they claim for their state.
London mayor Sadiq Khan acknowledged growing public anger surrounding the Grenfell Tower fire in which 58 people are presumed dead, saying the blaze was a result of "mistakes and neglect".

"There is a feeling from the community that they've been treated badly because some of them are poor," Khan said after a visit to a church near the burnt-out social housing block to attend a service which remembered victims of Wednesday's tragedy.

He called the fire a "preventable accident", acknowledging the anger and frustration of displaced residents of the working-class enclave in one of Britain's wealthiest districts.

The 1974 concrete building had recently been fitted with new insulation cladding. Survivors of the building claim that cheap materials for the cladding and a lack of maintenance on the building were to blame for the fatal fire.

Prime Minister Theresa May announced a public inquiry into the disaster as police investigate whether any criminal offenses were committed.

London police said Saturday at least 58 people were probably killed in the inferno, a figure that includes the 30 who have already been confirmed dead.

Sixteen bodies have been removed from the blackened 24-story public housing unit and the first victim has been formally identified as Mohammed Alhajali, a 23-year-old Syrian refugee.

If at least 58 deaths are confirmed, the blaze would be London's deadliest since World War II.
The U.S. has called off its search for seven missing sailors after finding bodies in the sleeping compartments of the USS Fitzgerald, the Navy destroyer that collided with a massive merchant vessel off the coast of Japan early Saturday.

"The search and rescue is over," US 7th Fleet commander Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin told reporters Sunday. U.S. authorities tacitly acknowledged there were no survivors, although Aucoin declined to say how many bodies had been recovered until relatives of the dead sailors are notified.

Aucoin said that sea water gushed into sleeping compartments and that part of the ship's right side was caved in.

"The damage was significant. There was a big gash under the water," Aucoin said at the Yokosuka naval base, home of the U.S. 7th Fleet. He spoke with the docked Fitzgerald behind him, after tugboats towed it ashore in the hours after the collision 104 kilometers southwest of Yokosuka, in a busy shipping channel.

He said "a significant portion of the crew was sleeping" when the destroyer collided with a Philippine-flagged container ship, the ACX Crystal. Aucoin said the Fitzgerald is salvageable but that repairs will likely take months.

"Hopefully less than a year," Aucoin said. "You will see the USS Fitzgerald back."

There was no immediate explanation for the collision.

Aucoin said, "I'm not going to speculate on what happened.... Hopefully we'll get those answers, but I don't have them right now."

Injured sailors



Three other U.S. crew members were injured in the accident, including the vessel's commanding officer, Bryce Benson, with all of them undergoing treatment. Aucoin said, without elaborating, that Benson "is lucky to be alive."

Benson was in stable condition with a head injury. The two other sailors suffered cuts and bruises.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a sympathy message to U.S. President Donald Trump, saying, "We are struck by deep sorrow. I express my heartfelt solidarity to America at this difficult time."

On Saturday, Trump said in a Twitter message, "Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families. Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance."

The ACX Crystal sailed into Tokyo Saturday afternoon with minor damage to its bow. None of the 20-member crew on the Philippine-flagged container ship was reported injured.

Investigation



Aucoin said the Navy will launch an investigation into the collision because "we owe it to our families and the Navy to understand what happened."

"Unfortunately, we don't have the details regarding the conditions during the final moments, but hope that the investigation may shed some light on that matter," Aucoin said.

The Fitzgerald and the ACX Crystal  a ship nearly four times the size of the destroyer  collided early Saturday. The 29,000-ton Philippine ship is 222 meters long, while the 8,315-ton Navy destroyer is 154 meters long.

The U.S. Navy said the collision occurred about midship on the starboard side, damaging two sailor berthing stations, a machinery room and a radio room.

"This was a severe emergency, but the ship's crew was swift and responsive and I can't tell you how proud I am of the crew for what they did to save the ship," Aucoin said.

According to Jiji Press news agency, the ACX Crystal captain said his ship was "sailing in the same direction as the U.S. destroyer and then collided."

Such collisions between two ships are rare.

Yukata Saito of the Japanese coast guard said conditions were clear at the time of the collision.

"The volume of ships is heavy in this area and there have been accidents before," Saito told Japans public broadcaster NHK.
The U.S. Navy continued its search early Sunday for seven sailors who were missing after the destroyer on which they were deployed was struck by a container ship off the coast of Japan.

The USS Dewey and other American and Japanese vessels and aircraft were involved in the search for the missing sailors, the Navy said.

The USS Fitzgerald collided early Saturday with the merchant vessel ACX Crystal  a ship about four times the size of the destroyer. The 29,000-ton Philippine ship is 222 meters long, while the 8,315-ton Navy destroyer is 154 meters long.

The Navy said the collision occurred about midship on the starboard side, damaging two sailor berthing stations, a machinery room and a radio room. The Fitzgerald returned to port at Yokosuka, Japan.

The destroyer sustained damage above and below the water line and had "experienced flooding in some spaces," the Navy said.

The missing sailors' names were being withheld, pending notification of their families.

Injured sailors

In addition to the missing sailors, three other sailors, including ship Commander Bryce Benson, were injured.

Benson was airlifted to the U.S. naval hospital in Yokosuka and was in stable condition with a head injury. The two other sailors suffered cuts and bruises and were taken off the ship.

It was unclear how many others may have been injured in the crash, which occurred about 100 kilometers southwest of Yokosuka at 2:30 a.m. Saturday local time, according to the Navy's 7th Fleet, which operates in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.

At that time, many of the 200 sailors aboard the Fitzgerald would have been sleeping in their berths.

"It's been a tough day for our Navy family," Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the 7th Fleet, said Saturday. "I am humbled by the bravery and tenacity of the Fitzgerald crew. Now that the ship is in Yokosuka, I ask that you help the families by maintaining their privacy as we continue the search for our shipmates."

On Saturday, President Donald Trump said on Twitter: "Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families. Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance."

Container ship

The ACX Crystal sailed into Tokyo on Saturday afternoon with minor damage to its bow. None of the 20-member crew on the Philippine-flagged container ship was reported injured.

According to the Jiji Press news agency, the ACX Crystal captain said his ship was "sailing in the same direction as the U.S. destroyer and then collided."

Such collisions between two ships are rare. It was not immediately clear what caused the vessels to collide.

Yukata Saito of the Japanese coast guard said conditions were clear at the time of the collision.

"The volume of ships is heavy in this area and there have been accidents before," Saito told Japan's public broadcaster NHK.
The nation's oldest U.S. senator looks like she's sticking around.

California's Dianne Feinstein turns 84 on Thursday and is displaying signs that she's headed for a re-election campaign, not a retirement party.

While the Democrat has been coy when asked about seeking a fifth full term next year, her political committee, unambiguously titled Feinstein for Senate 2018, raised more than $650,000 in the first three months of this year in a cue she is looking ahead.

Feinstein plays a marquee role for Democrats on Capitol Hill, where she has queried Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former FBI Director James Comey about their interactions with President Donald Trump, amid probes tied to Russian influence and the 2016 presidential campaign.

On Friday, she warned that Trump might attempt to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible obstruction of justice. "The message the president is sending through his tweets is that he believes the rule of law doesn't apply to him," she said.

She's the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the circumstances behind Trump's dismissal of Comey. She also sits on the Intelligence Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into Russia's election meddling and whether there was any collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign.

With another term in Washington, Feinstein could be in the Senate into her 90s.

Questions about her age circulated in 2012, when at 78 she was easily re-elected over token Republican opposition. She had a pacemaker installed in January, and a voter survey earlier this year suggested her support could be dinged by her advancing years.

But even in youth-obsessed California, where about four in 10 people are under 30, Feinstein's age didn't concern Los Angeles screenwriter Marie Stone, providing the senator remains in good health. Stone said she likes the balance between Feinstein's long experience and the baby-boom pedigree of Sen. Kamala Harris, the state's junior senator who is a comparatively youthful 52.

"As long as she's standing up and defending California's rights, that's what's important," said Stone, a Democrat.

Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's political committee recently wrote a $1,000 check to Feinstein's campaign. "I've encouraged her" to run, he said in an email.

A former San Francisco mayor, Feinstein has long been among California's most popular political figures, and she would be a strong favorite to keep the seat in a state where Democrats hold every statewide office and control both chambers of the Legislature by hefty margins.

But her centrist credentials and lack of enthusiasm for universal health care have made the grande dame of state Democrats a target within the party's restless liberal wing.

She's had protesters outside her home, and has been criticized by some for appearing too temperate in remarks about Trump's White House.

After Trump fired Comey, her initial statement said, "The next FBI director must be strong and independent and will receive a fair hearing in the Judiciary Committee." Within a day, she changed course and was questioning if Comey was fired to stifle the FBI's Russia investigation.

The break between the party's establishment and liberal branches played out during last year's Democratic presidential primary. And at a state Democratic convention this year, liberals inspired by Bernie Sanders nearly captured the party's top job.

"The split is obviously between the new breed and the old guard. It's not likely to heal if Dianne Feinstein runs for re-election," said Michael Thaller, who heads the state party's Progressive Caucus.

For many liberals, "it's time to get some new blood in there - some new, more progressive blood," he added.

Feinstein is quick to defend her record, and she has deep credentials on issues that drive the left-leaning state electorate, including environmental protection and reproductive rights.

Her role on Senate committees has given her an important perch in a state that is at the center of the so-called Trump resistance - Hillary Clinton carried California by over 4 million votes in the general election.

She's a regular on the Sunday TV political circuit and has made frequent use of Twitter. "Release the tapes, Mr. President! What are you afraid of?" she tweeted on June 11, referring to the possibility that the president's conversations with Comey were recorded at the White House. She has called Trump's decision to withdraw from a global climate agreement "shameful, disastrous."

Veteran Democratic consultant Roger Salazar noted Feinstein was back on the job shortly after the pacemaker procedure. "That's the signal of somebody who isn't going off into the sunset," he said.

Feinstein's political roots go back to the Vietnam era, long before millions of younger voters were born. Over half of new voter registrations through October were millennials - younger people who tend to be more liberal than older Californians.

Computer consultant Manuel Moreno said her age shouldn't be a concern. The 67-year-old Los Angeles Democrat doesn't always agree with Feinstein - he said she drifts "to the right of my political views."

But Moreno credited her with sharp questioning of Sessions and Comey in Senate hearings.

"I wasn't disappointed," he said.
No modern navigation instrumentation guided a Polynesian voyaging canoe as it followed the horizon during a three-year journey around the globe.

About a dozen crewmembers for each leg of the voyage relied only on their understanding of natures cues  ocean swells, stars, wind, birds  and their own naau, or gut, to sail across about 40,000 nautical miles (74,000 kilometers) to 19 countries, spreading a message of malama honua: Caring for the earth.

On Saturday, thousands welcomed double-hulled canoe Hokulea home to Hawaii when it entered a channel off the island Oahu and tied up to a floating dock with iconic Diamond Head in the distance.

Traditional wayfinding

The voyage perpetuated the traditional wayfinding that brought the first Polynesians several thousand miles to Hawaii hundreds of years ago. The trip also helped train a new generation of young navigators.

Hokulea means star of gladness. The canoe was built and launched in the 1970s, when there were no Polynesian navigators left. So the Voyaging Society looked beyond Polynesia to find one.

Mau Piailug, from a small island called Satawal in Micronesia, was among the last half-dozen people in the world to practice the art of traditional navigation and agreed to guide Hokulea to Tahiti in 1976.

Without him, our voyaging would never have taken place, the Polynesian Voyaging Society said on the website for Hokulea. Mau was the only traditional navigator who was willing and able to reach beyond his culture to ours.

Voyage began in 2014

The epic round-the-world voyage that started in 2014 shows how far Hokulea has gone since its first voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti in 1976.

Disaster befell another voyage in 1978 when the canoe capsized off the Hawaiian island of Molokai in a blinding storm. Eddie Aikau, a revered Hawaiian surfer and lifeguard on the crew, grabbed his surfboard and paddled for help, but was never seen again. The rest of the crewmembers were rescued.

Crewmembers hope the success of the latest journey will inspire other indigenous cultures to rediscover and revive traditions. Thompson said he also hopes indigenous cultures can help with solutions to modern-day problems such as climate change.

Native Hawaiian ancestors were not only skilled navigators but good stewards of the islands who farmed and fished sustainably.

They figured it out, how to live well on these islands, Thompson said. And I think that is the challenge of the time for planet earth and all of humanity.

Daily life of sustainability

Crewmembers of the worldwide voyage were mindful to incorporate that into daily life.

Fish they caught for meals never went to waste, even when the crew once landed a 49-pound ahi, crewmember Naalehu Anthony, who participated in about half-a-dozen legs of the voyage, recalled in a blog post.

The fish was plenty for us for the day, he wrote. In fact too much, because we do not have any refrigeration, we either need to consume it, share it or dry it.

Crewmembers slept in plywood bunks covered with waterproof canvas and bathing was simple, recalled Russell Amimoto, a Hokulea crewmember for two legs.

We have unlimited supply of nice, ocean-temperature saltwater available, he said, explaining that crewmembers threw a bucket attached to a rope overboard to scoop up water for bathing.

Well towel-off right away to try to get as much salt off us as possible, Amimoto said.

Challenges and rewards

The voyage has had challenges, and reaching South Africa in 2015, the journeys halfway point, was the most dangerous leg because of complicated ocean conditions.

In February, a team of four apprentice navigators spotted tiny, remote Easter Island. Pinpointing the island that is also known as Rapa Nui at sunset was a major accomplishment because it is considered one of the most difficult islands to find using traditional wayfinding.

During the Caribbean leg of the trip last year, Hokulea stopped in Cuba, where crewmembers joined a meeting on U.S.-Cuba relations and discussions on cultural connections between Cuba and Hawaii.

Last week the crew spotted the 10,023-foot (3,055-meter) Maui mountain Haleakala looming in the distance, signifying Hokuleas official return to Hawaii waters.

After returning, Hokulea will embark on an eight-month trip sailing throughout the Hawaiian islands.

We will go to as many as 70 communities and 100 schools to thank Hawaiis people and share what we have learned with their children, Thompson said. We are also looking forward to hearing Hawaii stories of malama honua.
Sylvain Vogel, a native of France, has spent most of the past 25 years studying, researching, teaching and helping anchor the fledgling rebirth of a culture of scholarship in his adopted country, Cambodia, following the repressive and anti-intellectual Khmer Rouge rule of the 1970s.

Vogel, who grew up in Alsace-Lorraine speaking French and German, has also become fluent in English, Portuguese, Farsi, Pashto and Khmer, the language spoken by the majority of people in Cambodia.

A professor at the Royal University of Fine Arts, he teaches  no surprise  linguistics and Sanskrit, which is closely related to Khmer.

Passion project

Outside the classroom since the mid-1900s, Vogel has pursued a passion project documenting a largely unwritten language spoken by members of the Bunong ethnic group.

The Bunong live in Cambodias sparsely populated Mondulkiri province, a place of mystical beauty under threat from modernization and encroachment by the Khmer population and foreign investment.

Earlier this year, Vogels work received a boost when it was recognized by the Fainting Robin Foundation. The U.S. organization supports independent scholars and announced in March that Vogel would be the first recipient of its distinguished scholar award.

Most of Vogels research over the years about the Bunong language and people was carried out at his own expense, said Peter Maguire, chairman of the Fainting Robin Foundation.

It was a project that took close to 20 years, with no outside support, with no support or minimal support, said Maguire, an author and historian who set up the foundation in Wilmington, North Carolina.

He [Vogel] is a resource that is very important to Cambodia, said Chan Somnoble, one of Vogels first Cambodian students, who earned a Ph.D. in linguistics in 2002 from Universite Paris Nanterre and is now the deputy director of the Royal Academy of Cambodia and head of the prestigious National Council for Khmer Language.

Watch: Saving Bunong, a Vulnerable Language in Cambodia

First meeting, fluency

Vogel first met members of the indigenous Bunong community in 1994. He became intrigued by the unwritten language and the Bunongs rich folklore, which was passed orally from generation to generation.

I knew Bunong is in the family of Mon-Khmer languages, Vogel told VOA Khmer. As a linguist, I had to learn Bunong to compare Khmer and Bunong.

So, Vogel being Vogel, did just that. He gradually immersed himself in the Bunong community and its distinct way of life, staying in remote villages for days and then weeks at a time.

Fluency in yet another language came as he deepened his relationship with the Bunong, and over the years, Vogel found their way of living among the rolling, jungle hills changing.

A governing system centered on village chiefs and local elders gave way to administrative officers and provincial officials. Bunong children were encouraged to attend schools where they spoke in Khmer, learned about computers and studied English.

What losing a language means

Vogel voiced his concerns over the potential loss of the Bunong language and traditions.

Bunong language is not used much, the society is changing a lot, so I am afraid that Bunong language will disappear, Vogel said.

Becky Butler of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who wrote her dissertation while at Cornell University on Bunong, agrees with Vogels assessment.

The Ethnologue says its developing. UNESCO says its severely endangered, Butler told VOA Khmer. So Id put it probably at vulnerable. She estimates there are about 75,000 Bunong speakers in Cambodia, Vietnam and the United States.

Vogels first book about the language translated Bunong grammar into the international phonetic alphabet. It was published in 2006 in French. Vogel has written two other books about the grammar and aspects of oral literature, such as epics, songs and chants, and one book about Bunong culture.

I think that is tremendously important ... because hes recording the sort of oral tradition, which speaks a lot to who people in the community are and what they believe in their history, and how they see themselves in another perspective on life that might otherwise be lost especially as the older generations pass away, Butler said.

Yun Lorang is a native Bunong and he also worries that his language is deteriorating.

I am quite worried because language is related to identity, Lorang, secretariat coordinator of Cambodia Indigenous People Alliance, told VOA Khmer. In a crowd, they [Bunong people] rarely speak Bunong, they speak Khmer.

Lorang thinks that having the Bunong language and culture documented in a written and published form can help prevent it from disappearing.

History is very important for us to recover our own spirit, values and identities, said Lorang, who lives in Sen Monorom town, the capital of Mondulkiri province.

The idea of any language dying, I think is tragic, Butler said. Language is so intensively tied to who we are. People say that it determines how we see the world.

I think we all lose something, some knowledge about the human conditions, some knowledge about why people think the way they do, and we lose some aspects of, I think, beauty in the world.

A rare level of commitment

Maguire has known Vogel for years and spent some time with him in Mondulkiri province. He praised Vogels dedication to studying Bunong, a language that has received little attention from established researchers and academic institutions, Cambodian or international.

Vogel also teaches his Cambodian students Sanskrit and general linguistics rather than French because of historical ties between Khmer and the ancient language.

Vogel said not many Cambodian students wanted to study Sanskrit but that even one was enough because more Sanskrit inscriptions may be discovered in the future in Cambodia, he said. If there are Khmer experts on Sanskrit, they can work with international researchers to translate Sanskrit inscriptions which belong to Cambodia.

Vogels work as a Sanskrit and linguistics professor, whose instruction helped nurture respected Cambodian scholars such as Somnoble, is another reason the foundation recognized him, Maguire said.

As long as I knew him, he taught linguistics five days a week, and he taught in Khmer, Maguire said. He didnt teach in English. He didnt teach in French. He made a huge effort to learn the language, to learn it well, to learn it grammatically correct, and to learn how to read it and write it. Thats a level of commitment very few scholars have.
Trying to stave off a major upset ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, two of President Donald Trump's Cabinet officers returned to Atlanta's traditionally conservative suburbs Saturday and urged Republican voters to maintain the GOP's monopoly control in Washington.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, a former two-term Georgia governor, took sharp aim at Republican Karen Handel's opponent in Tuesday's congressional runoff election, Democrat Jon Ossoff, 30,who has raised more than $23 million from people around the country hoping for a victory that could turn the tide on Trump.

"This is a race for the heart and soul for America," Perdue told Handel supporters, casting Ossoff as a puppet of national Democrats and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

"The leftists have gone and typecast and they've picked this young man  charismatic, articulate  and they've taught him a few Republican buzzwords," Perdue said. "They think he can fool you. It's not gonna happen."

But it very well may, with polls showing a tossup in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, where Republicans usually coast.

Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker and former congressional aide, has aimed at the center, usually avoiding even mentioning Trump's name. But he was campaigning Saturday with civil rights icon John Lewis, the Atlanta congressman from the neighboring 5th District whose criticism of Trump recently drew a slew of presidential tweets.

Close vote expected

The candidates' choices on the final weekend of campaigning reflect their expectations of a razor-thin margin that will turn as much on core partisans as on persuading moderates and independents.

The results will be seen as a measure of how voters feel about Republican leadership months into the Trump presidency. Trump barely won this well-educated, affluent district in November, despite previous Republican nominees here eclipsing 60 percent.

Perdue defended Trump as "a true populist," but acknowledged that even "some Republicans" are "turned off" by him.

Health Secretary Tom Price, whose resignation to join Trump's Cabinet prompted this special election, urged voters to have a "crazy turnout" on Handel's behalf. He reminded his former constituents of the district's GOP pedigree, electing eventual Speaker Newt Gingrich and future U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson before sending Price to Washington for 12 years.

Handel made a similar appeal to honor the district's "legacy." She said voters "know me" from stints as secretary of state and commission chairman of Georgia's most populous county.

Ossoff and Handel insist their matchup  recognized as the most expensive House race in U.S. history because of money from outside the district  is not about the dynamics on Capitol Hill. But Perdue flatly disputed them, calling the election "a harbinger of national politics" as Handel looked on.

Democrats and liberal activists nationally hope to show they can flip the 24 GOP-held seats they would need to reclaim a House majority next November. They argue Ossoff's near-win in the first round already bodes well for Democrats running in other suburban districts where Republicans don't start with such a fundamental advantage.

There are 23 GOP-held House districts around the country where Trump actually lost to Hillary Clinton.

Big spending

Handel raised slightly more than $5 million, less than a quarter of Ossoff's total, but national political action and campaign committees aligned with both parties have spent big as well: $7 million from a PAC backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan; about $4.5 million from Republicans' House campaign arm; and another $6 million from the Democrats' House campaign committee.



Ossoff's television ads target swing voters and disaffected Republicans, promising an "independent voice" and lambasting "wasteful spending" by "both parties in Washington." But his day-to-day campaign operation has focused more on the Democrats' main coalition: young voters, nonwhites and women.

Ossoff also has sought to make health care a defining issue, even before Price's return to the district.

Ossoff says the House Republican health care bill punishes working-class households that gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and would "gut" consumer protections for individuals with previous maladies in their medical history.

Handel says the Senate can make improvements, but she'd have voted for the House-passed version. She rejects the Congressional Budget Office estimate that 23 million Americans could lose coverage under Republicans' plan, and she insists the bill protects those with pre-existing conditions.

The bill declares that insurers cannot deny coverage based on patient history  a point central to Handel's claims. But the proposal also would allow states to obtain waivers that would jettison existing prohibitions on charging more for patients based on their individual history and risk.



Ossoff says removing that cost protection makes any coverage guarantee "useless," because policies would become unaffordable, particularly given the Republicans' proposal to roll back premium subsidies that are a primary feature of the 2010 law.

Handel has reacted angrily to Ossoff's assertions, emotionally telling the story of her sister, whom she describes as being born with a severe birth defect requiring costly care. "I would never do anything that would hurt my sister," she says.
U.S. President Donald Trump is not under investigation by the prosecutor probing Russian meddling in last year's election and his possible obstruction of justice, one of his lawyers said Sunday, contradicting Trump's own tweet acknowledging the probe.

Attorney Jay Sekulow told NBC and CNN in interviews that Trump "is not under investigation by the special counsel," Robert Mueller, although Trump said Friday that Mueller is investigating him.

Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was named last month to conduct a wide ranging criminal probe whether Trump campaign aides illegally colluded with Russian officials to help Trump win and also whether Trump obstructed justice in firing another FBI director, James Comey, at a time he was leading the Russia investigation before Mueller's appointment.

Firing Comey



Comey told lawmakers earlier this month that Trump in recent months had asked for his personal loyalty, urged him to drop the investigation of the contacts the president's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had with Russia's ambassador to Washington, and to "lift the cloud" of the Russia investigation, none of which he acceded to.



Trump at first attributed Comey's firing to a recommendation by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for his handling of an investigation last year into the use of a private email server by Trump's defeated challenger, Democrat Hillary Clinton. But Trump later acknowledged that he had already made up his mind to fire Comey before receiving the Rosenstein recommendation and that he dismissed Comey because of "this Russia thing," believing that the probe of Russian interference in the election was an excuse being used by Democrats to explain Clinton's stunning upset loss.



WATCH: Related report by VOA's Michael Bowman:

In a comment Friday on his Twitter account, Trump said, "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt." Rosenstein appointed Mueller to be the special counsel in the investigation, although Mueller is actually conducting it.



Sekulow said that Trump's comment was specifically in response to a Washington Post story, quoting unnamed sources familiar with the Mueller investigation, as saying that Mueller was probing whether Trump obstructed justice in firing Comey.

Trump had earlier fired Flynn in February after just 24 days on the job after learning he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

"The tweet from the president was in response to the five anonymous sources that were purportedly leaking information to The Washington Post about a potential investigation of the president," Sekulow said. "But the president, as James Comey said in his testimony and as we know as of today, the president has not been and is not under investigation."

Comey's testimony



Comey had testified that as of the time he was fired by Trump on May 9, the FBI was not investigating Trump, but the Post story said that changed days later with Comey's firing.

"He's not afraid of the investigation. There is no investigation," Sekulow added. The lawyer told CNN the Twitter comment was made in the confines of a 140-character post and suggested that the Post report should be discounted because of its use of anonymous sources.

In Twitter comments Sunday, Trump said, "The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm, massive regulation cuts, 36 new legislative bills signed, great new S.C. Justice, and Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax Cuts in works!"

Rasmussen poll



He noted in another tweet, that the "new Rasmussen Poll, one of the most accurate in the 2016 Election, just out with a Trump 50% Approval Rating. That's higher than O's #'s!" The last reference appeared to be a comparison to Trump's predecessor, former President Barack Obama, whose own favorability ratings were often below 50 percent, although he left office in January with a 59 to 37 percent favorable-to-unfavorable standing.

The Rasmussen poll listing Trump at 50 percent approval is sharply at odds with other recent surveys showing that Americans broadly have an unfavorable view of Trump's performance during the first five months of his presidency. In its three-day tracking poll, Gallup said Friday that by a 55-to-39 percent margin, voters give Trump a negative performance rating, while Qunnipiac University earlier this month said its polling showed Trump with a 57-to-34 percent disapproval rating.
Thousands of people attended a gay pride parade in Ukraine's capital amid tight security Sunday.



A counterdemonstration by a few hundred ultranationalists resulted in scuffles with police in which two officers were injured and six people arrested, Kyiv police chief Andrei Krishchenko said.



Much of downtown Kiev was cordoned off and about 5,000 police officers were on duty for the gay pride march, which has traditionally been a focal point for attacks by ultranationalists.



Kiev police spokeswoman Oksana Blishchik wrote on Facebook that about 2,500 people attended. The route of the parade was changed at the last minute in an attempt to head off clashes.



People marched in colorful costumes and with rainbow flags and placards, including one that read "Love and let love."



The ultranationalist group Right Sector had warned the day before that their supporters would ensure the parade ended in a "bloodbath."



Kyiv held its first major pride march last year after a pro-Western government that came to power after the 2014 revolution sanctioned such events.



Previous gay pride rallies in Ukraine have ended in violence. In 2015, a gay pride march was called off when right-wing activists pelted participants with smoke grenades.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, an African-American who became a staunch critic of the Black Lives Matter movement and a supporter of Donald Trumps presidential campaign, has withdrawn his acceptance for a job as assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. newspapers reported Saturday.

Clarke notified Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly on Friday of his decision, Craig Peterson, an adviser to Clarke, said in a statement, according to the Washington Post and other newspapers.

Sheriff Clarke is 100 percent committed to the success of President Trump and believes his skills could be better utilized to promote the presidents agenda in a more aggressive role, the newspapers quoted Peterson as saying.

Join DHS in June

Neither the agency nor Clarkes office immediately responded to requests for comment.

Clarkes decision comes a month after he told radio station WISN in Milwaukee that he would leave his post as sheriff in June to join the Department of Homeland Security.

At the time, a spokeswoman for the agency said no announcement on Clarke had been made.

Trump and Clarke met in Wisconsin on Tuesday and discussed other roles in which Clarke could help advance Trumps agenda, the Washington Post reported, citing Peterson.

The Department of Homeland Security, created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, includes agencies that handle customs, border protection and immigration, the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration and the Secret Service.

Controversial comments

Clarke has come under fire for comments he has made about the Black Lives Matter movement, which grew out of protests over a number of police killings of unarmed black men in various parts of the United States.

Clarke has labeled members of the movement subhuman creeps and called for its eradication.

Clarke spoke in support of Trump at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last July.

Critics have faulted Clarke for his management of a Milwaukee County jail where a mentally ill man died in 2016 of dehydration. An inquest jury recommended that seven employees of the jail be criminally charged.

Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California called Clarkes appointment a disgrace.
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Claire McEnaney, 6, of Atlanta, Georgia, went to Great Falls Park in May with her mother and great uncle. She completed the Junior Ranger program at the Virginia park and learned how devices called locks allow boats to travel through canals.

KidsPost is looking for your best travel photos this summer. Did you go somewhere near Washington, as Great Falls explorer Claire McEnaney did? Or somewhere much farther away, aboard a plane or train or very large ship?

When we published a quiz last month to test your knowledge of distant destinations, quite a few readers got a perfect score. These geography stars knew that maple syrup is found in Canada; California is home to the lowest point in the United States; the ancient city of Machu Picchu is in Peru; and grizzly bears and moose mingle in Alaska.

Five kids who aced it were randomly picked to win a prize and tickets to an Imagination Stage show in Bethesda, Maryland. They are Natalie Busl, 10, of Owings, Maryland; Anna Morelli, 8, of Washington; Audrey Willett, 11, of Reseda, California; Liam Worley, 7, of Ashburn, Virginia; and brothers Jackson and Finn Empey, 8 and 6, of Alexandria, Virginia.

Want to get your name and photo in the paper? Its not hard to be a part of Summer of KidsPost.

Go on a trip and take along a recent copy of KidsPost.

Last summer, 9-year-old Ethan Smith and 6-year-old Colbie Smith traveled to Paris, France, to visit their Aunt Mana. The McLean, Virginia, residents visited a wall where I love you is written about 1,000 times in more than 300 languages.

Get someone to take a photo of you  and siblings or other family members  holding KidsPost. Easy, right? Just make sure at least one person in the photo is between the ages of 5 and 13.

Then fill out the form at wapo.st/summerofkidspost17 and attach your photo. Or mail it to KidsPost, The Washington Post, 1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071. List the full name, age and home town of everyone in the photo. We also need your parents phone number and email address and would love to read what made the trip memorable.

Families can submit only one photo, and it must have been taken after May 22, 2017. Entries are due by August 30, which should give you plenty of time to get out and explore.

At the end of the summer, three randomly selected families that have sent in photos will receive books and KidsPost goodies.
Students at Millard West High School in Omaha hold up their student newspaper, which won a state award after overcoming censorship of a column that criticized teachers for bringing their own politics into the classroom. (Millard West Yearbook Staff)

In recent months, millions of dollars in donations have rained down upon journalism organizations, prompted by President Trumps verbal attacks on the news media and citizen support for the presss role in Americas democracy.

Thats been great news for worthy recipients such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, ProPublica and others.

But one tiny outfit, working out of a windowless Washington office, has not benefited. Thats unfortunate since its constituency  vast numbers of high school and college journalists  is far bigger than the number of professional journalists.

There are probably three times more journalists in America working for school credit than for a paycheck, said Frank LoMonte, a First Amendment lawyer and the executive director of the nonprofit Student Press Law Center.

Thousands of times a year, student journalists in crisis call the SPLCs hotline. They may have had a camera confiscated by police, or had their public-records requests denied, or be facing censorship or stonewalling.

Were like the public defenders for student journalists, LoMonte told me. They respond to every request, and they never charge a fee.

The problems cut across ideology and political lines.

LoMonte helped a reporter at the student newspaper at New Jerseys Kean University as she tried to pry loose a surveillance video that the universitys police department was wrongly withholding. Once the reporter had the video, she wrote an important story that brought to light a former students claim that he suffered excessive force and racial profiling in a 2013 arrest by campus cops.

At an Omaha high school, the student newspaper wanted to publish a column suggesting that teachers keep their politics out of the classroom. (It observed that some of them were trash-talking Trump, using words such as Nazi and Hitler.)

The school administration found the column unacceptable. Then, when students tried to write about the censorship, that article was killed, too. With SPLCs intervention, both pieces were published  and won a state high school journalism award

In Lafayette, La., a high school principal decided that a yearbook page on a students gender transition was inappropriate.

The student, Scotty Jordan, told me the yearbook page might never have been published without the centers involvement.

We really didnt know what to do, so they helped us a lot, Jordan said.

The group is meeting a critical need and doing it on a shoestring, said Andy Alexander, longtime Cox News Washington bureau chief and a former Washington Post ombudsman.

Student journalists often lack the sophistication or the financial means to fight back against things like unlawful censorship or denial of access to public information, said Alexander, who now advises the Committee to Protect Journalists.

On the high school level, censorship tends to be the biggest issue. For college journalists, its getting access to public records.

But LoMonte said, Theres a grab bag.

Ive gotten people out of jail, Ive gotten cameras back from police  this is an urgent-level service, said LoMonte, who will leave his post this summer, after nine years, to do journalism law work at the University of Florida.

Founded in 1974, the center works in a spartan rented office in northwest Washington. The four-member staff, which includes paid interns and law students, not only responds to crises, but also sends a network of more than 200 lawyer-volunteers from all corners of the country to do workshops for student journalists, intended to prevent problems before they arise.

Laws that help professional journalists do their jobs  including freedom of information and shield regulations  often apply to student journalists, too. But in school-censorship situations, LoMonte often begins with a practical, rather than legal, argument: That schools would be acting in their own self-interest to let students publish because, in the social-media era, theyll find a way to get their message out in some other (perhaps less accurate) form, anyway.

Meanwhile, the center is successfully leading a grass-roots effort to get states to pass legislation giving student journalists protections for gathering and publishing news of public concern.

It all takes money, but the centers budget of $650,000 has been stuck there forever, LoMonte said, with funds coming from foundations and individuals.

Student journalists, said LoMonte, are doing really high-end, sophisticated, societally important work on topics including drug addiction, sexual assault and free speech on campus.

And, as Nieman Reports wrote recently, college journalists are both benefiting from their extended online reach and struggling with university administrations who want to keep a lid on controversies that may hurt their reputation.

That means more legal challenges to come. For LoMonte, the solutions may not always be clear, but the mission certainly is.

If youre not defending student journalists, he said, youre not defending journalists.

For more by Margaret Sullivan visit wapo.st/sullivan
(Update: Killing of a Muslim teenager in Virginia is being investigated as a road-rage incident, police say)

The death of a Virginia teenager who police say was assaulted and then disappeared after leaving a mosque in the Sterling area isn't being investigated as a hate crime, authorities said Monday.

On Sunday, police found the girls remains and a 22-year-old man has been charged with murder in connection with the case.

The mosque, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) in Sterling, and relatives identified the girl as 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen of Reston.

Fairfax County police identified the man charged with murder in her death as Darwin Martinez Torres of Sterling. On Monday, they did not release any explanation as to why they werent investigating the murder as a hate crime.

Relatives identified the slain teen as Nabra Hassanen, 17, right, of Reston, seen in a social media post with a filter. (All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center)

According to accounts from police and a mosque official, a group of four or five teens were walking back from breakfast at IHOP early Sunday when they were confronted by a motorist. All but one of the teens ran to the mosque, where the group reported that the girl had been left behind, according to Deputy Aleksandra Kowalski, a spokeswoman for the Loudoun County Sheriffs Office.

Immediately thereafter, the ADAMS personnel notified both Loudoun County and Fairfax County authorities who immediately began an extensive search to locate the missing girl, the mosque said in a statement.

Loudoun and Fairfax police jointly conducted an hours-long search around Dranesville Road and Woodson Drive in Herndon, which is in Fairfax. Remains thought to be the girls were found about 3 p.m. Sunday in a pond in the 21500 block of Ridgetop Circle in Sterling. During the search, an officer spotted a motorist driving suspiciously in the area and arrested Torres, police said.

Police said they collected several articles of evidence but declined to provide further details.

The girls mother said detectives told her that Nabra was struck with a metal bat.

I cant think of a worse instance to occur than the loss of a 17-year-old on Fathers Day, as the father of a 17-year-old myself, Loudoun County Sheriff Michael L. Chapman said.

Detectives think the remains are those of the girl, but the chief medical examiners office will confirm the identity and manner of death, Fairfax police spokeswoman Tawny Wright said.

Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, of Sterling, has been charged in the teens death. (Fairfax County Police)

Shoyeb Hassan, the co-chair of ADAMS, said that during the last 10 days of Ramadan, the mosque has extra prayers at midnight and 2 a.m., and members frequently go to McDonalds or the 24-hour IHOP to eat before they start their fast at sunrise, as Nabra and her friends were doing.

The killing rattled a Muslim community in the midst of celebrating Ramadan, a month of religious observance in which adherents fast from dawn to sunset for about a month. The period culminates in the feast-like celebration Eid al-Fitr, which is expected to fall next weekend.

We are devastated and heartbroken as our community undergoes and processes this traumatic event, Rizwan Jaka, chairman of ADAMS, said in a statement. It is a time for us to come together to pray and care for our youth.

ADAMS is Northern Virginias largest mosque and, with 11 chapters around the District and Northern Virginia, is among the nations most well-known congregations. According to ADAMSs website, the Sterling location is 25,000 square feet and can accommodate more than 700 people. It includes a youth weekend school, a gymnasium and multipurpose hall, the site says.

Arsalan Iftikhar, an international human rights lawyer and commentator, said that he and his wife were at the mosque for evening prayers, which ended about 12:30 a.m. Sunday. As they were pulling out of the parking lot, he said, he saw a group of teenagers congregating and talking loudly about going out to eat. The girls, he said, were wearing the abaya, a full-length dress many Muslim women wear.

[Van strikes crowd near mosque in London; one person is arrested]

Police said Monday they arent investigating the death as a hate crime, but the issue was on the minds of many Muslims on Sunday.

Last month, two men on a Portland train were stabbed and killed after they intervened to protect two girls who were being harassed with anti-Muslim threats, according to authorities.

Sunday night, a van struck a crowd of pedestrians, including worshipers leaving a pair of mosques in London. Witnesses said the pedestrians were struck as they departed late-night prayers.

The ADAMS Center has a paid armed security guard at the Sterling site, according to Iftikhar. He said many mosques have increased security since six Muslim worshipers were killed at a mosque in Quebec earlier this year.

[Brave and selfless Oregon stabbing victims hailed as heroes for standing up to racist rants

Nabras slaying sent a chill through the community when news spread Sunday.

People are petrified, especially people who have young Muslim daughters, Iftikhar said.

Virginia officials condemned the killing Sunday night and expressed condolences to Nabras family.

Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) said she visited ADAMS Sunday and met with leadership and law enforcement officials.

We are heartbroken and horrified by the news of the brutal murder of a beautiful 17-year old girl, Comstock said in a statement.

The congresswoman represents Virginias 10th District, where the mosque is located. We know there is no greater pain for any parent and Chip and I extend our prayers to her family and loved ones at this difficult time and the entire ADAMS Center community, she said. We commend the Fairfax County Police Department and the Loudoun County Sheriffs office for their diligent work in apprehending the perpetrator. This case should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said he and his wife, Pam, were deeply disturbed by the assault and killing.

There is absolutely no place for this kind of violence in our Commonwealth, Northam said in a statement. Every Virginian should feel safe and welcome in our communities, and no parent should ever have to experience such a heartbreaking tragedy. As the police investigation continues, I urge all Virginians to keep Nabras friends and family in their hearts.

Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) echoed Northam, urging Virginians to show compassion and kindness.

The ADAMS Center has always welcomed me and so many in Northern Virginia like family, Herring said. This unspeakable attack feels like an assault on our entire community. Words fail at a time like this, so well all have to do the best we can to surround them with the love and support theyve always shown each of us.

On a crowdfunding page to support Nabras family, donations surged Sunday night, jumping from $10,000 to nearly $18,000 in less than an hour. Shortly before 10 p.m., the fundraising page had met its $25,000 goal.

In a neighborhood full of Muslim immigrant families, the Hassanens modest Reston apartment was the one overflowing with friends and laughter most days, friends said Sunday.

Its a family where if youre feeling down and you need to laugh, this is where you go, said Samar Ali, 26, who grew up in the Hassanens apartment complex.

On Sunday night, that apartment normally filled with laughter was crammed with more than 30 women in traditional Muslim garb, sobbing and comforting one another. At the center of the crowded, dimly lit living room was Nabras mother, Sawsan Gazzar.

Please pray for me, please pray for me, Gazzar sobbed in Arabic. Her phone rang constantly. To her brother and sister in her native Egypt, she said, Pray for me that I can handle this . . . I lost my daughter, my first reason for happiness.

The night before, Gazzar had cooked a feast for Nabra, the oldest of her four daughters, who wanted to host a big iftar break-the-fast dinner for all her friends from ADAMS and South Lakes High School, where she just finished 10th grade.

The iftar was packed  Nabra was always popular and sociable. And when it ended, a friends mom drove some of the teens to ADAMS for the midnight prayers that mark the last 10 days of Ramadan. Family members said she frequented the mosque during Ramadan.

And during the holy month, the mosque was filled with teens like her.

Gazzar said she thought Nabra and her friends would eat at the mosque after the prayers, and she would have forbidden her from walking to IHOP in the middle of the night. But she also wasnt surprised that the girl went out; she and other teens had done it safely last year.

Other mothers in the apartment Sunday night echoed the same thought repeatedly  they and their children had always felt safe taking the sidewalk path to IHOP or McDonalds for a fun meal on those final Ramadan nights.

Gazzar loaned her daughter an abaya to wear to the mosque Saturday night, since Nabra didnt typically wear traditional Muslim clothes. She heard from a detective that when the man in the car started shouting at the teens, Nabra tripped over the long garment and fell to the ground, just before she was struck.

I think it had to do with the way she was dressed and the fact that shes Muslim, Gazzar said. Why would you kill a kid? What did my daughter do to deserve this?

Nabra was a diligent student, so much so that although she was extremely proud to get her first job ever at a McDonalds, she quit when her manager didnt understand that studying for a school exam took priority over a work shift. Family members were quick to note her interest in fashion and makeup, and her recently acquired nose ring.

All four Hassanen girls were born in the United States  the younger ones are 11, 10 and 3. Ali described Nabra as a daddys girl who was close with her father, a bus-and-limo driver. Her father spent Sunday at the mosque, Ali said, beside himself with worry all day.

Gazzars phone rang yet again, and this time she didnt answer. She turned instead to the hundreds of photos stored on it, scrolling through them until she landed on one of Nabra visiting her parents homeland in Egypt, laughing as she embraced two of the teens little sisters.

Theyd all be laughing. They used to be really happy.

She gazed into the girls eyes, and cried harder.

Correction: An earlier version of this report incorrectly stated the number of Muslim girls who were being harassed in Portland. One of the two girls identifies as Muslim.The story has also been updated to clarify earlier information.
Columbia, Mo.  Megan Fales, Shelter Insurance Companies agent at Cozad, Nebraska, has been honored as the company's top agent in Nebraska based on overall agency operation in 2016.

Fales received the Agent of the YearNebraska award at the firms recent Conference of Champions. The award is presented to the Nebraska Shelter agent demonstrating the highest overall excellence in agency operation. All state-level Agent of the Year award winners compete for the firm's company-wide Agent of the Year award.
Montgomery County spent at least $10 million on attorneys, expert witnesses and consultants to pursue the lawsuit it opted to settle for $25 million last month against the designer and builders of the Silver Spring Transit Center.

The tab is expected to grow as additional invoices are tallied, County Attorney Marc Hansen said.

The county agreed to settle during the trial, almost two years after it filed suit seeking $67 million in damages from designer Parsons Brinckerhoff, general contractor Foulger-Pratt and construction inspection firm Robert B. Balter.

County Executive Isiah Leggett (D)had pledged on several occasions to hold contractors accountable for all repair costs. But when pretrial rulings by Circuit Court Judge Michael Mason threw out the countys allegations of fraud and its demand for punitive damages and court costs, settlement became a more attractive option. Negotiations between attorneys for the county and contractors went on behind the scenes for most of the three-week trial.

Despite what I said earlier, I thought this was the most reasonable avenue, Leggett said shortly after the settlement was announced. As part of the agreements, neither the county nor the contractors acknowledged any negligence or wrongdoing.

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett. (Jeffrey MacMillan/Jeffrey MacMillan)

The three-story concrete transit hub on Colesville Road opened five years late and $50 million over budget in August 2015, because of what officials alleged were design and construction flaws.

According to records provided by the county to The Washington Post, the single biggest lawsuit expense was $6.5 million for outside legal counsel. The county retained Saul Ewing, a firm with experience in complex litigation arising from troubled public-works projects. Its attorneys billed on a sliding scale of hourly rates  discounted for public-sector clients, Hansen said  that ranged from $525 for partners to $200 for paralegals.

We knew it was going to be very expensive, said Leggett, who praised the county legal team but defended the outside help. If we need special expertise, then I think we need to lawyer up to protect the countys interests.

Some of Leggetts longtime critics called the litigation costs a sorry coda to the biggest public-works fiasco in county history.

Here the pigeons are coming home to roost, said Robin Ficker, a Republican who lost to Leggett in 2006 and will run for county executive again next year, when Leggett is retiring.

He speculated that the legal costs may have motivated Leggett to propose an 8.6 percent property tax increase last year. Leggett, who later reduced the proposal by half, wanted the additional revenue for schools. He called Fickers assertion absurd.

Former county executive Doug Duncan (D), who lost a comeback bid to Leggett in 2014, said taxpayers got hosed on the $25 million settlement after originally seeking $47 million for cost overruns and $20 million in damages.

It all comes down to Ike Leggett saying the county is not going to pay a cent extra for this, knowing that wasnt true, Duncan said. This whole thing was handled horribly from the beginning.

Leggett scoffed at Duncans remarks. I said I was going to try to get every penny back. What county executive wouldnt say that? he asked.

Given what was left of the countys claim after Masons ruling, Leggett said, the most to be gained by staying in a trial was an additional $7 million to $8 million. There were also ongoing legal costs, and the chance that the county could win but be reversed on appeal, leaving taxpayers with nothing.

In a separate settlement, the county agreed to pay Foulger-Pratt $3 million for compensation the county withheld during the dispute over how to repair the building.

The three Democratic county lawmakers running for executive next year  Roger Berliner (Potomac-Bethesda) George Leventhal (At Large) and Marc Elrich (At Large) declined to question Leggetts decision.

No one on the County Council is in a position to second-guess either how much was spent or the settlement itself, Berliner said. It was a settlement [Leggett and the lawyers] recommended, and I have nothing else to go on.

In addition to attorneys fees, the county spent at least $3.3 million on consultants and expert witnesses who were hired to persuade the jury  over strenuous opposition from defense attorneys  that substandard design, construction and inspection produced cracks and weaknesses in concrete and a lack of supporting steel.

County officials said the witnesses spent hundreds of hours reviewing the records generated by the project, which dates back to 2006. There were non-testifying consultants who helped attorneys sort through sometimes highly technical material. The fees include:

$1.6 million to Grayhawk, a New Jersey-based construction management firm that analyzed scheduling delays and allocated damages among the contractors.

$450,000 to John Fraczek, senior principal for Wiss Janney Elstner Associates, a Northbrook, Ill. engineering company. He testified that excessive cracking in concrete was because of a faulty design by Parsons Brinckerhoff.

$239,000 to KCE Structural Engineers, the firm the county hired in 2012 to investigate problems with the Transit Center.

KCE also was paid $8.5 million for its initial report on those problems, which the county attorney said was considered a pre-litigation expense, not a legal cost.
Two Maryland teenagers gunned down on the eve of their high school graduation were lured to a dark cul-de-sac by three men who feigned interest in buying an extra commencement ticket  a scheme motivated by anger over an earlier, botched drug deal, Montgomery County police said in arrest records filed Saturday as the suspects were charged with murder.

The gunmens target appears to have been Shadi Najjar, 17, who along with his friend Artem Ziberov, 18, planned to sell at least one ticket the night of June 5 after pulling over along Gallery Court about 20 miles north of Washington. Instead, they were met by a barrage of at least 30 rounds fired from two or more guns.

Najjar, behind the wheel, was hit by four rounds, according to police accounts. Ziberov, in the passenger seat, was hit by 10.

The Honda they sat in was still running with its lights on, when police called for reports of gunfire found the teens. The attackers took Najjars phone, police said.

The shooting scene where two teens were killed June 5 in Montgomery Village, Md. (Dan Morse/The Washington Post)

[Teens killed on eve of graduation]

Ziberov may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to police accounts Saturday.

It wasnt clear whether he was aware of what police described as a previous soured drug buy involving Najjar and a girlfriend of one of the attackers that appears to have festered as resentment for months before become brutal retaliation in June.

Court records identified the suspects as Jose Canales-Yanez, 25; Edgar Garcia-Gaona, 24; and his brother Roger Garcia, 19, all of Montgomery County. Each has been charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. The men are expected to make their first court appearances Monday, and online court records do not indicate whether any of them have retained an attorney.

Reached late Saturday, Adi Najjar, the father of Shadi Najjar, said he wasnt immediately free to speak about the case.

William Tewelow, the stepfather of Ziberov, said the arrests were part of the mix of emotions his family has been coping with. He said the action speaks to quality of the police working the case.

His stepsons body is still in Maryland and will soon be flown to Russia for burial.

A procession of Boy Scouts pall bearers and family carry Artem Ziberov's casket into the sanctuary at Neelsville Presbyterian Church on June 10. (Kate Patterson/for The Washington Post)

Tewelow tried to take comfort in his stepson somehow knowing about the arrests.

He wanted these killers caught and brought to justice, Tewelow said. Now he can rest properly.

The killings had drawn wide attention.

[We believe they were targeted. New details in double murder of teens]

Ziberov and Najjar had been on the honor roll at Northwest High School in Germantown. Friends and family described the teens as smart and pleasant.

Behind the scenes, detectives had spent two weeks discovering another dimension to Najjar, in which he sold and smoked marijuana and had purportedly stolen drugs from a female dealer late last year, the arrest documents show.

The detectives also learned that the night Najjar was killed  at 10:13 p.m.  he sent a message to his girlfriend saying he was about to sell a commencement ticket to someone named Roger Garcia.

Detectives went to talk to Garcia at a trailer park in Gaithersburg.

Roger Garcia claimed he did not know Najjar or Ziberov and did not purchase a graduation ticket from them, detectives wrote in court papers. Roger Garcia did state he had attended Northwest High School.

Garcias brother and associates then became of keen interest to the detectives.

Garcia-Gaona had been involved in a shooting on Feb. 10 in the community of Montgomery Village, not far from the scene of the slayings.

In that incident, Garcia-Gaona  a known drug dealer, according to police statements in that case  got a call from purported marijuana buyers. He met them but was ambushed in an apparent robbery attempt. The attackers wound up shooting and killing one of their associates. Garcia-Gaona also was shot, fled in one of the attackers cars and survived.

[You are shooting me! Alleged plan to rob dealer leaves rapper dead]

That exchange had no connection to Najjar but would become important in the probe of his death because it revealed that Garcia-Gaona was friends with Canales-Yanez, according to police. Canales-Yanez had a girlfriend, detectives learned, who had apparently tried to sell drugs to Najjar six months ago.

Detectives reviewed a Dec. 14 police report in which the girlfriend told police she had been robbed by someone in a blue Honda Civic, who dragged her body 50 feet and stole her iPad, according to court records filed in the killings of Najjar and Ziberov.

The woman apparently did not identify the robber at the time.

But in the court records filed Saturday, detectives noted that Najjar is known to operate and was murdered in a blue Honda Civic. The detectives also wrote that they had recently spoken with at least one other person who told them that Najjar had stolen drugs from the woman.

The work reviewing the connections and the reported robbery accelerated greatly within the past 36 hours, after detectives heard from a source who they say helped tie the case together, according to court records. The source, whose name detectives kept confidential in court documents, said that Canales-Yanez, Garcia-Gaona and Garcia targeted Najjar in retaliation for his robbing Canales-Yanezs girlfriend.

Police arrested Garcia-Gaona and Garcia late Friday or early Saturday. It is not clear whether the brothers made statements to police.

Detectives arrested Canales-Yanez later Saturday.

On Saturday, police also searched Garcia-Gaonas home in Gaithersburg. They found a partial box of Blazer .40-caliber ammunition, they wrote in court filings adding: It should be noted that, at the crime scene, 11 of the 30 shell casings recovered were Blazer .40-caliber shell casings.

Said Montgomery County Assistant Police Chief Russ Hamill: This is a complete tragedy on many fronts Two young men needlessly lost their lives. Three young men face years in prison. And countless family members and friends are profoundly affected and broken-hearted.

Investigators believe the planned purchase of the graduation ticket was merely a way to get to Najjar.

Its hard to imagine the suspects really planned on attending the graduation, Hamill said.

Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Prince William County police are investigating the Saturday night shooting of a Woodbridge man, authorities said Sunday.

According to police, at around 11:17 p.m., officers investigating a report of a shooting responded to a home in the 12000 block of Cinnamon Street, and found a 36-year-old man suffering a gunshot wound to the lower body.

The man was taken to hospital with injuries that were not considered to be life-threatening.

Suspects in the incident fled the scene on foot, police said. No arrests had been made by Sunday afternoon.
Eric H. Holder, Jr., left, 82nd Attorney General of the United States, and Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam, center, the Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia, at the Democratic Party of Virginia's 2017 Dinner. (DANIEL SANGJIB MIN/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH)

Days after Ralph Northam defeated Tom Perriello for the Democratic Partys nomination in the race for Virginia governor, the victor and the vanquished came together Saturday in their first joint appearance and declared a united party heading into the November election.

The men embraced at the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, the state Democratic Partys biggest fundraiser of the year, and Perriello pledged to work hard to see Northam defeat the Republican nominee, former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie.

Former U.S. attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr., who delivered the keynote address, said Virginia finds itself at the epicenter of the political universe in 2017.

In November, the commonwealth will have the first opportunity to send a message to the present occupant of the White House and the extreme right-wingers who surround him, Holder said.

As one of only two gubernatorial contests in the United States this year, Virginias election is expected to draw tens of millions in outside spending and will be carefully watched as an early test of the political landscape in the Trump era. The other race, in New Jersey, is seen as less competitive.

Virginia Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam, left, the Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia, is introduced by Tom Perriello during the Democratic Party of Virginias 2017 Dinner. (DANIEL SANGJIB MIN/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH)

[Democratic push to end gerrymandering to begin in Virginia]

Holder is leading an initiative to end gerrymandering that Democrats say has allowed Republicans to lock in control over statehouses and congressional districts. The effort, which former president Barack Obama has embraced as a priority upon leaving office, will focus on Virginia and other states.

In Virginia, Republicans hold 66 of 100 House of Delegates seats and seven of 11 U.S. House seats while Democrats have prevailed in statewide contests in recent years. The next governor will have sway over how state and federal legislative maps are drawn in 2021, shaping politics for the next decade.

Critics say the national Democratic Party neglected state races, leading to the partys decimation down-ballot, with Republicans now controlling 33 governors offices and 32 state legislatures.

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, chaired by Holder, is trying to change that. The group plans to support Democrats in gubernatorial and state legislative races, in addition to funding ballot initiatives to create independent redistricting commissions and legal challenges to GOP-drawn legislative maps.

For the Virginia contest, the committee plans to steer money to elect Northam and draw a national spotlight  and national donors and activists  to the race. Holder said prominent Democrats would hit the campaign trail, though he declined to identify them or say whether Obama would stump for Northam.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who cannot seek consecutive terms under the state constitution, is also fundraising for the group and helping shape its strategy.

Justin Fairfax, Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, speaks during the Democratic Party of Virginia's 2017 Dinner. (DANIEL SANGJIB MIN/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH)

Our goal is not to gerrymander for Democrats, Holder said in an interview after his speech. Our focus is really on making sure that throughout this country we have fair districts drawn and a contest between parties on their philosophies, as opposed to their line-drawing capabilities.

Holder urged Democrats at Saturdays dinner to avoid intraparty conflict, a marked contrast from progressive leader Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who last week at a gathering of activists in Chicago called the Democratic Partys strategy an absolute failure.

Now is not a time for this party to be beholden to ideological litmus tests, Holder said. Our party is made up of disparate parts, but it is held together by common goals.

[Was Perriellos loss a defeat for progressives? Not quite]

The primary fight between former congressman Perriello and Northam, who is Virginias lieutenant governor, echoed the ideological divide within the Democratic Party nationally: Perriello pushed for greater focus on economic populism to win back rural and other disaffected voters, while Northam urged a pragmatic approach and reaching compromise with Republicans.

But on Saturday, they seemed to embrace Holders advice and presented a united front.

We have a champion who is going to fight tirelessly and endlessly for economic justice and racial justice here in the state of Virginia in the form of Ralph Northam, said Perriello, drawing a standing ovation as he vowed to stop at nothing to help elect the Democratic ticket.

[Democrats look united, GOP in disarray after Virginia primary]

Northam returned the praise in his remarks.

The Democratic Party of Virginia is stronger tonight because of Tom Perriello, Northam said in a fiery speech condemning Republicans in Washington and Gillespie.

They drew a contrast to disarray on the Republican side of the race. Gillespie barely beat Corey A. Stewart, a Prince William county supervisor who fashioned himself after President Trump in espousing hard-line conservative views on immigration and calling for a need to protect Confederate monuments. Stewart has withheld support for Gillespie, saying after the returns came in that he didnt recognize the word unity.

Stewart has subsequently hinted that hes interested in challenging Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), whos up for reelection in 2018, and that he would be meeting with Gillespie to discuss conditions for an endorsement. He said he would offer support only if Gillespie moved to the right to back aspects of Stewarts platform.

Gillespie campaigned over the weekend with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), not Stewart.

Holder said that defeating Gillespie would be a particularly fitting start to his groups electoral efforts. As chair of the Republican State Leadership Committee, Gillespie was among the GOP strategists behind the successful takeover of statehouses in 2010 to influence redistricting.

He is the founder of the Freedom Caucus, said Holder, referring to the group of deeply conservative House Republicans in safely GOP districts. We want to hang around his neck exactly what he did in 2010 that resulted in the decade we are now having to endure.

In an earlier interview with The Washington Post, Gillespie said he was proud of his work and a smart plan to flip state legislatures to influence redistricting.

In addition to the gubernatorial contest in November, Attorney General Mark Herring is running for a second term against Republican lawyer John Adams; Democrat Justin Fairfax faces state Sen. Jill Vogel (R-Fauquier) for lieutenant governor; and 100 House of Delegates seats are on the ballot.
Twice in the same week, Lois Wood woke to find ticks crawling over her bare leg in her New Hampshire home. A few nights later, she spotted a mouse running across her bed.

A mother of seven, Wood tries to shrug off her tiny bedfellows. Its a common rural problem, she says, although she admits that she has never experienced anything like this in my own bed.

The recent appearance of vermin and pests in Woods bedroom coincides with the warming temperatures related to climate change. The past three years have been the planets hottest on record, and it is in this changing climate that many pests thrive, negatively affecting human health.

Forty to 90 percent of white-footed mice carry Borrelia burgdorferi, the spirochete bacterium that causes Lyme disease, and they provide the first blood meals for blacklegged ticks, also known as deer ticks, which can transmit the disease to humans.

White-footed mice are typically considered outdoor animals. But in suburban and rural areas near forested land, they easily squeeze through cracks and holes the size of a dime and often nest inside walls and in garages.





Woods garage, which is built into a hillside amid old cow pastures that are being reclaimed by young forests, rests directly beneath her bedroom, and its not uncommon for her to hear the scratching of mice within the walls. Dozens of poppy-seed-size blacklegged tick nymphs could hitch a ride indoors on a single white-footed mouse, then find a blood meal on house mice, other rodents or even members of Woods family.

Were diligent about doing tick checks when we come in from outside, Wood says, but my son and one of our family dogs have had Lyme. Its scary to think that mice might be bringing ticks inside my house.

One hundred fifty miles south of Woods home, Peggy Siligato, co-owner of Narragansett Pest Control in Rhode Island, has seen more mice over the past five years than during the rest of her 40-year career. Seventy-five percent of our business is mice, she said, and it had increased about 25 percent from what it used to be.

Science is offering a possible explanation for what Siligato is witnessing: Warming temperatures and milder winters have increased not only the population of the white-footed mouse but also its range.Sheila Haddad, vice president of sales for Bell Laboratories, which manufactures rodent control technology, agrees: Rodent pressure is increasing. Mice used to seasonally enter homes primarily in the fall and winter months in New England, but now its a year-round problem. Warmer winters mean that more mice survive; it never gets cold enough to kill them.

Haddad said she has noticed the same kind of increase in mouse populations as Siligato. In Atlanta, for example, theres been an increase in reported venomous snakebites, which means that there are more snakes feeding on rodents.

Everything is changing year after year, Haddad says. Our rodenticide sales to distributors have increased about 15 percent over the past two years.

Siligato adds: West Nile virus has killed many birds of prey along the East Coast, meaning there are more mice. To say its just climate change isnt exactly accurate, but its probably a part of the story.

The Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, a research and education organization in New Yorks Dutchess County, has predicted that there will be a rise in reported Lyme disease cases in 2017 along the Eastern Seaboard because there was a bumper crop of acorns in 2015. Acorns are a favorite food of the white-footed mouse, and the population of the species has been shown to increase two years after a surge of the nuts. More mice means more opportunities for tick nymphs to have their first blood meals.

Families such as the Woods, who have a large oak tree that may have dropped up to 10,000 acorns just 100 feet from their home last fall, might notice even more mice around or even inside their homes.

The dangerous trifecta of mice, ticks and Lyme disease might seem like a problem for only rural and suburban areas, but climate change is increasingly making it an issue in cities as well. We know were at risk in the country for getting Lyme, Wood says, although people living in concrete jungles should know that they can get it there, too.

Large city parks provide preferred habitat for white-footed mice: small parcels of land, grassy knolls, shady oak trees, brush for safely making nests, and few natural predators.

Leo Galland, an internist practicing in New York City, says he treated a woman for acute Lyme after she found a blacklegged tick in her Park Avenue apartment. She had not left the city for months, but she often spent hours in nearby Central Park with her young child, and Galland says he believes a tick may have come home with her. I also treated two other patients with acute Lyme who hadnt left New York City, but they had each spent time in Riverside Park, he says.

The website of the city health department warns that blacklegged ticks have been collected in four of the citys five boroughs, with some of them testing positive for B. burgdorfergi. But how many New Yorkers would think to look at the website to learn about ticks? And even if they did, how many would also consider the mice that transmit Lyme?

In addition to surging populations of white-footed mice and the expected increased prevalence of blacklegged ticks in 2017, rising temperatures may be introducing invasive species that might also transmit disease.

Were seeing a new species of rodent in Rhode Island, Siligato says. Invasive species  perhaps harvester mice, but were not sure  can now survive here because the year-round temperatures arent all that different from what theyre used to.

Haddad said a few nonnative mice have been found near Cape Cod. They might have been brought on boats from the tropics, although I havent heard that tests have conclusively identified the species, she says. When were talking about mice, we have to remember that there are hundreds of species.

Humans could suffer grave consequences because of the recent population explosion and spread of the white-footed mouse. And older methods of mouse eradication might not be enough to decrease the growing prevalence of Lyme disease. The Tick Project, a five-year study by the Cary Institute, is examining whether focusing on the elimination of ticks rather than mice might reduce cases of Lyme.

In 2016, the institute identified the neighborhoods in Dutchess County that were hot spots for Lyme disease. This April, two tick-killing methods began to be tested in these areas, and treatments will continue each spring and summer through 2020.

One method uses a small box that attracts mammals such as mice and chipmunks with bait. A wick coated with a chemical called fipronil rubs over the animals backs as they enter the box, killing any ticks attached to the animal. The second method, a fungus that is sprayed over grass and other vegetation, has been shown to kill ticks waiting to feed. Each method has been shown to be safe to pets, people and the environment.

Time will tell if either method will decrease reported Lyme disease cases, but it stands to reason that if ticks can be killed outside homes, then mice and any other species carrying the Lyme bacteria might be less of a health risk to humans, whether indoors or outdoors.

Although Woods family isnt a part of the Tick Project, learning that new methods are being developed for controlling tick populations is reassuring to her.

Climate change means that people arent safe from Lyme whether they live in the city or the country, she says, but knowing we can fight the disease means we can live in awareness, not fear.

Read more

I took all the right meds for Lyme, so why didnt I get better?

At 12, he had stopped growing. Doctors were stumped.

How to avoid Lyme disease
Young boys dressed in the Zimbabwe National Army regalia follow the proceedings on the day to mark The Day of The African Child at the City Sports Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Saturday. The day commemorates the 1976 uprising in Soweto, when a protest by schoolchildren in South Africa against apartheid -inspired education resulted in the public killing of these unarmed young protesters by police officers. (Aaron Ufumeli/European Pressphoto Agency)

SYRIA

Syrian army declares cease-fire in Daraa

The Syrian army said Saturday that it would suspend combat operations in the southern city of Daraa for 48 hours. The Syrian army and Iran-backed militia forces have stepped up attacks against a rebel-held part of Daraa city in recent weeks, in a possible prelude to a large-scale campaign to gain full control.

The cease-fire announcement came on the same day as the United Nations said it wanted to start a fresh round of peace talks between Syrian factions on July 10 in Geneva, and Moscow said it hoped to hold talks in Kazakhstans capital Astana on July 4-5. Since a resumption of peace negotiations last year, there have been multiple rounds brokered by both the United Nations and Russia, resulting in scant progress.

The United States welcomed Saturdays cease-fire announcement and called on the Syrian government to live up to its commitments. We will judge this initiative by the results not the words, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. She urged the Syrian opposition groups to halt attacks to allow aid to reach those in need.

 Reuters

Spanish brave heat to march for refugees:Protesters marched in scorching heat in Madrid to urge Spains conservative government to fulfill its pledge to give shelter to refugees from war-torn countries like Syria. Braving temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, several thousand people followed a huge banner that read We Want To Welcome Them Now! Enough Excuses, No More Barriers along the Spanish capitals Gran Via street. Spain has taken in less than 10 percent of the refugees it pledged to accept by September. It has relocated or resettled 1,304 of the 17,337 people  15,888 from camps in Italy and Greece and 1,449 from Turkey and Libya  that it promised to take in September 2015. In February, at least 160,000 marched in Barcelona in support of the refugees.

At least 5 killed at Malian army post: A military official says at least five people are dead after an attack on a Malian army post in the west African nations volatile north. Col. Diarran Kone, spokesman for Malis army, says eight others were wounded in the attack in Bintagoungou early Saturday. The Malian military and U.N. peacekeepers are frequent targets of the Islamic extremists who once ruled northern Malis towns. They were ousted in 2013 by a French-led military operation but continue to carry out attacks.

Iranian fisherman reported killed by Saudi coast guard: An Iranian fisherman was killed by Saudi Arabias coast guard Friday night, Irans state TV said. The IRINN TV news channel reported that local sources from Boushehr province said that Saudi coast guard officers fired at two Iranian fishermen, killing one. Several Iranian news websites also reported that two Iranian boats were shot at as they approached a Saudi oil rig. Predominantly Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi kingdom have been regional rivals and support opposite sides in conflicts across the Middle East, including the wars in Syria and Yemen.

Greens push for same-sex marriage in Germany: Germanys opposition Greens are pledging not to enter any coalition government after the countrys September election without securing a commitment to allowing same-sex marriage. Germany has allowed same-sex couples to enter civil partnerships since 2001 but, while other European countries have since allowed full-fledged same-sex marriage, much of Chancellor Angela Merkels conservative bloc remains reluctant to do so. The traditionally left-leaning Greens hope to be kingmakers after Germanys Sept. 24 election, though the chances of that are unclear. A coalition between Merkels party and the Greens, with or without a third party, may emerge as a possibility.

Kagame chosen by Rwandas ruling party: Rwandas ruling party has chosen longtime President Paul Kagame as its candidate for the August election, where he is expected to face a handful of challengers of either small parties or independent. The 59-year-old leaders decision to pursue a third term comes after the East African nations constitution was amended in a 2015 referendum, allowing him to run for an additional seven-year term and then two five-year terms.

 From news services
Mark Anthony Neal, a Duke University professor of African & African-American Studies and English, is the host of the Left of Black webcast and author of Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities.

Bill Cosby was the product of an era when many prominent blacks engaged in what might be called a politics of representation: While the black religious left took to the streets to march and a younger generation of activists bided its time, Cosby waged his battles in fine suits, nice sweaters and impeccable diction. But Cosbys schtick was as important as any Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee sit-in. He brought black humanity into white Americas living rooms through his appearances on variety shows and the television series I Spy even as the brutality directed at black humanity was being broadcast on the nightly news in those same living rooms. By the early 1970s, the kids were loving Cosby, too, courtesy of his brilliantly conceived Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

The level of universal popularity that Cosby reached in the 1980s, via his various platforms (including his role as a Jell-O Pudding Pop pitchman) was not unprecedented  the Michaels Jackson and Jordan were legitimate rivals in this regard. But no one else did it with Cosbys gravitas. The Cosby Show was not just the highest-rated show on television. Cosby and his doppelganger Cliff Huxtable were collectively Americas  not simply black Americas  favorite dad.

Those times are long gone. Despite the hung jury in his sexual assault trial in Pennsylvania, Americas No. 1 Dad remains accused of sex offenses (accusations that he has denied) and perhaps will always be remembered for this, however any retrial might play out.

But the onslaught of reporting of Cosbys final fall from grace is classic media hyperbole. This is not to deny that the sheer number of his accusers (and even if it were just one) made this a newsworthy case; we must continue to confront all incidences of sexual violence, regardless of the profile of the offender. Cosby, though, hasnt mattered in the way he once did for at least a generation.

Cosbys relevance to black America began to wane even as his television son Theo Huxtable was walking across stage at his college graduation. As The Cosby Show came to a close in the spring of 1992, Los Angeles was afire over the acquittal of four police officers in the Rodney King beating. Voices like Ice Cube and Tupac Shakur  symbolic sons whom Cosby symbolically rejected during the eight-year Cosby Show run  would be far more relevant to young African Americans going forward.

There would still be a connection, however. To the extent that Cosby and his family were subjected to the kind of random urban violence that defined so much of the lives of the black poor  when Cosbys only son, Ennis, was killed  he was no longer above the realities of race, no matter how famous and influential he was. The middle-class lives of the Huxtables be damned, he was one of us.

And perhaps that was the rub. With his infamous pound cake speech, Cosby seemed to turn on us by adopting a narrative from the right that our struggles and the broader problems of the welfare state were rooted in a culture of defeatism rather than structures of inequality. When Cosby seemed to legitimize the police shooting of unarmed blacks for a crime like stealing a pound cake, he came off as painfully out of touch. For the many who, years later, would be tweeting the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, this was their most powerful memory of Cosby  and it was there to be reawakened when comedian Hannibal Buresss righteous takedown set in motion this final chapter of Cosbys public life.

Thats why the intense recent debates about Cosby, including a reevaluation of his cultural and financial contributions  The Cosby Show was pulled for a time from syndication, Spelman College discontinued an endowed professorship funded by Cosby and his wife, Camille  have seemed so out of line with his current level of relevance.

And therein lies one of the tragedies here. Cosby mattered so much, in part, because his image of middle-class black respectability carried moral authority for whites, of all political persuasions, seeking to compel less-fortunate blacks to fall in line and keep on the grind. In the past two years, it was as if the artifice of Bill Cosby had to be rehabilitated solely for the purpose of tearing it down. And what has been torn down in the process is not just Cosby the man but the very truth of the representations of black excellence and aspiration that Cosby so dutifully invested in throughout his career.

Cosby hasnt mattered since long before the movement for black lives picked up the baton of the black protest tradition and carried it onto new moral ground. But in his reappearance as an old accused sex offender, he has restarted battles we thought had already been safely won.
Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel are the candidates in the closely watched special election in the 6th Congressional District in Georgia. (EPA photos)

Democrats will turn their gaze south this week, hoping victory in a special election in Georgias 6th Congressional District will serve as a referendum on President Trump and spark their efforts to counter his agenda  and to win back the House.

Embodying those hopes is Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old former Capitol Hill staffer who has campaigned as a moderate in the wealthy suburbs north of Atlanta and raised more than $23 million.

But despite Ossoffs financial advantage  the showdown is the most expensive House race in history  Democrats remain on edge. Polls show the clash between Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel too close to call, and GOP candidates have prevailed in several special elections this year.

Timing is critical, with Tuesdays vote coming as congressional Democrats are rousing their base by attempting to block Republican legislation to overhaul the nations health-care system. Senate GOP leaders have been privately revising a House-passed version for weeks, aiming to call a vote by the end of June.

Many Democrats see the Georgia race and their health-care moves as intertwined. If Ossoff wins, the likely wave of enthusiasm could rattle Trump and Republicans. If Ossoff loses, it could be demoralizing and reveal the challenges facing Democrats ahead of next years midterm elections, despite the GOP health-care proposals unpopularity and the controversy over Trumps handling of investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats need to flip 24 Republican-held seats to take back the House majority, which they lost seven years ago.

The stakes have stoked talk of unity among wings of the Democratic Party, which has dealt with intraparty tensions since Trump won.

On Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he was standing with Ossoff, even though Ossoff has not run as a vocal progressive.

Oh, absolutely, Sanders said on CNNs State of the Union. I very much want Ossoff to win. His views are a lot better than his Republican opponents.

Sanders also said Democrats should do everything possible to counter Trump and the Republican health-care bill, and framed the Georgia race as one of the ways the party could begin to turn around its fortune.

Senate Democratic leaders are considering several maneuvers to stop Republicans from proceeding on the legislation and to protest the GOPs behind-the-scenes discussions, according to aides.

Once senators return to Washington on Monday, Democrats may threaten to halt procedural routines and boycott committee meetings and hearings, the aides said.

Senate Republicans have acknowledged the potential political pitfalls should their legislation be defined by the secrecy in which it has been deliberated.

The Senate is not a place where you can just cook up something behind closed doors and rush it for a vote on the floor, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Sunday on CBSs Face the Nation.

Every camera in the world is going to have to see whats in it, Rubio said.

Ossoff  who nearly won the seat outright in the first round of voting in April  spent the weekend urging Democrats who are furious with Trump to turn out, all while keeping his tone and message steady as he courted more centrist Republicans in a district that has been in GOP hands since 1979. It was represented by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price until he resigned to join Trumps Cabinet.

We have a great candidate, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a veteran civil rights leader, said as he campaigned alongside Ossoff. Smart, young and just good.

Ossoff said Tuesdays election would have consequences far beyond the districts well-

manicured lawns and glassy office parks.

Folks across the district, folks across the state, folks across the country, there are those who have lost faith, Ossoff said. All of us here today, and all of us in this district, have a chance now to help restore some of that.

Ossoff has avoided making the Russia probes and Trumps decision to fire former FBI director James B. Comey central to his closing pitch, calling for a vigorous investigation but mostly focusing on health care and the economy.

Handel, meanwhile, has embraced her long ties to state and local Republicans, a point she has played up repeatedly as she has jeered Ossoff for living outside the district.

A former Georgia secretary of state, Handel campaigned with Price and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, a former Georgia governor.

This is a harbinger of national politics, Perdue said Saturday at a Handel rally. The world is looking, the nation is looking, and all the money has flowed in here.

Dont be fooled by someone who doesnt have a record, he added. Let me tell you something, [Ossoff] is a puppet, and the strings are being pulled by the Democrats and Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader.

Early voting levels have been extraordinarily high, reflective of the intense interest in the race. More than 120,000 people have already voted, nearly a quarter of all registered voters in the district.

Trumps shadow continues to loom, not so much because of Republican reservations about his policies but because of their unease with his combative persona and the lack of progress in enacting key priorities, such as tax cuts and the repeal of aspects of the health-care law.

Handel has turned to the president for a fundraising lift but otherwise treaded cautiously when speaking of him, aware that much of her well-educated conservative base does not always identify with his roaring populism.

Trump barely won the district last year as Price coasted to a double-digit victory.

At the weekend rally, Perdue noted that some Republicans may even be turned off by our president. But he urged solidarity and said Trump keeps his promises.

Handel has been cagey, too, on the Republican health-care plan, saying the House bill is far from perfect in a nod to concerns among voters about the legislations scope and its coverage of people who have preexisting conditions or rely on Medicaid.

On Russia, Handel has dismissed the mounting questions about Trumps interactions with law enforcement officials as noise but said she supports letting the facts take us where the facts take us.

Handel has raised more than $5 million, putting her far behind Ossoff, but she has been boosted by outside groups that have spent more than $11 million on her behalf. A political action committee aligned with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) has been particularly active.

Ossoffs droves of volunteers have drawn notice. During a recent trip to the district, The Washington Post encountered numbers of them in blue T-shirts going door to door  a glimpse into the energy on the Democratic side, especially among progressive millennial-age voters who see Trump as anathema to their views.

Ossoff said Friday on MSNBC that he has built a coalition of Democrats, independents and Republicans.

But as she stood Saturday in front of an enormous American flag at an airport hangar, Handel described Ossoff as a liberal interloper who had values from 3,000 miles away in San Francisco.

It was a return to traditional partisan themes, seemingly as a reminder to any Republican tempted to stay home or vote for Ossoff.

We are going to show up on Tuesday, and were going to rock Nancy Pelosis world, Handel said to cheers.
The array of legal and political threats hanging over the Trump presidency has compounded the White Houses struggles to fill out the top ranks of the government.

Trumps firing of FBI Director James B. Comey last month and the escalating probe into Russian interference in the presidential election have made hiring even more difficult, say former federal officials, party activists, lobbyists and candidates who Trump officials have tried to recruit.

Republicans say they are turning down job offers to work for a chief executive whose volatile temperament makes them nervous. They are asking head-hunters if their reputations could suffer permanent damage, according to 27 people The Washington Post interviewed to assess what is becoming a debilitating factor in recruiting political appointees.

[Trump lashes out at Russia probe; Pence hires a lawyer]

The hiring challenge complicates the already slow pace at which Trump is filling senior leadership jobs across government.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

The White House disputed the notion that the administration has a hiring problem and noted that its candidates must be vetted by the FBI and the Office of Government Ethics before being announced publicly, which might contribute to the perception that there is a delay in filling key posts.

I have people knocking down my door to talk to the presidential personnel office, said White House press secretary Sean Spicer. There is a huge demand to join this administration.

The White House picked up the hiring pace in May and the first half of June, particularly for positions needing confirmation. It has advanced 92 candidates for Senate confirmation, compared with 59 between Trumps inauguration and the end of April.

But the Senate has just 25 working days until it breaks for the August recess. At this point, Trump has 43 confirmed appointees to senior posts, compared with the 151 top political appointees confirmed by mid-June in President Barack Obamas first term and the 130 under President George W. Bush, according to data tracked by The Post and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Services Center for Presidential Transition.

For Cabinet posts, the median wait between nomination and Senate vote for Trump was 25 days, according to data collected by The Post. By contrast, Obamas nominees faced a median wait of two days, George W. Bush had a median wait of zero days and Bill Clinton had a median wait of one day.

A White House official said about 200 people are being vetted for senior-level posts.

Potential candidates are watching Trumps behavior and monitoring his treatment of senior officials. Trump is becoming radioactive, and its accelerating, said Bill Valdez, a former senior Energy Department official who is now president of the Senior Executives Association, which represents 6,000 top federal leaders.

1 of 58 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  A look at President Trumps first year in office, so far View Photos Scenes from the Republicans first months in the White House. Caption Scenes from the Republicans beginning months in the White House. Jan. 25, 2017 Trump signs an executive order for border security and immigration enforcement improvements at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington. Chip Somodevilla/Pool photo via Bloomberg News Wait 1 second to continue.

[Trump, furious and frustrated, gears up to punch back at Comey testimony]

He just threw Jeff Sessions under the bus, Valdez said, referring to recent reports that the president is furious at the attorney general for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. If youre working with a boss who doesnt have your back, you have no confidence in working with that individual.

Although Trump has blamed Senate Democrats for blocking his nominees, the personnel situation has many causes. After Trumps November victory, hiring got off to a slow start during the transition, and some important positions have run into screening delays as names pass through several White House aides who must give approval. Some prominent private-sector recruits backed off because they would face a five-year post-employment ban on lobbying.

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, who was being considered for an assistant secretary position at the Department of Homeland Security, was the latest to withdraw his name from consideration on Saturday. A person close to the administration who is familiar with the matter said long delays contributed to Clarkes decision.

[This Beltway insider is in charge of hiring for the Trump administration. Its taking a while.]

The Trump team has not faced the same issues with mid- and entry-level jobs. It has hired hundreds of young Republican staffers into positions that are resume-builders  and has filled some senior posts that do not require Senate approval.

Other candidates told The Post they would eagerly serve but are simply waiting for offers.

But as the president continues to sow doubts about his loyalty to those who work for him, most recently with his tweets on Friday that appeared to attack Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a number of qualified candidates say they see little upside to joining government at this time. They include eight Republicans who said they turned down job offers out of concern that working for this administration could damage their reputation.

Republicans have become so alarmed by the personnel shortfall that in the past week a coalition of conservatives complained to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. We remain very concerned over the lack of secondary and tertiary executive-level appointments, they said in a letter signed by 25 prominent conservatives called the Coalitions for America, describing their concern that the leadership vacuum will create mischief and malfeasance by civil servants loyal to Obama.

The letter culminated weeks of private urging by top conservatives, said Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, who helped lead the effort. Theyre sensitive about it, and theyre trying to do better.

Fitton said that some candidates have faced inexplicable delays on job offers. People are waiting to hear back. Promises are made but not kept. People are left stranded. Positions are implied, and people are left hanging.

[President Trumps claim his nominees faced record-setting long delays]

In a town where the long hours and financial sacrifice of working in government are outweighed by the prestige of a White House or agency job, the sacrifice is beginning to look less appealing.

Potential candidates question whether they could make a lasting contribution in an administration whose policies often change directions. They worry that anyone in the White House, even in a mid-level post, faces the possibility of sizable legal bills serving on a team that is under investigation. And then there are the tweets.

You can count me out, said an attorney who served in the George W. Bush administration and has turned down senior-level legal posts at several agencies, including the Justice Department. This attorney, like others who talked candidly about job offers from the administration, spoke on the condition of anonymity, either because their employers do business with the government or they fear retribution from Republican leaders.

The attorney described an equally incoherent and unclear leadership at many agencies, in particular at the Justice Department, where the attorney characterized Sessionss push for stricter sentences for drug crimes as 1982 thinking that the Republican Party has largely abandoned.

Another person in line for a senior legal post who pulled out after Comeys firing said, I decided, What am I doing this for? 

He described a disorganized paperwork process that threatened to leave him unprepared for Senate confirmation, and said he was disgusted that Rosenstein was hung out to dry as the president claimed at first that the deputy attorney general orchestrated Comeys firing.

You sit on the tarmac for quite some time, you see smoke coming out of the engine and you say, Im going back to the gate,  he said.

[Slow pace of nominations leaves Cabinet secretaries in limbo]

In recent weeks, several high-profile D.C. attorneys and law firms have turned down offers to represent Trump in the ongoing Russia probe, some of them citing a reluctance to work with a client who notoriously flouts his lawyers legal advice.

And the White Houses top communications job has been vacant since Mike Dubke resigned in May.

[Dubke resigns as White House communications director]

Lawyers and candidates for White House jobs are particularly wary now, several people said.

What theyre running into now is, for any job near the White House, people are going to wonder, Am I going to have to lawyer up right away?  said Eliot Cohen, a top official in George W. Bushs State Department and a leading voice of opposition to Trump among former Republican national security officials during the campaign.

Theyre saying, Tell me about professional liability insurance. 

A longtime GOP activist and former Bush appointee said he rejected offers for several Senate-confirmed jobs because of his policy differences with Trump.

There are a number of people who are loyal Republicans but who dont feel comfortable with either [the administrations] trade positions, or the Muslim [travel] ban or the overall volatility of this administration. We just dont feel its very professional.

One prominent Bush-era Republican had a more measured view.

Everybodys trying to draw cosmic conclusions about the Trump administration, and my view is its still too soon to know what were working with, said a former high-ranking Bush national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. He said a chief executive such as Trump who comes in as head of a political insurgency needs time to hire at least some people to his team who have not served in government before.

Others, though, say they have already seen signs of change that make them uneasy.

How do you draw people to the State Department when theyre cutting the budget by 30 percent? asked Elliot Abrams, a national security veteran of the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations who was Secretary of State Rex Tillersons first pick for deputy secretary before the White House rejected him for criticizing Trump during the campaign. Abrams also cited the presidents last-minute decision to remove language from a speech in Brussels in May that affirms the United States commitment to NATO allies mutual defense.

Its much harder to recruit people now, Abrams said.

A senior White House official suggested that some people might have been considered but never officially offered an administration job because of vetting concerns or simply because they were not a good fit for the position.

In some cases, its just sour grapes, the official said.

Greg Jaffe contributed to this report.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) questions former CIA director John Brennan during a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on May 23 on Capitol Hill. Gowdy is now chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Rep. Trey Gowdy secured one of Congresss most powerful investigative posts last week. But it remains unclear how  or if  hell use it to investigate President Trump.

Voted in as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, Gowdy (R-S.C.) possesses nearly boundless jurisdiction to probe executive branch misdeeds and abuses.

[Trey Gowdy poised to seize House Oversight gavel after Jason Chaffetz departs]

His predecessor, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who is retiring from Congress next week, had taken some halting steps to investigate Trump  requesting, for instance, memorandums written by former FBI director James B. Comey about his meetings with the president and documents related to Trump's downtown Washington hotel.

But there are signs that Gowdy, a former state and federal prosecutor who led the rancorous House probe into the 2012 Benghazi attacks, may defer those inquiries to other congressional investigations and to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

1 of 58 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  A look at President Trumps first year in office, so far View Photos Scenes from the Republicans first months in the White House. Caption Scenes from the Republicans beginning months in the White House. Jan. 25, 2017 Trump signs an executive order for border security and immigration enforcement improvements at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington. Chip Somodevilla/Pool photo via Bloomberg News Wait 1 second to continue.

The last thing hell want to do is impede any sort of investigation, Chaffetz said of Gowdy. But we also have duties and obligations in the House. I trust that hell find the proper balance to that, and its a tricky one. Its not easy.

[Chaffetz will leave Congress June 30; Gowdy favored as next House Oversight chairman]

Gowdys office declined requests for an interview last week, citing an ongoing review of the committees staff and agenda. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Saturday, Gowdy said he saw his tenure as a rare opportunity to depoliticize oversight and said he had confidence in Mueller to lead the criminal probe into Trumps orbit. He said he would prefer the committee focus on issues such as the federal workforce, the coming 2020 Census and drafting reform legislation.

A GOP aide acknowledged last week that Gowdy had conversations with other committee chairmen in recent weeks about their potentially overlapping jurisdiction.

Rep. Gowdy respects the jurisdiction of each committee and has had similar conversations with all committee chairs, the aide said. House rules clearly lay out the jurisdiction of each committee.

Any decision to bow out of probing Trump could spark a partisan battle on the Oversight Committee, angering Democrats who watched Chaffetz and Gowdy vigorously pursue politically damaging probes into former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton ahead of last years election.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), the second-ranked Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said any move to have the panel step aside from Trump probes would be a recipe for very serious friction on the committee.

We are increasingly going to demand robust oversight on what we consider to be one of the most serious threats to American democracy, he said.

Several Republican members and aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe Gowdys thinking before he publicly unveils his oversight priorities, said the 52-year-old South Carolinian is mindful of staying in his investigative lane.

Gowdy not only conducted criminal investigations before joining Congress, but he also now sits on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees  both panels with pending oversight interests in the Trump administration. Gowdy will be wary, the Republicans said, of treading on his colleagues turf or interfering with Muellers probe.

Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.), who is leading the Intelligence panels investigation into alleged Russian election interference and possible Trump links, said last week he had some brief conversations on the subject with Gowdy.

I think Trey and I will work well together, he said. Obviously, hes got two hats, and so I trust him to be able to manage that.

Democrats have little patience for the notion that the Trump probes might be left to other committees. They pointed to multiple Obama administration issues in which the House Oversight panel conducted its own  often higher-profile  investigations of matters that were also being probed by other committees of jurisdiction.

Four other House committees  Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Judiciary  also probed the Benghazi attack, for instance. The Ways and Means Committee probed reports of the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative nonprofit groups before then-Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) took the lead, and Issas rigorous investigation into the Justice Departments handing of Operation Fast and Furious impinged on the Judiciary Committees turf.

We had hearings on Benghazi. We had hearings on the IRS. That never stopped us before, Connolly said. Both Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz were more than willing to entertain conflict with other committees in order to engage in their own oversight and make their own imprint on the topics. So why would this to be an exception to that rule?

Gowdy has yet to meet as chairman with the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), who has been recovering from heart surgery last month.

In a statement, Cummings said he hoped to talk to Gowdy about continuing bipartisan oversight initiatives on prescription drug prices and other issues, and also about exercising the panels unique jurisdiction over White House officials, which includes the vetting system, the security clearance process, and the compliance with ethics rules.

Chaffetz himself emphasized the breadth of the Oversight panels portfolio and said Gowdy will have considerably leeway to pick his targets.

The beauty of the Oversight Committee is you have far-and-wide reach of jurisdiction, he said. Theres nothing that really holds you back. Hes very collegial and will want to work closely with the other committees, but he can still do it if he wants to.

Treading on others turf can be treacherous in terms of the internal politics of the House, however, and Gowdy is widely seen among his GOP colleagues as a team player who is unlikely to rock boats for his own aggrandizement.

[Why is Jason Chaffetz, who is quitting Congress, suddenly the face of its investigation into Trump?]

Chaffetz was not always seen in that light, and his quick move earlier this year to seek Comeys memos raised some hackles, according to several members and aides.

Thats water under the bridge, Conaway said, acknowledging the tensions. I have great confidence in Trey.

Gowdy is a conservative Republican, but he also has few personal or political ties to Trump. He endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida during the presidential race, and took heat from the Trump for the endorsement. His hearings were a disaster, Trump said of Gowdy on Fox News in December 2015, referring to the Benghazi probe. Earlier this year, Gowdy returned donations from a pro-Trump super PAC, and he said in the Wall Street Journal interview that he has made an assiduous attempt to keep his distance from the president.

There are pending committee inquiries into Trump matters that Gowdy now inherits. In late May, for instance, the FBI responded to Chaffetzs request for Comeys memos by citing Muellers appointment and saying it would undertake appropriate consultation to ensure all relevant interests implicated by your request are properly evaluated.

How [Gowdy] deals with that, what he does, I dont yet know, Chaffetz said of the special counsel. Its up to him.

Even if Gowdy were to give Mueller a wide berth, Democrats say he still has plenty of space to explore other Trump allegations  particularly whether the president is violating his hotel lease and potentially the Constitution by continuing to own major assets while in office.

[Meet Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the Democrat fast becoming the face of opposition to President Trump]

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee who also served with Gowdy on the Benghazi panel, said he hoped Gowdy would show the same diligence about looking into this administration as they did looking into the last one and cited the constitutional prohibition on accepting foreign gifts or emoluments.

There certainly appear to be violations of the emoluments clause on a pretty daily basis, and somebody needs to investigate those, Schiff said. Those are not within the purview, for the most part, of the Intelligence Committee. They are directly under the purview of Government Reform.

[Top Democrat on intelligence panel accuses White House of trying to distract Congress from Russia investigation]

Read more at PowerPost
As American military officials complete plans that are likely to send several thousand additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, a flurry of setbacks in the war have underscored both the imperative of action and the pitfalls of various approaches.

Further complicating the picture are questions about how to deal with neighboring Pakistan and balance separate fights against Afghan and foreign-based insurgents.

In the latest attack Sunday morning, Taliban fighters stormed a police base in southeastern Paktia province after detonating a suicide car bomb outside. At least five members of security forces and several civilians were killed, officials said. The attack came one day after an Afghan army commando shot and wounded seven U.S. troops inside an army base in northern Balkh province.

Almost every week seems to bring alarming and embarrassing developments that cast doubt on the ability of Afghan security forces to protect the public and make headway against the domestic Taliban insurgency and the more ruthless Islamic State.

From the powerful truck bomb that decimated a high-security district of Kabul on May 31, killing more than 150 people and sparking days of protests, to the Saturday shooting at the same base in Balkh where Taliban infiltrators killed more than 140 Afghan soldiers April 21, a spate of attacks from various sources is inflicting blow after blow on the nations battered psyche.

The Saturday shooting was one of several recent insider attacks that are raising new concerns about poor vetting and conflicting loyalties, even among the elite Afghan special operations forces that the U.S. military sees as crucial to boosting the war effort. Experts said such attacks would be likely to increase if more U.S. troops arrive.

In eastern Nangahar province, where Afghan and U.S. special operations forces have been waging a joint campaign against Islamic State fighters, another Afghan army commando  reportedly a Taliban sympathizer or member  fatally shot three U.S. troops June 10.

U.S. military officials have claimed to be making steady progress in that fight. In April, the United States dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on a complex of caves and tunnels used by Islamic State fighters, reportedly killing 92.

But last week, in an equally dramatic response, hundreds of Islamic State fighters captured Tora Bora, the underground labyrinth that was once the redoubt of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Underscoring the confused battlefield situation, it was the Taliban that Islamic State forces fought and drove out of the area.

U.S. military officials have expressed growing concern about the war and urged that several thousand more U.S. troops be sent to shore up Afghan forces. Fewer than half of the countrys 407 districts are under full government control, and Taliban forces have come close to occupying several provincial capitals.

But no new U.S. policy or troop numbers have yet been announced, reportedly because of disagreements within the Trump administration. They include arguments over whether sending more troops would make a decisive difference, how much NATO allies should contribute and whether the United States should pressure Pakistan to rein in Taliban insurgents believed to be operating from safe havens there.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who was recently given authority by President Trump to set troop levels in the Afghan conflict, said last week that the United States is not winning in Afghanistan and that the Pentagon will present its strategy plan next month. We will correct this as soon as possible, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Both Afghan and American analysts, however, doubt that adding several thousand more troops to the 8,400 currently here will make much difference in a war that at one point involved 140,000 U.S. and NATO forces. They stress that U.S. policy also needs a strong political component to strengthen the government and push for reconciliation.

Its clear that the U.S. cannot win this war militarily, said Michael Kugelman at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. The Taliban insurgency seems to strengthen by the day, the Islamic State remains resilient, public anger is building and Afghan troops are turning on their American trainers.

He said the new U.S. policy cant come soon enough, but deploying a few thousand new troops will do little to shift the calculus on the ground.

Afghan analysts and officials argue that the top U.S. priority should be pressing Pakistan to cease harboring anti-Afghan militants. A spokesman for the defense ministry said Sunday that the U.S. government needs to put real pressure on Pakistan to make it drop its support for terrorists.

Atiqullah Amarkhel, a retired Afghan army general, said that the government is facing an agile guerrilla enemy and that United States needs to focus on cutting its lines of supply and support and training in Pakistan. Sending more U.S. troops, he added, will give more ammunition for insurgents to attract recruits among young and jobless Afghans.

Mattis said the Pentagon plans to take a regional approach to the war and address where this enemy is fighting from, which is not just Afghanistan. Afghan officials have been more blunt, accusing Pakistan of harboring a violent Taliban branch called the Haqqani Network.

At a conference this month, President Ashraf Ghani charged that Pakistan is waging an undeclared war of aggression on Afghanistan. Pakistans military commanders bristled at the unwarranted accusations and said Afghans should look inward to solve their insurgent problems.

Some members of Congress and U.S. think tanks have urged the Trump administration to crack down heavily on Pakistan, a former Cold War ally and a major recipient of U.S. aid. Clearly worried, Pakistani officials have denounced recent terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and have strongly denied backing the Haqqani Network.

But other voices have argued against putting excess pressure on Pakistan, saying it could risk political instability and religious unrest. Pakistan has suffered from years of militant attacks, most recently a spate of suicide bombings at Sufi shrines and other civilian targets in February.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told a congressional hearing last week that the United States has very complex relations with Pakistan, but Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) insisted that if we dont succeed in Afghanistan, it is because of Pakistans military-run intelligence service.

On the problem of insider attacks, Amarkhel said it is easy for anti-government sympathizers to penetrate the ranks of the security forces, because poor security and vetting make it difficult to assess recruits.

It is hard to find the enemy within yourself, he said, adding that the Afghan military leadership is weak and politicized. The recent insider attacks are not the first ones and will not be the last.

U.S. watchdog agencies have noted that corruption and nepotism within the Afghan military leadership have undermined the capacity of its forces, but changes in top officials appear to have made little difference. After the April 21 attack on the base in Balkh, Ghani dismissed both the defense and interior ministers.

Salahuddin reported from Kabul. Sharif Walid in Kabul and Haq Nawaz Khan and Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Read more:

Taliban attacks key Afghan police base, killing at least five officers

A U.S. troop increase would aim to double the size of Afghanistans special operations unit

Massive blast in the heart of Kabuls diplomatic quarter kills at least 80

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
 Emmanuel Macron was projected to win a large parliamentary majority Sunday, with the centrist party he founded little more than a year ago triumphing at the polls.

Although the result was expected after an earlier round of voting last week, the rise of Macrons pro-Europe, pro-business party represented a watershed moment in modern French politics. In a system that has only ever been governed by the center-left or the center-right, Sundays vote marked the beginning of a French third way, a government from the center that once seemed impossible.

Macrons Republic on the Move party was projected to win at least 355 of 577 total seats in Frances National Assembly, according to French polling institutes. Although the figures were not as high as initially anticipated  and voter abstention approached a record percentage  the victory still represented the emergence of a powerful new political force in France.

This Sunday, you gave a clear majority to the president of the republic and to the government, said Edouard Philippe, Frances prime minister. It will have a mission: to act for France. By their vote, the French, in their great majority, preferred hope to anger, confidence to withdrawal.

After a year that saw landmark victories for populist campaigns in Britain and the United States, Macrons election in May was widely seen as bucking an international trend. And now, France has placed its trust in Macrons ambitious, as-yet-untested political program, giving him a rare carte blanche to make good on his promise to renew political life.

Macron shakes hands with supporters during a ceremony honoring Charles de Gaulles wartime call for the French to resist Nazi Germany. (Bertrand Guay/European Pressphoto Agency)

For Macrons aides, the victory of his party was itself a renewal, given that half its candidates were women and many were minorities in a country where neither group has traditionally been well represented in public life.

For the first time under the Fifth Republic, the National Assembly will be profoundly renewed, more diverse, younger, with many professional, community and political backgrounds, said Catherine Barbaroux, the interim president of Republic on the March, in a speech Sunday night.

For analysts, the astonishing success of the newly founded party suggested the French peoples desire to give their new president, who calls himself neither left nor right, a chance.

It reflects a judgment of the first weeks in power of Emmanuel Macron, said Dominique Moisi, a foreign policy adviser at the Institut Montaigne, a Paris think tank close to the Macron campaign.

They elected him, but they were not sure at first, Moisi added. Then they saw that he was incarnating the republic better than their previous president.

Predecessor Francois Hollande, in whose administration Macron briefly served as economy minister, was the most unpopular head of state in modern French history. Following a constant string of terrorist attacks, stagnant unemployment figures and an unresolved migrant crisis, the executive branch plummeted in the esteem of many French voters. In some polls, Hollandes approval rating reached the single digits.

By contrast, Moisi said, Macron  after just one month in office  has asserted himself as a force to be reckoned with on the world stage, projecting the image of a strong and powerful France that recalls the stubborn statesmanship of Charles de Gaulle.

National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who lost the presidential race to Macron, won a seat in Parliament in Sundays elections. (Denis Charlet/AFP via Getty Images)

First, Macron faced off against President Trump in a six-second handshake, and publicly criticized his American counterparts decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords, inviting  in fluent English  American climate scientists and researchers to relocate to France. Then he launched a catchphrase that played with Trumps campaign slogan: Make Our Planet Great Again.

Several days later, Macron stood in the gilded halls of the Palace of Versailles outside Paris next to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Instead of making nice, the 39-year-old French president, the youngest in history, used the subsequent news conference to blast Russias state-owned media outlets, such as Sputnik and Russia Today, as organs of influence and propaganda.

But at the same time, Frances 2017 elections, which concluded Sunday with the second and final round of voting for parliamentary candidates, reached a different sort of historic mark, as well: Never before has voter abstention been so high, at roughly 58 percent, according to one exit poll.

That called into question the legitimacy of Macrons otherwise unprecedented mandate.

Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader Macron crushed in the presidential election but who ultimately won a parliamentary seat in the Pas-de-Calais region, wasted no time attacking the strength of the presidents mandate in her Sunday victory speech.

Abstention has broken new records, and mistrust of the republic has reached a peak, she said. This abstention considerably weakens the legitimacy of the new National Assembly. To this is added the very serious lack of representation of the chamber elected tonight. It is scandalous that a movement such as ours, with 6.7 million voters in the presidential elections, cannot obtain a group in the National Assembly.

Including Le Pen, eight members of the National Front were projected to win parliamentary seats, an increase from the two the party held in the previous Parliament.

For weeks, Macrons opponents and political analysts have worried that Macrons strong majority will enable him to shove changes through Parliament with little regard for opposition input.

In September, for instance, Macron is expected to move a major labor bill through Parliament that would, among other things, give companies the power to lengthen hours and adjust wages on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to having to observe uniform rules. In interviews with French newspapers, the leaders of Frances most powerful labor unions have all warned Macron not to go too far too fast.

But if the remarkable rise of Macron  a political unknown just three years ago  represented a drastic overhaul of Frances political system, Sundays results suggested that there will, in the end, be some semblance of an opposition. Although each of Frances two traditional parties were greatly diminished, the center-right Republicans took 125 seats, while the center-left Socialists took 49.

On the far left, the French Communist Party and France Unbowed, the radical leftist coalition founded by Jean-Luc Melenchon last year, were expected to win 11 and 19 seats, respectively.

Like Le Pen, Melenchon, another defeated presidential candidate who represented a political extreme, took aim at Macrons mandate, especially with regard to the presidents proposed market revisions.

This bloated majority in the National Assembly does not in our eyes have the legitimacy to perpetrate the anticipated social coup, the destruction of all public social order by the repeal of the labor law, Melenchon said.

For others, however, the results suggested a lesson that, in the political landscape of 2017, was perhaps counterintuitive: The center can hold, and the center can grow.

Its interesting that 2016-2017 has seen a dual revolution, Moisi said. In the same sense that no one could have predicted the election of Donald Trump, no one could have predicted the election of Emmanuel Macron.

Read more

Frances Macron is about to expand his power in a remarkable way

Frances Macron flexes newfound international star power

French President Macron blasts Russian state-owned media as propaganda

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Afghan policemen gather at the site of an attack Sunday in Gardez. (AFP/Getty Images)

Taliban fighters stormed a major police base in Afghanistan on Sunday, killing at least five officers, residents and officials said.

The target of Sundays attack in the eastern town of Gardez was a massive facility that is also used as a training center and police headquarters.

The assault began with a suicide car bomb outside the base just before the start of the mornings rush hour, residents said. Militants wearing military uniforms then entered the compound, sparking a gun battle with security forces.

The attack ended midday after nearly six hours of clashes, said Najib Danesh, the interior ministrys chief spokesman.

Civilians as well as officers were wounded both in the gun battle and the car bombs blast, Danesh said. He said five members of the police were killed, although Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed scores of police lost their lives in the attack.

With President Ashraf Ghanis government locked in internal division and amid weeks of protest by a group of people demanding his administrations resignation over rising unrest, the militants have stepped up and broadened their attacks recently.

Sundays attack came a day after an Afghan commando fired on U.S. troops, wounding seven American soldiers. A week earlier, a Taliban infiltrator killed three U.S. troops in eastern Afghanistan.

The attack on the Gardez police base is the second one by the Taliban against a major government military installation since April, when a significant assault by militants on a military base left more than 130 soldiers dead, although the government initially said only a small number were killed.

Read more:

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Iraqi forces faced snipers, mortar fire and booby traps as they began an assault on Mosuls Old City on Sunday, breaking into a maze of narrow streets and alleyways where hundreds of hardened Islamic State militants are expected to make a bloody last stand.

Clouds of smoke rose above the historic city center in the early morning as a barrage of artillery and airstrikes from U.S.-led coalition jets struck militant targets.

From nearby buildings bulldozers could be seen attempting to break through the barricades that marked Islamic State defense lines, coming under heavy fire but eventually opening the way for counterterrorism forces that led the assault.

Intense gun battles broke out after they entered. With the winding streets making car bombs more difficult to mobilize, the militants compensated with antitank weapons and mortar fire, which crashed down into streets behind the front lines. Snipers also waylaid the advance.

They are besieged, they will fight to the death, said Master Sgt. Latif Omran, as his unit, armed with M-4 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, waited just back from the front line for Humvees to ferry them forward.

[Death, death, red death: Residents of Mosuls Old City brace for the militants last stand]

Over the past eight months, the militants have been gradually corralled into the Old City  an area of little more than a square mile on the western banks of the Tigris River.

The loss of their last foothold in Mosul, once the largest city the militants controlled, will strike a huge symbolic blow to the Islamic State. It was in the Old Citys Great Mosque of al-Nuri that the groups leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared the formation of a caliphate three years ago.

Since then the group has lost the majority of its territory in Iraq, while an offensive for Raqqa, the Islamic States Syrian capital, began last month.

However, despite the losses few expect an easy fight for the last few inches of Mosul, where the United Nations estimates that as many as 150,000 civilians remain trapped.

The tiny lanes of the Old City make the terrain particularly challenging for Iraqi forces, as they cant enter many areas with their armored vehicles. Much of the fighting will have to be done on foot.

This is their forward defense line so theres fierce resistance, said Lt. Gen. Abdelwahab al-Saedi, deputy head of the counterterrorism forces, at a base in western Mosul. They are using the mortar shells heavily.

As the assault began, so did the inevitable casualties. Minutes after Omran and his unit left for the front came a crackle over the radio. Our gunner is injured  we need another, came the voice of one officer.

While the counterterrorism forces lead the assault into the center of the Old City, moving east toward the river, army and police forces are supporting their flanks.

On the other side of the front lines, terrified families are trapped in their houses. Sheltering in crowded basements, many have not seen sunlight for weeks. Humanitarian agency workers have urged Iraqi and coalition forces to use caution and restrain the use of heavy weaponry.

The buildings of the old town are particularly vulnerable to collapse even if they arent directly targeted, which could lead to even more civilian deaths than the hundreds killed so far in airstrikes across the rest of the city, said Nora Love, the International Rescue Committees acting country director.

Iraqi commanders and the U.S.-led coalition say they are taking into account the integrity of the buildings and the fact that the militants are using civilians as shields as they carry out strikes. Still, civilians who have managed to dodge Islamic State snipers to flee, and those still trapped inside, say civilians are dying every day in the bombardment.

As the assault began in the morning, three TOS-1 missiles sailed into the city. The thermobaric rockets cause a blast of pressure and can kill over an area of 3,000 square feet in open terrain. They were used on school buildings known to be devoid of civilians, said Col. Arkan Fadhil, who coordinates airstrikes with the coalition. The pressure blast can be contained by surrounding buildings in urban areas, he said.

Counterterrorism forces had taken two of the school buildings by the end of the day, giving them a foothold in the Old City, he said.

About 75 Islamic State militants manned the forward defense line  in groups of two or three  he said. Saedi said counterterrorism forces had taken about 150 yards by the early afternoon. Federal police forces also claimed to have gained around 150 yards.

Instead of being told to stay in their homes as they have been elsewhere, civilians will be asked to evacuate both for their own protection and to make the neighborhood easier to clear, according to commanders.

Over the past five days, loudspeakers have blared into the Old City, promising salvation and urging Islamic State forces  whose numbers are difficult to estimate  to surrender.

But as many as 400 of those inside are hardened foreign fighters, who are likely to fight to the death, said Lt. Gen. Sami al-Aridhi, also a counterterrorism commander. Some Iraqis fighting for the Islamic State have managed to flee with displaced families, he said.

While there is not much ground to cover, some commanders predict the final push for Mosul could last at least a month.

The elite counterterrorism units  which have led the majority of Iraqs fight against the militants over the past three years  have suffered a 40 percent casualty rate since the beginning of the operation, according to U.S. figures, raising concerns about how long they can sustain a prolonged battle. Saedi said the casualty rate remained in the acceptable range.

Read more:

Thousands of Iraqis have fled Mosul, but this American family moved in

Smoke-filled pool halls are back in Mosul. After ISIS, we seek joy.

I thought, this is it: One mans escape from an Islamic State mass execution

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A 2014 aerial view of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Plutonium Facility 4 where production setbacks occurred after a safety near miss. (Google)

An extended shutdown of the nations only scientific laboratory for producing and testing the plutonium cores for its nuclear weapons has taken a toll on Americas arsenal, with key work postponed and delays looming in the production of components for new nuclear warheads, according to government documents and officials.

The unique research and production facility is located at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, the birthplace of the U.S. atomic arsenal. The labs director ordered the shutdown in 2013 after the Washington official in charge of Americas warhead production expressed worries that the facility was ill-equipped to prevent an accident that would kill its workers and potentially others nearby.

Parts of the facility began renewed operations last year, but with only partial success. And workers there last year were still violating safety rules for handling plutonium, the unstable man-made metal that serves as the sparkplug of the thermonuclear explosions that American bombs are designed to create.

Los Alamoss persistent shortcomings in plutonium safety have been cited in more than 40 reports by government oversight agencies, teams of nuclear safety experts and the labs own employees over the past 11 years. Some of these reports say that safety takes a back seat to meeting specific goals for nuclear warhead maintenance and production by private contractors running the labs. Nuclear workers and experts say the contractors have been chasing lucrative government bonuses tied to those goals.

With key work at Los Alamos deferred due to safety problems, officials and experts say the United States risks falling behind on an ambitious $1 trillion update of its nuclear arsenal, which former president Barack Obama supported and President Trump has said he wants to greatly strengthen and expand.

During the hiatus, Los Alamos has had to forego 29 planned tests of the safety and reliability of plutonium cores in warheads now deployed atop U.S. submarine-launched and land-based missiles and in bombs carried by aircraft. The facility also hasnt been able to make new plutonium cores to replace those regularly withdrawn from the nuclear arsenal for testing or to be fit into warheads, which are being modernized for those missiles and bombers at a projected cost of billions of dollars.

The laboratory shut down an important facility doing important work, said James McConnell, the associate administrator for safety, infrastructure and operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semiautonomous arm of the Energy Department, in a recent interview at the agencys Washington headquarters. What we didnt have was the quality program that we want.

Ernest Moniz, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist who served almost four years as President Obamas energy secretary, said in a separate interview that we were obviously quite concerned about the shutdown at Los Alamos. Moniz said he considered the situation there a mess and the testing interruption significant.

I dont think it has, at this stage, in any way seriously compromised the nuclear arsenal, Moniz said. But he added that it was still his conviction that obviously weve got to get back to that work as soon as possible. A mock plutonium core was made at Los Alamos last year in a demonstration timed to coincide with a visit by Ashton B. Carter, then secretary of defense.



U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter tours the Los Alamos National Laboratory Plutonium Facility 4 in 2016. (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

At a public hearing in Santa Fe on June 7, McConnell said that while Los Alamos is making progress, it is still unable to resolve the safety issue that provoked its shutdown four years ago, namely an acute shortage of engineers who are trained in keeping the plutonium at the facility from becoming critical and fissioning uncontrollably. Theyre not where we need them yet, he said of the lab and its managers.

A February report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent safety advisory group chartered by Congress, detailed the magnitude of the gap. It said Los Alamos needs 27 fully qualified safety engineers specialized in keeping the plutonium from fissioning out of control. The lab has 10.

Some of the reports obtained by the Center for Public Integrity described flimsy workplace safety policies that left workers ignorant of proper procedures as well as incidents where plutonium was packed hundreds of times into dangerously close quarters or without the shielding needed to block a serious accident. The safety risks at the Los Alamos plutonium facility, which is known as PF-4, were alarmingly highlighted in August 2011, when a criticality accident, as its known, was narrowly averted, one of several factors prompting many safety officials there to quit.

A criticality accident is an uncontrolled chain reaction involving a fissionable material such as plutonium that releases energy and generates a deadly burst of radiation. Its prevention has been an important challenge for the nuclear weapons program since the 1940s. Criticality accidents have occurred 60 times at various nuclear sites in the last half-century, causing a total of 21 agonizing deaths.

Three workers at Los Alamos died in preventable criticality accidents in the 1940s and 1950s. The most recent criticality-related deaths elsewhere occurred in 1999 at a factory north of Tokyo, where Japanese technicians accidentally mixed too much highly enriched uranium into some wide-mouth buckets. A burst of radiation  and its resulting characteristic blue glow  provoked school and road closures and the evacuation of those living nearby, plus a Japanese government order for 310,000 others to shelter in place.



The building in Japan where a 1999 criticality accident caused deaths and an evacuation. (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)

The problems at Los Alamos were revealed by a year-long investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, which also found several unpublicized accidents at other privately run U.S. nuclear facilities. The investigation, which can be read in full at the Center for Public Integritys website, also showed that the penalties imposed by the government for these errors were typically small, relative to the tens of millions of dollars the NNSA gives to each of the contractors annually in pure profit. Some contractors involved in repeated workplace safety incidents were also awarded contract extensions and renewals by officials in Washington.

Asked about the Los Alamos facilitys record, NNSA spokesman Gregory Wolf responded that we expect our contractors to perform work in a safe and secure manner that protects our employees, our facilities, and the public. When accidents do occur, our focus is to determine causes, identify corrective actions and prevent recurrences.

Kevin Roark, the spokesman for the consortium of firms hired by the government to run the lab, said in an email that he would defer to the NNSAs response. Charles McMillan, the Los Alamos labs director since 2011, who receives government-funded compensation exceeding $1 million a year, declined to be interviewed about its safety records or the national security consequences of the shutdown. But he said in a 2015 promotional video that the only way the lab can accomplish its vital national security mission is by doing it safely.

A near-calamity

Los Alamoss handling of plutonium was the target of internal and external criticism a decade ago, around the time of its takeover by three profit-making firms  Bechtel National Inc., URS (now AECOM) and BWXT Government Group Inc.  in an alliance with the University of California. We couldnt prove we were safe, said Douglas Bowen, a nuclear engineer on the laboratorys criticality safety staff at the time, not even close.

In September 2007, the facility in question  technically known as PF-4 for Plutonium Facility Four and located in a highly secure part of the Los Alamos campus in the mountains above Santa Fe  was shut for a month while managers conducted new training and created an internal safety board to fix its problems. But in 2010, when the Energy Department did a checkup, it found no official notes or records the board had ever met, according to a report at the time.

Alarms were sounded more loudly after a nuclear technician positioned eight plutonium rods dangerously close together inside what is called a glovebox  a sealed container meant to contain the cancer-causing plutonium particles  on the afternoon of Aug. 11, 2011, to take a photograph for senior managers. Doing so posed the risk that neutrons emitted routinely by the metal in the rods would collide with the atoms of other particles, causing them to fission enough to provoke more collisions and begin an uncontrolled chain reaction of atom splitting.

Rods of plutonium placed precariously close for the purpose of taking this 2011 photo. The error caused a multiyear production setback. ( NNSA)

As luck had it, a supervisor returned from her lunch break and noticed the dangerous configuration. But she then ordered the technician to reach into the box and move the rods apart, and a more senior lab official ordered others present to keep working. Both decisions increased, rather than diminished, the likelihood of an accident, because bodies  and even hands  contain water that can reflect and slow the neutrons, increasing the likelihood of a criticality and its resulting radiation burst.

The weird thing about criticality safety is its not intuitive, Don Nichols, a former chief for defense nuclear safety at NNSA, said in an interview. The calculations involved in avoiding criticality  which take account of the shape, size, form, quantity and geometric configuration of the plutonium as it moves through more than a dozen messy industrial processes  are so complex that it takes 18 months of training for an engineer to become qualified, and as many as five years to become proficient.

Thats why the consequences of the 2011 incident were so severe, even though a criticality did not occur. Virtually all the criticality specialists responsible for helping to keep workers safe at Los Alamos decided to quit, having become frustrated by the sloppy work demonstrated in the incident and what they considered the lab managements callousness about nuclear risks when higher profits were at stake, according to interviews and government reports.

Bowen recalled frequently hearing an official with one of the private contractors running PF-4 say we dont even need a criticality-safety program, and that the work was costing the contractor too much money. Former NNSA official Nichols confirmed the exodus of trained experts, saying that due to some mismanagement, people voted with their feet. They left. The attrition rate was around 100 percent, according to a lessons-learned report completed last month by the labs current criticality safety chief and the lone NNSA expert assigned to that issue in the agencys Los Alamos oversight office.



Workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Plutonium Facility 4. (NNSA/Los Alamos)

The exodus provokes the shutdown

The labs inability to fend off a deadly accident eventually became apparent to Washington.

Four NNSA staff members briefed Neile Miller, the agencys acting administrator in 2013, in an anteroom of her office overlooking the Mall that year, Miller recalled. The precise risks did not need an explanation, she said. She said that criticality is one of those trigger words that should immediately get the attention of anyone responsible for preventing a nuclear weapons disaster.

With two of the four experts remaining in her office, Miller picked up the phone that day and called McMillan at the Los Alamos complex, which is financed by a federal payment exceeding $2 billion a year. She recommended that the key plutonium lab inside PF-4 be shut down, immediately, while the safety deficiencies were fixed.

McMillan responded that he had believed the problems could be solved while that lab kept operating, Miller said. He was reluctant to shut it down, she recalled. But as the telephone conversation proceeded, he became open to her view that the risks were too high, she added. So on McMillans order, the lab was shut within a day, with little public notice.

The exact cost to taxpayers of idling the facility is unclear, but an internal Los Alamos report estimated in 2013 that shutting down the facility where such work is conducted costs the government as much as $1.36 million a day in lost productivity.

Initially, McMillan promised the staff that a pause lasting less than a year wouldnt cause any significant impact to mission deliverables. But at the end of 2013, a new group of safety experts commissioned by the lab declared in an internal report that management has not yet fully embraced its commitment to criticality safety. It listed nine weaknesses in the labs safety culture that were rooted in a production focus to meet deadlines. Workers say these deadlines are typically linked to managers financial bonuses.

Los Alamoss leaders, the report said, had made the right promises, but failed to alter the underlying safety culture. The focus appears to remain short-term and compliance-oriented rather than based on a strategic plan, it said.

Shortfalls persisted in 2015, and new ones were discovered while the facility, still mostly shut down, was used for test runs. On May 6, 2015, for example, the NNSA sent Los Alamoss managing contractors a letter again criticizing the lab for being slow to fix criticality risks. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said the letter cited more than 60 unresolved infractions, many present for months or even years.

In January and again in April 2015, workers discovered tubes of liquids containing plutonium in seldom-used rooms at PF-4, with labels that made it hard to know how much plutonium the tubes held or where theyd come from, the safety board said. In May, workers packed a drum of nuclear waste with too much plutonium, posing a criticality risk, and in the ensuing probe, it became clear that they were relying on inaccurate and confusing documentation. Safety experts had miscalculated how much plutonium the drum could safely hold.

These issues are very similar to the issues that contributed to the LANL Directors decision to pause operations in June of 2013, safety board inspectors wrote.

New troubles

In 2016, for the third straight year, the Energy Department and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board each listed criticality safety at Los Alamos as one of the most pressing problems facing the nuclear weapons program, in their annual reports to Congress. Required improvements to the Criticality Safety program are moving at an unacceptably slow pace, the most recent NNSA performance evaluation of Los Alamos, released in Nov. 2016, said.

Hazardous operations at PF-4 slowly started to resume in 2016, but problems continued. In June, after technicians working in a glovebox spilled about 7 tablespoons of a liquid containing plutonium, workers violated safety rules by sopping up the spill with organic cheesecloth and throwing it in waste bins with other nuclear materials, posing the risk of a chemical reaction and fire, according to an internal Los Alamos report. A similar chemical reaction stemming from the sloppy disposal of Los Alamoss nuclear waste in 2014 provoked the shutdown of a deep-underground storage site in New Mexico for the waste for more than two years, a Department of Energy accident investigation concluded. That incident cost the government more than a billion dollars in cleanup and other expenses

Frank G. Klotz, the NNSA director, has tried to be upbeat. In March, he told hundreds of nuclear contractors packed into a Washington hotel ballroom for an industry gathering that PF-4 was fully back in business, having safely resumed all plutonium activities there after a three-year pause.

Klotz said the updated nuclear weapons would be delivered on time and on budget.

But a subsequent analysis by the Government Accountability Office clashed with Klotzs description. In an April report on costs associated with the NNSAs ongoing weapons modernization, the GAO disclosed the existence of an internal NNSA report forecasting that PF-4 will be unable to meet the plutonium-pit production deadlines.

Moreover, late last year when Los Alamos conducted its first scheduled invasive test of a plutonium pit since the shutdown of PF-4 more than three years ago, it did not produce the needed results, according to NNSAs annual evaluation of Los Alamoss performance last year. The test involved the core of a refurbished warhead scheduled to be delivered to the Navy by the end of 2019 for use atop the Trident missiles carried by U.S. submarines. A second attempt involving a different warhead was canceled because the safety analysis was incomplete, NNSAs evaluation said.

The purpose of such stockpile surveillance tests, as Vice President Joe Biden said in a 2010 National Defense University speech, is to anticipate potential problems and reduce their impact on our arsenal. Weapons designers say these tests are akin to what car owners would do if they were storing a vehicle for years while still expecting the engine to start and the vehicle to speed down the road at the sudden turn of a key.

At the public hearing in Santa Fe on June 7, NNSAs McConnell said the agency is studying whether to keep plutonium-pit operations at Los Alamos. Options being considered include upgrading the facilities there or adding capabilities or leveraging existing capabilities elsewhere in the country, at other sites where plutonium is already present or has been used.

Active NNSA sites that fit that description include the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Pantex plant in Texas and the Nevada National Security Site. The NNSA expects to complete its analysis by late summer.

This article is from the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative media organization in Washington.
In the dark of night the weather was clear, with a swell of about six feet.

Near where the sea lanes converge for the run into Tokyo Bay, the USS Fitzgerald was on a routine mission  though in these waters, mariners say, routine means always taking extra caution.

One of the Navys most advanced ships, the Aegis guided-missile destroyer was equipped with the latest and most sophisticated radar equipment. Onboard the 8,315-ton vessel was a crew of 300. On the bridge, a full complement of officers and enlisted personnel was on duty. The commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, was in his cabin, on the starboard side. It was about 2 a.m.

Just offshore from Shimoda, a popular beach resort town on a peninsula at the western entrance to the Sagami Sea, a container ship, the Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal, was sailing east from the port of Nagoya toward Tokyo. Four hundred ships a day sail through this gulf toward Japans biggest port, and the traffic, the scattering of islands, and the lights on land can make navigation extremely difficult. This is a place where vessels  night and day  must take special care to follow the established rules of the road and steer clear of one another.

Early Saturday morning, the Crystal  for reasons that have not been explained  swung around 180 degrees in that busy waterway and doubled back on its course, heading nearly due west.

Aucoin is commander of the Seventh Fleet. (AP)

Minutes later, just before 2:20 a.m., the much larger container ship hit the U.S. warship broadside, just about amidships on the starboard rail, the Navy said. The freighter punched a wide hole into the Fitzgerald, breaching two compartments below the waterline where there were berths for 116 sailors, as well as a machinery room.

However, the timing of the collision is in dispute.

The Japanese shipping company that operates the Crystal, Nippon Yusen K.K., said that the collision happened at 1:30 a.m., an hour before the Navy said it occurred. Marine traffic data showed the Crystal making a sudden U-turn because it likely went back to check on the destroyer, a company spokesman said.

The container ship is now at the port in Yokohama, being unloaded, she said, adding that the company is fully cooperating with the investigation.

A tremendous amount of water flooded through the huge gash, in the words of Vice Adm. Joseph P. Aucoin, commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet. Sailors asleep in their berths woke to a powerful torrent of seawater. Seven sailors never made it out.

There wasnt a lot of time in those spaces that were open to the sea, and as you can see now, the ship is still listing, Aucoin said Sunday at the U.S. naval base at Yokosuka, 50 miles northeast of the collision site. Gesturing to the destroyer, docked behind him with pumps continuing to bring water up out of the hull, he added: They had to fight this ship to keep it above the surface. It was traumatic.

The collision crumpled parts of the ship above deck, too. Benson received a severe head wound and his cabin was destroyed. Hes lucky to be alive, Aucoin said.

1 of 20 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Photos of Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald after collision with container ship View Photos Seven U.S. Navy sailors are missing off the coast of Japan after an Aegis guided-missile destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald, collided with a container ship, causing significant damage and flooding. Caption Seven U.S. Navy sailors are dead after an Aegis guided-missile destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald, collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan. June 17, 2017 The damage on the starboard side of the USS Fitzgerald is seen off the coast of the southeast Japanese city of Shimoda after the Navy destroyer collided with a merchant ship registered in the Phillipines. The Navy says the Fitzgerald also suffered damage below the water line. Iori Sagisawa/Kyodo News via AP Wait 1 second to continue.

The damage could have sunk the Fitzgerald, he said, but for the quick action of the crew.

Aucoin said the bodies of all seven sailors who died were recovered in the berthing compartment after the wounded ship had been taken into port.

The Navy identified them as Gunners Mate Seaman Dakota K. Rigsby, 19, of Palmyra, Va.; Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo A. Douglass, 25, of San Diego; Sonar Technician 3rd Class Ngoc T. Truong Huynh, 25, of Oakville, Conn.; Gunners Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez, 26, of Weslaco, Tex.; Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlosvictor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, of Chula Vista, Calif.; Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier A. Martin, 24, of Halethorpe, Md.; and Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary L. Rehm Jr., 37, of Elyria, Ohio.

When two vessels converge, the one having the other to starboard  to the right  is required to yield. That suggests that the Crystal had the right of way over the Fitzgerald, which was struck on the starboard side, but the details of their collision have not been fully investigated.

The container ship is nearly four times the size of the destroyer, and considerably more cumbersome. The warship is designed to be fast and agile.

We just dont expect a very capable warship to be so badly damaged in a normal, peacetime environment, said Patrick Cronin, head of the Asia-Pacific program at the Center for a New American Security.

But mariners dont expect heavy freighters to turn around in the middle of a busy seaway, either.

In some ways, Cronin said, it didnt matter who had the right of way in this case. In my mind, our destroyer is a more capable, agile ship, so regardless of who has right of way, our ship should be able to take evasive action, he said.

Because of the hour when the collision happened, many sailors were sleeping, but a normal bridge crew was on duty, Aucoin said.

There was no indication of any problem with the navigational equipment, he said.

Photos from the scene showed scrapes on the port side of the Crystals bow. All 20 of the cargo ships crew members were reported unharmed.

American and Japanese investigations are underway to determine how a technologically advanced U.S. warship was not able to avoid the container ship. Aucoin said he would not speculate on how long they would take to get to the bottom of what happened.

This was a severe emergency, Aucoin said. The damage was significant. This was not a small collision.

The destroyer, nicknamed the Fighting Fitz within the Navy, is salvageable, but repairs probably will take months, Aucoin said.

A retired naval officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said he understood the collision had damaged some of the Fitzgeralds advanced combat systems and radio equipment.

Benson was the first to be evacuated from the damaged vessel and is being treated at the U.S. naval hospital at Yokosuka. He was awake but not able to answer questions.

Two other sailors were airlifted off the ship and treated in the hospital for lacerations and bruises. The remains of the sailors who died also were taken to the hospital for identification.

Service members and their relatives took to the 7th Fleets Facebook page to bid the victims fair winds and following seas, shipmates  a traditional mariners farewell.

Collisions at sea have become rare in recent decades as navigational technology has improved.

The current case recalled the collision of the submarine USS Greeneville and a training ship belonging to a Japanese fishery high school off the coast of Hawaii in 2001. The Greeneville surfaced underneath the Japanese ship, sinking it and killing nine people, four of them high school students.

Things like this happen because of human error, sometimes complicated by some technical difficulty, Cronin said, calling it heroic that the Fitzgeralds crew was able to get back to port.

U.S.-Japan cooperation has been fantastic, he said.

Japanese coast guard and military ships assisted with the rescue, and Japanese planes and helicopters searched the waters before the bodies were found.

The Fitzgerald is part of the Yokosuka-based naval group that includes the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, but it was operating independently of the carrier when the collision occurred.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed to this report from Washington.

Read more:

Missing U.S. sailors found dead after collision with ship off coast of Japan

7 U.S. Navy sailors missing off Japans coast

The Navy thought this sailor was lost at sea. He was just found alive  on his own ship

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Germanys Foreign Ministry published a sharply-worded press release Thursday from Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (Social Democrats, SPD) and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern (Social Democrats, SPO) denouncing the United States foreign and economic policies.

Republicans and Democrats agreed almost unanimously, by 97 votes to 2, to impose new sanctions on Russia in the Senate on Wednesday. The Senate justified the measure as a punishment for Moscows alleged meddling in the US presidential election, the annexation of Crimea and its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The bipartisan bill was the package of sanctions the Kremlin deserves for its actions, said Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

Gabriel and Kern brusquely rejected the US Senates measure. The bill was really about the sale of American liquefied gas and the sidelining of Russian gas supplies in the European market, according to the two social democratic politicians. That emerges from the text particularly explicitly. The goal was to secure jobs in the American oil and gas industries.

The US and Europe had since 2014 side by side and in close joint consultation answered Russias annexation of Crimea, which is illegal under international law, and its actions in eastern Ukraine.  But the threat to impose extraterritorial sanctions which violate international law on European companies participating in the expansion of European energy supplies could not be tolerated. Europes energy provision was a European affair, and not one for the United States of America!

Gabriel and Kern went on to warn, Instruments of political sanctions should not be connected with economic interests. Threatening European companies in US markets with punishments if they participate in or finance projects like the Nord Stream II oil pipeline with Russia would introduce an entirely new and extremely negative quality to European-American relations.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel explicitly backed her Foreign Minister on Friday. There was very strong agreement in terms of content with Gabriels statement, stated government spokesman Stefan Seibert. It is, to put it mildly, an unconventional action by the US Senate. It was troubling that European businesses were being targeted by sanctions to punish Russian behaviour. That cannot be allowed, added Seibert.

The bipartisan action by the US Senate and the sharp response from the German government make clear that the conflicts between the US and Germany are not simply intensifying as a result of President Donald Trump, but have deep objective roots. Twenty five years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the conflicts between the major imperialist powers, which resulted in two world wars during the 20th century, are erupting into the open once again.

Following the G7 summit three weeks ago, Merkel, in a speech delivered in a Munich beer tent, called into question the alliance with the United States, which formed the basis of Germanys foreign policy in the post-war era. The times in which we could completely depend upon others are long past, she stated and advanced on this basis the demand, We Euroepans really have to take our fate into our own hands and fight for our own future.

The German government has since worked systematically to expand its global political and economic relations. After Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Berlin at the beginning of the month, and Merkel visited Argentina and Mexico last week, the government organised a major conference on Africa in Berlin earlier this week.

As Berlin moves to fulfil Gabriels pledge to use the spaces vacated by America, the tensions with Washington are rising. Already last week, Gabriel criticised the US-backed action taken by Saudi Arabia against Qatar, which is aimed above all at Iran. In a statement, Gabriel defended the emirate and warned against a Trumpification of relations in the region. The latest gigantic arms deals between US President Trump and the Gulf monarchies intensified the danger of a new arms race. This was a completely wrong policy, and certainly not Germanys policy.

Gabriels statements against the United States have nothing to do with pacifism. He is not concerned with peace, but the enforcement of German imperialist interests, which are increasingly at odds with those of the United States. While the United States under Trump is ever more openly heading in the direction of war with Iran, the German government is striving for a further opening up of the countrys economy to secure new markets for German corporations in the Middle East and new investment opportunities for German capital.

The same applies to Russia. Although the German government supported the right-wing coup against Viktor Yanukovitch alongside the US in Ukraine in 2014, and stationed troops on the Russian border, it opposed open conflict with Russia over Ukraine. In his new book Remeasurements, Gabriel boasts that with the Minsk Accord, France and Germany, on behalf of Europe, while not resolving an escalating conflict, curbed it significantly for the first time, and had done so without the United States.

Washington, at that time, had been close tosupplying weapons to Ukraine, the Foreign Minister stated. With the cynical idea that although Russia could not be defeated militarily, it would be pressurised into peace talks more rapidly if it paid a high price in blood. The war in Ukraine would have become a war over Ukraine. But Europe was grown up enoughto foresee this and to let Germany and France negotiate.

Following Brexit, the election of Trump and the victory of pro-European President Emmanuel Macron, Berlin seemingly feels it is grown up enough to increasingly distance itself from the US and to press ahead with the construction of a European army under German leadership.

Europes security is Europes own responsibility, noted Gabriel in his book. We must become capable of acting strategically in foreign and security policy, because we dont do so enough. That includes us defining our European interests and articulating them independently of the US. This obstinacy requires to some extent an emancipation from the direction adopted in Washington.

He goes on, Whoever has their own goals also should develop their capabilities to achieve them. The EU needs to see itself as a greater security policy power. Our defence budgets must be adjusted accordingly. The armaments of the European armies need to be modernised, made operationally deployable and reoriented to military tasks.

Gabriels declared goal is the building of a veritable European combat power capable of enforcing its global imperialist interests independently of NATO and the US, and, if necessary, against them. The issue is not just to buy new weapons. It is about integrating the arms industry more in Europe and pooling forces. It is about creating a joint European security identity, which opens the way to a European army through ever more closely integrated structures.

This policy, which is supported by all of Germanys parties, from the CDU/CSU to the SPD, Greens and Left Party, has an irresistible logic. As in the first half of the 20th century, the deepening rivalries between the imperialist powers over raw materials, markets and geostrategic influence are leading once again to a war between the great powers, unless the working class intervenes on the basis of its own socialist strategy.
Separate clashes in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 10 people -- five police officers, a soldier, two civilians and two suspected rebels -- authorities said Friday, as violence in the troubled region spikes.

Suspected rebels ambushed a police patrol in the town of Achhabal, killing five police personnel, a top police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Rebels fighting to end Indian rule of Kashmir have stepped up attacks in recent weeks on government forces patrolling the area as counter-insurgency operations intensify.

Earlier, soldiers and a police special counter-insurgency force cordoned off Arwani village on a tip off that armed rebels were hiding in two homes, triggering a firefight, the officer said.

Two civilians, including a teenage boy, were killed when security forces fired at hundreds of villagers who marched to the site of the shootout to help the rebels escape, he added.

Two suspected rebels were also killed in the shootout, the officer said.

The unrest spread to neighbouring villages as thousands of residents clashed with government forces, hurling stones and chanting: "We want freedom" and "Go India, go back".

Separately on Friday, a soldier was killed when Pakistani soldiers fired at Indian posts in southern Naushera along the Line of Control (LoC) that divides Kashmir between the nuclear-armed rivals, an Indian Army spokesman said.

The two armies have traded heavy fire along the de facto border almost daily in recent weeks, killing civilians and soldiers on both sides while accusing each other of breaching a 2003 ceasefire agreement.

Kashmir has been divided between the arch rivals since the end of British colonial rule in 1947, but both claim the Himalayan territory in full.

India maintains roughly 500,000 soldiers in the territory and blames Pakistan for fomenting unrest. Islamabad denies the allegation saying it only provides diplomatic support to the Kashmiri struggle for the right of self-determination.

Officials say dozens of youth have joined the rebel ranks since last July after a popular rebel leader was killed by security forces, sparking months of wide-scale protests in the territory.
Geneva (AFP) - The UN said Friday that Islamic State group jihadists may be holding more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians as human shields in the Old City of Mosul.

Iraqi forces are fighting to retake Mosul from IS, after the jihadist group overran the city in 2014, imposing its brutal rule on its inhabitants.

The UN refugee agency's representative in Iraq Bruno Geddo said IS had been capturing civilians in battles outside of Mosul and had been forcing them into the Old City, one of the last parts of the city in their grip.

"More than 100,000 civilians may still be held in the Old City," Geddo told reporters in Geneva.

"We know that ISIS moved them with them as they left locations where the fighting was going on," he said, using another acronym for IS, which is also known as Daesh or ISIL.

"These civilians are basically held as human shields in the Old City."

With virtually no food, water or electricity left in the area, the civilians are "living in an increasingly worsening situation of penury and panic," he said.

"They are surrounded by fighting on every side."

Snipers meanwhile try to kill anyone trying to leave the area under jihadist control, he said, adding that the few who manage to escape are "deeply traumatised."

Since the battle to retake Mosul began nine months ago, an estimated 862,000 people have been displaced from the city, although 195,000 have since returned, mainly to the liberated east of the city.

That means 667,000 people remain displaced, nearly all of them from western Mosul, and are living in 13 camps set up by UNHCR or with host families.

Geddo said the UN agency so far had provided assistance to more than 500,000 of the displaced people, and was also attempting to help those returning to Mosul, often to live in bombed-out buildings.

"Many of these people are returning  to situations of penury," he warned.
Three teenage Los Angeles police cadets allegedly stole three patrol SUVs that were Los Angeles Police Department vehicles, Wednesday and went on patrol around the city before leading officers on two separate chases that resulted in crashing of two of the vehicles in South Los Angeles, Chief Charlie Beck said on Thursday. Chief Beck also stated that the teenagers "may have been impersonating" police while they drove the stolen vehicles.

The trio including two boys and a girl aged 15, 16, 17 respectively, "gamed the system" and used an on-leave officers name to take out stun guns and radios and eventually drive the cars out of the station house parking lot, Beck said. The officers have been investigating whether the teenagers impersonated the police and forcefully pulled over drivers.

Read: Don Cheadle Hosts Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation Celebrity Poker Tournament

The search and investigations started around 5 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, according to the authorities, who stated that a watch commander saw a CCTV footage of a young girl filling gas into an LAPD vehicle. The commander immediately checked the vehicle inventory to find that two cars were missing. Following this, around 8:30 p.m. EDT, an officer had found the vehicles being driven carelessly and a chase began. The trio were arrested, Wednesday after the chase ended with crashes of two vehicles in South Los Angeles. A third police car was also found later around the corner from a police station.

The teenagers were booked on charges including stealing the police vehicles and theft of other property found inside the cars. Two radios, two tasers, along with a bullet proof vest were also recovered from the cars.

Beck mentioned during press conference, Thursday that he had ordered a full-length review of the department's cadet program and policies in order to manage the inventory.

Story continues

"We are going to take this apart top to bottom," Beck said at the press conference. "We're going to see what we can do better and we're going to do it."

If the investigations show that the teenagers also impersonated the police, then they will be separately penalized for the offense.

"We believe that the cadets may have impersonated police officers using these vehicles. We would like anybody who has information on that type of activity being conducted by very young appearing male and female partners to call the Los Angeles Police Department," Beck said.

According to law in California, impersonating a police or other law enforcement officer is a "misdemeanor under California Penal Code 538d PC.1. You can be charged with impersonating a police officer even if no one was harmed by your actions and you derived no benefit from them."

However, according to Santa Ana Criminal Defense Attorney Elisa Guadan: "Note that this does not mean that you can be arrested and charged with police impersonation if you dress up as an officer for Halloween, or for a play, or as a joke. California law requires that you intend to fraudulently cause another person to believe that you are an officer."

Read: Los Angeles Police Brutality: How Much Has LAPD Changed From Its Image In 'Straight Outta Compton'?

The law also states: "If you violate this law by using a uniform, insignia, emblem, device, label, certificate, card or writing of a peace officer, the potential penalties will include up to six months in county jail; and/or a fine of up to one thousand dollars."

However, there is also an exception to the law, which is if you violate only using a badge then the penalties will increase. The violator may then face up to one year in county jail, and/or a fine of up to two thousand dollars.

Beck stated that the investigation is still ongoing and several other interviews of officers, other cadets and other police personnel will be done to complete a thorough investigation.

"We're going to take this apart top to bottom. We're going to see what we can do better," Beck said. "We don't want to give anybody the ability to cross the line if we can help it."

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Amazons planned purchase of organic-food chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion is one more sign that the born-and-raised online retailer wants to be the singular place Americans go to shop, even if that means walk-in stores.

For grocery shoppers, Amazons move is likely to bring more food choices and lower prices. The existing Whole Foods stores give Amazon a bigger distribution network for its delivery business, so they will be able to reach more customers.

Amazon can be expected to work to deliver better value to grocery customers, both online and within the brick-and-mortar space, says Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst with Bankrate.

The deal, which is expected to close in the second half of this year, would give Amazon access to 460 Whole Foods locations in the U.S., Canada, and Britain.

In key ways, Amazon already has tried to disrupt the supermarket industry by experimenting with home grocery delivery and by setting up pickup spots for online orders.

Amazon has played in the grocery space for years, but this latest move signals that the online giant is more focused on the industry and looking to dramatically disrupt how Americans buy food.

Making Food Shopping More Convenient

Consumers love the idea of skipping the checkout line and ordering food from their laptop or mobile deviceto be delivered at a time thats convenient for them.

AmazonFreshs website is easy to use and information-richwith a click you can access even more nutritional information about the various foods for sale than youre likely to easily find in a supermarket.

In Seattle, Amazon is experimenting with two locations with kiosks where shoppers can pickup online grocery orders.

Walk-in supermarkets are responding to Amazon by upping their delivery game. Kroger and Walmart having begun testing door-to-door delivery in certain locations, and regional supermarket giant Publix is testing home delivery in certain areas of the Southeast.

Story continues

Traditional chain supermarkets are also trying out other services that make grocery shopping less of a time-eating chore. Walmart offers a click and collect system called Online Grocery Pickup in more than 30 states: Consumers buy online and drive to a Walmart store to pick up their bagged orders at designated times for no fee. Krogers ClickList service, available at 300 stores, works the same way.

Driving Prices Down

AmazonFreshs real boon to consumers is its food delivery, but its low prices are another draw.

AmazonFresh is a low-cost leader when it comes to shelf-stable packaged foods, says Burt Flickinger III, managing director at Strategic Resource Group, a consumer industry consulting firm based in New York City.

These cheaper foods include condiments such as ketchup and mustard, canned foods, pasta, cereals, and health bars. Flickinger says Amazons prices on these foods are 12 to 20 percent lower than those at Jet.com, an e-commerce site owned by Walmart.

One way Amazon keeps prices low is by unbundling large packs of food, like the kind you see at warehouse clubs such as Costco, and selling the components individually, says Sam Gagliardi, head of e-commerce at IRI Worldwide, a market research firm in Chicago. In this way Amazon is able to pass the savings on to its customers. Amazon also sells baby food at cost to entice busy parents to become loyal customers, according to IRI.

Access to good value, ironically, comes at a cost. To shop at AmazonFresh, you have to be a Prime member, which costs $99 per year. You also have to pay an AmazonFresh a $15 monthly fee that covers unlimited orders of $40 or more. If your order comes to less than $40, there is a $10 delivery fee.

Bringing the Future to the Food-Shopping Experience

Amazon's approach could eventually influence the operation of walk-in stores.

Last year the retail giant announced the opening of a new grocery store prototype in Seattle with no checkout lanes. Instead of paying at a cashier (self-checkout or otherwise) customers will simply grab what they want and leave, without ever engaging with an employee. This would work through a smartphone app and sensors placed throughout the store. Payment would be automatic through an app link to a customers mobile-payment service. The opening of this store, originally scheduled for March, has been postponed for technical reasons.

But customers who want a futuristic shopping experience right now can try Alexa, the digital assistant that lives in Amazons Echo smart speaker and other devices.

If you realize youre out of milk, you can ask Alexa to add it to your AmazonFresh order or any other grocery list. If theres any uncertainty as to what you exactly want, Alexa will list a handful of related products with prices that you can pick from. And Amazon is using other devices to make reordering the stuff you use easier, too. The newest version of its Dash Wand includes Alexa capabilities, which the company hopes will encourage more Prime members to order more kinds of items more often.





More from Consumer Reports:

Top pick tires for 2016

Best used cars for $25,000 and less

7 best mattresses for couples





Copyright  2006-2017 Consumer Reports, Inc.
When it comes to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, giving away money is no big deal. The problem he faces, however, is where and who to donate it to. To help him make the decision, Bezos sought the advice of Twitter users, taking to his verified account Thursday and posting his plea. By the following day, thousands of responses were posted under his message.

While some of them were selfies, some of the top options were to donate it to people who are victims of sexual abuse or people in the LGBT community who are homeless.

READ: What Is Jeff Bezos' Net Worth?

Theres always a comedian somewhere, and some netziens couldnt help but point out that the day after Bezos, 53, asked what to do with his billions of dollars, he bought Whole Foods, an organic market, for $13.7 billion. Hey, when youre Bezos, thats chump change.

He has an estimated net worth of $82.1 billion and is one of the top three richest men in the country, falling second to Microsoft co-creator Bill Gates, who has an approximate net worth of $89.1 billion.

Some of the suggestions Twitter users offered Bezos have been posted below:

1. Pay Random People: One user suggested that Bezos start a basic income grand experiment and randomly choose 1,000 people to pay $1,000 to a month.

2. Buy Whole Foods: The irony wasnt lost on Twitter users. Normal people: I wish I could spend ALL my money at Whole Foods. Jeff Bezos: I did spend all my money at Whole Foods, user @gabbynadine joked.

3. Donate To True Colors Fund: The program helps to end homelessness among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. Their goal is to create a world in which all young people can be their true selves.

4. Education: Education is a huge issue in the U.S., look at the student debt, people are losing their job and cannot access education, yet many companies, including @amazon, are struggling to find the diverse skilled workforce they need. We need a new college that provides high quality education, user Sylvian Kalache wrote.

Story continues

5. Help Veterans: This suggestion came from user Jake Wood. Repurpose the skills of military veterans to b immediate responders to natural disasters, he wrote. They've already been trainer with taxpayer dollars. Highly skilled and motivated.

6. Donate To Libraries: The Twitter account EveryLibrary asked Bezos for help. Libraries solve many of the issues in education and employment across the United States. We're standing up for them and we'd love your help, they tweeted. Americans rely on the services they get from their libraries to gain employment, start new businesses, and improve their lives.

7. Reform Welfare: Giving people money allows them to have the stability required to hold down a job, one person suggested.

READ: Amazon Buying Slack? Jeff Bezos' Company May Soon Compete With Facebook

Bezos told his followers he wanted to help people in the short term and intersect urgent need and lasting impact.

This tweet is a request for ideas. Im thinking about a philanthropy strategy that is the opposite of how I mostly spend my time  working on the long term. For philanthropy, I find Im drawn to the other end of the spectrum: right now, he tweeted Thursday. But Im thinking I want much of my philanthropic activity to be helping people in the here and now  short term  at the intersection of urgent need and lasting impact. If you have ideas, just reply to this tweet with the idea) and if you think this approach is wrong, would love to hear that too). Thanks! Jeff

Follow me on Twitter @mariamzzarella

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Just how else do you commemorate the Batman, Adam West.

Hundreds of people gathered in downtown Los Angeles to pay tribute to the late actor's life on Thursday night, with the main act being the Bat-Signal shining on City Hall.

SEE ALSO: 'You will always be Batman': Celebrities post tributes to Adam West

The Bat-Signal is used in the series by police to help summon Batman. Perhaps for that reason, the commemorative light was switched on at 9 p.m. local time by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and the city's mayor Eric Garcetti, who addressed the crowd.

"Like you, we all spent many hours in front of the TV, same bat time, same bat channel," Garcetti told the crowd, according to the Associated Press.

"Adam West taught us each one of us had a heart of gold," he added. "There will never be another Batman like Adam West and there will never be another Adam West."
Mom filled charges after she discovered her son locked in a Phenix City daycare closet. (Photo WTVM News Leader 9)

A parents worst nightmare is discovering the trusted person you leave your child to every day while you go to work is mistreating them. For Phenix City, Alabama, mom Sydney Zimmerman this nightmare became a reality.

Zimmerman picked up 22-month-old son Slade from daycare earlier than her usual pickup time. To her horror, Slade was trapped in a closet without any air conditioning, strapped to a car seat that was not even his. Zimmerman says the baby just looked at her and pleaded saying, Mama.

With tears rolling down her face the young mother told WTVM that after she rescued her son she left and called the police.He could have overheated and died, said Zimmerman.

Before officers arrived, daycare owner Cindy Duman called Zimmerman to let her know that the daycare worker, Mary Pruett, put Slade in the closet because he didnt want to go to sleep. Heartbroken, Zimmerman said that she fears that this is not the first time it has happened.

After police launched an investigation, to Zimmermans surprise, the daycare was operating without a license.

Zimmerman is planning to press charges for child endangerment, child neglect, and operating a business without a license.

Lee County Sheriffs Office will release more information on the incident Monday.

I dont wish this on anyone, said Zimmerman.

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.




Most of the general public arent the only ones upset with NBC host Megyn Kelly for interviewing InfoWars founder Alex Jones Sunday. Kelly Nichols, the ex-wife of the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist, reportedly vowed to trash Kelly and her ex-husband since her segment was cut from the interview, Mediaite wrote in an exclusive report Friday.

Nichols demanded to be included in the interview, the publication claimed. If they did not, she threatened them by publishing a scathing op-ed piece where she would condemn her ex-husband and Kelly.

NBC let Kelly have the final say about whether to include Nichols, but the former Fox News host didnt want Jones ex-wife to be a part of their interview.

READ: Alex Jones Says Megyn Kelly's Interview Of Him On NBC Will Be 'Fraud'

She supposedly told NBC executives that would then be a hit piece without giving him the chance to respond. I said I wasnt going to do a hit piece. Im not going to a hit piece.

If Nichols did slam her ex, it wouldnt be the first time. She told Inside Edition last month that he would call her names and was disturbed.

Next Sunday, I sit down with conservative radio host @RealAlexJones to discuss controversies and conspiracies #SundayNight June 18 on NBC pic.twitter.com/7bVz6Fobf5  Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 11, 2017

I just think he's a really unhappy disturbed person, Nichols told Inside Edition May 30. He really was very cruel to me every day of our marriage. He would just make fun of me, I couldnt do anything right. He would tell me I was fat.

Before Jones scheduled interview with Kelly, he and his ex went through a tumultuous custody case. In April, a jury granted them both full custody, but allowed Nichols to decide who the three children lived with, the Daily Beast wrote at the time.

The defeat was apparently shattering for Jones because he was the one who spent the majority of the time with the children. Nichols reportedly saw them infrequently, her attorney claimed.

Story continues

Jones made a name for himself as a conspiracy theorist, claiming tragic events like the terrorist attack on September 11th and the Sandy Hook massacre, where 20 children were killed, was orchestrated by the United States government.

Jones belief about 9/11 is one of the conspiracy theories that bothered Nichols most. She remembered his reaction when she tried to grieve the nearly 3,000 people that died in the twin towers.

I was going outside with a candle to stand with my neighbors on the sidewalk to mourn with them and he just yelled at me, she told Inside Edition. I think on that very day he said there was conspiracy behind it and I just said, Whoa!'

READ: Megyn Kelly 'Fired' Sparks Twitter Reaction

His controversial views dont make him the most popular person and Kelly caught the brunt of that when she announced she would have him on her show Sunday. Despite the flack, Kelly decided to continue with the interview, but she did issue a statement where she deemed Jones conspiracy theories revolting.

It left me, and many other Americans, asking the question that prompted this interview: how much Jones, who traffics in these outrageous conspiracy theories, have the respect of the president of the United States and growing audience of millions? Kelly wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday. Our goal in sitting down with him was to shine a light  as journalists are supposed to do  on the influential figure, and yes  to discuss the considerable falsehoods he has promoted with near impunity.

Megyn Kelly

Photo: Getty Images

Follow me on Twitter @mariamzzarella

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Arch conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has scooped Megyn Kelly and released a secret recording from their controversial interview in which the NBC star promises him she is not preparing a gotcha hit piece.

Ms Kelly, one of the countrys most high-profile anchors, had sparked outcry by interviewing Mr Jones for a show that is due to be broadcast this weekend. The families of some of the children killed at the Sandy Hook massacre have threatened to sue NBC, over comments Mr Jones makes in a teaser of the interview in which he repeats his claim that the 2012 incident in which 26 people lost their lives was a hoax.

Now, ahead of the NBC broadcast, Mr Jones has posted on social media a secretly recorded conversation between himself and Ms Kelly.

All I can do is give you my word. If there is one thing about me, I do what I say Im going to do, and I don't double-cross, Ms Kelly tells Mr Jones in the recording.

You know you just became very fascinating to me. I just always thought you were this maybe, one-dimensional guy, like this is your thing.

She adds: My goal is for your listeners and the left - you know, who will be watching some on NBC - to say, Wow, that was really interesting.

And then the next time I wanna get somebody, theyre gonna say, Look what you did to Alex Jones. Its not going to be some gotcha hit piece, I promise you that.

Mr Jones has promised to release his entire recording ahead of the NBC broadcast.

Infowars is preparing to release tonight the full Megyn Kelly interview with Alex Jones originally set to air on NBC this Sunday evening, says a post on his website.

Story continues

Kellys first promo for the show, published on Twitter last Sunday, contradicts the hosts private statements to Alex Jones in which she claimed the interview would not be a blatant hit-piece.

NBC has found itself trying to fight off the controversy over the decision to provide a platform for Mr Jones, who also claims that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job perpetrated by the US government.

A number of family members of those who were killed or injured at the Newtown elementary school by shooter Adam Lanza, have written to the network criticising the decision to broadcast the interview.

The Los Angeles Times said some of them had now threatened to sue the network if the broadcast goes ahead.

Ms Kelly has defended the decision to interview Mr Jones, saying on Twitter that it is her job to shine a light.

NBC News Chairman Andy Lack told the Associated Press that the story with will be edited with the sensitivity of its critics in mind.
For much of the past year, Uber has been caught up in increasing waves of scandal. Earlier this week, the backlash against Uber finally came to a head for the ride-hailing company.

CEO Travis Kalanick announced Tuesday he plans to take an indefinite leave of absence from the company, saying in an internal email he needed to work on myself and focus on building out a world-class leadership team. Last month, Kalanicks mother died in a boating accident that also sent his father to the hospital.

Read: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick Could Temporarily Leave Company, Report Says

For the moment, Kalanick leaves behind a company that is reeling from a string of public embarrassments and now is without its central driver. But how did Uber get to this point?

From UberCab to Uber

Uber originally launched in 2009 as UberCab by StumbleUpon founder Garrett Camp and Kalanick. While the company gradually developed in its early years, it began seeing massive jumps in investment starting in late 2011. As of early 2014, Uber had raised around $1.6 billion in funding.

During this early push for growth, Kalanick and Uber werent afraid of being publicly aggressive or facing potential legal action in the name of expansion. In a GQ profile from early 2014, Kalanick quipped about Uber as Boob-er in response to a question about whether Ubers success made it easier for him to meet women.

This attitude also carried over to how Uber tackled the competition. In mid-2014, Uber was accused of having employees book and cancel rides from Lyft, its primary competitor, to disrupt its drivers.

Uber vs. Lyft

Photo: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Early 2017: Current Uber Backlash Begins

Uber spent much of 2015 and 2016 both finding new cities to expand into and facing legal or political backlash over issues like how it classifies employees as contractors. But while the company had generally been able to let many of its past legal disputes blow by, early embarrassments in 2017 would prove to be much more damaging.

Story continues

During protests over President Donald Trumps executive order on banning immigration from several majority-Muslim countries, Ubers response to striking taxi drivers spurred the #DeleteUber campaign in January. In February, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler wrote an extensive post with allegations of persistent sexual harassment at the company and poor response from management. The post, which detailed instances of Fowlers boss soliciting her for sex and human resources officials ignoring calls for discipline, would spur Kalanick to call for an investigation into the allegations from outside law firm Covington & Burling.

Public Focus into Uber Intensifies

As Ubers missteps become increasingly public, additional attention turned to the companys corporate philosophy and internal turmoil. Some of the major turning points for Uber include the following events:

March: Details on the companys secret Greyball project are publicly revealed. The program allowed Uber to avoid being detected by local authorities in cities in which it is not allowed to operate. Later that month, Uber president Jeff Jones announced his resignation after a brief six-month stint. In a statement to Recode, Jones said: The beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber.

April: Uber is tied to scandals alleging the company both shortchanged drivers on fares and used an exploit through its Hell program to track and target Lyft drivers. But the biggest news would come from revelations in the New York Times of a 2015 meeting between Kalanick and Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Uber had previously used a small piece of code to track iPhones even after they were formatted and reset, which violated Apples policies. When Apple found out about Ubers plan, the company threatened to take the service off the App Store unless the feature was removed.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, India, Jan. 19, 2016

Photo: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui

May: The U.S. Department of Justice announced it would investigate Uber over its Greyball program. Alphabets Waymo lawsuit against Uber also begins to intensify.

The trade secrets suit focuses on former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski and both companies investments in self-driving car technology. Levandowski was initially brought on as a high-profile hire to help run Ubers autonomous driving research but took documents Waymo alleges were used by Uber. Levandowski persistently refused to participate in the case, citing his Fifth Amendment rights, and Uber eventually terminated his employment.

Read: How Do I Find My Uber Rating? Update Makes Your Rider Rating Easy To Find

June: It's revealed that former executive Eric Alexander obtained the personal medical records of a customer who was raped in India by an Uber driver, Recode reported. At the time, Uber executives including Kalanick reportedly saw the documents and others suspected it was orchestrated by Ola, the companys primary Indian competitor. Other smaller embarrassments include a leaked email from Kalanick during a 2013 retreat where he provided employees with advice if they wanted to have sex with other staffers.

Uber: Whats Next?

On June 11, Ubers board met in a lengthy meeting to discuss the investigation into its workplace culture and Kalanicks future with the company. Longtime Kalanick ally Emil Michael, who worked as Ubers senior vice president of business, left the company earlier this week and Uber announced it will accept all the recommendations of the Covington & Burling investigation to improve its workplace culture.

In addition, secondary law firm Perkins Coie is still investigating 57 human services claims for its separate investigation, Bloomberg reported. As part of its post-investigation findings, Uber also fired more than 20 employees.

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Nairobi (AFP) - The African Union on Saturday urged Djibouti and Eritrea to show "restraint" as tensions intensified over a disputed border territory after the withdrawal of Qatari peacekeepers from a buffer zone.

Djibouti has accused Eritrea of occupying the territory in the Doumeira region following the departure of the Qatari troops, threatening the revival of a longstanding and at times violent dispute.

In 2008, Eritrea sent its troops into the area, north of the city of Djibouti and strategically located at the entry to the Red Sea, leading to clashes between the two sides.

Tensions had also flared between the two countries over the zone in 1996 and 1999.

AU commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat called for "calm, restraint" and said the union would send a "fact-finding mission to the Djibouti-Eritrea border".

The Qatari pullout comes as the Gulf emirate is locked in a bitter dispute with Saudi Arabia and its allies over alleged ties to Islamist extremists, a charge it denies.

Both Djibouti and Eritrea have good relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and have taken their side in the Gulf row.

Djibouti is a strategic ally for global powers, hosting French and US military bases with a Chinese one under construction, while Eritrea is widely regarded as a pariah state.

Djibouti's large port is also a trade conduit for Ethiopia, Eritrea's bitter enemy.

Diplomatic sources said Saturday that the UN Security Council would meet Monday afternoon in New York to discuss the crisis, in a closed-door meeting requested by Ethiopia.

Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf on Thursday accused Eritrea of "moving its forces" into the Doumeira region, taking advantage of the departure of Qatari troops that had been stationed there since 2010 as a buffer between the two nations' armies.

"Djibouti is a peaceful country and we have prioritised diplomatic solutions, but if Eritrea insists in seeking military solutions, Djibouti is ready for that," Youssouf told a press conference broadcast on local television.

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In a statement issued Saturday, Eritrea did not address the allegations directly, saying it would not respond to "news -- factual and speculative -- churned out in the last few days".

"The government of Eritrea will make its views known when it obtains full information of the entire episode," said the statement issued by the information ministry in Asmara.

The AU said it was "ready to assist Djibouti and Eritrea to normalise their relations and promote good neighbourliness within the framework of relevant AU instruments."
Jury unable to reach consensus on three counts of aggravated indecent assault

Constand lawyers say trial gave voice to the many victims

Bill Cosby waves as he leaves the courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Charles Mostoller/Reuters

Bill Cosbys sexual assault case ended in a mistrial on Saturday, with jurors reporting hopeless deadlock over charges that the comedian drugged and violated a woman in 2004. Montgomery County district attorney Kevin Steele immediately said prosecutors would seek to retry Cosby on the same charges. They will have 120 days to do so.

After deliberating for more than 52 hours since Monday, a weary panel told Judge Steven T ONeill that they could not reach consensus against the 79-year-old, who faced three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each carrying a possible 10-year prison term.

In a press conference, Steele said Cosbys accuser, Andrea Constand, was entitled to a verdict and said his team would push forward and try to get  justice done. Asked if he would consider a lesser charge, Steele said: The charges are what they are.

Lawyers for Constand issued a statement on her behalf which said the trial had given a voice to the many victims who felt powerless and silenced.

Outside the courthouse, Cosby stood with head bowed as his publicist and attorneys made statements over shouted questions from waiting media.

As we look up, I see the rain coming down, and it reminds me of what my grandmother used to say, said Cosby publicist Andrew Wyatt in the first of many remarks touched by hyperbole. These are Gods tears. And this is the day that the Lord has made America trust again.

Cosbys legal team focused angrily on the decision to bring the case to trial. Attorney Angela Agrusa said: This is what happens: juries are stuck when a prosecutor seeks to put someone in prison for things that are simply not presented in a courtroom. The jury stuck to what they were asked to do, that is to review the evidence before them, and there simply wasnt enough.

A representative of Wyatts PR firm then read a statement from Camille Cosby, Bill Cosbys wife.

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How do I describe the district attorney? she said. Heinously and exploitatively ambitious. How do I describe the judge? Overtly arrogant and collaborating with the district attorney. How do I describe the counsels for the accusers? Totally unethical.

How do I describe many but not all general media? Blatantly vicious entities that continually disseminated intentional omissions of truth, to the primary purpose of selling sensationalism at the expense of a human life.

Historically, people have challenged injustices. I am grateful to any of the jurors who tenaciously fought to review the evidence, which is the rightful way to reach a sound decision. Ultimately that is a manifestation of justice based on facts not lies.

Concluding, Wyatt said: Mr Cosbys power is back. Its back. He has been restored.

Gloria Allred, a lawyer representing 33 women who allege assault by Cosby, said outside court: We can never underestimate the blinding power of celebrity, but justice will come.

In his press conference, Steele said he was satisfied with the case his team had presented and added that they would evaluate and review our case, we will take a hard look at everything involved, and then we will retry it.

There were good outcomes to the mistrial, he said, including that Constand and another witness had faced the accused in court.

Too often these types of crimes, sexual assaults, do not get reported, particularly where a drug has been used, he said.

Steele added: The other part that is important is standing up for sexual assault victims. This is a case that we know has been important for sexual assault victims everywhere. Andrea Constand has shown such courage through this. We are in awe of what she has done and moved forward in this case. Shes entitled to a verdict in this case  and we will push forward and try to get that done and get justice done.

He declined to comment on the statement issued in the name of Camille Cosby.

Andrea Constand leaves court on Friday. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

This was the only criminal trial Cosby has endured despite accusations from nearly 60 women that he sexually assaulted or raped them, often with the aid of drugs.

As the prosecution prepares to retry the case, Cosby and those around him will waste no time touting its weaknesses. On Thursday, just after the first reports of deadlock, Wyatt said the jury was conflicted about the inconsistencies in Ms Constands testimony. And theyre hearing Mr Cs testimony and hes extremely truthful. And thats created this doubt.

Cosby remains free on bond. Constand, a former friend and mentee, accuses him of giving her pills that left her frozen and unable to resist as he fondled her and assaulted her with his fingers.

Constand first accused Cosby in 2005, alleging that the assault had taken place the year before. But it would take a series of broad shifts  in the publics perception of Cosby and his many accusers, and in the makeup of the prosecutors office  before he was charged with a crime, more than 11 years later.

By that time, Constand had sued Cosby in civil court, where he admitted in a deposition to using quaaludes in order to obtain sex, consensually, from young women, before settling out of court for an undisclosed amount. That deposition was among several key pieces of testimony the jury asked to revisit.

On Thursday, just before noon, they reported to the judge that they had reached an impasse. ONeill asked them to try again to reach a verdict, which under Pennsylvania law must be unanimous.


Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - A Brazilian meat tycoon who unleashed a political firestorm with claims of wrongdoing by President Michel Temer has now accused the embattled leader of running "the country's most dangerous criminal organization."

JBS chairman Joesley Batista caused a major political uproar last month when he handed to authorities, in connection with a wide-reaching corruption scandal, an audio recording in which Temer appeared to condone the payment of hush money to a former lawmaker now in prison.

"It's the country's largest and most dangerous criminal organization. And the president is its leader," Batista said in an in-depth interview with the Epoca weekly published Saturday.

"Those who aren't in prison today are in the Planalto presidential palace. They are very dangerous people. I didn't have the courage to confront them."

Batista's remarks were made in his first interview since he clinched a plea bargain deal with authorities as the nationwide anti-graft operation codenamed "Car Wash" began targeting his business dealings.

Batista agreed to cooperate in exchange for avoiding a conviction.

The business tycoon's explosive revelations could prove fatal for Temer, after the Supreme Court set in motion corruption and graft probes targeting the president, increasing calls for him to step down.

Among the claims, Batista says tens of millions of dollars were paid to various political parties, including Temer's center-right Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB).

Temer, 76, denies the allegations and has insisted he will remain in office.

"As soon as I met Temer, he started asking me for money to finance his campaigns. He isn't very modest when it comes to talking about money," Batista said.

"He saw me as a CEO who could finance his campaigns and organize some monkey business that would lead to graft."

Temer's office blasted Batista's latest comments as a "bunch of lies," saying the president would file a lawsuit against the meatpacking entrepreneur as early as Monday.

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"Joesley is one of Brazil's most notorious and successful criminals," it said in a statement.

"In the interview, he says the president always asked him for something... But the president never had this beggar-like behavior. On the contrary, it was Joesley who tried to get the government to solve his problems."

Batista, who was forced into exile after the scandal broke out, returned to Brazil a week ago and, in a deposition with federal police Friday, repeated his accusations.

The business magnate's press relations team indicated he had been in China -- not in New York, as rumored -- "in order to protect his family, which had been repeatedly threatened since he decided to cooperate with the authorities."
Nearly 80 bills in 30 states are winding their ways through state legislatures to tackle just one issue: self-driving cars.

Thats become a significant burden for the auto industry and legislators who are eager to usher in safer cars for public roadways, Congress heard this week.

On Wednesday, the Senate commerce and transportation committee met to discuss unifying several of those proposals under one potential federal bill that could speed up development of self-driving cars.

The future is here but will take a while to be fully realized. Few debate where we are headed. However, there is significant debate about the length and even nature of this journey, said Mitch Bainwol, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a large automotive lobby in Washington.

As we meet today, the U.S. lacks a critical uniform national framework to advance these technologies as was established before in the development of other key innovations, he added.

DON'T MISS: Self-driving cars: a primer

Senator Jim Thune (R-S.D.) told the committee that self-driving cars would be coming, and the current patchwork of regulations from state-to-state could inhibit, or even prevent, some of those cars from being eligible for sale in the U.S.

For instance, the 2019 Audi A8 may be the first publicly available Level 3 self-driving car on sale in the U.S., but its functionality could be limitedor even prohibiteddepending on the state.

According to Audi, the A8 will drive itself for long stretches at 35 mph or slower, on a divided highway, in heavy traffic. The current A4 and Q5 are capable of similar feats, albeit for less than a minute before the car requests driver intervention.

Even driving from Boston to New York next year in the Audi A8 could be tricky. New York law requires driver attention at all times; Massachusetts law isnt as stringent.

MUST READ: Audi A8 to be first with "Level 3" self-driving capability, but regulations holding back tech

This week, Audi chauffeured New York state officials in self-driving A7 models to showcase the technologyalbeit behind police escorts.

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Audi spokesman Mark Dahncke said offering the A8 with Level 3 technology, which Audi calls Traffic Jam Pilot, would be ideal: However, we can only bring it to market if the regulatory environment will support it. Our testing license in NY is a good example of Audi leading the way to make Traffic Jam Pilot a reality.

Thune, along with U.S. Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) announced a basic framework that would codify the patchwork of laws and potentially provide more federal exemptions for self-driving technology.

Included in that bill may be provisions to help shield automakers from liability if self-driving cars are modified, or used in ways not originally intended. A spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said states are required now to set insurance limits for autonomous car testing.

Its expected that a Senate version of a bill will arrive in the coming weeks, and a House version has circulated but a version of the bill wasn't immediately available.
A Chinese airline allegedly tried to treat a dead dog as lost luggage by offering its owner monetary compensation per pounds the animal weighed, according to Chinas Xinhua News Agency Tuesday.

The dog, a 3-year-old golden retriever named Doudou, died last Sunday. It was traveling on a China Eastern Airlines flight from Shenzhen to Wuhan. Its owner, a woman identified by her last name, Zuo, was using a pet transportation agency for the flight.

Read: Despite Airline Incidents, Travel By Plane Set To Break Records For Summer 2017

When the plane landed, Doudou was dead. The airline offered to compensate Zuo utilizing the same policy they uphold for damaged or lost cargo: 100 yuan per kilogram ($7.50 per pound), according to The Cover. The woman refused the offer. According to Xinhua, Dogeer offered Zuo 5,000 yuan ($735) in compensation, another offer she refused.

woman and dog

Photo: Getty Images

I told the agent to take extra care with Doudou because I had heard of cases of animals dying during flight, Zuo said to Xinhua.

Chinese Eastern Airlines was the company that the pet transportation agency, Dogeer, chose for transportation. When Zuos father went to pick up the dog, he sent Zuo photos showing the bars of the cage were bent and covered with bite marks. The airline treats live animals as freight and places them in the cargo hold, rather than in the cabin with passengers.

China Eastern treated Doudou like a regular piece of luggage  these kinds of compensation standards are unacceptable from an emotional point of view, Zuo told The Cover.

Doudous cause of death is unknown. The airline transported Doudou and another dog together in the pressurized cargo space. Upon arriving in Wuhan, the other dog appeared to be healthy, said a spokesman for China Eastern Airlines to Xinhua.

I never wanted any huge kind of compensation, Zuo said on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging website similar to Twitter.

Story continues

I just want airlines to pay attention, and not let it happen multiple times, and push responsibilities onto others, she wrote, according to the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP).

This incident happened only weeks after China Eastern Airlines was associated with another case of animal mistreatment allegedly carried out by Tianhe International Airport staff members.

A golden retriever who flew from Shanghai to Wuhan on a China Eastern Airlines flight sustained wounds while escaping from its cage in the planes freight cargo hold. It was returned to its owner by Tianhe International Airport staff, its owner wrote on Weibo. After the flight landed on May 24, the dog was named as missing. When the dog was returned to the owner, it was covered in blood and its eyes were bloodshot. Photos of the dog were included in the post.

I was extremely angry and disappointed. This was like having my own child hit and having the aggressors shirk the responsibility, the owner wrote in a post that was shared more than 130,000 times. I wish China Eastern Airlines and Tianhe Airport would give me a reasonable explanation and stop shifting responsibility.

wuhan

Photo: Getty Images

Members of the online community responded by saying the airline should issue an official apology or award compensation.

Read: WATCH: United Airlines Plane At Newark Aiport Gushes Fuel As Jet Almost Takes Off

In order to prevent the dog from running loose on airport runways or car parks, which could result in severe casualties, airport employees carried out restraining measures based on aviation laws and regulations, Wuhan Tianhe International Airport said in a statement as reported by South China Morning Post.

China Eastern Airlines, however, has partnered up with Dogeer to try and determine Doudou's cause of death. However, the airline will not be taking responsibility for the incident because of a form releasing the airline from any liability, according to Xinhua.

China Eastern Airlines did not immediately return International Business Times' request for comment.

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One of Donald Trumps personal lawyers has insisted he is not being investigated  two days after the President claimed that he was.

Mr Trump has in recent days repeatedly hit out at the so-called legal witch hunt he says is pursuing his investigation. In one tweet, he said: I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt.

But in a series of televised interviews, Jay Sekulow, a lawyer who is part of a team hired by Mr Trump to help deal with allegations of collusion by his campaign with Moscow, said he was not being personally investigated.

So who do I believe Trump or Trumps lawyer? Hmmm what to do   Sandra Williams  (@sondramichell34) June 18, 2017

The fact of the matter is the President has not been and is not under investigation, Mr Sekulow said on CBS Face the Nation, one of four political shows where he appeared on Sunday.

There has been no notification from the special counsels office that the President is under investigation.

The pushback from Mr Trumps legal team came days after a report in the Washington Post said Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor heading the federal probe into possible collusion with Russia, was preparing to interview senior intelligence officials as he looked into whether the President had obstructed justice. The report said the development  which represented a dramatic shift in the course of the probe  came after Mr Trump had fired James Comey from his position as FBI Director.

Mr Trump had previously cited Mr Comeys testimony, who had told congressional investigators that the President was not personally under investigation.

Pressed as to why Mr Trump had said he was under investigation, if he was not, Mr Sekulow, said Mr Trump was indeed reacting to the Post story. But in comments that added nothing but confusion to the issue, he said the President was not referring to an actual investigation in his message, but rather to a news report about one.

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The tweet from the president was in response to the five anonymous sources purportedly leaking information to the Washington Post, he said.

Asked why he appeared afraid of an investigation if he had nothing to hide, Mr Sekulow, chief counsel for the conservative American Centre for Law and Justice, said: Hes not afraid of the investigation  there is no investigation  There is not an investigation of the President of the United States, period.

Many commentators have said Mr Trump has created repeated problems for himself by his seemingly spontaneous use of social media. However, Mr Sekulow defended his tweets, saying hes responding to what hes seeing in the media in a way in which he thinks is appropriate to talk to those people that put him in office.

Mr Mueller, himself a former FBI Director, is investigating whether anyone associated with Mr Trump or his campaign had any illegal dealings with Russian officials or others with ties to the Kremlin.

He is also looking at whether, if any potential offences were committed, the President or anyone else attempted to cover them up or obstruct the investigation into them.

Mr Trump, who spent the weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat, also tweeted again on Sunday, saying: The Make America Great Again agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt.

Florida senator Marco Rubio, who had challenged Mr Trump in the Republican primary for the presidency, said he felt it would be better for both the President, and the entire country, if a full, independent investigation were to proceed.

This is is going to move forward, Mr Rubio, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is carrying out its own investigation into Russia, told NBC.

We are going to get the full truth out there. I believe this is the thing that could happen for the President.
Donald Trump is rolling back the opening to Cuba that his predecessor, Barack Obama, began, and we should ask a couple of questions. If the purpose is to hasten change on the island, is this going to be helpful? Second, what are the motivations behind this semi-reversal? To please his base, or to deliver a sly gift to Vladimir Putin and snub his own Republicans on Capitol Hill?

The declared intention of American policy has been consistent: to force the Castro regime to move towards democracy and to restore the human rights of the Cuban people. Obama took the view that the 50-year-old effort to isolate and impoverish had been a dismal failure that had only ensured more pain for regular Cubans. The smarter way was to engage with Cuba.

Human rights organisations agree. The previous administration was right to reject a policy that hurt ordinary Cubans and did nothing to advance human rights, said Daniel Wilkinson, managing director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch in Washington, DC. The fact that Obamas approach hasnt led to political reform in Cuba after just a few years isnt reason to return to a policy that proved a costly failure over many decades.

The admonitions to Trump to leave well alone came from other quarters too. Corporate America, which sees opportunities on the island, urged him to desist and so, of course, did many Democrats. Equally alarmed are those Cuban-Americans who are a generation apart from the old guard of Cuban exiles, mostly in Miami, for whom the embargo is an anachronism.

The presidential aircraft carrying Barack Obama flies over a neighbourhood in Havana (Reuters)

Its why CubaOne, a group of young Cubans in the US dedicated to widening contacts with the island, wrote to Trump trying to pre-empt his announcement. As a presidential candidate, you said that you would pursue a better deal with Cuba, the letter said. To the majority of Americans and our Cuban-American community, a better deal means advancing US interests and improving the quality of life of the Cuban people, not returning to Cold War policies.

Trump ignored all this and travelled to Miami on Friday to outline the changes he was making. Some things will remain the same  the US embassy that Obama re-opened in Havana stays as do the dispensations for American cruise ships and planes to serve the island. It will still be possible for Cuban-Americans to send as much money as they want to their families.

But the old restrictions on tourist visits by Americans are returning. Under the Obama rules, all you needed to do was tick a box saying you had some additional purpose to visit the island  family connections, educational exchange or what-have-you  and you were free to go as a solo visitor, just as with any other holiday destination. The box-ticking was meaningless; no one policed it. Now all that will be forbidden again. Unless they are part of some organised tour, Americans will again risk being accused of breaking the law. The embargo, for tourists, is back.

The biggest chill cast on Americas barely-born Cuba tourist trade, however, will be a new prohibition on any American entity or individual doing business with GAESA, a conglomerate controlled by the Cuban military that accounts for roughly 80 per cent of the islands tourist economy. It owns most of its major hotels not to mention tour buses and restaurants. If this is fully enforced, it will wreak havoc on the nascent US-Cuba travel scene. There is Airbnb in Cuba. But, as you can imagine, choice is limited.

Individual Americans can travel to #Cuba under Support for the Cuban people category but must use privately owned lodging like AirBnB 4/5  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 16, 2017

So why? Yes, Trump is following through on what he said he would do on the campaign trail and his base will applaud it. Indeed, he might have gone further than he has. He is acting after being lobbied personally by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and House member Mario Diaz-Balart, long a loud voice for the Cuban exile community in Washington. At a meeting with Trump in May, they pressed him on the GAESA interdiction as the most effective way of following through. And they told him to ignore contrary advice from the professional diplomatic class.

What youve committed to do on Cuba, what you want to do on Cuba, is never going to come from career staff. Its going to have to come from the top down. Youre going to have to tell them what to do, Rubio recalled urging him, in an interview for Politico. The career service people, in the State Department and Treasury and in other places, are not in favour of changing this policy.

But then there is the Kremlin. By retreating from Cuba, Trump risks creating fresh space for Russia to reassert itself there. Just last month Russia resumed oil shipments to Cuba after a hiatus of over a decade  its saviour in the interim has been Venezuela. As Venezuela falls apart at the seams, Cuba needs someone else to stop it collapsing too. If not America, then Russia. Putin recently forgave 90 per cent of Cubas debts to his country. There are reports that Russia is in talks about opening a military base on the island again. You get the picture.

It is a danger that was highlighted by Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who was closely associated with Obamas 2014 opening to Cuba. Writing in The Hill, he said the roll-back that he saw coming from Trump, would not only harm US businesses and the Cuban people, it would leave a gaping vacuum just 90 miles offshore, for our adversaries to fill. He went on: The Cold War is long over and Cuba is no longer a threat to the United States. But Cuba, a former Soviet satellite, remains within arms reach of President Putin.

This happens against the background of the Trump-Russia maelstrom in Washington. If there were ever any doubts that it had already made it impossible for this administration to carry out any plans it may have had to go easy on Putin they were laid to rest this week when the US Senate passed draft legislation that would make it impossible for the White House to ease any of the sanctions imposed by Obama for the seizing of Crimea and the incursions into eastern Ukraine. It also introduces additional sanctions in response to Russias meddling in the US election last year. It passed overwhelmingly with all but two of Trumps own Republican senators voting for it.

The purpose of the Senate action, clearly, is to box Trump in on Russia and prevent him from extending it any gifts. Yet with his new Cuba policy he may be doing just that. Was that his purpose? Maybe that would involve him connecting more dots than he can manage.
Snapping their heads from side to side, marching into the roads in close-fitting blue uniforms and black heels, the "traffic ladies" who marshal vehicles at the intersections of Pyongyang are an emblematic image of the North Korean capital.

Officially known as traffic security officers but universally referred to as traffic ladies, they are chosen for their looks in a society that remains traditionalist in many respects.

They must leave the role if they marry, and have a finite shelf-life, with compulsory retirement looming at just 26.

The 300-odd ladies are unique to Pyongyang, which North Korean authorities are always keen to present in the best possible light despite their nuclear-armed country's impoverished status, and ensure a steady supply of photogenic young women who are the favourite subject of visiting tourists and journalists.

"They are representing the capital city," explained a senior officer of the ministry of public security, which supervises traffic regulation. "That's why they are selected based on their appearance and physique."

No age limit applies to their roughly 400 male counterparts - who tend to be stationed at roundabouts.

The rules were because "normally, the women in our country marry at the age of 26 or 27", explained the officer, who did not want to be named. "Because the role is tough and difficult, they can only do the job when they are single."

- Tough training -

The traffic ladies were originally introduced in the 1980s, when vehicles were a rarity on the streets of Pyongyang and remained so for decades, giving rise to the surreal sight of them directing - with precision and energy - non-existent cars on wide but deserted boulevards.

As part of North Korea's security forces they hold officer ranks, and Senior Captain Ri Myong-Sim, 24, said: "I have to carry out each and every action with discipline and spirit."

A seven-year veteran, she cuts an imposing presence in her high-peaked cap and white gloves.

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Her "tough training" had involved "exhausting repetition" of the moves, she told AFP.

"But every time I felt that, the thing that kept me going and drove me was the thought that our leader, who cares for only the happiness of our people all year long, was watching us work," she said, standing ramrod-straight at the Changjon crossroads in central Pyongyang.

"So I could practice throughout the night and keep going on the next day without feeling tired at all."

Ordinary North Koreans normally only express officially approved sentiments when questioned by foreign media.

An obelisk down the road proclaimed: "The Great President Kim Il-Sung and the Great Leader Kim Jong-Il will always be with us."

- Great love -

Vehicle numbers have increased in the capital in recent years as authorities quietly liberalise the economy, leading to growth despite United Nations sanctions imposed over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes, although the North keeps most statistics secret and precise figures are not available.

Traffic lights have been introduced at most intersections, but the ladies - who say they work an hour on, an hour off, although their feet can still get sore - have no fear of their blue uniforms being replaced by red, amber and green.

The lights "help the humans do their jobs more easily", said Ri.

Their kit includes thick cotton coats for winter - when their breath condenses instantly in the bitter cold - flashing orange halters for night work, and sunscreen.

"The great leader shows them endless care and love," the ministry officer said. "That's why they do their best in their efforts, to repay the great love of the great presidents and dear Respected Marshal Kim Jong-Un."

- Second to none -

The traffic ladies are "second to none" as a photo subject for tourists visiting Pyongyang, said Simon Cockerell, general manager of specialist travel agency Koryo Tours, who has been leading trips to North Korea for more than 15 years.

"They appear to have the dual function of directing traffic and brightening up the streets of the capital," he said.

"I don't believe there has been a tourist who has visited Pyongyang and not taken a photo of a traffic lady."

"I think it would be no exaggeration to call them iconic," he added - although they were "somewhat objectified" by visitors.

With retirement ahead Senior Captain Ri is taking a training course to become a teacher.

But she let the facade of discipline slip when asked if the focus was annoying.

"We are so concentrated on doing our jobs we rarely notice the attention," she giggled.

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Istanbul (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday warned the leader of the main opposition party against making a planned protest march from Ankara to Istanbul, telling him "don't be surprised" if legal proceedings were opened.

Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu called the march after former journalist turned CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoglu was sentenced to 25 years in jail on Wednesday for leaking classified information to a newspaper.

Kilicdaroglu is now on the third day of a trek that is expected to take almost a month and represents by far his biggest challenge to the Turkish strongman since he took over the CHP in 2010.

But Erdogan said his actions were damaging for the country and appeared to warn Kilicdaroglu he could even face legal troubles.

"Calling people out onto the street is neither good for them or for the country," Erdogan told a business conference in Istanbul.

"Wandering around with a 'justice' placard in your hand is not going to bring justice. If you are looking for justice, then the place in Turkey to find justice is the parliament."

He added: "If the judicial authorities invite you in somewhere tomorrow then don't be surprised."

Kilicdaroglu, 68, has made the word "justice" the slogan of his march, clutching a stick with the word emblazoned on a card.

His plan is for the 450-kilometre (280 miles) trek to culminate at Maltepe prison in Istanbul where Berberoglu is being held.

Political tensions have been rising in Turkey after Erdogan on April 16 narrowly won a referendum granting him greater powers that the CHP fears will lead to one-man rule.

Kilicdaroglu in an interview with AFP on Friday accused Erdogan of staging a "second coup" with the crackdown that followed last July's failed putsch.

A dozen MPs from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) had already been arrested under the emergency declared after the coup bid.

But Berberoglu's arrest was the first time an MP from the CHP, the main secular opposition founded by first president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, has been held.
Ride-hailing company Uber issued an apology in an email to former New York City riders and other big markets on Friday, according to Business Insider, but not everyone is buying it.

Read: Uber News: Many Employees Plan On Leaving Company Despite Policy Changes

It was probably in the company's best interests to apologize to New York City riders considering the online backlash from when protests broke out John F. Kennedy Airport earlier this year after President Trump introduced a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries. Cab drivers and members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance stopped their services to join the protest. Meanwhile, Uber dropped its surge pricing during the strike. The company's move prompted the #DeleteUber campaign, in which more than 200,000 users deleted their accounts shortly afterwards.

In the letter sent out Friday, the company admitted it had fallen short.

In expanding so quickly, we failed to prioritize the people that helped get us here, Uber said in the apology letter. Ultimately, the measure of our success is the satisfaction of our riders, drivers, and employees  and we realize that we have fallen short.

The company then went on to talk about the sexual harassment investigation it launched earlier this year and said it was following the recommendations given by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the law firm Covington & Burling.

There is still more work to be done, but we are confident that we are taking the first steps to becoming the company you deserve, the company said as it concluded the letter.

Susan Fowler, the former Uber employee who wrote about her sexual harassment experience at the company in February which led the company to hire Holder to conduct an internal investigation, is not satisfied by the apology.

Read: Why Is Travis Kalanick Leaving Uber? CEO's Departure Comes After Months of Scandals

Fowler went on Twitter Saturday to criticize Uber for failing to apologize to workers who were harassed.

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So...they can apologize to FORMER RIDERS for the inexcusable workplace harassment but not to the employees who suffered the harassment? she said.

Fowler then went on to say that Ubers apology was all optics.

It's all a show. It's all optics. Whatever it takes to win back the riders from the competition, right?

Ubers apology comes after company CEO Travis Kalanick said he was taking a leave of absence. The leadership team will watch over Uber while hes gone, but Kalanick said he will be available as needed for the most strategic decisions.

The company announced new changes in policies, but workers are reportedly not pleased. Many employees said they weren't convinced by the company after a meeting that discussed changes and said they planned to quit. Out of 103 employees, 70 percent of workers said the meeting they went to did not change their attitude toward Uber.

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German-Turkish womens rights activist Seyran Ates has pulled off an almost impossible task of opening the first LGBT-friendly liberal mosque in Berlin, Germany. Muslim men and women, irrespective of their castes, creeds, nationalities and sexual orientations, can attend the mosque to pray together.

Ibn-Rushd-Goethe-Mosque is the first open-minded mosque of its kind in the country and is named after Ibn Rushd, a 12th century Andalusian Islamic scholar and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German playwright. The mosque is located inside a Protestant church, on a busy shopping street in the immigrant neighborhood of Moabit, Berlin.

Read: Instagram Update Adds Stickers Designed By LGBTQ Artists, Rainbow Paint Brush

Dozens of people gathered for Friday prayers at the inauguration of the Mosque, which was led by a female American imam, Newsweek reported.

"I couldn't be more euphoric, it's a dream come true," Ates stated, ABC News reported.

LGBT Mosque

Photo: Getty Images/John Macdougall

The mosque was eight-years in the making and was finally possible largely due to Ates efforts to find a non-divisive place for prayer for the progressive Muslims of the country.

Ates has admitted that even though most of the feedback has been beautiful and positive, she has received considerable threats against her dream project.

I can take care of myself and say, It is my life, however, I am afraid that something happens to the others, she stated, RT reported.

Read: Twitter Reacts To Ivanka Trump Supporting LGBT Community After She Wished For A Joyful Pride 2017

Muslim women, for whom home is often the only place for worship since traditional mosques do not allow entry for them, are welcome at the Ibn-Rushd-Goethe-Mosque. Even Shiites and Sunnies, two sects of the Muslim community who are often at odds with each other, are invited to share the same prayer space.

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LGBT Mosque

Photo: Getty Images/John Macdougall

Members of the LGBT community, which is typically frowned upon by conservative Muslims, will also have a place inside the mosque.

The mosque was created with the aim of unifying men, women, Shiites, Sunnies, straight men, gay men and otherwise alike.

Our goal is to offer a place to worship to all people that do not feel at home in the existing mosques, to women that seek equal rights [with men], to homosexuals and primarily to all separate [Muslim] denominations: Alawites, Sunnis, and Shias, Ates stated, according to RT.

Women do not need to wear full-face veils or burqas, a tradition that is otherwise common for Muslim women all across the globe when they attend prayers at the mosque.

Fundamentally, the mosques door is open for everyone, with one exception: No one will come in with a niqab or burka, Ates told Spiegel magazine.

LGBT Mosque

Photo: Getty Images/ John Macdougall

While doing away with burqas and niqabs resonate with themes of gender equality and women empowerment that is advocated by the mosque, the rule is also laid in place for security reasons.

[This is] for safety reasons and because it is our conviction that the full-face veil has nothing to do with religion, but is a political statement, Ates added.

The mosque intends to give modern and liberal Muslims an opportunity to show our faces in public without fear or shame. However, conservative Muslims will also be welcome, given that all they seek is for their voice to be heard.

Here we do not tell anyone what a good Muslim is, and what a bad one is, Ates stated.

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Hundreds of protesters gathered in the streets of London on Friday, demanding justice for victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, two days earlier, killed at least 30 people in the 24-story London apartment building. With 76 people, including the dead, still missing and 24 more in the hospital, the final death toll is expected to rise.

In the wake of the fire, Londoners have criticized U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May for not immediately meeting with survivors on Thursday after visiting the scene of the incident. On the same day, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbynwho still has a marginal shot at becoming the U.K.s next prime ministervisited with victims. Corbyn was even seen hugging a local resident at St. Clements Church in west London.

On Friday, May visited a local hospital, as well as St. Clements, where she pledged to give 5 million ($6.5 million) in handouts for food, clothes, emergency supplies, and even funeral costs. Many residents of the Grenfell Tower are currently displaced, having lost their homes and all of their possessions. In response, May promised to secure nearby housing for homeless victims within three weeks, making sure that children would be able to attend their current schools. May also offered free legal representation for victims who wish to formally air their grievances.

Recommended: Donald Trump Reports Hes Getting Rich Off the Presidency

Even with these proposed offerings, May and her fellow government officials have been reprimanded for their untimely response to the crisis. Tensions are running high because we have had no answers yet, Rochelle Thomas, a protester who lives one street away from the Grenfell Tower, told The Guardian. This is the third day. We dont know where the survivors are. There are hundreds of thousands of donations and we dont know where to take them. As of this writing, only three of the victims have been identified.

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Yet another concern among protesters is the fact that Grenfell Towers residents had long complained of safety issues in their building. During a 2015 renovation, the buildings management company, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization, elected to install a cheaper form of cladding that safety experts warned was potentially combustible. A similar material has previously sparked fires in high-rise buildings in France, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates. In a letter to May, dated Friday, Mayor Khan warned that London residents are terrified that the same thing could happen to them, and demanded immediate action to address their concerns.

Unhappy with their governments response, Fridays protesters attempted to take measures in their own hands. The BBC reports that the first round of protesters gathered outside the Kensington Town Hall at around 3:00 p.m. local time. After about an hour and a half, a group of 50 to 60 protesters ran up the steps of the building and stormed inside, chanting We want justice! Some protesters even shouted, Not 17!a reference to the fact that authorities had underestimated the death toll. Police soon barricaded the scene, resulting in minor clashes between officers and protesters.

There's a protest happening outside Kensington town hall. People are demanding justice for the #grenfelltower victims pic.twitter.com/dgoGRbMj4N  Fiona Rutherford (@Fi_Rutherford) June 16, 2017

Nearby, protesters congregated in Westminster and marched toward Downing Street, the site of the prime ministers official residences. Demonstrators could be heard chanting things like May must go and blood on your hands. When the group reached Regent Street, near the BBC headquarters, they held a minute of silence for the victimsthe first, they said, since the fire took place. We want to remind politicians that people killed by politicians are equally as valuable as those killed by terrorists, one speaker told the crowd.

On Friday evening, hundreds gathered near the scene of the fire for a candlelit vigil to honor the deceased. This time, the tone was more subdued as mourners linked arms and sang versions of Amazing Grace and Bob Marleys Three Little Birds. Attendees also held a two-minute period of silence during which they raised their candles in the air.

Around the same time, Theresa May gave an interview to the BBCs Newsnight. When asked about the protests, Mays response was more practical than heartfelt: What I am now absolutely focused on is ensuring we get that support on the ground, she said. The government is making money available, we are ensuring we are going to get to the bottom of what has happened, we will ensure that people are re-housed. We need to make sure that actually happens.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
As America becomes more comfortable with the idea of legalizing marijuana, research shows that the number of weed smokers has never been higher. Although marijuana is relatively safe, giving up the substance can still have an effect on your mind and body. Heres how your body changes after you stop smoking marijuana.

According to LiveStrong, marijuana users who give up weed can have similar withdrawal effect as those addicted to other types of drugs, depending on the individual's personal tolerance. Initial effects of giving up marijuana after chronic heavy use can include irritability and insomnia. Although the drug itself is not addictive, the body can still develop a physical dependence after long-term use. As a result, when it is suddenly stopped, users can have difficulty sleeping, feelings of anger, and even anxiety. LiveStrong reported that some individuals may also have symptoms of physical discomfort following sudden stoppage. Initial withdrawal from marijuana is also associated with cognitive impairment.

Marijuana use is also often associated with increased hunger, known as the munchies and many heavy users report a loss of appetite following drug withdrawal. Also, because the drug is associated with chronic dry mouth, users may also have excessive salivation if they suddenly stop.

Thankfully, there is little evidence of long-term negative consequences of marijuana withdrawal. Instead, there are a number of positive benefits reported from stopping the drug. For example, according to LiveStrong, about a month after giving up weed, intelligence, attention, learning, and memory is restored to pre-marijuana use status.

According to the American Lung Association, marijuana use can also damage the lungs, and smoke from marijuana has been shown to contain many of the same toxins, irritants, and carcinogens as tobacco smoke. Users who stop smoking marijuana often find that they regain lung performance.

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Berlin (AFP) - Helmut Kohl, the former German chancellor who seized the chance to reunite his country after years of Cold War separation, was a colossus of contemporary European history who became celebrated as an architect of the continent's integration.

Germany's longest-serving postwar leader, Kohl, who died Friday at 87, was a passionate European who was also central to creating the euro, despite appearing earlier in life as an unlikely candidate to emerge as a pivotal figure.

When a 52-year-old Kohl -- whose surname means "cabbage" in German -- first became chancellor of West Germany in 1982, the 1.93-metre tall (six-foot-four-inches) provincial conservative with the penchant for rustic pork dishes was the butt of countless food jokes.

But when the detested Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, Kohl moved to "grab the mantle of history," as he later said, forging a political stature commensurate with his towering height.

Former protegee Angela Merkel lauded Kohl's contribution to German and European integration in 2012, on the 30th anniversary of his becoming chancellor, declaring that Europeans were "united in our luck" thanks to Kohl's efforts.

Kohl, who served as chancellor for 16 years, considered Konrad Adenauer -- West Germany's visionary first chancellor, who allowed the nation to make a fresh start after World War II -- as an ideological forefather.

"After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kohl acted as though the spirit of Konrad Adenauer had suddenly seized him," wrote Stanley Hoffmann, a professor of European history at Harvard University.

- 'Shoulder to shoulder' -

In 1989, after four decades of division, the capitalist and democratic West Germany was starkly different from the communist, dilapidated East Germany.

Uniting the two would prove a Herculean task, with "Wessis" (Westerners) loath to sacrifice their standard of living, and "Ossis" (Easterners) keen for unity but worried of being treated as second-class citizens.

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On the world stage, too, the challenges were daunting.

Kohl recalled in his autobiography how he had to contend with the reticence of French president Francois Mitterrand to see Germany unified, and the even stronger resistance of Britain's "foot stomping" premier Margaret Thatcher.

"It was suddenly very clear to me that the Iron Lady wanted to maintain the status quo... All fears boiled down to one thing -- that Germany would become strong again," he wrote.

Kohl assured both leaders that Germany would respect its 1945 borders and move forward "shoulder to shoulder" with its Western allies.

The conservative Kohl and the socialist Mitterrand went on to develop a warm friendship, and their tight cooperation drove Europe towards the creation of its single currency.

- 'One people' -

Kohl wrote in his memoirs that his conviction German reunification was necessary was vindicated in the fateful autumn of 1989, when protesters' chants in the East shifted from "We are the people" to "We are one people".

He cut short a visit to Poland on the night the Wall fell and rushed to Berlin, only to be jeered by the crowd.

But less than three weeks later, he unveiled a 10-point plan that decisively set East and West on course for unification.

Kohl persuaded US president George H. W. Bush to accept a larger, reunified Germany, and convinced Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to withdraw troops from East Germany.

The new country was to be the heart of an enlarged European Union -- a project he believed would ensure peace -- and a staunch NATO member.

Riding roughshod over the concerns of Germany's central bank, Kohl insisted that the deutschmark and the ostmark would be given the same value.

Less than 11 months after the Wall fell, on October 3, 1990, Germany was again whole. But unity came at a cost.

Facing significantly higher unemployment, the east remained poorer than the west, making many former East Germans nostalgic for the old days -- frustrations that helped Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder topple Kohl in 1998.

"The political -- and also economic -- price of delaying unification would have been much heavier than the financial burden that we accepted with fast-track reunification," Kohl insisted in 1996, by which time $480 billion had already flowed east.

"Even if I had seen those figures in 1990, I would not have acted differently on the main points."

- Rise of Merkel -

Born a Catholic on April 3, 1930, in the western industrial city of Ludwigshafen, Kohl rose quickly through the ranks of the Christian Democratic Union party, his ever-smiling blonde wife Hannelore -- with whom he had two sons -- by his side.

Hannelore had long suffered from an excruciating sunlight allergy, however, and committed suicide in 2001.

Seven years later, Kohl married Maike Richter, an economy ministry aide 35 years his junior.

Though his place in history is assured, Kohl's reputation in Germany was marred in the twilight of his career by a party slush fund scandal.

The affair helped propel a young Merkel to the helm of the party -- and later the country -- after she turned on her former mentor.

Kohl sniped in recent years at her handling of the eurozone debt crisis, though he left politics in 2002 and had recently been confined to a wheelchair, with his speech severely impaired after his jaw was paralysed in a fall.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took to Twitter Thursday to ask his 243,000 followers how he should spend his billions, saying he wants to invest in more philanthropic endeavors. While its well known that Bezos is one of the three richest men in the country, some started to wonder about his net worth.

According to Forbes, Bezos has an estimated net worth of $82. 1 billion. He falls second to Microsoft co-creator Bill Gates, who has a net worth of $89.1 billion. Below Bezos are business mogul Warren Buffet at $76.4 billion and Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg at $62.5 billion.

READ: Amazon Buying Slack? Jeff Bezos' Company May Soon Compete With Facebook

Bezos, 53, posted the message with the headline, Request for ideas

This tweet is a request for ideas. Im thinking about a philanthropy strategy that is the opposite of how I mostly spend my time  working on the long term. For philanthropy, I find Im drawn to the other end of the spectrum: right now. As one example, Im very inspired and moved by the work done at Marcys Place here in Seattle. I like long-term  its a huge lever: Blue Origin, Amazon, Washington Post  all of these are contributing to society and civilization in their own ways. But Im thinking I want much of my philanthropic activity to be helping people in the here and now  short term  at the intersection of urgent need and lasting impact. If you have ideas, just reply to this tweet with the idea) and if you think this approach is wrong, would love to hear that too). Thanks! Jeff

The following day, the tweet amassed more than 14,000 likes, nearly 7,000 shares and over 23,000 comments. It seems, when people ask for opinions on the internet, they are more than happy to share them.

By 2015, Bezos had donated an estimated $100 million in lifetime charitable gifts, Forbes reported in October 2016. Most of the donations had an emphasis on science.

In 2014, Bezos and his family donated $20 million to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center so researches would have money to possibly discover a method to cure cancer, Geek Wire wrote at the time. Five years earlier, he donated $10 million to support research for immunotherapy.

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READ: Blue Origin Rocket: Jeff Bezos Says No Bathroom Breaks Allowed On Flights To Space

Mike Bezos, Jeffs step-father and Bezos Family Foundation co-founder, said he was eager to see if scientist could make progress in fighting leukemia and lymphoma.

Weve followed the work Fred Hutch scientists have been conducting over the last few years in the promising area of immunotherapy to combat cancer and are so encouraged by the spectacular results in patients with leukemia and lymphoma, he said in a 2014 press release. The potential to now attack other cancers with this approach is too huge not to take this research to the next level. We believe the scientists at Fred Hutch are ready to take this challenge, and we are pleased to be supporting their efforts.

Jeff Bezos

Photo: Getty Images

Follow me on Twitter @mariamzzarella

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On June 18, 1812, President James Madison signed a resolution, approved by Congress, declaring war against Great Britain. Over the next two and half years, both sides engaged in bitter contests, and the war ended with much unchanged between the two countries.

Today, most Americans recall the war because of two events: the British occupation of the United States capital of Washington, D.C., and Andrew Jacksons victory in the Battle of New Orleans. To many others, the war remains forgotten.

Madison succeeded Thomas Jefferson as president in 1809. The British issue had plagued Madison since he took over from Jefferson. Britain and France, the United States two biggest trading partners, had been at the center of a war that dominated the European continent for decades.

As part of the conflict, the British Royal Navy had forced as many as 6,000 Americans into its service through the practice of impressing American merchant sailors.

The British also openly supported Native Americans on the western frontier, which was seen as a threat by the Americans. The British also knew factions in the United States had eyed Canada as a possible addition to the Union.

Canadians also had strong feelings about remaining in the empire. More than a few had left the United States for Canada as loyalists to the crown.

Another factor was the influence of the War Hawks, a group of young Democratic-Republican congressmen led by 33-year-old Henry Clay, who pushed for war with Britain. The War Hawks were also concerned with the activities of two Native American leaders, Tecumseh and his brother, The Prophet, who put together an alliance to oppose expansion into Indian-held lands.

The war vote passed in Congress, but not by a huge majority. The Federalists in the Northeast were opposed to the war, and mockingly called it Mr. Madisons War. It was the closest war vote in congressional history and it was along party lines.

The United States struggled to make any headway into Canada. Madison had assumed that the British, who were occupied fighting Napoleon in Europe, couldnt effectively defend Canada. Instead, American troops failed in their attempted invasions as they were met by British troops, Canadian militia, and Native American fighters.

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The United States fared better at the Battle of Lake Erie, where it defeated British naval forces. Tecumseh died in a subsequent battle, weakening the ability of the Native American coalition to help the British.

However, the British were able to mount a naval blockade of the East Coast. They invaded and burned Washington in August 1814. First Lady Dolley Madison helped to rescue the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington in the White House dining room before the British arrived.

But at that point, the war was winding down. Napoleon had abdicated months earlier and the French threat had diminished for the British. Peace talks had started shortly before the attack on Washington. The sides came to a tentative agreement with the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium on December 24, 1814.

British troops attacking New Orleans were unaware of the peace deal, which still had to be ratified by both governments. On January 8, the American troops, led by Jackson, routed the British troops in New Orleans. The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate on February 15, 1815.

In the end, the war was considered a stalemate and the Americans didnt secure a promise from the British to stop the practice of impressment. But two immediate consequences became apparent: The United States had seen the last attempt by the British to impose its military will on its former colonies, and Canada had seen the end of the annexation threat from the United States.

The Native American coalition that sided with the British lost much. Aside from Tecumsehs death, it lost the British as an ally to slow or stop expansion in the west.
No one really knows why Kylie Jenner broke up for good with her on-again, off-again rapper boyfriend Tyga, but in a recent episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, fans finally got to understand what  or who  prompted the reality star to finalize their split.

Jenner and her sister, Khloe Kardashian, talked to Hollywood Medium psychic Tyler Henry several months ago for Season 2 of his reality show, according to the Daily Mail.

Henry started by telling Jenner she needed to set boundaries in an unhealthy relationship. No names were dropped, but Jenner and Kardashian, not to mention the people watching the show, already knew he was referring to Tyga. Hes going in and out, hes kinda in our lives, kinda out of our lives, Henry said of this person.

READ: Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott get matching butterfly tattoos

You want to really set healthy boundaries, he continued. You have to say, No, no, you cant kind of dip your toes in and leave when you want and cant really commit.

I think I know who you're talking about, Jenner then said calmly, while Henry added that its an unhealthy reminder to keep this person around her.

It seems like Jenner took Henrys words to heart because she broke up with Tyga for good earlier this year. Many assumed that Jenner would simply come running back to Tyga after this split, but she proved everyone wrong when she started a serious relationship with hip-hop artist Travis Scott.

Sources told TMZ that the couple has decided to date exclusively, and Jenner has indeed been spending a lot of time with Scott in his hometown in Houston. In addition, Scott has already introduced Jenner to his family. Their relationship is reportedly smooth-sailing, unlike the one Jenner had with Tyga, since theyve been enjoying good vibes and zero drama.

Meanwhile, a different family insider told Us Magazine that things are getting pretty serious between the two. They are spending a lot of time together. Theyre serious! Shes really into him and has known him for a long time. Her family really likes him, the insider said, adding that even the lip kit queens older sister Kendall Jenner approves. Kendall has also been friends with him for years.

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Kylie Jenner

Photo: Reuters/Carlo Allegri

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Los Angeles (AFP) - Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio confirmed Friday that he has turned over an Oscar won by Marlon Brando, along with other gifts, amid an inquiry into a multibillion-dollar money-laundering scheme involving a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.

US authorities are seeking to recover billions in money and assets allegedly embezzled by businessmen with political connections in Malaysia. The scandal has rocked the Malaysian governing class, exposing Prime Minister Najib Razak to allegations of corruption, which he has denied.

A spokesman for DiCaprio said in a statement that the 42-year-old actor had contacted the US Justice Department last July after learning of a civil action against "certain parties involved in the making of 'The Wolf of Wall Street,'" a movie in which DiCaprio starred.

He offered to surrender to US authorities any gifts "from the parties named in the civil complaint."

DiCaprio "initiated return of these items," said the statement provided to AFP. It said he did so before the US government on Thursday filed a new complaint that cited the Red Granite production company behind "The Wolf of Wall Street."

"He has also returned an Oscar originally won by Marlon Brando, which was given to Mr. DiCaprio as a set gift by Red Granite to thank him for his work on "The Wolf of Wall Street.'"

- Jets, apartments and royalties -

US authorities announced Thursday that they intended to seize more than a half-billion dollars in additional assets acquired with money embezzled from the 1MDB Malaysian sovereign fund, at the heart of a vast international scandal.

Those assets include a $261 million yacht purchased by Malaysian businessman Jho Low, as well as paintings by Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat; and the royalties of "Dumb and Dummer To" and "Daddy's Home."

Those films were also produced by Red Granite, a Los Angeles company co-founded by Riza Aziz, son-in-law of Razak.

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In a statement received Friday, Red Granite said it was in "active" discussions with the Justice Department.

The US authorities first moved in July 2016 to recover some $1 billion in assets, including private jets, luxury apartments and royalties from "The Wolf of Wall Street."

The Justice Department said those assets had been acquired as part of an "international conspiracy" intended to launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1MDB, or 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a public fund created in 2009. Razak is its advisory chair.

Razak created the fund shortly after coming to power in 2009, saying it would help modernize the country.

1MDB now carries debt of some 10 billion euros ($11.2 billion). The prime minister and fund officials have consistently denied any wrongdoing.
A Detroit man who spent four decades behind bars for a murder he didnt commit is finally a free man after officials found the evidence that sent him to prison was flawed.

Ledura Watkins was just 20 years old when he was convicted in the 1975 fatal shooting of Yvette Ingram, who was killed during a robbery at her home, authorities said.

Watkins was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison after police lab analysts determined a single hair found in the victims pants could have come from him.

But prosecutors now say the conclusions made dont match todays scientific standards, The Associated Press reported.

Watkins walked out of Wayne County Jail Thursday after a court hearing that saw his conviction overturned.

Read: Man Walks Free After 25 Years in Prison for Crime He Didn't Commit

Its really surreal ... kind of unbelievable, he told reporters. But Im feeling great. I expected this to happen. I didnt think it would take 41 years.

Watkins spent years trying to clear his name. The Innocence Project at Western Michigan University-Cooley Law School also took up his case, and in January asked authorities to set aside the conviction.

It is simply a lab analysts subjective opinion and has no place in our criminal justice system. This is why a state-wide review of hair comparison cases is critical, Marla Mitchell-Cichon told The AP.

Read: Wrongly Convicted Man Is Free After Spending 20 Years of Life Sentence in Prison

Following his release, Watkins planned to have dinner with friends and family, saying: It took me years to get to this point. I dont want to touch another law book.

He is the second Michigan man in two months to be released from prison after having a decades-old conviction tossed.

Desmond Ricks was freed in late May after serving 25 years for the fatal shooting of a friend outside a restaurant.

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An analysis of two bullets taken from the victim showed they didnt match the gun that was offered as the murder weapon at Ricks trial in 1992.

Watch: Ex-Cop Wrongfully Convicted of Killing 7-Year-Old Girl in 1957 Found Innocent

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Savannah, a 12-year-old Mormon girl, said she was not a 'horrible sinner' as she came out to her congregation: YouTube

A 12-year-old girl who came out as a lesbian in front of her Mormon church congregation in Utah was told to sit down halfway through a speech in which she said she was not a horrible sinner.

Speaking at the churchs monthly Fast and Testimony session, the girl, Savannah, said she was a child of heavenly parents who had made me to be gay, according to a video taken by someone in the audience which has been watched by more than 200,000 people.

But, as she was speaking at the church near Salt Lake City, the microphone was turned off and she was asked to sit down.

A man then addressed the congregation, using the same mic, telling them he was grateful that the Heavenly Father has made us all unique.

Savannah began by saying she wanted to share my testimony with you.

I believe I am a child of heavenly parents. I dont know if they talk to us, but I feel in my heart that they made me and that they love me. I believe I was made the way I am, all parts of me, by my heavenly parents, she said in remarks first reported by Pink News.

They did not mess up when they gave me brown eyes, or when I was born bald. They did not mess up when they gave me freckles or they made me to be gay. God loves me just this way because I believe that he loves all his creations.

No part of me is a mistake. I do not choose to be this way and it is not a fad. I cannot make someone else gay and being around me wont make anyone else this way.

I believe that God wants us to treat each other with kindness, even if people are different  especially if they are different. Christ showed us this.

I believe that we should just love. I believe I am good. I try my best to be nice to each other and stick up for those that are hurting.

I know Im not a horrible sinner for being who I am. I believe God would tell me if I was wrong.

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She said she hoped to one day go on dates, to school dances and eventually to find a partner, get married, have a family and find a great job.

I know I can have all of these things as a lesbian and be happy. I believe that if God is there, he knows Im perfect just the way I am, and would never ask me to live my life alone or with someone I am not attracted to, she said.

He would want me to be happy. I want to be happy. I want to love myself and not to feel shame for being me. I ask you

The microphone then went dead and Savannah was asked to sit down.

A man then rose to say: Brothers and sisters, I ask you to recognise that we are all children of God, we are loved by our Heavenly Father.

And, I have no doubt that Heavenly Father has made us all unique in different ways and for that I am grateful.

And I am grateful for all of you that are here today as sons and daughters of God.

And I know very much and Im grateful for Heavenly Fathers plans for us. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Her mother Heather told dailymail.com that Savannah left the stage in tears.

She came off crying to me. We both walked out of the hall, and I held her face in my hands and told her over and over that she is perfect and good, that there is nothing wrong with who she is, that she is brave and beautiful, she added.

I was angry that they chose to hurt her for whatever reason they had.

My husband and I both were reluctant to let her share her testimony because of the potential rejection. She asked to do it in January, we finally agreed in May.

She had worked so hard at perfecting it so that it would portray exactly how she felt. We decided to let her do it because we thought it would be more harmful to silence her or give her reason to feel she is wrong in any way.

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People took to Twitter to express outrage over Fridays acquittal verdict in the fatal shooting of black man Philando Castile in Minnesota. A police officer was not found guilty in the shooting that took place last July.

Twitter users questioned the verdict with several people pointing out the jury  comprised of only two black members  decided to acquit officer Jeronimo Yanez despite there being a Facebook video of Castiles shooting in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights. The jury deliberated for about 29 hours over five days.

Read: Betty Shelby, Tulsa Police Officer Who Shot Terence Crutcher, Acquitted In Shooting Case

According to prosecutors, Yanez overreacted in the situation and Castile was not a threat to him. Prosecutor John Choi said the acquittal was painful, but that the verdict must be respected.

I dont doubt that Officer Yanez is a decent person, but he made a horrible mistake from our perspective, and thats what this case was about, Choi said, according to the Associated Press (AP). I know that if he could, he would take back what he did, and we all wish, and he would too, that this never happened.

Following the verdict, people took to streets in St. Paul to protest the verdict. According to police estimates, about 2,000 people gathered for the peaceful demonstrations. However, 18 people were taken into custody during the protests, CNN reported.

The 32-year-old deceaseds girlfriend Diamond Reynolds live streamed Castiles shooting after his car was pulled up during a traffic stop July 6, 2016. Reynolds 4-year-old daughter was also in the car at the time of the incident.

Following the shooting, Yanez was placed on administrative leave and later charged with second-degree manslaughter, which is punishable by up to 10 years in jail. He was faced two lesser counts of endangering Reynolds and her daughter for opening fire into the car.

In his testimony, Yanez said he stopped Castile because he thought he resembled to one of two men who had robbed a nearby store a few days prior to the shooting. According to a squad car video, the 29-year-old officer asked Castile for a drivers license and proof insurance. Castile told Yanez he had a weapon. However, before Castile could complete his sentence, Yanez pulled out his gun and said: Dont pull it out. He then fired seven shots, of which five hit Castile. The AP reported, citing prosecutors, Castiles last words were: I wasnt reaching for it.

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Read: NYPD Officer Faces Murder Charges For Shooting Mentally Ill Woman In The Bronx

During the testimony, Yanez said he was scared to death and thought of his wife and baby daughter in before he fired the shots.

Castiles mother Valerie Castile reacted to the acquittal verdict.

The fact in this matter is that my son was murdered, and Ill continue to say murdered, because where in this planet (can you) tell the truth, and you be honest, and you still be murdered by the police of Minnesota, Valerie said, referring to the fact that Castile was shot even though he informed he had a weapon. Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me.

He didnt deserve to die the way he did, Philando Castiles sister, Allysza, said. I will never have faith in the system.

Following are some reactions by Twitter users on the verdict.

Some Twitter users criticized the jury for the decision.

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US President Donald Trump on Friday urged the nation to pray for Otto Warmbier, the university student detained in North Korea last year who was flown home this week in a coma.

"I'm glad Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and I, along with a very talented team, were able to get Otto Warmbier back with his parents. What's happened to him is a truly terrible thing," Trump said in Miami at the start of a speech on Cuba.

"But at least the ones who love him so much can now take care of him and be with him," he said, urging Americans to keep the family "in our hearts and prayers."

Warmbier, 22, suffered extensive tissue loss in all regions of his brain, doctors said Thursday, while adding they could not determine the cause of his injury.

He was incarcerated in March 2016 for stealing a political poster from a hotel. The injury apparently occurred shortly thereafter.

Neurologist Daniel Kanter told a news conference in Warmbier's home city of Cincinnati, Ohio on Thursday that his neurological condition was best described "as a state of unresponsive wakefulness."

"He has spontaneous eye opening and blinking. However, he shows no signs of understanding language, responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surroundings," he said.

The doctors said Warmbier's severe brain injury was most likely -- given his young age -- to have been caused by cardiopulmonary arrest cutting the blood supply to the brain.

The university student, who had been on a tourist trip, was sentenced to 15 years hard labor, a punishment the US decried as far out of proportion to his alleged crime, accusing the North of using him as a political pawn.
Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Clutch of Greed episode of Orphan Black.

Having trouble breathing, Clone Club? After the ending of this weeks Orphan Black installment, Clutch of Greed, you may never breathe easily again. Thats because the second episode of the shows final season climaxed with former Topside assassin Ferdinand (James Frain) committing clone-icide by stomping on the chest of poor M.K. until her sternum shatters. Its an ugly, violent end to a clone who has already been through so much, and if it was upsetting for you to watch, youd better believe it was twice as upsetting for Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany to perform. Shooting it was really awful, the actress tells Yahoo TV. I was wearing this chest rig; it was just vile. Not a fun day.

At the same time, Maslany feels that M.K.s tragic death is in keeping with her tragic life. Born Veera Suominen in Helsinki, Finland, the mask-wearing computer expert befriended a fellow Finnish clone, Niki, who was later murdered by Ferdinand. She and the killer have been on a collision course ever since, with M.K. almost killing him last season before Sarah stopped her. In a painful twist of fate, M.K. is impersonating Sarah  who in turn is dressed as her clone nemesis, Rachel  when she confronts Ferdinand, allowing her sister to continue her search for her daughter, Kira. But he immediately sees through her disguise when he notices the telltale burns on M.K.s face. This is like two revenge fantasies in one, he says, proceeding to raise his foot and bring it down over and over again on her chest.

I was nervous about it, Maslany admits now about M.K.s murder. Its super-violent, and being so aware of the images you put out into the world as a storyteller, I was aware of what that image is. Still, as has been previously established, the world of Orphan Black is a violent place, for clones and nonclones alike. The story were telling, especially this season, is about patriarchy, male violence, and ownership of womens bodies, and the need for women to have control over their own destiny, their own ideas and bodies and voices. To have M.K. be so brave in stepping in for Sarah knowing that she is sacrificing herself felt like the correct story point, Maslany says. M.K.s always had this tragic past, and has this tragic end. I hope that people felt for her and it means something to them. And I hope they hate Ferdinand!

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According to Orphan Black co-creators John Fawcett and Graeme Manson, that tragic end very nearly came about in Season 4 rather than Season 5. M.K. was scheduled to die in last seasons finale, Fawcett says. We streamlined it at the eleventh hour, and she was allowed to live. But we knew that Ferdinand was going to be back and exacting revenge for what she had done to him. Had it happened last season, the duo says that the mechanics still would have been very similar, up to and including the fact that M.K. would be impersonating another clone at the time of her death. The switcheroo idea was always there, Manson says. It was one wed been turning over for a while.

In the end, the duo decided that delaying M.K.s death would deliver maximum dramatic impact. I think its better at the beginning of [this] season, because it really makes the audience uncertain about the future of the Ledas, Fawcett says. Theyre living in fear, and if the audience is living in fear for their favorite characters, thats a good place of concern for our girls going forward. Its a tough season  all bets are off!

Manson drives that last point home: Nobodys safe. Its the final season, and theres going to be attrition. Youre going to have to wait and see whos next.

Orphan Black airs Saturdays at 10 p.m. on BBC America.

Read more from Yahoo TV:

The Handmaids Tale: 7 Ideas for Season 2

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Emmys: Westworld Star Thandie Newton on Embodying the Daring and Vicious Maeve
Tatiana Maslany as Sarah Manning in BBC Americas Orphan Black. (Photo Credit: Ken Woroner/BBC America)

Warning: This recap contains spoilers for the Clutch of Greed episode of Orphan Black.

Clutch of Greed was an ordinary episode of Orphan Black until it wasnt. Once again, Rachel had Sarah at a disadvantage, and used it to get to Kira. Once again, the dynamic trio of Sarah, Felix, and Mrs. S figured out an ingenious way to spirit Kira out of Rachels clutches. Once again, one of Rachels minions  in this case her human attack dog, Ferdinand  was the butt of a clone switcheroo, with M.K. impersonating Sarah impersonating Rachel. And finally, once again, a narrow victory seemed assured, with the characters running and hiding to fight another day.

But this isnt just an ordinary episode, let alone season, of Orphan Black; its the second episode of the final season, which means the regular rules have to go out the window. So, rather than be fooled by the clone impersonator, Ferdinand instantly sees through M.K.s disguise and responds with deadly force. And sensing her aunts brutal end, Kira refuses to go along with her mothers usual run and hide plan, instead volunteering to become Rachels lab rat. She doesnt even turn around to look at Sarah as she marches toward Rachels waiting car, a victory that the Dyad leader registers with a pointed grin.

Between a major clone death and Kiras self-sacrifice, were in new territory for Orphan Black  territory where the heroes arent guaranteed victory. Unless that hero is Helena, of course, who manages to extricate herself from a potentially dangerous situation through typically ingenious (and gross) methods. In the hospital for observation since a sharp stick found its way into her abdomen last week, Helenas behbies demonstrate magical healing properties that arouse her attending doctors attention. Suspecting her to be Neolution-affiliated (and honestly, who isnt these days?), the mother-to-be plunges a syringe needle through the doctors cheeks and tongue, pinning her to the gurney. Score one for the good guys!

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Maslany as M.K. in BBC Americas Orphan Black. (Photo Credit: Ken Woroner/BBC America)

Otherwise, though, the villains had their day in Clutch of Greed. Almost lost amidst the Empire Strikes Back-ness of the episodes closing scenes is one of the shows most momentous developments: weve finally glimpsed the true face of Neolution. The movements 170 years young founder, P.T. Westmoreland (played by Canadian character actor Stephen McHattie), enters the frame midway through the episode to meet with one of his creations, Cosima. And you know that hes not lying about his age, because the acquaintances he chooses to name drop are 19th century celebrities like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fact that Westmoreland is now a physical presence in the shows universe, rather than just a theory spoken of in reverent tones, is just one more indication that the writers arent holding any cards back for this final year. The finish line is in sight, and were going to have to get accustomed to the idea that not everyone is going to cross it. Except, again, Helena. Because shes freakin Helena.

Heres how the clone power rankings stand after Season 5s second hour.

1) Rachel

Shes holding all the clone cards at the moment, with Alison, Cosima, and now Sarah acquiescing to her plans instead of plotting against her. Rachel also put Ferdinand firmly in his place for his lethal act of insubordination. When shes this close to her goal, shes not about to let anyone step out of line.

2) Helena

Run, Helena, run! As the only clone, and clone companion, free of Dyads grasp, she and Donnie have the best chance of chalking up a much-needed victory for the remaining Ledas. And bonus points for that needle-to-the-face attack. It was as awesome as it was disgusting.

3) Cosima

The Clone Clubs resident genius meets the big brain behind Neolution, and he seems genuinely tickled by her mind. If anyone can outsmart a 170-year-old gene-splicer, its Cosima.

4) Sarah

Counting last seasons finale, this is the third episode in a row where Sarah emerges the loser in her ongoing battle with Rachel. Shes overdue for a victory, but at this point its unclear when or how thats going to be possible.

5) Alison

There was a time when Alison Hendrix was a prisoner of suburbia by choice. Now, though, Rachel is sentencing her to serve hard suburban time solo, and her wardens are an eager Maddie and a reluctant Art.

Maslany as Sarah Manning and Skyler Wexler as Kira in Orphan Black. (Photo Credit: Ken Woroner/BBC America)

Non-Clone MVP: Kira

No longer a piece of baggage to be dragged around from hiding place to hiding place, Sarahs daughter takes a stand in Clutch of Greed, and makes it clear she wants to learn about her origins, rather than continue to run from them. Thats Kira for you: shes wiser, and bolder, beyond her years.

Orphan Black airs Saturdays at 10 p.m. on BBC America.

Read more from Yahoo TV:

The Handmaids Tale: 7 Ideas for Season 2

Emmys: The Women of Mr. Robot Revisit Season 2s Most Memorable Moments

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Jerusalem (AFP) - Palestinian militant factions on Saturday dismissed a claim by the Islamic State group that it was behind the fatal stabbing of an Israeli policewoman in Jerusalem, saying the assailants came from their ranks.

The Israeli security services also raised doubts about the veracity of the IS claim -- its first for an attack in Jerusalem or inside Israel -- which came with the jihadists facing defeat in their Iraq and Syria bastions.

Three Palestinians attacked officers just outside the walled Old City in annexed east Jerusalem late on Friday before being shot dead by security forces, Israeli police said.

In an online statement, IS said jihadist fighters had targeted a "gathering of Jews", warning that "this attack will not be the last".

But Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, dismissed the claim, saying the attackers had come from among its own ranks and those of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The assault took place as tens of thousands of Palestinians held night prayers at the nearby Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest site, on the third Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

According to police, two assailants opened fire on a group of officers who returned fire, and a third stabbed the border policewoman a short distance away before being shot.

Policewoman Hadas Malka, a 23-year-old staff sergeant major, was taken to hospital in critical condition and later died of her wounds.

- 'Muddy the waters' -

In its statement, IS said the attack was "revenge for the religion of Allah and the sanctities of the violated Muslims".

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the IS claim was an attempt to "muddy the waters", adding that the attack was carried out by "two Palestinians from the PFLP and a third from Hamas".

The killing was "a natural response to the crimes of the occupier," he said.

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A spokesman for Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency told AFP it was "impossible to corroborate (the IS claim) at this point".

The Israeli army said the assailants appeared to have acted independently, like many of the attackers in a wave of unrest that has rocked Israel and the occupied territories since October 2015.

"A preliminary army intelligence evaluation found no evidence of them belonging to any group, rather they appear to have been a typical popular terror squad," an army spokeswoman said.

Hamas and the PFLP identified the three assailants as Bara Ata, 18, Osama Ata, 19, and Adel Ankush, 18, all from the village of Deir Abu Mashal near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The Shin Bet said they had been implicated in previous "popular terror activity".

The PFLP said Bara and Osama Ata had recently been released from several months in Israeli prison.

A family member of one of the three flatly rejected any connection to IS, angrily telling AFP the jihadist group's claim was a "lie" that didn't deserve mention.

The army sealed off the assailants' home village while troops went house to house, arresting two youths before leaving after a number of hours.

- UN envoy 'appalled' -

Israel had eased restrictions on the entry of Palestinians to Jerusalem and Israel from the West Bank for Ramadan.

Following the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to cancel permission for Palestinians to visit family members in Jerusalem and Israel, police said.

Netanyahu was also considering sealing off the Damascus Gate area to the public.

On Saturday, police cracked down on West Bank Palestinians without permits in Jerusalem, locating and sending home some 350.

Major General Yoav Mordechai -- head of COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry agency responsible for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories -- said the 250,000 family visit permits were cancelled in response to "encouragement to terrorism" by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement.

In a Facebook post in Arabic, Mordechai charged that Fatah had congratulated the attackers.

A statement by Fatah carried on the official Palestinian news agency Wafa condemned the "killing" of the three Palestinians, without mentioning the circumstances leading up to their deaths.

Netanyahu meanwhile demanded that the Palestinian Authority, as well as the rest of the world, condemn the attack.

UN Middle East peace process coordinator Nickolay Mladenov said that "terrorist acts" like Friday's "must be clearly condemned by all".

He also spoke out against the way both Hamas and PFLP had described the incident.

"I am appalled that once again some find it appropriate to justify such attacks as 'heroic'," Mladenov said in a statement.

The unrest that broke out in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 272 Palestinians, 42 Israelis, two Americans, two Jordanians, an Eritrean, a Sudanese and a Briton, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks.
Paris Jackson at the Rei Kawakubo/Commes Des Garcons: Art of the In-Between benefit in New York City in May 2017. Jackson recently landed a cover spot on Vogue Australia, another step in the 19-year-olds burgeoning model career. (Photo: Getty Images)

It seems virtually impossible in this day and age for a celebritys child to stay out of the spotlight, and legend Michael Jacksons daughter Paris is no exception. Whether its about her hairy armpits, going braless, her political statements, or her growing modeling career, the 19-year-old celebrity has a knack for drawing controversy and breathless headlines. Her tale continues this week as she landed a spot on the cover of Vogue Australia, sporting little more than an embroidered bra for the fashion magazine.

Paris Jackson for Vogue Australia. pic.twitter.com/NR74sbUlwA  Pop Crave (@PopCrave) June 18, 2017

The cover was shared on Twitter from a celebrity news account called PopCrave, which also helped reveal theres more to her spread than merely posing in a bra. The account posted other photos from the magazine of Jackson looking fashionable in a floral dress in one shot and a plaid skirt ensemble in another. It appears that Jackson herself is a fan of the Vogue cover, as she is now using it as her main profile pic on the social media network.

In the many instances of Paris Jackson in the media, this is perhaps the more mainstream one of late. Many seem to believe Jacksons behavior is odd at best and eccentric at the least. And her own family members have recently been expressing concern for her  her uncle Jermaine Jackson, speaking to The Sun newspaper this week expressed both his pride for his niece and his worries for what fame and celebrity can do to people. Were very proud of Paris, he said. I just think we have to make sure she is ok because this business not kind to anybody. It can break you.

Weve seen this danger in Paris Jacksons life already. She has openly discussed attempting suicide multiple times in her teen years. Speaking of her ordeal, Jackson explained, When I was 14 I got so much hatred that I tried to kill myself and I took, like, a two-year break from social media and then people asked me to come back, to make my Instagram public again, so I did. And nothing changed!

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Nothing indeed. But perhaps with a few more fashionable covers, Paris can help elevate her coverage to that of more refined variety.

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.




Demonstrators march and hold signs along Interstate 94 after a Minnesota police officer was cleared in the fatal shooting of Philando Castile: AP

Hundreds of protesters took to Minnesotas streets after police officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted of manslaughter for shooting Philando Castile dead.

Officer Yanez killed Mr Castile during a traffic stop last July. His death was broadcast live to Facebook by his girlfriend who was also in the car.

After the officer was cleared of any wrongdoing, protesters took to the streets demanding justice for minorities, shouting "stand up, fight back".

If we don't get no justice, they don't get no peace," marchers chanted, later blocking commuter trains and chanting "Yanez guilty."

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available on iOS and Android.

Mr Castile had informed Officer Yanez just seconds before he was shot that he was carrying a gun. He was licenced to have the weapon, and had been told to inform officers of the firearm in those situations for his safety.

Mr Castile had reportedly been reaching for his wallet but the officer testified that Mr Castile was ignoring his commands not to pull out the gun and he feared for his life.

Mr Castile's mother spoke to the media after the acquittal, expressing anger and sorrow with the verdict.

"There has always been a systemic problem in the state of Minnesota, and me thinking, common sense that we would get justice. But nevertheless the system continues to fail black people", she said. "I am so disappointed in the state of Minnesota".

They shot Philando Castile on Facebook Live in front of his fiance and her daughter & even that's not enough for a guilty verdict. I can't.  Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) June 16, 2017

#PhilandoCastile was shot in cold blood. The world watched it LIVE. What will it take for the justice system to value Black lives?  Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) June 16, 2017

Mr Yanez and his family, meanwhile, quietly slipped out of the courthouse and into a van before leaving without taking questions. Jurors similarly declined to comment on the verdict.

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After the rally, police said roughly 2,000 people marched peacefully down streets in the capital St Paul, at times blocking traffic at intersections and then on Interstate 94, a major highway.

The crowd was mixed and included many children, including some who were stencilling posters as the event continued. Some carried signs that read "Unite for Philando" and "Black Lives Matter."

Later a splinter group of scores of protesters walked down a ramp onto Interstate 94. A line of police in riot gear eventually met them, and demonstrators were warned they would be arrested if they didn't disperse.

Additional reporting by agencies
Marawi (Philippines) (AFP) - Philippine troops pounded Islamist militants holding parts of southern Marawi city with air strikes and artillery Saturday as more soldiers were deployed and the death toll rose to more than 300 after nearly a month of fighting.

Fires erupted and dark plumes of smoke rose from enclaves still occupied by the militants as the air force staged bombing runs to support ground troops struggling to dislodge the fighters from entrenched positions, AFP journalists at the scene said.

MG520 attack helicopters and FA50 fighter jets were used in the raids, while sustained bursts of automatic gunfire could be heard in the distance, indicating the intensity of the fighting.

Also on Saturday, 400 fresh troops were airlifted to Marawi from the central Philippines, ANC television said quoting military officials.

Television footage showed the soldiers bidding goodbye to their families before being flown to the conflict zone.

Hundreds of militants -- supported by foreign fighters -- rampaged through Marawi, the largely Christian Philippines' most important Muslim city, on May 23 waving black flags of the Islamic State (IS) group.

President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in the entire southern region of Mindanao to counter the attack, which he said was part of a plan by IS to establish a base in the country.

Such a base could be crucial for IS' ambitions to establish a caliphate in Southeast Asia, analysts say.

The military has said eight foreign fighters from Chechnya, Yemen, Malaysia and Indonesia were among the militants killed in the Marawi fighting.

- Hundreds of thousands displaced -

The overall death toll rose to 329 with 310 -- 225 militants, 59 soldiers and 26 civilians -- killed in the conflict, according to government figures.

The 19 others deaths came from those displaced by the fighting, said Mujiv Hataman, the governor of a Muslim autonomous region in the south.

Hataman said the deaths among the evacuees were caused by severe dehydration from diarrhoea.

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More than 309,000 people have been been displaced in Marawi and nearby areas, the government said. Many have fled to the homes of friends and relatives and others are in evacuation centres.

"Our forces are moving towards the heart of the enemy," regional military spokesman Jo-ar Herrera told reporters in Marawi on Saturday, referring to the heavy fighting under urban conditions.

"It's the centre of gravity. This is where the location of their command and control, the leadership of the enemy."

Ground commanders estimate "more than 100" militants are still holding out in at least four villages in Marawi, military spokesman Brigadier General Restituto Padilla said in Manila.

But he said the figures were based on estimates a few days ago "so this number could have dropped significantly".

Padilla said in an interview with DZMM radio the military would no longer give any self-imposed deadlines on when the militants would be driven out after failing to meet previous ones they had set.

"We are trying our best to expedite (driving them out) without unduly compromising the lives of our soldiers and at the same time the remaining civilians there," he said.
Washington (AFP) - Minnesota activists held a second rally against police violence Saturday following 18 arrests during a night of protests after a policeman was acquitted over the shooting of a black motorist.

Angry protestors had blocked a major highway in the state capital of St. Paul early Saturday after Friday's acquittal of Officer Jeronimo Yanez, 29, of all charges he faced in the shooting death of 32-year-old Philando Castile during a traffic stop.

Demonstrators held a smaller, more reflective rally and march Saturday evening "against injustice and to raise awareness that we will not stand for laws and policies that allow police to kill with impunity," organizers wrote on the event's Facebook page.

About 200 people turned out for that demonstration in Minneapolis -- the state's largest city that borders St. Paul -- according to the Star Tribune newspaper.

Castile's death was part of a series of high-profile shootings of African-Americans by police. Americans were stunned to see the video, livestreamed on Facebook, of his panicked girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, as blood spread on Castile's shirt.

Yanez fired repeatedly at Castile, testifying later he though the man was reaching for a gun. Reynolds said he was reaching for his wallet.

The verdict had sparked outrage among many in the St. Paul area. An estimated 1,500 people marched through the city, then poured onto interstate highway I-94, shutting it down.

When some marchers ignored repeated police orders to disperse, state and local officers arrested 18 of them shortly after midnight, a state police spokesman said.

The Star Tribune said those arrested included two reporters for other Minnesota newspapers who were covering the march.

A police statement said the charges against the 18 included "being a pedestrian on the freeway."
Washington (AFP) - Becoming president forced Donald Trump to resign from a slew of corporate positions, but it also appears to have netted him much more income from his Mar-a-Lago resort and from book sales.

According to a financial disclosure form released late Friday, Trump earned around $37 million this year from the Florida resort -- a seven million dollar increase from last year.

Since coming becoming president on January 20, Trump has travelled to the Palm Beach property often and upped the membership fees substantially.

He has frequently referred to the property as the "Winter White House" and sought to promote the venue as an official presidential residence.

Trump's trips to Florida bring with them a retinue of Secret Service agents and government staff, who are reported to stay there at US taxpayers' expense.

The disclosure was made in forms released by the Office of Government Ethics. They are less detailed than full tax returns, which Trump has refused to release, breaking with decades of tradition.

The 98-page document shows that being president has also apparently increased Trump's earnings from sales of his book "The Art of the Deal" published in 1987 and that he resigned from positions in 565 companies on or around the day before becoming president.

His assets range from Pfizer stocks to a drinks company in Israel, but the disclosure also showed hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.
Moscow (AFP) - New US sanctions on Russia approved by the Senate will complicate the countries' relations, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a TV interview Saturday.

"Of course this will make Russia-US relations more complex," Putin said in an excerpt from an interview due to air in full at 1700 GMT on Rossiya-1 television.

"I think it is harmful," the Kremlin strongman said, while adding that "it is premature to talk now about any response."

Nevertheless he warned that Russia would have to "adjust something" or "do something extra."

The president insisted that US sanctions would not lead Russia into a "deadlock or a collapse."

The interview was filmed directly after Putin's annual televised phone-in show on Thursday, at which he slammed fresh sanctions as coming "out of nowhere" and motivated by fear of Russia as a "serious competitor."

"Of course this is evidence of the continuing domestic political battle in the US, but it is completely out of nowhere," Putin told viewers.

"If it wasn't for Crimea, if it wasn't for other problems, they would think of other reasons to contain Russia."

The US Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed tough sanctions on Russia over alleged election meddling. The measure has now gone to the House of Representatives.

Germany on Friday accused Washington of hurting European power companies through the new sanctions against Russia that target the planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe.
UPDATE: 6: 27 a.m. EDT  Just hours after a spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition said he cannot confirm reports that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he cannot definitively Russian airstrike killed the ISIS leader.

I dont have a 100-percent confirmation of the information, Lavrov said adding, past examples of similar actions to strike the leadership of terrorist groups were presented with much enthusiasm and pomp, but the experience shows that those structures later regained their capability.

UPDATE: 4:00 a.m. EDT  Nearly 30 Islamic State group (ISIS) commanders and up to 300 fighters were at the meeting in Raqqa when Russia-backed airstrikes hit the area on May 28, Russia's defense ministry said in a statement Friday. The ministry believes Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and up to 330 other fighters were killed. A Russian Su-34 aircraft and a Su-35 multirole reportedly carried out the strikes.

We informed the American side in advance of the raid that is likely to have killed Baghdadi, the ministry said. The Department of State has designated Baghdadi as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT).

Here are some Twitter reactions to news of Baghdadi's killing:

Original story:

A Russia-backed airstrike may have killed Islamic State group's (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, reports said early Friday, adding that Moscow was investigating the claims. Over the years, several reports claiming to have captured, wounded or killed Baghdadi have surfaced, ultimately proving to be untrue.

Russia's Defence Ministry said the airstrike near the Syrian city of Raqqa on May 28, targeted a meeting of ISIS leaders. "According to the information which is now being checked by various channels, Baghdadi, who was eliminated by the air strike, was also present during the meeting," RIA news agency quoted the ministry as saying.

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Earlier this year, reports claimed Iraqi warplanes struck a house where Baghdadi was reportedly meeting some of the militant organization's top commanders. "Iraqi intelligence was carefully monitoring the movements of Baghdadi, but his injury has not yet been confirmed," an Iraqi defense spokesperson was quoted as saying Monday to Palestinian news outlet Dunya al-Watan.

Baghdadi, whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, is responsible for turning ISIS into a formidable force in northern Iraq and parts of Syria after helping the group splinter off from al Qaeda. Baghdadi is believed to be 45 years old and from Samarra, located north of Baghdad.

This is a developing story.

Related Articles
Geneva (AFP) - A Qatari official accused Saudi Arabia and its allies Friday of imposing a "siege" on his country with sanctions he said were having a more devastating effect than the Berlin Wall.

Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri, chairman of Qatar's national human rights committee, said the measures amounted to collective punishment and cited one case of a mother being separated from her baby.

The recent decision by several countries to cut ties with Qatar was trampling on the rights of citizens from the entire region, he said.

"This siege and these measures have led to what is called collective punishment," Marri told reporters in Geneva in Arabic through a translator, calling on the international community to intervene.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt announced earlier this month the suspension of all ties to Qatar. They accused it of state support for extremist groups and denounced its political proximity to Shiite Iran.

Qatar denies the allegations.

Among other measures, the four states gave all Qatari citizens 14 days to leave their countries and ordered home their own citizens living in Qatar.

This had led to "gross violations of human rights", Marri said, pointing out that every Qatari family had at least one member living in other countries in the region.

These measures "are harsher than the Berlin Wall that separated families", he added.

His committee had so far received 1,064 complaints for a vast range of rights violations, from both Qataris and citizens of the other countries involved, he said.

He pointed to new laws issued by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE threatening between five and 15 years in prison for any of their citizens "who shows sympathy to the state of Qatar".

In one case, he said, a Qatari woman was ordered to leave the UAE where she lived with her husband and infant. When she arrived at the airport however, she was told she could not take her baby, who had Emirati citizenship, with her.

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Thousands of students studying abroad had also been affected, he said. He cited the case of one woman from Qatar who was in her last year studying at a university in UAE who had been forced to leave.

"She has lost four years of study," he said.

Merri said his committee was urging Saudi Arabia and its allies to lift their sanctions, and was calling on the international community to pressure them to do so.

He called on UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, who has already expressed alarm at the measures, to send a delegation to Qatar to see the impact of the sanctions firsthand.

Merri also urged Qatar to "immediately move internationally to ensure the end of this siege, by going to the Security Council or other UN mechanisms."
The United States still leads the world in scientific research, at least in publishing the most biomedical studies in top-tier journals and spending the most money on research and development (R&D).

But that might not be the case for long, a group of scientists claimed in an opinion piece published today (June 15) in the journal JCI Insight.

America's dominance in the scientific world is slowly shrinking, the researchers found, largely because China has invested vast amounts of money in science over the past two decades. In 2015, China's biomedical research teams ranked No. 4 on the top 10 list for the total number of new discoveries published in six top-tier journals, the researchers said. In 2000, China didn't even make the top 10 on this list (coming in at 14), the researchers reported. [Best Supporting Role: 8 Celebs Who Promote Science]

What's more, China spent 75 percent of what the U.S. spent on total R&D in 2015, the researchers said. In 2000, China spent a mere 12 percent of what the U.S. spent, they found.

However, the future of research might be collaborative. More scientists from the U.S. and around the world are making new discoveries and advancements by working with international partners, the researchers said.

Study scoop

To get a better idea of the scientific world's leading countries, the researchers went through six top-tier journals (JAMA, Lancet,the New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, Nature and Science) and four mid-tier journals from 2000 to 2015. The researchers also analyzed each country's R&D investments from that period.

Over the past 15 years, research funding in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and other European countries has stagnated, while China's funding has dramatically increased, the researchers found.

In 2015, the top 10 slots for publishing the greatest number of biomedical research papers in upper-tier journals went to the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, France/Japan, Switzerland, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and South Korea/Sweden/Italy.

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Meanwhile, the top 15 countries that spent the most on biomedical R&D were the United States, China, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, South Korea and Singapore.

These analyses show that South Korea and Singapore are also inching up the list, the researchers said.

The findings suggest that America could one day slip from its leadership position in the world of science and medical research, the study authors said.

"It's time for U.S. policy makers to reflect and decide whether the year-to-year uncertainty in [the] National Institutes of Health [NIH] budget and the proposed cuts are in our societal and national best interest," the opinion piece's senior researcher, Dr. Bishr Omary, the chief scientific officer of Michigan Medicine at the University of Michigan, said in a statement.

America's current path might dissuade the next generation of bright American minds from pursuing science, Omary added.

"If we continue on the path we're on, it will be harder to maintain our lead and, even more importantly, we could be disenchanting the next generation of bright and passionate biomedical scientists who see a limited future in pursuing a scientist or physician-investigator career," he said. [Creative Genius: The World's Greatest Minds]

What comes next

The researchers performed the study because they wondered whether the flat NIH budget, at least up to 2015, would have repercussions on America's standing in the world, they said.

During their research, they found that while Chinese-born scientists who trained in the United States used to stay here to work, they are now going back to China after their education is over.

Moreover, Singapore is now recruiting top scientists from the U.S. and other countries, now that the country is spending more on R&D, the study's authors found.

However, the U.S. still has a competitive edge. The current 2017 federal fiscal budget has increased NIH funding, thanks to bipartisan congressional support, the researchers said. (The NIH is the largest federal provider for money funding medical and basic biomedical research.)

But current debates on the 2018 budget are concerning, as there are talks of cuts, the researchers said. In the meantime, Chinese R&D funding is expected to surpass U.S. funding by 2022, the authors said.

"Our analysis, albeit limited to a small number of representative journals, supports the importance of financial investment in research," Omary said. "I would still strongly encourage any child interested in science to pursue their dream and passion, but I hope that our current and future investment in NIH and other federal research support agencies will rise above any branch of government to help our next generation reach their potential and dreams."

The study was published online today (June 15) in the journal JCI Insight.

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations
A Taliban suicide bomb and gun attack on a police hedquarters in eastern Afghanistan killed at least five officers and injured 18 people, authorities said.

The assault -- part of an all-out attack during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan -- was launched at 6:00 am and was still continuing more than six hours later, said the regional police commander, Asadullah Shirzad.

In addition to the dead, nine police officers and nine civilians were wounded, he said.

The attack involved at least five Taliban, one of whom blew himself up at the entrance to the site in the city of Gardez to clear the way for the others.

One was still holding out more than six hours later, said Shirzad, whose city centre base houses both regular policemen and police special forces.

His description of the assault suggested a well-prepared and coordinated assault.

"One (attacker) blew up his vehicle at the entrance of the headquarters, opening the way for two others who opened fire on the security forces. Another suicide bomber was killed," he told AFP.

The head of the police hospital, Dr. Shir Mohammad, confirmed the five fatalities.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the operation in a statement.

"Around 6:20 this morning a martyr attack was conducted by our mujahhidin against a special forces base in Gardez, Paktiya," he wrote, reporting often as a far greater balance than officials, of a "hundred Of the dead and wounded among the police ". Since the beginning of their spring offensive in late April, the Taliban have been mounting lethal assaults on the positions of the Afghan army and police, reflecting the vulnerability of the regular forces, which have lost several dozen men in recent years weeks. About sixty soldiers were killed on their bases, mostly at night, in the southern province of Kandahar alone during the same week at the end of May. The insurgents also target the international coalition forces deployed in support of Afghan forces: seven US soldiers were injured on Saturday by an Afghan soldier who returned his weapon against his instructors and advisers. Without calling for the operation, the Taliban fighting against the Kabul regime and the forces behind it have reported it and described the soldier as a "patriot." On 11 June, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a similar operation in the east of the country, perpetrated by an infected Afghan soldier who had killed three US soldiers and wounded a fourth in an operation in eastern Nangarhar province, Of the fighters of the Islamic State group. The multiplication of these incidents comes as the Pentacan is about to announce the sending of a few thousand additional men to counter the progression of the Islamist insurgents in the country. str-mam / ach

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Five civilians were among the wounded.

One of the five attackers was still holding out more than five hours after the coordinated assault began, Shirzad said.

"The first attacker blew up his vehicle at the entrance to the headquarters, opening the way for two others who opened fire on security forces, and another suicide bomber was shot dead," he said.

The head of the police hospital, Dr Shir Mohammad, confirmed the casualty toll.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement.

Since the beginning of their spring offensive in late April, the Taliban have been mounting lethal attacks on the positions of the Afghan army and police, who have lost several dozen men in recent weeks.

Foreign forces assisting the Afghans have also been targeted. Seven US soldiers were wounded Saturday in an insider attack at a military base by an Afghan soldier described as a "patriot" by the Taliban.

They are battling to topple the government of President Ashraf Ghani and oust the Western forces that support him.

mam-ach/sm

At least five Afghan policemen were killed and 15 people injured in a suicide bomb and gun attack by Taliban insurgents on the police headquarters in an eastern city Sunday, authorities said.

The assault on the headquarters in Gardez, which was still continuing, was launched at 6:00 am, said the regional police commander, Asadullah Shirzad.

Five civilians were among the wounded.

One of the five attackers was still holding out more than five hours after the coordinated assault began, Shirzad said.

"The first attacker blew up his vehicle at the entrance to the headquarters, opening the way for two others who opened fire on security forces, and another suicide bomber was shot dead," he said.

The head of the police hospital, Dr Shir Mohammad, confirmed the casualty toll.

The spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack in a communique.
Washington (AFP) - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday cancelled his attendance at next week's Organization of American States meeting in Mexico, opting to stay in Washington to focus on the diplomatic crisis in the Middle East.

Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan will represent the United States at the regional meeting scheduled for Monday to Wednesday in the resort city of Cancun.

"The secretary of state will continue his efforts to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East region through in-person meetings and phone conversations with Gulf and regional leaders," the State Department said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and others severed diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar almost two weeks ago, accusing Doha of supporting extremist groups.

Qatar -- a longtime US ally -- denies the accusations.

But last week, US President Donald Trump expressed support for the Saudi-led allegations, charging that Qatar had "historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level."

Pentagon and State Department officials have since scrambled to reassure the emirate, which hosts the largest US airbase in the Middle East and the command headquarters for operations in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

On Thursday, the United States agreed to a $12 billion warplane sale to Qatar, reaffirming its support.

Tillerson "has made more than a dozen phone calls and participated in several in-person meetings" in efforts to tamp down the crisis, the State Department said.

"The secretary will continue these efforts."
Fulfilling one of the key campaign promises of President Donald Trump, US Homeland Secretary John Kelly signed a memorandum on Thursday revoking an Obama-era plan that intended to protect some illegal immigrant of parents of children who are lawful permanent residents from being deported.

The program Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA)  announced by President Barack Obama in 2014 never came into effect as it was blocked in the federal court.

Kelly said in a statement, Thursday, he was rescinding the initiative because there was no credible path forward to litigate the currently enjoined policy.

Read: Can Immigration Help Economy?

The program intended to keep immigrant parents safe from deportation and provide them with renewable work permit for two years. Both parents under the plan had to fulfill certain criteria.

However, 26 states including Republican- governed Texas challenged the plan at a Texas court. The plan was then blocked by a federal judge. The states had argued that Obama had overstepped the powers granted to him by the Constitution, reports said.

The decision however does not affect another Obama-era memorandum known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). The program applies to children who were brought to the United States illegally.

Trump had earlier announced that his administration was framing a policy on how to deal with those covered under DACA and these people should not worry. However, there has not been any formal announcement regarding any change in the policy.

While Trump has not cleared the air on what he plans to do about the program but so far, most immigrants protected by the efforts have not been targeted. Reports suggest that as of March 31, about 787,000 young immigrants had been approved under DACA, the Associated Press reported.

Arrests of immigrants in the interior of the country have increased under the Trump administration. However, deportations have slightly gone down as less number of people has been caught crossing the Mexican border illegally.

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Immigration enforcement was one of the top priorities of Trump during his election campaign. The president had assured that he would crackdown at those living in the country illegally.

Read: Immigration Arrests Of Undocumented Immigrants Rise In The US

The U.S. immigration authorities have been taking action against many immigrants. The authorities in the last three weeks have arrested and moved to deport 199 Iraqi immigrants, mostly from the Detroit area after Iraq agreed to accept deportees.

Over 70 immigrants of Ghana were also deported by US authorities this month. Over 100 Ghana Immigrants were deported in November last year.

While President Obama had pushed in many reforms for immigrants, a record number of 2 million deportations were executed during his administration.

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Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump announced Friday he is under investigation in connection with a probe into alleged Russian election meddling that is gnawing away at his administration -- and gathering pace.

The Republican leader also lashed out at the Justice Department's number two, the man tasked with organizing the probe.

The furious early morning barrage of tweets -- his second in as many days -- came as the special counsel investigating Russia's influence over his election pieced together a high-caliber legal team and readied to begin interviews.

Trump is accused of firing FBI director James Comey over his refusal to steer the Russia investigation away from former national security advisor and Trump ally Mike Flynn.

The US president has denied trying to influence the investigation, but has acknowledged in an interview that Russia was on his mind when he dismissed Comey.

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt" he tweeted from the White House shortly before a day trip to Miami.

That appeared to be the first public confirmation that Trump is being investigated for obstruction of justice -- and a digital salvo trained at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who wrote a memo criticizing Comey.

A source on Trump's legal team attempted to clarify the missive, claiming he was reacting to media reports about the investigation rather than offering public confirmation.

Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Mueller -- a respected former FBI director -- has sought to beef up his investigatory firepower.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, told AFP he now has "13 attorneys on board, with several more in the pipeline."

That will only add to a sense of foreboding that pervades the White House, from the crammed collective workspaces of junior officials all the way to the Oval Office.

The widened Russia probe could have far-reaching repercussions for Trump's presidency, transforming his closest aides into witnesses and sucking even more political oxygen out of the West Wing.

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Trump was set to escape the Washington pressure cooker on Saturday. Accompanied by First Lady Melania, he will make his first trip to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

A weekend at the rustic mountain getaway is a far cry from the president's normal routine of jetting off to one of his lavish resorts, mainly Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

- 'Rude awakening' -

On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence took what he later described as a "very routine" step of hiring outside counsel to represent him.

Pence tapped far-from-average lawyer Richard Cullen, who litigated the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, the Watergate affair and the 2000 vote recount in Florida.

As the legal rope has tightened, Trump's allies have gone on the offensive, questioning Mueller's credibility and floating the idea he may be fired.

Trump's apparent attack on Rosenstein also raised further questions about whether he will stay in his position or recuse himself from the investigation.

"As the deputy attorney general has said numerous times, if there comes a point when he needs to recuse, he will. However, nothing has changed," said Ian Prior, a Justice Department spokesman.

Top Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein expressed concern that Trump may try to fire both Mueller and Rosenstein, warning "he's in for a rude awakening" if he thinks he can shut down the investigation.

"Even his staunchest supporters will balk at such a blatant effort to subvert the law," Feinstein said.

- 'Witch hunt' -

Trump also lashed out at the media, on a day that aides hoped would be focused on his decision to undo some of Barack Obama's detente with Cuba.

"After 7 months of investigations & committee hearings about my 'collusion with the Russians,' nobody has been able to show any proof. Sad!" Trump tweeted.

"The Fake News Media hates when I use what has turned out to be my very powerful Social Media - over 100 million people! I can go around them."

Trump's young presidency has been battered by allegations -- under investigation both by Congress and the FBI -- that Russia interfered to sway the 2016 election in his favor, in possible collusion with Trump's campaign team.

The president has long vehemently denied any collusion with Moscow.
The Washington Post report Wednesday that Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III had widened his investigation into President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice has renewed buzz around the capital about the possibility of impeachment.

Before the report, Mueller's probe had only extended to the investigation of the Trump campaign for potential collusion with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election. In light of a dramatic testimony by former FBI Director James Comey where he described how President Trump asked him to drop an investigation into former NSA Director Michael Flynn, Mueller has decided to widen his search to probe whether or not Trump obstructed justice.

The recent history of impeachment, however, has shown that obstruction of justice has more precedence in American politics than collusion with a foreign government.

NEW: Can President Donald Trump Be Impeached Through Petitions? How The Impeachment Process Works

The last president was Bill Clinton, who was impeached by Congress in 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice in relation to the testimony around his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. Originally, that investigation was brought about to investigate the failed land deal known as Whitewater.

Like Trump, Clinton was investigated by an independent counsel, Kenneth Starr. After the House vote, Clinton was later acquitted by the Senate.

In 1974, President Richard Nixon was brought up on charges for three articles of impeachment: obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress following hearings that investigated the Nixon campaign breaking into the Democratic National Convention's office in the Watergate hotel during the 1972 presidential election.

Nixon resigned following the release of the so-called "Watergate tapes" that revealed he was complicit in the coverup of the break-in. He was never impeached by the Senate and was later controversially pardoned by President Gerald Ford.

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NEW: Donald Trump's Approval Rating Close To All-Time Low As Impeachment Betting Odds Soar

newt gingrich

Photo: Getty Images/Alex Wong

Newt Gingrich, former Secretary of State and ardent supporter of Trump, said Friday that the President "cannot obstruct justice." The quote has drawn the comparison to a famous quote by Nixon from a 1977 interview with David Frost: "When the president does it, that means it is not illegal."

"Technically, the President of the United States cannot obstruct justice," Gingrich said at the National Press Club at a Washington, D.C., event while promoting his book "Understanding Trump." "The President of the United States is the chief executive officer of the United States. If he wants to fire the FBI director, all he's got to do is fire him."

Gingrich's past actions, however, shows a different story. Gingrich was one of the 221 members of the House of Representatives who voted to impeach Clinton for obstruction of justice in 1998 and one of the leading advocates for Clinton's impeachment. Gingrich continued, saying that the liberal side of the of the political aisle are "engaged in the Salem witchcraft."

"The left right now is engaged in the Salem witchcraft process of, 'We know somebody's evil, we know somebody's bad. I wonder who we should burn at the stake? Maybe it's you, whoever you are,'" Gingrich said. He then referenced the Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" and said, "that's the mentality of the left right now."

Meanwhile, Democrats have ratcheted up their calls for impeachment proceedings in light of reports that Trump was considering firing Mueller, and attacking Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on his Twitter feed. Both Mueller and Rosenstein are leaders in the investigation into Trump's potential collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice.

All Americans, regardless of party, agree on the fundamental principle that no one is above the law, said Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said on MSNBC on Friday. And if President Trump were to fire Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, and then [get] special counsel Mueller fired, I believe Congress would begin impeachment proceedings.

On June 12, a poll from Public Policy Polling showed 47 percent of voters support Trump being impeached, while 43 percent oppose it.

GettyImages-695957166

Photo: (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Related Articles
Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he was "canceling" his predecessor's move to ease sanctions on Cuba, but in practice there will be few immediate changes.

- Policy review -

Trump has ordered the Treasury and Commerce Departments to begin a policy review within 30 days to design new regulations, but that process could take several months.

No policy changes will take effect until the departments have finalized the new rules.

- Existing business deals -

The White House said the aim is to channel business away from the Cuban military monopoly GAESA, including travel-related transactions, and instead boost direct business with small, private enterprises.

However, the Treasury Department said the administration wants to ensure the policy change would not impact existing business.

That means companies may continue to do business even with Cuban military-linked firms "provided that those commercial engagements were in place prior to the issuance of the forthcoming regulations."

- Personal travel -

While tourism is still officially prohibited, since only Congress can lift the nearly 55-year-embargo still in place on Cuba, the Obama administration loosened the rules -- and enforcement -- to allow individual, "people-to-people" travel.

Trump's changes will reverse that, reverting to the previous policy of only allowing group, educational travel.

"An employee, consultant, or agent of the group must accompany each group to ensure that each traveler maintains a full-time schedule of educational exchange activities," Treasury said.

However, anyone who has already started making travel plans, and "completed at least one travel-related transaction (such as purchasing a flight or reserving accommodation)," will be allowed to make their trip even if it happens after the new regulations are announced.

And while Treasury said the new policy does not prohibit cruise or airline travel to the island, only those in 12 authorized categories may travel there by plane or boat.

Story continues

- Remittances -

Individuals will still be allowed to send money to relatives in Cuba.

In addition, the White House said there will be an exception for Cuban-Americans who "will be able to continue to visit their family in Cuba and send them remittances."
Daca recipients have already been deported under Trump, despite policy which supposedly protected them, and Dapa program for parents has been cancelled

Dreamers march outside a Trump building on 22 November 2016 in New York. Photograph: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images

The Trump administration has announced that it will leave in place nominal protections for young immigrants covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program.

But advocates warned that Daca recipients  known as Dreamers  remain under threat and said that the time for action and resistance is now.

The Department of Homeland security said on Thursday that a 2012 memorandum that created the Daca program will remain in effect.

The same statement announced a cancellation of executive branch efforts, begun under Barack Obama, to protect the immigrant parents of children who are US citizens or have permanent resident status. About four million people were believed to be affected.



The Dreamers program is smaller, with more than 750,000 applicants recorded by the start of 2017. Those youths, who under program guidelines would have arrived in the United States before age 16, are still in danger, advocates warned.

It is not the case that Trump has saved Daca, said Adam Luna, a spokesperson for United We Dream, the countrys largest immigrant youth advocacy organization.

It is the case that immigrant youth have mounted a very steady campaign to promote Daca, and to build up the public case for it, which has always been strong. But [news reports] that Daca has been saved, or that Trump has saved Daca, are extremely misleading, because the program remains very vulnerable, and agents have been unleashed by Trumps executive orders.

Dreamers have already been deported under Trump, despite the policy which supposedly protected them. In the first such known case, Juan Manuel Montes, 23, who had lived in the US since the age of nine, was detained in California in February and deported to Mexico without getting a chance to retrieve his active Daca permit.

After he was elected president, Trump signaled potential flexibility on the Dreamers program, despite his continuous incendiary rhetoric attacking immigrants on the campaign trail.

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Were going to work something out thats going to make people happy and proud, Trump told Time magazine in an interview published in 2016. They got brought here at a very young age, theyve worked here, theyve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And theyre in never-never land because they dont know whats going to happen.

Greisa Martinez Rosas, advocacy director for United We Dream and a Daca beneficiary, voiced a call to action in the face of Trumps latest attack on protections for immigrants.

Our message to elected officials at the federal, state and local level is that if you are not actively enacting policies to protect immigrants from mass deportation and all people of color from out of control law enforcement, you are complicit in the Trump attacks, said Martinez Rosas. The time for action and resistance is now.

Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, the program to protect immigrant parents that was canceled on Thursday, was derailed last June, when the supreme court issued a split decision leaving in place a lower court ruling that blocked the program. In making his decision, Homeland Security secretary John Kelly took into account the fact that Dapa never took effect, and our new immigration enforcement priorities, a department statement said.

Immigrant advocacy groups had no prior warning of the policy shift, Luna said, but it did not land as a surprise.

There hasnt been a call with community leaders or anything like that, that we know of  which would have usually happened under the last administration, he said. As advocates and as people with deep ties in the community, we have not had an open line of communication with the administration on these issues. What we have seen is the administration, over and over and over again, increasingly making threats to undocumented people, and this is certainly not a surprise.

Undocumented people in this county are extremely vulnerable under this administration. But folks are organizing and fighting back.
Attorney says tweet about witch hunt, in which president wrote Im being investigated for firing the FBI director, only concerned Washington Post report

Donald Trump speaks about Cuba policy in Miami. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

A member of Donald Trumps legal team has denied the presidents own assertion that he is under investigation for obstruction of justice.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, appeared across the major political talk shows on Sunday. Speaking on CBSs Face the Nation, he said: The fact of the matter is the president has not been and is not under investigation.

On NBCs Meet the Press, he said: Hes not afraid of the investigation  there is no investigation. There is not an investigation of the president of the United States, period.

Sekulows comments directly contradicted Trumps own tweet this week, in which he appeared to refer to deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein when he wrote: Im being investigated for firing the FBI director by the man who told me to fire the FBI director. Witch hunt!

Sekulow sought to brush aside the presidents words. Trump, he said, was merely responding to an anonymously sourced Washington Post report that said special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into links between Trump aides and Russia had expanded to look at Trumps firing of FBI director James Comey.

Sekulow added: The president issued that tweet on social media because of the report in the Washington Post from five anonymous sources none of which, of course, anyone knows about, alleging that the president was under investigation in this purported expanded probe.

The fact of the matter is the president has not been and is not under investigation. So this was his response, via Twitter, via social media.

On CNNs State of the Union, Sekulow sought to account for any confusion over Trumps apparently precise words by saying the president could not in a tweet, include all that is there. But, he added, this is a president that has utilised social media, has revolutionised the whole concept of electioneering with social media.

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In an echo of remarks by former House speaker Newt Gingrich this week, Trumps attorney claimed the president has the constitutional authority to fire anyone he chooses without triggering obstruction of justice issues.

Sekulow said Trump nonetheless sought the opinion of Rosenstein on whether to fire Comey. It was a threshold constitutional issue, Sekulow said on CNN, whether an official who recommended such a firing could then investigate the president for making the decision.

Before you get to an investigation, he said, you have to get to, Does the constitution allow the prosecution of this type of matter. If there is going to be an investigation, which right now there is not, you would of course raise the constitutional issues first.



Speaking on ABC, the Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House intelligence committee, said he believed Trump was preparing to discredit Muellers findings in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Robert Mueller, now special counsel on the FBIs investigation, in Washington. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

Schiff said rumors about Trump considering firing Mueller and Trump surrogates raising issues about the special counsels connections to donors to Democratic causes and campaigns amounted to an attempt to undermine the probe.

The president wants to take down Bob Mueller, his lawyer wants to take down Bob Mueller and the question is why, Schiff said. I think the answer is they want to discredit whatever Bob Mueller comes up with.

Schiff has previously warned that if Trump does fire Rosenstein or Mueller, it would trigger a constitutional crisis. He tweeted on Sunday: Will take more than some tweets to besmirch Bob Mueller, a Purple Heart and Bronze Medal recipient who has served presidents of both parties.



Sekulows comments seemed to establish the position Trump will take on the Mueller investigation, in any public testimony which the attorney said the president was still willing to give.

Trump however has regularly capsized official positions with his own candour on social media, and a senior Republican close to the president voiced concern on Sunday that, once again, the president had caused needless problems for himself.



Trump has a compulsion to counter-attack, Gingrich said on ABCs This Week. I dont think that tweet helped him.

Trump tweeted on Sunday morning. The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt, he wrote, before citing an outlying Rasmussen poll that gave him a 50% approval rating. Trump also claimed falsely to have a higher approval rating than Barack Obama.

The website fivethirtyeight.com gives Trump an average approval rating of 38.7%.
Trump listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House earlier this month. (Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)

President Trumps lawyer on Sunday contradicted his clients tweeted assertion that he is being investigated in the federal probe into Russias interference into the 2016 presidential election.

The president is not under investigation by the special counsel, Jay Sekulow, a member of Trumps outside legal team, said on NBCs Meet the Press. The president has not been and is not under investigation.

Sekulow said the tweet was in response to the Washington Post report that special counsel Robert Mueller, who is overseeing the FBIs probe into Russias meddling in the election, is now investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice.

Yet the presidents tweet seemed to confirm that he is under investigation.

I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt, Trump tweeted.

I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2017

So the president said I am under investigation even though he isnt under investigation? CNNs Jake Tapper asked Sekulow on State of the Union.

That response on social media was in response to the Washington Post piece  its that simple, Sekolow replied. The president issued that tweet, that social media statement, based on a fake report, a report with no documented sources, in the Washington Post.

Trumps lawyer took issue with the Posts use of five anonymous sources for its report on the expanding FBI probe.

.@JakeTapper to @JaySekulow : "so the President said he was under investigation, even though he isn't?" #CNNSOTU https://t.co/kEkjrjD88m  State of the Union (@CNNSotu) June 18, 2017

Earlier, in the wake of the FBI report, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein also issued a vaguely worded statement warning Americans to exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous officials.

Story continues

Sekulow also suggested that Twitters 140-character limit prevented Trump from fully explaining what he meant.

I think youre reading more into the tweet than whats there, Sekulow told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd.

The White House, though, has repeatedly directed reporters to take Trumps tweets at face value, saying his tweets speak for themselves.

Related: Spicer says again and again that Trumps tweets speak for themselves

Trumps reference to the man who told me to fire the FBI Director was apparently to Rosenstein, who installed Mueller as special counsel after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.

On the day of Comeys firing, the White House released memos from Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to Trump recommending the FBI directors termination  letters that Sekulow held up in his appearance on NBC.

But in testimony to Congress on May 19, Rosenstein said his memo to Trump was not a statement of reasons to justify Comeys for-cause firing.

And Trump told NBCs Lester Holt that he had already made the decision to fire Comey long before he received those memos.

I was going to fire Comey, Trump said. I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.

Earlier this month, Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying he believes his firing was due to the presidents concerns about the Russia probe.

Its my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation, Comey said.

The obstruction-of-justice investigation of the president began days after Comey was fired, the Post said.

According to the Associated Press, Trumps advisers say he is growing increasingly angry over the investigation, yelling at television sets in the White House carrying coverage and insisting he is the target of a conspiracy to discredit  and potentially end  his presidency.

On Sunday morning, the president continued to assail the investigation, tweeting that his agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt.

On Fox News Sunday, Sekulow said that even if Trump were under investigation, the possible obstruction the newspaper says is being probed is tied to Trumps firing of Comey  an action Sekulow argued that Department of Justice told him to take.

But Sekulow slipped into present tense, leading to a fiery exchange with host Chris Wallace.

Holy crap. This exchange between Chris Wallace and Trump's lawyer is absolutely incredible. pic.twitter.com/Wem33Lc1VK  David Mack (@davidmackau) June 18, 2017

Read more from Yahoo News:
Miami (AFP) - President Donald Trump's new measures restricting some trade and travel with Cuba did not go very far in practical terms, but they made a big noise in the place most eager to hear it: Miami's Little Havana neighborhood.

In return, the Cuban-Americans who turned out to welcome him to the symbolic heart of the exile community rewarded Trump with what in turn he seems to want the most: wild applause.

Hundreds packed the rickety Manuel Artime Theater -- from recently arrived dissidents fleeing Raul Castro's rule, to older veterans of failed CIA covert operations and the new generation of Cuban-American US lawmakers.

Back in Washington, Trump's critics warned that his clampdown on dealings with Cuban military-run tour firms and on private US travel to the communist-run island would only impoverish ordinary Cubans and threaten diplomatic rapprochement.

American private sector firms and business groups warned that he was cutting off avenues for investment that could only provide more opportunities for Cubans -- and profits and jobs for companies north of the Florida strait.

Still other observers noted that -- for all the hype about the reversal of the painstaking efforts towards rapprochement by Trump's predecessor Barack Obama -- the new measures amounted to little more than a commitment to enforce existing laws.

But here, the resounding speeches by Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Senator Marco Rubio struck home. The crowd chanted "Viva Cube Libre," sang "God Bless America" and cried out: "Thank you Mr President. We love you."

Before his election campaign last year, Trump had no history of supporting the cause of Cuban freedom -- and since coming to power he has embraced other authoritarian regimes without much pause to consider their human rights records.

But during the 2016 race to the White House he met veterans of Brigade 2506, the units of exiled Cubans covertly trained by the CIA to launch the ill-fated 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in a failed bid to oust then Cuban strongman Fidel Castro.

Story continues

The veterans were again at the theater -- named after one of their own -- on Friday to welcome Trump and cheer as he made good on his promise to them to revise Obama's outreach strategy and demand Cuba make good on democratic reform.

"The change is not radical. Trump did not reverse Obama's policy, but made adjustments. Much of Obama's policy remains the same," said Sebastian Arcos, associate director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

For Arcos, Trump was making a gesture to a community that came behind him in the election and a lot of the hype around his visit was whipped up by local leaders for political reasons -- but his decision carried symbolic weight.

By putting his decision in terms of service to US values and human rights, while taking a practical measure to defund Cuban state entities he is trying to recast the embargo as a measure against Raul Castro and government -- not the Cuban people.

This is a message that has some support, even among those in the once monolithic Cuban community who had begun to doubt the embargo and cautiously welcomed Obama's efforts to mend the half-century-old divide.

It's not hard in the scruffy streets of Little Havana, where old men play dominos in parks between Cuban diners and up-and-coming jazz bars, to find hardliners who spit on the "communist Obama" and his supposed sell-out to Castro.

But there are also those who see the value in opening up business links and making family travel easier, giving Cubans back home economic freedom while they wait for politics to catch up -- but even they sympathize with Trump's measures.

The domino park locks its gates at 6:30 pm, but on this muggy early summer evening Gerardo Diaz, 65, and his friends are in no hurry to head home, and happy to argue politics with reporters.

All are anti-Castro to varying degrees, but Diaz and some of the other older players were hopeful about the re-opening of ties -- after all, years of embargo had achieved little. But the idea of military cronies profiting stuck with them.

"I agree with Trump on the military. The government people should not be profiting," he said.

The Trump's new rules prohibit financial transactions with Cuba's military-backed tourism conglomerate GAESA, run by Castro's son-in-law, and an indispensable ally for foreign hotel and cruise brands seeking a foothold
Ambassador Dana Shell Smith: Getty

The US ambassador to Qatar has stepped down after posting critical tweets about Donald Trump's administration after he fired FBI Director James Comey.

Dana Shell Smith announced the move a week after several Gulf states cut diplomatic ties with the monarchy in Doha, citing concerns over their financial ties to Islamist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, The Maldives, United Arab Emirates, Libya, and Bahrain won praise from Mr Trump for coordinating the anti-Qatari effort.

The President claimed foreign leaders had singled the country out for funding "radical ideology", prompting criticism over his failure to address similar allegations levelled at his Saudi allies.

Ms Smith, a long-standing member of the US foreign service, has not indicated whether the ongoing crisis or the Trump administration played any part in her move, which the US State Department insists is "part of the normal rotation of career diplomats throughout the world.

However when Mr Comey was fired on 9 May she tweeted: "Increasingly difficult to wake up overseas to news from home, knowing I will spend today explaining our democracy and institutions.

"Diplomats explain & defend our political system.Can be tough when partisan acrimony so high, but there is still no greater country. #USA."

Increasingly difficult to wake up overseas to news from home, knowing I will spend today explaining our democracy and institutions.  Dana Shell Smith (@AmbDana) May 10, 2017

#Qatar is a strong partner in combating terrorist financing and we will continue our work together. https://t.co/kddFQSD7TC  Dana Shell Smith (@AmbDana) May 31, 2017

Ms Smith - who was appointed as the head diplomat in Doha by former President Barack Obama three years ago - has since tweeted that "Qatar is a strong partner in combating terrorist financing", contradicting the US President's public claims that the country is a funder of terrorism at a very high level.

Story continues

Egypt has long thought Qatars support of Islamist groups Muslim Brotherhood was dangerous for their country.

Saudi Arabia also re-ignited tensions over Dohas alleged support for Iran, which they claim could act to destabilise the region.

Last week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked that the nations in the anti-Qatari effort ease the blockade against Qatar and requested that Doha be responsive to its neighbours' concerns over terror financing.

However, just hours later Mr Trump applauded the coalition and raised the possibility that the cutting of ties was due to his urging that Middle East countries more effectively address financing terrorists during his Riyadh trip.

Ms Smith re-tweeted Mr Tillersons comments but not the Presidents tweets.

The US agreed to sell Qatar $12bn (9.4bn)-worth of fighter jets just days after President Trump accused the country of being a sponsor of terrorism.

The deal was signed off by the US Defence Ministry and reportedly included 36 F-15 combat aircraft.

Two days before she left her job Ms Smith retweeted a post by Meshal Hamad al-Thani, Qatar's ambassador to the US, which said the deal would create 60,000 new jobs in 42 states.

The Pentagon claimed the sale would increase security cooperation between the US and Qatar.

Qatar remains the home of some 10,000 American troops at a major US military base. So far, the dispute between Doha and nations led by Saudi Arabia has yet to shake that partnership, though cracks are showing in the responses from the US administration.

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available on iOS and Android.
A U.S. citizen has been kidnapped in Afghanistan, according to local reports Sunday. The kidnapped man was working on a World Bank-affiliated project for the war-torn countrys ministry of agriculture, irrigation and livestock, a senior government official told Afghanistans Tolo News.

There are limited details on the kidnapping, but Tolo News reported the American was kidnapped in Kabul early Sunday from outside his house in Karte Char area of the capital city. It remains unclear, for now, who is behind the kidnapping.

Read: Putin May Be Supplying Taliban, US General Says

Waheed Faizi, who describes himself as an experienced journalist, on his Twitter bio tweeted saying Kabul police confirmed the kidnapped man is a U.S. citizen.

The troubled country has witnessed series of kidnappings in the past year. after a Finnish woman working for a Swedish NGO Operation Mercy was abducted in Kabul last month. She has not been released yet. Apart from this, two university professors from the American University of Afghanistan were kidnapped last August and remain in hostage. An Australian aid worker was kidnapped in November but was released in March. Even businessmen in Kabul have been abducted, according to Tolo News.

Afghanistan is dealing with insurgency for over a decade. The Taliban militant group has carried out several attacks in the country targeting foreign nationals and embassies. In recent months, the groups attacks have increased. On June 10, three U.S. soldiers died and one was wounded following an attack by an Afghan soldier in eastern Afghanistan. The attack was claimed by the Taliban. The attack took place in Nangarhar provinces Achin district, which is home to a U.S. Army base. A similar insider attack took place in March in Helmand province wounding three U.S. soldiers.

In February, the commander of the U.S.-led military forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, said a few thousand additional troops were required to train Afghan soldiers. Washington currently has 8,400 troops deployed to Afghanistan.

Story continues

In a testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 13, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Taliban is surging in the country and that the U.S.-backed forces are not winning.

"We are not winning in Afghanistan right now and we will correct this as soon as possible," Mattis said at the time. He added the Taliban were "surging" despite 15 years of war, saying he planned to address the issue.

The commander on the ground [Nicholson], in light of the situation, has asked for more, Mattis said. Those discussions are ongoing right now with the president, and myself and the chairman [Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford] advising him. The decision will be taken soon.

Read: Afghanistan Calls For Additional US Troops To Combat Taliban, ISIS

Mattis also dismissed a report that said the U.S. is planning to deploy about 50,00 troops to Afghanistan.

I give no credibility to a report about 50,000 troops. Thats somebodys flight of fantasy, Mattis said.

He also said he will possibly brief the committee on a new Afghanistan strategy by mid-July.

"I believe by mid-July we will be able to brief you in detail," the defense secretary said. "We are putting it together now and there are actions being taken to make certain we don't pay a price for the delay."

Related Articles
Rescue crews are searching the area where the ship was hit: AP

The White House has been briefed on the seven American sailors who are missing and unaccounted for after the Navy destroyer they were stationed on collided with a merchant ship off the coast of Japan.

"Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families. Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance," Donald Trump tweeted.

The USS Fitzgerald, a guided missile destroyer, took on water after the collision, but was able to be tugged back to the shore. Search crews are looking for the missing sailors in the waters where the contact occurred, and damaged parts of the ship will also be searched once the ship is safely docked, officials say. The ship was 56 nautical miles southeast of the Japanese port city of Yokosuka.

Right now we are focused on two things: the safety of the ship and the well-being of the Sailors, Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, said in a statement. We thank our Japanese partners for their assistance.

At least one of the sailors on board the ship were injured during the collision. He was sent to the hospital and is reportedly in a stable condition.

The damage occurred on the starboard side of the vessel, both above and below the waterline.

Right now we are focused on two things: the safety of the ship and the well-being of the Sailors, Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, said in a statement. We thank our Japanese partners for their assistance, Admiral John Richardson, the US chief of naval operations, said in a statement.

Soon after the collision, the US Navy established a crisis response team and made phone numbers available to family.

Navy Region Japan and the shore enterprise are 100% committed to providing support to these families during this difficult time, Rear Admiral Greg Fenton, the commander in charge of US Naval forces in Japan, said in a statement.
Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 might still be months away from appearing, but a new leak has surfaced indicating that Samsung's already at work on promotional materials for its next big phone.

Credit: Weibo/@UniverseIc on Twitter

Credit: Weibo/@UniverseIc on Twitter

A Twitter user going by the name Ice Universe posted an image purported to be an official press rendering for the Galaxy Note 8. The images shows a device set against a red-striped background and the handset itself has red stripes across the screen. It appears from the rendering in the ad that the device has a curved, edge-to-edge screen much like the one that debuted with the Galaxy S8.

MORE: Most Anticipated Phones

However, some industry watchers, including Samsung-tracking site SamMobile, aren't so sure it's the real thing. They point to the lack of physical buttons on the left and right sides of the handset, which suggests that the device in the photo isn't real. Both the S8 and S8+ have those buttons, and you'd expect the Note 8 to follow suit.

We do know that Samsung is planning a Galaxy Note 8. The company has confirmed as much, though it hasn't shared any other details about what to expect from the phone. However, countless reports have surfaced in recent months claiming to have details on what to expect with the Note 8.

Those reports say Samsung will run on either the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 or a successor (possibly the Snapdragon 836). Samsung is also expected to take design cues from the Galaxy S8 and eliminate the physical home button in favor of a virtual option. And although there had been some hope that Samsung would bake the fingerprint sensor into the screen, the company said the technology didn't work. Now, Samsung is expected to move the sensor to the back of the device.

As of this writing, Samsung is expected to announce the Galaxy Note 8 in late August or early September.
We hear a lot about Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and thats because we have extremely fancy hardware floating around and, in some cases, cruising on the surface of those planets. The planets that lie further away from the Sun dont get nearly as much attention, but they may soon, as NASA is currently spitballing some missions that will give us a better look at Uranus than weve ever gotten.

Don't Miss: This awesome web tool shows you what the 2017 eclipse will look like wherever you live

The theoretical missions, which would see NASA spacecraft heading to both Uranus and Neptune, would be of huge scientific benefit. The idea is to determine what the planets are made of, get an idea of the atmospheric composition, and take lots of fantastic photographs, too. Researchers hope to study the weather and overall climate of the planets, while determining how they fit into the overall makeup of our Solar System.

Both Uranus and Neptune still hold many secrets yet to be revealed, and the proposed missions would include both flybys and an orbiter that would send an atmospheric probe to Uranus in order to sample its gasses and detect elements. A similar option exists for Neptune, though the actual details of the mission(s) would need to be fully fleshed out before it comes anywhere near a formal proposal.

The missions are still a long way from reality, both in funding and in timeframe. NASA says that 2030 through 2036 would be feasible for a Uranus trip, while a Neptune mission would need to take place before 2030 or after 2040, due to the timing of a gravity-assisted boost around Jupiter.

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
South Central Community Action Partnership is holding its annual meeting Tuesday, July 20 to seat its elected Low-Income Representatives and selected Private Sector Representatives to the board of directors for the three regions of southcentral Idaho: 1) Twin Falls County, 2) Minidoka and Cassia counties, and 3) Lincoln, Gooding, Jerome, Blaine and Camas counties.

Applicants for all seats must reside or work within an associated county per region.

The Low-Income Representative must be either income eligible and aware of the problems affecting low-income families, or currently working with low-income families and willing to speak up for their needs.

Representatives of Private Groups, Interests and Agencies: The private sector shall draw representation from among private social agencies, private educational institutions and constituencies of the low-income concerned with specific problems and other private organizations within the community.

Applications for the opportunity to participate on the board of directors may be obtained at 314 East 5th St. in Burley or 550 Washington St. S., Twin Falls or call 1-800-627-1733 for more information. Applications and letters of interest must be return by June 28. Elections will be held July 6, 2017.
TWIN FALLS  Acorn Learning Center has raised $22,900 to renovate its new building but hasnt fully met its fundraising goal.

Despite the obstacles, the private, nonprofit school in Twin Falls is moving ahead.

Were making some good progress, board chairwoman Heidi Campbell said Friday.

After 30 years in its building on Filer Avenue East, Acorn Learning Center is preparing to move to a new facility this summer.

It leases its current building from a Washington-based church, which decided to put the property on the market.

It sold in summer 2015. One contingency with the sale: The new owner, a different church, must honor the lease with the school, which ends this summer.

Acorn Learning Center, which launched in 1982, is moving into a three-story building on Eastland Drive  across from Vera C. OLeary Middle School  under a long-term lease.

The school has about 75 students from preschool through fifth-grade.

The school received a special use permit May 23 from the city of Twin Falls. Volunteers and teachers have started moving items and have filled five storage units.

The lease for the new building will hopefully start next week, Campbell said.

Renovation work will include adding an alarm system, reconfiguring bathrooms, ramps and railings to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, and knocking down walls to ensure there are large, open classrooms.

School leaders originally hoped to raise $50,000 to help with moving and the renovation. But we think we can pare it down to $40,000, Campbell said.

The school continues to fundraise. If it doesnt meet its goal, it will have to take out a loan to cover any remaining costs.

Acorn Learning Center has organized fundraisers recently through Papa Kelseys Pizza & Subs, Pizza Pie Cafe and Tropical Sno. Dominos Pizza donated food for a moving day.

The school has another fundraiser coming up: a yard sale from 7 a.m.-3 p.m. June 24 at the school.

It will include donated items from Acorn families, as well as school materials and furniture that wont be needed in the new building.

Plus, theres a community event  a potluck  slated for 5 p.m. that day to say goodbye to the old school building.

Former Acorn students and parents, Campbell said, are especially encouraged to attend.
One big problem with empirical economics is that some disputes never get resolved. If two physicists disagree about the mass of the electron, they can do an essentially infinite number of experiments to see who's right, and eventually the undeniable truth will emerge. In the social sciences, though, most evidence can't be produced at will  it comes to us at random, from out in the big wide world. That means that when two economists differ about something like the labor market impact of immigration, sometimes the only way to settle the issue is to argue about who's empirical methods are superior.

That sort of squabble has been going on for about two years now, between a bunch of economists who think immigration isn't very harmful to native U.S. workers, and one very famous economist who thinks the negative effects are large. The dissenter is no slouch; it's George Borjas, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government (and a Cuban immigrant himself), who has been described by major publications as "America's leading immigration economist" and "the pre-eminent scholar in his field." Of all economists who study the immigration issue, Borjas is perhaps the only one capable of holding his own against the combined might of the others.

The argument is over a 1990 paper by celebrated labor economist David Card. Card studied the 1980 Mariel boatlift, in which Fidel Castro suddenly decided to let about 125,000 Cubans emigrate to the U.S. Most of them ended up in Miami. Card, making the assumption that the whim of a dictator like Castro is unlikely to be affected by labor market conditions in Miami, realized that this presented a perfect "natural experiment" with which to study how immigration affects native-born workers. Surprisingly, Card found that the surge of immigrants had no effect on wages or employment levels for low-skilled Miamians. That result, and many subsequent studies reaching the same conclusion, changed the way most economists think about the costs and benefits of immigration.

Borjas, an inveterate immigration skeptic, disagrees. In 2015 he wrote a paper claiming that if you look carefully enough, you can see a big harmful impact of the Mariel immigration wave on the wages of a certain group of native-born Miamian high-school dropouts.

Borjas' paper immediately drew fire from other immigration researchers. Card sniffed that Borjas was "flailing around." Giovanni Peri and Vasil Yasenov of the University of California-Davis noted that by limiting his sample to male high-school dropouts between the ages of 25 and 59, and excluding non-Cuban Hispanics, Borjas had limited himself to a sample of just 17 to 25 observations. That's probably too small of a sample to draw strong statistical conclusions, since a small amount of random noise can easily create spurious effects. Peri and Yasenov found that even slight changes to the set of workers being measured eliminates the negative effect that Borjas claimed to find. A 2017 follow-up paper by Peri and Yasenov, using more sophisticated statistical methods, concluded that Borjas' result was due to measurement error. Other studies also found the opposite of what Borjas claimed.

Recently, Michael Clemens of the Center for Global Development and Jennifer Hunt of Rutgers University found an even bigger problem with Borjas' study. Clemens and Hunt noted that in 1980, the same year as the Mariel boatlift, the U.S. Census Bureau changed its methods for counting black men with low levels of education. The workers that Borjas finds were hurt by the Mariel immigration include these black men. But because these workers generally have lower wages than those the Census had counted before, Borjas' finding of a wage drop among this group, the authors claim, was almost certainly a result of the change in measurement.

Borjas dismissed the contrary findings, suggesting they were motivated by the political bias of the Silicon Valley philanthropists who contribute to the think tank where Clemens works. He also argues that the low-wage workers whom he claims were hurt by the Mariel immigration weren't just black workers, and that low-skilled white workers might have moved out of Miami to avoid having to compete with the new Cuban arrivals.

This acrimonious debate is unlikely to be resolved soon. But stepping back, a larger pattern becomes clear. A number of studies of refugee waves have found little or no impact on the employment of native-born workers in the cities where the refugees go. These small or zero effects hold whether the refugees go to rich countries, poor countries, or simply to neighboring countries. In 2005, Card found little or no harm from Mexican immigration to the U.S. Some studies even find that immigration raises native-born wages, by prompting locals to go back to school and improve their skills.

So overall, the weight of evidence is solidly against Borjas on the immigration question. Borjas has written many papers showing harmful impacts of immigration, but an overwhelming majority of researchers in the field have found the opposite.

Borjas might still be right. But despite his fame, high position and voluminous output, it's getting harder to side with him against his many opponents. The ongoing dispute highlights the unfortunate fact that in empirical social science, long-running arguments rarely get definitively resolved  so don't expect Borjas or his critics to ever surrender. But the weight and volume of evidence must count for something, and the emerging consensus is that immigration just doesn't hurt native-born workers very much.
Idahoans with disabilities and their families are frightened by the progress of Medicaid cuts through Congress. On June 28, the US Senate will start debate on a bill that looks very much like the American Health Care Act passed in the House. Congressman Simpson was one of 217 lawmakers who passed the AHCA, the policy that makes deep cuts to Medicaid while eliminating assurances of health coverage for people with disabilities and the families that support them. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that almost $900 billion would be eliminated from Medicaid nationwide over a 10 year period. These actions of the US House of Representatives strike at the heart of the Medicaid program, a crucial source of health and long-term support services for people with disabilities. This proposed restructure of the Medicaid program digs into the very framework of the Medicaid program which has been in place since 1965, well before anyone heard of Obamacare.

What this means for Idahos disability community is simply a very stark future. Cuts of this magnitude will certainly undermine the last 30 years of deinstitutionalization for people with disabilities to live in their home communities and rightfully take their place as citizens in society. Cuts of this magnitude will undermine the health, safety and ability of people with disabilities to gain the support needed to live full lives.

Idaho has no alternatives to Home and Community Based Services funded through Medicaid. There are no institutions with the capacity to handle the numbers of people with disabilities who currently live in community and family settings now. If the current Medicaid funded services are undermined, the future is uncertain for the disability community, but undoubtedly it will be stark if Congress continues to push these policies.

Now Sens. Crapo and Risch are confronted with the opportunity to stand up for people with disabilities. We asked Sen. Crapo to take a stand for the disability community on June 5 in Idaho Falls and we will ask again on June 23 in Twin Falls.

The ICDD is sponsoring a rally and press conference on Friday, June 23, at 10:30 a.m. outside Sen. Crapos Twin Falls offices at 202 Falls Ave. in Twin Falls. Magic Valley Idahoans with disabilities, their families and supporters will be arriving from Twin Falls and other Magic Valley towns to ask Idahos senator to take a stand. We are asking them to publicly support Idahos community of people with disabilities and their needs for the critical health and long-term support services that only Medicaid provides.
The Tunisian government Friday fired the head of the state-run television for delay in Thursday evening news hour.

The decision, which surprised the countrys media regulatory body, HAICA, was made after Thursday evening news scheduled for 7pm local time instead of habitual 8pm during the holy month of Ramadan, were presented one hour and half later.

Elyes Gharbi has been replaced by Abdelmajid Mraihi as acting Managing Director until a new boss is appointed.

Online media huffpostmaghreb.com reports that a new boss has been nominated and his name has been introduced to HAICA for consultation before official announcement, in line with the constitution.

The television managing board in a statement pointed out that they took a delay to air the news program because the producer was victim of a heart attack.

Internal voices have contradicted the televisions statement, AFP reports.

HAICA regretted the government decision arguing that a delay in the evening news program is not the end of the world. A heart attack is a force majeure that can happen anywhere in the world.

Reporters without Borders also complained about the hasty decision. Yasmine Kacha, North Africa Director of the NGO urged the Tunisian government to shed light on the motives of such a decision.
Interior Minister announces changes

By Messenger Staff

Last week, Interior Minister Mgebrishvili fired his first deputy Besik Amiranashvili, and stressed he would personally reorganize the police.He stressed that the changes would increase the effectiveness of the police.From now on, I will reorganize all the departments of the criminal police both in Tbilisi and in the regions, as well as the central criminal police department and the patrol police, Mgebrishvili said.He stressed that his personal involvement in the activities of the criminal and patrol police would provide better outcomes.He also announced Tbilisi will have more patrol police crews in the near future.He did not specify the number but stressed the increase was the part of the reform in his ministry.The current number of police crews in the capital city is 116.The Minister also said all officers of the patrol police would undergo a mandatory training course and after the completion of the course they would have to take qualification exams.Mgebrishvili said the training would be held at the Interior Ministry Academy and would cover theory, tactical studies and practical exercises.It is welcome that the police will undergo special trainings, but it will be interesting how many policemen will fail to pass the qualification exams, and then whether they are fired and if they be replaced or not.Introducing the patrol police was one of the biggest achievements of the United National Movement government, and the attitude towards the system from the both the government and the public directly affects its effectiveness.The previous leadership eventually blundered when they gave too much power to the police, and ignoring crimes committed by policemen was an ssue that NGOs frequently mentioned.The situation is different now.Several policemen told The Messenger on the condition of anonymity that under the current authorities they do not feel they respect they once did and are unhappy with their salaries.They mentioned a 'lack of motivation'.They added that they were also unhappy with Mgebrishvilis activities, accusing him of firing professional staff and creating of unnecessary departments for his people.They also mentioned Mgebrishvilis very frequent foreign trips.Keeping a distance and balance between the police and the Government is essential.Giving too much power to the police coupled with a lack of respect from the government are equally damaging for the safety of Georgia's people.
The News in Brief

Heavy rains brought damage to Georgian population. The state will do its best to recover the losses.







Tbilisi Criticizes Russias WTO Deal Statement



On June 7, the Georgian Foreign Ministry responded to the statement of its Russian counterpart on cargo transit through Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia, saying Moscows position is a clear attempt to avoid the implementation of the 2011 Swiss-mediated agreement between Tbilisi and Moscow on trade monitoring between the two countries, including the cargo passing through Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia.



The Russian Foreign Ministry said on June 6 that it welcomes the constructive and responsible position of new South Ossetian leader Anatoly Bibilov that Tskhinvali will have no problems with allowing international cargo transit through the region, and added that it hoped Tbilisi would demonstrate an equally constructive spirit.



In response to the statement, the Georgian MFA accused Moscow of deliberately inhibiting the process and stressed that the aim of the agreement is monitoring of trade between Georgia and Russia.



The Russian side tries to present the occupied Tskhinvali Region as a party to the agreement, which obviously contradicts to the principles and the purpose of this agreement. Such interpretation of the agreement signed between the two countries in 2011 is categorically unacceptable for Georgia and this was clear to Moscow from the very beginning, the MFA noted.



It then added that following the agreement signature, important steps were taken to implement it with the support of Switzerland, including the selection of a neutral company to administer customs monitoring, as well as a number of technical steps. As a result, the MFA added, Georgia completed all preparatory procedures for signing the contract with a neutral company and for launching the agreement implementation.



The Georgian MFA called on Russia to review its unconstructive position and start unconditional implementation of its international commitments. It also urged the member states of the World Trade Organization to give adequate assessment to Russias destructive steps and prevent politicization of the agreement.



Georgia agreed to give its go-ahead to Russias WTO membership only after Tbilisi and Moscow signed a Swiss-mediated agreement in November, 2011, envisaging the deployment of sophisticated systems for tracking and auditing of cargo passing through Abkhazia and South Ossetia. According to the agreement, neutral private company will carry out monitoring of cargo movement through three trade corridors two of which run through Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the third one on the Zemo Larsi-Kazbegi border crossing point on the undisputed section of Georgia-Russia border.



Monitoring should be carried out, among other means, also through the presence of company representatives at entry/exit points of these corridors, meaning that they will be present outside of the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

(civil.ge)







CEO of Georgias embattled opposition television station resigns



Rustavi 2 director general Nika Gvaramia has resigned.



Gvaramias resignation was reported yesterday by several Georgian media outlets and confirmed Friday morning by one of the TV companys editors who spoke to DFWatch on condition of anonymity.



The Rustavi 2 management sat in talks with journalists and lawyers around midnight, after Gvaramias resignation became known. Staff have not said anything yet about what was discussed at the meeting or who will replace Gvaramia.



The TV company has not said why its director has resigned, but the news agency Interpressnews reported, relying on its sources at Rustavi 2, that Gvaramia named financial hardship at the company as the reason for his resignation.

(DF watch)







Heavy rain and hail hits Kakheti region of Georgia



Heavy rain and hail damaged vineyards and other agricultural lands in Georgias main wine-making region of Kakheti.



The village of Giorgitsminda in the Sagarejo region and its surrounding areas suffered most from Saturdays sudden storm that lasted no more than 20 minutes.



The special hail protection facilities have saved the population from even greater damage.



Governor of Kakheti Irakli Kadagishvili said the countrys Military Scientific-Technical Centre DELTA launched 30 anti-hail rockets into clouds to resist the hail.



The anti-hail system installed on Chorota Mountain in Kakheti worked by launching an unguided 60mm rocket into the air, which would disperse a reagent into the air to reduce hail from forming in the clouds.



When the rocket reached the appropriate height, the silver iodine reagent will be dispersed at an altitude of 2.5-4.5 km above ground for 30-35 seconds.



Governor Kadagishvili said the anti-hail system is currently working in the municipalities of Akhmeta, Gurjaani and Telavi where the hail has been forecast. He said "almost every third day we have to deal with the hail.



The total amount of damage is not yet clear as the monitoring groups of the local municipality are still counting the damage.



Heavy rain also reached some districts of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.



Georgia's 112 emergency service said the rain entered the ground floors of the residential buildings in the districts of Gldani and Tsereteli. However, the sky has cleared now and the roads are being cleaned for traffic.

(Agenda.ge)




Voting is now officially open for the 2022 All-MLB Team and the New York Mets have eight players on the ballot,...
BUILDING THE LA RAZA 'The Race' WELFARE STATE ON MIDDLE AMERICAS' BACKS: Months ago, the Biden administration publicly defended their proposal to begin providing federal identification cards to border crossers and illegal aliens who they plan to release into American communities. The goal of the proposal is to make securing public benefits easier.
@alextdaugherty

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said on Sunday that he doesn't think President Donald Trump will fire deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein or special counsel Robert Mueller, the two men charged with leading investigations into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Rubio was asked by CNN anchor Jake Tapper on the Sunday morning show "State of the Union" about Trump's recent tweets calling the investigation a "witch-hunt."

"Some of your Senate colleagues, as you know, are concerned that President Trump is preparing to fire Mueller or Mueller and Rosenstein. How would you react if he did?" Tapper asked.

"Well, first of all, that's not going to happen," Rubio said. "I don't believe it's going to happen. The best thing that could happen for the president and the country is a full and credible investigation. I really, truly believe that. If we want to put all this behind us, let's find out what happened, let's put it out there, and let's not undermine the credibility of the investigation."

Rubio said he's confident that Trump's surprising decision to dismiss FBI Director James Comey has not impeded the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation, and that he is confident Mueller will conduct a thorough and fair investigation.

Tapper also asked Rubio about the revamped Cuba policy which undos limits travel options for American citizens and bans U.S. business transactions with Cuban military apparatus, specifically highlighting the differences between Trump's desire for closer relations with China and Saudi Arabia while blasting the Cuban government as a violator of human rights.

Rubio countered that Cuba's human rights record is particularly important to U.S. interests because it's a close neighbor.

"I would say it's in our national security interests to have human rights and democracy in our region, because the absence of those two things leads to migratory pressure and instability," Rubio said. "Whether it's Haiti or Cuba or Mexico or Central America, so much of the migratory pressure on the United States is created by instability in the Western Hemisphere. And so there is a national security interest in our region in creating stability and democracy."

Rubio spent Sunday morning on a host of shows, including NBC's Meet the Press, CBS' Face the Nation, Fox News, Telemundo and CBS' Miami affiliate.

Full interview here:
@PatriciaMazzei @martindvassolo

Still recovering from a crushing November loss, Florida Democrats turned to the 2018 election cycle Saturday with the help of the man who remains their partys biggest cheerleader: former Vice President Joe Biden.

Without ever mentioning President Donald Trump, Biden rejected the new presidents rhetoric and assured Democrats there is a way for them to recover their political standing.

The state the nation is today will not be sustained by the American people, Biden said. We are better than this.

At times funny, at times so serious he was whispering, Biden spoke to Democratic activists in Hollywood for more than 50 minutes, sounding like a potential candidate for president in 2020  or at least like one the partys most impassioned messengers for 2018. Biden created a new political action committee, American Possibilities, last month, fueling speculation that he is considering a presidential bid.

Though he discussed making community college free and narrowing the wage gap  the sort of issues that make up Democratic presidential platforms  Biden made no reference to the PAC or 2020, when he will be 77 and Trump will be 74.

Instead, Biden began by making a case for the reelection of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who will likely face his biggest challenger yet next year in Republican Gov. Rick Scott. Florida Democrats have struggled to win in non-presidential years, when fewer of their voters have shown up to the polls.

No one, no one, no one has ever questioned his word when hes given it, and no one, no one that Ive met in my entire time in the Senate and eight years as vice president doesnt respect Bill for his moral courage and his physical courage, Biden said. Bill, Ill come back to Florida as many times as you want  to campaign for you or against you, whichever helps more.

More here.

Photo credit: Al Diaz, Miami Herald staff
A disabled woman in her 60s is unable to have her companion dog living with her at this time. Her dog is being kenneled until she can obtain different housing. The kennel payment is causing financial hardship. If you are able to assist with a donation, please contact Aubrey Johnson, MSW through Home and Community Based Services, 406-327-4578.

***

A single disabled mother with two young children is in need of a safe and affordable car. She is looking for work and would like to get her children back into daycare and school. If you can donate a car or minivan, please call Darin at Winds of Change, 406-532-2036.

***

A woman who just moved to town for a new job has had all of her and her families belongings shipped to Missoula from out-of-state in anticipation of her new position and re-location. These were held with a local storage company. Unfortunately, the familys belongings storage unit was broken into. The burglars left only some clothing. The storage company does not cover the loss. She has two small children, 18-months-old and 4-years-old. All furniture was stolen including baby crib, childs bed, master bed and mattress, kitchen table and chairs, all couches, patio furniture, kids toys, etc. Help in the form of gift cards, furniture, or anything any things would help to welcome them to Missoula despite this very sad initial experience. Please contact 406-303-3023.

***

A single disabled mother on a fixed income with three children at home is in need of new tires for her minivan. She needs to get her children to school and they all have appointments. The tires are $68 installed and she needs at least two. She had a flat which could not be repaired and is driving on the spare half-tire. The other tire has the steel belts showing. A donation of $136 would help this family. Please call Darin at Winds of Change, 406-721-2038, if you can make this donation.

***

A single mother needs financial support to pay NorthWestern energy bill. Full contribution of $150 or partial contributions appreciated. If interested in donating, please contact Rachel at 406-721-2038, Ext. 211.

***

A disabled woman in her 60s and her adult daughter with a developmental disability just learned that their beloved cat has diabetes and will need insulin. They live on a very limited, fixed income and cannot afford the cost of the insulin. They are in need of $200 to be able to bring him home from the vet. If you are able to make a donation, please contact Molly Kavis, case manager with the Developmental Disabilities Program at 406-329-5423 or mkavis@mt.gov.

***

With the summer season in full swing its time to get out and enjoy all of Montanas treasures. The Home and Community Based Services program would like to ensure that all members of the Missoula community have the opportunity to participate in outdoor recreation trips. It is partnering with the Missoula Parks and Recreation Department to put on two to three accessible rafting trips in July and August for people with physical disabilities and an attendant of their choice. It is asking the Missoula community to support this effort by sponsoring one or more of the participants. The cost associated with each person is approximately $35 and includes all equipment and also covers the cost of an additional attendant for each participant (caregiver, spouse, friend, family, other support).

***

Mountain Home Montana has a mother in need of assistance. The single mother of two children needs help with the cost of a new radiator and an O2 Sensor for a 2002 Nissan Pathfinder. Mother has a special needs child that has multiple necessary medical and therapy appointments throughout the week. Mother works more than full time and needs her vehicle to be timely and effective. Please call Jen at 406-830-7612 to help.
LOGGING LAKE  Anyone whos spent time upside down in Glacier National Park (and if youve ever bushwhacked off-trail, youve been there) knows the remarkable variety of fungi lurking at ground level.

What we dont know is just how many mushrooms, lichens, slime molds, conks and jellies grow in the lush forests along the Continental Divide. Last week, about 60 citizen-scientists poked at that problem during a two-day, international mushroom bio-blitz organized by researchers at Glacier and neighboring Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada.

Weve got about 140 species identified so far, and the old species list I had only had 124 on it, said Tara Carolin, who headed up the project at Glaciers Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center. And the notes they sent show a lot of those are new records.

The search started on a Friday with a morning sky that would have sent most tourists back under their bedcovers. An all-night rain muddied the trails and soaked the brush. Dark clouds promised more. Wearing an Ecuadoran knitted wool hat and flip-flops, Western Mycological Association President Larry Evans pronounced the conditions optimal.

A whole mycota evolved specifically to this habitat, Evans told the ring of damp volunteers gathered around him at the Big Creek campground just outside the parks boundary. Thats because theres an always-reliable supply of water here.

Evans already had some samples to share hed found on the edge of the campground that morning. He passed around a tricholoma variety that wafted the fresh scent of cucumber. Another mass of LBMs (little brown mushrooms  an unofficial-official group nearly too large to organize) was tangled in a clump of grass.

Be on the lookout for hygrophorus  a big white, delicious mushroom, Evans warned. Its spring food for bears. If youre walking around with a bears lunch in your sample collection, you might be more interesting to bears than usual.

Glacier education technician Evan Portier explained the routine. Three groups would disperse from the Big Creek rendezvous: One to the meadows around Bowman Lake, one to the creek draining Logging Lake and one particularly adventurous team willing to march six miles to the gap between Kintla and Upper Kintla lakes.

That spot sits just below a climatic bottleneck in the Rocky Mountains where Pacific storm systems shed their remaining moisture before squeezing into the plains of Alberta. That could produce a unique ecotope, or growing zone, that to date had never been surveyed for fungi.

We cant manage what we dont know, Portier said. There are so many different types of habitat in the park, and this bio-blitz gives us a really good baseline. It also helps us monitor changes in the future.

Portiers group mirrored similar teams exploring the McDonald Creek, St. Mary Lake and Waterton Lake areas on the same weekend. Individual groups carried a bunch of waxed-paper bags and a smartphone loaded with the iNaturalist app to catalog their discoveries. The phone app allowed users to photograph samples and attach GPS location data as well as notes about possible species, what it was growing on, color, shape, size and other observations.

That worked out great for Istvan Noszticzius, who drove up from Missoula for the bio-blitz. He developed a passion for eating mushrooms in his native Hungary, and enjoyed the chance to expand his understanding of the wider realm of fungal variety.

I collect them recreationally, Noszticzius said as he turned over a large suillus mushroom poking out of the duff. Im not that confident in my identification abilities for most species. I stick to mostly morels, and sometimes the oyster mushrooms that grow by the house next door.

While fall tends to produce much more prolific fungi outbursts, June has its own seasonal specialties. Certain lichens develop on the edge of melting snowbanks and vanish soon after they fall to the soil  devoured by other fungi.

There might be a hundred different kinds of mushrooms just in one handful of soil, Western Mycological Association member Dale Johnson of Whitefish said as he led a group up the Logging Lake trail. They dont care about the sun. Its moisture and temperature and other factors that drive the timing.

The Logging Lake drainage wasnt producing a lot of classic stem-and-cap mushrooms, but it had more than its share of other forms. Lots of bright yellow witches butter jelly fungus blobbed on old fallen tree trunks, while ghostly white Agarikon conks protruded from upright Douglas firs. The pine needles on the ground supported the over-accurately named dogs vomit slime mold. Thats not to be confused with Fairy Barf lichen (Ichmadophila ericitorum) which has a pale green base and tiny pink cups (and the more polite name peppermint drop lichen).

The fungus that I am most excited about is Phaeomarasmius erinaceus  it is a tiny little mushroom found on wood, University of Montana mycologist Cathy Cripps wrote after the Waterton foray. If you look carefully, it has a hairy cap. It is a relatively rare fungus, or at least usually overlooked. I think it is a first record for Montana, although it has been found in Idaho, California and Colorado."

Cripps was also excited by a sample of the tiny Birds nest fungus (Nidula niveotromentosa) that looks like a tiny birds nest with eggs inside.

The eggs are actually filled with spores, Cripps wrote. When a raindrop hits the nest, the eggs splash out and spores are disseminated.

Once everyone was back in cell or Wi-Fi range, those records could be uploaded to the internet community of fellow naturalists, who in turn could check the identifications and confirm or correct observations.

You dont even have to know what youre looking at, Portier said. Within a day or two, someone will help you out. By involving the public, were hoping we can generate a list much larger than what we could do on our own.
A probable grizzly bear sighting just over the edge of the Missoula Valley highlights the theme of this weeks Interagency Grizzly Committee meeting in Choteau: People get ready.

Weve done such a good job with the recovery, the public needs to understand whats happening and how they can be safe in where they live, IGBC spokesman Gregg Losinski said on Friday. There are challenges because were not doing recovery anymore  were doing management.

Since getting federal protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1975, grizzly bears now number nearly 2,000 in the continental United States. Most of those are concentrated in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem around Yellowstone National Park (about 700 grizzlies) and the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem between Missoula and Glacier National Park (about 1,000 grizzlies).

The IGBC sets up separate recovery plans for each population area. In December it released its delisting plan for the Greater Yellowstone bears, and expects to switch focus to the NCDE bears plan.

Which makes Dana Bandys June 3 sighting important. He and companions had been volunteering at the Marshall Mountain Trail Festival and were driving down Marshall Canyon Road when a car in front of them stopped.

The passengers were pointing up the side of the hill, Bandy said. I looked and it was a grizzly. It had the hump on the back. Weve seen lots of bears in our lifetime, and we were all pretty sure. It was about 100 yards up the hill on the Bonner side of the road, in pretty open country. It wasnt huge, but larger than most black bears.

Bandy said everyone was so surprised by the sighting, no one thought to get a camera out. Without a picture, paw print or hair sample, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear manager Jamie Jonkel cant confirm the report as a grizzly. But he wasnt surprised by Bandys call.

Weve already had a grizzly amongst us in the Rattlesnake, Jonkel said. Ethyl made a foray through here on her ramble, and we know other collared bears made it through the Missoula Valley.

Ethyl was a female grizzly with a GPS tracking collar who made a 2,800-mile journey from Augusta, across the Bob Marshall and Mission Mountain wilderness areas, past Arlee, across Interstate 90 into the Bitterroot Mountains, over to Coeur dAlene, Idaho. She denned for the winter near Kellogg, woke up and went back to Superior, through Missoulas Blue Mountain Recreation Area, down to Florence, over to Coeur dAlene again, returning to Missoulas Rattlesnake Wilderness, then up through the Bob Marshall to den for the winter of 2014 in Glacier National Park.

Jonkel said hes fairly certain Ethyl now dens in the Wisherd Ridge area of the Blackfoot Valley  a spot crucial to grizzly bear connectivity because it links the Rattlesnake, Garnet and Sapphire mountain ranges via the Blackfoot and Clark Fork river bottoms. Thats close to a basin where a black-bear hunter self-reported accidentally killing a male grizzly in early June. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents are investigating that incident.

Thats why weve been working hard with the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and the Nature Conservancy to at least keep some open space undeveloped so bears can use movement zones that are still intact. Its not wilderness, but its extremely wild in there.

This week's meeting features a panel discussion on the challenges of switching from recovery to management, especially for communities that havent seen a grizzly for decades. Committee members will spend one day touring ranches, towns and a Hutterite Colony along the Rocky Mountain Front listening to peoples experiences with grizzlies roaming far east of the Bob Marshall Wilderness boundary.

Getting people used to recreating and living in bear country takes a little time if its new to a community, said Hillary Cooley, the IGBC bear recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service. While the summer meeting takes place in Choteau, Cooley said its message applies to the urban edges of Kalispell, Missoula and similar communities in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Removing grizzly bears from Endangered Species Act oversight means learning to live with large predators the same way neighborhoods adapt to the presence of mountain lions and black bears.

That could include public hunting seasons and aggressive trapping or shooting of grizzlies that get too accustomed to being around people and people-food. But grizzly bears reproduce much slower than lions or wolves. Overly aggressive management or killing could push the population back to threatened levels, which would result in the bears return to federal protection. The recovery plans must balance needs of the bear with tolerance of the surrounding humans.

All the hard work with the community has been preparation for that, Jonkel said of years of outreach and education about bear awareness in and around Missoula. Weve got neighborhood networks going up, getting prepared in case grizzlies do show up so there wont be food attractants in place.
June 19, 1930-June 12, 2017

On June 12, 2017, our Mother, Grandmother, and Great-grandmother "GG" passed away, leaving a large void in our family circle. Virginia Strozzi Petroni was born in Butte in on June 19, 1930 to Robert and Beatrice (Simoni) Strozzi. She grew up in the Emerson School area and attended Butte High School, where she graduated in 1948. After her graduation, she worked at Hennessy's Department Store, where she developed many life-long friendships.

On September 7, 1952 she married the love of her life, Angelo Giulio Petroni. Together they had five children and spent their early years in the close-knit Italian community of Meaderville. Virginia always dreamed of living in the country. In 1964, the family moved from Meaderville into the home Angelo built in Terra Verde Heights. She enjoyed spending her mornings in prayer and watching the wildlife that frequented the area.

Virginia began her 30-year-career as a Head Start teacher in 1965. Her love and compassion for those underprivileged children and their families throughout the years carried well beyond the classroom.

While raising her children, Virginia became active in 4-H and was a Leader for over 15 years. Through this association she instilled a sense of community service and appreciation for nature and the outdoors in her children. Many happy memories of 4-H Fairs, campouts, water fights, as well as travels came from this connection. The special bonds of friendship she made during this time have remained strong to this day. This involvement also led to the welcoming of many exchange students from foreign countries into their home.

After her retirement, she spent many years volunteering for Our Lady of the Rockies in various capacities, from shop sales clerk to making pasties for their annual fundraiser. Born of a life-long devotion to Our Lady and the Rosary, these countless hours of service brought joy throughout her senior years.

Of great importance in her life was her prayer group, "The Wednesday Roses. Through this ministry, she developed close relationships with its members and strengthened her commitment to her Catholic faith.

Virginia was happiest when surrounded by her family, whether a holiday gathering, vacation, or simply a weekend trip to her treasured family cabin. She instilled a true sense of the value of togetherness. Moreover, with doors open to everyone, that Petroni warmth and hospitality extended well beyond family.

Those beloved family members who preceded Virginia in death are her husband, Angelo, her parents, brother Donald Strozzi, half-brother Jack Heckler, her special aunt Sr. Rose Marie (Gemma) Simoni, daughter-in-law Diane Petroni, granddaughter Kirsten Henrich, parents-in-law Giulio and Victoria Petroni, brother-in-law Frank Ralph, as well as several aunts, uncles and cousins.

Surviving Virginia are her children, Mark (Peggy Lynn) Petroni, Steve (Laurie) Petroni, Julie (Mike) Henrich, Linda (Dennis) Lowney, Jan (Dan) Brown; grandchildren Chris (Wendy) Petroni, Andy (Sofia) Petroni, Dave Petroni, Nicholas Petroni, Lindsey (Jared) Friedly, Michael Henrich (girlfriend Ellen Mitchell), Eric Henrich (fiance Kristi Costley), Luke (Stephanie) Lowney, Jake (Jordan) Lowney, Kerry (Jarrett) Weigle, Kally (Brett) Bosshart, Nate, Jordan and Angie Brown; great-grandchildren Grace Friedly, Madison, Haley, Emma, and Cooper Lowney, Jackson and Lily Lowney, Lowen Weigle, and Beckett Bosshart. Her brother and sister-in-law Neil and Betty Ann Stroz zi and sister-in-law, Minnie Ralph, also survive, as well as numerous nieces and nephews.

We are grateful for the time we had and the many happy memories we now hold dear to our hearts. You have been the glue that held us together. We are all blessed to have had you in our lives. You instilled faith by the way you lived your life, and we will forever hold tight to that priceless gift. Soar with the angels, Mom!

Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Friday, June 23rd, at 11:00 am in Holy Spirit Catholic Church. Visitation will begin at 10:00 am at the Church. Memorials can be made to Our Lady of the Rockies or St. Jude Children's Fund (262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN 38105 or online at stjude.org).
At the start of the special election, eight democrats stepped up to the plate. Amanda Curtis had the legislative and political experience for the position, but the Montana Democrats instead continued their tradition of toxic behavior and nominated a cisgendered, heterosexual white man with neither the experience nor the qualifications for congress. Rob Quist would go on to rabidly support gun culture, make all manner of excuse for his financial irresponsibility, and more importantly, allow issues of social justice to take the back seat in a state in desperate need of leadership. Quist initially did not include non-discrimination against the LGBTQ community in his issues page, only later adding a short blurb that didnt use the words gay, lesbian, bi, trans, etc. This kind of erasure isnt just unacceptable; coming from a leader it exacerbates existing issues of toxicity within the left.
New Bern, NC  A woman has been arrested after drivers in New Bern said they saw someone toss at least two kittens from a moving car last week.

Cecilia Martinez-Ramirez was charged with felony cruelty to animals, New Bern police said in a news release.

Our community is not like this, and we are better than this, said Christopher Orris, who, along with his wife, reported the incident to police.

Orris said he witnessed the unimaginable last Wednesday when driving in New Bern.

Right in front of us, I saw a woman just literally drop a kitten out of the side of her window, said Orris.

He has been cooperating with police.

How can you have such callous disregard for life to just simply snuff out an innocent little babys life, no matter what it is? Orris said.

The Craven-Pamlico Animal Services Center is packed.

Its what they call kitten season, so we are inundated with litters of kittens, said Trinity Smith, Craven County Animal Control supervisor.

Smith said there are options for people who have unwanted animals that cannot find homes.

In Craven County, we do not charge a fee for surrendering an animal, whether its a stray or its your own, said Smith. We do ask that the public call us first to make sure we have space.

Smith said animal owners have a responsibility to take care of their animals, even if they do not want to own them anymore.

She also says there are ways to control the influx of cats.

The most effective way is spaying and neutering your animals and keeping your animals on your property, not letting them roam, said Smith.

Orris said he is looking for a lesson.

I dont really know that theres a lot good that has come out of this so far, said Orris. Maybe one good thing is that it brings up awareness that there is something you can do with unwanted animals. Certainly, there are better options than just killing them.

If you are interested in helping the homeless cats and kittens in Craven County, click here.
Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi []
The requested page is currently unavailable on this server.

Back to [RTHK News Homepage]
President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said quality healthcare was a necessity for every individual and underlined the need to ensure better infrastructure in rural areas so that doctors serve there. At the foundation of the Shambhu Shetty Memorial Haji Abdullah Super Speciality Hospital here, the President said quality healthcare was not a luxury but a necessity and noted that against the international norm of one doctor per thousand population, the country had one doctor for 1,700 people. "The situation is more alarming in rural India where the shortage of surgeons is 83.4 per cent, obstetricians and gynaecologists 76.3 per cent, paediatrics 82.1 per cent and general physician 83 per cent at the level of the community health centres," he said. "This is compounded by the fact that we educate and train about 50 per cent less doctors than our requirement stands at," he said, stressing that the shortage of doctors require immediate intervention and emphasised on more focus and investments in the field of preventive healthcare. Mukherjee called for ample infrastructure at the district and other rural areas and to encourage doctors and practitioners to serve there. The President also emphasised on the need to increase engagement of the corporate sector in public private partnership in the field of public health, especially in rural areas. "Though advances in modern medicine and investment in health infrastructure have made many diseases like cholera, smallpox, plague and tuberculosis curable, there is a huge gap in our country for access to medicine and healthcare, which is skewed in terms of infrastructure and personnel," he said. Asserting that only a healthy mind and healthy body can be the abode of God, the President said access to affordable healthcare should be the objective. He also spoke against attacks by relatives on doctors, calling for cooperation between physicians, doctors, medical personalities and the patients, their friends and relatives. "Sometimes we find that if a patient dies, the angry mob led by their relatives vandalise the hospital, beat the physician or surgeons. This is not good. No civilised society can tolerate it," he said. "Yes, doctors can try, medicines can do wonders, but at the same time one has to keep it in mind that there would be deaths. This type of vandalism should be condemned." Karnataka Health Minister Ramesh Kumar and Bengaluru Development Minister K.J. George were among the dignitaries present on the occasion. Later, the President visited the famous Sri Krishna temple in this pilgrim town in coastal Dakshina Kannada district. Ahead of the President's visit, shops around the temple and along the Car Street were shut by the district administration for security reasons. Movement of hundreds of pilgrims and tourists were also restricted till Mukherjee left the temple complex. He also visited Hindu goddess Mookambika's temple at Kollur and performed Sarvalanka puja there. --IANS bns-akk-fb/vd ( 484 Words) 2017-06-18-22:24:10 (IANS)
The Defence Minister Arun Jaitley today strongly condemned the killing of six policemen in Achabal town of Jammu and Kashmir yesterday, calling it an ''act of sheer cowardice.'' Expressing grief over the deaths, Mr Jaitley said in a tweet, ''killing of six policemen by terrorists in Achabal is a cowardice act. My condolences to the bereaved families. Salute to martyrs.''Six police personnel including Sub-Inspector Feroz Ahmad were killed when a group of Lashkar-e-Taiba militants attacked a the police party at Thajwara Achabal in Anantnag yesterday evening with automatic weapons. The militant outfit had told the local media that more such attack would be carried out in the coming days.Reacting to the incident, the Director General of Police (DGP), SP Vaid, said that it was the frustration of the militants. The militants are under pressure and out of frustration they have stepped up the attacks on policemen, as they (Police) were on the forefront of anti-militancy operations in the state, Mr Vaid added.However, he said the security forces and police will soon restore normalcy in the state.UNI APS SNU 2216 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0448-938864.Xml
Unprecedented security arrangements have been made for pilgrims undertaking the annual yatra to holy Amarnath cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas. More than 200 additional companies of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have been deployed for yatra duty right from Bagwati Nagar base camp in Jammu to holy Cave for counter insurgency operations.. Meanwhile, camp directors, who will be deployed on both traditional Pahalgam and shortest Baltal routes, participated in a three-day orientation camp here. Though there is no specific input from intelligence agencies about any militant threat during the yatra, commencing from June 29, security forces do not want to take any chance, particularly in south Kashmir, where militant activities have witnessed a surge in the recent past, official sources said. Army has already taken position on higher reaches on both yatra routes to foil any militant attempt to disrupt the yatra. Besides guarding base camps, the CRPF personnel would also be deployed on Srinagar-Jammu national highway. They would provide security cover from Nunwan Pahalgam base camp to Holy Cave, besides from Baltal base camp to cave shrine. They would also ensure security and safety to the yatra convoy from Jammu to base camps of Pahalgam and Baltal. Meanwhile, officials said that a hospital with the capacity of 30 beds has been set up at Chandanwari, the last motorable halting station on traditional Pahalgam track. They said 51 medical aid centres have been established throughout the 32 kms of track. These centres will have adequate stock of essential drugs with portable oxygen cylinders. In addition to this, the building of Yatri Niwas at Pahalgam will be handed over to the health department for creating health infra. One Critical Care ambulance will also be placed at Pahalgam. More UNI BAS AD 1113 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-939032.Xml
Traders, Manufacturers are likely to bring down thepurchase price of tobacco as the proposed levy of 18 per cent Goods andServices Tax (GST) on purchase of unmanufactured tobacco has becomea source of concern for the tobacco farmers in Karnataka. However, traders and manufacturers were exempted from paying anytax while purchasing tobacco from auction platforms. Theintroduction of 18 per cent GST on unmanufactured tobacco will indirectlyhit farmers, Javare Gowda, President, Virginia Flue Cured (VFC)Tobacco Growers' Federation of Karnataka, told UNI here. The tobacco grown in Mysuru and adjoining regions is exported.Traders purchasing tobacco for international markets will compareprices and tax with other regions in the world before coming to themarket. If they get the commodity elsewhere on the globe for alesser price, they will skip our markets, Mr. Gowda said. Tobacco farmers in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, where auctionsare under way, are already up in arms against the introduction ofGST. 'Farmers fear that the traders and manufacturers will bringdown the purchase price when they have to pay GST, which will hitthe farmers,' he said. Tobacco farmers in Karnataka, who defied the drought and reaped arich harvest last year, had completed the plantation early this yearand were looking forward to a good yield. Despite an increase in output last year, tobacco fetched thefarmers a good price of Rs 134.58 per kg against the Rs 135.24 theprevious year. 'Thanks to the early rains this year, tobaccoplantation in the region was completed before May-end unlike inprevious years when the process would continue till July. Even thedistribution of fertilizers was completed before May this year,' aboard official added. In view of the good season last year, the Tobacco Board tooincreased the crop size from 95 million kg to 99 million kg for thisyear. Hence, the area under tobacco cultivation has gone upmarginally from 76,000 hectares last year to 81,000 hectares thisyear at the rate of 1.3 hectares per barn. Even though the board has stopped issuing fresh licences fortobacco cultivation with a view to bring down its production in linewith India's commitment to the Framework Convention on TobaccoControl (FCTC), the number of licenced tobacco growers in the Statehas been hovering around 42,000 and the number of unlicenced growersaround 30,000. Meanwhile the Tobacco Board's decision to increase the crop sizefor Karnataka from last year's 95 million kg to 99 million kg during2017-18 has left the tobacco farmers as well as the anti-tobaccoactivists dissatisfied. While the anti-tobacco activists are livid with the boardincreasing the crop size in contravention of India's commitment toWHO's FCTC and progressively reduce tobacco cultivation, tobacco farmers are also far from satisfied for the restrictions placed on the crop sizeparticularly when the international demand was high and the priceswere attractive. The Indian Tobacco Association (ITA), comprising manufacturersand exporters, had submitted an indent to the board for an increaseddemand of 105 million kg of tobacco from Karnataka during 2017-18. 'The board should have fixed the crop size in accordance with thedemand, which has come particularly from the exporters. If the cropis restricted, farmers will be forced to pay a penalty for growingmore than the authorized size. Last year (2016-17), the farmers paida whopping Rs 24 crore in penalties, complained Javare Gowda.Also, he said India will lose valuable foreign exchange if exporterslook to China, Brazil, and Zimbabwe to meet their tobacco requirement. But, the four per cent increase in crop size for Karnataka cameunder fire from Vasanthkumar Mysoremath, who is the convener of theAnti-Tobacco Forum of Mysuru and the Honorary Advisor to the CancerPatients Aid Association (CPPA). 'The increase is detrimental topeople. It proves that the government is not serious about tobaccocontrol. It is adopting a dual approach,' he said. When the Parliament has ratified FCTC, the Tobacco Board, whichis an arm of the Commerce Ministry, is bound to honour the protocol,he said. Mr. Mysoremath also came down heavily on the board forpurchasing tobacco grown in excess of the authorized size bycollecting a penalty. 'There is a tacit understanding between theboard and the farmers,' he said.UNI BSP CS 1034 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0287-939000.Xml
Police sources said the incident took place on the Jammu-Srinagar highway in Bijbehara area.

"There are no reports of any casualty," a police source said.

--IANS sq/mr

( 51 Words)

2017-06-18-11:48:19 (IANS)
Leading from the front on the day will be none other than the PM, whose brainchild event is enjoying astounding popularity worldwide.

While Prime Minister Modi performs asanas before a large audience in Lucknow, there will be a huge turnout in many capitals across the world.

Along with India, more than 100 countries across the globe have planned to organise various events to celebrate the day.

In Colombo, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena was leading from the front, according to Colombo Gazette. He joined a yoga turnout in Colombo to celebrate the day yesterday.

According to Colombo Gazette, President Maithripala Sirisena joined thousands of yoga enthusiasts at Independence Square in Colombo yesterday to celebrate the International Day of Yoga 2017 performinga number of yoga asanas and encouraging yoga institutions in Sri Lanka to continue their good work. The event was attended by a number of Sri Lankan ministers and officials, apart from public at large, including professionals, doctors, academicians and cultural personalities, cutting across all religions and ethnicities.

Messages from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj were telecast on the national channel. MORE UNI SD SV RSA 1155

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0005-938787.Xml
Leaders of the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank touted its growing membership and commitment to sustainable development at its annual meeting, even as environmental groups were disappointed by its openness to investing in coal projects.The AIIB, which has 80 member countries, was set up to help meet the estimated $26 trillion need for infrastructure spending in Asia through 2030, while also demonstrating that a China-led institution can meet international standards for best practice.The United States and Japan, both members of the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB), have not joined the AIIB.The AIIB has pledged to use its investments to help members fulfill their commitments to the Paris climate accord, which the United States is withdrawing from under President Donald Trump."We will not consider proposals if we are concerned about the environmental and reputational impact," AIIB president Jin Liqun, a former vice president at the ADB, said Friday at the opening ceremony.But the bank did get pushback from environmental groups about its commitment to being green, with several NGOs saying they were disappointed the bank's new energy industry strategy, adopted Thursday, left the door open for coal sector investment."I have a hard time reconciling in the energy strategy a statement that says up front the purpose of the energy strategy is to help countries meet their commitments under the Paris agreement, with 'we're going to finance coal projects'," said Andrew Deutz of the Nature Conservancy. Jin said that after many rounds of discussion on the bank's energy policy, "this is the best we can achieve", adding there are no new coal projects in its pipeline of investments.Other groups saw improvement over the last year in how the bank engages with NGOs."We thought this was a really interesting opportunity to see if this new institution can foster a race to the top in terms of creating strong sustainable credit practices, or foster a race to the bottom," said Katherine Lu of Friends of the Earth."I think the jury is still out," she said.BEIJING TOOL?The AIIB, China's first effort to launch a multilateral development organization, has been careful publicly to put distance between itself and Chinese government policy as it looks to placate concerns it will be a tool of Beijing's foreign policy.AIIB president Jin said "there's been some confusion" about the relationship between AIIB and China's huge "Belt and Road" infrastructure development and foreign policy initiative."We operate by our standards, by our governance. The Belt and Road is a marvellous programme ... but we have our standards," he told a Saturday news conference on the South Korean holiday island of Jeju.The meeting's venue was chosen before a dispute between South Korea and China over Seoul's decision last year to host a U.S. anti-missile system. China has clamped down on its citizens visiting South Korea, which has squeezed tourism on Jeju, local businesses said.The bank began operations 18 months ago and has approved $2.5 billion in loans. It expects that to reach about $4 billion by the end of this year. By comparison, the ADB made $17.74 billion in commitments last year.AIIB has about 100 staff, which some meeting attendees said limits the depth of sector expertise and leads it to rely on partners to carry the load on project assessments. The bank said it is ramping up hiring but did not give target numbers.By comparison, the ADB has 2,000 employees and the World Bank has more than 10,000."Because of that leanness, AIIB is more contributing to deals that were originated by others," said Nena Stoiljkovic, vice president for blended finance and partnerships at the World Bank's International Finance Corporation and the most senior World Bank official to attend the AIIB meeting."But I hope to see them, in the next year or so, more on the origination side where we could get into some of those deals," she said.REUTERS AD1153 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0108-939083.Xml
Apprehending fresh trouble with GJM's announced march with bodies of the three people killed in clashes on Saturday, the Army and para-military forces began route march across Darjeeling Hills today even as a 12-hour shutdown began in Dooars and Terai since this morning, official sources said. Reports of arson by suspected Gorkha activists poured in with the burning of a Kumani forest beat office at Jaldhaka, torching of two police vehicles and attempts to set ablaze Jaldhaka police station last night, just hours ahead of 12-hour general strike in the Dooars and Terai to protest alleged police firing on Gorkha activists at Singhmari. However, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and ADG ( Law and Order) Anuj Sharma yesterday denied any police firing at Singmari. Government sources said about 35 persons in uniform wereinjured. Of them 19, including IRB assistant commandant Kiran Tamang, were critically wounded. Incidentally the IRB official is from Singmari, who has a son and a daughter. Sources said that he was attacked with khukri from behind while he was trying to stop burning down a police vehicle during clashes between the security forces and Gorkha activists. GJM assistant secretary in a statement from an undisclosed locationsaid three GJM supporters - Sunil Rai, Mahesh Gurung and Bimal Sashankar ( Gajmer) were killed in the police firing at Singmari, where the GJM headquarters is located in Darjeeling. He also said two others - Dile Subba and Lakpa Sherpa were critically wounded among the 13 others injured. Many of them were taken to Namchi hospital in South Sikkim for treatment. More UNI XC -PC KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-939085.Xml
With Yogi Adityanath government completing its 100 days in office next week, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) is geared up to strengthen its organisation also and has called a day long meeting here on June 22 to assess the situation in post-BJP regime. During the meeting, which will continue for the entire day, the party has called all its office bearers, district president and in-charge along with state ministers to discuss issues concerning the government as well as the organisational front. State BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak said here today that the all important meetings would review the past programmes and chalk out the roadmap for the future programmes of the party in coordination with the state government. The meeting would also review the programmes held under the Deen Dayal Upadhaya centenary birth celebrations which will end on September 25. "The meeting would be held in three phases. In the morning from 0830 to 1100 hrs, there would a meeting of office bearers of the state BJP while leaders will hold a long interactive session with the district presidents and in-charges. In the evening from 1600 hrs to 1800 hrs, regional heads along with UP ministers will sit and review the programmes and schemes," he said. Mr Pathak said during the meeting, party leaders will review the programmes in which the Vistaraks went in all the 1.48 lakh booths. "In future programmes, the party has planned to plant at least 50 trees in each of the polling booths during a massive plantation drive in the name of Deen Dayal Upadhaya from July 25 along with holding district level symposia on the life of the ideologue between July 26 to 31," he said. The party will also hold 'Jan Kalyan' sammelans at all the 1400 divisions between June 25 to 30, blood donation camps between August 1 to 7, besides holding conferences with NGOs and general knowledge competitions for the students on August 20, he added. UNI MB RSA 1143 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-939065.Xml
After a gap of 12 years, Lucknow University will be organising students union polls along with other state universities. Though in principle the state government has directed the universities to be prepared for students union polls in August but the meeting of the vice-chancellors very soon will finally give clear cut indications. State Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Dinesh Sharma said here today that the government has no reservation over students union polls be held. But, he said, during the meeting of the vice-chancellors to be chaired by UP Governor Ram Naik, who is the chancellor of the state, the issue will be finalised. He also said along with the students union polls, the government was also committed to introducing bio-metric attendance in the universities and colleges. The elections in Lucknow university along with several other state universities were held for the last time in 2005. Students union elections were not held in 2006 after the state universities introduced Lyngdoh committee recommendations as provided in the 2006 Supreme Court order. In 2007, student union elections were banned in all UP universities by the Mayawati government. Later, the ban was lifted but it was left to the universities to decide whether they wanted to hold polls. UNI MB RSA 1300 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-939105.Xml
According to a police official, the victims were found in a pool of blood around dawn by neighbours.

The victims were identified as: Appasaheb Govind Harvane, 58, his wife Sunanda, 48, their daughter Snehal, 18, and son Makarand, 15. The motive behind the killings is not known.

They had been repeatedly stabbed by a sharp weapon. The incident reportedly occurred around midnight, the official said.

--IANS qn/mr

( 99 Words)

2017-06-18-13:08:26 (IANS)
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Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker and Senior AIADMK leader M Thambidurai today said that no one can topple the present government in Tamil Nadu and said it is functioning smoothly to realise the dreams of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Speaking to mediapersons after calling on Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao here, he said, 'the meeting was just a courtesy call'. Denying need for enquiry into the alleged cash for trust vote expose, the Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker, said, 'Nowehere in the country, MLAs were bribed to support any party'. 'There is no need for CBI enquiry as demanded by DMK working president M K Stalin as MLA Saravanan himself has denied the charges', he said. Accusing Mr Stalin of trying to topple the government, Mr Thambidurai, said, 'he is dreaming to become Chief Minister through various means. It will not come true'. It may be recalled that the DMK-led Opposition parties stepped up its attack on the State government over the alleged horse-trading of AIADMK MLAs and urged the Governor to 'nullify' the February 18 trust vote. The opposition parties, in a meeting with the Governor, also urged him to dismiss the government and order a fresh floor test. Mr Stalin met the Governor at Raj Bhavan and presented a memorandum highlighting their demands. 'The trust vote was won (by the Palaniswami government) only due to horse-trading. So, that voting should be cancelled and this government should be dismissed immediately,' he said. These demands have been raised with the Governor and he has assured us to look into the legal aspects of the matter, Mr Stalin said. UNI XC CS 1447 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-939232.Xml
DMK's Working President and the Leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly M.K.Stalin today said the party would approach the High Court if criminal case is not registered against Chief Minister K.Palaniswami and other ministers as recommended by the Election Commission of India. In a statement issued here, Mr Stalin said the Election Commission had ordered the Chief Electoral Officer, Tamil Nadu to register a criminal complaint against Palaniswami and five other ministers on April 18, 2017 for attempting to bribe the voters during the by-election for R.K.Nagar constituency here. He said the Election Commission had also sent a 34 page report by Income Tax Department to the Chief Electoral Officer, Tamil Nadu and the Chief Secretary of the state. He said the Election Commission's order to lodge a police complaint was obtained by a person from the poll body under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Mr Stalin condemned the three months delay in registering a complaint against Palaniswami and other Ministers and added that the delay is nothing but disrespect to the Constitutional body, the Election Commission. Ahead of the by-election to the R.K.Nagar constituency, the Income Tax Department raided the residences and business premises of Tamil Nadu Health Minister C. Vijayabaskar, his relatives as well as persons close to him and his business associates. "We have seized cash totalling Rs 5.5 crore. We have also seized documents showing Rs 89 crore changed hands in R.K. Nagar," a senior Income Tax official said then. Subsequently the Election Commission had cancelled the by-election for the R.K.Nagar constituency that fell vacant following the death of Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa in December 2016.UNI XC CS 1443 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-939250.Xml
Reacting on the setting up of separate High Courts for the two Telugu states--Telangana and Andhra Pradesh,Union Minister of State for Law and Justice P P Chaudhary today said that the Centre was thinking on such lines. Talking to newsmen after participating in Telangana Advocates Meeting, organised by the BJP legal Cell here, Mr Chudhary said that the Centre was keen to establish High Courts in two Telugu states at the earliest. Referring to the petitions filed by the two states for setting up of separate High Courts, Mr Chudhary said as per AP Reorganisation Act 2014, both states must have separate High Courts in the respective territory. On the judges' vacancies in the High Courts, Mr Chaudhary said " There is no doubt that a large number of vacancies are pending in High Courts. In the history of judiciary a maximum number of appointments have been made in the High Courts, Supreme Court in 2016", the Minister said. In case of Hyderabad High Court, six new judges have been being appointed and further steps to appoint more judges would be taken after the receipt of the recommendation of the High Court Collegium, the Minister added.UNI VV CS 1552 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-939326.Xml
The Goa Human Rights Commission (GHRC) comprising A D Salkar and J A Keny has directed the State Government, Municipal Councils and the Panchayats to expedite the process of developing burial grounds and crematoriums and to submit a report by July 21. The GHRC directions came after Advocate Aires Rodrigues appearing for the Sanguem-based complainant Dr Anthony Rodrigues drew the attention that the authorities were dragging their feet in the matter despite having on March 14 been directed to expedite the process within two months. The Complainant, who was earlier represented by late Advocate Satish Sonak, in his complaint filed in May 2014 submitted that every citizen had a right to a decent burial or cremation. The Complaint has sought that every Taluka should have a crematorium and burial ground owned by the government so that people of all sects of religion had a right to a respectable burial or cremation.UNI AKM HK SDR 1838 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-939320.Xml
The President laid the foundation stone for ShambhuShetty Memorial Haji Abdullah Super Speciality Hospital, Udupi,promoted by NRI businessman Dr B R Shetty. Mr Mukherjee said India has to brace up further to strengthen its healthcare infrastructure and personnel, particularly in the rural areas.

''We see a big gap here when compared to cities and villages. Weneed more investment in the rural areas from government and privatepartners in healthcare,'' he said.

The President said creating better health infrastructure through investmentshas helped cure many diseases but there remains a huge gap.

''What we need in India is not just accessible healthcare butaffordable medical facilities.''

Mr Mukherjee felt that the country was lagging behind in healthcare as there was only one doctor for 1,700 people. ''No civilisedsociety can tolerate this,'' he added.

He said there was 83 per cent shortage of surgeons and overallshortage translates to 81.2 per cent as on 2015.

The President said the situation requires increasing the numberof medical colleges and engagement of corporate sector, especiallyin the rural area. People have to assert and give out theirpreferences for the medical care they want -- a commercial,profit-driven one or a system compatible with the socio-economicconditions of the society.

At the same time Mr Mukherjee condemned attacks on doctors, inmany parts of the country and said such vandalism was not the way out.

Earlier in the day the President visited 800-year-old Sri KrishnaTemple in Udupi.

On his arrival at the temple, he was received by district in-charge andSports Minister Pramod Madhwaraj and Ms Meenakshi Madhava Bannanje first ladyof Udupi city municipal council, Priyanka Mary Francis DeputyCommissioner of Udupi and other dignitaries.

Later President Mukherjee visited the Sri Krishna Math and made adarshan of Lord Sri Krishna and also met Vishwesha Theertha Swamijiof Paryaya Pejawar Math and received honours.

In the afternoon, Mukherjee visited Kolluru Sri MukambikaTemple before returning to Bengaluru.UNI RS CS 1730

-- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0287-939443.Xml
Haryana Director General of Police (Jail), KP Singh, today gave away Bravery Award to Constable Rakesh carrying cash prize of Rs 11,000. While stating this here today, a spokesman for DGP (Jail) said that Constable Rakesh had bravely fought with the prisoners and their accomplices in Civil Hospital, Sector-6, Panchkula, yesterday. UNI JS SNU 1736 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-939476.Xml
Swami Atmasthanandaji, the president of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission was passed away this evening at Ramakrishna Seva Sadan hospital here. He was 99. Swamiji has been in Ramakrishna Seva Sadan hospital for past two years since February, 2015. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condoled the death of Swami Atmasthanandaji. "Saddened that Rev. Swami Atmasthanandaji, President, Ramakrishna Math & Mission passed away today at Seva Pratishthan at Kolkata," Ms Banerjee tweeted, "I paid my last visit to him this afternoon. A life of outstanding social & religious service. This is an irreparable loss to mankind," she added. Earlier, Ms Banerjee visited the hospital and inquired about the heath of Sanyani, who has been on ventilation support since Saturday. "I went to the hospital to know how Swami Atmasthanandaji was doing. I am told that he is critical state and is on ventilation support. We wish him to live for a century as he will be turn 100 next year," Ms Banjerjee told reporters. Swami Atmasthanandaji, was born in 1919 at Sabajpur, near Dhaka. He received mantra diksha (spiritual initiation) from Swami Vijnananandaji (a monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna) in 1938 and joined the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math on January 3, 1941 at the age of 22 years. In 1945, Swami Virajanandaji, the then president of the Order, gave him Brahmacharya vows, and in 1949 Sannyasa vows and the name Atmasthananda. After serving the Order at Belur Math and the branches at Deoghar Vidyapith and Mayavati Advaita Ashrama, he got the opportunity to serve Swami Virajanandaji, the then president of the Order, for a long time. He spent several years in his holy company in the solitude of Shyamla Tal in the Himalayas. In 1952, he was posted to Ranchi TB Sanatorium branch as an Assistant Secretary. He worked hard to expand its services in many ways. He was sent to Rangoon (Yangon) Sevashrama as its Secretary in 1958. Swamiji developed the Sevashrama hospital and it soon became the best hospital of Burma (Myanmar) at that time. When military rulers took over Rangoon Sevashrama, he returned to India in 1965. He was posted to Rajkot branch as its head in 1966. The beautiful temple of Sri Ramakrishna at Rajkot Ashrama was built on his initiative. He was elected a Trustee of the Ramakrishna Math and Member of the Governing Body of the Ramakrishna Mission in 1973. In 1975, he was appointed an Assistant Secretary of the twin organizations. Swamiji was also appointed Secretary of the relief operations of the Math and Mission. Under his stewardship, the Math and Mission conducted massive relief and rehabilitation operations in various parts of India, Nepal and Bangladesh. He became the General Secretary of the Math and Mission in 1992 and continued to be in that post for five years till 1997 when he became a vice-president of the Order. As a vice-president of the Math and Mission, he travelled extensively in various parts of the country and visited many branches of the Order and some unaffiliated centres. In 1998, he visited various places in US, Canada, Japan and Singapore. He also went to Malaysia, Fiji, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at different times. In all those places, he spread the message of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda and Vedanta and also gave mantra diksha (spiritual initiation) to many seekers. Swami Atmasthanandaji was elected president of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission on December 3, 2007. He is the 15th President of the Order.UNI BM -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0214-939686.Xml
Leader of the Opposition in Punjab Vidhan Sabha H S Phoolka today said that they would force Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to disclose the names of all those Akali leaders, who are in the business of sand mining in Punjab.Captain Singh has stated in the House that he had the list of those Akalis who are in the business of sand mining and had threatened to disclose their names, if they continue to create ruckus in the Assembly. After this threat, the Akalis quietly sat on their seats, Mr Phoolka recalled.He said it shows that Captain Singh knows the names of those running the sand mafia in Punjab and does not want to take any action and share the information with the members of Vidhan Sabha and the people of Punjab. It is a betrayal and an undemocratic method of concealing the crucial and important information from public and shielding the persons, who have looted Punjab and, in terms, getting political gains, Mr Phoolka alleged. He said there was sufficient proof that the Akalis and the Congress were playing a 'friendly match' and were hand in glove in shielding the wrong doings of each other in Punjab.Taking notice of the newspaper report in today's daily that former Minister Bikram Majithia got the illegal contract worth hundreds of crores of rupees for co-generation of power in cooperative sugar mills in Punjab, Mr Phoolka questioned why the Congress government was shielding Bikram Majithia in the scam. Mr Phoolka said that a helpless Congress leader had to come to the media, seeking action against Mr Majithia.UNI JS RJ 1945 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-939492.Xml
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today expressed sadness over the loss of lives in the forest fire in Portugal. "Sad to learn of tragic loss of lives in the forest fire in Portugal. Deepest condolences to the Portugese people on this tragedy," the Prime Minister tweeted. A forest fire raging in central Portugal has killed at least 57 people, in what is possibly the deadliest-ever single forest blaze in Portugal.UNI NY SNU 2034 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0099-939746.Xml
Special Judge Jaswant Singh has sentenced an accused to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment for possessing Charas,Rohtas of village Kalwan, Tehsil Narwana, District Jind, Haryana has been sentenced under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Also, he has been fined. In default of the Rs 1-lakh fine, Rohtash will have to further undergo one year's simple imprisonment. Deputy District Attorney Heman Singh Chaudhary told that on April 8, 2015, Dy SP, Sahil Arora, along with police personnel had laid a Naka at Chail Chowk, Kandaghat on National Highway. At about 9.35 pm, a bus (HR 55U-0754) on way to Gurgaon from Shimla reached there. When the police party carried out the search of the bus, a bag containing 1-470 kilogram of Charas was recovered from Rohtas' possession. The convict has been sentenced to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs one-lakh. In default of payment of fine, he will have to further undergo one year's simple imprisonment. UNI XC JS SNU 2011 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-939553.Xml
Six persons including two minors were killed in two separate road accidents in Punjab today.According to police in the first incident, three persons of a family were killed in Ferozepur district when the car in which they were travelling hit a tree near Lohgarh village on Ferozepur-Zira road.The deceased have been identified as Varinder Kumar (40), his wife Pushp Rani (38) and Munisha (34), a close relative of Varinder Kumar. Police said that the family was returning to Ferozepur after paying obeisance at Mata Chintpurni Dham in Himachal Pradesh. In another incident, three persons including two minors who were on bike were run over by a speeding car near Kairon village on Tarn Taran-Patti road. UNI XC JS SDR 1958 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-939652.Xml
Communist Party of India (CPI) General Secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy on Sunday said the Left parties will not contest the election if the BJP's presidential nominee is a "consensus candidate and has secular credentials". Reddy also said that they told the BJP team -- comprising Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu which met them last week -- not to field a candidate who has links with the RSS and doesn't have secular credentials. Reddy said CPI also enquired if RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was the BJP's candidate. "We just enquired whether Bhagwat is going to be their candidate. They said Bhagwat will not contest," Reddy told IANS. "We will support a consensus candidate on behalf of the opposition. We are ready to support a candidate with secular credentials," he said. Asked whether the Left parties would contest the presidential election even if there is a "consensus candidate", Reddy said: "No, we won't contest in case of a consensus candidate. We don't have enough numbers and we don't have the intention of contesting." "Generally, on behalf of the party, we never contested. Earlier, too, we only contested with other Left and opposition parties," he added. Asked what did the BJP team convey to his party, Reddy said: "BJP didn't come with any names. They asked our opinion. We told them not to put anybody from the hardcore ranks like the RSS. We told them we'll support a secular candidate." Asked if any assurance was given on that, he said: "No assurance was given. Why will they give assurance? We told our opinion but they did not respond." In 2002, when A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had emerged as the consensus candidate for President, the Left parties had put up former Azad Hind Fauj member Laxmi Sehgal as their candidate resulting in a contest. Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav told IANS: "Rajnath Singh and Jaitley-ji (Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley) met us yesterday (Saturday). They have not disclosed any name for the presidental nominee." Asked if SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav gave an assurance to the BJP about supporting NDA's candidate, he said: "We will support a consensus candidate, otherwise we'll oppose the NDA." The BJP on Sunday stepped up its efforts to gather support for its yet unnamed presidential nominee, with its top leaders talking to allies Shiv Sena and LJP as well as the Trinamool Congress and BJD, even as it disclosed that the NDA candidate will file the nomination before June 24 after the opposition is conveyed its choice. --IANS sid/vd/dg ( 439 Words) 2017-06-18-22:18:20 (IANS)
Based on disclosures by their unmanned aerial vehicles, the Russian troops in Syria carried out strikes on IS militants and thwarted the terrorist group's planned sortie against the defence lines of the Syrian government forces in Deir ez-Zor, Xinhua cited a statement of the ministry on Saturday.

"The preemptive airstrikes, which the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out on the sites of ISIL facilities on June 6 and June 8, killed ISIL field commanders Abu Omar al-Baljiki and Abu Yassin al-Masri".

In addition, a total of 180 IS militants were also killed, and 16 automotive and armored vehicles and tanks, one artillery, four control posts and an ammunition storage depot were destroyed as a result of the strikes, Russia's Interfax news agency cited the ministry's statement as saying.

The Defense Ministry said on Friday that an airstrike it carried out in northern Syria on May 28 might have killed IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. So far, no official confirmation of it has been released.

--IANS vgu/

( 205 Words)

2017-06-18-04:48:06 (IANS)
Activists from the Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) here protested against human rights violations and the atrocities by Pakistan against the Sindhi, Baloch, Pashtun, Kashmiri and Saraiki. Pakistan ruled by a 'tyrant Punjabi fascism' has been committing heinous crimes against humanity, mass genocides, grave human rights violations to silence the secular, liberal, democratic voices and national independence movements of all the natural historic nations like Sindhi, Pashtuns, Baloch, Kashmiri and Saraiki JSMM chairman Shafi Burfat said in a statement. Hundreds of secular political activists belonging to Sindh, FATA, KPK, Baluchistan, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir are missing and hundreds of them have been extra-judicially detained and killed in previous decade, the statement said. It added that mass graves found in Baluchistan, extra-judicial killings of Sindhi political activists and reports of notable International Human Rights Organisations including UN's working group on Enforced Disappearances have testified and witnessed these tyrannies to be factual. Burfat said that Sindh is being plundered by Pakistan off its minerals, natural resources and revenues by Punjabi fascism, while 70 percent population of the region lives below the poverty line. He added that the China Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) has led the regime to further intensify its persecution of secularist political activists. "Along with these persecutions this Rogue Theocratic Pakistani state, which has been harbouring international Islamist terrorists in its soil and exporting terrorism across its borders into the territories of Afghanistan, and India, has also been denying the fundamental human rights like democratic right of the people to the life and the freedom of expression, organisation and speech," he said in the statement. The nuke arsenals of Pakistan (so called Islamic Bombs) and North Korea pose greater threat to world peace and are built to terrorise the world - based on their state doctrines of "Hate Thy Neighbor" principle, the statement added. Burfat appealed the International Community and Human Rights Organisations to take an immediate notice and action to save the lives of political activists belonging to Sindhi, Pashtun, Baloch, Kashmiri and other oppressed nations subjugated by Pakistan. (ANI)
The bodies of a number of sailors who were missing after the US Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a container vessel were found in flooded compartments of the damaged ship, the US Seventh Fleet said today.Japanese media said all seven of the sailors who had been reported missing were found dead."Divers were able to access the space and found a number of bodies," the Seventh Fleet said in a statement.It said in an earlier statement the sailors were being transferred to a US naval hospital where they would be identified."The families are being notified and being provided the support they need during this difficult time," the Seventh Fleet said.The Fitzgerald, an Aegis guided missile destroyer, collided with the Philippine-flagged merchant vessel more than three times its size some 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka early yesterday.Three people were medically evacuated to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka after the collision, including the ship's commanding officer, Commander Bryce Benson, who was reported to be in stable condition, the Navy said.The other two were being treated for lacerations and bruises, and others injured were being assessed aboard the ship.The USS Fitzgerald sailed into port yesterday evening but search and rescue efforts by US and Japanese aircraft and surface vessels had been continuing for the seven missing sailors, the Navy said.Benson took command of the Fitzgerald on May 13. He had previously commanded a minesweeper based in Sasebo in western Japan.It was unclear how the collision happened. "Once an investigation is complete then any legal issues can be addressed," a spokesman for the US 7th Fleet said.Japanese authorities were looking into the possibility of "endangerment of traffic caused by professional negligence", Japanese media reported, but it was not clear whether that might apply to either or both of the vessels.The US Navy said the collision happened at about 2:30 a.m. local time (2300 IST Friday), while the Japanese Coast Guard said it took place at 1:30 a.m. local time.The Fitzgerald suffered damage on her starboard side above and below the waterline, causing "significant damage" and flooding to two berthing spaces and other areas of the ship, the Navy said.Japan's Nippon Yusen KK, which charters the container ship, ASX Crystal, said in a statement on Saturday it would "cooperate fully" with the Coast Guard's investigation of the incident.At around 29,000 tons displacement, the ship dwarfs the 8,315-ton US warship. It was carrying 1,080 containers from the port of Nagoya to Tokyo.None of the 20 crew members aboard the container ship, all Filipino, were injured, and the ship was not leaking oil, Nippon Yusen said. The ship arrived at Tokyo Bay later yesterday.The waterways approaching Tokyo Bay are busy with commercial vessels sailing to and from Japan's two biggest container ports in Tokyo and Yokohama.REUTERS AD0859 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0108-938967.Xml
Iraqi forces began storming the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul today, an assault they hope to be the last in the nine-month old campaign to seize the militants' stronghold.The historic district is the last still under control of the militants in the city which used to be their capital in Iraq.It is a densely-populated maze of narrow alleyways where fighting is often conducted house by house.About 100,000 civilians remain trapped there in harrowing conditions, with little food, water and medicine and limited access to hospitals, according to the United Nations."This will be a terrifying time for around 100,000 people still trapped in Mosul's Old City ... now at risk of getting caught up in the fierce street fighting to come," the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said in a statement."This is the final chapter" in the offensive to take Mosul, said Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, commander of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) elite units spearheading the assault.A US-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the campaign.The Iraqi government initially hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign took longer as militants dug in the middle of civilians to fight back.Islamic State is also using suicide car and motorbike bombs, booby traps and sniper and mortar fire against the troops. "The buildings of the old town are particularly vulnerable to collapse even if they aren't' directly targeted, which could lead to even more civilian deaths than the hundreds killed so far in airstrikes across the rest of the city," the IRC said."We are trying to be very careful, using only light and medium weapons ... to avoid casualties among civilians," CTS commander Major General Maan Saadi told Iraqi state TV.Hundred of civilians were killed near the frontlines in the past three weeks while fleeing the Old City, as Iraqi forces couldn't fully secure exit corridors."We expect thousands of families to escape from the Old City'; we made all preparations to evacuate them from the frontlines," army colonel Salam Faraj told Reuters.Islamic State snipers are shooting at families trying to flee on foot or by boat across the Tigris River, as part of a tactic to keep civilians as human shields, the UN said on Friday.Iraqi government forces regained eastern Mosul in January, then a month later began the offensive on the side located west of the Tigris, which includes the Old City.The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in a speech from an historic mosque in the Old City three years ago, covering parts of Iraq and Syria.The group is also retreating in Syria, mainly in the face of a US- backed, Kurdish-led coalition. Its capital there, Raqqa, is nearly besieged.About 200,000 people were estimated to be trapped behind Islamic State lines in Mosul in May, but the number has declined as government forces have thrust further into the city.About 850,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of the northern Iraqi city, have fled, seeking refuge with friends and relatives or in camps, according to aid groups.REUTERS SDR 1555 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0387-939306.Xml
India also wanted to deepen strategic ties with China, the visiting minister said.

Ties between the two countries have taken a hit over a host of issues which range from India's objection to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to China's continuous opposition to New Delhi's membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

"India looks forward to strengthening and deepening its strategic partnership and mutual dialogue," Singh said at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.

He called the meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit at Astana as "fruitful and constructive".

"They laid down directions for us and for both the countries for mutual respect and mutual cooperation," he said.

On Friday, China said the Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa would have a candid discussion on terrorism.

India might raise the issue of China blocking the ban on Pakistani militant Masood Azhar at the UN.

Azhar, head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror group, is wanted in India for the January 2016 terror attack at the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot in Punjab.

China has also blocked India's bid to enter the NSG.

The factor of Pakistan, China's "all-weather ally", comes into play in both issues.

China argues that if India can be let in the NSG without being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, why not Pakistan.

On Azhar, China says evidence produced against the Pakistan-based terrorist is not enough.

At last year's BRICS summit in India, China was non-committal on including the names of terror groups like JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the BRICS' Goa Declaration.

--IANS gsh/mr/ahm

( 322 Words)

2017-06-18-18:12:10 (IANS)
North Korea accused US authorities of "mugging" its diplomats at the John F. Kennedy airport in New York, forcibly confiscating a diplomatic package which it said raised questions about the city as the seat of the United Nations.The North's Foreign Ministry spokesman said a delegation of the North returning from a UN conference on the rights of persons with disabilities "was literally mugged" at the John F Kennedy airport in "an illegal and heinous act of provocation.""Diplomats of a sovereign state are being robbed of a diplomatic package in the middle of New York where the headquarters of the United Nations is located and that serves as the venue for international meetings including the United Nations General Assembly," the spokesman said."This clearly shows that the US is a felonious and lawless gangster state," the spokesman said in comments carried by the North's official KCNA news agency."The international community needs to seriously reconsider whether or not New York, where such an outrageous mugging is rampant, is fit to serve as the venue for international meetings," KCNA said.The State Department and White House had no immediate comment on the North Korean statement.KCNA said the incident took place on June 16 when more than 20 officials who claimed to be from the US Department of Homeland Security and police "made a violent assault like gangsters to take away the diplomatic package from the diplomats."The diplomats were in possession of a valid diplomatic courier certificate, KCNA said.The claim comes amid diplomatic tensions after the North released American student Otto Warmbier whose parents said he was in a coma after being held by the North for 17 months.Warmbier, 22, who arrived in the United States on Tuesday, is stable but "shows no sign of understanding language, responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surrounding," a doctor at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center said.The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions against North Korea for the reclusive state's nuclear and ballistic missile activities.The North, which is a member state of the United Nations, has rejected the resolutions as infringements of its right to self defense and space exploration.REUTERS SDR 1948 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-939701.Xml
At least half of Nigerian government food aid sent northeast for hungry people driven from their homes by Boko Haram has been "diverted" and never reached them, a government official said.Some 1.5 million people are on the brink of famine in the northeast, where the jihadist group has killed more than 20,000 people and forced 2.7 million to flee during its eight-year uprising to create an Islamic caliphate.A programme was launched on June 8 by Yemi Osinbajo, acting president while President Muhammadu Buhari is in Britain on medical leave, to distribute grain to 1.8 million people still displaced by the insurgency, many of whom live in camps."Over 1,000 trucks of assorted grains are now on course, delivering the grains intact to beneficiaries since the commencement of the present programme as against the reported diversion of over 50 trucks in every 100 trucks sent to the northeast," said Osinbajo's spokesman Laolu Akande in an emailed statement late yesterday."The issue of diversion of relief materials, including food and related matters, which has dogged food delivery to the IDPs [internally displaced people] would be significantly curbed under the new distribution matrix."Akande said 1,376 military personnel and 656 armed police would guard the food as it was moved from warehouses and distributed to displaced people in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe - the three states worst hit by the insurgency.Boko Haram controlled an area of the northeast around the size of Belgium in early 2015 but has since been pushed out of most of the territory by Nigeria's army and troops from neighbouring countries.But the Islamists continue to carry out attacks in the northeast and neighbouring Cameroon and Niger.Boko Haram killed 14 people in bombings and shootings in the northeastern city of Maiduguri on June 7, in a large-scale attack quelled by the army after several hours.A UN official said this month the World Food Programme had scaled back its emergency plans in the northeast because of lack of funds, now aiming to supply food to 1.4 million people instead of the 1.8 million previously intended.The UN says it needs 1.05 billion dollar this year to deal with the crisis in northeast Nigeria - which, along with Somalia and South Sudan, is one of three humanitarian emergencies unfolding in Africa - but has only received about a quarter of that sum.REUTERS SDR 2022 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-939749.Xml
Romania's ruling leftists filed a no-confidence motion in parliament today against their prime minister, Sorin Grindeanu, escalating a conflict which government critics say reflects internal rifts over anti-corruption policy.The Social Democrat Party (PSD) and its coalition allies withdrew their support for Grindeanu, 43, last Wednesday, saying he has failed to implement the PSD's broad governing agenda since it won a parliamentary election last December.Grindeanu refused to resign and was expelled from the party.Independent observers said the PSD is likely unhappy with Grindeanu's failure to relax Romania's anti-corruption rules earlier this year and wanted to oust him to ensure a different premier does more to protect party seniors facing graft charges.Romania is seen as one of the European Union's most corrupt states and Brussels has kept its justice system under special monitoring since its 2007 entry."Grindeanu's removal seems to be at the forefront of an effort by the ruling coalition to relaunch a drive to weaken the anti-corruption fight," said commentator Mircea Marian.At stake could be the future of PSD leader Liviu Dragnea, who has received a two-year suspended sentence in a vote-rigging case and is now on trial in a separate abuse of office case.After a recent constitutional court ruling, the government has to propose a cap on financial damages caused by abuse of office offences, a level which could be decisive in Dragnea's case."This threshold is among reasons why Grindeanu had to be removed," said political analyst Cristian Patrasconiu.A push this year by Grindeanu's government to decriminalise several corruption offences triggered the biggest street protests in Romania since the collapse of Nicolae Ceausescu's communist rule in 1989.The government was forced to rescind the decree, and its architect, Justice Minister Florin Iordache resigned, citing a need to appease public opinion but saying he had done nothing wrong."Clearly Grindeanu is perceived by PSD leaders as lacking a firm hand," said Marian. "So they are looking for a prime minister tough enough to handle and defuse any potential street protests (in the future)."The PSD and its junior coalition ally have enough deputies for the no-confidence motion to succeed, when it is put to a vote on Wednesday.Neither grouping has said anything about their plans regarding anti-corruption policy, but both reject accusations they want to relax the rules for political gain."This is a vote against a pseudo-government, one without any legitimacy. A government which believes it can exert power in its own name," Social Democrat senator Mihai Fifor told parliament today.REUTERS SDR 2054 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-939777.Xml
"Naval personnel attached to a Fast Attack Craft belonging to the Northern Naval Command arrested 5 Indian poachers along with a fishing trawler engaged in illegal fishing practices in Sri Lankan territorial waters west of Delft Island this morning," the Sri Lankan Navy said in a statement.

The arrested Indians will be handed over to the Jaffna Assistant Director of Fisheries for a legal action.

The Sri Lankan Navy also rendered assistance to another Indian fishing trawler in northwest of Analativu Island as sea water had trickled into the vessel making a panic-stricken situation. (ANI)
South Korean President Moon Jae-in appointment Kang after the opposition-led parliament failed to issue a report on the outcome of its confirmation hearing for her.

President Moon urged Kang to show actions that will prove the opposition parties' objections wrong.

"I want you to truly help expand the external appearance of our diplomatic relations and show how great our capabilities are. I hope you would make those who have opposed you realise that they were wrong," Yonhap news agency quoted President Moon as saying to Kang.

Kang, a former UN official, has been accused of alleged tax evasions and false registration of address for her daughter.

She was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in March 2013.

Previous to this position, she served as United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights. She was appointed to this position by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in September 2006. (ANI)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-15 19:40:03|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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ARUSHA, Tanzania, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania on Thursday announced measures to address counterfeit seeds, which has been blamed for poor harvest and reduced income of farmers.

Charles Tizeba, Tanzania's Minister for Agriculture, Food, Livestock, and Fisheries, unveiled the measures when meeting seed and agrochemicals producers in the country's northern safari capital of Arusha.

Tizeba attributed the poor harvest registered in the recent past to substandard seeds produced by seed producers in the East African nation.

The minister expressed concerns over the move by unscrupulous people who are 'fabricating' regular maize to make them look like industrially processed improved maize seeds.

"This has been dumping small-scale farmers into paying good money for seed that just won't make difference at the end of the farming season," the minister said, adding that the evident post-harvest losses were a result of poor quality seeds that flooded the market.

"Our farmers can not enjoy bumper harvest if the situation continues like this," he said.

The minister also revealed that the government will continue to engage agrochemical producers from the private sector with a view to boosting the prospects of producing the seeds locally.

"To address such challenges we will have to work closely work with the private sector ... we aim at discouraging importation of seeds," Tizeba said.

The urge of promoting local production of the seeds comes when most farmers in the country appeal for the government to subsidize prices of local seeds to lower their prices.

Bob Shuma, Executive Director of Tanzania Seed Trade Association (TASTA), admitted that the challenges facing seed industry had direct effects on agricultural productivity.

He singled out the challenges facing the seed sector as inadequate knowledge on intellectual property rights; low participation of local and foreign bodies in seed production and breeding; and limited involvement of the private sector in the multiplication of breeders and foundation seed in order to enable a more ample supply of improved seeds.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 00:15:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ISLAMABAD, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Saturday reopened another crossing point with Afghanistan that was closed in February after terror attacks killed over 100 people.

Pakistan had closed all border posts with Afghanistan after the security officials blamed the militants which they said operated from the Afghan side of the border.

Two major crossings - Torkham and Chaman - had already been opened but few others remained shut.

"The government of Pakistan has opened Kharlachi crossing with Afghanistan in Kurram area with effect from today (Saturday)," the Foreign Ministry said.

The decision reflects Pakistan's continued efforts for facilitating Afghan transit and trade through Pakistan, a statement from the ministry said.

The Foreign Ministry clarified that this is not a pedestrians crossing, but is meant for facilitation of trade and transit vehicles.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 00:15:05|Editor: Liu

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DAMASCUS, June 17 (Xinhua) -- The general-command of the Syrian army announced on Saturday a 48-hour cessation of battles in the country's southern province of Daraa, state news agency SANA reported.

The ceasefire comes as part of the Syrian army's support to the "efforts of national reconciliation," according to the report.

The cessation of battles went into effect as of 12:00 p.m. (1000 GMT) Saturday, said SANA.

It wasn't clear what caused the ceasefire to start in Daraa, given the fact that the Syrian army was heavily bombing the sites of the ultra-radical groups, which were accused of implementing a foreign plan to turn Daraa into a buffer zone between Syria and Jordan.

This comes as the UN special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistrua, announced that the seventh round of Geneva talks will take place on July 9.

Mistura said that the talks will rely on the progress made in the de-escalation zones' deal, which was internationally backed and went into effect last May.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 00:50:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ROME, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Granting citizenship to children born in Italy of immigrant parents is the right thing to do and will make Italy safer, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Saturday.

The so-called "ius soli" ("law of the soil" in Latin) bill has become a hot-button issue after last Sunday's local elections which saw strong gains by the rightwing, anti-immigrant Northern League across Italy.

In remarks at a televised forum organized by La Repubblica newspaper in the northern city of Bologna, the center-left prime minister rebutted opponents of the bill.

The ius soli bill, which is supported by center-left parties and the business sector, would grant citizenship to children born in Italy of foreign parents, and to kids who have spent at least five years in the Italian school system.

Its opponents -- the rightwing Northern League party and the euro-skeptic Five Star Movement -- claimed it will give potential extremists a legal foothold in Italian society, that it is tantamount to an "ethnic substitution", and that it is "an unvotable mess".

"I know a part of parliament and of public opinion looks upon (the ius soli bill) with diffidence," Gentiloni said. "We musn't pretend they don't exist."

The prime minister explained that citizenship implies rights but also duties, and that is in the interests of the country to include children who are already Italian in everything but their passport, and who will grow into productive members of the society.

"We musn't allow room for the notion that...we underestimate the significance of our culture and our identity," Gentiloni said. Granting citizenship to children born in Italy is a sign of strength, not weakness, he added.

The prime minister also replied to those who "agitate the spectre of a threat to our security in a wholly unjustified way". Counter-terrorism experience teaches that the only way to root out and prevent radicalism is social inclusion, not marginalization and discrimination, Gentiloni said.

"To those who stoke such fears, we must say extending citizenship to these children...is not just a matter of conscience and civil rights, but also one of security," Gentiloni said.

"The time has come to consider these children as Italian citizens to all effects," the prime minister said. "We owe it to them, it is the right thing to do, and I hope parliament (approves the bill) very soon, in the coming weeks."

The ius soli bill was first proposed by an immigrant rights campaign called Italia Sono Anch'Io (I Also Am Italy), which gathered 200,000 signatures on a petition to parliament in 2011-2012.

Supporters of the bill argue that it grants rights to children who are already de facto Italians, boosts Italy's aging population, and contributes to the national economy by giving them a reason to stay in the country, work, consume and pay taxes.

The bill was approved by the Lower House of parliament in 2015, and must pass in the Senate in order to become law.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 06:46:50|Editor: Liu

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CHICAGO, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) grains futures closed mixed over the trade week which ended on June 16, as unstable weather conditions still weigh on crop prices.

July corn fell 4 cents on back and forth weather forecasts, and as some moisture relief impacted the Northern and Eastern Corn Belt late in the week. Crop conditions at 67 percent Good or Excellent by rating are decent, and argue for a yield near trend.

Analysts' concern is the early season heat and the lack of a lasting wet pattern forecast into July. Despite the recent rainfall, soil moisture deficits remain, and are becoming severe across the Plains and Western Corn Belt.

Like wheat, demand news is lacking and South American corn offers are historically cheap. But analysts from AgResource company best guess on U.S. national yield today rests at 165-167 U.S. dollars per bushel.

Wheat futures soared to gains of 20-33 cents, once again led by spring wheat contracts in Minneapolis. Decent rain fell across the Dakotas this last week, but drought and severe moisture deficits persist.

And with 60-70 percent of the wheat crop in the heading stage in South Dakota, new rainfall will only have so much benefit.

AgResource's work suggests the U.S. will have to ration its available supply of high protein wheat, particularly as protein in the Southern Plains remains disappointing.

A meaningful demand driver is absent, but major exporter production estimates are in retreat. Russian wheat, the world's cheapest milling origin, is offered at 4.50 dollars per bushel. The downside price risk is limited to 10-15 cents.

Soybean futures saw a quieter week of trade, with neither rallies nor breaks able to get much traction. At the week's close, July beans were down just 2.5 cents.

Better than expected rains across the Midwest limited gains through the week, while a larger than expected May soybean crush offered support.

Based on the preliminary demand data, the United States Department of Agriculture is expected to lower the old crop crush estimate, but likely to increase exports in the July World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report.

However, old crop stocks are historically large. Funds still hold a significant net short soybean position, but began to cover a portion of it last week.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the White House in Washington D.C. June 9, 2017. Donald Trump said on Friday that former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) James Comey lied regarding several details during his Thursday testimony at the Senate. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

by Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, June 17 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing the fate of President Donald Trump's travel ban. But it remains unknown what the outcome will be.

Just six weeks after coming into office, Trump signed an executive order in March that would ban citizens of six Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States for a period of 90 days. The Trump administration says it needs the 90-day window to better ascertain the supposed terror threat coming from these nations. The countries in question are Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - countries that were initially cited by the former Obama administration as "countries of concern."

Critics of the ban call it unconstitutional, while supporters say the White House and Congress should be, by law, deciding national security policy, not the courts.

On Monday Trump's ban lost a battle in the 9th circuit court, and the executive order is now being weighed by the Supreme Court, which has the final say on whether Trump's ban is constitutional.

Some experts said that, based on history, there's a high likelihood that the lower court ruling will be overturned, and that the Supreme Court will rule in Trump's favor.

One reason is because the 9th circuit court has had a large percentage of its rulings overturned.

Critics said it's one of the nation's most liberal courts, and noted that it is heavily laden with judges appointed by former President Bill Clinton, a liberal Democrat. Critics have blasted that court's judges for, they allege, acting more as activists rather than sticking to their duty of upholding the law.

Republican strategist Ford O'Connell told Xinhua the Supreme Court's decision will be very close, and will rest on the most moderate judge in the court, Anthony Kennedy.

"The question you have to ask yourself is, if this executive order went through under (former) President Obama...would it pass muster? A lot of people in the legal community think it might," O'Connell said, speaking of former President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

Hans von Spakovsky, a legal expert at the Heritage Foundation, told Xinhua: "it is my opinion that the three 9th Circuit judges - all appointed by Bill Clinton - who issued the decision, were acting as advocates, not judges."

"They failed to follow prior U.S. Supreme Court decisions that upheld the authority of the president to suspend the entry of any aliens into the country. They didn't even follow prior decisions of the 9th Circuit on this same issue," he said.

When asked how he thought the Supreme Court will rule on the issue, he said: "If the justices of the Supreme Court follow their own prior rulings, then they will overturn the 9th Circuit and rule in favor of the president and the government," he said.

"I hope they will put the law ahead of their politics," he said.

Trump's proposed travel ban comes at a time when terrorism is on the rise in developed countries, having risen 200 percent since 2013, according to a report released earlier this month.

The Global Terrorism Index, compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace, found that since 2007, deaths related to terror attacks have jumped by over 900 percent in OECD nations.

O'Connell said what's been frustrating for the Trump administration is that "they want to use all tools necessary to stop a threat that appears to be metastasizing around the world, and essentially what the Democrats are saying is 'well, we should just continue with our course of action.'"

Many Americans do not favor the ban, despite the support from Trump's base, and some experts said there is a disconnect between Trump's anti-terrorism policies and the actual threat. They say that many terrorism attacks or attempted attacks have come from people already living inside the United States.

One example is the Orlando, Florida shooter who last year opened fire inside a gay nightclub and killed dozens of people. The attacker, a U.S. citizen of Afghanistan descent, had pledged allegiance to terror group Islamic State.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 08:02:04|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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SAN FRANCISCO, June 17 (Xinhua) -- A new analysis indicates that our sun almost certain had a twin, though not an identical one, when it was born 4.5 billion years ago.

Actually, the analysis by a theoretical physicist from the University of California, Berkeley, and a radio astronomer from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard University provides new evidence that all stars are born in pairs.

The new assertion is based on a radio survey of a giant molecular cloud filled with recently formed stars in the constellation Perseus, and a mathematical model that can explain the Perseus observations only if all sunlike stars are born with a companion.

Many stars have companions, including our nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, a triplet system. Astronomers have long sought an explanation.

Astonomers have searched for a companion to our sun, a star dubbed Nemesis because it was supposed to have kicked an asteroid into Earth's orbit that collided with our planet and exterminated the dinosaurs. It has never been found.

"We are saying, yes, there probably was a Nemesis, a long time ago." noted Steven Stahler, a University of California, Berkeley, research astronomer and co-author of a paper already accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

"We ran a series of statistical models to see if we could account for the relative populations of young single stars and binaries of all separations in the Perseus molecular cloud, and the only model that could reproduce the data was one in which all stars form initially as wide binaries. These systems then either shrink or break apart within a million years," said Stahler.

In this study, "wide" means that the two stars are separated by more than 500 astronomical units, or AU, where one astronomical unit is the average distance between the sun and Earth, namely 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers. A wide binary companion to our sun would have been 17 times farther from the sun than its most distant planet today, Neptune.

Based on this model, the sun's sibling most likely escaped and mixed with all the other stars in our region of the Milky Way galaxy, never to be seen again.

"The idea that many stars form with a companion has been suggested before, but the question is: how many?" first author Sarah Sadavoy, a NASA Hubble fellow at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, was quoted as saying in a news release from UC Berkeley. "Based on our simple model, we say that nearly all stars form with a companion. The Perseus cloud is generally considered a typical low-mass star-forming region, but our model needs to be checked in other clouds."

Astronomers have speculated about the origins of binary and mulitple star systems for hundreds of years, and in recent years have created computer simulations of collapsing masses of gas to understand how they condense under gravity into stars, and of the interaction of many young stars recently freed from their gas clouds. Several years ago, one such computer simulation by Pavel Kroupa of the University of Bonn led him to conclude that all stars are born as binaries.

Yet direct evidence has been scarce. As astronomers look at younger and younger stars, they find a greater proportion of binaries, but why is still a mystery.

According to Stahler, astronomers have known for several decades that stars are born inside egg-shaped cocoons called dense cores, which are sprinkled throughout immense clouds of cold, molecular hydrogen that are the nurseries for young stars.

The Perseus molecular cloud is one such stellar nursery, about 600 light-years from Earth and about 50 light-years long. Last year, a team of astronomers completed a survey that used the Very Large Array, a collection of radio dishes in New Mexico, to look at star formation inside the cloud. Called VANDAM, it was the first complete survey of all young stars in a molecular cloud, that is, stars less than about 4 million years old, including both single and mulitple stars down to separations of about 15 astronomical units.

The VANDAM survey produced a census of all Class 0 stars, those less than about 500,000 years old; and Class I stars, those between about 500,000 and 1 million years old. Both types of stars are so young that they are not yet burning hydrogen to produce energy.

Sadavoy, a member of the VANDAM team, took the results from VANDAM and combined them with additional observations that reveal the egg-shaped cocoons around the young stars. By combining these two data sets, Sadavoy was able to produce a robust census of the binary and single-star populations in Perseus, turning up 55 young stars in 24 multiple-star systems, all but five of them binary, and 45 single-star systems.

Using these data, Sadavoy and Stahler discovered that all of the widely separated binary systems, those with stars separated by more than 500 AU, were very young systems, containing two Class 0 stars. These systems also tended to be aligned with the long axis of the egg-shaped dense core. The slightly older Class I binary stars were closer together, many separated by about 200 AU, and showed no tendency to align along the egg's axis.

The two researchers mathematically modeled various scenarios to explain this distribution of stars, assuming typical formation, breakup and orbital shrinking times. They concluded that the only way to explain the observations is to assume that all stars of masses around that of the sun start off as wide Class 0 binaries in egg-shaped dense cores, after which some 60 percent split up over time. The rest shrink to form tight binaries.

"As the egg contracts, the densest part of the egg will be toward the middle, and that forms two concentrations of density along the middle axis," Stahler said. "These centers of higher density at some point collapse in on themselves because of their self-gravity to form Class 0 stars."

"Within our picture, single low-mass, sunlike stars are not primordial," he added. "They are the result of the breakup of binaries."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 10:53:01|Editor: Liangyu

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Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, addresses the 9th Straits Forum in Xiamen, southeast China's Fujian Province, June 18, 2017. (Xinhua/Ma Zhancheng)

XIAMEN, June 18 (Xinhua) - Top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng Sunday said the Chinese mainland remains committed to promoting people-to-people exchanges, and economic and social development across the Taiwan Strait for the benefit of compatriots despite new risks and challenges.

Yu, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks when addressing the ninth Straits Forum held in Xiamen, Fujian Province.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 11:08:04|Editor: An

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Xie Xiaoyan, special envoy of the Chinese government on the Syrian issue, speaks during a press briefing in Damascus, capital of Syria, on June 17, 2017. China has been keeping in touch with concerned parties in Syria in order to achieve a political settlement to the country's long-standing conflict through peace negotiations, Xie Xiaoyan said here on Saturday. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani)

DAMASCUS, June 18 (Xinhua) -- China has been keeping in touch with concerned parties in Syria in order to achieve a political settlement to the country's long-standing conflict through peace negotiations, a Chinese envoy said here on Saturday.

China has kept in touch with all concerned parties in Syria, aiming to restore peace and stability through peace talks, said Xie Xiaoyan, special envoy of the Chinese government on the Syrian issue, at a news briefing in the Chinese embassy in Damascus.

"We are in touch with the Syrian government, the opposition, the regional countries, and other powers that are either directly, or indirectly, involved in the Syrian issue, and this is our advantage in mediation," he said.

With regard to the political reconciliation process, Xie stressed China's commitment to promoting peace talks and implementing the achievements in Syria.

China hopes that involved parties in Syria will achieve reconciliation and eventually form a national reconciliation government, he said.

Meanwhile, the envoy pointed out that China has been providing humanitarian assistance within its capacity.

China has provided Syria and some other countries in the region with around 680 million yuan (100 million U.S. dollars) of humanitarian aid, including cash, medical equipment, medicine, and food to help alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people, he said.

Xie stressed that terrorism is the common enemy of the whole world, and Syrian factions, regional countries and the international community should be united in counter-terrorism efforts without employing double standards.

Speaking of the deal on de-escalation zones, which went into force in Syria last month and largely helped curb violence in some areas, the envoy said the involved parties had reached a consensus on the establishment of de-escalation zones in the last round of peace talks held in Astana, which was an important step towards resolving Syrian crisis.

Xie voiced hope that the concerned parties would nail details of the agreement as soon as possible to bring it into effect.

There is no quick solution to the Syrian issue, Xie noted, stressing that all parties should understand each other and make joint efforts to maintain the momentum of the peace talks.

"China has patience and confidence to advance settlement of the Syrian issue on the right track through concrete work, so that the crisis could gradually ease before it is finally resolved," he said.

During his visit to Damascus on Saturday, Xie exchanged views with Syrian officials on bilateral relations, as well as regional and international issues of common concern.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 11:23:08|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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TOKYO, June 18 (Xinhua) -- All 7 bodies of U.S. crew members missing after a collision between the U.S. Navy's guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald and a Philippine container vessel a day earlier have been found, the Navy said Sunday, according to local media.

The bodies were found in a living space aboard the Navy destroyer that along with a machine room, had become flooded after the collision, Japan's public broadcaster NHK said.

The U.S. military will now proceed to confirm the identity of the bodies, it said.

Three others were injured in the collision, local media said, including Cmdr. Bryce Benson, the Fitzgerald's commanding officer, who is in a stable condition in hospital. Two other crew members were airlifted to hospital also with non-life-threatening injuries, the Navy said.

According to the Japan Coast Guard, the collision occurred about 100 kilometers southwest of Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, and was first reported by the Philippine container vessel at around 2:25 a.m. local time on Saturday.

Along with the U.S. Navy, the Japan Coast Guard is investigating the collision and has questioned crew members of the 29,060-ton Philippine ACX Crystal container vessel on suspicion of possible endangerment of traffic caused by professional negligence, according to local media reports.

NHK said that a record aboard the Philippine ship shows that it took a sharp right turn southeast of the Izu Peninsula at around 1:30 a.m., about an hour before the collision was reported.

The vessel, which was carrying 1,080 containers, was recorded as traveling east for 30 minutes before making a U-turn and doubling back into the waters where the collision with the 8,315-ton Aegis-equipped Fitzgerald took place.

The 154 meter-long U.S. guided-missile destroyer, which suffered considerable damage to its right side in the collision, is part of the U.S. 7th Fleet and returned to the Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 50 kilometers southwest of Tokyo.

The 222.6-meter-long Philippine ship, which was sailing towards Tokyo, had scrape marks from the collision on the left side of its bow section. The vessel has docked at a port in Tokyo.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 11:38:11|Editor: Liu

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YANGON, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The biggest brass statue of Myanmar's national independence hero Bogyoke (General) Aung San has been unveiled in Mandalay in commemoration of the late national leader, official media reported Sunday.

Speaker of the House of Representatives (Lower House) U Win Myint inaugurated the statue Saturday.

The statue was cast by Daw Nyunt Nyunt Win, the daughter of traditional Myanmar brass sculptor U Win Maung, and is placed in the Mandalar Park.

Using 2,880 kg of brass, Daw Nyunt Nyunt Win began work on the statue in July last year and completed this month.

The four-meter high statue was paraded through the city last weekend before being brought to the park.

General Aung San and eight other martyrs were assassinated in July 1947 during struggle for regaining the country's independence from the British colonial rule.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 11:58:15|Editor: Liu

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RIO DE JANEIRO, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Michel Temer will sue Joesley Batista, the owner of meatpacking giant JBS, for slander, according to a statement announced Saturday.

Earlier this year, Batista turned over to investigators a recording, in which Temer can allegedly be heard signing off on bribing public officials. This week, in an interview, Batista also described Temer as "the leader of the largest and most dangerous criminal gang in Brazil."

In the statement, the Brazilian president slammed Batista for "unravelling lies" and criticized the interview, published in leading news magazine Veja, for "lack of truth."

"The president will take all the appropriate measures against this man (Batista). On Monday, civil and criminal charges will be pressed against him. His lies are proven and the appropriate financial reparation will be sought for the damages caused, not only to the institution of the Presidency of the Republic, but to Brazil," read the statement.

Temer also took aim at the confession agreement reached by Batista and federal investigators, which led to the Supreme Court opening an investigation against the president for obstruction of justice and passive corruption.

"Mr. Joesley Batista is a famous bandit with the greatest success in Brazilian history. He managed to enrich himself through practices to which he will not respond and now maintains his assets outside the country with the permission of the judiciary," the statement said.

Batista's interview with Veja has revived the scandal around embattled Temer, accusing the president of demanding constant bribes and illegal donations for electoral campaigns.

Batista also pointed the finger at a number of Temer's closest allies, accusing them of being part of a corrupt network.
Afghan security force members escort suspected militants in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, May 29, 2017. (Xinhua/Rahman Safi)

JALALABAD, Afghanistan, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Militants loyal to the hardliner Islamic State (IS) group have replaced Taliban fighters in many places of Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province and overrun the outfit's main bastion Tora Bora hilltops recently.

The IS group surfaced in Achin district of the relatively troublesome province two years ago, and survived government forces' mounting pressures.

Following a fierce fighting, the IS group captured the strategically important Tora Bora mountain on Wednesday, forcing Taliban fighters to retreat from the area.

Tora Bora had served as the main base of al-Qaida network and the hideout of its ex-leader Osama Bin Laden until the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001. Taliban captured the region after regrouping of its militants a couple of years ago.

The fall of Tora Bora to the IS insurgents, according to local observers, would prove a major blow to the Taliban militants and similarly a potential threat to the government forces in the eastern provinces.

"The fall of Tora Bora to the so-called Islamic State would place the armed group in commanding position and if the government forces fail to evict IS rebels in its earliest, the rebel group would threaten the key city in the eastern region Jalalabad and the neighboring Laghman and Kunar provinces," local analyst Saiful Rahman told Xinhua on Saturday.

Many Taliban commanders, according to the observer, have changed their loyalty and joined the IS rank to help the group expand its territory.

Some 2,000 families have left their houses since eruption of fighting between IS and Taliban militants in Tora Bora and its vicinities over the past week, locals said, warning that government forces' delay in recapturing Tora Bora would force more families to flee their houses.

Since its emergence in Achin district in early 2014, the IS militants have expanded its presence in the neighboring Kot, Haska Mina, Nazian, Shinwar and Pachir Hagam districts, according to locals.

Challenging government forces and placing stiff resistance against the U.S.-backed Afghan forces military crackdowns, IS insurgents have been fighting to expand their foothold in spite of suffering on the battle ground.

"The policy of negligence by the government has helped IS group rapidly expand its influence in the eastern Nangarhar province over the past two years," member of Nangarhar Provincial Council Ajmal Omar told media on Saturday.

He also described IS as a potential threat to security and warned that overlooking the threat would enable the group to grab more lands in the conflict-riddled country.

Taliban militants, according to locals, have adopted the policy of "wait and see" allowing the government to take the war on the IS fighters in Tora Bora.

However, spokesman for Defense Ministry, General Dawlat Waziri has downplayed the threat, saying that the government forces would soon recapture Tora Bora hilltops from the IS rebels to restore law and order there.

Meanwhile, Bahrami, a spokesman for Defense Ministry told reporters on Saturday that 23 IS fighters had been killed over the past 72 hours and the troops would soon regain the control of Tora Bora.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 12:48:24|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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HAVANA, June 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a directive that sparked controversy and could push relations with Cuba back to hostility, a Cuban expert said.

According to a statement by the White House, individual leisure travel, permitted by the Obama administration, will be prohibited. Americans will be required to visit Cuba with regulated tour groups.

Besides, U.S. individuals and companies will be banned from doing commerce with Cuban businesses owned by the Cuban military. Trump also reaffirmed a decades-old U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.

Trump's decision has to be understood within the context of his policy towards left-wing governments in the region, said Luis Suarez, a professor of international relations in Cuba.

"In the case of Cuba, Trump returns to the concept of trying to make negotiations from a position of strength, and ignoring the political and legal systems of Cuba, as well as the country's sovereignty and self-determination of the Cuban people," he told Xinhua.

Trump's policy seeks to apply the Helms-Burton Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1996, to intensify the economic blockade on Cuba, the expert said.

It is not clear if Trump's directive would affect more than 20 agreements signed by the two countries in recent years. However, sources in the Cuban government said Havana is keen to continue joint efforts in sectors such as law enforcement, counter-terrorism, human and drug trafficking.

Security agencies and senior officials in Cuba said they are willing to continue cooperation with the U.S. side, despite that exchanges have declined sharply since Trump took office in January.

"I see no reason for the Trump administration to modify the agreements signed by both countries as many of these accords are in the interests of the United States," Suarez said.

Trump's new policy tightened restrictions and put forward more complicated requirements for U.S. citizens who want to travel to Cuba, a major setback to the policy of his predecessor Barack Obama which allows Americans to visit Cuba individually in 12 categories, including "people-to-people contract" and "cultural and educational exchanges," he said.

In the first five months of this year, 284,565 U.S. citizens visited Cuba within the 12 categories, almost equal to the number of Americans who traveled to the island in 2016.

Trump called for a new agreement for the normalization of bilateral relations between the United States and Cuba that would "suit" both sides.

In response, the Cuban government said any strategy that is aimed at changing the political, economic and social system in the country "is doomed to fail."

"The concept of normalization of relations in the United States is not the same as we have in Cuba. For us, normalization has to go through eliminating the economic blockade, returning the territory occupied by the Guantanamo naval base as well as non-interference in our internal affairs, among other issues," Suarez said.

"The Obama administration started from the concept of considering the Cuban government as a legitimate negotiator. This administration is...questioning the legitimacy of the government itself," he added.

According to the new directive signed by Trump, the U.S. embassy in Havana, which reopened in August 2015, will remain open. Travel by Cuban-Americans to Cuba will not be affected and remittances from people in America to Cubans won't be cut off.

Trump did not reverse Obama's decision to end the controversial "wet foot, dry foot" policy, which granted special migratory treatment to Cubans and allowed them to remain in the U.S. as permanent residents.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 13:08:28|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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GARDEZ, Afghanistan, June 18 (Xinhua) -- At least three police and four militants were killed after Taliban stormed police headquarters in Afghanistan's eastern city of Gardez on Sunday, officials said.

The attack started after one militant rammed a car bomb into the front gate of Afghan National Police (ANP) 303 Spin Zar Police Zone at around 06:15 a.m. local time, deputy spokesman of Interior Ministry Najib Danish twitted.

The huge blast was immediately followed by an assault by several of the armed militants in the city, which is capital of eastern Paktia province.

Sporadic gun fire is still ongoing there.

The nearby provincial police station and a police training center buildings were also damaged by the explosion.

Unofficial sources said that 25 police and civilians sustained injuries by the attack.

Afghan Special Forces also arrived at the site shortly after the incident occurred and sealed off the area.

The Taliban-led insurgency has been on the rampage since late April when the Taliban launched their annual rebel offensive and intensified attacks across the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 13:58:34|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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NEW DELHI, June 18 (Xinhua) -- At least six people were killed and several others injured after being hit by landslides in India's northeastern state of Meghalaya, officials said Sunday.

The major landslide triggered by incessant rains struck Meghalaya Industrial Development Corporation at Umiam in Ri-Bhoi District, about 20 km north of Shillong, the capital city of Meghalaya.

"Five people lost their lives and went missing after a major landslide hit them in Umiam yesterday," a police official said. "The victims were sleeping when the landslide struck them."

Following the accident, a team of disaster response force was immediately sent to the spot to carry out rescue efforts, officials said.

"The team pulled out several people in injured condition and removed them to hospital," the official said.

In a separate incident, a kid was killed after being hit by a landslide in Ladkyntong village in East Khasi Hills district.

Authorities have ordered an inquiry into the incident.

Landslides and flash floods were reported from various parts of the state in the wake of the rains.
Jin Liqun (2nd L), president of AIIB speaks on the Second Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the AIIB held in Jeju Island, South Korea, June 17, 2017. (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)

JEJU ISLAND, South Korea, June 17 (Xinhua) -- The 18-month-old Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has won acclaim for its good work from representatives of all over the world at its Second Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors held here through Saturday.

The multilateral development bank (MDB), initiated by China and supported by a wide range of countries and regions, has been playing a unique role in promoting development while showing great creativity and potential.

PROMISES DELIVERED

"In January 2016, at the Bank's inauguration, I made a pledge that we would ensure that this institution operates as a 'lean, clean and green' organization," said Jin Liqun, president of AIIB.

"Eighteen months on, I can report to you that the management and the staff have been translating these principles and aspirations into reality," he said.

To date, AIIB has approved some 2.49 billion U.S. dollars in financing for 16 infrastructure projects in nine countries. Twelve of the projects were co-financed, while four were standalone projects prepared by the bank.

Jin made particular reference to the power transmission project in Bangladesh, which will help bring affordable and reliable electricity to more than 12 million rural people while achieving energy saving equivalent to an annual reduction of 16,400 tons of CO2.

"This project demonstrates the AIIB's commitment to development, to helping the world's underprivileged and to the environment," he said.

The bank has also approved three new members - Argentina, Madagascar and Tonga during the annual meeting, bringing the total membership to 80.

"Broad support from both our regional and non-regional membership manifests a firm confidence in AIIB."

"We appreciate very much the way the bank has begun. We are pretty confident that in the future years, the bank would expand its membership and also its portfolio for the good of this region," said Philippe Baudry, director-general of the Treasury of France.

"The bank has done a lot. Given to its young age, I would give it a good score of more than 90 points out of 100," said Hamad Albazai, deputy finance minister of Saudi Arabia.

FORGING NEW PATH

"AIIB is now the only multilateral development bank in the world that the developing countries dominate with a combined total of over 60 percent of the shares. It has been playing a unique role in global governance," said Zheng Quan, director general for Policy and Strategy of AIIB.

For Sir Danny Alexander, vice president and corporate secretary at AIIB, the charm of AIIB lies in its mission to invest in infrastructure, which supports sustainable economic development in Asia and is also good for the whole world as Asia has the most people in the world, most of economic growth in the world and also a lot of growth potential.

Photo taken on June 17, 2017 shows the Second Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the AIIB held in Jeju Island, South Korea. (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)

According to Zheng, part of the bank's charm also comes from its forging a new path, including providing financing to both sovereignty-backed and non-sovereignty backed infrastructure projects, and investing in countries across all income levels which gives the bank more flexibility.

The bank has also established a non-resident board, which, while giving the board more autonomy and responsibility, is more cost-efficient, according to Zheng.

The new mechanism and business models are based on learning from the experiences and lessons of other multilateral development banks.

"We are quickly moving upwards on the learning curve," said Jin.

Jin also stressed that AIIB, as the "newest member of the family of multilateral financial institutions and development banks," has been working with its "sister MDBs."

"AIIB is an important multilateral development bank as it tries to fill the gap between demand and supply in infrastructure and to mobilize more money from the private sector to promote sustainable growth in Asia," said Tadashi Yokoyama, head of External Representation Office for Asia of the African Development Bank.

"We are looking forward to working with AIIB to co-finance good projects in the African continent," said Yokoyama.

TO BUILD A BETTER FUTURE

AIIB, while winning acclaim from all over the world for its good work and potential, is also conscious that it still has a long way to go.

The annual meeting of the Board of Governors is AIIB's supreme decision-making body in which chief delegates of members discuss directions and make major decisions on the bank's management.

This year's meeting, with the theme "Sustainable Infrastructure," saw the release of the bank's strategy in the energy area, which voiced strong support for its members to transit toward a low-carbon future.

"We are committed to the principles of sustainable development in the conceptualization, design, and implementation of our investments," Jin said at the annual meeting.

Other strategic focuses of the bank include promoting cross-country connectivity and mobilizing more money from the private sector.

The bank announced on Thursday three new projects, including its first equity investment, which, according to D.J. Pandian, vice president and chief investment officer of AIIB, is another significant milestone and will enhance the bank's potential to source and fund high quality, private sector projects.

"We will realize our grand vision of a future of shared benefits across Asia and beyond. We have every reason to be optimistic about our ability to accomplish what we have set as our goals," said Jin.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 14:38:39|Editor: Liangyu

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JEJU ISLAND, South Korea, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The China- initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) won achievements in a short time of just one and a half years despite challenges facing the international development bank, South Korea's deputy finance minister said.

"AIIB already generated achievements in one and a half years of its establishment," Song In-chang, deputy minister for international affairs at South Korea's Ministry of Strategy and Finance, told Xinhua Saturday on the sidelines of the AIIB's annual meeting.

The second annual meeting of the AIIB's board of governors lasted for two days through Saturday in South Korea's southern resort island of Jeju.

The first meeting was held in Beijing last year. The third annual meeting was scheduled to be held in India in June 2018.

The AIIB, officially launched in January 2016, is a multilateral development bank initiated by China and supported by a wide range of countries and regions, which provides financing for infrastructure improvement in Asia.

The deputy minister said the 18-month-old AIIB achieved what other multilateral development banks (MDBs) took four to five years to achieve.

To date, the AIIB has approved 2.49 billion U.S. dollars in financing for 16 infrastructure projects in nine countries. Twelve of the projects were co-financed, while four were standalone projects prepared by the bank.

"AIIB's progress is very fast. AIIB President Jin Liqun did well," said Song.

Despite the lack of experience of the newest international financial institution, Song said the AIIB has an advantage of making a fast decision by the decision-making body.

He said the South Korean government will actively support corporate infrastructure projects linked to the AIIB by creating a firm networking with AIIB officials.

Meanwhile, Song held a separate press conference with local reporters on Saturday, saying South Korea's hosting of the AIIB's first annual meeting outside the Beijing headquarters had a great meaning to the country.

President Moon Jae-in, who took office on May 10, made a congratulatory address at the opening ceremony of the AIIB annual meeting on Friday, making a debut into the international event.

South Korea is the fifth-biggest shareholder of the AIIB which owns about 100 billion U.S. dollars of subscribed capital, including some 20 billion dollars in paid-in capital.

The deputy minister said South Korea planned to share its technology, experience and finance of infrastructure with other AIIB members to contribute to the environmentally-friendly economic development in Asia.

Among the 80 approved members, 75 delegations attended the AIIB's second annual meeting along with 46 officials from multilateral development banks such as the Asian Development Bank.

"It was a very high participation rate," said Song. In addition to the delegations and MDB officials, central bankers and over 20 finance ministers attended the second annual meeting.

The number of AIIB members was raised to 80, including 57 founding members, as the board of governors approved Argentina, Madagascar and Tonga as new members during the business session on Friday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 14:48:42|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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ISLAMABAD, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan confirmed on Sunday that two officials from its consulate in Afghanistan have gone missing since Friday.

The Foreign Ministry said the officials have gone missing while commuting to Pakistan by road.

"The matter has been raised with the relevant Afghan authorities for their safety and recovery, at the earliest," the ministry's spokesman said in a statement.

The Afghan authorities have informed that all efforts were in hand to probe the incident and three distinct investigating groups have been constituted to ensure safe recovery of the officials, he further said.

"Pakistan has requested the Afghan Government that all efforts may be made to ensure early recovery of our officials," he said.

Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Omar Zakhilwal has earlier confirmed the incident.

"Yes, I am aware of it and so are our relevant institutions. They are searching for the missing officials," Zakhilwal told Xinhua.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 15:23:52|Editor: An

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KUNMING, June 18 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 people on a China Eastern Airlines flight were injured after it hit turbulence Sunday morning before arriving at Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Flight MU744, departing from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, was about to land in Kunming Changshui International Airport when it was hit by turbulence, the China Eastern Airlines said via its Weibo account.

The injured were taken to the First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province and Yan'an Hospital Affiliated to Kunming Medical University, after the flight landed around 9 a.m, an hour later than scheduled, local authorities said.

The injured, including four with severe injuries, suffered from bone fractures, scalp lacerations, soft tissue injuries and other light wounds, due to baggage falling or crushing on overhead bins, according to the hospitals.

None of the injured are in critical condition.

The local authority is still checking the overall number of injured and their personal information.
A man sits on the rubble of a house of his relatives, destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike in Sanaa, Yemen June 9, 2017. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

SANAA, June 18 (Xinhua) -- A total of 25 people were killed when a Saudi-led coalition warplane struck a popular market in Yemen's northern province of Saada, Houthi-controlled state Saba news agency reported on Sunday.

The agency quoted an official as saying the airstrike happened on Saturday evening and targeted al-Mashnak popular market at the center of Shada district in Saada.

He said the victims were customers and owners of commercial shops and several others were critically injured.

The agency gave no further details, but said it will publish pictures of the scene later on Sunday.

Saada is the main stronghold of Shiite Houthi movement and where the group's leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi is based.

This is the latest in a series of airstrikes hitting Yemeni civilians since the war began in March 2015.

Ten days ago, four members of a family were killed when Saudi-led coalition warplanes hit a house in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, according to residents and medics.

Since March 2015, the coalition has been fighting the dominant Houthi rebels, who have seized control of most of northern Yemen, including Sanaa, to restore power to the internationally recognized yet expelled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 16:03:59|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MOSUL, Iraq, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi government forces started on Sunday a major operation to enter the last Islamic State (IS) stronghold of the old city center in western Mosul, the Iraqi military said.

The regular army, Counter-Terrorism Forces and the Federal Police started decisive battles against the extremist IS militants in Mosul's old city center, Abdul-Amir Yarallah from the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a brief statement.

The troops started their push into the old city at 6:00 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) from three directions, Yarallah said, adding that the results of the new push will be announced later.

Three days ago, the Iraqi soldiers freed the small neighborhood of Bab Sinjar at the entrance of the old city, putting the troops on new positions at the edge of adjacent al-Farouq area at the major IS redoubt in the old city center, Yarallah said on Thursday.

Iraqi forces, backed by international coalition, are fighting to drive out IS militants from the western side of Mosul, locally known as the right bank of Tigris River, but al-Shifaa neighborhood and most of the densely-populated old city center, are still under control of the extremist militants.

According to the Iraqi military, more than 95 percent of the city has been retaken from IS in the ongoing major offensive launched in October last year.

Mosul, 400 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
Iraqi forces members, consisting of the Iraqi federal police and the elite Rapid Response Division, patrol in the Shifa neighbourhood, on the west bank of Mosul, on June 17, 2017, where they are battling some of the last members of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in the city. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

MOSUL, Iraq, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi government forces started on Sunday a major operation to enter the last Islamic State (IS) stronghold of the old city center in western Mosul, the Iraqi military said.

The regular army, Counter-Terrorism Forces and the Federal Police started decisive battles against the extremist IS militants in Mosul's old city center, Abdul-Amir Yarallah from the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a brief statement.

The troops started their push into the old city at 6:00 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) from three directions, Yarallah said, adding that the results of the new push will be announced later.

Three days ago, the Iraqi soldiers freed the small neighborhood of Bab Sinjar at the entrance of the old city, putting the troops on new positions at the edge of adjacent al-Farouq area at the major IS redoubt in the old city center, Yarallah said on Thursday.

Iraqi forces, backed by international coalition, are fighting to drive out IS militants from the western side of Mosul, locally known as the right bank of Tigris River, but al-Shifaa neighborhood and most of the densely-populated old city center, are still under control of the extremist militants.

According to the Iraqi military, more than 95 percent of the city has been retaken from IS in the ongoing major offensive launched in October last year.

Mosul, 400 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 16:54:11|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MAIMANA, Afghanistan, June 18 (Xinhua) -- A total of 10 militants have been killed and 15 others injured as clash erupted in Qaisar district of Afghanistan's northern Faryab province on Sunday, an army spokesman said.

The clash flared up in the wee hours of Sunday and lasted for a while during which 10 armed insurgents were killed and 15 others injured, army spokesman Nasratullah Jamshidi said.

Security forces have been chasing the militants to ensure lasting peace in the province, with Maimana as its capital 425 km northwest of Kabul.

The spokesman did not comment on possible casualties of security personnel. Taliban militants who have intensified activities since the beginning of Ramadan or Muslim fasting month 23 days ago, are yet to make comment on the situation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 17:49:22|Editor: Lu Hui

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NEW DELHI, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Five fishermen from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu were arrested by Sri Lankan navy, India's official broadcaster - All India Radio (AIR) said Sunday.

The fishermen were arrested off the coast while fishing off Neduntheevu in international waters.

"Five Tamil Nadu fishermen were arrested and their boat impounded by the Sri Lankan navy today for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters," AIR said.

The broadcaster, quoting state fishermen association president N Devadoss, said the fishermen from Mandapam had put out to sea in a boat early Sunday.

"They were fishing off Neduntheevu, when Lankan naval men surrounded and took them to Kangesanthurai port in Sri Lanka," Devadoss said

Fishermen of the two countries are often jailed for accidentally crossing into each other's territories. The fishermen traverse poorly defined boundary in the international waters as most fishing boats lack technologies to locate exact positions.
KHARTOUM, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The Sudanese government on Saturday urged Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar to stop supporting Sudanese rebels, local media reported.

Sudan's Information Minister and government spokesman Ahmed Bilal Osman accused Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar of undermining Sudan's security by supporting the country's rebel movements.

"What Haftar is doing by supporting the movements in Libya is considered a continuation of what Muammar Gaddafi was doing to undermine Sudan's security by supporting those negative movements," Osman was quoted as saying.

He reiterated Sudan's ability to safeguard its borders and territories in the face of whoever tries to undermine its security and stability.

Osman also urged the Sudanese armed groups to favor the option of peace and refrain from achieving the ambitions of certain people.

The Sudanese government is fighting three armed groups in Darfur region, which Khartoum says receive logistical support from South Sudan and some Libyan factions.
SEOUL, June 18 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Sunday appointed Kang Kyung-wha as the country's first female foreign minister despite harsh resistance from the conservative opposition party.

Moon provided a certificate of appointment for Kang at the conferment ceremony, which was held in the presidential Blue House earlier in the day, according to the press release by Moon's office.

The liberal leader, who took office on May 10, nominated Kang as the foreign minister nominee on May 21, but the official appointment was delayed amid strong opposition from the main conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party.

The conservative party opposed Kang's nomination over several controversies, including her false registration of her home address for educational purpose, but about 80 percent of South Koreans trusted Moon's nomination of his cabinet members, including Kang, recent opinion polls showed.

The minor conservative Righteous Party and the centrist People's Party denounced Moon's appointment of Kang despite their resistance, though the appointment is a right given to the president.

The minor progressive Justice Party welcomed Kang's nomination, describing the resistance as "opposition for the sake of opposition."

President Moon said the foreign minister post cannot be left vacant anymore because the South Korea-U.S. summit is around the corner and the Group of 20 summit meeting will come.

Moon was scheduled to leave for Washington on June 28 for his two-day summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump from June 29.
File photo of Tanzanian students listening to an introduction of Chinese universities during an exhibition on higher Education, science and technology in Dar Es Salaam, capital of Tanzania, May 21, 2014. (Xinhua/Zhang Ping)

DAR ES SALAAM, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The second China-Tanzania Job Fair kick off in the University of Dar es Salaam on Saturday, attracting hundreds of students across the country.

Rwekaza Mukandala, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dar es Salaam, said more graduates were lined up to be employed in the Chinese firms.

Mukandala was speaking at the fair where Chinese employers got an opportunity to seek competent Tanzanian graduates.

The vice chancellor said the job fair had this year attracted hundreds of graduates from about 20 universities across the country, the second largest economy in East Africa.

Mukandala said he hoped that the fair can help companies recruit more graduates and urged job seekers to acquire skills and technology from the Chinese companies.

"This job fair has come at the right time when the government was working hard to end unemployment which is the main obstacle facing our graduates," he said.

For her part, Tanzania's Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan challenged local graduates who sought employment from the Chinese companies to be resourceful.

"The Chinese firms are doing good job in supporting our graduates to get employment. We hope to continue building on our collaboration and to help meet your talent requirements," she said.

The job fair was jointly organized by the Chinese Business Chamber in Tanzania, the Confucius Institute at the UDSM, and the Tanzania-China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification. It was attended by over 100 Chinese enterprises.

Lu Youqing, the Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania, said the job fair opened another window for strengthening the relationship between China and Tanzania.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 20:25:10|Editor: An

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HOHHOT, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Police in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have arrested 34 suspects in connection with illegal gun manufacturing and trading, according to regional police.

Police in Ordos city seized 41 hunting rifles, 175 semi-finished guns and a large number of bullets.

In March, police from Ordos City Public Security Bureau found a parcel containing suspected gun parts when inspecting the postal sector, leading to the arrest of a gun buyer surnamed Zhang.

Police continued their investigation and destroyed a gun manufacturing site in Yulin city, Shaanxi Province. A suspect surnamed Xie and his son were arrested and a set of gun making equipment and several guns were seized.

Police recently arrested another 24 gun purchasers in Shaanxi and areas of Inner Mongolia in connection with the case.

China bans the manufacturing and sale of guns, with members of the general public not allowed to own them.

Anyone found guilty of owning a gun can face up to seven years in prison.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 20:30:15|Editor: An

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BEIJING, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese environment authorities will establish a system to prevent and punish environmental data fraud, according to an official.

Since environmental monitoring is an important part of technical support in environment management, the ministry will give administrative penalties to people involved in environmental data fraud and transfer them to judicial organs for investigation if necessary, said the official with the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Xi'an Intermediate People's Court in northwest China's Shaanxi Province Friday sentenced seven people, including the heads of two environmental protection branches, to imprisonments of over one year for falsifying air quality monitoring data.

The court said they interfered in the data collection of air quality, and used cotton to fill sampling instruments to lower pollution data, in February and March 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 20:30:17|Editor: Zhou Xin

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KHARTOUM, June 18 (Xinhua) -- With the beginning of the rainy season and accompanying difficulties caused by unpaved roads, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is racing with time to deliver food aid via Sudanese humanitarian corridors to thousands of people affected by war and famine in South Sudan.

The WFP is using three humanitarian corridors opened by the Sudanese government to send food to the people of South Sudan facing the risk of famine.

"The rainy season constitutes the major challenge for us," Lemma Bayissa, WFP director in Sudan's North Kordofan State, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on Sunday.

"That is why we are speeding up, day and night. The rainy season comes with other issues such as road conditions, besides that trucks sometimes take more than their capacity and technical problems might be there in the area," he noted.

"During this time the challenge is represented in fewer trucks, sometimes fewer commercials and less inaccessibility because of the rainy season to areas such as West Kordofan, South Kordofan and other target areas," the director added.

He further explained that WFP resorts to "prepositioning process" before the rainy season begins to secure food supplies at the target areas.

"Before the rainy season we are sending the food to areas like South Kordofan, i.e we pump the food before the rainy season. We are doing the same thing in areas like South Kordofan, like Kharasan and Al Meram," Bayissa said.

He reiterated that there was enough amount of food at the WFP warehouses in EL Obied, the capital city of North Kordofan State.

"Two days ago, we added 15, 600 metric tons of food. That means we have food in Kosti; we have food in Port-Sudan. Food is coming," he said.

According to Bayissa, the WFP has so far steered 12 convoys through two Sudanese humanitarian corridors and carried more than 25,000 metric tons of food to the needy in South Sudan.

"For Bentiu corridor, we sent ten convoys, with the total cereals sent reaching 12,000 metric tons," he said.

The UN official also expressed appreciation for the facilities provided by the Sudanese government, which contributed to WFP's success in delivering food to thousands of the needy in South Sudan.

"We really appreciate what the Sudanese government is doing. There is a proper coordination. We have a joint technical committee established at Khartoum level, and a joint technical committee established at El Obied level for which every week, may be sometimes two times, a meeting is going on," he noted.

He added that government security bodies would assist by escorting UN convoys to South Sudan.

Thanks to the memorandum of understanding signed between Sudan and South Sudan in 2014, the WFP has so far transported more than 57,420 tons of food through Sudan's humanitarian corridors to the new-born country.

The WFP is also providing food aid to the South Sudanese refugees who live in Sudan after fleeing the violence and food insecurity in their country.

The UN agency is currently assisting over 250,000 South Sudanese refugees across Sudan, with the majority in the White Nile State.

In 2017, the WFP plans to assist 4.6 million people inside Sudan, including the displaced, refugees, people affected by climate change and host communities.

According to UN statistics, about 1.5 million South Sudanese have fled their country since mid-December 2013, when fighting broke out between supporters of President Salva Kiir Mayardit and defectors loyal to his former deputy Riek Machar.

Earlier, Khartoum opened three humanitarian corridors to deliver humanitarian aid to the citizens of South Sudan at a time when international efforts are increasing to lessen the famine in the new-born state.

The first land corridor extends from El Obied in North Kordofan to Heglig in South Kordofan, and then to Rubkona town in South Sudan's Unity State and Bentiu in Bahr el Ghazal State which is the area most affected by famine.

The second corridor extends from Sudan's White Nile State to the northeastern areas of South Sudan, while the third corridor links El Obeid in Sudan's North Kordofan with Aweil town in South Sudan's Bahr el Ghazal.

These humanitarian corridors help reduce reliance on air operations, which cost six to seven times in moving food by river and road.

In addition to the land corridors, Khartoum has also promised to open a river corridor linking Kosti town in central Sudan with South Sudanese ports.

At least 7.5 million people across South Sudan, almost two thirds of the total population, need humanitarian assistance, according to UN statistics.

South Sudan announced earlier that nearly five million people were at risk of famine which has already hit areas in Unity State and is threatening Bahr el Ghazal State.

The famine is attributed to many reasons including the civil war and collapse of the economy in the new-born state.
Women with their malnourished children on May 31, 2017, wait outside a nutrition centre run by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Panthau, Northern Bahr al Ghazal, South Sudan. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

KHARTOUM, June 18 (Xinhua) -- With the beginning of the rainy season and accompanying difficulties caused by unpaved roads, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is racing with time to deliver food aid via Sudanese humanitarian corridors to thousands of people affected by war and famine in South Sudan.

The WFP is using three humanitarian corridors opened by the Sudanese government to send food to the people of South Sudan facing the risk of famine.

"The rainy season constitutes the major challenge for us," Lemma Bayissa, WFP director in Sudan's North Kordofan State, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on Sunday.

"That is why we are speeding up, day and night. The rainy season comes with other issues such as road conditions, besides that trucks sometimes take more than their capacity and technical problems might be there in the area," he noted.

"During this time the challenge is represented in fewer trucks, sometimes fewer commercials and less inaccessibility because of the rainy season to areas such as West Kordofan, South Kordofan and other target areas," the director added.

He further explained that WFP resorts to "prepositioning process" before the rainy season begins to secure food supplies at the target areas.

"Before the rainy season we are sending the food to areas like South Kordofan, i.e we pump the food before the rainy season. We are doing the same thing in areas like South Kordofan, like Kharasan and Al Meram," Bayissa said.

He reiterated that there was enough amount of food at the WFP warehouses in EL Obied, the capital city of North Kordofan State.

"Two days ago, we added 15, 600 metric tons of food. That means we have food in Kosti; we have food in Port-Sudan. Food is coming," he said.

According to Bayissa, the WFP has so far steered 12 convoys through two Sudanese humanitarian corridors and carried more than 25,000 metric tons of food to the needy in South Sudan.

"For Bentiu corridor, we sent ten convoys, with the total cereals sent reaching 12,000 metric tons," he said.

The UN official also expressed appreciation for the facilities provided by the Sudanese government, which contributed to WFP's success in delivering food to thousands of the needy in South Sudan.

"We really appreciate what the Sudanese government is doing. There is a proper coordination. We have a joint technical committee established at Khartoum level, and a joint technical committee established at El Obied level for which every week, may be sometimes two times, a meeting is going on," he noted.

He added that government security bodies would assist by escorting UN convoys to South Sudan.

Thanks to the memorandum of understanding signed between Sudan and South Sudan in 2014, the WFP has so far transported more than 57,420 tons of food through Sudan's humanitarian corridors to the new-born country.

The WFP is also providing food aid to the South Sudanese refugees who live in Sudan after fleeing the violence and food insecurity in their country.

The UN agency is currently assisting over 250,000 South Sudanese refugees across Sudan, with the majority in the White Nile State.

In 2017, the WFP plans to assist 4.6 million people inside Sudan, including the displaced, refugees, people affected by climate change and host communities.

According to UN statistics, about 1.5 million South Sudanese have fled their country since mid-December 2013, when fighting broke out between supporters of President Salva Kiir Mayardit and defectors loyal to his former deputy Riek Machar.

Earlier, Khartoum opened three humanitarian corridors to deliver humanitarian aid to the citizens of South Sudan at a time when international efforts are increasing to lessen the famine in the new-born state.

The first land corridor extends from El Obied in North Kordofan to Heglig in South Kordofan, and then to Rubkona town in South Sudan's Unity State and Bentiu in Bahr el Ghazal State which is the area most affected by famine.

The second corridor extends from Sudan's White Nile State to the northeastern areas of South Sudan, while the third corridor links El Obeid in Sudan's North Kordofan with Aweil town in South Sudan's Bahr el Ghazal.

These humanitarian corridors help reduce reliance on air operations, which cost six to seven times in moving food by river and road.

In addition to the land corridors, Khartoum has also promised to open a river corridor linking Kosti town in central Sudan with South Sudanese ports.

At least 7.5 million people across South Sudan, almost two thirds of the total population, need humanitarian assistance, according to UN statistics.

South Sudan announced earlier that nearly five million people were at risk of famine which has already hit areas in Unity State and is threatening Bahr el Ghazal State.

The famine is attributed to many reasons including the civil war and collapse of the economy in the new-born state.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 21:05:22|Editor: An

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CHANGSHA, June 18 (Xinhua) -- A chartered plane with 1,012 American boars aboard arrived in central China's Hunan Province on Sunday, the second time for the province to import breeding swine from the United States.

The plane departed from Chicago. The boars will be quarantined for 45 days before they are distributed to pig farms in the province and neighboring areas.

The boars were imported by China Animal Husbandry Group. They were selected from six pig farms in the U.S. and underwent a quarantine inspection before boarding the plane.

In 2012, Hunan imported more than 1,000 boars from the U.S. for the first time through chartered flight.

Importing boars can improve the quality of local breeding swine for Hunan, one of the major pig raising provinces in the country, said Wang Xinwu, deputy head of the Hunan Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.

Pork is the staple meat for Chinese.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 21:10:24|Editor: Zhou Xin

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YANGON, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Flight Data Recorder (Black Box) and CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) have been found in already retrieved plane's tail section Sunday evening, a release of the Office of the Commander-in-chief of the Defense Services said.

The authorities will continue probe into the reasons of plane crash based on the black box.

Naval ships, divers and trawlers were combing the seabed of the area, where the tail part of the crashed plane was found entangled with a fishing net of a local vessel under the sea off the country's southern coast on Thursday.

Currently, a total of 92 bodies have been recovered as of late Sunday.

With a load of 2.4 tons of cargo and 122 people aboard, including 108 military personnel and their family members and 14 crew members, the aircraft of the Myanmar Air Force lost contact with the ground shortly after taking off from Myeik on June 7.

The plane was believed to have crashed in the Andaman Sea off the southern Tanintharyi region on a flight to Yangon.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 21:40:41|Editor: An

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SANYA, June 18 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese naval fleet sailed out of a port in south China's Hainan Province Sunday for a scheduled military exercise with the Russian navy in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad.

The fleet consists of one destroyer, one frigate, one comprehensive supply ship, ship-borne helicopters and marines.

The drill is part of an annual program which aims to consolidate and advance the Sino-Russian comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, and deepen friendly and practical cooperation between the two militaries.

Code-named the "Joint Sea 2017" drill, it will also improve coordination between the two navies on joint defense operations at sea.

According to consensus reached by the two countries, the two navies are scheduled to hold military drill in waters of the Baltic Sea in late July and then the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk in middle September.

This year's drill aims to jointly carry out rescue missions and protect the safety of economic activities at sea.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 21:45:42|Editor: An

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BERLIN, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Flights were suspended on Sunday in Germany's Stuttgart airport over "imminent bomb threat", local media reported.

German media Bild reported an argument between two passengers ended in one accusing the other of having planned an attack on the plane.

The aircraft, reportedly a Bulgaria Air airliner, was evacuated.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 21:45:43|Editor: An

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SHANGHAI, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Senior finance officials from China and Brazil Sunday agreed to step up cooperation in fiscal and financial areas to advance bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership.

Finance officials from both countries met in Shanghai on Sunday ahead of the second BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors meeting.

Sunday's meeting was co-chaired by Shi Yaobin, vice finance minister of China, and his Brazilian counterpart Marcello Estevao.

The two sides exchanged views and reached agreement on a range of issues including macro-economic policy, structural reform policy, cooperation under G20 and BRICS frameworks, taxation policy, and financial and investment cooperation.

Shi Yaobin said China was willing to enhance macro-economic policy coordination, work together with Brazil to improve global governance and seek more potential on two-way investment.

He added that China and Brazil were major emerging economies and important members of the G20 and BRICS, and that the two sides should explore potential in fiscal and financial cooperation to make good preparation for the BRICS summit in September.

Marcello said China and Brazil had a lot of potential for more cooperation, adding that as emerging markets and BRICS countries, the two nations had made contributions to global economy.

Brazil expected a great success of the BRICS summit in September, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 21:55:45|Editor: An

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BEIJING, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Rapid development of the capital market is creating opportunities for China to establish world-class investment banks with Chinese characteristics and cultural elements, according to the country's top securities regulator.

Official data shows that the country's securities industry had been steadily progressing with capital and total assets more than doubling in the past five years.

"The figures indicate the industry has played a more important role in raising capital, optimizing resource allocation and serving the real economy and investors," said Liu Shiyu, head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, at a securities conference this weekend.

Liu noted the securities industry should focus on its main business, actively participate in the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, highlight innovation and guard against risks in the pursuit of world-class investment banks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 22:11:02|Editor: Zhou Xin

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THE HAGUE, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The Netherlands and its Benelux partners are seeking alignments among Nordic and central European countries to promote a more liberal and less federal European Union as they are trying to balance a Franco-German axis that could dominate EU's integration after Brexit, said Dutch experts.

"In view of the leading role that France and Germany are expected to play in determining Europe's future direction, countries which relied substantially on the United Kingdom (UK) to promote a more pragmatic, liberal oriented and less federal Union are concerned that their situation within the EU after Brexit will change significantly," said Rem Korteweg, head of the unit of "Europe in the World" at Clingendael, the Dutch institute for international relations.

"Europe's northwestern members fear a weaker say and a shift of power towards southern countries" with the British leaving the union while the Germans are teaming up with the French whose new president, Emmanuel Macron, is arguably the most pro-European of all European leaders and has the strongest mandate to deliver, the expert told Xinhua.

"The Netherlands is now strongly in favor of keeping the EU27 unified but that is under the expectation that the UK will make concessions," Kortewg said.

He warned that a breakdown in the Brexit talks, which will start on Monday, would lead countries mostly exposed to the consequences of Britain's departure from the bloc, like the Netherlands, to explore bilateral options.

The Dutch approach in seeking alignments should be less on the formation of opposing camps within the EU27, but more on the establishment of common grounds for reforms across the board, argued Joris Larik, senior researcher at The Hague Institute for Global Justice.

Following a meeting with Ireland and Denmark in April, the Netherlands along with Belgium and Luxembourg will meet on Monday in Warsaw with the Visegrad Four -- Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic -- for talks on Brexit and the future of the EU.

A meeting of the Benelux countries with the Baltic and Northern EU member States, the so-called Nordics, will be held in the Hague on Wednesday -- one day ahead of the June 22-23 summit at which EU leaders will discuss Brexit.

The issues on the agenda are similar and include Brexit, the internal market, migration and the future of Europe. During the meeting with the Baltic and Nordic countries, discussion will also include security and defense, according to a statement issued by the Dutch government.

These meetings are emblematic of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte's efforts to strike a new club of interests and the topics are among the core areas the EU27 would seek to reform following Brexit, commented Larik.

"Advancing European integration is made easier by Brexit given that the EU will have less energy to spend on devising special opt-outs or rebates, but tough decisions are needed to remedy the shortcomings of the monetary union," he argued.

Both Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have pledged deepening and strengthening of the Eurozone. "Berlin wants to see France adopting structural reforms and in return the Germans might move towards more investment across Europe and potentially towards some degree of debt mutualization, striking 'grand bargain' and putting Europe on a trajectory of further integration," noted Korteweg.

The Netherlands does not favor this prospect including Macron's position to set a joint budget, a joint eurozone parliament and a finance minister for the eurozone. "The first steps are reforms. If we achieve a higher level of convergence then there is no need to change the architecture of the euro," said Dutch PM Rutte on his first bilateral meeting with the newly elected French president in Paris on Friday.

"If the Netherlands wants to get its voice heard in Berlin, it makes more sense to align its position with other like-minded countries to convey its message," said Korteweg.

France and Germany are also taking the lead in shaping a European defense policy against the backdrop of tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump and NATO's European partners over spending and of Brexit, since the UK had always opposed to further European defense integration.

"Together with Germany and Belgium, the Netherlands has been a forerunner for closer cooperation in defense matters with the central Europeans who are also quite keen on more integration in the fields of security and defence," said Larik. EU cooperation on external security and defense will be discussed by EU leaders in Brussels at the June 22-23 summit.

According to Larik, the Dutch search for possible coalitions "will shift constantly depending on the issue at hand, including on questions of more or less powers for the EU."

"Coalitions will also depend on the pace the French-German cooperation moves ahead," added Korteweg. The political scientist argued steps towards further Eurozone integration, for example, will take time. "What we may see is a first small step towards this direction and at least Berlin's willingness to move away from the strong austerity stance," he said.

Franco-German relations have experienced a profound change in recent months. However breathing new life into the EU project "will take more than electoral victories with pro-European rhetoric in Paris and Berlin," noted Larik.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 22:21:06|Editor: Zhou Xin

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TEHRAN, June 18 (Xinhua) -- A group of German firms have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Iranian power giant to develop solar farms in Iran's North Khorasan province, Financial Tribune daily reported on Sunday.

The MoU was signed between the German firms and the North Khorasan Electricity Distribution Company (NKEDC).

The group includes executives from major German enterprises which operate in energy sectors, the report said.

Alireza Sabouri, NKEDC managing director, said that "the two sides have come to an understanding on the site of the photovoltaic plants, but they need more time to study the venture."

Mohammadreza Salehi, governor-general of North Khorasan, said Saturday that collaboration with Germans could lead to the construction of at least six solar farms in the province.

Iran has immense potential to harness renewable energies, including geothermal, solar and wind power.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 22:31:13|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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TOKYO, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Support rate for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet plunged over a school scandal implicating the prime minister as well as the ruling coalition's unorthodox way of forcing through a controversial legislation in the parliament, according to a Kyodo News poll released on Sunday.

According to the news agency's telephone survey over the weekend, support rate for the prime minister's cabinet dropped to 44.9 percent, down 10.5 percentage points from a survey a month earlier, while the disapproval rate stood at 43.1 percent, up 8.8 points.

As many as 73.8 percent of the respondents said they were not convinced by the government's denial of the allegations that Abe had used his influence to open a new department at a university run by a close friend in a government-designated special economic zone.

Japan's education ministry on Thursday said that a second internal probe has discover documents that may show that Abe had used his influence to aid plans to open the new school.

A Japanese cabinet minister, however, said on Friday that an internal investigation had found staff did not specifically mention the prime minister's wishes with regard to the project, contradicting files found at the education ministry.

Meanwhile, 67.7 percent of the respondents said they did not approve of the unorthodox method used by Abe's ruling parties to force through parliament a controversial "conspiracy" law.

Controversial legislation to criminalize the planning of serious crimes was enacted by Japan's parliament on Thursday despite vociferous calls from opposition parties to scrap the bill and against a backdrop of public discontent and mass protests.

The ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito party used its majority, so the amendment to the law could clear a vote in an upper house plenary session, after the Abe-led bloc bypassed an upper house committee vote.

The ruling parties' tactic of bypassing the committee vote, while technically permissible, runs against the conventional legislative process and has sparked criticism among opposition parties that the legislation was not thoroughly examined.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 22:41:17|Editor: yan

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ISTANBUL, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police detained 21 employees of a catering firm which serves barracks in the province of Manisa on Sunday after 731 troops were hospitalized for food poisoning, local media reported.

The soldiers from the 1st Infantry Training Battalion Command were rushed to hospitals in the city of Manisa as they suffered nausea and vomiting after having chicken, soup and yoghurt for dinner, Daily Sabah said.

The incident brought Turkey's Defense Minister Fikri Isik and Commander of Land Forces Zeki Colak to Manisa late Saturday, the report said.

Speaking to reporters after visiting soldiers at a hospital, Isik said the contract with the firm had been terminated.

"We don't see a significant problem, just some of our soldiers are being kept in for observation," the minister was quoted as saying. "No one is in intensive care or has their life in danger."

A team of 12 specialists arrived in Manisa on Sunday to conduct inspections with rapid diagnostic equipment, press reports said, quoting a statement issued by the Health Ministry.

On May 23, more than 1,000 troops were hospitalized in the same military barracks after dinner and one died later.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 22:46:20|Editor: yan

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STOCKHOLM, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The Swedish Security Service (Sapo) is cracking down on potential terrorists among the population of rejected asylum applicants living underground in Sweden, local media reported on Sunday.

The April 7 attack in Stockholm prompted Sapo to step up efforts to find those who disappear when their asylum applications are rejected.

39-year-old Rakhmat Akilov driving a truck down one of Stockholm's busiest pedestrian streets killed five people. He was a rejected applicant living underground.

"We learned from this as soon as it happened," Anders Thornberg, head of Sapo, told Swedish public television broadcaster SVT.

Sapo is now looking for ways to work with police and the Swedish Migration Agency to detect potential threats.

"A deportation order can be very distressing. We want to try to find those individuals who could potentially commit a terrorist attack," Thornberg said.

Akilov had figured in Sapo's intelligence reports, but the case was dismissed when Sapo could not confirm suspicions.

We may need to modify our approach to this, Thornberg said. "We need to consider how to work with certain groups and criteria."

At the beginning of 2017, there were 12,500 rejected asylum applicants living underground and wanted by police. That number will likely increase in the coming years, SVT reported.

But how to capture those who pose a security risk is unclear.

"It's tough because it is also a matter of protecting rights. We need to find a vetting method and look into what more we can do," Thornberg said.

Another challenge for Sapo is the high number of asylum-seekers deemed a security threat to Sweden.

At the end of May, the Migration Agency had reported 353 potential security risks to Sapo. So far this year, Sapo has opposed granting residency in 19 asylum cases.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 22:46:21|Editor: yan

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AMMAN, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Jordan appointed new ministers on Sunday amid a cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Hani Mulki, state-run Petra news agency reported.

Saleh Kharabsheh was named as minister of energy and mineral resources, Hala Lattouf as minister of social development, Jamil Mujahed as minister of transport and Muhannad Shehadeh as minister of state for investment, according to a Royal Decree issued on Sunday.

All the new ministers were sworn in before King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Last week, three ministers resigned from the cabinet upon a request by the prime minister in preparation for a limited cabinet reshuffle.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 22:46:22|Editor: yan

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VIENTIANE, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Embassy in Laos on Sunday issued a safety warning after a Chinese citizen was shot dead in Lao's central Xaysomboun province.

According to the embassy, a Chinese citizen was shot dead by unidentified persons on Friday in Xaysomboun province, some 130 km northeast of Lao capital Vientiane.

The Lao side is currently investigating the incident, the embassy said.

The Chinese embassy has asked the Lao side to break the case as soon as possible, punish the assailants while taking effective measures to ensure safety of Chinese citizens and institutions in Laos.

In its safety warning, the embassy reminds Chinese citizens and institutions in Laos to further improve safety awareness and strengthen security precautions. In case of emergency, Chinese citizens should immediately report to Lao police, and contact the Chinese embassy and consulate in Laos, it said.

Previously on March 1, 2016, a Chinese company in the northern Luang Prabang province was attacked by an unidentified armed group, leaving one Chinese citizen dead and three others injured.

On Jan. 24, 2016, an attack by an unidentified group in Xaysomboun province killed two Chinese people and injured one.

The safety warning by Chinese Embassy in Laos is effective for six months until Dec. 18, 2017.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 23:21:33|Editor: yan

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TOKYO, June 18 (Xinhua) -- A number of bodies of U.S. sailors missing after a collision between the U.S. Navy's guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald and a Philippine container vessel have been found aboard the stricken destroyer, the U.S. Navy said Sunday.

The Navy said in a statement that rescuers had gained access to spaces on the ship that were damaged during the collision and retrieved the bodies.

"As search and rescue crews gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision this morning, the missing sailors were located," the U.S. 7th Fleet said, although itself, in contrast to Japanese media, did not specify the number of bodies recovered.

Earlier, Japan's public broadcaster NHK said all 7 bodies of the missing sailors were found aboard the destroyer in areas that had become flooded after the collision, such as a living space and a machine room.

The U.S. military will now proceed to confirm the identity of the bodies and inform the families of the deceased, it said. The bodies are being transferred to Naval Hospital Yokosuka.

Three others were injured in the collision, local media said, including Cmdr. Bryce Benson, the Fitzgerald's commanding officer, who is in a stable condition in hospital. Two other crew members were airlifted to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, the Navy said.

According to the Japan Coast Guard, the collision occurred about 100 kilometers southwest of Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, and was first reported by the Philippine container vessel at around 2:25 a.m. local time on Saturday.

Along with the U.S. Navy, the Japan Coast Guard is investigating the collision and has questioned crew members of the 29,060 ton Philippine ACX Crystal container vessel on suspicion of possible endangerment of traffic caused by professional negligence, according to local media reports.

The vessel, which was carrying 1,080 containers, was recorded as traveling east for 30 minutes before making a U-turn and doubling back into the waters where the collision with the 8,315 ton Aegis-equipped Fitzgerald took place.

Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen, operator of the Philippine vessel, said in a statement that it is collaborating with the ship owner and fully cooperating with the investigation by the relevant authorities.

The shipping firm, headquartered in Tokyo and one of the largest shipping companies in the world, said that all crew members aboard the ACX Crystal have been confirmed to be safe and that it has set up its own independent task force to further probe the details of the collision and how to proceed.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JAM) said that at the time of the collision the weather and therefore visibility should have been clear and the waves were at a height of around 2 meters.

The weather agency had not issued any advisories or warnings for the area at the time.

The 154 meter-long U.S. guided-missile destroyer, which suffered considerable damage to its right side in the collision, is part of the U.S. 7th Fleet and has returned to the Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 50 kilometers southwest of Tokyo.

The 222.6-meter long Philippine ship, which was sailing towards Tokyo from Nagoya in central Japan, has since docked at a port in Tokyo with visible scrape marks from the collision on the left side of its bow.

U.S. President Donald Trump thanked Japan for its help, which involved multiple vessels and planes being deployed to search for the missing sailors following the pre-dawn collison.

"Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families. Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance," Trump tweeted Saturday morning Washington time.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 23:26:36|Editor: yan

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LAGOS, June 18 (Xinhua) -- A notorious human trafficker has been arrested by the authorities in Nigeria, an official said Sunday.

The 33-year-old man, Monday Ugbo, was nabbed after several weeks of surveillance by the operatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Josiah Emerole, the agency's spokesperson said.

He was caught in the process of receiving a registration fee he had demanded from a prospective victim in the southeast city of Benin, the spokesman added.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspect was also preparing to take the three girls to a river that morning for oath taking before they could embark on the journey to Europe.

The spokesperson added that the suspect was in the agency's custody giving useful statements.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) had handed over 21 rescued victims of human trafficking to NAPTIP.

The age range of the victims was between 18 and 34 years, while one suspected trafficker was also handed over.

Twelve of the victims comprising five males and seven females were handed over to the Kano Zonal Command of the agency by the NIS after they were intercepted at Babamutum border area of Katsina State by the NIS border patrol.

The victims were being moved outside the country at the time they were rescued.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 23:46:41|Editor: yan

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DAMASCUS, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian and Iraqi forces met on the borders Sunday, as both have made progress in the battle against the Islamic State (IS) in their respective territories, as the Syrian army is advancing west of the IS de facto capital in northern Syria.

The pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV, which is close to the Syrian government, said the Syrian military forces and the Iraqi al-Hashd al-Shaabi, or the Popular Mobilization Forces, met face to face on the Syrian side of the borders between both countries, more specifically in a Syrian area between the Tanf border crossing and the city of Bukamal, both in the Syrian desert close to the Iraqi borders.

Citing a senior Syrian military officer, the report said the Syrian army has so far captured 25,000 sq km in the Syrian desert near the Iraqi and Jordanian borders, adding that the Syrian and Iraqi forces will coordinate to secure the borders until it's fully safe.

The officer, who wasn't named, said that all kinds of ground and air weapons have been used during the military operation against IS in the Syrian desert.

Meanwhile, the report cited a commander of the Iraqi al-Hashd al-Shaabi, as saying that the Iraqi group is waiting for the zero hour to attack IS in the Syrian city of Bukamal in Deir al-Zour province near the Iraqi borders, in an apparent coordination with the Syrian government forces.

He said the major battle against IS will be in Deir al-Zour.

The Syrian army said last week that it has reached a border point with Iraqi north of Tanf, as the Tanf itself is controlled by US forces, which struck the Syrian army several times to keep it away from the Tanf border crossing.

The US apparently doesn't want any link between the Shiite-led al-Hashid al-Shaabi and the Syrian army, which is also heavily backed by Shiite forces and Iran.

However, the Syrian army skirted around and reached to a border point north of Tanf.

The recent development in the Syrian desert is part of a wide-scale offensive the Syrian army recently unleashed under the title "Great Dawn," which aims to clear the desert area between the Iraqi, Syrian and Jordanian borders from IS and to cut the road before the plans of the U.S. of creating areas of its influence in that southeastern Syria.

The Syrian national TV said the Syrian army on Sunday cut off the rebel supply routes between the Jordanian borders and the town of Lajat in central Syria amid ongoing operation to secure the border points between Syria, Iraq and Jordan.

Backed by the Russian Air Force and the Lebanese Hezbollah group, the Syrian army is also advancing in the western countryside of Raqqa province, the de facto capital of IS.

A Syrian military source told Xinhua on Sunday that the Syrian forces are advancing in the western countryside of Raqqa against IS.

The progress of the army in Raqqa aims primarily at isolating the IS militants in the southern countryside of Aleppo as a prelude to dislodge them from that key province in northern Syria.

As for Raqqa itself, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are on the offensive to strip IS of one of its key strongholds and self-declared capital in Syria.

The operation which started ten days ago by the SDF succeeded to strip IS of four neighborhoods in Raqqa amid reports that the group, which is led by Kurdish forces, has captured the Bitan neighborhood on Sunday.

Still, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor group said the operation of the SDF against Raqqa is witnessing some slowdowns as the SDF has reached heavily-fortified IS strongholds in Raqqa.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 23:51:42|Editor: yan

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KATHMANDU, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Nepal has proposed that the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) could issue currency bonds in Nepal to raise funds domestically to finance infrastructure projects in the country, a senior official of Nepal's Finance Ministry said. Nepal has already permitted International Finance Corporation (IFC), a private sector financing wing of the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) to issue Nepali Rupee bonds, but they are yet to issue such bonds.

Yug Raj Pandey, under secretary at Nepal's Finance Ministry, told Xinhua on Sunday that Nepal had asked AIIB to issue local currency bonds in Nepal to collect financial resources domestically during its second meeting of the board of governors in South Korea,

Pandey is one of the delegation members of Nepal led by Finance Minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki in the AIIB meeting which was held on June 17-18.

According to a press release issued by Nepali Finance Ministry on Sunday, Karki had sought increased investment in Nepal from AIIB, considering Nepal's need for investment of around 9-10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in infrastructure sector.

Currently, Nepal has been investing just around four percent of the GDP in the sector. Minister Karki had sought investment in the areas of transport, electricity, urban development, drinking water, aviation and information and communication technologies.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 23:56:44|Editor: Liu

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and national security adviser H.R. McMaster walk to board Marine One departing from the White House en route to Miami to annouce his Cuba policy, in Washington D.C., the United States, on June 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Shen Ting)

MOSCOW, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. administration's new policy toward Cuba indicates a return to the Cold War, and Washington needs to listen to the international community's voice on this issue, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

"The new policy on Cuba announced by U.S. President Donald Trump brings us back to the already forgotten rhetoric in the style of the 'Cold War'. Such an approach has characterized the U.S. attitude to Cuba for decades," The ministry said in a statement.

Trump announced on Friday new restrictions on Americans' travel to Cuba and U.S. business with the Cuban military, a step to tighten the U.S. policy toward the neighboring country. The move is seen as an attempt to roll back parts of Obama's policy of normalizing U.S.-Cuba diplomatic ties, which was introduced in December 2014.

Noting that the past five decades has shown the futility of "the arrogant style of doing business with Cuba", the ministry warned the U.S. government that the anti-Cuban discourse, still in high demand though, would only cause regret.

It urged the Trump administration to pay attention to the anti-blockade resolutions repeatedly adopted by the UN General Assembly, which represent the almost unanimous voice of the international community on Cuba.

The ministry also reiterated Russia's "unshakable solidarity" with Cuba, adding that Moscow is for dialogue and cooperation, instead of blockades, sanctions or outside interference in internal affairs of sovereign states.

The United States severed its ties with Cuba in 1961, shortly after Fidel Castro launched a revolution that toppled a U.S.-friendly government, and the two countries had been at loggerheads ever since.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-18 23:56:46|Editor: yan

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by Salah Takieddine

BEIRUT, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's largest city Tripoli is seeking to become a site of Islamic tourism to boost its sluggish economy, a local tourist official said on Sunday.

"The historical sites that Tripoli embraces are witnessing intensive activity during the holy month of Ramadan, as local and regional travel organizations are competing to organize activities and religious festivities to attract Lebanese from different regions as well as Arab and Islamic tourists," Yehia Fattal, head of the Tourism Council of Tripoli, told Xinhua.

The coastal city is hosting religious and traditional festivities on a daily basis, such as Sufi singing troupes from Lebanon and abroad and dancing dervish groups from Islamic and Arab countries.

"As soon as the daily evening prayer is finished, the citizens of Tripoli flock to the cafes and old souks in the city where the Ramadan evenings are celebrated and particularly those featuring the dervishes' dances," the official added.

According to historian Khaled Tadmouri, dervish dance was created centuries ago by Sunni Sheikh Jala el-Din Al-Roumi and the dancers, wearing a white uniform and a green beret, will follow the religious singing group with circular routines.

In addition to the Sufi singing and dervish dancing groups, the Ramadan activities celebrated in Tripoli also include hakawati, or a reader who recites stories from the Islamic and Arab history.

"We are seeing in Tripoli a huge participation from the people of the city and others parts of the country in the evening celebrated by the hakawati", Barrak Sobeih, a reader in Tripoli, told Xinhua.

Meanwhile, Rouweida al-Rafei, head of the Artistic committee in the Toruism Council of Tripoli, said the city has about 360 heritage sites dating back to the Mamluk and Ottoman ages.

"The daily activities organized in Tripoli intend to revive the traditional and heritage sites and boost the tourism in the city," she said.

"Tripoli has the potential to compete with many Islamic cities, as it boasts many heritage sites, such as the 'noble trace,' a single hair of the beard of Prophet Mohammed, which is located in the Grand Mansouri Mosque, one of the most important archaeological mosques in Lebanon," al-Rafei noted.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 00:06:50|Editor: yan

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STOCKHOLM, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Eleven people were injured in Sweden on Sunday when a ship carrying 230 passengers crashed into a dock in Nacka strand, east of the capital city, Stockholm.

There were no reports of serious injuries, but nine people were brought to hospital and the police have opened an investigation into the accident, Swedish Television reported.

"It's a question of burns and cuts," Sven-Erik Olsson at the Stockholm police, said of the injured individuals.

The passenger vessel, Cinderella II, was on its way to the city from Sandhamn, an international sailing center in the Stockholm archipelago.

After the accident, it docked in a central Stockholm location while staff tidied up the boat, telling Swedish Television's reporter that all the porcelain onboard had been shattered.

The ship will be inspected by the naval police, which have launched an investigation into carelessness in sea traffic.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 00:16:54|Editor: Liangyu

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane in Beijing, capital of China, June 18, 2017. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

BEIJING, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday called for closer cooperation among the BRICS countries.

Wang made the remarks when he talked to South African, Indian and Russian officials respectively ahead of a BRICS foreign ministers' meeting in Beijing.

In the bilateral meeting with South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Wang said the BRICS countries, faced with increasing uncertainties in the international situation, should unite more closely and play a leading role in building a community of shared future for the mankind.

China stands ready to step up coordination with South Africa to strengthen the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) as well as the BRICS mechanism, continuously expand the strategic cooperation between the two countries, and safeguard the common interests of the two nations and all other developing countries.

When talking to India's Minister of State for External Affairs Vijay Kumar Singh, Wang said China and India are both major countries with great influence, and that they should boost cooperation in the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and all other multilateral frameworks to make contribution to peace and stability in the region and the world at large.

When meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Wang said China is willing to deepen coordination with Russia to enhance strategic trust, boost economic and financial cooperation, increase cultural and people-to-people exchanges and strengthen the cooperation mechanism among the BRICS countries, with a view to making preparation for the upcoming 2017 BRICS Summit to be held in Xiamen.

The South African, Indian and Russian officials said they would work with the Chinese side to make the Xiamen Summit a success.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 00:21:56|Editor: Liangyu

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SHANGHAI, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Thirteen countries under the Belt and Road Initiative have signed memorandums of film cooperation and exchange with the organizers of the Shanghai International Film Festival.

The countries include Egypt, Greece, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands and Ukraine.

The exchange of film culture will greatly boost mutual understanding and cooperation among people along the Belt and Road, said Zhang Hongsen, deputy head of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, at the signing ceremony on Saturday evening in Shanghai.

It is hoped that efforts will be made to strengthen cooperation in the film industry and carry on the cultural tradition of the Silk Road, said Zhang.

Under the Belt and Road Initiative, the film industry along the routes will become more prosperous and greatly boost people-to-people exchange, he added.

China and Serbia will jointly shoot a documentary with Chinese female writer Chen Danyan as the director.

The 20th Shanghai International Film Festival opened on Saturday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 01:02:07|Editor: yan

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ADDIS ABABA, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has called for calm in the border dispute between the two red sea nations of Eritrea and Djibouti, with which it shares common border.

The statement from regional heavyweight Ethiopia on Sunday will be keenly watched as the landlocked nation of 100 million people used to utilize Eritrean ports for its import and export trade 20 years ago.

That changed when a border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea from 1998-2000 which cost around 70,000 lives on both sides saw Ethiopia lose access to Eritrean ports and instead rely on Djiboutian ports.

Ethiopia views its access to Djiboutian ports, through which about 95 percent of its external trade passes through, as a national security issue, raising fears the Eritrea-Djibouti border dispute could turn into a conflict involving Ethiopia.

Ethiopia's current non-permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has also raised speculations about Ethiopia's role in the scheduled Monday meeting of UNSC to discuss the Eritrea-Djibouti border tensions.

Ethiopia's statement also supported Saturday's African Union (AU) Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat statement calling for a deployment of fact finding mission to the disputed area.

Djibouti has appealed to the AU and UNSC to resolve the border dispute, while accusing Eritrea of moving its troops to the disputed territory.

A border dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti resulted in armed clashes in June 2008, leaving several people dead from both sides.

A mediation effort led by the Gulf Kingdom of Qatar in 2010 led to a Qatari peacekeeping force being stationed in the Eritrea-Djibouti border.

Tensions between Eritrea and Djibouti resurfaced after a 450 strong Qatari peacekeeping force stationed in their common border left the area abruptly on Wednesday.

The Qatari troops left the Eritrea-Border Djibouti after Eritrea signaled its support for Saudi Arabia led efforts to isolate Qatar.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates have accused Qatar of supporting terrorism and severed ties earlier this month.

Qatar has denied the charge but its ties to regional Saudi rival Iran and support for various Islamist groups has put it at odds with fellow Gulf region countries.
File photo shows representatives of 13 United Nations member states vote in favor of a draft resolution on Eritrea during the UN Security Council meeting at the UN headquarters in New York, the United States, Dec. 5, 2011. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)

ADDIS ABABA, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has called for calm in the border dispute between the two red sea nations of Eritrea and Djibouti, with which it shares common border.

The statement from regional heavyweight Ethiopia on Sunday will be keenly watched as the landlocked nation of 100 million people used to utilize Eritrean ports for its import and export trade 20 years ago.

That changed when a border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea from 1998-2000 which cost around 70,000 lives on both sides saw Ethiopia lose access to Eritrean ports and instead rely on Djiboutian ports.

Ethiopia views its access to Djiboutian ports, through which about 95 percent of its external trade passes through, as a national security issue, raising fears the Eritrea-Djibouti border dispute could turn into a conflict involving Ethiopia.

Ethiopia's current non-permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has also raised speculations about Ethiopia's role in the scheduled Monday meeting of UNSC to discuss the Eritrea-Djibouti border tensions.

Ethiopia's statement also supported Saturday's African Union (AU) Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat statement calling for a deployment of fact finding mission to the disputed area.

Djibouti has appealed to the AU and UNSC to resolve the border dispute, while accusing Eritrea of moving its troops to the disputed territory.

A border dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti resulted in armed clashes in June 2008, leaving several people dead from both sides.

A mediation effort led by the Gulf Kingdom of Qatar in 2010 led to a Qatari peacekeeping force being stationed in the Eritrea-Djibouti border.

Tensions between Eritrea and Djibouti resurfaced after a 450 strong Qatari peacekeeping force stationed in their common border left the area abruptly on Wednesday.

The Qatari troops left the Eritrea-Border Djibouti after Eritrea signaled its support for Saudi Arabia led efforts to isolate Qatar.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates have accused Qatar of supporting terrorism and severed ties earlier this month.

Qatar has denied the charge but its ties to regional Saudi rival Iran and support for various Islamist groups has put it at odds with fellow Gulf region countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 01:42:13|Editor: yan

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ATHENS, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras contacted his Portuguese counterpart Antonio Costa on Sunday to extend condolences to the victims of the forest fires in Portugal, according to an e-mailed announcement issued from his office.

At least 62 people lost their lives in the fires which broke out in central Portugal on Saturday, according to the latest official count by local authorities.

As firefighters were still battling on Sunday the raging blazes, the Greek prime minister also expressed his country's readiness to offer assistance to extinguish the fires, the statement read.

During his telephone conversation with Costa, Tsipras voiced the solidarity of Greek people with the Portuguese people in these difficult hours, according to the press release.

Greece suffers from scores of destructive wildfires each summer.

In 2007, in the worst wildfires tragedy in recent decades, over 80 people died as dozens of major wildfires raged across the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 02:07:47|Editor: yan

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TEHRAN, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said here Sunday that the United States blusters about the "regime change" in Iran, official IRNA news agency reported.
Burned cars are seen on a local road during a forest fire near Pedrogao Grande, Portugal June 18, 2017. (REUTERS/Guillermo Martinez)

UNITED NATIONS, June 18 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday expressed his condolences to the Portuguese government and people after wildfires have claimed many lives.

"I am shocked and horrified by the many lives claimed by today's devastating fires that hit the Pedrogao Grande region of Portugal," Guterres said in a statement.

A raging forest fire in central Portugal sent flames sweeping over roads, killing at least 61 people, many of them trapped in their cars as they tried to flee, according to media reports.

"Earlier today, I spoke with the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and with the Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, to express my deep sadness and condolences to the Portuguese government and people," he said, adding that "I wish a speedy recovery to the injured. At this time of loss, my thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of the victims."

The UN chief commended the government, firefighters, emergency responders and civil society organizations "who are sparing no efforts to battle the wildfire and help people in need."

"The United Nations stands ready to assist in any way possible," he said.

Portuguese Prime Minister Costa called it "the biggest tragedy" that Portugal has experienced in decades and declared three days of national mourning.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 02:17:50|Editor: yan

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TEHRAN, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said here Sunday that the United States blusters about the "regime change" in Iran, official IRNA news agency reported.

Khamenei said that the recent threats by the U.S. officials to change the Islamic establishment in Iran is not a new policy, and over the past four decades the Americans have never slackened in the attempts to overthrow the Islamic republic.

However, all their efforts against the Islamic republic have ended up in failure.
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and national security adviser H.R. McMaster walk to board Marine One departing from the White House en route to Miami to annouce his Cuba policy, in Washington D.C., the United States, on June 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Shen Ting)

MOSCOW, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. administration's new policy toward Cuba indicates a return to the Cold War, and Washington needs to listen to the international community's voice on this issue, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

"The new policy on Cuba announced by U.S. President Donald Trump brings us back to the already forgotten rhetoric in the style of the 'Cold War'. Such an approach has characterized the U.S. attitude to Cuba for decades," The ministry said in a statement.

Trump announced on Friday new restrictions on Americans' travel to Cuba and U.S. business with the Cuban military, a step to tighten the U.S. policy toward the neighboring country. The move is seen as an attempt to roll back parts of Obama's policy of normalizing U.S.-Cuba diplomatic ties, which was introduced in December 2014.

Noting that the past five decades has shown the futility of "the arrogant style of doing business with Cuba", the ministry warned the U.S. government that the anti-Cuban discourse, still in high demand though, would only cause regret.

It urged the Trump administration to pay attention to the anti-blockade resolutions repeatedly adopted by the UN General Assembly, which represent the almost unanimous voice of the international community on Cuba.

The ministry also reiterated Russia's "unshakable solidarity" with Cuba, adding that Moscow is for dialogue and cooperation, instead of blockades, sanctions or outside interference in internal affairs of sovereign states.

The United States severed its ties with Cuba in 1961, shortly after Fidel Castro launched a revolution that toppled a U.S.-friendly government, and the two countries had been at loggerheads ever since.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 04:08:44|Editor: yan

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TIRANA, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Albanian parliament approved in an extraordinary plenary session the members of the institutions that will conduct the vetting of Albanian judges and prosecutors, local media reported Sunday.

With 100 votes pro, 2 votes against and 5 abstentions, the parliament Saturday gave the green light to establishment of three vetting bodies: Independent Committee of Qualification, Ad-Hoc Chamber of Appeals and public commissioners.

"All the barriers were overcome and that now we begin implementation of reform in the justice system," Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama told reporters Sunday.

On the other hand, he warned the corrupted judges and prosecutors that their days are numbered.

"Whats the important thing from this process is that the judges and prosecutors who come out pure from the Vetting filter will not be grateful to anyone. Thanks to this process, I am convinced that today is opened the door to a new justice system. Of course, it will take its time, a great will and the Socialist Party will be the guarantee to it, "Rama told reporters.

The vetting bodies that will 'scan' the personal and professional backgrounds of judges and prosecutors is key to judicial reforms needed to start the accession negotiations with the European Union.

Albania was granted EU candidate status in 2014 and hopes to launch negotiations this year while justice system here has always been seen a strong barrier to country's integration process.

Therefore, justice reform and its implementation are deemed as the crucial step that Albania has to take to get closer to EU family.
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A worker walks past pump jacks at UdmurtNeft's Gremikhinskoye oil field east of Russia's Izhevsk near the Ural Mountains December 7, 2007. (REUTERS PHOTO)

MOSCOW, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Russia's oil giant Rosneft said Sunday it had discovered a new oil field near the Laptev Sea, which could be the biggest on the shelf.

Rosneft said in a statement that it had discovered new hydrocarbon deposits when drilling an exploration well from the shore of the Khara-Tumus Peninsula on the shelf of the Khatanga Bay of the Laptev Sea, marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Russia's Siberia.

"On the basis of primary studies, it can be concluded that a new oil field has been discovered, and the volume of potential resource is increasing as the drilling continues. Core sampling continues at the moment," the statement read.

Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergei Donskoi congratulated Rosneft on the discovery, which he said might set a new record.

"We can already speak about a considerable inflow of oil and thus, about an unique discovery of the largest oil field possible on the shelf," Donskoi wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday.

More big discoveries can be expected this year in the Khatanga Bay, the minister added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 04:44:02|Editor: yan

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COPENHAGEN, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Four people have been reportedly missing and 11 buildings were swept away after a flooding on Sunday hit Greenland's Nuugaatsiaq town on the island's western coast, local media reported.

Authorities believe that the flooding was caused by an earthquake measuring 4.0 on the Richter scale that occurred on Saturday evening local time.

Police chief of Greenland Bjoern Tegner Bay was quoted by Danish news agency Ritzau as saying that nine people were injured in the flooding, including two severely, but he could not confirm whether there were any fatalities.

The police registered 78 of the town's 101 residents and moved them to Uummannaq, according to Ritzau.

Of the remaining 23 people who were not registered, police say some of them may have been in the surrounding cabins or on holiday.

In Nuuk, the capital and largest city of Greenland, some individuals have started collecting clothes, shoes, toys and books that will be sent to those who were evacuated, according to the Greenland's broadcasting corporation, KNR.

Eleven police officers from Denmark have flown to Greenland to assist their colleagues in the management of the rescue operation, according to Ritzau.

Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, is sparsely inhabited with around 57,000 population. Greenland is largely self-governed, and Denmark maintains control over its foreign affairs and defense policy.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 05:19:27|Editor: yan

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RABAT, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Tunisian Prime minister Youssef Chahed started on Sunday a two-day working visit to Morocco.

Upon his arrival at Rabat airport, Chahed was greeted by his Moroccan peer Saadeddine El Othmani.

Chahed will participate in the 19th session of the High Joint Commission of Morocco and Tunisia on Monday.

The commission is expected to discuss means to boost bilateral cooperation and sign agreements in various sectors, including agriculture, investment, civil aviation, vocational training, higher education and employment.

The Tunisian PM heads a high level delegation, which includes the ministers of foreign affairs, labour, commerce and transport.

Chahed will also hold talks with several Moroccan officials, including El Othmani and the presidents of both houses of Parliament, Habib El Malki, Hakim Benchamach.
Ruth Curtis, one of the founders of the Black Heritage Foundation, celebrated her 85th birthday Saturday at South Park in Billings with about 60 others.

Most of the 60 werent aware of Curtis milestone. They were present to celebrate Montanas first official observance of Juneteenth, the day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

Juneteenth is an important day, a day of celebration, she said after taking in a brief Juneteenth observance while the crowd prepared to dine on grilled chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs and a number of side dishes. Im happy to share my birthday with all these people.

During the 2017 legislative session, Montana became the 46th state to officially place Juneteenth on the calendar. Pastor Melvin Terry, pastor at All Nations Fellowship Church and the chair of the Black Heritage Foundation, journeyed to Helena twice to testify in support of Senate Bill 158, sponsored by Sen. Margie MacDonald, D-Billings.

The bill designates the third Saturday of June as Juneteenth National Freedom Day.

Weve been working since 2002 to get Juneteenth recognized in Montana, Terry said. Its not a holiday, but its definitely a day we want on the calendar.

According to research done by Mike Yakawich, a member of both the Billings City Council and the Black Heritage Foundation, the delay between President Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and Texas approval of it two years later has a number of possible explanations, some of them probably apocryphal.

One story involves the murder of the messenger on his way to Texas to tell of the proclamation.

Others are more conspiratorial: the news was withheld by slave owners to maintain the labor force on plantations, or that federal troops gave slave owners some extra time so that the slaves could bring in one more cotton harvest.

Whatever the explanation, celebrants said they were happy to be in South Park Saturday on the day the state officially recognized Juneteenth for the first time. They heard speeches, listened to music and participated in a cakewalk fundraiser.

Its a windy day today, but its a nice day to be in the park together celebrating something a little different, Terry said, putting in a plug for joining the organization he heads.

You dont have to be black to be a member, he told the crowd.

This has been a long road, he acknowledged. Kudos to the work of people like Ruth Curtis.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 05:24:29|Editor: yan

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CARACAS, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Antonio Benavides, the commander of Venezuela's Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), on Sunday dismissed the reported abuse by soldiers during political protests against President Nicolas Maduro as "isolated events."

In an interview with private TV channel, Televen, Benavides said such actions were "isolated events which do not represent the feeling or the thought" of the GNB.

The opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), which has led anti-government protests since early April, has repeatedly denounced soldiers for excessive use of force.

According to Benavides, Venezuela has seen "a hostile and violent attitude" from the opposition for two months, accusing them of "hiring and paying" minors to spread violence.

The commander said that 12,500 soldiers had been deployed onto the streets to keep the peace.

He added that since the start of protests, 45 GNB members had been injured by gunshots and 252 others had been beaten.

According to government data, at least 74 people have died during the protests in the last three months.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 05:39:38|Editor: Liu

French President Emmanuel Macron poses for photo with his supporters after he voted at the city hall in the second round of the parliamentary elections in Le Touquet, France on June 18, 2017. (Xinhua/Kristina Afanasyeva)

PARIS, June 18 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron's the Republic on the Move (LREM) party on Sunday won a huge majority in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament in a second and final round of legislative competition.

The election result cleared the way for the France's youngest top official to control the country's political power over the five-year term, partial exit poll showed.

"French voters have in their vast majority preferred hope to anger, optimism to pessimism, confidence to withdrawal," said Ediuard Philippe, Prime Minister.

"A year ago, no one would have imagined political renewal like this. We owe it to the drive of the president of the republic to give new life to democracy. We owe it, too, to the French people, who wanted to give the national representation a new face," he added.

Based on partial vote count made by Kantar Sofres-onepoint pollster, the LREM alone won 315 seats, more than 289 seats needed for a majority in the 577-member National Assembly.

With its allies from MoDem centrist party, it is represented by 360 lawmakers, sparing the need to rely on other movements to pass legislation on labor codes, cut public expenditure by billions of euros, raise taxes on consumption and wealthy pensioners and invest more in training and innovative sectors.

On the right, the conservatives won 133 seats, making it the biggest opposition party. However, the Republicans would not pose any threat to Macron's governance.

In a punishment vote due to poor achievements, the outgoing ruling the Socialist Party, lost its lead with only 32 seats.

"Tonight, the collapse of the Socialist Party is undeniable, the president of the Republic has all the powers," Jean-Christophe Cambadelis said after announcing he would step down as party chief.

Winning her first seat, Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front, made her entry for the first time to the National Assembly after gaining the race in Pas-de-Calais constituency.

Compared to 2012 election, the anti-immigration party improved its performance after snatching 6 seats compared to two currently, to represent "the only force of resistance to the dilution of France, its social model and identity," according to Le Pen.

Exit polls showed hard-left "France Unbowed" to secure 17 seats, paving the way for the party to form an "offensive" parliamentary group "that will call when the time comes, to a social resistance," his leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said.

With a huge majority for his one-year-old party, the 39-year-old president dealt a fresh blow to the traditional major parties, by redrawing the lower house of parliament with the help by unprecedented profiles of novice faces, half of them had never held an elected office.

However a projected historic low turnout likely to cloud Macron's triumph to have free hand to put on the ground his recipe for the eurozone second main powerhouse.

According to opinion polls, abstention which swung between 15 percent and 30 percent over the four past decades, would be over 50 percent on Sunday runoff, a further sign for Macron that his stay at the Elysee Palace won't be totally rosy.

To Christophe Castaner, the government spokesperson, the French disinterest "is as an additional responsibility and it will allow Emmanuel Macron, Edouard Philippe to never forget that deep down there is no victory tonight and the real victory will be in five years when things will really have changed."

"Voters ... did not want to give a blank check (to Macron camp)," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 05:44:40|Editor: yan

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HOUSTON, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Power has been cut off in some parts of the great Houston area caused by bird, local power company said Sunday.

A spokesperson with Texas New Mexico Power Company said about 8900 homes and businesses in the southeaster paty of the city are without power.

It is believed the outage is from a bird getting into a substation.

Texas New Mexico Power has crews working in the affected areas and power is expected to be back on by 6 p.m. local time, said the company.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-19 06:39:56|Editor: yan

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TRIPOLI, June 19 (Xinhua) -- General Najmi al-Naqou, commander of the Libyan presidential guard, told Xinhua that a request has been submitted to the UN Security Council to exclude the presidential guards from the arms embargo imposed on the country.

"Two weeks ago, we made a formal request to the UN Security Council to exclude the Presidential Guard from the arms embargo imposed on Libya under the sanctions committee's decisions. We expect a positive decision to be made in our favor in the coming days," Al-Nakou said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Sunday.

Al-Nakou pointed out that a year has passed since the formation of the presidential guard, a regular force composed of army and police, whose functions are to protect the sovereign facilities and borders, government members, and official delegations visiting Libya.

Al-Nakou assured that members of the presidential guards are not affiliated to any political party and that they are performing their work without prejudice to anyone, especially as the presidential guards service has been form based on the political agreement to achieve security and order in the country.

"We have training centers currently. Many will graduate with the anniversary of the establishment of the Libyan army on August 9. In one year, we have made significant progress by forming the actual force. We have in Tripoli more than four thousand recruits. Were assigned tasks to them, including securing the presidential council and members of the government of national accord, in addition to securing some ministries," Al-Nakou said regarding the number of members of the presidential guards.

Fayez Sarraj, UN-backed prime minister, issued decision No. 2 in May 2016, establishing the presidential guards to be based in the capital Tripoli and consisting of members of army and police units.

The army forces, led by the eastern-based General Khalifa Haftar, did not welcome the establishment of the presidential guards, considering it an attempt to take over the powers of the armed forces.

"It is not true at all. The presidential guards is a security formation in many countries in the world. Our functions do not conflict with the duties of the army and police," Al-Nakou responded to army accusation.

Al-Nakou praised the efforts of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya to support the presidential guards by providing advice on security arrangements.

In response to claims that the presidential guards only controls Tripoli, Al-Nakou stressed that the presidential guards is gradually spreading in the entire Libyan territory, especially with the government's decision to form a number of brigades affiliated to the presidential guards.

"Work has been divided into three phases. The western region will have seven brigades, the first of which will be in Tripoli. These brigades combat smuggling and control the western borders, preventing the entry of extremists from neighboring countries," Al-Nakou revealed.

"We are not affiliated to any particular political party. We have contacts with a number of security services in the south and east of the country. We reiterate our non-contradiction with the functions of the national army. We seek to support the army to achieve security and protect the country from any threat."
When Jerry Scherer pulled up to the Heights VFW with his son, he gave a stiff, straight-handed wave to people assembled outside  the wave of a man about to get a drink at the bar.

Little did the 86-year-old know that the crowd was there for him.

Scherer worked for nearly two decades to restore a World War II era military jeep, but about a year ago health problems forced him to set the project aside. His son put out a plea for help, which was answered by the Magic City 4x4 Club.

On Saturday, Scherer got the keys to the jeep as part of a procession of restored vehicles outside the VFW.

"He doesn't smile a lot anymore," said Scherer's son, Jerry Jr, "and there were big smiles all the way around."

Sherer is a retired Marine of more than 20 years who fought in Vietnam and Korea. He survived the 17-day Battle of Chosin Reservoir, where steeply outnumbered Marines escaped Chinese forces in North Korea while inflicting heavy casualties.

Scherer's military service also led to better times; he worked on the set of the 1949 movie "Sands of Iwo Jima" starring John Wayne, who later took Scherer and his wife, Kay, out to dinner.

When Kay Scherer died about 19 years ago, Scherer bought a 1945 Willy's Military Jeep as a restoration project. He completely disassembled the vehicle and media blasted rust away before beginning to put it back together.

But there were setbacks, like a botched contracted paint job and two break-ins at Scherer's garage. And as the years passed, the physical demands of the work became too much.

So Scherer's son asked Vernon Ball with the Magic City 4x4 Club about helping out.

Ball said the impact of the project on Scherer was the most rewarding part of the work.

"Knowing that Jerry had served," Ball said, "he doesn't talk about his service until you get him into something like this."

The group hosted a fundraiser at the VFW on Saturday, with the proceeds going to a veterans group of Scherer's choice. Scherer's son lured him there under the guise of checking out a race car; he had told him the jeep still needed a couple weeks of work.

Instead, Scherer arrived to a crowd of more than 50 people and a line of restored vehicles led by a Billings Fire Department truck.
Too often, real policy improvements get drowned out by political talking points. That is the case right now as nearly all of the health care discussion in Montana is about one flawed health care bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the 2017 legislative session, we saw unprecedented bipartisan action to improve health care. Rep. Rob Cook, R-Conrad, carried an important bill to allow my team at the State Auditors Office to pursue a waiver from the federal government and create a reinsurance system that would have stabilized our insurance market and lowered costs. It passed the Montana House unanimously before politics got involved.

Rep. Amanda Curtis, D-Butte, sponsored a great bill to require transparency in health care prices and let patients share in the savings by finding procedures for lower costs from different hospitals. Sen. Ed Buttrey, R-Great Falls, carried another bill that would have empowered Montanans to know the cost of health care procedures.

A bill by Sen. Cary Smith, R-Billings, would have allowed Montanans to contract directly with their doctors for services. Rep. Nancy Balance, R-Hamilton, carried a bill to include Montana in a compact with other states to protect citizens control over health care decisions. Two more bills would have helped small businesses provide health insurance to their employees and allowed Montanans to shop out-of-state for affordable health insurance.

Tragically, Gov. Steve Bullock vetoed all six bills that landed on his desk. These bills would have made health care more accessible and affordable, but Bullock chose to obstruct the Legislature and hurt Montanans struggling to make ends meet.

Bullocks refusal to allow Montana to improve its own system makes it all the more important that Congress repeal Obamacare, and do so responsibly. Ive told key congressional leaders that they need to fully fund cost-sharing reduction payments to stabilize the 2018 insurance market and that Obamacare repeal needs to lower costs, give states more flexibility, and give consumers more options to meet their individual health care needs.

Health insurance costs in the United States are on an unsustainable path. Ive heard from hundreds of Montanans who are paying thousands of dollars every year for their health insurance coverage, and thousands more for deductibles before their insurance provides any benefit. Ive spoken at length with Sen. Steve Daines about these issues, and hes working hard to address these problems. Even Sen. Jon Tester is now admitting that things are wrong with Obamacare and that we didnt make the modifications to fix the problem.

Tester needs to do more than just speak, he needs to take action, especially after Bullock thwarted bipartisan health care improvements here in Montana. We can work together to solve these problems and make health care better for all Montanans, but for that to happen, the political obstruction must end.
Greg WilliamsSure, he's won a Grammy, but now Ed Sheeran is getting one of the highest honors that a Englishman can receive: a title from Queen Elizabeth II.

The Queen's annual Birthday Honours list includes a special title for Ed: MBE, which stands for Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Ed is receiving this honor for his services to both charity and to music.

In an Instagram post, Ed wrote that he was "chuffed" at the honor: that's British for "thrilled."

An MBE is the lowest of five classes of appointment to the Order. The tops is a knighthood, which has been granted to such legends as Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Mick Jagger.

Speaking of McCartney, he received yet another title on the Queen's Birthday Honours list: The Order of the Companion of Honour. Harry Potter author JK Rowling also received that title.

In addition to McCartney, the rest of the Beatles were granted MBEs in 1965, which at the time provoked protests from those who held the title. John Lennon eventually returned his in 1969, in part as a protest against war.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.




More Montanans than ever before have health care coverage  through private insurance or government programs  yet the future of coverage is more uncertain than ever.

As Congress prepares for its brief summer session before its five-week summer vacation, a small group of Republican senators are meeting behind closed doors to devise health care reform legislation they intend to pass quickly  without any Democrats votes. Americans dont know what will be in this legislation, except that the main intent is to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Montanans finally are learning how we would be affected if the GOP House measure, the American Health Care Act, became law: In Montana, virtually all of the 79,000 low-income adults who gained Medicaid coverage since January 2016 would lose that coverage. In addition, the AHCA would drastically reduce federal funding for other Medicaid enrollees, including children, elders, pregnant women and disabled persons.

More than 22,000 Montanans are receiving federal marketplace subsidies for their private health insurance. They would see a significant increase in their out-of-pocket costs under the House bill. There are many unknowns in what Congress may do to the individual health insurance market.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which includes top officials from all 50 states, has called on the Senate leadership to:

Ensure the cost-sharing reduction payments are fully funded in 2017 and 2018.

Provide sufficient and sustained market stabilization funding to states for the establishment of high-risk or reinsurance pools.

An analysis released last week by the Montana Healthcare Foundation estimates that Montana would lose $4.8 billion in federal Medicaid funds between October 2020 and 2026 because of reductions in the AHCA. That would be a 35 percent cut in overall federal support for Montana Medicaid.

Apart from the AHCA, the Trump administration has proposed $627 billion in further Medicaid cuts over 10 years.

To live within reduced federal spending, Montana will either have to increase state expenditures or reduce Medicaid spending by cutting benefits, reimbursements or eligibility, the MHCF report said.

As of December 212,000 Montanans were covered by Medicaid.

Medicaid expansion has had a positive effect on Montana hospitals, which generally saw reductions in their financial losses on uncompensated care since the start of 2016. Most of Montanas hospitals are small and are their communitys sole health care center. Loss of Medicaid reimbursement would threaten their financial viability.

Heres what Montanans need President Trump and Congress to do:

Maintain private insurance subsidies to stabilize the individual market.

Sustain matching funds that have enabled states like Montana to cover the poorest and sickest citizens.

Demand accountability from states and from health care providers. Expand efforts to pay for quality of care and to provide incentives for keeping people healthy outside of hospitals.

Ensure that health coverage actually covers what Americans need, including mental health, addiction treatment and maternity care.

Strategically support funding for education of physicians and other health care professionals whose skills are in short supply.

Sustain funding for public health and community health centers, the relatively low cost providers who deliver the biggest benefits per health care dollar.

Senators must discuss their health care legislation publicly. They must not succumb to the House scheme for passing a bill before the Congressional Budget Office has even analyzed it.

Jon Tester is on the outside with the other Senate Democrats and the American public. Republican Sen. Steve Daines last week told The Gazette that he is shut out of the secret health care sessions, too. Daines has been a repeal and replace advocate, but he must know that ripping away the good parts of the ACA will have devastating effects on Montanans. A stealth repeal that merely eliminates funding would also leave Montanans uncovered, clinics unpaid and hospitals struggling to keep their doors open.

In the spirit of bipartisan concern that the Alexandria, Virginia, shooting sparked last week, Democrats and Republicans must reach common ground on health care. Its time for real statesmen to put Americans health above party politics.
Chalkdust seeks funds for Brigo concert

And he is hoping that generous benefactors will come on board to help stage the concert, which is expected to cost approximately $100,000. The sum, Liverpool said, will include rentals for chairs, sound system, advertisements and payments for artistes and band members.

I am depending on sponsors to see if we can really bring this thing off, Liverpool said.

Liverpool, known to the calypso world as Chalkdust, is also hoping that the concert will be held before Calypso History Month in October.

Its all part of the Save the Calypso series, which was conceptualised by former president and associate provost at the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) Prof Kenneth Ramchand several years ago to celebrate the contributions of calypsonians and musicians.

Liverpool, who is also Professor of Carnival Arts in the UTTs Academy of Arts, Letters, Culture and Public Affairs, said the Save the Calypso series has already honoured the late Kelvin Pope (Mighty Duke); Dillary Scott (Mighty Cypher); Fred Mitchell (Composer) and musician Ed Watson.

We have gotten people to play their music and sing their calypsoes. The calypsonians being honoured also get a monetary reward of at least $100,000 and a plaque, he said.

Liverpool noted, however, that the economic downturn had forced UTT to cut back significantly on its expenses.

The money for the calypsonians was given by the board of the UTT, but now there is some financial pressure because the board depends on the Government.

So I am depending upon sponsors to see if they can continue it. Abraham, 77, died on May 16, reportedly from complications relating to Alzheimers disease.

Apart from his riveting social commentaries, Abraham was famous for his facial contortions on the Det insecticide advertisement, many years ago.

Shortly after his death, he was honoured by the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation in a special tribute held at the Kaiso Blues Cafe, Newtown.

One of Abrahams sons, Catholic priest Fr Bonnie Abraham, who officiated at his funeral, has since vowed to preserve his fathers legacy and that of other ailing artistes through the establishment of the Brigo Cultural Centre.

Liverpool told Sunday Newsday that plans to stage a concert for Brigo were in the making long before his death.

We had already named the songs and Errol Ince had already done all of the music with the songs. It is important to show Brigos work, especially for the schoolchildren. Should a sponsor decide to assist with the project, Liverpool said organisers may also consider paying tribute to the late Gaston Nunes (Smiley) and Emrold Anthony Phillip (Valentino) at the same concert to save money. In previous years, the tributes would have been done separately.

Liverpool said honouring the legacies of the countrys cultural exponents was critical to the survival of the artforms.

When we had done Dukes show, hundreds of people did not know that Duke did all those songs, he said. When people got to realise his contribution, which we analysed in song, people were able to follow it on our power point presentation.

And we also got people to talk about the songs and his work. Liverpool said the trend of celebrating artistes only when they have died must be stopped.

We dont wait until they die to deliver a eulogy. We must deliver living eulogies about the person.

For example, someone may do something about an entertainer and his music and find out why he used certain chords and why he used certain words in his songs. So we deliver living eulogies of the artiste. We dont wait until they die to do so.
Dillon: Youths mindset must change

You have to change the mindset of the boys and the reason why the boys are there. They come from home. That is where they have to start from __ with their parents. Speaking to Sunday Newsday yesterday after the closing ceremony of Exercise Tradewinds 2017 at the Teteron Barracks, Chaguaramas, Dillon said the police as well as the St Michaels authorities were looking into the matter.

One thing for sure that they must do is to find out what were the causes and how the young men were able to escape from the area they were confined to and then put measures in place to prevent a reoccurrence. Eleven teenagers escaped from the St Michaels Home for Boys in Diego Martin last Tuesday and two were found walking along Cantaro Extension Road, Santa Cruz last Thursday.

A police source said they were still investigating the matter but had no new information on the other nine boys.

However, he noted that St Michaels was not secure and boys had run away before. If a fella decide he leaving, he leaving.

Persons are accustomed escaping from there. It is quite common, just not in this quantum. He also said he heard reports that, since the advent of the Childrens Authority, a large number of boys were becoming more disrespectful because they know the staff cant do them anything in terms of reprimanding them.

In his remarks, Dillon echoed Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley who cried shame on the parents of the youths who robbed Fr Clyde Harvey at St Martin de Porres RC Church in Gonzales last Monday.

These miscreants have parents and I hope that somewhere in this country there are a few parents who are hanging their heads in shame over what more they might have done, Rowley had said in an official statement on the crime.
PM, ECA: Lets work together

In his address to mark tomorrows Labour Day observance, Rowley made no reference to the countrys strained industrial relations climate, underpinned by job losses, fears of privatisation and a breakdown in talks within the National Tripartite Advisory Council over the Governments plan to do away the Tourism Development Corporation and replace it with a regulatory authority.

Rather, he adopted a conciliatory tone, pushing for a resumption of the bargaining process.

As we recognize the invaluable contribution of workers during this Labour Day commemoration, let us also re-commit to further strengthening our social dialogue processes to afford each and every citizen of this country the opportunity for better living and working conditions, Rowley said in a statement.

The prime minister urged all workers, unions and employers to join the Government working together to achieve a more competitive, productive and efficient economy.

Recalling the struggles of late labour leaders Tubal Uriah Buzz Butler, Adrian Cola Rienzi, Arthur Andrew Cipriani and George Weekes,in advancing the cause of workers rights in Trinidad and Tobago, Rowley the Government remained committed to creating an environment which supported positive labour relations, as we understand the pivotal role of labour within the context of sustainable development and competitiveness in the global market. We have consistently encouraged open dialogue with the unions and we respect and facilitate the collective bargaining process, he added.

Rowley said citizens want to see the country proceed along the path to prosperity and overcome its challenges.

He said he was optimistic about recent developments.

Over the past few months we have witnessed some positive developments __ our talks with energy sector leaders and partners both here and abroad are beginning to bear fruit, he said.

Government continues to actualize its plan of diversification into those areas where we can be competitive, such as the creative industries, tourism, maritime related services and ICT enabled services.

But to fully achieve these goals, we must be cognisant of the fact that we have to work together as a people.

We have to heighten our dedication and become more innovative and productive.

We have to respect one another across the bargaining table with a view to attaining win-win scenarios that work in the best interest of workers, employers and ultimately our country. Meanwhile, the Employers Consultative Association (ECA), in its Labour Day address, acknowledged the impact of technology on the world of work.

Even as our beloved nation is plagued with very challenging and extremely turbulent circumstances, the world of work continues to undergo rapid transformation primarily influenced by the impact of the technological revolution and increasing globalisation. This includes the use of robotics, digitisation, the opening up of markets, changing organisational structures and increasing competition at the firm and national levels, it said.

To this end, the ECA called on the tripartite partners to change their conversation with a view to reducing significantly the current levels of antagonism, which, it said, was fuelled by mistrust and lack of respect.

More importantly, we must move the conversation to one where parties are determined and committed to come to the table with a common understanding as to what actions will be in the national interest of our future, the ECA said.

 It is therefore now an imperative for social partners to put aside cultural, social, political and historical differences and objectively sit around the table to engage in meaningful dialogue in the interest of T&T and its future sustainability and growth. The ECA said where ever changes are needed, be it in legislation, policy, decision making or institutional strength, tripartite dialogue must be a central component to ensure that the country remained on par with the realities of a changing global landscape, while safeguarding the rights of workers and advancing the interests of he business community.

The association expressed optimism that partners will unite with renewed collective effort towards a stronger and more resilient TT .
A 31-year-old man in Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture, has been arrested on suspicion of violating the Road Traffic Law after he let a young boy take hold of the steering wheel of car he was driving.

Police said that the incident came to light when the driver, Kenichi Otsuka, a plumber, posted a video of the incident on the internet on June 12, Fuji TV reported.

Police said Otsuka admitted to letting the child take hold of the steering wheel, while perched on his knees, as they drove along a street at around 3 p.m. on June 6.
We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription.
DOWN

Library losses. The Montana State Library will have to cut nearly $1 million from its $6 million biennial budget if state revenues continue to fall short of projections. The library is in a tough situation, but we urge its leadership to preserve programs that connect vision-impaired Montanans to their libraries.

UP

Free zoo day. What do you get by combining 80 HRDC staff members, 100 volunteers and ZooMontana? A super play date for thousands of disadvantaged children and their parents. Kudos to the organizations who teamed up to host another successful free day for families.

DOWN

Wind setback. Bonneville Power Administration refused to end a transmission fee that inflates the cost of wind energy exported from Montana. The fee is charged on a 90-mile stretch of transmission lines between Townsend and Garrison, creating a financial obstacle to growing the states wind power.

DOWN

Pipeline dispute. A federal judges ruling last week may shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline, at least temporarily. The DAPL started transporting North Dakota crude on June 1, but Judge James Boasberg ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers hasnt adequately considered some pipeline concerns from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
In 2012, the AKC opposed a Nebraska state bill that would require commercial breeders to have regular on-site visits by veterinarians. AKC opposed a Louisiana bill that would prohibit all dog owners from stacking crates. A Rhode Island state bill that AKC opposed would have made it unlawful for dog owners to keep a dog confined in a pen, cage or shelter for more than 14 hours. AKC opposed a Shelby County, Tennessee, ordinance that would make it a violation to leave a companion animal unattended in a vehicle for more than one hour when the temperature is above 70 degrees or below 35 degrees. A Louisiana bill that would have prevented breeding facilities from keeping dogs continually in stacked, wire-floored cages was also opposed by the AKC. The AKC opposed an ordinance in Porter County, Indiana, that would require breeding kennels to adhere to the care standards outlined in the Animal Welfare Act. The AKC opposed bills in three states that would have prevented owners from debarking dogs without a medical reason, and requiring that the procedure only be performed by a licensed vet. Most of these de-barking procedures are done with a hammer crushing the vocal cord!
The Paris Climate Accord is a pact between the peoples of the nations of the world  not between a single megalomaniac Fool-in-Chief and these nations. As such, it is not the fool's decision; rather, it is We The People who should decide whether to honor our commitment to future generations regarding the consequences of rising global temperatures.

Note, too, that the Paris Accord is not a "deal" as the fool describes  it is purely a one-sided voluntary commitment to reduce future CO2 emissions by each of the more than 150 nations to mitigate for their children, and future generations, the consequences of global warming. There is no "deal" involved to be renegotiated. The United States has not given or received anything to be part of this pact. It is merely a commitment to behave rationally in response to a rising global threat.
Enough already with the hate mail directed toward our state from out-of-staters prompted by Greg Gianforte's recent actions. Surely, some on the left may take perverse pleasure in reading these reactions but few condone such behavior and no one enjoys the repeated Montana-bashing.
He apparently wants to have a more aggressive role somewhere else. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

David A. Clarke Jr., the controversial Milwaukee County sheriff and right-wing provocateur who was an ardent supporter of President Trump during the 2016 campaign, will not take a senior role with the Department of Homeland Security. The Washington Post reports that Clarke says he has rescinded his acceptance of the DHSs offer to join the agency as an assistant secretary, and that Clarke, a regular guest on Fox News, apparently believes his skills could be better utilized to promote the presidents agenda in a more aggressive role elsewhere, according to an adviser. Delays surrounding the appointment apparently contributed to his decision to withdraw as well, according to a source close to the Trump administration who spoke with the Post.

Its not clear what Clarke will now do instead. His adviser, Craig Peterson, told the Post that Clarke and Trump met on Tuesday in Wisconsin and discussed other ways Clarke could support the president, and that the sheriff is now reviewing options inside and outside of government. Its was originally not clear if Clarke was even telling the truth when he told a radio host last month that he had been offered the DHS role, as neither the White House nor the agency ever confirmed the news. On Sunday, the Post confirmed that Clarke had indeed been offered, as he had claimed, the job of assistant secretary for the Office of Partnership and Engagement/State and Local Law Enforcement:

For those wondering if Sheriff Clarke ever actually received a job offer, I've obtained a copy of the letter from DHS Human Resources pic.twitter.com/RIcZgDfThb  Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) June 18, 2017

Whatever Clarke does next, that it wont be at the Department of Homeland Security is undoubtedly good news. The sheriff is a proponent of authoritarian criminal justice and has written that the DHS should adopt police-state-level power to target Americas hundreds of thousands of internal enemies; he also oversees a prison in Milwaukee where four people have died as a result of alleged mistreatment. The sheriff has faced two federal lawsuits over those deaths, about which he has shown no public concern, calling the reports of abuse fake news. Another lawsuit alleges that pregnant inmates have been mistreated at the jail.

Clarke, who is black, has also become a prominent critic of the Black Lives Matter movement, which he has described as a terrorist organization. He has said that the activists, who organize against violence and racial profiling by police, are thugs and anarchists who he predicts will join forces with ISIS. Clarke, who supports the use of torture and opposes habeas corpus, has also previously called for brutal crackdowns on anti-Trump protesters.

In addition to all that, according to the editors of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Clarke spent more of last year pining for a job in the Trump administration than doing his actual job as a county sheriff, spending 60 days of 2016 visiting 20 states, often to give paid speeches in support of Trump. A recent CNN investigation found that Clarke had plagiarized parts of his 2013 masters thesis on U.S. security, as well.

This post has been updated to reflect confirmation that Clarke was in fact offered the DHS job.
Trump attorney Jay Sekulow got really annoyed while being grilled on Fox News Sunday. Photo: Screencap/Fox News Sunday

On Friday, to anyone who understands how words work, President Trump seemed to confirm that he was being investigated over his firing of former FBI director James Comey when he tweeted, I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! On Sunday, however, a lawyer from Trumps growing personal legal team indicated that his client, the president of the United States, essentially didnt know what he was tweeting about, or something.

Trump attorney Jay Sekulow insisted on Sundays Meet the Press that the president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction [of justice], and that the reason he tweeted otherwise was not because he knew he was under investigation, as one might expect a president would, but because he had read a news report saying that he was.

The tweet from the president was in response to the five anonymous sources purportedly leaking information to the Washington Post about a potential investigation of the president, Sekulow labored to explain a total of four times, at one point telling host Chuck Todd that, I think youre reading more to the tweet than whats there.

Sekulow made a similar defense on the other Sunday shows, repeatedly insisting that the White House has received no notice of any investigation of Trump. Back to the tweet, though  this exchange with State of the Union host Jake Tapper was one for the ages:

TAPPER: So the president said, I am under investigation, even though he isnt under investigation?

SEKULOW: That response, that response on social media was in response to the Washington Post piece. Its that simple. The president is not under investigation.

TAPPER: Well, I wish it were that simple but, with all due respect, the president said, I am being investigated in a tweet, and people take his word on that, but youre his attorney  youre saying that the president, when he said that, was  not accurate.

SEKULOW: No. The president wasnt  It was 141 characters  theres a limitation on Twitter, as we all know. And the president has a very effective utilization of social media. So heres what you have: The president issued that tweet, that social-media statement, based on a fake report  a report with no documented sources from the Washington Post.

They went a few more rounds before Tapper wondered, Is that not frustrating for you as an attorney to have a client that is sharing information with the world thats not accurate?

Sekulows answer made absolutely no sense:

Look, this is  this is a president that has utilized social media, that has revolutionized the whole concept of electioneering when it comes to use of social media. Hes able to communicate with 107 million people on his various social-media platforms on a regular basis as he needs to, so he can directly reach a lot of people.

You can watch that full interview (and witness Tappers range of priceless facial expressions) here:

On CBSs Face the Nation on Sunday, Sekulow also said that he believed the president would finally explain whether or not there were recordings of his conversations with Comey, as Trump has also tweet-implied, sometime this week.

The most confusing  and heated  exchange of the morning, however, was on Fox News Sunday. Host Chris Wallace heard the same Trump-tweet defense from Sekulow, but repeatedly made it clear that he didnt think the lawyer actually knew whether or not the president was under investigation.

Making things worse, at one point, Sekulow strayed from the script and offered a preemptive defense of the president should the rumors of an obstruction investigation be true, and thats when things got really convoluted. During a less-than-effective attempt to explain his legal theory for why Trump would have a right to be upset should the Department of Justice investigate him for following their advice to fire Comey, Sekulow seemed to admit that the president was, in fact, under investigation. Pressed by Wallace to account for the apparent contradiction, a clearly upset Sekulow subsequently accused Wallace of putting words in my mouth, and insisted again, Let me be crystal clear so you completely understand: We have not received, nor are we aware of any investigation of the president of the United States. Period.

Wallace eventually concluded, again, that Sekulow didnt actually know whether the president was under investigation or not, and Sekulow didnt disagree.

Youre right, Chris, I cant read the mind of the special prosecutor, the frustrated lawyer replied.

Here is that long and testy interview:
If it was in vitro, of course they went for a boy and a girl,just like any other famous couple in Hollywood these days.

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I know. Let's see in 10/15 years the new Hollywood generation haha full of twins.

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It would be a security nightmare if they didn't though. So it's probably a good idea to do it. Also, it's not like they are doing it for free.

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I think so, some people who were at the hospital earlier this week said the floor was shut down but idk how reliable they are



Some stans were being extra and actually called the hospital to ask if Bey was really there

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She would be classless enough for that.

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You gotta love our for-profit healthcare system.

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probably not.



She's supposedly at UCLA, right? That's where my sister gave birth and it's a huge hospital with lots of shit happening. I really don't see them clearing an entire floor or ward for her.

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I can't believe a hospital would do it either. I wonder if you could just plant your feet in and refuse? Maybe only leave after they pay you to?

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I thought this specific la hospital had an entire wing dedicated to celebs?? So it's not that they cleared out a floor is that they always have an area ready and waiting right?

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Didn't they do the same thing last time? I remember reading how new parents weren't allowed to see their babies because Blue was in there.



I like Beyonce but sometimes she seems like an insensitive nightmare of a person.

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I know a couple NICU RNs who worked at the hospital while she was giving birth to Blue. Apparently the NICU was blocked off by her security and kept parents from seeing their kids in the unit. I would've fucking rioted.



Edited at 2017-06-18 10:16 am (UTC)

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It's the hospitals legal responsibility to ensure everyone's health info remains private. Sometimes they have to take extra measures. My emergency department cleared out our pediatrics section to take in a famous pop star with testicle pain once, snuck him in through a back hallway and put him under a fake name. It was a pain taking kids in other areas but everybody still got the same care.

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Is she the only woman giving birth at the hospital?

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It would be funny if some couple name Betty & John came out & we like "those balloons were for our twins."

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well i mean another couple named "B & J" having twins in the same hopsital is unlikely 

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Lmao, right??? Babies are born all the damn time!

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Ikr? And the way they describe the person delivering the balloons like some clandestine operation.

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"blue & pink balloons for B & J"



Right there, a slip in the operation. Should have put some fake initials on it.

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yaaaaas! i still wish they were tauruses tho!

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nah, they were born under the right (and superior) sign.

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naw sis! even my own moon in gemini knows this lol

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Should've been cancers 

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preach

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They have arrived.



Sound the horns.



I look forward to Bey's worldwide concert tour in three weeks, because rest after squeezing two humans from your body is for lessers.

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congrats to Ben & Jerry

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That would be hella cute if their names actually were Ben and Jeri.

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Lmao

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Apparently Jay's SUV is still outside the hospital and some stans were freaking out because she archived some of her Instagram posts (I haven't looked yet so idk)



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What would archiving it mean?

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My bad, I meant some fans have the posts archived so they can still see the posts, but they're apparently not on beyonce's profile



I just checked though so I guess somebody was lying smh

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UCLA has valet parking though (and their parking lot is under the hospital). So idk why his SUV would be parked outside the hospital.

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(assuming boy/girl combo)

Jay and Kaye

Fierce and Sascha

Hawk and Wren





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I hope one is aquamarine

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The girl is Aqua and the boy is Marine (or vice versa)

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Basil and Rosemary

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Houston (boy) and Brooklyn (girl)

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Red and yellow

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Kelly and Michelle

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Violet. Aqua. Navy. Fuchsia. Marigold*. Magenta*. Sea (foam).



*old sounding names, but maaybe. Marigold matches the plant thing like Ivy.

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the girl can be Becky (with the good hair)

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tina beyonce

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Indigo

Cyan

Ultramarine

Phthalo

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I like Shawn for a girl - so she can be shawn jr. - and if a boy then IDK

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I see the names starting with a B for the girl and a J for the boy, because they are that tacky.

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Beyson -Boy

Jeya-Girl



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Meticulously researched African names, perhaps in Yoruba, meaning things like royalty or star or something

My guess:

Olayinka and Olufemi ('wealth surrounds me' and 'god loves me') Ola and Olu lol



Edited at 2017-06-18 03:49 am (UTC)

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Barack and Michelle

Rose/Red and Violet

Shawn Jr?

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Tanzanite Kudzu (boy) and Viridian Wisteria (girl).

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scarlett and onyx (staying in the color scheme)

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Jade & Sage



Scarlett & Ash



Willow & Red

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Jade

Emerald

Rose

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well whatever the case i hope she's alright along with the kids

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Imagine if they called them Beyonce Jr and Jay jr. I would fucking love that.

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becky and bob

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On the one hand this is more attention than Rob Schneider deserves. On the other hand this is so delightfully strange and petty that I can't help but be amused (and note that Trump would surely approve of this kind of behavior.)

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Thanks to the chain of replies, this image helped someone get blocked by the Grand Orange One

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LOL

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I can't decide if this is the best thing I've seen all day or the worst. Both, maybe?

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I just shared on twitter. I'll update you on what happens.

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The haaands i'm yelling

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Wtf

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max landis must never put his phone down, he legit comments on everything

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Rated PG-13

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Lol, I wanted to post this in my OP note but got lazy. Glad someone else thought of it!

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It's something that needs to be there anytime Schneider is mentioned lol.

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he's about to find out that being eight...ain't so great...

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'OMG, I'm a carrot!'

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My favorite one is the last one where it's just gibberish hahaha.

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At my last job, I had my own cubicle and stapler and put ROB SCHNEIDER on the side of it. Always gave me a smile.

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This is making me laugh too much, lmao.

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lmfao whut



is rob schneider a republican

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IDK, but he's anti-vax

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it looks like all white D/F-list celeb hasbeens are

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Right? Scott Baio, Stephen Baldwin, Roseanne, etc.

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Well, he's part Filipino but def fits the d-list has been qualification.

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He tweets like Trump so yeah

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He is.

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i mean trump blocks random ppl so why not his people doin the same

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someone blocked me on tumblr the other day for confronting them via messenger like an adult when they tried 2 exPOSE meE and how they thought my joke was undermining their intelligence. lmao it was so petty and my friends got a laugh on it.



and i don't block ppl. that's what twitter's mute option is for, lmao.

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A lot of people online (especially twitter and sometimes on here) have this weird need to "one-up" people? People were talking about things you had as a kid (like Hi-C, Mondo,..stuff like that)..and I responded with Kid Cuisine (which someone else did too). Someone involved in the conversation said "I never had that because my parents loved me." Like...it's not that fucking serious lol..people do it ALL the time on Twitter. I mean it's different when someone you've been following and they follow you for a long time and you play around, but to people you never really tweet/talk to/don't know?

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oh yeah, it's really juvenile sometimes. i know on ONTD it can go either way, even with the language we use and the tone things come out. like, you can tell if it's true or not, and sometimes people respond in the opposite tone, or completely miss the point of the comment. it's weird. i wonder how people interact IRL given the reactions they have online, you know?

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Whatever I fucking loved me some Kid Cuisine.

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I got blocked by someone on Tumblr the other day for confronting them about liking a post from March 2015. I have a lot of creepy dudes to watch out for so like I had a good reason but like they didn't even make up an excuse?!

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Seth Rogan can get it. Fat seth and less fat seth. I never saw Green Hornet, so i cant comment if he was ever fit seth.

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He looked attractive when he slimmed down and I mentioned it to my friend and she goes, "Yeah, but think about when he's on top of you and he does that grunt-laugh thing." Attraction cancelled lol

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Lol, I always think about that scene in Knocked Up when he and Katherine Heigl are having sex when she's heavily pregnant, and he's afraid about crushing the baby

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I love his laugh, haha. But I guess when he's going at it in your face, it would be a turn off



Here's a lolzy prank call from Stern Show using Seth Rogen and Maria Menounos voice clips.





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I loved him in Steve Jobs, no regrets. I have no other opinion about him/his movies tho

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Gorl, yes. He's my strangest crush idgaf.

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he so can. i love his face and his beard and his hair and his voice and his laugh. i've always wanted to smash that.

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Post Rob's tweets. Has he been hacked? He's talking about unblocking Seth if he can meet James Franco then saying James is dreamy??

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Thank you, bb! I added them. How strange

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i think it was a bad joke. like, ugh, fine, i'll unblock you if i can meet your hot friend. unfortunately rob's not funny so it made literally no sense.

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What the hell? So random. lol

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lmao wth. this makes me sad but doesn't surprise me goddamnit, filipinos are always on the wrong side ROB WE WERE ROOTING FOR U

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I am ashamed he is Filipino and he won an Asian Excellence Award just for that connection... so many other people deserve it more smh

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Celebs that have blocked me:

Sean Hannity (it wasn't even that bad what I said)

Brian White (he was on Scandal two seasons ago..I said he was sexy and wrote his name out (did not put his @) and he found it and blocked me)

T. Oaklee* (I didn't say his name, but someone else was talking about him and I responded to something and he got mad at me and blocked)



I've only ever really blocked bots or people who get twitter fights. I've also did the block/unblock to get someone to unfollow me because for some weird reason, they would follow what I tweeted to people they follow and then make backhanded comments towards me (like I had never been negative to them) and I stopped responding to them, but I got tired of it and just blocked.



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lmao tyler can't take the heat. he would've built thick skin if he stayed here

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lol why would someone block you for calling them sexy tho?

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Tyler Oakle* blocked me too

Other celebs that have blocked me:



Jared followill from kings of Leon

Eli Roth (during that blueberry fiasco)

P*r*z H*lt*n



Insecure men basically. There's more, I just can't remember.

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tyler oakley didn't block me but he used to passive aggressively like my subtweets about him. I didn't even @ him!

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But Brian White is sexy lol

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The Brian White one is funny/weird. Who blocks you for a compliment.

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The actor who played Robin Hood on OUAT blocked me. I never @him but I probably did say that Robin Hood was boring and useless, so I guess he was searching for his character's name and found it and blocked me? LMAO

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lmao re: brian white. maybe because he's married? or his wife blocked you?

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Chuck Woolery blocked me after I called him out for being a socialist for promoting government funded catheters in a commercial. He told me I better hope I never need to use one and I talked about how I have had to ... and that he still was one of us commie libs for accepting the $orosBux.

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well brian was an asshole on his scandal arc and has a micropenis anyway so fuck him. fuck him in the land of primetime television and irl.

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demi lovato blocked me on twitter lmao

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lmao what did you say? i wanted to make a sarcastic comment about her going to emo nite but i didn't want her to respond & her fans come at me

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i called her a giant fucking hypocrite

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Libyawhose production has been hampered by civil unrest, political divides, and oil export terminals blockades over the past few yearsis now targeting to further increase its oil output. Its most immediate goal is to reach 1 million bpd of production by the end of July, which would further complicate OPECs desperate efforts to reduce global inventories and prop up oil prices. And its ambitions seem plausible.

Just last month, when OPEC was discussing rolling over the output reduction deal, production-cut-exempt Libya hit its highest daily production level since 2014. Earlier this week, OPEC reported that total cartel production in May was actually higher than in April, with Libya the biggest single contributor to that increase.

Analysts warn, however, that Libyas output increase is not a for-sure thing. Production could sharply drop again, given the political rivalry between factions and the fragile security situation in country.

Both scenariosthat Libya could increase production to 1 million bpd, or Libyas unrest could cause a drop in productionare possible. For this reason, Libyas production over the next few months is one of the wildest wild cards for OPEC and global oil supply.

Libyas National Oil Corporation (NOC) said this week that it had reached an interim deal with Germanys Wintershall to immediately resume production in concession areas and related fields, which would unblock 160,000 bpd worth of production that has been shut-in for most of the past two years over a dispute between the companies.

Total oil production in Libya as of today is 830,000 b/d, and we are targeting one million barrels by end of July, 2017 as a result of the resumption of production from the Wintershall and linked Abouatiffel fields, as well as from 103 A and Nafoora, NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla said in the company statement on June 13.



Libyas ambitions are not limited to lifting output to 1 million bpd by the end of next month, thanks to the interim deal with Wintershall. It targets even higher production by the end of this year.

NOC said last month that it has a plan for three development phases to lift Libyas oil production. The first stage plans for increasing output to 1.32 million bpd by the end of this year, at a cost of US$550 million. The second phase entails raising output gradually to 1.5 million bpd by the end of next year, for another US$1.8 billion worth of investment, plus additional US$1.2 billion in tank and pipeline replacement and maintenance. In the third development stage, Libya plans its production to increase to 2.2 million bpd by 2023, which would require around US$18 billion in investments. Related: Shale Efficiency Has Peaked For Now

Lending credence to Libyas future plans, it has already made progress in increasing production. In May, Libyas average daily production was 730,000 bpd, as per OPEC secondary sources, up by 178,200 bpd compared to April. Libya, together with fellow cut-exempt Nigeria and rogue non-complying Iraq, contributed the most to OPECs higher production last month.

As good as this is for Libyas oil and economy, increased oil production further stokes fears over rising global supply at a time when OPEC and friends are trying to reduce commercial oil inventories.

But according to Helima Croft, the head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, its too early to call Libyas tentative oil production recovery a sustainable stable return of many more barrels on the market.

[W]e strongly caution against uncorking the champagne just yet as some of the most powerful armed actors are not party to the agreement (most notably the western militias) and the previous political settlements have proved to be short-lived, Croft said in a note in early May, as quoted by Business Insider.

Hence, we reiterate our view that Libyan output will continue to fluctuate and any output increase remains at risk for reversal, Croft said.

Currently, Libya is on track to pump 1 million bpd by end-July830,000 bpd output as of this week plus the 160,000 bpd unblocked from the interim deal with Wintershall, according to NOC.

Currently, the question is: will a somewhat relatively stable political and security situation allow Libya to reach and maintain the 1-million-bpd production target? Will production and export facilities be free of blockades, strikes, technical issues, and militias fighting, to let Libya aim for the plan to pump 1.32 million bpd by the end of the year?

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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The fledgling production cut strategy of OPEC (Saudi Arabia) and non-OPEC (Russia and the FSU) shows that a new strategy is needed to counter the ongoing doubts in the markets.

At the same time, Russia and Saudi continue to give indications of a possible OPEC 2.0 scenario, in which a possible Russian membership is on the table. This would confront the market with a renewed and stronger oil cartel, although the overall strategies need to be adjusted. At the same time, Saudi Arabia, via its oil giant Aramco has openly stated to be interested in global gas investment opportunities, starting in Russias Siberian region. While the media still looks at the current discussions as a pure crude oil cooperation strategy, some see another development on the horizon. The real power of OPEC, non-OPEC cooperation would increase if they would not only include a crude oil production cut, but also integrate the other (hidden) cartel, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). An OPEC 2.1, including gas exporters, would really block any negative developments in the market, even shale oil and gas.

At present, international analysts and media sources are hyping the story about Saudi Arabias multi-billion dollar investments in Russias oil and gas sectors. Statements made by Saudi minister of petroleum Khalid Al Falih are only making headlines at present if he indicates that oil giant Aramco will be targeting natural gas projects and even LNG in future.

Certain analysts think that Aramco is taking the same road as Shell, BP and other oil majors, have taken, diversifying away from oil and into gas. The Golden Age of Gas, as reported by the IEA has not yet become reality. Riyadh now seems interested in becoming a convert of the gas era, but reality is not as simple. There is more between the lines than currently is being discussed in the media.

First of all, Saudi Aramco has always been heavily involved in the gas sector, as it is already a very large gas producer. Recent figures show that Saudi Arabias total proved natural gas reserves are set to be around 8500 bcm, which means it holds the sixth most proved natural gas reserves globally and the third most in the Middle East. In 2014, Aramco produced around 102.4 bcm of natural gas, which made them the eighth largest natural gas producer in the world. Additionally, it marked the fifth consecutive year of increasing natural gas production in Saudi Arabia, illustrating that Saudi Arabia has emphasized growing their domestic production in order to continue to meet their energy demand. The Kingdom also is not only a huge producer of natural gas, its local consumption is also impressive. The kingdom consumed 108.2 bcm in 2014, making it the 5th largest consumer worldwide. In 2014, natural gas made up ~40.7 percent of Saudi Arabias primary energy consumption. Related: Iraq Dethrones Saudi Arabia As Indias No.1 Oil Supplier

The countrys natural gas consumption has continued to grow as has natural gass role in Saudi Arabias current energy mix. In 2014, natural gas made up ~40.7 percent of Saudi Arabias primary energy consumption. For the next years this will increase substantially.

Currently, Saudi Arabia does not import or export natural gas and therefore they have not established themselves as a global natural gas supplier even though they produce significant amounts of it. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has been able to achieve important security of supply due to the fact that they only rely on themselves for their natural gas needs. However, this also means that Saudi Arabia will have to continue to produce at high levels going forward to meet their domestic demand. To counter growing demand for natural gas, Aramco is even pursuing shale gas in the future, with first production expected around 2020-2021.

A rapid development of reserves is necessary, as not only will the Kingdom need more gas to compensate for its current crude oil usage, which is a direct financial pressure on the budget, but current diversification plans also imply increased natural gas consumption in the petchem industry. Next to this, increased gas production is crucial for power generation and water desalination in the near future. Technically, gas production is also of importance to support crude oil production, partly via gas reinjection projects on ageing oil fields. The above painted situation was part of the E&P strategy of Aramco, when it took in several IOCs (Shell) and independents to search for new gas reserves, especially in the Rub Al Khali (Empty Quarter). The latter until now has been rather disappointing, and most international parties have left.

The present and future gas cooperation between Russia and Saudi Arabia should be assessed in this light. Aramcos internationalization strategy includes investments and operations in Russia or FSU republics the coming years. These actions are part of a diversification drive in Aramco, but should not be looked at with only attention for the Russian opportunities. Taking into account the current Saudi situation, Aramco has been looking for access to technology, R&D and cooperation since decades with the usual suspects. Gazprom, Lukoil and Rosneft were not included at that time in the inner circle, as the geopolitical situation and the clash between communism and Wahhabism prevented an opening. This has changed, and both sides are now showing an increased willingness to cooperate in both their territories, Russia but also Saudi Arabia. The Saudi offer to invest in Russia will have very strong strings attached. Investing in Russian oil and gas operations, including LNG, will be linked to receiving an in depth insight and access to Russian gas technology and R&D. Aramco will without any doubt have direct research links and investments with Gazprom VNIIGAZ (Scientific-Research Institute of Natural Gases and Gas Technologies)  with its research operations in Saratov, next to the Volga River could substantially support In Kingdom gas operations and production projects in the future.

The bottom line at present for Saudi Arabias geopolitical and economic power drive is an increased economic diversification effort at home. All instruments, including the multibillion investments by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF, which will include Saudi Aramco IPO revenues in 2018, in the RIDF (Russian Direct Investment Fund) should be seen in that light. The meetings between Saudi deputy crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman or Saudi minister of petroleum Khalid Al Falih with Russian president Putin and his cohorts are linked to the internal drive of the Kingdom. Related: Solar And Wind Revolution Happening Much Faster Than Expected

This cooperation could also be driven by another issue. In addition to the historic cooperation between the two oil producers, as shown in the OPEC non-OPEC production cut agreements the last years, both have been discussing since years also a global gas cooperation. Even that the oil price plunge has pushed both former adversaries to cooperate, an expansion to gas could even be strategically very interesting. For Russia, a combined market approach of OPEC and the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), labelled sometimes as the gas cartel, would increase its global power. The same is the case for Saudi Arabia, as the OPEC leader, holding vast reserves of natural and associated gas, understands that a combined OPEC-GECF strategy could have several main strategic advantages.

Not only would this create a power bloc that could have a much higher impact on the U.S. shale revolution, blocking part of the global market if necessary, but also it would increase pressure on Saudis main rival at present Qatar, the worlds leading LNG exporter. By cooperating with Russia, Saudi Arabia could kill two birds with one stone. Riyadhs strategy with OPEC  Russia could be solidified, while at the same time it holds power over the worlds gas sector. Moscows support for Riyadhs plans will not only benefit the Kingdoms natural gas development, but also corner Qatar fully. A combined Russian-Saudi power play in global gas could change it dramatically. Putin and MBS could be looking for a kill.

By Cyril Widdershoven for Oilprice.com

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Romanias energy sector is characterised by the influence that the state continues to exert. Despite initiating several privatisation processes following the collapse of the Soviet Union, these have consistently been interrupted due to a variety of economic and political factors. Furthermore, despite being an EU member for ten years, Romanias energy sector has not been fully privatised, with the state still owning the majority of the sectors key energy companies.

Most electricity produced in Romania originates from coal (26.89 percent), followed by hydroelectric (27.36 percent) and nuclear (17.83 percent) power; with gas constituting 13.68 percent of all energy production. Despite being an oil and gas producer, and having two nuclear plants, Romania is still a net importer of oil and gas.

Within this context, the political control that the government exerts over the industry is a key factor when assessing potential energy sector opportunities in the country. The major companies involved in the sector - Hidroelectrica, Nucleareletrica and Romgaz  are all majority owned by the Romanian government, which exerts its influence through the Ministry of Energy.

The states continued control over these assets makes it vulnerable to the political and personal interests of government elements. The transparency and independence of Romanias energy sector is further undermined by a lack of independent authorities regulating the market, and supervising the government. This reality has triggered several cases of mismanagement and embezzlement, which has been aggravated further by the diminished power of the EU since 2008.

Privatisation Process: Why the Energy Sector is Important?

Successive failed attempts to privatise the energy sector (amongst other sectors in Romania) have contributed to a damaged public sector. According to economic observers, one of the main obstacles to privatisation has been corruption and an unclear legal framework. In the case of the energy sector, chronic public-sector corruption has stood in the way of the government creating the legislation needed to address abuse of political power. Combined with a lack of checks, balances and accountability in state-owned companies, these entities have been open to manipulation for personal profit.

Romanias legal and economic framework ostensibly means that the political power is synonymous with commercial influence  an electoral victory provides the possibility of exerting direct control over energy companies, and provides the capacity for the political elite to appoint loyal figures to the boards of directors of state-owned energy companies. A perfect equation for mismanagement and embezzlement.

A good example of such mismanagement occurred in Hidroelectrica, when in 2009 two members of parliament took advantage of legal vacuums present in the Romanian energy sector. Through Constructii Hidrotehnice, these two MPs facilitated the sale of Hidrolectrica to their company at a very low price, causing economic losses estimated at 1 billion. This case of mismanagement was not investigated until 2014, with these two MPs still holding their seats in the parliament.

Related: Solar And Wind Revolution Happening Much Faster Than Expected

Moreover, state-owned companies in Romania employ 4 percent of the workforce, while energy companies owned by the state employ 77 percent of the energy-related workforce, and provide an estimated 44 percent of turnover of the Romanian energy market. It is therefore easy to see how the social and economic dimensions of these companies can be open to manipulation by the political elite that control it. As has occurred in other emerging markets, the political elite have used employment in state-owned companies as a tool to secure votes.

In the Romanian case, labour unions play a greater role, and their pressure over workers is more effective when maintaining the status quo or the union leaders interests. In addition, there are several established forms of vote-rigging in Romania, with union leaders known to pressure workers to increase their political and economic influence. Having a certain number of votes would have facilitated the vote of one of the most influential union leaders, Dumitru Costin, at the national congress of the Social Democrat Party, ultimately reinforcing his political influence.

Where Does Control Lie?

The most important companies in the Romanian energy sector are Hidroelectrica, Nucleareletrica and Romgaz. As noted, these companies are majority owned by the Ministry of Energy, who through its minister, appoints the members of the board of directors. The Ministry is a majority stakeholder of 24 energy-related companies, and is a minor stakeholder in 6. 8 of these companies are officially insolvent. The approximate value of all these assets is $5.4 billion.

In this context, the Romanian system allowed its political elites to draw personal benefit from their political positions. This was the case of the former Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, who in 2006, through other members of his Social Democrat Party, developed a corruption ring that benefited from the political control of one of the largest energy-related companies, Oltenia Energy Complex. Through a law firm owned by another Social Democrat Party member, Dan ?ova, the energy company would pay bills of work never carried out. These actions personally benefited these two politicians, whilst also allegedly involving other local political actors. Ultimately, the energy company ended up with a large amount of debts that were finally paid by the state.

More recently, Romanias Minister of Energy, Toma-Florin Petcu, announced the names of new board members to the largest state-owned energy companies. And although, technically, these appointments should adhere to EU good governance policies, the individuals appointed all have links to the two ruling coalition parties. Related: Iraq Dethrones Saudi Arabia As Indias No.1 Oil Supplier

Although the proposed names are reportedly temporary, this would not be the first time that a Romanian government perpetuates interim candidates for years. The political control of these companies reinforces the influence of the state structures within the Romanian energy sector and further complicates a future privatisation of the Romanian energy sector. Moreover, this policy is likely to trigger more political protectionism from high officials in the government, with corrupted elements within the energy sector depending on the state.

High-Regulatory Framework but Still Politically Manipulated

There are two leading regulatory agencies in Romanias energy sector, the Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) and the Romanian National Regulatory Authority for Municipal Services (ANRSC). ANRE oversees electricity producers, and it sets energy prices; and, ANRSC oversees energy-related public services at a local level.

Although the Romanian energy sector has improved its situation in regard to bureaucratic and regulatory obstacles to attract local and international investment, this sector is still regarded as over-regulated in comparison to other emerging markets. The power regulatory agencies exert over this market add uncertainty for foreign investors, since there are frequent tax and fiscal modifications. As an example, Romania ranks 133rd of 189 countries in regards to companies receiving electricity services.

The case of the president of ANRE, Niculae Havrile?, provides an ample illustration of how Romanias legal environment can be circumvented in the interest of specific personal agendas. In 2015, Havrile? was found to be holding his position against the law. More specifically, the National Integrity Agency (ANI) - an agency backed by the EU, but that has no legal impact  found that since June 2012 Havrile? was simultaneously President of ANRE, as well as General Manager of SC Gas and owning 100 percent of energy company Hanigas  a clear conflict of interest. Although this situation was in violation of Romanian law, it has not been addressed, and, as of 2015, Havrile? held both positions.

Furthermore, Havrile? was appointed by the former PM Victor Ponta. His nomination came with the support of the National Liberal Party, where Havrile? was a member. With interests in the energy sector, the nomination of Havrile? makes him a significant power player in the Romanian energy sector. Lastly, when Havrile? was nominated ANREs director he was the vice-president of the National Union of Employers of Romania, and secretary of the Natural Gas Professional Association.

The case of Havrile? amply demonstrates how Romanias energy sector is more accountable to the interests of specific political and economic groups, than it is to the countrys legal framework.

Conclusions

The Romanian energy sector is  to a certain degree - held ransom to the interests of the political elite. Despite the efforts of anti-corruption agencies in Romania, such as the work of the ANI and the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NAS), backed by the EU, it seems that the influence extended by the countrys political elite over the energy sector is by far more significant.

Political exposure in the energy sector reinforces the idea that many government-controlled companies answer to the whims of the political elite with vested personal interests, rather than to the requirements of the economy and good performance. Furthermore, EU tools for fighting corruption and aligning Romanias energy sector with levels of privatisation reached in other Western European countries has been inefficient. The combination of these factors, plus growing anti-EU populist rhetoric, are likely to alienate EU pro-transparency policies and further stall necessary privatisation of the Romanian energy sector.

In this sense, more independent bodies are needed to regulate and supervise the transition of state-owned companies in this sector to a free-market framework, and avoid further corruption scandals. The current context in Romania does not augur a short-term scenario of further privatisation. The current government faced social discontent when, last February, parliament attempted to pass a law to pardon corrupt officials. Although this law has not been approved by the senate, the initial support that this bill received from the current government indicates the lack of motivation to effectively tackle political corruption in Romania, which ultimately affects its energy sector.

By Shadow Governance Intel.

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Russias best chances to claim a prominent role in the Middle East usually come amidst a regional escalation of tensions. But the confluence of diplomatic rows, terrorist attacks and air strikes at the start of June did not exactly play into Moscows hands. As usual, the Iraq/Syria war zone produced its share of breaking news. Yet, the bitter quarrel (triggered by an alleged hacker attack) between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors, led by Saudi Arabia, has been making the most headlines. Moscow has firmly denied that it could have been behind the publication on the Qatar News Agency website of a soon-erased statement on improving relations with Iran. In any case, this sabotage clearly surpassed the usual rather mediocre level of sophistication of cyberattacks generally attributable to Russian patriotic hackers (RBC, June 7). Meanwhile, against the background of this breakdown of Arab solidarity, the oil price has shown no propensity to climb higher, so Russia cannot expect any additional revenues for its stressed budget (Snob.ru, June 6).

Most expert analyses in Moscow have emphasized the depth of animosity between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but recommendations to the Kremlin have generally suggested caution and patience (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, June 6). President Vladimir Putin was busy on the phone with the Qatari emir, as well as leaders of Egypt and Turkey; and Qatars foreign minister paid a visit to Moscow last Friday (June 9). But the space for Russian diplomatic mediation is quite limited (Politcom.ru, June 7). For the Gulf monarchies, Russia is too close to Iranand increasingly dependent on this brotherhood-in-arms in keeping its Syrian intervention going (Forbes.ru, June 7). The Russian leadership is probably not entirely aware that it has become an ally of the regional Shia coalition (including such dubious actors as Hezbollah), while only 4 percent of Russians see Iran as a friendly state (Levada.ru, June 5). Moscow seeks to escape from this entanglement by cultivating ties with Turkey. But while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an opted to offer full support to Qatar, including even sending a few hundred Turkish troops there, Russia is not quite able to show such resolve (Carnegie.ru, June 6). Related: Kurdish Oil: The Two Biggest Threats

Russia certainly needs both Turkey and Iran to sustain control over the de-escalation zones in Syria, which Putin praised as the beginning of a peace process for this war-torn countrydespite the chain of breakdowns in negotiations between Damascus and Syrian opposition groups (RIA Novosti, June 9). While declaring its determination to confront the Islamic State (IS), Russia is abstaining from any contribution to the battles for Mosul and Raqqa, which could profoundly change the dynamics of the wars in Iraq and Syria (Gazeta.ru, June 7). Moscow cannot show any sympathy to the Syrian Kurds, which would undoubtedly irk Ankara, and remains ambivalent about the Iraqi Kurds push for independence (Kommersant, June 7). Russian missile strikes serve rather the purpose of demonstrating capabilities than hitting high-value targets (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 31). Moscow continues to issue protestations, however, against the US-led coalition air strikes on the pro-al-Assad militia in southeastern Syria (RBC, June 7). Putin also made a particular point about the domestic political situation in the United States, which, according to him, is not helpful for solving global problems (RIA Novosti, June 9).

Some of these domestic matters are indeed confusing, and it is difficult to square President Donald Trumps sharp demarche against Qatar with the appeal from the State Department to ease the economic blockade of this suddenly ostracised state (RBC, June 9). The main impact on Washingtons foreign policymaking still comes from the investigation of Russian interference in the US elections. The sensational testimony of former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director James Comey to the Senate Intelligence Committee (on June 8) produced no direct evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow (to the great relief of the White House), but it added to the estimate of the scale of Russias cyberattacks last year (New Times, June 9). This does not bode well for the planned meeting between Trump and Putin during the July G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany (Newsru.com, June 10). The Russian president has been careful in recent interviews to moderate his anti-American invectives. But the propaganda machine maintains its US-bashing; and 69 percent of Russians currently consider the US a hostile state, signifying only a slight drop from 72 percent a year ago (Levada.ru, June 5). In this situation, it is really hard to see how Russian mediation in the Qatar crisis could be acceptable for Washington (RBC, June 10). Related: Hedging Rush In U.S. Shale Could Send Prices Tanking

Interested as Russia is in the vital question of global oil prices, it cannot pretend to be an impartial mediator with plenty of resources for peace-building. Moreover, the long shadow of the Ukraine crisis follows it everywhere; yet another recent ceasefire breakdown in the Donbas war zone has drawn attention to Russias ongoing aggression there (Kommersant, June 9). Every statement about the importance of dialogue between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is routinely supplemented by assertions of the need to build up Russian deterrence capabilities. And the series of military exercises this summer is certain to aggravate mutual threat assessments (RBC, June 8). Every Russian diplomatic maneuver in the Middle East, not to mention its missile strikes, are inevitably interpreted in Europe (though perhaps less so in the scandal-ridden White House) as attempts to gain advantage in the evolving confrontation.

In many political campaigns (with the interesting exception of the recent elections in the United Kingdom), Russian hackers became bogeymen blamed for all sorts of mischief. But in reality, the main instrument of choice for Russian troublemakers is corruption. A striking parallel thus exists between the Kremlin and the Gulf royal courts: As the Saudi and Qatari corruption feeds terrorism, Russian corruption connects with espionage and organized crime. It is certainly far easier to rain bombs on terrorists and to trace hackers by their digital fingerprints than to follow the dirty money. The investigations in Washington might hit a solid wall in the banks and degenerate into partisan bickering. But in Moscow, Alexei Navalny, a charismatic leader of the Russian opposition, has called his supporters to the streets this Monday (June 12) to show their disagreement with the politics of corruption. His role currently might appear marginal, but his message rings trueand might acquire further resonance that could shatter Putins dominance. Politics based on lies often appear overpowering, and Russian intrigues in the Middle East perhaps seem smart and sophisticated; but as the latter add to Russias over-stretch, the former tend to unravel with shocking abruptness.

By Jamestown Foundation

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IB admitted of collecting information on JIT memebers

ISLAMABAD: The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has conceded in its rejoinder to the allegations levelled by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the Panama Papers case that the bureau collected intelligence on members of the six-man team for ready reference.



The rejoinder, which was furnished to the Supreme Court in response to the complaints, explained that the IB directorate always gathered intelligence on matters of national importance.



In an application submitted to the Supreme Court, the JIT had blamed a number of government institutions like the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the law ministry and the IB for creating impediments in the collection of evidence in the Panama Papers leaks probe.



While mentioning the IB, the JIT had dubbed the role of its directorate as highly questionable as it had allegedly hacked the Facebook account of Bilal Rasul  a member of the JIT  which was also used by his wife/family only to retrieve the contents/documents attached by Hussain Nawaz in his complaint submitted to the Supreme Court.



Thus the private social media pages of his Facebook account were accessed by Hussain Nawaz ostensibly through the facilitation of the IB. This allegedly also confirmed blatant misuse of the government machinery to support the Sharif family.



The JIT had alleged that on May 24 at about 7:30pm IB field staff were found loitering near the residence of one of the members of JIT and later visited his residence and questioned the housekeeper, causing fear and insecurity amongst the family members.



But in its rejoinder, parts of which were also mentioned in the reply submitted to the court by the Attorney Generals office on Friday, the IB stated that as a regular practice the bureau collected low-downs (data) of the government personnel and other subjects of interest working on important positions. Such low-downs were maintained for ready reference.



The IB categorically denied allegations of hacking the Facebook account of Mr Rasul or his family, or infringing privacy and causing harassment of any JIT member or his family.



Similarly, the SECP in its rejoinder suggested that only an inquiry into the issue of the mysterious WhatsApp Call Controversy made by the registrar of the Supreme Court would reveal facts.



The JIT had alleged that the WhatsApp call controversy was stirred at the behest of the SECP chairman Zafar Hijazi with the intention of dragging into the matter the registrar of the apex court who had no role in it.



The SECP said that in a letter of April 28 sent to the registrar of the court, the chairman had brought on record the matter regarding the mysterious call he had received because his initial impression was that the call had been made by someone in the US.



Subsequently it was revealed that the call had in fact been made by the iPhone app FaceTime.



During a hearing by the three-judge Supreme Court implementation bench, the court had explained that the registrar had made the call on the directions of the court.



Meanwhile, NABs director general for operations Irfan Naeem Mangi, who is also a member of the JIT, has requested the bureaus chairman to withdraw its show-cause notice or keep it pending till the completion of his present attachment with the JIT since he was fully occupied with the current assignment.
Shahbaz Sharif questioned for four in front of JIT

ISLAMABAD: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif declared on Saturday that only elected civilian governments, not military dictators, had bowed before the courts.



Emerging after his four-hour questioning session with the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing allegations of money laundering against the Sharif family, the younger Sharif said this was the fifth time their family had to undergo ruthless accountability.



A day before yesterday was a unique one in the 70-year history of Pakistan; an elected prime minister appeared before a JIT. Today, as a servant of Punjab, I also appeared before the investigation team, he said, claiming that this was a historic day.



He said the JIT had summoned him as a witness and by complying with the notice, he had upheld the cause of the rule of law.



Without naming former president retired General Pervez Musharraf, who toppled the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government in October 1999, CM Sharif said that one could easily differentiate between how military dictators treated the law and how civilian government had dealt with the courts.



I suffer from chronic backache, but would never use it as an excuse to avoid appearing before the JIT, nor did I go to the institute of cardiology or to London for medical checkup, the Punjab CM said, taking a jibe at the former military ruler.



His remarks were a reference to how Gen Musharraf, when a special court seized with his high treason case summoned him for indictment, had gone to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology in January 2014 after complaining of cardiac distress.



The military ruler was in hospital for quite a long time and eventually went abroad for a medical checkup and did not return.



Recollecting bitter memories of the past, CM Sharif said that he was handcuffed along with his brother after the 1999 military coup when Gen Musharraf re-initiated the process of the Sharif familys ruthless accountability.



He said that this process began when the Pakistan Peoples Party government nationalised his fathers Ittefaq Foundaries on January 2, 1972.



The second phase of the familys accountability started in 1988 by another PPP government, when their family businesses become the target of political rivals.



In 1993-96, a third round of accountability led to closure of their factories and in 1999, Gen Musharraf started the fourth round. This JIT is the fifth time my family is being held accountable, he claimed.



I humbly presented my stance to the JIT and responded to all their questions, the Punjab CM told reporters outside the Federal Judicial Academy, where the JIT is based.



He claimed there wasnt a single pennys worth of corruption allegations in all the projects initiated by the PML-N government, such as the metro bus and Orange Line train, power projects and road infrastructure development schemes.



On the other hand, he said, those criticising the government had loans worth billions written off and purchased expensive properties in the UK and Canada.



They are also behind multi-billion rupee corruption scandals of National Insurance Corporation Limited (NICL), Employees Old-Age Benefit Institution (EOBI), rental power projects (RPPs), and cost rises of billions in the of Nandipur and Neelum-Jhelum power projects.



The Punjab CM reached the FJA without official protocol, like Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif before him. But security was slightly more relaxed than it was on June 15, when his brother appeared before the JIT.
GLENS FALLS  Electricity holds life and death in its balance.

Consider how its highly charged jolt can jump-start a stopped heart. Or how lightnings jagged electrical arcs pattern an ebony sky just before its strike splits an ancient tree in half.

The simple flip of a switch triggers an unnoticed connection, nudging the first in a line of electrons to move on their near silent and circuited journey to power a lamp, a stove or even a car.

Conversely, the electricity running through wires can hiss, crackle and sizzle from a loose connection or frayed line, often igniting walls and wires.

For those early inventors who dared harness its charge, the world simultaneously lauded and scorned their sparked creations  the light bulb, the oscillator, the electric chair  out of amazement and fear.

In Thomas Edisons incandescent dreams, carbon-coated wires illuminated pear-shaped glass without shattering the bulb.

In Nikola Teslas prophetic dreams, a large tower transmitted a wireless signal to power the world without wires.

It was this unrivaled battle of the currents and the lost Tesla story that led playwrights Nikko Benson and Benjamin Halstead to write Nikola Tesla Drops the Beat.

This ambitious new musical travels from past to present and present to past, propelling an early 20th century tale into the future with an innovative blend of traditional theater and electronic dance music, hip hop moves, an unprecedented lighting plot, and cultural diversity  a bit like an historical retelling while hanging out in a dance club.

Nikko and I were in a musical theater graduate writing program. We were researching for something to write about, Halstead said of their thesis project. Teslas story was written out of history; he was deemed a mad scientist. ... It is an underdog story we want to share with people.

Since that time, their evolving vision for the story of Teslas genius and the rivalry of these two impassioned inventors has been developing in staged readings in New York City. That is, until a few weeks ago.

As the inaugural show of the Adirondack Theatre Festivals summer season, Tesla now has wings. And in a compressed amount of time, Tesla will breathe in a production that includes millions of light-color combinations, hundreds if not thousands of light cues and newly written electronic dance music.

And the round-the-clock work of a vastly experienced creative team along with 12 dedicated actors will take flight in a full production at Charles R. Wood Theater on Glen Street in Glens Falls, with a June 21 preview and a June 22 opening.

We have been working on the show for four years and this is like watching our baby walk for the first time, Halstead said in an interview Wednesday at the Wood Theater. Its that feeling in the body when the beat drops and syncs up with the music ... we want the audience to experience that eureka moment.

Light

Lighting designer Jake DeGroot, based in New York City, admits this is a really ambitious show with a tight schedule. And the lighting plot he designed has pushed the ATF crew far beyond what has ever been created at the festival in the past 23 years.

Nothing like this has ever been in this theater, said Chad Rabinovitz, the producing artistic director of ATF, while walking across a completely transformed stage at the Wood Theater.

In the opening scene, Tesla is having a fevered dream of the future. To really be able to blow the top off, we have this grid of overhead LED lights, DeGroot said by phone on Wednesday. The lighting fixtures can create millions of colors, motions, words, patterns.

DeGroots light plot includes two grids of lights: The LED grid with about 150 lights hung on pipes overhead and a grid of about 700 incandescent lights at the rear. Add to that traditional theater lighting, side angle lighting, strobes, fog and flashes.

DeGroot, who arrived in Glens Falls on Thursday, began programming all the lights to coordinate with the music and the actors movements. This work culminates in a big test on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday with 12-hour technical rehearsals to fine-tune all the elements with the actual performance.

In the process, DeGroot will set the lighting cues for the stage manager who will call the cues for performances when DeGroot leaves.

But long before DeGroot could program lights and make esoteric changes to the light plot, the shows master electrician, Erika Johnson, had to wire and hang all those lights. It was a job bigger than any she has ever done in her experienced career.

This is an installation that is so exciting, she said while taking a momentary break at the Wood Theater on Wednesday.

Johnson, who normally tours with an all-male drag company, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, as their master electrician, said working at ATF for the summer has already been an incredible experience because she has had to create so many inventive things.

With one assistant and the help of carpenters and interns, Johnson and her crew have been putting in 15- to 16-hour days to get things ready for DeGroot and the show.

We have old incandescent lighting and the LED rig is so spectacular, she said. Jake has done something Ive never seen before. It feels ahead of its time.

Johnson continued.

This is like inventing and discovering with all the highs and lows of an inventor, she said. I expect something spectacular. He (DeGroot) seems so passionate.

Once the show opens, Johnson said she will check every bulb and socket to make sure everything is working for that days performance.

Tesla is an extraordinary piece, said DeGroot. Chad (Rabinovitz)has assembled an extraordinary team.

Movement and sound

Madeline Smith, the music director and vocal arranger, said Wednesday that they had just finished staging the show. We are now in the phase of piecing it together, she said.

Smith, who is the youngest female Broadway conductor, has been working on Tesla with writers Benson and Halstead through the staged readings in New York.

I have been on board for a while, about a year, she said. I love it; it is my favorite show that I am working on.

Why?

For me, it is about how we balance the artists dreams with community and living with and serving others, she said. Its about how for an ambitious person, its tempting to leave people by the wayside.

Smith has been doing the vocal arrangements and working with the actors to bring the music to life and coordinate it with the light and movement on stage.

With such an eclectic blend of music, from electronic dance music to R&B, she said it is like scanning through a radio. Its spanning Top 40 to weird Indie pop with a little bit of musical theater, she said. I feel so honored to be part of this. It is about invention, its about artistic reason and connecting.

To make sure the movements synched with the sound, lights and story, choreographer Maxx Reed said there is no movement without a purpose. And before he choreographed the show, he met with an electrical engineer to understand the creation of DC and AC circuits.

I wanted to make visual representations of this, he said, adding that he has also incorporated light into the choreography with lights attached to the dancers, creating trails.

It is less liquid and there is more vibration ... there are jolts and jerks. And we are using movement and trying to show with body movement what would happen in what Tesla was doing.
GLENS FALLS  Nikola Tesla was born on the cusp of two days. Right at the stroke of midnight during a violent electrical storm, part of his body was born on one day, the rest on the other.

And despite the mid-wifes warning that he would spend his days in darkness because of the bad omen of the electrical storm, his mother disagreed, saying, He will spend his days with light.

And that is just what he did, inventing, envisioning, dreaming of electrical advances that would improve the world. Tesla believed in harnessing the power of nature, and in his prophetic dreams he saw a world so far ahead of his time, it would take more than half a century for the market to catch up.

Chad Rabinovitz, the producing artistic director of the Adirondack Theatre Festival, said he has learned so much about Tesla and his genius since selecting the show Nikola Tesla Drops the Beat as the opening musical for this summer season.

Hes so incredible, Rabinovitz said on many occasions, adding that he bought most every Tesla T-shirt he could find online to build awareness of an inventor that history forgot.

Tesla figured out how to harness the power of Niagara Falls after he dreamed of a large wheel that would produce electricity from the world wonder. He convinced magnate J.P. Morgan to invest in his wireless tower, and Westinghouse was started because of Tesla.

Still, in his final years, he was living in a New York City hotel paid for by Westinghouse because he gave up his royalties and spent his days with the pigeons in the park.

According to the writers of the ATF musical that will open this week at the Charles R. Wood Theater in Glens Falls, they were so fascinated by Tesla that they were inspired to write the musical that gives him breath in modern times.

Its rich in drama and tension, said Benjamin Halstead. We wanted to bring the show into the future.

Nikola Tesla Drops the Beat opens June 22.
GREENWICH  After a summer of giving fresh produce away throughout Washington County, the Comfort Food Community is expanding, adding towns in two more counties this summer.

Weve gotten a $1,500 grant from Glens Falls Hospitals Creating Healthy Schools and Communities program, and we are in the middle of our Fill The Boot fundraising campaign, so we are ready to expand, Devin Bulger, the food pantrys director, said. We didnt have the logistical bandwidth we needed before.

Free fruit and vegetables will be available beginning Friday, July 7 and running weekly through October at the Hadley Senior Center in Saratoga County from 10:30 to 10:50 a.m., and from 10:55 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. at the Hadley-Luzerne Library in Lake Luzerne, in Warren County.

The Washington County schedule is similar to last years but includes Fort Ann.

We found we had a need there, Bulger said. So we added a stop.

The Washington County schedule, which will be on Fridays, starts at 10:30 a.m. at the Kingsbury Senior Center, then Earl Towers at 11 a.m., the Fort Ann Fire Department at 11:50 a.m., and the Whitehall Rec Center at 12:30 p.m. The final stops are at Skenesborough Harbor in Whitehall at 12:55 p.m. and Mountain View Commons in Granville.

All stops will run until November, except the Whitehall Rec Center, which will end Sept. 8.

Bulger said the food will be available for all who need it.

Glens Falls Hospital and Washington County EOC are partnering on the program, and the expenses are underwritten by the state Department of Healths Creating Healthy Schools and Communities program.

The Agricultural Stewardship Association and Battenkill Community Services are partnering with the group on the gleaning and washing efforts to make the food available to the Fresh Food Pantry program.
The stories are horrific.

I know, Ive heard quite a few of them. Each time I write about the sexual abuse of children, I get another email or phone call from someone wanting to tell their story.

The victims are decades removed from the abuse  many at the hands of the clergy  and are still searching for what has so far been elusive: justice.

In New York, victims of child sexual abuse cannot bring charges after the age of 23. Considering what we know today about victims repressing these crimes, blaming themselves and fearing no one will believe them, the law is a travesty.

What is an equal travesty is that the Legislature in Albany has been unable to deliver that justice for more than a decade, and with time running out in the legislative session, the chances dont look much better.

The Child Victims Act, which extends the statute of limitations to the age of 28 and allows victims to file lawsuits up until age 50, passed the Assembly 139-7 with both Dan Stec and Carrie Woerner voting for it. Gov. Andrew Cuomo also endorsed the bill this past week, leaving it in the hands of Republicans in the state Senate.

It is up to them to deliver justice.

So far, that appears unlikely.

What they are reluctant to do is to provide past victims with their day in court.

The bill provides a one-year window for victims to file a lawsuit against their abusers, regardless of when the abuse took place.

It allows the victims their day in court.

It allows them closure.

Last month, the director of communications for the New York State Catholic Conference told the Legislative Gazette, People today cannot be held responsible for the atrocities committed by people of the past.

While I agree the people cant, the institutions they represent should.

Thats justice.

Thats the right thing to do.

State Sen. Elizabeth Little does not support the Child Victims Act because of the one-year look back. She has chosen to protect the financial concerns of institutions like the Catholic Church over victims.

On Friday, she met with two victims who were sexually abused as children and still did not change her mind.

I dont see how she can look the other way.

I dont know how you cannot be morally outraged.

The victims should be allowed to have their day in court. If you believe in justice, you must support that.

There was a headline earlier this week that shocked this community: Sex sting busts 12.

Police advertised online for men wanting to have sex with underage girls.

According to police, 12 pursued the offer. They included a downstate corrections officer, a radio personality and a school bus driver.

More than half of the accused lived locally.

We like to believe these crimes are isolated incidents that cannot happen to our children, but this sting suggests otherwise. The sins of the past are still with us today.

But what should be more shocking is the state Senates inaction in addressing this issue and its choice to support powerful institutions.

These were children who were terrorized.

It is time to do the right thing.

Give these victims their day in court.

They have until Wednesday.
We see it every day.

People are saying anything they want on any subject without any concern about whether it is true or not.

And there are no repercussions.

We would be surprised if you disagreed.

The anonymity of the internet has eroded not only our manners, but our ability to conduct vigorous debate in any sort of civilized manner. The rise of social media as a staple of our culture has encouraged an ugliness in our debates, as half-truths and outright lies have become accepted norms in the political arena.

We have seen it first-hand, from commenting on our website, to a more aggressive attitude toward reporters and editors from those elected to office.

Where is the honesty and integrity?

Where is the mutual respect?

Our newspaper was dragged down into the muck recently at a Queensbury Town Board meeting where a councilman speaking publicly criticized editorials that had appeared in the newspaper.

There was nothing wrong with disagreeing with our editorial board and the stand it was taking. Healthy debate is part of any great democracy and a way to find the best solutions to community problems.

But then Councilman Doug Irish described the newspaper as akin to fiction.

That got our attention.

You cant believe half the things thats in it, Irish said.

We thought about overlooking it, chalking it up to a bullying politician who was pursuing his own agenda, or perhaps it was just a loss of perspective in the heat of the moment. We are told his words were delivered sternly, but not angrily.

Our credibility is everything to us.

Those words were fighting words for the men and women at our newspaper who strive each day to tell the stories of our community, get the facts right and, most of all, take responsibility for those facts by signing their names and pegging their reputations on the work they do.

Were proud of that work.

We estimate we have 50,000 to 60,000 sets of eyeballs on our newspaper every day and we believe those readers are not forking over their cash because of our creative storytelling.

They are doing it because they want the news.

They are doing it because we take responsibility for the facts we present.

They are doing it because we have credibility.

Thats why weve been here since 1904.

And when we make a mistake  and we do more than we like  we correct it, clarify it, acknowledge it and try to learn from it.

So when someone calls our reputation into question, as Doug Irish did on June 5, we are not going to sit back and just take it.

If Irish truly believes that half the stories in The Post-Star are untrue  that would be about 150 every month  we challenge him to immediately contact us and identify the 150 stories over the past month he believes are fiction and provide evidence why, and we will aggressively investigate each and every one of them to find the truth.

We know he wont do that because none of it is true. Our reporting is solid and so are our facts.

Perhaps Irishs statements were meant to be hyperbole, and he was carried away by his passion for a particular point of view while being caught up in the limelight.

He needs to know that was wrong.

He needs to know that a war is being waged across the country on hard-working journalists that goes to the upper echelon of politics  you know who we are talking about  in which lies have become accepted. Without journalists to call out those elected officials, we will truly be lost.

And conditions are getting worse.

Earlier this year, a reporter asked a Montana congressional candidate a question about health care reform. The candidate grabbed him by the neck with both hands and body-slammed him to the ground and then started punching him.

The candidate won the election the next day and initially denied the incident happened. But this past week, the congressman pleaded guilty to assaulting the reporter and apologized. The judge fined him $385 and sentenced him to community service and 20 hours of anger management counseling.

The judge said he did not believe the maximum fine of $500 was necessary for the millionaire.

We find that chilling.

But this is where we are. This is the atmosphere in which our reporters now work, with Town Board members demeaning their labor as fiction.

Irish should acknowledge he went too far, because it seems like only a matter of time before some local politician will start throwing punches in the belief they have the right to do so because they can afford the $385 fine.

That behavior is unacceptable.

Calling our work fiction without factual basis is unacceptable, too.

And it must stop.
Editor:

Million Dollar Beach is caught up in a cycle of closures due to the overflow of untreated sewage into Lake George after heavy rains. The No Swimming alert for parts of Lake George is always an unwelcome sign because it means three things:

1. The water can make people sick.

2. It will drive away tourism.

3. That Gov. Cuomo and state legislators, like Sen. Betty Little and Assemblyman Dan Stec, need to continue to prioritize investments in the states clean water infrastructure, as needs have ballooned to more than $80 billion following decades of disinvestment.

In 2015, Environmental Advocates launched our #FixOurPipes campaign, because no New Yorker should live in fear of the water they drink, swim in or fish from. This past winter, we worked with local officials and experts from Saranac Lake, Troy and Amsterdam to draw attention to New Yorks grossly outdated and failing infrastructure. Were proud to have secured a $1 billion investment in water infrastructure grants, to be spent over several years, and applaud the governor and legislators for bringing clean water issues to the table.

Still, even with community leaders statewide doing the absolute best they can, water main breaks and raw sewage contamination happen regularly, placing us, our environment and our economy at risk.

In order to keep our water clean, safe and attractive to tourists who our economy depends on, New Yorkers need the state to invest at least $800 million annually in our water infrastructure.

There are a million reasons to fix our pipes. A clean and safe Million Dollar Beach is one of them.

Liz Moran, Albany
Editor:

Men and women are taken from their homes, arrested in front of their children, placed in unmarked vans and carried away from their everyday lives and into an uncertain future. Lives lived day-to-day caring and providing for their families, supporting their communities, adding to the economy, paying their taxes, all the while working long hours at low-paying, labor-intensive jobs that many of us would find too grueling to even attempt. Is this Germany in November of 1939? No, this is upstate New York in the spring of 2017.

Our area has a significant immigrant population, and whether or not we are aware, these people contribute to our lives every day; some work long hours on our farms, helping to keep our grocery shelves full and those prices at a reasonable level. They are craftsmen who keep our buildings sound and attractive. They are essential members of our faith communities attending services and participating in our many ministries. Their children are brought up fully in their faith and live it to the fullest by taking part in children's liturgy, faith formation and helping carry food pantry donations to be delivered, etc.

If these families suddenly disappear from communities, the impact would be immediate and deeply felt. Is this actually happening in our country? Yes, every single day. Should we take action to stop the debilitating effects of an unjust executive order? Absolutely and immediately!

Please contact your state and federal representatives, the governor's office or anyone you feel could make an impact to change this discriminatory policy.

Kathy Bryant, Argyle
Editor:

Isnt anyone listening! President Trump wants to renegotiate the Paris Climate Agreement. The so-called Paris Climate Agreement means nothing. The Senate did not pass this Paris Climate Agreement.

Can you imagine China and India would be able to pollute for more than 20 years and as usual the USA is left to pay all the bills. If everyone is so serious about fixing the climate, get together and make it fair for all countries.

I love how the Democrats and Republicans alike have given away our monies to other countries like it is theirs. We the American people are left to pay for all the giveaways, government officials. Senators and representatives all get their pensions and health care given to them by us. What do they really care about the futures of our children?

Marietta Alitz, Newcomb
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Turning the ship before it hits the iceberg
Despite protests and concerns that the state of Iowas new family planning network will limit access  especially to those living in rural areas  the Iowa Department of Human Services oversight council on Friday approved agency rules guiding the program.

The vote comes two weeks before the new program is set to start on July 1 and just two days after the council initially rejected those rules.

The Republican-controlled legislature this session decided to forgo federal dollars for family planning services such as cancer screenings, sexually transmitted infection testing and birth control for low-income men and women. Instead, it set aside $3 million to create a state-run program that would exclude facilities that provide abortions, such as Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood since has announced it would close four of its 12 Iowa clinics on July 1  a move that will affect more than 14,600 individuals. The womens health organization is closing clinics in Keokuk, Burlington, Sioux City and the Quad-Cities.

A cloud of confusion appeared Wednesday after council members rejected the rules in a rare 4-1 vote, citing access concerns as Planned Parenthood clinics, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and UnityPoint-Health would no longer be eligible providers under the program.

The council met again Friday to hear from the Attorney Generals Office as well as DHS. The council members initial concerns were not remedied, but they passed the administrative rules after Gretchen Kraemer, a representative from the Attorney Generals Office, said the program would have proceeded even without the councils OK, as it is mandated by the legislature.

It is important for the rules to reflect the law, Kraemer said, to ensure the program is fairly and consistently implemented. If not, there could be confusion among patients and providers.

I completely disagree with the legislation, but in some ways theres nothing to vote against here because, in some ways, the rule has to match the legislation, said Kim Spading, a council member and pharmacist from Coralville.

Council members asked DHS to provide them with the same data it plans to present to legislators in January that will look at access to services and providers for the first six months of the program. Members also voted to draft a letter to send to legislators that lays out their concerns.

It is the will of the council to raise these issues and have them talked about and to signal to the legislature that we have a problem with that, council Chairman Mark Anderson said.
1. Q-C connection

Within hours of the tragic shooting that targeted Republican lawmakers and staff members Wednesday morning in Alexandria, Virginia, we learned that the man who opened fire had spent time in the Quad-Cities, volunteering for the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders before the 2016 Iowa caucuses. James T. Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Illinois, died after he was shot by police at the scene of the shooting. As the news unfolded, former Davenport Alderman Wayne Hean recalled meeting Hodgkinson during the caucus campaign.

2. Back in office

The Muscatine mayoral saga continued last week with major developments. On Wednesday, lawyers for the City Council and ousted Mayor Diana Broderson argued their cases before a Muscatine County District Court judge. On Thursday, the council members who removed Broderson from office took the first steps toward appointing her replacement. Then, Friday, Judge Mark Smith rules that Broderson must be reinstated immediately while her appeal of the council's decision is heard in court. Stay tuned for more.

3. Primary winners

Marion Meginnis and Carlton Wills will move on to another election on July 11 as they vie to represent Davenport's 3rd Ward on City Council. Meginnis and Wills finished in the top two in Tuesday's primary, which eliminated four other candidates in the race. Turnout was low with 513 people casting ballots out of 7,716 registered voters in the ward. Meginnis received 260 votes, or 50.1 percent, to Wills' 147 votes, or 28.6 percent.

4. Big development

Costco Wholesale's plans for a warehouse store north of 53rd street to the west of Elmore Avenue in Davenport got a big boost Friday as city staff recommended that a rezoning request and development plan be approved. The next step in the process comes at 5 p.m. Tuesday when the city's Plan and Zoning Commission takes up the plans. After that action, the project moves to the City Council.

5. Road to success

Davenport's Veterans Memorial Parkway project also took a big step forward last week as the City Council awarded a $6.1 million contract to Valley Construction Co. of Rock Island for the final phase of the roadway. This will complete the section from Jersey Ridge Road to 500 feet east of Elmore Avenue. It was more than 12 years ago that the council gave its authorization for the project, which has taken several twists and turns since then.

6. High-level meeting

There's no question the project to build a new Interstate 74 bridge over the Mississippi River is a big one. Still, another sign of its importance is that it will bring the governors of Iowa and Illinois together for their first joint appearance here in memory. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner are expected to be in the Quad-Cities on June 26 for the groundbreaking ceremony to kick off construction of the new bridge.

7. 'Fighting for her life'

We learned more last week about the seriousness of the injuries Sharica Hamilton, 25, suffered when she was struck by a car June 7 at River Drive and Division Street in Davenport. Her former partner, Marquise Begley, told reporter Tara Becker that "My baby is fighting for her life." Hamilton is being treated at University Hospitals, Iowa City. Meanwhile, Hamilton's current partner, Shonda Rena Carter, 40, is accused of willful injury causing serious injury, serious injury by vehicle and operating while under the influence-second offense.

8. Wedding rescue

The most popular story on our website last week was about a groomsman taking a break from wedding photos to rescue a toddler who fell into the lagoon at Vander Veer Botanical Park in Davenport. Lance Wilden, 24, of Davenport, was with his sister and the rest of her wedding party when Wilden saw the boy head toward the water and fall in. Wilden was able to reach in and pluck the toddler out of the lagoon, but that did a bit of a number on his rented tux. An usher loaned Wilden his jacket so the photo shoot could continue while a bridesmaid called Ducky's to arrange for another tux.

9. Lots of rods

Hundreds and hundreds of hot rods, muscle cars and vintage vehicles took over the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds on Monday. It was all part of the 23rd annual Hot Rod Power Tour, sponsored by Hot Rod Magazine. Davenport was the third stop on the weeklong tour that started in Kansas City, Missouri, and ended Friday in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

10. Neighborhood pantry

A new trend is moving into the Quad-Cities, patterned after the Little Free Libraries that began popping up in the area and across the country a few years ago. Except, these boxes contain food for those who need it. Reported Jack Cullen profiled a Little Free Pantry that Nancy Barton has spearheaded at Grace Lutheran Church, 1140 E. High St., across from Genesis Medical Center-East Rusholme Street. While reporting on that pantry, Jack learned that there are several other Little Free Pantries scattered across the Quad-Cities.
Three at conference

Three Bismarck Public School Wellness Committee members attended the 31st annual Roughrider Health Promotion Conference May 30-June 2 in Medora.

They are Tami Doppler, a physical education teacher at Liberty Elementary School; Leah Wheeling, a physical education and health teacher at Simle Middle School; and Stacey Knudson, a Title 1 teacher at Miller Elementary School.

The purpose was to evaluate participants school health and community programs and develop action plans for making improvements. Sessions were based on the components of Coordinated School Health.

FCS fellowship

Robert Richter, Menoken, is among 14 students who recently completed the Farm Credit Fellows Program through North Dakota State University.

The undergraduate program in agricultural finance was created four years ago by the NDSU College of Agriculture, Food Systems and Natural Resources and AgCountry Farm Credit Services in Fargo. Participating partners include Farm Credit Services of Mandan, Farm Credit Services of North Dakota and United FCS.

Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics and College of Business students in their sophomore, junior and senior years can apply to the program during fall semester. Those accepted receive a $1,000 fellowship scholarship and complete a segment of educational training through AgCountry FCS followed by an advanced agricultural lending course taught at NDSU during spring semester.

Ryberg selected

Karen R. Ryberg, of Bismarck, has received a Love of Learning Award worth $500 from The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.

Ryberg, a research statistician, plans to use the funds from the award to attend the useR! 2017 conference in Brussels, Belgium.

One hundred people nationwide received the award during Session A of the societys program. It is to be applied toward post-baccalaureate professional development.

Ryberg was initiated into Phi Kappa Phi in 2012 at North Dakota State University.

Honorary degree

Sister Thomas Welder, University of Mary president emerita, received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Saint Anselm College, Manchester, N.H., during its recent commencement.

Welder had served the longest tenure as female president at any college or university in the nation when she retired in 2009 from U-Mary, with which she was associated for 31 years.

Active in community, state and national professional, civic and religious organizations, Welder is a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Annunciation Monastery in Bismarck.
Their stories may differ in detail and geography, but the bottom line is still the same.

They are all refugees now living in the Quad-Cities. And they love it.

More than 200 refugees and volunteers attended World Refugee Day on Saturday at Black Hawk State Historic Site, Rock Island. Activities included a Walk for Freedom for those who made the journey out of harm's way, in memory of those who lost their lives trying, and to pray for those still in danger.

A cultural festival followed to celebrate while introducing refugees to Quad-City locals.

This is International Refugee Day and this is to celebrate World Refugee Day here, said Kelly Stewart, event coordinator for World Relief, Moline, the organization that facilitated the move of most refugees in attendance to the Quad-Cities.

Stewart said, originally, they were supposed to receive about 225 refugees in 2017. However, because of the executive order from President Trump placing more restrictions on immigration, Stewart said they have only received about 100 thus far.

Myanmar

Tathaynaw Lawch, 18, graduated from Rock Island High School in 2016 and now is attending Scott Community College, Bettendorf.

I came here six years ago with my family, she said.

Her family is from Myanmar, but moved to a refugee camp in Thailand before she was born. She spent the first nine years of her life there, before they moved to the United States nine years ago. Three years later, they moved to the Quad-Cities.

They do not have the opportunities there like here, she said. It is hard to find words how I feel, but they do not have high education over there. Here, we have more opportunity.

She was among five girls who performed a traditional Karen culture dance during the event.

Cuba

Norge Ross Exposito and his wife, Katiusca Cespedes Cespedes, have been married 15 years, have two boys and lived in Cuba until three and a half years ago, when they moved here.

They have to wait two more years before they can apply for U.S. citizenship, at which point they also would be able to try to get relatives into this country.

This is our dream, Ross Exposito said. For us, America is paradise. We are very happy every day.

Here, we are treated like humans, Cespedes said. And in Cuba, we were not. We are very happy here. We feel very happy and calm all the time.

Autumn Gross of Moline, is a volunteer for World Relief and helps in many ways, including serving as interpreter for Spanish-speaking refugees.

The reason why I do it is because I love meeting all the different people from cultures and learning who they are.

Somalia

Muna Abdi is from Mogadishu, Somalia, but spent seven years in a refugee camp in Ethiopia before arriving in November 2015 in the Quad-Cities.

She is 27, has four children and now lives in Moline. She was in the refugee camp with her husband when three of her children were born. She developed a giant cell tumor in her leg. And because she also was pregnant at the time, it helped expedite her exit from the camp to the United States, she said.

She also said her father was murdered and her sister died delivering a baby because there was no doctor or medicine available.

But Abdi received surgery at University Hospitals, Iowa City, upon her arrival, to remedy her leg issue, and now enjoys her new life very much.

Good. Beautiful. Smile. Living here is no problem, she said.
Martha Martinez has been twice victimized, the latter occasion by Muscatine County Attorney Alan Ostergren.

Martinez is a "dreamer" brought into the country as a child and, by upbringing, an American. But a draconian system forced the 31-year-old Muscatine woman into the shadows. It drove her to the black market for fake identification so she could get a job and drive a car. She was, in a very real sense, a victim of a broken immigration system, left that way for decades by congressional spinelessness and seething white anger.

Martinez' story is shared by millions. It's sad. It's inhuman. But Ostergren just couldn't help himself. He had to pile on.

Ostergren, a Republican, used Martinez' desire to simply participate in society against her. In 2013, Martinez enrolled in President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, created by executive order, which recognized that far too many residents immigrated illegally as children through no choice of their own. DACA remains one of the few Obama-era executive orders President Donald Trump has yet to overturn.

Ostergren weaponized Martinez' DACA paperwork, charging her with identity theft and forgery because it exposed that, at 17, she obtained a second identity to get a job. It's prosecutions like this that keep people in hiding by eroding trust in the government. By its very existence, DACA implied a certain level of protection for those who enrolled.

Ostergren's crusade of cruelty failed this month in Iowa Supreme Court. By a 4-3 ruling, justices concluded that Ostergren overstepped his bounds and wrongly interjected himself into federal policy.

Yet it's the fallout from over-eager prosecutors like this that tend to live on. The damage is probably done.

Roughly 40,000 undocumented immigrants lived in Iowa in 2014, according to Pew Research Center. That's more than a quarter of Iowa's immigrant population. Some 3 percent of students enrolled in K-12 education in the state -- 15,000 children -- were children of undocumented, primarily Mexican, parents.

By and large, these are families who come seeking work. They're lured here by entire economies -- especially dairy and produce -- that actively court them. They bring children who, ultimately, come of age knowing a purely American experience, albeit an unnecessarily harsh one.

It's into these communities that local police agencies have spent years building relationships. The lack of legal status means undocumented immigrants are prime targets for scams, abuse and human trafficking. They can also be key witnesses in criminal investigations. But playing ball with the police could, after all, get an undocumented worker deported. So, it's the cops that have, in many cases, chosen good community based policing over immigration roundups. And it's paying off to everyone's benefit.

That's until officials like Ostergren come along looking to turn people into felons.

The legal campaign against Martinez smacks of an official with ambition looking to check the boxes. Ostergren has never made any bones about his desire for a higher post. He's sought judgeship. And, now, he's on the shortlist for a U.S. attorney post within President Donald Trump's administration.

People are more than an ends to a means, Mr. Ostergren. Ms. Martinez' life is, in every regard, of greater import than your career. Ostergren is but a player in a viscous cycle. Martinez would have been a prime candidate for deportation had he succeeded at making her a felon.

The years-long legal battle speaks to the pure nastiness that's infected some circles of conservative politics. It's a zero-sum worldview that caters to economic angst and racial anxiety. It's a cruel, arbitrary use of the judicial system that turns people into political statements. It results in the massive round-ups now happening throughout the country, which pay little attention to the social mechanics that lure immigrants into the U.S. in the first place.

There's no doubt that undocumented immigrants in Muscatine County will be just a little more skeptical of all law enforcement and the government after Ostergren's shameful crusade.

It's charades like this that make communities less safe for everyone. And the taxpayers of Muscatine County funded Ostergen's attempt at elevating his profile.
Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa recently said that President Obama is partly to blame for the ballpark shooting, because Obama focused on our differences rather than on things that unify us.

That statement may be getting close to setting a record for making the most jaws drop open. Obviously, King's dislike for Obama allowed him to edit and rewrite in his mind what he wanted Obama to be saying, as Obama said it.

In other words, he heard what he wanted to hear. Since his comment is so patently untrue, it makes him seem delusional, if not downright kooky. But then you stop and think of Kings many other bizarre comments, and you realize yes, he's kooky.

Many of us native Iowan's now tell people that they must have heard wrong, we tell them Steve King is from Ohio, not Iowa. No offense Ohio, but sometimes you got to do, what you got to do.

Tom Hebbeln

Davenport
The first partnership with a private company leasing office space at Ellsworth Air Force Base that was announced nearly two years ago is bearing fruit for the company and the Rapid City job market.

Virginia-based Advance Health recently bolstered its Medicare call center workforce from 50 to 75 employees while working out of the first floor of the Financial Services Center building at Ellsworth.

Chief operating officer David Pierre said the company plans to employ 100 people by the end of this year  then double the number in 2018.

Weve been so pleased with the town and the Rapid City workforce, he said.

Advance Health serves clients in 48 states and needed a central or western call center.

The company worked with the Governors Office of Economic Development and a lease arrangement with Ellsworth came about through the South Dakota Ellsworth Development Authority, the Rapid City Economic Development Partnership, and the Air Forces Enhanced Use Lease program, which allows military bases to rent underused or vacant space to private or public companies willing to pay fair-market value.

The Financial Services Center, a military pay processing center, opened in 2007 and employed up to 550 civilian and military employees until federal budget cutbacks cost nearly 400 of the employees their jobs in 2011.

The remaining Financial Service Center employees work on the second floor of Building 4040 at the base. Advance Health is only using about a third of its leased space, even with the recent workforce expansion, Pierre said.

At the time of the announcement at the end of June 2015, Advance Health officials had projected employing 200 at the Ellsworth facility within five years.

We should be there in about 2-1/2 years, Pierre said.

Advance Heath was founded in 2010. Many of their call-center employees are nurse practitioners helping Medicare patients manage their care.

At the time of the announcement, then chief operating officer Kevin W. Davis had expressed concerns with employee access to their work space inside a secure military installation.

Pierre said those concerns have mostly been unfounded, with employees undergoing their usual background checks and being able to come through base security with their company-issued badges.

New job prospects are sometimes taken aback with the level of security measures, but quickly acclimate when they are hired, he said.

The company has also hired family members of active-duty service members at the base, he said.

Employees are also able to take advantage of other family perks on the base, such as shopping at the base exchange or use of the base theater, Pierre said.

Business is good, and weve enjoyed the relationship with the folks out at Ellsworth. Theyve been pretty good to work with, Pierre said.

Advance Healths appeal for potential employees also includes starting wages ranging from $16 to $18 an hour.

Pierre said the company looks for employees who are knowledgeable about health care and energetic about helping people keep their medical care costs contained.

A relaxed, fun atmosphere  including employee lounges on site and performance bonuses  augment the strong salaries offered and that allows Advance Health to be competitive with other customer service centers in the area.

"Most of the customer service centers have had to be fairly aggressive in the wage structure just to secure talent and keep it from going to other outfits," said Ben Snow, president of the Rapid City Economic Development Partnership. "We like to see them pushing the upper boundaries of that, because that just means theres an opportunity for those individuals to be a go-getter, and be productive and come to work with a smile on their face and be rewarded."

Advance Health recently celebrated joining the Rapid City Area Chamber of Commerce with a commemorative ribbon-cutting ceremony at the base. Joining the Chamber of Commerce is a way of connecting more with the community, Pierre said.

I dont think a lot of people know about us because were not directly in Rapid City, and were out at the base, he said.

Even with the relative isolation of the base location, Pierre sees the lease arrangement continuing into the foreseeable future.

I view this as a long-term partnership, he said.

Snow said the partnership with Advance Health should help Ellsworth stay viable as part of the Black Hills community.

"That makes Ellsworth score better, if and when theres ever a time when people start looking at what air bases need to stay open and which bases need to close, he said.
PIERRE | The people participating on South Dakotas health-care solutions coalition are trying to accomplish good.

They are searching for ways to shift responsibility for the cost of health care.

Ideally, the federal government would pay millions of dollars more for Indian health services. State government then could compensate Medicaid providers at higher rates.

Would the citizens of our state see any relief? I wonder too about federal debt.

That black hole grows deeper and deeper, day after day. Its like a credit card. You can charge and charge some more. Until the card is maxed out and youre finally broke. Then what?

Right now, South Dakota is looking to follow Wyomings lead. Wyoming is arranging a system that would share savings.

Whatever amount Wyomings state government can shave from Medicaid spending for American Indians would be partially shared with tribal health programs.

Wyoming wants to bring its state spending into line.

But Wyomings plan relies, too, on shifting more responsibility for care for American Indians to the federal government.

You can argue that health care is a right. But then you might have to argue about who pays for the care.

The federal Indian Health Service is responsible, but Medicaid kicks in when IHS-eligible people are referred outside IHS. State and federal governments split Medicaid.

The headlines in recent weeks tell us several things.

They say that many of the Republicans who currently run Congress and rule the Oval Office want to repeal Obamacare. They also say that millions of people would lose health insurance without a solid replacement.

I dont know which side would win a national vote.

I do know from earlier times in my life what its like without any health insurance. And I know, from help we gave to our parents, what its like to face bills beyond what most people can pay.

Then there is the role of money for research.

We have three large  at least for South Dakota  providers of health care that arent government agencies. They receive donations and grants for research.

The work is admirable. Its also a black hole for governments. The research revenue disappears, protected from state and federal taxes.

Gov. Dennis Daugaard commissioned a study while President Barack Obama was still in the White House.

Daugaard wanted to know whether South Dakota could afford to expand Medicaid, so that low-income working people would be covered.

The study changed the Republican governors mind. He seemed ready to recommend pursuing the idea that the Democratic president had offered to state governments.

Then many Republican legislators made clear they didnt support expansion. That probably wont change. The coalition though keeps searching for ways to still get there.

I dont see the political climate for that right now, Sen. Deb Soholt, R-Sioux Falls, said Tuesday about expansion of Medicaid at a coalition meeting.

Shes a member. So is Rep. Jean Hunhoff, R-Yankton.

Youve got to have the money to be able to do it, Hunhoff said.

Right now we dont. It is unlikely a deeply conservative state ever will.
BELLE FOURCHE | Reports of state and local government revenue last year from special taxes on bentonite mining totaled $5.5 million in Wyoming, $1.3 million in Montana  and zero in South Dakota.

South Dakotas lack of revenue was not attributable to a lack of bentonite, or to a lack of mining. Miners have been extracting the absorbent gray and tan clay  used in a multitude of products ranging from cat litter to drilling fluid  from beneath South Dakotas soil for decades. And state regulators are now considering a company's application for additional bentonite mining to take place northwest of Belle Fourche.

The reason South Dakota receives no tax revenue from bentonite mining is because the state does not tax it, unlike its neighboring states, which do.

Meanwhile, South Dakota has laws that impose special taxes on the mining of gold, silver, coal, lignite, petroleum, oil, natural gas, uranium and thorium. Those taxes collectively produced about $6.3 million of tax revenue during the 2016 fiscal year.

Among numerous state and local officials interviewed for this report, nobody knew for sure why the severance tax has not been applied to bentonite. State Sen. Gary Cammack, R-Union Center, ventured a guess.

When most people think of bentonite, they probably think of it as a high grade of gumbo soil, Cammack said, speaking of a type of soil that becomes a sticky paste when wet.

In other words, South Dakotans, whose ancestors may have been among the homesteaders who used bentonite to wash their clothes and lubricate their wagon wheels, are conditioned to think of bentonite more as a useful mud than a lucrative commodity.

But bentonite mining is big business, and it has been for a long time.

Millions in dollars, tonnage

In 2015, there were 200,799 tons of bentonite mined in South Dakota, according to the 2016 annual reports filed by mining companies with the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The reports do not list values, but if the tonnage is multiplied by the 2015 average price of $74 per ton as reported by the U.S. Geological Survey, the value of the bentonite mined in South Dakota in 2015 was roughly $14.86 million.

The tonnage mined in 2015 was less than half the 2014 amount of 485,689 tons. Looking further back in time, millions of tons have been extracted since the commercial mining of bentonite in South Dakota began during the 1920s.

Nearly all of the bentonite mined in South Dakota has come from a northwest-to-southeast running corridor between the Wyoming state line and Belle Fourche, just north of the Black Hills and parallel to U.S. Highway 212, the Belle Fourche River and a set of railroad tracks.

There was formerly a processing plant in Belle Fourche, but now all of the bentonite mined in the Belle Fourche area is hauled across the border to Colony, Wyo., for processing. Many of the train cars that pass through Belle Fourche and downtown Rapid City on the Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern Railroad are either loaded with processed bentonite or headed back to Colony to be refilled.

The bentonite in the Belle Fourche area is thought to have formed millions of years ago from volcanic ash that settled into a vast inland sea and was buried under layers of earth. Early settlers in the West called it soap bog, soap clay, mineral soap or soda bog. It was formally named bentonite in 1898 because it was thought to exist in the Benton Shale formation, which was named for Fort Benton, Mont.

Bentonite mining is conducted with scrapers, dozers, excavators, loaders and other machines that are used to dig pits as deep as 50 feet, where deposits of bentonite are extracted. As the work moves from one pit to the next, earth from newly opened pits is used to fill the previously opened pits.

In the early days of bentonite mining, companies often did no further reclamation, the process of returning a job site back to its natural state. South of Highway 212 between Belle Fourche and the Wyoming line, there are old mine sites where grayish mounds of barren earth have been left without topsoil or vegetation for decades.

Since the passage of reclamation laws in the 1970s, the state has required that new bentonite mines not only be filled but also graded, covered with topsoil and reseeded.

The bigger of the two companies that mine for bentonite in South Dakota is American Colloid Co., which is headquartered in Illinois. American Colloid is owned by New York-based Minerals Technologies Inc., a publicly traded company that reported sales of $1.6 billion in 2016 and described one of its segments as the worlds leading producer of bentonite.

A pending mining application from American Colloid to the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources would allow the company to re-open a previously mined, square-mile area that is 12 miles northwest of Belle Fourche, north of Highway 212. The area is privately owned, and the company has agreements with affected landowners and mineral-rights holders. The mine is projected to yield about 35,000 tons of bentonite annually for 15 years, beginning next year if the company obtains a state permit.

Melody Smith, an environmental specialist for American Colloid and one of the companys 188 employees in the Colony-Belle Fourche area, said the previously mined site has become attractive again because of new mining techniques and new uses for varying qualities of bentonite.

Governor 'not inclined'

Most of the bentonite mined in the United States comes from Wyoming. Comprehensive state-by-state data is difficult to find, but the U.S. Geological Survey reported total U.S. bentonite production of about 4.2 million tons in 2016. A separate report from Wyoming says that state produced about 3.7 million tons of bentonite in 2016, which equates to nearly 90 percent of the national total reported by the USGS. The remainder of U.S. bentonite is produced by a handful of states, including South Dakota and Montana.

In Wyoming, a state severance tax on bentonite generated about $1.3 million in 2016 that was split among the states general fund, a state trust fund and various other funds. Meanwhile, an ad valorem tax on bentonite generated roughly another $4.2 million for Wyoming counties, schools and cities.

In Montana, a production tax on bentonite generated $286,081 in revenue for the state government and about $1.01 million for local governments in 2016.

In South Dakota, mining companies pay sales taxes like other businesses do on things such as equipment purchases. And sales tax is applied to bentonite when its sold to a South Dakota customer, or when its included in a manufactured product that is sold in South Dakota, such as cat litter.

But there is no special tax, such as a severance tax or production tax, on bentonite mining in South Dakota. And there is no special property-tax designation to adjust the valuation of land converted to mining, and there is no corporate income tax.

State Sen. Cammack is chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, which considers mining legislation. He said he could not remember bentonite ever being discussed in the context of a severance or production tax. Neither could Rep. Tom Brunner, R-Nisland, the vice chairman of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. Neither expressed initial support for taxing bentonite, and both said they would need to study and hear testimony about any such proposal before making a final decision.

Tony Venhuizen, chief of staff to Gov. Dennis Daugaard, gave a similar answer. He said the governor equates bentonite more to sand, rock and gravel  which are not covered by the state's severance tax  than to gold, silver or oil.

"For that reason," Venhuizen said, "although the governor would be willing to consider arguments, he is not inclined to support a proposal like this."
WASHINGTON (AFNS) | Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson addressed the Air Force Associations Air Force Breakfast Series June 5, 2017, at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C.

During her remarks Wilson spoke about the proposed Air Force budget for the fiscal year that starts October 1.

The fiscal year 17 appropriations stopped the decline, Wilson said. This proposed budget for fiscal year 18 starts to restore readiness and modernize the force.

Wilson also announced changes in aviation bonuses to help retain pilots and announced the next fighter deployment to Europe as part of the European Reassurance Initiative.

Readiness

To continue to address readiness, the budget proposal includes an increase in active duty manpower to 325,100 Airmen while also adding 800 reservists, 900 guardsmen and 3,000 civilians. The total force will increase by about 9,000 people to 669,611.

The budget also funds flying hours, maintenance and training at or near the maximum executable levels given the size of the force and the overseas commitments in which the Air Force is engaged.

Because the use of munitions in operations against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is out-pacing productions, the Air Force is working with industry to expand weapons production and the budget funds this effort.

Modernization

The fiscal 2018 budget prioritizes the top three acquisition programs to modernize the force: fighters, tankers and bombers.

 The budget funds purchase of 46 F-35A Lightning II fighters and modernizes other fighters.

 The budget buys 15 KC-46A Pegasus tankers and expects to sustain steady state production at that level for at least the next five years.

 The B-21 Raider bomber development continues to be funded.

The budget supports the continuation and modernization of the nuclear triad with both air and ground based modernization advances.

Space

Over the past several years, the Air Force has been developing new operational concepts to ensure freedom of action in space and to integrate space with the joint force.

The Air Force has been the leader on space for 54 years, Wilson said. The Air Force will continue to integrate, normalize and elevate space as part of the joint warfighting team.

This years budget increases the Air Forces space funding from $6.5 billion in fiscal 2017 to $7.8 billion in fiscal 2018.

Innovation for the Future

The Air Force is taking advantage of new acquisition authorities. It is sponsoring an experiment in August 2017 to evaluate low-cost, permissive environment attack aircraft. The project has gone from approval by the Chief of Staff to an operational capabilities assessment in five short months. Less than three months from now, the Air Force will flight test the aircraft.

Its not a procurement, it is an experiment, but we want to see what the experiment tells us and whether we can move forward with a different way of getting capability from the lab bench to the flightline and the warfighter faster, Wilson said. We are going to have to move faster on a lot of things because our adversaries are innovating faster than we are.

While long-term research on air dominance is increased significantly in this budget, basic and applied research remains flat. Over the next several years, the Air Force will seek to increase research where we need to maintain a competitive advantage  hypersonic vehicles, directed energy, unmanned and autonomous systems.

Retaining Pilots and Aircrews

Pilot retention right now is at crisis levels when it comes to fighters and we are changing around the way we do incentive pay, Wilson said. We have added in significant administrative support to the squadrons which was taken away in the wake of sequester.

Wilson used the occasion to announce a revised structure for aviation bonuses aimed at retaining more pilots and aircrews. The new structure allows the Air Force greater flexibility to work with Airmen on what might work best for them, and focuses resources against the greatest needs.

Its intended to encourage pilots to stay where we need them the most, Wilson said. So the bonuses are higher where the need is most critical. It also gives flexibility in lengths of contracts so that pilots have more say about the length of their commitment, and we hope this will help us to keep more pilots in the Air Force.

Strengthening Alliances

Wilson also announced that, as part of the European Reassurance Initiative, in early 2018 the Air Force will deploy an Air National Guard unit of F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters to Europe for three months to bolster U.S. European Commands combat capable air forces. The most recent deployment as part of this initiative included the first overseas deployment of the F-35A Lightning II.

I believe also, as does the Secretary of Defense, that we are stronger together than we are alone and that we work in concert with our allies to defend the national interests of the United States, Wilson said.

When on active duty in the Air Force, Wilson served as a planner at Headquarters 3rd Air Force at Royal Air Force Mildenhall and at the U.S. mission to NATO in Brussels, Belgium.

We are committed to defend our allies and ourselves in a concept of collective self-defense which has kept us safe for many decades, she said.
Wieland awarded

Connor Wieland, a 2017 Mandan High School graduate, has received a $1,000 Road to Success Scholarship from Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Co.

He was selected from among Grinnell Mutual policyholders based on classroom achievement and a safe driving record.

Wielands parents are Michael Wieland and Kirstie Wieland.

Tanck gets scholarship

Toni Tanck, of Williston, has received a scholarship for the 2017-18 academic year from Missouri State University, Springfield.

Tanck was awarded the Midwest Student Exchange Program Fee Waiver.

Scholarship applicants were evaluated on their ACT scores, grade-point average, standing in their graduating class and leadership shown in community and school activities.

Freedom essay winners

Three local fifth-grade students were selected as winners in the Bismarck Sertoma Clubs sixth annual Freedom Week essay contest. The topic was What Freedom Means to Me.

The winners were Shawna Kluck, first place, from Sunrise Elementary School in Bismarck; Taryn Malmedal, second, Lincoln Elementary School in Lincoln; and Madi Herzog, third, Sunrise Elementary.

The three winners read their essays to the Sertoma Club members in May.

The first-place winner received a $150 gift card, second $100 gift card and third $50 gift card.

During Freedom Week, Bismarck Sertoma Club distributes copies of the Declaration of Independence to all fifth-grade students in Bismarck-Mandan, and provides DVDs of Declaration of Independence teaching materials to teachers.

NDSU scholarships

Two Bismarck-Mandan students are among those receiving $6,000 North Dakota State University Provosts Scholarships, which recognize high acedemic achievement.

Cheyanne Klein, daughter of Troy and Heather Klein, Mandan, will enter NDSU in the fall and plans to major in agricultural education and animal science. In high school, she was active in FFA, National Honor Society and volleyball.

Allie Geiger, daughter of Jeff Geiger, Bismarck, and Vicki Geiger, Bismarck, also received the Robert John and Mary Tyanich Olson Scholarship in the amount of $474. Geiger will enter NDSU this fall and plans to major in psychology. In high school, she was active in Kay Club, Bismarck High School Demonettes and National Honor Society and graduated as a valedictorian.

Merit Scholarships

Several area young people are among winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by U.S. colleges and universities.

Each sponsor college selected its scholarship winners from among the finalists in the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution.

These awards announced in early June provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study. An additional group of scholarship recipients will be announced in July.

Area recipients:

 Tanner R. Carlson, Baldwin, graduate of Century High School in Bismarck, National Merit University of Oklahoma Scholarship. Carlson is considering a career in religious service.

 Lauren R. Buchholtz, Bismarck, CHS graduate, National Merit University of North Dakota Scholarship; probable career in medicine.

 Lauren Foley, Bismarck, CHS graduate, National Merit University of Minnesota Scholarship; probable career field is publishing.

 Garrett R. Havelka, Bismarck, Bismarck High School graduate, National Merit North Dakota State University Scholarship; probable career field is agricultural science. The NDSU Merit Scholarship program was started in 1975 by a gift from Lawrence Welk.

 Leif J. Rue, Bismarck, CHS graduate, National Merit University of Minnesota Scholarship; probable career field is actuarial science.

 Sarah M. Miller, Glenburn, Glenburn High School graduate, National Merit University of North Dakota Scholarship; probable career field is computer science.

 Kelsey N. Bohan, Minot, graduate of Minot High School-Magic City Campus, National Merit University of North Dakota Scholarship; probable career field is accounting.

Art show winners

Student winners have been announced in the Bismarck Public School Districts Career Academy art show, as follows:

Photography-scenic  first, Jacob Reiner; second, Lyndsey Schevrer; third, Caleb Gazette; honorable mention, Juana Marchuk.

Photography-special effects  First, Van Larson; second, Place: Emmanuel Oyma; third, Shelby Mertz.

Photography-still life  First, Shelby Mertz; second, Kaylee Fiddler; third, Connor Picard; honorable mention, Jade Stocking.

Photography-portrait  First, Connor Picard; second, Destiny Deneault; third, Andrew Klein.

Depth field  First, Cole Chauen; second, Ben Bianco; third, Kali Koester.

Digital illustration-vector  First, Karsyn Kirby; second, Jennifer Roerich; third, Rebekah Detwiler; honorable mention, Ashley Braun and Abdoul Sow.

Teachers choice  Kaylee Fiddler

Digital illustration-raster  First, second, Jade Stocking; third, Rebekah Detwiler.

Illustration-traditional  First, Naomi Hegwood; second, Alesha Egan; third, Jerral Murray.

Illustration-cartooning  First, Erin Anderson; second, third, Keya Luger; honorable mention, Anna Hantke.

Poster  First, third, Madisen Houston; second, Jeffrey Sandoval; honorable mention, Alissa Simpron and Kaleb Klein.

Teachers choice  Jayda Weishaar and Naomi Hegwood.

Poster event  First, Sienna Bittner; second, Lyndsey Scheuer; third, Cole Craven; honorable mention, Jacob Reiner.

Teachers choice  Shelby Mertz and Jacob Schwarz.

Handmade book  First, Keya Luger.

Business package  First, Ryder Jenson; second, Marcos Arrendondo.

Logo design  First, Josh Betz; second, Jonathon Radford; third, Van Larson.

Pin design  First, Stetson Bergstad; second, Madison Houston.

Ads  First, Benjamin Arbach; second, Cole Craven; third, Monica Bertsch;

Teachers Choice  Johnathan Radford.

T-shirt design  First, Alesha Egan; second, Ben Bianco; third, Ryder Jensen.

Best of show  Jacob Reiner, photography-scenic; Madisen Houston, poster design.

Feist awarded

Andrew Feist, Bismarck, has received a scholarship from the American Family Insurance Dreams Foundation Inc.

Son of Jeff and Beverly Feist, he graduated from Bismarck High School and plans to attend Southwest Baptist University.

Vetter samples research

A science project studying native plants led high school senior Mya Vetter, of Linton, on a path to a two-week summer undergraduate research program in public health at North Dakota State University.

In her high school project, Vetter studied plants to see if compounds in them could treat Native Americans with diabetes. While participating in NDSUs summer research program over two weeks in May and June, she learned more about how to conduct research and participated in hands-on activities in on-campus labs in plant sciences, biology, genetics and microelectronics.

Her initial interest in science was sparked in her work with a professor at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck.

Vetter plans to attend college to become an emergency room nurse.

The NDSU public health summer research program, in partnership with the North Dakota IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence, gives students an opportunity to immerse themselves in research topics. Students from tribal high schools and colleges who participate in the program learn about indigenous research methodologies and research practices, enhance professional development and meet future mentors.
The number of enrolled students who missed school for one reason or another was up in the Rapid City district last year, despite attempts by administrators to reverse what has been a troubling trend of falling attendance levels.

After a national group presented data showing that Rapid City schools had some of the lowest attendance rates in the nation, Superintendent Lori Simon made it a point to find ways to reverse that trend.

The 2016-17 school year saw a slight decline in attendance levels, but a decline nonetheless. In the past academic year, 70 percent of the students in the Rapid City school district attended class 94 percent of the time. Thats down by 1 percent from the prior year, when 71 percent of students were in class 94 percent of the time.

One contributor to Rapid Citys low number last year, Simon said, was likely the spike in flu-related absences this winter. In one two-week period, the school district saw more than 60 absences.

Last years decline follows a trend established within the last several years, during which data showed that the Rapid City school district has some of the poorest school attendance in the country.

A recent report by the national group Attendance Works showed that of the 6.5 million students identified as chronically absent in the U.S. during the 2013-2014 academic year, half were concentrated in just 4 percent of reporting school districts. Rapid City fell within that slim margin of poor performers.

Rapid Citys roughly 70 percent attendance level stands in contrast to the 80 percent attendance rate in Sioux Falls, the only district in the state that is larger than Rapid City.

We did have some success stories along the way, said Simon, who has made increasing attendance one of her top priorities since she took the helm of the district last summer. Even though Im somewhat disappointed, I am very proud of the work that we did collaboratively across the schools and with parents.

While the overall numbers were slightly down, some individual schools made significant strides in improving attendance from 2015 to 2016. For instance, attendance at Horace Mann Elementary in North Rapid increased by nearly 11 percent, from roughly 61 percent in 2015 to 72 percent in 2016. Here are some other schools that saw improvement in attendance rates:

At Knollwood, attendance went from 64 to 67 percent.

At Pinedale, attendance went from 81 to 82 percent.

At Valley View, attendance went from 75 to 77 percent.

At Robbinsdale, attendance went from 66 to 69 percent.

At South Canyon, attendance went from 71 to 75 percent.

At Wilson, attendance went from 73 to 77 percent.

At North, attendance went from 51 to 53 percent.

Horace Mann saw a lot of success in improving attendance, Simon said, because of the persistent efforts put in by the schools principal and staff members to get students to class.

They took a very proactive progressive approach to attendance, she said. They monitored the data daily, weekly, monthly and every trimester. The principal met with parents, and I know she worked with partners to provide rides to the most needed students. And they provided a lot of incentives as well.

Simon expects that she and district officials will begin to take a look at whats working for these schools and try to replicate or adapt those ideas to other schools.

Offering free rides to students on the citys Rapid Ride bus program boosted bus usage overall and was anticipated to lead to an increase in attendance across the district. Simon credits the program for the improvement at North Middle School.

From September to May, the Rapid Ride program saw more than 88,000 youth rides.

From the city's perspective, the program offering youth free transportation was a complete success, said city spokesman Darrell Shoemaker. It succeeded this year in bringing awareness to young people of the importance of public transportation as well as providing youth, parents and families with an important transportation option they did not have previously."

Simon takes a similar upbeat approach to the results. She spoke with the Journal over the phone on Thursday evening from an education conference in Denver, where she spent the day in workshops focused on attendance policies.

Simon said she heard from at least a dozen school districts that have been proactive in tackling the attendance problem but didnt see improvements for four to five years. What she learned, she said, is that the Rapid City school district is on the right track, but it will take time before noticeable changes set in.

We are doing the right thing, Simon said. We just need to go deeper with the work.
Sometimes, a good deed can literally take flight.

The Black Hills Raptor Center rescued a juvenile male kestrel outside the Rapid City Police Department on Thursday and successfully released it Friday morning.

The kestrel, which is a small falcon, was seen on the ground near the facility. Facility employees thought the bird had hit a window. According to raptor center co-founder John Halverson, the raptor was uninjured but too young to fly back to the nest.

The raptor center rescued the kestrel and kept him overnight for observation. Halverson said that although the bird was uninjured, he could become prey for other animals if he is unable to fly away.

The raptor center released the kestrel on the roof of the public safety office Friday morning. Halverson said the kestrel flew away immediately, where he was greeted by an adult female kestrel, likely his mother, and the rest of the family group.

Just giving him that opportunity to get up off the ground up there was all he needed," Halverson said.

Halverson said the raptor center receives about 70 to 90 rescue calls a year, which generally involve juvenile birds that leave the nest prematurely. The raptor center recommends such birds be put in a tree or somewhere off the ground. For more information, go to blackhillsraptorcenter.org.

Helpline Center launches Summer of DIY

DIY isn't just for Pinterest anymore.

Earlier this month, Helpline Center Volunteer Connections launched its "Summer of DIY," a program to connect local people with volunteer projects.

A news release from the Helpline Center says that each Tuesday throughout the summer, Helpline Center Volunteer Connections will post on its website, social media pages and weekly volunteer opportunity email a do-it-yourself, hands-on volunteer project. The program says all projects will benefit local nonprofits.

Once completed, the projects can be delivered to the Helpline Center office at 529 Kansas City St., Suite 201, and Helpline Center staff will then deliver the projects.

These are fun hands-on projects families can do at home with their children, said Lynn Taylor Rick, Helpline Center volunteer connections coordinator, in the release. Not only will the projects benefit local nonprofits, but they will keep the kiddos busy during the summer months. And its nice to start building that culture of giving in your kids while theyre young.

To see directions for each weeks DIY project, "like" the Helpline Centers Facebook page, follow it on Twitter or Instagram or sign up to receive weekly emails.

For more information, call the Helpline Center at 211 or visit helplinecenter.org.

Black Hills FCU employees walk for charity

Black Hills Federal Credit Union employees hit the pavement last month for the Black Hills MS Walk in Rapid City, according to a release from the credit union.

The Black Hills MS Walk is an annual fundraising and awareness event benefiting the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Through fundraising, BHFCUs employees donated $1,450 to the National MS Society in addition to the walk.

Employees and members also donated $250 to the Rapid City Fire Departments Fill the Boot fundraiser to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association, participated in various Adopt-A-Mile highway cleanup projects, collected 1,552 books for the South Dakota Department of Healths youth literacy initiative and hosted a blood drive benefiting United Blood Services of the Black Hills.

This month, BHFCUs employees are participating in a Community Action Team project to benefit the Black Hills Area Humane Society and Black Hills Habitat for Humanity.

Veterans to get free dental care

On Saturday, June 24, veterans around the country will have a chance for free dental care.

Nearly 450 Aspen Dental practices across the country, including in Rapid City, will provide a day of free dental care for veterans, according to a release from Aspen Dental.

The release says the June 24 Day of Service will be Aspen Dentals fourth annual and is part of Aspen Dentals Healthy Mouth Movement, a community-giving initiative to deliver free dental care to veterans.
The tranquility of a residential neighborhood on the north side of town was shattered Saturday, when a man was shot and killed by authorities after firing at a Rapid City police officer.

The man who fired the shots was pronounced dead at the scene. The state Attorney General's Office identified him Saturday evening as Joseph Paul Hogan, 48.

His next-door neighbor knew him as a friendly person and motorcycle enthusiast who often worked on cycles in his garage at the home on the north side of Viking Drive just east of Colt Lane.

Lee Abshire, who lives next door to the home where the shooting took place in the 300 block of Viking Drive, said he saw much of the incident unfold and heard everything that went on.

Abshire has lived in the neighborhood that is just east of North Haines Avenue for 26 years, and he said it has always been quiet and friendly. Prior to Saturday, his neighbor fit right in.

He never talked bad about anybody, Abshire said.

On Saturday, according to Rapid City Police Chief Karl Jegeris, police responded to a report of an active shooter situation around 12:15 p.m. Jegeris said there were shots fired from a residence there before police arrived, and several more shots were fired once police arrived on the scene.

Abshire, 68, said he was in his home watching TV and reading a book sometime after noon when he heard two popping sounds.

My dog's ears perked up, he recalled, adding that he thought maybe his neighbors motorcycle had backfired. Only later did he realize they were gunshots that came from his neighbors home.

Abshire went outside and saw his neighbors wife in their driveway, and she said something to her husband in the garage before heading into their home through the front door.

About five to 10 minutes later, Abshire heard a knock on his door, and it was a Rapid City police officer telling him he had to evacuate. Abshire said he headed down the road a block or so and was told by an officer that theres a guy on the roof with a gun before taking cover behind a parked car.

Abshire said he saw his neighbors wife, daughter and two grandchildren run from the home during the incident.

Apparently, he got down off the roof at some point, Abshire said of Hogan, whom he knew only as "Joe."

Several more police officers soon arrived and began taking up positions all around Hogans home, including at locations across the street and behind the home, Abshire said. At one point, Abshire then heard two or possibly three more gunshots, and he saw all the officers duck down but keep their guns pointed at his neighbors home.

Soon after, Abshire said he then heard officers shouting into the garage of Hogans home. Numerous times, maybe 14 or 15 times, I heard the police say, Drop your weapon, drop your weapon,'  Abshire said.

After a few moments, Abshire said he then heard two small pops, then one big pop, and he assumed his neighbor had fired twice, and that the police had fired once, though he couldn't be sure.

Police offered a similar account of events. According to Jegeris, as police worked to evacuate the homes in the area, the man who had been firing shots exited the house and threatened an officer.

When Hogan then fired a shot at the officer, the officer returned fire. The officer who shot Hogan has not been identified. No law enforcement officers were hurt.

By 1:30 p.m., Jegeris assured the public the scene had been secured and there was no ongoing threat in the neighborhood.

"Public safety has been restored," he said in a video posted to the department's Facebook page. "I'm very thankful that no law enforcement and no other citizens were injured in this event."

The Pennington County Sheriff's Office handled scene security until the state Division of Criminal Investigation arrived. Rapid City Police Department asked DCI to handle the investigation, which Jegeris said is standard protocol for officer-involved shootings.

This is the second fatal officer-involved shooting in Rapid City in two months. On April 27, Tim Holmgren was shot and killed by a South Dakota Highway Patrol Trooper in his Harmony Heights apartment after he barricaded himself inside and told law enforcement the building was "wired" with explosives.

Abshire said his next-door neighbor had lived at the home on Viking Drive with his wife for about a year. Abshire said his neighbor had several guns, including a rifle, handgun and shotgun and had shown them to Abshire a while back.

Abshire said there are many children in the neighborhood, including his neighbors two grandchildren.

Im just glad none of the kids got hurt, he said.

Abshire said he couldnt think of another time violence had broken out in the neighborhood of mostly single-family homes.

This is the most excitement weve ever had, and we dont need any more of that, he said. I just cant imagine why this happened. It baffles me how things could be bad enough to do something like this.
RAPID CITY | Ella Mable "Midge" Howie-Darragh, 73, passed away on Feb. 27, 2017, in Rapid City.

Midge loved to sing, play keyboard, tell jokes and to entertain family and friends. She was born in Philadelphia, and moved to SD at the age of four. Her parents took her and her three siblings on many adventures while on the mission field in Iowa, Canada, and Bellingham, WA, from 1950 to 1960, finally settling in Rapid City.

She was married in 1962. She enjoyed raising her four children while traveling to AZ, WY, MN from 1962 to 1976; finally deciding to settle in Seattle in 1976.

She married David Darragh in 1980 and loved being part of the New Horizon Band. The family attended Mill Creek Four Square Church while living in Seattle. Midge loved singing on the worship team and going on a Mission trip to Mexico led by Pastor Bob Hasty. She returned home in 1999 to spend time with her parents and grand kids. She always called SD her home and in her later years started working at the Open Bible Christian Center Dream Kids Daycare. Midge loved being called Grandma Midget by these little ones as they grew up in the church. Her life centered on family, friends and her savior Jesus Christ. She was a mighty prayer warrior throughout her life, which continued while she was in the nursing home with Parkinsons disease. While living at Meadowbrook she would make the staff smile by telling jokes, praying with them and sharing her chocolates. She will be missed by all who knew her.

Please come and celebrate her life with us at 3 p.m. on Sunday, July 2, at the Open Bible Christian Center.

She is survived by her sisters, Darlene (Rev. Jim) Kallenberg and Pauline (Tom) Grey; her brother, Rev. Thomas Howie; her son, Timothy J.T. Hanson; her daughter, Judy (Kelly) Trenary; her son, Tony (Melissa) Darragh; nine grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents, Rev. James and Frances Howie and daughter, Darlene Joy Fowler.

Memorial donations may be made in her name to Dream Kids Daycare.
STURGIS | Father Lyle Fay Martin, 91, died Friday, June 16, 2017, at the Fort Meade VA Hospital.

He was born March 26, 1926, in Erwin, SD, to Joseph and Hannah (Munger) Martin. His father was an Irish orphan who came out west on an orphan train, and Fr. Lyle spent many years searching for his ancestors. After graduation in 1944, he enlisted in the US Army, and his very first combat experience was in the Battle of the Bulge. He received the Bronze Star and many other awards for his bravery there. He never forgot General Pattons command to be the best soldier and return home to be the best citizen he could be. Fr. Lyle was a proud American and a true patriot.

After his honorable discharge, he returned home and married Jean Larson. They had four children, and he worked for Northwestern Bell Telephone Company as a lineman, salesman, and manager for 18 years. In 1964, he became a salesman for Equitable Life in Gregory, achieving million-dollar roundtable his first year. Later he became broker/owner of Martin Real Estate in Sturgis and Belle Fourche.

Lyles faith was always strong, and after the death of his son, Bob, in 1983, Lyle made the choice to become a deacon in the Episcopal Church, and from there he began his ascent towards priesthood. At age 63, he entered the seminary, and upon his ordainment, he served the parishes of Mobridge and Gettysburg. Later, he served in Winner, Watertown, Sidney and Blair, NE, and ended his career in Gregory, at the age of 85.

As a priest, Lyle did many great works. He strongly believed that his mission was to serve his fellow man. In many of the towns where he served, he started thrift stores and food banks to assist the less fortunate in his community. For this work, he was recognized as Citizen of the Year in Sidney, Blair, and Winner, and in 2016, Governor Daugaard proclaimed March 26 Father Lyle Martin Day.

Lyle was the idea man. Like many people, he had great ideas, but the difference is, he always followed through, never stopping until he accomplished what he had set out to do. Lyle will be most remembered for his charismatic sense of humor. He was a proud Irishman and a great story teller; one could never predict what he would say next, but he always got the punch line right.

In 2006, Lyle married Moyra Pospisal of Winner, and they moved to Gregory. They had 10 happy years together until her passing in 2016. As a priest, Lyle officiated the weddings, baptisms, and funerals of many people throughout South Dakota, but he was especially proud to officiate the weddings of his grandchildren and baptisms of his great-grandchildren.

He is survived by his daughters, Lynne (Pete) Greenwaldt, Rapid City, and Randi (Rob) Oviatt, Whitewood; his son, Dan (Julie) Martin, Rapid City; stepdaughters, Liane (Doug) Christensen, Ideal, Laurie Pospisal, Sioux Falls, and Beth (Geoff) Simon, Bismarck; stepsons, Terry (Peggy) Pospisal, New Orleans, and Lance Pospisal, Sioux Falls; grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Cody, Darla, Ashlyn, and Rhys Greenwaldt, Castle Rock, CO, Liza, John, Kali, Damon and Aspen Lushbough, Rapid City, Megan, Curtis, Waylon, and Martin Jones, Sturgis, Cara Oviatt, Sturgis, Nate, Sammie, Max, and Will Oviatt, Rapid City, Anne, Jason, Seth, Cash, and McKenna Phillips, Rapid City, Alison, Brad, and Langston Short, Rapid City, and Molly Martin (Cameron Price), Rapid City.

He was preceded in death by his parents; his son, Bob; his sister, Lila; his brother, Donald; and his wife, Moyra.

Visitation will be from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 20, at Kinkade Funeral Chapel.

Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday, June 21, at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, with Bishop John Tarrant officiating.

Memorials will be directed to Lyles legacy of thrift stores and food pantries. The family would like to thank the State Veterans Home in Hot Springs and the Fort Meade VA Hospital in Sturgis for their kind, compassionate care.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.
MISSOULA  A discussion this week on social media about two drawings on the wall of the Sunrise Saloon that some see as racist has led to plans for a protest at the bar next weekend.

Helping to organize the protest is Danielle Breck who, along with four others, is listed as one of the hosts on the event's Facebook page. Breck and others have left reviews on the bar's Facebook page calling the artwork racist.

Breck got involved after she was approached by her friend and another host of the protest, Yolanda Garcia, who was upset by two paintings at the Sunrise Saloon  an image of a black man holding a whiskey bottle with the caption, I knows de ropes and another of three men hanging, a photo that Breck said appears to depict a lynching.

In my opinion, the skin tones arent horribly clear, but they all have what appears to be African-American hair, Breck said. Not super obviously clear they are black, but when the owner said to us when we walked in the first time was, 'You want me to paint them white, Ill paint them white, and its a painting he commissioned.

Kammy Zavarelli, owner of the Sunrise Saloon, said she was getting payroll done on Friday and did not yet want to speak publicly about the artwork. She said she would address the issue sometime next week.

We still have a business to run, Zavarelli said.

In the review section of the bar's Facebook page, the comments range from support of the bar's right to display the art it chooses to people telling the bar they will never return.

"I used to dance here on swing dance nights, but wasn't unaware of the racist imagery. I will never ever return and will tell everyone I know to do the same," one person wrote.

Another said, "Love this bar! Great service, great music," and questioned anyone who worried about pictures on the wall. "Take MT history. Our vigilantes did not think about race. They lynched criminals."

Breck went to the bar on Wednesday along with a representative from the Montana Human Rights Network and asked if the bar would take down the images. The bar removed the one of the man with the whiskey, but has left the one with three men hanging.

Now Breck is helping to organize a protest of the bar next Saturday.

We strategically planned for a night when they have a band coming in, Breck said.

The hope is that people heading to the bar that night will instead join the protest, she said. The Sunrise Saloon is a private business and can choose to hang what it wants on the wall, but people can choose to protest its choices, Breck said.

Beverly Edmond is the University of Montana interim provost and vice-president for academic affairs. In 2016, she and a colleague published the book Trailblazing African American Public Administrators. For her, the issue isnt about hiding the history of Montana, but about providing appropriate context for images like these.

Edmond has visited the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture where there are photos displayed of African-Americans being lynched, but those photos are presented as a dark part of Americas history, she said. The museum also acknowledges the country has moved beyond that, Edmond said.

The art would make Edmond feel uncomfortable as a customer and she would raise her concerns about the artwork with others, she said.

Would I go beyond to protest, insist they take it down? No. I wont cross that line, Edmond said.

Edmond supports the bars freedom to display things the images, even if the display shows a lack of sensitivity, she said.

In a Facebook comment on June 4 the bar wrote that the painting was of an actual hanging of horse thieves in Missoula County.

In the old West, a horse thief was hung, the post said. It didnt matter if you were a man, a woman, old, young, white or purple.

But if the people hanging in the photo are African-American, then the image cant be viewed without the racial component, said Tobin Miller Shearer, director of UMs African-American Studies Program.

While I support freedom of expression and certainly the ability of anyone to display or present things they value, to attempt to ignore or downplay the history of lynching in this country and its use against African-Americans is a bit naive, Shearer said.

Saying the men in the photo are just horse thieves doesn't address the fact that while lynching was rare in Montana, African-Americans were hanged at a disproportion rate for the states racial makeup, Shearer said.

One of Shearers students worked to find all records of African-American hangings in Montana history, with some records going back as far as 1867. Shearer could not find an incident in Missoula of African-Americans being lynched for horse thievery, but said that doesnt mean it didnt happen.
Four of the approvals were officially registered on Nov. 8  Election Day in the United States.

Under normal circumstances, renewing trademarks in Russia is generally a routine matter, and there is nothing to suggest from the few public records available that Mr. Trump was shown favoritism. Still, extensions are not guaranteed and can be subject to challenge  particularly if, as in this case, the trademarks went unused for years, according to interviews with a half-dozen lawyers specializing in intellectual property law.

And there is the unprecedented variable of the applicant, Mr. Trump, an American presidential candidate, seeking approvals from a foreign power that United States intelligence agencies concluded had tried to tip the campaign in his favor. As with other federal agencies in Russia, any sensitive decisions by Rospatent  whose director was handpicked by President Vladimir V. Putin for a previous job as deputy culture minister  are presumed to align with the views of Mr. Putin.

Beyond the questions about Russian government approvals, the trademark renewals cast doubt on Mr. Trumps oft-stated insistence that he has no business interests in Russia. Mr. Trump has made the claims in response to investigations of possible collusion between his associates and Russia during and after the election.

Photo

Although Mr. Trump has not managed to develop hotels in Russia despite attempts over the years, and has disclosed no active business ventures there, his intellectual property holdings are a valuable commercial interest. The extension of trademarks such as Trump International Hotel and Tower protects his brand in that country and preserves conditions for potential business deals.

Trademarks have inherent value, per se, as they allow you to stop others from using the mark either by stopping competing registrations or stopping infringing uses, said Annsley Merelle Ward, an expert in intellectual property law at Bristows law firm in London.

In addition to the six trademarks that were renewed, the Trump Organization has two Russian trademarks that are due to expire next year. That Mr. Trump had obtained trademarks in Russia decades ago for unsuccessful projects has been previously reported; the existence of last years extensions was discovered by The New York Times during a recent search of Rospatents records.

A Rospatent spokesman initially agreed to accept questions, but then did not respond to them. Hope Hicks, a White House spokeswoman, referred questions to the Trump Organization.

Alan Garten, the chief legal counsel for the Trump Organization, said the renewals had been sought to prevent third parties from infringing on the companys intellectual property rights. He added that the Trump trademarks had not faced formal challenges, despite their inactivity, and that there were no plans to use them in the future.

The company will not be seeking any new business opportunities in Russia, Mr. Garten said.

Used or not, the trademarks are very important, something Mr. Garten has previously addressed in defending the Trump brand elsewhere. In a 2015 deposition related to an infringement dispute in the United States, he testified that Mr. Trumps trademarks generally were one of his most valuable assets.
Guwahati: The city based Emerge Diagnostic under the guidance of Dr Dhrubajyoti Gogoi on Saturday conducted the evening OPD clinic at Guwahati Press Club (GPC) for the benefit of its members along with their dependants.

The 17 June health camp, organized under the series of GPC's Evening with a Doctor' programs, helped nearly 50 participants to check their blood pressure & sugar with haemoglobin, cholesterol, bilirubin, creatinine etc. The camp was supported by health workers namely Aminul Islam, Khanin Deka and Hemanta Deka from the pathology laboratory.

The unique healthcare initiative was launched by eastern India's pioneer pressmen's organization GPC last year, where well-known institution Dispur Hospitals extended initial support to raise a doctor's chamber at the club premises in August 2016. The premier hospital under the leaderships of Dr Jayanta Bardoloi also conducted

the first episode of the media clinics.

Till date, practicing doctors from Apollo Chennai Hospital, Medanta-the Medicity Hospital, Manipal Bangalore Hospital, Down Town Hospitals, GNRC Hospitals, Dispur Hospitals, Wintrobe Hospital, Narayana Super-Specialty Hospitals, Swagat Super-Surgical Institute, Shankardev Nethralaya Guwahati, Barthakur Clinic, Rahman Hospitals, Sun Valley Hospital, Government Ayurvedic College, MMC Panbazar, Institute of Dental Science & Research Center etc have attended the camps.

The next OPD clinic at GPC will be conducted by Sight First Eye-Clinic on 24 June, where Dr Shubhra Kinkor Goswami would supervise the camp. The 1 July media camp is assigned to the city based Nemcare Hospital and 8 July for the Bangalore based Fortis Hospitals.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said President Trump wants to "take down" special counsel Robert Mueller, who is conducting the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to Trump associates.



The president wants to take down Bob Mueller. His lawyer wants to take down Bob Mueller," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told ABC News' This Week Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz in an exclusive interview Sunday.



"The question is why," Schiff continued. I think the answer is they want to lay the foundation to discredit whatever Bob Mueller comes up with. Theyre essentially engaging in a scorched-earth litigation strategy that is beginning with trying to discredit the prosecutor.



Schiff was responding to a question from Raddatz on whether Trumps defenders are right to raise concerns that lawyers hired by Mueller have contributed to Democratic political candidates.



Anyone who knows Bob Mueller knows he is choosing the best people to serve on this investigative team -- people that have experience in the issues that he wants to investigate and believes need to be investigated, Schiff said.



President Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with the Russia investigation, including saying on Twitter on Thursday that the probe is the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people!



Raddatz also asked Schiff whether he believed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should recuse himself from overseeing the special counsel investigation after Trump appeared on Friday to refer to Rosenstein in a tweet, which said, I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt."



Rosenstein has privately discussed with colleagues the possibility of recusal, ABC News previously reported.



Schiff said the deputy attorney general would not need to recuse himself unless Mueller concludes that Rod Rosensteins conduct "may be culpable in some way, regarding the presidents firing of former FBI Director James Comey.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Brian Gary, as hes known on the radio, got his start at Y93 FM in Bismarck in 1985.

Now, after more than 30 years in the radio business, the Mandan High School graduate is being inducted into the Country Radio Hall of Fame in Nashville.

It is an unbelievable honor, said Gary, who started work on the morning show at K99 FM in Greeley, Colo., 30 years ago, with his partner, Todd Harding.

About 15 years ago, another North Dakota native and former Miss North Dakota from Bottineau, Susan Moore, joined the show, and the pair share their North Dakota pride and love of lefse with their listeners. The group has won two Country Music Association awards for small market morning personalities of the year and has been nominated for seven Academy of Country Music awards. Gary also was named Colorados Broadcaster of the Year last year.

The partners will mark the first trio ever inducted into the hall of fame, which is very very cool, Gary said.

Since Bob Beck gave Gary his first radio gig, hes never looked back.

Its what I always wanted to do, he said. I always wanted to be on the radio, to be that guy.

Gary said he was always the mouthy one in is high school class and every spare penny he had was spent on records. Hes also done stand-up comedy, getting his start at the former Front Page bar in Bismarck.

I never had a plan B, he said.

This week, following the Fathers Day weekend, hell be on his way to Nashville. And the father of two, grandfather of three, feels so lucky that his own father and mother will be in the crowd Wednesday for the induction.

Im so fortunate my dad is like the greatest man in the world. Hes everything God intended a man to be, said Gary, adding that his father always has been at his side or at his back leading and pushing. Any time Im down or stressed, all of a sudden my phone rings and its my dad.

Were very proud; its quite an honor, said Garys dad, Gary Flaa.

Flaa said his youngest son has achieved many honors but the hall of fame induction will be a highlight.

Flaa said he remembers when Gary first got started in Greeley and the station decided to make the switch from pop music to country. Gary had grown up on country music with his father but later on, I was an absolute rocker, Gary said.

Gary called Flaa saying, Oh, Dad, I dont think I can do this.

But after Flaas encouragement, Gary is a diehard country fan.

Im just a long-haired country boy at heart, Gary said. Im exactly where Im supposed to be.

Gary said his kids wont be able to make it to Nashville for his induction but, theyre absolutely elated for me. He said they grew up going to the radio station and events with him and they know firsthand what it has taken for him to get to this point in his career.

A love for his job is what has kept Gary at it. He said the novelty of each day keeps it interesting.

Theres always new music, new artists, he said. The world changes every day and I get to comment on that  Thats what I get paid to do. I can't imagine doing anything different.

One of the reasons Gary and his partners were inducted into the hall of fame is their show has been a champion of new artists. Rather than just bringing visiting artists into the studio, the group takes artists to local clubs, bringing them in front of their listeners to help them launch their careers.

Gary also is still doing comedy, hosting an improvisation show once a year and bringing in country music artists, including Old Dominion and Dan + Shay, to star in the skits. The show often sells out, with the money raised going to local organizations for abused children, which Gary calls the greatest accomplishment of my career.
Guwahati: At least five people including a couple were killed and two others missing in a massive landslides in Meghalaya's Umiam area on Saturday morning.

Nine persons also injured in the landslide incident, who were immediately rushed to hospital.

The incident took place at Tharia village under Umiam police station triggered by heavy rains in past couple of days.

A top official of Meghalaya police said that, five bodies have been recovered, who were trapped by mud following landslides.

Among the deceased, three were identified as Loba Mahanta, Babi Mahanta (both hailing from Assam's Baska district and newly married couple) and Shanti Lama.

Suspecting more peoples have trapped under mud.

The top police official said that, two persons named Kristina Lama and Rina Lama (mother and daughter) are still missing.

Rescue team of Meghalaya State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Home Guards and police with the help of local villagers are engaged to rescue the missing persons.

On the other hand, nine persons named Sing Lama, Yam Kumar, Umesh Sharma, Seena Sharma, Lata Lama, Bunti Lama, Amita Dairy, Chandan Padmini were injured in the massive landslides.

Among them six were admitted at Shillong based civil hospital, while two were rushed to ganesh Das hospital and rest one admitted at NEIGRIHMS hospital,'A the police official said.

Meanwhile, Meghalaya government had ordered a magisterial inquiry to be headed by Kum D Phawa, MCS (ADM of Ri-Bhoi district) to probe the incident.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati : Trinamool Congress (TMC) has faced another set back after its Tripura unit vice president along with 500 leaders and members on Saturday had joined BJP ahead of assembly poll in the north eastern Indian state to be held next year.

The founder chairman of TMC in Tripura and present vice president Arun Chandra Bhowmik along with 500 leaders and members had joined the saffron party during a mass rally held at Belonia in South Tripura on Saturday.

Apart from the TMC leaders and followers, 200 members and supporters of ruling CPI (M) and over 45 Congress members also joined BJP at the same rally in presence of BJP's Tripura unit president Biplab Kumar Deb.

After joining the saffron party, lawyer Arun Chandra Bhowmik said that, only BJP can oust the ruling CPI (M) from power in next assembly poll in the state.

Criticising West Bengal Cheif Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Benerjee, Bhowmik said that, while BJP is serious to oust left front of Tripura, there is no chance of TMC as the party doing politics led by Mamata in Tripura.

'We don't like this type of TMC politics. Mamata has not given time for Tripura,'A Bhowmik said.

On the other hand, BJP's Tripura unit president Biplab Kumar Deb said that, his party will field their candidates in all 60 assembly constituencies.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
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The Times of India - 10 June 2017

Washington: Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights, sang the late Jamaican reggae master Bob Marley. Would he sing with the same verve if he were around today? He probably would since head have star power. But for ordinary folk everywhere, standing up can be a risky move.

Take what happened recently in Portland, Oregon, where two teen girls of colour, one wearing a hijab, were humiliated and asked to leave this country by a white nationalist aboard a local train. Three other passengers, who happened also to be white, got up, stood up, not for their own rights as much as the right of the threatened teenagers to respect and freedom. The nationalist man drew out a knife, killed two protesters and wounded the third. Standing up can cost lives.

You might ask, wasnat it always so? Yes, but violent hatred in civil society outside the battlefield is, by all accounts, bursting out more and more frequently, most disturbingly in democratic societies. Democracy is civilisationas best, if imperfect, foil to brute force. But when itas untethered to the rule of law within a constitutional system devised and managed by pragmatic minds, it can degenerate into mob rule or tyranny, as Plato had feared. In a degenerate democracy, random or organised violence becomes the norm. Citizens cower in resignation.

I, along with my wife and two daughters, have been fortunate to live in a rather extraordinary segment of space-time. And we have been luckier still in spending these interesting times in the two largest democracies in the world, India and the United States. The second half of the 20th century has by and large been a period of peace and prosperity. Sure, there have been hot wars as well as a major cold war but no worldwide conflagration. Nuclear annihilation has so far been averted. Pestilence is under control and no major pandemic like bubonic plague or deadly influenza or small pox has broken out.

Medical breakthroughs unprecedented in history have lengthened lifespans across humanity. Famines have broken out in this period, mass murders of ethnic groups have happened. At the same time, scientific and technological advances have erupted at an unprecedented pace altering the way we live our lives for mostly the better though, in some cases, not so much.

The 21st century thus far has been less promising about our future. The rapid advance of liberal democracy evident in the last decade of the last century suddenly appears to be in retreat. I donat want to sound alarmist but, in one respect at least, democracy is back to the wall in several countries. Itas the imperilled right to stand up for rights through the right of free speech.

Free speech is not without its downside, particularly in its hold-your-nose tolerance of verbal hatred and its consequent incitement to violence. As Voltaire said, perhaps apocryphally: aI disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.a Marley urged us to stand up for our rights taking for granted that crucial right of democracy: the right to free speech.

Extreme nationalists, racists, bigots of all shades are having a renaissance across the world. They are encouraged by a type of leader who makes intolerance a legitimate political platform. Such leaders have always been there but on the fringes. They have now emerged in power around the world. Liberals, much reviled by the far right and far left, are on the defensive.

The right is currently leading the charge against free speech. But the extreme left is complicit. In campuses across the US, speakers are not being allowed to speak because they espouse causes that go against the narrative of the left. Worse, there is an alarming demand for asafe spacesa for those who see themselves as victims of society and a growing movement against acultural appropriationa, by which members of a minority culture should have sole rights to express themselves about their grievances and no one else should be allowed to do so.

Gandhi, King, and Mandela would have been aghast. But they are so 20th century, arenat they?
Dhaka Tribune, June 09, 2017

Editorial

When people like Sultana Kamal and Afsan Chowdhury do not have the space to voice their opinions, all individuals are under threat

Is freedom of speech under threat in Bangladesh?

Recent events make it clear that the answer is most certainly yes.

Prominent human rights lawyer Sultana Kamal was threatened by Hefazat-e-Islam with physical violence after making hypothetical comments on a television talk show.

In the meantime, a legal notice was served demanding the arrest of veteran journalist Afsan Chowhdury, who has been accused under the ICT Act of defamation in a Facebook post.

Both cases point to a deeply disturbing trend in Bangladesh a the slow and steady clamping down of our fundamental, democratic right to free speech.

But as the two examples show, the threat to freedom of speech is coming from two different directions, one from extremists trying to hit at the constitutional freedoms of the country, the other from the government itself.

Because of these forces, the free press of Bangladesh is also under attack: Journalists routinely find themselves under fire for simply doing their jobs, and there are countless accounts of media personnel being assaulted by law enforcement agencies or politically-connected goons.

It is no wonder that Reporters Without Borders ranks as as one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom, ranking 146 in the Press Freedom Index.

We do not wish to live in a country where freedom of speech is merely a myth, where freedom of speech exists in principle but not in practice.

When people like Sultana Kamal and Afsan Chowdhury do not have the space to voice their opinions, all individuals are under threat.

For the sake of our democracy, we must stand up for and protect not only those we agree with, but also unpopular speech and dissenting opinions

o o o

[SEE ALSO: We will break every bone: Islamist leaders threaten Bangladeshi lawyer https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jun/16/we-will-break-every-bone-islamist-leaders-threaten-sultana-kamal-bangladesh-lawyer-statue-dhaka]
Nepali Times, June 11, 2017

In March, five people were killed in police firing as Madhesi cadres disrupted the East-West election campaign of the UML. The mob that attacked the rally in Siraha was led by Dinesh Yadav, a defector from the UML and once protected by the partyas Suman Pyakurel. Many saw him as being almost his foster son.

But Pyakurel did not support Yadav in the partyas seventh district convention in 2009, and Yadav fought party elections as a rebel candidate, but was defeated. After that he quit the UML and joined the Madhesi Jan Adhikar Forum.

Since then, Yadav has always nursed a deep grudge against the UML. He has torched the UML office in Saptari twice in the last three months, his supporters even attacked Pyakurelas family, forcing them to flee Saptari for two months.

Some Madhesi leaders of the UML say that their party is losing ground in the Tarai, and it is mainly because of their partyas wrong policy, behaviour and actions like this.

UML Secretary Yogesh Bhattarai disagrees. He says only some Madhesi activists have quit the party because of personal animosities, but it has nothing to do with the partyas policy. aThere is a conspiracy afoot to weaken us in the Tarai, and it is not difficult to see who is behind all this. Madhes-based parties are attacking us because our cadres refused to join them,a Bhattarai said.

However, it just takes a journey through the heartland of the Tarai to understand that Madhesi cadres of the UML are not turning against their party due to personal reasons. The main opposition party has largely failed to counter accusations that it is anti-Madhesi because its top leaders have often made statements that were misinterpreted as being anti-Madhesi.

Shrawan Yadav, a local resident in Janakpur, aMadhesi parties have often spearheaded powerful protests not because of their own strength but because they could cash in on UML Chair KP Olias derogatory statements.a

Oli has often tried to explain that he is not anti-Madhesi, and his statements have been misreported and misinterpreted. But this explanation has not reached the Tarai, and Som Prasad Sharma, the UML secretary in Dhanusa admits: aBecause of what our leaders say in Kathmandu, we find it difficult to retain our cadres.a

The UML has often neglected its loyal Madhesi supporters, creating an impression that there is indeed no room for them within this party. Jaya Krishna Goit, an influential UML leader in Saptari, was expecting a party ticket in the last local elections in 1997. But the partyas zone committee recommended Satya Narayan Mandal for the ticket, and the party high command did not approve Mandal either.

UML fielded Diwakar Devkota as its candidate for the Saptari DDC president. Devkota was junior to Goit, who felt humiliated and did not just leave the party but went on to form a violent armed group, inspiring many other outfits to take up arms.

Devkota did not win, but the UML did not learn its lesson. It kept ignoring its loyal Madhesi supporters, adding to the impression that it is just a hill-dominated party. UML leader Satya Narayan Mandal says his partyas Madhes policy has been in disarray ever since the death of charismatic leader Madan Bhandari in a car crash in 1993. According to him, Bhandari had formed a taskforce to study problems in the Tarai just a day before his

death. The taskforce held a discussion in some Tarai districts even after Bhandarias death, but its report was abandoned by the new leadership.

Says Mandal: aIf the UML had understood Madan Bhandarias vision, no one would have dubbed our party as anti-Madhesi today.a Mukesh Pokharel in Janakpur
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DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP)  Though many students look to summer break with excitement, it can be a source of anxiety for others.

Without the consistency of school breakfasts and lunches, some children do not have the same access to healthy food during the summer months, according to Tara Notz, principal for the Andrew (Iowa) Community School District.

"We know that offering them a variety of nutritious things is what's best for all of us," she told the Telegraph Herald. "During the school year, we're always able to offer that, but during the summer, that kind of goes away. ... Having that consistency in the summer is really good for them."

Enter a bevy of schools and community organizations, who collectively serve tens of thousands of meals to tri-state-area children over the summer.

Many organizations said they see an uptick in need for food during the summer, and they serve meals to combat that food insecurity.

"We feed kids every day, so it just makes natural sense to continue doing this during the summer," said Clif Cameron, director of food and nutrition services for the Western Dubuque Community School District.

On a recent afternoon at the Terrace Heights community center in northern Dubuque, 13 children enjoyed a lunch that included cheesy breadsticks, fruit slushies, curly fries and carrots. Staff from the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Dubuque and volunteers assisted the children as they received their meals.

"It was really good," said nine-year-old Caiden Cole.

This summer, the Boys and Girls Club expects to serve more than 30,000 free meals to children ages 6 to 18 at breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack sites around town.

The cost of the food is covered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Summer Food Service Program, with additional help from United Way of Dubuque Area Tri-States, according to Dan Reiter, program administrator for the Boys and Girls Club.

"The kids are assured of getting two good meals that are nutritionally complete each day at all the open sites," he said.

Several other organizations will serve meals this summer through the USDA program.

Among them is the Western Dubuque school district, which is sponsoring the program this year for the first time. Any child, regardless of income level, can receive free meals at James Kennedy Public Library in Dyersville.

Cameron said it is important to feed children whose families struggle to provide nutritious meals, but also to serve any child who wants a meal.

The Andrew Community School District also serves students meals through the federal program, as does Platteville (Wisconsin) Public Schools and other area school districts and organizations.

"If there's an opportunity for us to take care of students in the community that we serve, we want to utilize these options," said Kristoffer Brown, business administrator for Platteville Public Schools, who is helping coordinate the summer food effort.

Area food pantries also said they typically see an uptick in need during the summer.

"I think that's true with every pantry across the country," said Dave Lechnir, director of the Lions Club East Dubuque (Illinois) Community Food Pantry. "When kids are out, the pantry gets used more because the demand is bigger."

Gary Haas, who runs the Southwestern Food Pantry in Hazel Green, Wisconsin, said demand typically picks up in the summer and continues to rise through the end of the year.

"I try to make sure that they get plenty to get them through until the next time they can come," he said.

The Dubuque Food Pantry provides a lunches to-go program for area children and this year expanded the program to four days each week, up from two days per week last year. Participating children receive a bag to pick food from different bins to build their lunch for that day.

Just one week after starting the program for the summer, pantry workers had given lunch bags to more than 150 children, according to manager Theresa Caldwell.

"We want them to feel welcomed," she said. "We want them to feel unashamed to come in because every family, at one point or another, does need a hand up."
Seguin, TX (78155)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms in the morning becoming more widespread in the afternoon. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph, becoming NNW and increasing to 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Cloudy early with partial clearing expected late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 41F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph.
Seguin, TX (78155)

Today

Isolated thunderstorms in the morning, then mainly cloudy during the afternoon with thunderstorms likely. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph, becoming NNW and increasing to 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Cloudy and windy early, becoming partly cloudy late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low around 40F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph.
 You be the juvenile sentencing judge: what sentence for teen guilty of involuntary manslaughter for encouraging suicide? | Main | Could jail be "the answer" for drug addicts? 

June 17, 2017

AG Jeff Sessions makes the case for his new tougher federal charging/sentencing policy

The US Attorney General today took the the editorial pages of the Washington Post to make the case for his new tough charging and sentencing guidance for federal prosecutors. This opinion piece carries this headline: "Jeff Sessions: Being soft on sentencing means more violent crime. Its time to get tough again." And here are excerpts (with on particular line emphasized by me):

[I]n 2013, subject to limited exceptions, the Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors not to include in charging documents the amount of drugs being dealt when the actual amount was large enough to trigger a mandatory minimum sentence. Prosecutors were required to leave out objective facts in order to achieve sentences lighter than required by law. This was billed as an effort to curb mass incarceration of low-level offenders, but in reality it covered offenders apprehended with large quantities of dangerous drugs. The result was that federal drug prosecutions went down dramatically  from 2011 to 2016, federal prosecutions fell by 23 percent. Meanwhile, the average sentence length for a convicted federal drug offender decreased 18 percent from 2009 to 2016. Before that policy change, the violent crime rate in the United States had fallen steadily for two decades, reaching half of what it was in 1991. Within one year after the Justice Department softened its approach to drug offenders, the trend of decreasing violent crime reversed. In 2015, the United States suffered the largest single-year increase in the overall violent crime rate since 1991. And while defenders of the 2013 policy change point out that crime rates remain low compared with where they were 30 years ago, they neglect to recognize a disturbing trend that could reverse decades of progress: Violent crime is rising across the country. According to data from the FBI, there were more than 15,000 murders in the United States in 2015, representing a single-year increase of nearly 11 percent across the country. That was the largest increase since 1971. The increase in murders continued in 2016. Preliminary data from the first half of 2016 shows that large cities in the United States suffered an average increase in murders of nearly 22 percent compared with the same period from a year earlier. As U.S. attorney general, I have a duty to protect all Americans and fulfill the presidents promise to make America safe again. Last month, after weeks of study and discussion with a host of criminal-justice participants, I issued a memorandum to all federal prosecutors regarding charging and sentencing policy that once again authorizes prosecutors to charge offenses as Congress intended. This two-page guidance instructs prosecutors to apply the laws on the books to the facts of the case in most cases, and allows them to exercise discretion where a strict application of the law would result in an injustice. Instead of barring prosecutors from faithfully enforcing the law, this policy empowers trusted professionals to apply the law fairly and exercise discretion when appropriate. That is the way good law enforcement has always worked. Defenders of the status quo perpetuate the false story that federal prisons are filled with low-level, nonviolent drug offenders. The truth is less than 3 percent of federal offenders sentenced to imprisonment in 2016 were convicted of simple possession, and in most of those cases the defendants were drug dealers who accepted plea bargains in return for reduced sentences. Federal drug offenders include major drug traffickers, gang members, importers, manufacturers and international drug cartel members. To be subject to a five-year mandatory sentence, a criminal would have to be arrested with 100 grams or more of heroin with the intent to distribute it  that is 1,000 doses of heroin. The truth is that while the federal government softened its approach to drug enforcement, drug abuse and violent crime surged. The availability of dangerous drugs is up, the price has dropped and the purity is at dangerously high levels. Overdose deaths from opioids have nearly tripled since 2002. Overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids rose an astonishing 73 percent in 2015. My fear is that this surge in violent crime is not a blip, but the start of a dangerous new trend  one that puts at risk the hard-won gains that have made our country a safer place. Some skeptics prefer to sit on the sidelines and criticize federal efforts to combat crime. But its not our privileged communities that suffer the most from crime and violence. Minority communities are disproportionately impacted by violent drug trafficking. Poor neighborhoods are too often ignored in these conversations. Regardless of wealth or race, every American has the right to demand a safe neighborhood. Those of us who are responsible for promoting public safety cannot sit back while any American communities are ravaged by crime and violence. There are those who are concerned about the fate of drug traffickers, but the law demands I protect the lives of victims that are ruined by drug trafficking and violent crime infecting their communities. Our new, time-tested policy empowers police and prosecutors to save lives.

There are lots of reasons and lots of ways to question any efforts to directly link the recent uptick in violent crime over the last few years to changes in federal prosecutorial policies. But I have emphasized one particular line in the opinion piece in order to help enhance understanding of the thinking behind the new Sessions Memo. The Attorney General reasonably thinks he must "do something" in response to recent increases in violent crime, and the most obvious and easy thing for him to do is to rescind Holder-era policy guidance and return to the federal prosecutorial policies of earlier era. (Of course, the prosecutorial policies of earlier era helped swell the federal prison population dramatically and, as noted here, the Department of Justice is already predicting that federal prison populations will start growing again after notable recent declines.)

Prior recent related posts:

June 17, 2017 at 08:05 PM | Permalink

Comments

"My fear is that this surge in violent crime is not a blip, but the start of a dangerous new trend," writes Mr. Sessions.

MY fear is that the countless independent variables that have led to time-isolated blips in violent crime will be ignored by heavy-handed prosecutors invested in an overcrowded and understaffed prison industry that supports their own budgets, but makes us all LESS safe by cutting the actual programs -- mental health and drug treatment and other social programs fostered by the still underfunded Second Chance Act -- that are PROVEN to make us all safer.

I understand that others will object that AG Sessions is right, that the "lock 'em all up after we flip 'em" method is the cause of crime reduction -- and it may be in part. But only in part, and it brought with it a police state that carries its own crippling consequences. Today more than ever, we live in a "you're good for it" justice system.

With respects to the Office, AG Sessions is a relic of the failed war on drugs, and his fear-mongering rhetoric here only demonstrates how far out of step he is with empirical data, and even the staunchest conservatives who understand that "tough-on-crime" was another prohibition that failed. It is long past time to reject this AG's fear-mongering, and get smart about crime reduction. See http://rightoncrime.com/.

Posted by: Jay Hurst | Jun 17, 2017 9:00:56 PM

Sessions is not compos mentis. First he leads off with a non-sequitur, that leaving off drug amounts in indictments somehow leads to a reduction in drug prosecutions. Lol wut.

This guy is certifiable. So glad he's out of the Senate.

Posted by: Fat Bastard | Jun 17, 2017 9:38:12 PM

And exercise discretion where appropriate (and signed off by the USA or a DAG?). Ha. Absurd.

Posted by: Fat Bastard | Jun 17, 2017 9:40:36 PM

Anything with Obama's fingerprints on it must be sent to the crime lab. And real clean conservatives must wear hazmat suits while collection the evidence.

Posted by: George | Jun 17, 2017 11:39:27 PM

We have A crown for a president and an idiot as AG. Did he never learn that correlation is not causation. What is wrong with this country? We have become a laughingstock. I am also sick of the attacks on reform-minded people as somehow elitist. We are not the ones who have family members needing relief from draconian penalties, yet we are public spirited and give a damn. We have nothing to gain from reform except building a better, fairer nation. Why is it that the idiots and racists from Alabama and their ilk are always advocating for more punishment. I suspect it is nostalgia for when they ruled the roost and possibly that their relatives benefit from jobs in the correction industry.

Posted by: Mark | Jun 18, 2017 3:24:41 AM

The first comment gets to my concerns in large part and even to the extent there is some evidence of a rise in crime it is of a limited sort specially found in certain places. Will Sessions' response be targeted? I have my doubts. His desire to expand marijuana prosecutions doesn't help my concerns, nor his overall conservative ideology.

Posted by: Joe | Jun 18, 2017 12:03:29 PM

"So glad he's out of the Senate."

Think one of 100, even is he was the chairman of influential committees, he was less dangerous.

Posted by: Joe | Jun 18, 2017 12:04:45 PM

Several problems are running side by side.

Chicago is a big mess.

Feds are sending secrion 8 houseing vouchers and forcing all the small midwest towns to accept these low lifes. So as Chicago continues to break recirds for shootings, so does the path of these federal entitled gang members, drug dealers and mama machines. Sessions has no clue on how to problem solve.

Enough said.......

Posted by: MidWestGuy | Jun 18, 2017 8:04:41 PM

Wow MidWestGuy, I guess you win the prize for throwing out the most stereotypes as humanly possible in one sentence. It goes without saying, but I am going to say it anyway, that not all Section 8 recipients are "gang members, drug dealers or mama machines," or "low lifes" as you call them. I really hope you are not practicing law or have a policy position with such ill conceived bigoted views!

Posted by: Pointing out the obvious | Jun 19, 2017 10:04:36 AM

Post a comment
 Prof Stephanos Bibas among new slate of notable nominees to the circuit courts by Prez Trump | Main | Judge Jack Weinstein talks through general deterrence and gang activity in federal gun sentencing 

June 7, 2017

Four Senators write to AG Sessions with pointed questions about the Sessions Memo on charging and sentencing

As detailed in this press release from Senator Mike Lee, "Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Rand Paul (R-KY) sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions Wednesday, seeking answers about the Department of Justices May 10, 2017 memorandum, directing federal prosecutors to pursue the most serious offense possible when prosecuting defendants." The three-page letter is available at this link, and it starts this way:

We write concerning the Department of Justice's May 10, 2017 memorandum directing federal prosecutors to "pursue the most serious, readily provable offense." The Department's new policy ignores the growing bipartisan view that federal sentencing laws are in grave need of reform. In many cases, the new policy will result in counterproductive sentences that do nothing to make the public safer. And it appears to force the hand of the prosecutors closest to each case to seek the highest possible offense rather than enable them to determine an appropriate lesser charge, which can help guard against imposing excessive sentences.

Among the six pointed questions (with sub-questions) that end the letter are these that strike me as especially interesting:

Pursuant to the Department's new policy, prosecutors are allowed to apply for approval to deviate from the general rule that they must pursue the most serious, readily provable offense. The memo, however, does not explain how the Department will decide whether to grant approval to deviate from the general rule. What factors will the Department consider in making these decisions? How often do you anticipate that prosecutors will request approval to deviate from the Department's charging policy? How often do you expect such requests will be granted? Will Main Justice track how frequently attorneys seek departures from the new policy? Are there any federal criminal offenses carrying mandatory minimum sentences that you believe are unfair? Do you believe that all applications of 18 U.S.C.  924(c) result in fair sentences? If the answer to either of those questions is "no," why do you believe the Department's new policy allows enough discretion to individual prosecutors to result in fair outcomes in cases implicating these statutes?

Prior recent related posts:

June 7, 2017 at 07:06 PM | Permalink

Comments

Trump appointed yet another Yale Law indoctrinated lawyer to head the FBI, instead of a seasoned police official. We will continue to have PC prevail over safety, as it did at the FBI on 9/11. The lawyer profession and its PC were 100% the cause of 9/11.



Posted by: David Behar | Jun 8, 2017 12:25:16 AM

Wray is pals with this one.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/07/politics/wray-recommendation-yates/index.html?sr=fbpol060717wray-recommendation-yates0831PMVODtopLink&linkId=38455971



Posted by: David Behar | Jun 8, 2017 12:27:15 AM

The senators questions ask for very specific Nswers that Sessions may be unwilling or unable to answer without doing some research. Both if which hes not going to do.

But I like the questions anyway.

Posted by: MidWestGuy | Jun 9, 2017 12:00:31 AM

Post a comment




The rumour came after a wall clock with Thaksins image was found in the suspects house, according to Vietnamnews' report in Bangkok.



According to Yingluck, it was normal for her elder brother, who is also a Thai former PM and has lived in exile since 2008, to have admirers.



She stressed that Thaksin and the Pheu Thai Party would not encourage the use of violence among supporters.



Thai authorities have arrested and identified the suspect as Wattana Pummares, 61, who previously worked for the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand as an engineer.-
TEA, S.D.  Roger Lamp and Scott Wynja, two former directors of the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System, were recently presented with the Lewis & Clark Trailblazer Award at the water systems 27th annual Membership Meeting in Tea.

Wynja served on the board for 15 years while he was Sheldon, Iowa, city manager. He stepped down this past fall when he accepted the city manager position in Sioux Center, Iowa. Lamp served on the board for 25 years while he was chairman of Lincoln County (S.D.) Rural Water System. He retired from both boards in February  he served on the Lincoln County RWS board for 30 years.
SIOUX CITY  After graduating from Schleswig High School in 1986, Dakin Schultz spent the summer on a road crew for the Iowa Department of Transportation.

He continued working for the DOT during the summers as he earned a journalism degree from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. But back then he wasn't thinking about a career in transportation.

I wanted to get into advertising  I liked that side of it (journalism)  and 91 was kind of a tough time of tough time for the economy and the jobs they were talking about were paying $12-$15,000 a year and the DOT offered me a full-time job to come back, Schulz recalled.

Schultz spent the next few decades working his way up through the DOT ranks and shuffling around the state until he landed in Sioux City in 1999 as a field services coordinator.

Shortly after his arrival, after the planner for District 3 left, Schultz absorbed his duties.

I did both positions for almost two years, I think, and they ended up promoting me to that position and eliminating my other positions, so I still have both positions, he said.

The soon-to-be-49-year-old is nearing two decades as planner for the sprawling District 3, which covers 19 counties and stretches from the southwest corner of Monona County to the northeast corner of Emmet County. There are only seven other DOT planners in the state.

Schultz, who is also active in the community, was recently elected to serve as the next president of the Missouri River Historical Development Board of Director. MHRD is the nonprofit group that holds the state gaming license for the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and collects 4.25 percent of the casino's adjusted gross gaming revenues for distribution to charities, civic groups and local governmental bodies.

Schultz, who joined the MHRD board in May 2015, doesn't foresee any big changes happening to the board when he takes over as president in January but is ready to step up if they arise. He will succeed longtime president Mark Monson, who will become MRHD's first-ever interim executive director.

The Journal recently caught up with Schultz to discuss his duties with the DOT and MHRD's future.

Q. Whats the best way to describe your job and responsibilities?

A. I have an oversight role for the planning agencies in Northwest Iowa  so if you think of SIMPCO (Siouxland Interstate Metropolitan Planning Council), the MPO/RPA (Metropolitan Planning Organizations and Regional Planning Affiliations), Northwest Iowa Planning up in Spencer  I have oversight of that as far as the DOT side of it and then also the Region XII Council that runs out of Carroll. So they produce documents that enables their members to spend federal funding and I basically help them through that process and Ill outreach to the local entities as well depending on what their needs are with federal funding.

As far as the DOT projects, I have the front end work on those projects, so if you think of, for instance, I-29, we got the planning portion, rolls into the design portion, goes into construction. The planning portion is my side of it, so I am the project manager for the planning portion of the project; I manage those bigger projects, so the (I)29 project for instance. We do a multidisciplinary approach, so design is involved in the early stages, construction is involved in the early stages and planning stays involved in the construction. Im still involved as far as the public outreach side of it: I do press releases for it, I do all kinds of public outreach, speeches, whatever.

Q. How did you become interested in that line of work?

A. It was family tradition, I guess; my father was involved in the DOT early. He made a career of it.

Q. What do you enjoy the most and what do you like least about your job?

A. The most, like I said, there is something  its very rewarding to see a project go from a concept where you know theres an issue to completion. It is great. One of the most rewarding projects Ive been involved with is the Iowa 86 project up at the Lakes  that would be from Iowa 9 up to the border (with Minnesota)  because of the issues. Its not one of those big projects like I-29, but it was important to the locals certainly, and it is a regional connection; once you get into Minnesota 86 takes you up I-90 and it was something that the Lakes area pushed for, for years and couldnt seem to get it going.. certainly a very rewarding project; it was a decade of work just to get to that point.

What do I least like about work? I guess I'll just go with the complaints. Certainly, we field a lot of complaints."

Q. When is the I-29 reconstruction going to be finished?

A. The mainline work would be end of 2019. The public should see the majority of work done. There will still be work in 2020, and the Hamilton Boulevard area is where that focus will be. If you think about this year, we are going wrap up northbound I-29 and then 18 and 19 will be focused on southbound with that last portion being Hamilton Boulevard.

Q. Why were you interested in joining the MRHD board?

A. I had no intention of joining, necessarily, it was more out of a conversation I had with Mark (Monson) regarding rural representation from committee members outside of the Sioux City area. I stressed the importance of getting some of these small communities to get representatives on the board. Though that conversation, he asked if I would be interested in being involved and at the time I had a lot of other volunteer opportunities that I was participating in. I said, I think I am, sure let me think about it, I guess I would be interested. I ended up on the board and its been very rewarding, I like the mission of MHRD.

Q. What made you decide to run for president of that board?

A. I had a lot of encouragement from other board members to consider it. I wasnt going to do it because of the additional time; I was afraid I wouldnt have the time to commit to it, but I had a friend of mine from Moville who said  I dont remember exactly how he put it, but he basically said, When you decided to do this, were you not fully committed? I said, Yeah, if Im going to do it Im going to give it 100 percent. So then he said, Well, you should throw your hat in the ring and see what happens.

Q. Once you officially take the reins of MHRD, what direction would you like to lead the organization?

A. As far as changing direction, I dont see any big changes down the road for MHRD. I think some of the things that I would like to see is more involvement from board members  our committee chairs being more out in the public, I guess. These projects, a lot of times, will have some type of ceremony or celebration and I think youll see the committee chairs taking a bigger role in that, or I would hope so. Its going to just be interesting with that change over; a lot of these members have been on for decades and were losing a lot of that experience, a lot of that knowledge, so theres some trepidation.
SIOUX CITY | Siouxland boasts the youngest Iowa legislator, the state's youngest county supervisor and one of the youngest city council members.

Is there a youth movement in the region? The recent changes suggests as much.

Local elected officials have traditionally been middle-aged or retired.

"If you are in your 20s and in elected office, you are an outlier," said Woodbury County Supervisor Matthew Ung, who, at age 28, is believed to be the youngest supervisor and county board chairman in state history.

Two of the four other Woodbury County supervisors are under the age of 40. Jeremy Taylor, who preceded Ung as chairman last year, is 39 and Keith Radig, a former Sioux City councilman who was elected to the county board last fall, is 38.

Ung and Taylor were elected in 2014. Along with Radig, they replaced three supervisors ages 61, 71 and 76, dropping the average age of the board to around 45. Supervisors Rocky De Witt and Marty Pottebaum, who were both elected last fall, are 58 and 64, respectively.

The average age of the five-member Sioux City Council now stands at about 58, somewhat lower than even before Radig's resignation. That's because his appointed replacement, Alex Watters, is only 31.

Watters said it's "exciting" to see a youth movement on the City Council and Woodbury County board. He said Mayor Bob Scott, 66, and the three other council members -- Rhonda Capron, 63, Dan Moore, 64, and Pete Groetken, 67, have been "very supportive and very excited to have a younger member."

David Gleisner, 36, is the youngest member of the Sioux City School Board, which, at 60, has the oldest average age of the three major local governing bodies.

The youngest member of the Iowa Legislature is Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Orange City, who was 23 when the session started in January and turned 24 in April as it drew to a close.

Rep. Chris Hall, D-Sioux City, who was 25 when he was first elected to the Iowa House in 2011, said he number of young people in the Legislature hasn't changed much since then.

"It is pretty steady. There aren't a large number of young legislators, but it is a consistent number," Hall, now 32, said. "The Legislature obviously should be more diverse than it is, in terms of age and gender and racial makeup."

The respective average age of members is 54 in the Iowa Senate and 56 in the House. The oldest legislator is 87 and the youngest in the Senate is 32.

Encouraging others

Wheeler said he didn't hear a lot of people referencing his age on the campaign trail, including when he defeated two other Republicans in a June 2016 primary for an open House seat. He said he at times heard, "we want somebody young," while another time a middle-aged parent gave a negative impression.

" 'I could not see my daughter doing that, so I can't vote for you,' " Wheeler recounted of that encounter.

Wheeler said he never made his age a campaign issue, instead he sought to keep it to how he would deliver on conservative principles.

It takes a leap of faith to enter the political ring, he said, adding: "Sometimes you just have to go for it."

Wheeler said he was pleased to see a lot of people from their upper 20s and into 40s contact him after his win, saying it encouraged them to consider running for local office.

"It is an issue of that, 'they have to see it,' thing," Wheeler said.

Hall added that young people may not seek office without encouragement from others to do so. He speaks to groups of young professionals and asks that they get involved by running. He typically adds a personal anecdote from his first run in 2010, when people didn't ask first if he was a Democrat or Republican but commented positively on his young age.

"People want to see a breath of fresh air or some young blood getting into it," Hall said.

Hall said the rise in young professionals in the metro area may be due to the growth in young elected officials who want to make an impact.

Jake Jungers, 28, is running for one of three seats on the Sioux City Council this fall, saying he wants "to make a real difference for the next generation" and that he wants to be "part of the current youth movement in city and county offices."

"I am bucking the trend of waiting to run for office until I am older because I love the community I've grown up in and want to make a difference for the community I plan to live in for the rest of my life," Jungers said.

Ung said he gets requests to ask other young people to run for office. Ung said he's done that, but none so far have pursued elective office. He said younger candidates typically are more apt to run for the Legislature, rather than county offices.

Compared to boards in adjacent counties, the younger Woodbury County supervisors are an aberration. There's no supervisor under age 50 in Plymouth and Ida counties, and the five Sioux County supervisors are between age 60 to 75. In Cherokee County, one supervisor is under age 50 and the other four are older than 60.

Ung takes pride in his relative youth in leading the county board. He has sought a definitive answer from the Iowa State Association of Counties, and it appears from most sources he is the youngest.

"I never see anyone younger when I go to the conferences," he said.

Not ready for the challenge

Hall said most young people don't run for office because they are "trying to establish their roots in the world, establishing a career or starting a family." Wheeler said some people in their 20s are more concerned with playing video games or traveling, and haven't dialed into an adult mindset about getting married or buying a home.

"You have to have a bit of the real world hit you...They aren't politically active and truly don't care. There is (also) that discouraging factor, that people say you are too young," Wheeler said.

Professor Bradley Best of Buena Vista University in Storm Lake said running for elective office "is arguably the most demanding, high-input form of political activity anyone can pursue," so it is not surprising that young people are reluctant to try.

"Age correlates closely with all forms of political engagement, including the most basic of activities such as registering to vote and casting an election ballot...When you add the challenges that accompany youth -- such as being in the early stages of career and family life and, as is the case with most young people, pursuing the somewhat elusive goal of financial security - it is not surprising that few people under 40 take on the challenge of seeking an elective position," Best said.

Best said there are varying benefits by having people with a range of ages in elective office. The skills that people possess certainly aren't tied to age, but older people may have a lifetime of experiences to give good ideas on public policies, while younger people may have fresh thoughts on old, vexing problems.

Best said young voters  and young office seekers  are uniquely positioned to speak to a wide range of quality of life issues routinely addressed by city councils and county boards of supervisors. Hall agreed with that point.

"Im thinking here about the availability of stable, good-paying jobs, affordable, attractive housing options, access to childcare services and safe, effective schools," Best said.

New ideas

Watters thinks it is misguided to say younger officeholders have more energy or vivacity than older elected officials. He said the positive with younger officeholders is in their ability "to think creatively and to be open to new ideas" in a time when tight local government budgets demand changes in how to deliver city or county services.

"I think that is a skill we need to have," Watters said.

Taylor cautioned that it is too simplistic to say only young people can have new ideas for government.

"A spirit of youthfulness can be in an older person or the status quo attitude can be found in younger folks. I think the key is not as much age, as it is fresh ideas and rejuvenated commitment toward a willingness to improve things by changing the way they are done," Taylor said.

Taylor quickly added that officeholders with young families want good things for themselves and others in the community.

"They can relate to shaping our community with opportunities to shape the decision of our kids to raise their families here. It's also helpful concerning budgeting and taxes to understand what it takes to raise kids, run a business, plan for their colleges and balance work-life," Taylor said.

Ung said governing groups have the ability to function in a higher manner when having "that balance of experience and newness." But he added that it is not enough to have a "fresh" crop of supervisors.

"You have to be willing to ask questions and go out of the comfort zone...It is no cakewalk. It is what you put into it. You can be a good supervisor or a bad one, depending upon the work you put into it," Ung said.

He sought elective office when he was just out of college, pursuing an Iowa Legislature seat at age 23 in 2012.

Ung added young people who have not found their firm mooring in life shouldn't pursue elective office. He said holding public office is no place "to discover yourself," so he is glad he had a firm background of family and church to get him prepared for office.

"I was brought up right," he said.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | The city of South Sioux City has approved an agreement to receive 15 megawatts of energy from a new wind farm in southern Nebraska.

The move is the latest by the northeast Nebraska city to diversify its energy portfolio as it pulls away from the Nebraska Public Power District, the state's largest electrical utility.

The South Sioux City Council voted last month in approval of an agreement with Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources LLC that could bring the equivalent of 33 percent of the city's power needs via the Cottonwood Wind Farm, a project currently under construction in Webster County.

City Administrator Lance Hedquist said the city now must decide whether it will purchase the energy to use on its own or sell it and use the profit to benefit ratepayers.

"We can buy it and turn around and sell it -- because the electric price is lower than what most people pay -- and make a profit for the citizens," he said. "That's a decision the City Council will make."

Hedquist said he's confident that the power will be fully ready by Jan. 1, 2020, but it could be much sooner.

The $130 million 40-turbine project, which is estimated to produce 90 megawatts total, will have the capacity to serve roughly 27,000 households with electricity, according to NextEra spokesman Bryan Garner. Construction began in May and is expected to conclude by year's end.

NextEra is the largest generator of wind energy in the world. The company operates more than 115 wind projects in 20 states and four Canadian provinces, totaling approximately 9,300 wind turbines.

Along with South Sioux City, some beneficiaries of the project include the Northeast Nebraska Public Power District and the cities of Fremont and Wayne.

South Sioux City in recent years has taken several steps to diversify where it gets its energy. The city plans to fully phase out of its contract with the Nebraska Public Power District, the largest electric utility in the state of Nebraska, by 2020, Hedquist said.

Earlier this year, a 21-acre privately financed solar park built by California-based SolarCity began operations. The park produces 2.3 megawatts of capacity, enough to meet 5 percent of the city's electrical needs.

The city plans to purchase 7 percent of the city's power from hydroelectric sources and another 7 percent from Green Star Gasifiers, a renewable fuel company building a $25 million plant in the citys Roth Industrial Park that will use wood waste and other wastes to make electricity.
Sioux City

Eugene Gene Joseph Hoffman, 91, of Sioux City, passed away Friday, June 16, 2017, at a Sioux City nursing home.

Services will be 10:30 a.m. Monday at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Sioux City. Burial will be 9 a.m. Tuesday in Memorial Park Cemetery. Visitation will be one hour prior to service time at the church. Arrangements are under the direction of Meyer Brothers Morningside Chapel.

Eugene was born May 28, 1926, in Sioux City, at his home in Leeds to John C. and Clara (Beck) Hoffman. Gene was baptized and confirmed at St. Pauls Lutheran Church.

He attended elementary school at Hawthorne and attended Central High School in Sioux City. Gene enlisted in the U.S. Marines at the age of 17, requiring his mothers signature because of his age. He served for 34 months on an aircraft carrier as an airplane mechanic.

Mr. Hoffman worked at Art Salsness Motors before becoming a sales representative for Aid Association for Lutherans for 25 years.

Gene was married to Roma Hulquist. Three children were born to this union, Randy, Holly and Jeff. They later were divorced. He later was united in marriage to Norma Stone Hass on Aug. 12, 1983. They were married for 28 years before Normas passing in 2011. Gene and Norma were avid bowlers and bowled in many leagues.

Gene was very proud to have donated 44 gallons of blood to the Siouxland Blood Bank. Eugene was a member of the American Legion, and presently a member of Redeemer Lutheran Church where he led many Bible classes.

Eugene is survived by his children, Randy of Phoenix Ariz, Holly of Tulsa, Okla., and Jeff of Lincoln, Neb.; brother, Kenny and his wife, Cheryl of Sioux City; sister, Betty Leapley of St. Louis, Mo.; and other relatives and friends.

Gene was preceded in death by his wife, Norma; his parents; brothers, Wayne, Don, Irvin, Chuck and Bob; and sisters, Lois, Esther, Lorraine, Ethel and Darlene.
THE MINI: My parents always told me that one is judged by the company they keep. perhaps Governor Reynolds and Senator Grassley should think about that before they appear along side of Donald Trump. --James Weber, Westfield, Iowa
Iowa officials are trying to fix the states crumbling health insurance marketplace.

The country, it seems, is watching with interest.

Iowa insurance commissioner Doug Ommen this week unveiled his proposal to address the likelihood that the state will have no insurance companies selling individual plans on the marketplace next year, which would leave nearly 72,000 Iowans without access to health insurance.

Ommens proposal, which requires federal approval, would provide those individuals with age- and income-based tax credits, and would create a reinsurance mechanism for people with extensive medical costs, the Gazettes Chelsea Keenan reported this past week.

Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the states largest health insurance provider, worked with Ommen on the proposal. Company officials said Wellmark will enter the individual marketplace and offer plans if the proposal is approved by the federal government.

Iowa already was under the national health insurance policy microscope as insurance companies --- including Wellmark --- pulled out of the individual marketplace created under former President Barack Obamas health care reform, the Affordable Care Act. The companies cited high costs and uncertainty surrounding the law, which has heightened after the 2016 elections put Republicans in control of the White House and Congress.

Those moves have made Iowa the first state in the nation without a single insurance company selling individual plans on the marketplace next year.

Now the health insurance policy community is watching Iowa again as state officials attempt to address the issue.

Much of the interest appears to regard whether the federal government will approve Iowas proposal, which is not in perfect alignment with the Affordable Care Act. But Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump wish to repeal the reforms passed by the previous, Democratic administration.

An administration decision to allow Iowas plan would test how far any state could move from ACA rules without a change in federal law, said a Washington Post story on Iowas proposal.

Larry Levitt, with the non-partisan health care think tank Kaiser Family Foundation, was interviewed by multiple national media outlets and said the administrations decision on Iowas proposal could have some far-reaching impacts.

If the health debate in Congress stalls, then states may be lining up for waivers like this, Levitt told the Post.

This is a notable effort by state officials to address what could be a crisis in their insurance market, fueled in part by uncertainty coming out of Washington, Levitt wrote in an email to The Hill. There would winners and losers here, but it seems like the plan could keep insurers in the market.

Tim Jost, a retired professor of health care law at Washington and Lee University and a supporter of the Affordable Care Acts policies, told the Post and The Hill he does not believe the Iowa proposal is legal.

Absolutely not, Jost told the Post. He added, to The Hill, Basically theyre asking the administration to use (a waiver) as the carte blanche to allow states to completely re-write the ACA and do whatever they want to do with federal money, and thats not what (the waiver) is or does.

Iowa has asked the federal government for a decision within two weeks.

Nearly 72,000 thousand Iowans and countless others across the country, it seems, will be watching.

Iowa's link to political violence

In the wake of the shooting of U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, some media outlets reported on previous members of Congress who were shot while serving.

One such shooting victim is former Rep. Ben Jensen, of Iowa.

Jensen, who was born in Marion, was one of five representatives shot on March 1, 1954, on the U.S. House floor when Puerto Rican nationalists sprayed gunfire from the gallery, according to Jensens obituary in the New York Times. Jensen survived the shooting; in 1970 he died of cancer at the age of 77, according to the Times.
DES MOINES  Among the accomplishments Charles Chuck Palmer considers significant during his time as the states human services agency director are the unknown situations his department was able to head off before vulnerable Iowans became potential headlines.

The department does so many things that are never recognized. The things that we prevent, said Palmer, 78, who retired Friday as head of the Iowa Department of Human Services. Think of how many unknown big deals go on every day.

Palmer reflected earlier this week on his two stints as former Gov. Terry Branstads choice as DHS director  once from 1989 to 1999 and again from 2011 to Friday.

Now that Kim Reynolds has taken over as governor, with Branstad taking on a new role as U.S. ambassador to China and state government beginning a new budgeting cycle, Palmer said it seemed like a good time to step aside and let something else take charge of a government agency that touches the lives of 1 million Iowans every day.

Theres never a good time but this seemed like the right time, said Palmer, who welcomed Reynolds' announcement that Jerry Foxhoven will take over the agency, saying he will bring fresh eyes and a different perspective to the department in charge of social service delivery for vulnerable children, elderly, disabled and dysfunctional Iowans.

Palmer thanked members of the Iowa Council on Human Services for their assistance during the past seven years that saw a number of challenges crop up as the state switched to privately managed Medicaid care and weathered legislative cycles that tackled divisive, heavy-lift issues and ever-present money problems.

Id like to think were a lot better now than where we were, said Palmer, who noted his immediate plan is to engineer a seamless transition to new DHS leadership and then getting out of the way.

During his time, Palmer led the department through massive system changes including welfare reform, mental health redesign, childrens health insurance and Medicaid expansions, and the move to Medicaid managed care as part of his effort to rein in what he dubbed the Pac-Man of the state budget.

We have taken on some very emotionally charged issues as a state, he said in a sort of exit interview.

Theres a part of me that thrives on tough issues, he said. I was quite willing to take on the tough issues. I view that as a challenge where we had the opportunity to really make a difference and if youre taking on the tough issues that means that they probably are issues that really mean something and have real implications.

Palmer leaves with his agency under fire from legislators and advocates following the shocking deaths of two adopted teen girls, one in West Des Moines and one in Perry. But he said he believes the departments decision to bring in outside help to assess Iowas child-welfare system and make constructive recommendations will produce a positive outcome.

Id like to think that were on the right path, he said. I believe weve moved into a constructive dialogue and not just trying to find out where to place blame.

Palmer said he doesnt have anything specific planned once he retires, but expects to do volunteer work and continue to be involved in human services issues.

While Im feeling good, full of energy and believe I have something to contribute, Ill be engaged, he said.
The religious left feels left out. According to an article in The New York Times, liberal clergy feel excluded from the political arena and blame the religious right for occupying what they once believed was their exclusive territory. They are, according to the story's headline, "seeking to break right's grip on nation's moral agenda."

I wasn't aware the nation had a moral agenda; an immoral one, perhaps.

The religious left's agenda is little different from that of secular progressives -- from gay rights, to sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants, bigger government and tax increases, abortion. Some on the religious left give lip service to a pro-life position, but they still vote for "pro-choice" Democrats.

Liberal clergy are "fighting for their faith," says the Times. Which faith? Faith in government or faith in the God they are supposed to serve?

Having suffered rejection and ridicule following Prohibition and the Scopes trial, conservative Christians withdrew from the political arena into a modern version of the catacombs, leaving the religious left at the forefront of culture and theology discussions. That began to change with the formation of the Moral Majority and later the Christian Coalition and other conservative religious groups.

In reaction, the religious left called for a separation between church and state, believing that conservatives were somehow now violating the Constitution by speaking up on moral issues. The implication was that conservatives should go back to their churches and leave politics and biblical interpretation to them.

To their credit, religious conservatives spoke of a culture in decline, but they, like the left, mistakenly believed the solution could be found in politics. The social issues they addressed were not the cause of our decadence, but a reflection of it. If repairs were to be made they would not come from Washington, but from transformed human hearts. Changing hearts is supposed to be the calling of pastors.

The religious right quickly became an adjunct of the Republican Party, just one more interest group to be placated with promises that were rarely kept. In turn, the religious left aligned with Democrats.

A lesson for all is found in Scripture, but it's often ignored. Here's one: "Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave." (1 John 2:15-17 NLT)

Every sermon dedicated to politics is time taken away from a pastor's main calling, which is to preach a message that will fit people for Heaven. Are there moral and cultural issues that clergy can and should address? Of course, but the sermonizer should be sure he, or she, is faithful to Scripture and not preach a message designed to conform to an earthly political agenda.

When they do, this happens:

According to a 2014 Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study, just "14.7 percent of U.S. adults are affiliated with the mainline Protestant tradition -- a sharp decline from 18.1 percent when our last Religious Landscape Study was conducted in 2007. Mainline Protestants have declined at a faster rate than any other major Christian group, including Catholics and evangelical Protestants, and as a result also are shrinking as a share of all Protestants and Christians."

Here's another verse liberal clergy might consider before re-entering the political arena: "Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." (Romans 12:2 NLT)
Two weeks ago, a black woman driving alone in Princeton, Louisiana, was pulled over for no apparent reason.

But she was not shot and killed. Or hauled from her car and body-slammed. Or even arrested for getting snippy.

The officer explained that she was driving under the speed limit, something he said drivers do when they are tired or inebriated. He said he just wanted to make sure she was OK.

"And as he said that," said Ayanna Reid Cruver in a video posted to Facebook, "I just broke down crying."

She cried again, recounting it. "I told him, 'I was so scared.' I knew he felt awful that I was that scared. ... I never thought that in that situation I would feel fearful, but I legitimately felt horrified."

The officer, she said, begged her not to cry. He even gave her a hug. But Cruver was still so shaken she had to get off the freeway and pull over to compose herself.

Her video has been viewed 3.3 million times.

To judge from the comments, many people were moved and troubled by it. But some weren't. At least one individual smugly assured Cruver that so long as she obeys an officer, she has no reason to fear. Perhaps that's true in his world, but African Americans live a different truth.

After all, Levar Jones was obeying when he was shot. Lateef Dickerson was obeying when he was kicked in the face. And Tamir Rice never had a chance to obey.

It's no surprise Cruver's video discombobulates some of those for whom police brutality is only a news story: It offers stark testimony of the damage done to policing when accountability is not required. As such, that clip should be required viewing for every cop in America, every chief who ever stood behind a bad officer, every prosecutor who ever looked the other way, every juror who gave a cop benefit of the doubt when there was no doubt, every judge for whom equality before the law was only words to say.

Consider the three cases noted above. Levar Jones' assailant pleaded guilty in March of last year, but has yet to be sentenced. A jury cleared the cop who broke Lateef Dickerson's jaw. Tamir Rice's killer was never even tried.

The damage of such failures is bigger than those three cases or the hundreds that preceded them. Where there is no accountability, there can be no trust. When law-abiding people have legitimate reason to fear even a traffic stop, the world becomes more dangerous, both for police and the communities they serve.

Earlier this month, Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer called for two officers to be fired after they tasered a mentally ill man 12 times and he died. Last month, Balch Springs, Texas, Police Chief Jonathan Haber sacked an officer who shot into a moving car, killing an unarmed 15-year-old boy.

The sad thing is, such episodes of police accountability are rare enough that they stand out, that you remember them. They even seem morally heroic. And they should not.

When he was stopped last year for speeding, Tony Lee, a Washington-area preacher, was happily surprised to find the officer friendly and professional. Talking with a friend, Lee, who is black, called the encounter a "blessing." The friend, a white police chief in another jurisdiction, was angry at that, reminding Lee that anyone who gets a ticket -- even a deserved one -- has a right to be upset. "But," said the chief, "you're just happy you're [still] living. That's not the way it should be."

No, but that is the way it is. And because of the way it is, a simple traffic stop left Ayanna Cruver terrified.

"I shouldn't have had to feel this," she said.
Another Memorial Day has passed and again, as always, we placed flowers and other memorials to honor and show respect to our family and friends, and once again these items vanished the next day or two after they were placed by the graves of our loved ones.
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.
It is starting to sound like a foregone conclusion, but Marc Campbell cleaned up again Sunday (June 18) afternoon at Red Shores at Summerside Raceway.

The Winsloe, P.E.I. resident had six wins Saturday night at Red Shores Charlottetown, then followed suit Sunday, capturing four dashes on the 13-race card, including the afternoon feature and a leg of the Atlantic Aged Mares Pacing Series.

The King of Island racing sent Woodmere Articblue to the front from post seven in her $3,870 Atlantic Aged Mares Pacing Series leg, presented by Standardbred Canada, setting fractions of :28.2, :57.3 and 1:26.4 before kicking clear for a 13-length victory in 1:55.4. Campbell also trains the five-year-old daughter of Articulator for owners Tanya Tremblett and Stevi Jardine. Brodys Leona (Corey MacPherson) finished second, with Sos Bambie (Gary Chappell) checking in third.

The other mares division went to Ramblinglily and driver Walter Cheverie in a well-rated 1:57.2 score through front-end fractions of :28.1, :58.3 and 1:27.4. Allan Jones of New Brunswick trains and co-owns the seven-year-old daughter of Articulator with fellow New Brunswick resident Norman Leger. Shadows Myster (Kenny Arsenault) got up for the place prize, while third place went to Best Risque (Jason Hughes).



Ramblinglily was among the Atlantic Aged Mares Pacing Series winners Sunday at Summerside Ramblinglily was among the Atlantic Aged Mares Pacing Series winners Sunday at Summerside

The $2,400 afternoon feature was full of familiar tactics for Campbell and Eagle Jolt, as the ten-year-old son of Village Jolt moved first-over to wear down pacesetter Junebugs Baby (Myles Heffernan) and win by half a length in 1:56.2. Junebugs Baby was second with Narragansett (Hughes) third.

Eagle Jolt is owned by Wilbur and Marie MacDonald.

Campbell, who leads the Summerside driving colony with 15 wins this season, had his two other visits to the winners circle on the day aboard his own trainee Ryans Allstar (1:58.1) and with Earl Watts trainee Winrlosedrnkdaboze (2:00.2). Watts also had a training double, winning as well with Woodmere Luckypercy (Chappell, 2:00.2).

It was a day Devon Wallace of Alberton will never forget as he captured his first lifetime driving win aboard Im On Schedule off a pocket score of 2:01.1 at 22-1 odds for owner David Lewis.

Corey MacPherson had a driving triple on the card winning with Scotty Mach N (1:56.3) for trainer Trevor Hicken, Souverain (2:00.4) for owner-trainer Phil Sizer, and Brief Interlude (2:01.1) for owner-trainer Paul Conway.

To view Sunday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Sunday Results - Summerside Raceway.

(Red Shores)
Every day feels like Father's Day for top driver Sylvain Filion.

Sylvain Filion is many things: four-time O'Brien Award winning driver of the year, world driving champion, nephew of the incomparable superstar Herve Filion, and all-around bon vivant from Quebec.

But he says his greatest achievement has been to become a father.

Youd think it would have been hard enough to have become the second-most familiar member of the expansive Filion family (at last count, 25 Filions were registered to drive in North America), drive in more than 46,000 races around the planet, win more than 8,400 of them, finesse his way to victory in the 2014 Maple Leaf Trot with 80-1 shot Intimidate, get to the wire first in the 2013 Metro Pace with a horse with a heavyweight name, Boomboom Ballykeel, and break his driving teeth as a youngster by winning a baby race with the future North America Cup champion Runnymede Lobell.

But becoming a father was much harder for Filion. He and life partner Dominic Pare had to work hard at it. Very hard.

We had been trying to have kids for a long time, said Filion, 48.

Hes been with Pare for at least 25 years. They are from the same town in Quebec. They went to school together in Lachute, a paper mill and lumber town of about 12,000 people. But parenthood never worked out for the two of them.

We kind of half gave up on having kids, Filion said.

The last alternative was to adopt a child. Easier said than done.

Its a very long process, Filion said. We had to do a lot of studying and research. For three weekends in a row, (both Saturday and Sunday), they navigated traffic to get to downtown Toronto to take classes on adoption. Its not as easy as people think, he said.

From the time they started their search to the day they met a three-month old girl from Timmins that they would later call Stella Rose, it took two years of hard work. Its like you have to sell yourself, Filion said. You have to put out a profile. And its the parents that choose you. Thats the way it goes now. Luckily, we found someone to choose us.

First, they had to meet the parents in Timmins. For the first time, they saw the child. We approached her and she was in a cradle, Filion said. She looked at us and she smiled. Oh my god. She had us at the get-go. It was an amazing day for us.

Stella Rose turned four years old on April 9. Shes a smiley little muffin, with laughing eyes and curls tumbled atop her head. She won hearts last August at the induction ceremonies for the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in Mississauga, Ont., when her grandfather, Yves, entered the Hall, following his brother, Herve, who was inducted 40 years earlier.

Yves is the youngest of eight Filion brothers. He quietly found his spot in the Hall on the strength of guiding his Runnymede Lobell to win the 1988 North America Cup (teen-aged Sylvain was listed as trainer), and driving his homebred Goliath Bayama, known as the Monster from Montreal that defeated Gallo Blue Chip in a Breeders Crown for older pacers one year. Goliath Bayama also finished second to The Panderosa in the 1998 North America Cup.

Stella Rose had been playing with some of her toys in a corner in the banquet hall, amusing herself amidst the glitz. Yves couldnt help himself; he joined her, just before he was to go on stage. But then, he had to leave. And Sylvain was to present the trophy to his father. Both went up on stage.

While Yves was giving his acceptance speech, Stella Rose knew where she must be: at his side. When she saw Pappy up on stage, she went up on the stage to join him, Sylvain said. It wasnt planned. Yves couldnt help but smile.

Having Stella Rose in their hearts and minds and living rooms and car seats has been life changing, Filion said. Hes a different person today because of Stella Rose, he said.

My business is a tough business, Filion said. People dont realize how many hours we put in. With the arrival of Stella Rose, I promised myself to be there for her, even if it means to cut down on work a bit, for whatever reason.

So far, Ive got to admit, things are pretty good, he said with a smile. I was able to arrange my schedule so that I could be home pretty much every night. Im pretty proud of that.

For a guy who drives mainly at night, it means he takes fewer road trips and overnight stays. He doesnt mind.

I enjoy her presence and she makes me feel so good, Filion said. She brought so many good things to me. Shes made me a better person.

Without children, he and Dominic had a different lifestyle. They could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. But that changed with Stella Rose in the picture. It pretty much grounded us and made us realize how fortunate we are, Filion said.

And she made us realize that we had quite a bit of success, he said. And maybe we didnt realize it. They take things less for granted now.

Currently, Stella Rose is attending a French immersion school in Milton, Ont., three days a week. Filion drops her off every day. But in September, she will become a full-time student. That will be different, Filion said, obviously dreading it.

As focused as the members of the Filion family were on racing and working, they always returned home to Angers, Que., for family functions, especially for Christmas and New Years Day. Even Herve, a workaholic extraordinaire, paused to come home for holidays.

Christmas and New Years was very important for the Filion family, he said. We all got together and celebrated, even if everybody was far apart. They found a way to get together.

While Yves is now 71, and Herve 77, the younger members of the Filion family -- now including Stella Rose -- are filling in the blanks and sticking together. Sylvains brother, Justin recently bought a farm in Richmond, Que. He and his girlfriend have 15 horses together with broodmares and foals and yearlings.

His sister, Julie, is the youngest of this family, and has a daughter, Amy. Sylvain is the proud godfather. Julie instated him before he adopted Stella Rose.

Last winter, they all went together for a Disney cruise in Orlando, Fla. We had a ball there, Filion said. A great time.

For Sylvain Filion, it feels like Fathers Day every day.

(By Beverley Smith for WoodbineEntertainment.com)
Filly favourites Rose Run Sydney and Gabbysloosechange each captured their respective $40,000 Ohio Sires Stakes contests on Saturday night, June 17 at Northfield Park in round two of the four-leg series for Buckeye-bred sophomores.

Rose Run Sydney, a daughter of Triumphant Caviar out of the Angus Hall mare Stonebridge Dancer, scored a near wire-to-wire performance in the first OHSS division with Jason Brewer at the lines as the 3-5 publics choice.

Conditioned by co-owner Steve Carter for Adam Friedland, Brooklyn, NY and Rbr Racing LLC, Ashland, OH, Rose Run Sydney grabbed the lead going to the :56.4 half-mile marker and never looked back, rolling to victory in a lifetime best 1:55.3 clocking. She finished a comfortable four lengths in front of 4-1 Bamaslastchance (Aaron Merriman), with 17-1 Away My Baby (Jason Thompson) notching show honours.

The victory gave the filly -- who was bred by the Rose Run Farm of Sugarcreek, OH -- a perfect two-for-two in OHSS competition, as she had captured Leg One on May 1 at Miami Valley Raceway in 1:58.1.

Rose Run Sydney upped her career earnings to $157,067 lifetime from 11 wins, four seconds and two thirds in 18 career starts.

Trainer Chris Beaver and co-owner Johanna Beavers Gabbysloosechange won her OHSS division in similar style to the aforementioned Rose Run Sydney, taking control of the race at the :57.1 half, and scoring her fourth lifetime win in 1:54.4 for driver Jason Thompson.

The 2-1 homebred Credit Winner lass -- who was unraced as a freshman -- finished 1-1/4 lengths in front of her hard-trying, 1-2 stablemate, Chim Swift (Aaron Merriman), with 25-1 Vatanna (Jason Brewer) getting up for third.

Gabbysloosechance now has four wins and $48,500 in career earnings from just six lifetime starts. She won her Leg One OHSS division at Miami Valley in 1:57.2 on May 1.

Ohio Sires Stakes continue on Monday, June 19 with three-year-old trotting colts in the spotlight in a Scioto Downs matinee program. Post time is 2:00 p.m., ET.

(with files from OSDF)
CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. (AP)  Crystal Lake residents with unused band equipment can donate their instruments to benefit Crystal Lake Elementary School District 47 students interested in music.

Kate Lanza, an eighth-grader at Hannah Beardsley Middle School, plays the clarinet and has been in band since fifth grade. After talking with her former band teacher, Keith Hulen, she realized not every student could afford to play an instrument. The 14-year-old then decided to create a fundraiser to help get the necessary tools to others in the district.

"That's my goal, is to get one instrument to every kid, because I am having a fabulous experience in band, and if I can help one more kid get that too, then that's my goal," Kate said.

The band instrument drive started May 29 and will go through June 30.

Items needed include woodwind instruments, brass instruments and percussion kits. The drive also is requesting foldable music stands and "Standard of Excellence, Book 1" for the suggested instruments.

Scott Sampson, District 47 music coordinator and Hannah Beardsley band director, has helped support the collection drive.

"I'm glad that we had a student step forward and force us to move forward on this thing more," Sampson said. "It's a great idea, and I really hope that it allows a number of students to get into music."

Kate has been a Girl Scout for nine years, and the fundraiser is part of her Girl Scouts Silver Award project. The Silver Award is a high honor given to a Girl Scout Cadette who helps give back to their community.

"We wanted to show that Girl Scouts is more than just selling cookies," said Beth Lanza, Kate's mother. "She's learned over nine years the skills to be able to even have the confidence to come up with a project like this."

Piano Trends Music Co. in Crystal Lake is participating in the drive. People can drop off their donations at the local music store, 35 Berkshire Drive, Crystal Lake, during normal business hours.
Once, your life was filled with few cares.

Your days were breezy with parties, sleeping in, long weekends away, champagne evenings and chilled mimosas. Then you gave it all up, and in Sleepless Nights and Kisses for Breakfast by Matteo Bussola, you will see that it was a good trade.

It all started on a Saturday in January 2007. That was the day when Bussola and his wife, Paola, became parents of their first child, Virginia. Some four years later, Ginevra was born, and then two years after that, Melania entered the world.

There was terror on that first day, Bussola says; terror he hardly knows how to describe, but terror he recognizes is different for every father. One thing that is common, however, is theres the before, and theres the after.

It is this after of which Bussola writes.

Being a father means looking for solidarity at a birthday party for little girls  and not finding it. Its agreeing to have more than one child because sleep, really, is overrated. Its being able to decipher what a toddler wants by what sounds like nonsense to anyone but her parents.

All the frights you have on behalf of your children will shorten your life. You will see the adult shell become someday, and itll be bittersweet. The conversations you have with a toddler will widen your world and put things into perspective; being a hero in the eyes of your 8-year-old will cause you to do things you might have been embarrassed to do in another time. You will never forget the weight of a small head on your chest, or the wish that you could move without waking a sleeping baby. When your preschooler gets her first innocent kiss, you will think of barbed wire.

There are things you will learn as a father. And, the job is brutal. Stickers and kisses have a lot in common. Mothers dont tell you half of these things.

And you will never be the same person.

Perhaps because of an overabundance of funny-dad books on the shelves today, I rather expected Sleepless Nights and Kisses for Breakfast would be humorous.

It mostly is not humorous. In fact, there are times when the reflections in this book dont seem to even have a point.

The reason, maybe, is because this book was printed in author Matteo Bussolas home country of Italy a few years back. Was something lost in translation? Were the essays supposed to end abruptly? If they were, that can be awkward; just as I settled on a thought, it was over and into the next thing. Yes, there were some awwww moments and a few teary sentiments here, but they seemed to be overshadowed by social-media-post-like, fleeting half-thoughts.

Heavy sigh.

Now, be aware that this book is not all bad; in fact, it gets better as pages pass so try it, if you like, but just know what it is, and what it is not. You might enjoy Sleepless Nights and Kisses for Breakfast, or you may not care for it at all.
Longview Democrat Teresa Purcell, who ran unsuccessfully for the Legislature last fall, still is fighting campaign finance complaints filed against her by conservative watchdog Glen Morgan and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

Morgans original complaint, filed last fall with the state Public Disclosure Commission, accuses Purcell of 158 violations of campaign reporting requirements. They were minor, such as failing to list occupations and employers of campaign donors, filing a form four days late, incorrectly stating when her term would begin if elected, and not reporting her purchase of a website domain  which cost $5, according to Purcell  as an in-kind contribution.

In December, after the PDC and his office investigated, Ferguson announced he would pursue charges and fines against Purcells campaign. Dan Jackson, the communications consultant for the Attorney Generals office, said the original complaint against Purcell is ongoing and that the agency is currently in the discovery phase.

In May, Morgan filed an additional complaint that accuses Purcell of failing to accurately report campaign expenditures and contributions, according to documents he filed with the PDC. Morgan cited eight different cases alleging that Purcells campaign failed to report addresses for donors or where expenses occurred. He also alleges that the campaign failed to turn in expense reports on time, failed to report a $500 loan from her brother for cleaning the campaign office, and didnt report attorney fees incurred to fight Morgans original complaint. Fergusons office has not decided yet whether it would pursue these complaints.

Morgan, a 46-year-old Tenino native who formerly worked for the conservative Freedom Foundation, filed 75 different complaints, all against Democrats, in 2016 alone, according to Joseph OSullivan of the Seattle Times.

Purcell said Morgans actions are a personal attack on her because of her political party and views.

Were being as cooperative as we can possibly be, and it feels like an attack from the right, she said. I would ask to look at the Republicans and see if theyre doing (campaign finance reports) perfectly, because I guarantee that they havent.

Purcell said her team had corrected all of the missing information that sparked the initial complaints in October, and she was confused as to why the Attorney General still is trying to sue her. She is still fighting the charges.

Its really unclear whats going on, she said. Were trying to get guidance because the law was really unclear on one aspect on one of the claims.

Purcell, a communications and political consultant, is considering running for Congress against Southwest Washington Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler next year. She said Friday she has not decided yet.

The PDC is currently assessing Morgans second charge against Purcell, according to spokeswoman Kim Bradford.
Michelle Carter was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter Friday for using text messages and phone calls to encourage her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to commit suicide in 2014.

Carter, 20, cried silently in the Massachusetts courtroom as Judge Lawrence Moniz outlined the steps she took -- and the ones she did not take -- that led to Roy's death from carbon monoxide poisoning.

"She called no one, and finally, she did not issue simple additional instruction: Get out of the truck," Moniz said in his 15-minute explanation.

When will Carter be sentenced?

Carter is expected to be sentenced August 3, when she could face up to 20 years in prison for the manslaughter charge.

But Northeastern University law professor Daniel Medwed said he does not expect Moniz to condemn her to two decades behind bars.

"I think the judge might show her leniency, given her mental health issues and medications," as a psychiatrist testified about in her trial, Medwed said. "The conviction sends a strong message, but that doesn't mean the outcome will be 20 years in prison."

Where could she serve her time?

Carter was 17 when Roy died, and she was charged as a juvenile.

Since she is now a legal adult, Medwed said Carter could likely serve any jail time in an adult prison.

Kari Hong, an assistant professor of law at Boston College, said Carter could serve what's known in the state as a "hybrid" sentence.

That would allow Carter to serve part of her sentence under the juvenile system, which aims to rehabilitate, and part under the adult system, which aims to punish offenders.

Could Carter face a civil suit?

Carter's time in court is not yet done.

The Roy family could sue her for the wrongful death of their son since she was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Medwed said the only issue would be whether Carter and her family have the assets or the means to fight a civil suit and pay any damages.

Could this case set a legal precedent?

Medwed said the case is not likely to set a legal precedent, "especially since it still needs to survive appeal."

But it could "embolden other prosecutors to be more aggressive in their charges" since it has "such a symbolic value," he said.

The verdict is not likely to hold up in appellate courts, Hong said. She predicted the verdict will be overturned on causation, which would lead to state lawmakers introducing a new law to criminalize the act of encouraging suicide.

"What happens in Massachusetts is there's a functional relationship between the court and the legislature," she said. "When the court shuts down the legislature, the Massachusetts legislature writes a new law."

Could the case lead to new laws?

Massachusetts is one of 10 states without laws that criminalize encouraging or assisting suicide.

But since Carter was miles away from Roy when he died, in his ruling, Moniz focused on the hundreds of text messages and calls the couple exchanged on the night of his death.

The messages from Carter to Roy encouraged the then-18-year-old to commit suicide, saying his family will understand and he needs to stop "pushing it off."

Medwed said the case is likely to set the groundwork for introducing legislation in Massachusetts.

Hong agreed, saying that because the state legislature does not have an adequate law in place to address this kind of case, they are more likely to introduce a law criminalizing this type of behavior in the near future.

CNN's Michelle Krupa, Jessica Suerth, Sarah Jorgensen and Darran Simon contributed to this report.
tech2 News Staff

According to a report by the Financial Times, the European Commission (EC) is expected to fine Google for anti-competitive practices. The fine that will force the search giant to cough up more than 1 billion euros will be announced this week to sanction the group. The decision could also mean that Google may have to change its online search operating practices in Europe.

The commission has accused the United States tech giant of manipulating its search engine so that people buy from Google Shopping only, thus blocking other shopping services and limiting the consumer's choice. Earlier this month, the European Commission had aimed to slap a hefty price which was supposed to come up by August. The charges came after seven years of investigation when it received complaints from US and European retailers in 2015. The European Commission decided to take on Google on the grounds of anti-trust violation after 19 companies had complained about their practice. These companies included giants like Microsoft and even other smaller companies.

After the allegations, Google's General Vice President and General Counsel, Kent Walker, in a press release dated November 3, 2016, had said, "We never compromised the quality or relevance of the information shared. On the contrary, we improved it. That isn't 'favouring'- that's listening to our customers."

This is not the first time that the European Commission has taken up such a case. Margarethe Vestager, the commissioner for the European Commission for competition, has previously taken over Apple and Amazon on the grounds of tax avoidance and tax evasion, respectively.
PTI

The corporate affairs ministry's key portal for making filings by companies - MCA21 - came under WannaCry ransomware attack last month, affecting certain services.

The attack was "presumably" the first on a central government portal and prompt measures were taken to contain the impact, according to an official document.

Last month, the WannaCry ransomware cyber attack impacted computer systems and networks in more than 150 countries, including India.

MCA21, which is managed by IT major Infosys, provides for making electronic filings related to compliances under the Companies Act and Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008.

"During May 2017, the MCA21 system was subjected to WannaCry ransomware attack. The attack was in the nature of a 'zero day attack' and was first noticed on May 7," the document said.

Generally, zero day attack refers to hackers exploiting a flaw in a software system that is not known to the vendor itself.

"The attack was presumably one of the first such attacks on a Government of India portal," the document stated. While some document related to front office and back office services were initially affected, technical teams took prompt measures to contain the impact and informed the CERT-In immediately, it added.

CERT-In is the government's cyber security arm. As per the document, the system servers were re-formatted and the systems were re-deployed.

"The prompt measures helped all services being restored fully without any loss by May 12," it said. Contacted for comments on the matter, an Infosys spokesperson said, "We ecommend a conversation with the (corporate affairs) ministry on this matter."

The query sent to Corporate Affairs Secretary Tapan Ray remained unanswered. An e-governance initiative of the ministry, MCA21 enables secure access of the services to corporate entities,professionals and citizens of India.

On an average, at least 8,000 filings are made through the portal daily.

Last month, the government had said there was no serious impact on the country from a global ransomware cyber attack,except for a few isolated incidents in Kerala and Andhra

Pradesh, and that steps were being taken to deal with any future threat.

"There is no major impact in India unlike other countries. We are keeping a close watch. As per the information received so far, there have been isolated incidents in limited areas in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh,"

Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said on May 15. The WannaCry attack is reported to have impacted over two lakh computers in more than 150 countries.

Hackers were believed to have used techniques stolen from the US National Security Agency to encrypt files within affected computers, making them inaccessible, and demanded USD 300 ransom.
hidden

The same hacker targeting Canadian casinos and mining companies for extortion since 2013 is planning more attacks, researchers at cyber security company FireEye Inc said in a report on Friday.

FireEye said it believes that a single hacker or hacking group that it dubbed FIN10 is behind the breaches due to similarities in method: how they broke into corporate systems, stealing gigabytes of sensitive data and demanding ransom paid in Bitcoin, and publicizing the stolen information by alerting bloggers.

While FireEye declined to identify victims by name, the methods described in their report echoed those used in attacks on Goldcorp, the world's third biggest gold miner by market value, smaller operator Detour Gold, and the Casino Rama Resort. FireEye said FIN10's degree of operational success makes more campaigns "highly probable" and that it had evidence suggesting the group had targeted additional victims.

FireEye said FIN10 used the moniker Angels_of_Truth at least once, claiming to attack in retaliation for Canadian sanctions against Russia. More often, it borrowed the name Tesla Team from a group of Serbian hacktivists. FireEye believes FIN10 was flying 'false flags' with those names, with no backing from a nation-state or affiliation with organized criminals.

Angels_of_Truth was the name used by hackers who contacted a databreaches.net blogger between April and June 2015 claiming credit in Russian and English for the Detour intrusion. The same blogger, alerted to a breach at Goldcorp in April 2016, published details on the Daily Dot website before Goldcorp acknowledged the compromise. The Vancouver-based miner has since modified its IT processes, increased network security protocols, and worked to educate its staff about cyber risks, a spokeswoman said.

After that breach, a mining industry group formed a network to share information on cyber threats. At least six members, including Teck Resources Ltd, will take the project live next month. FIN10 is still in contact with some victims and more targets may "become aware of the threat in the coming weeks or months," said Charles Carmakal, vice president at FireEye's Mandiant unit. Detour Gold did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did Casino Rama, which said in November that sensitive customer, employee and vendor data had been stolen. Some were reportedly later posted online, and they now face a class action lawsuit over the breach.

Reuters
How do we change the world? One random act of kindness at a time. Kindness is a gateway for all of us to connect and care for each other.  Morgan Freeman Whether its a supporting...

MAKING CONNECTIONS Editors note: The following random acts of kindness were emailed or called into County Press editor Jeff Hogan at jhogan@mihomepaper.com. The following acts of kindness experienced by County Press readers...

Ed-Tech students connect with community ATTICA TWP.  The Lapeer County Education and Technology Center (Ed-Tech) is a place where students can get a taste of the career opportunities that exist in their field of...
Trump announces he's being investigated

AFP :

US President Donald Trump announced Friday he is under investigation in connection with a probe into alleged Russian election meddling that is gnawing away at his administration-and gathering pace.

The Republican leader also lashed out at the Justice Department's number two, the man tasked with organizing the probe. The furious early morning barrage of tweets-his second in as many days-came as the special counsel investigating Russia's influence over his election pieced together a high-caliber legal team and readied to begin interviews.

Trump is accused of firing FBI director James Comey over his refusal to steer the Russia investigation away from former national security advisor and Trump ally Mike Flynn.

The US president has denied trying to influence the investigation, but has acknowledged in an interview that Russia was on his mind when he dismissed Comey.

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt" he tweeted from the White House shortly before a day trip to Miami.

That appeared to be the first public confirmation that Trump is being investigated for obstruction of justice-and a digital salvo trained at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who wrote a memo criticizing Comey.

A source on Trump's legal team attempted to clarify the missive, claiming he was reacting to media reports about the investigation rather than offering public confirmation. Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Mueller-a respected former FBI director-has sought to beef up his investigatory firepower.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, told AFP he now has "13 attorneys on board, with several more in the pipeline." That will only add to a sense of foreboding that pervades the White House, from the crammed collective workspaces of junior officials all the way to the Oval Office.

The widened Russia probe could have far-reaching repercussions for Trump's presidency, transforming his closest aides into witnesses and sucking even more political oxygen out of the West Wing. Trump was set to escape the Washington pressure cooker on Saturday. Accompanied by First Lady Melania, he will make his first trip to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. A weekend at the rustic mountain getaway is a far cry from the president's normal routine of jetting off to one of his lavish resorts, mainly Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence took what he later described as a "very routine" step of hiring outside counsel to represent him. Pence tapped far-from-average lawyer Richard Cullen, who litigated the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, the Watergate affair and the 2000 vote recount in Florida.

As the legal rope has tightened, Trump's allies have gone on the offensive, questioning Mueller's credibility and floating the idea he may be fired. Trump's apparent attack on Rosenstein also raised further questions about whether he will stay in his position or recuse himself from the investigation.

"As the deputy attorney general has said numerous times, if there comes a point when he needs to recuse, he will. However, nothing has changed," said Ian Prior, a Justice Department spokesman.

Top Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein expressed concern that Trump may try to fire both Mueller and Rosenstein, warning "he's in for a rude awakening" if he thinks he can shut down the investigation.

"Even his staunchest supporters will balk at such a blatant effort to subvert the law," Feinstein said. Trump also lashed out at the media, on a day that aides hoped would be focused on his decision to undo some of Barack Obama's detente with Cuba. "After 7 months of investigations & committee hearings about my 'collusion with the Russians,' nobody has been able to show any proof. Sad!" Trump tweeted. "The Fake News Media hates when I use what has turned out to be my very powerful Social Media - over 100 million people! I can go around them." Trump's young presidency has been battered by allegations-under investigation both by Congress and the FBI-that Russia interfered to sway the 2016 election in his favor, in possible collusion with Trump's campaign team.
US Judge declares mistrial in Bill Cosby sexual assault case

AFP, Norristown :

A US judge declared a mistrial Saturday in Bill Cosby's sexual assault case with the jury deadlocked on whether the disgraced star drugged and molested a woman in 2004, as prosecutors vowed to seek a retrial.

It was a stunning development-and a momentary victory-for the 79-year-old pioneering black entertainer who risked spending the rest of his life in prison if convicted of assaulting former university employee Andrea Constand at his Philadelphia home 13 years ago.

Prosecutors pledged to pursue a conviction, raising the prospect that the now frail and isolated comedian, once adored by millions as "America's Dad" but his career now in tatters, would be forced to return to court in a matter of months.

The trial has irrevocably damaged the legacy of Cosby, once a towering figure in US popular culture best known for his seminal role as a lovable father and obstetrician on hit 1984-92 TV series "The Cosby Show."

Free on a $1 million bail, Cosby-who says he is legally blind-hung his head and made no comment before leaving the court in the Philadelphia suburb of Norristown, escorted by his representatives.

Around 60 women have publicly accused the Emmy-winning actor in recent years of being a serial sexual predator, alleging that he drugged and assaulted them over a span of 40 years across the United States.

But Constand's allegations were the only criminal case brought against him as most of the alleged abuse happened too long ago to prosecute.

Her case was initially settled by a civil suit but re-opened in 2015, when Pennsylvania prosecutors claimed that new evidence had come to light.

'We're going to retry the case'

"We're going to retry the case," said Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele.

"There was no pause or hesitation about that, and we're moving forward," he told reporters.




One dead, 50 injured as police, protesters clash in Darjeeling

Photo shows an Indian soldier patrolling next to a burned-out vehicle after clashes in Darjeeling.

AFP, West Bengal :

A man has been killed and dozens of police injured in clashes between Indian police and protesters in Darjeeling, an official said Sunday, as unrest worsens in the hill resort at the height of the tourist season.

Nearly 50 people, mostly police, have been injured in riots and arson attacks that have gripped the usually bustling area for more than a week and caused thousands of mostly Indian tourists to pack their bags and flee.

As the violence escalated sharply on Saturday, a man died in clashes as protesters torched cars and set upon police with knives, who responded with tear gas and baton charges.

"A man was killed and at least 35 policemen were injured yesterday. Some of them were stabbed in the back," the director general of West Bengal state police, Anuj Sharma, told AFP.

One officer who intervened in an arson attack was "seriously wounded after protesters slashed his throat", Sharma said.

The dead man appeared to have been shot but the circumstances were still unclear, Sharma added. Police have denied using live ammunition.

The upswing in violence began when police raided the homes and offices of members of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), a separatist movement that has long called for a new state of "Gorkhaland" to be carved out of West Bengal.

The group has accused police of shooting dead three of its members in Saturday's clashes -- a claim which police have strongly denied.

"Three of our comrades were killed and five were critically injured in police firing yesterday," GJM's general secretary Roshan Giri told AFP.

He said hundreds took to the streets of Darjeeling on Sunday for a silent protest against "police atrocities", waving India's tricolour flag and posters calling for peace.

The hills are famous for the Darjeeling tea whose production is jealously guarded. It is also famed for its "toy train" -- a 78-kilometre uphill ride from New Jalpaiguri.

But the troubles have dealt a major blow to the crucial tourism industry, leaving the normally busy destination deserted as shops, schools and banks closed.

Apart from the campaign for a new state, tensions have risen recently over a decision to introduce the Bengali language in schools, angering the Nepali-speaking Gorkhas.
Eid shopping gets momentum

A Correspondent :

Eid shopping has gained momentum in the port city as the Eid-ul- is drawing near. Over 100 shopping establishments and several thousands of shops of the city have remained jam-packed with the Eid-shoppers regularly. Muslim people in the port city are gathering in different markets to buy new dresses for their family members and dear ones.

The shopping establishments of the city, including Bipani Bitan (New Market), Reazuddin Bazaar, Lucky Plaza, Southland Center, Highway Plaza, Central Plaza, Mimi Super Market, Chittagong Shopping Complex, Apollo Shopping Center, Bay Shopping Center, Amin Center, Singapore-Bangkok Market, VIP Tower, Agrabad Shopping Centers, Chawk Bazaar and all other markets are the traditional venues for the Eid-shoppers.

All the shopping complexes have been colorfully decorated and illuminated to attract the customers. As a result, the tasteful decoration and illumination of the shopping complexes has changed the nocturnal view of the port city. Usually, the rush of customers starts at noon and continues till midnight in the shopping centers. However, these establishments were packed with innumerable customers yesterday as the day was a public holiday.

Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) has taken stern security measures to control the law and order situation in the city to ensure a secure Eid shopping for the people. CMP has deployed 35 teams in the city. The teams are working round the clock to check the possible hijack and robbery in the city during this time.

Women constitute the majority of the customers, who are moving from shop to shop to collect their favorite dresses and other cosmetics goods. The affluent section of the society are rushing towards the markets to buy costly dresses including three pieces, foreign sarees, cosmetics and even gold ornaments to make the Eid festival more enjoyable.

Meanwhile, some of the shopping centers and markets have already declared discounts on the prices of their products and offering lucky coupons to attract the customers in the port city. Despite the government decision for using own power after 10 pm in the markets, the owners of the shops are using the power from PDB instead of generator. The leaders of shop owners associations of several markets categorically admitted that they could manage the officials of PDB to supply power in the markets after 10 pm till Eid.

As a result, people of Chittagong are suffering from load shedding in the nights of Ramadan. Meanwhile, the administration has directed the shop owners and businessmen to stop all illumination and decoration during the Ramzan.

However, the poorer section of society is doing their necessary Eid shopping from footpaths and Jahur Hawker market. The footpath surrounding the Reazuddin Bazaar, New Market, Laldighi area, Chawk bazaar, Agrabad area and Halishahar areas are now full of customers of low-income group for Eid shopping.
President for raising awareness of RTI



President Abdul Hamid has asked the Information Commission (IC) to embark on a campaign for creating mass awareness of the Right to Information (RTI) Act at the grassroots.

"Right to Information (RTI) Act is an important weapon for establishing good governance, accountability and transparency in the activities of both public and private sectors," he said.

The President was talking to a three-member delegation led by Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Prof Dr Md Golam Rahman when it submitted the Commission's annual report - 2016 to him at Bangabhaban on Sunday.

President's Press Secretary M Joynal Abedin briefed newsmen after the meeting.

Abdul Hamid asked officials concerned to play their due role in creating awareness of people's fundamental right to getting necessary information.

During the meeting, the IC delegation apprised the President of its different activities.

They told the President that the number of information seekers had significantly increased.

President Hamid expressed satisfaction over the activities of the Information Commission.

Secretaries concerned to the President were present.


Manik Mia, The six point programme and national unity

Dr. Kamal Hossain :

The fact that one of the first Cabinet decisions after liberation was to name the road on which the Jatiyo Sangsad building stands, Manik Mia Avenue, should provide an insight as to how those who had led independence viewed his role and that of the Ittefaq newspaper. I had the privilege after joining the High Court Bar in 1959 to meet him and be a regular visitor to his residence in Shantinagar. In those days when Ayub Khan's martial law had been imposed, political parties were banned and political leaders were being persecuted and prosecuted. The Ittefaq office and Manik Mia's residence were places where all those who were threatened by martial law could share their anxiety and discuss the problems they faced. Since I had the opportunity to visit Manik Mia's residence, in particular when Mr. Hoseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy visited, I was particularly privileged to meet Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who in those days was respected as our Mujib Bhai. He was always there when Mr. Suhrawardy visited. This not only gave me opportunity to participate in political discussions with him but also to obtain Mr. Suhrawardy's assistance in moving bail in the cases that were being instituted against him.

The elections in 1946 and the United Front Election in 1954, demonstrated the commitment of the Bengali people to democracy. Manik Mia remained uncompromisingly committed to the restoration of democracy. As the Editor of the Ittefaq, he, undeterred by martial law, continued to write forcefully in favour of democracy and informed the people of the repressive actions of martial law against political leaders. He, thus, contributed significantly to keep alive the spirit of democracy in those dark days. His columns under his pen-name "Musafir" were read as a source of inspiration. Progressively as the issue of discrimination and disparity to which Bengalis were subjected by the authoritarian government and exploitation by the central ruling coterie gave strength to the growing Bangali nationalism. The Ittefaq under the editorials of Manik Mia attracted young journalists, whose powerful pens contributed to the cause. One of them Ahmedur Rahman was killed tragically in an air crash in Egypt, but Serajuddin Hossain wrote on powerfully for the cause of the Bengali people until he was martyred in 1971.

Up until 1963 the united democratic movement had been focusing on restoration of democracy and free and fair election, led by leaders like Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq. Political parties remained united and a national democratic front had continued to gain strength. On 5 December 1963 Mr. Suhrawardy had died. Following this Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had taken the initiative to revive Awami League. While supporting restoration of democracy and unity of democratic forces opposed to martial law, the revived Awami League emerged as a nationalist force to unite Bengali people in order to end the exploitation to which they had been subjected by the central government. Following the 1965 War, the movement against Ayub gained ground in both wings of Pakistan. It was in that context that in early 1966 a meeting was convened in Lahore at which Awami League was invited to participate. The distinctive role of Awami League leadership of Bangabandhu was to launch the six-point programme and to present it to the conference, but it met with a negative response from the West Pakistani leaders, who urged that free and fair elections alone should be pressed and not the demand for regional autonomy.

Between 1966 and 1969 the politics in Eastern wing gathered strength centered around the six-point programme. The Ittefaq's role in articulating the issue of disparity and discrimination from which Bangalis suffered continued to play a vital role in promoting the unity of the Bangali people. Manik Mia's position in this period was a particularly challenging one. Since he enjoyed broad support of political leaders his role was important in sustaining the unity of the Bengali people. Some Bengali leaders who took the view that election and democracy should be given priority within NDF kept up pressure on Manik Mia to support them. Manik Mia while maintaining respectful relations with those leaders continued to give forceful support to the six-point Programme for regional autonomy.

June 7, 1966 is a historic date in the six-point Movement since it was a national protest day. Ayub launched his repressive assault on that day, arresting Bangabandhu and his associates and Manik Mia and seizing and forfeiting the Ittefaq newspaper. The forfeiture order dated 19 June 1966 specifically included in its schedule, the following grounds for forfeiture:

SCHEDULE B: News, comments, statements and reports regarding the proposed observance of 'Protest Day' by the Awami League on 7.6.66 and all matters connected with or relating thereto.

SCHEDULE C. News, views, statements, reports or photographs concerning or relating to the observance of hartal and Protest Day in East Pakistan on 7th June, 1966 and Government measures taken in relation thereto.

"SCHEDULE D: The news under the heading wjelYi gyjZex cOIve AMOvn in page 1 and 2 of the issue of 9th June, 1966, Dacca.

1. The publication with the caption ivRbwZK g in page 4 of the issue of the 9th June Dacca.

2. The news under the heading 6 `dvi evIevqb AvIqvgx jxMi chvqwgK Kgm~Px in page 1 and 10 of the 12th June, 1966.

3. The news under the heading Qq `dvi cOk Kvb Avcvl bvB of the issue of 13th April, 1966.

4. The news under the heading msMOvg PjeB-cebi wekvj Rbmgy` bZe`i NvlYv of the issue of 25th April, 1966 in page 1.

5. The publication under the heading `xNm~wIZvi dj of the issue on 27.4.66."

This repressive assault on Ittefaq and Manik Mia drew me closer to Manik Mia and the Ittefaq, as I was among lawyers who filed the Writ Petition challenging his detention and the forfeiture of Ittefaq. For the main hearing we had obtained the assistance of Mr. Muhammad Ali Kasuri. He came to Dhaka and we together interviewed Manik Mia in the central jail. Mr. Kasuri insisted that our interview being a lawyer's interview, under the law no police officer could overhear our conversation. We insisted that the officers stand outside. They stood near the window, when Mr. Kasuri returned to them and said that since from the window they could overhear what we were saying, they must move further away which the police officers were compelled to do so that the lawyers interview could continue. Mr. Kasuri had to return to Lahore before the submissions could be completed. He, therefore, prayed for an adjournment. The Court directed that no adjournment could be allowed but that I should continue with the submissions, which gave me a unique opportunity to conclude the submissions on behalf of Manik Mia and the Ittefaq. The Special Bench of five judges, consisting of Justice Siddiky, M.R. Khan, S.D. Ahmed, A.M. Sayem and Abdulla, delivered their judgment on 9 August 1966, and held as follows:

"In terms of the unanimous opinion of the Court, the Rule in Petition No. 250 of 1966 is made absolute and the impugned order of forfeiture, dated 16.6.1966 is declared to have been made without lawful authority and is of no legal effect and the respondents are directed to withdraw or rescind the same."

Another critical role played by Manik Mia was in the context of the Roundtable Conference which Ayub held with political leaders in 1969. Manik Mia had hoped that political demands be met through discussions in the Roundtable Conference. Ayub Khan, however, was prevailed upon by those opposed to the six-point programme not to accept them so that at the end of the conference on 13 March he stated that he would not address the issue of regional autonomy but would provide only for direct elections to the national assembly on the basis of direct adult franchise, which could make the necessary amendments for a federal parliamentary form of government.

It was quite obvious that the anti-autonomy forces had succeeded in shutting the door to negotiations on regional autonomy. Bangabandhu therefore rejected the award. On returning from the conference hall, he sat with his senior colleagues to decide on their next course of action.

Before the press conference, Bangabandhu had telephoned Manik Mia in Dhaka, as he was anxious to gauge the popular reaction, which he had correctly assessed would support his decision to reject Ayub's award and to carry forward the political movement. Manik Mia in no uncertain terms said that the movement and the peoples' unity had been strengthened by Bangabandhu's decision which was fully supported by them.

The public reaction was to intensify the movement: spontaneous demonstrations in Dhaka denounced Ayub Khan, and pledged support to the Six Points movement. Bangabandhu's position as the authentic spokesperson of the Bangali people was confirmed by these demonstrations. Manik Mia's views thus contributed to the taking of the decision in March 1969 to intensify the six-point movement, which was a key chapter in our liberation struggle.

(Dr. Kamal Hossain is the President of Gano Forum. He delivered this speech to mark the 47th Anniversary of Death of Tofazzal Hossain Manik Mia, Founder Editor of the Daily Ittefaq observed by the Manik Mia Foundation on June 1, 2016 at Ittefaq Bhaban, Dhaka.)




Of gratitude

Maj Gen (Retd) Syed Muhammad Ibrahim Bir Protik :

Being grateful is a multi dimensional virtue; it is a requirement from the Almighty Allah also. The 55th chapter of the Holy Quran called Sura ArRahman has 78 Ayats or Verses. One Ayat has been repeated 31 times in this chapter, begining from the 13 th Ayat. An English translation of the said Ayat as in English version of Tafsir Ibn Kathir published by Darus Salam is like this: "Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you both deny." Famous English translator and commentator of the Holy Quran Abdullah Yusuf Ali translated the said Ayat: "Then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny." In the quickest response, we are prone to pronounce: "Oh Allah! Oh the Almighty Creator! we are grateful for the life on this earth you gave us, we are grateful for the honour you gave us and we are grateful for the wealth and happiness you gave us." But this response is not enough. Given a deeper thought, there are more reasons to be grateful. Let me go for these, as an individual, as a believer and as a citizen of my country Bangladesh.

I was born in a village, well away from the noise and pomp of the porttown called Chittagong. Our village was on the bank of river called Halda. Pakistan had just been born. The new country called Pakistan was starting its own way forward. The country had a President, reasonable forward looking; his name was Ayub Khan. Ayub Khan established residential public schools, on the pattern of the Rugby School or the Eton in England. President Ayub Khan of Pakistan had thought in mid-fifties that at least some young gentlemen must be brought up in a planned environment so that they can take upon themselves the responsibility of leading the society. Ayub Khan of course had Pakistan's military in mind but he also envisaged other fields of developmental and administrative activity. The first cadet college was established in the-then West Pakistan. Ayub Khan ordered the first cadet college in the-then East Pakistan to be located at a place called Faujdarhat, about 11 miles north of Chittagong town as in 1958. For such project to be successful, a very dynamic and farsighted team leader is a compulsion. Ayub Khan selected William Maurice Brown to be the first principal of the first cadet college of East Pakistan. Brown was a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the British Army and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. When Lt Col Brown was serving as a member of the United Nations Military Observer Group in Kashmir, he was spotted by the first Pakistani Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Army General Muhammad Ayub Khan as early as 1952. Colonel Brown served as the Principal from 1958 till end of 1965; I found him as my Principal for nearly 4 years. I am grateful to Almighty Allah that he gave me an opportunity to enter the Cadet College at Faujdarhat. The College was replicated within two years and three more similar colleges had come up at Jhenaida, Mirzapur and Rajshahi. When, General Ziaur Rahman was the President of Bangladesh, he decided to increase the number of Cadet Colleges. To avoid the delay and expenditure in developing the infrastructure fresh, Ziaur Rahman converted six residential model schools in six different districts headquarters, to Cadet Colleges like the ones in Comilla, Barisal, Rangpur, Sylhet, Pabna. The Cadet Colleges have produced thousands of young boys who are now in the mainstream of the society at home or ahroad. There have been outstanding scientists, administrators, generals, professors, businessmen and many more. They carry in their blood, fellow feeling, sociability, pro-activity and personal discipline. I must therefore being thankful to those farsighted leaders who patronized the Cadet College education. It was under threat in 1972, but General Osmani the legendary Commander-in-Chief of the Bangladesh liberation forces in 1971, stood by the young boys in ensuring continuity of the system. I have spoken at length about Cadet College education only to support a view that, there are more examples asking for gratefulness then we can think of.

I myself have been a freedom fighter in the battlefields in 1971. Freedom fighters have gone neglected for the early decades of the life of Bangladesh. Freedom Fighters have been a savory subject to discuss; bulk of the discussion are only lip service. To say, we are grateful to the freedom fighters, is but a quick service. In the War Cemetery in Kohima which is the capital of present-day Indian province of Nagaland, there is a monument to commemorate the fallen of the Battle of Kohima of 1944, fought between the British Indian Forces on the one side and the aggressor, Japanees forces. Two lines authored by John Maxwell Edmonds, were engraved in that monument. The two lines are "When you go home, tell them of us and say: For their tomorrow, we gave our today."

Our nation has failed to make a list of the fallen, Nay the martyrs of the War of Liberation. Out governments have mismanaged the simple task of making an uptodate list of the freedom fighters. So when we say, we are grateful, we refer generically. Be what it may, the freedom fighters whether living or martyred, deserve gratitude from the nation. They gave their today, which was 1971, which was their youth, which was their hours of dreaming, for our today. But what have we made of our days. We have had shining side and dark side simultaneously. We faced famine in 1974, we saw the demise of multiparty democracy in 1975, we saw the assassination of two Presidents in 1975 and 1981 respectively. We saw the violation of the Constitution and the arrival of Martial law in 1982. We saw return of democracy in 1991. We are a continuous witness to immorality in election politics. We are trapped in democracy of the corrupt, of the dishonest, of the mediocre and in the pollution of money and muscle in politics.

Bangladeshis have been resilient. The farmers have continuously been enhancing the par-acre yield. The millions of female garments workers have taken our readymade garments industry to an enviable height. Expatriate Bangladeshis have been remitting dollars to the vault of the Bangladesh Bank. Our roads have become wider and smoother. We have more number of banks in private sector than we need. We have more number of private universities than we can handle. There are more robbery and rape cases than the police can handle. New port is coming up at Paira in Southern Bangladesh; the Sundarban is in danger. Our boys and girls have gone to the Everest, our girls have been an integral part of our peacekeeping forces, our girls are now everywhere, but torture on women have not abated either. We are continuously combating militancy, extremism at home; we have joined hands with other Muslims to fight terrorism. Number of cars are increasing in the roads in an uncontrolled speed, number of air conditioners being used are increasing, number of multistoried shopping malls are increasing-these are all true. Also true, wealth is accumulating in the hands of few and they control the powerful; the number of poor or men below the poverty line are not being reduced. At the end of the day we might as well say, what has happened to the dreams of the martyrs of the war of liberation? Answer will not be forth coming. Thus shall we be ungrateful. No; we will be grateful. We still have sunshine, we still have our parents, we still have smiling children-for these we remain grateful to our Lord, to our Almighty Creator, to Allah, the Merciful.

(The writer is a Liberation War veteran and columnist)


Universal Declaration of Human Rights : Concept and history

Dr Syed Anwar Husain :

That human beings are to have rights has a philosophical as well as logical basis, which comes out clearly in the following words of J. Maritain

"The human person posses rights because of the very fact that it is a person, a whole, master of itself and of its acts, and which consequently is not merely a means to an end, but an end, an end which must be treated as such ... [and] the human person ... is the subject of rights, posses rights. These are things which are owed to man because of the very fact that he is man."1

A commonly held view is that both as a concept and construct Human Rights is entirely of modern origin and that too of Western one. But a holistic view would regard Human Rights as a phenomenon, which, despite its modern origin, has had gestation in the past spanning over ages.

McIntyre argues there is no word for 'right' in any document before 1400.2 Prior to this time all the historic documents were, although ethical in nature, presaged modern-day idea of Human Rights. The Cyrus Cylinder, created by the ancient Persian King Cyrus the Great (B. C. 600-529), is sometimes argued to be the world's first charter of Human Rights.3

The medieval origin of the concept of Human Rights may be traced to a number of documents, but the earlier ones of which related to life and works of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). The first one was the Charter of Madina of 622. This charter ordained equality to all persons of the city irrespective of religion and protected them against oppression (Clause 16). The state proclaimed the brotherhood of believers and gave each one a right and support to give protection to any individual, excepting an enemy (Clause 15). In the context of Human Rights more pertinent was the clause 25, wherein religious freedom was guaranteed to each community; thereby religious pluralism, an essential ingredient of democratic ethos, was provided. Incidentally, it may be noted that the provision for the state religion of Islam is neither Islamic nor democratic.

The Charter of Privileges of 628 given to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mount Sinai guaranteed five freedoms: of worship and movement; to appoint their own judge; to own and maintain property; of exemption from military service; and the right to protection in war.

The last document related to the Prophet (SAW) was contained in his Farewell Pilgrimage Oration of March 632. On Men-Women rights the Prophet (SAW) said, "O Men, to you a right belongs with respect to your women and to your women a right with respect to you." About a comprehensive perspective of Human Rights he had such eloquent words as -

"O People! Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab, also a white has no superiority over a black, nor a black has any superiority over a white except by piety and good action".4

Sometimes in the Western discourse on Human Rights the English document of Magna Carta of 1215 is referred to. Although a foundation for modern-day Human Rights the document was essentially a limited political and legal agreement to address specific political circumstances. Nevertheless, the document was an embryo of future civil and political rights in Britain and elsewhere across the world.

One of the significant medieval records of Human Rights is the Statute of Kalisz of 1264. Given by the Polish Kingdom to the Jewish minority the statute provided protection from discrimination and hate speech.5

The earliest premodern conceptualisation may be traced to the debates of Spanish clerics on the question of extending rights to indigenous peoples in the Americas. Las Casas argued in favour of equal rights to freedom from slavery for all humans regardless of race or religion.6

The modern origin of the concept of Human Rights may be traced to the 17th century English philosopher John Locke who identified some natural rights such as life, liberty and property. He argued that such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract. In 1689, the Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of tyrannical government actions. The two Western revolutions of the 18th century registered milestone progress towards conceptualising Human Rights. The American Revolution of 1776 started off with the 4 July Declaration of Independence wherein occured such egalitarian words as "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is evident that the spirit of this declaration was, to a great extent, influenced by Lockean philosophy and postulations. Additionally, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms. Nevertheless, Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, one of the authors of the constitution, faulted the constitution for skipping rights of women, the Red Indians and the Afro-Americans. In 1791, therefore, the first ten amendments to this constitution were lumped together as the Bill of Rights which ensured a wide range of fundamental rights. Yet it was not until the 1960s that the Afro-Americans would be entitled to civil rights.

The second 18th century revolution was the French Revolution of 1789, which was followed by the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the citizen in 1791 which articulated certain Human Rights. But alleging that this otherwise egalitarian declaration was gender biased Mary Wollstonecraft astounded the world with her feminist treatise Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792).

During later part of the 18th century and throughout the 19th century writings on Human Rights poured forth from such eminent philosophers as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill and G. W. F. Hegel. It is hypothesised that the term Human Rights came into use some time between Pain's The Rights of Man and William Lloyd Garrison's 1831 writings in The Liberator, in which he stated that he was trying to enlist his readers in "the great cause of human rights."7 Historically it may be suggested that the term had been used by at least one author as early as 1742.8

In the 19th century slavery became the central focus of Human Rights activists in the Western world. Both Britain and the United States took legal steps for banning slavery. Britain, for example, enacted the Slave Trade Act 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. In the United States slavery was gradually abolished in the northern states between 1777 and 1804, although the southern states clung tightly to the instution. Subsequently, the amendments from the 13th through the 15th improved the Human Rights scenario in the United States. In 1861, the Russian Tsar Alexander II ended serfdom, but the freed serfs often faced restrictions of their mobility within the nation.

The establishment of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the 1864 Lieber Code and the first of the Geneva Conventions in 1864 laid the foundations of international humanitarian law, to be further developed following the world wars. Taking a strong cue from Mary Wollstonecraft's book the feminist movement got off the ground in the United States in 1848. The Declaration of Sentiments issued from the Seneca Falls Convention in New York demanded women's voting rights as Human Rights. By the late 19th century, the British women demanded the same right and spawned the strong Suffragette Movement. By the 1960s the term feminism got into currency to denote a movement across the world for endowing women with rights ensuring gender equality.

The huge loss of life and gross abuses of Human Rights that took place during World War I were a driving force behind the development of modern Human Rights instruments. Following the end to war the League of Nations was founded with the pious hope for a war-free peaceful future world. As is known, this first supranational body failed or was made to fail in its prime task and the Second World War burst upon in 1939. But enshrined in the Charter of the League was a mandate to promote many of the rights later included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

At the Yalta Conference of 1945, the Allied Powers agreed to create a new body to supplant the League; this was to be the United Nations. The United Nations has played an important role in international Human Rights law since its creation. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, partly in response to the atrocities of World War II. Based on centuries of thinking along both religious and secular lines the declaration is generally viewed as the preeminent statement of international rights. The declaration is the first international legal effort to limit the behaviour of states and press upon them duties to their citizens. Although the UDHR is a non-binding resolution, it is now considered by some to have acquired the force of international customary law which may be invoked in appropriate circumstances by national and other tribunals. The Preamble stresses "... recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."

Following the end to the Cold War Human Rights organisations flourished across the world. Ludwig Hoffman argues that Human Rights became more widely emphasised in the latter half of the 20th century because it "provided a language for political claim making and counter-claims, liberal-democratic, but also socialist and post-colonialist."9

The most significant post-UDHR document was the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights (CDHR) signed by member states of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1990 at the 19th Conference of Foreign Ministers held in Cairo. Patterned after the UDHR the object of the CDHR was to serve as a guide for member states on Human Rights issues. This declaration translated the Quranic teachings as follows: "All men are equal in terms of basic human dignity and basic obligations and responsibilities, without any discrination on the basis of race, colour, language, belief, sex, religion, political affiliation, social status or other considerations. True religion is the guarantee for enhancing such dignity along the path to human integrity." On top of references to the Quran, the CDHR also referenced prophetic teachings and Islamic legal tradition.10

This cursory glance at the gradual evolution of the concept of Human Rights establishes the fact that the UDHR was the preeminent document of Human Rights summarizing secular and religious notions of rights that had evolved over the centuries. Eleanor Roosevelt, the chair of the Commission that produced the declaration, was quite smug when she said, "It is not a treaty [in the future it] may well become the international Magna Carta."11 Indeed, it is so.

Notes and References

1. J. Maritain, The Rights of Man and Natural Law (D. Anson translation, 1943), cited in Dr. Kazi Aktar Hamid, Human Rights, Self-Determination and the Right to Resistance: The Case Study of Hawaii (Washington, D. C.: Kyles Eapen, Alamgir and Associates, 1994), p. 25.

2. Danny Danziger and John Gillingham, "1215: The Year of Magna Carta" (Paper pack edition), p. 278.

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights.

4. See Syed Anwar Husain, "Islam in the Democratic Matrix", in Naveed Ahmed Tahir (ed.), Different Facets of the Islamic Ummah in a Globalised World (Karachi: Area Study Centre for Europe, University of Karachi and Goethe Institute, 2006), pp. 1-25.

5. Isaac Lewin, The Jewish Community in Poland (University of Michigan: Philosophical Library, 1985), p. 19.

6. Hurst Hannun, "The Concept of Human Rights", International Human Rights: Problems of Law And Practice, 2006, pp. 31-33.

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights.

8. George Turnbull, Observations Upon Liberal Education, In All Its Branches: In Three Parts (Millar: 1742).

9. Stefan-Ludwig Hoffman, Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

10. Abdullah al-Ahsan, "Law, Religion and Human Dignity in the Muslim World Today: An Examination of OIC's Cairo Declaration of Human Rights", Journal of Law and Religion, 2009.

11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights.

(The writer is Supernumerary Professor, Department of History, University of Dhaka)


Bangladesh has not been freed for people not to be free

It is forgotten by those in power that their own legitimacy as the government depends on acknowledging by the Supreme Court because the guardian and protector of the Constitution is the Supreme Court only if it is challenged. Executive branch of the government is not all powerful as those not used to democratic process believe. An effective judiciary has become urgent for eliminating the system of plundering by the few at the cost of miseries of the general public. The plundering and looting of public money as well as robbing of banks has become so easy because the rule of law is ineffective against the powerful ones. But that is not enough, the judiciary must be made submissive so that the illegalities of the government cannot be exposed and annulled by a court of law. The need for meaningful election has been denied. Thus there is no meaningful parliament. It all means our people will have to start their democratic struggle all over again. The people's leaders do not need public trust. They are not bound by their past commitments. They themselves are the people.

The liberation war that was fought with India's help made our leaders soon revolutionary forgetting their past struggle along with the people for democracy and freedom. In Pakistan days we fought and suffered for liberating democracy for people's freedom. But our liberation war achieved liberation of the country and not victory for democracy.

Bangladesh was expected to be an ideal democracy for others to envy. The founder of Awami League Mr. H.S. Suhrawardy was an example of democracy in practice. It is our shame we have failed. But we must not live with the failure to exhibit us as an incompetent people.

I find it extremely disappointing that in free Bangladesh our people will have to start all over again to live in freedom and justice. We cannot accept that we freed the country not to be free ourselves.



The original 1972 Constitution commanded the judiciary to be independent. But politicians did not act to make the judiciary independent. Both Awami League and BNP followed the same policy to have party supporters as judges. The appointment process is a secret process between the President and the Chief Justice. Our politicians could not see that written words are not everything for constitutionalism. Constitutional conventions are also to be followed to make the Constitution work. The need for independent minded judges has been hardly a consideration for the need of independent judges.

Despite such flaws, we are lucky to have many judges who are brave and impartial in doing justice. They are the nation's hope for protecting our freedom. They are fighting not to make the country a police state.

The process of appointment of judges as laid down by Article 95 of the Constitution is that the President in consultation with the Chief Justice will appoint the judges of the Supreme Court. There continued controversy for a long time on the question of how to execute the meaning of consultation.

Initially some governments entertained the view that such consultation with the Chief Justice was a mere courtesy. Who they choose is the judge. At one time BNP appointed some judges without caring to take seriously the consultation with the Chief Justice.

At that time Mr. Shahabuddin Ahmed was the Chief Justice. He was not an easy Chief Justice to swallow such insult of bypassing him to appoint judges of the Supreme Court. He famously declared himself as Mr. Nobody and refused to administer the oath of office to the newly appointed judges.

Unnecessarily a battle ensued between the President and the Chief Justice. The lawyers took the side of the Chief Justice in defence of his role as the Chief Justice in the appointment of judges of the Supreme Court.

The issue was settled to accept that the consultation with the Chief Justice is incumbent and that such consultation has to be meaningful. But the plan to subjugate the judiciary remained very much alive in some quarters.

The weakness that the lawyers are not for the court but party activists has worked as a fatal weakness for the judiciary.

The BNP government yielded and fresh appointment of judges was made following the Constitution. A serious crisis was thus averted.

To the present genre of politicians making money is more important than who runs the country. This political vacuum for leadership is at the root of the crisis for democracy and the judiciary.

During the last caretaker government an ordinance was passed for the appointment of judges of the Supreme Court on the recommendation of an independent commission. The purpose was to appoint competent judges and save the judiciary from politicisation. The Awami League government that came to power refused to accept the idea and the ordinance never became a law. It is becoming clear, the forces behind the government have not given up the idea of revolutionary politics of BAKSAL days.

Thus, with the conclusion of the liberation war and creation of new Bangladesh, it is the judiciary that came under heavy assault to deny its independence. The victory of the liberation war is treated as the victory of a military war for liberating the territory of Bangladesh.

The Supreme Court is custodian of the democratic Constitution and protector of our fundamental rights. The denial of independence to the judiciary is the denial of freedom for the people. Where the independence of the judiciary is absent nothing remains of human rights or impartial justice for the general public.

The primacy of the Chief Justice in the appointment of judges of the Supreme Court is still not acceptable. All powers should be concentrated in the government.

The challenge to the independence of the judiciary has gone the extent to make judges of the Supreme Court punishable by the Parliament in control of the government. However, the constitutionality of the law that enabled the government to do so is under consideration of the Appellate Division.

The law for punishing the judges is incomplete and vague. No details have been given for the people to know how exactly the law will be executed. On the face it one can come to the conclusion that if the Parliament so decides the President will be bound to sack any judge including the Chief Justice of Bangladesh. The advice of the Prime Minister will be too obvious.

In the absence of an independent judiciary law will be the police law and justice will be the police justice. No sensible government will feel comfortable under such a system. The people will not have the guarantees of a civilised existence. The chaos and anarchy of an uncivilised existence will prevail. We must not remain meek and mute for that to happen.


Send blessings on the Prophet

Abdul Muqit Chowdhury :

The Holy Quran proclaims Islam as the Code of life of mankind: "...This day are those who disbelieve in despair of (ever harming) your religion ; so fear them not, fear Me! This day have I perfected your religion for you

and completed My favour unto you, and have chosen for you as religion Al-Islam. ...." (Verse 3, Al-Maidah 5, The Meanings of The Glorious Qur'an by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall)

"....This day have those who/Reject Faith given up/All hope of your religion : /Yet fear them not /But fear Me./ This day have I/Perfected your religion/For you, completed/My favour upon you/And have chosen for you/Islam as your religion...."

(Verse 3, Al-Maidah 5, The Holy Qur'an Translation and Commentary by A. Yusuf Ali)

Allama Yusuf Ali comments : "So long as Islam was not organised, with its own community and its own laws, the Unbelievers had hoped to wean the Believers from the new Teaching. Now that hope was gone, with the complete organisation of Islam." "The last verse revealed chronologically, marking the approaching end of Mustafa's Ministry in his Earthly life."

This Ayat informs us of the perfection of religion (as complete Code of life) and completion of the blessings of Allah.

This final message came through Hazrat Muhammad (Sm), the last and the greatest Messenger. He is the Seal of Prophets - the last of the series of Messengers of Allah. Discussion on any worship or ritual of Islam (Salat, Fasting, Hajj, Jakat or any) will remain incomplete if we don't focus on Rasulullah (Sm) who conveyed to mankind this Divine message.

The Holy Quran reveals: "Verily in the messenger of Allah ye have a good example for him who looketh unto Allah and the Last Day, and remember Allah much." (Verse 21, Al-Ahzab 33, The Meanings of the Glorious Qur'an by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall)

"Ye have indeed /In the Apostle of God/ A beautiful pattern (of conduct)/ For anyone whose hope is/In God and the Final Day,/ And who engages much/In the praise of God." (Verse 21, Sura Ahzab 23, the Holy Qur'an Translation and Commentary by Allama Yusuf Ali)

Al-Quran says, "We sent thee not, but/ As a Mercy for all creatures." Verse 107, Sura Ambiya 21, do Thus his message is universal.

In the 'Holy Quran : Translation and Commentary' Allama Yusuf Ali focusses on the universal message of this Prophethood in the following way : "There is no question now of race or nation, of a 'chosen people' or the 'seed of Abraham'; or the 'seed of David'; or of Hindu Arya-varta; of Jew or Gentile, Arab or 'Ajam (Persian), Turk or Tajik, European or Asiatic, White or Coloured, Aryan, Semitic, Mongolian, or African; or American, Australian or Polynesian. To all men and creatures other than men who have any spiritual responsibility, the principles universally apply."

Rasulullah (Sm) brought the message for mankind and the creatures of the universe. He was successful in preaching the great ideals of the integrity and solidarity of mankind, fraternal relation and peace - the most cherished one. The Holy Quran reveals:

" Lo! Allah and His angels shower blessings on the Prophet. O ye who believe ! Ask blessings on him and salute him with a worthy salutation." (Verse 56, Al-Ahzab 33, The Meanings of the Glorious Qur'an by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall)

"God and His Angels/Send blessings on the Prophet : / O ye that believe!/Send ye blessings on him,/And salute hirn/With all respect." (Verse 56, Sura Al-Ahzab 33, (The Holy Qur'an Translation and Commentary by Allama Yusuf Ali)

Allama Yusuf Ali comments: "God and His angels honour and bless the Holy Prophet as the greatest of men. We are asked to honour and bless him all the more because he took upon himself to suffer the sorrows and afflictions of this life in order to guide us to God's Mercy and the highest inner Life."

The Holy Quran also reveals: " "Lo! Those who malign Allah and His messenger, Allah hath cursed them in the world and the Hereafter, and hath prepared for them an abasing doom." (Verse 57, Al-Ahzab 33, The Glorious Qur'an by Muhammad Marmadutke Pickthall)

"Those who annoy/God and His Apostle-/God has cursed them/ln this world and/In the Hereafter/ And has prepared for them/ A humiliating punishment." (Verse 57, Al-Ahzab 33, The Holy Qur'an Translation and Commentary by A. Yusuf Ali)

Allama Yusuf Ali : "Annoy" : Aza (IV) may equally mean: to vex, to cause hurt or injury, to insult, to ill-treat by slander or unseemly conduct, or hurt the feelings of (someone).

The Prophet came with a Divine mission to teach and reclaim the world, and he is entitled to the respect of all, even of those who do not consciously acknowledge his mission, for his mission works constantly like the forces of nature. In a minor degree the 'Mothers of the Believers' are also entitled to respect."

We feel proud of the highest praises for our beloved Messenger of Allah from the greatest personalities of the world irrespective of caste, creed or colour. They knew well that his followers make no difference among the Messengers.

Allah's best Mercy to mankind is the Revelation of the Holy Quran and sending of Hazrat Muhammad (Sm). The Holy Quran and the Sunnah is Guidance and Mercy from Allah. The Muslims express their allegiance to the Messenger practicing self-restraint and patience in fasting. They submit to the Will of Allah and recognise their allegiance to the ideals of the Messenger of Allah. Offering of Salams to the most dignified Muhammadur Rasulullah (Sm) is a great virtue, specially in the month of Ramzan.

All prayers, worships and supplication should accompany Durud and Salam. Acceptability of any worship to Allah depends greatly on the believer's love and salutations to Rasulullah (Sm).

So, we should not forget to avail the opportunity to offer Salam to the Friend of Allah in this Holy month, while Allah Himself and His angels send blessings on him.
Legal notice against Sultana Kamal

Court Correspondent :

A Supreme Court lawyer on Sunday served a legal notice on the authorities concerned demanding arrest of human rights activist Sultana Kamal for allegedly hurting the religious sentiment of people.

Advocate SM Zulfikar Ali Zunu yesterday sent the notice to the Home Secretary, Inspector General of Police and Chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

The notice demands that Sultana Kamal should not be arrested within seven days or action be taken against her as per the provision of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc).

Being an eminent citizen in the country, she allegedly made an irresponsible and derogatory comment about mosque during a private TV talk show. She allegedly said, "If any statue cannot be kept in the country, then there should be no mosque."

At the talk show in question, in response to Hefazat leader Mufti Shakawat Hossain's statement that no statute should be on the Supreme Court premises, Sultana Kamal said, "Then no mosque should be on the premises either."
VAT, excise duty on bank account draws flake at JS

VAT won't do good, if graft not halted, lawmakers say

Members of both the treasury and opposition benches continued their criticism on Sunday against the VAT (value added tax) and other duties proposed in the budget for the next fiscal saying that such initiatives have created discontent among the people.

Taking part in the budget discussion, the lawmakers also opined that it would not do good by widening VAT net, if widespread corruption is not curbed.

In this regard, the MPs in a chorus demanded withdrawal of VAT and the excise duty has imposed on the bank balance. At the same time, they blasted the government for skyrocketing price of the essential goods in the month of Ramzan. State Minister for Health and Family Planning Affairs Zahid Malek urged the authorities concerned to reduce the rate of VAT and excise duty on bank accounts, and take effective measures to prevent money laundering through 'hundi'.

Echoing the same, opposition MP and Secretary General of Jatiya Party Ruhul Amin Hawlader said if the proposed excise duty comes effect, about Tk 200 crore will be siphoned off from the country.

"The Finance Minister now targets the deposited money of general people. There is huge discontent among the people for increasing excise duty. So far we know, the proposed budget was prepared targeting the next election. It is unexpected that the government puts burden on the shoulder of general people by imposing VAT. The countrymen are frustrated," Hawlader said.

Lawmaker from the Jatiya Samajtantrick Dal Lutfa Taher said: "The people will have to face severe trouble for this increased VAT .I urge the government to withdraw excise duty from bank accounts."

Jatiya Party MP Mohammad Noman said it would not do any help by increasing VAT, if corruption is not stopped. "This budget will mount sufferings of middle and lower-middle class people," he said.

Expressing anxiety, another Jatiya Party leader Abu Hossain Babla said several newspapers will face forced shutdown due to high VAT and e4xcise duty.

Awami League Presidium member Colonel (retd.) Faruk Khan, however, tried to put blame on the shoulder of BNP for 'showing the path of corruption'.

Former President of Federation Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry Yusuf Abdullah Harun was also of the same opinion. He blamed the BNP for mismanagement in their term.


Submission of Supplementary report Sept 17

Court Correspondent :

The First Additional District and Session's Judge's Court of Dhaka yesterday fixed September 17 for submission of the supplementary investigation report in Major General Abul Manzoor murder case.

Judge SM Saiful Islam of the court passed the order upon an appeal of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police.

Public Prosecutor Asaduzzaman told newsmen that CID officer Abdul Kahar Akand was supposed to submit the supplementary report on Sunday, but could not do. The trial of the case has been going on at a special court room, set up besides the central jail of Dhaka.

February 10 of 2014 was fixed for pronouncing the verdict in the sensational case. But before that, the then judge of the court, Hosne Ara Akhter, was transferred from this court. Later, following a plea of the prosecution, the concerned court passed order for further investigation into the case on February 27, 2017.

Major General Manzoor was the Commander of Sector No-8 during the Liberation War. He was killed at Chittagong Cantonment on June 1, 1981, two days after the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman.

On February 28, 1995, after 14 years of the murder, Freedom Fighter Manzoor's brother Barrister Abul Mansur Ahmed lodged the murder case with Panchlaish Police Station of Chittagong Port city.


5 Kg gold seized at HSIA, 1 held

Staff Reporter :

The Preventive team of Dhaka Customs House detained a person with 5.1kg gold worth Tk 2.7 crore from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Sunday.

The man has been identified as Abdur Razzak Khan, 48, customs official said.

Dhaka Customs House Assistant Commissioner (Preventive) Ahsanul Kabir said, "Razzak arrived in Dhaka on a Malaysian Airlines flight

around 1:30am on Sunday. We searched his bag when he was crossing the airport's green channel and recovered five gold bars weighing one kilogram each and four bars of 100gm."

"He is being interrogated in this connection", the customs official said.

A case was filed with the police station in this connection, he said.


Fakhrul among 4 injured in Ctg motorcade attack

AL resorted to hooliganism, says Khaleda; BNP's demo today

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and three others were injured (left) as local Awami League supporters allegedly attacked his motorcade (right) at Ichakhali in Rangunia Upazila on their way to visit hillslides victims in Rangamati on Sund

Staff Reporter :

The motorcade of the BNP Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir came under attack at Rangunia upazila in Chittagong on Sunday morning when he was heading towards Rangamati to distribute reliefs in landslide affected areas.

Four of the BNP leaders, including Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and the party's Standing Committee Member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury and Organising Secretary Mahbuber Rahman Shamim got injured in the attack.

The BNP blamed the ruling Awami League for the attack. BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia in a statement condemned it and warned of dire consequence.

Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir termed the incident as attack on democracy.

Meanwhile, the party called for demonstrations countrywide protesting the attack on Monday (today).

Mirza Fakhrul has termed the attack on his motorcade as an attack on democracy.

He issued the statement while briefing the media at Chittagong Press Club after the attack on his motorcade on Sunday.

The BNP leader said, "This is not a personal attack but an attack on democracy. It's an attack on the people who think freely and oppose the government."

Blaming the ruling party for the attack, he said, "This attack has revealed the true character of Awami League. If we are facing this sort of problem then just imagine the situation of the general public." He urged the people to unite against the hooliganism of the ruling party.

"At least 30 to 40 people attacked the motorcade with batons. At first, they hurled a big stone and broke the windscreen and then attacked us," said Mirza Fakhrul.

He said BNP Standing Committee member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury was severely injured and some other party men received minor injuries in the incident.

Mahbuber Rahman Shamim claimed from the spot that the incident took place that the local leaders and workers of ruling Awami League were involved with the attack.

He said that a number of miscreants attacked the motorcade with sticks and sharp weapons. Shamim said the miscreants threw brickbats targetting the vehicles.

Eyewitnesses said that miscreants carried out the attack on the motorcade on Chittagong-Kaptai Road in Ichhakhali area around 11:00am.

After the incident, the BNP Secretary-General cancelled Rangamati visit.

Party sources said Mirza Fakhrul flew to Chittagong from Dhaka on Sunday morning and his motorcade was scheduled to reach Rangamati via Kaptai.

The BNP will stage demonstration across the country today protesting the attack.

The party will stage demonstrations in district and upazila headquarters, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, BNP Senior Joint-Secretary General, said in a press briefing in Comilla on Sunday afternoon.

Rizvi said, "This attack is an alarming sign for the democracy. The heinous attack was launched on the BNP leaders so that they cannot see the failure of the government in the Chittagong Hill Tracts."